EU: Recent Developments

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 16th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. In this sense, one has a negotiation from which the UK eventually excluded itself. The noble Lord correctly identified the capacity for change in the fiscal pact. Would it not have been better for the UK to have remained within that negotiation, given the somewhat protean nature of this apparent fiscal pact? The question I am putting to the Minister is: what, precisely, is the UK’s position in relation to this? However, I return to the greater long-term question—

[Lord Tebbit]

I am waiting for the noble and learned Lord to give us a precise description of his party’s policies towards this pact. Is it his party’s policy that we should see Greece destroyed in the way that it is being currently and that outsiders should take over in respect of the issues my noble friend Lord King just described? At the beginning of his speech, the noble and learned Lord referred to “blinkered Eurosceptics”. Some of us were not so blinkered that we could not see this coming 10 or 20 years ago.

[Lord Davidson of Glen Clova]

I remind the noble Lord that the reference to blinkers was to those who drew something positive from the difficulties in which the eurozone now finds itself. I take it he puts himself in that particular position. However, in relation to—

[Lord Tebbit]

The noble and learned Lord suggests that I find something satisfactory in these difficulties. I do not. However, the sooner they are resolved by Greece leaving the euro, the sooner Greece will be able to conduct its own affairs and get back on its feet. That probably applies to Spain and Portugal as well.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, given the length of this debate, it is not customary for quite so many interventions to take place during speeches. It might perhaps enable the debate to be more effective if noble Lords are not interrupted quite so frequently.