Outcome of the EU Referendum

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is absolutely right and I join him in paying great tribute to David Cameron as Prime Minister: it has been an honour for me to serve in his Government and his Cabinet. He is a remarkable man in the way he carries out his responsibilities as Prime Minister.

My noble friend said that we must ensure that the way we proceed from here commands the support of everybody in the United Kingdom, especially those who did not vote for us to exit. That is absolutely essential, and the next Prime Minister and his Government must give absolute priority to it.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, although I quite understand people complaining about the campaign, we are where we are, and the priority surely should be to try to give some political stability, and through that financial and other stability, at a time when, for all their personal qualities, it is obvious that the present Prime Minister and his opposite number across the Dispatch Box are completely lacking in authority on the subject of Europe.

I therefore want to ask one specific question that concerns the reassurances that nothing much will change in the short term and Article 50 has not been operated. What overtures were made to the British commissioner to persuade him not to resign with immediate effect, particularly given the crucial area of finance and financial services over which he had responsibility? I quite understand his personal position but can the Government assure me that they made every conceivable effort to make sure that the United Kingdom commissioner in charge of finances would be in place for the next few months? If they did not do that, it was another huge omission.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me an opportunity to say how much I admire my noble friend Lord Hill, as my predecessor in this role and also for the work that he has done as a commissioner. He set out his reasons for deciding to step down from his role and the Commission decided to move his responsibilities to another commissioner.

Financial stability is clearly being given huge priority within government. We have heard from the Governor of the Bank and from what the Chancellor said this morning all the steps that have been taken so far to provide stability to the financial markets, and their readiness to go further, should that be necessary. But we must not forget that the reason we are in a strong position to deal with this situation is the progress that we have made over the last few years in ensuring that we have a strong economy and can deal with this situation. I absolutely acknowledge that the situation is uncertain, but we can deal with it.