Lord Lawson of Blaby: If the noble Lord will allow me, he has made two mistakes, not one. In the first place, it is in the interest of the peoples of Europe not to try to make a success of the eurozone and monetary union, but to abandon it. It has been a complete disaster; it will be in the interests of the people of Europe to abandon it. Secondly, I said that “facilitating the deepening” means that if they...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, in well over 40 years as a Member of one House or another of this Parliament of ours, I have never before known such a blatant campaigning document—not least one that is so economical with the truth—masquerade as a Government White Paper. The title itself, I have to say, is a lie—The Best of Both Worlds: The United Kingdom’s Special Status in a Reformed European Union. The...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: The great majority of the agreements we are party to through the WTO and its predecessor, GATT, were concluded before 1995, when, at that time, the European Union or its predecessor was not even a member of the WTO or GATT. As for the argument that you need to be a member of the so-called single market to trade with the single market, that is an equal nonsense. Indeed, exports into the single...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, not absolutely right: is it not the case that the masochistic energy policy pursued by the British Government at present leads to a carbon price floor five times the size of the carbon price in the rest of the European Union? Is that not crazy? What are the Government going to do about it?
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for saying quite clearly that trustees of pension funds have a single duty, which is to do what is best for the pensioners for whom they are responsible? The political considerations paraded today are neither here nor there. This is a complicated issue and scene, and it is for the pension fund trustees to do what is best for their pensioners.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: Will my noble friend confirm his answer to my noble friend Lord Higgins? Will he give an undertaking that the Scotland Bill will not proceed any further until the fiscal framework has been published?
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, I declare an interest as the present chairman of Vote Leave. Is it not clear that the trivial and inconsequential changes that the Prime Minister has secured—subject to legal challenge, of course—fall far, far short of the fundamental, far-reaching reform which three years ago in his Bloomberg speech he said was necessary? Is it not clear that the referendum on 23 June will be...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, as I well recall from my time as Energy Secretary, the North Sea oil and gas has had a glorious past. However, is it not clear that its future can be only a shadow of what it has been, and that the future of our indigenous oil and gas industry must lie in the exploitation of our shale resources, which are quite substantial? Will my noble friend undertake to go ahead with that as...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that none of the important objectives set out in the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech three years ago has been achieved? He committed himself then to securing a “fundamental, far-reaching” reform of the European Union. These inconsequential scraps are certainly not that. He committed himself to the process of returning powers from the Union to the...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, I was a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. I find myself in much the same place as the noble Lord and I will not repeat, therefore, all the things he has said. My greatest concern is that there was, sadly, in British banking examples of grotesque incompetence and irresponsibility right at the top, as has been borne out...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, the problem is that the Statement that my noble friend read out bears only the most tenuous relationship to what is actually happening in the real world. Is he not aware, for example, that back in the real world India has just announced plans to double its coal production by 2020? Is he not aware that in the real world, more than 2,500 coal-fired power stations are under...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, would my noble friend, whom I greatly respect, like to correct his Answer to my noble friend Lord Forsyth—
Lord Lawson of Blaby: Would my noble friend, whom I greatly respect, like to correct his Answer to my noble friend Lord Forsyth? In answering, he said that we had control of our borders. So far as the European Union is concerned, we do not. Even though we are not in Schengen, we do not have control of our borders.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, we all know the Mayor of London’s addiction to cycling, but is my noble friend Lord Higgins not absolutely right that what is happening now has done more damage, and is doing more damage, to London than almost anything since the Blitz? Is it not also hugely age discriminatory? There is a huge section of the population of a certain age, well represented in this House—I declare an...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, may I urge the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester to promote his Private Member’s Bill? This issue obviously needs discussion and I cannot think of a better way of launching that discussion.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that this country’s proud record of respecting human rights goes back well before the creation of the Strasbourg court? As far as courts are concerned, does he also agree that the membership of our Supreme Court is at least as distinguished as the membership of the Strasbourg court and that some would say more so?
Lord Lawson of Blaby: If the Minister will allow me, those of us who are not as expert as he is are getting a little puzzled. Can he help the House by giving practical examples of the sort of circumstances in which the UK Parliament would legislate on devolved matters? A few such examples would be helpful for us to understand precisely what this is getting at.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: Is the noble Earl, whom I greatly respect, aware that Professor Deaton received earlier this year the Nobel prize for economics? His subject is global poverty and one of his important findings is that official aid does more harm than good.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate but it seems to me, listening to the noble Baroness who has just sat down, who spoke with her usual eloquence, that she has given only one-half of the story. Government is a matter of making difficult choices. There are always good points on both sides, so it is right that another point of view should be expressed. I speak,...
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House was delighted with the news last month that the Nobel prize for economics had been awarded to a British economist, Professor Angus Deaton. It was awarded for his work on global poverty, on which he is the world’s leading expert. I commend to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate his best-known book, The Great Escape, which I suspect...
