UK: EU Membership

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, I am always supportive of Brits holding leadership positions in all institutions, including EU ones. Certainly, strong female leaders from this House have made a great impact in those institutions.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister think that the Government are going about it in the right way to win friends and influence people to carry through their legitimate programme of reform for the EU? In the last month we have seen Ministers of the Crown stigmatising Bulgarians and Romanians as benefit tourists, threatening, to the great annoyance of the Polish Foreign Minister, Poles with benefit changes in the UK and attempting to blame Germany for all the horrors of the First World War. Is this the right way to go about winning friends in Europe?

[Baroness Warsi]

It is important that Ministers do what they can to make sure that the best possible outcome for Britain is achieved. I think the noble Lord would accept that the first ever cut in the EU’s seven-year budget last year and protection of the UK’s rebate were two great successes. He would also accept that changes and reforms to the common fisheries policy—again Britain putting its interests on the table but doing so in the interests of all of the European Union—are progressive steps. We can therefore show that the Government can act in the interests of the United Kingdom in a way that is also beneficial to the rest of the European Union.