EU Exit Negotiations

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, no, I will not confirm that, because it has been stated by legal opinion on this side of the water and in the EU that Article 50 is not revocable. It all flies in the face of the results of the referendum. It is fine for Members of this House to say that we should just ignore the result, but 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union in one of the largest democratic exercises that we have ever held. If we think that democracy is at a low ebb in this country, let us imagine what would happen if we ignored what happened in that referendum.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will of course acknowledge that 48% of people did not vote that way, but perhaps I may ask him one specific question. He has several times said today that good progress has been, or is being, made. If that is so, that is very good, but can he tell us one single thing on which there is now agreement?

[Lord Callanan]

We have made good progress on a number of issues. There are many areas of agreement; for instance, on proposals on citizens’ rights—I could read them all out if my noble friend wanted to stay for 20 minutes afterwards.

Brexit: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her questions and I can only apologise if the Written Ministerial Statement is not available to her. In response to her two questions, I can confirm that my office is in contact with the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and we are attempting to arrange a meeting as soon as possible in the near future. I also confirm to the House that we anticipate sharing the same information on the same basis with the Lords EU Committee as with the House of Commons Select Committee, subject to our being able to agree the terms of that disclosure.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that we will all be reassured to some degree by what my noble friend has just said. But would he acknowledge that at this time, the most difficult in our country’s history since the last war, it is essential that both Houses of Parliament be continually and properly informed? There is far too much talk at the moment of negotiating in the dark and not being kept informed. We have to have open government here and, as I said, this House and the other place must be constantly, properly and fully informed.

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, I am not sure whether I share my noble friend’s analysis that it is the most difficult time since the Second World War. It is a difficult and challenging political environment but I can happily confirm that we are committed to being as open and transparent as possible. I think we are being so, given the number of appearances that the Secretary of State and other Ministers have made before both Houses and in front of various Select Committees. We will share as much information and be as transparent as possible, subject, obviously, to preserving our negotiating position. These crucial negotiations are going on. We want to make sure that our position is as informed as possible but we will share as much information as is possible, subject to that caveat.

European Union: Final Withdrawal Agreement

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

We respect entirely that the democratic process means that in a referendum people express their view. More than 1 million more people voted to leave than to remain. We gave the undertaking that we would respect the result of that referendum and, as I gently reminded the noble Baroness the other week, the fact is that the only major party to stand at the last election on the basis of having a second referendum suffered the penalty of almost total loss.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, nobody can doubt the good intentions of my noble friend. She has the respect of all parts of the House, but will she accept that intentions and expectations are not guarantees? We need a legislative guarantee that Parliament will indeed take back control.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, our undertaking is indeed to give a guarantee that Parliament will have a vote on the agreement that is reached; not only on the withdrawal agreement but also, as I have stressed, on any implementation phase and on our future relationship. That is a very broad discussion for Parliament to have and a very definitive decision that they can make.

Brexit: Financial Settlement

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we have made it clear that we understand that some of the discussions about our future relationship will involve continuing investment in projects across Europe. Clearly, the initial discussions about the withdrawal agreement are focusing on those areas where there are identifiable obligations. It is important that we move on to the next stage about our future relationship because, as the noble Lord has just pointed out, there will be continuing commitments that we may indeed wish to make.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, are we not singularly fortunate in having a Chancellor who is entirely sensible and optimistic, who looks forward to a good deal and who realises that no deal would not be good for this country, and should we not give him every possible support?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

Yes, my Lords, the whole of the Cabinet is in the same frame of mind.

Brexit

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I remind the noble Baroness, who is also a friend, that her party, which stood for that in the last election, got hammered.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we all have cause to be grateful for the calm, prudent, constructive contribution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in these talks?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

Yes, my Lords. I have seen that close up because I was fortunate enough to be briefed throughout the summer by officials from the Treasury about the patient, technical work that they have been carrying out to ensure that when we are able to reach agreement not only on principles but on practice, the result will be fair for this country as well as for the rest of the European Union.

Brexit: Impact on Young People

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Also, the youth mobility scheme and Horizon 2020 are open to countries that are not members of the EU; it depends on the negotiations between the EU and that third country. The most important thing is that all of us are looking to ensure that the future of our young people can be as rich an experience as it has been in the past.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has just said, does my noble friend agree that it would be extremely sad, to put it mildly, if young people from all the countries of Europe found it more difficult to travel and work around the continent than those who came over in the Middle Ages to help build Lincoln and the other great cathedrals? If that stage were reached, we would have not a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit but a barren Brexit. That would be the worst of all.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I taught history several lifetimes ago, and I know that we were not always the most welcoming of countries. I hope we have learned that it is better to welcome than to prevent people coming from countries for the wrong reasons. Clearly, it is important to have a legal basis to control immigration, but it is important to recognise that we have a way of welcoming people that enriches our society. Certainly, as we have announced already, for those who wish to take up Erasmus, applications will continue as normal in 2017-18, and:

“The Government will underwrite the payment of such awards, even when specific projects continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU.”


That shows a welcoming spirit.

Brexit

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, yes, she is, which is why she has formed a series of Cabinet sub-committees to consider the full range of issues—some of the crucial issues, as the noble Baroness pointed out, that this country needs to address as we leave the European Union and as we look at the implementation period. Our overall objective is to ensure that there is no cliff edge and that we have security for all those practising business, whether agribusiness or financial services. That is why this is a true cross-Whitehall effort. It is not easy, and it is not necessarily the way Whitehall has worked in the past—but it does now.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, in order to put one misused phrase to flight, does my noble friend agree that it is perfectly possible to have your cake and eat it but that you cannot eat your cake and have it?

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Lord makes a good point. Considerable work is being undertaken by my department and right across Whitehall regarding the impact of our withdrawal on UK regulators and regulatory bodies. I shall not go into detail on that at this precise juncture, but noble Lords should rest assured that in the months ahead, were a Conservative Government to be returned, we would ensure that those plans are set out.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for using the word “partners” so regularly. Would he remind certain Members of your Lordships’ House, including the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, that we are talking not merely to Eurocrats but to companions and friends in 27 other European nations?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My noble friend makes a very good point. As I have said before—indeed, a moment ago—it is absolutely in our interests to ensure that these negotiations are not only in our mutual interests but also smooth and orderly. It is in no one’s interest to see Europe’s prosperity or security diminished as we leave the EU.

Brexit: European Union-derived Rights

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I have a simple question for the Minister: what happens if there is a blockage in the negotiations on these matters in the wider European Union? In principle, is it possible for the UK to enter into bilateral agreements with 27 individual nation states offering rights to national residency in the UK in return for reciprocal rights for UK citizens living in the Union? The advantage of bilaterals if we hit a stalemate would be that any state opposing such concessions at the time of final settlement of these matters could find their own citizens’ rights in the UK in jeopardy and subject to review. It would have the effect of moving the debate to the capitals of obstructive states in the circumstances of a blockage in the negotiations. I wonder if the Minister might be able to help us with that very simple question.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, like the proverbial Irishman, I would not have started from here. We have to be careful that we do not continually refight the same battles, but that does not mean that we cannot repeatedly restate the same principles.

I remain of the same view that I did the day after the referendum, 24 June last year. I deeply regret the result, and I thought that the first and most positive thing that we could and should do would be to guarantee the rights of EU nationals in this country—I was a week ahead of Boris Johnson. We would have taken the moral high ground; we would have lost nothing; we would have made an extremely important gesture, which I believe would have been reciprocated. My noble friend Lord Bridges, who will be replying to this debate, knows very well that that has been my view throughout, and I have repeated it in this Chamber on a number of occasions.

However, as someone said a few moments ago, we are where we are. What is now crucial—my noble friend Lord Hailsham made this point—is to ensure that we guarantee as soon as possible the right of EU nationals. I am confident that there would be reciprocation. We do not want to let this drag on for two years.

Uncertainty was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in her admirable opening speech. We all know from our personal lives that nothing is more mentally debilitating than uncertainty. Whether it is concern over a loved one with illness or over a job, if we have uncertainty, we cannot plan ahead, look forward with confidence or aspire. Every human being has the human right to all those things. I very much hope that, when my noble friend comes to wind up, he will be able not only to state his personal agreement but to say that the Government will indeed report back to Parliament and that he will do all in his power—I am sure that he has great negotiating skills—to bring this uncertainty for 3 million human beings in our country to an early and a hopeful end.

I also find myself in agreement with the Motion spoken to persuasively by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. We have said these things before in innumerable debates, but the cry from those who did not think that they would win, but did, was, “We want to take back control”. Control where? In a parliamentary democracy, control can lie in only one place, and that is Parliament—particularly in the House which has supreme power, the elected House, but, to a degree, in your Lordships’ House, too.

We must never forget that the single, cardinal principle of our democracy is that government is accountable to Parliament, and Parliament is accountable to the electorate. It is crucial that we have not only discursive debates—which, in a sense, is what we are having tonight—but debates with real purpose and real votes at the end of them. That is not because I want in any way to circumscribe the freedom of those who will be negotiating on our behalf, but because I want them to be answerable to us and, particularly, to the other place.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I have no doubt whatever that Article 50 must be triggered, and triggered sooner rather than later, but equally I have no doubt about the merits of Motion A1. I supported it before, as did 358 Members of this House—a majority of 102.

Most of the decisions that we take in this House are nicely balanced. This one, I suggest, is perfectly clear and the arguments are compelling. No one doubts the need for the EU nationals who are already lawfully here to remain here for the sake of academia, the health services, the care services, the building industry—note what my noble friend Lord Kerslake said in Committee—and so forth, and no one doubts that those whom we most need to stay are starting to bleed away. We should remember what the noble Lord, Lord Winston, said in Committee about the medics, and read the letter in today’s Times from the academics at Oxford.

The Government say that this assurance is unnecessary and that in fact there is no possibility of our ever wanting to deny these people their present rights, let alone deport them. Of course, logically that is indeed so but, as the haemorrhaging of this group shows, the perception among those affected is, perhaps unsurprisingly, different. Then it is said—it was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in Committee—that fairness demands that all expatriate EU nationals are treated identically and that no assurance should be given to those here until reciprocal assurances are given to our citizens in the other member states. I would give three answers to that suggestion.

First, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others pointed out in Committee, those representing UK nationals in other EU states positively support our giving this assurance, and they believe—rightly, I suggest—that their case will be strengthened, not weakened, by our now taking this initiative. As the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said in Committee,

“a generous gesture, freely given”,—[Official Report, 1/3/17; col. 835.]

will assist in creating a good climate for the start of these negotiations with the other 27 nations, difficult though they will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has again emphasised today.

Secondly, the stronger the Government’s argument that no assurance is necessary because EU nationals here are desperately needed for our economy and health service and so forth, and therefore they face no risk of losing these rights, the weaker the argument that there is an advantage in keeping the future of the EU nationals here in doubt for the purpose of negotiating our nationals’ future abroad. In short, even if other member states chose not to allow our UK nationals to remain there—and we can understand that in some instances the case for that is rather less compelling than our need to keep EU nationals here—we would still want to keep their nationals here.

Thirdly, it is hardly surprising that the other states are refusing to discuss this issue until we trigger Article 50. However, it is the UK’s decision to pursue Brexit—sensible or not, and there are obviously different views on that—that has precipitated this crisis and created the uncertainty and insecurity felt by this group. I suggest that we can and should allay their fears at the same time as we trigger Article 50. This clause would not delay it—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

The noble and learned Lord knows that I agree with much of what he is saying but that is not the issue tonight. The issue tonight is whether we recognise our constitutional limitations and whether we fly in the face of what the Commons, having been given the opportunity to reconsider, has now decided emphatically. As a great constitutionalist, which the noble and learned Lord is, I hope he will agree with that.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

In broad terms of course I agree. I have never previously voted against a Government on ping-pong. I do not know how often my noble friend plays ping-pong but is it really so very exceptional to keep a rally going beyond two strokes? I suggest not, and I suggest that we do it here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Oates]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his principled advocacy on this issue, but I must confess I cannot follow the constitutional argument that he and other noble Lords have made that somehow we cannot insist to the elected House. I could understand it if this House never insisted, or if the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, never voted to insist against the will of the elected House, but he knows that is not the case. I wonder why on this issue of such vital importance to so many people we should not.

[Lord Cormack]

Perhaps I can answer the noble Lord. Yes, we agree on the fundamentals of the issue, but this is a constitutional matter. What is the point of prolonging a time-sensitive Bill, on which the fortunes of so many ultimately depend, merely to have the satisfaction of being soundly beaten in the Lobbies?

[Lord Oates]

Whether we are soundly beaten in the Lobbies is a matter for noble Lords. It is not, with respect, a matter for the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I seek to put my argument and I hope to convince people. None the less, I pay tribute to the advocacy he has given so far and to all noble Lords who have made this issue crucial.

I am sorry that the Government continue to refuse to do the right things. I am sorry that they failed to make any concessions, or answer any of the questions that were put to them in Committee. I am particularly sorry that, as a result, they intend to allow the fear and uncertainty of millions of EU and UK citizens to continue. But the Minister, to be fair to him, has been given an impossible job defending the indefensible and I respect the skill with which he does it. What I cannot respect are the seven current Cabinet Ministers who backed the Vote Leave campaign which made an unequivocal, unilateral commitment to EU citizens during the referendum campaign—a commitment that has been betrayed. I hope that all noble Lords who supported and were involved in Vote Leave will think about that commitment, which they made without caveats or conditions.

That is the Government’s position. What I do not understand is the position taken by the Labour Front Bench in the House today, but I recognise that it will be as bewildering to many Labour Members as it is to me. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that if you want to get the ball back across the net, it is very important not to drop the bat before you get there. The Labour Party has a key role in the way things are decided in this House. If it was prepared to stand behind this and insist, there would be a greater chance of success.

Last Tuesday, the Leader of the Labour Peers, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, made great play of attacking the Liberal Democrats, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has done. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked how we could oppose the Bill given how extraordinarily important the amendment on citizens’ rights was. I voted that the Bill should not pass because I firmly believe that we should not begin withdrawal negotiations until there is a mechanism for the people to have a final say on the outcome of those negotiations.

There were two things also on my mind when I went through the Division Lobby: first, the Government were making it crystal clear, even at that stage, that they would concede nothing in regard to the amendments; and secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, had already indicated that if the Bill was returned to this House, she would concede everything.