European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

The question mark has been placed there by the EU, not by this Government. If the EU said today that our citizens abroad are safe, all EU citizens here would be safe.

[Mr Clegg]

The right hon. Gentleman would start blaming bad traffic on the EU if he could. It is absurd. We picked the fight, not the EU. His party picked the fight; the EU did not.

I have one observation that I want to press the Secretary of State on. Even if he gets the deal on the issue of EU citizens here and UK citizens there, which I sincerely believe he wishes to seek, and even if that goes as smoothly and quickly as he has suggested today, there is no earthly way that this Government can separate the 3 million EU citizens who are already here from the millions who may, after a certain cut-off date, want to live, study, and work here without creating a mountainous volume of red tape.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

I support the Government offering this House a vote. They cannot deny the House a vote—if the House wants to vote, the House will vote—but it is very important that those who want to go further and press the Government even more should understand that this approach could be deeply damaging to the United Kingdom’s negotiating position. It is based on a completely unreal view of how multinational negotiations go when a country is leaving the European Union. I find it very disappointing that passionate advocates of the European Union in this House, who have many fine contacts and networks across our continent, as well as access to the counsel and the wisdom of our European partners, give no explanation in these debates of the attitudes of the other member states, the weaknesses of their negotiating position and what their aims might be. If they did so, they could better inform the Government’s position, meaning that we could do better for them and for us.

[Mr Clegg]

The right hon. Gentleman is, as ever, making an articulate case from his point of view about the dangers of a vote at the end of the process. Can he explain why, on 20 November 2012, in a very interesting blogpost entitled, “The double referendum on the EU”, he advocated a second referendum with the following question:

“Do you want to accept the new negotiated relationship with the EU or not?”?

How on earth and why on earth has he changed his mind since then?

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clegg]

Being called “off beam” by the hon. Gentleman is quite something. He and I share a passion for Sheffield, however, so I shall put that aside for a minute. In the economy of this country, 78% of GDP is generated by services. Services are barely affected by taxes, tariffs and levies, but British lawyers, British engineers, British architects and British creative industries trying to sell their wares, as they successfully do—we are a services economy superpower in Europe—are affected by precisely the rules that are thrashed out in Brussels, in discussions that we would be excluded from if we left the European Union.

As the right hon. Member for Wokingham acknowledged, the completion of the single market in services is, indeed, a work in progress. We are the chief author and architect of the success in that area. Why on earth would anyone walk away from the construction of a building of which they were the chief architect and the chief beneficiary? A 7% increase in our GDP is the calculated improvement in the economic performance of this country if we complete the single market in services, but the Brexit camp want to walk away from that.

[John Redwood]

Why was there no improvement in manufacturing activity with the single market?

[Mr Clegg]

Dare I say it, but even by the fairly specious standard of the statistics bandied about by both sides in this campaign, the way the right hon. Gentleman used statistics was spectacularly misleading. From listening to the Brexit campaign, people would think that the club we have been a member of for 43 years has been the fount of all misery. How come we are still an independent, free and broadly speaking prosperous nation if we have been a member of it for over four decades? I simply think that that applies to his example.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the Deputy Prime Minister that the people need to be part of the process and feel that Parliament belongs to them, so will he give them a vote on his proposals?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that a referendum is not justified in this instance, for the following reasons: first, unlike other issues that are a source of great disagreement here, all three main parties are committed to delivering House of Lords reform, by way of their own manifestos, which they put to the British people at the last election, the one before that, and the one before that; secondly, it would be very expensive—£80 million—for something on which we are all supposed to agree; and thirdly, it would detract attention from the much more important referendum taking place in this Parliament: the referendum on the future of the United Kingdom.

Rio+20 Summit

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that it was right for us to take the extra time to secure a firm evidence base in regard to those areas. We are not abandoning the agenda; we are trying to do our job as thoroughly and rigorously as I know the right hon. Gentleman would expect.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The UK hit the Kyoto targets, while a number of our leading European Union competitors signed up with a fanfare but came nowhere near hitting them. Is there any sign now that those European big energy-using countries will do better in the future?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My own view is that any developed economy will serve itself best by moving towards an energy mix that is diverse, sustainable, and not over-reliant on unreliable forms of energy and very volatile global prices. I think it is a good thing that we have been leading that agenda in this country while also meeting our Kyoto targets. Those activities are not inconsistent with each other, and I personally rebut the idea that a shift of that kind is incompatible with highly competitive economies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What went wrong was the Labour Government for 13 years. They created the most unholy mess in 2008, which we are now having to clear up. The only way to get the economy moving is to fix the deficit, get banks lending money again and make sure we have a tax and benefits system that pays people to work.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister introduce a freedom Bill to get rid of a lot of bossy and unloved regulations?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As my right hon. Friend knows, we have already introduced a large set of measures that have removed a lot of unnecessary clutter from the statute book, and we will grab any further opportunities to do so with open arms.

House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Whatever one’s views about the Church, it is a fact that it is an established Church, and that is reflected in the composition of the House of Lords. As for ministerial appointments by the Prime Minister, we think it acceptable in principle—and this is another matter that we would invite the Joint Committee to examine—for future Prime Ministers to make supernumerary appointments of Ministers to the reformed House of Lords, but only for the duration of their holding of ministerial office. In other words, there would be a temporary mechanism whereby Ministers appointed by the Prime Minister could be held to account by one or other of the Houses in Westminster.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What sort of people does the Deputy Prime Minister wish to select for this hybrid Chamber, and why does he think that those skills would be lacking under a fully elected system?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It would not be up to me, or to any members of future Governments, to make such selections. Core to the proposals in the Bill for the model of 80% elected and 20% appointed is the making of appointments by an entirely independent and statutory appointments commission, the process conducted in an entirely open and meritocratic manner.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and John Redwood

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a lively debate about the relationship between retail banking and investment banking. The former Chancellor has made his own views very clear from his party’s Front Bench: he does not think that there is a case for separation. The Liberal Democrats believed in opposition that there should be a separation, and a debate is now taking place within Government.

We have asked Sir John Vickers to chair an independent commission, which will consider how we can ensure that there is safety and stability in our banking system for good. That action was not taken by the last Government. We will look at the commission’s recommendations, and then decide.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given that in the last year of the Labour Government they spent £10,000 for every man, woman and child in the country on current public spending, and given that that will go up to £11,500 a head over the five years of this Government under Budget plans, is it not clear that the coalition Government can get through without any damaging cuts to important public services?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As my right hon. Friend well knows, the challenge of balancing the Budget and filling the huge black hole left to us by Labour is, indeed, very difficult. That has, of course, been recognised by Tony Blair in his recent book, where he has said:

“if governments don’t tackle deficits”—[Interruption.]