Business of the House

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

The Companion actually says that anybody who is introducing an amendment is entitled to speak for 20 minutes. I was not proposing to speak for as long as that but I have taken a whole series of interventions which has consumed far more time than that. I therefore do not accept the criticism from the noble Lord. I have to say that, when I first came into the House, I did not find that he had the reputation of being one of the least loquacious Members of your Lordships’ House.

Happily, having heard the point made by my noble friend, one could consider removing the words “and should that Committee recommend its use”, if it is not possible to have that. But the principle that we should have a report from the Constitution Committee is so important that I hope we can least agree that we have a report later this month or next month on the matter. I beg to move.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I simply want to point out to the noble Lord that committees of this House and the other House cannot meet during Prorogation. Therefore, the timescale is rather tight.

Motion

Moved by

Leaving the European Union

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The Prime Minister has set out the changes that we are looking for. The Attorney-General was out there last week and he is out there again today. He is having discussions on the legal nature of the changes we are looking for.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

Does the Minister not agree that it is utterly irresponsible of the Government not to take no deal off the table? All noble Lords need to do is to read the document which was cited earlier. It states:

“Currently, businesses who manufacture or import substances into the EU”—


this is about the chemical sector—

“need to register them with the central European Chemicals Agency ... UK companies would only be able to sell into the EU providing they have transferred their existing registration to an EU-based entity”.

This will cost each company, even small companies, £1,500 excluding admin costs. On top of that they would have to pay EU-WTO tariffs of, on average, 5%.

At the end, this little document, which is full of extraordinary information, says that we are not prepared at all:

“the short time remaining before 29 March 2019 does not allow Government to unilaterally mitigate the effects of no deal. Even where it can take unilateral action, the lack of preparation by businesses and individuals is likely to add to the disruption experienced in a no deal scenario”.

How can a responsible Government who care, one would hope, about the social and economic future of this country not take no deal off the table?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

It is exactly because we care about the future of this country that we are working so hard to get a deal, but the legal default position is no deal, so any responsible Government have to prepare for it. We are working towards a deal. If we had the support of Members of both Houses and all parties, we could get there and we could start to move on to the future, which we all want to do.