European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Newby Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

I would very much welcome setting higher standards and am sure that all noble Lords would do so. My concern is that we should not lower them, because that is one of the rights we should not be giving away.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that in her speech last week, the Prime Minister said that she wished us to retain an association with the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, and the European Aviation Safety Agency, specifically to mirror 100% every standard that they set? The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, says that we still have a choice. No—if we are associate members of those bodies, not only do we not have a choice but we agree that we are bound by the decisions of the European Court. The Prime Minister set out very clearly how damaging it would be were we not to be members of those bodies, and therefore why we should retain membership of them.

[Lord Haskel]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and in a later amendment, I will call on the Government to set up institutions which would not accept the European standard but enforce our standards—institutions that are independent of the Government. The importance of independence is illustrated by the fact that the main reason why Ministers are doing something about poor air quality in some of our cities is the risk of fines or legal action from the EU, possibly through the European Court of Justice.

As other noble Lords have observed, we are now being less doctrinaire about the European Court of Justice. Being doctrinaire is the reason why we do not want EU standards because of the possibilities of disputes being settled by the European Court of Justice. But many institutions which enforce these standards have their own systems of settling disputes, and these systems have stood the test of time. So whatever the outcome of our withdrawal negotiations, a major concern for Ministers must be the disruption to our way of life and to trade. This amendment would go some way towards helping Ministers to deal with this concern and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.