Outcome of the EU Referendum — House of Lords, 2016-06-27
Topic: International Affairs
Tina Stowell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as always I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble and learned Lord for their responses and I will seek to provide answers to some of the questions they have put forward this afternoon. I must start by saying that the British people have decided that we should leave the European Union and our priority now must be making this decision work for everybody in the UK, whatever side of the debate we were on. I am proud that this Government promised a referendum and delivered it and that we trusted the people with this very important decision. I voted and campaigned for remain, but a decision has been made, it is a clear one and it is very important that we get on now with implementing that decision and doing so in a successful way for the benefit of everybody who lives here I turn to some of the comments and questions put forward by the noble Baroness and the noble and learned Lord. As the noble Baroness knows, I was very shocked, like everybody else, by the death of Jo Cox. On the points she made about racism and some of the things that have been said and done in recent times, I do not want to debate again the way the campaigns were conducted, but I want to make some important points. The first is that whatever the result of this referendum and our decision to leave the European Union, this country has not given up on its values. We are still the United Kingdom and our values remain exactly as they were. I would condemn anybody who used the result of this referendum as an opportunity to promote racism. If there is any evidence of that, we should all work together to stamp it out. I certainly urge anybody who has experienced any kind of hate crime or racism to alert the police to that straightaway and to know that they do so with the full support of every decent person who lives in this country The noble Baroness referred to the role of this House and to political leadership in this country. As I said in my initial remarks as I concluded the Prime Minister’s Statement, this House has an important role to play. It is important for us to demonstrate our value to the democratic process by offering something that is a bit different from the House of Commons. One of the ways I hope we are able to achieve this, through our debates over the next few weeks as we consider the way forward on leaving the European Union, is that we are a little less political than the other House. That is one thing that is important about us, for which we attract a lot of positive response On the noble Baroness’s question about our current legislative programme—she referred to the Investigatory Powers Bill—the Government were elected on our manifesto commitments. We have a clear mandate and an important legislative programme that we have to continue to deliver. The Investigatory Powers Bill is one of the very important pieces of legislation that will safeguard the security and safety of people here in the United Kingdom. As for the impact on any of our legislation, we are in the European Union until we are out of the European Union and we have not yet triggered the Article 50 process that will put that process in train. We must very much continue with our programme and we have a mandate for that programme from the election of only one year ago The noble Baroness asked about the devolved Administrations and the role of Parliament in overseeing the process over the coming weeks and months. The noble and learned Lord also asked about Parliament’s role and what opportunity it will have to contribute to the decisions before final exit is made. It is too early for me to say what that might be, but as I hope I have indicated, I see it as an important part of the process that Parliament has a serious opportunity in this House to debate and express its views, and there is a role for our European Union Committee and its sub-committees to play in this process The noble and learned Lord asked about a couple of things in addition to the topics that the noble Baroness raised, the main one being Scotland and Northern Ireland. The people of Scotland made a very clear decision only two years ago that Scotland should remain in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister has made it clear today—I very much echo the point—that in the way we proceed from here, we must work closely with the devolved Administrations. We will continue to do that, because we want to ensure that the way we exit from the European Union is to the benefit of all parts of the United Kingdom and all its people, so our constructive discussions will be a very big part of how we move forward from here.