Brexit

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, like all politicians, I am used to my words becoming out of date extremely quickly, but I do not think that I have ever been in a situation quite as awkward as this. I gather that, if I can announce it to the House, the Letwin amendment has been carried, so I am not sure where we stand. I am sure that the Minister or the Leader of the House, when the throngs return from the theatre where it is really happening to this B-list theatre, will be able to understand the way forward. I will cut my remarks short because they are obviously less relevant.

The last time we spoke about Europe, noble Lords opposite, with some support from the Cross Benches, were absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister did not want a deal—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was of that opinion. They said, “This is all a pretence: they do not want a deal. What they are trying to do is provoke the EU in order to reject the deal”. Well, that at least is one conspiracy theory that has been proved totally wrong. The Prime Minister got a deal, proved everybody wrong and delivered what people regarded as undeliverable.

I personally would have voted for Theresa May’s deal, but in many ways this one is an improvement. The UK will be completely free in terms of an independent trade policy. The direction of travel towards a free trade agreement is much more explicit than in the previous deal.

I recognise that it is not a perfect deal, and I sympathise with and understand some of the disquiet that the DUP feels. However, my noble friend Lord Howell made a very important point early in the debate when he said that the protocol referring to Northern Ireland will not come into effect until the end of 2020—and, indeed, as the Prime Minister indicated, it is possible that it might never come into existence because it might be folded into the free trade agreement. There is also the point that Northern Ireland could stand to gain very much from being in the customs union of both the EU and the UK.

Given that the Letwin amendment has been carried, I am sure that we will have much more extensive debates. One of the themes that has been very persistent from the Opposition, and I am sure will be made more of today, is their worry about deregulation, which my noble friend Lord Lilley touched on. I confess that I am little puzzled that the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, are quite so anxious about this and talk all the time about Singapore-on-Thames. The Government have repeatedly said that they want to maintain the highest standards of employment rights and environmental regulation. Any Government wanting to get elected feels the weight of public opinion. I am not a supporter of Singapore-on-Thames as a concept, but it beggars belief that anyone should believe that the whole corpus of millions of words in the acquis communautaire in Europe is incapable of alteration or improvement or that it is somehow not outdated or unnecessary. Having the freedom to choose whether to diverge or not to diverge is a logical consequence of Brexit. There is no logic to leaving the EU and being bound by laws that one does not have the freedom to alter.

One thing seems certain from the carrying of the Letwin amendment, which is that we will get more pressure on the issue of the second referendum, which has already been extensively canvassed in the debate today. Regardless of whether one favours leave or remain, I believe that a second referendum would be a profound mistake. We have been told again and again that we should not use the word “betrayal”, so I shall not, but it is difficult to know precisely what word one should use otherwise to describe the 17.4 million people who constituted the majority in a democratic vote in which they were told repeatedly that the decision would be made by them, not by Parliament and not by the Government. We all know that the second referendum device has been the tried-and-tested practice used by the EU to reverse the result of any referendum that went against integrationist treaties. We saw that in Ireland, Holland and Denmark. Mr Barroso famously remarked in 2005 that the people,

“must go on voting until they get it right”.

I am afraid that the word “confirmatory” does not alter the reality. It would be a terrible—the word I must not use—of the 17.4 million people.

One of the oddities of this debate has been how the remain side has concentrated entirely on economics. It has never mentioned the political direction in which Europe has been going. It was never mentioned in the referendum and has not been mentioned today. I wonder whether that side really believes that remainers knew what they might be voting for in the referendum. We have entered a new period of uncertainty with the Letwin amendment being carried. No doubt all sorts of amendments will be attempted. I hope that we will persist with this deal. I hope that we will see it through to the end. We need to end this uncertainty. It is time to settle what we thought we had settled three and a half years ago.

Brexit: Divergence from EU Standards

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the freedom to diverge from European regulations is, as the Prime Minister said, one of the important reasons for leaving the EU, although this will probably apply more to future regulation in evolving technologies such as fintech? Does he also agree that while, like any third country, such as the United States, we have to observe EU regulation when we sell into the EU market, when we sell into our own market or trade with each other it is a matter for the UK Parliament?

[Lord Callanan]

As always on these matters, my noble friend speaks great sense. I agree with the points that he has made. The ability to set our own regulations and to adopt a nimble and flexible approach to regulations on future technologies would be one of the great advantages of leaving the EU.

Brexit

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I too planned to talk about democracy, but I thought I would start by referring to a brief encounter I had with a policeman at the bottom of my staircase this morning. I arrived and said, “Good morning”, and he said, “Brexit today, ma’am”. I paused, and momentarily thought, “I wish”. Then I remembered that, as a Liberal Democrat, I clearly do not wish that it were Brexit today. But I suspect that I am not alone in wishing that we were not four years from the day when this House started to debate the European Union Referendum Act 2015, because for the past four years, we seem to have been debating the same issues day after day in a stultifying Chamber, in a stultifying parliamentary system, which seems not to be getting us very far.

The Minister suggested this afternoon that we are finally making progress—indeed, this debate is to note our withdrawal from the European Union—but it is not clear how close we are to withdrawal. There are questions about the nature of our withdrawal, what it will mean and where the United Kingdom ends up. Much of the rhetoric during the referendum was about voting leave, taking back control. Taking back control could mean whatever the voter wanted it to mean about borders. The Home Secretary yesterday seemed to get very excited about the opportunity to take back control of borders.

Another issue appeared to be taking back control to Parliament—bringing decisions back to the United Kingdom—because the leave campaign told us that the European Union is not democratic. Yet the European Union has free and fair periodic elections once every five years to elect the European Parliament. This year, that included the United Kingdom. We were not supposed to have European elections this year, but so glacial is the process of our departure that we did. The United Kingdom, like the other 27 members, has the opportunity to elect Members of the European Parliament. That is a type of democracy. The House of Commons is also democratically elected. The House of Commons and your Lordships’ House are supposed to take part in the legislative process, but also in scrutinising the Government.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, made clear in his opening remarks, one of the points that the Supreme Court made last week is that it is also up to this House to scrutinise the Government—yet we seem to have a Government who wish to ignore Parliament. We heard earlier in Questions about the role of special advisers and of one Mr Dominic Cummings, a special adviser to the Prime Minister who is in contempt of Parliament. What does it say about the Government’s approach to Parliament that such an important special adviser is in contempt of Parliament?

The attempt to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, if not a contempt of your Lordships’ House and the other place, suggests that Nikki da Costa, the director of legislative affairs, perhaps does not fully understand the role of Parliament. In the advice given to the Prime Minister, there was a suggestion that while 34 days might be lost through Prorogation, that was actually only five sitting days—as if sitting in plenary session is the only thing that Parliament does. Had that Prorogation taken effect, we would not be able to ask questions, the Government could not be held to account and committees could not sit—and that is what the Government seem to want.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

The noble Baroness is making an interesting speech about democracy, but would she explain one mystery that I really do not understand? How is it that the Liberal party was the first party to propose an in/out referendum on this issue? Indeed, the present leader of the Liberal party repeatedly criticised David Cameron for not proposing an in/out referendum before he did. How can the Liberal party, having been in that position, now say it is going to ignore the results of the referendum?

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, I am delighted to take that intervention, and particularly delighted that I am taking it not from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. Four years ago, when I was speaking from the Front Bench on the referendum Bill, I was intervened upon by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who, when I said I was rather sad to be having to speak in a debate about a referendum, reminded me that the Liberal Democrat position had indeed been to support an in/out referendum. That has been our party policy. Like that of other parties, the Liberal Democrat position is one—

I hear from a sedentary position something about opportunism. I am a Liberal Democrat; I believe in democracy. I did not vote against triggering Article 50. I personally accept the result of the referendum but, as we have already heard, Michael Gove, who is currently responsible for the Government’s no-deal preparations, also said we were not preparing for a no-deal Brexit. That was not what people voted for.

We are in a position in which Parliament is incapable of delivering Brexit unless this Prime Minister manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat with his letter to Jean-Claude Juncker.

I can hear my Whip saying “time”. However, I was intervened on, and nobody else has so far taken any notice of the Clock, so at this stage I am not going to either.

We are in a position in which the Government have not been able to deliver Brexit and Parliament has not been able to come to a solution. The way around that is another referendum. The Liberal Democrat position is that if a general election came first and we had a majority, we would want to revoke—so be it—but we are not at that stage.

I would have had another minute had I not been intervened on. I ask the Minister: what are the Government proposing to do? Unlike other noble Lords, I will assume that the Prime Minister gets his deal on 17 October and we get to the point of the House of Commons accepting the deal. That might be 19 or 21 October. Do we not need a withdrawal implementation Bill to deal with that agreement? How do the Government propose to get that through Parliament? There was filibustering from the Government Benches when we tried to get through a very brief piece of legislation before the non-Prorogation. This would be a much more serious piece of legislation. Do the Government really envisage getting it through both Houses in 10 days—calendar days, not working days? If so, how does the Minister propose to do that?

Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be opening, yet again, today’s debate. Before I begin, I ask noble Lords for their patience, as, like many Members of the House, I am struggling with rather a troublesome cough.

The Motion before the House asks us to take note of the further discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Those further discussions were set out in detail during a Statement repeated by my noble friend Lady Evans, the Leader of the House, yesterday. Today, both here and in the other place, we will be taking stock of our position and, in the other place, voting to help set the direction going forward.

Following the vote on 29 January and the mandate set by the other place, the Prime Minister and members of the Government, including my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, have been engaging with colleagues on all sides of the House and across Europe to find a way forward that will work for both sides. As my noble friend told the House yesterday, the Prime Minister was in Brussels last week to meet President Juncker, to take stock of the work that has been done by the UK and EU teams so far. The Prime Minister also discussed what legal changes are required to ensure that the backstop is temporary, along with whether there are additions or changes to the political declaration that could be made to secure Parliament’s confidence in this starting point for a strong and ambitious future relationship with the EU.

The Prime Minister has been engaging extensively with EU leaders over the past few weeks, and has now spoken to the leader of every other EU member state to explain personally the UK’s position. We have made good progress in our discussions, and that work continues so that we can leave on 29 March with a deal that commands the support of the other place.

Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I will not test the patience of the House by restating in full the Statement repeated yesterday by my noble friend the Leader. However, I would like to touch on a couple of the key points made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The UK and the EU have agreed to work on arrangements that will ensure the absence of a hard border in Northern Ireland, with the aim of avoiding the need for the backstop ever to be used, even in a scenario where the future relationship is not enforced by the end of the implementation period. Beyond the backstop, we have been working in other areas so that we can reach a deal that, again, the other place can support. The UK has a proud history of upholding and protecting standards in workers’ rights, environmental protections and health and safety. We are committed to ensuring that leaving the EU will not lead to the diminution of standards in those areas. The Prime Minister set out yesterday how we will bring forward proposals to uphold, and even strengthen, protections in areas such as workers’ rights and health and safety. We will do this engaging with colleagues across parties and with businesses and trade unions.

The Prime Minister has recognised MPs’ concerns that time is running out and Parliament will not be able to make its voice heard on the next steps, as well as concerns over the uncertainty facing businesses. She has set out a clear process that will guarantee that Parliament gets a vote on whether it wants to leave without a deal on 29 March and, if that is rejected, a vote on extending Article 50. The Prime Minister does not want to extend Article 50; she has never wished to do so.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. The Prime Minister has made a commitment that there will be a vote by the House of Commons as to whether it wishes to leave without a deal or not, but that is a resolution. The law of the land is that we leave on 29 March, as enshrined in the Act of Parliament. What is the significance of the vote? What will happen as a consequence of the vote if it is, let us say, against leaving with no deal? What would actually happen to alter the law?

[Lord Callanan]

As a consequence of that vote, nothing. What will then happen is that the following day the Government will ask the House of Commons whether it wishes to extend the Article 50 process. If the House decides that it wishes to do so for a short, time-limited period, the Government will introduce the necessary legislation—and will of course need to negotiate the relevant extension with the EU, as that is something that we cannot just decide to do unilaterally.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

Would the noble Lord comment on Article 24 of the GATT agreement?

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

Indeed, if there was a free-trade arrangement, then of course none of what I have said applies. However, I thought the essence of “no deal” was that there would be no deal. Those who advocate no deal and living by WTO rules should be honest about what these rules mean. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, was absolutely right in his description: no deal would be a disaster, and a managed no deal is a mirage.

The second development I want to mention is the Court of Justice’s finding on 10 December, which confirmed that we have an absolute right unilaterally to take back Mrs May’s letter and that this would bring the withdrawal process to an immediate end. The only stipulations are that the two-year period, or any extension of it, must not have expired; that our decision must involve a democratic process, not just an executive act—in other words, Parliament must have voted for revocation; and that the decision must be unequivocal and unconditional, which I assume means we could not withdraw the letter and resubmit it the following day. We could not just do so as a stratagem to reset the clock, undercutting both the two-year limit and the specific provision in Article 50 for securing extensions.

I was not surprised by the court’s ruling, although I admit that I was a little relieved. Had the court reached a different view my credibility might have dropped a little bit, since I have spoken on the subject once or twice before. But my relief must have been trivial compared with that of the Dantons and Marats of the Government Back Bench, who have argued regularly in the House—and a couple of them in the columns of the London Times—that revocation would entail a negotiation. They have warned us down the years that we would lose the Thatcher rebate, or be forced into Schengen or the euro. They must have been hugely reassured that the court confirmed that there would be no negotiation. The terms of our membership would not change and could not be changed to our disadvantage.

This establishes that the country has a third option. We do not have to settle for the Hobson’s choice of the May deal or no deal. There is the option of keeping the deal that we have, secured and improved by successive Governments. Public opinion polls, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, consistently show that that is the will of the people. The margin for months has been 8%. Interestingly, it rises to 16% if you ask people to compare the May deal and staying in, and to 26% if you ask people to compare no deal and staying in. Now that people have the facts and know that we cannot have our cake and eat it—that unicorns do not exist—they can make an informed choice. It is pretty clear what that is.

Of course, putting the question to the country would require an extension of the Article 50 period, but I have yet to meet anyone in Brussels who thinks that an extension for that purpose would be refused. Brexit, though worst for us, is bad for everybody. I would expect objections if we were seeking an extension purely to permit further posturing and prevarication, or further efforts to get the 27 to agree a legally binding text contradicting the legally binding treaty. But an extension to permit consulting the country would be easily obtained. Though, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, I do not relish the prospect of a second referendum, it seems it is now clearly the least worst option on the table.

I support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition. I hope that the Opposition will soon be able to return the favour and support a people’s vote as a responsible way to resolve the deadlock in the other place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, Charles James Fox once observed that no man worth his salt ever lost a night’s sleep over the fate of the nation. I cannot say that I have lost a night’s sleep over Brexit, but I worry because we do indeed face an extremely serious situation.

In principle, if possible, I would like to support the Prime Minister’s deal, but it is very difficult. However, whatever criticisms may be made of the Prime Minister’s deal, to my mind it has one great advantage. On 29 March, we will be well and truly removed from the threat of any further political union. I voted leave in the referendum primarily for political, not economic, reasons. Like, I suspect, millions of other people, I did not like the transfer of power away from our own national institutions to ones I regarded as less effective, less accountable and in which we had only a partial say. I voted for sovereignty.

Although I did not vote primarily for economic reasons, I do not accept the view, which has been the common assumption in this debate, that we will be worse off outside the EU. Those who argue that have to explain certain points. How is it that Switzerland, with such a high standard of living, is more integrated with the EU than we are and exports, per capita, four to five times as much as we do? How is it that non-members of the EU, such as the US, Japan or Australia, have increased their exports to the single market since it was created by considerably larger amounts than us, who are members of it? No doubt I will then be referred to the forecasts by the Treasury and the Bank of England. Leaving aside past criticisms of their forecasts, these forecasts, of course, have not been universally accepted. They have been trenchantly criticised by the noble Lord, Lord King, the former Governor of the Bank of England; Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winner; Andrew Sentance, formerly of the Monetary Policy Committee; and Roger Bootle. Among the points they have made have been the apparently exaggerated border costs of being outside the customs union. To some, those seem excessive when compared with Switzerland’s estimate of the cost of border compliance with the EU as only 0.1% of its trade.

Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches scoffed when the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, pointed out that the Bank of England forecasts did not actually show a reduction in living standards, as had been claimed, but a slower increase. He was, of course, quite right, but I accept that that poses the question: is this a risk worth taking, and is it likely to be proved right? It is worth noting that the calculations of the Bank of England and the Treasury came up with some very small differences in outcomes for different policies. They then multiplied them by a figure of eight years or 15 years in order to get a more visible, tangible number. It used to be said that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they had a sense of humour. Obviously, these economists took that point very seriously; does anyone really believe that it is possible to forecast what will happen to the economy 15 years ahead?

The key point about our economic future is that the importance of external trade can be exaggerated. Trade matters of course, but our future does not depend on trade alone, let alone trade with the EU. Our future and what our living standards will be in 15 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, has pointed out repeatedly, depend much more on the domestic policies that we follow: supply side reforms, investment in infrastructure, increasing competition and having sound finances. Our future is in our own hands.

The Prime Minister’s proposed deal, alas, seems largely likely to fail in the House of Commons because of the Irish backstop. I shall not repeat the objections, other than the inability of the UK to withdraw unilaterally from the backstop with no fixed date. Does this matter? Some noble Lords have argued that they would never have expected a unilateral right of termination, but many trade deals have such a right of termination, and the absence of one leaves us in the position where, having paid our ransom money of £39 billion, we are highly exposed in the next stage of the negotiations. If, by any chance, the negotiations did drag on, as some forecast, for many years, could we really accept that for all that time, companies in the UK would not be able to send goods to another part of the UK without checks? We are rightly very sensitive about the border between Northern Ireland and the south, but we should also be sensitive to unionist concerns about an invisible border in the Irish Sea. The Prime Minister seems to have signed up to something she said no Prime Minister of the UK could sign up to. We are told, “Don’t worry, the EU won’t want the backstop to continue indefinitely”. If so, why does it not alter it? We need a change in the mechanism or the exit from it. I believe many MPs who at present cannot accept the deal would swallow it if there were changes in the exit mechanism and it could be shown that the backstop was temporary. If the backstop were temporary, many things that are objectionable in the deal would also be temporary.

The Government seem in a terrible muddle over no deal. The Prime Minister says that it is this deal or no deal, which she implies means chaos. Why did she ever say that no deal is better than a bad deal? If she did not believe it, it is hardly surprising that it did not carry any weight in the negotiations. If she did believe it, she must have believed that preparation was possible in the time available, and, if so, why have the Government not made proper preparation? Or perhaps the situation is as a civil servant has written in a national newspaper: “We’ve made preparations but the Government do not want people to know that”.

No deal or trading on WTO terms has never been my first option, and I do not say that there are no issues, but it has been ridiculously demonised—almost literally so by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to think that anyone who supports it should go to hell. No deal might be challenging, and I accept that there might be problems with it, but the director-general of the WTO, Mr Azevêdo, has said that changing to WTO terms,

“doesn’t mean that we’ll have a vacuum or a disruption”.

There have been a lot of Don Quixotes tilting at imaginary windmills. If Parliament rejects the withdrawal agreement and we leave the EU without a deal and have to trade on WTO terms, that is not the only or automatic option for trading with the EU. In those circumstances, we should keep all tariffs with the EU as they are now—at zero—and say that we would like to take up Donald Tusk’s offer to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU. Provided that both sides agree that they want to negotiate such an agreement, under Article XXIV of the GATT agreement both sides would be able and allowed legally to keep tariffs as they are, at zero, for a prolonged transitional period. It should not take that long, as we start from a position where we have already harmonised regulation and free trade.

I wait to see what comes out of the Prime Minister’s talks. I hope that there will be something that makes the agreement more acceptable, but we should not talk ourselves into a crisis and imagine problems that will not be as great as are sometimes portrayed. The solutions and answers are there and in our own hands.

Brexit: People’s Vote

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, who spoke with authority, eloquence and transparent sincerity. None the less, I profoundly disagree with him. There are good reasons to argue against a second referendum—reasons that even remainers ought to think about extremely carefully. I was pleased that the noble Lord did not—except in his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes—use the phrase “people’s referendum”, which seems to me an Orwellian use of language, designed to conceal meaning. He knows as well as I do the arguments against the use of that phrase, and so I shall not weary the House by going on about them. However, it is, frankly, a dishonest use of language to say that this would be a people’s referendum in some sense more democratic than the first.

In addition to other arguments, some practical questions have to be put about a second referendum. First, how long would it take to hold a second referendum? We have no standing law to permit the holding of referendums, so it would require legislation. People who have looked at it think that at best, if we were lucky, it might be a year before we could implement a referendum.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am sorry, but I have only four minutes. The noble Lord will be able to speak later.

A second issue is: what would the question be? Some say it ought to be on the deal that has been negotiated; some say it ought to be on no deal. Would the choice on the ballot paper be between the existing deal and no deal, or for renegotiation on terms yet to be revealed? If the result was that we had to renegotiate the renegotiation, would we then have a third referendum to validate the second referendum? On what terms would we rejoin the EU—or could there be a fourth referendum to validate the third referendum?

The noble Lord did not really refer to the many assurances that were given in the referendum campaign, by all parties, that we would honour the result. The fundamental impression is that many people simply cannot accept the democratic result of the referendum. This, of course, is in the long tradition of the EU, which has in the past bulldozed through policies for integration, even when public opinion has been cautious or opposed to them. Since the EU was founded, there have been no fewer than 48 referendums held on integration measures and accession. Not once has a referendum been rerun when the vote was in favour of integration, even when it was by a narrower majority than that in the referendum we had. On two separate occasions and on two separate issues, Ireland had to run a referendum again; the Danes had to run another referendum; and the French and the Dutch were not allowed to have the result of their referendums on the constitution accepted.

Some EU spokesmen have been quite open about this. In 2005, Mr Barroso said:

“They must go on voting until they get it right”.


Mr Juncker, again in 2005, before the French referendum, said:

“If it is a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No, we will say ‘we continue’”.


Raymond Barre, the former Prime Minister of France, said he could not see why the public should be consulted at all about European integration. It was precisely because of this that many people voted to leave the EU. Tony Blair, who one would have thought could have used his experience and contacts to help the Government, has said that the result of a second referendum would have to be definitive and respected. Big deal—that is what he said last time about the referendum we had.

Some people say that a second referendum would be a healing process. That seems the most improbable argument of all. It would create a permanent division in our politics. People already feel great disillusionment and disdain for our system is widespread. I believe that a second referendum would be a disaster of the first order for democracy. It would undermine the very basis of democracy because it would suggest that a decision by a majority is insufficient to make that decision legitimate.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, referred to and dismissed people who say it would be undemocratic to have a second referendum. But it was the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, himself—who has, I am sorry to see, left the Chamber; perhaps rather conveniently—who just before the referendum result said:

“When the British people have spoken, you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t”.


Well, I believe in democracy.

Brexit: Preparedness for EU Exit

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

As the noble Baroness is aware, we have already had the a people’s vote and the people voted to leave, but we will be exploring this subject extensively in the next few hours in response to the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. As I said, we remain confident of reaching an agreement with the EU, but it is only sensible for government and industry to prepare for a range of scenarios. We continue to work closely with a range of partners on the appropriate contingency plans to ensure that trade can continue to move as freely as possible between the UK and Europe in the event of no deal—which, I repeat, is not an outcome that we wish.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

Has my noble friend noted the statement this week by President Macron of France in which he said that although no deal was undesirable, no deal should not be a cause for panic? He specifically said that ferries would operate, trains would continue to run through the tunnel, planes would continue to serve as normal and business would go on.

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We know that the French National Assembly and the French Government are putting in place preparations for no deal, as are many European countries. That is the responsible thing to do, and I am really not sure why the Opposition think it is such a bad thing to put in place sensible contingency plans.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

The noble Baroness said “the chances are”; that was the operative phrase in her remarks.

It is often said in our debates that the purpose of the amendment put forward is to give the other place the opportunity to think again. It is a powerful argument, which has influenced many of your Lordships in putting forward amendments and in voting for them. I submit that it is not necessary to defeat the Government to achieve that objective with these amendments.

I shall say one more thing before I sit down. Many of your Lordships—conspicuously not my noble friend Lord Hailsham—have vociferously denied any intention to delay Brexit. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord True gives effect to those denials. The only people who need have any concern about the effect of the amendment put forward by my noble friend are those who indeed desire to delay Brexit. I therefore congratulate my noble friend on his amendment, and should he wish to test the opinion of the House on it, I for one will vote in its favour. The one thing that should not happen is that a message goes out from this House that this unelected Chamber is determined to delay the implementation of the wishes of the British people.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I support the Motion moved by the Minister and oppose that put forward in both versions by my noble friend. He spoke with enormous force and eloquence; he left very little for the day of judgment. I am going to have Sunday lunch with him in a few days’ time, and I shall make sure that I am at the other end of the room, at the other end of the table.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am going there for a family celebration—his family.

There has been an extraordinary set of manoeuvres in the House of Commons. I see that my noble friend Lord Dobbs is in his place. As the author of “House of Cards”, he must have wondered whether he had been given a whole lot of new episodes when we saw the Chief Whip, not chucking people off the roof of the Palace of Westminster but crawling on his knees, rather like a courtier at the court of the King of Siam—the role of the king being played by the right honourable and learned Dominic Grieve.

After all these negotiations—I cannot comment on what was said or not—it is clear that the Government have moved a very long way indeed. If we take Grieve I, version 1, the Government have accepted proposed new sub-paragraphs (5A) and (5B), which would have been inserted at line 37, although there is still some difference on proposed new subsection (5C) of Grieve I. I appreciate that my noble friend Viscount Hailsham has also moved in his latest manuscript amendment, because he has moved away from the specific word “direction” to the issue of amendment instead; I have a question for the Leader of the House about this, which I will put to her in a few minutes. One is bound to ask, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, hinted, why we have this extraordinarily convoluted process here, with a codification of what will happen at each stage. I know that people are very suspicious, but is this really necessary in parliamentary procedure when we could easily, at any stage, have Motions of censure or Motions of no confidence? The very prospect of a Motion of no confidence is bound to concentrate the Government’s mind. There are many ways in which the House of Commons can hold the Government to account and, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, there are many ways, other than this very complicated process, in which the Government can be held to account.

It is important to be clear about the exact differences. There have been many modifications, with Grieve I, Grieve II and the amendment put forward by the Government, but what are the differences from the changes that have been made? One is that they give the Government more control over the timetable, and another is the use of the word “neutral”. The Leader of the House, in moving the government Motion, referred to it being neutral simply to avoid it being amended. By that, does she mean that, if it were amended, that would be tantamount to a direction, as in the original version of Grieve I? Can she comment on the point raised by my noble friend Lord Hailsham about whether that would be justiciable? There was a suspicion—I say suspicion but of course it would be a very good reason—that the Government had put forward a neutral Motion as an option because they did not want this to be justiciable and did not want to get into the maze of the courts. I strongly agree with that but I would very much like to hear her comments on it.

What is the motive for this extraordinarily convoluted process? The right honourable and learned Dominic Grieve has said several times that it is to stop what he calls—the word was repeated by my noble friend Lord Hailsham—the “calamity” of no deal. On 12 June at col. 764, Dominic Grieve said that the purpose of his original amendment, if there is no deal, was to provide a mechanism whereby it goes to the House. However, I cannot think why the right honourable and learned gentleman, distinguished as he is, thinks that the Government, in the event of no deal, could avoid having to discuss it with Parliament. Obviously it would come to Parliament—it would be a major event. Do we really have to write it down with all these complicated provisions?

[Noble Lords]

Yes.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Noble Lords opposite are living in a slight fantasy land if they think we could reach no deal without there being a very long debate and a whole set of arguments in the House of Commons.

At no stage have I been an advocate of no deal in the negotiations, but not advocating no deal does not mean that we should rule it out in all circumstances, and it does not mean that you should rule it out as being on the table as a negotiating tactic. If, as Dominic Grieve has suggested, we make no deal completely unthinkable, we in effect undermine the position of our negotiators. If our negotiators cannot walk away from the table or if the other side—Monsieur Barnier and so on—know that they cannot do so, all the other side has to do is to sit there rejecting things until we eventually agree with everything it wants. Ruling out no deal completely as an option, even as a theoretical negotiating objective, would place the Government in an impossible position.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment we are discussing does not rule out no deal; it lays down what will happen if there is no deal. There is a fundamental difference between the two.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

But we are also talking about Motions and amendments, and the distinction was the very point I was making. Although my noble friend Lord Hailsham has removed the word “direction”, we have to consider what is meant by having amendments and the purpose of insisting that a Motion that the Government bring forward should be unamendable.

The second reason put forward, in addition to making no deal an impossibility, is parliamentary sovereignty. I do not wish to be too aggressive about this but to many of us this seems a very ironic reason when, for year after year in European matters, parliamentary sovereignty has just been ignored. A fundamental point, however, that we cannot forget is that on this issue we have ceded sovereignty to the people of this country. That is what we did when we held the referendum. Noble Lords talk about a meaningful vote but it seems that they want to make the vote on the referendum meaningless; the vote on Article 50, meaningless; and the election itself in which—

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I will give way in a minute. Noble Lords want to make meaningless the result of the election, in which the overwhelming majority of people voted for parties wanting to support the result of the referendum. These were all meaningful votes as much as anything that is proposed in this amendment.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Can he elaborate on a statement he has just made? Four months ago, I asked the noble Lord who will be responding tonight to make it absolutely clear that the sovereignty of Parliament is supreme over everything that happens in this country, subject always to alliances, and that the sovereignty of Parliament could not be undermined by a referendum or by two referendums. Incidentally, for four months, the Minister has refused to respond to communications on this subject. The noble Lord has just said that we “ceded” sovereignty to the people though a referendum. Does he stand by that? Is parliamentary sovereignty no longer supreme in this country?

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Parliament held a debate, Parliament voted, and Parliament decided to hold a referendum on this issue and to be bound by that referendum. Whatever the theoretical constitutional position of a referendum, many statements were made on both sides that we would be bound by the result of that referendum.

[Lord Garel-Jones]

Parliament authorised the referendum but it did not authorise the outcome of the discussions. That is what the Supreme Court has ruled.

[Noble Lords]

Article 50!

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

That of course is what Article 50 was about but it is also true that, during the election and during the referendum campaign, many commitments were made over and over again that we would honour the result of the referendum.

The most objectionable part of the original amendment, Grieve mark I, was the use of the word “direction”. To my mind, it obviously was impractical for Parliament to direct the Government in every aspect of the negotiation if there were a situation in which there was no deal. It is one thing for Parliament to direct our own Government as to what they can accept or propose, but what it has no control over is what the other side will accept. Therefore, by saying that Parliament would direct the negotiations, we would be forcing the negotiators to go to the other side with a list of things that we knew it would be able to accept, and, as I say, all flexibility would be removed from the negotiations.

Then we have the question: if Parliament is going to be directed, how will it be directed? There are 650 different Members of Parliament—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I would like to make a little progress, if I may. How would the will of Parliament be determined? It would be determined through political parties in the normal way, put down in the form of Motions in the House of Commons. I put it to the House that, really, this long and convoluted procedure would have little difference from the way Parliament would behave without this amendment being put in place at all.

Subject to the clarification from the Leader of the House about the Motion being justiciable and the reasons why we want it to be unamendable, I strongly support the amendment tabled by the Government and urge the House to reject that put forward by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, the noble Lord asks about justiciability. It is one of the most fundamental principles of our constitution that the courts do not and will not regulate proceedings in Parliament. Therefore, a court would presume, in the absence of the clearest statement to the contrary, that none of these amendments—in particular Amendment F3—is intended to depart from this fundamental principle. That is especially so when the mover of the amendment makes it clear that he does not intend to depart from that fundamental principle. In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, it seems to me that the sanctions for any breach would be political, but they certainly would not be legal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, is absolutely right to draw our attention to the constitutional dangers that lurk within the amendment. It goes too far to bind the Government.

I think it is time that we drew breath. We have had a very exciting couple of weeks but it is time to think about the respective roles of the Executive and Parliament and of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as other noble Lords who have spoken have done. Parliament is not the Government and it should not try to usurp their role. Of course the Government emanate from Parliament and are accountable to it, the Government should be advised by Parliament and are invigilated and sustained by it, and if they lose the confidence of Parliament then they fall, but the Government are not the same as Parliament and Parliament is not the same as the Government. We have a separation of powers. The Government are the Executive, and Parliament neither can nor should act as the Executive.

It was improper and inept for the Government ever to suppose that they could bypass Parliament in dealing with Brexit. Of course there must be a meaningful vote, but it is for the Government to negotiate, listening all the time to Parliament—Parliament constantly proffers its advice—and then eventually to submit the deal that they have negotiated to Parliament for its approval or otherwise. You can call it a take-it-or-leave-it vote, but nobody could say that that is not a meaningful vote.

Dominic Grieve, someone for whom I have the greatest respect and the warmest regard, justified his amendment to Clause 9, requiring that the final terms of the deal should be approved by a statute, on the basis that it was essential to prevent the Government exercising the biggest Henry VIII power ever. That was an understandable and legitimate motive, but to require that the deal should be approved by the laborious process of statute seems to me to go too far in an inappropriate direction. Parliament cannot negotiate. Parliament certainly cannot negotiate by legislation or amendment. It cannot change the deal, it cannot bind the European Union. It can bind the Government in an excessively narrow straitjacket, and that would be an extraordinarily unhelpful thing to do in the national interest. The process of legislating such a statute would serve only to prolong the uncertainty about which everyone complains.

Amendment 49 would develop the Grieve amendment and take it further. It repeats the requirement for a statute already in Clause 9, but doubles up with the requirement for a resolution. It then goes further. Proposed new subsection (5) states that if the House of Commons does not approve the draft terms, the Government “must follow any direction” given by the House of Commons. That seems to me the most extraordinary provision. Of course, legislation routinely binds Governments for the future, but it does not tie their negotiating hand. It should not, specifically, tie this Government’s hands as they seek to perform this particular complex, sensitive, immensely difficult, crucial set of negotiations.

The resolution could say anything. It could say, “Go back to the negotiating table”. It could stipulate that the Government deliver what is undeliverable. It could rescind Article 50. It could call for a general election or another referendum. These are exceedingly important matters where the Government should listen to Parliament, but the Government should lead and Parliament should respond.

If we reflect on the relationship between your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons and our respective responsibilities, surely it is our responsibility to advise the House of Commons, to advise the Government. In the words of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, it is to suggest, to argue, to explain. It is no part of this House’s responsibility to seek to manipulate the House of Commons or the Government, to seek to choreograph future proceedings of the House of Commons, and certainly no part of our responsibility effectively to pull the rug from under the Government.

If we pass this amendment and some of the others on the Marshalled List today, I fear that we shall be getting too big for our constitutional boots, and many of our fellow countrymen feel the same.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hailsham made an eloquent and powerful speech. If I had closed my eyes, I might have thought I was listening to his father. However, despite his eloquence, he did not go very deeply into the detail of his amendment. I wish to support what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and my noble friend Lord Howard said.

The first part of the amendment, proposed new subsections (1) to (3), it might be argued, roughly and broadly mirror what the Government themselves have outlined: a resolution in the House of Commons, the withdrawal Bill, primary legislation and trying to get a vote before the European Parliament has voted. But my noble friend Lord Hailsham then inserts a series of triggers with rigid dates. If the vote of approval has not taken place by 30 November, if the Act of Parliament has not received Royal Assent by 31 January, and if the withdrawal agreement has not been agreed by 28 February, a whole lot of things happen. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, highlighted, what happens is that the House of Commons or Parliament effectively takes over negotiations and can impose conditions. This is a most extraordinary thing. It has never been the case before that Parliament has dictated how a Government should negotiate a treaty, but this is what would happen under the provisions of the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, Parliament could dictate all sorts of things: it might dictate that the Article 50 notice be withdrawn or it might dictate, although it would perhaps be subject to dispute, that Article 50 was extendable. This would be for Parliament to assume extraordinary powers in a way that has never happened before. It would be a major constitutional innovation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I said that during the debate that was said. The truth is that, if you ask the people to have a vote, Parliament, having given them a mandate to have a vote, politically cannot come back and say, “Thanks very much, you’ve had your vote but, actually, we are going to ignore it”. Everybody knows that that is not realistic politics.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Does the noble Lord remember that in 2008, when other people were not advocating a referendum and there was no renegotiation, Nick Clegg put forward the idea that there should be what he called a real referendum—an in/out referendum? If that had come to pass, what would the Liberals have done if the people had voted no and wanted to leave, and there was no renegotiation? Would that have been binding or not?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that was in the completely different context of the Lisbon treaty. In previous debates in your Lordships’ House, a number of noble Lords have thrown at me what former leaders of my party have said. I would just ask the noble Lord, as we are talking about former leaders, whether he agrees with his former leader, Sir John Major, when he made a speech earlier this year and said, of this debate:

“Peers must ignore any noises off, and be guided by their intellect and their conscience”.


To revert to the point that I was attempting to make, on Brexit Parliament gave the initial decision to the people; it is in no position now to take a stand on parliamentary sovereignty on this issue. On Brexit, the horse has well and truly bolted.

It is sometimes argued that people are fed up with Brexit and want to leave it to Parliament and get on and implement it, but that is simply not the case. All recent polling shows that a majority of people now want to have a final say. A poll by YouGov earlier this month, for example, showed that by a majority of 44% to 36% there was support for such a vote. So this is not just the remoaners and, with figures like that, sadly, it is not just the Liberal Democrats. It is a view very widely shared, including by government supporters. In a recent poll of Conservative voters, by a majority of 43% to 34%, almost identical to that of the country as a whole, they said that they now wanted a vote on the issue.

So, what are the objections to the proposed amendment? First, it is argued that it is too soon to put such a provision into legislation. However, just look at the timetable. This Bill will receive Royal Assent sometime in June at the earliest. The Government believe that they will negotiate a withdrawal agreement by the end of October, a claim confirmed by the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU before a Commons Select Committee last week. If we take the Government at their word, this means that the approval resolution, provided for in the amendment which the House has just passed, could be brought before Parliament within 20 weeks of the Bill gaining Royal Assent and before any further legislative opportunity to provide for the referendum option had presented itself.

Far from being premature, this amendment is extremely urgent. It is argued by some members of your Lordships’ House that, if the Commons were to reject a Brexit deal, the correct next step should be a general election, rather than a referendum. However, this is a poor alternative. As last year’s general election showed, the issues which dominate a campaign at the start are sometimes very different from those which do so at the conclusion. At that election, polling showed that, in the last crucial days of the campaign, Brexit was supplanted by terrorism as the most important issue in many people’s minds. In any new election, health, education, jobs, housing, the qualities of the rival leaders, and issues which unexpectedly flare up in the campaign itself—as terrorism did in last year’s—would determine how many people voted. An election is, therefore, an extremely unsatisfactory mechanism for taking the people’s view on any single issue.

It is argued that a referendum would be too divisive but, in the circumstances of the Commons voting against a Brexit deal, to deny the people a final say would be even more divisive.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 1, moved so persuasively by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and Amendment 4. I want to speak briefly to Amendments 2 and 5 in my name, which are coupled with them and essentially seek the same goal.

Noble Lords may remember that in Committee I moved the very first amendment on the issue of maintaining a customs union with the EU after our membership ceases. We had an excellent debate at that stage so I will not repeat the detailed arguments, save to remind the House of one central point: having tariff-free trade in goods with the European Union and the 56 countries with which the European Union has an agreement is fundamentally important—not only to Wales but throughout the UK—to our manufacturers and farmers. It also opens the door to resolving the Irish border question, as has been said.

I accept—reluctantly—that we are leaving the European Union. That is not the issue in this debate. The question is how we leave without weakening or severing our vital trade links. By passing either of these amendments, we give MPs an opportunity to return to this central issue. Without such an amendment, they will be unable to do so. They need such a facility because so much has changed in the time that has elapsed since they passed this Bill last year. We must enable them to fine-tune the Bill to meet the requirements of exporters, manufacturers and farmers. MPs will have the last word, and rightly so, but by passing either amendment we give them the opportunity to endorse a better Bill that is fit for purpose and more acceptable to those whom it affects. I urge colleagues on all sides to unite in passing such an amendment and I urge the Government to accept the outcome.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, both the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and my noble friend Lord Patten made extremely powerful speeches. Both of them referred to trade with the EU representing 50% of our exports. I think that the figure is actually a little lower than that, nearer 45%; I make that point not to argue over the absolute figure but the direction of travel.

One of the points that was not made in either speech is how the pattern of our trade has been changing and a much higher proportion of our trade was with the EU 10 or 15 years ago. This is because Asian markets and other countries—I agree that they are all small markets at the moment—have cumulatively been growing as a share of our trade. The question in considering the amendment is, which is better for the future trend of our trade: remaining in the customs union or the Government’s alternative—which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not really put forward—of a free trade agreement with the EU? We are talking not just about the customs union, but the customs union while being outside the EU—that is, being in the customs union but not an EU member—which is a very different matter, for reasons that I will come on to.

We have to be clear in our minds about the difference between a customs union and a free trade area. A customs union has free trade between its members but an external tariff and rules against non-members. A free trade area has reduced or zero tariffs between its members but allows individual members to have differing external tariffs and non-tariff controls on imports from non-members. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, referred to the question of rules of origin—that is, goods that come from outside the free trade area but which have to qualify to go into other countries by having a certain percentage of the content being made locally. The EU is a customs union but has free trade relations with European states outside the EU, such as Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. This means that, despite being inside the single market, they have control over external tariffs and the administrative costs are greatly reduced by modern customs procedures, such as electronic pre-clearance and trusted trader arrangements.

In his speech on the customs union, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, concentrated just on what happens at the border. I would argue that a customs union is not just about tariffs; it has implications for the single market. It is related to the whole issue of the rules and definitions that make up the single market. This is made very clear on the European Commission’s website, which defines the customs union like this:

“The Customs Union is a foundation of the European Union and an essential element in the functioning of the single market. The single market can only function properly when there is a common application of common rules at its external borders … These common rules … go beyond the Customs Union as such—with its common tariff—and extend to all aspects of trade policy, such as preferential trade, health and environmental controls”,


agriculture and fisheries,

“the protection of our economic interests by non-tariff instruments and external relations policy measures”.