Queen’s Speech

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Lawson of Blaby

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to be asked to move this humble Address of thanks to Her Majesty in the midst of her 90th birthday celebrations—someone who is so respected and admired throughout the world. Once again, she was supported by His Royal Highness Prince Philip, who himself continues an amazingly active role in so many fields. The presence also of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall confirms the increasing responsibilities they are taking on and how well they are discharging them. I had wondered whether we should give Her Majesty a present, but I realised we could not possibly match the Tesco gift token that so delighted Her Majesty at Windsor.

Looking at this debate today, as we start to debate the Queen’s Speech, I considered the situation in British industry and its commanding heights. There has been considerable criticism of the lack of women on the boards of many British companies, but as I stand here today—having listened to Her Majesty’s Speech, with the Lord Speaker on the Woolsack, the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition about to speak, and the debate to be concluded by my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston—there is certainly no lack of women in charge. However, there is of course going to be one change, and I am confident I speak for the whole House in expressing our warmest thanks to the Lord Speaker.

The House will realise how brave the Leader of the House was to invite me to move the Motion for the Loyal Address without having the slightest idea of what I was going to say. I fear I will take slight advantage of that, because looking at her always reminds me of one couplet—it might be a bit more than a couplet. As young Light Infantry squaddies given the day off from the Bordon training camp and coming up to London, we found that we could slip in and stand at the back row of the stalls for a brand-new American musical that had arrived in London. I remember particularly one part of it:

“A hundred and one pounds of fun,

That’s my little honey bun!

Get a load of honey bun tonight.

I’m speakin’ of my Sweetie Pie,

Only sixty inches high,

Ev’ry inch is packed with dynamite!”.

Whatever her height, she has grown in stature as a full member of the Cabinet, and coping with the difficulties of the composition of your Lordships’ House is one of the toughest jobs there is. I pay tribute to her and her leadership.

I am concerned about one aspect of what I just said, because I fear that if word goes out, “Dynamite in the House of Lords”, GCHQ will pick it up and all sorts of alarm bells may be ringing. I should think that Black Rod has already pressed the alarm button—unless there are some test devices still around the Chamber that he has not discovered.

That brings me to a serious point. The Annunciator this morning told us, as ever, that the threat is severe. After 9/11, 7/7, Paris and Brussels we know that it is. I pay sincere tribute as someone who has sometimes lived with problems of terrorism. I recognise how much more serious, difficult and challenging the terrorist threat now is. I pay tribute to all the staff, Black Rod and his whole team, for the efforts they make to try to ensure that we stay safe in our democracy here.

We meet today after a major series of elections throughout the country. Three particularly impressed me. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, on a spectacular election result which swept all before him, and I am delighted to welcome him.

Secondly, and more seriously, I offer my best wishes to Sadiq Khan, the new Mayor of London. I want to say how impressed I was that almost his first action as the new Muslim Mayor of London was to have his signing-on ceremony in Southwark Cathedral in the presence of the Dean and, the very next day, to attend the Holocaust Memorial ceremony in the presence, I think, of the Chief Rabbi. Nothing could have shown more clearly his recognition of the importance of tolerance and respect for other faiths in a world beset by sectarian hatred and division. His leadership and example will be critical not just in London and the UK but throughout the world—to see how different sects and beliefs can work together for the good of all.

The third person I would mention is Ruth Davidson. I will not trespass on my noble friend Lady Goldie’s contribution; she obviously knows Ruth Davidson very much better than I do. I simply say that, having been born in Glasgow of a Welsh mother and an English father, and with my great affection for the Province from my time in Northern Ireland, I am a walking United Kingdom. I believe that Ruth Davidson will prove as doughty a defender of it as my noble friend Lady Goldie has been.

I would like to say a word about the end of the last Session of Parliament. There were some on our Benches who felt that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, was perhaps stretching the normal understanding of the extent of revision and amendment that should be exercised by this House. I then realised what had happened. The noble Lord, who was a very senior Sir Humphrey in his time, until very recently, was following the advice of his fictional namesake in “Yes, Prime Minister”. When Jim Hacker became Prime Minister, a rather troubled Bernard, his private secretary, reported to Sir Humphrey, “I think the Prime Minister wants to govern the country”, and a shocked Sir Humphrey immediately replied, “Well, stop him, Bernard!”. I understand some of his frustrations, and the difficulties of dealing with Ministers. I could not help recalling the wonderful old campaigner on our Benches in the other place, Dame Irene Ward—some noble Lords may also remember her. She used to use a deliberate double meaning on occasion. I remember that when she was having a great row with the Secretary of State, she leapt to her feet and said, “My trouble is, whenever I’ve got my back to the wall, I find that I’m up against the Secretary of State”.

Having talked about the advice of Sir Humphrey and Mr Hacker’s unpleasant habit of thinking that he was going to govern the country, I come naturally to the Queen’s Speech and the Prime Minister’s proposals for governing the country. I have a couple of comments about things that are not in the Queen’s Speech. On Saturday, we will commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Jutland. On 1 July, we will commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Somme: almost the greatest disaster and example of human suffering, which was experienced throughout this country, affecting the Ulster Division in Northern Ireland and so many other parts of the country as well, given the appalling slaughter that took place.

Among the other things that I cannot find in the Queen’s Speech is Chilcot. We look forward to seeing something of the Chilcot report, which we understand is coming. We may even have some statement about a third London runway, but I do not want to get anybody too excited about that. However, I see that some 14 Bills are coming forward, and the House will be relieved to hear that I am certainly not going to talk about them all. I should just say to the Leader of the Opposition, regarding our exchanges on the Investigatory Powers Bill, that a number of us across the House tried to anticipate this some two years ago, and we must now carry it through.

I would like to say a word about corruption, as there is going to be a Bill about it. I can speak with some authority about corruption. I was the Member of Parliament for Bridgwater, and when I made my maiden speech I was followed by Willie Hamilton, a Labour MP at the time, who referred to it as a constituency almost continuously represented in the House. It was not continuously represented because, in 1870, the Bridgwater constituency, one of the oldest in the country at 600 years old, was abolished. That was very significant, because it was then discovered that one of the oldest constituencies had been subject to one of the oldest practices in British politics, which had continued for some years. A parliamentary commission was sent to investigate what had happened—and the people who provoked it were the Liberals, because they had bought the constituency. There was a small electorate in the town of Bridgwater in those days, so the Liberals offered £5 to anyone who promised to vote for them and had it all sewn up.

In those days, the election results and the votes were published. To their horror, the Liberals then found that not only had they not won but that a lot of the people who had promised to vote for them had actually voted Tory. There is an important lesson for the Government here on delivery. It was discovered that what had happened was that the Liberals had given £5 to anybody who promised to vote for them but the Tories had said, “We’ll give you £10 when you prove you’ve voted Tory”. The happy burghers of Bridgwater were nobody’s fools: they took their 15 quid and two Conservative Members were returned.

Having talked about the Queen’s Speech, we all know that the greatest challenge we now face immediately is in that single sentence:

“My Government will hold a referendum on the membership of the European Union”.

There is, I hope, no controversy over the fact that there is a growing realisation of the importance of this decision throughout the country, and this realisation has been accompanied by a growing cry across the country for more information and facts on which to base a judgment. I wonder whether there are any facts that can be generally accepted by all sides. I suggest that one is that every one of the 27 other counties wants us to stay and hardly any of them thought that there was any risk that we might vote to leave—which hardly helped the Prime Minister’s negotiations. The Commonwealth, which 40 years ago was less than enthusiastic about our membership, clearly values a friendly face at the EU table. Particular problems could arise for Gibraltar, and for Northern Ireland with the border issue.

On the security side, noble Lords may well have seen the letter in the Times signed by 13 United States Defense Secretaries and National Security Advisers— people well known to many of us in this House who are loyal friends of the UK. They say that, while recognising that this is a decision for the British people, they believe that,

“should the UK choose to leave the European Union, the UK’s place and influence in the world would be diminished and Europe would be dangerously weakened”.

Although Christine Lagarde’s comment,

“pretty bad to very, very bad”,

has been challenged, I do not think that anybody queried her statement that every country she visits expresses deep concern about the UK leaving the EU.

This referendum is taking place in a period of acute danger and uncertainty in many parts of the world. The mass migration of people is on a scale that may prove to be the greatest the world has ever known. As my noble friend Lord Hague has said, it is not near the end but may be just the start, with the total disaster of Syria coinciding with upheavals throughout the Middle East and with the refugee crisis reinforced by the exploding population of Africa. Sometimes we do not realise the extent of that population explosion. When we saw Her Majesty the other day, some of us recalled where we were at the time of her coronation. I was in the Aberdares. I was serving in the struggle against Mau Mau terrorism. I came down from the Aberdares into Nyeri for a quick drink to celebrate. Kenya had a population of 5 million people. I have checked, and the latest figure I have is that the population of Kenya is now 45 million people.

That is reflected widely across Africa. Failed states proliferate, the unemployment of the young is horrendous, and the fall in the oil price has made many previously prosperous countries urgently reassess their programmes. The economies of the West are far from secure and the isolationist noises of the US presidential election, including Mr Trump hinting at leaving NATO, only add to our concern. In our economy we are close to a record current account deficit and some say that if we left, a sterling crisis would be inevitable. We are certainly not helped by the cloud hanging over our very successful car industry because of the problems with steel.

It is against this background that my own view is that we should remain but should immediately employ what I believe will be a very large Brexit vote to play a leading role in promoting the much more fundamental reforms that are clearly needed in the EU. If people do not think that this can be done, I shall give them one slogan to hang on to. I remember many years ago hearing Mr Larry Adler, the great harmonica or mouth organ player, telling a story about his ability to play classical music on his mouth organ. He was invited by the Bach society of Israel, a very distinguished and discerning body, to play the first Brandenburg concerto. He went to a wonderful concert hall in Tel Aviv and played it right through. There was not a sound until suddenly, at the end, there was great applause and cries of, “Again! Again! Play it again!” He was very moved and played it again. The extraordinary thing was that immediately he had done so, exactly the same thing happened. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very sorry but I really couldn’t play it right through again”. A voice from the back of the hall said, “You’ll play it till you get it right”. That could well be a slogan for those negotiations.

I know well that there are many in my party and elsewhere who hold strongly to the opposite view, although I trust that in the remaining weeks these arguments will be conducted with courtesy and respect—although, having looked at today’s newspapers, I think I may be a day or two late with that suggestion. I also believe very sincerely that your Lordships’ House has a major contribution to make. There are many people here with considerable knowledge and experience to bring to bear, not merely in presenting the arguments but in demonstrating to the country how tense and difficult arguments can be conducted and properly discussed with respect and integrity. Are the days following the Queen’s Speech not the ideal opportunity for that?

I have one comment to add. I appreciate, as I said, that not everyone agrees with the comments that I have made about the referendum. However, I also appreciate that they have been able to contain themselves without indulging in any of the traditional old English gestures beloved of my noble friend Lady Trumpington.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

Wait for it.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

In the official invitation to propose this Motion, the guidance concluded with a stern warning to my noble friend Lady Goldie and me that while the debate may now continue for a further 12 days, neither proposer nor seconder may speak again. On that happy note, I will simply end by noting that some 70 years ago a young princess pledged her future life to the service of our country. As we meet here today, the whole country knows how magnificently that pledge has been honoured. I beg to move the Motion for an humble Address to Her Majesty.