European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Jolly has added her name to this amendment, but unfortunately she cannot be in her place today. She has asked me to speak in her stead, and I am delighted to do that. I declare an interest as chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities and of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance, which campaigns on behalf of people with rare diseases. Both these organisations have a direct interest in this amendment.

As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, made clear, the UK has a tremendous record in medical research, in both basic blue-sky research and in translation into treatments. We live in a golden age for medical research, and this golden age is driven very largely by the UK, by efforts in our universities and in our hospitals. There are many reasons for this pre-eminence: world-class university research, world-class medical institutions, the unique NHS system and a funding structure unlike anywhere else in the world, where medical research charities contribute £1.6 billion each year to research, sitting alongside public and private funding.

All this makes our medical research achievement one of the undoubted successes of the United Kingdom. This success has a simple and direct consequence: it produces very significant improvements in health and well-being and very significant improvements in our ability to cure and to treat disease. The chief mechanism by which research turns into cures or treatments is the mechanism of clinical trials.

The UK has long been, and remains, attractive to the pharmaceutical industry, for example, because of the NHS’s ability to run extensive clinical trials. The UK has been able to recruit the very best researchers—again partly because of the NHS. Another reason why clinical trials in the UK are important to researchers, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, made clear, is our alignment with the other 27 EU states under the existing EU clinical trials directive of 2004.

This alignment is absolutely critical. It allows wide and varied datasets, it creates standard procedures and protocols, and it makes research into rare diseases possible. This last point is of huge importance. Some diseases, very often serious diseases, are so rare that there is not available in any one country a sufficient number of patients for research to take place. But because we are aligned across the EU by the 2004 directive, we can and do find sufficient numbers across 28 countries to carry out effective research.

Pancreatic cancer is a case in point. This is one of the hardest cancers to treat and has an appallingly low survival rate. Just 1% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in England and Wales survive for 10 years or more. The European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer recruited more than 700 patients from the UK, Germany, Sweden and France to a large-scale clinical trial. The results showed that an extra 13% of the patients on the trial lived for five years when given the tested combinations of chemotherapy and drugs. This is a huge result for patients and for the future of pancreatic cancer treatment, all made possible by, and only because of, the ability to run trials across 28 countries under a common regime. I should add here that the European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer is led by an outstanding team at Liverpool University.

The 2004 clinical trials directive has proved invaluable. But it has also proved to have many deep and fairly obvious flaws, which we in the UK have been instrumental in trying to correct. After the introduction of the directive, the number of applications for clinical trials fell by 25% between 2007 and 2011, administration costs rose by 98% and delays in actually launching a clinical trial rose by 98%. All this was recognised in 2012 when, with a great deal of UK lobbying, work began on a revision to the directive.

This revision became, in 2014, the new EU clinical trials regulation, referred to in the amendment before us. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, the benefits of the new regulation are straightforward: it speeds up the process for launching new clinical trials; it establishes a more proportionate regulatory regime, with much less red tape; it recognises the concept of co-sponsorship of trials; it simplifies the rules for critical multicountry trials; and it streamlines reporting requirements. This means faster and cheaper trials, faster results and faster delivery of any benefits to patients. All these are of course very good things.

Although the new regulation was agreed in 2014, it was estimated that it would apply only from 2017-18. That was to allow time to get in place the mechanisms needed to make it work properly. But this application date, as has been mentioned, has been delayed yet again, and the EU now says that the regulation will come into force in the second half of 2019. This presents the problem that the amendment addresses. The Bill assumes that we will have left the EU on 29 March 2019, so the new regulation will not be incorporated by this Bill into UK law. Without the amendment, though, the old directive will be, or could be, incorporated. Either way, that means we will not be aligned to the new regulation when it comes into force in the second half of 2019. We will not be part of a group of 28 member states when it comes to conducting clinical trials; we will be a group of one outside a group of 27. The consequences of that for clinical trials in the UK would be disastrous, as they would for UK medical research, for research in the NHS and for our attraction as a research base for pharmaceutical companies.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, takes no political stance and no view about the merits or otherwise of Brexit. It simply says that the Government must not incorporate the old, defective clinical-trials-directive-derived legislation into UK law before the Government have reported to both Houses about the costs and benefits of adopting the new EU clinical trials regulation.

I entirely support the amendment and believe it to be necessary, but I also believe it does not go far enough in ensuring that we are compliant with the new regulation from the day that it applies. That is what we need, not just to protect existing trials but to make certain that we are part of the new regime, which after all we were instrumental in creating. I very much hope that the Minister will take the amendment as the beginnings of a conversation about how to adopt or realign with the new regulation on day one of applicability, and I hope that he will be able—on Report if not today—to make a firm commitment to aligning the UK with the new regulation from the day that it becomes applicable.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. Unlike many amendments to the Bill, this one really is intended to be helpful to the Government and the Bill. Unlike many, it has a genuine point to make and is not merely an excuse to filibuster. Unlike some speeches in support of the amendments, when I say I shall be brief I shall mean it.

As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, says, the Prime Minister’s speech 10 days ago removed the need for lots of amendments to the Bill. In saying that we intend to join or align with the European Medicines Agency if possible, I think she has effectively indicated that the amendment is welcome. However, it is worth pressing the point briefly to get clarity. The background, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has said, is that the EU passed a disastrous clinical trials directive in 2004, destroying much of a thriving British clinical trial industry almost overnight—a crown jewel of our world-leading biomedical sector. It was not one of Brussels’ finest hours. None the less, the UK remains the leader in Europe and one of the leaders in the world in discovering, developing and testing new treatments for diseases, thanks to our strong pharmaceutical industry and our superb academic sector.

The UK’s MHRA—I shall not spell it out; we know what it stands for—in particular has been instrumental in designing and delivering a robust regulatory environment across the EU, providing an attractive and harmonised framework for clinical trials. It is the senior agency relating to the EMA. This includes reviewing the shortfalls of the clinical trials directive and putting its considerable expertise towards drafting the new clinical trials regulation that is coming along to undo some of the harm done by the 2004 directive.

We have already agreed to the CTR in full but, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, says, due to a minor delay we risk not only failing to adopt its vastly improved principles in data sharing and expedience but, in the process, losing alignment with our European partners on vital shared research. The CTR will be applied in late 2019, as opposed to this year as originally planned. It will therefore not be covered by the EU withdrawal Bill as it stands. The resulting uncertainty is already having an effect. Clinical trials can run over many years and require significant planning. Uncertainty is already having consequences.

The Government have sent out strong signals that the UK should be a leading centre for the life sciences through the life sciences industrial strategy and associated sector deal. Aligning with the CTR and allowing collaboration to continue to underpin the UK’s thriving research sector will help the Government to achieve that ambition. I and many others are rightly concerned about new regulations that could come in during the implementation period that the UK will have no say in. The clinical trials regulation is categorically not one of those. It was devised with enormous input from British research expertise, was fully agreed to by British representatives in the EU and is regarded as a significant step forward for the governance of cross-national clinical trials. So I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us and the vital biomedical sector in this country by clarifying that we will align with the CTR, as implied by the Prime Minister 10 days ago.

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[Lord Patel]

My Lords, it is difficult for me to sum up. The message is quite clear to me, although that might merely be perception, that my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, is in some difficulty. It is quite clear to all those who understand the amendment—and, more importantly, the European trials regulation and the law as specified in the Bill—that there is no reason why we cannot incorporate this into the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, suggested that we might need to bring another amendment; I suppose he means with the view to having a vote. That was not my intention when I tabled the amendment. It was merely to clarify the Government’s position on importing the European trials regulation into the Bill as we are the prime movers of the regulation and we are formulating it. The solution identified by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, seems to be the answer to cover all such regulations that we might have agreed to and might come into force. This is not the first time that he has come to my rescue. He has done so twice before, on admixed embryos and on mental health having equal esteem. Both times they were put to the vote and the votes were won—so that is a warning.

I hope the Minister might agree that more work needs to be done on this by Ministers. I am glad to understand that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is to meet with Cancer Research UK and others at some stage in March, I assume to discuss this and other science issues. I hope he will agree that there might be a place for the Ministers to meet and see whether there is a solution. Otherwise, I fear that either there will be an amendment in the form suggested by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, or, if it is not me, somebody else will table an amendment. We can tell from the support this amendment received even from strong Brexiteers such as the noble Lords, Lord Lawson and Lord Forsyth, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, that such an amendment might be carried.

[Viscount Ridley]

As a result of this debate, could the noble Lord consider the possibility that he, I and the other supporters of the amendment have been doing so on false pretences—that is, on the assumption that some action is needed to make it come into law—whereas, if the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, are right, perhaps it automatically does? That might explain the problems that we have got into today, and we would have wasted an hour and a quarter on something that might not matter.

[Lord Patel]

I thank the noble Lord. That is why I hope the meeting will help the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and others to clarify that the amendment was not necessary, in which case we are saying that any such regulation that we have agreed to stands. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

Will my noble friend explain something to me? He has just said “passed into our law”, but there is confusion, particularly in relation to what the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said, about environmental law. This is surely about environmental principles, which are really quite different. They are, on the whole, aspirations, with which many of us may agree, but they are not part of the legislation as such.

[Lord Deben]

I fear that my noble friend is not right on that, for two reasons. First, all environmental law in the European Union has been intimately connected with the principles upon which it is based. Indeed, you cannot understand the law unless you understand the principles. That has always been the situation. All we are saying is: let us make our law understandable by the principles to which we have assented and to which, we are told, the present Government wish to continue to assent. The distinction between principles and law is not correct in this case. Secondly, even if he were right—and I am not sure that he and I would always agree on the same aspirations as far as the law is concerned—it is very peculiar for the Government, having said that this is what they want, not to be prepared to put it into the law, because these are the very words to which the Prime Minister and other Ministers have referred. This is a distinction without a difference in this case.

Since my noble friend has raised it, I say that when we voted on these laws—some of which I did as a Minister—we did so on the whole package, which was the principles as adumbrated in the law itself. It is not possible to take the legal bits out without the principles, as he would suggest, because it is the principles that enable one to interpret what the law says. That has always been accepted. The Government, in their statements, certainly gave every impression that that was what they wanted to do. I very much hope that whatever my noble friend says about additionality—

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

My Lords, I share the anxiety of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, about the timescales, particularly in respect of the consultation on EU environment principles and the establishment of a new independent environmental watchdog. A large amount of environmentally related legislation has to be got through over the next few months or a year: a fisheries Bill, an agriculture Bill and a huge wall of statutory instruments on environmental law are coming towards us. There are something in excess of 800 instruments in total, the last I heard, with a considerable number of those being environmental. I am anxious, along with many other noble Lords, about whether there is air time for this consultation before the legislation that needs to follow to establish the new watchdog. I would press the Minister to tell us about the plans for the consultation.

I also share the anxiety of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about whether there will be real welly behind the regulator. I was chief executive of the Environment Agency, the environmental regulator, which had to help negotiate the urban wastewater treatment directive infraction proceedings that produced the Thames tideway. In spite of wanting and willing there to be an example elsewhere in the world of a body established by a Government that is capable of fining its own Government —and hence its own establishing power—I have not been able to find one. I hope, however, that Ministers will look assiduously at producing that result.

In the spirit of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, with the great hope that I am not going to be his unrefined ordure, I will also briefly help the Committee with another couple of examples about why the environmental principles are important. When I was chairman of English Nature, the debate about genetically modified crops was raging. There was huge public concern and the Government were in an impossible position, with the multinational American-based companies pressing very hard to have GM crops introduced. There was huge alarm about the release of triffid-like plants resistant to all known weed-killers and capable of killing insects stone dead at a distance of 100 paces. But the reality is that had there been an uncontrollable release of GM crops, it would have been more than unfortunate for biodiversity, agriculture and food security.

[Viscount Ridley]

Let me give the noble Baroness the chance to get her voice back by intervening on what she knows is one of my favourite subjects. Would she not accept that, many years down the line, we now know, because of the meta-analysis by Göttingen University, among other research, that the introduction of genetically modified crops has not led to triffid-like explosions, but has led to a reduction in the use of pesticides, on average, by 37% across the globe? That is something I think she would support.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

Perhaps I could continue our long-standing discussion with the noble Viscount outside the Chamber, to avoid the Committee having to listen to us going through that. The important point is that the principles helped us get a framework for thinking about the issues. That was very important at a time when that meta-analysis was not available.

Another example is our current position on the common agricultural policy. It was introduced before some of these environmental principles were refined and used in European legislation. As a result, we are now in the ridiculous position where the polluter pays principle would have helped us, as taxpayers and as water company customers and payers, avoid paying farmers twice. We are paying water companies to pay farmers to stop doing something that, as taxpayers, we are paying farmers to do. The polluter pays principle, had it existed when the common agricultural policy was first set in place, would have been a hugely valuable way of preventing that very wasteful situation.

Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report)

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I think this is an excellent report. I strongly endorse its conclusion, which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has already quoted:

“It is difficult to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom than ‘no deal’”.


No deal, a complete and abrupt break with the EU, leaving the UK to go trading on WTO terms, or perhaps even to embark on a policy of unilateral free trade, now seems to have become almost the preferred outcome of the most embittered Brexiteers. Their argument, as recently put by Boris Johnson, is that a soft Brexit with an association agreement is not an attractive option; it would leave us with obligations to the EU but without influence. The stark choice that we face is therefore between staying in and breaking away.

That is not what the leave campaign was saying before the referendum. I have just looked back at the briefing book for Business for Britain that leave campaigners carried with them to debates during the referendum campaign. It is a hefty and authoritative volume, edited by a distinguished group that included Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs and our own noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. It sets out a range of options, from Norway through Switzerland to Canada, assuring us that co-operation across a wide range of sectors can continue after we leave. Were the voters deliberately misled, or had the leaders of the leave campaign not thought through the detailed implications—

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I wonder if the noble Lord would give the title of that volume. It was called Change, or Go.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It was called Change, or Go: How Britain would Gain Influence and Prosper outside an Unreformed EU. I have the summary version with me.

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[Viscount Ridley]

The point is that it was published before the renegotiation, so it was all about how we should go into the renegotiation. It was a quite different situation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I merely remark that I was given this during the referendum campaign when it was being extensively used by speakers from Business for Britain, so it was very much part of the briefing for the referendum campaign itself. I rest my case on that.

I feel that the extent to which Britain’s achievement in 40 years of membership, and the whole corpus of regulation that has grown up in that period, has been achieved by engagement with our neighbours, including what was after all Mrs Thatcher’s greatest European achievement, the European single market. There is little new in the evidence presented to the committee for this report on the implications of a hard Brexit. Most of it has been reported in successive exercises and inquiries over the last few years, most comprehensively in the 32 balance of competences papers, which were the outcome of an extensive consultation conducted by the coalition Government at the insistence of Conservative Eurosceptics.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has just demonstrated, Brexiteers and remainers still seem to be living in parallel universes in how they see Britain’s relationship with our European neighbours. One of the noble Lord’s colleagues on the Conservative Benches told me the other day that the British had been misled when we were taken into the European Community and not told that this was a political project to build a united states of Europe—what I see the Daily Mail now calls a “European empire”. Britain, he added, must regain its independence; the details of our future co-operation scarcely matter. However, as the report makes clear, the details matter a great deal.

The easy promises and illusions of the leave campaign that we could go back to the relationship that we had before 1973 ignore the transformation in the global economy since the 1970s: the impact of new technology, the communications revolution and the accompanying transformation of international security and global threats. Data protection and exchange, air traffic regulation and pharmaceutical and financial regulation have all become far more complex. Britain has helped to shape the European framework for these regulations. If we leave the EU completely, we will have to choose between whether we go back to following American regulation, which is what we did before we joined and before the European single market, or follow European regulations in order to have continuing open access to its markets. I note that the London Chamber of Commerce evidence told the committee:

“For the aviation sector, there is no World Trade Organisation ‘fail safe’”.


There is no fail-safe either for phytosanitary regulations, which are vital for our food and agricultural industries, or for managing tensions between free data flows, data protection and efforts to combat cross-border crime and terrorism. The leave campaign seems to be still back in the 18th century world of David Ricardo, where tariffs were the only things that mattered and regulations and standards hardly existed.

However, it is the focus on timing that is the most important part of this report. The report notes the closeness of the intermediate deadlines that we face, well before the Government’s self-imposed deadline of March 2019. The Government have stated that they wish to reach agreement on a transition or implementation arrangement no later than March 2018, now a matter of weeks away. In order to leave the EU in March 2019, they also state, the UK and other European Governments need to reach agreement by October 2018 to allow sufficient time for domestic approval and ratification in the UK and other states. The Government have boxed themselves in by insisting, to placate the hardliners in their party, that the UK will formally leave the EU in March 2019 and that any period of implementation after that will be as a third-country non-member. So time is extremely short.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, suggests that we should ask the Germans to provide an answer, to define the future relationship for us, but if the Government cannot define what they want, negotiation is impossible. The Prime Minister herself is still unable to define what she means by a “deep and special partnership” with the EU, without which it is difficult to negotiate any such relationship. The Cabinet, we are told, held its first discussion on the definition of the future partnership with the EU that we should seek to negotiate on 19 December, a few weeks ago, and it was reported in the Times that the discussion did not enter into much detail. The Cabinet clearly disagrees on the nature of the transition or implementation agreement we are asking for.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, suggests that we should immediately stop paying for the European budget, which is clearly a source of great grievance to the Brexiteers. He will no doubt recall that enlargement of the European Union to eastern Europe was, again, one of Margaret Thatcher’s greatest priorities in the 1980s and 1990s and that a substantial part of our net contribution to the EU budget goes to fund the economic development of eastern Europe and the eastern neighbourhood and is thus a contribution to European security. I hope that the Government want to continue to contribute to European security in various ways. The foreign policy implications of leaving the European Union have not been fully addressed, except in the excellent position paper we received last September.

The Cabinet clearly still disagrees. Perhaps if the Government had placed their best Ministers in charge of negotiations, we might have made more progress. Perhaps if the division of responsibilities between the Cabinet Office and DExEU had been clearer and the turnover of staff within DExEU had been lower, the Government might also have made more progress. Perhaps if the Prime Minister had paid more attention to Britain’s long-term national interest than to holding her bitterly divided party together, we might by now be in a different place. As it is, we have lost a year, including an unnecessary general election, and we are in danger of running out of time to negotiate an acceptable agreement with the rest of the EU rather than collapsing into a chaotic no-deal outcome, which would be a tragedy and a disaster for this country.

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[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I have to say I got the impression on reading this report that the committee mostly started with its conclusions. I do not imagine there was a lot of changing of minds, or indeed challenging of minds.

I will focus on the assertions in the report that:

“It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom”,


than no deal, and that,

“the Government’s assertion that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ was not helpful”.

With respect to the latter claim, I point out that saying the opposite, during the early months of 2016, was what was not helpful. It is now clear that the failure of the renegotiation prior to the referendum was guaranteed by the Government’s insistence that they would recommend a remain vote however little the EU conceded. So we should have said, “Change or go” at that point. In any case, I find it far from impossible to envisage a worse outcome than no deal if no deal means no free trade agreement. A deal in which we agree to giving Brussels continuing control over our borders, our money and our laws indefinitely without any say, so that we are effectively stuck inside the EU for ever but with no say and no rebate, would be worse than no deal.

No deal means no free trade agreement, and it is not the same as “walking away” and failing to settle administrative issues such as mutual recognition agreements on goods and aircraft landing rights. No one is advocating that, and it is not going to happen, because under international trade law, discrimination is illegal. EU denial of “equivalence” to our banks when the same is granted to US banks would be illegal. Customs formalities and mutual standard recognition have to be provided seamlessly by both sides under WTO rules; any failure to do this is, again, illegal. Say what you like about the EU, but it is not about to start breaking the law on that scale.

The report cites evidence of problems at customs and ports if there is no deal. However, it ignores the evidence given by Jon Thompson, the head of HMRC, to both the Public Accounts Committee and the EU Committee in the Commons that 99.5% of non-EU imports are not physically inspected. Mr Thompson could not be goaded by members of the committee into the kind of doom-mongering that we have heard this evening about what would happen at ports.

If we were to fall back on WTO terms, then, according to no less an authority than the director-general of the World Trade Organization himself, Roberto Azevedo, speaking last November to Liam Halligan of the Telegraph,

“it’s not the end of the world if the UK trades under WTO rules with the EU … About half of the UK’s trade is already on WTO terms—with the US, China and several large emerging nations where the EU doesn’t have trade agreements”.

He concluded:

“If you don’t have a fully functioning FTA with the EU, there could be rigidities and costs”,


introduced into that trading relationship,

“but it’s not like trade … is going to stop. There will be an impact, but … it is perfectly manageable”.

The committee report says that,

“no deal would also have a damaging impact on the EU”.

This is the understatement of the century and it is a pity the report did not explore this in great detail. As others have said, it is baffling. According to Professor Patrick Minford’s calculations, under no deal, the EU loses around £500 billion in net present value. That is because, first, it loses our financial support during the implementation period; secondly, the tariff revenue levied by us would be effectively paid by EU producers, who must keep their UK prices in line with world competition to sell anything here; and thirdly, we would conclude free trade deals with the rest of the world earlier than otherwise. In contrast, according to Professor Minford’s calculations, the UK would gain around £650 billion in net present value from this outcome, mainly through lowering the external tariff—a point largely ignored in the report.

You can dispute these actual numbers, but it is hard to argue with the general point that this would hurt them more than it hurts us. Claims to the contrary are almost always based on models that fail to assume current government policy; for example, that we will agree free trade agreements with non-EU countries that account for 60% of our global trade. Despite 60 years of trying, Brussels has failed to sign free trade agreements with China, Brazil, India and America. Many of its 50 or so trade deals are with tiny entities such as Jersey and the Isle of Man. Again, Mr Azevedo, the director-general of the WTO, explains why this is:

“Trade deals are difficult but there is an additional complicating factor for the EU, which is agriculture … Once you start negotiating with a big agricultural exporter, they want market access—and, for the EU, that’s a sensitive sector, both politically and economically”.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Is it not the case that an EU agreement with India was prevented by the UK’s objection to issuing more visas for Indian workers?

[Viscount Ridley]

It is still at the early stage of negotiation. It is a long process and the agreement with India is nowhere near ready.

Do not get me wrong. Of course I think we should strive for a good trade deal with the EU. If we fail, it will not be for lack of trying on our part. But look across the table. Mr Juncker and Mr Barnier refuse even to talk about a trade deal until March, showing no urgency on behalf of the people and businesses of the European Union. We are in a very odd situation here. The party that needs the deal most wants it least. Punishing the UK seems to be a higher priority for Mr Juncker than looking after the interests of the EU 27 economies and people. How do you negotiate a deal with the other side when it is interested not in what is best for its side but only in causing pain?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

Can the noble Viscount possibly contemplate that the party which he says needs a deal more than we do may have a different view on that matter?

[Viscount Ridley]

That is my point. Their view is that the politics must override the economic interests of the people in their countries.

Anyway, in those circumstances, of course we must prepare for no deal.

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[Viscount Ridley]

Surely the answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is that the EU is a single market but it is also a fortress. It is a tariff-protected zone which prevents free trade from outside, to a surprisingly large extent.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords—

EU Exit Negotiations

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

We are having regular discussions with the devolved Administrations. The Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and civil servants in Northern Ireland were informed of our proposals to introduce the withdrawal Bill.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, further to what my noble friend said about fixing the date of withdrawal and to what the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, said, can he confirm that the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case brought by Gina Miller confirms in precise terms that Article 50 is irreversible, in contrast to what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said?

[Lord Callanan]

I can confirm that. It is also stated by the European Commission that Article 50, once invoked, is irrevocable unless there is political agreement on it.

UK and EU Relations

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and, like him, to give a different perspective on these matters and address the position papers. In the interests of brevity, I will confine my remarks specifically to the Euratom and nuclear safeguards papers.

A lot of people have made a lot of mischief over this issue, scaremongering about the reasons for leaving Euratom and the consequences of doing so. In my view, the claims are mostly baseless; the Government's position papers on nuclear materials and safeguards issues makes it clear that that is true. There is genuinely nothing sinister, worrying or difficult about replacing the Euratom treaty arrangements with new and comparable intergovernmental arrangements with Euratom countries, other countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

I welcome the fact that the position paper makes it clear that withdrawal from the Euratom treaty will in no way diminish our nuclear ambitions. There need be no threat to non-proliferation, the UK nuclear industry, how we handle nuclear waste, research and international collaboration and, above all, to cancer treatment—a myth that has been shamefully spread by those who frankly should know better.

Had the Euratom treaty been separate from the EU treaties, and not justiciable by the European Court of Justice, there would be no need for us to leave Euratom. The Government say—I believe them—that they have no animus against Euratom. During the referendum, that was not an issue for those who voted to leave. The whole thing is a purely administrative matter—a tidying up exercise that cannot be avoided. Compared with other aspects of negotiations to leave the EU, this one is simple. The Euratom countries want a deal with us, and vice versa, that replicates as closely as possible the harmonious relationship that exists now.

So why leave at all? It is because the treaties are “uniquely legally joined”, as the position paper says. It is as simple as that. I, for one, would be thrilled if the lawyers said they had changed their minds and we do not have to leave Euratom after all; but that is not what they are saying. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, summarised well the issues behind Euratom. In the debate on 20 July, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Prior—stated:

“We are preparing a domestic nuclear safeguards Bill; we are opening negotiations with the EU; we are talking to third countries about bilateral agreements; finally, of course, we are talking to the International Atomic Energy Agency. My officials have met with IAEA officials in Vienna and had constructive conversations about a new voluntary offer agreement, to replace the current one that we have by virtue of our Euratom membership”.—[Official Report, 20/7/17; col. 1796.]


That sounds like good progress on several fronts at once. Will my noble friend the Minister confirm this and update the House on those negotiations?

Let me deal briefly with the medical isotopes issue. As noble Lords know, medical radioisotopes are not classed as special fissile material and thus are not subject to nuclear safeguards. Thus, radioactive material used in cancer treatments is not subject to nuclear co-operation agreements that deal with trade in nuclear materials. The import or export of medical radioisotopes is not subject to any Euratom licensing requirements. Euratom places no restrictions on the export of medical isotopes to countries outside the EU. They are subject to the same EU customs rules as any other good. Therefore, as I understand it, the UK’s ability to import medical isotopes from Europe and the rest of the world as a result of leaving Euratom will not be affected—full stop. Will the Minister confirm that? Scaremongering to the contrary has caused needless concern among cancer patients and their relatives, fanned by irresponsible journalism. It is the reddest of red herrings, a scarlet sardine, a magenta mackerel, a vermilion vendace. I hope noble Lords who raised this issue will use the opportunity to concede that it is a non-issue according to the UK Government and international authorities. In conclusion, I welcome the Government’s position paper on nuclear materials and safeguards issues, and look forward to a smooth transition to new arrangements outside Euratom.

One final point: I listened with care to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who is now not in her place. I was left in the dark on one point. Could she produce a position paper on the Labour Party’s position on the single market? Some of us are very confused about that.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

We simply do not know what will be the result of the negotiations. Nor do we know what the situation will be in two years’ time. It may be that adverse consequences have emerged from the expectation of leaving the European Union—it may be that they will not. I do not know. I do not think, therefore, that it would be appropriate now to commit to a future referendum, nor do I think we can be sure how we would interpret the result of such a referendum.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I wonder whether the noble Lord has picked up his notes for the wrong speech. He seems to be talking about a second referendum.

[Lord Turner of Ecchinswell]

I am going to come very shortly and briefly to why I think these arguments mean that we should have a parliamentary debate. I do not think it would be appropriate to commit now to a future referendum, because I do not think we can know now what the meaning of a no vote in a future referendum would be. Would it be a vote against a result that was too soft or too hard?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

In reaching that decision, the Supreme Court laid out the principle that the reason why it was engaging with the case at all was not because it had a view on Brexit but because of the constitutional principle. The principle is very straightforward. It is that when it comes to our rights, Parliament makes those decisions. That is why when the process comes to the end and there is a deal on the table it has to be voted upon by Parliament but, if there is no deal, that too becomes an issue. It is not good enough for Ministers of Government to say that we just walk away as though that has no consequences. Walking away also has consequences for the rights of citizens in this country. That is why it is a matter for Parliament. That is why this proposed new clause is so important.

[Viscount Ridley]

The noble Baroness said at the beginning of her remarks that this is a notification Bill, not an authorisation Bill. Will she therefore explain what an authorisation amendment is doing in a notification Bill?

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

At the end of the process, there is going to be a need to come back before Parliament. That has been acknowledged by the Prime Minister and other Ministers and I understand that an undertaking has been given. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I believe that having it in statutory form is the best way for us to know exactly what is on offer, but I have heard repeatedly from Ministers that the option of walking away involves no need to come back before Parliament. I asked the question directly of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, and I have heard it said by other Ministers in Select Committee. All I am saying to this House is that that is why this amendment is so important, even if no negotiation deal comes back before Parliament because no deal means WTO and WTO has implications for citizens of this country with regard to their rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by expressing my belief that speaking in favour of any amendment to the Bill does not amount to trying to frustrate the referendum result or to deny the will of the people. I respect the result, and we are trying to implement it as responsibly as we can in the interests of our great country.

The referendum was about taking back control and ensuring parliamentary sovereignty. That is vital to safeguard our democracy and protect our national interests. The people want to be able to trust our Parliament to look after their future. But in the context of the Bill, it seems to me that Parliament is in danger of abrogating its responsibility.

I have heard the arguments to suggest that parliamentary oversight somehow makes it inevitable that the EU will only offer us a bad deal. However, I respectfully disagree. Indeed, I believe that the likelihood is the other way round. If the negotiators and Ministers know that at the end of the day they will have to sell this deal to Parliament, I believe they will be properly incentivised to be more likely to achieve a deal that is acceptable.

As currently proposed, the Bill will effectively hand responsibility for our future to a group of negotiators and Ministers who apparently countenance with a measure of equanimity the idea that no deal is better than a bad deal. If we enter negotiations with a view that the EU will not give us a good deal and that we will just have to leave the single market, the customs union, Euratom and so many other fundamental parts of our current economic security, then we must surely ask ourselves whether those negotiators will be sufficiently incentivised to actually get a good deal for the country.

A no-deal scenario was never put to the British people. The White Paper and the referendum campaign have not considered the consequences either. Leaving the customs union, the single market and Euratom are recent decisions with significant implications for people’s jobs, for standards of living, for national security, for the nuclear industry, for Northern Ireland and so much else. Yet the risks have been skirted over, almost as if they do not really matter. They do matter. In normal negotiations, corporate negotiators would reserve the option of taking an offer back to their board; a lawyer would reserve the option of referring back to their client.

[Viscount Ridley]

Will my noble friend explain how what she is saying now squares with what she said at the start of her speech about not challenging the result of the referendum?

[Baroness Altmann]

I am not challenging the result of the referendum. We are here to debate and discuss how best to safeguard the interests of our country and to discuss what might happen at the end of the negotiation, in light of the referendum, to make sure that we have parliamentary sovereignty. That is what this debate and this amendment are about. Why would we deny Parliament, the heart of our democracy, the authority to approve or push for a better deal, rather than accepting no deal without a proper say? This parliamentary route, giving Parliament, not the Executive, a meaningful final vote is my preferred option, not a referendum. Such a safety net, written into statute, would seem to me to be the most responsible course to take as we negotiate our EU exit.

I believe it is my duty, given the very serious concerns that I have expressed, to ask the other place to reconsider the need for elected MPs to take responsibility for the future of their constituents. I believe that they must have the final say on the Bill and I want to ask them to think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, as the House knows, I speak as one who very much regrets the result of the referendum but who now feels that we must put it behind us and work to create the best possible relationship we can with the European Union. I feel that this amendment muddies the waters. I remind the House of the words of that very wise woman, George Eliot, who said:

“Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous”.


The amendment goes down the road of prophecy. We can have no idea how the negotiations are going to unfold. Personally, I feel more optimistic about them than some people but we can have no idea how they are going to unfold or what the parliamentary situation or the situation in the European Union or anything else will be in two years’ time.

We can be certain of only one thing, and that was the point made by my noble friend Lord Howard. Generally speaking, my noble friend and I disagree on matters relating to Europe but he is quite right that the Government will stand or fall by the way in which they conduct these negotiations. Whether or not there is a deal, the House of Commons will pass judgment on the Government’s performance. It will either support the Government or reject them but either way, its will will prevail. That is a very simple matter. The amendment would put in place a complicated structure which would make it very much more difficult for the House of Commons to assert its authority. I quite understand that the purpose of the amendment is to enhance the authority of Parliament but its effect would be to diminish the capacity of the House of Commons to hold the Government to account. For that reason, I hope very much that the House will reject it.

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords—

[Lord True]

My Lords—

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

The noble Lord talks about fear and anxiety but does he agree that what we have heard this afternoon—the inflaming of the fears of these people—has come from only one side, including spurious mentions of the edict of Nantes and Idi Amin?

[Lord Oates]

My Lords, no, I do not agree with the noble Viscount for one moment. These are fears expressed to me and to noble Lords across the whole House. They are not manufactured; they are real and present, and the Government need to address them.

The Home Secretary claims in her letter to us that a unilateral guarantee to EU citizens resident in the UK would cause uncertainty for British citizens in the EU. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out, that is not the view of the many groups representing British citizens in the EU that have written to me and have published a statement today. Not only do they accept the need for a unilateral guarantee but they have strongly urged it on me and, I am sure, on other noble Lords. Far from causing uncertainty, they believe that it would provide them with reassurance.

During the debate on this Bill, there has been a lot of discussion about who said what in the referendum campaign, but no one disputes that the leave campaign claimed that the rights of EU and British citizens resident in other countries would not be affected. That is what they said; they also said that to state anything else would be scaremongering.

Since the vote to leave, politicians from across the political spectrum have been clear that we should unilaterally state that we will protect the rights of EU citizens here. A prominent leave campaigner, the noble Lord, Lord Howard, spoke earlier. In evidence to the Justice Sub-Committee, he made it clear that that should be the case, at least as far as residence and rights to work and study were concerned. He said that he did not think we should,

“wait for any question of reciprocity”.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, rightly advised the Government—some months ago, I think—that they should lead by example. He has taken a clear, principled stance on this issue throughout, as have many noble Lords in this House, including the noble Lords, Lord Bowness and Lord Hannay, my noble friend Lady Ludford and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who moved the amendment—noble Lords of all parties and none, remainers and leavers alike, because this is not a partisan issue; it is a question of principle.

Doubtless the Minister will tell us that this Bill is not the place to concern ourselves with such principles, but it is the only place. It is our one opportunity to send a clear signal back to the elected House that we regard the principle of protecting the rights of EU citizens resident here and British citizens resident in the EU as a matter of honour for our country, and, in doing so, to show that we have heard the distress and anxiety of millions of British and other EU citizens, and that we have been prepared not just to offer warm words but to act.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is one of the most distinguished Members of this House. I gently say to him that I do not think that I have heard him defend an argument in such threadbare circumstances. We have sometimes been lectured on the fact that we have a representative parliamentary democracy. Now we seem to have developed referendumitis. What about the implications of this proposal for Scotland? What would it do to the Scottish nationalist argument? We said that we were having a referendum for a generation. This would open the door to the argument, “If they can do it for Europe, they can do it for us”. That is the second time that that has been mentioned today.

The ball was dropped, if dropped it was, when the referendum Bill came to this House. That was the opportunity to put in a back-up clause to say that we would put it to the test at the end. Speaking for those of us who have had referenda—in our case, the border poll in the 1970s, on the Good Friday agreement in 1998 and the potential for another one—if we are going to do this on an ad hoc basis to suit a party management situation, or a bright idea someone happened to come up with, we will destabilise the whole constitution of the United Kingdom. I caution Members on this. The time to fix this was when we started it. We should have put it in the Bill. If I recall, this House was silent when it came to that question in the Bill. That was the opportunity to do it. The question asked was amended by the Electoral Commission, if I recall correctly, which produced the clarity in the question. There was no caveat or qualification.

If we send Ministers to Brussels to negotiate with Michel Barnier and so on—

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

Further to the point that the noble Lord is making, I remember spending long hours discussing the referendum Bill in this place. One of the things that we particularly discussed was the need to make sure that this was a decisive result that was accepted by the losing side as well as the winning side. Those of us who then went into the campaign with all sorts of disadvantages because of the Government’s ability to spend and so on were none the less just about content that, if we lost, we would be able to accept the result. The other side appears not to have come to that conclusion.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a beneficiary of the common agricultural policy.

The British people have decided to leave the European Union. The Commons has passed this Bill unamended. We, in this House, pride ourselves on scrutinising and revising Bills, but what is there to scrutinise? What is there to revise? This is a two-clause Bill. It is not our job, as my noble friend Lord Lang said yesterday, to adorn legislation. If we amended this Bill, we would be adding to it. This is just about all there is to say on the matter.

However, listening to all the doom and gloom in this debate, I am reminded of what Woody Allen once said,

“mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction”.

We must, he said, make the wise choice.

That, all too often, is how we have been talking about the future. Being a rational optimist, let me take just a few minutes of your Lordships’ time—less than six, I promise—to strike a note of hope. You might call it “project cheer”. I will start with why I, for one, am surer now than I was on 24 June that the British people have done the right thing. Voting to leave the EU last June has had precisely the opposite effect to what project fear told us would happen. Instead of an emergency Budget and an immediate and profound shock to the economy, a loss of confidence, a drying up of inward investment and a collapse in the stock market—all of which were promised if we voted leave—we have seen an acceleration of growth, now the fastest in the G7. There have been record highs on the stock market, votes of confidence from Apple, Google, Siemens, Nissan, Snapchat, McDonalds, IBM and many other companies. There has been a manufacturing revival, a narrowing of the trade deficit as exports pick up, thanks to a welcome devaluation of the pound, and the humiliation of economic forecasters at the IMF, the Bank of England, the Treasury, the European Commission and elsewhere.

I know that it is early days but to those who say that we face disaster when we actually leave, I say: project fear having failed last year, such warnings cut even less ice with the British public now. Besides, we are rarely ambitious and positive enough about our future. Leaving the exchange rate mechanism in 1992 proved a turning point, not a catastrophe. Staying out of the euro turned out to be a triumph, not a trauma. Moreover, it is becoming clearer by the day why the European Union is stagnating while the rest of the world grows and why so many EU countries have had a lost decade, while some African and Asian countries have doubled the size of their economies. The centralised, top-down dirigisme of Brussels is stifling innovation at the behest of big companies, big bureaucracies and big pressure groups. The Brussels system is hamstrung by an overzealous version of the precautionary principle that is too pessimistic about future possibilities, too complacent about present systems and too convinced that bureaucrats know better.

From the Reformation to Napoleon’s continental system and after, this country has throughout its history done better when it looked outward to the world more than inward to the continent. We are an island, not a peninsula. Perhaps in the 1960s, it was just about understandable that we should try to retreat inside a tariff fortress to get access to a single regulatory zone. But today in the age of container shipping, budget airlines and the internet we have a global language, we are a science superstar, we have immense soft power, we have championed free trade for generations, and we have lent the world our systems of law and finance, of medicine and technology, of ideas and discovery.

Finally, in Theresa May we have a Prime Minister who intends Brexit to be a global, outward advance not an isolationist, defensive retreat. Now I know there are those on the other side of the referendum divide who say that we globalists won the referendum only because we were supported by people with a darker agenda who wanted to pull up the drawbridge, go back to the 1950s and stop all immigration, not just control it. We are told: “What have you unleashed? Are you sure you know how to ride the tiger of populism?”. I say to those who take this view: look at what the Government say and what they do. It is run by the globalists, not the isolationists. If you want to strengthen their hand—our hand—and make sure the globalists get their way and not the protectionists, then come on over and join us. Bring as many of the 48% as you can and we will bring as many of the 52%. To echo what my noble friend Lord Cormack just said, together we can build an unassailable majority for an outward, confident and ambitious country, trading and thriving, inventing and discovering, leading and enlightening the world as never before. This is a great country with a great history, but we have hardly started.

The Process for Triggering Article 50

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

No, my Lords, I dispute that, because I do not think the British people will feel a sense of betrayal, given the approach that the Prime Minister set out in her speech last week.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend welcome the fact that the Supreme Court, while asking Parliament to take the decision to trigger Article 50, also made it very clear that it was not its own job to decide how that Bill should be phrased or how that question should be put to Parliament? Was that not a helpful constitutional clarification?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

It was indeed. There are a number of important constitutional clarifications on that point, and on the Sewel convention. As I have said, our lawyers are studying the judgment in full, and I am sure there will be other issues that noble Lords may wish to raise in due course, once your Lordships too have had the opportunity to read all 96 pages.