European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I nearly did not put my name down to speak in this debate: I was under considerable domestic pressure not to come, and I understand why, although I just say to my noble friend who is going to reply—and even more importantly to my noble friend who is going to make a Statement shortly after—that while, in common with many of my age, I am happy to be advised and encouraged, I do not want to be dictated to. I draw the attention of noble Lords to an absolutely splendid article in today’s Daily Mail by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.

We are talking about our relations with Europe and I take as my text, as it were, the quotation the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, gave from John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind.” Here, to a degree I join company with the noble Lord who has just spoken. The facts have changed in a way that no one could have foreseen on 12 December or even on 31 January. The world is changing around us. Those of us who know and love France are sad to realise that at the end of this year it is highly likely—indeed, almost certain—that a large number of those family-run restaurants that we have all enjoyed from time to time will have gone. The same will happen in Italy and Spain. In a changed world and a fundamentally changing Europe, we cannot stick to the text that we had on 13 December after the Government won a very handsome victory, in which, like my noble friend Lord Barwell, I was very glad to rejoice.

Before the election, the Prime Minister made it plain time and again that he wanted to have as close and constructive a relationship as possible with our European friends and neighbours once we had left the European Union. Of course, it cannot be the same but we have left, and I was one of those who from the very beginning accepted, with sadness, the result of the referendum. That is why I gave strong support to the deal that Prime Minister Theresa May drew up with the assistance of my noble friend Lord Barwell—I thought that it offered a way forward. However, all that is history.

We are out, but it is absolutely essential that we have a friendly and constructive relationship with nations with which we have shared a great deal of our history over the last 500 and more years. It is extremely sad that, where co-operation has worked, as in the European Medicines Agency, Europol and Euratom, it should just be discarded. I appeal to my noble friend on the Front Bench, Lord True, who was on the opposite side of the argument before Brexit, to recognise that we are now in a wholly different national and international situation.

We, and the Government in particular, owe the British people a great debt, and we have to satisfy that debt. The Prime Minister referred to the votes that he had been given on trust in what used to be known as the red wall. We owe a debt to those people who looked to our Government, having felt, for reasons that I completely understand—I always lamented the decline of a powerful Opposition—that they could not trust a Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn. Our debt is manifest and manifold, and it is to ensure that they do not suffer any more than is absolutely necessary with this dreadful pestilence raging around us. Therefore, I say to my noble friend Lord True: please, there is nothing sacrosanct about the date 31 December. There is nothing sacrosanct about bringing negotiations to a head in the summer, because we and all our European friends and neighbours will doubtless still be grappling with this pestilence right through this year. What was perhaps difficult but entirely practical on 31 January is now probably insuperably difficult and not very practical. Of course, if the Government can negotiate a deal that is fair on both sides, we would all rejoice, but I beg them to realise that it is no more realistic to stick to the 31 December deadline than it would have been to have stuck to any absolute deadline in 1939.

I was born just shortly before the Second World War. My memories of it are those of an infant, but this country has not faced any crisis as potentially difficult and dire as this one since that war. It is crucial that we recognise this and, above all, it is crucial that the Government who have responsibility for this country and the Prime Minister who leads this country recognise that fully and properly. If they do not, they will be letting down those who created that majority on 12 December. The Government have a tremendous challenge, but also a tremendous opportunity to provide national leadership. I very much hope that after 3 April, we will have a coherent, strong and able Opposition to challenge the Government wherever necessary and to co-operate with them if they provide the leadership that we so desperately need. The greatest achievement—apart from dealing with the pestilence—would be a constructive and mutually beneficial relationship with the nations of the European Union, of which we are certainly now not one. I beg my noble friend to reflect on those things when he comes to reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to respond to what has been a typically incisive and insightful debate. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that there is no reason to be concerned that she was not present during the whole debate, because the Liberal Democrat Front Bench was covered all through the debate. I do not take offence, and I am sure that the House did not.

I should declare an interest as a part-time resident in Italy—someone currently not permitted to return home to cut the grass. I am acutely conscious of the state of affairs occurring across Europe at the moment. I would also like to make another personal comment about how sad I was to read of the death of Lord Wright of Richmond. We are here in a debate on international affairs, and he was an outstanding servant of his country who always enlightened this House when he spoke. He was a very good citizen of Richmond as well. All our hearts go out to his family.

The debate started off in a not very pleasant tone, and rather a political one. I will address that point in a moment. It then evolved into an extremely measured debate. Perhaps I should take this point at the start: at the end of the debate, a number of speakers who were perhaps able to look on their iPhones—as I have not been able to during the debate, as I have been trying to listen to it—suddenly came up with this new line that the Government should not proceed any more with the pursuit of negotiations with the European Union because of the coronavirus crisis. The plea was put by the noble Lords, Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Liddle, my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith—the last five speakers. Your Lordships will very shortly hear a Statement on coronavirus so I will not go there but, without diminishing the gravity of that matter at all, I say that, in the blast of the Second World War—using the resources of William Beveridge, who would have been on the Benches on that side of the House—the Government thought about designing and redesigning the welfare state for the future and made arrangements that lasted for two lifetimes.

[Lord Cormack]

I do not think that any of us who talked about coronavirus said that the negotiations should be abandoned. We said that the deadline should be abandoned.

[Lord True]

All right—I shall accept the timetable. However, I maintain the point. In the middle of the Second World War, when Winston Churchill sent for Rab Butler—who my noble friend will remember very well—to look into the future of education in this country, he did not suddenly, when some news came in, say, “Rab, you must drop this.” The Government went on and, in the 1944 Education Act, laid the foundations to the education system in this country despite the enormous crisis of the Second World War. Everything is possible and nothing is impossible in life, but I do not think—