European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, I bring a Scottish voice in support of the arguments that have been advanced in the amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and by other noble Lords who have spoken. These are important points, not only as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has just said, for maintenance of the union but also for many practical reasons. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, no one disputes that the negotiation of an international treaty is a matter devolved to the United Kingdom Government. However, we have to recognise that much of the subject matter of many of these agreements will fall to the devolved Administrations to implement; it will be in areas of devolved competence. Therefore, it is important that there be proper engagement with the devolved Administrations in reaching these agreements, not only to ensure a community of interest within these islands but to give those with whom we are negotiating some reassurance that what they are negotiating will be implemented properly by the various devolved Administrations. If the people from the devolved Administrations are not present, something may be missing in the reassurances they are seeking.

In paragraph 114 of the report published yesterday by the Constitution Committee—of which I am a member—the committee reiterated what it said in its report last year on the parliamentary scrutiny of treaties:

“As part of its treaty-making after the UK leaves the European Union, the UK Government must engage effectively with the devolved institutions on treaties that involve areas of devolved competence … The UK Government will need to consult the devolved governments about their interests when opening negotiations, not just to respect the competences of those governments but also in acknowledgement of the important role devolved administrations may play in the implementation of new international obligations”.


In paragraph 115, the Constitution Committee recommends that

“the Government set out before the Bill’s report stage what its process for consultation and engagement with Parliament and with the devolved authorities will be in respect of the future relationship negotiations with the European Union”.

Amendment 29 goes further than that and wants to put it in the Bill; that is probably worth while.

Some noble Lords will recall that, when the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations was established—I think, in the autumn of 2016—great commitments were made about the intention of the United Kingdom Government to engage at every step of the way in the negotiations to get a withdrawal agreement. Yet we know that, for many months, that Joint Ministerial Committee never even met. This is not the place to go into why it did not meet, but good intentions were not delivered on. We know that there were good intentions. In replying to the debate on the gracious Speech last Wednesday, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, said the following in response to a similar point that I and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, made then:

“the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, asked about the representation of the devolved Administrations in negotiations on our future relationship. We recognise the need for their close involvement in negotiations on our future relationship with the EU in order to deliver a satisfactory outcome”.—[Official Report, 8/1/20; col. 289.]

That was a statement of intent with which I could have no dispute, but we want more: we want how it will work in practice to be fleshed out. Given that the Joint Committee on EU Negotiations has not had a happy track record—it improved as time went on—many of us would feel more reassured if it was on the face of the Bill.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Is it not difficult to legislate for a committee to meet more often when it does not meet often enough?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the amendment would establish that it should meet, and some timescales are set down. My concern relates to good intentions. No one disputes the good intentions for the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations when established, but they were not carried through in practice. When the Minister comes to reply—I am not sure which Minister it will be—I am sure that we will be told of good intentions. We want to ensure that good intentions are delivered on.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, the matter of the present agreement is still the subject of ongoing discussion with members of the EU 27 and with the institutions of the European Union. Once those discussions are completed, of course the agreement will be brought back to this Parliament.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, as the meaningful vote is not being held today and may well be held on, say, 20 January, will there be another 21 days after that for the Government to respond?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

In the event that the House of Commons resolves not to approve the withdrawal agreement, in accordance with the provisions of Section 13, it will be a requirement that a Minister of the Crown will, within a period of 21 days, make a Statement to the House with regard to our intentions.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is clearly saying that he thinks there is a real possibility we are going to crash out of the EU. We have heard that from him on other occasions and from people who agree with him. David Davis wrote to Conservative MPs to say that it was a possibility that we would not pay up the money unless we got a good free trade agreement. The fact is that any deal is better than no deal: no deal would be an absolute disaster for this country. But if there is a serious risk of no deal from Members of the governing party—I am sure the Government do not want that but there is pressure in that quarter—I believe we would be right in this Bill to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in this country.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord said that we seem to be able to crash out and to have no deal as a bargaining chip. Surely, we either crash out or we have no deal as a bargaining chip—we cannot have both.

[Lord Liddle]

The point I am focusing on is that this is our opportunity to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the event of there being no deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria]

With all due respect, that is the whole objective of this—the fact that one can use statutory instruments. Here is the underlying worry—about a Government who have tried to bypass Parliament from the beginning, from the wretched referendum. They tried to implement Article 50 without Parliament. That is a fact. It took an individual—Gina Miller—represented by my brilliant noble friend Lord Pannick, to defeat the Government in the High Court. The Government then appealed to the Supreme Court and were defeated resoundingly—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, was on the other side.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Did the noble Lord think that it was the intention of Miss Gina Miller that, when the House did have a vote, it would actually vote by an overwhelming majority to move Article 50?

[Lord Bilimoria]

I remind the noble Lord that this House, in that Article 50 Bill, had two of the largest votes in the history of the House of Lords; 614 of us voted in one instance and 634 in the other instance. In both instances, we defeated the Government by almost 100 votes. The fact that the House of Commons did not accept that is a different matter—and the point that I am making is that the Government tried to bypass Parliament. There is the worry that statutory instruments bypass Parliament.

Do Henry VIII clauses give Governments the power of royal despots? Well, secondary legislation is used all the time to amend the text of primary legislation in non-despotic ways, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said—they do not have to be. In fact, the biggest Henry VIII section of them all can be found in the European Communities Act 1972—the very piece of legislation that we are repealing.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise for being perhaps a little stronger than I should have been in this respect. On the engine room—I wanted to return to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on this—much of the business of multilateral organisations, be it NATO or the EU, is done in working groups and committees. The common foreign and security policy structure has some 40 working groups and committees, including a military committee that has been chaired by a British officer. If we are not in any of those working groups, we will miss out on formulating policy.

There are other details that matter a great deal. I remember the noble Earl, Lord Howe, saying on one occasion, when some of us were following the noble Lord, Lord West, and asking, “Where are you going to find the frigates to make up the carrier groups that we need?” The noble Earl said, if I remember correctly, “They do not necessarily have to be British frigates”. I took him as meaning that they might be Dutch, French, Belgian or whatever. Well, that also needs a certain structure, with certain training mechanisms and certain multilateral commands.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Would the structure not be NATO?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord may not know, but, as I have quoted, we have been involved in some 15 EU operations, some of which have been naval. Had he visited Operation Atalanta at Northwood, he would have known that that is an entirely naval operation, commanded by the British with ships from a number of different nations. Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean has also involved British frigates working with others on the whole question of migration. So some operations are NATO, some are the EU.

I have said quite enough. Of course I am going to withdraw, but we, along with many others, do not know enough about this area to be able to give the confidence to the Government that we want—that is the whole problem with this “mechanical Bill”. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hogan-Howe]

The noble Baroness is in a far better position than I am to talk about the law, so I am not sure that I am able to say that. We have an extradition treaty with America and many other countries where that type of arrangement is not in place, so I would need to understand why the American model and that of other countries works without the arrangement mentioned by the noble Baroness, and why it has to be in place in Europe. There may be a reason, but I am not aware of it.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, before my noble friend the Minister winds up this debate, I would like to address the problem of him being constantly accused of not spelling out the Government’s position. We are mid-negotiations. Surely, if you are negotiating with the EU, it is very difficult to reveal your negotiating position. Our experience of dealing with the EU is that when we start to reveal our negotiating position, it immediately laughs at us and tells us that it is absolutely ridiculous for us to think that we are going to get these concessions, and that we are cherry-picking and want to have our cake and eat it and all this sort of thing. It seems to me that the Government are in a very difficult position. They have to hold this debate because we are processing the Bill through Parliament, but simultaneously we are trying to negotiate with the EU. We cannot reveal our position. The overall position is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I totally agree with what my noble friend is saying. It is very important that that point is made: it is not made often enough and could be made every time on every amendment. Does he agree that the most absurd question of all, which we have had several times on previous amendments, is for the Government to be asked what their fallback position is? How on earth can someone in a negotiation say what their fallback position is?

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Of course, the EU is watching all this extremely closely because it is desperate to try to snarl up the whole process so that we cannot leave. The fact that a referendum involving a democratic vote was held on this is regarded by most people in the Commission as a sign of weakness. I think it was President Macron who said the other day that if a referendum were held on whether France should pull out of the EU, the leavers would win, but of course he was not going to allow a referendum. I am sure that that will go down in history along with other French expressions such as “Let them eat cake”.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I have six amendments in this group. They refer to the United Kingdom having continued access after withdrawal to passenger name records, to the Schengen Information System, to the European arrest warrant, to membership of Europol, to the European Criminal Records Information System, and to the fingerprint and DNA exchange with the EU under the Prüm Council decisions.

The questions put to the Minister by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, went to the heart of the matter—that is, given that the Prime Minister said in her Munich speech that she wishes to see a treaty replace all these elements of the existing arrangements, the Minister should simply tell us the process by which we will be negotiating the treaty. This debate, as with many others, gives the complete lie to the ridiculous assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal. Let us be clear: if there is no deal on 29 March next year, the current arrangements to which the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, referred, painstakingly negotiated over many years, for the European arrest warrant and the very high levels of engagement between the member states of the European Union—which the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said were so important to his work as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police—all fall.

Is the Minister going to tell us that the security of this country will be as safe as it is now if all those arrangements fall? I assume that he is not, in which case the United Kingdom leaving the European Union with no deal at the end of March next year would be a complete abdication of the national interest. We need to get that firmly established. As we have more of these debates and see the precise benefits of the EU—which, after all, are the reason we went into the European Union—it becomes clearer and clearer that leaving with no deal would be a dereliction of the national interest.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, is not with us any more, because he referred to rules in the EU. He will know as well as I do that the EU has completed, or half-completed, a banking union. One of the critical elements of the banking union was that there would be no more bailouts: the taxpayer would be the last person who is called on to bail out banks. From here on, it will be bail-ins: all the depositors would have to pay in before the taxpayer was leant on. Two banks in Italy have now been bailed out by the Italian taxpayer and the depositors have not been required to produce anything. So almost before the ink was dry on the agreement, the rule has been broken. We know also that when the euro was set up there was a very sensible measure to stabilise the euro called the stability and growth pact. The stability and growth pact was broken first by the Germans and then by the French. So I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said, and I am sure there are rules, but I am also sure that in great EU tradition, if they get in the way they can be ignored.

There is a small minority of those who voted remain who do not really accept the verdict of the referendum. They think, like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, that somehow we can stay in the EU. They desperately hope that everything in these negotiations will go wrong and that at the end of the day we will remain in the EU, everything will be all right and life will go on for ever. Well, who wants to stay in an EU with double the level of unemployment that we have in this country and youth unemployment at 24%—with one in four unemployed? The economic model of the EU does not actually work.

I am quite confident that there is a deal to be done. If we were to turn to the WTO and leave the European Union, the first thing we would do is stop paying any money into the European budget. That would leave a 12.5% hole in the EU budget. As we know, the Commission loves spending other people’s money. It would be faced with a rather unenviable choice. It would have either to cut programmes that are happening in eastern Europe and so forth, which is totally against everything it stands for, or go round all the 27 nations of the EU and say, “You must up your contributions to the EU budget”. Both of those are extremely unpalatable choices and that is why we have something to offer in these negotiations which the EU desperately wants.

The whole business of negotiating exit from the EU has not really been done before, if you exclude Greenland, so we are into an extraordinary bargaining procedure—rather equivalent to a Turkish bazaar or Arab souk, where, when it comes to the money, the EU starts by saying, “You will have to pay €100 billion”. I am sure that our Ministers have gone back to the EU and said, “There is a wonderful report from the House of Lords that says we don’t have to pay you anything”. I can tell noble Lords now that we are not going to pay nothing. We are not going to pay €100 billion either. We are going to pay something in between, and that will certainly satisfy the EU to quite a large degree, because it wants to do something to fill this hole in the budget. That is something we can offer it. In return, we want access to the single market. This should not be too difficult because, at the end of the day, they sell 50% more to us than we do to them. They have no interest in embarking on a trade war with us.

Regrettably, there is a minority of those who voted remain who are not reconciled to the vote in the referendum, when the people made quite clear that they wanted to leave. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, actually admitted that. However, the country has made this decision and we would be in great danger if we tried to reverse it. At the end of the day, this country has a very great future outside the EU.

Scotland Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McAvoy]

The noble Lord will have to accept that I do not agree with him on this, and I do not think he will agree with what I am about to say. The arrangements are designed to facilitate the passage of the Bill and the fiscal framework discussions. Quite frankly, I do not believe that that is the noble Lord’s intention; I believe it is his intention to kill off the discussions.

The atmosphere in Scotland is one of mistrust. I try not to make political points, but the result of the 2015 general election was, I maintain, a direct result of the Prime Minister’s triumphalist press conference in Downing Street the morning after the referendum when he sent the message, “English votes for English laws”, and hostility towards those who had voted yes. There was a sea change in Scotland, where all Labour Party seats were wiped out with the exception of one. We were seen to be conniving and in collusion with a Conservative Prime Minister.

On the other side of the coin, we have got the SNP, with its grievance culture, which is determined to attack Westminster and cast doubt on Westminster’s good intentions—unfairly, because I believe that the intentions here for Scotland are good on both sides of the House. I also think that there was an element of scare story when the noble Lord mentioned that I, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party were terrified of Scots. Terrified of my own people? I respect their desire. I respect their wishes—it is our job to facilitate them—and I believe that that is also the position of the House of Lords.

From the Cross Benches, the noble and learned Lord made it plain that the fiscal framework can still be discussed on Report. This is not a panic measure. This is not ifs, buts or maybes. This is the calmness for which this House is renowned. There will be plenty of opportunity if we can get these discussions to a conclusion. Certainly the indications give hope that we can get the conclusions.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does the noble Lord accept my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s argument that Scotland will lose out if it comes to a settlement that abolishes the Barnett formula and makes it rely on income tax in Scotland?

[Lord McAvoy]

The time to discuss the fiscal framework will be when public announcements are made. With all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, we can discuss it until we are red or blue in the face. We are not discussing anything that is there in front of us. This House must be allowed to get on with facilitating the Bill, facilitating the people of Scotland getting the Bill, guarding—