European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I wish to say a few words on behalf of the Liberal Democrats’ position that we should have a people’s vote with the option to remain in the European Union. We shall campaign to remain in the European Union, as we believe unambiguously that that is in the national interest and the right thing to do.

I think that I am one of the relatively few people left in the House who actually campaigned to join the European Union and in support of membership during the Wilson referendum. It was my privilege at the time to campaign alongside some very fine British and Scottish statesman, such as Jo Grimond, John Mackintosh and, perhaps above all, John Smith, who strongly believed that Britain’s future lay in the European Union. John Smith in particular would be pleased with the amendment that my Liberal Democrat colleagues have tabled, which fully endorses the Labour party’s amendment, but would add a small section that the leader of the Labour party either forgot or was embarrassed to refer to. It would add

“including a public vote as endorsed by the Labour Party Conference”.

He did not mention that this evening.

My other relevant experience, which I share with the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), is of having worked as President of the Board of Trade, for five years in the coalition Government. There were several important lessons from that experience. The first was the importance to Britain—and this was recognised by both parties in the coalition and the Labour party—of its membership of the single market. It stemmed originally from an insight in the 1980s under Mrs Thatcher and was taken up by the Blair Government, that the future of the British economy lay with services, not just financial services but more generally. It was an area in which Britain had a considerable competitive advantage, and was in the national interest to promote. We did so, and we lectured countries such as Germany that were dragging their feet on issues such as mutual recognition of professional qualifications. At the end of the campaign for the single market, in 2015, we reached a provisional understanding on a digital single market, which was very much in the interests of Britain’s emerging digital economy and creative industries. The Prime Minister herself said recently that this was something that Britain should be part of, until it was pointed out that we cannot be part of it if we leave the single market.

The other major lesson of that period comes from having negotiated with General Motors over Ellesmere Port and Luton, with Ford over its plants in the UK, with Toyota, with Jaguar Land Rover over its expansion, with Airbus over its big investments here, and with Siemens over its investment in wind turbines. In each case, the company made it absolutely clear that it was making its investments in the UK manufacturing sector in order to be part of the wider European market. Many of those investors, who invested here in good faith, now feel somewhat betrayed. The Japanese have said that very clearly, having been told by successive Governments that our membership of the European Union single market, on which the future of their investment here depended, would be maintained.

Looking forward, there are overwhelming arguments for remaining a member of the European Union. Some of them have already been expressed, including the arguments about peace, put forward by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and about high environmental standards. The fundamental point, however, is the impact on our living standards. It has been acknowledged—even by the Government in the past two weeks, as a result of their assessments—that however Brexit is constructed, we will be worse off if we leave the European Union. We can have different scenarios and assumptions, but there is none that shows that we would actually benefit from leaving the EU. We can see the signs of this already in what has happened since 2016. We have seen the biggest devaluation since the second world war, the cut in real incomes, the stifling of business investment and the decline in productivity. These things will continue on a bigger scale.

We are offered the fantasy of a clutch of trade deals, but we need to look at what that actually means. There will be some trade deals that can be negotiated. Small countries in the Caribbean will certainly sign up for trade deals to get better access for their bananas and sugar. Some countries will find it relatively easy to come to an agreement. They include Japan, Korea and Canada, but they already have trade agreements with the European Union, so we would gain nothing from that.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about our participation in the world-leading Horizon 2020 programme and the Horizon Europe programme that will follow it? When I questioned the Prime Minister last week at the Liaison Committee, there was no clarity as to whether we would be part of that successor programme, which will be vital for our science base in this country.

[Sir Vince Cable]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he speaks with the authority of his Select Committee. Many universities will be among the biggest casualties of Brexit precisely for this reason. The loss of the Horizon and Erasmus programmes, and in some sectors the loss of Galileo, will be a major blow to the UK economy.

On the specific issue of trade deals, the countries that really matter are the United States, India, China and possibly Russia. We know about the United States, which has made it absolutely clear that an “America first” trade agreement will mean fewer British exports to the United States and more imports to Britain from the United States. It is quite unambiguous about how it defines a successful trade deal. When the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and I negotiated with the United States on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement, even the milder Obama Administration made it clear that they wanted British food standards to be shredded and that they could offer very little in return because public procurement, which is a key issue in the United States, is a state function.

Agreement with India is also difficult to achieve, as we have already heard. It is a very protectionist economy, and it would offer limited access for whisky and financial services in return for a substantial increase in visas for relatively low-paid Indian professional workers, which the Prime Minister has already specifically ruled out. The Chinese might reach an agreement, but only if we turned a blind eye to Chinese practices on intellectual property and the rest, and we are trying to impose more sanctions on Russia, so what kind of a trade deal could we possibly get there? This really is a fantasy. However, we need to be careful—this is where the amendment of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) is so important—that we do not allow the development of the argument that we must have the possibility of no deal. There was an argument for saying that the no-deal option must be kept on the table when we were negotiating with the European Union, but an agreement has been reached and no better terms are going to be obtained. The Prime Minister is now negotiating with the House, and that is why no deal is there. It is not to threaten Europe, but to threaten us, and we must stand up to that and reject it absolutely.

Finally, a people’s vote is essential because we must give people the choice now that we know what Brexit means. We need informed consent, not just an opinion expressed on promises made at the time. The perfectly reasonable argument has been advanced that we want to bring the country together, and the Prime Minister spoke eloquently about that. We do not want to perpetuate division, but the brutal truth is that the country is bitterly divided, and it will be bitterly divided if we leave under the terms that the Government have negotiated. We will be entering into a set of conditions in which the economy will deteriorate relative to how it would have performed in the European Union. The younger generation coming through will bear the brunt of the costs. Most of them voted to remain in the EU—an estimated 80% of 18 year olds wish to remain—and there will be great bitterness and resentment about what the older generation has imposed upon them. The issue will not go away, and there will be continued demand for a further vote on the question.

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this emergency debate. As Members will know, I have been raising this issue and concern in the House for almost 18 months now, and when I first did so I was treated as a bit of a crank. Subsequently, however, almost every single allegation that I have used parliamentary privilege to put on the record in this place has proven to be correct.

This debate needs to be taken extremely seriously. It is not about who won or lost the referendum; it is about the integrity and security of our democracy and electoral system. Any of the sceptics who have cast doubt on the nature and quality of the evidence of the whistleblower, Chris Wylie, should watch the four hours of testimony that I watched today before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee: it was absolutely shocking and astonishing, and it should go to the heart of anybody who cares about our democracy.

Mr Wylie laid out clear evidence of serious lawbreaking by the leave campaign: not only collusion between Vote Leave and BeLeave, which is the one that has got most publicity, but collusion between Vote Leave and some of the other leave organisations, including Veterans for Britain, and indeed the DUP. Each of those organisations used either Cambridge Analytica—we know all about that, having heard the revelations last week about how it illegally harvested the Facebook data of tens of millions of people—or Aggregate IQ, a supposedly separate company based in Canada. It is not separate at all; it is all part of the same organisation. We know that 40% of Vote Leave’s budget was spent on Aggregate IQ and the work that it did. We still do not know how AIQ got that data, where the data came from or whether it was legally obtained and used. These are serious questions, and I am very pleased that the Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who is a Conservative, is clearly taking the allegations seriously. He will be putting them to the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee later this afternoon.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree, given the scale of the spending on digital campaigning now, that along with the investigation into what happened during the referendum there is an urgent need for a complete overhaul of the electoral rules to ensure that they are fit for the digital age?

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, I entirely agree. I shall go on to say something about that a little later.

Mr Wylie provided compelling and credible evidence not only of the collusion but of the effectiveness of the targeted advertising campaigns that these data companies conduct, based on the data that they have. In the case of the referendum, the campaigns were targeted on 7 million voters whom the companies had carefully profiled as people whose opinions they could shift. In his evidence to the Committee today, Mr Wylie produced a staggering statistic. He said that, in his experience, the methods used by Cambridge Analytica and AIQ in this case would have had the potential to shift between 7% and 10% of the people targeted. Let us not forget that he was and remains a leaver. He wants Brexit to happen, but he does not want it to happen based on a fraud on the British electorate. He said that

“it is completely reasonable to say that there could have been a different outcome in the referendum if there hadn’t been, in my view, cheating”.

There have been attempts to discredit Mr Wylie. There was even a disgraceful attempt from Downing Street to discredit one of his co-whistleblowers by, among other things, outing him as gay. I am amazed that the man who did that is still in his job, because that was totally unacceptable. Let me tell those people who are trying to discredit Mr Wylie that he is one of 200 people who have been allowed into this country because of their brilliance. He has been allowed a special visa because of the amount he knows about how all this stuff works. I do not have a clue how it all works, but he is one of the world’s leading experts, and he is a very serious whistleblower. Not all Conservative Members dismiss his evidence, but those who do do so at their peril. Let us just wait and see where all this ends. Mr Wylie also made a very worrying statement, and I think that this is the first time that a connection has been made between Cambridge Analytica and the Russian FSB—although I had heard about it privately—via the work that it did for the Russian oil company, Lukoil.

It must be clear to everyone in the House, whatever their view on Brexit, that the powers and resources of the Information Commissioner and the Electoral Commission are wholly inadequate. If the Government were serious about getting to the truth by letting the commissioners do their job, we would have less of this “what-aboutery” and more action and support for the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner, in terms of their powers and—critically and more immediately—their resources. Mr Wylie has been working for many hours with the Information Commissioner, and one of the worrying things he told the Committee was that he had had to explain to the officials in that office what all this was about. They do not have enough technical experts. They do not have people who actually understand how all this works and what has been going on. In my view, this guy should be employed by all the global regulators, because he seems to be one of the few people who knows how this electoral corruption works, not only in our country but elsewhere. There was loads of evidence, for example, about what has been going on in Nigeria and in parts the Caribbean. This is not just a problem for this country.

Proportional Representation

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double]

No one is pretending it is a guarantee, but it is far more likely to lead to a clear, decisive result and a stable Government than any other system. In the vast majority of elections it has delivered a decisive result.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. Does he not have any concerns about safe seats and the sense of a local monopoly if there is no competition for power? His party surely understands the concept that if one party has complete control in an area, we get bad government.

[Steve Double]

I concur. One weakness with first past the post is that perceived safe seats can lead to complacency, but there are a number of examples, even in recent history, of MPs in safe seats being overthrown because of a particular issue or because the voters in the constituency felt let down badly by them. The examples of Neil Hamilton in 1997 and of Dr Taylor in 2001 show that sitting MPs in safe seats can be thrown out by local voters. Although the right hon. Gentleman raises a legitimate concern, the power is in the hands of the voters in the constituency. If they want a change of MP, they are perfectly able to deliver that.

Debate on the Address

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

We absolutely do, and he is an example of what genuinely unites us and of our love and concern for others. Indeed, he reflects the values of the colossal majority of Muslim people in this country, and it is important that we reflect that.

In their absence, let me also pay tribute to the humorous, witty and wise remarks of the mover and the seconder of the response to the Gracious Speech, and move on to my own remarks, which I promise will not be all that lengthy—whether they are wise, Members can judge at the end.

The Prime Minister is not in her place now; she is entitled not to be. She and I have a lot in common. We both contested North West Durham in 1992, and neither of us won; we both led our parties in the recent general election, and neither of us won; and soon neither of us will be leading our parties any more, but at least I have got the honesty to admit it publicly. Britain, for all its immense and glorious heritage, its potentially wonderful future, and all its tremendous values, is nevertheless a country in a mess. It is essentially a mess caused by two choices made by two Conservative Prime Ministers who put their party before their country. First, David Cameron called a referendum on Europe for no other reason than to attempt to put a sticking plaster between two sides of the Conservative party. Secondly, our current Prime Minister thought she could gain narrow party advantage by calling a snap election. Pride comes before a fall. It is tempting to be amused at the hubris turned to humiliation that has now come upon the Conservative party, but the problem is that this is a mess that damages Britain—that damages the future for all of our children.

So, to the Gracious Speech. Her Majesty has launched many ships in her time, but never such an empty vessel as the one today. I am not sure whether wasting the monarch’s time is a treasonous act; I hope for the Prime Minister’s sake it is not. The Queen’s Speech shows that we have a Government who have lost touch with their people and lost touch with reality. If they have the first, foggiest idea of what the will of the people is now, they have chosen to ignore it. Why is there no additional investment in health or social care? As two in three of our head teachers across our country in the next few weeks are having to lay off teaching staff, why is there no plan to cancel the £3 billion-worth of cuts to our schools?

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. He mentioned that there is no extra funding for health. The Queen’s Speech makes reference to prioritising mental health within the NHS. Does he share my horror at the gap between the rhetoric and the reality? The reality is that the constraints that NHS England is putting on many areas of the country mean that mental health is losing out here and now, not being prioritised as the Queen’s Speech claims.

[Tim Farron]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; he speaks with immense experience and capability, and a record in this area. This is a reminder that warm words from the Government are not sufficient when hard cash is not present. During the election, my party offered the British people the opportunity, which of course they did not take, to place a penny on income tax in order to pay for real investment in health and social care, including, as a priority, mental health. I say that because somebody needs to be honest with the British people that if we want the best health and social care in the world, then we will have to pay for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am a huge fan and frequent user of Newquay airport. The Government made a series of promises about helping the airport to ensure there is that vital connectivity between Cornwall and the rest of the country, and indeed continental Europe, and I am delighted that it is doing so well.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his welcome—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear this question.

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the Prime Minister for welcoming the campaign launched this week whereby 200 leaders from across society will join the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), Alastair Campbell and me in calling for equality for those who suffer from mental ill health. The truth is that those who suffer from mental ill health do not have the same right to access treatment as others enjoy in our NHS. The moral and economic case for ending this historical injustice is overwhelming. Will the Prime Minister do what it takes to ensure that this spending review delivers the extra investment in mental health needed to deliver genuine equality?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman, who did a lot of work on this in the previous Parliament, that I very much welcome the campaign that has been launched and what it aims to achieve. We set out in the NHS constitution parity between mental and physical health and we have taken steps towards that by, for instance, introducing for the first time waiting times and proper targets for talking therapies. There are now twice as many people undergoing those talking therapies as there were five years ago. But I completely accept that there is more to do in healing the divide between mental and physical health, and this Government are committed to doing that.

Tributes to Charles Kennedy

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Charles Kennedy was an immense talent, and it says so much about the man that so many Members in this House have spoken about him with such complete genuine warmth. He had the extraordinary ability to reach out beyond the narrow confines of his own party to make genuine friendships with people of other political persuasions and to achieve an extraordinary affinity with people beyond this place, speaking in a language that people understood—not in the language of the Westminster village. That was a remarkable talent not shared by very many people here. I guess, overall, we probably all share this overwhelming emotion, and our hearts go out to young Donald and his family on this day, and that is the most important thing. Our thoughts are very much with them.

I had the privilege of working as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Charles in my first Parliament here, between 2003 and 2005. I saw at close quarters his extraordinary ability, his compassion and his never ceasing courtesy to people. He never lost his temper in dealing with people; he was always polite. He used the power of argument to win his case.

Tragically, he suffered from an illness that afflicts too many people in our country. There is still a stigma attached to mental ill health and addiction, and all of us here and beyond still have a lot to learn about how we combat that stigma and treat the condition as a genuine illness and try to offer help to the individual as much as we possibly can.

There are three things in particular for which I remember Charles. The first one, which defined him among many members of the public, was his courageous stand on the war in Iraq. The Prime Minister was absolutely right to reflect on the strain that he must have been under when he spoke in this House with the massed ranks of the Labour Government and the Conservative Benches against him, but he was steadfast. He knew what he believed. He articulated the case very strongly and effectively and he reached out to our country at a very critical moment in our history.

The second thing that defines him for me was his internationalism. His total commitment to the European cause came not from any narrow economic case but from a belief in the real power of the European Union in bringing countries together, turning its back, as a continent, on conflict, working together, trading together and bringing people together. His politics was about uniting people, not dividing people; that is what made his commitment to the European Union so strong.

Finally, there was his complete commitment to social justice. He challenged injustice wherever he saw it. Everyone will know that the Liberal voice in our country has been diminished as a result of the general election result, but I and the rest of my party must unite together to do everything we can to ensure Charles’s legacy and to rebuild the Liberal voice in our country. I am sure that everyone in this House, whatever their political persuasion, will recognise the force of liberalism and its importance in these Houses of Parliament.