Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, it is somewhat odd to be debating an identical government Motion with a month’s gap, during which time, in the Brexit negotiations themselves and despite the announcements the Government have made today, there have been no significant developments whatsoever—a reality reflected in the Commons simply continuing its adjourned debate on the topic rather than having a new Motion or amendments.

There was therefore a temptation to simply repeat the speech I made on 5 December. I was attracted to this option by the true example of a vicar friend of my wife’s who, having preached a sermon on a Sunday morning, found that his colleague who was due to preach at evensong was taken ill during the day. Stepping into the breach and having no time to prepare a second sermon, he simply repeated the one he had given in the morning. He was therefore rather disturbed to see in the congregation one of the churchwardens, who normally only attended in the morning but who had had visitors for lunch who wanted to see the church. At the end of the service, the vicar greeted the churchwarden with some trepidation. The churchwarden approached the vicar, beaming. “Another corker, vicar”, he said. It was clear that he had not listened to at least one, and possibly both, of the sermons. But I suspect that your Lordships’ House is somewhat more attentive than the average churchwarden, so I shall repeat neither the speech nor the exact arguments I made a month ago.

The challenge in fashioning another speech, however, is that, as far as the withdrawal agreement and political declaration are concerned, nothing of substance has changed. I am unaware of a single MP who threatened to rebel last time but has pledged to support the Government this time around.

Although nothing has changed in the agreement itself or the views of MPs, this does not mean that nothing has changed beyond Parliament. The first thing that has changed is that the Government have stepped up spending for a no-deal Brexit. Given that the Commons will never vote for a no-deal outcome, as evidenced by yesterday’s vote, the spending of billions of pounds on an outcome that is simply not going to happen was always going to be a colossal waste of public money. But the way in which the Government have chosen to do this has turned mere profligacy into farce.

It was bad enough having a Health Secretary boasting—and I use the word advisedly—that he had spent tens of millions of pounds on refrigeration units. But when the Department for Transport prepares to give £14 million to a shipping start-up that seems to have difficulty differentiating between a roll-on roll-off ferry and a takeaway pizza, things have reached a new low. Having 89 lorries at Manston practise at being a traffic jam is merely the icing on the cake of a litany of episodes which make “Dad’s Army” look like a model of discipline and efficiency. No wonder the rest of the world looks at us today as it does with a mixture of pity and amazement.

Secondly, in the real world, businesses and individuals are making their plans and putting them into effect. Financial services companies have now moved some £800 billion-worth of staff operations and customer funds to continental Europe. The number of staff who have already moved is 2,000 and rising rapidly. Polling of business leaders now shows some three-quarters of them pessimistic about the year ahead, with Brexit by far their biggest headache. This, of course, means lower investment and will eventually lead to fewer jobs. The fact that manufacturing in some sectors is holding up because companies are building up their stocks against the possibility of a no-deal Brexit is at best a temporary relief.

In the public sector, and in the NHS in particular, there is growing evidence that EU workers are leaving or not choosing to come to the UK because of the potential consequences of Brexit. The organiser of a Facebook group of 15,000 Italian nurses working in the UK, for example, estimates that some 10% have already left, with another 10% planning to do so. Given that over one-fifth of London’s nurses are EU citizens, this leeching away of EU staff is already causing problems which the delay in getting to a Brexit decision is only making worse.

Thirdly, because of these real-world developments, people are increasingly saying that they do not trust their politicians to take the final decision on Brexit and that they do not wish to leave the EU. Over recent months, the polls have told a consistent story that a majority of the population now want a referendum and, in such a referendum, a majority would vote to remain. In the latest poll by YouGov, for example, taken over the Christmas break, some 54% said that in a further referendum they would vote to remain and 46% said that they would vote to leave. With every passing day, the demographics are bringing on to the electoral register a group of young people of whom 85% wish to have a future as European citizens. Even groups which have been traditionally hostile to a referendum are changing their minds—the latest being the influential business body London First, which on Monday said that, in the absence of a Commons majority for a Brexit deal, the issue should be put back to the people.

On the basis that the Government’s Brexit deal would make the country poorer, less secure and less influential—arguments that I made last time and I hope I have not repeated today—and in the light of these recent developments, I strongly urge Members of your Lordships’ House to support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.

While it is clearly for the Commons to decide on the next steps, we should be clear what the options are. The Government’s deal is an option, but it is set to be defeated. No other negotiable deal is available, despite the probability that the Prime Minister will respond to a defeat next week with yet another futile trip to Brussels in search of unicorns.

Crashing out is a theoretical option, albeit one of a kamikaze nature, which the Commons has already, in effect, rejected. As the ECJ ruling on 10 December proved, this is not an inevitability if the Government’s deal is rejected. We have the sovereign right as a country to unilaterally revoke our Article 50 notification. Talk of crashing out by accident is nonsense. It could only happen if the Government chose to do so and the Commons agreed.

A general election is an option, but this would itself solve nothing and serve only to split Labour and the Conservatives further.

Going back to the people with a chance to remain in the EU is an option. As the House knows, the view on these Benches is that this is the best—

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Is it an oversight or deliberate that the noble Lord has left out the perfectly feasible alternative option of remaining in the EEA by changing from pillar 1 to pillar 2?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I do not believe that that is a feasible option.

As I was saying, going back to the people with the chance to remain in the EU is an option, and, as the House knows, the view on these Benches is that this is the best option. Every single development over the past month, and since our last debate, has only reinforced us in that view.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

On my noble friend’s last point, I am not sure I am in a position to give the Foreign Secretary advice. But, to be fair, I looked at his comments, and he did not compare the EU to the Soviet Union; he was making a point about how difficult it is to leave various organisations. I think afterwards he withdrew the exact words he used.

Regarding timescales, it is difficult to be precise. We are still trying to target an agreement by the October summit. As I mentioned in my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, we are conscious of the need for proper parliamentary scrutiny of the withdrawal Act, and we are preparing for that, but we need appropriate time to get the legislation through both Houses before 29 March. We have made the EU aware of that timescale, but of course we want to ensure we get the right deal for the United Kingdom. As soon as I have more information on the timescale, the noble Lord will be the first to hear about it.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, a question has been raised regarding various studies going on in Whitehall about what happens from next year onwards. Can the Minister clarify the reason for some questions being part of the scope of Whitehall studies and apparently some not? For example, a point was made about a month ago concerning the European Economic Area and scenarios of us being part of it. I thank the Minister for his letter to me about it, in which he confirmed we would in any event continue to be part of the EEA for some time after next year. Is it not sensible to have full studies done by Whitehall on the perfectly possible scenarios of what might be dubbed EEA-plus, given some of the discussions swirling around in Europe about reform of the whole EEA? And would it not be sensible for the Minister to acknowledge the case for some flexibility in the way Whitehall operates in this very novel situation?

Brexit: Negotiations and No-deal Contingency Planning

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord was doing so well until he got to the second part of his question. Yes, of course we will provide leadership, and we are. We have set out a plan as to how we think this can be delivered. I am not sure it is a practical suggestion that we consult the leader of the Opposition, who I think is providing a dire example at the moment, but we in our department and other Cabinet Ministers are having ongoing, regular discussions with other European leaders and Ministers. I am travelling abroad regularly myself, as are other Ministers, to try to convince other member states of the viability of our plans and the options that we have presented.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I follow up one more time the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham. It may be technically correct to say that we do not need legislation to leave the EEA, but in practice is that not splitting hairs? I remember rather well, in December 1972 in Vienna, chairing the last meeting of the EFTA consultative committee that we were then a member of. On 1 January 1973, we joined the European Economic Area. Those were back to back for obvious reasons. Whatever the merits of the EEA, is it not obvious how it would work?

[Lord Callanan]

I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave earlier. The option of EEA membership is not straightforward. It is not uncomplicated and it does not present a solution to many of the difficulties that were addressed in the referendum campaign.

Brexit: Parliamentary Processes

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they made of the precedents for Parliament providing them with a mandate for international negotiations, including the effect of section 7 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 on the Maastricht Treaty negotiations, when deciding to oppose Lords Amendment 20 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill; and whether they consider any such precedents conclusive in supporting the view that Parliament mandating them in negotiations is not consistent with the constitutional role of Parliament in relation to the conduct of international relations.

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

My Lords, we are not aware of any precedent for Parliament mandating the Government in international negotiations conducted under the royal prerogative. The Government were not prepared to accept such a significant constitutional shift in the amendment the noble Lord referenced.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but on what basis do the Government claim the prerogative to decide unilaterally what the constitutional position on this is, as if they were the Vatican producing some doctrine covered by infallibility? Secondly, why are we able to pass amendments on the customs Bill, on the single market or, hypothetically, the European Economic Area, but not able to consider the trade-offs, the framework or the mandate? Albeit that we vote against, there could be a parliamentary position with the result that Parliament would be responsible for something. At the moment, Parliament is not responsible for anything coherent. It is irresponsible. Is that wise?

[Lord Callanan]

I have never been compared to the Vatican before. Is Parliament responsible and wise? Parliament is always responsible and is extremely wise in whatever it says and does.

EU Exit: Future Relationship White Paper

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

All exports need to be WTO-compliant. A lot of the rules for maritime and sea transport are set at an international level, and exports will need to continue to comply with those regulations.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, on the theme of cherry picking, I take an example from paragraph 10 of the Oral Statement:

“In delivering on this vision, the Government propose an innovative and unprecedented economic partnership”—


you can say that again—

“maintaining frictionless trade through a new UK-EU free trade area for goods underpinned by a common rule book”,

but,

“covering only those rules necessary to provide for frictionless trade at the border”.

Given the multiplicity of borders—there must be hundreds across Europe—is this meant to apply to all of them and, if so, what can we expect of other countries? It would surely strike them as a bit strange, if not unreasonable, if it applied only to borders in which we had some interest but not to everybody’s border.

[Lord Callanan]

I am not sure I totally understand what the noble Lord is getting at there.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Is this going to apply to all the borders between all the countries of Europe?

Brexit: UK-EU Relations (EUC Report)

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an excellent report—a gold standard, as one has come to expect. I add my appreciation to the committee’s members and the clerks, all of whom are to be congratulated. I acknowledge and thank my noble friend Lady Quin—neither of us is a member of the committee—for making reference to the TUC trio, if I may put it in those terms. I am glad that we are able to make a contribution more or less always on the same hymn sheet.

After the White Paper, there will no doubt be some parliamentary process. Then there will be the Recess and the parliamentary conference season. The only date that is clear in the autumn is that of the political declaration on 18-19 October, just two weeks after we get back. But the relationship between that date and the “finishing line”, to use the language of the report, is mentioned in paragraph 13 of the summary, which states:

“While the ‘political declaration’ may not be legally binding, we accept that at least at a political level it may bind future European Councils”.


Apart from that, all is still rather foggy—as in, “Fog in Channel: Continent Isolated”. I can imagine that particular dictum being put in rather different terms in Brussels, or indeed Paris or Berlin and so forth, where they think that we are trying to kick the can down the road indefinitely.

The analysis of each of the issues in turn is a model of its kind—for example, the succinct analysis of the EEA, EFTA, the EEA Joint Committee, the specific characteristics of Norway and Iceland and the question mark over the credibility of the idea that the EU might simply wish to do a free trade deal with Britain on its own. The Government have been far too quick to rule that out. Today’s Prime Minister’s Statement from the European Council states:

“Our White Paper will set out detailed proposals for a sustainable and close future relationship between the UK and the EU—a partnership that means that the UK will leave the single market and customs union, but a partnership which supports our shared prosperity and security”.


Apart from anything else, a point emphasised in the European Union Committee report is that at that stage it simply leaves on one side a fact that we are all conscious of: namely, that to a great extent it will be perforce the Irish tail which wags the UK and European dog. At paragraph 57 the report states that the Irish question is “uniquely” able to determine not only the process but the substance of the outcome. Churchill’s phrase,

“the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone”,

is once again haunting us at the present time.

Against that background we have heard some extraordinary invective from Ministers in the Government. For obvious reasons I will not quote what the Foreign Secretary said recently about business, but, given his predilection for the Anglo-Saxon expletive, I would say that until now business has been very restrained in speaking out. I shall mention one statistic which came as a shock to me. I was at a small but well-informed meeting of the London representatives of multinational companies operating in Britain in terms of direct investment. I do not mean equity investment: I mean people who are typically involved in manufacturing, services and so on. They are saying that the foreign direct investment decisions on regards jobs, plant, technology and so on being made now to cover the next two years are in value terms some 80% down on what they were two years ago. If that is not a shock, I do not know what is.

The trade-offs set out in the report are well described, but I would go a little further. The trade-offs should be described as arising specifically between packages. There is a trade-off between trade-off package A and trade-off package B, but there are also trade-offs within each of the packages. I hope that, if the White Paper does one thing, it will be to copycat the reality of this point as it is described in the report. However, I fear not: say the phrase “trade-off” and not just the Foreign Secretary but many Members of the Cabinet smell a rat.

We are now stuck with these red lines. I admire the pithy remark by Frances O’Grady set out in paragraph 18:

“It is fine having red lines, but you do not publish them”.


My own bottom lines of course include the protection of workers’ rights, and that means not just relying on HMG’s good will but staying in the Maastricht treaty extension of the single market, that being the only way in which we can guarantee the rights negotiated in Brussels, whether we are in pillar I of the EEA, which is the EU, or pillar II, which is EFTA.

As my noble friend Lord Whitty reminded us in his report a few months ago, the EEA outcome would be the least destructive as far as trade is concerned. It is not the end of the story, but that is a very clear statement. I think that the opposition to the EEA has been considerably overstated. Of course we are not rule-makers as opposed to rule-takers, but let us take a current example that we will all understand: FIFA. We are rule-takers and rule-makers, are we not, and is that not true of most of the civilised things that we do together around the world?

In conclusion, I want to mention that as regards the association agreement, I think that I am with the implication of the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and I can see the attractions of that label. Equally, however, we need to cast a beady eye over any idea that this is a magic potion and that with one leap Jack was free. We have to be a bit careful about supposing that the component parts of the EEA, embracing all the trade agreements around the world, will suddenly, with a wave of a magic wand, allow us to make trade agreements in place of the 50 or so made under the present umbrella. The referendum was a bit of prime ministerial party opportunism that went wrong. Perhaps we are now able to see whether we can unscramble this particular omelette—without, I hope, leaving too much egg on our respective faces.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I do not presume to assume where the noble Lord gets his predictions of doom and gloom from, but they are probably wrong.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

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

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I was not really intending to get involved in this debate. However, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, has gone on about the canard that we do not know what the Government want out of the negotiations. He then explained to us what the Government want out of the negotiations: as easy a deal as possible. It is quite straightforward what the Government want. They want a free trade deal. They want to go on doing business with the EU in the way that they have in the past, with as little change as possible.

I hear your Lordships say, “But we’re not going to get that”. That is probably true, but that is because the EU is not prepared to give us that. It is prepared to suffer when it comes to its trade in goods—as it sells so much more to us—for the benefit of punishing this country, because for some reason the EU is such a wonderful organisation that you have to punish people who want to leave it. We voluntarily joined the EU; why can we not be allowed to leave it voluntarily without being punished? That does not say much for it, does it? This is one of the problems that the Remain campaign had during the referendum: what was the narrative that was so wonderful about staying in the EU? The fact that no narrative could be produced was one of the reasons why the Leave campaign won.

So let us not mandate the Government to doing x or y, as the amendment suggests. It is quite clear what the Government want. They want a bespoke free trade deal that carries on business as we have done in the past. It does not look as if we will get it but that is what the Government want, and mandating it will not make the slightest bit of difference.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom. He spoke in rather a different tone from the previous speakers, my noble friend Lord Monks, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, who have brought to this discussion what I might call a mature, thoughtful approach to a crisis facing this country that will become even more stark when we get to October.

A lot of people have mentioned today the relationship between the Lords and the Commons. I draw the House’s attention to a creative opportunity that we have right now in the light of the report published on 13 March by the Brexit Select Committee of the House of Commons, chaired by Hilary Benn MP. By a majority in some cases but unanimously in others, it has produced something pretty much like the sort of remit that I imagine will make sense in terms of the detail that one would present to Mr Barnier, who has his own remit. Perhaps I may pick out one or two points from it to give the flavour.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, says it is obvious, and everyone knows, what the Government want. I think that, on a scale of one to 10, we know about only two or three out of 10 what is in the negotiating mandate. If we were to make a constructive contribution then, first, there would have to be something in the mandate because otherwise on what criteria would anyone, including ourselves, judge the outcome of the negotiations? I return to the analogy that my noble friend Lord Monks drew with trade union negotiations. The two things are analogous in some ways, though not totally. What you do not do is go into cloud-cuckoo-land at the start and say to the employer—on an industry basis or a company basis; it does not matter at the moment—“Here is our claim: double the pay, double the holidays, halve the hours and double the pensions”. There are two reasons why mature trade unions do not go down that route. First, you will not get what you have asked for, and what do you do when you come back to the executive? Does it call a strike? That would be a fantasy and it would not get anywhere. The second reason, of course, is that that trade union would not be taken seriously on the other side of the table. I know some trade unions can be satirised in that way, but then I suppose I could satirise Boris Johnson quite adequately if I put my mind to it.

With regard to the degree of specificity that is needed in a mandate at the moment, I shall read one or two of the proposals in the report of the House of Commons Select Committee. If the House of Commons is to be part of looking at a mandate, it does not matter who writes it down. The Government have yet to respond, by the way, to the report, which picks up a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. I shall read just one or two:

“The border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland must remain open, with no physical infrastructure or any related checks and controls, as agreed in the Phase 1 Withdrawal Agreement”.


That is very difficult to implement, and things follow from it to do with the customs arrangement and the single market. If we are to get somewhere between cloud-cuckoo-land and the specificities, I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, that there is no button to press that says, “Take back control. Job done”. This has taken two years of an educational exercise—we are in the middle of a huge educational exercise. Whether or not people argue in the pub about it—and some people do—the fact is that it is a very complicated matter, and it is now understood a lot more than it was at the time of the referendum. Let us try to see how people could understand it a bit better. Surely it would be good if there could be more transparency from the Government. I am sure they would get more respect in Brussels, Paris, Berlin and the rest if they could be franker than they have been so far—although we know the reasons why they cannot easily be franker at the moment and why Parliament needs to give them a nudge.

To give another example, on crime and terrorism, the report says that,

“arrangements must replicate what currently exists in operational and practical cross-border co-operation. In particular, the UK must retain involvement with Europol and the European Arrest Warrant and continue to participate in the EU’s information-sharing systems including SIS II”.

It goes on:

“Institutional and decision-making frameworks must be identified to ensure that the UK is able fully to participate in foreign and security co-operation with the EU, to meet the challenges it shares with its neighbours in the EU-27”.


Another example is:

“In respect of trade in goods, there must be no tariffs on trade between the UK and the EU 27”.


There are a dozen such propositions that would be highly desirable in an adult democracy, which has been a democracy for 1,000 years, or whatever it is. Surely that is the minimum that we can expect: a little more transparency, please. Then people would know that they were being treated as adults and take it from there. We have a huge problem with the credibility of where we are all headed in the continued mention of October this year. I am not saying that the idea that we can get to this place by October is impossible, but it stretches one’s imagination to see how all this will be done. A mark of our seriousness could be to make a proposition.

It is not a risk-free exercise for anyone, whatever their views, to put up a comprehensive proposition. The only way we can describe the arrangements from which we have to select is that they are all different trade-offs, or different package deals. Some people have seen a paper that a trade association produced on the different trade-offs on offer. The maximum at what you might call the remain end of the market would be something that does not look very different from where we are. Another, mentioned by my noble friend and increasingly the position of many industries, is to stay within the European Economic Area by moving from pillar 1, which is the EU, to pillar 2, which is EFTA, of which we were a member from sometime in the 1960s to sometime in the 1970s—a long time ago. It is an organisation that, on trade, works. No one doubts its position in the world. We must look at these practical alternatives. If we were to adopt the amendment, the House of Commons would find it a very constructive way forward to reach some accommodation, not only between the Lords and the Commons, which is a consideration, but between the Government and the people, as mentioned many times today. The amendment will provide constructive input, if the House will support it today.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

That is a complete travesty, a total misreading or a fundamental misunderstanding. If Parliament decides to have these standards, they are there at the insistence of Parliament. That is all that those of us who took part in that very brief but rather graphic debate were arguing.

I go back to the point that I was seeking to make: we should be seeking to underpin the sovereignty of Parliament in this place. If the deal is a very bad deal, I hope that Members in another place will have the courage to vote according to their consciences. I never had any problem voting against the Government in the other place: I frequently voted against Mrs Thatcher’s Government, much as I admired the noble Baroness Thatcher. I frequently found myself in different Lobbies on issues such as the poll tax, or community charge, and did not believe that I was doing anything other than representing my constituents to the best of my ability on issues that were contentious and where I took a particular line.

We all know what a bad deal is, and I very much hope that if the deal is a bad one, they will have the courage in another place to reject it. We cannot make that ultimate decision: although I hope we give it support, this is fundamentally a House of Commons matter, and if it decides that the only proper, ultimate way out is to put that to the people, then that is up to the Commons. A sovereign Parliament has the right to do that.

I end on the note that I am very disturbed about a proliferation of referenda, because it goes a long way towards undermining parliamentary sovereignty. If it is the ultimate decision of the other place, so be it, but it is premature to seek to insert this amendment in this Bill at this time.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Could I just clarify something with the noble Lord? I am very sympathetic to what he is saying, but he has twice said, “We all know what a bad deal would be”. But we do not. I suspect in a few months’ time that we might regret not appreciating that we need some criteria to judge what is a good deal and what is a bad deal—whether, as some people might think, it is single market, customs union or whatever. Unless there are some criteria against which we can judge the outcome, we will be all over the place, which could lead to a very interesting debate on Report on this very question of a mandate.

[Lord Cormack]

A bad deal would be a deal where the trading relations with the other 27 nations of Europe are appreciably worse than they are at the moment. A bad deal would be one where we are not able to reach the agreements the Prime Minister has herself said she wants to reach on such things as Erasmus and Europol. We could go on and on, but we will know what is a bad deal. I hope it will be a good deal, but if it is a bad one, it will be completely wrong to say, “Take it or leave it”. There should be another go, which is why we had that amendment last week.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, unlike for the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, this is my first as well as last contribution to the Committee stage, but it is on a very big question indeed. While I support the amendment effectively introduced by my noble friend Lord Monks, I have become rather sceptical about the value of most of the debates about the withdrawal Bill, because they are not put in any sort of picture about the architecture of the treaty that we are moving towards.

To use the current vernacular, cherry-picking is all very well, but frankly it will not get us very far. The amendment would give the Parliament whose sovereignty we hear so much about the opportunity to consider how we can get towards a satisfactory outcome from this affair for the nation as a whole. We do not at this moment need to split hairs about whether we would be amending a draft presented by the Government or whether Parliament would consider some sort of resolution on a mandate. Today is the day to consider the principle, which is the broader canvas on which this will be played out.

Only yesterday, the President of the European Commission, Mr Juncker, shortly to be succeeded, we are told on the Brussels grapevine, by Monsieur Barnier, stated:

“As the clock counts down, with one year to go, it is now time to translate speeches into treaties; to turn … broad suggestions”,


into “workable solutions”. We have to raise our game and address the bigger picture to see how the Bill can be amended to facilitate that.

The field that I know best, workers’ rights, provides a good illustration, particularly those derived from collective agreements made in Brussels under the Maastricht treaty, a baker’s dozen ranging from pro rata rights for part-time workers to rights to information and consultation. The blunt fact is that the only way they can be guaranteed if we leave the EU is to move from pillar 1 of the EEA, the EU, to pillar 2 of the EEA, which is EFTA and, by doing so, stay in the single market with all its provisions. That has yet to be broached with our friends in Norway, for example, and the clock is ticking on this too: how that could be worked out on the EFTA-EEA side. It would be very discourteous not to start that process in an exploratory fashion with them, especially given the context that it is now at least 50% likely that that is where we will wind up.

The nearest we have to a document that would show the architecture that the treaty would cover is the draft of the withdrawal agreement, which has been in the Printed Paper Office for two weeks. It is the first outline of what will become a treaty, like the treaty of Maastricht, for example, which caused Sir John Major so much difficulty with his “bastards” the best part of 30 years ago. It gives us an indication of the territory that must be filled in, a framework to add in what this country wants to insert separately as and when such can be agreed.

For reasons that we all understand and to which my noble friend has referred, it is counterproductive to the national interest to fail to take the opportunity to spell out the mandate that Parliament wishes to give our negotiators. Some people have not yet realised why this is so important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle]

I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is saying. That is why I think that the possibility of extending Article 50 is realistic, before one contemplates the possibility of a further referendum. The risk that we face at the moment is that the Government will seek to take us out of the European Union finally on the basis of a political declaration that will, frankly, contain mushy words that mean one thing to one set of people and another thing to another set of people.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Will my noble friend allow me to interrupt to check that I have understood what has been said in the last five minutes by both him and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr? As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said that we cannot have a vacuum and have to have what I would call a treaty. A treaty, in turn, has to be an agreed document. It cannot be just a piece of paper to say that we want to agree with each other; it has to fill the vacuum to which the noble Lord referred. Am I right in my understanding of what is being said?

[Lord Liddle]

My noble friend is making a good point, but I think that the vacuum that we potentially face is the risk of a vague political declaration that gives us absolutely no idea what the eventual economic relationship between Britain and the EU will be. In those political circumstances, one might want to say to the Government that we have to extend the period allowed under Article 50 and be given a much better idea of where this course that they are so in favour of is leading us. On that basis, we might then consider whether the final deal should be put to the people in a referendum. The risk is that this declaration will provide the opportunity for misleading the British public about what is involved.

That is all that I have to say. I am wholly in favour of all the amendments in this group and the sentiments behind them. It is wonderful that there is such support around the House for them, but we need to think through the precise terms of what I hope this House will eventually pass on Report.