Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

My Lords, we on these Benches note with interest the call from the noble Lord, Lord True, for a substantial increase in our defence spending—and no doubt for the higher taxes to pay for it. We also think that the correct adjective to describe the Government’s approach to the EU is not ruthless but timid. It is timid in defining a reset by the negatives of what we are not doing, rather than what we are doing. It is timid because we are not really investing in finding out what we require and what costs and benefits that would have. I want to ask the Minister: first, are we rebuilding the expertise in Whitehall, which we had abandoned in recent years, on how the EU works, on relations with the Commission and on the complications of regulations in the European Union, which we have to relate to and which I think a great many people now simply do not understand? Secondly, since we are clearly heading towards the sort of relationship that Switzerland has with the European Union—untidy, painful but necessary—are we spending a lot of time talking to the Swiss about the difficulties of their relations with the European Union? That is where we are likely to end up if this timid half-reset proceeds within the boundaries which the Government, frightened of the Daily Mail as they are, are about to pursue.