EU Council

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

I think that the noble Lord has already had a go. Is it not the case that the agreement on climate change, happily, does not amount to a row of beans? The official conclusions say that,

“all Member States will participate in this effort, balancing considerations of fairness and solidarity”.

In other words, there is no target for any individual member state, and I commend the Government for having made it clear that energy policy is the responsibility of member states, not of the European Union as a whole, so it does not mean anything.

Is not the fundamental question of the contributions a problem? While the late Lady Thatcher succeeded in securing a substantial improvement in the net contribution which we paid, not only was that net improvement insufficient to do us justice but the previous Labour Government also gave a large part of it away in exchange for a promise of reform of the common agricultural policy, which has not happened. This is why the issue is so sensitive. We already pay more than our fair share into the European Union budget.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is absolutely right to point out that the previous Government gave away our rebate, to the tune of £2 billion. That has really affected the demands that Europe makes on our budget.

On my noble friend’s point about climate change, I certainly disagree with his description of what has been agreed in Europe on emissions reduction targets of 40%, but I say to him and the House that the way in which we have reached that agreement is different from the way in which previous Governments did so. We have made sure that we are able to retain flexibility in this country and are able to deliver on these targets in a very cost-effective way.