Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, have the Government done enough to ensure that they carry domestic public opinion, including the right-wing press, with the deal that they eventually strike? I see announcements from the Government that we are going to continue to respect the decisions of the European Court of Justice in a number of areas, and clearly we are going to continue to contribute to a large number of European financial arrangements, according to the proposals that have been put out in the slide shows that were slipped out over the last two or three weekends. This is going to arouse a lot of anger on the Back Benches of the Conservative Party and in the Mail and the Telegraph. Should the Government not be preparing domestic public opinion for the necessary compromises that they are already beginning to propose to their European counterparts?

[Lord Callanan]

I am not sure that I would accept the scenario outlined by the noble Lord. We have always been clear that where there are areas in which we can co-operate with our European partners, in some small areas, we will make an appropriate contribution to the costs, but we have also been clear that the days of making vast contributions to the European budget are at an end.