European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the generous remarks she made about the role of this House. It is particularly important that she sees it as an important part of her role to defend the role of this House and of Parliament as a whole. We have noticed in recent months, and even more in recent weeks, some pretty anti-parliamentary language in the press. I note that at the end of Quentin Letts’s one and a half page rubbishing of Dominic Grieve, he said:

“The sight of the elite grabbing power from the Queen’s government will rupture trust in the ballot box and could imperil centuries of British support for parliamentary democracy”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I am very interested in the noble Lord’s remarks. Were they not his remarks rubbishing the Foreign Secretary when he was standing at the Bar?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure that these are in any sense the same. I was merely criticising the Foreign Secretary for not being Foreign Secretary. He does a lot of other things, but certainly does not fulfil the role of Foreign Secretary.

I am now talking about some fundamental constitutional issues, which are the relationship between Parliament and Executive Government. They are at stake in this and very much matter when it comes to how much of a role we play in looking at the detail.

We have seen some rather violent language in the media in the past few weeks. I spoke to a Cross-Bench Peer this morning who said, “It is intimidating and, frankly, I feel intimidated”. I know that many MPs, particularly women MPs, feel actively intimidated by the violence which they get on social media. I think the Government ought now to be saying to the right-wing media that violent language encourages violence. We are in a dangerous situation in which parliamentary democracy—that is to say, reasoned debate within a clear structure of rules—is something which we have to defend.

I note that the Sun on Sunday editorial accused MPs of having contempt for democracy and said:

“Such is the contempt these MPs have for democracy when it delivers a vote they don’t like … they seem neither to know or to care what they will unleash”.


I am worried about what the current atmosphere might unleash. It therefore seems to me that the way in which both sides conduct this debate is very important.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise for being perhaps a little stronger than I should have been in this respect. On the engine room—I wanted to return to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on this—much of the business of multilateral organisations, be it NATO or the EU, is done in working groups and committees. The common foreign and security policy structure has some 40 working groups and committees, including a military committee that has been chaired by a British officer. If we are not in any of those working groups, we will miss out on formulating policy.

There are other details that matter a great deal. I remember the noble Earl, Lord Howe, saying on one occasion, when some of us were following the noble Lord, Lord West, and asking, “Where are you going to find the frigates to make up the carrier groups that we need?” The noble Earl said, if I remember correctly, “They do not necessarily have to be British frigates”. I took him as meaning that they might be Dutch, French, Belgian or whatever. Well, that also needs a certain structure, with certain training mechanisms and certain multilateral commands.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Would the structure not be NATO?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord may not know, but, as I have quoted, we have been involved in some 15 EU operations, some of which have been naval. Had he visited Operation Atalanta at Northwood, he would have known that that is an entirely naval operation, commanded by the British with ships from a number of different nations. Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean has also involved British frigates working with others on the whole question of migration. So some operations are NATO, some are the EU.

I have said quite enough. Of course I am going to withdraw, but we, along with many others, do not know enough about this area to be able to give the confidence to the Government that we want—that is the whole problem with this “mechanical Bill”. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.