EU: UK Membership

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am sorry that the noble Lord thinks that peace is nonsensical. It is not an unimportant issue for us. The noble Lord clearly thinks that international regulation of the open markets is not an important issue either. I am well aware that UKIP thinks that we should follow the example of Switzerland and have a sort of Swiss relationship with the European Union, although since UKIP also thinks that we should double our defence spending, I think the UKIP model is Switzerland with nuclear missiles and a large navy.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Would the noble Lord accept that there is fairly substantial inconsistency in what he said about the single market? The Government are always expounding the virtues of the single market, yet anybody who listened to Mrs Theresa May yesterday on “The Andrew Marr Show” would have heard her calling into question fundamental aspects of that single market, such as the free movement of people.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I did not see the Andrew Marr programme. I apologise; I was picking apples at the time. We are all clear that free movement is one of the four bases of the single market and needs to be maintained as far as possible.