European Council

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We want to ensure that UK and US businesses can continue to trade easily. Together, we have around $1 trillion invested in each other’s economies. The US is our largest single trading partner and top export destination. President Trump is coming to the UK at the end of next week and it will be an opportunity for us to have full and frank discussions and to advance our common interests.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, the thing that is unpredictable about President Trump is that he is occasionally right. He is certainly right to have complained that the other members of NATO are not contributing their fair share and that the United States and United Kingdom are carrying a disproportionate burden. Was this matter raised at all at the summit and, if not, should it not be?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Yes, it was raised at the summit and there was a session with the Secretary-General of NATO. That was a point that the Prime Minister made. I think there has been an understanding from other European leaders about this. Indeed, Chancellor Merkel herself has said that the President has a point. So, yes, it was discussed and obviously there will be further discussions in the NATO summit next week.

United Kingdom-European Union Future Economic Partnership

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said in my response to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, yes, the Prime Minister has said that obviously we will have different access to the European market, but we are also committed to developing a broad and deep relationship with the EU and to having trade agreements elsewhere. We have committed to providing Parliament with appropriate analysis ahead of the final vote on the deal.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

Will my noble friend confirm that it is now the Government’s view that withdrawing from the customs union and the single market will have a damaging effect on the UK economy, as well as creating a problem for the Northern Irish border? If that is so, is that not a very strange position from which to start the negotiations? Should Parliament not have an option of voting at this stage on whether those particular red lines, which would have a damaging effect on the entire population of this country, are going to happen?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid I do not agree with my noble friend. As the Statement set out, the EU has formed a customs union with other countries but those arrangements, if applied to the UK, would mean the EU setting the UK’s external tariffs, being able to let other countries sell more into the UK without making it easier for us to sell more to them, and the UK signing up to the common commercial policy, which could not be compatible with a meaningful trade policy. We are leaving the customs union and the Prime Minister has set out two potential options for our future customs relationship.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill and the debate on it clearly mark something of a milestone in the move towards Brexit. It is appropriate that we should therefore take stock of the situation we are now in. We are effectively debating the principle of the Bill, which tends to embody the result of the referendum. Not all that many of those in the Chamber today took part in the debate on the referendum Bill. I took an active part and what was absolutely clear was that the Government had introduced a Bill on a referendum which was advisory—it certainly was not mandatory—but this has been very carefully forgotten. Somehow, in the morning after the result was announced, the Prime Minister—perhaps somewhat surprised by it—came out treating it as if it were absolutely descended from the heavens and nothing whatever could be said in disagreement with it.

This raises the whole question of the role of referendums in our society. There is a popular view—not least in the Daily Mail and elsewhere—that referendums are democratic. They are not democratic in the sense of democracy as we mean it in this country, which is a representative system of democracy. They undermine that representative system. I certainly do not go along with the idea that we should have another referendum, and it is high time that Parliament asserted its position as far as that is concerned. My noble friend on the Front Bench said again today that we must honour the result of the referendum. It was the most sordid political campaign that I can remember in my lifetime—it was riddled with liars. Anyway, a majority of the British people did not vote for it. A large number realised that they did not understand the issues and decided not to vote, and even the majority of those who voted was not that large. So the argument that we must honour this seems a rather doubtful proposition.

The whole result of the referendum has been to undermine what we believe in this country: that Members of Parliament are representatives not delegates. Once you have a referendum they become, to a large extent, a delegate and not a representative, and do not have a chance to weigh up the arguments that are put forward. So, as far as that is concerned, we should take a more sceptical view than we have so far about the result of the referendum. The crucial thing is that, at the end of the negotiations, this House should make a decision. Another referendum might produce a result that I would be delighted with but, none the less, it is not the right approach. We, as a Parliament, have to reassert our position.

The other thing that puzzles me is that a doctrine seems to have emerged which says that, if you are in a negotiation, you must not say what you want, because that somehow undermines your negotiating position. This has been said quite explicitly, and the result is that the Government simply are not saying what they want. For example, on the crucial issue of the City of London there is a serious danger in the interim of people leaving and going to Frankfurt or wherever. We cannot have this degree of uncertainty. We must take a more positive line. Right at the beginning, when Theresa May took the referendum as mandatory, she seemed to rule out straightaway the customs union and so on, overlooking the fact that there is no conceivable answer to the Irish border problem if we do not remain in the customs union, in name or some other way. We should not have allowed that position to be eroded at such an early stage in the proceedings. We need to have a much clearer view of what the Government actually want. We have not been getting that. We desperately need it and soon.

Finally, we have in front of us a splendid report published by the Constitution Committee yesterday. It is very sad that the House of Commons did not have sight of this before they debated the matter. In all events, we now have it and it is really rather definite. It says:

“The Bill as drafted is constitutionally unacceptable”.


That is a nice clear statement. It raises the question of whether we should vote for the Bill. However, it goes on rather more optimistically to say that,

“its aims are valid and it can be amended to make it both appropriate and effective”.

We face the prospect of going through all the details to try to make the changes that the Constitution Committee has recommended. One ought to ask the Government whether it would not speed up the process—goodness knows we are running out of time—if they were to table amendments of the kind suggested by the Constitution Committee. We need to make progress and we need more clarity.

We certainly do not need any more referendums. I spend a lot of time in Holland. The newly formed Dutch coalition Government, having experience with a referendum on Ukraine, have come to the view that they should pass a Bill prohibiting any more referendums. I am heartened by that. Moreover, they would not have a referendum on whether you can have a Bill prohibiting referendums. That is something we ought to consider very carefully in this country.

Brexit Negotiations

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Thank you. We hope to have reached sufficient progress on phase 1 negotiations by the end of the week and we look forward unitedly to helping to ensure that this country has the best future ahead, with a strong relationship with the EU on different terms.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, is it not increasingly apparent that there is in reality no way to avoid a hard border unless we remain in the single market or some equivalent to it? What has happened in these discussions is that the issue has been effectively passed to where it ought to have been in the first place, namely, the negotiations on trade. I welcome that fudge because it means that the process continues, but at the end of the day there is no way to avoid a hard border without the equivalent of the single market.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I do not accept that premise because we believe the best way to avoid a hard border is to negotiate the right trading relationship between the UK and the EU, and that is what we will now be able to do. Discussions on the border will be a critical part of the phase 2 negotiations.

European Council

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend. As I said, we are taking this matter extremely seriously and it is one of the first issues that we have raised in the negotiations. We have put forward a comprehensive offer and look forward to discussions. As I said, our partners in the EU are keen to sort out this issue as soon as possible, as are we, and this is a starting point from which we hope to begin detailed discussions next month.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, the Brexit Secretary has stressed that in the negotiations nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Does that not mean that on some issues there will be so much delay that particular interests, whether individual citizens or financial institutions, will take action ahead of any agreement and may, for example, have already left the United Kingdom?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My noble friend raises an important issue and that is why we are trying to discuss this matter at a very early stage. We want to see whether, with the EU, we can come forward with proposals that give people the certainty they want, and we believe that we have put forward a fair and serious offer to begin those discussions.