Queen’s Speech

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, like everyone else who wishes to speak in this debate, I have a great deal to say, but perforce I am constrained by time limits, so I shall be brief, noble Lords will be pleased to hear. I will say a few words on exiting the EU and then a few on the current position regarding defence.

I am not a fan of referendums. I was surprised when David Cameron called one and not entirely happy. But we had one. This Parliament abrogated responsibility to the people and the people have spoken, much to the distress of many others, I know. But to those who want to stop Brexit—and I have heard one or two speeches that seemed to say they would like to—I say that we must listen to the democratic decision of the people. I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said. He made a very good speech, but he was ignoring the fact that we had had a referendum and its result.

I am not going to pretend that this is easy, but leaving means that there is no jurisdiction for the ECJ. I have always believed that our courts—there are several distinguished jurists here; I see one at least—should be admired and are not the enemies of the people. But why do others seem to trust judges from other countries that do not have a history of admiring the rule of law or a history of incorruptibility over our own judges? I do not.

Leaving means not being in the single market, as indeed David Cameron downwards said during the referendum campaign. Most of the rest of the world is not in the single market. I will name two places, one big and one small: the United States and Hong Kong. They seem to do pretty well without the single market.

It is the same with the customs union, and here I agree with my noble friend Lady Anelay on the Front Bench. Although I have disagreed with her on one or two other issues in this regard, I agree that if we remain in the union we will give up our sovereign control. The people voted to take back control. I also believe in democratic accountability, as do most people in this House. So I ask: to whom is Jean-Paul Juncker democratically accountable? Indeed, it seems that his position is the antithesis of democratic accountability.

What surprises and to a certain extent distresses me is the lack of confidence among many people in the United Kingdom. It is not easy, but why do some run down the United Kingdom and consider that people on the continent do better? I point out in particular the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, with whom I have always got on pretty well—on one level. I do not think that the Europeans necessarily have the answer to everything and that we should run ourselves down. Why, at the beginning of this tortuous and difficult process, do we think that EU negotiators will be brilliant, while our own negotiators will be hopeless? There is after all only one UK Parliament—in a bit of disarray at the moment, one might say—but there are 27 other countries with Parliaments, there is the European Parliament and there is Wallonia, whatever that may have to say, to which the negotiators in the EU will be answerable.

Furthermore, some people seem to put the interests of EU nationals living here over the interests of our own citizens living in the EU. I personally wish no ill to EU nationals living here, who I am sure are mostly marvellous and excellent people, but I see my first duty as a Member of this House as to stand up for UK citizens.

Finally, what is the future of the EU? Has the eurozone crisis gone away? Will Macron and Merkel, known I think as the Mercron coalition, solve all the problems of migration, among other things? We shall see. I certainly do not foretell the future, but I will make one little prediction: that in 10 years’ time, very few people in this country will say, “I wish we had stayed in the EU”.

In the limited time available, I should like to turn briefly to defence matters. Our forces have been critical to the defence of Europe for well over a century. I spent a year of my life defending western Europe against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. I should like to say to my noble friends on the Front Bench, who I hope will take this message home, that the situation in defence at the moment is dire and has certainly not been helped by the depreciation in sterling over the past year. A headline in today’s Times states, “‘Your Army is too small’, Americans warn Britain”. At a conference yesterday, the Chief of Staff of the US Army, General Milley, pointed out that you need boots on the ground. You need manpower, or indeed people power, not just for war but to assist a civil power after a disaster, such as happened after the terrorist incident in Manchester recently. We have too few people and we need to increase defence spending. Also at the conference was Professor Cohen, who said that,

“your military is too small. There is no question about that”.

The National Audit Office published a report on the equipment plan from which I shall quote:

“The affordability of the Equipment Plan is at greater risk than at any time since its inception. It is worrying to see that the costs of the new commitments arising from the Review”—


the SDSR—

“considerably exceed the net increase in funding for the Plan”.

Today, the British Social Attitudes survey was published. It reveals that 39% of people now think that there is insufficient spending on defence, up from 17% 20 years ago. That says something about the way they are noticing how things are deteriorating.

In conclusion, if we are found wanting and not capable of defending our country, and indeed Europe, our interests and our values, because we have put other spending priorities first, the British people will want to know why those who are trusted with our defence did not pay sufficient attention to the problem.