Brexit: Triggering Article 50
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I am sorry but I think we ought to hear from Plaid Cymru.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The Statement acknowledged the fact that for some people this is a day they have waited for but for many it is a day of great disappointment. The Statement also said that we need to bring the country together now and work for the best deal. We need to have an optimistic outlook for Britain because we are a great country and we can make a great success of our future.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
We have been very clear that we will be as transparent as we can, but we will not give away our negotiating hand.
Lord Davies of Stamford
The Statement mentions opportunities on several occasions but does not say what opportunities the Government have in mind. It just provides a string of vacuous adjectives and, in true PR style, mentions the word “together” about 15 times. Will the Leader concede that actually a very large number of opportunities are being destroyed—the opportunity to live and work in 27 other countries, the opportunity to travel in those countries while having the benefit of the local healthcare system, the opportunity for educational exchanges, the opportunity for leading scientific research programmes funded by the EU, the opportunities presented by 35 free trade agreements between the EU and other parts of the world, and the opportunities of the single market itself? Do the Government hope that the public will just forget about these important opportunities that are now being wantonly abandoned?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
As I have said, we are looking for a new, deep and special relationship with the EU and we believe it will be a very fruitful relationship. In terms of other opportunities, we are looking for excellent trade agreements with countries across the world. We have fantastic bilateral agreements with countries across the world. We are looking to be a global nation.
Outcome of the European Union Referendum
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, I suppose it is a pleasure to follow my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Flight, but as usual, I disagree with almost everything he has said. However, it has been a revealing and worthwhile debate and I was particularly struck by the analyses of the noble Lords, Lord Butler, Lord Kerr and Lord Carlile, all three of whom have a higher regard than I for the result of the referendum. I consider it to have all the legitimacy of a transaction based on a false prospectus. Of all the deeply depressing aspects of our country’s current prospects, the one that I find saddest and most disturbing is that we have chosen to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme by rekindling the fires of nationalism. What a horrible message to send externally or internally—and internally, we have already seen some of its results.
A lot has been said about the economic damage of Brexit, and I will come on to that, but not much has been said about the non-economic assets that we shall lose if we proceed to Brexit. They are very important and I want to say a couple of words about them. We in this country essentially have two citizenships: our own and that of the European Union. The latter gives us the right to be treated as a citizen by 27 other countries, and to work and study abroad. At an earlier stage of my life, I had the wonderful experience of working and living in Paris for three years. All I needed to do was to put my things in the back of my car, drive over to Paris, turn up at an office the next day and start working. I did not have to apply for a work permit, to go through an Australian-style points system or to report to the police every three months; I did not have to deal with any bureaucracy at all. The younger generation will not have that benefit and their interests have been seriously betrayed in this matter.
Part of what EU citizenship gives us is the right to free medical treatment on the continent. Elderly people and those with existing medical conditions might not be able to travel on the continent at all without that assurance. That would be a very severe change in their quality of life, and a rather horrific prospect. There are all sorts of smaller things, too. If you are having a wedding or other major celebration you will not be able to go over to Calais and buy some drink at French prices. As a result a lot of those celebrations will not take place, or not in the same way. That will be very sad. We should think about these things now because within the next few years we will miss them very much when, if we are not careful, it is too late to do so.
I do not want to repeat what has been said on the economic impact. I think it will come home to people in the next few weeks. They will notice an increase in prices when they go to the supermarket, fill up with petrol or pay their fuel bills. Incidentally, the Brexit campaign told people that fuel costs would fall if people voted for Brexit because fuel duty would be reduced. In fact, the reverse is happening. People have been lied to, hoodwinked and cheated—no other words in the English language more accurately describe the situation.
The uncertainty being created is particularly damaging but over the long term, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, himself acknowledged, it will be a very serious matter if we lose the banking and insurance licences on which some of the highest-value aspects of the City and London’s position as the capital of the single market are based. I think the noble Lord underestimated those important points.
The Brexiters and the Government say, “That’s all right, we’ll have a negotiation and everything will be fine”. We will get the best of all possible worlds, we hear: we will have full access to the single market as we do today, we will not need to pay anything to Brussels and we will not have freedom of movement. It is most unlikely that we could make such a deal. First, the Brexiters, including the noble Lord, Lord Flight, are completely wrong about the balance of advantage and disadvantage in the prospective negotiation. At stake in our trade within the single market is 14% of our GDP in exports. No country, other than the Republic of Ireland, has exports to the UK that are more than 3% of its GDP. We shall in fact have a discrepancy of four or five times our relative bargaining power in those negotiations. Why would the continentals agree the deal known colloquially as Norway-plus? I can think of at least five reasons why they would not, and there may be others.
The first is a matter of elementary logic: the Prime Minister was unable to negotiate such a deal in February when there was presumably an incentive for the continentals to make concessions, in so far as they wanted us to stay in the European Union, as I believe they genuinely did. Why would they not make such a deal when there is an incentive but make one when there is none? Secondly, the European Union as a whole has made it clear for many years that it is not interested in bespoke deals. It did one with Switzerland but that has not had a happy outcome and it is not going to do it again. It will want to maintain the credibility of that position and is unlikely to change it.
Thirdly, I do not think that the European Union will want to make a concession to us which will cause a precedent for other countries which might want to leave it. Fourthly, to give us a better deal or Norway-plus is an insult to Norway. I cannot imagine why in heaven it would want to do that at all. It makes no sense to me. Fifthly, any bespoke deal would take years and years to negotiate. At least if we have the Norway deal—the EFTA or EEA deal—the template is already there and the negotiations could be shorter.
We will find ourselves with a choice of three regimes: the status quo; the EEA deal that Norway has, which involves freedom of movement and financial contributions to Brussels; and the Lawson approach. The third of those would cut the ropes altogether, leaving us to sail away and deal with the European Union rather on the same basis that Paraguay does. Faced with that choice, what would a rational man or woman decide? The public can make a rational choice only when faced with the actual alternatives, which may be those that I have set out. But if others can be negotiated contrary to my expectation, so much the better. The public cannot make a rational and fair choice unless they honestly see the alternatives, just as you cannot go into a store and make a fair choice unless you see the range of goods available. The same holds for when you buy a house or make any other decision, such as an investment decision about going into gilts or equities. Of course you would want to look at the options separately, and the British public must be given that opportunity. On that, I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Butler, Lord Kerr and Lord Carlile.
It would be a denigration of democracy to deny the British public a say when we know what the real possibilities are from which they might want to choose. We can then be absolutely straight with them, and I hope there could be an honest campaign in which they look at the advantages and disadvantages of all those regimes. It may well be that when they actually look into the abyss, they will decide they do not want to jump in. But if they do decide to do so knowing what it is, at least that decision will have democratic legitimacy.
Outcome of the EU Referendum
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, as my noble friend the Chief Whip indicated at the start of this Statement, while we must respect the fact that there are a number of noble Lords who are down to speak at Second Reading of the Investigatory Powers Bill, so I do not want us to go on for too long, I can see that there are still at least four noble Lords seeking to ask a question. I am very happy, even though the clock will go beyond 40 minutes, to finish answering the questions of those noble Lords who have already indicated that they wish to ask one.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My noble friend is right that in moving from here it will be essential that we do so in a way that unites all parts of the country, particularly those who voted a different way.
There is a point about parliamentary democracy that I have not already made: as I have said, this was in our manifesto. We passed an Act of Parliament to bring forward the referendum, and that piece of legislation went through both Houses. We debated the terms of the referendum. This Parliament decided those terms and they were the ones that applied. We must remember that. We have all contributed to the way in which the rules were set and the way that the people of this country then exercised their democratic right to vote in the referendum.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, surely the point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, about a dishonest prospectus cannot be honestly contested on the facts. The Daily Telegraph itself wrote this morning:
“The Leave campaign misled the nation about the full risks of Brexit and what can be achieved without collateral damage to the economy and the unity of”,
the UK. In those circumstances, and very much following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, just said, is it not the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that before we pass a line of legislation on this matter, we assure ourselves that the Government have plans in place that are viable, coherent and genuinely in the national interest and do not have any hidden costs attached to them?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I could not agree more with my noble friend. Students are now able to register at both term-time and home addresses in just three minutes. It can be done, as we know, on a smartphone, PC or tablet device. Since June 2014, more than 4 million applications to register to vote have been received from people between the ages of 16 and 24, and 3 million of those were made online.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
Will not least among the losses to the country if we leave the European Union be the ability of people in this country—this will particularly affect younger people and their prospects—to take part in Erasmus exchanges and to study and work in 27 other European countries?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I could not agree more with what the noble Lord says.
Panama Papers
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I am not able to provide a full guest list of those who are going to be at the anti-corruption summit in May. On the noble Lord’s question about tier 1 visas, that is a matter that I will have to follow up with him in writing: it is not one that I have information on right now. I can say to him that part of the action that this Government have been taking over the past few years and will continue to take is about tackling money laundering. What we are trying to do here is tackle crimes. We want to eradicate corruption. We want to go after the criminals and do everything that we can. If there are avenues open to us that we have not yet pursued, we will be pursuing them with great vigour because that is what we want to achieve. All I can do is reassure the noble Lord that a lot has been done, but clearly there is more. If there is more that we can do, we will not be shy in coming forward with further steps.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness said that the gap in this country between tax due and tax paid is narrower than it has ever been. How does she know? How does she, or anyone, calculate the amount of tax that is due but undeclared and unpaid?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That is something that is an established way of recording. The noble Lord has challenged me, and I feel that I am entering into a zone where I am going to be asked about lots of technical financial matters that I am afraid I am probably not the best person to be able to respond on in detail. If I can provide the noble Lord with further information in writing, I will, but I assure him that this is a statement of fact and, I say to him, one that surely it should be pleasing to hear. We want to ensure that we collect as much tax as we possibly can. If we are collecting more than we have ever done before, that is a good thing.
European Union: United Kingdom Renegotiation
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
What is recognised in the documents that have been published is that treaty change may be required in some areas but, until that treaty change occurs, the text will be legally binding; as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, it will be deposited in the United Nations. This is not about avoiding treaty change but about legally binding irreversible decisions, acknowledging that, where treaty change is necessary, that will happen at the appropriate point. The decision document—the first and lengthiest of the documents published by Mr Tusk—makes clear that the European Court of Justice will be required to take account of that document when it is considering any of its judgments.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, there have been quite a number of Eurosceptics who over the past 48 hours have criticised the Prime Minister for not bringing back a provision that would enable our Parliament to opt out of any EU legislation that it wanted whenever it wanted to. We should be absolutely clear about one thing: they are entirely and bitterly opposed to our being part of the single market, whether as a member of the European Union itself or by negotiating, if that proved possible, some access to the single market from outside. The single market is a single regulatory space. If individual members of the single market could pick and choose what they wanted at any time, it would not be a single market; it would be 28 separate and very fragmented markets. If we tried to negotiate access to that market from outside, not only would we not be able to pick and choose in that way—we would have to accept all the rules and regulations—but from then on we would have no role whatever in formulating those rules and in the legislative process.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The noble Lord is certainly right to point out that if the United Kingdom was not a member of the European Union, the way in which it would access the single market would be substantially different, because other countries with a different kind of relationship with the European Union might be able to establish the advantages but do not have an opportunity to influence the rules and how they apply. However, there are people in this House, the other House and the country at large who have long-standing principled views about the European Union that I very much respect. For the first time in over 40 years, we are giving everyone the chance to have their say and decide whether they want to vote us in or out of Europe. I do not want to diminish anyone who has a different view from someone else on this. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, during any campaign on this it will be important that we communicate fairly and effectively with those who have yet to make up their mind about the benefits and otherwise of what is proposed.
Syria: UK Military Action
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, I support the Government on this. Incidentally, I am glad that they are now referring to “Daesh”, which is the proper way of referring to that group. It is a serious absurdity that if an RAF aircraft, manned or unmanned, identifies a Daesh target in Iraq, it can take it out, but if it identifies the same target in Syria, it has to call up an asset from a coalition partner. That may take 10, 20, 40 minutes or however long it may be to get there, and then the target is missed. Thank heaven that at last the Government are taking action to do something about this anomaly.
But I have to say that the Government have unnecessarily made life difficult for themselves this evening. Two years ago they came to Parliament with what I think was the wrong resolution, designed to give them the authority to attack and overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime. I was amazed at the time—and I said it then—that anyone, after the experience of Iraq and Libya, would once again want to engage in a campaign to enforce regime change on a volatile country in the Middle East, but so it was. Perhaps not surprisingly, Parliament turned that initiative down, and then the Government made a second mistake. They tried to pretend that the Bashar al-Assad regime did not exist, they did not recognise it, and they went around saying that it was about to collapse anyway. It has not collapsed, and that was a serious misjudgment. That statement of course is not a normative opinion of mine; it is now a matter of fact.
That has made life difficult this evening, because quite a number of people in the House of Commons who will vote against military action will do so because they are not satisfied that air support can deal with the problem, and they are right about that. Some degree of ground operations will be necessary at some stage, but the Government have ruled out using British troops. I personally think that it would be very desirable not to use British troops if that can be avoided, but I do not believe that before engaging in military action it is sensible to tell the enemy in advance that one is excluding anything a priori. However, that is where we are now and that is the position the Government have created.
If we are going to have ground troops at some stage, and probably early in order to make any sense of the air bombing campaign, the question arises about where they will come from. There are three possible answers. One is the so-called Free Syrian Army. I very much fear that the Free Syrian Army is a depreciating asset, and I would be grateful if the noble Earl, when he sums up the debate, would tell the House whether there is any truth in the reports I have seen that the Americans have ceased their training programmes for the Free Syrian Army on the grounds that those people were receiving their weapons and tactical training and then slinking off to join Daesh or the al-Nusra Front, which are the same thing. That is a serious matter, so if it is true the House should be told about it.
There are two other possible forces in the Syrian theatre, one of which is the Kurds. They have been doing very well, but they do not operate more than 20 miles from their own territory. The other, of course, is the army of the Government of Syria, which has also been doing well in its own terms. It has recently retaken the centre of Antioch and of Homs, the second and third cities of Syria, and is holding them. As I told the House last week, I spent the weekend before last in Syria—I need hardly say entirely on my initiative and at my own expense. I have absolutely no brief at all for Bashar al-Assad, but I was interested to discover and make my own judgment as to whether it is true that the regime is about to collapse. I am quite certain that it is not. I also wanted to discover whether the regime would be prepared and in a position to provide serious military support, and support of other kinds which I will not go into in public, if we decide to try to open up that opportunity. The answer to that is definitely yes.
I urge the Government to recognise above all that this is an existential war we are fighting; the Paris attack made that absolutely clear. In these circumstances, we have to be completely open-minded and pragmatic about the means we use. We must win this war and we must put together the coalition which is most effective. We should remember that in the Second World War we had to deal with Stalin. That was a fact and I do not think that any of us regrets it now, albeit that at the time we knew all about a lot of his crimes. It is important that the Government should make a great effort not to allow themselves to be influenced by wishful thinking of any kind, and to concentrate on the vital task of winning this battle and war against Daesh.
Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I could not agree more with the noble and gallant Lord on his point about us not doing anything because others are. We cannot shirk our responsibility here. We are under threat; we see this ISIL force as a direct threat to our own way of life. How can we possibly hand over responsibility for that to other people? We do not think we should do that whatsoever. On weapons, the noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right: clearly, they need to be directed at the right targets. On the ground force issue, we are clear that this is not for UK ground forces; it is for the ground forces currently operating in Syria. We want to support them. We see that as a key difference and a lesson we have learnt from recent military interventions.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, it cannot make sense to prevent the RAF from taking out targets on the Syrian side of the border that it can identify or from playing a full part in the coalition. I thoroughly support the Government in seeking to remove that anomaly now. Can we have an assurance that the intention is to improve our effectiveness against Daesh and not to pursue the Government’s vendetta against Bashar al-Assad? It cannot make the slightest sense while we are engaged in an involuntary and unavoidable war against Daesh—which of course we must win—to fight on the same territory another entirely voluntary war against one party in the Syrian civil war. The Government’s prediction that the Bashar al-Assad regime was about to collapse—made consistently for three years now, and which I assume was part of the basis of their policy—has proven completely wrong. I spent last weekend in Damascus and was very struck by both the health of the economy and the resolve and morale of the regime. I fear that the Government up till now have been very misconceived in their double approach, and hope that they will now be able to concentrate on the real enemy: Daesh.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As I made clear in the Statement, this is about ISIL first. Militarily, we propose to take action in Syria alongside the action already being taken in Iraq because we cannot stop at a border that our enemy does not recognise. At the same time, we must also achieve a political settlement in Syria that will provide for stable government in future and in which al-Assad will not be able to play a part, because he will not provide the stability that is the long-term solution for eradicating ISIL.
House of Lords Reform
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, very remarkably and unusually, there has been considerable agreement in this House, and almost unanimity, with the possible exception of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, although I may have misunderstood his speech. Every other contribution has made it clear that the noble Lord or Baroness feels that there is a major problem with our numbers and that urgent action is required to deal with it. I totally subscribe, with no enthusiasm but realistically, to that.
I do not think that the debate has succeeded, however, in revealing any method that we might adopt to achieve that purpose, other than the three classic methods, which have been discussed by almost everybody this evening, of an immediate cull, an age limit or a limit on years of service. I think there is an immediate low-hanging fruit that ought to be plucked—I say this with great respect to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who has just sat down—and that is to bring to an end the system of by-elections for hereditary Peers. I have no doubt that the noble Viscount would have got into this House on his merits by the classic means of getting here, and that that would be true of many other hereditary Peers in the future, but I do not see why there should be any different, privileged avenue available to them to serve here that is not available to other potential candidates.
Of the three possible methods of reducing the numbers, I would hesitate to have an immediate cull. It would be a blood bath and very unpleasant and we should be in danger of creating some perverse incentives which might be quite difficult to deal with. One of them has just been raised. If the small parties were excluded there would be an incentive for people to join a small party, or, if the Cross-Benchers were protected in some way, an incentive to join them or, perhaps, to become an independent in order to avoid the cull. I do not know how that perverse incentive would be dealt with. It would be a cynical thing to do, to behave in that fashion, but that does not necessarily mean that nobody would be tempted to do it.
Another problem would be that if we take into account, as we ought to, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, among others, suggested, the record of a Peer’s activity—whether they have attended, whether they have made a useful contribution—we would have to do that going back over several years. Otherwise, some people, in the light of threatened exclusion from the House, might suddenly turn up, maybe paying other people to write speeches for them so that they could rapidly deliver a contribution to a debate about which they in fact know nothing at all. There are a number of difficulties about that and I would prefer not to go down that road if we can avoid it.
I also have some hesitation about an age limit, partly on the grounds of principle and partly on pragmatic grounds. It is now a principle of legislation that age discrimination is illegal, and I declare an interest in that I was the first MP in the House of Commons ever to introduce an anti-age discrimination Bill. It did not get through all the stages in the House of Commons and on to the statute book, but I did extract an undertaking from the then Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Dispatch Box to legislate on behalf of the Government; although that was then overtaken by the European directive. I have a track record and do not like the principle of age discrimination. I also think it is not as effective as a time limitation would be in refreshing or renewing the body of this place. That phrase is rightly often used in this context, but if you want to refresh this place, you probably do not want people staying here for 30 or 40 years. I would favour a generous, reasonable length of service with a maximum of, say, 20 years. That would give people a sense of independence, make sure they can find their feet and make a contribution, and provide for a certain amount of continuity between different batches of entrants—a point that has also been made—but also contribute to reducing the numbers.
My second point is that there is no point in doing any of this—in going down any of those roads at all—unless we have a clear undertaking from the Prime Minister that he is not going to take action that will make any effort we make entirely nugatory and pointless. I am very afraid that some of our colleagues who have retired from this place in the last few months may have done so very high-mindedly and selflessly, hoping that their disappearance would help to resolve our numbers problem, only to find that, in fact, everything they have sacrificed has been completely in vain because the Prime Minister has taken the opportunity to appoint another 45 people to this place, taking the total he has appointed to more than 200—about a quarter of the total size of this House—which is a quite disgraceful situation. I say with great conviction, to the Leader of the House in particular, that there is absolutely no point in going down this road—and we should indicate to everybody concerned that we will not go down this road—unless there is the possibility of such an assurance, so that any efforts that we make will not be rendered ineffective before we have even started.
My third point is that we should take the opportunity to raise the bar of entry to this place and improve the quality of entry in the first place. For example, I have wanted for a long time to have more scientists in this House and have always felt that if you are a Nobel laureate, you should, assuming you are qualified on the other grounds, ipso facto become a Member of this place. I will not pursue that now as this is not the occasion to do it. However, there are two categories of people which are very dubious, and to be quite frank it pains me very much to see them figure in the Prime Minister’s latest list of appointments.
One is special advisers. The House of Commons had a problem in the 18th century with placemen. Noble Lords will remember the efforts of reformers such as Wilkes and Wyvill to get rid of the placemen—people who were taking money from George III. They were not Ministers or responding for the Government; they were just sitting in the House of Commons, supporting the Government and biasing the activities of the House. It was a nasty piece of parliamentary corruption. It is a horrible thought that, in the 21st century, the present Prime Minister should be reviving the malpractice of placemen by putting people here who are not members of the Government and cannot respond at all on their behalf, but are totally beholden to the Government and quite incapable, by definition, of taking an independent position, which is the essence of the function that we all have. That is a disgrace and should stop.
The other thing which is a terrible disgrace and should stop—this is my final point—is people coming to this place primarily or largely because they have given money to a political party. That, in modern times, is a very nasty development introduced by Lloyd George at the beginning of the 20th century. It has been practised by some Prime Ministers, including, very sadly, those of my own party. Both Wilson and Blair were guilty of it, and the present Prime Minister is certainly guilty of it. If it was discovered, for example, that you could buy your way into the Italian Senate, one could just imagine what would be said in every pub in the land. The Daily Mail would be having an orgy of self-righteous chauvinism. Everybody would say, “That’s just what you expect from Europeans or continentals and from foreigners. We always knew they were corrupt; it is the sort of thing that happens in southern Europe” and so forth. In fact you cannot buy your way into the Italian Senate, but you can buy your way into this place. It is an absolute disgrace, and the sooner we bring that to an end the better, because it is something that will really besmirch this place if it continues.
Finally, I have to say that people should not get around such a ban by just becoming treasurer of a political party and saying that, in that case, they have held public office, That is not a public office and is not an activity which either requires or is likely to deliver, in any individual, the sort of qualities necessary to make a useful contribution in this place.
Syria: Refugees and Counterterrorism
Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, can we please have order? I am afraid that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, arrived in the Chamber not only after the Statement had been read but also after the contribution had been made from her own Front Bench. In the circumstances she ought to follow the Companion and not speak. It is the Labour Party’s turn and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is on his feet.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, on the basis of the admittedly limited evidence that we have, the Government were absolutely right to take a decision to eliminate those three terrorists. I think that in similar circumstances they will have the support of almost the whole country in taking action when it is necessary and clearly called for in instances of that kind.
Is it not the case that we badly need a debate on refugees, not just a Statement, not least because of the longer-term consequences and almost certainly a great increase in the number of refugees and immigration applicants from all sorts of places as a result of the drama of the last few weeks? Is it not however, sadly, really rather nauseating for the Prime Minister to congratulate himself on a policy of “extraordinary compassion”—that is the phrase used in the Statement this afternoon—when, in fact, we are taking none at all of the refugees from Syria who are currently on the move? We are taking only up to 20,000 over five years. Have not the Germans, who have undertaken to take 800,000 almost immediately, thoroughly put us to shame on that? Is there not also the rather unpleasant sense that on this very important issue, as in so many others, the Government’s policies seem driven by a PR agenda? Ten days ago when immigrants or refugees were bad news generally in many people’s minds in the Government, the Government were not prepared to take a single new Syrian refugee. Then the media published pictures of dead children on the beach—
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I am sorry to interrupt but can the noble Lord please be brief and ask a brief question?
Lord Davies of Stamford
Is it not very unfortunate that the impression should be given that it is a PR agenda rather than a matter of principle or even a long-term analysis of national interest on which the Government’s decisions in this area have been based?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As regards the noble Lord’s request for a debate, my noble friend the Chief Whip has already scheduled time for a debate on the humanitarian situation. That is scheduled for a week on Wednesday. Regarding the other points made by the noble Lord, I can only repeat what I said before. This is a policy that the Government have adopted over the last few years. We believe that the contribution we are making to support people in and around that region is significant. It is much greater than any other European country. As far as expanding the refugee programme, the policy remains the same; we are simply expanding it because we see an increased need at this time.