UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, the report we are debating, so admirably introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who contributed to great effect to its production, is quite simply the first overall analysis of the future development of the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU by either House of Parliament since we left the EU in early 2020, more than three years ago, so it deserves to be taken seriously. It will not be the last word on a subject which, whatever side you voted on in the 2016 referendum, will be prominent in our politics for the foreseeable future, but its long list of suggestions for developing that relationship deserves careful scrutiny and response.

First, it is a great pity that the Government have yet again rejected the idea of negotiating an SPS agreement with the EU, when it has the wholehearted support of the agri-food industries in all four nations and of most parties in Parliament. That industry, which has benefited to an increasing degree from its access to continental markets, is being sacrificed on the altar of sovereignty—that imprecise and poorly understood concept which is trotted out whenever needed to reject a well-argued proposition.

Secondly, the report’s proposal that the UK should establish a structured framework for co-operating with the EU on foreign and security policy issues has been supported strongly by all previous speakers in this debate. It was a concept endorsed by both parties in their joint political declaration, negotiated and ratified in 2019 and 2020, and then dropped by Prime Minister Johnson. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision at that time, the case for such a framework has been greatly strengthened since then by the need to respond effectively to two major challenges: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the rising assertiveness of China worldwide. The Government say that we are getting along just fine by co-operating with the EU on an ad hoc basis on those and other issues, but that demonstrates a not-unprecedented misunderstanding of the way the EU best responds, which is through frameworks for co-operation laid down in advance, while leaving each party autonomy in its own decision-making. Surely this is a moment for a rethink on that issue.

Thirdly, there was the Government’s response to the report’s proposal that the UK and EU should develop the closest possible co-operation on their climate change policies, in particular linking their emissions trading schemes and ensuring that any cross-border adjustment mechanism did not get at cross purposes and give rise to further friction in their mutual trade. To say, as the Government do, that they agree with the report’s views in part, without saying which parts, is just a curate’s egg reply. Every single professional witness who gave us evidence urged the need for the closest possible co-operation on those issues, but in the real world the UK’s emissions trading scheme is now drifting away from the EU’s and the Government have not yet decided even whether to have a CBAM scheme, let alone what relationship it should have with the EU scheme that is already taking shape. What will the Government do if the EU imposes a CBAM on Chinese steel and cement? Will they just sit back and allow the trade to be diverted here?

The section in the Government’s response on the report’s conclusions on school visits and many other forms of cultural and educational co-operation is, frankly, shameful. The Prime Minister and the French President agreed last March to remedy the free fall in UK-France school visits since Brexit. What has happened since then? Precisely nothing is the answer; something might happen by the end of the year, we are told. Meanwhile, successive generations of schoolchildren are missing out on those formative experiences, and what could be more self-defeating than refusing to make the Turing student exchange system one which operates mutually and opens up possible co-operation with the EU’s Erasmus scheme? There is narrow-mindedness here which is quite shocking.

There is much wrong with the Government’s response so far to our report. How best could that be remedied? First, we should open discussions with the EU on how to strengthen the framework for our co-operation on foreign policy and security issues, as we foresaw doing in the 2019 political declaration. At the same time, we should begin exploratory talks with the EU about how to put to most effective use the 2025-26 review of the trade and co-operation agreement, which is provided for in its terms. None of this will be easy or straight- forward, so the sooner we begin the better. It will be important for both parties to work for ways to strengthen our co-operation to their mutual benefit, as we emphasised and underlined in our report. That should help to answer silly criticisms of cherry-picking, which are bound to surface from some quarters in Brussels.

The first few years following Brexit have hardly been a happy experience. Now we have a real opportunity to get on to the front foot and treat the existing skimpy system as a floor and not a ceiling. The Windsor Framework and the deal on Horizon are a promising beginning, but we need to be more systematic and determined about the next stages. That is the challenge this report makes to Parliament and to all parties represented here. Let us hope they will rise to it.