Brexit: European Union-derived Rights

Debate between Lord Bilimoria and Lord Rooker

Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I support both the Motions but want to address the second one, or what is behind it: in other words, the role of Parliament.

I have much in common with the Minister. I was a remainer and I accept the vote count of 23 June. Indeed, there are not really two sides anymore but the language of contest is still used. It is because I am a democrat that I accept the vote count and it is because I am a democrat that I accept the rule of law. Parliament is sovereign, not the Government, and it is Parliament’s role to protect the rule of law. As such, it has to be Parliament’s role to consider and judge the terms of fundamental changes to our way of life. Governments come and go via Parliament, or in this case through an ill-thought-out advisory referendum held for more purposes than just to remain or leave the EU.

It is in my view more important to protect Parliament than the Government. A Joint Committee would help considerably in this respect. In fact, the Supreme Court case in some ways helped in respect of protecting the rule of law, and at some point will probably need to do so again. When the people voted on 23 June, it was simple—leave or remain. They knew that the Government’s view was to remain, as set out in the booklet sent to every home in the country. They knew then that the Government had abandoned the idea of an advisory referendum and that the decision would be implemented. They also knew that there was a set of rules around the decision, to the extent, for example, that it was not the Government who drafted the question but the Electoral Commission. They knew that there were rules about the funding of the two strands of opinion. Parliament had set out those rules so there was confidence. However, in the last couple of months, any informed person has to be concerned by the extensive reporting by Carole Cadwalladr in the Observer of 26 February and 2 April, to refer to just two of the very long articles. I have never met nor had contact with Ms Cadwalladr, but I contacted the Electoral Commission in February following the first of the three-page articles and received this response on 8 March:

“I can confirm the Electoral Commission has begun an assessment in respect of Leave.EU’s spending return at the EU Referendum to determine whether or not there are potential offences under the law that require investigation. Our assessment is focused on whether any donation—including services—was made by Cambridge Analytica or Goddard Gunster to Leave.EU; whether those donations, if any, were from a permissible source and whether Leave.EU spending return was complete. Given the high public interest in the returns submitted by campaigners, the Commission will announce the outcome of its assessment in due course”.


I suspect that that response will be made public to others.

Accepting the vote count of 23 June, therefore, we need Parliament to play a key role, as via these proposed Motions. There must be concern that the major donor to Leave.EU is now quoted as saying:

“I don’t give a monkey’s what the Electoral Commission says”,


and:

“We were … cleverer than the regulators and the politicians. Of course we were”.


To me, that is an admission of “cheating”—that they were cleverer than the regulator, the Electoral Commission. The self-confessed cheat Mr Banks is planning to unseat “bad MPs”, via an unregistered organisation. Therefore, Parliament itself is now under threat from dark money, as we have not yet passed the legislation introducing unexplained wealth orders—I suspect that he will be the first candidate for one of those.

Passing these two Motions will send a signal to those who threaten democracy with secret funds and by cheating election regulators. Indeed, it is a wake-up call which, if we fail to answer it, will put Parliament, not the Government, in peril. When I hear a Brexit extremist raise these concerns, I will know the battle of the referendum is over and the battle for Parliament has begun.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, following the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the important part about these two Motions is that they say that once again, Parliament should be at the heart of everything. Let us not forget that straight after the referendum, the Prime Minister and the Government wanted to bypass Parliament altogether.

On so-called independence day, 29 March, I was on a radio programme following Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond battling it out. Nigel Farage said, “This is independence day—the day we got our country back”. We never lost our country. Philip Hammond said that,

“we can’t cherry pick. We can’t have our cake and eat it”.

The irony is that we had our cake and were able to eat it too—we had the best of both worlds.

What nobody mentions, and people overlook, is: why the promised rush into triggering Article 50 by 31 March of this year? It is a self-imposed deadline. The answer is very simple: the Prime Minister wants this two-year process to be over, to put it to bed so that she can go into the next election and get re-elected. In every other way, this timing is madness. We have the French and German elections coming up, and we will lose six months of these two years when Europe will be completely distracted. Why rush into it now and try to bypass Parliament altogether?

If you look at the letter that was written, it very clearly admits how complex these negotiations will be. I believe that the letter also shows that the British people have been completely misled. The Conservative Party manifesto very clearly stated that staying in the single market was a priority. Now the Prime Minister, from her Lancaster House speech and then on 29 March, has said that we will not stay in the single market. Had the British people known this and been told this by the leave campaign, many would not have voted to leave. In fact, if British businesses—small, medium and large—had been told, “You vote to leave and you will be leaving the single market”, they would not have done.

What about these 3 million people and their rights? What about the fact that our unemployment is less than 5%—what would we do without these 3 million people? We would have a labour shortage in this country. We are up against it. We need Parliament to be involved because this is not a balanced negotiation. We are one against 27, against the European Commission, against the European Council, and against the European Parliament. Therefore, getting this done in two years, with the bureaucracy that exists in Europe, and dealing with all these countries, will be very difficult.

What about the rights of these European Union nationals? How many of them are there? By the way, on this figure of 3.2 million, we do not know the exact figure. Why? I came back from a short visit to India this morning and came through the passport checks. You scan your passport when you come into the country, but when you leave this country, nobody checks your passport. Every single passport, European Union or not, should be scanned in and scanned out. Then we would know who is in this country, and these European Union citizens, for example, would be able to say, “I’ve stayed here for five years—I’ve got the right to stay regardless”. Why will the Government not bring in those visible extra checks? That would give us security over our borders—and we are not in Schengen.

Now we have the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, saying that he has told a delegation of EU citizens that he wants to have an agreement in principle to secure the future of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens throughout Europe by the end of the year. However, he had to admit that it would be late 2018 before he could strike a deal with the UK. Can the Minister tell us why we cannot do this quicker?

We hear that record numbers of EU citizens quit working in the NHS last year. Can he confirm that? As we have heard before, EU nationals are being denied mortgages because of this. The Institute of Directors said just yesterday, very clearly, that a guarantee for EU citizens after Brexit would reduce uncertainty for IoD members. Allie Renison of the IoD said:

“Just under 40 per cent of our members employ EU nationals. You’d be surprised about the amount of nervousness that is genuinely giving to a lot of these employees”.


This is a human issue.

The House of Commons Exiting the European Union Committee has not been spoken about much here. Its report has just been released, in which it said:

“Sadiq Khan told us that uncertainty over the rights of one million Londoners who are EU citizens is feeding into uncertainty in business recruitment”.


The committee clearly said:

“The status of EU nationals in the UK and UK nationals living elsewhere in the EU cannot be left unresolved until the end of the two-year period for negotiations”.


It urges the Government to sort this out now and says:

“We note that, to date, Ministers have not taken this step. The debate around whether ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ has focussed on the trade aspects of the future relationship. If the negotiations were to end prematurely without an agreement on rights for the 4 million, this could put them in an uncertain position”.


The committee’s recommendation is very clear. There should be,

“a stand-alone and separate deal which is otherwise not dependent on any other exit or future trade deal being agreed to between the parties”.

Will the Minister agree with this?

I conclude with the whole concept of “no deal is better than a bad deal”. This is absolutely ridiculous. It is now clear that the Government have said that it is unsubstantiated—they have not even done the homework. Looking at the report prepared by the Select Committee, there is such complexity: the timescale for reaching agreement, Gibraltar has suddenly come up, there is a potential exit payment, securing a free trade agreement, the customs union, free trade agreements with countries outside the European Union, and co-operating in the fight against crime and terrorism is now being used as a bargaining chip, which is hugely irresponsible. How can we as a country even think of doing that? There is also immigration and consultation with devolved Administrations, we have the Scotland issue, the Northern Ireland border and the Republic of Ireland, and minimising disruption when we leave the EU.

Sir Simon Fraser has just said that transitional agreements will almost definitely be necessary. Once again, it is crucial that these two Motions be agreed. He has said clearly that we will reach a cliff edge. In fact, a number of EU diplomats have now said that the Government,

“fears the economy could be left in ‘havoc’ if Britain left without agreeing any preferential access”.

Does the Minister agree?

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, spoke about Boris Johnson saying that it will be “perfectly okay” if we leave, and David Davis admitted that the Government had not assessed what “no deal” means. Michel Barnier—this is not fear-mongering—said that no deal would have,

“severe consequences for our people and our economies. It would … leave the UK worse off”.

I support these two Motions in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Smith. The last point is about 16 and 17 year-olds who were not allowed to vote last year. By the time we come to 2019, these individuals will have the right to vote, and almost 100% of them will want to reverse this decision. People will be allowed to change their minds; the public might change their mind, having seen that the Brexiteers’ emperor has no clothes. We are watching a train crash in slow motion.