Lord Mandelson: My Lords, it is not a question of everything being hunky-dory, but of how desperately worse off we would be were we not to remain in the single market. For goodness’ sake, let us apply a little reality to this. Even President Trump may wake up one day and realise that, given the nature of 21st-century trade in the world today, 40% of the content of Mexican exports to the US actually...
Lord Mandelson: Too long.
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hill, and his very intelligent contribution to this debate, but I want, first, to make a remark about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hague. Contrary to what he said today, the noble Lord believes that we should stay just, “one step short of the single market”. I know this because he wrote it. He could therefore not possibly...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, this is my first opportunity to speak in your Lordships’ House since becoming chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University this summer. It is one of the city’s two very large and popular universities. One could not categorise them as either old or modern, as both trace their roots to the mechanics’ institute of 1824. One could not say that one is more professional and...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords—
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, for the next two years the United Kingdom is entitled to have a commissioner in Brussels during a time when vital national interests will be considered by the Commission and the other EU institutions. Will the noble Baroness inform the House when that vacancy is going to be filled?
Lord Mandelson: Does the noble Lord accept that 60% of British exports are covered by the free trade agreements negotiated and won by the European Union on our behalf—60%?
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, I support what the Prime Minister negotiated in Brussels, and I hope that others on both sides of this House will do so. However we got to this point, we have to realise that it is a national fight that we have on our hands now, not a party one, and for the country’s sake we have all of us got to make sure that the right side wins. We simply cannot allow British business and their...
Lord Mandelson: If the noble Lord does not mind, I shall continue. It would mean losing the EU’s preferential trading benefits in foreign markets until such time—and it would be a long time—before we were able to renegotiate them back. It would also potentially mean having to raise our own tariffs on imports for those markets, as they would no longer be covered by WTO-compliant agreements.
Lord Mandelson: Is this my time or the noble Lord’s time that he is eating in to?
Lord Mandelson: I am sorry—I am not just talking about invisible services. I am talking about British exports and British jobs and what we would pay in addition to get our goods, and all we contribute to supply chains and value chains, into the single market. I am not going to dwell further on the trade implications of leaving, except to say that anyone who thinks that, freed from the so-called...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, we have heard some excellent speeches in this debate so far, including, charmingly, from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in a very good five-minute contribution. Having been a member of the European Commission, I think that I can talk with some experience about the need for change in the European Union. My experience has made me decidedly pro-reform of the EU, but not in favour of...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, I strongly welcome this debate and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Like my noble friend who has just spoken, I have been an ardent pro-railway supporter all my adult life but it is precisely for that reason that I do not support HS2, because its sheer cost will suck the very lifeblood out of the rest of the country’s rail system. Originally in government, I, along with...
Lord Mandelson: I would like to continue, but I will give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Mandelson: Yes, of course it is part of it. However, my point is that the Government’s own economic case, if HS2 goes ahead, has made clear that this will involve nearly £8 billion worth of cuts to existing intercity services. That means, for example, that Coventry’s services to London will be cut from three to two per hour, Stoke’s from two to one per hour and Stockport’s from three to one per...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord on securing this debate and on his report as a whole. It will not surprise him that I strongly agree with the bulk of it. When I returned to the Government when the financial crisis struck in 2008, my eyes had been opened by my continental experience to what most other sensible Governments do in placing their weight behind the growth of new...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, the Prime Minister said at the beginning of his Statement that above all we should put the interests of the victims first. I am afraid that in his response to Leveson he is doing the very opposite of that: he is putting politics and the perceived power of certain sections of the press before the interests of the victims. Let us be honest, he is not the first Prime Minister to be in...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is more canary or Cassandra. I could take up many of his observations, but I shall not. Nor shall I dwell on current events in Greece, although I do think they illustrate the risk of becoming too fixated on austerity out of fear of market sentiment. Nor am I going to dwell on the events of December's European Council meeting. I am...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, people will differ in their view about whether the Government's negotiating position last week was tenable or realistic. Will the Government reflect on the utterly shambolic way in which they prepared their position and sought support for their proposals at the summit last week? Why were the Government's proposals only shared with the legal service of the Council literally the day...
Lord Mandelson: My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships so near to the dinner break; I shall make only three observations in relation to Clause 3 and whether it should stand part of the Bill. What we have seen during the course of this debate is a series of false assumptions and non sequiturs advanced to justify the Bill, and in particular this clause, which the Government are bringing forward. My...