House of Commons
Prayers
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
Tackling homelessness is a key Government priority, and we are spending more than £1.2 billion through to 2020, including committing more than £2 million of funding to Torbay. We are also committing a further £279,000 this year through the rough sleeping initiative. We will announce more on the rough sleeping strategy shortly.
Kevin Foster
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Work supported by his Department to look at ways to end street homelessness has produced a recommendation that Torbay should adopt a Housing First approach. Is he happy to meet me to discuss whether Torbay could be the next pilot area for such an approach, which has already happened in three major urban areas?
James Brokenshire
I am sure the Minister for homelessness, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter further, but, as he highlights, the Government are supportive of the Housing First approach and are investing £28 million in a large-scale pilot in three main regions of England.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Latest departmental figures show that 6% of rough sleepers in London are aged between 18 and 25 and that more than 120,000 children are living in temporary accommodation in England. Young people are suffering as a result of the Tory housing crisis. Why does the Secretary of State think that the number of homeless children fell under Labour, but has risen under the Tories?
James Brokenshire
This Government are committed to tackling homelessness. That is why we have committed £1.2 billion to do so, pledged to end rough sleeping by 2027 and changed the law so that councils can place families in private rented accommodation. That is action by this Government to deal with this important issue.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
I very much welcome the £28 million to trial or pilot Housing First and the £192,000 to my local authority for a micro-Housing First project. Given that we know this approach works, in particular for rough sleepers with very complex needs, what steps can my right hon. Friend take to accelerate the roll-out across the United Kingdom?
James Brokenshire
I commend my hon. Friend for his work on the all-party parliamentary group for this important issue. As he highlights, we are piloting in three areas, but we are reflecting carefully on the issue of complexity and the challenges that those who are rough sleeping face in getting accommodation, and we will propose further measures as we bring forward our rough sleeping strategy.
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has to do so much more, especially on the rough sleeping crisis. We see that in particular in the warmer weather, and it is very visible in all our cities, including in Nottingham city centre. The issue is particularly related to the massive fall in the number of mental health overnight beds, with 6,000 fewer than in 2010. Will he give a commitment to speak about this with his opposite number at the Department of Health and Social Care?
James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman will welcome the £420,000 committed to Nottingham through the rough sleeping initiative, which underlines the practical steps we are taking, including the £30 million that has been committed. We will bring forward further proposals through the rough sleeping strategy. He is right that this is an important issue: this Government take it seriously, and I take it seriously personally. That is why my first visit as Secretary of State was to a rough sleeping charity to see the work it is doing. We will be coming forward with more work.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s immediate predecessor was very familiar with the work being undertaken by the Mayor of the West Midlands to eliminate rough sleeping and homelessness. Will my right hon. Friend pick up the reins and visit Andy Street to see what the west midlands is doing on that?
James Brokenshire
That first visit that I referred to was to the west midlands, where I met Andy Street to see some of the very good practical work taking place in Birmingham, and I commend that work. Equally, I commend some of the work we are doing around the west midlands through the Housing First pilots.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Shelter England said this morning that 33,000 people living in temporary accommodation in England are in work, which is up 73% since 2013. Shelter believes that that is down to expensive private lets, the housing benefit freeze and a chronic lack of social housing. How does the Secretary of State respond to that?
James Brokenshire
I agree with the hon. Lady that everyone deserves a safe and decent place to live, and we are providing more than £1.2 billion so that all those left homeless get the support they need, but the broader issue she raises on social and affordable housing is germane. That is why the Government have increased the funding around that. There is now up to £9 billion to deal with affordable homes.
Alison Thewliss
The Secretary of State missed the point entirely, which was about people who are working but unable to afford accommodation and a roof over their head. Is it not the case that under this Government work no longer pays?
James Brokenshire
No. As I have already highlighted, I recognise the issues of supply and of affordability. That is why we have invested more heavily in this and, indeed, given councils additional borrowing flexibilities of about £1 billion in England. Yes, of course, we recognise the challenge, and that is why this Government are responding.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
In 2016-17, we added 217,000 homes to the housing stock in England—the highest level in all but one of the past 30 years. We have set out an ambitious package of reforms to create a housing market that delivers 300,000 homes a year on average by the mid-2020s.
Mrs Badenoch
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. A recent report by the think-tank Onward proposes that more of the land value created by housing development needs to be captured for the community, not just by developers. Does he agree?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend makes an important point in that developers should be held to account on, for example, delivering their commitments on infrastructure and affordable homes for communities. That is why we are proposing a new approach to viability assessments in the revised national planning policy framework, and we have consulted on further reforms to developer contributions.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I help the Secretary of State? The fact is that every part of the country is not like Maidenhead. May I tell him that if we want new homes for people in this country who do not have a home, we need homes that are the right homes for the right people? We need social housing and housing for the elderly. We do not just want a large number of houses built in places such as Maidenhead; we need them in real towns and cities up and down this country.
James Brokenshire
I agree with the broad thrust of what the hon. Gentleman highlights about the range of homes that our country needs. Indeed, our ambition is to deliver 300,000 homes by the mid-2020s, looking at all the different sectors of our communities, and we have been consulting on that in the national planning policy framework to help to deliver it.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
James Brokenshire
If my right hon. Friend looks at the draft national planning policy framework, he will see that it is about plan policy: setting the high-level objectives and then allowing local areas to form their plans. I hope that when he sees the final NPPF he will recognise that.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
While the new homes are being built, will the Department consider looking at a requirement on all local authorities to place families within a reasonable distance of schools, as so many children in temporary accommodation are travelling for over two hours to get to their schools?
James Brokenshire
I acknowledge the broad point that the hon. Lady highlights. That is why we are very firmly committed to providing infrastructure around new homes, and schools are very firmly a part of that.
Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
Further to that question, in east Hertfordshire we recognise the need for more homes, but they must be matched by additional investment in infrastructure and public services. What are the Government doing to make sure that this investment in these vital services is directed to areas where housing development will be at its greatest?
James Brokenshire
As my hon. Friend will know, the Government have provided a £5 billion housing infrastructure fund to ensure that more homes mean better, not more stretched, local infrastructure. The draft national planning policy framework does make it clear that local authorities should ensure that the necessary infrastructure supports developments that they approve.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
So many people’s dream of buying their own home has been dashed, yet the number of new low-cost homes built for first-time buyers has halved since 2010. Why?
James Brokenshire
I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that we are dealing with what has been a broken housing market—something that has existed over many years, with that lack of investment—which is why this Government are committed to investing £44 billion on the home building agenda in the coming years. That is about transforming life chances, and actually delivering the homes that our country needs and such opportunities for generations to come.
John Healey
This Government have had more than eight years to do the job, and what they are doing is not working. Home ownership rose under Labour, but has now hit a 30-year low under the Conservatives. We cannot just stoke prices with tax cuts and home-buy loans; we need to build more low-cost homes to make home ownership more affordable. More than three years on from the Government promising 200,000 cut-price starter homes, why is the total number so far built zero?
James Brokenshire
Last year, we saw the homes that are being delivered at a high, and that has not been any greater, other than in one year, over the last 30 years. The right hon. Gentleman glosses over Labour’s record, but what did we see when Labour was in power? House building—down by 45%. Homes bought and sold—down by 40%. Social housing—down by 400,000. However, there was one thing that kept going up: the number of people on the social housing waiting list. It is this Government who are determined to deliver.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
Local authorities have built 12,340 dwellings since 2010, up from 2,920 over the previous 13 years. However, we recognise that viability assessments can be used to reduce contributions towards affordable housing. That is why we are introducing a new approach to viability, through changes in the national planning policy framework.
Neil Coyle
The current framework means that last year the number of affordable homes provided under section 106 agreements was only half the 32,000 peak in Labour’s last year in office. Despite that, Southwark’s Labour council has built 535 council homes in just four years, with over 1,000 more in the pipeline. However, the waiting list is 11,000, so will the Minister tell us whether right to buy will now be banned for those seeking not a home to live in, but a cash cow to rent out? Will he also say how the imminent Green Paper will empower Southwark to build the genuinely affordable council homes that local people need?
James Brokenshire
The right to buy has been a powerful and important initiative in ensuring that people have places that they can call their home. We will set out an approach in the new NPPF that will reduce delays from the use of viability assessments to negotiate developer contributions by front-loading that. The Government are taking steps to speed up home delivery, which is something the hon. Gentleman should welcome.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the number of council houses, and indeed any other houses, being built would be greatly improved if the Government insisted on a far higher standard of design and layout? Will he therefore favour, in planning applications for council houses and all other houses, developers who insist in those plans on the highest possible standards for the design and layout of those houses?
James Brokenshire
I do agree with a lot of what my right hon. Friend highlights about the importance of design and style to ensuring that we create homes for the future that we can be proud of. This is something that we are considering carefully as we finalise the national planning policy framework. We will publish that shortly, and I hope he will see that in the final version.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
At a time of national housing crisis, as developers continue to exploit the viability loophole, a staggeringly small 2.5% of homes completed last year were for social rent—the lowest number since the second world war. The Government continue to disregard this place, particularly on housing, in failing to deliver the revised NPPF, along with a raft of other documents promised before the recess. Thousands of people who desperately need social housing are being abandoned, as this Government entirely pull out of social housing, so will the Secretary of State tell us whether he will change his draft NPPF explicitly to include social rented homes in the official definition of affordable housing? If he will not, any warm words of support for social housing will ring hollow.
James Brokenshire
I entirely reject the hon. Lady’s characterisation of the Government’s approach to dealing with affordable homes and social housing. She will see that from the funds that we have committed to secure for the homes agenda. Under this Government, we have seen 1.1 million additional homes delivered since April 2010. Over 378,000 of those are affordable homes, including 273,000 affordable homes for rent. This Government are delivering and we will continue to do so.
Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)
Temporary accommodation provides an important safety net and ensures that no child is left without a home. In 2011, we changed the law so that councils can place families in decent and affordable private rented homes. This now means that homeless households should not have to wait as long for settled accommodation and should spend less time in temporary accommodation.
Danielle Rowley
A constituent of mine is living in temporary accommodation with her children, aged two and seven, opposite a nightclub. The noise keeps her children scared and awake at night. Shelter Scotland says that 13% of homeless households spend over a year in temporary accommodation, and that those with children tend to spend more time in temporary accommodation than those without. What does the Minister think the long-term impact is on children who spend a long time in temporary accommodation?
Nigel Adams
First, I acknowledge the work the hon. Lady did before coming to the House, working for Shelter Scotland, which is an organisation we work with very closely on wider homelessness, most recently on our rough sleeping strategy. We acknowledge there has been an increase—a 2% rise in the latest figures to March 2018. No one wants to be in temporary accommodation too long, especially children. However, there are good examples of local authorities leading the way in ensuring families spend less time in temporary accommodation. One such example is Barnet Council, whose targeted approach to support has seen the number of children in temporary accommodation reduce by 11%.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Nigel Adams
We are committing an enormous amount of money—£1.2 billion over the spending period—and we expect local authorities to follow the example of councils such as Barnet, which has managed to achieve that reduction. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to talk to his local authority and perhaps to approach Barnet to see an example of best practice.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Local authorities are ignoring circulars from the Department and housing children in temporary accommodation many miles from their place of education. What can my hon. Friend do to enforce circulars and make councils take into account educational requirements when housing children and their families?
Nigel Adams
My hon. Friend makes a superb point. I can be absolutely clear from the Dispatch Box that local authorities must take account of circulars. It does seem nonsensical that councils are taking this approach. Youngsters are being taken away from their local areas and their schooling is being affected.
Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)
The Government want the leasehold system to be fair and transparent so that a person feels their home is their own. We will legislate to ban the sale of new leasehold houses and to reduce ground rents to a peppercorn as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Gillian Keegan
I thank the Minister for his answer. This Parliament and this Government are the first in over 15 years to seek justice and to offer the prospect of help to vulnerable residential leaseholders. Action is welcome on fair terms for new leases and to promote commonhold. However, how and when will there be beneficial steps for current leaseholders, including the many in retirement who suffer a reduction in capital values because of high event fee charges?
Nigel Adams
My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. I congratulate her on her work, with her colleagues, on an ongoing campaign in this area, not least via the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform. We will shortly announce our response to the Law Commission report on tackling event fees to help those in retirement housing. The Law Commission will also consult on how we can make it easier and cheaper for existing leaseholders to buy their freehold or extend their lease.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Law Commission report, because for too long leaseholders have been dealt a very, very poor hand. When looking at the report and developing a response, will the Government for once put leaseholders at the front of their mind, rather than the freeholders who only seem to rip off leaseholders?
Nigel Adams
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. We also welcome the Law Commission proposals, which include recommendations to ensure that we make leaseholds cheaper and fairer. The Government will continue to work with the Law Commission to ensure that this practice continues and we get a better outcome for leaseholders.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I speak as a contented leaseholder in my constituency. Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), will the Minister say when we might expect private leaseholders in tower blocks to hear that the cladding problems are going to be paid for by the developers, insurers or others, and not by them? They are always told that they are tenants and yet have to carry all the costs for everything.
Nigel Adams
My hon. Friend raises an absolutely important issue. Leaseholders are facing massive bills over cladding following Grenfell. Families are going to lose their homes and are faced with enormous bills; we should be helping them and are determined to do so. In the private sector, remediation costs will fall naturally to the freeholder. Where they do not, we have urged those with responsibility to follow the lead from the social sector, and private companies are already beginning to do the right thing. They should not be passing on these costs to leaseholders.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
In response to my written questions, various Ministers in the Department have confirmed that the majority of developers have agreed not to use Help to Buy loans to finance the purchase of leasehold properties in future. However, they have admitted that not all developers have agreed to do that, so what are the Government going to do to stop any taxpayers’ money being used in this way?
Nigel Adams
Of course, certain contractual obligations are already in train. We have made it absolutely clear that no more public money will be used in such a way.
Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Since 2010, we have delivered over 378,000 new affordable homes, including 129,000 for social rent. We are investing over £9 billion in the affordable homes programme to deliver over a quarter of a million new affordable homes, including at least a further 12,500 for social rent.
Fiona Onasanya
In the Housing Secretary’s council area of Bexley, 270 social rented homes were built in 2010, but not a single one was built last year. There is a housing crisis in his area, just as there is in Peterborough and across the country, so would it not be better for his constituents and mine if he reversed the huge funding cuts that this Government have made to social housing?
Kit Malthouse
I do not know if the hon. Lady heard my initial answer to her question; I pointed out the enormous amounts of money that are being invested in the provision of affordable homes. Pleasingly, the area that she represents has responded with some alacrity, putting in place some significantly ambitious targets—100,000 new homes over the next 20 years, of which 40,000 will be affordable. It is to be congratulated on doing so. She is right, though, that there is some pressure to be brought to bear particularly on councils to bid into the extra borrowing allowance that we have made available to them for the provision of social rent. I will meet them at my earliest opportunity to understand when and why they will do so.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
Between 2012 and 2017, Labour-controlled Redditch Borough Council failed to build a single home for social rent. Does the Minister therefore welcome Conservative-controlled Redditch Borough Council’s intention to build more homes for social rent, because we believe that everyone should have a decent home of their own, whatever their income or background?
Kit Malthouse
I am sure that there are many in Redditch who breathe a sigh of relief that the Conservatives are in control of that particular part of the country, championed by such a wonderful Member of Parliament. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is still the case that more affordable homes have been delivered in the last seven years than were delivered in the last seven years of the previous Labour Government.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I will be more than happy—in fact, it would be a pleasure—to meet the National Trust.
Siobhain McDonagh
My constituent, Maria Bentley-Dingwall, has lived in her rented National Trust property for the last 12 years. She pays rent of £850. This is now going to increase to £1,450 per calendar month, which will be considerably in excess of the local housing allowance. As she is a disabled person, when she is eventually evicted for rent arrears, she will become the responsibility of the local authority, quite apart from the personal distress that that will cause her. Does the Minister agree that he should intervene with the National Trust to find out what it is doing and that, as a much loved body, it has a greater responsibility than tearing out the maximum amount of rent from its properties?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady makes a strong case for her constituent, as we would expect, and as I say, I would be more than happy to meet the National Trust. I know that it is reviewing its property policies generally and has decided to overcome the problems created by the modern ground rent regulations that are affecting many of its tenants. It is, however, a charity and it has to balance its legal obligation to maximise its income against its charitable obligation to those it cares for.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
Earlier this year I met the Charity Commissioners to discuss the issue of ground rents and the National Trust on the Killerton estate, a National Trust property in my constituency. I am very pleased that the National Trust has agreed not to increase the ground rent of long-standing tenants, but I hear what my hon. Friend says about it. I am a member of the trust, which is, as it has just been described, a much-loved body. Does my hon. Friend—another much-loved body—agree that he should meet its representatives and encourage them to meet Members with National Trust properties in their constituencies to discuss how the trust can be a better neighbour and companion and conform with the Government’s housing agenda in the future?
Kit Malthouse
I have absolutely no doubt that the National Trust’s shifting its position on modern ground rent was due to the pressure exerted and the highlighting of the issue by many Members, not least my right hon. Friend himself, on behalf of his constituents. As I have said, I should be more than happy to meet representatives of that august body and discuss its property policies generally.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
Our local government finance settlement will increase resources for local government over the next two years because we recognise the pressures on local services, but it is right for decisions about funding priorities for individual local services to be made by local area representatives.
Chi Onwurah
The Cabinet has followed your example by visiting Newcastle today, Mr Speaker, but rather than giving its members the welcome that they deserve, I came here to hear the Minister’s totally out-of-touch answer. Central Government funding for Newcastle has halved since 2010. The number of looked-after children has increased by a fifth since 2014, and the number of vulnerable adults has risen by the same proportion in the last year alone. Given a funding gap of £300 million in 2020 just to keep services running, how does the Minister think Newcastle can deliver good public services?
Rishi Sunak
As we have discussed before, the hon. Lady’s local authority actually receives more funding per household than the average local authority similar to hers. Today of all days, I was hoping that she would welcome the meeting of the Cabinet in her area, the extra £1 billion for the northern powerhouse, and the continuing success of the Great Exhibition of the North, chaired admirably by my constituent Sir Gary Verity. In her area, the sun is shining, the visitors are pouring in, and the local economy is booming. It is a good time to be in the north-east, and that is being delivered by a Conservative Government.
Mr Speaker
I hope that one of those Ministers, in the course of this away day—which I am sure is a meeting of the utmost importance—will take the time to visit Newcastle University, which is a most admirable institution. They could benefit greatly from a visit. I mean that the Ministers could benefit, as much as the university.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s commitment to a fair funding formula, and I thank the Minister for meeting me and representatives of Leicestershire County Council. Will he confirm that the review that is under way will look at the balance of funding between districts and counties? After all, it is the counties that are bearing the burden of a growing older population and the growing burdens on children’s social services.
Rishi Sunak
I can confirm that I have met representatives of my hon. Friend’s council regularly to discuss this topic, including just the other week at the local government conference. We received more than 300 submissions to the recent consultation on fair funding. That is one of the topics raised, and the Department is considering all responses with a view to replying later this year.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
There is a great deal of concern in local government about the financial cliff edge that is facing a number of authorities. The Public Accounts Committee recently asked the Department to do two things: to explain by the end of September why it believes that local authorities are sustainable in the current spending round; and to agree with local authorities within 12 months a definition of financial sustainability and a methodology for assessing risk. Those are both important requests. Will the Minister ensure that his Department complies with them?
Rishi Sunak
I thank the Chair of the Housing, Communities Local Government Committee for his question. As he knows, the Department is considering the Public Accounts Committee’s report as we speak. As for his broader question, the Department is constantly evaluating local government sustainability, and in the upcoming meetings, and ahead of the spending review, the topics that he has raised will of course be closely scrutinised.
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
How does the Minister justify an emerging system of negative rate support grants under which councils that have made themselves financially self-sufficient are now being told to make net contributions to the Government?
Rishi Sunak
I am pleased to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the Government will be launching their consultation on negative RSG very shortly, and I look forward to his contribution.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Last week the Municipal Journal reported the Minister as saying that councils will be unhappy with the outcome of the fair funding review, so can he clarify just how unfair his review is likely to be and which types of council will be hardest hit?
Rishi Sunak
What I can confirm is that the fair funding review will be a bottom-up fresh look at how we fund local government in this country. It is long overdue, as the current formula is 10 years out of date with over 120 different indicators. It is right that that formula is fair, transparent and objective, and I am sure all councils will have a fair crack at persuading me of their case.
Mr Speaker
I am very glad that the Minister is in such a good mood; he really is a very cheery, upbeat fellow who positively exudes optimism about all things and all around him. We are delighted to see him.
Andrew Gwynne
But it will not wash, Mr Speaker. The Tory-led Local Government Association is warning that the funding gap for councils is now due to grow to £8 billion and the Public Accounts Committee has damned the financial capability of the Ministry to sort out this mess. With Northamptonshire the first broken shire and other local authorities of all types teetering on the cliff edge, when, rather than managing down expectations about fair funding, is the Minister going to stand up for the sector and demand the resources our public services so desperately need?
Rishi Sunak
If the hon. Gentleman had been at the local government conference just the other week he would have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State describe to the sector exactly what this Government are doing to support them. We acknowledge the pressures on local government over the past few years; they have done a commendable job of maintaining high-quality public services in a difficult environment, and we will ensure that they continue to get the backing they need from this Government to deliver for all our local communities.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)
The Government cannot see any good reason for new-build leasehold houses other than in exceptional circumstances. Earlier this month the Secretary of State announced that no new Government money will fund them. We intend to consult over the summer on how a ban on new leasehold houses will be implemented.
Ruth George
Last year the then Secretary of State promised that by the summer the Government would make concrete proposals for banning the sale of new leasehold homes, yet they are still being sold in my constituency. The buyers thereof are unable to sell their homes and are also unable to afford to buy out their freehold at the extortionate rates being demanded by the freeholders. How and when will the Government fix this?
Nigel Adams
The hon. Lady raises an important point, and that is why we are acting: we are introducing legislation to stop the development of new-build leasehold houses and will restrict ground rent to a peppercorn. We are also planning to fix the loopholes in the law, to increase transparency.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
With more problem leaseholds being sold, what is my hon. Friend doing to determine the scale of the problem and inform householders of that problem?
Nigel Adams
That was why I mentioned the issue of transparency. It is very important that leaseholders get as much information as is practically possible. We are currently working with the Law Commission on how best to support current leaseholders because we want to make buying a freehold easier for people going forward, but we also want to ensure that those with leases are helped out.
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
New homes should be built out as soon as possible once planning permission is granted, and under this Government net additional dwellings are at their highest since 2007-08. We are building on progress made so far by revising the national planning policy framework and diversifying the market to increase the pace of development, and I have commissioned my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) to lead a review of build-out rates.
Lee Rowley
One of the councils in my area has been without a local plan since 2005 and is currently consulting on a draft plan that over-inflates housing need and unnecessarily builds on the green belt. Does my hon. Friend agree that one way to speed up house building is to put in place local plans that have the confidence of local people?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend fights hard for his constituents’ interests, as he does at all times. He is right to say that a local plan is vital not only to progress housing in an area but to protect residents from the predations of speculative developers. I find it astonishing that authorities can be so dilatory in producing such plans.
Mary Robinson
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that we build the homes that the country needs, and that we build the right homes in the right places, which means protecting the green belt and investing in the infrastructure that we need to accommodate those homes?
Kit Malthouse
With her usual perspicacity, my hon. Friend has put her finger on the button and enunciated the cocktails required for successful development, with the omission of one, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) mentioned —namely, design. If we can put all those things together, we will create the houses that people need.
Mr Speaker
I think the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex enjoyed the reference to cocktails.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The building of new homes is being choked off in Nottingham by the refusal of the Department to remove the cap on the housing revenue account. I put this to Ministers on 12 March, and was told that if Nottingham stepped up and made a strong case, it would be looked upon favourably. Such a case has been made, but it has not been looked upon favourably. Why not?
Kit Malthouse
As a person who is new in post, I am happy to look at the specifics of that matter, but we have obviously given an extra £1 billion of funding to local authorities to bid into, and we are inviting bids at the moment for housing revenue account expansion. I would also point out that, across the whole piece, local authorities already have about £3.6 billion of headroom, and I am at a loss to understand why they are not using it.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The people who come into my surgery are looking for social rented housing, and we need to speed up the building of those homes. This Government inherited a £4 billion social housing building programme, but the Chartered Institute of Housing says that that has now gone down to less than £500 million, which represents a cut of nearly 90%. How does the Minister intend to increase the supply of social housing that people in my constituency so desperately need?
Kit Malthouse
We are committed to a vibrant housing market with tenures of all types, and for all types of people. In particular, we have emphasised that housing for social rent should be an area of growth. As was stated in an earlier answer, we are targeting a further 12,500 social rent housing for provision in the next few years, but if the hon. Gentleman has any ideas about where, when and who I need to push, prod or harass in order to build more, I will be more than happy to do that.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
We are undertaking a fair funding review of local authorities’ relative needs and resources to address concerns about the fairness of the current system, and I am pleased to say that we are making good progress in collaboration with the sector in order to introduce a simple, fair and transparent funding formula.
Nigel Mills
Councils across Derbyshire have suffered under the previous funding formula, and I welcome the consultation and the fact that Derbyshire is one of the business rate retention pilots. Does my hon. Friend agree that local councils could achieve a double whammy by encouraging local growth and creating more jobs, and also by raising their own funds through the increased business rates?
Rishi Sunak
It is refreshing to hear my hon. Friend talk about growth in the context of local government funding. Economic growth is the only sustainable way to ensure the vibrancy of our local communities and to raise the vital money that we need to fund our services. I am delighted to tell him that the Government are committed to implementing further retention of business rates, so that his local authority, like all others, will have both an incentive and a reward when they drive growth in their local areas.
Peter Aldous
I am grateful to the Minister for those replies, but recent work by the County Councils Network has found that, despite additional funding provided to the last funding settlement at the beginning of the year, county areas including Suffolk will face £3.2 billion-worth of funding pressures by 2020. What can the Government do, in advance of the fair funding and comprehensive spending reviews, to ensure that councils are able to meet the essential needs of their residents?
Rishi Sunak
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work on representing counties in this place, and I am delighted to have met him to discuss this topic on multiple occasions. I agree with him that county councils have done a tremendous job of maintaining services in this climate. I recognise the pressures that he identifies, and I can confirm to him that, in the short term, the Government will soon be publishing a technical consultation for local government finance in the upcoming settlement. As I said to the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), we will be including a consultation on the issue of negative revenue support grant, and I can also confirm that there will be a new round of business rate retention pilots.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Since early 2015, the Government’s troubled families programme has contributed funding to help with early support and preventive support for priority families in Nottingham, which is vital given the high levels of deprivation and the pressures on children’s services in our society. By intervening early, family support workers have helped to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, helped parents to get back into work and reduced the need for care proceedings. Will the Minister meet me and my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) to discuss his plans to support councils working with families when the programme funding ends in 2020?
Rishi Sunak
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I completely agree with her on the importance of this vital programme, especially with regard to prevention work. I am pleased to say that recent reports show that the incidence of children on the programme has declined by 13% as a result of intervention work by councils such as hers, and I would be delighted to meet them to learn what they are doing on the ground.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
What assessment has the Minister made of the length of time it takes to reach a decision on business improvement district appeals, such as that of the Harborne BID in my constituency?
Rishi Sunak
Like the hon. Lady, this Government believe that business improvement districts can be a fantastic asset for local businesses to ensure that their area remains a vibrant place to trade. She has strongly supported the application from her area, and I am pleased to tell her that a reply will be sent to her imminently after questions.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
Over the spending review period, councils have received more than £200 billion for local services, and the 2018-19 settlement sees an increase in resources to local government over the next two years, increasing to £45.6 billion in 2019-20.
Giles Watling
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but can he set out how his Department will support local councils to regenerate valuable coastal communities such as Clacton, which is positively Caribbean at the moment?
Rishi Sunak
I am pleased to say that the Government have spent £174 million through a fund to support local communities over the past few years. I pay tribute to the great progress made by the Jaywick Sands coastal community team in my hon. Friend’s constituency in bringing forward its proposal for a new coastal village. He has been intimately involved with that proposal, which is a model for others to follow.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Local councils, including Bath and North East Somerset Council, are facing a funding gap of £2.2 billion for adult social care. What measures is the Department taking to incentivise preventive services to reduce the burden of adult social care on councils such as ours?
Rishi Sunak
Work between the NHS and local authorities through the better care fund is addressing the issue that the hon. Lady mentions. I am pleased to say that the most recent statistic shows a 37% fall in delayed transfers of care relating to social care, which shows that the approach we are taking is working, and local authorities should be commended for delivering that.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has many conversations with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and most recently they have been discussing the fact that effectively targeted NHS spend can reduce the need for social care, just as effectively targeted social care spending can reduce pressures on the NHS.
Mohammad Yasin
Bedford Borough Council has the country’s lowest rate of delayed transfers of care. Instead of being congratulated, the council has been told that it will now be penalised if it fails to meet zero delays, when other authorities have much more generous allowances. Does the Minister agree that he should be supporting Bedford Borough Council to be the best in the country, instead of making that as difficult as possible through the delays in funding and the unfair targets?
Rishi Sunak
I am happy to look into the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but I join him in paying tribute to the work that has led to Bedford delivering a fantastic performance on delayed transfers of care.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that both local authorities and the health service work more closely together to provide a seamless combined service? That requires a change in culture at local level, similar to the one in Gloucestershire, where we have an excellent joint commissioning board.
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is right about that and right to highlight the work of his local authority, which is a pioneer in collaborating more closely with the local NHS. That is showing tremendous results on the ground in reducing delayed transfers of care, which are stopping people from getting into the NHS in the first place. I hope that others can learn from Gloucestershire’s example.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nigel Adams)
This Government are serious about tackling homelessness, which is why we have allocated more than £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness to 2020. We have implemented the most ambitious legislative reform in decades: the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. We have also committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and to ending it by 2027, and we will shortly be publishing a strategy that sets out our plans to do that.
Christian Matheson
Homelessness has doubled nationally since 2010, but the increase is greater in the north-west. Why is that?
Nigel Adams
I know how seriously the hon. Gentleman takes this issue, and I am very encouraged by the work he is doing collaboratively with his local authority and organisations such as Chester Aid to the Homeless and Share. They will welcome, as I am sure he does, the £1.15 million that has been recently provided to help on this issue. Like me, he will be encouraged by the latest figures, which show a 9% fall nationally in statutory homelessness acceptances in the past year.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
A total of 128,317 first-time buyer households have purchased a home through a Help to Buy equity loan from its launch in April 2013 to December 2017. Some 69,000 first-time buyers have benefited from stamp duty relief between its introduction in the autumn Budget 2017 and the end of March 2018.
Robert Courts
One of the greatest concerns raised by young people in West Oxfordshire is whether they will ever be able to afford a home in their town or village. I welcome the stamp duty cuts, which have helped people across the country. Can the Minister tell us how many have benefited from our changes?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is well known for his championing of young people and their causes, particularly in his constituency, and he is right to point out that this move will benefit young people in particular. The stamp duty relief will help 95% of first-time buyers who pay it—that will be more than 1 million households over the next five years. Between the relief’s introduction and the end of March, 69,000 first-time buyers have already benefited. I would also point out that we are at an 11-year high in the number of first-time buyers, which stands at 363,000.
Mr Speaker
Well, I am keen to get through the Order Paper today. I call Nigel Huddleston.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
A thriving midlands is essential to our economic success. The Government are committed to delivering the midlands engine strategy, including through £392 million for local growth projects to create more jobs and prosperity, and a £20 million midlands skills package.
Nigel Huddleston
Does the Minister agree that infrastructure investment is key to the success of the midlands engine? Will he therefore tell me what conversations he is having with the Department for Transport to improve key arteries such as the A46?
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. I am having a number of conversations across government about the delivery of that infrastructure. He highlights the A46 corridor. Initial work has shown that 700,000 jobs could be created by improvements. The case for individual schemes on the route is being developed.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Home ownership has been stable over the past four years at about 63%. The right to buy has helped more than 86,000 council tenants into home ownership since 2012, under the reinvigorated scheme. This summer we launch a major pilot of the voluntary right to buy for housing association tenants.
Diana Johnson
Since 2010, we have seen home ownership levels fall to a 30-year low, while homelessness has doubled. If we want to end this dual failure to meet housing need and aspiration, and put choice in the hands of the many, not the few, should we not invest in building and renovating enough council and affordable homes to rent and buy, without taking away the rights that council tenants’ have had for 38 years under the right to buy scheme?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady is definitely right to say that the solution to everybody’s housing problems is to build more homes—as many as we can—across those parts of the country that need it.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
We are determined to crack down on the small number of rogue landlords—that includes banning the most serious offenders from letting properties. The database of rogue landlords and property agents supports local authority enforcement action. We have committed to requiring private landlords to join a mandatory redress scheme.
Phil Wilson
I have an indirect interest in this question, as my wife is a private landlord. Selective licensing schemes are good as far as they go, but a side effect is that they force bad landlords elsewhere. Therefore, whether we have a regulator or not, the answer, as outlined in my private Member’s Bill, is a national register of private landlords and licensing scheme to ensure that they provide the good-quality homes that people deserve. I know from working with Ron Hogg, Durham’s police and crime commissioner, of the effect that rogue private landlords have on local communities. Will the Secretary of State meet us both to discuss the need for a more robust approach to registration and licensing, both locally and nationally?
Kit Malthouse
I am more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the issues he raises, but I carefully suggest to him that this House has to strike a balance between bureaucracy and regulation—the two are often very different.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
The Government are taking steps for a more inclusive economy and society, and promoting local growth. With that in mind, we have today announced our attention to lay legislation to make the £600 million North of Tyne devolution deal a reality.
Following significant and sustained progress, I can also confirm to the House that I am minded to remove commissioners from Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and hand back remaining executive functions. That follows positive reports from the commissioners and important steps forward in delivering children’s services.
Tonight, I will address the Tell MAMA parliamentary reception, where I will underline that racism and xenophobia, in whatever form, have no place in our society and should be confronted in the strongest terms.
Mary Robinson
Will the Secretary of State consider how the sale of public sector land could be used to get homes built more quickly?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend rightly raises the issue of releasing public sector land, which is a priority for this Government. The land for homes programme aims to release centrally held land for 160,000 homes over the coming years. We are also supporting local authorities to release land for a further 160,000 homes.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
We have all seen the shocking impact of police cuts and rising crime, but that has to be put together with real-terms cuts of 59% to crime reduction, 85% to community safety and 33% to CCTV monitoring, plus very deep cuts to youth services and community development. Does the Secretary of State believe that any of those cuts have had an impact on the increase in crime and antisocial behaviour?
James Brokenshire
Yet again, Labour fails to understand the reason why we have had to make savings—because of its public service delivery failures when in government. Steps such as this Government’s troubled families programme are about preventive work, as we heard earlier, and they are having an impact on our communities.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
James Brokenshire
I am certainly willing to meet my hon. Friend, who is right to champion innovative ways in which we can build and innovative techniques within the construction sector. That is why we have the £3 billion home building fund to provide loan finance to builders using those methods, as well as our modern methods of construction working group looking at ways in which that can be advanced.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting those particular cases, the details of which I am not intimately familiar with. I would be happy to look into the matter. She is absolutely right to highlight the important role that local authorities play in prevention, particularly when it comes to public health. As we approach the spending review and the fair funding review, I would be delighted to talk to her to see how we can best capture the role that local authorities play in delivering that.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
James Brokenshire
The Government are clear that the Mayor can and should do more to increase housing delivery and it is vital that the new London plan provides the strategic framework to achieve that. The Mayor must show strong and proactive leadership and take responsibility for creating the right conditions for development, but it is also about Labour councils in London. It is notable that, in Haringey, it appears that the council has put left-wing ideology in the way of 6,400 more homes. It is really concerning that Labour appears to be putting politics ahead of people.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I am hesitant to anticipate the release of the new planning framework that will be released, hopefully, shortly, but the hon. Lady will know that there is significant commitment by this Government to the green belt and, when that plan emerges, I will be more than happy to have a conversation with her about her plans.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
James Brokenshire
I am very happy to look into the point that my hon. Friend has raised. I know that his commitment to self-build is second to none. We believe strongly in, and are committed to, self and custom house building, and I will certainly look into the issues that he has highlighted to the House today.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
James Brokenshire
I will certainly look into the point that the hon. Lady has raised. We have obviously published some guidance around some of the building regulations and a revised simplified version of some part of that in the last week, but I will certainly reflect further on the point that she has raised.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
The Help to Buy equity loan scheme has helped more than 3,000 buyers in Northamptonshire, a part of which my hon. Friend ably represents, to purchase their first home. The action undertaken by this Government has led to an 11-year annual high in the number of first-time buyers across the UK.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Rishi Sunak
It is important that each local council makes those decisions itself. It was the responsibility of the statutory officer to decide on the appropriate level of reserves. I am pleased to see that, in the hon. Gentleman’s own local authority, non-ring-fenced reserves are up 30% in the past six years. I am sure that his council will use those reserves prudently as required.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what progress has been made to select sites for HS2 garden villages in the east midlands, especially around the Toton hub?
James Brokenshire
I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we will publish a prospectus in the summer inviting ambitious, locally supported proposals for high-quality new garden communities at scale. We are keen to assist as many as we can in locations where there is sufficient demand for housing, and I look forward to continuing that conversation with her and others.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
James Brokenshire
The Government intend to consult on strengthening building regulations’ energy efficiency requirements where it is cost-effective, affordable, safe and practical to do so. We do not provide energy efficiency grants. Developers should bear the costs, which is why we need to ensure that the proposals are cost-effective and do not compromise housing viability.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Would Ministers look into the considerable length of time nationally-set local government officer disciplinary procedures are taking, so that they can be reviewed and fairness can be appropriately balanced with the cost to local council tax payers?
James Brokenshire
I recognise my hon. Friend’s point and I will certainly look into these matters. I could write to her with some of the details, if that would be helpful.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
In the last year, just 12% of homes delivered by housing associations—the very organisations set up to deliver affordable homes—were built for social rent. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the social housing Green Paper will acknowledge that the combination of viability assessments and a completely broken definition of affordability is letting down communities across the country that desperately need new social homes to rent?
James Brokenshire
I do expect the social housing Green Paper to be wide-ranging and to deal not simply with issues of supply, but with issues of stigma for those living in social housing; I expect it to confront that very firmly. I remind the hon. Lady that we have delivered more council housing than in 13 years of a Labour Government, and we are committed to all forms of tenure.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The recent conclusion of the Greater Grimsby town deal was a welcome boost to the economy in Cleethorpes and Grimsby. A further boost could be provided if a way could be found to revive the failed Greater Lincolnshire devolution deal. Will the Secretary of State meet me and fellow Lincolnshire MPs to discuss a way forward?
James Brokenshire
I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss how we can support local growth in Lincolnshire. As I have highlighted, this is a priority for the Government. I look forward to talking to my hon. Friend and other colleagues.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees, to discuss the impact and implications of his Department’s integration strategy for refugees?
James Brokenshire
I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the issue of the integration strategy. As she knows, we have been consulting on this over recent weeks, and I am considering next steps in that regard. If there are specific issues that she wishes to flag in relation to refugees, I will be pleased to hear them.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
As the Secretary of State and the Minister for Housing know, I have requested that they call in a planning application passed by Bradford Council to build 500 houses on the green belt in Burley in Wharfedale in my constituency. Since then, Bradford Council has accepted that it does not need to build as many houses as it first thought and has actually allowed a building development in Bradford city centre that was earmarked for hundreds of houses to be turned into a car park, so will the Secretary of State agree that there is now clearly not an exceptional case to build those houses on the green belt and will he call in this application? When can my constituents expect a response?
James Brokenshire
As my hon. Friend will know, it is difficult for me to comment on issues in respect of individual planning applications because of the quasi-judicial function of Ministers, but I note his comments.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Half of the residents made homeless in the Grenfell Tower fire are still in temporary accommodation. Is the Secretary of State embarrassed by that? If he is not, why did he sneak out at the end of last week two pages of waffle on Grenfell as a written ministerial statement, instead of making an oral statement to the House when his predecessor said that we would be kept updated in that way?
James Brokenshire
We have sought to update the House on a regular basis on the progress in seeing that those involved in the Grenfell Tower disaster are rehoused. Two hundred households have accepted temporary or permanent accommodation, and I can say that 97 households have now moved into permanent accommodation. I want to see this speeded up and I want to see progress being made, because it is important that those families are in permanent accommodation and the homes that they deserve.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Despite a new road being built between Bexhill and Hastings, in part to house new developments, the developers have failed to build any of the houses. What more can the Government do to incentivise developers, perhaps by charging them council tax from the time that a planning application is delivered, and allowing local authorities to compulsorily purchase land and build on it themselves if developers will not?
Kit Malthouse
I commend my hon. Friend for the urgency with which he requires more housing in his constituency, which I know his constituents will appreciate. He is right that one of the issues that this country faces is that the structures that we have put in place have created more of a land speculation industry than a house building industry. We will be looking at a number of solutions to address that problem.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
My local authority, Westminster, has indicated that it would rather give up £23 million from mayoral funding than hold a ballot on a scheme in Church Street that involves the demolition of 700 homes. Will the Minister have a word with the council and encourage it to involve and consult its communities on major regeneration schemes?
Kit Malthouse
I have already been in communication with the leader of Westminster City Council about this issue, which is alarming. I understand that there is a dispute about whether or when a ballot was held. I understand that, with regard to the Church Street regeneration, a ballot has been held in the past. One has to wonder why the Mayor would seek to withhold £23 million from one of the most deprived areas of the city that requires this regeneration.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Two recent planning appeals were won in my constituency on the grounds that planning permission should not be given
“where a planning application conflicts with a neighbourhood plan”.
Will the Minister ensure that this is the rule for the future?
Kit Malthouse
Like my hon. Friend, I bear the scars of just such a number of decisions. In particular, there was a decision in my constituency—in Oakley, in my patch—where the planning inspector allowed a development seven days prior to the referendum on a neighbourhood plan. I am determined, however long I am given in this job, to make sure that neighbourhood plans are landed extremely well and are adopted by as much of the country as possible, and that local people know they can rely on them to make sure that planning is done with them and not to them.
Mr Speaker
I know that the shadow Secretary of State wanted to raise a point of order, which he has promised to do with commendable brevity.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have just had over an hour of oral questions on the day before the long summer recess, yet we have had no update from the Secretary of State on a number of promises he made about when important policy announcements would be made. On 9 May, he said:
“The Government will bring forward a Rough Sleeping Strategy in July”.
It has not been published. On 11 June, he said:
“we’ll be publishing a Social Housing Green Paper by recess.”
It has not been published. On 9 July, he said that he would come forward with the finalised national planning policy framework before the summer recess. It has not been published. What assistance can you give me and the House to make sure that, when promises are made by Ministers, they are honoured, and that important policy announcements are not dribbled out over the recess when this House is not sitting and cannot scrutinise them?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. I do not wish to treat it with levity because it is a matter of the utmost importance. He seeks assistance from me and asks what I can do. I suppose I ought to begin by saying what I cannot do. I cannot delay the summer recess; the summer recess will be a fact. It is not entirely without precedent for Ministers to issue policy announcements during periods of recess. The Secretary of State is in his place and will have heard with crystal clarity what the right hon. Gentleman said. If the Secretary of State wants to give any earnest of his good intentions in this matter, he can do so, but alternatively he can remain—and apparently is remaining—glued to his seat, from which the right hon. Gentleman, Sherlock Holmes-style, must make his own deductions.
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the Government’s policy on the rendition of UK citizens who may be subject to capital punishment.
The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)
The Government take their responsibility to protect the public seriously. We have been consistently clear, where there is evidence that crimes have been committed, that foreign fighters, for example, should be brought to justice in accordance with due legal process regardless of their nationality. The specific process followed will always be dependent on the individual circumstances of the case.
The case of Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh is ongoing and obviously sensitive. In handling this case, the Government and Ministers have complied with the European convention on human rights and with due process, and we must be mindful to protect the integrity of the criminal investigation. In this instance, and after carefully considered advice, the Government took the rare decision not to require assurances in this case. It would be inappropriate to comment further on that specific case. Foreign fighters detained in Syria could be released from detention without facing justice. We have been working closely with international partners to ensure that they face justice for any crimes they have committed.
I can provide little further detail to the House beyond what the Government have already outlined in previous statements, but I can reassure the House that our long-standing position on the use of the death penalty has not changed. The UK has a long-standing policy of opposing the death penalty as a matter of principle regardless of nationality and we act compatibly with the European convention on human rights. In accordance with the Government’s overseas, security and justice assistance guidance, we have taken into account human rights considerations. The OSJA provides that where there are strong reasons not to seek death penalty assurances,
“Ministers should be consulted to determine whether, given the specific circumstances of the case, we should nevertheless provide assistance.”
On Guantanamo Bay, again our position has not changed. The UK Government’s long-standing position is that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay should close. Where we share evidence with the US, it must be for the express purpose of progressing a criminal prosecution, and we have made that clear to the United States. We have planned and prepared for the risk posed by British nationals returning to the UK as Daesh is defeated in Iraq and Syria, and we are using a range of tools to disrupt and diminish that threat in order to keep the public safe. Each case is considered individually to determine which action or power is most appropriate.
I cannot say more about individual cases in this circumstance, but the Government have set out the extent to which these tools have been used in our annual transparency report. We will also be introducing new offences in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, which is being debated by parliamentary colleagues and which will strengthen our terrorism legislation to increase our ability to prosecute returning foreign fighters.
Ms Abbott
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
The whole House is united in condemning terrorism and the work of ISIS, and anyone found guilty of terrorism should face the full force of the law, but in an increasingly dangerous and unstable world, one of our strengths as a country is our willingness to stand up unflinchingly for human rights. It is a key aspect of our soft power. The Minister will therefore understand the widespread concern that the Government seem willing to abandon their long-standing, principled opposition to the death penalty in this case.
Ministers claim that the decision in this case does not reflect a change in our policy on assistance in US death penalty cases generally or the UK Government’s stance on the global abolition of the death penalty, but I put it to Ministers that they cannot be a little bit in favour of the death penalty. Either we offer consistent opposition, or we do not. So let me remind the Minister: capital punishment is not the law of this country; we do not extradite people to countries where it is potentially a sentence for the crime; the death penalty is outlawed under the Human Rights Act 1998; and it is in breach of the European convention on human rights.
Successive Governments have always sought assurances that those who face justice in other countries will not face the death penalty. Extradition is expressly prohibited where the subject could face the death penalty under the Extradition Act 2003. The UK is a signatory to the United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and extraordinary rendition is unlawful under this convention, but in his letter to the US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, of 22 June, the Home Secretary reportedly wrote:
“I am of the view that there are strong reasons for not requiring a death penalty assurance in this specific case, so no such assurances will be sought.”
Can the Minister explain why the Home Secretary did not come to Parliament to disclose this change of policy, what his strong reasons are, what advice he has taken, whether the Law Officers have been consulted, what assessment has been made of the impact of extradition arrangements with third countries where capital punishment is outlawed and what steps he has taken to ensure there has been no torture in this case, unlike in the more than 200 cases of abuse of detainees identified by the Intelligence and Security Committee in its report of 28 June?
The Minister will be aware that the mother of one of the cell’s victims has said that she is “very against” the use of the death penalty. Diane Foley said:
“I think that you just make them martyrs in their twisted ideology…I would like them held accountable by being sent to prison for the rest of their lives. That would be my preference.”
This decision to abandon our principled opposition to the death penalty is abhorrent and shameful, and I call on Ministers, even at this late stage, to reverse the decision.
Mr Wallace
I have listened carefully to the right hon. Lady’s statement, and I agree with much of what she said. It is not a matter of extradition, as she will know if she has read the news reports; it is a matter of whether we were going to accept a request by the United States to share evidence on individuals not within the United Kingdom and not within the European Union, but abroad. No one is extraditing anyone in this country, and we are not talking about UK citizens, so the premise of her question in the first place is, I am afraid, skewed.
However, I will try to answer the questions the right hon. Lady has put to the House. First, she asked why the Home Secretary did not come to the House to announce a change in policy. That is because he has not changed the policy of the United Kingdom Government. The overseas security and justice assistance guidance clearly states
“that there will be cases where, as an exception to the general policy and taking into account the specific circumstances, Ministers can lawfully decide that assistance should be provided in the absence of adequate assurances”.
That has been the policy for many, many years. All Ministers have done is consider, in response to a request from one of our allies to seek evidence on individuals detained elsewhere, whether we should share that evidence and whether we should seek assurances in doing so.
I notice that the right hon. Lady mentioned Mrs Foley. I heard that interview this morning, too, and Mrs Foley also said that she thought it was right that these people face justice in US courts. Who are we to deny that to those victims in the United States, if the United Kingdom holds some of the evidence that may make it possible? The United States has the rule of law and due process, as do we in this country. In our many mutual legal assistance requests—there are more than 8,000 a year among countries and police forces around the world—we do it on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the law. Throughout the process, other Ministers and I consulted lawyers. We constantly checked with existing guidance and the policy.
We should not forget that the crimes we are talking about involve the beheading, and videoing of the beheading, of dozens of innocent people by one of the most abhorrent organisations walking this earth. It would be bizarre to say that if we were unable to prosecute them in this country, we should simply let them be free to roam around the United Kingdom so as not to upset the right hon. Lady. Not to share our evidence with the United States would be simply bizarre and would not be justice for the victims.
Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Daesh/ISIL is a proscribed organisation still committed to waging acts of terrorism against this country. On the wider point, if it is still too difficult to prosecute here at home those who have gone to work for or to assist Daesh/ISIL abroad, and if that is because of some obligation under the European convention on human rights, is it not time to take back control?
Mr Wallace
I hear my right hon. Friend. I do not believe it is necessary or right to withdraw from the European convention on human rights. I believe it is incredibly important that we all follow the rule of law—both our obligations under the ECHR and United Kingdom law—and that is what we have done in this case. Where we have gaps in our statute book, we are seeking to fill them. The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill is passing through this House to make it easier to prosecute and to ensure we are able to do so, and it includes changes to extraterritorial legislation so that our offences reach such places. In this case, however, it was decided—because of the horrendous crimes being alleged, with victims on both sides of the Atlantic—that it was important to seek the most appropriate jurisdiction. When the request came in for sharing the evidence, this Government took the decision, rare as it is, to share that evidence without seeking assurances.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
It goes without saying that we all condemn terrorism and that we all believe terrorists should be brought to justice, and it really is not good enough for the Minister to imply that any of us in the House is against terrorists being brought to justice. The issue is why and in what circumstances the UK Government are departing from their long-standing policy of opposing the death penalty “in all circumstances”. In using those words, I am reading from the UK Government’s death penalty strategy. Curiously, it was not of course renewed when it was due for renewal in 2016, so will the Minister tell us when it will be renewed?
Not only Members of Parliament but the public are getting increasingly frustrated by the failure of Ministers in this Government to answer questions at the Dispatch Box. I will give him another chance: what are the strong reasons that the Home Secretary says exist for departing from the policy? I have another question for him: what requests were made by the Trump Administration with regard to the waiver of our long-standing policy? Was the decision to waive our long-standing policy on the death penalty signed off by the Prime Minister, and will the Minister tell us whether the waiver will happen only in relation to the United States, or will it happen in relation to other countries and allies, such as Saudi Arabia?
Mr Wallace
The hon. and learned Lady is a wise and knowledgeable barrister in her own right, and she will know that coming to this House to discuss individual cases that are subject to ongoing investigations does two things: it puts the investigation and the potential to bring charges at risk; and it could undermine the likelihood of those individuals getting a fair trial if we comment on it. I am sure that she, as a student of justice, would not wish that to happen. I will therefore not comment further on the cases involving these individuals. As we have said, it is incredibly rare in the first place that such issues are brought to the House or discussed in it.
There was no request from the US Administration for us to vary our assurances. That decision was taken within the United Kingdom by Ministers, and the Prime Minister was aware of that decision.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend, who is a distinguished former soldier, would have shot these two people had he engaged them on the battlefield, but these are not comparable circumstances and there are important and long-standing conventions in play. Will he bear in mind that, on human rights, we cannot distinguish between good and bad people? Human rights are indivisible and belong to everybody.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, I would not just have shot such people on the battlefield; I would have acted within the law and with the powers I was granted by Parliament and by the Government of the day, as he and I did under emergency deployment. We acted within the law, and just being a soldier on the battlefield did not exempt us from the law or human rights obligations.
I totally agree with human rights, and that is why Ministers have acted in line with our legal obligations and, indeed, taken advice in relation to the European convention on human rights. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) mentioned rendition, but no one is rendering. The UK Government fundamentally oppose rendition and will continue to do so.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The whole House would agree that those who commit barbaric crimes should be locked away for the rest of their lives, but what the Minister has said is a contradiction of the long-standing abolition of the death penalty strategy—No. 10 have reaffirmed these words today—which says:
“It is the longstanding policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle.”
In this case, the Home Secretary seems to have unilaterally ripped up those principles on a Friday afternoon in the summer. What does the Minister think “principle” and “all circumstances” mean if somehow these circumstances are not “all circumstances”? Is he not actually saying that principles mean nothing to the UK Government any more?
Mr Wallace
No, I am not saying that, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did not rip up anything unilaterally. My right hon. Friend followed the advice, as did other Ministers, of the OSJA—the guidance that has been in existence for very many years—which does allow Ministers to sometimes seek the ability to share evidence where there is an absence of assurances. That is what the OSJA has done, as part of the guidance for the Government, and it has been there for many years.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
The UK is a proud member of the Council of Europe, which has made the abolition of capital punishment one of its main priorities. It has been fighting for 30 years to outlaw the death penalty, and it now wishes to extend that to countries with observer status at the Council of Europe, including Japan and the United States of America. Will the Minister confirm that he will support that policy of the Council of Europe and say whether he is convinced that the actions relating to these two men are compatible with our membership of the Council of Europe and the priorities we put on its activities?
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
The Minister just referred, in quoting the code, to the absence of assurances. What the Home Secretary wrote in the letter to the US Attorney General was that he was not even going to seek assurances. Therefore, the question that has been asked by many Members still holds: why have the Government decided to breach a long-standing policy against the death penalty in all circumstances in this case? We all want these individuals, if there is evidence, to face justice, but it is precisely because of the barbaric nature of the crimes of which they are accused that we as a country have to show that we are better than them and what they did. That is why there is so much unhappiness, I suspect in many parts of the House, about what the Home Secretary has done.
Mr Wallace
I am not going to take a lecture about being better from a right hon. Gentleman who sat in a Government when people were being rendered from Libya and across to Libya. I think that is outrageous. As I have said to other Opposition Members, I cannot go into the exact details of this case because it is currently under investigation and to do so would risk undermining the operation. The OSJA is the guidance that Ministers have followed in the past and will follow in future. That is absolutely the case.
The right hon. Gentleman asks questions about the semantics of the letter and whether we asked or did not ask. We have said in this case that it is the judgment of Ministers, based on the operation, the investigation and the evidence before us, that we will not seek assurances in this matter.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
It was my understanding that it was a policy decision of the United Kingdom Government—which I do not criticise in any way—that we would not seek the return of these two individuals to the United Kingdom for public interest reasons, and indeed have deprived them of their UK nationality. However, is it not the case that to move on from there to facilitate their going to the United States to face trial for capital offences is a major departure from normal policy, if we are doing so by providing evidence under a request for mutual legal assistance? When was the last time that we departed from these principles—I am not aware of this ever having happened before—and why have we not asked for an assurance when it would be perfectly proper to do so? Those are the two key questions, and until they are answered, I have to say to my right hon. Friend that this issue will continue to haunt the Government.
Mr Wallace
My right hon. and learned Friend, having produced plenty of advices in his previous role as Attorney General to Her Majesty’s Government, will recognise the challenges that Ministers face in balancing the need for making the decision about trial—[Interruption.] Opposition Members chunter from a sedentary position. The reality, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, is that we all desire these people to face trial. If Ministers are faced with the prospect of not being able to try them in the United Kingdom but an ally seeks evidence that could lead to them being tried, Ministers have an obligation to the citizens of this country to balance that request and the likelihood of trial with the extent to which they will seek assurances, if we think that is important for keeping people safe in the United Kingdom. In this case, Ministers have made the decision that we are not going to seek assurances, because we do not think we have the evidence here to try them in the United Kingdom and we hope that a trial will be carried out in the United States. That is the balance. My right hon. and learned Friend may disagree with the balance we have chosen to take, but that is the responsibility of the Ministers holding the onerous task of trying to keep us safe, while balancing that with human rights.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Why did Ministers not seek death penalty assurances?
Mr Wallace
Because we are interested in seeking criminal justice in line with international law and our law. Where we feel the assurance might get in the way of being able to do that—[Interruption.] No, no; if the right hon. Gentleman faced the choice of either having to see these people go free and potentially wander around his constituency or go to trial, he might take a different view. In this case, Ministers looked at the request before them and, acting lawfully and in line with the OSJA, chose to take that decision.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend, at the beginning, stated Government policy. I agree with the Government policy, and I am glad that the Government do as well. Will the Minister confirm that people accused of murdering British nationals can be tried in this country if there is evidence, even if they are not UK nationals?
Mr Wallace
Yes. Citizenship is not a factor. If we have the evidence and we can try them, we will. However, the point was made earlier about rendition and so on. It is one thing to share evidence with an ally or international partner, but the question arises about how you bring them back. The individuals we are talking about, and foreign fighters in general, are currently being held by non-state actors in Syria. How those people are brought back is a big challenge for all European states—and indeed the United States.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Government have quite rightly tried over the past year to persuade China, Russia and Pakistan to suspend the death penalty. Is that not going to look like arrant hypocrisy if we adopt a different standard when it applies to the United States of America’s request? Will the Minister now please answer—if he does not have the detail now, will he write to all of us?—the question that the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) asked: when did the Government last choose not to seek such assurances?
Mr Wallace
In my time as Security Minister, they have not. I will write to hon. Members and let them know on how many occasions we have done that. It will be for their summer reading.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
Amid this whole debate, is it not absolutely essential that the perpetrators of these crimes should be brought to justice and punishment? That is the most important issue in all of this. Does the Minister not agree with that?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend is right. There are countries around the world that we recognise have due process, the rule of law, separation of powers and values we agree with. That is why we share intelligence with some of those powers and why, in the 8,000 mutual legal assistance requests a year, we often share evidence that leads to prosecutions in court. We will always do that where we think it is about seeking justice and the best place for that justice to be delivered. In this case, we felt the best place was the United States of America.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Everybody in this House agrees that the crimes being talked about are abhorrent and that there is a desperate need for justice, but no straw man should conceal the fact that that should never come at the loss of our principled opposition to the death penalty. If the Minister is so confident that this is the correct decision, will he publish the legal advice that he and other Ministers have had that confirms they do not even need to ask the question for this country? On that point, he says that the Prime Minister is aware of this decision. Does she agree?
Mr Wallace
On the first point, the hon. Lady will know that it has been the policy of numerous successive Governments not to publish legal advice. On the second point, the Prime Minister was aware of the decision. The decision was made between the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and she agrees.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I remind my right hon. Friend that the United States shares English law with us. A particularly ridiculous point was made by the SNP spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), when she mentioned Saudi Arabia, which patently does not. I also tell the House that there are widespread reports in the press that these people were responsible for beheading 27 western hostages with a serrated knife. If the evidence is not available in the United Kingdom but is available in the United States, I tell my right hon. Friend that it is absolutely right that they be tried there, because the last thing we want is these people being tried here, and then, through a lack of evidence, being found innocent and allowed to roam free in this country.
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. At the end of the day, this is about the security of our country and about justice being delivered where that can be done. For all the stories about the United States of America, it has a robust judicial system, a lot of which is based on English law, and for that reason we should not fear that sharing evidence with the United States is somehow comparable with sharing it with some other states that have been mentioned, or indeed that justice will not be done and that these people will not be given a fair trial if a trial is to happen. That is why I have said repeatedly from the Dispatch Box that I cannot comment in too much detail about these individuals.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The point about a principled opposition to capital punishment is that it exists in all circumstances—not just in areas where there might be a miscarriage of justice, but in the most hideous, heinous crimes of the kind we are describing, where very clear evidence is available. Will the Government tell the House whether, when they spoke to the American authorities, the American authorities told them that no such assurances would be given if the Government sought them?
Mr Wallace
In this particular case, much of the potential for a trial was based on a comparison of the United States’ statute book and ours, and whether the US had the suite of offences that would achieve a conviction and we did not. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), that is why we are bringing in some new offences in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, which is currently going through the House.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the great shames in this is that we have not brought a charge of betrayal against these people? Fundamentally, what they have done is not just to bring violence against people in Syria but to undermine community cohesion in this country. That betrayal against our own state—that sense of wrong done to the citizens of this country—is a crime in itself and should be tried as one.
Mr Wallace
I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that throughout the whole process of this and many other cases that we have to make decisions on, we try to keep in balance the security of the nation from people who pose such a threat, whether they betray our values or betray their nation. We do that all the time and work incredibly hard to try to make sure that where we achieve justice, we do not do it by cutting corners and breaking international law, which we have seen happen in this House previously. The consequences that flowed from that are significant, which is why I can say, and said earlier, that the Government’s position on Guantanamo Bay is not as was reported in the media this morning. We absolutely oppose its existence. We wish it to be closed down and we would not, and will not, share information with the United States if individuals were going to end up in Guantanamo Bay.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I am baffled as to which of the many questions running through my head to ask. I could ask why the Minister had no answer for the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), because surely precedent is extremely important in this case. The Minister does not even seem to know when the country last made such a serious decision not to seek reassurances. May I press him to commit himself to finding out those reasons, and to expressing at least some understanding of why it baffles so many of us, on both sides of the House, that he will not seek those reassurances in this case, given that he has just said that he would have done so if there had been the possibility of a prisoner’s going to Guantanamo? It makes no sense.
Mr Wallace
First, I have given that commitment. I will find out how many times this has been used in the past, and, as I have said, I will write to Members. As for the seriousness, the reason the Government oppose Guantanamo Bay—as, indeed, do the Opposition Front Benchers—is that it is not an institution that follows due process. It is set outside the bounds of international law. It is not in compliance with nearly everything that this country stands for. That is very different from the justice system of the United States.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Like, I suspect, the majority of my constituents and those in the country as a whole, I am perfectly comfortable with the position of the Home Secretary. These people are not United Kingdom citizens, and they are owed nothing by this Government. May I urge my right hon. Friend to ensure that the unrepresentative grandstanding that we have seen from some today will not knock the Government off its course of assisting the United States in the prosecution of these murderous terrorist scum?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend is right to point out that it is our constituents who face the consequences of not getting this right. The last thing on my mind at night and the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning is the balancing of risk—the balance between people who we know pose a risk, trying to plot to bomb us and kill us every single day; and the needs of my constituents and the constituents of the United Kingdom. The duty of Ministers is to balance that risk, and to try to get that balance right.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Like other Members in all parts of the House, I am proud of the role that successive UK Governments of all political persuasions have played in fighting against the death penalty. Is there any evidence that the Minister can give to challenge the assertion quoted in The Times this morning, from a “ministerial source”, that the Home Secretary’s decision
“is contrary to all government policy, and negates over a decade’s unequivocal FCO statements and DFID programme spending principles”?
Mr Wallace
I do not think that I need to guide the right hon. Gentleman not to quote from a ministerial source on any day of the week, and I would advise any colleagues against doing so. That ministerial source, whoever it may be, is wrong.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is a vital strategic priority of our Government to work as closely as possible with the United States on a range of national security issues, and to assist us in our fight against international terrorism and extremism to help to keep our people safe?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend has made an important point. Every week, the United States and our European allies share evidence and intelligence that keep us safe. They are our friends in this ever-unstable world. It is incredibly important that we stay close to all our allies and continue in partnership both to prosecute people where they pose a threat—if it is here, then here, but if it is not, elsewhere, in the countries that share our values—and to share intelligence in order to make sure that all of us keep safe.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
In the case of Abu Qatada, the Prime Minister, in her former guise, secured a special guarantee that evidence gathered through torture would not be used against him. Whatever these people are accused of, will the Minister give the House an assurance that there are the same guarantees for Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh?
Mr Wallace
On the basis of all the evidence that the United Kingdom holds, we would not hold evidence that we knew resulted directly or indirectly from torture; nor would we share that evidence if we had it.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Having taken the mood of the House this afternoon, will my right hon. and gallant Friend ask our right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to reconsider the action that he has taken, given the specifics of this case?
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
I am glad that the Minister intends to write to the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) to answer his question, but can he confirm, as he was unable to answer today, that no precedent played any part in the decision made in this case?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is correct. As I said in answer to a question from the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), all cases are taken on a case-by-case basis, and that will be the case in the future as well.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the key human right in this case is access to a full and fair trial, and that the UK Government must do everything they can to make sure that is possible? If UK agencies and authorities were to withhold evidence they have in their possession, it would put that fundamentally at risk?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend is right that it is very important that anyone detained on suspicion of being a foreign fighter faces a full and fair trial in accordance with our values and laws and international law, and that is what we are trying to achieve.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Last week the Foreign Office confirmed the Government’s position that the death penalty undermines human dignity and that opposing it was in all circumstances a matter of principle. So that confirms what I think the Minister has said, which is that this is an individual decision by this Home Secretary. But the only reason the Minister seems to have given for why the assurance was not sought is that that would not facilitate trial in the United States, so has the US imposed a condition that that assurance is not sought in this case?
Mr Wallace
No, I did not say that. This is a Foreign Office-Home Office-led decision of the two Ministers, so quoting from the Foreign Office I would say that the true guidance for the policy is in line with the OSJA guidance.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
One of the biggest challenges we face today as a society is countering violent extremism. What is my right hon. Friend’s Department doing to strengthen the sentencing framework for terrorism-related offences?
Mr Wallace
The new Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill increases some of the maximum sentences available. On the wider area of my hon. Friend’s point about prevention, that is why we embrace and promote the Prevent policy in Contest.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
These terrorists sneaked out of the UK to join a bunch of murderers who were at war with this country, and they then publicly boasted about beheading and torturing innocent hostages. Does the Minister not agree that it would be a betrayal of their victims and of this country if he did not supply information to the United States which would enable these people to be brought to justice and held to account, and that our only concern should be that that is what happens and that the US courts hand out whatever sentence they believe these people deserve?
Mr Wallace
It is of course a general policy and principle that we will do what we can to help acquire or share evidence with our allies to bring to justice people who have perpetrated violence through terrorism or any other offence against citizens, whether our citizens or those of other countries. I will not talk about this individual case and the United States, but the reality is that we should, of course, work to make sure that people face justice, but that justice must be in line with international law and our values, and with the due process that should be awarded to people who are innocent until proven guilty.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that any trial under any circumstance should always be fair and transparent because the relatives and friends of the victims deserve the best?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Often in all of this—and, indeed, often in the media reporting—people forget that there are victims. The right place for the victims to see what is going on and understand the full picture is at a trial. That is why sometimes leaks in the media do not help anyone. Victims can certainly be upset when all these details come out in trials, and that is what we are trying to help by the sharing of evidence with the United States.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
A number of us mourned the death this month of Cardinal Tauran, who told us that the conflict with radical Islam would be an intergenerational struggle that would require education, dialogue and, yes, force. Does the Minister not agree that facilitating vengeance in the judicial system via the use of the death penalty will make our world a much less safe place?
Mr Wallace
I do not believe that the death penalty is something that this country should have. I do not think it is what the public, or indeed this House, would support. However, I also respect the will of a number of countries around the world, including the United States, that have decided to have the death penalty in certain circumstances. As an ex-soldier, I am also aware that all states, including those that oppose the death penalty, use lethal force when they have to do so to keep themselves secure. We risk being seen as hypocrites if we say that we will never make an exception for assurances, while being prepared to use lethal force on the battlefield to kill people without due process. That is the balance that we always have to strike. It is not easy, but we do it to try to keep people safe.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
While I understand the concern of those who oppose the death penalty, I also understand the concern of my constituents that if this country has information or evidence that is not passed on to our closest ally, the United States, that will send out a very wrong signal indeed when this House calls for more action in countries where there is a war that directly impacts my constituents. Will the Minister confirm, in order to reassure us all, that if advice has been taken and if decisions have been overreached in terms of ministerial responsibility, they will of course be subject to the courts?
Mr Wallace
Yes, my hon. Friend is correct. All Ministers took these decisions in line with the law. They were acting lawfully, within international law and within our domestic obligations.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Sending people to face the death penalty is unacceptable, and to be party to doing that undermines our own credentials. The Minister did not answer the question put by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). When will the Government renew their own policy on the death penalty? When will that be brought before this House?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes one fundamental mistake. The two individuals in question are not under our control. They are not in our jurisdiction. We have no contact with them whatsoever. The reality is that this is based on a request from the United States Government to share evidence so that those individuals can potentially face trial in the United States.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his comments so far. Those two men are not UK citizens. If the evidential base is as strong as the media suggest, they will be charged and tested in the US courts for the murder of two Americans. Is it not right that it should be the US courts that deliberate on those horrific murders?
Mr Wallace
There are American victims of this crime, and whoever the right people to face the consequences of that are, they should of course face justice where those victims are, as should be the case in relation to British victims here. It would have been good if we could have done that, but in this case, the decision was reached that the United States was the best place for those individuals to face justice, in the United States criminal system.
Pairing
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury if he will make a statement in relation to Government policy and practice with regard to pairing arrangements, especially as they relate to Members on maternity, paternity or adoption leave.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mr David Lidington)
I want to start by reiterating without reserve the apology for the error that was made last week in respect of pairing with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). Both the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith)—the Government Chief Whip—and the Minister without Portfolio, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), have apologised publicly, and I acknowledge that that apology was accepted by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) during questions to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House last week.
The Government’s policy on pairing remains that these are long-standing informal arrangements between business managers in different political parties in this House, co-ordinated through the usual channels. That has been the position of successive Governments of different political compositions, and this Government have no plans to change those underlying arrangements. Indeed, it is worth noting that almost 2,000 pairs have been agreed since the general election in June last year. Of those, the overwhelming majority have worked as intended, with the Government actually having a better record of upholding pairing arrangements than most other parties.
During the passage of the Trade Bill last week, seven of the eight pairs remained in place, including two other pairs provided for two Members on maternity leave. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said in response to the urgent question last week, there are clearly questions and different opinions in the House on whether and, if so, how changes should be made to our current voting arrangements.
The Government have therefore confirmed that there will be a general debate on proxy voting in September, following the debate’s cancellation earlier this month for an urgent statement on the Amesbury incident. That will give Members the opportunity to consider the various questions arising from the recent report of the Procedure Committee into proxy voting. In particular, as came through from the exchanges following the Leader of the House’s business statement last week, I know that Members have questions about whether such arrangements should be extended beyond maternity, paternity and adoption leave to those who, for example, have been bereaved or who have caring responsibilities for close relatives. It is important that the House be given time to debate those questions as, from my experience, such changes are made most effectively when they command consensus across the House.
The Government remain committed to providing a pairing system with Opposition parties, and I reassure the House again that the errors of last week will not be repeated. I hope the House will look forward to the debate in September as a chance to discuss in greater detail what changes might be made to ensure that Members on both sides of the House are supported through periods of absence.
Mr Carmichael
Thank you for allowing this urgent question, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his answer. I mean no disrespect to him, but I am disappointed that he is at the Dispatch Box today and not the Chief Whip.
There are serious questions still outstanding about the events of last Tuesday evening, and the only person who knows the truth about them is the Chief Whip himself. There is a serious lack of confidence today in the system by which we run our business, and the only person who can restore that confidence is the Chief Whip.
I understand the convention that the Chief Whip does not normally speak in this Chamber except to move a by-election writ. Under normal circumstances I would see that as a sensible protection for the office of Chief Whip, but the House should not lose sight that there is an important distinction to be drawn between a protection for the office and a protection for the holder of that office.
When I was first made aware of the presence of the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) in the Division Lobby last week, I was quite relaxed about it. We all know these things happen from time to time and, in a system that relies on the best of faith, these things should not be the source of excitement. My view started to change, however, when I learned that any mistake was made not by the right hon. Gentleman but by the Chief Whip himself. It may have been a mistake to cancel the pair, but it was not an inadvertence; it was a deliberate act. We now understand that the instruction to the right hon. Gentleman that he should vote came from the Chief Whip himself. The explanation from the Chief Whip that he did not know this was, as he terms it, a “pregnancy pair” neither clarifies nor excuses what is a prima facie act of bad faith. A pair is a pair, whatever its purpose. If the system is to work, it should be honoured and not broken at the 11th hour.
The House should be aware that I gave the Minister advance notice of these questions. When was the decision made to cancel the pairing arrangements for the votes on new clauses 17 and 18, and when was the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth informed of this? Did the Chief Whip inform either the Liberal Democrat or official Opposition Whips Office that the pairs would be broken? My information is that neither office was informed. Was the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth aware that he was paired with my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire for the day’s votes? Was the decision made to cancel pairs taken in consultation with the Prime Minister or the Leader of the House? When were the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House informed that the pairing arrangements would be broken? Crucially, was the Prime Minister informed of the Chief Whip’s decision to instruct Conservative MPs to break pairing arrangements before she told the House at Prime Minister’s questions that it was an honest mistake? Do these repeated references to an “honest mistake” refer to the decision to break the pairing across the board or specifically to the decision to break pairing with a maternity/paternity leave MP? If it is the latter, is it now Government policy that the breaking of pairing arrangements at the insistence of the Chief Whip for non-pregnancy-related pairs is acceptable?
There is an old truism that there is no smoke without fire. In fairness to the Chief Whip, we see no flames today—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are a lot of people in the Chamber and quite a lot of people probably want to take part—we will make an assessment of that. Meanwhile, the right hon. Gentleman will be heard. No attempt to shout him down is going to work and therefore it is just a waste of breath.
Mr Carmichael
I had said, “In fairness to the Chief Whip”, so perhaps that was what got them excited, Mr Speaker. In fairness to the Chief Whip, there is no flame apparent today, but there is surely enough smoke to fill the sky.
Mr Lidington
First, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, as the Minister without Portfolio, is a member of my ministerial team in the Cabinet Office, so I think it is perfectly appropriate that I should be answering the urgent question from the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman asked a number of specific questions. First, let me say that my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth was not at any point aware that he was paired with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire. Indeed, that is the normal state of affairs when a colleague is paired: they do not know with which particular Opposition Member they happen to be paired. That is a matter dealt with by the usual channels, through the respective Whips Offices. My right hon. Friend was asked to vote shortly before the Divisions that have caused this particular controversy. As has been said both by him and by my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip, he should not have been asked to vote. An error was made within the Government Whips Office, for which my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has taken responsibility, hence his public apology to the right hon. Gentleman, as Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, and to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire. Every other pair that evening was honoured, so the error meant that the right hon. Gentleman was not notified beforehand, because there was not some sort of deep-laid plot to deny the pairing arrangement. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the House were consulted about the matter. The Government policy remains, as I said earlier, that pairing is an informal and voluntary arrangement between the political parties. We do take the issue of pregnancy pairing particularly seriously, for the very reasons that have led both the business Committee and then the Procedure Committee to highlight this as something that the House ought to address. That is why we will be taking forward the debate on proxy voting in September.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the broken pair did not alter the result of the vote and the Government would have still won the vote? Will he confirm that when these things happen the House has to learn lessons from them, but it must be wary of trying to scrap the whole system, as that would mean that Select Committees in this House would not be able to work and a lot of the work that takes place outside the confines of the Chamber would be impossible to continue?
Mr Lidington
My right hon. Friend speaks with considerable experience. It is true that what happened last Tuesday did not actually affect the outcome of the vote. It is worth pointing out that, of the 66 pairs that have been broken since the general election, 14 were broken by the Government and 52 by the Opposition.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on successfully bringing another Cabinet Minister to the Chamber to answer a question about breaking a pair. It clearly shows the seriousness of the political situation facing the Government Chief Whip that the deputy Prime Minister has to come to answer the urgent question, to try to avoid another damaging Cabinet exit. Clearly, the Government Chief Whip decided to phone a friend, and it was not the Leader of the House.
The deputy Prime Minister said that the Government had a better record on pairing. Could he explain what that means because a pair is twice—you have two pairs? The issue is simple: it comes down to the integrity of the word of a member of Her Majesty’s Government, the Government Chief Whip. You will recall, Mr Speaker, that a former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, demanded a rerun of a vote—and got it—from a Labour Government.
The answers in the statements made by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House on 18 July confirmed that the Government Chief Whip was less than candid with his fellow Ministers, including the Prime Minister, by not declaring that he actively instructed Conservative MPs to break pairing arrangements. It is clear that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House have unwittingly misled the House by characterising the Government Chief Whip’s action as an “honest mistake”. This is a serious breach of the ministerial code.
Does the Minister for the Cabinet Office believe that the Government Chief Whip’s integrity is above reproach? We are asked to believe that the breaking of the pair for the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) was an “honest mistake”, while he admits that he ordered others to knowingly break their pairs. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case? Can he confirm that the Government Chief Whip rang those who refused to break their pairs to demand an explanation as to why? If that was the case, that in itself is a clear breach of a number of the Nolan principles, such as integrity and honesty, that form the basis of the ministerial code.
In her foreword to the latest version of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister states that it
“sets out the standards of behaviour expected from all those who serve in Government…In abiding by this Code, we will show that Government can be a force for good and that people can trust us”.
I reiterate our offer on Wednesday, following the previous urgent question, to discuss implementing a system of baby leave today without the need for a vote. How do the Government think that the business of the House—including Select Committee visits, international delegations, important ministerial negotiations, and even having a baby—can proceed when they admit that, under this Government Chief Whip, no one can or should trust them?
Mr Lidington
I have to say that when the hon. Lady complained about my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip not being here, I glanced across at the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and wondered why he was not at the Dispatch Box instead of her. I suspect that, when he whispers in her ear afterwards, he might suggest to her that trying to apply the Nolan principles to the inner workings of any Whips Office over recent decades would raise a number of difficult challenges.
I will address the serious points made by the hon. Lady. First, only one pair was broken last Tuesday. That was done because of a genuine error in the Government Whips Office, for which the Chief Whip has publicly apologised. Despite that breach having taken place—it ought not to have taken place—the outcome had no effect on the decision that was taken by the House in the particular votes on which the controversy centres. Had that breach not taken place, the Government would still have lost the first vote and would still have won the second vote last Tuesday evening.
We are more than willing to talk to Opposition parties and indeed to Back-Bench Members across the House about how to forge a consensus on the way forward on parental and perhaps other forms of absence but, as I said earlier, exchanges in the House already have indicated that this is not necessarily a straightforward matter. Finally, I have full confidence in the integrity of my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
The key is that this is an informal arrangement and it will always remain so. Mistakes will be made on both sides of the House—that is what happens. I was not allowed to have a pair for my father-in-law’s funeral. My duty was to be here to vote and I stayed here, notwithstanding the fact that I would have liked to have been at his funeral. A lot of nonsense is being talked at the moment. May I also say that the Chief Whip is doing an excellent job?
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
The whole issue of this pairing arrangement stinks to high heaven, and we still have not had an acceptable explanation as to why the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) observed some whipping arrangements but not others on much more critical votes. The Chief Whip needs to come to this House to explain himself fully because, with all due respect to the Minister, all we are hearing from him is what the Chief Whip has told him. After all of this, surely the Chief Whip should be considering his position today.
We in the Scottish National party are just so grateful that we have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this broken pairing arrangement. The more we learn about the insidious workings of this broken arrangement, the more pleased we are that we have nothing to do with it. Members of the public are watching with increasing alarm and horror as this House is being dragged into the gutter and into disrepute once again. What we need is a total review of all our broken voting arrangements in this House. Will the right hon. Gentleman commit himself to that today, to make sure that we can conduct ourselves fairly and equitably and end this nonsense in this House?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman seems to be working himself into a lather of indignation about an informal practice that he says that he and his party have no intention of participating in. I suspect that that question was an intentional distraction from the recent publicity on the dismal attendance and voting record of SNP Members in this House.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
This is, of course, more about Parliament versus Government than anything else. I absolutely accept the assurance of the Chief Whip and the chairman of my party that they made a mistake. The problem is that, until I came to the Chamber today, I had no idea that there had been 2,000 pairs since the general election. The arrangements are made behind closed doors and in secret. If this pairing system was public, and if, each day, the people who were paired were listed or perhaps even removed from the possibility of voting, this would never occur again. What we need is transparency, and I hope that the deputy Prime Minister will look into this matter.
Mr Lidington
I understand the case that my hon. Friend makes and the arguments for greater transparency, but I ask him also to reflect on this point. In my experience in this House, Whips Offices in all political parties exercise a very important pastoral role. As in any large workplace, there are often Members who are going through periods of ill health or great family and personal stress, and in those circumstances it is not always right for the pairing arrangements to be made public in a way that might draw attention to the predicament of those Members. I do think, despite what he says, that it is best for these matters to be left to informal agreement between the usual channels.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
We know things are bad for the Government when they send out their wisest head and safest pair of hands, but unfortunately the Minister for the Cabinet Office has been sent out to defend the indefensible. In addition to the very serious questions that still surround the pairing arrangements for the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), it is clear from comments made by Conservative MPs to national newspapers that the Chief Whip ordered them to break their pairs. It is only because of their honour and integrity—and the Chief Whip’s misjudgement and inability to orchestrate a proper stitch-up—that that did not happen. Does the Minister for the Cabinet Office understand the damage that this has done not just to our confidence in the pairing system and with its impact on Members’ welfare, but to the integrity and public perception of this place? What are the Government going to do to repair the reputation of Parliament and to accept that, because they did not win a majority at the last general election, they have to win votes by argument rather than by stitching things up behind closed doors?
Mr Lidington
At the risk of repeating myself, the breach of pairing that took place last Tuesday did not make any difference to the outcome of either of the Divisions in question. My right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has undertaken to use the summer recess to carry out a review of the internal arrangements within the Government Whips Office to try to make certain that this type of error, which should not have occurred, can be prevented in the future. I would just say to the hon. Gentleman that perhaps I am getting somewhat cynical over the years, but I do tend to take with a pinch of salt reports in the newspapers about what my colleagues are alleged to have said.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I feel that I must fess up. I am a pair breaker. I have done it once—by accident. I was told off by the Whips very quickly. The event that I was due to attend had been cancelled and I simply forgot, so honest mistakes do happen. But this whole incident proves two things: first, that this is a process issue that interests the Westminster bubble, but certainly does not interest my constituents; and secondly, that this system, which has existed for a very long time, generally works. I urge my right hon. Friend to be very careful in changing a system that, despite the odd breakdown here and there—most of which have been committed by the Opposition in recent times—generally works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The very fact that we are talking about 66 pairs having been broken for one reason or another since the general election, out of a total of around 2,000 agreed pairs, tells its own story.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
Allegations have been made and it is clear that there was a
“misunderstanding about the pairing and voting arrangements”—[Official Report, 22 June 1976; Vol. 915, c. 1361.]
Those words were uttered in 1976 from the Government Dispatch Box by the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan, during a similar controversy. He and the then Leader of the Opposition agreed that the only way to resolve matters was for the Chief Whips to meet and the vote to be rerun. Precedent has been set. When will the Government show the integrity that I know the Minister for the Cabinet Office and many Government colleagues possess in abundance?
Mr Lidington
The difference between the incident in the 1970s that the hon. Gentleman cites and what happened last week is that the majorities—both against and for the Government—in the two Divisions were completely unaffected by what happened over pairing.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I have probably not always been the blue-eyed boy of the Whips Office, but I have found that this Chief Whip and his predecessors have always behaved with the utmost honesty and integrity. Confected anger and attacking my right hon. Friend does not help the House—in fact, it does not help anybody—because this system generally works. We should be very cautious about moving towards proxy voting because, had I taken the paternity leave due to me, I can think of no one I would have less liked to have held my vote than the Chief Whip.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, although I have to give him this warning: those who start out not being the blue-eyed boys of the Whips Office usually end up being recruited into it.
Mr Speaker
Well, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) does not exactly look heart-warmed by the prospect that redemption awaits him.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister says that we should not believe the press reports that we have seen, so can he settle this matter once and for all? Did the Chief Whip also call other MPs and ask them to break the pair alongside the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis)? Because if he did, that is not a mistake, it is a policy.
I say to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) that this does matter, because if the public cannot trust the Government to organise themselves, how can they trust them to organise a country?
Mr Lidington
Every pair other than that with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire was honoured last Tuesday.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
As you will know, Mr Speaker, if I think that someone in government should lose their job, I am not afraid to say so. As you might imagine, I, like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), have had my fair share of run-ins with the Chief Whip. However, I have always found him, even when we have fundamentally disagreed, to be a man of complete honour, of his word and of integrity. That also goes for the other members of the Whips Office with whom I have had fundamental disagreements. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Chief Whip’s integrity should not be questioned in any shape or form, and that anybody who knows him as well as we do would know that to be the case? Is this not really an attempt by the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip to avoid the embarrassment of the fact that he could not get the leader of his own party, or his immediate predecessor, to vote in a Division last Monday that the Government won by only three?
Mr Lidington
I do not know whether that was an eloquent bid to be the beneficiary of future pairing arrangements, but my hon. Friend makes an important point. I think it is true that Conservative Members right across the spectrum, from left to right of my party, have always found the Chief Whip to be someone with whom they can do business and whose integrity and honesty they can completely trust.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
With four Members of the House on maternity leave at the moment, this issue is particularly poignant, and I fear that many of those people will have lost faith in the system as it currently exists. When I was on maternity leave with my first child, the campaigning group 38 Degrees contacted my constituents criticising me for not attending a vote, but at least I knew that I was paired and that it was cancelled out. The right hon. Gentleman says that we will be discussing proxy voting in greater detail in the autumn, and that is welcome. However, when does he expect reform to take place to allow proxy voting, as recommended by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), so that it actually happens and we are not reliant on this informal system?
Mr Lidington
I think that after the general debate on the matter there will need to be, at some stage in the not too distant future, a substantive motion on which the House can take a view. Important questions were raised in the Procedure Committee report—for example, about the exclusion from a general proposal for proxy voting while on maternity, paternity or adoption leave of particular categories of Division in the House. The Committee discussed various approaches to how a proxy vote might operate in practice. The House needs to consider those things, as well as the points about the potential for bereavement leave or carer’s leave that other hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised.
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
We know that the system actually works pretty well. The Minister has given the figures that show that occasionally, for a variety of reasons, pairs get broken. In those cases, an apology is required, very quickly, and we had an apology from the two individuals in question that should settle the matter. The reality, though, is that this is the worst system except for all the alternatives.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I do worry about what happened last week and about the explanations that have subsequently been given. It is certainly true that, as the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) suggested, sometimes people do, inadvertently, accidentally and without any malice aforethought, break the Whip—[Interruption.] I am sorry—break the pair. People frequently break the Whip—that is a common feature on all sides these days. Sometimes people break the pair, and then they are always told off by the Whips for doing so, because it is the Whips’ own honour that is then in question—that is the point. The difference in this case is that the Chief Whip deliberately—not as an error but deliberately—sought to get somebody he knew to be paired to break that pair. That is a fundamental difference.
I say to the Minister that we need to get this sorted before the autumn, not just have a debate about it. The temperature in politics this year and in this Parliament—as well as the physical temperature—has already been very high, and we really do need to get it sorted. Otherwise we will be putting temptation in the Chief Whip’s way every single day of the week, all the way through to 29 March next year.
Mr Lidington
As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said in business questions last Thursday, she is willing and indeed keen to engage with right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to see whether we can agree, as consensually as possible, a way of addressing these matters in the future.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I declare an interest: I have always had considerable time for the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), not least since we served together as senior Whips in the Government Whips Office during the days of the coalition Government. As he will recall from those halcyon days, occasionally—incredible though it might sound—things in the Whips Office went wrong, and it was usually the result not of a conspiracy but of a mistake. I submit to him and the House that that is what has happened here, and it would be a great mistake on our part to change our well-established procedures because of an unfortunate incident for which both of those responsible have profusely apologised.
Mr Lidington
It is a good principle that hard cases make bad law, and I think my right hon. Friend is right.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
What matters for present purposes is that two senior members of the Government conspired to break the rules to win a vote they thought they might lose. If I am wrong about that, can the Minister explain why? If I am right, why are they still in their posts?
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
This looks to have been a genuine error, for which a sincere apology has been given. My right hon. Friend has made it clear that this type of error has happened not just on the Government side but on both sides of the House, so I find the level of faux outrage in some quarters very strange. The system generally works well, and I would encourage him not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to work with his counterparts, particularly in the Whips Offices of other parties, to make sure that the system can be looked at and improved on to avoid these types of errors, which are clearly happening on the Government side and in other parties.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend gives good advice that I am sure my colleagues in the Whips Office will wish to follow.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
If the Government are prepared to take advantage of pregnant women and women who have recently had babies, surely we can have very little trust in their integrity. Would a good way to restore integrity not be to circulate something before the recess so that we can have a votable motion when we come back in September to allow baby leave and proxy voting to go ahead?
Mr Lidington
As I have repeatedly said, what happened last week was a genuine error. It ought not to have happened. The Whips Office is taking steps through its internal procedures to try to prevent a repetition, and the Leader of the House is eager to talk to Members from all parties in the House about the way forward to address the points the hon. Lady refers to.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), I served for four years in the coalition Whips Office, including for two years with the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), and he and I will remember all kinds of cock-ups, for want of a better term: people inadvertently paired twice, people who thought their pair was transferable, and so on. All these things can and do happen. In my view, this is much more likely to have been a genuine mistake, so does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a poor decision to base long-term practice on this one case, however high-profile?
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Consciously telling an MP to break a pair is not an error; it is cheating. Was the Chief Whip offered the opportunity by the Government to come to the House today to explain his error?
Mr Lidington
For the reasons I explained earlier, I am responding on behalf of the Government. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept what his right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland accepted last week, which was the public apologies given by the Minister without Portfolio, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, and the Chief Whip.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
With 2,000 pairs granted, does my right hon. Friend agree that mistakes, while rare, are far from unknown? They are even not unknown to the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is correct. Of the 52 pairs broken by Opposition parties, seven were broken by Liberal Democrats. Indeed, four Liberal Democrat MPs have broken pairs, or roughly a third of the party’s Members of Parliament.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
So the Government’s defence is that this very rare occurrence where a pair is broken happened by accident, but it just so happened that it was on a vote that the Government feared they might lose. Outside the House, that might be described in unparliamentary terms. MPs from the Conservative side have been reported in the press saying that they were rung by the Chief Whip and told to break their pair, but refused to do so. Is the Minister saying those people misinformed the media?
Mr Lidington
All other pairs were duly honoured last Tuesday. The error that took place in respect of the pair with the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire had no impact on the result of either Division.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
We obviously work in a not very family-friendly workplace. It is incredibly difficult for new mums and dads to combine that role with voting in the House. I certainly would not expect maternity leave to last up until the age of my youngest child, who is 19, but does the Minister not agree that the Government give an incredibly generous offer with maternity pairs? Unlike the workplace, there is no time limit for new mums to take advantage of the system, within reason. Does he not agree that the system should be welcomed and should continue?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is right, and I am grateful to her for acknowledging that while mothers who are Members are rightly at the forefront of our concern, we also have paternity leave. That is one area where I had some fellow feeling with what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said last week. I can remember being in the delivery suite with my wife for the birth of one of our sons and being interrupted through the night at 90-minute intervals by the Government Whips Office asking when I was going to be available to come into Westminster.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I am sorry, but what most people out there are asking is simple: is there any rule that a Minister in this Government cannot get away with breaking?
Mr Lidington
The arrangements on pairing are not rules set out in Standing Orders. They are informal conventions, and it is right that they should remain such.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
It is clear how easy it is for mistakes to be made in this area, and my right hon. Friend has confirmed that all parties have made mistakes. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) made a mistake and put his own party leader in the news a few days ago. The system works to support colleagues across the House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the system should be maintained?
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that pairing is one of the things that makes this place work? We should keep last week’s events in their full context and recognise that, by and large, the system works and should be maintained.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
This seems to be an honest mistake, for which the Chief Whip has apologised. Of the seven pairs broken by the Liberal Democrats since the general election, is my right hon. Friend aware how many times they have apologised for breaking those pairs?
Mr Lidington
I think that is a question for the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, rather than for me.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
The informal ways of working in this place can be both a strength and a weakness. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is quite important every now and again to reflect on the fact that the composition of the House has changed, the world outside has changed and technology has moved on, and we need periodically to look at those informal processes and see whether some of them need formalising?
Mr Lidington
It is certainly right that we review things in the light of changing technology and changing circumstances, and that is what the Leader of the House wishes to do.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend to be cautious about allowing this matter to take the House down the route of proxy voting, which has huge downsides? Quite often, we are asked to consider serious matters in this House, where the debate affects the way people vote because it changes their mind. The solution is surely to improve the pairing system, rather than to ditch it completely.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend’s question illustrates why it is important that we have the general debate and seek to obtain as wide a consensus as possible.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
This is a serious matter, but does my right hon. Friend agree that an error was made and has been admitted, an apology has been issued and accepted, and we should now move on? I have full faith in the integrity of our Chief Whip, but I have less faith in the true motives of the Liberal Democrats in bringing this forward, because it seems to be an attempt to cover up their own woeful record in this department.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend’s description of what happened last week and the course of action he now recommends are spot-on.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend given any thought to publishing the pairing performance data that he has mentioned? In that way, people in the country could make up their own minds about the various trends across all parties in the House since the general election.
Mr Lidington
Precisely because these are informal arrangements, I do not think we should be looking for regular statistical bulletins on this matter. The figures I read out earlier in the exchanges make the point that, for the most part, the pairing system works very well.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Having spent more time than I wished with the Chief Whip going through matters that I found very difficult indeed, I can attest to the fact that not only is he a stickler for the rules, but he is very kind and compassionate when it comes to domestic matters. I hope that will be taken into account by Members on both sides of the House when I say that I favour some form of reform. If mistakes can occur, it is important that we as a House look at how to come up with a better system in which mistakes do not occur.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I benefited from pairing arrangements on a number of occasions last year. I do not have a clue which Opposition Members I was paired with, or whether any of those pairs were broken. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the pairing system generally works very well for many people who need a pair—whether because of serious illness, parental leave or bereavement leave—and most of our constituents, once they know the facts, do actually understand why some of us may miss votes for a period?
Mr Lidington
We all remember when my hon. Friend was seriously unwell and had to be absent from the House for a time. He, like many others in all political parties over the years, has benefited from the informal arrangements that the Whips Offices of the different parties have negotiated on pairing. In the furore over events last week, it is important that we do not lose sight of the important tool that the pairing system offers in relation to effective pastoral care for right hon. and hon. Members.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we hold a unique position of privilege, that on matters of such importance as Brexit legislation our constituents therefore expect us to vote in person on their behalf whenever possible, and that just one high-profile error should not change the system we have in place?
Mr Lidington
The Procedure Committee report on proxy voting and parental absence suggested a number of exceptions that, in its view, should be made to its general recommendation to allow proxy voting, so my hon. Friend makes an important point.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I speak with great authority and experience, having been refused every single pair that I have ever applied for. Be that as it may, will my right hon. Friend adopt the principle of Chesterton’s fence, namely that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is properly understood?
Mr Lidington
These are exactly the arguments that we will have the opportunity to debate in September.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker; last but I certainly hope not least. I served on your diversity and inclusion panel, and we looked at this hugely complex issue in great detail. It is clear to me that what is proposed as a response to pairing is not a panacea. It is hugely complex and posed as many questions as it provided answers to, so can I ask my right hon. Friend not to rush but to tread very carefully, so that we as a House get this right?
Mr Lidington
I think that rushed procedural changes often leave the House repenting at leisure. I also think that a procedural change to voting such as is now proposed should command as wide a consensus in the House across political parties as it is possible to obtain.
Points of Order
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and his shadow Treasury team, whose names escape me right now, visited my constituency of Hastings and Rye over the weekend, yet failed to alert me to the fact that they were coming. Could I ask for your advice, Mr Speaker, on how I might encourage Members to come in a personal capacity to the fantastic town of Hastings, which has had record investment since 2010, but to alert me perhaps earlier if they are coming on a political visit?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her point of order. Such points of order are by no means uncommon—in fact, they are very frequent in the Chamber—and it is regrettable that this should be the case. I understand that she has alerted the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) to her intention to raise this point of order. I can confirm readily that it is a well-established and important convention that Members should alert each other to prospective visits to the other’s constituency if those visits are of a public or potentially public character. It is in all our interests that this courtesy should be observed. It has to be said that it is frequently observed in the breach rather than in the observance, and by Members on both sides of the House. The right hon. Lady has drawn attention to a breach. I hope that it will not be repeated, and I thank her for what she has said.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raised in the House the case of my constituent who had his personal independence payment stopped. He has an inoperable brain tumour; he has intractable epilepsy, which means that he could collapse without warning; and he has the onset of Parkinson’s disease. On 2 July, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work mentioned at the Dispatch Box that she would meet me to discuss this case. Despite several attempts by my office to contact her office and arrange that meeting, it has still not been possible to arrange it. I wonder whether you could assist me in expediting this, Mr Speaker, so that I can represent my constituent.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The very short answer to him is that if an offer of a meeting is made, whether in response to a point of order or, as in this case, in an answer to an oral question, that commitment should be honoured sooner rather than later. If the hon. Gentleman is asking me—[Interruption.] Order. Mr Kerr, I am dealing with a point of order.
With the greatest respect, I am usually very interested in what the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) has to say, but at the moment I have not got the foggiest interest in what he is burbling about from a sedentary position, because I am responding to a point of order, and I intend so to do. If he is interested in listening, he can listen quietly, and if he is not interested, he is welcome to leave. I do not really care which of those courses of action he follows, but it had better be one or the other.
In response to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), I would say that the offer of a meeting should be honoured sooner rather than later. If the hon. Gentleman wants an idea of a broad rule of thumb, I should have thought that it was reasonable within 24 hours of an oral exchange for contact with his office to have been made by a ministerial office, which is a well-staffed office. I would very much hope, particularly in a matter of very great sensitivity and potentially great urgency, that a meeting would be arranged within a week or so.
If the hon. Gentleman is telling me that three weeks later such a meeting has not been arranged and there has been no substantive contact, frankly that just isn’t good enough. That would apply whichever party was in power, just as it is not good enough if weeks after a Member has tabled a written question there has been no substantive reply.
There is a Whip sitting on the Treasury Bench, who might as well perform a useful function. One useful function that the Deputy Chief Whip, which I think is his current title, could perform would be to contact the Department concerned and say, “Get it sorted.” The right hon. Gentleman, if he is a right hon. Gentleman—I am pleased if he is, and if he is not, no doubt it is a matter of time—should get it sorted today. I hope that that is what will happen.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Four and a half weeks ago, Bishop James Jones published a report on Gosport War Memorial Hospital that indicated that at least 460 elderly people had died inadvertently by infusion of opiates. I immediately wrote to the Prime Minister expressing my gratitude that the relatives had finally got to the truth, but expressing their desire and demand for justice. I invited the Prime Minister to implement a criminal inquiry. Parliamentary protocol states that the Prime Minister or No. 10 must respond to MPs’ letters within 20 working days. Mr Speaker, it is now 22 working days and I have yet to hear anything. I ask your advice on how I could pursue this matter, so that No. 10 responds to my letter.
Mr Speaker
I must say I am disappointed to hear of the hon. Gentleman’s experience. I have always found the Prime Minister to be a person of unfailing courtesy. That has been my personal experience. I am sorry if he has had a bad experience. In a sense, I think my response to him is not altogether dissimilar to my response to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who has also just raised a point of order.
By raising this on the Floor of the House in this way, which the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) was obviously loth to have to do, he should elicit a reply sooner rather than later. As we go into recess tomorrow, I would certainly expect that he would get an answer from the Prime Minister’s office within the next day or two. If that is not the case, I rather imagine he will be putting down a named-day question, but it should not be necessary for the hon. Gentleman to have to do that.
At one time, there was a considerable improvement in the speed of replies to written questions. It is important that standards are maintained. If standards slip, conventionally it has been the responsibility of the Leader of the House—I know she takes it seriously—and possibly the Whips Office to ensure that those standards are restored. This is not a trifling matter; it is important. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be afforded the courtesy that is warranted.
Bill Presented
Cats Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No 57)
Rehman Chishti presented a Bill to require the driver of a mechanically propelled vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury or death to a cat to stop and give information or report the accident to the police; to require the keepers of certain cats to ensure they are microchipped; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 October, and to be printed (Bill 256).
Mr Speaker
I hope that is reassuring to people attending to our proceedings. [Interruption.] A Whip chunters from a sedentary position, “Cat’s whiskers.” Well, the Bill may cover the matter of whiskers or it may not. We shall have to see. The sooner we learn about the detail of the Bill the better. [Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) is still enjoying his conservation, but at least he is doing so in an orderly way.
Strengthening the Union
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered strengthening the Union.
The Prime Minister and the Government have said, time after time, that it is our responsibility and duty to govern for the whole of the United Kingdom. The UK Government are responsible for governing for the benefit of everyone in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but this reality is perhaps easy to forget. Devolution has changed the constitutional landscape of the United Kingdom, and with multiple Governments working across our four nations, it is perhaps easy to forget the value that this concept—this thing we call “the Union”—brings to us all, but the Prime Minister’s words show that this Union cannot and should not be taken for granted. It has always been of profound importance to all of us. It is central to our wellbeing, our security and our prosperity, as well as to who we are, whether we are from Scotland, Wales, England or Northern Ireland. It is a part of our identity as citizens of the United Kingdom, so I welcome this timely opportunity to discuss our Union of four nations.
I have the privilege of travelling regularly across the nations of the UK in my role as constitution Minister—I was also formerly a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office—and I see the strengths of our country. It is clear to me that delivering for all parts of the United Kingdom is—as it should be—at the heart of the Government’s approach. All parts of the UK need to work together to seize the opportunities of, for example, leaving the European Union. Being part of a bigger and stronger UK benefits all citizens in its four nations.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Perhaps the Minister can explain, then, why the former Foreign Secretary described Northern Ireland’s role in the Brexit process as
“the tail wagging the dog”
and sought to dismiss the serious concerns about the prospects of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, or indeed, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Perhaps she can explain why that was and dissociate the Government from those comments, now that the former Foreign Secretary has dissociated himself from the Government.
Chloe Smith
The hon. Gentleman did the job himself in the final few words of his intervention. I will look forward to some better ones as we go on.
Let me start with a few points on identity. The individual identities of each of the four nations remain strong. We could ask any of the millions of football fans who watched England’s endeavours in Russia about that. Each of us is proud of our distinct history and culture and our different traditions, but we also see this through amazing events such as the Royal Highland Show and the Royal Welsh Show—taking place later this week—which, of course, Cabinet Ministers attend and support.
Although our distinct identities are proudly held, perhaps particularly when we are watching sport, there is another set of values and ideas that unite us all, from Coleraine to Colchester and from Campbeltown to Caernarfon. The values of tolerance, democracy, equality and fairness are central to who we are as citizens of the United Kingdom. We may disagree over whether we prefer Scotch whishky—I mean whisky. It sounds as if I have already been on the whisky, Madam Deputy Speaker! Let me start that sentence again. I am going to attempt to get through a sentence that compares Scotch whisky to English ale, to Northern Irish scones, to Welsh cakes—I may well get to the end of that sentence with a cheer from the House. Whichever one of us has the better cakes or drink, or the more noble history, we are united in our deeper beliefs, democratic traditions and our long history of working as one to benefit us all. When we come together as one people, we benefit from the security and stability that comes from being one of the largest economies in the world, pooling risks and sharing benefits.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
The Minister talks about benefiting all, but as she is aware, the UK is the most unequal state in the European Union, with inner London by the far the richest part of the EU while the communities that I represent are among the poorest, yet in Government figures published in the last few weeks, public expenditure per head in London is higher than in Wales. Why is that fair?
Chloe Smith
The hon. Gentleman highlights an important point that we will have the opportunity to consider when we look at issues such as leaving the European Union and how we will address, for example, agriculture support across our nation. The point I was making is that we are a larger economy when we are together as a Union, and that means we can do things together in a more effective way for all our constituents.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I speak as a proud Unionist, and I am very much in favour of the Union. The Minister must understand, however, that there are considerable concerns about Brexit and the Government’s long-term plan for regional continued development, which benefits my constituency enormously—structural funding, for example, and agricultural funding. Those uncertainties are not helping to keep the Union together. On direct funding to Wales, she has to accept that cutting electrification to Swansea from Cardiff and not supporting the tidal lagoon does not give us enormous confidence about this Government investing in Wales and its communities.
Chloe Smith
I am sure that we will come on to all those points during the debate. However, the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) were right to raise them, because it is in recognition of such issues that the Government plan to create a shared prosperity fund for the whole of the United Kingdom. We share those goals; we share those opportunities.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I am sure that many Members from all over the United Kingdom will point to the inequalities and the lack of growth in some parts of our economy, but does not being part of the United Kingdom mean that fiscal transfers from parts of the UK that generate more revenue than others help Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and many English regions?
Chloe Smith
That is precisely my point. When we see what we can do as a larger economy—when we see how we can attract the finest and the best across the UK economy —we also see that we are in a position to put that back into public services, including the NHS and many other services that are admired around the world, and which work together to make everyone’s lives better. That is true throughout the Union.
Chloe Smith
I must make a few more moments of progress. We have a full debate ahead of us on the strengths of the Union.
Let me say something about the shared economy and the strong internal market, which is one of our biggest strengths, and which is important for all our prosperity. The UK internal market is, of course, the vital first market of the UK. As one of the largest economies in the world, we buy and sell among our nations, and that creates wealth and jobs for every part of the UK.
As we leave the EU, we must protect the benefits of the UK domestic market. We are a world leader in financial services, defence technology, car production, food and drink, digital technology, energy, music, films and television, and all parts of the UK have their role to play in those world-leading industries. Scotland’s exports to the rest of the UK are worth four times more than those to the EU, and 56% of Northern Ireland’s external sales are to the rest of the UK. We as a Government are committed to strengthening these links between the economies of our nations. For example, between England and Wales we are abolishing the Severn bridge tolls and investing in cross-border railway links such as the Halton curve. Let us not forget how many people cross our internal borders every day as part of normal life. As the Prime Minister pointed out during her speech in Northern Ireland on Friday, our Union is rooted in both our history and our collective achievements, but it is our future together that is our greatest strength.
Ian Murray
I am very grateful to the Minister—and may I compliment her on her rather fine Sean Connery impression earlier in her speech?
The Minister has just reeled off a list of service industries in this country, which, of course, are not covered by the Chequers agreement. What analysis has her Department conducted of how much the UK’s GDP will be reduced as a result of that agreement?
Chloe Smith
I do not think the hon. Gentleman can have been listening when I included, for example, car production and food and drink in my list, but the point is that the Chequers agreement seeks to secure the best deal for the whole UK economy, together. That covers both goods and services in different ways—in ways that will complement our strengths—but it also returns us to the key point about the whole UK economy, together.
Let me now say something about the industrial strategy. It is a vital part of the plan set out by the Prime Minister to drive growth across the whole UK, and to create more highly skilled, highly paid jobs and opportunities. It is intended to address the long-term structural challenges that can hold British businesses back, while building on the country’s strengths. New sector deals and investment and research and development will support the industries of the future where the UK has the potential to lead the world, from electric vehicles to biotech and quantum technologies.
It is important that we continue to look to the future. As was announced earlier this month, a £2.5 million grant has been awarded for a spaceport site in Sutherland, on the north coast of Scotland. That the first ever satellite launch from the UK could be from Scottish soil highlights our commitment to investing in all parts of the UK, and there are other launch sites too, such as those planned in Cornwall, Glasgow and Snowdonia, which will also be boosted by a new £2 million development fund. The UK is set to build on its world-leading expertise in aerospace with the development of these spaceports.
On the city and growth deals, we are supporting clusters of cultural and economic strength concentrated in places throughout the UK, and we want to see city and growth deals across the four nations to ensure that prosperity is shared across the UK. We have already seen important investments in a number of deals such as Cardiff, Glasgow and Swansea, as well as investment in other important cultural work such as the V&A in Dundee. Further deals are being developed. We have recently announced the Stirling and Clackmannanshire city region deal, and negotiations have been opened on the north Wales growth deal and with the Belfast city region partners. These deals make a vital contribution to local economies and, as I have said, provide jobs and growth across the UK. There is more, of course. In Cardiff, we have invested in the development of a compound semiconductor industry cluster, and in Aberdeen we opened the oil and gas technology centre with an investment of £180 million, which will unlock the full potential of the North sea and anchor the supply chain in north-east Scotland.
Transport and connectivity are also crucial themes. As we support clusters of growth across the Union we must be connected geographically through our transport and infrastructure links. The expansion of Heathrow will help with this, creating hundreds of additional flights per week from London to the nations and regions across the UK, with new routes emerging to support our economic co-operation. As well as the importance of being connected geographically, the Government recognise that world-class digital connectivity is essential for the modern world; it is essential to people at work and at home and we are committed to improving that across the UK. We are investing over £1 billion to stimulate the market to build the next generation of infrastructure that the UK needs for the future through both the national productivity investment fund and the digital infrastructure investment fund.
Turning to international benefits, the strength in our unity of nations is demonstrated by our common voice on the international stage. We use our seat at the top international organisations to protect the interests of all parts of the UK, to influence issues that matter to people in the UK, and to make the world a better place. When we faced an attack on our citizens, we worked with countries around the world to respond. We use our influence to pursue issues that matter to people across the UK: leading the way on international aid, leading global action to tackle landmines, stopping the trade in ivory, and combating modern slavery. People across the UK can be proud of the role we can play because we are together in our international approach.
That international standing is also vital to the security of our country. Our UK defence expertise and excellence is joined up across the UK and has been built up across decades, from new radar stations in Shetland and Cornwall, to Scottish-built aircraft carriers based in Portsmouth, fast jet response aircraft in Lossiemouth and Lincolnshire, the SAS in Hereford, GCHQ in Cheltenham and the Royal Marines commandos in Arbroath. This is one very large UK defence network protecting us all at home and abroad. And we are spending across the country to be able to keep the whole UK safe. In the last financial year the Ministry of Defence spent £1.6 billion with Scottish industry and commerce, while a recent review found that defence invests £945 million in Welsh industry. The spectacular fly-past we saw only last month as part of the Royal Air Force’s 100th anniversary celebrations reminds us of the work of all our armed forces, who are drawn from, and based across, the whole of the United Kingdom. We saw the same at last month’s Armed Forces Day in Llandudno; it was a proud display of Wales’s military association, while the Edinburgh Tattoo demonstrates Scotland’s strong relationship with the military.
I am also proud that the UK Government recently announced that we will reimburse thousands of military personnel who would otherwise be negatively affected by the devolved Government’s income tax increases in Scotland. This protects nearly three quarters of all armed forces personnel liable for Scottish income tax and will help with recruitment and retention for our important armed forces.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on the ninth anniversary of her election to this place? Perhaps that is why the whisky and the cake were getting muddled up in her mouth—maybe she has been celebrating early. On the point about the UK Government mitigating the “nat tax” in Scotland, does she agree that it was important for my constituents at RAF Lossiemouth and at Kinloss barracks that the UK Government did something to address the fact that the Scottish National party has made Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom, which was having a negative impact on recruitment and retention for our armed forces in Scotland?
Chloe Smith
Yes, that is exactly why the UK Government took those steps, and we are proud to have done so.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
A freedom of information request has just shown today that the Ministry of Defence is not paying 220 people the living wage in Scotland. Why?
Chloe Smith
I confess that I am not in possession of that information, and I am not in a position to give the hon. Gentleman the answer to that question right now. I wonder whether the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), might be able to assist with that a little later in the debate.
I want to move on to the importance of devolution, which is a matter of interest to us all. Our powerful devolved Governments and Parliaments are important elements of our Union’s strength. The Union is best maintained by giving the different nations of the UK the ability to pursue their own domestic policies while protecting and preserving the benefits of being part of that bigger UK family of nations. The UK Government respect devolution as an exercise in better governance and as a way to bring the delivery of services closer to the people who need them, while making use of the benefits of scale across our four nations. Since 1998, the Government have transferred powers to ensure that they sit where they can most effectively be delivered, and the Scotland Act 2016 transferred a wide range of powers to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. The Wales Act 2017 has delivered clarity for Welsh devolution and accountability for the Welsh Government, meeting the commitments that we made in the St David’s day agreement. Devolution in real terms makes a difference to people’s lives across the UK.
Northern Ireland makes a major contribution to the Union, and also derives great benefits from it. The principle of sharing the economic and political strengths of the Union continues to serve the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, and we are working each day to ensure that that remains so. The principles that define Northern Ireland’s place as an integral part of the United Kingdom are of course enshrined in the Belfast agreement and its successor agreements.
Sammy Wilson
Northern Ireland suffered from 40 years of terrorism at the hands of those who wished to overturn the democratic wishes of the people of Northern Ireland. Will the Minister accept that one of the benefits of the Union was that the people of Northern Ireland did not have to stand alone against that terrorist threat but were able to bring to bear all the powers of the security arrangements that were available in the United Kingdom in order to defeat terrorism? Was not that an important benefit of the Union?
Chloe Smith
Yes, I think that is right. The right hon. Gentleman also reminds us of the importance of the principle of consent that is there in the Belfast agreement—namely, that the UK Government govern for the benefit of all communities in Northern Ireland on the principle of consent.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am sure the Minister recognises the contribution of the people in uniform in Northern Ireland. Conscription was never needed, because people volunteered, and Northern Ireland has the biggest levels of recruitment across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We have the largest number of recruits to the Territorial Army reserves of anywhere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is a sure example of our contribution to the greater nation in uniform, whether in the Army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force.
Chloe Smith
I join the hon. Gentleman and everyone in the House in paying tribute to those who serve this country in uniform. We should never forget them.
Let me return to my point about the Belfast agreement, which was reached 20 years ago and was a landmark moment in the history of our islands. The UK Government’s priority is to ensure that it remains as relevant today as it should be, and to restore the devolved institutions at Stormont. All efforts are being made in the hope that an accommodation can be reached and an Executive formed, so that Northern Ireland Ministers can take key decisions. Successive UK and Irish Governments, together with all the parties in Northern Ireland, worked tirelessly to bring about the historic achievement of peace. Let us continue that work.
As hon. Members will know, EU exit will result in a further significant increase in the decision-making powers of the devolved Administrations.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
On the new powers that will come to the Scottish Government in particular, it has never been more important that the UK Government, the Scottish Government and all the devolved Administrations work very closely together. What we have seen over the past year, at least in my estimation, is that there are, at times, chasms that divide the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. The machinery to bring those different Governments together seems to be inadequate. Does the Minister agree? Is that something to which the Government will attend?
Chloe Smith
Mr Speaker—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have clearly had yet more of that whisky—I keep referring to you as “Mr Speaker.”
Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend makes two important points. First, he says that we need to be able to come together as a single United Kingdom to make sure that our UK internal market continues to function and continues to bring the benefits that are needed across the internal borders of our country. He also looks ahead to my points about how we can relate to each other in the governmental work we need to do to get people those benefits, as new responsibilities transfer to Edinburgh, Cardiff and, once an Executive are formed, Belfast.
Our commitment to bringing powers closer to people can be seen in the major steps already taken to decentralise governance in the UK, creating new combined authorities in seven city regions, headed by elected Mayors, and devolving to them new powers and budgets. There are Mayors, of course, across England—in Greater Manchester, the west midlands, the Liverpool city region, Tees valley, the west of England, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and Sheffield city—and they demonstrate how local, visible and innovative leadership can be key to building stronger economies and fairer societies.
English votes for English laws, meanwhile, embeds fairness and balance in Parliament’s law-making process, strengthening England’s voice just as devolution has strengthened the voices of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within our Union. These measures are about accountability, effectiveness and empowering institutions to take action to make things better for the people to whom they are accountable.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
The Minister has very conveniently skipped over Brexit. Over the weekend we learned that a no deal Brexit is now likely. For Scotland that could mean conditions akin to a state of emergency, with “Protect and Survive”-type leaflets being given to families and businesses. How does that help to strengthen her Union?
Chloe Smith
It is not my Union but the entire country’s Union. It is something we should be proud of; it is something we should cherish and protect; and it is something we should work together to protect. People in all our constituencies do best from the internal market of the United Kingdom, and it is that which we are seeking to protect and cherish as we leave the European Union and as we go out into the world to seek additional trade.
We are committed to ensuring that our system of devolution, which has progressed over the past few decades, serves to strengthen our Union and that a voice is afforded to each part of the United Kingdom. We have worked with colleagues in the devolved Administrations to strengthen the mechanisms for intergovernmental co-ordination and collaboration.
I chair a new ministerial forum, along with my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), with the purpose of providing opportunities for meaningful discussion of the UK’s negotiating position with the EU. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster regularly meets the leaders of the devolved Administrations through the Joint Ministerial Committee on European negotiations.
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. There can be no more important document on the current negotiating strategy than the White Paper that was published the week before last. Is it not the case that the Welsh Government had sight of that document only a matter of hours before the British Government gave it to the press?
Chloe Smith
I am not going to comment on individual documents here. The forum I chair, and the JMC structure more broadly, operate on a close working principle. We seek to improve it; we seek for it to be better in the future. We have held a number of very effective meetings in the last while—more than perhaps in the recent period just before that—because we recognise the challenge of these times and we want to have that close working and co-operation together.
The governance of the Union is also about learning from each other. Whether it is the UK Government or a devolved Administration that get policy right, we can all share our experiences, note our mistakes and learn our lessons together; as a Union, we can help each other to serve our people. This Government are fiercely proud of our Union. We will continue to defend it and to strengthen it. We believe that the UK has a bright future as an independent nation outside the EU. This Government will work to invest in all parts of the UK, for the benefit of everyone. By working together, we can help to tackle some of the world’s great injustices and ensure a safer world. As the Prime Minister said on Friday, we are:
“A union not just of nations, but of peoples bound by a common purpose, whoever we are and wherever we are from”.
This Government are working towards
“a brighter future for us all, where we put aside past divisions and work as one to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead”.
I look forward to this afternoon’s debate, which I believe will be an insightful discussion on a very important matter.
Lesley Laird (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
Today’s debate is on “Strengthening the Union”, so I am going to start by talking about that concept and the ties that bind our Union together. Working together, our family of nations has achieved great things for the many and not just the few, and when we are once again united in common purpose, under a Labour Government, I know we will do great things again. Our shared history includes wartime courage, facing down fascism, building homes fit for heroes and the creation of the national health service—
Stephen Kerr
The hon. Lady is speaking in glowing terms about our Union. Does she agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray): is she also a proud Unionist?
Lesley Laird
I am indeed a proud Unionist. I am also a very proud Scot. Having supported and competed for my country, I can honestly say I can wear both jerseys with pride.
Our shared history also includes the national health service, whose 70th anniversary we proudly celebrated earlier this year, and the commitment to looking after our people from the cradle to the grave. Sadly, those are not the sort of sunlit uplands some of the parties represented here today are interested in ever leading us to again. Given the recent actions and behaviour of many here today, it is opportune that we are today talking about strengthening the Union. I have to say, however, the irony will not be lost on many that the Tories have initiated this debate. I say that because the nationalist Government in Edinburgh and the nationalist Government here in London are both clear threats to the unity that has historically given this country the strength to work together and which will, under Labour, provide the strength to do so again.
The Scottish National party is explicit in its aim of destroying that Union, but the case for co-operation is greater than any case put forward on separation. The Tories profess to be defending it, while all the time pursuing a narrow, nasty agenda that is tearing us apart. As the late John Smith warned a generation ago, there are two parties
“sawing away at the legs that support the Union”.
The people have not changed, but the politics they are being offered has. With so much at stake, why continue to indulge in Punch and Judy politics? We see the posturing in phoney indignation, walkouts and manufactured grievance. We see the undermining of democracy through a pay-per-view deal with the Democratic Unionist party, the not keeping promises on pairing—
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
We hear a lot about SNP Members coming up with grievances. When the hon. Lady looks at the state of how the Government govern, is she not as aggrieved as I am at things such as the poverty—the institutional and historical poverty—that cripples her constituency and mine because of this Government?
Lesley Laird
Of course I am absolutely appalled by the levels of poverty, but I also recognise that the Scottish Government have many powers in their armoury to address that, and with cuts to local government of 9.6% there is clearly opportunity for both Governments to improve their track record in that regard.
Brexit is burning and the Tories are doing what they have done for decades: ripping each other apart on Europe, fighting for personal power and getting ready to get rid of yet another Prime Minister who does not suit the Brexiteers. So when the Labour party talks about strengthening the Union, that starts with this nation’s biggest asset—its people. It is that higher purpose, that focus on our citizens, that drives our ethos. Across these islands we are united in our abhorrence of the Windrush scandal and the Prime Minister’s “hostile environment”. Across these islands we are united in our condemnation of the failed austerity agenda, with 1.3 million people forced to rely on food banks. Across these islands we are united in our condemnation of the callous and cruel juggernaut of universal credit, which is flattening communities and breaking hearts and spirits wherever it touches.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Millions of people in this country are the “working poor” and they suffer as much as anybody else. That goes to show that under the Tories going into work does not pay.
Lesley Laird
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are aware that many studies now show that many people using food banks are in employment. Clearly, with low wages and low flexi hours, we see that this is not an economy that is working for the many.
Across these islands we are united in our disgust at the behaviour of politicians who put fear of losing a Commons vote above respect for an opponent who is ill or on maternity leave. Ultimately, politics is about values and choice, and our choices show and tell what we value. Madam Deputy Speaker, you have to say the Tories have some front in bringing forward this debate. The Tories should be in the dock for aiding and abetting the nationalists’ attempts to destroy the common bond that unites working people across the UK. The charge sheet includes the catastrophe that is universal credit, the degrading of the terminally ill with ongoing work assessments, the rising reliance on food banks, the increase in child and pensioner poverty, and the repulsive rape clause. While these policies continue to have a cruel impact on the lives of ordinary people the length and breadth of the UK, it is clear that the Tories are guilty of laying the foundations for the politics of the nationalists, which they will always aim to exploit.
Douglas Ross
Does the hon. Lady not think this is slightly hypocritical, given that her colleagues in the Scottish Parliament voted with the SNP on its continuity Bill, and that the Labour party in Scotland and across the UK would be standing up to strengthen the Union if it did not follow the SNP and vote with it?
Lesley Laird
The hon. Gentleman has missed the point: the reason we stood up and supported the Scottish Government is because of his party’s failure to respect the devolution settlement.
Jonathan Edwards
I am glad the Labour party in Scotland has supported the Scottish Government on this issue, but can the hon. Lady explain why the Labour Welsh Government gave in to Westminster and handed over our powers to London?
Lesley Laird
The hon. Gentleman has just illustrated his own point, which is that the basis of evolution allows different parties in different countries to reach different solutions. [Interruption.] Where has the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) been all these years?
The charge sheet includes the catastrophe that is universal credit, the degrading of the terminally ill with ongoing work assessments, the rising reliance on food banks, the increase in child and pensioner poverty, and the repulsive rape clause.
Lesley Laird
I did. It was worth repeating. While these policies continue to have a cruel impact on the lives of ordinary people the length and breadth of the UK, it is clear that the Tories are guilty of laying the foundations of a policy of division that the nationalists will exploit. They will promote their holy grail, no matter the turbo-charged austerity that it would unleash on the Scottish people.
Lesley Laird
I wish to make some progress.
In recent weeks, we have been presented with the evidence of what the SNP’s plans for separation would really cost. The nationalists promised Scotland a growth commission, but in reality they have delivered a cuts commission. The people of Scotland simply cannot afford another wasted decade under the mantra of deficit reduction.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The only political party that has had a cuts commission in Scotland during the past five years is the Labour party. When will the “something for nothing” cuts commission produce its report?
Lesley Laird
The SNP’s document speaks for itself; not only that, but there are many commentators who have something to say about it, too. I also note that the SNP failed to consult trade unions on its document—I am sure the hon. Gentleman is extremely disappointed about that.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend has made a pertinent point about the economic benefits of the Union to the Scottish economy. Perhaps that was why the SNP ran fleeting from the full fiscal autonomy proposal for the independence referendum—because it entailed significant turbo-charged austerity. Does my hon. Friend also agree that the growth commission’s fiscal and monetary proposals would result in an extra £40 billion of foreign exchange reserves having to be raised, which would entail turbo-charged austerity for the Scottish economy?
Lesley Laird
My hon. Friend raises a very good point. Economic analysis makes clear that the sums that the SNP proposes to inflict on the Scottish people simply do not add up.
The nationalists promised a Scotland growth commission, but it was a cuts commission. As confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the cuts commission would lead to further public spending cuts, with the plans looking remarkably like an extension of the current policy in the UK. The cuts commission claims to offer a
“clear sighted analysis of the prospectus for independence”,
but it is a prospectus based on a hard decade of public spending contraction, comparable only to the cuts implemented by George Osborne. Then we have the proposal of a £5 billion annual solidarity payment to the UK Treasury, which is not far off the Scottish Government’s combined budget for education and justice.
That is a prospectus for independence built not on sovereignty regained, but more accurately on sovereignty lost over policy relating to interest rates, mortgage rates, exchange rates, inflation, money supply and corporation tax. It is based on an economic model that relies heavily on foreign direct investment, large multinational corporations and labour market flexicurity, with no plan to develop the proper industrial strategy needed to provide the high-quality, well-paid jobs that our people desperately require. No wonder the First Minister’s commission consulted 20 business organisations but not a single trade union. That is not the kind of future the people of Scotland want. The people of Scotland want the growth problems in our NHS, education, housing and the economy fixed.
Let me be clear: only Labour, just like always, has a plan to provide the investment that will fix the countless problems created by the Tories and that have seamlessly been implemented by the SNP in Edinburgh. It is Labour that will ensure that the fabric of the UK is strong once again, by investing in a society that works for the many, not the few. It is Labour that will protect people in the workplace and create the opportunities needed for young people. People will not get that from the Tories, whose policies have led to an increase in precarious work and zero-hours contracts.
David Morris
Does the hon. Lady accept that the previous Labour Government put us in this financial mess in the first place? The Labour Government she keeps talking about are not for any or for you.
Lesley Laird
That is certainly not the case. Having worked in the financial services sector at that time, I know—and everyone who works there knows—that it was down to mismanagement of the subprime mortgage market. It is a global crisis and the hon. Gentleman should get out a bit more and read about it. It is Labour that will ensure that the fabric of the UK is strong once again, by investing in a society for the many, not the few.
Lesley Laird
I wish to make some progress.
It is Labour that will protect people in the workplace and create the opportunities needed for young people. People will not get that from the Tories nor from the SNP, which continues, incredibly, to count zero-hours contracts as a positive destination for school leavers. It is a Labour Government who will ban zero-hours contracts and deliver an industrial strategy to create high-quality, high-skilled jobs. It is Labour that will always respect devolution, unlike the Tories, who at every turn during the Brexit negotiations have simply ignored Scotland’s devolution settlement, while the SNP’s opportunism has sought to sow division and discord.
Britain needs Labour and our approach, which recognises and respects all the nations of the UK. We will continue to stand up for and protect the devolution settlement, which we, the Labour party, founded.
Pete Wishart
This debate is about the Union and the constitution. I thought that Labour’s great innovation was a UK-wide constitutional convention, where Scotland will be a federal part of a new arrangement. Is that still Labour’s policy, and if so, could the hon. Lady talk a little bit about it?
Lesley Laird
The hon. Gentleman is right: that was in our manifesto and we will continue to work on it, because we believe it is the next evolution of devolution.
Britain needs investment, and only Labour will deliver. It cannot afford any more of the Tory version of austerity that we have experienced for almost a decade, with millions needing food banks, or SNP timidity, which acts as a conveyor belt for Tory austerity, with millions more cut from Scottish public services without so much as a whimper. It is Labour that has a vision of renewal, transformation and shared prosperity, with an additional investment of £70 billion in Scotland over the course of two successive Labour Governments.
Even on the simple things, this Tory Government cannot get it right. Only last week, Scotland’s invisible man in the Cabinet, the Secretary of State for Scotland—I note that he is not here today—missed another opportunity to show leadership and solidarity with the residents and businesses displaced by the fire at the Glasgow School of Art, by failing to push for UK Government assistance. That was an open goal, yet the Secretary of State put the ball over the bar once again, with a mealy mouthed response and, like so many of his colleagues before him, telling local government to take the strain.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and what fills it too often these days is narrow nationalism, petty jealousies and grievance. It is hardly surprising that we are missing opportunities to strengthen our Union when the Tories clearly do not understand devolution, never mind believe in it. And they are sleepwalking into a nationalist trap, because their instinct is to pass the buck, while the Scottish Government’s instinct is to draw powers from Whitehall and hoard them in Edinburgh, undermining local government at every turn.
Devolution is a process, not an event, and I am clear that those powers must be devolved all the way to the point where they can most effectively be delivered. To make a difference, politics must be about vision. It must be about ideas and how they can be fulfilled. It must be about the vision of how life can be made better for every household and community in the land.
In our 118-year history, the Labour party has been in government for only a little over 30 years, but every one of those years saw a Government for the many, not the few, and strengthened the Union by giving people hope—hope that, by the strength of our common endeavour, whether it be in Cumnock, Coleraine, Cardiff or Croydon, we achieve more together than we achieve alone. That is the way to strengthen our Union. Labour today, like Labour in the past, has a vision that will benefit all our people—men and women from the north, the south, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
I say respectfully to Government Members: your ineptitude, selfishness and brand of politics have played into the hands of those opportunists on the SNP Benches. Do the Union a favour. Do the country a favour. Do the millions of people whose lives are worse off under this rotten Government a favour and move over and allow Labour to govern and to invest in our people, our communities, our public services and our industries, and in the process, to strengthen our Union via the ties that bind our people together through a vision of sharing, equality and opportunity for all.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. This is a very well subscribed debate. I would prefer not to introduce a time limit, so if colleagues could speak for less than 10 minutes, we should get everyone in.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
It is a real treat to be able to speak in the Chamber. As a Member who is not particularly frightened of his own voice, I have kept remarkably quiet during this term, largely owing to the hard work of the HS2 Select Committee. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), who is in his place, has also been putting his shoulder to the wheel to ensure that that railway line does one thing that strengthens the Union, which is to draw the north and the south closer together. I have plenty of reservations about it, but that, I think, is an outstanding quality.
I am particularly thrilled to be able to speak today, because one thing that I find so powerful about the Union is that it is in our DNA. My grandmother was a Power and was born in an Irish whiskey distillery of that name. My mother is Scottish, and I am very proud to wear the Davidson tartan, particularly the hunting tartan as it makes a very smart tie indeed. My constituency is, of course, how Walt Disney would have portrayed England if he had had the chance: truly beautiful and wonderful in every way. It grows every single crop that UK farmers around the country can produce; Herefordshire is the only county that grows them all. Then, of course, there are my own choices.
Pete Wishart
We have just noticed that the Government Front-Bench spokesperson has scuttled out of the Chamber without listening to all of the Front-Bench speakers in this debate. It was the Government who called this debate. They could have called it on anything else, but they chose to focus on strengthening the Union. We now no longer have a Front-Bench spokesperson to listen to the Front-Bench speeches. Surely that is not in order; there should be somebody there.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I have no idea whether the Minister has gone out temporarily, but there is another Minister on hand. I do hope that we are not going to have this debate interrupted by endless points of order, because people want to contribute; it is not fair.
Bill Wiggin
I quite agree, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was at the critical moment when I was about to discuss my affection for Wales.
I chose to join that finest regiment in the British Army, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, now more helpfully called the Royal Welsh, when I went to university in Bangor in north Wales. There you have it: a British person through and through—Irish, Scottish, Welsh and indeed English. We make a huge mistake in this place when we divide among ourselves. After all, what did God put France there for? But no, we must stick together. It is our unity and our respect for one another that is most important.
I urge the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird) to pay careful attention to this. There are only two types of MP in this House: those who care about their constituents and those who do not. Those who care about their constituents, in whatever part of the Chamber they may sit, are well worthy of the respect that we would expect to have shown to ourselves. They stand up for their constituents, and all we question is how right or wrong they may be. I will defend to the death any colleague who believes in their constituents and in their right to be heard. If ever there is any doubt in Members’ minds about how important this place is to the strength of our Union, they should look at the one party that refuses to turn up. Members of that party will not take the Oath and they do not want the United Kingdom united. We should be judged by our enemies, by people who do not turn up, and by why they do not turn up—because this is our place where we can come together, where we can unify.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
To be fair, the Liberal Democrats were here earlier.
Bill Wiggin
Now that is more like a bit of parliamentary humour, but the hon. Gentleman knows exactly who I mean.
In ancient Greek, there is the word “agape”, which means love. It is a different sort of love from that which we may feel for our husband or wife, or indeed for our brother and sister, or for our country, our constituency or some of our more obscure constituents. I argue that having different words for that affection may well increase our vocabulary, but the strength of our language is that one word encompasses everything that we care about. Therefore, it is vital that we defend our country, our Parliament and our relationship with our constituents. For that reason, I urge the BBC to look again at the cuts to the Parliament channel. It is trying to save only £1.5 million, and it would be so much better if it took that from the money that it is giving to local democracy reporting services. Up to £8 million a year is being given to three very large private companies, which have, so far, managed to fill only 115 of the 145 placements. I am asking not for more money from the BBC, but for an opportunity to strengthen the Union by ensuring that our constituents not only see what we do here, but have it explained to them through the various commentaries that the BBC provides.
Locally, the Act of Union that concerns us is not that of 1707, important though it is, but an even older Act of Union—the 1536 Union of England and Wales. On the Welsh borders, a person does not even have to see anything to know when they have crossed over from England into Wales, because the noise from the wheels of their car goes quiet as they move on to the beautiful, manicured Welsh roads—faultless and pothole-free. This drives my constituents to distraction, because on our side of the border the holes are huge. We need to do a great deal more on that. I have not yet stood up in this House without making an attempt to ensure that Herefordshire gets its fair share, because we have the most roads per capita of any county in the United Kingdom. More must be done. However, when people say that to me, I point out that they would not want to be on a Welsh health waiting list—so much so that people from Wales are popping over the border to secure an English address simply to get life-saving cancer treatment that is not available under the NHS in Wales.
There are great challenges to our country. There are great people in it, including all the Members here who care about their constituents. There is a great love and passion within all of us to ensure that we have the best future not just for our children and grandchildren, but for each part of the Union. I hate it when I hear colleagues bickering among themselves about their bit of the United Kingdom. We are so much greater than that. We do not have to go very far back in history to be reminded of that. I therefore ask Members to respect one another. I am not always innocent in that department. I have been teasing the editor of my local paper, and he has very little sense of humour and responds savagely at every opportunity. However, this is another chance for him to try to heal those wounds.
Let us go forward with a stronger Union as we face the negotiations and as we fight for the best possible outcome for the British people, and let us do that with respect for one another.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
First, let me congratulate the Government on being so efficient at managing their legislative programme that they have been able to find a full day for a debate on this issue on the penultimate day of the parliamentary term. I had hoped that, today, we might come and find some new Government statement, some new policy, or something that would demonstrate the Government’s desire to strengthen the Union between our countries, or that, perhaps, we might take a moment to reflect on what has happened over recent months and years with the debate on Brexit and the effect that that may have had on the strength or otherwise of the Union, but alas I am disappointed.
I have to say that if there is anyone on the Government Benches who believes that the Brexit process has done anything to strengthen the Union, they are wildly deluding themselves. The manner in which it is being executed has demonstrated a lack of will to engage with other countries on these islands as equal partners. Moreover, the fact of its execution means that it challenges the central tenet on which the Union is based, which is that the people of Scotland will be better able to make their way in this world by hitching their fortunes to those of their large neighbour to the south. That is now in question like never before.
I want to focus on the debate between those who propose a self-governing, independent Scotland and those who suggest that Scotland should remain part of the Union with Britain. I will look at the role that devolution plays in that argument, because it is not straightforward. There are many Unionists who say that devolution is a means of strengthening the Union and there are others who see it as the thin end of the wedge. There are many people who believe in independence who embrace devolution as a step and a process; there are others who see it as a distraction from arguing for independence. In fact, it has not always been just one party or one part of the political spectrum that has advocated these changes.
In 1853 an organisation called the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights was established, explicitly to argue for administrative devolution within the Union. Despite its name this association was launched by and comprised Conservative Members of the House of Lords and those in academia. It had a small existence of only three years, but the ideas that it raised led directly to the Liberal Government of 1885 introducing the role of the Secretary of State for Scotland and establishing the Scottish Office. That was a process of administrative devolution that was not proposed by anyone in my party or anyone who would have supported those views at the time.
Allow me to cut to the 1920s and to a man called John MacCormick, who is a very interesting character in this story. MacCormick starts life in the Labour party. He then goes on to be what we would probably regard as the architect of bringing together various groups to form what becomes the Scottish National party in 1934, and he serves for eight years as its national secretary. After 1942, he goes on—not once, not twice, but three times—to stand for election to this place as a Liberal candidate at general elections. But MacCormick’s greatest contribution to this whole debate was to raise the Scottish Covenant, which proclaimed for the first time ever that there should be an elected assembly in Scotland within the Union. Now, that covenant—signed in 1949 in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on the Mound in Edinburgh—had attracted in excess of 2 million signatures among a population of 5 million people, but MacCormick found that nobody would present this position to Parliament. In fact, it was left to Unionist party Members of the House of Lords to raise the debate about the covenant and to call for a royal commission to look at the question of devolution within the Union. I am not making this up; this is what really happened.
The amazing thing about the 1950s is the disconnect between those sentiments among the population—2 million people signing the covenant—and the opinions of the Scottish representatives in this place. In fact, in the 1955 election only one Scottish MP out of 71—Jo Grimond, who represented Orkney and Shetland—in any way supported devolution or home rule. Every other Member of Parliament was implacably opposed to it. There was a massive disconnect between what the people wanted and what their representatives were actually saying.
Douglas Ross
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way during his comments about a massive disconnect between what the people want and what their representatives are speaking about. As he knows, Scotland had a democratic referendum in 2014, when the vast majority of people rejected the SNP’s separatist agenda, yet SNP Members—in Holyrood and here—continue to speak about what we were told would be a “once in a generation” event.
Tommy Sheppard
If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I am coming to that. I was in 1955 just there, but let me jump to the 1960s.
In the 1960s, things change and two things come together. [Interruption.] Conservative Members might want to listen and learn. The first thing is that this country —Great Britain—begins a process of rapid decolonisation. It is a new world. Suddenly, rather than the notion of an independent Scotland being something that looks backward romantically to history, it actually becomes something that can embrace what is happening in the contemporary here and now, with the emergence of new nation states throughout the world. The second thing that happens is that those who argue for Scottish independence understand and focus on the need to achieve electoral change at the ballot box, and the thing that kicks off a period of half a century of change is Winnie Ewing’s election in November 1967.
Then we have a process of half a century of dissent being manifest electorally, at the ballot box, and the state responding to that at every step of the way. The Kilbrandon report is established in response to the events of 1967. It takes forever to come up with its proposals, but it does so in 1973, suggesting elected assemblies for Wales and Scotland. In 1974, we have the election of 11 SNP MPs, which terrifies the then incoming Labour Government.
Tommy Sheppard
I am happy to give way, although I may be getting to the hon. Gentleman’s point in a minute.
Ian Murray
The hon. Gentleman is a fine speaker in this Chamber, but I am not quite so sure that he can read my mind. Maybe he can.
Those 11 SNP MPs elected in 1974 voted with the Conservatives in 1979 to bring in 18 years of Conservative government that decimated Scotland. Will the hon. Gentleman get on to that point?
Tommy Sheppard
I was coming to exactly that point, as it happens.
The Labour Wilson-Callaghan Government then introduce the Scotland Act 1978, although it takes them four years to get that Act through, for some unknown reason. We then have the referendum of 1979, in which the people of Scotland vote to set up a Scottish Parliament. But that is frustrated because of an amendment to the legislation by a Labour Member of Parliament that requires 40% of the total electorate to vote in favour, otherwise the decision will not pass.
The Labour Administration, in the midst of economic chaos in the spring of 1979, had the opportunity to go ahead and legislate with the will of the Scottish people expressed at the ballot box, but they declined to do so. Given that the Administration were on their last legs, the SNP MPs decided to withhold confidence from them. In retrospect, I would have done exactly the same thing. SNP MPs did not vote to usher in 18 years of—
Tommy Sheppard
I thank the hon. Gentleman. As he said, in 1979 we get the introduction of the Thatcher Government, and we begin a process of polarisation and of nothing happening in this constitutional debate. Meanwhile, people are preparing, organising and advocating the cause of Scottish self-government. In 1989, we have the establishment and the declaration of the claim of right, which I note from our debate in this Chamber two or three weeks ago that every party in this place now supports. That is encouraging because they did not, of course, at the time.
We then have the situation whereby the Labour party essentially adopts the process of devolution. Whereas it had previously been a controversial matter, now it is what John Smith calls the “settled will” of the Scottish people, and Labour pledges to bring in devolution if elected. Then we have the process of devolution, with the Scotland referendum in 1997, the Scotland Act 1998 and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Now, there will be some people in this debate who will wonder why that was not enough. They will say, “Well, that was game over,” and think that we have done what we came here to do. They will ask, “Why now—20 years later—are people still complaining that this is not enough?” Well, two things happened after the creation of the Scottish Parliament. First, it actually worked quite well, and people in Scotland began to appreciate that their local representatives having control over matters made a difference. New things were put into play. Despite the opposition of the Conservative party to the creation of the institution, it was embraced by the Scottish electorate to a much greater extent than this place ever has been.
The second thing that happened, of course, was the Blair Government and their increasing unpopularity. As in England and most of the rest of Britain, the traditional Labour electorate of Scotland had nowhere to go in response to Tony Blair’s decision to remove the Labour party from supporting them. In Scotland, the electorate had a ready-made alternative, and they began in numbers to join the alternative party on the left—the Scottish National party. We then have a situation where, by 2007, the first SNP Scottish Government are elected. What is the response to that? It is the Calman commission and the promise of further powers.
We go on to 2011, when we see a majority SNP Government having the opportunity to put before the electorate their central promise of giving people the opportunity to decide on their own future. [Interruption.] I will talk about the referendum a little bit, but I do not want to go into detail. The result of the referendum, of course, was the Smith commission and the promise of further powers. So all the way along the past 50 years, we have seen additional powers given to Scotland—more control given to the Scottish people over their own lives—because of the state’s reaction to the rise of the sentiment for self-government and for national self-determination. That is the fact of the matter; that is anybody’s analysis of history.
Much as Scottish Conservative Members may dislike this fact, the Scottish referendum in 2014 did not, I am afraid, settle anything at all. Many people, when they look at this from afar, misunderstand some of the things that were happening during that referendum. In particular, many commentators on the liberal left in England completely get it wrong when they say that what was going on was some sort of assertion of identity. That was not the case at all. If ever a country had a surfeit of symbols of identity, it would be Scotland. Scotland has all the identity in the world; what it does not have is empowerment of the people who live there to control their own lives. That was the spirit of the 2012 to 2014 referendum campaign.
Stephen Kerr
Let me remind the hon. Gentleman of the result of the September 2014 referendum, where, by a substantial majority, the people of Scotland chose to remain part of the United Kingdom family that we are all so proud to belong to.
Tommy Sheppard
The result was 45:55. When the referendum campaign started, the split on the question had been about 75:25, so during the period of a two-year campaign, three quarters of a million people decided to vote for Scotland to become an independent country who did not feel that way when the campaign started. That was really quite a remarkable achievement.
Since the referendum campaign people have suggested that SNP Members do not accept the result of the 2014 referendum. I said in my maiden speech, and I say again today, that I do respect the result of the 2014 referendum. The people of Scotland decided to remain in the United Kingdom at that time. But, as I said in my speech in the claim of right debate, sovereignty is not just for 18 September 2014. Sovereignty, if we believe in it—the claim of right, if we believe in it—has to be for all time, so in a democracy people have the right to change their minds.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
Like my hon. Friend, I accept the referendum result, but is not the point that the minority have rights too? The Union can survive only if those who believe in it are really going to make the argument for it, for as long as they want it to live. Does it not ill become those same people then to scream in the face of yes voters, “You lost—get back in your box”?
Tommy Sheppard
It does indeed.
Democracy must allow people to exercise their right to revisit a decision if the options that were presented to them beforehand substantially change.
Tommy Sheppard
No, because that really could not have been a controversial point.
Douglas Ross
Would the hon. Gentleman then say that his leader in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, was wrong, ahead of the referendum, to stand in front of a poster that said, “One opportunity”?
Tommy Sheppard
No. I wish I had not given way now, because the hon. Gentleman was not wanting to comment on the point that I was making at all.
When Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon talked about “once in a generation”—it was actually said very rarely—they were doing so not as a promise or a qualification, but to remind those who were campaigning for this opportunity that they might only get one chance to do so. The truth of the matter—[Interruption.] I will allow Scottish Conservative Members to intervene if they wish, if they will please let me at least—
Tommy Sheppard
No, the hon. Gentleman has had his say.
The truth of the matter is that if one changes the proposition, people have the right to revisit the decision, do they not? I would have thought that that was reasonable. If somebody buys something in a shop that promises one thing, and they get it home and open the box and it is not what was promised, they can take their goods back. Well, we should also be able to take our goods back.
I would like to go on for a lot longer, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I know you do not wish me to do so. I will come back to where I started and talk about the relationship of Brexit to this debate on the strength or otherwise of the Union and to Scottish self-government. What has been happening over the last period has substantially weakened the Union because it weakens the devolution settlement that arguably could have given it some strength 20 years ago. This is happening in three ways. First, for the first time in our history, the UK Government are determined to ignore the Sewel convention and to legislate for matters that relate to the devolved Scottish Parliament without obtaining its consent. [Interruption.] That is a regrettable fact, but there is no point in Scottish Conservative Members trying to deny it.
Secondly, if powers are brought back from Brussels, one would expect that they would go to Holyrood, but Holyrood is being given a list of responsibilities, not powers. At the same time, it is being told that it will be able to exercise Executive authority in those areas only if it does so as part of a United Kingdom framework through a series of joint arrangements. UK Ministers have made it quite clear that these joint arrangements will bring together representatives of the four countries within the United Kingdom—but the question arises, who will speak for England in that discussion? Because of the asymmetrical devolution that we have had, and because of the refusal of successive Governments in this place to properly address democratic regional government in England, the only body that speaks for England is this place.
Therefore, Westminster Departments will advocate the cause of English farmers or English fishermen, or whatever, in these joint arrangements. The problem that arises is that in the event of a dispute, they will also sit as judge and jury on what happens. That makes the farmers and the fishermen of Scotland, of Wales and of Northern Ireland subservient to those who operate in the majority area of the country. That drives a coach and horses through the spirit and the actuality of the Union settlement.
There are dark days ahead. We do not know where the Chequers agreement now stands. We do not know what relationship we will have with the European Union, or what the status of a common European Union rulebook will be and what bearing that will have. We do know, though, that time is running out to sort these things. We also know that in the midst of the chaos that this Government have created, the people of Scotland have an alternative and have a choice. They can decide to become a self-governing country—to take back control of their own affairs and get rid of the mess that is being created while they remain part of the United Kingdom.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). I do not agree with all his conclusions, but I enjoyed his speech, which was a passionate tour de force. I will speak from a text, so I will be sharper and a bit more focused, I think.
I am very pleased that we are having this debate. It can be quite tempting for the media who report on Parliament to assume that nothing important happens in the final days before the House rises, but the question of how best to strengthen the Union is absolutely the kind of debate that it is useful to have at this point in the parliamentary year.
Worrying about the state of the Union is a perennial occupation of British politics. It was not a new idea in 1601, when we had the Union of the Crowns. It has to be remembered that that was achieved by the King of Scotland becoming the King of England. I will come on to unhelpful narratives about the Union later, but suffice it to say that the myth of English domination does not really bear scrutiny.
In the corridor outside my office, there is an extract from The Illustrated London News of 10 August 1895. By that point, the Union had begun almost three centuries before, and one would be forgiven for thinking that it was relatively secure. But, even then, people were worrying about the Union.
“What does Unionism really mean?”,
two ladies ask their kindly Victorian vicar. “It means”, he replies:
“union of a mighty nation, union of national interests and, ladies and gentlemen, union of hearts”.
One hundred and twenty-three years on, that seems as good an explanation of why we have the Union and how it works and binds us together as any we may find. I encourage colleagues to have a look at the extract. It is conveniently located just off the Committee Corridor, and—I am pleased to say—a very short walk from the SNP offices.
Today also happens to mark the end of my time on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, three days short of eight years of continuous service. I would like to put on record my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) for their chairmanship and friendship, and to all colleagues past and present I have had the pleasure and honour of working with over the last eight years.
I am not presenting my absence on the Committee as an especially great threat to the strength of the Union, but it does give me pause to consider the situation in Northern Ireland today. There remain too many of what we euphemistically term “legacy issues”, violence is too quick to flare up and there remain a number of people well-trained, well-equipped and motivated to cause serious disorder and loss of life. The legal status of the soldiers and security personnel who kept Northern Ireland and all the UK safe by fighting terrorism remains in question, while the Executive and the whole question of power sharing have been suspended for 18 months.
Unionism means we cannot just look at these problems as if they were distant from and unconnected to us. If Unionism is to mean a union of national interests and of hearts, as I believe it does, we should apply ourselves to these questions as if they were within our very own constituencies. I welcome the fact that the Government have taken direct action to ensure that good governance and public services continue. Again, if Unionism is to have any real meaning, the British Government, in the absence of a devolved Administration, must be willing and able to do the right thing.
The answer to the question, “How can we strengthen the Union in Northern Ireland?” is self-evident, and has been repeated time and again in this House: there needs to be a power-sharing Executive restored, an Assembly back in action and a lasting commitment to devolved government. While people from across the UK should support both sides in the process of restoring the Executive, we should all be equally clear that narrow, partisan, party political games are unacceptable.
Nevertheless, we must not allow the challenges facing Northern Ireland to blind us to the real strength of the Union, both there and elsewhere. Devolution is continuing apace in Wales, with the Assembly transformed into a fully-fledged legislature with responsibility not just for spending taxes but for raising them. The strength of devolution, though, and the reason it is good for the Union, is that devolution does not mean separation. I am proud to have both the Great Western line and the second Severn crossing in my constituency, which overlooks the Severn estuary into Wales. Wales and the south-west have extremely close links on every level, and I am proud that the world-renowned defence and aerospace industries in my constituency are daily enhanced and empowered by the contribution of commuters from Wales. That is soon to be helped dramatically by the abolition of the Severn bridge tolls.
The thing we can do, not as parliamentarians but as members of the Union, to most strengthen the Union is to fight the false narratives that suggest it was imposed on the nations of the UK. Throughout the centuries of the Union, men and women from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England have come together to do wonderful things and have improved the world massively. The contribution that each nation of the United Kingdom has made to the world is immense and it is an honour to be in a Union with all. We must not let win out the voices that claim that the English or the Union itself hold them back or oppress them. We must all remind one another what this great Union has achieved through free association and, as the Victorian vicar put it, what we can achieve through this union of nations, union of national interests and union of hearts.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti). I congratulate him on his eight years on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. As we would say on this side of the House, he has done his time down the salt mine. I am not sure what he is going to do next.
I am rather perplexed that the Government have called this debate in their own time on the second to last day before the summer recess, but it is welcome indeed, for a number of reasons. It is an opportunity to put the positive case for the Union and to expose for what they are the political games played in the Chamber in the last few months. I have the utmost respect for my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), the SNP spokesperson, and for his oratory—he is well-known for it locally as well—but I am completely astonished that he could stand up in the Chamber in 2018 and say that, if there were a vote in the House to bring down a Labour Government that ushered in 18 years of Conservative Government, he would do exactly the same again. It is an astonishing thing for an SNP politician to admit.
Ian Murray
I am happy to give way if the hon. Gentleman wants to clarify the comment, but we have it on the record.
Tommy Sheppard
To clarify the record, that is not what I said. I said that, in retrospect, had I been there at that time, I would have made the same decision. That is not the same as saying I would vote to do it today.
Ian Murray
The hon. Gentleman also said that the SNP in 1979 withheld consent. It did not withhold consent; it voted with the Conservative Opposition to give the Opposition a one-vote majority, which brought down the Labour Government and ushered in 18 years of Conservative rule.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird) rightly said from the Front Bench, we are here because we are currently stuck with two nationalist Governments, one here in London and one at Holyrood in Edinburgh. She was also right to quote John Smith, who lived in my constituency and was the best Prime Minister this country never had. He did say—I am happy to quote it again for the record—that we had two parties sawing away at the legs that supported the Union. He said that then, but it is actually more relevant today.
Let me tell the House why we have two parties sawing away at the legs of the Union, and let me start with the Conservative party. I have made the contention today, and will make it tonight, that the Conservative party is as big a threat to the Union, whether it be Wales, Ireland or Scotland, as any nationalist party in Wales, Ireland or Scotland, and let me say why. The Conservatives bet the farm on an EU referendum and had the arrogance to think they could win it, but they lost it, having put no plans in place for what would happen beyond that.
In 2014, on the steps of Downing Street, the very same person who gambled the farm, the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, as the sun was rising over London, and before all the votes in the independence referendum had even been counted, declared his intention to introduce English votes for English laws, a completely unnecessary procedure in this House that has failed miserably. In that regard, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who has railed against EVEL for many years, despite having supported it previously. That kind of thing goes straight to the heart of how the Conservative party is undermining the Union.
What about the continued and unnecessary austerity? It is a political choice to have austerity as a policy central to government, but it has not worked. It has trebled the national debt to nearly £2 trillion and we still have a deficit—the Government promised to wipe it by 2015, but I am not even sure they will wipe it by the projected 2022-23; it may be decades beyond that. Then there was the creation of a hostile environment, not just for migrants coming to contribute to this country, but for anybody in this country who happened to be in the unfortunate circumstances of claiming social security.
Then we have Ministers being dragged to the House by urgent questions to explain why they had to cheat on votes in the House to get policies through last week. I am sorry I was unable to ask a question in the urgent question. I would have asked what the Government would have done had the Opposition broken a pairing deal last week with someone on maternity leave on the Government Benches and won that vote. The Government would be dragging us all back here as quickly as possible to have that vote again.
Stephen Kerr
On a point of information—perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not here for the urgent question—there have been 66 breaches in pairing arrangements, 52 of which were by Opposition parties, not the Government side.
Ian Murray
I was not here for the urgent question, so I cannot clarify those figures, but I can say that in my eight years in the House the Opposition have won three votes, so breaking those pairing arrangements has obviously not affected the operation of Parliament, and I do think it important to maintain the pairing arrangements.
Then we get on to the way the Government have dealt with the Brexit process in terms of devolution. It has not been the Secretary of State for Scotland’s finest hour. I am sure that if we could wind the clock back to April, May or June and have those debates again, the Government would have dealt with it differently. We had promise after promise at the Dispatch Box from the Secretary of State, and all those promises were wiped aside. I intervened on the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) at least nine times, if not more—maybe he can tell us during his contribution—to ask when it was all going to happen, what his objections were and how they were going to resolve those devolution problems, and I am still waiting to hear the answers. I look forward to him telling us when I intervene on him during his speech later.
Then we have a Government in chaos, with resignation after resignation after resignation: the Secretary of State in charge of the negotiations to take us out of the EU, gone; the worst Foreign Secretary in history, gone; and all just a few parliamentary weeks away from having to agree the final EU deal.
Then we have the question of a hard Brexit. Everyone is going, “What’s a hard Brexit? What’s a soft Brexit?” However, when we look at what the Government are doing, we are hurtling towards a no deal Brexit. The Government put together—cobbled together after two years—what they now affectionately call the Chequers agreement. The following week, they undermined that very same agreement by accepting amendments to the Trade Bill and the customs Bill that have driven a horse and coaches—a “corse and hoaches” if you have been drinking the same whisky as the Minister who opened the debate—right through that agreement. Not only did those changes undermine the agreement, but the EU had already ruled out the agreement in its original form. We are heading for a hard or no deal Brexit, and all that is happening in the Government at the moment is that people are trying to fight for the keys to No. 10, rather than for what is in this country’s interests.
Everyone in this House, to a person, will absolutely agree that there should be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, the Government have set red lines in the Brexit process that make that completely and utterly unachievable, which undermines the fabric of the United Kingdom. I keep asking Ministers this question, but I cannot get an answer, so it would be interesting to hear an answer from the Scottish Conservative MPs this evening. If the Government can argue, with the red lines that they have set, that they will no longer require any kind of border equipment on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, if the UK and the Republic of Ireland are in two different trade and customs arrangements, how could they possibly argue, in the event of another independence referendum, that we would require a border between Scotland and England?
Sammy Wilson
The hon. Gentleman is restating the oft-repeated myth about the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. I do not know whether he noticed that EU negotiators—Juncker and Barnier—promised the Irish Government this week that there would not have to be any kind of checks at the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, even in the event of no deal. If there can be no checks with no deal, we can have no checks with any sort of deal.
Ian Murray
That is an extraordinary comment. We will see what happens come 29 March 2019 or after the transition period. I just do not think that the right hon. Gentleman can achieve what he wants to achieve with the Government’s current negotiating position.
The Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson promised during the 2017 snap general election that, if Scottish Conservative MPs were sent to Westminster, they would stand against the Prime Minister’s hard Brexit and deliver what would be in Scotland’s best possible interests—[Hon. Members: “She never said that.”] Well, if she did not say that, perhaps the Scottish Conservative MPs can tell me what she did say. Ruth Davidson stands up day after day, week after week, to rail against her own Government here at Westminster, while the 13 Scottish Conservative MPs loyally traipse into the Lobby to put through the hard Brexit and everything else that is upsetting for Scotland.
Ian Murray
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, and “one opportunity” means “one opportunity”.
Last week, every single vote in this House on Monday and Tuesday on the customs Bill and the Trade Bill was passed with a majority fewer than the number of Scottish Conservative MPs. If they did what they promised to do, we would be in a much better position. That is why they are undermining the Union.
Let me quickly go on to why the SNP is undermining the Union. It does not want the Union; it wants independence for Scotland. The SNP’s proposals for Scottish independence are now in this growth commission report, which has been fundamentally torn apart by anyone who has ever read it who does not want independence. This morning, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) talked about a no deal Brexit potentially meaning 50 years of austerity in the UK, but the growth commission report promises 25 years of austerity.
Ian Murray
I cannot, because I need to wrap up. If the model in the growth commission report had been applied over the past decade, Scotland would have had £60 billion less to spend on public services than has been the case. The SNP is therefore proposing austerity-max.
Ian Murray
I cannot. Madam Deputy Speaker wants me to wrap up and I would not like to upset her.
Ian Murray
I am happy to upset the hon. Gentleman, but I am not going to upset Madam Deputy Speaker.
I will wrap things up with a few remarks that point out why the SNP is just as big a threat to the Union as the Conservatives. All the analysis of the Scottish NHS has shown that, even under a Conservative Government who have been putting less and less into the NHS than previous Labour Governments, Barnett consequentials have not been passed to the Scottish NHS through the Scottish Government to the tune of anything between £340 million and £750 million, depending on the measure used.
There are a few things that will strengthen the Union and keep it together. A soft Brexit is one. We need a more transparent Joint Ministerial Committee that works. As the hon. Member for Stirling said in a Westminster Hall debate, Departments should be retagged to state whether they are English or UK Departments. We should have a federal constitution that deals not only with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but with England, which is too large, with the north-west and the north-east not feeling as well represented as they could be. We need to stop both Governments fighting over the constitution and to start celebrating and developing devolution. I will finish by plagiarising Nye Bevan, who said of the NHS that it will survive while there are people left in politics who will fight for it. Well, the UK will only survive if there are people willing to fight for it, and Scottish Labour always will.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). I was, however, a little surprised by his extreme and unfounded criticism of Scottish Conservative Members, particularly when he so often love-bombs Conservative voters in Edinburgh South, on whom he relies to ensure the majority that gets him elected to this place.
It will come as no surprise to the House that I am a passionate advocate of this United Kingdom, which is partly because nowhere is the strength of our Union more obvious than in my constituency in the Scottish borders, where going to work or to the nearest supermarket or visiting friends and family can mean travelling across the border perhaps once or twice in a single journey.
The preservation of the United Kingdom is not only one of this House’s biggest challenges, but one of its biggest opportunities. However, we have unfortunately failed to address that properly over many years. The Union has never been in doubt over most of its history, so there has never been the need overtly to defend it. The Union has evolved organically, with no written constitution at its heart, so it lacks the texts and the formalities that define other nations, but I stress that that is a good thing. Witness the way in which our Union accepted and allowed a referendum on independence in 2014, when there was a democratic case for it, and compare that with the reaction in other nations that we consider to be free and fair.
However, this more flexible, uncodified, relaxed Unionism always runs the risk of lapsing into complacency and indifference, especially when faced by an organised and highly political opponent such as the SNP, whose sole raison d’être is to find grievance at every opportunity. The people have seen through that, sending a message to the First Minister in last year’s general election, when the dramatic loss of support lead to more than 20 fewer nationalist MPs.
The current situation should be seen as a starting point, not the end, so I welcome the UK Government’s recent announcements, including over £1 billion investment in five regional growth deals in Scotland and the basing of a spaceport in the north of Scotland, highlighting their commitment to our United Kingdom. But more must be done. There is no reason the next big investment in infrastructure should be in London when it could be just as effective in Lisburn, Livingston or Llandudno. During the 2012 Olympics, the football venues were spread throughout our islands, and there is no reason that could not be done again in a UK-wide World cup. A nation that spreads its power networks across the country will ensure that all of us, no matter where we live, feel that we have a real stake in it. While I may have opposed Brexit, there is no doubt that leaving the European Union and returning substantial powers to the UK can be used as a catalyst for that reform.
Stephen Kerr
Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to remind the House that all Conservative Members of Parliament, whether in Scotland, England or Wales, were elected on a manifesto commitment to leave the European Union, the customs union, the single market and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice?
John Lamont
My hon. Friend makes a fair and reasonable point. While I voted remain, I am also a democrat. Just as the SNP should accept the referendum result of 2014, I accept the referendum result of 2016, and we were all elected to ensure that we deliver Brexit and get the best deal for Scotland and the entire United Kingdom.
Whitehall needs to consider the maintenance and promotion of the Union as one of its central tasks, not as a bolt-on extra. When the Union was in peril during the independence referendum, that worked well. Civil servants wrote a series of analysis papers pointing out the strengths of the UK internal market and the UK’s integrated system, but it should not require the threat of separation to ensure that that becomes a matter of course. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister got there first in a speech last year where she acknowledged that Whitehall often devolves and forgets. Her proposal was to ensure that in reserved areas, the UK Government explicitly look after the interests of the Union in their policy making, while in devolved areas they must look for ways to collaborate and work together to improve outcomes for everyone. Scotland has two Governments, and it is time they were seen to be working in partnership—not against each other—to improve the lives of all the Scots whom we represent as Scottish constituency MPs.
Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is the vice-Chair of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. We have the Chair in the Chamber, too, and I am a member. Does he agree that the Committee is a fantastic example of all parties coming together, working together, discussing the UK Government and the Scottish Government and scrutinising what is going wrong? We need to see more of that working together, and less of the appalling and embarrassing shouting we have seen in the Chamber today.
John Lamont
I agree with the hon. Lady. We work very well across that Committee. It is a good example of parties and parliamentarians coming together to highlight the issues that many of our constituents have to deal with day to day.
The dualling of the A1—the issue affects my constituency —all the way from Northumberland to Edinburgh would be a great example of partnership between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. This should be built in as a strategic aim for Whitehall and one for St Andrew’s House to pursue.
As with most things, there is no silver bullet for strengthening our Union for everyone. I know from being out on the doorsteps in my constituency that people in Scotland want their two Governments working in synergy. We should strengthen our Union because it is the will of the people of our land. Recent polling by Policy Exchange clearly demonstrates that the majority of people across the United Kingdom are in favour of the Union in its current form. Some 68% of people in England, 52% of people in Scotland, 66% of people in Wales and 59% of people in Northern Ireland want a continuation of the Union.
However, that polling also confirms that there are concerns across all parts of the United Kingdom about the impact of Brexit on our Union. Majorities in all nations of the UK said that they believed Brexit would make the break-up of the UK more likely. That is the challenge, and it is why this debate is so important. With the nationalists constantly looking for grievance and new opportunities to stoke the separatist fire, we must do more to invest in our Union to ensure that it lasts for many more hundreds of years to come.
The recently published Policy Exchange paper, which was released on the back of the polling, sets out a number of suggestions as to how we might address the challenges. Bearing in mind the consequences of the new powers landing in different parts of the UK as we leave the European Union, we need better to understand the idea of shared rule across the UK as a whole. At the same time, we need to respect the value of devolution with the rights of the devolved institutions.
Intergovernmental relations within the UK have not been as good as they should have been, and that could be exaggerated as Brexit happens because many of the powers repatriated from Brussels will fall within the competency of the devolved Administrations. We therefore need to revisit how the Joint Ministerial Committee works to build better trust between the Westminster Government and the devolved Administrations.
The Scottish Conservatives will bow to no one in promoting and defending Scotland’s interests and making its voice heard across the United Kingdom. Where we differ from the SNP is that we will not do so with the express purpose of trying to split the country in two. Far too often, the SNP picks fights purely for their own sake. This is the SNP’s reason for existence. The difference, though, between us and the SNP is that we will pick fights not because we want to rip up the Union, but because we insist it works better. We have already seen that is a more effective way of standing up for Scotland as the approach of the Scottish Conservative MPs has secured wins such as the VAT refund for Police Scotland and fair pay for our brave men and women in our armed forces.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
The hon. Gentleman talks about fair pay for those in the armed forces. What about the 220 not getting paid the living wage in Scotland?
John Lamont
It is very clear that those in the armed forces who were going to be paying extra because of the nat tax imposed by the Scottish Government will not have to pay it. It is fair that everyone across the United Kingdom who works for the armed forces gets paid the same, regardless of where they are based.
I will ensure that I spend my time here, however long or short that may be, as effectively as I can. That means standing up for Scotland in a constructive and beneficial way, not storming out and throwing tantrums, as we have seen from SNP Members. Voters are tired of the politics of division. Let us give them what they want: a strengthened Scotland and a strengthened United Kingdom.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It seems a curious pleasure to be speaking in this debate this evening. Just when we thought the House was going to adjourn early for the summer recess to assist a beleaguered Prime Minister, we find ourselves here, debating the Union. With the UK facing an unprecedented crisis, with a rudderless Government, a leadership in crisis and a divided party about to face the Brexit precipice, the most important thing that the Government can think of to debate on the day before Parliament adjourns is the Union. I wonder what businesses in Scotland think about that. What will EU nationals who are worried about the future think about it? What will academic institutions think about it, and what will hard-pressed families seeing such a massive reduction in their household income because of their Brexit make of the obsession of these Conservatives to discuss the Union on the day before we adjourn for the long summer holiday?
Douglas Ross
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way on this point, because it is important. He is criticising the UK Government for having a debate about strengthening the Union. The Scottish National party has had two debates in this term. Its last one was on the claim of right. Why did his party not choose European topics to discuss when it had the opportunity?
Pete Wishart
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we will do: we will try to help him out with the issue about strengthening the Union. You know me, Madam Deputy Speaker; I try as much as possible to be helpful in these debates.
Let us see how helpful it might be to the hon. Gentleman to look at a whole range of issues just now and see whether he would put them into the “Strengthening the Union” column or the “Diminishing and weakening the Union” column. Let us start with Brexit. How will we get on with that one? [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering away. It is what they do. I say to him that the Scottish people are watching this debate, and they see him chuntering, heckling and shouting away. They are not impressed with him behaving in such a way.
Douglas Ross
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is criticising me for apparently chuntering, but the point is I asked him a question two minutes ago that he has not answered. It would be respectful to this Parliament to answer the point, rather than chuntering away through his speech.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I want to emphasise again that using points of order just to get interventions in the debate on the record—the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was guilty earlier—needs to stop. It is not fair on others. Lots of Members want to speak, and this is not the way we should be having these debates.
Pete Wishart
The people of Scotland are watching, and what they are observing is something that they do not particularly like. Sometimes I wish the cameras would swing around when Scottish Conservative Members are at the height of their heckling and shouting, just so the Scottish public could see how they behave in this Parliament, but let us get back to the debate.
Let us look at a number of issues and help the Scottish Conservative Members assess whether those things are helping strengthen the Union. Is the way that the Government are so consensually and deftly negotiating this Brexit process helping to strengthen the Union? That is a hard, challenging question, because we have a Scotland that voted 62% to 38% against this mad, chaotic Brexit. In increasing numbers, Scottish people are deciding they want absolutely nothing to do with it. Some may say that this clueless, chaotic and delusional approach to the most significant constitutional change that Scotland has faced since the war may not necessarily go into the credit column in the debate on strengthening the Union.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to face the Chair?
Pete Wishart
Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Let us look at where we are when it comes to Brexit. On the Brexit “madcon” scale, we are now at madcon 10. A no deal Brexit has now moved up from being possible to being likely. What does that mean for Scotland? According to a range of civil servants from right across Whitehall, the port of Dover will collapse on day one as Kent and the whole of the south-east of England becomes one big lorry park, while supermarkets in Scotland will run out of food within a couple of days and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks.
The UK Government—for goodness’ sake—are even preparing to issue 70 technical notices to families and businesses in the event of a no deal Brexit. We have had a little joke about can openers, but the Government are advising families to stock up on canned food, and they are telling businesses to prepare for a sudden exodus of EU nationals. That is what the UK Government are now saying to hard-pressed families in Scotland—and that before we even get on to air travel, holidays by the sea and mobile phone roaming.
However, Scotland will be hit the hardest economically by what the Conservatives are planning with their no deal, hard Brexit. Not only would we have conditions akin to a state of emergency, but Scotland’s economy could lose up to £10 billion a year—a fall of 5% in our GDP—with real household incomes falling by 9.6% for each family in Scotland, or by £2,263 per head. There may be some people who say that all these things will help to strengthen the Union, but may I offer the counter-contention? When people in Scotland get the opportunity to weigh up their constitutional options, they could choose the chaotic cluelessness of these Tories or they could decide that they want to manage their own affairs themselves, and I have a good idea of what the Scottish people will decide and conclude.
Let us look at another example of what the Conservatives are doing and assess the strengthening the Union column: what the hon. Gentlemen and the Conservative party are doing to our national Parliament with the power grab. Perhaps that is another cunning ruse to strengthen the Union and make the people of Scotland fall in love with the UK all over again. Devolution has been on an seamless trajectory since 1999—I have been in this Parliament since 2001 and I have seen three Scotland Acts, all of which gave significant new powers to our national Parliament—but with their Brexit, that has all ended, because for the first time devolution has been stopped and they have started to reverse it. The model with the reserved powers arrangement in the Scottish Parliament has served it so well—that has been the founding principle and the thing that has guided devolution through the past two decades—but the Conservative Government have decided that that is enough, and they are not prepared to allow devolution to go any further.
The Scottish Conservative MPs sometimes misunderstand the power grab, and I am quite surprised that they have not all been saying, “What powers are being grabbed from the Scottish Parliament?” I have never said that any powers will be taken from the Scottish Parliament—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Now I have their attention, let me tell them how the power grab works.
There are powers returning from Europe. According to schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, the reserved powers should go to the Westminster Parliament, but powers in devolved areas should go to the devolved legislatures. What has happened is that all the reserved powers are going back to the UK Parliament, but the devolved powers have been grabbed and given to this House. It is called a power grab because powers that should be given to the Scottish Parliament have been grabbed by this Government. I hope that helps Scottish Conservative Members to understand properly what is happening.
Sammy Wilson
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that what he is describing is a power release from Brussels to Scotland, rather than a power grab?
Pete Wishart
I have never said anything about no powers coming back to the UK. The point is that the powers that should rightly reside in the right hon. Gentleman’s Parliament and in my Parliament have been grabbed by the UK Government, and they will now be resting in Westminster, not in our devolved Assemblies. This is really important because our Parliaments—the right hon. Gentleman’s and the one in my nation—depend on the reserved powers model, and if that is broken, devolution is broken.
The Conservatives have started to muck about with the founding principles of our Parliament, and the Scottish people are watching: they are looking at what the Conservatives are doing, and they are not impressed. It is in line with what they are doing with the Sewel convention in relation to taking legitimate decisions of the Scottish Parliament to the Supreme Court to be challenged and possibly overturned. People may say that this all helps to strengthen the Union and that it is a very clever and cunning ruse by the Conservatives to get us back on board with the Union. However, I suggest that, once again, it is undermining their Union, and the power grab was very much to the weakening of the Union cause.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Pete Wishart
I do not have time to take any more interventions.
I ask the Scottish Conservative MPs—I may give way to one or two of them later—whether they are helping to strengthen or to weaken the Union in this Parliament. They came down here with 29% of the vote—the “Ruth Davidson opposes a second referendum” party did relatively well in Scotland—but they have lost five percentage points in the past year. Their constituents are watching them whine on about a Parliament and a Government 400 miles away, and they are sick and tired of being represented by people who could not care less about their duties and functions in the House, but everything about a Parliament that they can no longer question, and that is having an impact on what they are doing.
We could get on to English votes for English laws. Does that strengthen or weaken the Union? Well, there is a hard one. We could also get on to the £1 billion that Democratic Unionist party Members were able to secure, of which Scottish Conservatives have not been able to get a single penny. However, let us just sum up where we are in the wider debate. If we look across the range of defining constitutional issues, we find, when the people of Scotland are tested in opinion polls, that independence now stands at 47%, or two percentage points up from our very impressive gains in 2014. We are very much on a journey with all this. Independence remains more or less at the level we had in 2014, and we are not even campaigning for independence at the moment.
The defining feature in all this will be the Conservatives’ Brexit—their hard Brexit—and how the Scottish people start to assess the situation. Scotland is currently tethered to HMS Brexitannia, which is heading full speed for the biggest iceberg ever encountered in political history. Unlike the real Titanic, this HMS Brexitannia is hurtling towards an iceberg at full speed in the full knowledge that that will sink the ship and all the souls on board.
For Scotland, however, there are lifeboats attached to this doomed and stricken liner, and they are marked “Independence”. All we in Scotland need to do is clamber aboard, get them off the vessel as quickly as possible and row towards the shores of independence, security and sanity.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I remind hon. Members that I said if they keep to less than 10 minutes, everyone will get in. This is about being considerate to others.
Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). I am trying to cheer myself up, as his crystal ball looks rather gloomy at the moment—I hope it brightens up as the weeks go past.
I am a staunch supporter of this sovereign country. It is a Union of nations—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—which makes me a very happy Scot and very happy to be a Unionist. I do not want someone, a group of people or even a cult taking away from me my Britishness and giving me nothing back, except selling my soul back to Europe, which is the direction of travel SNP Members wish to take.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I am sorry, but is the hon. Gentleman referring to the Scottish National party as a cult?
Bill Grant
I mentioned that a cult is driving forward the break-up of the United Kingdom. If you are suggesting that that is the SNP, that is entirely your choice.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. May I once again say that we do not use the word “you” when referring to Members across the Chamber? “You” means me, which is lovely if you are talking to me. I ask Members to stick to that, otherwise it becomes very distracting.
Bill Grant
I will do so, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Within my own home, there is not simply a matrimonial union, but also a micro-union of nations, given that I was born in Scotland and my wife was born in Nottingham in England. She and I work together as a team and have done so for quite a long time—some 47 years, which I might add is longer than we have been in the European Union. We work as a team, and teamwork is just as important for the constituent parts comprising the United Kingdom.
One may well ask, “Why support this historical and cultural Union when you’re about to leave the European Union?” Perhaps Sir Winston Churchill summoned it up best in days gone by when he said:
“We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.”
In more recent times, the Prime Minister has been endeavouring to ensure that the UK will form a new partnership with the European Union and has been aiming to build a fairer, stronger and more global Britain. Unlike others in the Chamber, I am confident that a deal will be achieved, despite the scaremongering we hear from various quarters.
It is clear that we must strengthen the precious Union between the four nations of the United Kingdom. As powers are repatriated to Britain, the right powers will be returned to Westminster and the right powers—many, many of them—will be passed back to the devolved nations. Indeed, in Scotland the SNP has suites of new offices in Glasgow and is recruiting a raft of new employees, which is strange if we in Westminster are taking all these powers away in what has been described as a power grab—I thank the SNP for that.
Developments since the 1707 Treaty of Union have in recent times included the emergence of devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, these devolved Administrations do not operate in isolation. Far from it: for example, much of the devolved Administrations’ spending is funded by grants from the UK Government—a common source and common pool to which all the nations contribute and from which they all benefit. One only has to think of the Barnett formula, which determines the annual change to the block grant and seeks to ensure that changes to funding in England are replicated for comparable services elsewhere in this United Kingdom.
The purpose of devolution was to devolve, not to divide, its aims and aspirations to make government more local for the four nations and apply localised solutions to localised issues.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the powers being devolved from here to the Governments in Holyrood and Cardiff should be devolved further down to local authorities and the areas distinct to them?
Bill Grant
I do agree with that; indeed, the hon. Gentleman has obviously seen the next line of my speech.
The journey has not made government more local, but has seen the weakening of councils and the centralisation of services such as the fire service—my own service—and the police service in Scotland, to the detriment of the aspirational vision and intention behind devolution.
The Scottish independence referendum of 2014 asked the question, “Should Scotland become an independent country?” My constituency of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock covers two council areas, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. Both returned a resounding no. They wanted to remain part of the Union, and that is the way it should remain, despite the continuing threats on a daily if not weekly basis about indyref2. No respect is shown for that decision—I think 28 of the 32 authority areas in Scotland voted to remain in the Union.
There are greater strength in numbers and greater economies of scale to be achieved when our nations are united, with their historical and cultural links. We need consensus not convergence, co-operation not conflict. The Joint Ministerial Committee facilitates partnership working on devolved issues at ministerial level and was referred to in a previous debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). However, what really caught my attention was his suggestion of the creation of
“a new and powerful Department of the Union at Cabinet level”.—[Official Report, 20 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 142WH.]
That would help to bind together Secretaries of State for Departments of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. I believe the idea merits further consideration.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
Is that not what No. 10 Downing Street is supposed to do?
Bill Grant
That is a very interesting point. [Interruption.] Yes, it is, but while things are very good, they could be better. Therefore, we need to improve on that good performance. We should be continually improving our performance to strive for a better set of circumstances.
Stephen Kerr
My hon. Friend is making an important point, just as the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) did in his intervention. In Canada, for example, the current Prime Minister is the equivalent of a Secretary of State for the Union—such is the importance of driving the Union forward together.
Bill Grant
I believe the UK Government must do more in every policy area and, as my hon. Friend says, at every level to ensure that we do not simply devolve and forget. The UK Government still have a role to play in the devolved nations, and we must remember that the Scottish Parliament was never designed to replace Westminster, but rather to complement it.
I am confident that the leader of the main Opposition party in the Scottish Parliament, who relentlessly supports the Union, will nevertheless always stand up for Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom. Together as a United Kingdom we achieve much, but despite the scaremongering, I believe that our best days as a Union are yet to come. As another Scot, Robert Burns, said:
“O let us not, like snarling tykes,
In wrangling be divided;
’Till slap come in an unco loon,
And wi’ a rung decide it.
Be Britain still to Britain true,
Amang oursels united;
For never but by British hands
Maun British wrangs be righted.”
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be here on this of all Mondays, speaking up for my constituents in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. In short, it is a pleasure to continue working on their behalf, as I will be throughout the summer recess.
Now to the Union, of which I am proud and which I campaigned tirelessly to defend. Today we are gathered here as the democratically elected representatives of the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales. We are here to hold this shambles of a Government to account. We are here to fight for a sensible way forward on our relationship with the European Union. We are here to fight for and defend the jobs of working people in all four nations of the United Kingdom. We are here to ensure that the internal dynamics and fallouts of the Tory party do not decide the future of our country. We are here to defend the principles upon which the national health service was formed. And, as the debates over recent weeks have shown us, we are here to defend all that is good about our country and fight against all that is bad.
I am here to ensure that Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill has a loud, passionate, effective and local voice down here in Westminster. I am also a champion of our community in North Lanarkshire, which I am proud to serve. As I have said in the House before, my pitch to the people in my constituency at the snap general election was pretty simple. I had spent my career working for Royal Mail Parcelforce and delivering parcels to people across my constituency. I asked them to send me down here to continue delivering for them. I was grateful for the opportunity to serve then and I am grateful for it today.
As we approach the summer recess, I reflect on the last year that I have spent here. I am proud to be a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and I am proud to have the chance to stand up for my neighbours and friends and for all communities. I am determined to spend every day I have in this place focusing on getting a better deal for working people.
It is always tempting to call out the Government for their heartless policies, their misplaced priorities and their lack of respect for the people of England, the people of Wales, the good people of Northern Ireland and the fine people of Scotland. In last year’s general election, Tory MPs from Scotland were called “Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives”. They were meant to be compassionate. They were meant to care. They were meant to be different. That was all an image—a campaigning narrative, a fiction. The last year has shown that Scottish Tories on the Government Benches may have been elected as Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives, but they are now Theresa’s terrible Tories.
Andrew Bowie
Can the hon. Gentleman tell me how many times he has voted against the Leader of Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and what he has told him to do?
Hugh Gaffney
The point is that had the Tories done what they said they were going to do when they came down here, we would have a different result.
Tory MSPs and their leader in Holyrood are just numbers for Nicola’s nationalists and their austerity agenda. And then there is the SNP, which has been in government for more than a decade. The problems faced by working people in Scotland lie squarely at the door of the SNP and the Tories. Look at the budget cuts to local government across Scotland—the impact of decisions made by the SNP Government in Holyrood. Look at the housing crisis facing Scottish families, with some 50,000 children living in poverty—the impact of decisions made by the SNP Government in Holyrood. Look at the fact that food bank use in Scotland is the highest it has ever been—bad decisions taken by the Tories and made worse by the impact of decisions taken by the SNP Government in Holyrood.
Jonathan Edwards
The hon. Gentleman will be as aware as I am of the cuts across every policy budget area in Wales. Is that the fault of the Labour Government?
Hugh Gaffney
No, it is the fault of the two Governments we have got just now.
As Tony Graham, the Scottish director of the Trussell Trust, said,
“it is completely unacceptable that anyone is forced to turn to a food bank in Scotland”.
We are, we must be, and we always will be better than that. The decisions taken by politicians make a difference. They have an impact and they do change lives.
I was thinking over the weekend about what I wanted to say today, as I attended a number of community events across the constituency. There was one theme in my thinking: what does this Union mean for my constituents and for our country? What can we do in this Parliament? What can our colleagues in Cardiff Bay, Holyrood and Stormont do to make our four nations better, more inclusive, more equal and more just? As some may say, how can we deliver for the many, not the few?
I am very firmly of the view that the people of all four nations are sovereign. They have the ultimate say. They are our boss, and they have the right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs. That is a principle that I believe in and, importantly, it is a fundamental principle that the Labour party is very proud of. It was a Labour Government who restored power to the people, and it was a Labour Government who allowed the people of Scotland and Wales to vote in Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections to elect a Scottish Government and a Welsh Government as part of our United Kingdom. Devolution strengthened the Union in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and that strength is obvious today. While it is my responsibility to call out the Westminster and Scottish Governments, I respect the fact that each received a mandate from people across the United Kingdom.
I am so sick of seeing in my surgeries and in my inbox stories of the impact of this Tory Government on my constituents in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. On a national level we have seen jobcentres closed; local Department for Work and Pensions offices closed, including one in Coatbridge; housing benefit for under-25s scrapped; support and funding for local authorities across the United Kingdom slashed; and children across the United Kingdom plunged into poverty—and those are the children of parents who work. That is just to name a few of the divisive and unnecessary decisions taken by the Tories, first under Cameron and now under the present Prime Minister.
Since 2010, the Tories have unleashed a programme of unprecedented spending cuts covering all areas of the support network for people in this country. The House of Commons Library has provided information revealing that since 2010 a staggering 86% of the burden of austerity has hit women up and down this country. The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 Act did some disgraceful things. I am just sorry that I was not a Member of this House at that time, because I would have spoken out against the Tories’ Act. There was also the abolition of the Child Poverty Act 2010. The Tories and the SNP always talk about the last Labour Government. I welcome that, because the last Labour Government lifted over 1 million children out of poverty.
I want to say a word here about how Labour, when in leadership, can deliver real results for people. In my own area, north Lanarkshire, the Labour-led council, under education officer Councillor Frank McNally, has announced plans to provide free school meals to children who need them, 365 days a year. This is the first time that has happened anywhere in our United Kingdom. I am delighted that the birthplace of Keir Hardie is leading the way, and I hope many others will follow.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
How come that when that same measure was proposed by the SNP administration in Glasgow, Glasgow Labour voted against it?
Hugh Gaffney
It was not a council in Glasgow but a council in north Lanarkshire, and I voted for it.
We will overcome, despite the shambles of the Government here in London. We should not forget that half the Tory party are following the Prime Minister and the other half are following the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). As for the former Foreign Secretary, he is holed up in a grace and favour residence a few minutes away from here with no friends at all.
As I conclude, I would like to wish all the staff of the House—the people who keep this place going—a happy and enjoyable summer recess. I am sure life will be easier without us around. I would like to wish my team and the teams of all Members a happy recess, too. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am proud of our country, proud of our history and proud of our Union, but above all I am proud of our nation’s biggest strength: the people who send us here.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate.
We should speak about some of the positives of our great country, these great nations with so much in common. As I have said before, it came from a man with vision. James VI of Scotland and I of England saw the opportunity in Great Britain. He commissioned the Union flag and regularly pushed for full Union in the United Kingdom. The pushes for the Union were not just with him: they were in 1606, 1667 and 1689—I am sorry the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is not in his place; we could go history notes on history notes—before finally in 1707 we had the Parliament of Great Britain. Historian Simon Schama was right when he said it was a “full partnership” that became
“the most powerful going concern in the world...it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history.”
That partnership shows that Scotland is not a victim; it is a leader in the United Kingdom.
What have we achieved? We hear a lot in this House about all the negatives of Westminster: how bad it is, what a disgrace it is, how much it has let people down. That is right, Madam Deputy Speaker, it did let people down: through the industrial revolution, the political enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of the NHS, the creation of the welfare state and being a key player in the creation of the United Nations and a whole structure of local governance that has kept peace and security in our world for the past 60 years.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the positive benefits from this Union. Does he agree that one of the key aspects of that great litany of achievements is that Scots have been at the front, leading those achievements throughout history? That is something to which, as an English MP, I pay proper tribute.
Luke Graham
I thank my hon. Friend, and I could not agree more. My office has been involved in helping out a constituent who is championing the cause of a former constituent of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) who was involved in the foundation of Singapore. Often overlooked in favour of Raffles, my constituent is making sure that this noble man from Perth receives the recognition he so rightly deserves.
Our Union enabled us to have victories not only on the battlefield but in sports stadiums, with Scottish athletes bringing 19 gold, 27 silver and five bronze medals in summer Olympics since 1997—trained, funded and championed by Team GB. In science and technology, it is not about competition between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom but working together. One fine example is that of the Boulton and Watt steam engine. The first one in Scotland was in my constituency in Clackmannanshire, used by the Kennetpans distillery. Clackmannanshire led the way in technology then. I hope that, through the geothermal project that I hope the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will support in this House, Clackmannanshire will once again lead the way in technology and renewable energy.
It does not stop there. We also had Dolly the sheep, funded by PPL Therapeutics and the then Ministry of Agriculture. The Forth Road bridge, which was an engineering achievement of its time, was 78% funded by Westminster. More recently and most excitingly for the “Star Trek” fans in this House—I know there are many on the SNP Benches—a collaboration between a Scottish university, the University of Dundee, and an English university, the University of Southampton, funded by UK Research and Innovation, created a tractor beam. How forward-looking could we be?
What is the Union about? It has to be about more than money. With almost the equivalent of one fifth of Scotland’s population living in England, it is about the shared values that we hold of democracy, justice and international humanitarian aid, as demonstrated by the nurse, Pauline Cafferkey, who was saving lives abroad in Sierra Leone under the British flag, before falling victim to Ebola. When she returned home to the United Kingdom, she received life-saving treatment in London before returning home to Glasgow. That is what true Union is about.
In the United Kingdom, we are proud not just of the nations, but of our proud regions and counties. That is why in supermarkets people champion Devonshire custard as much as they do Perthshire strawberries. Rather than there being just a homogenous bloc of Scotland versus England, people want to know the county, town and village—all around the country—from which the products are sourced.
Pete Wishart
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my neighbour, for giving way—[Interruption.] He is from south Perthshire; he is my neighbour when it comes to these things. There is very little of what he says that we would ever disagree with or dispute, and in fact, we would probably very much endorse nearly everything he says. However, why does he feel that we need a political Union between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom to enjoy all these wonderful relations, our heritage and our shared history? Surely that is not necessary.
Luke Graham
I thank my neighbour for his intervention. I am glad that we have so much common ground between us. The simple answer is that it gives our constituents the opportunity to leverage not only the combined power of around 5 million, but the full power of over 65 million together to resource their sports, help to fund their armed forces and push forward science and technology in a way that other countries can only dream of. That is why we have this House: individual Members are equal in it. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire is equal to the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire—certainly in their place here—or the Members for Oxford West and Abingdon and for Dundee East, and for any other seat in the United Kingdom.
There have been three centuries of family and social ties in the United Kingdom. We have competitive spirit in sport, but for every Scotland versus England rugby match that brings up old rivalries, there is always an episode of “Doctor Who” to bring us back together again. No one should be bullied into choosing between being Scottish or British. People can be Scottish, English, Welsh, Northern Irish and British, and be proud of both.
A lot is said in this House about the differences between parts of the United Kingdom, but when it comes to social attitudes surveys, there are very many times that Scotland and England come out exactly the same in what respondents say. In fact, the only difference is about immigration, on which there is usually a one to two percentage point difference between England and Scotland. When we consider how few immigrants Scotland has had compared with England, we can probably see why there is that result.
Our past battles have been shared, but so are our future challenges, such as climate change, the rate of technological advancement and globalisation. On not one of those challenges will we be better facing it alone. It is by working together that we can combine our resources and look forward, so that we can do things such as improve education, invest in infrastructure, champion initiatives and, for example, launch things that bring together citizenship and science and technology and be the country that brings about the first tractor beam.
At Prime Minister’s questions last week, I mentioned the spaceport in Sutherland as an example of what we can do to provide for the future and our constituents together. We used to be a country that ruled the waves. I hope that in the 21st century, we can be a country that reaches for the stars.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I am grateful to the Government for giving us this debate, because it has given me the opportunity to wear this skirt, which I had given up wearing after my colleagues reckoned that it was a Unionist skirt and that I should not take it out of the wardrobe anymore. I am very disappointed that the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) is not here in his suit, so that we could be matching. I have not seen that suit since the referendum campaign—
Alison Thewliss
He knows the suit I mean! If we are talking about clothing, the Union is more like a fur coat, nae knickers type of deal. It is funny how far we have come since the independence referendum and the scare stories that we were given. Lord Robertson said that it would have a “cataclysmic” effect on world security —well, look at where the world is now anyway. There was George Osborne and his currency bluff. There was Alistair Darling and his scares about pensions—tell that to the WASPI women who have not received their pension because of the UK Government’s actions, and that includes parties on both sides of this House. We had talk about border posts between Scotland and England and all the scare stories that went along with it—tell that to those in the island of Ireland who now face that real prospect. I have spoken to people who tell me that the border runs through their kitchen. They cannot even get to their cake to eat it because it will be on the other side of the kitchen if the Government have their way.
I draw the House’s attention to the excellent report by Chartered Institute of Environmental Health on Brexit and food security. It says that there are significant risks to food flow in the United Kingdom, including that the failure to keep food central to the Brexit negotiations could have a catastrophic impact on our food security and for those whose jobs rely on it. It says that UK food resilience is fragile and dependent on “just in time” delivery systems that could quickly grind to a halt if border controls were reimposed. It says that the Government are ambiguous at best on the question of migrant workers and how essential they are to the current working of the UK’s food system and that the current approach is imbalanced, with the specific needs of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, whose economies are highly food-dependent, being repeatedly sidelined. It also criticises the UK Government for their fundamental mistake in aiming only for alignment in farming and manufacturing but not for retail or food service, which are both absolutely huge.
All these concerns fall on deaf ears. These are not scare stories, but legitimate concerns that we never got anywhere close to in the independence debate. The biggest scare story, however, was the prospect of being forced out of the EU. Famously, Better Together tweeted:
“What is process for removing our EU citizenship? Voting yes. #scotdecides”
Scotland decided then, but it is in a very different position now.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
Will my hon. Friend enlighten the House as to why she thinks that account has deleted that tweet?
Alison Thewliss
I think that the account has perhaps deleted the tweet because it was getting so many retweets from people pointing out the utter hypocrisy of that position. It is entirely in our gift now as a nation to revisit that decision, given what has changed. Just yesterday, I had an email from a constituent who said:
“though I am not a Nat, I am coming to the conclusion that an independent Scotland within the EU would be the best outcome, at least for Scotland, from all this mess.”
Lots of people feel that same way and have reserved the right to change their mind when the circumstances have fundamentally changed.
Chris Stephens
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. One of the people who have now said publicly that they have changed their mind is Mike Dailly, director of the Govan Law Centre, who during the referendum campaign was on platforms for Better Together.
Alison Thewliss
Absolutely. He joins Murray Foote, one of the authors of “The Vow”, who has come round to the other point of view, having seen where this ridiculous Tory Government have taken us.
I want to turn to a few issues where I feel that Scotland—Scotland’s views and Scotland’s voice—has not been respected. One of the issues that I have campaigned on is the two-child policy and the rape clause. Scotland’s women’s organisations—all of them—and Scotland’s Government spoke out against this policy, but the UK Government have implemented it anyway, in the full and certain knowledge that it would push people into poverty. That policy is not finished now, because from February 2019, regardless of the date of a child’s birth, new claimants will not be able to receive the child amount for three or more children unless an exemption for the third or subsequent child applies. We do not even know what the impact of that policy is yet. The research has not yet been done, but we know that 73,530 households have been affected so far by the two-child policy, and we are only one year in.
What do the demented Unionist Daleks say about this? “Mitigate! Mitigate!” They say “mitigate” for a policy that we did not want, did not vote for and we will not have, but we are having it imposed because child tax credits are a UK Government policy. That ignores the evidence of organisations such as Turn2us, who say that women feel pressured into having abortions because of the two-child limit. It has evidence to suggest that this has actually happened. Government Members sigh and roll their eyes, but this is actually happening in the UK today. It is no Union dividend. This also ignores the fact that no claims under the rape clause have been made in Northern Ireland, probably due not least to the fact that the Attorney General started issuing guidance only a year after the policy came into effect. That was a whole year in which women and organisations were liable to prosecution under the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 as a result of this policy.
Luke Graham
The hon. Lady is making a point about a very sensitive policy area, on which we have had a lot of debates in this House. Does she not realise that when it comes to policies such as this, they are for the entire United Kingdom? I take issue with her divisive tone and her saying that it is Scotland’s problem, not England’s. These policies affect all the United Kingdom, so if there is an issue, it is an issue with the policy, not the nation.
Alison Thewliss
I have campaigned solidly in favour of getting rid of the policy throughout the UK. All that the Scottish Tories have said—all that those Daleks have said—is “mitigate, and mitigate”, but I want to get rid of it for everyone.
There is another area in which the UK is not doing its part. We want the drug laws to be changed in Scotland. Last year there were 934 drug-related deaths in Scotland, and the vast majority were in the city that I represent. Glasgow City Council and the local health and social care partnership have a plan—a policy. They want to introduce drug consumption rooms, so that we can mitigate the worst of this terrible scourge of society.
There are drug consumption rooms now, but they are in back courts, bin sheds and dirty lanes all over the city. That does not serve anyone well. We have a public health emergency in the city of Glasgow, but all that the Prime Minister could say last week was, “Oh, that is too bad. It is really sad that that people die from drugs.” We have a policy and we want to get on with it, but the UK Government will not devolve that policy. They see fit to allow people in Scotland to go on dying as a result of drug overdoses, when we have a public health solution that could have an impact on their lives.
Then there is the issue of immigration. Scotland needs immigration. We need people to come to our country and participate in our economy, but what do the UK do? They say, “No, you cannot have those powers. Those powers will stay with us.” Constituents of mine who made a minor, legitimate change to their tax returns find themselves, under paragraph 322.5 of the Immigration Rules, branded a threat to national security and told to leave. They are highly skilled migrants who could bring many skills to this country. We should be valuing and thanking them, but what do the UK Government give them? They give them a hostile environment. They give them a policy that Scotland does not want.
When Glasgow City Council was a Labour administration, it put a sign over the door saying, “We welcome refugees”, and I am proud of it for doing so. That is the nation that we ought to have. We want nothing to do with the hostile environment, but while immigration law stays at Westminster, we have no say over this issue. The UK Government should hang their heads in shame.
As for Labour Members, they talk about employment law and low wages, but what did they do? They refused to devolve employment law to Scotland. We want to make those changes. We want to give our people better conditions. In the areas where we do have control, we have encouraged people to take up the real living wage—not the Chancellor’s “pretendy” living wage, which is not available to young people. There has been a high uptake, but we do not have the full control over employment law—over zero-hours contracts, for instance—that we would like to have.
The Labour party did not even deign to give us part of its World cup bid. Immediately after the World cup, Labour Front Benchers were saying, “We should have a World cup bid for England.” It is some Union if Scotland is not even involved in the football. That is literally taking the ball and going away.
I must finish my speech now, and let other Members speak. Let me end with the great words of the White Stripes, in a song that they took from “Citizen Kane”. You will have to forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, because it is a direct quotation, and there will be a “you” in it.
“You said, the union forever
You said, the union forever
You cried, the union forever
But that was untrue, girl.”
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
I think it is important, before I get into the main context of my speech, to pick up some of the highlights we have had so far. I use the word “highlights” with some caution, but we have heard one major admission in the Chamber today. Following a point I made—I wrote it down: “So Welsh Labour believes in the Union, Scottish Labour does not”—at the Dispatch Box, Scottish Labour’s most senior politician in this Parliament, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), said, “Yes. Where have you been all these years?” The shadow Scottish Secretary confirmed, from the Dispatch Box, that Welsh Labour believes in the Union and Scottish Labour does not. I think that that will be a very important message for people in Scotland to hear because Labour was once a proud Unionist party in Scotland. At the last election and since the referendum, we have seen that it is no longer a strong supporter of the Union, and I am very concerned to hear those words from the hon. Lady.
Lesley Laird
Can I clarify the record, so that there is no misunderstanding? I think that I clarified the issue when I was asked earlier whether I was a Unionist and whether I also supported Scotland. I can confirm both again, not just for me but for my party. We are absolutely a party of the Union. We are a party of democracy. We are the party of devolution and we will not waver from that. If I inadvertently said what the hon. Gentleman says that I said, it was inadvertent, and I absolutely take that statement back.
Douglas Ross
That is a very important clarification because I have checked the official record and I said, in this Chamber, “Does Welsh Labour support the Union and does Scottish Labour not support it?”, and the hon. Lady is on record as saying, “Yes. Where have you been all these years?”
Douglas Ross
The hon. Lady has clarified that, and I have only 10 minutes in which to speak. I am grateful for her clarification.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Is the hon. Gentleman going to take an intervention?
Douglas Ross
I think that the hon. Lady has clarified the position, and I have only a few minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to take the intervention.
Lesley Laird
Having clarified the point, I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman stopped repeating a statement that I have already corrected. That would be extremely helpful, not only to the House but, obviously, to the public outside.
Douglas Ross
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to move on, because I think that is an important point that we have discussed.
There were some other, what I would class as highlights. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) is no longer in his place. I have come very late to “Games of Thrones”. I have just finished watching season 1. Not even “Game of Thrones” season 1 goes as far back as the hon. Gentleman did in his speech. He spoke for 20 minutes, and about 18 of them were prehistoric, but he chose to totally omit some of the major developments that we have had in Scotland. He gave cursory notice to the 2014 independence referendum. I wonder why. Because the SNP lost. Then he mentioned the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections, where the SNP was elected with a majority. Why then did he not mention the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, when the SNP lost its majority? It now relies on votes from the Green party to keep itself going.
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has also left. He always gives us very entertaining speeches. I had to wonder why we had all this talk about HMS Brexitannia, and then it came to me. Clearly, the editor of The National had been on the phone and said, “We have a great idea. We have a great picture to put on the front page of The National, but we need someone to give us a story”—and, as always, the hon. Gentleman obliged.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
May I take the hon. Gentleman back to his point about elections? What happened to the Conservative party in 2017? Did it lose its majority and does it now have to rely on another party to get things through Parliament?
Douglas Ross
Yes, and we have discussed that many times but, as a minority, we are governing in the United Kingdom. We can keep going on about elections. We can speak about the 162 extra Conservative councillors who were elected in 2017—more than any other party in Scotland. We can speak about the 13 Scottish Conservatives elected to this Parliament, or the 21 SNP MPs who lost their seats. I am quite happy to compare election results with the hon. Gentleman.
I want to return to the subject of the referendum that we held in Scotland in 2014. My Moray constituency was very clear: 58% of people in Moray said no to separation. We had another referendum in 2016 and Moray came closer than any other part of Scotland to voting leave: 49.9% of people voted leave, compared with 50.1%—a difference of just 122. So when we hear that Scotland voted by such a big margin against leaving the European Union, we must always remember and respect the fact that there are people in all our constituencies who voted to leave the European Union and we have to try to get a deal that works for everyone.
This, however, is a debate about strengthening the Union. I am delighted to take part in this debate because in Moray we know about the strength of the Union far better than many others—because we have a great defence footprint in the constituency. We have Kinloss barracks and the 39 Engineer Regiment, and, of course, RAF Lossiemouth, which has had huge investment. I am grateful that the new defence procurement Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—is on the Front Bench today. I am sure that he will be a regular visitor to Moray to see the huge investment—the £400 million of investment by this UK Government in defence at Lossiemouth—and hundreds of new jobs.
We heard from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), about the incredible decision by the UK Government to mitigate the nat tax. The SNP made Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom. Our poor armed forces—our service personnel who proudly serve the United Kingdom at home and abroad—were suffering because of that. It is only because this UK Government mitigated the SNP Nat tax—
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I am always grateful to debate this issue with the hon. Gentleman. I have asked him to do this before, and I hope he will do it this evening. Will he support the UK Government now reimbursing the squaddies in other parts of the UK who are paying more tax than frontline squaddies based in Scotland?
Douglas Ross
The Ministry of Defence pays our hard-working and extremely brave servicemen and women the UK rate—the same level of tax. It is only because the SNP decided to make Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom that we were forced to mitigate that. [Interruption.] SNP Members can chunter away from sedentary positions and shout down this policy, but how dare they say the £4 million—
Douglas Ross
No, I will not give way. How dare SNP Members say the £4 million annually that this UK Government are paying to mitigate their policy is wrong? That is absolutely scandalous, and armed forces personnel in Scotland will be viewing—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman keeps shouting. I think that is extremely—[Interruption.] He continues to shout, and it is extremely disrespectful to our armed forces personnel who have been supported in mitigating his party’s policies.
I do not have an awful lot of time left, but I want to mention the cuts commission, because it leads on from what I have just said about defence. The cuts commission —or the growth commission, as the SNP would try to call it—was many months in the making and the report was shoved out one Friday on a bank holiday. We all wondered why it was not published to great fanfare. It is because there is so much bad news for the SNP in its own cuts commission.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies mentions
“the Commission’s proposals for immediate cuts to defence”—
very interesting for my seat in Moray and others around Scotland—
“and other spending currently undertaken by the UK government.”
That is not me saying that; that is the IFS saying that the SNP’s cuts commission will lead to immediate cuts to defence. John McLaren of Scottish Trends made an apposite point when he said:
“Scotland will be moving from a deficit equivalent to nearly 6% of GDP towards a 3% target. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out the implications.”
The implications for our constituents in Moray and across Scotland are that, under the SNP and its cuts commission, we will see more cuts to local authorities and more cuts to the NHS, and I will not accept that.
Bill Grant
Does my hon. Friend sense, as I do, that the SNP’s objective is to get independence for Scotland at any price? The SNP will pay any price and the people of Scotland will be the victims of its desire to break up the United Kingdom.
Douglas Ross
Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a very serious point. The outcome of independence does not matter to the SNP; it simply matters to the SNP that it gets independence and separates from the rest of the UK. And it does not matter that it affects my constituents in Moray, with cuts to NHS Grampian, one of the poorest funded health boards anywhere in Scotland. That is why I have been joining protestors across Moray against the downgrading of our maternity services; that is the outcome we have from an SNP Administration in Holyrood after 11 years of them in government.
I wanted to make many other points. I wanted to briefly highlight power grabs, something that, again, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire mentioned. I think there is a power grab going on, and it is by the SNP, because it wants to grab these powers from Europe, and it does not want them in Holyrood or in Westminster; it wants them back in Europe. That is a power grab—the SNP grabbing these powers to give them back to Europe. The fishermen in my Moray constituency do not want that. Many of the one third, we are told, of SNP supporters who voted to leave the EU must now be wondering what their party is promising them because the policy is for the hated common fisheries policy to go straight back to the EU. So many other policies that are currently ruled by Europe would go straight back to the EU if the SNP ever got its way. [Interruption.] I have seen the wink in your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I know my remarks must now come to a conclusion. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Again, SNP Members cheer because someone had an opposite view from them and they are about to finish their speech. They can give it out but they cannot take it.
This Conservative Government are strengthening—[Interruption.] SNP Members keep shouting. This Conservative Government are strengthening the Union. More powers have been devolved to Holyrood by this UK Conservative Government since 2010 than any others, making it one of the strongest devolved Assemblies anywhere in the world. As a result of Brexit, with so many more powers going to the Scottish Parliament and to Holyrood, it will just get stronger. That is how we are strengthening the Union.
Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
I am upset to be called after the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) because as a result I was not included in his greatest hits, but there we are.
Over the past weeks, months and years, we have seen the Union becoming weakened or threatened. Some say events such as the Scottish independence referendum, the EU referendum and the subsequent mishandling of the Brexit negotiations have all taken their toll, but underpinning those events is the ongoing wrecking of our communities and people’s trust in politics by this Tory Government. We need to learn from these recent examples when the Union has been at risk, but we also need to evaluate why people decided to vote in their masses for such drastic measures and such changes to the Union.
Constituents who voted for Scotland to leave the UK and for Britain to leave the EU tell me they did so because they wanted change. They are fed up with this broken system that sees the privileged few at the top and then the many, the masses, being told that we all need to bear the brunt—we need to tighten our purse-strings. We are struggling to get by. We are saving up for nice things, but then having to spend savings on essentials instead. People are seeing their local services decimated and their streets full of rubbish, with their councils unable to afford regular bin collections. No wonder people want change.
But we cannot accept the Tory approach of sweeping all of that under the carpet and bleating on about the power of the Union while working people reluctantly turn to food banks to feed their families. But we also cannot accept the SNP approach that we have seen of peddling the lie that everything would be better after independence, while simultaneously hiding austerity in its so-called growth commission.
The Union across our nations is of course a result of hundreds of years of co-operation and decisions taken at a political level. But it is also essentially something that exists in the hearts and minds of people across the UK. For many people, being a part of the Union fills them with pride and in some cases provides them with an identity. However, sadly, in Scotland today, how we talk about our identity has changed. It is a sad fact that, as has been highlighted, some people feel forced to choose between their Scottish and British identities. None the less, there are various events that cut across the nationalistic identities, and I want to share my view of my identity.
I am from Dalkeith in Midlothian, a mining town, and just last weekend I made my way to the “big meeting” which, to explain to other Members, is the Durham Miners’ Gala. For almost 150 years, people from across the UK have made the cultural pilgrimage to Durham to celebrate our shared history and the work we are carrying out in the trade unions and the Labour party to make people’s lives better across the UK. The people who gather there have a shared identity and culture that remains unbroken within mining communities such as mine. I would feel at home in any mining community across the country; whether in Wales, the north-east or Midlothian, I could go into a miners’ club and feel at home and they would literally have the same wallpaper. But of course this identity is not unique to mining communities. My identity is class rather than nationality based, but I absolutely respect every identity that people choose. People have shared identities that come from varied communities, the NHS, common interests and sectors, family heritage and political will.
Recently, people came together in their thousands to promote British values of tolerance and equality. Members from across this House may have joined the thousands of people across the UK who protested against the values and ideas espoused by President of the United States, Donald Trump. We as a country showed that we reject his politics of misogyny and we stand up to hatred. Such demonstrations were held across the UK.
It is for those reasons, and more, that I believe that there is a commonality and a shared identity that exists across the United Kingdom, but regardless of where in the UK people are and where they live, this is being eroded by the damaging and often heartless policies of the current Government. I want to give a few brief examples.
We have a Government who are content with cutting taxes for millionaires, while at the same time cutting benefits paid to the most vulnerable in our society. Across local authorities affected by the roll-out of universal credit, we see soaring shortfalls in councils’ rental income. In my own constituency of Midlothian, rent arrears are up by more than a fifth, with temporary accommodation arrears a staggering 278% higher since UC full service began. Every penny that is lost to local authorities in rent arears represents a person pushed further into debt by this Government and their policies.
Mr Sweeney
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the fact that solidarity transcends borders and is grounded in class politics. Does she also agree that the hostile environment policy in this country is another thing that we need to tackle collectively as one people? My constituent, Giorgi Kakava, who is in the Gallery today, is an example of someone affected by that policy, which we must challenge if all the people of the United Kingdom are to have a secure future.
Danielle Rowley
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I wonder what the Windrush generation feel about their British identity.
I know that this debate is on the Union, but I feel that it was important to mention those points because many people who come into my office are in need of food bank referrals or of assistance with correcting mistakes in their universal credit payments. They will be seeking a political alternative to the harsh policies affecting their lives, and that is what makes them seek change. I hope that Members across the House, especially those in the Government, will recognise the real and serious threats that these policies are posing to the Union.
For many people, the answer is to rip up the Union and go it alone, but I do not believe that that should happen. We saw that during the Scottish independence referendum, and I fear that the Government have not yet learned from that or from the European Union referendum. If they are serious about strengthening the Union, they should stop their damaging policies and instead look at new ways of strengthening and improving the Union, such as adopting a model of federalism and devolving decision making to local level.
A Labour Government would establish a constitutional convention, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) , to challenge where power and sovereignty lie in politics, the economy, the justice system and our communities. We want to extend democracy locally, regionally and nationally, exploring the option of a more federalised country. We need a relationship of equals with devolved Administrations throughout the UK. In this regard we differ from the SNP, which has sought the path of centralisation to strengthen the powers and influence of the Scottish Parliament, often at the expense of local government.
So how do we strengthen the Union? We can do it by treating people right across the UK as humans and with dignity; by ensuring that we have equality of opportunity in every community in the UK; by giving workers in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales a proper wage of £10 an hour and secure work; by valuing all our workers and giving them real protections and good wages; by providing reliable and dignified support for those who cannot work; and by showing respect for our devolved nations, with well funded local councils.
I would like to give the House a quick anecdote. In 2014, I made a film during the referendum campaign, and I was privileged to come here to Parliament to interview the man I am now honoured to call my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). He gave me a lesson in collectivism. He told me that, in his life and looking through history, he had found that the challenges of capitalism had never been defeated by running away or by separating off and turning our back on things; instead, they had been defeated by coming together and collectively challenging the issues. So, yes, let us be ambitious and let us scream for change and an end to this top-down, unequal and unfair system, but let us choose the best way to reform our society and keep our Union strong at the same time. That is achievable, but it is clear to me—and it is becoming clearer to people up and down the UK—that the only way to do that is to deliver a Labour Government.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I am delighted to rise to speak in this debate this evening. In fact, there is nowhere else I would rather be on a beautiful July evening than here, and no issue that I would rather discuss than the Union yet again. It is an issue that is close to my heart, and close to the hearts of my constituents, 60.4% of whom voted to remain in the UK in 2014, and 67.6% of whom voted for Unionist parties in last year’s general election. Despite what SNP Members say, what I hear regularly from my constituents, and expect to hear many times again this summer as I traverse my beautiful constituency of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine—details are on my website—is that they have little appetite left for referendums, whether on Scotland’s place in the Union or on Britain’s place in Europe. A recent poll by the Daily Record has found that fewer than half of Scots agree with Nicola Sturgeon when she says that
“independence is back on the table”
after Brexit. What the overwhelming majority of my constituents—and, I believe, the public at large—want from us is to get on with the job of governing in the national interest for all of Britain’s people, and that is what we in the Conservative and Unionist party are doing.
As I was looking for inspiration for this speech today, I stumbled on these words:
“This morning we have renewed our joint commitment under the Edinburgh agreement to work constructively and positively to implement the will of the people. That work starts immediately.”
Those are the words that Alex Salmond did not say on the morning of 19 September. They are taken from the speech that he had prepared to use if Scotland had voted yes in 2014. It is a pity that he was not so keen to renew that commitment to implement the will of the people following the actual result. Unlike the SNP, the Conservative party kept to the spirit of the agreement, respected the result and delivered everything it had promised through the Smith commission to build a strong Scotland with a powerful voice inside a United Kingdom of which every Member in this House should be proud.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
But Ruth Davidson promised that if Scotland voted no it would get to stay in the European Union. How come that has changed?
Andrew Bowie
I think the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but of course she did no such thing. The people of Scotland went into the referendum in September 2014 in the full knowledge that a referendum on our membership of the European Union was coming down the tracks. It had been promised in January 2013, a full year and nine months before the September 2014 referendum.
It seems hard to believe it now, but when the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly were created in the 1990s, the goal was to strengthen the Union. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen might not have got it exactly right when he declared in 1997 that devolution would “kill nationalism stone dead”. I will admit that the temptation on our side, and probably elsewhere, to say “we told you so” is sometimes rather strong, as the only thing that it seems to have killed is the Scottish Labour party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
We are the party that respects the 2014 referendum result and the 2016 referendum result, so we are the only party that respects the original aim of the devolution process: to bring politics and decision making closer to Scottish communities and to make our politics more representative and responsive. Unfortunately, between the incompetence of the two Labour-Lib Dem Administrations and the deliberate actions of the now three SNP Administrations, Scotland has suffered only centralisation, power hoarding in Edinburgh and central belt bias in decision making, with Aberdeenshire and the north-east—forever Scotland’s cash cow—taxed more than any other part of the country and forever being short-changed.
Reading The Press and Journal this morning, I noticed that Aberdeenshire Council was being forced to double the cost of renting town hall premises in Stonehaven and Banchory due to a cut in grant funding from the Scottish Government. We should never forget that it was the SNP Government’s obsession with centralisation that led, disastrously, and despite many warnings, to the deeply flawed reorganisation of police services in Scotland, for which they found themselves liable for £35 million a year in VAT—a situation that was resolved only by the election to this House of 12 additional Scottish Conservatives.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
We hear a lot about this centralisation issue. Why was it that, when the Scottish Government brought in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill, the Scottish Conservative party abstained?
Andrew Bowie
I would have to look into that in more detail to find the exact reason why we abstained on that vote. I personally, of course, would have voted against it.
We know that the SNP Government created that situation with VAT in the full knowledge of what they were doing. They attempted to turn it into a grievance with Westminster, and then tried to use it to force a wedge between the nations of our United Kingdom. The Scottish National party is committed to the break-up of the UK. Every action it takes, every speech its members make and every policy from Bute House is weaponised and sent into battle for the express purpose of weakening the bonds between our nations and breaking apart the most successful economic and political union in the world. It puts ideological and constitutional obsessions over the good of the Scottish people, and it always will.
I personally am proud to be British. I am proud of what this country has done in the past, and sure of what this united, global Britain will do in the future. I hope beyond hope that in 2021 the Scottish people will get the Government they deserve: a transformative Conservative Administration in Holyrood, delivering real, fair devolution to the people of Scotland and working alongside a Conservative Government in Westminster governing and legislating for the whole UK—working together in the national interest and strengthening our Union. Only then, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) likes to say, will we truly be in the early days of a better nation.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird) for their sartorial support for this debate, with the former’s Union Jack dress and the latter’s dress with a flower of the Union in Northern Ireland—the orange lily—displayed so prominently. In fact, I was thinking of pairing them—
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
With the tie of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard)?
Sammy Wilson
An orange tie. They would blend in well at that great celebration of Unionism in Northern Ireland on 12 July.
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has challenged and mocked this as an irrelevant debate that has just been thrown in at the end of the parliamentary term, but this is an extremely important debate for the people of the United Kingdom.
Speaking from a Northern Ireland perspective, I know that the Union is not just academic or some kind of constitutional thing. People in Northern Ireland died fighting against a terrorist campaign to ensure that we stayed within the Union. This debate is important, because it is important that people right across the United Kingdom understand the value that they personally, their countries and their regions obtain from being part of the United Kingdom.
There are, of course, the economic benefits of being part of a country that is the fifth largest economic power in the world, which means that people in Northern Ireland have access to the internal market. Some 66% of the goods we produce in Northern Ireland find their way into the market of the rest of the United Kingdom, sustaining hundreds of thousands of jobs.
I mentioned in an intervention the fiscal transfers within the United Kingdom that ensure that the parts that require them, because of either geographic disadvantage, historical disadvantage or the changing structure of their economy, receive the money to sustain their economies. Some might argue that the transfers are not enough, but the fact is that we benefit from being part of a large economic unit. Of course, we also benefit from the protection of the security umbrella that the United Kingdom affords to us. Again, we benefit from the United Kingdom being a major international military power. As independent nations, none of us could ever sustain those things. In Northern Ireland, of course, we benefited within our own territory when we had the support of the military in defeating the terrorist campaign we experienced for 40 years.
There is also British soft power, with the connections that a country the size of ours has across the world. I could go into a lot of examples, but just recently the jobs of 6,000 workers at Bombardier in Northern Ireland were sustained because of the connections that this country’s Ministers have with Boeing and with the United States Government. They could make the case for protecting those jobs and for ensuring that Bombardier was not closed out of US markets.
I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will mention all the historical connections, such as in the names of towns. Londonderry, of course, owes its importance and its prosperity to the merchants from London who went there, invested in and improved that part of Northern Ireland. Newtownards in his constituency is a new town formed by those who came to settle there and develop the economy.
The Union is important to all of us, and I have given examples from Northern Ireland. Of course, the Union is always under attack from nationalist elements, and we have heard that here today. All countries, all relationships, go through difficult times, and it is easy to say, “Ah, but if we were in a different kind of relationship, it would be better.” The grass is always greener somewhere in the distance, and we have heard a lot of examples today—“If we were not part of the United Kingdom, we wouldn’t have to suffer this and we wouldn’t have to experience that,” but, as I have said, as independent countries we would face all those problems without the support of the bigger Union.
The most recent example has been Brexit. Nationalists in Northern Ireland have used Brexit to try to drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Despite all the nationalists’ arguments about Brexit, the surprising thing is that the latest poll by UK in a Changing Europe, which is not sympathetic to the Brexit cause—indeed, I do not think it is sympathetic to the Union—found that, even with all the propaganda that has been spread, only 21% of people in Northern Ireland would vote to leave the United Kingdom.
I do not accept the argument made earlier that Brexit means dividing Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic, which is not our main market anyway. Indeed, only last week, the EU and the Irish Government confirmed—indeed, they boasted about it—that, even if we left without a deal, no infrastructure would be placed along the Irish border. That is not me saying it, it is not a Brexiteer saying it, and it is not a partisan person saying it; this is the EU negotiators, who had been telling us that the border was an insurmountable problem. Suddenly it is not when they want to give reassurance.
I will quickly make a few points on what can be done to strengthen the Union, because I want to keep to the 10-minute limit. First, we have to make sure that there is a fair deal for all parts of the United Kingdom. I criticise this Government too, but Labour Governments and Conservative Governments have both fallen into the same trap, with policies often tending to be London-centric or south-east of England-centric, without considering the impact of tax and trade policies, for example, on regions. In Northern Ireland, we are sitting with a land boundary with a country that has done away with air passenger duty and reduced VAT on hospitality and the tourism industry, skewing the market. Again, when devising policies on a national basis, it is important that we consider their local impact.
Secondly, we have to celebrate important events around the Union, and there will be an opportunity in the near future, when Northern Ireland comes to its centenary in 2021, to celebrate the fact that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. I hope they will be not just Northern Ireland celebrations but national celebrations. We recently had the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the RAF, which gave a reminder of its importance to the nation in a colourful and dramatic display. Those kinds of things can be unifying to a nation.
Thirdly, recognition has to be given to the fact that there are devolved Administrations. Although they cannot override national policies, proper consultation should be undertaken and proper cognisance given to the views of devolved Administrations.
Lastly, it is important that the Government are not seen to be centralised here in London, which means that we need to spread out the administrative arrangements and administrative facilities across the UK, so that we know we are part of one nation and we can be proud of that and of our long history. Everybody across the UK needs to be aware of the sacrifices we share, as well as the benefits, so that they become supportive of the Union.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I am going to do something that breaks with convention in this debate—I am going to say something positive about what is going on. I am not going to get into arguments about different areas of the UK, what is going wrong and who could be doing things better than the others. Let us just pause and look at exactly where we are at this moment in time.
I have to make a declaration: apparently, I am the only Parliamentary Private Secretary in history to have been PPS to the Secretaries of State for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Even I did not know that when it happened.
David Morris
And Lancashire, and quite right, too, Mr Deputy Speaker; one great Lancastrian speaks to another.
So what have we done to make things even? Well, we have English votes for English laws, which went a long way to try to even out the big question—the West Lothian question. [Interruption.] It did. When we did that, we looked into the Barnett formula and idiosyncrasies that went with it. The Government have put £1.2 billion into Wales, boosting the Barnett formula by 5%, so for about every £100 spent in Wales about £120 is actually coming back into Wales. This has gone a long way to evening out the equilibrium of the economies.
If we think about that, we see that putting an extra 5% into the Barnett formula works out at £67 million over the next five years, which has to be welcomed. This has put Wales in a very positive position in terms of the Brexit problem of leaving the EU. The Government are extending to mid-Wales a growth deal similar to the city deal in Cardiff. That city deal is £615 million, which has been more money put into Wales than any other Government have ever done before. That has to be welcomed. If we are doing that in mid-Wales, imagine what is going to happen there. There is always a problem with transport in mid-Wales, but if we get the transport sorted out in that area, that will provide a boost—it is inevitable. If we get a spaceport there, which is something I will discuss when I get to the Scotland part of my speech, that will pay dividends for mid-Wales, because we have aerospace factories there—Airbus is there and just nearby. That is a huge contributor to that part of the economy in that area, so we must think of this in a positive way.
Turning to Scotland, I know I am probably going to upset the SNP, although I do not really want to do that because the whole tone of what I am trying to do is to be constructive. [Interruption.] I do not want to upset my own colleagues either, so please behave!
I have to make another declaration, as I am the chairman of the parliamentary space committee—there is such a thing. A lot of SNP Members are on it, along with a lot of Conservatives and a lot of Labour Members. The space industry is growing by 11% a year—it has done so year in, year out, all the way through the recession we have just been through. The industry is getting bigger and bigger. Within the next 10 years, space tourism will be a reality. Not so long ago, it was announced that we were going to be having horizontal take-offs from the south-west, but we are going to be having ballistic applications happening in Sutherland. What does that really mean? I do not want to stir up my SNP friends and make a political point, but if we have a spaceport in that area, that will change the economy; it will be a big game changer and a huge infrastructure programme. Although I really want you to stay with us, another problem we would have if Scotland did go independent is that it would contravene the ITAR—International Traffic in Arms Regulations—agreement. The Americans would not accept anything ballistic we put up there, so we would not be able to send satellites up from there or they would not put satellites up from that area. [Interruption.] That is true. If Members would like to look into it, they will find that is a valid point.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I do not dispute whether or not what the hon. Gentleman is saying is correct, but that is just a ridiculous reason to ask people not to vote for Scottish independence—it is madness.
David Morris
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that interjection. You are right: it has nothing to do with that; it is to do with trade. But I want you to stay with us. I do not want Scotland to go. As has been said, your rhetoric of leaving—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. This is not about private chats. You have to speak through the Chair. I know there is great temptation among Members on both sides of the House to have a private debate, but the rest of us need to hear it and be part of it.
David Morris
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am speaking collegiately.
Looking at where we are going to go with this, we must think of the opportunities that will be afforded to us if we all stay together. We are talking about investment of £2.5 million in an area that is crying out for it, and an estimated injection of £4 billion over the next five years. That cannot be bad.
When I was in the Northern Ireland Office with my hon. Friend the Minister, we had to set a budget. I hope that we will soon be back to having a full, devolved, operating Government there again—I would love to see that—but £410 million has been put into Northern Ireland, with £80 million for health and education, £30 million to support mental health, and £100 million for ongoing health matters.
We have to look after all parts of the UK, which is why it is imperative that the Union survives—from the top end in Scotland, to Northern Ireland, Wales and England. We are all one people and we should reflect that in our politics.
I do not agree with the SNP, but I do respect its policies, which are about leaving the rest of the UK. I do not want that to happen; I respect and understand that position, but I do not agree with it. As has been said, there is an anomaly in that the SNP wants Scotland to have its own sovereignty while remaining in the EU. There is a paradox there, because it is not possible to have sovereignty and give it away to Europe at the same time.
On that note, I will just say that we are all better and stronger together. I hope that toned things down a little—I am sure it did—but please just think about that.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), who has perhaps taught us that the Union is more complicated than rocket science.
What is our Union based on? Is it based on history, reality, identity, economics, cultural friendship or kinship—or is it based on all of those? It is more than the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1707, which led to the creation of the Union as we know it. It is all that and more. More importantly, our Union is not fixed. It has matured, developed and deepened. It has facilitated change and been subject to change. It is still not fixed now. It is still open to development, and devolution is possibly the most relevant example. The Union is not a cul-de-sac out of which we need to reverse; it is a highway on which we travel when we support, aid and seek aid from those we support across the Union.
I want to pick up on the question of identity, which my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) raised, and how it feeds into and fuels the concept of the Union. Individuals’ relationships with the Union and the Union itself lie at either end of the concept, and the identity that individuals feel feeds into that concept.
Identity can be both objective and subjective. As an objective concept, it is, sadly, becoming increasingly based on a pure geographical location sitting at the heart of the identity—small-minded nationalism. Increasingly we see that geographical nationalism is based on a foundation of exceptionalism. There is also, however, a subjective assessment of identity—namely, how a person feels to themselves. People may remember writing in their school books all those years ago, starting with their street, then their town and then their region and country. In my case, I would then put, “Europe, the world and the universe”. That is childish fun, but within it sits a strength of identity driven not by geographical location, but by the association we feel for others, be they close by or far away.
I love it that in Scotland people are identified and judged not by their jobs or by their educational achievements, but by the person that they have become. From that comes an acceptance that someone may have an opinion. One may disagree with that opinion and argue against it, but the discussion that can take place strengthens the value of that relationship and the knowledge that we all have. Brexit has shown us that if we take the relative simplicity of economics—should I joke?—we will see that there is an interconnection between countries that make up a union. Such interconnections are complex, intertwined, co-relational and much like that Gordian knot—a problem some see answered by a simple slicing through, although that answer is far too simplistic for such a complex question. A separation once made cannot be remade.
The strength of our Union is that it allows for all these different identities and more. It is stronger because identification is fluid. It is stronger because we share and mix answers, ideas and solutions. It is stronger because, even though the current Union is not fixed, it is a vehicle that allows for growth, development and change. The power to empower our communities by passing down powers to the level that they can work at best by people answerable to those the decision affects and linked to the funding of those decisions is important.
As Einstein said:
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
However, nationalism with a small “n” allows us to celebrate and to promote cultural difference. It can inform, educate and rightly be something to take pride in. I am not talking about the simple aggressive nationalism that penetrates our contemporary politics. When unchecked or when used to dominate, this malign form of nationalism has historically been shown to be catastrophic. No one should be cowed into dissociating themselves from their background.
Devolution exists as a constitutional bridge between Scottish and British backgrounds. Culturally, Scotland has always had a different education system. It has had different norms in its legal system and alternative ways of approaching politics. In the 1970s, JP Mackintosh asserted that it was these cultural and national differences that spurred the need for a different way of governing Scotland. Like Donald Dewar, I do not believe that our current devolution settlement would be possible without the work of the East Lothian and North Berwick MP, JP Mackintosh.
I wish briefly to mention an early-day motion that I tabled this month, which recognises the contribution that John Pitcairn Mackintosh made in this place, in this debating Chamber and on this issue. A week today, on 30 July, we will mark 40 years since John’s untimely death. He was a fierce debater, a strong proponent of European integration, a constitutional reformist and, of course, a man who fought tooth and nail, even within the Labour party, to deliver devolution to Scotland. He was an incredible constituency MP. Along with Gerald O’Brien, he brought astuteness, tact and organisational strength to Prestonpans and East Lothian Labour party. Mackintosh’s most notable expression, now fittingly placed at the entrance to the Donald Dewar Room, acknowledges that
“the people in Scotland want a degree of government for themselves…and it is not beyond the wit of man to devise the institutions to meet those demands.”
Critically, Mackintosh believed that these demands would strengthen, not weaken, the unity of the United Kingdom. A strong Union sits well within Mackintosh’s conception of devolution as he advocated for a co-existence of national considerations—the ability to identify as British and as Scottish. He rightly argued that the people of Scotland do not want the trappings of independent statehood, or any reversion away from self-governance. It was this third way that was backed by Scotland and by East Lothian by a clear margin in both 1997 and in 2014.
While debating the Scotland and Wales Bill in 1976, Mackintosh developed an image of devolution that sits remarkably close to our contemporary system, but the Bill itself, which he did support, was still not radical enough for him. The reserved powers still left the Secretary of State as a governor of Scotland rather than the person watching over it as it governed itself. That point was forcefully made by Mackintosh. He argued for extra taxation powers, which were eventually brought forward 40 years later through the Scotland Act 2016.
This is a union state that is made stronger by the diversity of its various parts—the contributions from Wales, Scotland, Birmingham, Cornwall, Glasgow, Cardiff, Aberdeen and even Newcastle. The UK is at its best when there is a full contribution and expression from all the different identities, with common links and experiences. It is a Union, not a unitary state.
Much has been said about the challenges of the British national identity and the risk to the Union, but that fails to see the strength that lies in a subjective, fluid identity. The strength of the Union lies in its fluid nature, which hugs the diversity of its parts, rather than smothering the imagination and dynamism of its individuals. The challenge is to re-empower those communities by giving back the ability to flourish and prosper; to draw on other parts, resources and talents; and to support those other parts so that together we can create a Union that truly is a tapestry of strength.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
I rise to defend and advance the cause of the Union: the most successful political and economic union between nations in the history of the world; a union that, as a force for good, built the modern world that we live in; the Union between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland; our precious United Kingdom. I remind the House that Adam Smith described the Union from the perspective of Scotland as
“a measure from which infinite good has been derived to this country.”
Amen to that.
The Union defines who I am, with a Scots father and an English mother. Three of my four children have married spouses from Northern Ireland and England. More generally, our Union is also a matter of family. We are a family of nations. For me, the Union has always been a much deeper issue than economics or other additions of numbers. It is, in fact, a matter of the heart. The Union between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom has together defeated fascism, seen out communism and helped to shape today’s modern world. It is a bulwark of democracy and freedom that uses its wealth for good to help some of the poorest people around the world.
As I said, the Union is a family. The English, Welsh and those from Northern Ireland are our cousins, nieces, nephews, wives and husbands. In my case, they are my mother, my son-in-law, my daughters-in-law and my grandchildren. We should not cast aside this social union for the sake of some backward-looking nationalist instinct. We must always call out nationalism for what it is. Wherever it is in the world, it has created havoc and destruction by creating divisions between people. It is a deeply unpleasant and unattractive ideology.
The nationalists try to portray themselves as civic and joyous, inclusive and accepting, but it is all wearing rather thin now. The “All Under One Banner” march took place in my constituency a few weeks ago. At the heart of the march was a huge banner that read, “Tory scum out.” The march was a display of political intolerance. I urge all those who say that they were on with the march but did not agree with the “Tory scum out” banner or the “F the Tories” mugs that were on sale to note the name of the rally, which was “All Under One Banner”. That banner is barely disguised political bigotry. That is what my constituents in Stirling saw and that is how they judged it.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I just say to the hon. Gentleman that he is many things; a piece of scum is not one of them. I would deprecate that banner and, as I am sure he knows, the decent majority also deprecates that banner. The sooner that it is caught, melted down, recycled or whatever, the better.
Stephen Kerr
The hon. Gentleman is indeed honourable, because he has been the very first on social media to condemn the antics of the extreme elements of the nationalist movement that these events sadly attract, as we know only too well. I will not relate anything further to do with my social media timelines because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not the kind of place for us to spend any time if we want to keep our sanity.
It is time for us Unionists to engage with and defend the Union against this kind of onslaught. It is time for us to seek a future that will combat nationalism and constantly rejuvenate the Union so that it will endure. I say this particularly for the benefit of my English and Welsh colleagues in the Chamber, who perhaps do not really appreciate the nature of Scottish nationalism on the ground as we encounter it as Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament. We do not expect co-operation or partnering from nationalism. We do not expect there to be some agreement—some middle ground. The aim of the nationalists is disruption, division and manufactured grievance, not unity: they are not interested in that because it does not serve their party political objectives.
Divergence is a very important part of what we get from devolution. I have absolutely no issue with that. I believe passionately in local democracy, and the divergence that comes through local democracy, but I do not hold with divergence for the sake of it. Of course we need locally tailored policy solutions to meet local conditions, but divergence that gives the Union strength is when it is for a good reason. We have a Scottish legal system that is tailored to our country. We have an education system that is tailored to our country: it is ours. All these things provide the strength whereby Scotland can have solutions for its own systems, its unique history, and the needs of its people.
But in some areas, divergence is pointless—for example, having a separate card for public transport in England and in Scotland, coming up with two different systems for deposit returns, or dismantling the British Transport police simply because it has “British” in its name. This is merely nationalist ideology that we have to be strong in standing up against. These differences are not about public policy necessities—they are about pulling Scotland apart from the rest of the United Kingdom to become separate. The nationalists want to use divergence to create division. They want to make the Union dysfunctional. I want the Union to work better. My hon. Friend the Minister will therefore not be surprised to hear that I will persist in my argument for a stronger and more functional Union that serves all the people and all parts of the United Kingdom.
My constituents in Stirling pay their taxes, and now, in many cases, they pay significantly more tax than any other part of the United Kingdom. They pay their share of the cost of Whitehall Departments. They get the same protection from the armed forces. They get the same help and support abroad when they visit a consulate or an embassy. But when it comes to some of the other Union Departments, the support becomes less clear. We should make that clear by renaming Ministries and Departments that serve England only as such—for example, “the Department for Health and Social Care for England”. Ministries serving the whole of the United Kingdom should, as a matter of course, be asking what policy implications there are for Scotland, for Wales, for Northern Ireland and for the regions of England.
I am afraid that there is a concept that is endemic in government in this respect. It is not specific to this Government but to all previous Governments since the devolution settlement, and it is, “Devolve and forget.” That phenomenon plagues Government and must be guarded against. The UK Government are as much the UK Government in Edinburgh as they are in Chester. Part of the issue is that UK Government Departments operate through the prism of their territorial offices. The propensity for UK Departments to dump issues into the laps of the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices is very high.
UK Departments also far too easily think about devolving further to the Scottish Parliament, as almost an automatic reaction. Sometimes that is appropriate and right, but at other times, frankly, it leads to problems and unnecessary confusion. I would take as an example the broadband issue that plagues us in Scotland.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
What exactly have UK Departments rushed to devolve that they should not have devolved? [Interruption.]
Stephen Kerr
Well, the British Transport police, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) rightly says, is the example that immediately springs to mind.
The delivery of broadband is another example, as I said. We should never have devolved the delivery of broadband to the Scottish Government. They were given the responsibility of delivering broadband in Scotland by Broadband Delivery UK, and the result is mayhem. We are so far behind other parts of the United Kingdom on the delivery of broadband because we allowed the Scottish Government to get involved in the first place. We can see the problems with the situation that has arisen, which makes it unclear who is responsible. Broadband is a good example of this. When anything good happens in Scotland, Scottish Government Ministers will turn up and get their photographs taken, but when anything goes wrong in Scotland, it is suddenly all reserved—they point at us and say, “Oh, it’s reserved; you should deal with it.” These kinds of games go on all the time. It is insidious and makes it all the easier for the nationalists, in that space of confusion, with their ideology of grievance and division, to do just that. We must avoid that by improving our system and machinery of governance.
Now—one minute! [Laughter.] I have one minute. The best bit’s to come. UK Government Departments should be unafraid to fly their colours in Scotland, to proudly hoist the Union flag above their offices every single day of the year, not just on the Queen’s birthday, and to tell the people of Scotland, loudly and proudly, that their United Kingdom Government is serving them. It would show people clearly that Scotland has two Governments and that both are working to deliver vital public services to them, even if they need to work more closely together.
It may seem somewhat controversial, but this debate about the intergovernmental relations in the UK will continue until we address the machinery we need to make the Governments of this country work more closely together. Ironically, I turn to the White Paper on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. I got as far as chapter 4, where I read details about how the different Governments, Departments and Parliaments could work together for the benefit of the people. With no small sense of irony, I advise the Government to read chapter 4 on page 84 —many people never got to page 84, I am sure, but I did. It talks about how arrangements could be put in place by which Governments could work together. It is a very interesting chapter. I refer in particular to paragraph 2. The institutional arrangements it proposes are practical and flexible and would create a dialogue and mechanisms for resolving disputes and the accountability and mutual constructive tension necessary for us to get the best government possible for the people of our country.
I will conclude.
Stephen Kerr
I am grateful for the support for that statement, if for nothing else I have said.
It is understandable in Scotland, where the political climate can sometimes be quite poisonous, for people to feel intimidated and harassed, rather than to engage in debate. Much is said and done under the guise of robust debate that falls squarely into the category of bullying, so fear is understandable, but I call upon Her Majesty’s Government not to flinch. They must face up to that culture firmly and fairly. I believe they shall. They should be proud and loud about their activities in Scotland. We should not submit to the bullying and provocations of the nationalists. We should not surrender our country. Under no circumstances would that bring about a flourishing Union that can be a boon to the peoples of this country for generations to come, which is what we need now more than ever before.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to contribute to what has so far been a somewhat enlightening debate.
The starting point of my analysis in this debate, as a democratic socialist, is: what structures of governance are best situated to deliver maximum economic benefit to working people in delivering the highest possible quality of life and public services and amenities to serve their interests? That underpins my thinking. When I think of the benefits of the Union, I think back to my own grandparents and my grandfather fighting with the Royal Artillery, making common cause with people from across the United Kingdom to defeat fascism in Europe.
That common cause transcended into the spirit of 1945 and that 1945 election, which delivered the first majority Labour Government, who fundamentally transformed this country, delivering the welfare state and the pillars that underpin modern civilisation in this country. That is why I never had any doubt about joining the Labour party at the age of 16. I knew that, although it might not have delivered only good, it had delivered everything that had been good in this country in the preceding 70 years. I had no doubt that every great societal achievement and all progress this country had achieved had been delivered by the solidarity of working people acting in the labour and trade union movement. I never had any doubt either that the United Kingdom served their interests when the British state was mobilised in their service. Indeed, when I look at Scotland today, I think of the benefits that we have achieved. If nothing else holds true, Scotland benefits every year from £9 billion that it would not otherwise have to invest in the provision of public services that ensure that quality of life for people in Scotland is better than it otherwise would be. That is equivalent to £1,470 per person in Scotland every year. For as long as that figure is correct, there can be no socialist analysis for unpicking and destroying a Union that delivers that economic and social benefit for the people of Scotland.
The SNP’s analysis is so awry when it comes to dealing with that reality that it has run away from the idea of full fiscal autonomy because the transfer is undisputable. Looking at its latest analysis in the so-called growth commission report, we see that it tries to compare Scotland with other advanced economies. Speaking about the target of reducing the fiscal deficit in Scotland to under 3% of GDP within five to 10 years, Scottish Trends’ John McLaren says that
“it clearly involves a tighter fiscal strategy over this period than is likely for the rest of the UK. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), currently expects the UK to have a deficit equivalent to 2.3% of GDP in 2021-22 and falling, which should allow for an easing in public expenditure settlements over time. Meanwhile Scotland will be moving from a deficit equivalent to nearly 6% of GDP towards a 3% target. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out the implications.”
As long as those implications may threaten the interests of working people in Scotland, I am opposed to the notion of separation and am committed to the idea of the Union.
The growth commission assumes that an independent Scotland would achieve a GDP per capita growth rate that is 0.7% greater than it would be if it remained in the UK. However, the justification for that figure is extremely tenuous, relying on territories or countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore in the comparison set, despite explicitly rejecting their low-tax, high-income-inequality economic models. Remove Hong Kong and Singapore from the comparable countries’ growth rate analysis and 0.7% becomes 0.26%. If that were the case, instead of the 25 years that the growth commission assumes that it would take to generate £9 billion of revenue to close the gap with the UK, it would take 67 years. However, £9 billion is of course less than the £10.3 billion effective fiscal transfer that Scotland received from the rest of the UK in 2016-17, which we would of course lose on day one of independence. To test that assumption further, if we look back at the independence White Paper, the equivalent figure used then was in fact only 0.12% per annum. On that basis, it would take over 140 years to close the gap with the UK. Why on earth would anyone vote for that?
If we look at the performance of the three countries that the growth commission explicitly cites as being those it seeks to learn in particular from—Denmark, Finland and New Zealand—then, using the growth commission’s own data source, the superior growth rate becomes an immaterial 0.06%. It is becoming apparent that the comparisons are utterly fanciful. On that basis it would take nearly 300 years to close the gap with the UK—the entire length of time that the United Kingdom has existed—which is utterly absurd and demonstrates that the growth commission is bereft of any intellectual rigour.
Then there is the albatross of the currency. In designing a currency regime or mechanism for an independent country, it is critical that the regime offers the country a credible means of adjusting disequilibria—deficits and surpluses—on its balance of payments. If it does not, it is doomed to fail in the absence of a risk-sharing agreement or transfer mechanism, and we have seen that play out in Europe when Greece and Ireland suffered heavy internal devaluations and mega-austerity. That is an important lesson in the economic history of currency regimes. In thinking about the appropriate currency regime for an independent Scotland, it is crucial to have the adjustment question at the back of our mind at all times.
If Scotland were to become an independent country, it would become a net exporter of hydrocarbons. It is well known in currency economics that the crucial role of oil price changes in affecting the competitiveness of the non-oil sector must be addressed in designing a currency regime for a country with a diversified non-oil export sector and an oil sector. Otherwise, the non-oil sector gets crowded out, which has implications for jobs, output and the sustainability of the balance of payments and interest rates. It is the classic Dutch disease phenomenon. However, all the literature on the currency issue that has been generated since the referendum, including the Scottish Government’s growth commission report, does not even address that particular issue.
Regardless of the currency regime that an independent Scotland might choose, it would need a market-credible pool of foreign exchange reserves to run a currency regime. From the evidence of similar sized economies, that would amount to £40 billion, which is around one third of Scotland’s annual GDP and not a sum that a newly separate Scotland could borrow on international financial markets. The only way that such an amount could be accumulated is through running budgetary surpluses for a number of years, but an austerity programme would need to be run in any case in order to establish the “hard currency” effect, so the reserve accumulation issue can be seen as reinforcing that effect.
The growth commission’s alternative to the 2014 White Paper’s formal currency union would be to adopt the pound, much as Panama adopts the dollar, Montenegro adopts the euro and so on. That is a currency substitution system, but such a system is viewed as inherently unstable by economists because it is subject to the whims of individuals’ expectations and the effects that these can have on demand for money, which can lead to changes in supply through the balance of payments. There would be no effective control over the money supply in Scotland and no lender of last resort function because changes in the current account of the balance of payments would directly affect the money supply in the Scottish economy. For example, a surplus on the current balance would increase the quantity of sterling in the economy, which would have inflationary implications. Conversely, a current account deficit would draw money out of the economy with deflationary implications.
To deal with such flows, a separate monetary authority would need to be set up to smooth those effects, but the evidence from similar-sized economies to Scotland, such as the Nordic countries, is that foreign exchange reserves of upwards of £40 billion are needed to achieve that. If the monetary authority were prepared to offer deposit insurance of £120 billion of retail deposit accounts in Scotland, it would need to accumulate foreign exchange reserves of £160 billion, which is greater than the entire Scottish GDP. Those are extraordinary figures.
Where would the money come from, given that the balance of payments of an independent Scotland would have a deficit of between 2% to 5% of GDP? It would need in the region of £6 billion to £7 billion just to cover those international obligations. The only way those sums could be achieved would be through a massive austerity programme. For context, the Scottish NHS budget every year is just £13 billion. We can wipe that out right away. The proposal is simply not a sustainable proposition that anyone of a socialist background could endorse.
All the points I have made focus purely on the monetary implications, but let us look at the competitiveness of the non-oil export sector with the effect of the oil price changes. That would massively impact on the competitiveness of the Scottish economy, entailing mass industrial closures of a scale we saw through the 1980s. Indeed, any alternative, such as a form of sterlingisation with a currency board, would need the currency to be backed 100% by foreign exchange reserves, which again is an unsustainable position. Such systems require considerable amounts of foreign exchange—both cash and reserves—to back deposit accounts. The Hong Kong experience shows that £200 billion of reserves are required to run a currency board. Those massive sums of money in turn require policies of fiscal austerity, balance of payments surpluses and no lender of last resort function. Again, the loss of competitiveness issue would not be addressed in that set-up. It is simply not viable as a currency option unless the Scottish Government are intent on handing over large sums of Scottish taxpayers’ money to hedge funds and speculators.
Interrogating the Scottish growth commission’s proposals demonstrates that they cannot offer a socialist solution to separation. That is why the growth commission has achieved only one thing: it has demonstrated that the huge benefits we derive from being part of the fiscal, monetary and political union are as relevant and integral to quality of life in Scotland today as they have ever have been. That is why we continue to argue as the socialist Labour party that we must marshal the forces of the British state to deliver the best quality of outcomes for the people of Scotland by utilising its fiscal and monetary powers to deliver world-class public services for the people of Scotland. We stand by that commitment today, as we did in 1945 when this party built the national health service and the welfare state.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
It is interesting to follow the shadow Minister. He has been a Member of the House for a year and personally I get on with him incredibly well outside the Chamber, but he is a shadow Scotland Office Minister and, in the 10-minute speech he just gave on strengthening the Union, he did not put forward one single policy on how he sees the Union being strengthened. Instead, we were treated to a 10-minute anti-independence diatribe.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly, but I want to get into the crux of what I am going to say first. I will be generous to the Minister who will be summing up, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew). I congratulate him on his appointment to the defence procurement portfolio. He has been a kind and honourable Member in the time I have been here and, as my party’s defence spokesperson, I certainly wish him well. However, I am afraid to say that the opening speech by the Minister for the constitution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), was something else. I do not think I have heard a speech delivered through such rose-tinted, “Land of Hope and Glory” lenses, despite several Members being strong in the running to beat her on that. It shows such an incredible lack of self-awareness to bring forward a debate on strengthening the Union the day before the UK Government take the Scottish Parliament to the UK Supreme Court. But a lack of self-awareness is only one of the things that plagues politics in this place. I will come back to the others later, but I said I would give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Sweeney
I thank my fellow Glasgow Member for giving way. I have to put to him that the fundamental ethos of my argument was based on the idea that the British state can marshal far greater fiscal and monetary benefits for the quality of life of the people of Scotland. That underpins what I was arguing for, in the spirit of 1945. Does he agree that that is a fair analysis?
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I agree that the hon. Gentleman believes that to be the case. I am afraid I do not believe that to be the case. Like him, I see too many injustices delivered by the British state through the welfare system, the rape clause and the provisions that affect the WASPI women—I am sure he meets many of them in his constituency—so I do not buy his argument. I just think it is a shame he has become so convinced by it.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
No, I will not give way because I want to make some progress.
I want to quote a former Glasgow Member—the Independent Labour party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Bridgeton—the late, great Jimmy Maxton, who was born in Pollokshaws in my constituency. In a speech, he said:
“I believe we can achieve more for the Scottish people within five years in a Scottish Parliament than in 25 or 30 years of heartbreaking struggle in the British House of Commons”.
If only some of that thought would plague Labour Members, rather than the thoughts that plague them right now. Is it any wonder that Winston Churchill described Maxton as possibly the greatest parliamentarian of his day? I believe that that quote from Maxton is the bar against which we should measure the progress of Scotland’s Parliament.
Is it any wonder that Sir George Reid, with the tremendous foresight for which he became famous, used that quote in his maiden speech in this House on 15 March 1974? That was five years before Maxton’s nephew entered the House as the Member of Parliament for Glasgow Cathcart, which has now become my constituency of Glasgow South. I understand that Maxton’s nephew now takes his seat in the other place.
As I was reading that earlier, I was interrupted by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), who now occupies that seat. In that speech, Sir George Reid quoted the slogan of Clackmannanshire, which we have discussed. At the time, the slogan was “Look aboot ye”, but it was changed in 2007. I forget what it was changed to, but I know it is not as good. “Look aboot ye” means “Look around you, and face the facts”. Surely we could do with following that old Clackmannanshire slogan as we debate strengthening the Union—in fact, as we debate anything—in this House.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
How can I say no after quoting the hon. Gentleman’s constituency slogan?
Luke Graham
I thank the hon. Gentleman for quoting what used to be my constituency phrase of “Look aboot ye”. Should he not look about himself and realise that a majority in Clackmannanshire voted to remain in the United Kingdom? Should he not look about himself and accept the fact that Scotland wants to be in the United Kingdom, not out with the SNP?
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I am willing to accept that entirely, but that does not mean I have to stop arguing for it. Indeed, it was the hon. Gentleman’s party leader in Scotland who said it was legitimate, and even honourable, for the Scottish National party to continue advocating Scotland’s independence, and that is what I intend to do. I hope to turn the hon. Gentleman’s constituency around. I note that he did not mention the result of the EU referendum in his own constituency.
The point that Sir George Reid was making then, and it applies now, is that facts change and people are entitled to move. I want to come back to the point he was making about the facts. We should be looking at that, rather than allowing ourselves to be plagued by the positioning in trenches that poisons our politics and breeds cynicism, which is the least healthy thing we can have in our politics. It was Mandela himself who noted that cynicism must be opposed at all times.
There is a real danger that we will go back to a poisonous period in this Chamber in 1945, when the first ever SNP Member of Parliament, Robert McIntyre, was elected. He won his seat in a by-election for Motherwell. It took him several days to take his Oath, because there were no two Members who would stand at the Bar of the House and allow him to approach the Table to do so. I do not want to see us return to that any time soon.
We are constantly being told that we are manufacturing grievances—indeed, the shadow Secretary of State said it earlier. I have much to be aggrieved about; I wish the shadow Secretary of State could be aggrieved about it with me. If that makes me a grievance monger, then frankly that is what my job here is to do. I am aggrieved by many of the things this Government do—some of which were adumbrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who talked about drug consumption rooms and the awful immigration cases that all of us see coming through our constituency surgeries—and by the dreadful and quite regressive welfare measures that we see impacting on our constituents. You’d better believe it, I am aggrieved about many of those things.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Gentleman is right to point out grievances that he has with this Government. Is it not therefore fair for those of us on the Government Benches and Scottish Conservatives around Scotland to have grievances against his party, which has been in power in Scotland for 11 years? We have seen educational standards dropping, mergers of police and fire services, which many in rural constituencies are against, and a number of problems with our NHS services. We are entitled to raise those grievances, as is he to raise his, in this place.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
The hon. Gentleman is in a unique position, as is the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who is sitting on the Bench behind him. They left the Scottish Parliament to come to this Parliament, but even with that in mind—I add it purely for information—the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) is entirely entitled to raise any issue he wishes to, whether it is devolved or reserved. However, I come back to the point that he gave up a seat in a devolved legislature to come to this place to hold this Government accountable. He does a job for his constituents, and he is entirely right to do that.
I come to the tone in which we have these arguments. Some of the points that the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) raised earlier were uncomfortable to listen to. Indeed, it is uncomfortable to see anyone on my side of the constitutional question hold up a “Tory scum out” banner such as he mentioned, far less march behind it with any sense of pride. I do not think Tories are scum. I think a lot of their policies are terrible policies, and I will argue and fight against them at election time. Ultimately, I will argue for the ultimate salvation from them, which I believe to be Scottish independence, but we need to get better at disagreeing with one another.
Stephen Kerr
I again commend the hon. Gentleman for his spirited defence of democracy in this context, but why did the MSPs for Stirling and for Clackmannanshire and Dunblane not join him in condemning that banner when they were at the march behind it? It just does not make sense to me. This is where the disjunction occurs.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. I know he believes what I am saying to be sincere. I do not believe that any of those individuals had their picture taken with the banner. Indeed, this was a march of many, many thousands of people. I only wish that more people had moved to get those responsible out—I understand that some did— and I certainly hope that they do not turn up again, but the hon. Gentleman will have to raise what individuals do with those individuals.
I see you getting anxious, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will draw to a conclusion. Although the Union is clearly important to many people, not just in this House but right across the United Kingdom, I am afraid that this has been a very small subject for debate. Opposition parties regularly table debates on various hobby-horse issues. That is what Opposition parties do, but we are supposed to expect a bit more from the Government. At a time of such threats to international peace, international order and the rules-based system, which the Prime Minister regularly stands at the Dispatch Box and talks about, and indeed I regularly find myself in agreement with her; at a time when the far right is on the rise in fundraising and organising and displacing moderate, centre-left or centre-ground people right across Europe; at a time when fascists and racists are no longer embarrassed to be fascists or racists and are shaking off those cloaks that we have made them wear for many decades—is this issue what the Government want to bring forward for debate? It really is a small subject.
I accept that the Union is important—of course it is important. I grew up in a heavily Unionist household. Indeed, my own father will watch this speech and quite possibly tell me I was talking a load of rubbish. I make no observation other than that, but I am afraid the world is bigger than Scotland and bigger than Britain, and it is a dangerous time out there. The Government have chosen to table this debate, which, frankly, is a university debating society issue at this moment in time. This is supposed to be a legislature. We are here to legislate and hold the Government accountable, and the Government have utterly shirked that in tabling this debate this evening.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I thank the Government for bringing this matter to the House for consideration. I do not underestimate the importance of this debate and the importance of the Union, and I will speak along those lines.
I am well known for my love of a good quote. I know of no other person alive whom I honour and respect more than the person who issued this quote, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She said:
“I know of no single formula for success, but over the years I have observed some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.”
That is Her Majesty the Queen telling us in this House what we should be doing. I think those are inspirational words for us all. It is important that the parties whose Members have contributed today—the Conservative party, the Labour party, the Scottish National party and ourselves, the Democratic Unionist party—have come together to debate the issue. It is good to have all the talents of those parties coming together, even if there may be a wee bit of an exchange now and again. Even the Liberal Democrats, who unfortunately are not here to contribute to the debate, make a valuable contribution to debates in this House.
We are called to be leaders of this nation, and to encourage people to combine efforts, talents and enthusiasm and work together. I look around this Chamber at my fellow Members and sometimes I am slightly in awe of the ability, intelligence and personalities at play. But I have also become frustrated when I have seen that instead of working together through difficulties and through different opinions to provide our best and strongest foot through negotiations, we have sometimes shown a fractured relationship and from that we have shown weakness.
Several hon. Members mentioned sport. We all have our own countries, our own football teams and regions. But whenever England were playing in the World cup, the flags were out all across all of Northern Ireland—I have to say not necessarily for the England football team, as it was around the 12 July time of the year. I tell you what, though, there was not a household that I was aware of that was not supporting England, just as I was. There was the biggest cheer whenever we got through. My prediction was the quarter-finals. We got to the semi-finals, and that was good. Was I the only person who was cheering for England? No, I was not. All the regions were doing so. Whenever teams are playing in Europe, am I the only person who looks through the teams from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and cheers them on, whoever they may be, and hopes they do well? In Northern Ireland, we play opposition who are clearly above our level, but that is by the way.
I believe that Europe would be astounded if it came across the full force of the United Kingdom and if we could come to terms with the legally binding referendum vote and be determined to do what is best for all the people in the country who democratically cast their vote or exercised their right to abstain from voting. If we were determined to do what we are elected to do—carrying out the democratic will of the people instead of taking any opportunity to score a political point at the expense of the strength of the UK—I believe we would display our strength instead of our weakness. A house that is divided against itself cannot stand, as the Scripture says. That certainly applies to us all.
I declare an interest as someone who served in the armed forces for 14 and a half years as a part-time soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment in an anti-terrorist role in Northern Ireland, and for 11 and a half years as a territorial when the iron curtain was still up and strong. What a joy it was to serve alongside people from different parts of the United Kingdom in the one uniform doing what we did together in one Army. In the skies it was the RAF and on the seas it was the Royal Navy. The Irish Guard and the Royal Irish Regiment consist of people from across all the regions of the United Kingdom. That is important for English regiments as well.
It is also great to see the exchange of exports and imports across the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland in particular. We have a very strong agri-sector, including in my constituency. It is Northern Ireland and Strangford that feed the nations—I say that with respect, Mr Deputy Speaker; I know you will have your own thoughts. We in Northern Ireland export to Scotland, Wales and England and across the whole world, and the Ulster fry is renowned for its quality and taste. I had a full English breakfast this morning, and I tell you something: a full English will never match an Ulster fry—I say that to all Englishmen and women who are here today.
I recently spoke about the Scotland-Northern Ireland ties that go back through our history and the current economic ties, and they are only enhanced when we realise how strong we are together. For two islands to be able to be the global force that we are can only be because of the different strengths that each region brings to the table—the different talents, abilities and natural strengths that we each possess—which, added together, produce this wonderful United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
There is no doubt in my mind that for Northern Ireland to be segregated from Great Britain in any way would be catastrophic. We simply could not do without our biggest trading partner, and we would not want to do without it either. A special status that would mean being annexed from the UK in all but name would be a back-door unification with Ireland, which would be unacceptable. I was never as glad to walk through the Division Lobby as I was last week to ensure that any backstop arrangement would now be considered illegal. We are one body and better off together.
Hon. Members will know that I read Scripture regularly. I want to speak about one particular Scripture text that comes to mind, and the message is very clear. It is from 1 Corinthians 12, verses 21 to 31. As we all know, when the four nations came together, they based their laws, rules and regulations on the Holy Bible and what it taught us. It is important that that is the base for where we are. The message of the Scripture text is:
“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of.”
This is the story:
“An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, ‘Get lost; I don’t need you?’ Or, Head telling Foot, ‘You’re fired; your job has been phased out?’ As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the ‘lower’ the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honour just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?”—
in my case, that is quite clear, as one who has very little hair, but I would probably settle for a good digestive system before that. It is important that Members listen to this if possible:
“The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together…every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
The thrust of that Scripture text and message is simple: we are better together. The body can only operate if all parts are operating together. I look to my friends in the Scottish National party—I call them my friends because they are—and say that as an Ulster Scot and one who has descended from the Stewarts of the lowlands of Scotland, I know my heritage and where I come from, and I appreciate the culture that we have, and that tradition, history and language. When my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) sometimes says to me, “Can you understand the guys from Scotland?”, I say that “understand” is the very word. I have no bother with their accents. I can understand them all, because I see it as something that we are very much together on. We might not agree on all the politics, but we agree on many, many things. That is why I truly believe that we are better off together. When we look at English and Welsh history and names, we see that they intertwine. The four nations are clearly strong through their relationships. We are stronger when we are united in the face of those who wish to see us crumble. Whether it be Newtownards in Strangford, Northern Ireland, Newton Stewart in Scotland, Newport in Wales or Newcastle in England, we are talking about four regions as one, together. There is no doubt that we work in our individual countries because we are part of a greater nation: a whole, together.
I implore every Member to consider this: the people have spoken. Whether or not we agree with that call, we have a duty to deliver the best that we can deliver, and we can succeed in doing that only from the position of strength that is found when we stand together.
I began with a quotation. Let me end with another. Edward Everett Hale said:
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”
We are better together. Let us be successful by working together.
Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to wind up the debate on behalf of the Opposition. It has been an interesting debate, but, as a Lancashire lass, I have felt a bit left out. At times, the debate seemed to be about Scottish tit for tat rather than focusing on uniting the Union as a whole. However, I thank all Members for their contributions.
My hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) and for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) rightly highlighted the Government’s political choice of austerity and the impact that it has had on our Union. They were right to do so, because, instead of bringing communities together, the Government have overseen some of the most divisive and unequal times that anyone in the UK can remember. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) for his thoughtful insight on devolution, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) for his detailed and forensic analysis. I also thank all the Members who used the debate as a history lesson to settle old scores from the past 20 years of devolution. However, I want to focus my remarks on the motion of today and the Union of tomorrow.
What has become clear from all those speeches is a developing narrative—a narrative about passing responsibility away without passing the money or the powers. Quite simply, the Government have been passing the buck without passing the bucks. Devolution that is devoid of real power is meaningless, and is an insult to the communities that it was supposed to serve.
How did we arrive at this state of affairs? It can be traced back to the brutality of the austerity cuts that were introduced eight years ago. The Government knew that they could not weather the storm of the spending cuts that they wanted to implement across the UK, so in England they chose to heap responsibility and obligations on our local authorities, city regions and regional Mayors, while at the same time cutting their budgets and limiting their powers. They let everyone else take the blame for their cuts, and took no responsibility for their own brutal actions.
The Government have failed to entrust our devolved Assemblies and Parliaments with responsibility. Under cover of their self-made Brexit chaos, they are snatching powers back to Whitehall rather than strengthening our devolved nations. They are preferring to kick the political football and yet again to put self-interest before the strength of the Union, thus wasting a historic opportunity to secure further devolution. The promise of meaningful devolution for our communities has been exposed as merely a masquerade for their regime of austerity and Westminster-centric power.
As an MP representing a northern town, I found that betrayal particularly stinging, because I know exactly how desperately devolution is needed. For too long our town economies, our northern regions and our nations of the UK have been neglected. Power, resources and funding are tightly held by Whitehall, and communities across the country have little say in, influence over or even knowledge of the decisions affecting their daily lives. Some say that those towns and other areas have been “left behind”, too slow to respond to a rapidly changing country. I say that they have been held back—held back by a system that gives them no voice and no choice.
In my constituency, we have seen the gradual decline of our manufacturing base. The Beeching cuts of the 1960s disconnected our town from the rail network, and our economy experienced a total drying up of the infrastructure investment that is needed to attract business growth and create well-paid, secure jobs.
The answer from this Government to my own area, Greater Manchester, is to point to our two regional transport bodies, our combined authority and our new city Mayor. On the face of it, this is exactly what was needed, and we can imagine the hope communities such as Leigh were given: would this be the moment when power, resources and funding were handed back down to the local level? Unfortunately, however, the reality is far from the promise. Responsibility was gladly handed down, but the powers did not follow. The regional transport bodies that were created know exactly what is needed to meet transport demands and to attract investment and stimulate growth, but are without the powers to enact transformative plans. Our Mayor, Andy Burnham, is trying his hardest to tackle the local skills shortage, keep our communities safe and meet our housing needs, but is left without the ability to take a whole-system approach to these burning issues. Right across the country we have seen councils, mayors, local authorities and transport bodies left as the punching bag for local anger, but restrained by Westminster from taking any meaningful action.
On the Government’s pet project of the northern powerhouse, I have to tell them that the reality for those of us trying to make a difference on the ground is that it has felt more like the “northern powerless”, unable to take these important decisions on infrastructure, which are the foundations of inclusive growth. Subservient to Whitehall, the Government’s flagship policy is nothing but devolution in name only. As a result, communities across the UK have been left feeling completely disconnected from Whitehall and the people who make decisions on their behalf. The many no longer feel that their country is working for them.
Last year, the Government’s policies were exposed by a damning report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which stated that as a result of the 2010-17 austerity measures
“households with one or more disabled member will be significantly more adversely impacted than those with no disabled members.”
It also stated that
“ethnic minority households will be more adversely impacted than White households”,
and:
“Lone parents lose around 15% of their net income on average—almost £1 in every £6. By contrast, the losses for all other family groups are much smaller, from nothing to 8%...Women lose more than men from reforms at every income level.”
Does that sound like we are all in this together? Whether it is town versus city, rich versus poor or remain versus leave, the divide-and-rule tactics the Government have used have left our country in a far less cohesive place than they found it.
So what should a strong Union look like? A strong United Kingdom is where opportunity is open to all and success is dependent not on background or wealth but on talent and resolve. A strong United Kingdom is where our different cultures and traditions are respected but come together as one, and where we appreciate and celebrate the differences and the unique qualities of our nations and our regions instead of using them as a source of division. A strong United Kingdom is where power lies with the many, and where communities are resourced and empowered to make meaningful decisions on their day-to-day lives, and where everyone—young and old, north and south, rich and poor—feels they have a stake in society.
We on this side of the House have that plan for meaningful devolution—a plan that builds on the successes of the previous Labour Government, and looks to meet the needs and aspirations of the nations and our regions; a plan that unites our communities and our country at a time when unity is needed more than ever.
That is why Labour has committed to a constitutional convention if elected. If we are truly to transform and strengthen our Union, we need to have that wider conversation about our Union settlement for the decades to come, and that cannot be done from Westminster. These decisions need to rise above the day-to-day politics of this place and be made by the people political reform will most affect.
Our aim in government will be to transform our politics so that we can finally transform our economy and society. The next Labour Government will extend democracy, bringing it closer to the many; break up the political influence of corporate power when it serves its own interests over those of society; acknowledge that local needs can be met only by local people with meaningful decision-making powers; and recognise that meaningful devolution needs the proper funding to follow, which is why we have also proposed a national investment bank that sits in the community, making local decisions on local infrastructure by local people.
Jo Platt
I will carry on, thank you.
No longer can Whitehall hold the purse strings, dictating from London investment decisions in our towns and villages. No one is better placed to assess the needs of a community than those living within it. Labour recognises this and would remedy it. Eight years of Tory rule have left our United Kingdom less united than ever before, and to understand this Government’s motives we need only look back at the last few weeks of mayhem. A crisis among the Conservatives has led to a divided party. They are warring among themselves at the expense of the country, but divide and rule is all they know; it has been typical of the last eight years. Week after week we are treated to the sight of self-serving politicians putting individual and party ambition before the needs of the country, and everyone has had enough.
In the midst of the most turbulent political time any of us can remember, it is now that the communities we serve need the leadership, the stability and the investment to reunite the United Kingdom. Labour has that plan—a plan to give power back to the many, to strengthen those powers with adequate resourcing and, most importantly, to be unafraid to entrust our local authorities, Mayors and devolved Assemblies with crucial decisions.
Jo Platt
I am just about to finish.
We will transform the outdated political structures of this country, ensuring that they are fit to deliver Labour’s ambition to reverse decades of growing inequality and to achieve social justice. That plan is called “For the many, not the few”, and the next Labour Government will deliver it, finally bringing power back to where it belongs—in our communities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Stuart Andrew)
It is a pleasure to reply to this debate, in what is my last act as a Wales Minister before I move on to the Ministry of Defence. I should like to take this opportunity to say what a great pleasure it has been to work with the Wales Office, and I want to pay tribute to the team, who have supported me brilliantly, and to the work that we have done with Members across the House and in Wales. I also want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leigh (Jo Platt). I know that this is her first time at the Dispatch Box. It is always nerve-racking, and I would like to say that it gets easier, but it does not.
This has been an important debate. Like many other people here today, I am a proud Unionist. I grew up in Anglesey, and I spent the first few years of my life in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch. I can see Hansard looking worried! My father and all his family come from Scotland—I have to confess that my great-grandfather was a proud trade unionist and acted in the Labour party—and my mother is from England, so I have seen the benefits of our great Union of Great Britain.
We have heard a range of interesting views today. As the Prime Minister has said, as we leave the EU and in the years ahead, we will strengthen the bonds that unite us. The people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe. We want a deep and special partnership with the EU. We will secure a deal that works for all parts of the United Kingdom and, at this momentous time, it is more important than ever that we face the future together, united by what makes us strong: the bonds that bring us together and our shared interest in the UK being an open, successful trading nation. It is imperative that, as the United Kingdom leaves the EU, all the Administrations of the UK benefit from a unified approach wherever possible. That is possible only through the strength of our relationships.
Our regular work with the devolved Administrations includes formal meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee and ministerial forums, as well as programmes of work at official level. Alongside regular bilateral discussions, the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations provides a forum in which the UK Government and the devolved Administrations can discuss the progress of the negotiations and the domestic issues arising from EU exit. Of course, we recognise that engagement cannot remain static and has to evolve with our requirements.
As has rightly been highlighted today, respect for devolution is key to the constitutional integrity of the Union. The UK Government are resolute in their commitment to the devolution settlements. Devolution is about working together to deliver for the whole UK, and we remain committed to giving the different nations of the UK the space they need to pursue different domestic policies while protecting and preserving the benefits of being part of a wider United Kingdom.
Patrick Grady
If all this is so important, and if respecting devolution is so important, can the Minister explain why, for the first time in history, this House and this Government have chosen to override the will of the Scottish Parliament by passing the EU (Withdrawal) Bill without a legislative consent memorandum?
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Gentleman will know full well that this Government engaged massively with both the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government, and we went a long way in listening to the views that were represented by both Governments. The Welsh Government, thankfully, recognise that the UK Government have come a long way and have produced a measure that is acceptable. It is a shame that the Scottish Government want to play politics.
A number of important elements of our Union have been discussed today, and I thank the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) for highlighting in her opening speech the role of the armed forces in the Union. I take this opportunity to do the same, and it is clear that in my new position at the Ministry of Defence I will see, on a daily basis, the armed forces’ important contribution to ensuring the security of everyone in the UK.
As my hon. Friend also said, it is not just in defence that the Union has value. Our health services work together under the banner of the NHS—a banner that has turned 70 this year—meaning that whether a person is in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, they can walk into a hospital anywhere and be treated with the care and dedication for which the service is known.
I will now address some of the points that have been raised today. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), who led for the Opposition, talked about youth unemployment. Well, I am proud that under this Government youth unemployment has come down 40% from the high level we inherited from her Government, and that employment in this country is at its highest level since the 1970s.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) spoke up for his constituency. The thorny issue of potholes always seems to come up in politics, and I am glad he was able to raise it in this debate somehow. I hope his relationship with his local newspaper editor will improve as time goes by.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) said that he did not want to go into the detail of the independence referendum, and I wonder why. He gave us a long history, which was very interesting indeed, but he skirted over the issues that did not suit his own argument. On the issue of intergovernmental relations, the Government recognise that we need to review the structures and ensure they are fit for purpose, which is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister led the discussions at the JMC in March at which all Ministers agreed that officials will look at the arrangement and will involve the devolved Administrations as we pursue that future working relationship.
My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) was right to talk about the Northern Ireland Assembly and about the abolition of tolls on the Severn bridge. Many people cross our borders every day to go to work. I saw an interesting statistic the other day that, in the Wrexham authority, 40% of people who work actually go to work across the border, which shows how important the Union is to people who go to work every day.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) was very critical of the Chequers agreement. I see the Chequers agreement as a pragmatic and sensible plan for our leaving the European Union. He also talked about the national health service, and I am proud this Government have committed to putting an extra £20 billion into it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) talked about the city deals. He rightly said that £1 billion has gone to Scotland so far through those deals, and more will be on its way. We are devolving more powers to many parts of England and Wales through similar deals.
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) talked about heckling, which seems a bit rich, as he certainly likes to heckle a bit. He was very doom and gloom about Brexit, painting a dark picture. I think I will just repeat some of his words back to him. At business questions last week, he said:
“There might be the occasional rhetorical flourish, an over-emphasis here and there perhaps, or even a bit of exaggeration”.—[Official Report, 19 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 600.]
I will leave it there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) talked about his partnership with his wife for 40-plus years, so I congratulate him on that. He was right to point out that there is no such thing as a power grab here, as we will be giving more powers and those powers will be transferring to the Scottish Government. That is exactly why, as he pointed out, they have had to appoint more Ministers to cope with it. There were so many other speakers that I cannot go through them all, but my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) was right to talk about the importance of the investment in defence. I am sure I will be dealing with him a lot more in the coming months in my new role, and perhaps he will answer the phone a bit quicker to me now than he did when I was his Whip.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
Given that the Minister is now a Defence Minister, I hope he will be able to help me. What was the promise made by the then Defence Secretary, now the Chancellor, during the independence referendum on troop numbers in Scotland? How far off target are the Government right now?
Stuart Andrew
The honest answer is: I do not know the answer to that question, but I will be honest about it and I will happily get back to the hon. Gentleman if he will allow me.
The hon. Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) talked about how sad it is that people feel they have to choose between being Scottish or British, which is an important point. I consider myself Welsh, but I am very proud to be British, too. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) rightly pointed out that people such as Alex Salmond will never respect the result of the referendum, and that it is only the Conservative party that respected both the 2014 and 2016 referendums.
The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) rightly said that this is not a pointless end of term debate. The Union is incredibly important to this country and to this Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) reminded us that he is the only PPS to have served the Wales Office, Scotland Office and Northern Ireland Office. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) made an interesting point when he said that the Union is not a cul-de-sac but a highway. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) rightly made a point about the tone of our politics. It is outrageous to see banners that have words such as “Tory scum out” on them, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for making the intervention he did—he was right to do so. This debate does get heated and it has high passions, but, as a number of people have said, it is right that we treat each other with decency.
The final contributions came from the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney); the hon. Member for Glasgow South, who was kind about my recent appointment; and, of course, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who talked about sport. That brought us back to one thing I have noticed that really unites us. If Wales are playing, I will cheer them on, but I was more than happy to share in the celebrations as England went through the stages of the recent World cup. That is what we should all do. We should celebrate the great things that unite us as a nation. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have so many different characteristics and cultural contributions to make, but that is what makes this Union such a unique and special thing that we should be proud of and it must continue.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered strengthening the Union.
Business without Debate
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Home Affairs Committee
Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Petitions
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I rise to present a petition from constituents from the neighbouring constituency of Great Yarmouth. They are concerned that the “Home Education—Call for Evidence and revised DfE guidance” has been written following significant consultation with local authorities but with no consultation with the home education community; that the revised guidance encourages local authorities to breach article 8 of the European convent on human rights and the general data protection regulations; and, further, that there is no way for parents to address ultra vires behaviour by their local authority.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of Great Yarmouth constituency,
Declare that the “Home Education—Call for Evidence and revised DfE guidance” has been written following significant consultation with local authorities and no consultation whatsoever with the home education community; further that the consultation is consequently for little more than show as an intention to implement the content has already been stated: further that it seeks to encourage local authorities to breach the ECHR Article 8 and the GDPR; and further that the report provides no accessible means for a parent to address ultra vires behaviour by their local authority, where many of those authorities already act routinely in an ultra vires manner.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to withdraw the draft guidance and the consultation, until it has put in place an accessible and workable complaints procedure and further has consulted with home educating parents, as it has with Local Authorities, what the contents should include.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002232]
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of some of my constituents. There are 167 households in my constituency that have been affected by mis-selling of the green deal scheme.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Glasgow North East,
Declares that the Government backed Green Deal Scheme has affected petitioners as we have suffered a detriment to both our finances, our private and family lives; further that many vulnerable residents have invested their life savings in good faith, and others have accrued up to £17,000 debt to pay for the work that was carried out; and further that in many cases the installer did not apply for building warrants and as a result we are unable to sell our properties or have the assurance that they are safe to live in, or can be insured.
The petitioners therefore urge the House of Commons to ensure that the Government will compensate and protect people who have found themselves suffering a detriment because of this Government backed Scheme, and take steps to ensure that this cannot happen in the future.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002231]
Mamba: Societal Effect
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
I am delighted finally to lead this debate about the effect on society of the drug Mamba, which is a growing issue both in my constituency and in similar towns across the UK.
Mamba, also known as Black Mamba, is one of several synthetic cannabis products that have emerged on the drugs market in recent years. Members might also have heard of Spice, which was originally a brand name for a version of synthetic cannabis. These drugs contain a herbal smoking mixture that has been mixed with a group of drugs known as synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists, or SCRAs for short.
Spice and Mamba are now used as nicknames for any type of herbal mixture that has been coated with an SCRA. They were sold as legal highs until the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 came into force, so this is a very recent challenge, which perhaps explains why we seem to be fairly unprepared for dealing with it.
Mamba and Spice were initially seen as an alternative version of cannabis but, as I will go on to say, they bear a closer resemblance to harder drugs such as heroin. The name “synthetic cannabis” is in many ways unhelpful, because it draws comparisons with cannabis that are largely untrue, and the impact is certainly far worse both for individuals and for communities. These drugs are often known as “zombie drugs” for the terrible effects that they have on their users. After consuming Mamba, users often resemble zombies, slumped in a state of semi-consciousness, sometimes foaming at the mouth and sometimes passed out in the street. Tom in my office has given CPR to drug users on multiple occasions when they have passed out in the street outside my office during working hours in broad daylight. It is a huge strain on police, ambulance and hospital services, as well as on Tom’s nerves. These drugs vary wildly from drug to drug and even from batch to batch. They are often made by small-scale producers, so the quality is incredibly inconsistent and sometimes dangerous.
I know that many of my colleagues and Members across the House will have similar issues in their own constituencies. This is a national problem affecting every corner of the United Kingdom.
Ben Bradley
This is a national problem affecting every corner of the United Kingdom. In Mansfield town centre, like many town centres around the country, we have a persistent and growing problem with these drugs and the individuals who take them. Users tend to congregate in town in very public places. They consume Mamba and then stay in the town centre for hours in a semi-comatose zombified state. It is awful to see, and it has a terrible impact on users and a knock-on effect on the whole town and across society. It is no exaggeration to say that I receive an email or a message from constituents on this issue literally every single day.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this matter. As always, he has picked a subject, as he rightly says, that is very important across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Given that Spice is as addictive as heroin, does he not agree that it must be treated with the seriousness, and also with the sanctions, of heroin trafficking?
Ben Bradley
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Later in my speech, I will come on to why that is the case and to what I hope will be remedies for the issue as we currently find it. This comparison with cannabis in particular is neither fair nor realistic. It is more comparable with heroin, and it is important that it is treated in the same way, so that users and people experiencing this in the town centre get the same level of help and support as those addicted to heroin.
I am keen to use this opportunity to ask the Government to undertake a number of actions on this issue. First and foremost, I am concerned about the classification of these drugs. Before the ban on psychoactive substances in 2016, these drugs were sold either over the counter or online, under a variety of brand names. They were often seen as a new version of cannabis. I am pleased that the Government have banned these drugs and other “legal highs” but I am concerned that we have not gone far enough. These drugs are incredibly dangerous, they destroy lives and they are very clearly damaging my community in Mansfield as we speak.
Mamba is highly addictive and the withdrawal symptoms of Mamba and Spice are said to be worse than coming off cocaine or heroin.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the development of a new test for detecting Mamba would be of enormous value in the fight against this drug?
Ben Bradley
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There do not seem to be medical interventions into Mamba in the same way as there are with other drugs. Absolutely, being able to diagnose the cause of this zombified state would be very important and could help the police and local health services.
Anecdotally I have heard from constituents who have tried to overcome their Mamba addiction by moving on to heroin, because they say that it is easier to deal with and that there is more support and more medical intervention available to help them to quit heroin than there is for Mamba, which goes to show that this drug is not comparable with cannabis. This is a hard drug.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that in countries such as the Netherlands where cannabis has been legalised there is no demand for Mamba, Spice or any of those products?
Ben Bradley
As I have said, the comparison with cannabis is not a fair one. The challenge with these drugs is their affordability. They are illegal, but people can still get multiple hits for a fiver in the town centre. They were legal before, and perhaps we did not see the back street issue that we do now. The growing strength and poor quality of these drugs means that they are a growing health problem for many constituents.
Ronnie Cowan
That is the very point. Because these drugs are now illegal, we have driven them underground and put them into the hands of the criminals. The criminals are making them. We do not know the quality of these drugs. People who could be taking legal cannabis and would be happy taking legal cannabis have been driven into the hands of the criminals and are taking a product with no idea what is in it, and this is having the effects that the hon. Gentleman has so eloquently described.
Ben Bradley
The point I am trying to make is that cannabis is a totally different thing from these particular drugs. I would be happy to discuss whether we should legalise cannabis further down the line—different models exist around the world—but the point I am trying to make this evening is that the impact of these drugs is far worse than that of cannabis. I certainly do not think that we should go back to a scenario where these particular drugs are legalised. That would present huge challenges.
Users frequently suffer seizures, vomit, and have terrifying hallucinations and severe psychotic episodes. Seeing people in our town centres slumped against walls or hovering in this zombified state is horrific. It is awful for the users, who have literally lost control of their functions and are in desperate need of intervention and support, but it is also awful for other people in town. I have had the experience of trying to explain to my three-year-old son that the man on the floor is not dead and that he must be tired and asleep or whatever. I can easily understand why families contact me regularly, having had that experience, and then choose not to return to Mansfield town centre as a result.
As well as considering reclassification, we need a more joined-up strategy to help towns to deal with this issue. We need more help from the health service, including support programmes and the help for users that exists for other drugs such as heroin, but not for Mamba and Spice. Let me be clear; I am under no illusion that this is a simple issue. It is clear that the effects of Mamba on society are far-reaching and touch upon a number of Government Departments. Since being elected last year, I have focused on local issues, particularly homelessness in Mansfield and Warsop. Individuals who take these drugs are often facing their own personal crises, perhaps due to family breakdown, homelessness, other addictions or mental health problems. I am keen to look at the ways in which we can care for these individuals who are homeless and vulnerable, and who need assistance.
I pay credit to the charities, support workers and volunteers who help Mamba users in my constituency and around the east midlands. Relatively local to my constituency is the Nottingham Recovery Network, which runs a series of Mamba clinics in Nottingham to help users across the city. Next month, I am due to meet Neil Brooks, a clinical specialist who works in connection with the network, in order to learn more about his work and to speak directly to former Mamba users. Neil was kind enough to brief me on his work ahead of this debate. He is broadly supportive of the campaign to raise the classification of Mamba from class B to class A, and is also keen for the Government to look at the ways in which they can support detox programmes for Mamba users. The Nottingham Recovery Network has produced a series of notes that outline the situation locally and provide a useful insight into these drugs, which, after all, are relatively new on the scene. The notes paint a bleak picture.
I will take a couple of minutes to look in more detail at the current situation locally. There are no national figures for emergency hospital admissions for Spice-related incidents, but it is likely to be several thousand admissions a year. Not only is Mamba one of the cheapest drugs on the market; it is also one of the strongest. In their pure form, synthetic cannabinoids are either solids or oils. They are then added to herbs, vegetable matter or plant cuttings to make a smoking mixture, so that the result looks like cannabis.
A key feature of Mamba is the compound acetone. Dealers frequently use nail polish remover, which is used to bind the liquid to the herbal plant matter during production. As well as giving the drug a distinctive smell, acetone causes a variety of physical problems for Mamba users. What is even worse is that dealers and producers are frequently adding more and more acetone to their product to make their Mamba stronger. Alarmingly, the extra acetone content leads to the cost of the drug declining, making it more affordable, but obviously much more dangerous. Mamba continues to drop in price—from £60-£70 an ounce, to now regularly selling for £40-£50 an ounce or even lower. The price of a bag bought on the street remains at about £5, typically providing four hits, so hon. Members will understand why it is becoming the drug of choice for hard drug users.
Mamba is also having an impact in our prisons. Unlike traditional cannabis, Mamba and Spice have a much lower odour, making it difficult for prison staff to tell when inmates are smoking the drugs. There are already considerable pressures on the prison system, but the prevalence of these drugs makes the situation even more challenging for prison staff. It is five years or more since the first reports of these kinds of drugs being used in prisons, and the situation has not been solved. Even worse are the cases where prison staff, nurses or other support workers have encountered the drug by accident, including by inhaling second-hand smoke. The drug is so potent that the effects of inhaling second-hand smoke can be quite significant.
We need to take this seriously. Mamba is not a slightly harder version of cannabis or a recreational drug that users occasionally dabble in. It is becoming the more affordable version of heroin. It is the hard street drug of choice for users because of its affordability, and it is making towns such as Mansfield places that people do not want to visit—never mind the personal impact on the users themselves.
I am asking the Home Office to consider reviewing the classification of these so-called zombie drugs, because the current classification does not reflect the truly dangerous nature of these substances. Changing the classification would mean tougher penalties for manufacturers and dealers.
Ronnie Cowan
Has the hon. Gentleman considered what we would be saying to criminals by raising the classification of synthetic cannabis to class A? We would be saying to criminals who handle this drug, “We are going to hammer down on you for this, because we see this drug as more destructive.” They will therefore protect themselves and the people around them by increasing the levels of violence that they use on their people in their marketplace. That would mean that, yet again, it is the vulnerable people who would be the most punished by such a move.
Ben Bradley
I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The problem is the availability of these drugs—they are so easy to find. I have come across bags of it lying in the street in my town centre, just abandoned there. Part of the problem is that people dealing in it and taking it do not see any consequence to their situation. There are very few legal consequences. Later I will come on to some of the challenges with people going round and round the system because of this drug.
Making Mamba a class A drug would mean that it would become more of a risk to deal in it. As a result, the supply would decrease and prices would rise. It would also, crucially, give the police greater powers to prosecute offenders and to get dealers and users off our streets and out of our town centres, whether that is to support services, rehabilitation or, in some cases, prison.
Jim Shannon
I fully support what the hon. Gentleman says. It is quite clear that we need legislation in place to prevent this drug from destroying lives and destroying the future for many people. It is not sufficient to say that if we legalise it in some places that makes it better—it does not. We need to make sure that it is not legalised and thereby we make sure that people do not have access to it.
Ben Bradley
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I want to draw the distinction, again, between these drugs and cannabis. They are totally different propositions. There may be an argument for a discussion about the legalisation of cannabis; that is obviously a hot topic at the moment. However, these drugs do not fall into that category—there is genuinely not enough legislation and not enough consequence to taking these drugs. Some of us have seen the impact in town centres; it sounds as though the hon. Gentleman has. The impact that this is having on Mansfield, in particular, is horrendous to see.
Ronnie Cowan
Following the hon. Gentleman’s logic, he wants to crack down on Mamba after a series of crackdowns over the years on other hard drugs, but that has hardly been a raging success, has it? All we have seen is the escalation of drugs on our streets. They are so readily available because they are in the hands of criminals, and we do not know what is in them. Coming down hard on vulnerable users and low-level drug dealers does not stop or interrupt the flow of harmful drugs to our streets for any more than a couple of hours. They are soon back and doing it again. All we are doing is playing into the hands of the criminals.
Ben Bradley
This has to be about support from all sides. A legal line has to be drawn—there have to be ramifications to taking these drugs. There need to be support services and medical intervention. As I have said, medical interventions do not exist for these drugs in the same way as they do for heroin and others. It is becoming increasingly apparent to me in Mansfield town centre that the users of this drug see no legal consequence to literally walking through the streets shouting about having taken it, in front of families, children and whoever else. They are in and out of prison with no consequence. They can go round and round the legal system without any ultimate price to pay. For a homeless person, sometimes a bed in a prison is better than their normal situation. We have to come at this situation from all angles—support, policing, medical intervention and various other aspects that can help to deal with it—because it certainly cannot be allowed to carry on as it is. However, I fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point.
It is also vital that we get the message across in schools. Obviously we talk about drugs in schools, but Mamba is relatively new, and it is dangerous. We need to stop people experimenting with the drug in the first place and make sure that they are aware of the dangers.
While the zombified images of users are bad enough—they are flowing around my constituents’ Facebook pages as we speak—let us not forget that these drugs can also be deadly. In March, the deaths of seven men in Birmingham were linked to Mamba. It is not just adults; children are now accessing these substances. The examples I have read about have been absolutely terrifying. Earlier this year, an 11-year-old in Wales smoked synthetic cannabis and ended up in hospital in a high-dependency unit for 33 hours while doctors dealt with the effects it was having on his young body. Although toxicology reports are still pending, it is believed that a 14-year-old boy from Greater Manchester died earlier this year after taking Spice while having a sleepover at his house with friends. He died at the intensive care unit at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool.
It is horrendous that we now have children dying after taking these drugs. Local police in my constituency tell me they are concerned that more and more children are now associating themselves with groups of Mamba users, and that this could become a heightened risk over the summer holidays. These drugs share the same classification as cannabis but have far more severe side effects. Having sought the advice of local services, charities and the local police, I know that stakeholders on all sides broadly support the idea of reviewing the classification of Mamba and other synthetic drugs.
Policing this issue is largely managed locally. In June, I met Inspector Nick Butler, the neighbourhood policing inspector in my constituency, and it was good to discuss how the police were tackling it locally. He detailed his concerns about policing Mamba and the effects of Mamba usage on crime levels more broadly. In the past 12 months, the town centre in Mansfield has seen a 22% rise in antisocial behaviour and a 34% rise in shop theft. Much of it relates to street drinking and Mamba usage. There is a persistent group of offenders in the town centre consisting of about 20 individuals, many of whom are heavy drug users. The police know them well and regularly review their cases. The police and support services are trying to deal with the problem, but without the ability to take tough action or a national framework or best practise to draw upon.
It might help if I detail a local case that the police in Mansfield dealt with recently—it might also evidence my view that we need tougher legal ramifications. The example, which I have anonymised, illustrates why we need tougher action. In Mansfield, a male resident and Mamba user repeatedly threatened and assaulted shop staff, district council staff and police in the town centre. This went on for a year. He carried weapons such as flick knives and would not listen to advice or engage with any of the agencies providing support. In fact, he would become verbally abusive if support was offered.
He would take Mamba and other substances in the town centre on a daily basis and become extremely abusive. He would often collapse, which would require an ambulance call-out, but when an ambulance would arrive he would threaten to assault the paramedics. A criminal behaviour order was obtained with a condition that he was not to enter Mansfield town centre, but what happened? He breached the order immediately and was arrested and placed before the courts. This happened four times. He was warned each time by the magistrates court not to breach the order, but each time he would walk out of the court and straight into the town centre, showing a complete disregard for the legal system.
The next time he breached the order, he was placed before the magistrates court and given a £10 fine, but the court also amended his order to allow him to visit a church in the town centre that he said he needed to access support services. The court did not consult the church, which was not very happy, to say the least. After the hearing, he immediately breached the order again on leaving the court and was given a suspended 21-day sentence. Having breached the order for the eighth time in four weeks, he was imprisoned for 30 days. He has once again returned to the town centre, however, and continues to abuse members of the public. He has been arrested again and the court has now bailed him pending reports.
That case makes it only too apparent that individuals can breach orders again and again and just how difficult it is to deal with persistent offenders. My local police cannot figure out what else they can do beyond issuing criminal behaviour orders and moving people out of the town centre. We need to take action to change that. It seems that the police are limited in what they can do when the courts cannot or are not willing to implement tougher penalties.
Aside from that case, I have been contacted by many constituents raising concerns about the impact Mamba is having in our town centre. I have been contacted by staff from local shops, including independent shops and larger companies such as Wilko. Shop staff have raised concerns about threats that they receive at work. The level of shoplifting has risen—I mentioned the statistics earlier—which is having a real impact on the profitability and viability of stores in the town centre.
Ronnie Cowan
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of a project run by John Marks in the Wirral in the 1980s, where he gave medical heroin out to addicts, after which the crime rate dropped by 96%?
Ben Bradley
I am not aware of that, but I would never advocate giving out heroin to my constituents, and I do not think many of them would go along with it either. I would be interested to read about the project and see the science behind it, but I do not think I would ever be likely to condone that kind of action, if I am being honest.
The threat of violence and the possibility of business closures is causing understandable stress for retail workers locally. They do not deserve to have to deal with “Mamba zombies” as part of their daily work. The Government are working on a number of ways to support our high streets and town centres, but that good work can so easily be undermined by the presence of hard drug users in our town centres. I explained earlier the experience I had with my children, walking through town and trying to explain to them exactly what was going on with this drug use.
Mansfield has great potential in its town centre—independent shops, listed buildings, a lovely market square, amazing people—but I am concerned that the persistent group of drug users in the town centre is already putting people off, and that this reputation will continue to grow unless we take action. I have already touched upon some of the positive steps being taken locally, including work to co-ordinate the approach of the local police and local housing organisations’ outreach support. It is also good news that Mansfield District Council now has a specialist team to tackle drug-related antisocial behaviour in the town centre.
The purpose of this debate is not only to highlight the impact that Mamba is having on local communities, but to lobby the Government for change. I am keen that more action is taken to address the problem at a national level. I have been in contact with the Home Office about Mamba in recent weeks, and of course I welcome the various actions that have already been taken to deal with the misuse of such drugs. Since the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 came into force, banning such substances, hundreds of retailers across the UK have either closed or are no longer selling these drugs. Police have arrested suppliers, and the National Crime Agency has removed many such substances from UK-based websites.
There has been action—it has been a good start—but we need to review the classification of these drugs. We also clearly need a national strategy and support from central Government to help to tackle an issue that is not confined to Mansfield. It is a national problem, with many town centres across the UK experiencing similar problems, and I have heard from other Members about similar issues in their constituencies. We require a national framework, and I am calling on the Government to work with police forces, councils, charities and experts to put a framework in place to help towns and cities to deal with this problem effectively. Police and councils need some advice on how to deal with the problem at local level. Mamba usage is a relatively new problem with its own specific challenges, and the approach has been mixed because we do not have a national plan. While there are great examples, such as the clinic run by the Nottingham Recovery Network, the reality in many areas is that police forces, councils and charities have to deal with the issue without effective guidance and without the frameworks to ensure a collaborative cross-organisational approach.
We also need to investigate what medical interventions might be possible. It is easy to talk about drug users as a problem, but many obviously have their own personal issues and terrible personal circumstances that have lead them to this point. As far as I can see, there is no medical approach in the same way that there is for heroin users with methadone. I have not concentrated on that, because a Home Office Minister is responding to the debate and it is more of a Department of Health and Social Care issue. However, I hope that the Minister will consider that.
I am asking the Government to create a national strategy and framework, including clear guidelines and advice, to help those who are dealing with such drugs. I will be grateful if the Minister will talk to his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care about the medical interventions that may be available. Most importantly, the Government should consider reclassifying the drug so that it is more comparable with heroin and cocaine than marijuana, to give the police the opportunity to deal with it in the same way. This is an incredibly serious problem that we need to address head on.
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)
Since being elected, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) has been a tireless champion for his constituents, and I congratulate him on securing a debate on an issue that is clearly causing a great deal of concern in Mansfield. As he rightly points out, that concern is shared across many town centres, which was reflected in a recent Westminster Hall debate on the subject, and I saw for myself while out on patrol with the police on the streets of Newcastle just what a damaging and unsettling effect these so-called zombie drugs can have. As he points out, such drugs have also been linked to deaths, with 27 in 2016 according to the Office for National Statistics, so we are talking about a serious issue.
As my hon. Friend said, this is a relatively recent challenge, but it is a growing one, and I hope I can assure him that the Government are taking it seriously. We are not going as far as he would like at this point, but the subject is kept regularly under review because we are aware of how dangerous such drugs can be, of the devastating impact that they can have on families and the individuals taking them and of how unsettling they are for communities. As he pointed out, such drugs are often more potent that cannabis and their effects are not well understood. Batches vary in strength, making it easy to use too much. Using such drugs can cause immediate side effects such as panic and hallucinations, long-term harm such as psychosis, and dependence. That was why we acted to control these substances as class B drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to give the police the powers they need to take action, including making possession illegal and providing longer sentences for dealers.
Mr Hurd
I am not going to take interventions, because the hon. Gentleman took up a lot of time during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, and I have a short amount of time in which to respond and pay sufficient respect to the subject.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, the use of new psychoactive substances has fallen significantly since we introduced the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Thanks to that legislation, hundreds of retailers have either closed down or are no longer selling psychoactive substances, and the first offenders have been convicted. He expressed a note of scepticism about police powers. While there were 28 convictions in England and Wales in 2016, with seven jailed under the new powers, that rose to 152 convictions with 62 people immediately sent to custody in 2017.
My hon. Friend’s central point was his desire, shared by colleagues in the House—I am thinking particularly of our mutual hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—to see synthetic cannabinoids such as Mamba and Spice reclassified from class B to class A drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. I understand the argument my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield is making specifically about wanting to introduce more risk into the dealing of these highly dangerous drugs. He will appreciate that the controls we have put in place are relatively recent, and their impact is being monitored closely. The Government rely heavily on advice from the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs. Its position at the moment is not to reclassify synthetic cannabinoids.
Mr Hurd
I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I will not give way to him, because I am responding to the debate.
I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield that the Government will continue to keep an eye on the area and will continue to engage with colleagues who have a deep concern. In the absence of the decisive move that he is arguing for, the key in the short term is cross-sector partnership work at the local level, as he pointed out. I am aware of the approach being taken in Mansfield, which he rightly praised. I am also aware of the work that the police there have undertaken along with other agencies to tackle problems with the use of these drugs. He talked about the need for a national framework. He may or may not be aware that the national policing lead for drugs has provided forces with operational guidance setting out tactical options for dealing with synthetic cannabinoids. I will keep under review the need for broader national guidelines on best practice in relation to cross-partnership working, which is the key here.
In my hon. Friend’s area, there is close work between partners including the drugs monitoring group, which identifies general drug problems and emerging trends in Nottinghamshire; the professional information network, which shares intelligence and learning among partner agencies in the area about emerging psychoactive substances, including Mamba; and the police, who disrupt the supply and distribution. I am also aware of a problem profile of the drug that Nottinghamshire police have drawn up. My hon. Friend may be aware of that.
On top of that work, Mansfield—along with Nottingham, Rushcliffe, Gedling, Broxtowe, Ashfield, Newark and Sherwood and Bassetlaw—is receiving £370,000 over two years to provide a Nottinghamshire rough sleeper prevention service. My hon. Friend will know of the clear links between these drugs and rough sleeping. That money will help rough sleepers to access support services, including substance misuse services.
Another very good example of multi-agency working has taken place in Manchester. A study was commissioned to understand the scale and nature of the problem in the area, and the multi-agency approach there appears to be working. It includes enforcement work to tackle the dealing of these drugs; working with treatment services to ensure that synthetic cannabis users are receiving treatment; increasing the numbers of trained outreach workers; fast-tracking users to a range of services; and local voluntary sector support to police and ambulance services. I commend the work in Manchester, as well as that in Nottinghamshire, including Mansfield.
I have made the connection with rough sleeping, because the increasing use of synthetic cannabinoids among rough sleepers reflects the fact that, as my hon. Friend pointed out, they are cheaper, stronger and more accessible than other substances, such as heroin, crack cocaine or alcohol. Local strategies must therefore cover rough sleeping. As he knows, the Government take this issue very seriously. We will be bringing forward our rough sleeping strategy later this summer, which will make an important contribution.
In conclusion, I again thank my hon. Friend for securing this Adjournment debate on a very important topic. I hope I have made it clear that the Government are not sitting on our hands. We recognise across the Government that this issue is best tackled by working collaboratively. There is no overnight solution, but the set of measures I have set out shows the strong links between the use of synthetic cannabinoids and vulnerable groups, and this Government are determined to take the necessary action to get on top of this growing problem—
Ministerial Correction
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on this extremely welcome statement. As a fellow Surrey MP, he will be only too aware of the importance of the space industry to our county and of the astonishing success of the work in our county for the country. Will he confirm that if the EU remains determined on this astonishing act of self-harm as regards the development of the Galileo project, it will have to bear the long-term costs of the loss of all the British enterprise and expertise in this area, and that we will be free of the immensely bureaucratic allocation of jobs under this European programme, as is reflected in European defence and other space programmes as well? Once we are free to put our expertise within the international alliances where we can get the best possible return on our scientific expertise, so much the better, and in the long term it will be our 27 partners who bear the cost of this astonishing decision.
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Were the UK not to continue to participate in the Galileo programme, not only would the programme be delayed but it would cost EU member states a lot more. Surrey Satellite Technology has been responsible for the cryptography and encryption of the Galileo system, and CGI UK, which has a presence in Surrey, has been responsible for building a number of the satellites. So the expertise and skills necessary to deliver the Galileo system reside in the UK, and were the EU to adopt what I consider to be an irrational position and not allow the UK to fully participate, we would not only take the action we need to take to protect critical national infrastructure, but we would also be at liberty to partner with other countries around the world, not only to develop our own global navigation and satellite system but to develop our space sector.
[Official Report, 18 July 2018, Vol. 645, c. 444.]
Letter of correction from Sam Gyimah:
An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).
The correct response should have been:
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Were the UK not to continue to participate in the Galileo programme, not only would the programme be delayed but it would cost EU member states a lot more. CGI UK has been responsible for the cryptography and encryption of the Galileo system, and Surrey Satellite Technology, which has a presence in Surrey, has been responsible for building a number of the satellites. So the expertise and skills necessary to deliver the Galileo system reside in the UK, and were the EU to adopt what I consider to be an irrational position and not allow the UK to fully participate, we would not only take the action we need to take to protect critical national infrastructure, but we would also be at liberty to partner with other countries around the world, not only to develop our own global navigation and satellite system but to develop our space sector.
Petitions
Home Education: draft guidance and the consultation
Felixstowe Academy
Written Statements
Business Policy
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
I will this morning lay before Parliament a draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill which establishes a register of the beneficial owners of overseas entities that own UK property. This follows the commitment made at the anti-corruption summit in 2016 to establish such a register, in order to combat money laundering and achieve greater transparency in the UK property market.
Overseas entities will be required to register their beneficial ownership information with Companies House before obtaining legal title to UK property via the land registries. Overseas entities that own UK property when the requirements come into force, as well as any overseas entities that subsequently acquire UK property, will be required to register (and regularly update) their beneficial ownership information before they can undertake certain transactions with that property, such as selling or leasing the land, or creating a legal charge over the land, such as a mortgage.
This will deliver a world-first register, and builds upon the UK Government’s global leadership in tackling corruption, ensuring that the UK continues to be a great place to do business.
The draft Bill will be published with accompanying explanatory notes, an overview document and impact assessment and research report on the potential impacts. The draft Bill will undergo pre-legislative scrutiny to ensure that it is robust and workable. The Government intend to introduce the legislation early in the second Session of this Parliament.
[HCWS897]
Engaging the Devolved Administrations
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mr David Lidington)
I wish to update the House on recent and ongoing engagement between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations and my intentions for maintaining and strengthening intergovernmental relations moving forward.
The UK Government are committed to strong and effective relations with the devolved Administrations of the United Kingdom. As we leave the EU, and in the years ahead, we must continue to strengthen the bonds that unite us, because ours is the world’s most successful union.
It is imperative that, as the United Kingdom prepares to leave the EU, the needs and interests of each nation are considered and that the UK Government and devolved Administrations benefit from a unified approach wherever possible. That is only possible through the strength of our relationships and continued constructive engagement through a number of fora at ministerial and official level.
As chair of the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations (JMC(EN)), I seek to provide through these meetings the opportunity for meaningful engagement at the right time, to focus discussion on the most pertinent issues, understand where positions between the Administrations differ and find and build on common ground. JMC(EN) has met on five occasions so far this year, to discuss the progress of EU negotiations as well as domestic issues arising from the UK’s departure from the European Union. It is my intention to convene another meeting in September and that the Committee should continue to meet regularly as we approach exit day.
Meetings of JMC(EN) have allowed for considerable progress in a number of shared priority areas, including agreement on a set of principles for establishing common UK frameworks for certain powers as they return from the EU. They also enabled an agreement with the Welsh Government on amendments to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill and the establishment of a new ministerial forum on EU negotiations (MF(EN)) and official-level technical working group sessions to enhance engagement with the devolved Administrations on the UK’s negotiating position. This forum has met on two occasions—in Edinburgh and London—since it was set up in May. The next meeting is due to take place in Cardiff on 1 August and the forum will continue to meet regularly, while remaining flexible to the emerging rhythm of negotiations.
Meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee on Europe (JMC(E)) also continue to be held in advance of each European Council meeting, providing a forum to discuss the UK Government position on issues being discussed at the European Council that are of an interest to the devolved Administrations.
Officials from all Administrations continue to work together to take forward EU-exit related programmes of work including on frameworks. Recent frameworks engagement has included a number of substantive multilateral discussions on areas where legislative frameworks are envisaged, in whole or in part. We will continue to discuss these areas with the devolved Administrations over the summer.
UK Government officials worked closely with the Scottish and Welsh Governments to develop the provisions that are now in the EU (Withdrawal) Act. While we were able to reach agreement with the Welsh Government, it is disappointing we were not able to reach that same agreement with the Scottish Government. The Northern Ireland civil service has been kept fully informed of the progress of discussions, but it would be for an incoming Northern Ireland Executive to engage with this agreement. This agreement is without prejudice to the re-establishment of a Northern Ireland Executive and the intergovernmental agreement remains open to incoming Ministers in a future Northern Ireland Executive. The Government remain committed to the full restoration of the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, as the Prime Minister clearly set out to the people of Northern Ireland and the political parties, during her visit of 19-20 July.
The UK Government will continue to seek legislative consent for Bills according to the established practices and conventions, listen to and take account of the views of devolved Administrations, and work with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and Northern Ireland officials on future legislation, just as we always have.
The UK Government and devolved Administrations are also working together to amend laws that would not work appropriately when we leave the EU to ensure we have a fully functioning statute book.
The Cabinet Office works closely with the Scotland Office, the Wales Office and the Northern Ireland Office in overseeing intergovernmental relations and the devolution settlements, as well as in ensuring the UK Government advance the interests of each nation within a stronger United Kingdom. The territorial Secretaries of State engage not only with the devolved Administrations but with stakeholders across the devolved nations, ensuring that the interests of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are fully and effectively represented in the UK Government.
The UK Government also recognise the need to ensure our intergovernmental structures continue to work effectively. The Prime Minister led a discussion on the issue at the plenary meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on 14 March, attended by the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales. Ministers agreed that officials should take forward a review of the existing inter- governmental structures and the underpinning memorandum of understanding and report their findings to the Committee in due course. This work is now under way, with UK Government officials working closely with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations.
My Cabinet colleagues of course continue to engage with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations on a regular basis on a wide range of policy matters relating to EU exit and ongoing Government business.
[HCWS905]
Reserve Forces and Cadets Association External Scrutiny Team Report 2018
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)
I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of a report into the condition of the reserves and delivery of the Future Reserves 2020 programme compiled by the Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations external scrutiny team.
I am most grateful to the team for its work. In particular, I thank Lieutenant General Robin Brims, who has led the team since 2012, as he leaves that role. I will take some short time to consider the report’s findings and recommendations and will provide a full response to the team in due course.
[HCWS903]
Foreign Affairs Council
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
The United Kingdom’s (UK) permanent representative to the European Union, Sir Tim Barrow, represented the UK at the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC). It was chaired by the High Representative and Vice President of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HRVP), Federica Mogherini. The meeting was held in Brussels.
Current Affairs
Ministers reviewed the situation in Gaza and the meeting of the Joint Commission of the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPoA) in Vienna on 6 July. The UK reported on the Western Balkans summit that took place in London on 9 and 10 July. Ministers noted that the EU-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) meeting and Somalia Partnership Forum would take place in Brussels on 16 July.
Eastern Partnership
Ministers discussed the Eastern Partnership ahead of the Eastern Partnership ministerial meeting that will take place in October. They reaffirmed the commitment of the EU to the region, to the reform agenda, and to the priorities identified as the ‘20 deliverables for 2020’, to achieve a stronger economy, governance, connectivity and society. The Council confirmed the continuing relevance of a tailor-made and differentiated approach for each of the six countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine) in their relations with the EU. Ministers noted the progress made in the six countries but also underlined the need to step up reforms in areas such as governance, justice, the fight against corruption, economic reform and the business environment. They expressed particular concern over the situation in the Republic of Moldova. Finally, Ministers highlighted the importance of using the opportunity that the 10th anniversary of the partnership in 2019 would present, to highlight the EU’s commitment to the region.
Libya
The HRVP reported back on her visit to Libya on 14 July. Ministers reiterated their support for the Secretary General of the United Nations’ (UN) special representative, Ghassan Salame. Ministers stressed the need to accelerate work towards elections and that a proper constitutional and legal framework must be in place before they take place. They welcomed the resolution of the recent crisis in the oil crescent but underlined the importance of addressing the causes. Ministers agreed that the EU should increase its work with the UN to ensure that revenues from oil are distributed in a transparent manner and highlighted the results of the EU’s work on the ground on migration.
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
During discussions on the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), Ministers reiterated their full commitment to support efforts towards complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the EU’s readiness to facilitate steps towards this objective. In line with the EU’s policy of critical engagement, Ministers underlined the importance of continuing to maintain pressure through sanctions, while keeping channels of communication open. They also agreed to encourage the DPRK to sign and ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty.
The Council agreed a number of measures without discussion:
The Council adopted conclusions on the International Criminal Court on the 20th anniversary of the statute of Rome;
The Council adopted a decision and regulations on Maldives restrictive measures;
Iran: blocking statute: The Council indicated its intention not to object to the Commission delegated regulation;
The Council adopted a decision on the extension of tariff preferences to the Western Sahara in the association agreement with Morocco to the Western Sahara;
The Council endorsed the Common Foreign and security policy report 2018;
The Council adopted negotiating directives for the HRVP to negotiate an enhanced partnership and co-operation agreement with Uzbekistan;
The Council approved the opening of an EU delegation to Turkmenistan;
The Council agreed the proposal to open an EU delegation to Kuwait;
The Council concluded the partnership and cooperation agreement between the EU and Singapore;
The Council adopted al-Qaeda restrictive measures.
[HCWS896]
Health and Social Care Update
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) published its second annual report on 4 May 2018, which covered the period from 1 July 2016 to 30 November 2017. The programme is led by the Norah Fry Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Bristol and commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) on behalf of NHS England.
As I outlined to the House on 8 May (Official Report, 8 May 2018, Vol. 640, Col. 545), the report makes a series of national recommendations that are aimed at NHS England, as well as health and care commissioners and providers.
This Government are committed to reducing the health inequalities that people with learning disabilities face, and reducing the number of people with learning disabilities whose deaths may have been preventable with different health and care interventions.
There is already a considerable amount of work underway to address the issues raised in the second annual report of the LeDeR. The Department is working with NHS England and other system partners to agree meaningful actions to each of the nine recommendations, and our response to the report will be published after summer recess.
[HCWS906]
EU Settlement Scheme
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary laid before Parliament on Friday 20 July a statement of changes in immigration rules [Cm 9675] concerning the EU settlement scheme for resident EU citizens and their family members. The Government also laid before Parliament on Friday 20 July the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018, which provide for the fees and fee exemptions for the scheme.
As set out in the statement of intent published on 21 June 2018, and in my oral statement that day about the scheme (columns 508-520), the EU settlement scheme will be opened on a phased basis from later this year and will be fully open by 30 March 2019, and this will be preceded by a private beta phase to enable us to test the relevant processes and ensure that they work effectively. These measures, together with the Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 on biometric enrolment for the scheme, which were laid on 2 July under the affirmative procedure, will enable this private beta phase to begin from 28 August 2018.
I am very grateful to the 15 public sector organisations set out in the statement of changes in immigration rules which have agreed to take part in the private beta phase. They are 12 NHS Trusts and three universities in the north-west of England, whose relevant employees and students will, if they wish, be able to apply for status under the EU settlement scheme during this period, It is appropriate that the national health service and the higher education sector, which both benefit so greatly from the contribution of EU citizens, should help in this way to establish the EU settlement scheme. As indicated in the statement of intent, we will provide further details in due course of our plans for the phased roll-out of the scheme.
We also continue to expand our wider communications about the EU settlement scheme to ensure that EU citizens and their family members living in the UK are aware of it and of how it will operate, but are also reassured that, in line with the draft withdrawal agreement, they will have plenty of time (until 30 June 2021) in which to apply for status under the scheme.
[HCWS901]
Government Transparency Report
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)
I have today laid before the House the third iteration of the Government transparency report on the use of disruptive and investigatory powers (Cm 9609). Copies of the report will be made available in the Vote Office.
In view of the ongoing threat from terrorism, including five attacks in the UK since the previous publication of this report, and the persistent threats from organised crime and hostile state activity, it is vital that our law enforcement and security and intelligence agencies can use disruptive and investigatory powers to counter those threats and to keep the public safe. This report sets out the way in which those powers are used by the agencies and the stringent safeguards and independent oversight which governs their use.
As this report shows, there has been a marked increase in the use of certain powers since publication of the second iteration in 2017. This is largely a reflection of our commitment to disrupt and manage the return and threat posed by UK-linked individuals in Syria and Iraq.
This Government remain committed to increasing the transparency of the work of our security and intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and this next iteration of the transparency report is a key part of that commitment.
Publishing this report ensures that the public are able to access, in one place, a guide to the range of powers used to combat threats to the security of the United Kingdom, the extent of their use, and the safeguards and oversight in place to ensure they are used properly.
[HCWS900]
Justice and Home Affairs Post-Council Statement
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)
The first meeting of EU Interior and Justice Ministers during the Austrian presidency took place on 12 and 13 July in Innsbruck. A senior Government official represented the UK for Interior day. The Secretary of State for Justice represented the UK on Justice day.
Interior day focused on the follow-up to the June European Council on migration. Discussion reflected on the progress made since the 2015 migration crisis, and the challenges that the EU continues to face. There was broad consensus on the need for strong external border protection, as well as the establishment of regional disembarkation platforms. Member states agreed that the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) reforms, including Dublin IV, should be negotiated as a package. The UK continues to support a comprehensive approach to migration but does not support a mandatory redistribution system within the EU and has not opted into the Dublin IV regulation.
The lunch debate was centred around anti-Semitism and European values. A number of Jewish organisations presented to Ministers their view of the situation for Jews in Europe. Ministers agreed on the importance of combating anti-Semitism in all its forms, and noted the importance of combating online hate speech. The UK condemns all forms of extremism.
Community policing and human trafficking was the final discussion on Interior day, where Ministers discussed practical methods to improve trust between police forces and communities.
Justice day began with a consideration of the Commission’s e-evidence proposals. The UK is currently considering whether to opt in to the e-evidence regulation. Member states considered the opportunities and challenges in negotiating a bilateral EU agreement with the US to enable direct execution of requests for electronic evidence, including concerns over fundamental rights. The Secretary of State for Justice intervened to set out the progress to date on the UK-US agreement, noting the passage of the CLOUD Act in the US and offering to share UK experience to support the Commission.
During the discussion on “Enhancing judicial co-operation in civil matters”, the Commission urged ambition in adopting e-Codex (e-Justice Communication via Online Data Exchange) and the greater use of videoconferencing under the two proposed regulations on service and taking of evidence. The Secretary of State for Justice noted that the proposed regulation for taking of evidence would mean that where evidence is being obtained directly by a court from a person domiciled in another member state, the person from whom the evidence is requested will be compelled to provide it, and that the implications of this will need to be considered. He also expressed the UK’s view that consideration needs to be given to the proportionate costs of e-Codex in relation to requests being served through unsecure post.
Justice day ended with a working lunch on “Mutual recognition in criminal matters”, during which Ministers discussed the areas of judicial co-operation that would require a strengthening of mutual trust.
[HCWS899]
Local Government Update
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)
Professor Alexis Jay’s report (2014) into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham and Louise Casey’s follow up report (2015) exposed the serious systemic failures by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council to protect vulnerable children from sexual exploitation.
In response, the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the then Secretary of State for Education took immediate action to protect the children of Rotherham. In February 2015, they appointed commissioners to take over all of the authority’s executive, and some of the non-executive, functions and drive a programme of improvement.
With the support of commissioners, the council has made steady and significant progress in its improvement journey. As a result, my predecessors were able to return functions to the council on four separate occasions: 11 February 2016, 13 December 2016, 21 March 2017 and 12 September 2017.
In her recent progress reports (February and May 2018) and letter (21 March 2018), lead commissioner Mary Ney has recommended that the intervention in Rotherham can now be concluded: “the political and senior officer leadership of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is able to function and continue its improvement without the need of Commissioner oversight.”
The evidence provided to support these recommendations, includes the report of the independent health check, which was undertaken in February 2018 and supported by the Local Government Association. Furthermore, in January 2018 Ofsted rated Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council’s children’s services as ‘good’.
As this is a joint intervention with the Department for Education, together with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), I have carefully considered the evidence put forward by commissioners. We have also met with them to discuss their recommendation in more detail. In addition, we have also met the Leader and Chief Executive of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in person and received assurances from them that they are confident the council is now in a position to drive forward and deliver its own improvement agenda.
As a result of this robust evidence provided by commissioners and the positive conversations with the council, I am pleased to announce that I am minded to exercise my powers under section 15 of the Local Government Act 1999 to revoke the Direction of 26 February 2015 as amended, and remove commissioners from the council and hand back the remaining executive functions to the council.
However, I am mindful that the decision to hand back the remaining functions, particularly children’s services, is a significant one. Therefore, I am also announcing that I am minded to put a new Direction in place which requires Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council to undertake an independent review before 31 March 2019 when the new Direction expires. This will enable a last check of the council’s performance once the commissioners have left.
I am inviting the council to make representations on these proposals, which will be considered as part of my final decision.
We are determined to protect children from harm, and we will do everything we can to prevent this from happening again—either in Rotherham or elsewhere. Government Departments are working collectively to ensure that the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood, and victims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, have the support that they need. The Home Secretary has written recently to Rotherham and the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner confirming Government’s commitment to working closely with Rotherham over the coming years to assess the demand on services, to encourage as many victims as possible to come forward and to provide support—financial and otherwise—where it is appropriate to do so. To date, the Home Office has provided £12.4 million of police special grant funding towards Operation Stovewood. The Department for Education is providing additional funding of up to £2 million to Rotherham’s children’s social care services, over the four year period 2017-21, for additional social workers to work with children in need of support as identified through Operation Stovewood. The Ministry of Justice has provided £1.6 million to the Police and Crime Commissioner to commission additional services locally and also committed around £549,000 extra funding to provide specialist support, including for the provision of Independent Sexual Violence Advisers. NHS England has worked with regional Health and Justice Commissioners and partners to reconfigure existing resources to support victims in Rotherham, providing £500,000 from 2018 to 2020 to support the sustainability of this project.
I am placing a copy of the documents associated with these announcements in the Library of the House and on my Department’s website.
[HCWS904]
Intelligence Policy Oversight
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
The 2016-17 annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee was laid before Parliament on 20 December 2017 (HC 655). I responded to this on the same day in a written ministerial statement. The Government have given additional consideration to the Committee’s many important conclusions and recommendations, and I have today laid a further Government response before the House (Cm 9678).
Copies of the response have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS902]
Government Response to Caste Consultation
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Penny Mordaunt)
No one should suffer prejudice or discrimination on any grounds, including any perception of their caste. In March last year, the Government launched a consultation on “Caste in Great Britain and Equality Law” to obtain the views of the public on how best to ensure that appropriate and proportionate legal protection exists for victims of caste discrimination. The consultation ran in total for six months, closing in September 2017.
I am publishing the Government’s response to that consultation today, together with an independent analysis of the consultation that provides an assessment of all the responses. This report should be read in conjunction with the Government’s response.
The consultation considered different ways of protecting people from caste discrimination. The first option was to implement a duty, which was introduced by Parliament in 2013, to make caste an aspect of race discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. The second was to rely on emerging case law which, in the view of Government, shows that a statutory remedy against caste discrimination is available through existing provisions in the Equality Act, and to invite Parliament to repeal the duty on that basis.
The consultation received over 16,000 responses, showing the importance of this issue for many people in particular communities. About 53% of respondents wanted to rely on the existing statutory remedy and repeal the duty, 22% rejected both options (mainly because they wished the Government to proscribe the concept of caste in British law altogether) and about 18% of respondents wanted the duty to be implemented. The arguments put forward for these different views are set out in the Government’s response and in more detail in the analysis.
The Government’s primary concern is to ensure that legal protection against caste discrimination is sufficient, appropriate and proportionate. After careful consideration of all the points raised in the consultation, we have decided to invite Parliament to repeal the duty because it is now sufficiently clear that the Equality Act provides this protection. The judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Tirkey v. Chandhok shows that someone claiming caste discrimination may rely on the existing statutory remedy where they can show that their “caste” is related to their ethnic origin, which is itself an aspect of race discrimination in the Equality Act.
The judgment is binding on all who bring a claim in an employment tribunal, has status equivalent to a High Court decision, and is based on the application of case law decided at a higher level. The Government consider, having also taken into account the consultation responses, that the Tirkey judgment serves as a welcome clarification of the existing protection under the Equality Act—helping to deter those inclined to treat others unfairly or unequally because of conceptions of caste. We believe that the decision makes the introduction of additional statutory protection in the Equality Act unnecessary.
In light of changed circumstances since 2013, we intend to legislate to repeal the duty for a specific reference to caste as an aspect of race discrimination in the Equality Act once a suitable legislative vehicle becomes available .
We recognise that this is an area of domestic law which may develop further, and have carefully considered the full terms of the Tirkey judgment. We will monitor emerging case law in the years ahead.
To make clear that caste discrimination is unacceptable we will, if appropriate, support a case with a view to ensuring that the higher courts reinforce the position set out in Tirkey v. Chandhok.
In order to ensure that people know their rights and what sort of conduct could be unlawful under the Equality Act, we also intend to produce short guidance before the repeal legislation is introduced. We want this to be of particular use to any individual who feels they may have suffered discrimination on grounds of caste. It should also help employers, service providers and public authorities who are outside those groups most concerned with caste and who may have little awareness of caste divisions.
I am placing a copy of the response and accompanying report in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS898]
House of Lords
Sport: Performance-Enhancing Drugs
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will give assistance to the governing bodies of individual sports to take steps to identify and prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs in junior and amateur sport.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, the Government recognise the vital importance of protecting the integrity of sport, and that includes keeping sport free from the scourge of doping. UK Anti-Doping—UKAD—an arm’s-length body of DCMS, supports sports’ governing bodies with a wide range of measures. These include the development of athlete education programmes, public information campaigns on emerging threats to clean sport, and an active deterrent programme which includes anti-doping testing and individual athlete intervention tactics.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. However, given that much of the information I have gathered on the subject shows that many part-time sportsmen are taking image as well as performance-enhancing drugs, will the Government consider putting pressure on certain TV programmes such as the all-pervading “Love Island”, in which many honed, buffed young bodies are shown to the general public, to make sure that these are all down to hard work and diet and not drugs?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I do not think “Love Island” has been officially classified as a sport yet. However, this is not the first time I have had to answer questions on “Love Island” and I take the noble Lord’s point. Image and performance-enhancing drugs, IPEDs, are a problem. UK Anti-Doping, the Government, educational authorities and sports’ governing bodies have to educate young people from an early age on the effects of these drugs and explain and inculcate a values-based system so that healthy nutrition, exercise, sleep and so on—healthy training, if you like—is the most important thing, not drugs.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, can the noble Lord elaborate on what international collaborative intelligence-gathering agreements are in place to monitor the distribution of IPEDs?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
UK Anti-Doping is a subsidiary body of the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, and talks internationally. I do not know the specifics—I am not sure I necessarily want to comment—but it is an international effort to remove the scourge of doping at all international and national sporting events.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the work of the Youth Sport Trust, which is particularly valuable in this area? As we know, nowadays sportsmen and women frequently appear in the honours lists which are released twice a year. It would be impossible to impose a condition, but might one suggest an expectation that those who are honoured in this way should offer themselves as role models, particularly in the field of discouraging performance-enhancing drugs.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I cannot think of a better example than that of the noble Lord, as a 1964 Olympic sprinter: he proves the point that role models are very important. It is important that those who receive honours are suitably checked so that they behave correctly—that is, not only legally but also in an ethical and moral sense.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, we have rightly talked about education and we congratulate the Government on significantly increasing the amount of money available to UKAD. However, there is the whole question of anticipating the development of such practices and preventing them. Such briefing as I have been able to put together suggests that internationally, there is a movement of illicit drugs and substances across borders. Can the Minister help us to understand whether, after the momentous events we are about to experience in coming out of Europe, the sharing of intelligence and the availability of cross-border information will apply in this particular area of endeavour?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Criminal activities are subject to the negotiations that will take place and the Home Office is responsible for those. On doping in sport, we already have an international system based on WADA which I do not think will change just because we are coming out of Europe. This is an international problem that extends far beyond the borders of Europe. However, I take the noble Lord’s point that it is very important that we continue with that system and I see no reason why we should not be able to.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that we need to ensure that we drive these drugs out of individual sports, both at amateur and professional level. It is important to drive them out of team sports as well, but it is also important that football clubs have grounds they can actually play at. Will the noble Lord take back to his honourable friend the Minister for Sport our thanks for her support for Dulwich Hamlet? However, the club is still locked out of its ground, and we are only allowed to play thanks to Tooting and Mitcham. We need further help to get back into our home ground at Champion Hill.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The answer is that I am delighted to take that message back—but it has absolutely nothing to do with doping in sport.
Jammu and Kashmir: Human Rights Abuses
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hussain
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to assist the implementation of the recommendations of the report published on 14 June by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights concerning human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir to hold an independent international inquiry to investigate abuses.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we raise our concerns about the human rights situation in India-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir with the Governments both in New Delhi and in Islamabad. We note the concerns raised in the report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and we encourage all states to uphold human rights in line with their international obligations and to co-operate with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Lord Hussain (LD)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. According to this United Nations human rights report on Kashmir, serious human rights violations took place between July 2016 and April 2018. Some 145 civilians have allegedly been killed, and the report denounces the lack of prosecutions of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir due to the 1990 law known as the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act which gives them virtual impunity. Can the Minister tell us what Her Majesty’s Government can do to persuade the Indian Government to withdraw such draconian laws from Kashmir so that those responsible for these violations can be brought to justice, at least under Indian law?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I assure the noble Lord that we continue to raise the importance of the issues in Kashmir with the Indian Government. In one of my visits towards the end of last year, I raised the issue of Kashmir and the need for Pakistan and India to find a resolution to this long-standing issue. Equally, with reference to the report and the importance of some of its findings, we encourage all states, including India and Pakistan, to respond positively to the request by the UN—in this case, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights—to a right to visit.
Lord Paul (Non-Afl)
My Lords, both India and Pakistan are very active members of the United Nations. Will the Government say what purpose it will serve to discuss this point here?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Her Majesty’s Government, as the noble Lord has rightly said, are a friend to both Governments—India and Pakistan. Our position remains that it is primarily for India and Pakistan to come together. They are countries tied together by history, culture and families. Indeed, my parents herald from India and my wife’s parents herald from Pakistan. Communities and families can come together. Perhaps I am living proof of that.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, we have a very proud record of defending human rights, particularly in countries such as Pakistan and India. What is of concern to me when we object to abuses of human rights, particularly the use of the death penalty, is that we now have a Government who are saying that it is okay to extradite people to a country where they might end up suffering capital punishment. Does the Minister agree with that assessment and the impact it might have when we try to defend other people from capital punishment?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, first, I am greatly humbled and honoured to be the Minister for Human Rights. Indeed, prior to coming to your Lordships’ House, I launched our human rights report, which again reflects its importance, our priorities and the key role that the United Kingdom plays in standing up for the broad spectrum of human rights across the world. The noble Lord raised the death penalty; I assure him and the House that the Government’s position remains the same.
Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl)
My Lords, will the Minister agree that it is the exact job of this House to discuss human rights in all places around the world? We are a permanent member of the Security Council. We have responsibilities to defend and to protect human rights around the world. Further to what the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, said, in 2009 the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights reported that nearly 3,000 unmarked graves were found and 8,000 people are missing because of forced disappearances. Surely there is a responsibility for us to discuss that. While we should encourage India and Pakistan to resolve the issue, we should also condemn those violations of human rights.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
We are, of course, members of the United Nations and, as the noble Lord said, we are a permanent member of the Security Council. There are various resolutions on the broad issue of human rights. Most recently, as penholders, we have been leading the way on the Rohingya Muslims in Burma. On the specific issue of Kashmir, as we have said before—it has been a long-standing position of Governments on both sides—the Simla accords of 1972 act as the basis for bilateral discussions. I know the region of Kashmir. It was termed a paradise on earth. We hope that both countries can find noble cause to restore that label of paradise on earth.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, I return to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hussain. He drew attention to the draconian laws that protect people against prosecution for human rights abuse. As a member of the UN and the UN Security Council, is it not incumbent on us to condemn that sort of behaviour without fear or favour? Will the noble Lord agree with me and with the human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, who said that there can never be peace in the world unless we are even-handed in our condemnation of human rights abuse?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Let me assure the noble Lord that we encourage all states, including India and Pakistan, to uphold their international human rights obligations. Any allegations of human rights violations or abuses are concerning and must be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently. Let me once again reassure all noble Lords that we continue to raise the issue of Kashmir, including human rights issues, with the Governments of India and Pakistan. We stand resolute. We hope that a progressive way forward on this issue can be found for both countries and, as a friend to both, we will be supportive.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister note the accusation in the report that India has used disproportionate force and that no successful cases have been brought against its forces, including over the accusation of mass rape, and that Pakistan must also address human rights abuses on its side? Should not the UK play a more active role in taking forward what the commission suggests, which is a proper investigation of what has happened on both sides?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Let me assure the noble Baroness that we have of course noted the concerns about Kashmir expressed in the report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and its recommendations, as the noble Baroness said, for the Governments of both India and Pakistan to consider. Therefore, we encourage both states to uphold human rights in line with their human rights obligations. In terms of any resolutions that come forward at the Human Rights Council, we will respond accordingly.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, we have not yet heard from the Conservative Benches.
Lord Tebbit
My Lords, as a victim of terrorism myself, I am always a supporter of the victims, not the terrorists. Therefore, I hope that the newspaper reports of today that the Home Secretary has given the nod to the American authorities to prosecute some particularly vile terrorists and leave them to face the penalty laid down by the democratic country of the United States of America are correct.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I am sure that I speak for every Member of your Lordships’ House in saying that we all stand on the side of victims of terrorism, wherever they are in the world. We stand on the principle of bringing justice to the victims of terror, wherever they may be. Equally, let me reiterate the UK Government’s position: that wherever justice is found, including for the victims of wars that have taken place in Syria and, before that, in Iraq, we stand resolute and committed to the principle of our international obligation to oppose the death penalty across the world.
British Overseas Territories: Same-Sex Marriage
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Barker
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to enable citizens to enter into a same-sex marriage in British Overseas Territories.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon)
My Lords, we are pleased that the British Antarctic Territory, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, the Pitcairn Islands, St Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands—I sound like a train announcer—have all taken steps to recognise and enable same-sex marriage. In the overseas territories where same-sex marriage is not currently recognised, we continue to engage constructively with both Governments and civil society to encourage and promote equality irrespective of gender or sexuality.
Baroness Barker (LD)
I thank the Minister for that detailed Answer. The United Kingdom Government imposed on overseas territories compliance with the international money laundering Act of 2018, even where there were not agreed international regulatory frameworks. The Government refuse to require all the overseas territories to respect the rights of LGBT citizens under the ECHR, with which they and we must be compliant. Why the double standard?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, first, I do not think that there is a double standard. The noble Baroness may recall my vociferous defence, as the Minister for the Overseas Territories, of the autonomy of the overseas territories, believing that it was right that they should continue to take forward the issue of the registers, as they were doing quite progressively. However, the will of the other place was such that the will of Parliament was upheld by the Government. We would rather not have been in that position. On this issue, we continue to respect the autonomy. However, at the same time, I assure the noble Baroness that we work very progressively. We have seen in recent developments in places such as Bermuda how the courts domestically are reacting to the importance of progressing this issue.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, I know that the Minister is both personally and politically committed to human rights and equality. Therefore, can he help me out? According to the most recent White Paper on the overseas territories, published in 2012, the UK Government assume an obligation in relation to good governance of the territories, which includes the obligation,
“to ensure … just treatment and … protection against abuses”,
for the peoples of the territories. Therefore, can the Minister confirm that the peoples of the territories include LGBTI people? Notwithstanding his intention on behalf of the Government to engage, what concrete measures are they considering to ensure that LGBTI people can embrace and enjoy equality and human rights in conformity with the United Kingdom’s international legal obligations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
First, on the latter point, I assure the noble Lord that we work very constructively with our British Overseas Territories to ensure that they comply with international obligations. Indeed, the progress we have seen in Bermuda is reflective of the fact that equality for all citizens, including members of the LGBT community, is safeguarded and that they will continue to be able to play a full and active role in the future. On the specific issue of equal marriage, as I said, we are engaging constructively and it remains the British Government’s position. The noble Lord mentioned the 2012 paper. The basis of that was to encourage and continue to support the overseas territories to make progress on this important issue directly themselves.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Will my noble friend confirm—and I declare an interest as vice-chairman of the all-party Cayman group—that, particularly in the Caribbean, a number of the overseas territories have their own constitution to deal with domestic matters? As I understand it, in their view the subject raised by this Question is a domestic issue. They have elected Members of Parliament. Those Parliaments debate these issues, and surely it is for those Parliaments, which after all represent the people living in those islands, to decide what is appropriate or not.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, as I have already said, of course we respect the rights of our British Overseas Territories to decide their own domestic issues, but it is also important that on issues of fairness the Government of the United Kingdom continue to hold constructive discussions, as we do in broader terms as well. I am minded to quote my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when she addressed this important issue in the context of the Commonwealth conference:
“As a family of nations we must respect one another’s cultures and traditions. But we must do so in a manner consistent with our common value of equality, a value that is clearly stated in the Commonwealth Charter ... Nobody should face persecution or discrimination because of who they are or who they love. And the UK stands ready to support any Commonwealth member wanting to reform outdated legislation that makes such discrimination possible”.
It is a constructive, progressive approach, and is the same approach that we adopt with our British Overseas Territories.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, in Her Majesty’s territories overseas we obviously have an obligation to uphold human rights, and it is a fundamental human right to be treated equally under the law. Of course, when the Minister read out that list, Bermuda would have been on it, because it did pass same-sex marriage laws. In fact, people were able to marry, and then we had that overturned. The Government cannot abrogate their responsibilities here, because it was agreed to by this Government and it should not have been. They should have upheld the rights of LGBT people. I declare an interest: I am actually half Bermudian, so when I go out there with my husband, will I be able to exercise the same rights? I hope the Minister will stand up for same-sex marriage in Bermuda.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord specifically mentioned Bermuda and he will know the history there. There was a referendum on both domestic partnerships and same-sex marriage, which the Bermudians did not accept in their vote. A decision was taken by the Supreme Court in advance which permitted same-sex marriage. That was overturned, as the noble Lord said, in the Parliament there to bring forward domestic partnership legislation which protects pension rights and other rights of same-sex couples. As to where we are with Bermuda, as the noble Lord will be aware, that legislation has been referred to the Supreme Court. The Government of Bermuda are appealing that decision, and, later this year, a determination will be made. We need to ensure, and it would be entirely appropriate—I am sure the noble Lord will respect this—that those local issues of justice are played out appropriately.
Apprenticeship Levy: Creative Industries
Lord Foster of Bath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to amend the working of the apprenticeship levy to take account of the concerns of the creative industries.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, we introduced the levy to fund a step change in apprenticeship numbers and quality. This is putting funding on a sustainable footing while improving the technical and professional skills of the workforce. We recognise that some sectors and employers, including in the creative industries, have challenges in taking advantage of these reforms. We continue to work closely with employers in this sector to inform them about the benefits and to encourage apprenticeship take-up.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply but, rather more than challenges, does he not accept that the apprenticeship levy is fundamentally unsuited to delivering the skills that the creative industries need? It does not align with the sector’s own voluntary training, there are only a dozen approved apprenticeship standards for a sector with thousands of different job roles, and there is insufficient flexibility to share training vouchers with the SMEs that make up 95% of the sector. The Creative Industries Council and the Bazalgette report have made a clear business case for an industry-specific training model that is better suited to provide the skills and the apprenticeship needs of the sector. Will the Government accept those recommendations to ensure that the success story of our creative industries can continue?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, we will certainly look at the recommendations and we recognise that the creative industries sector comprises a workforce that is different—it is more diverse, and largely made up of freelance and sole-trader businesses. However, if an apprenticeship linked to the levy is not suitable, then the apprenticeship training agencies could provide a solution for this important sector. ATAs recruit, employ and arrange training on behalf of employers, which includes the 20% off-the-job training. A further solution is for the major levy-paying employers to transfer up to 10% of their levy funds to help the sector.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, in giving evidence to the Select Committee on Communications of your Lordships’ House last year, the Skills Minister, Anne Milton MP, said this on apprenticeships in the creative sector:
“One of the challenges for the DfE … is to make sure that we have a flexible system that is fast and constantly renewing itself”.
Further to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the Bazalgette report, Creative Skillset—the strategic body that works to ensure that the UK’s creative industries have access to sufficient skills and talent—produced a four-point report seeking to enable appropriate apprenticeships to be delivered within that sector. One of the points in that report was structural flexibility involving longer apprenticeships and periods between placements. It seems that the Minister is in agreement with Creative Skillset, so can he explain why his colleague has not yet taken steps to ensure that flexibility for the creative sector has been introduced?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I have already said that we need to do more for the creative sector and that it is an unusual case. That is why, as part of the creative industries sector deal announced on 28 March 2018, there are shared commitments laid out by the Government and industries to address the current and future skills needs in the creative industries. That includes working with employers to monitor the impact of the levy, and to continue to analyse apprenticeship starts. It also includes funding to support the development of priority apprenticeship standards.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that many organisations in the creative industry regard the apprenticeship levy as little more than a cost of doing business? They find it extremely difficult to get any advantage from it. Many of them operate on very narrow budgetary constraints. For example, the Royal Shakespeare Company, with which I am connected, offers apprenticeships in engineering, prop making, sound technology, carpentry, automation, venue management and catering—I could go on. Does the Minister think it is right that it should offer all those opportunities but not be able to get any benefit from the levy?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
We continue to work with the creative industries sector to be sure that it has the apprenticeships that it needs. I remind the noble Baroness that this is employer-driven. Three hundred apprenticeships have been approved so far under the new standards system, while 41 standards are in the process of being created in this sector, of which 27 are in development and 14 have already been approved. There is more work to be done and I take note of what she says.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, the Minister said in his Answer that the Government’s plan was to introduce a step change in apprenticeships, and indeed they have—they have stepped down by 50% so far. The reason is that SMEs in the creative and media industry and throughout other industries are struggling to make this work. In order for the Government to get the step up rather than down, will the Minister first admit that there is a problem and then undertake to try to solve it, rather than lumping it on to the industries?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord will know that I have acknowledged in this Chamber that there is a drop in apprenticeships, but the main reason for it is that we have moved from the old frameworks system of apprenticeships to the standards one. That is why there is a drop if one looks at it year on year. We have acknowledged that and are doing something about it.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
Is the Minister aware of the large growth of courses offered in business schools that satisfy the demands and requirements of the levy? There are now 147 of them. Was it the Government’s intention to give such a boost to management training for the creative industries and the rest of industry?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The apprenticeship at the higher level can be defined at quite a senior level. I say again that it is up to employers to engage with the Institute for Apprenticeships to define and describe the standards that they think are right. Some of them are quite senior and would include management levels.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, with hindsight, does my noble friend think that setting a target of 3 million new apprenticeships might have been a mistake that encourages quantity over quality? Would it be better to have a target for those who have completed apprenticeships rather than started them, given that 40% do not complete them?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
We have always said that quality comes before quantity. It is good to have a target of 3 million quality apprenticeships that will change the lives of apprentices and the prospects for businesses.
Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan
To move that this House takes note of the preparations and negotiations connected with the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union.
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, negotiations on the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from, and future relationship with, the European Union continue at pace. The publication last week of the Government’s White Paper on the future relationship—a detailed and credible proposal—has given impetus to these negotiations.
Last month we published a joint statement that set out the substantial progress that we have made on the draft withdrawal agreement since the March European Council. We have reached agreement across the majority of the remaining separation issues. Last week my right honourable friend the Secretary of State travelled to Brussels to meet his counterpart, Michel Barnier, where they had constructive discussions on the details of the White Paper and took stock of the negotiations. While there are still issues to agree, our negotiating teams are working to ensure that these are finalised by October and that we reach a positive settlement for both the UK and the EU.
Domestically, we continue to prepare the legislation needed to implement the withdrawal agreement in UK law. We will publish a White Paper tomorrow setting out more details on this. On the future relationship, we believe that the White Paper that we have published is a principled and pragmatic plan for the relationship that we wish to build—an ambitious and innovative proposal that respects the position, interests and concerns of the European Union. It delivers on the decision of the British people to take back control of our laws, our money and our borders, while preserving and building on the historic ties with our European friends and neighbours, in areas such as trade and security, which we both rightly prize.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister said a minute ago that the White Paper will be published tomorrow, the day the House rises, which seems rather strange. What time tomorrow will it be published?
Lord Callanan
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be making an Oral Statement in another place tomorrow. I do not know whether we have an exact time for that yet.
Leaving the EU offers us an opportunity to forge a new role for ourselves in the world, to negotiate our own trade agreements and to be a positive and powerful force for free trade. Central to our proposal is a free trade area for goods, supported by a common rulebook for those rules necessary to provide frictionless trade at the border and a new facilitated customs arrangement. This will help to secure the complex supply chains and just-in-time manufacturing processes that we have developed with the EU over the past 40 years. This will give businesses certainty and clarity and preserve those jobs that rely on frictionless trade at the border.
A key component of the free trade area will be our proposal for a facilitated customs arrangement, or FCA. This is a business-friendly model that removes the need for any new routine customs checks and controls between the UK and the EU while enabling the UK to control its own tariffs and boost trade with the rest of the world. Under this arrangement, the UK would apply the EU’s tariffs to goods intended for the EU and its own tariffs and policy to goods intended for consumption here in the UK.
In contrast to the earlier proposal for a new customs partnership, the FCA will be an up-front system. This means that most businesses would pay the right tariff to begin with, rather than receiving a rebate at the point of final consumption. Other businesses could claim a tariff repayment as soon as possible in the supply chain. We will agree the circumstances in which repayments can be granted with the EU and, as the White Paper makes clear, we will negotiate a reciprocal tariff revenue formula, taking account of goods destined for the UK entering via the EU and goods destined for the EU entering via the UK. This model has the specific advantage of protecting UK-EU supply and value chains and the businesses that rely on them. For example, Airbus manufactures wings for all its civil aircraft in north Wales. These are then transported to the continent for final assembly. In Dagenham, Ford manufactures diesel power trains for export to the EU. As well as supporting businesses, this approach would meet our shared commitment to Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that respects the EU’s autonomy without harming the UK’s constitutional and economic integrity.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
On the reciprocal nature of the FCA, is it realistic to expect 27 other countries to put in place the bureaucracy and systems necessary to execute this in order to accommodate our wish for this compromise?
Lord Callanan
It probably would be unrealistic, which is why we are not asking them to do that. We will agree a reciprocal tariff formula, but we will not ask our EU partners to put in place specific arrangements at their borders.
Alongside these close arrangements for goods, we will negotiate a wide-ranging deal on services and digital.
Lord Callanan
I am sure one or two noble Lords will have points to make about this, so I will have a bit more to say to it at the end of the debate.
Alongside these close arrangements for goods, we will negotiate a wide-ranging deal on services and digital. This would protect businesses from unjustified barriers or discrimination, cover mutual recognition of professional qualifications and, importantly, preserve our regulatory freedom. This balanced approach to services is based partly on the absence of any of the risks of border disruption that might affect trade in goods, coupled with the distinct advantages of regaining domestic regulatory control as well as the ability to forge new trade deals with fewer fetters so that we are well placed to grasp the opportunities of the future, including across growth sectors such as digital. It would allow the UK to trade with greater freedom with the rest of the world and seize the opportunities for more liberal and energetic free trade with the export markets of the future, from Mexico to Japan.
In leaving the EU, free movement will end. Our immigration policy will be set not in Brussels but by this Parliament, which is accountable to the British people. We will design a new immigration system that enables us to control the number of people coming to live in the UK and place stronger security checks at our border. However, the UK will be an outward-looking nation, attractive to investment and open to business. In line with the arrangements that we will negotiate with close trading partners around the world, we want provisions with the EU that will support businesses to provide services. We want tourists and business visitors to be able to travel without a visa and students to continue to have opportunities to study at universities across Europe. We can agree common-sense reciprocal arrangements while regaining control over our immigration policy. That is the balanced approach that we believe best serves the UK.
Next is our vision for a security partnership that covers the vital security interests that we share. Our proposals build on existing operational capabilities to protect our citizens. They will enable rapid and secure data exchange, practical cross-border operational co-operation and continued participation in important agencies, including Europol and Eurojust, which already have partnerships with third countries. We will also pursue arrangements for co-ordination on foreign policy, defence and development issues, joint capability development and wider co-operation.
When it comes to the return of democratic control of powers and authority to the UK, our laws will be decided by this Parliament and the devolved legislatures. The White Paper proposals will also end the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the UK. UK courts will no longer refer cases to the CJEU, nor will the CJEU be able to arbitrate disputes between the UK and the EU. Instead, rights will be enforced in the UK by UK courts and in the EU by EU courts.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
Has the Minister read paragraphs 146, 147 and 148 of the document, which make it plain that questions of jurisdiction are not to be as exclusive as he has just described?
Lord Callanan
Yes, I have read them. We have made it clear that the jurisdiction of the CJEU will of course apply to European law and those areas of the common rulebook, but disputes will no longer be arbitrated by the CJEU.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
Can the Minister explain how this exclusion of the European Court of Justice will apply to the operation of the European arrest warrant, which involves individuals and not Governments?
Lord Callanan
The European arrest warrant is of course part of the security partnership that we seek to agree. It has some challenges at the moment, given the constitutional bars that one or two member states have, but we continue to discuss with the EU how we can take that proposal forward.
In a limited number of areas, we would choose to adopt a common rulebook to ensure the free flow of goods. That body of law is relatively stable, and when there are any changes, Parliament would have to approve them.
We are taking a principled and practical approach. Yes, we have shown flexibility as we strive for a good deal for both the UK and EU. As we demonstrate our ambition for a close partnership through the White Paper, it is worth emphasising two key principles that we share. The first is that Article 50 dictates that a withdrawal agreement must come alongside a framework for the future agreement. The second, flowing from that, is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
We will not sign away our negotiating leverage or spend taxpayers’ money without anything in return. In December we agreed that the financial settlement would sit alongside a framework for a deep and mutually beneficial future partnership, but if either side should fail to meet their commitments—and I should say that we certainly do not expect that to be the case—it would have consequences for the package as a whole that we agree.
Lord Bowness (Con)
I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way, but he is touching on a matter that is particularly topical at the moment. In Florence, the Prime Minister was unequivocal in her statement that the United Kingdom will honour commitments we made during our period of membership. It was not conditional, and “honour” was the word. Are those in favour of Brexit now reneging on the Prime Minister’s word of honour?
Lord Callanan
Of course we are not reneging on the Prime Minister’s words, but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU made it clear yesterday that we expect a future partnership to be agreed at the same time; it will sit alongside the withdrawal agreement and no money will be paid unless the future partnership is delivered. In these circumstances, it is the duty of any responsible Government to prepare for every eventuality, including the unlikely scenario that we reach March 2019 without agreeing a deal. It is essential that plans are in place to mitigate the risks and ensure stability, whatever the outcome of these negotiations. The Government’s legislative programme in this Session provides for a range of negotiation outcomes, including that of no deal.
In the last few months we have passed the Nuclear Safeguards Act, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Act, preparing the UK for a future outside the European Union. I am grateful to the House for the constructive way it has engaged on this legislation.
We have been taking other practical action to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place—for example, recruiting 300 extra Border Force staff, with a further drive to recruit another 1,000, launched earlier this year. The Government have been working on nearly 300 no-deal plans for almost two years. Some of these are already in the public domain. As we announced last week, over August and September the Government will release a series of technical notices to set out what UK businesses and citizens will need to do in a no-deal scenario. This due diligence is designed to provide reassurance that the Government are prepared.
I note the great number of speakers listed for today’s debate and I look forward to hearing all the contributions. Before I resume my place, let me make it clear that we strive to strike the very best deal with the EU, and whatever the outcome of our negotiations, we stand ready to make a success of Brexit.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
Before the Minister sits down, will he answer the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about the facilitated customs arrangement? Paragraph 17 of chapter 1 of the White Paper states clearly that,
“the UK is not proposing that the EU applies the UK’s tariffs and trade policy at its border for goods intended for the UK”.
I understand that in the other place last Monday, an amendment was carried saying that this arrangement would not come into effect unless the other member states agreed to apply this dual tariff. What now is the Government’s policy on this critical point?
Lord Callanan
That paragraph confirms the answer I gave earlier. We will agree a tariff-sharing formula with the EU. That is part of the discussions we will have, but we are not asking other EU member states to change their arrangements at their borders. We do not believe that the amendment passed last week is incompatible with our White Paper proposals.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
Well, my Lords, it is all going so well, is it not? Actually, I do not think even the Minister thinks so.
We are delighted to hear that the other White Paper will appear tomorrow. It was, of course, promised for last week, but we are delighted that it will be appearing. It would indeed be churlish not to welcome the appearance of this White Paper, albeit perhaps a year after it was needed, since it has to be reflected in the political declaration which describes the framework for future relations within the withdrawal agreement.
However, it is a White Paper that is: unacceptable to two Cabinet Ministers who had agreed it; unacceptable to the EU, which rubbished it; unacceptable to the Government, who accepted the ERG amendments that undermined it; unacceptable to much of industry, the City and business; unacceptable—I am sort of guessing—to this House; unacceptable to the Commons without DUP votes, Lib Dem no-shows, a handful of rogue Labour—
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Have a bit of humour. I am saying, a handful of rogue Labour votes, and some dubious—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
It is very clear that those Lib Dem votes would not have made a difference. How many Labour Members voted with the Government?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
That is what I have just said. I called them rogue Labour votes. Clearly, the Minister did not help here. There was also some dubious government whipping—just in case noble Lords think anyone was left out.
And it is a White Paper unacceptable to the Opposition, being grounded on flawed facilitated customs arrangements, an absence of migration clarity, inadequate plans for services and a failure to guarantee the Good Friday agreement. Apart from that, it is pretty good.
Why is it so unacceptable? First, of course, it is based on a fallacy; secondly, it is devised to satisfy a divided Conservative Party rather than satisfy UK plc; and, thirdly, because some think that the talk of no deal will somehow bring everyone on board, yet pretending to threaten a no deal, which could cost households £1,000 and see an 8% drop in GDP—twice that in the north-east—is nonsensical if the Conservatives ever want to win an election again. Crashing the economy would never be forgiven, not just by workers and consumers but by business, the City and manufacturing, which have of course traditionally trusted the Tories to manage the economy in the national interest. Borrowing the words of a former Prime Minister from the party that took us into Europe and who herself wanted the single market, “No, no, no”—no deal is not an option, so we should stop being diverted by it.
For all the positives—and there are some, in the common rulebook, a role for the ECJ, which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, has just mentioned, and a catalogue of issues almost lifted from the reports of our EU committees—the White Paper is based on the fallacy that there are profitable and exciting markets across the globe, currently closed to us, which would magically open the moment we left the EU. The notion that we are leaving in favour of some wondrous US trade deal better than we have with our nearest 500-million strong market, as well as the 57 agreements that we have through the EU, just does not hold water. It is a fantasy that we 60 million can negotiate better than the EU’s half a billion.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
Is my noble friend aware that the European Union as a whole agreed a trade deal with Japan? Is it feasible that Britain on her own could improve on that deal?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
It does not seem to have the evidence to support the idea that we could. Indeed, the trade policy experts, of which of course my noble friend is one, think that our status as a supplicant means that we will struggle to secure good deals, especially from the US, China and India—and, no doubt, Japan as well.
Furthermore, we face a highly protectionist President. What is his catchphrase? America First. He is a President who is unleashing trade wars with China, the EU, Canada and Mexico. He has filed five WTO complaints against his own trading partners and even queried the future of the WTO. He has imposed import tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, steel and aluminium. What does he want from the UK? When he is not calling the EU a “foe”, he claims that the EU has treated the US unfairly, so he wants more access to our market, not opening up their market to us. It is a predatory policy towards a Brexit Britain, designed to take advantage of our need for trade deals. He wants America to sell us more agriculture and cars—and I see that Liam Fox is offering to reduce tariffs on US cars imported here. I am not sure that that will help our automotive industry. Trump is not interested in a deal if we maintain EU standards. He says that the Prime Minister has probably killed off hopes of a deal by staying close to those EU standards.
And what of business? The CBI president says that, without a customs union, sectors of manufacturing risk becoming extinct. Following Chequers, more than 100 entrepreneurs and business leaders wrote:
“The cost, complexity and bureaucracy created by crashing out of the customs union and adopting alternative arrangements is the last thing that our businesses need as we seek to grow and employ more people”.
Your Lordships have often heard in this House from Airbus, Rolls-Royce, the Freight Transport Association and others, but there is a new example in UK publishing, the world’s largest exporter of books, one-third of them going to the European Union. The Publishers Association fears that Brexit could damage this, as:
“It’s not just tariffs … It’s the non-tariff barriers, customs checks and delays … That means having books sat in a customs warehouse in Calais rather than in a bookshop in Duesseldorf”.
Services are even more alarmed, not only as it is often impossible to distinguish goods from services, as complex manufactured products—for example, aircraft engines—combine servicing, design, IT, training and marketing into the physical components which get screwed together. Even more, banking, medicine, leisure, law, accountancy and IT comprise 80% of our economy and an even higher proportion of employment. Their healthy trade surplus helps to offset a deficit on manufactures and agriculture. Yet services drew the short straw in the White Paper, causing alarm to financial organisations and companies, which describe it as a,
“real blow for the UK’s financial and related professional services”.
The financial sector had anticipated a deal based on “mutual recognition”, with the EU accepting that its and our financial regulations were equally robust. The City was therefore deeply disappointed that this was abandoned in favour of an “expanded” equivalence, which is patchy and unilateral. The White Paper itself admits that we,
“will not have current levels of access”,
to EU markets, yet it is vague on how services and millions of jobs will be protected, and on how our competitive advantage will not be shipped to New York or the continent.
What do our partners think? The plan has yet to find favour with the Commission, which insists that the four freedoms are indivisible, added to which, we seem to want only the EU’s most talented citizens, apparently putting the rest in the queue with Koreans and others with whom we trade. The Commission doubts that the facilitated customs arrangement, which is hardly business-friendly, could be made to work, and has yet to be convinced that we have sorted out the Irish border.
As for the public, only 13% think that the Prime Minister is handling Brexit well, 75% judging that she is making a mess of it. They may be right about that. But it is not just remainers. The Labour Brexiteer John Mills reckons that the negotiations could hardly have been worse handled. Indeed, he goes further and says it is not clear that there is now a good Brexit solution available. Yesterday’s poll must make hard reading for the Government. They must know that the more they pretend that no deal is viable, the harder it will be to sell a negotiated deal as satisfactory. So all their dancing around a band of irreconcilable anti-Europeans itself undermines navigating a realistic way forward.
For Labour, the absence of a deal for services is a major shortcoming. This is not a “nice to have” add-on but key to our future prosperity. Both for Ireland and across the borders, the facilitated customs drivel is simply impractical. IT cannot check the safety of food in vans or the composition of manufactured goods to assure compliance with rules of origin, let alone the imposition and forward allocation of tariffs, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was querying.
The truth is that the Prime Minister is stranded in a mire of her own making. She tried to escape the clasp of the ERG, only to retreat at the first whiff of gunfire. She must now complete the task of facing it down, move away from its impossibilist demands, discard red or blue lines and step towards the majority opinion in Parliament—indeed, along the lines that Labour has long sketched out—embracing a customs union and a single market deal. The Prime Minister must unite the Commons and the country by prioritising the economy, jobs, agriculture and the environment, peace in Ireland, and the national interest.
Another former Conservative Prime Minister, Sir John Major, said yesterday that every Tory should prioritise “People, people, people”. That means negotiating a deal which is in their interests, and putting a good deal ahead of the Conservative party’s civil war. If the Prime Minister changes course, she can deliver a majority for that deal—a majority that this White Paper will not create.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, it seems extraordinary that the Chequers Brexit summit was little over a fortnight ago and that the Government’s White Paper embodying the Chequers agreement is a mere 10 days old. At the time, it all seemed so rosy for the Prime Minister:
“Chequers-mate: Theresa May ambush routs cabinet Brexiteers”,
screamed the Sunday Times, for example. Well, it does not look so rosy now. Although about the only thing that everybody seems to agree on is that the White Paper will not survive in its current form as the basis of any Brexit deal, it is by far the most detailed exposition of the Government’s Brexit policy that we have seen, and it lays bare the inherent challenges of Brexit. It is the first time that the Government have begun, albeit partially, to accept that you cannot have your cake and eat it—that you cannot have both market access and control of the rules, and that very many features of our EU membership are unambiguously beneficial to the UK.
The core of the document, of course, deals with trade. On goods, the Government’s policy is to be part of a free trade area, accepting all EU rules in perpetuity but seeking to retain the right to have our own trade deals by separately collecting UK and EU tariffs for goods trans-shipped through the UK. It also seeks to allow EU content in UK exports—most of the components by value in all cars, for example—to be treated as though they were manufactured in the UK. All this is to be made possible by a non-existent technology to be introduced over an unspecified timescale at an unspecified cost to both government and individual businesses. It is highly unlikely to be acceptable to the EU in its current form.
For services, no such closeness of rules or access is even planned. As the White Paper starkly puts it,
“the UK and the EU will not have current levels of access to each other’s markets in the future”.
This is a quite extraordinary policy, which explicitly acknowledges that the UK will willingly forfeit economic activity, jobs and tax revenue for the wholly unspecified benefits of flexibility. If anybody has any doubts about the consequences, listen to the CEO of Lloyds of London, which has operated here since 1686. Speaking last week, she said that Lloyds,
“will be moving at pace now”—
to Brussels, that is—and that,
“we will be full steam ahead”.
To a greater or lesser extent, that approach is now being adopted right across the financial services sector.
Reading the White Paper as a whole, however, you can see why the Brexiteers are so angry. On my reckoning, it lists no fewer than 62 EU bodies or programmes in which it wishes the UK to participate post Brexit, and it is clear why that is the case. All these programmes and bodies are crucial to our prosperity, security and well-being. To be outside them altogether would be extremely damaging. They do, however, all constrain our freedom of independent action, so it is not surprising that the Brexiteers see Britain under the White Paper as a Gulliver, shackled by the myriad constraints of the EU Lilliputians.
But that is not the correct analogy. Those who wish to retain the many benefits of our association with the EU without the cost are like the man who is in the process of divorce negotiations and who says to his ex-wife, “Will you be my live-in mistress afterwards, or I won't pay the alimony?” That is not normally a realistic or successful approach.
The White Paper, of course, has in effect been changed by the amendments to the customs Bill, which the Government accepted, at the hands of the ERG last week—as the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Liddle, pointed out. One of them, on my reading at least, directly contradicts paragraph 17a of chapter 1 of the White Paper, in that it would require the EU to collect UK tariffs as part of the facilitated customs arrangement. I am sure that the whole House is agog to hear the Minister’s more detailed exposition of that position at the end of the debate—only another six and a half hours to wait. Another amendment would require VAT to be accounted for and to be payable when goods are imported to the UK rather than when they are sold. That would have severe implications for the cash flow of thousands of small businesses.
These amendments show the palpable weakness of the Government, but they do not fundamentally affect the broad options facing us, or their degree of support in Parliament. However, they have helped to shine a light on an extremely inconvenient truth—that there is now no Commons majority for any proposal that leads to Brexit. In reality it is clear that Brexit now could happen only in one of two circumstances. There is no longer a multiplicity of options; there are only two.
The first option is that we reach a deal, loosely based on either the White Paper or some EU-compliant variant of it. The second is that we reach no deal and simply crash out. As Boris Johnson’s policy-free resignation speech demonstrated, there is simply no third Brexit option on the table. The crash-out option is now being more aggressively planned by the energetic Mr Raab. I suspect that he will go down in history as the man who proved that “no deal” was simply impossible, because the more he seeks to make our flesh creep—by proposing to turn the M26 into a lorry park, forcing 250,000 small businesses to fill out customs returns for the first time, or readying the Armed Forces to move food and medicines round the country—the more people are bound to recoil.
That we should be spending vast sums actively planning for these acts of national self-mutilation, not as a result of war, pestilence or some external threat but simply as a result of a rift in the Tory Party, seems almost literally incredible, particularly to the rest of the world. Incredible or not, I do not believe that this option has anything like majority support in the Commons—if it came to it, it would be rejected.
The second option is based on the White Paper. As Gavin Barwell has already acknowledged, and the EU has made abundantly clear, the White Paper will not be accepted in its current form and further concessions will be needed—for example, by ditching the impractical facilitated customs arrangements and the financial services proposals. If, none the less, a deal were reached on terms that vaguely approximated to the White Paper, it would be even less likely to be accepted by the Brexiteers than the White Paper itself. I simply do not believe that Messrs Bone, Cash, Leigh or Rees-Mogg could possibly vote for it. By excluding services, and demonstrably costing jobs and prosperity, it would also break Labour’s red lines, so Labour could not support it, either.
So it is now pretty clear that neither of the only two remaining Brexit options can survive a Commons vote. In these circumstances, there is only one further option—and that is not to leave the EU. We might now call this the Greening option, because Justine Greening has correctly identified that, if there is no Commons majority for either Brexit option, the only way of breaking the impasse is to have a referendum asking the people how they wish to proceed. Traditionally, referenda have a single question. The Greening option would include three questions—the two Brexit options, and remaining in the EU. But whether we have one question or two, it is now likely—as yesterday’s poll in the Sunday Times suggests—that any referendum would result in a clear preference for remaining in the EU. No wonder the idea of such a referendum is hated.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Given that the noble Lord and his party did not accept the result of the national referendum in 2011 on changing the voting system, and given that he and his party have not accepted the result of the referendum in 2016 on whether we should leave or remain in the European Union, what confidence could anyone have that he would accept the result of any future referendum?
Lord Newby
My Lords, it is very interesting that the noble Lord should ask that question. We are talking about the most important issue that the country has faced in my lifetime, and I can give him an absolute assurance, as I have said many times—including to him in response to identical questions—that, if there were such a referendum, it would lance the boil of this question. We would accept the outcome and go ahead on the basis of the referendum result.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Given that the noble Lord and his party stood on this policy at the general election and received such a derisory result, and that both the major parties got more than 80% of the votes on this matter, how does he square that?
Lord Newby
I think that things have moved on since the last general election. At the time of the election, a lot of people believed the slogan on the bus; a lot of people believed a whole raft of things about EU membership, or leaving the EU, which have proved to be false. All I am doing is explaining how public opinion currently stands. The noble Lord might not like it, but that is where we stand. If we go back two years, it was different; if we go back five years, it was different again. When we first had a referendum, it was two to one in favour. Public opinion changes, and it has changed against the noble Lord’s view. That is why he does not like it and that is why he does not want to have a referendum.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
Does the noble Lord actually think there would be a majority in Parliament for the legislation necessary to introduce a referendum? Does he recognise the problem about timescale, as we are due to leave the EU at the end of next March? Does he think that leavers would accept a ruse so cynically designed with three choices to split the leave vote? Does he think that that would lance the boil?
Lord Newby
We are talking about what the options are. I am saying that there are three; perhaps the noble Lord believes that there are others. I believe that there are two relating to Brexit—no deal, or something broadly based on what the Government have produced. I believe the only other option is staying in, and the only way to get that accepted in the country, politically and morally, is through another popular vote.
As for timing, it would be perfectly possible to legislate quickly for such a referendum; it would be perfectly possible to get a very limited extension of Article 50 from the EU. It is typical of what happens when people are losing the argument—they come forward with administrative problems. Are we saying that we could not hold a referendum relatively quickly? Is it beyond our powers? Of course not. The truth is that, if we want to do it, we can do it. The arguments for not doing it are not administrative—they are political.
Finally, as this fractious Parliament takes its summer break, the position on Brexit is now clearer: there are only two options, neither of which can command a majority in the Commons. The only other option is to remain in the EU following a people’s vote, and the people would now vote to remain.
Lord Newby
No, I am not going to give way to the noble Lord again.
Sadly, we will now have to endure nine months of further tortuous negotiations, a bitter debate and loud recriminations before we reach this end point—but reach it we will.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
Before the noble Lord sits down, does he accept that a major factor in the 2016 referendum was immigration? If so, why has he not mentioned the word in his speech?
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I think that the noble Lord has sat down, so perhaps I can move on to something different.
To be frank, I cannot help thinking, in view of what has happened since the White Paper was published and what has been said and what is yet to come, that it has something of the Cheshire Cat about it. As Lewis Carroll reminded us in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one of the cat’s characteristics is that, from time to time, its body disappears and the last thing visible is a mischievous grin. It is not the grin that worries me so much, it is the body. I find it very difficult, from my position on the fringes of what is going on, to be sure how close what we read in the White Paper is to reality—to what our position really will be when the negotiations begin, let alone what can be achieved. That makes constructive comments on the sum parts of the paper, at least at this stage, rather difficult. That being so, I wish to concentrate on a narrow but important issue that I think will not go away so long as we continue to seek a deal along the lines that the paper sets out: dispute resolution and, in particular, our relationship with the European Court of Justice after Brexit.
On 12 July, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, repeated a Statement about the White Paper, and the noble Lord, Lord Bridges—who I am glad to see in his place—congratulated the Minister and his colleagues on grasping the need for compromise and on their honesty about the challenges we face regarding the role of the ECJ. He referred to a passage in the paper—the same passage, I think, that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, had in mind—about the common rule book. It shows that the Government do accept that the European Court will continue to have a role in the interpretation of the laws and regulations of this country. The noble Lord seemed rather reluctant to accept that, but he did on that occasion, and I think he does again today. He said in his reply that the court’s role will be to give a,
“binding interpretation of a common rule”,—[Official Report, 12/7/18; col. 1007.]
if there is dispute about it. Importantly, he went on to say that this remit will have far from the “overreaching impact” on our laws that the ECJ has at the moment. I agree with both the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, and the Minister.
Only the ECJ can determine the meaning of a rule for the purposes of EU law. A rule book cannot be common if our interpretation of it diverges from that which has to be given to it by member states in the EU. They are all bound by treaty to give effect to what the ECJ says it means. Therefore, the role of the ECJ is inescapable and is a valuable part of the system with which the aim is to remain in contact. The Minister was right to recognise that fact. However, he was also right to indicate that the effect of this on taking back control of our own laws—the great aim of the Brexit process—will be very small. It will be so small that, in this very limited area, we are surely right to agree to what is in truth unavoidable if the system contemplated is to work. I echo here the remark of my noble friend Lord Hannay, that when one thinks of the European arrest warrant—a tiny area too—one might well adopt the same approach to our advantage.
At present, the decisions of the ECJ that affect us are many and very wide ranging. They extend to citizenship, employment law, the environment, competition, freedom of movement, immigration, public access to information, intellectual property, justice and home affairs, public health, public procurement, revenue and telecommunications. Almost all of that will end when we leave the EU and take control of retained EU law. The aim of the common rule book, however, will be to harmonise the standards, rights and obligations to be applied by each side of a trading relationship. At present, very few disputes of that kind find their way to the ECJ and from there into our law reports. That may change, but let us have a sense of perspective. The Minister was right: the option to refer would only be in that narrow area where a rule is in issue to which we had agreed to adhere as part of the common rule book. I hope, therefore, that the Government will stand firm on this matter. The White Paper is surely right to say, on page 91, that consistent interpretation is needed to ensure that everyone has confidence in the rules that affect them.
I suggest, however, that the proposed routes by which a lack of agreement as to issues of that kind can be referred to the ECJ are less than satisfactory. At page 93 we are told that this must be either through an independent arbitration panel, including members from both the UK and the EU, or by mutual consent through a Joint Committee. The exact composition of these bodies is unexplained, especially how they are to be chaired and how decisions are to be taken if there is no agreement. However, leaving that aside, it is surely in the courts that disputes about the meaning of rules will be focused and argued through. At page 91 it is accepted that the courts of the UK and the EU could take account of the relevant case law of the other party, which in the case of the EU will presumably include the case law of the ECJ.
So why not give power to the Supreme Court to refer the issue to the ECJ and these other bodies if the court has not been able to resolve the issue in the usual way, through argument, because the meaning of the rule is unclear and a decision is needed from that court to achieve consistency? The reference, after all, would be accompanied by a fully reasoned judgment according to our current practice, in which the arguments for either side would be fully set out and the point that the ECJ has to decide precisely defined. It seems likely that we may be pressed to agree to a change along those lines and I hope that, if we are, we will agree to that.
However, I must add a note of warning on one point. It seems to be thought, according to the White Paper, that it is the practice of the ECJ to take account of the case law of other member states. My understanding is that that is simply not true. I have heard someone say that if it has regard to our decisions it will have to have regard to, let us say, the decisions of Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and so on. It is not prepared to go down that route and so it does not refer to other decisions. That is the fact and so can it be assumed that it would be willing to do this in our case after Brexit? All the more reason, therefore, for thinking that our Supreme Court is best placed to make the reference by means of a fully reasoned judgment. The fact that we no longer have a right of audience in the ECJ makes this even more important because we can express our views and refer to our own case law in the judgment.
I hope that the same spirit of pragmatism that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, congratulated and drew attention to will apply in this area too when the issue is debated.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, other noble Lords will be addressing the details, which leaves me to take a step back to look at culture. At the committee stage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill I spoke about matters such as the corruption of the public discourse, asking that we in this House do not lose sight of the end to which Brexit is supposed to be the means. I tried to pose the existential questions of who we think we are and for whom we are doing what we are doing. However, the debate has coarsened, the ideological divide deepened and poor use of language worsened. What I have to say has nothing to do with leave or remain but where we are now and what shape we might be in in the future.
Were we not all embarrassed by the mockery in the European media of the UK Government’s attempts to translate the White Paper into other languages, German being the most obvious? Were we not aware that professionally you always translate into your native tongue, not out of it? It seems that not only are we islanders hopeless at learning languages but we still do not even see or understand the cost of that hopelessness. Surely the first requirement of any negotiation is that the negotiators understand the mind-set, culture, language and perceptions of their opposite number: get inside their heads, look through their eyes and listen through their ears. If I do not understand what I, we and the world look like through the eyes of my interlocutor, I cannot begin to negotiate intelligently.
This goes well beyond figures, facts and tactics: it goes deeper—from the superficial to the emotional and the subliminal. It is where we discover what moves and shapes the mind-set, reactions and behaviours of those with whom we seek to trade or discuss, and yet here we are, unable or unwilling to speak the language of those with whom we think we can reach agreement. We just tell them they have to see everything as we do.
The problem, of course, is that most of those with whom we deal in the EU speak our language, get behind the words to the mind-set and therefore are in a stronger position from the outset. I labour this point not in order to grind an axe about the poverty of language learning in the UK—although I could, when it is seen as a priority in other countries—but because my earlier concerns about the culture generated by Brexit have deepened.
How are the people to read a former Foreign Secretary who resigns and immediately and unaccountably earns a fortune from a newspaper column, or an MP for North East Somerset who moves his business investment interests abroad while telling the rest of us that we will experience the benefits of Brexit over the next 50 years, which by my reckoning means that we still have another 10 years or so in which to work out the benefits of EU membership? Neither of these men will suffer the negative consequences of any form of Brexit. This, I stress, is not a partisan or a party matter. It is a moral issue. In the same way that the US President has normalised lies and relativised truth—think of alternative facts and all that stuff—we have descended into a non-rational lobbing of slogans, empty promises and damnations from trench to trench. Honesty and integrity, the essential prerequisites of moral culture, are being sacrificed on the altar of mere political or personal pragmatism.
And this is at the core of my concern: the sheer dishonesty of much of the language and rhetoric of the last couple of years. If the “will of the people” matters so much, then should not the people be told the truth about the range of potential consequences of Brexit? If the Government see that the UK and the EU will suffer short or medium-term negativity in order to gain nirvana after a couple of decades or so, should they not actually say that—explain that it is worth consigning a generation of young people to a poorer life because we need to take a longer-term view of the national good? They might be right. If “the people” can be trusted with a vote in a referendum, why can they not be trusted with the truth rather than being patronised with endless polarising rhetoric?
This is a genuine question: what happens if the “will of the people” turns out not to be “in the national interest”? Who defines these terms? Whose interests have priority? If we are attempting to square an unsquarable circle, whoever is the Prime Minister, then this should be admitted, not just lobbed back at the EU for it to resolve when it did not ask us to leave.
These are not arcane questions. The Prime Minister has said that we now need to “get on with Brexit”, which of course begs the question as to what we have been doing thus far. The new Brexit Secretary promises “energy, vigour and pragmatism”, as if these were laudable new ideas. But, they remain meaningless and vacuous if they are not underpinned by a respect for and an intelligent learning of the languages of our interlocutors in the EU.
We can talk about a second referendum, a general election, a change of Prime Minister and a party coup, the taking back of control and so on. But the questions of culture, of language, and of dealing with the real world rather than some nostalgic fantasy couched in slogans will outlast any deal or even no deal. Are we paying attention to who we shall be, seen through not only our own eyes but the eyes of our neighbours and our children in the months and years to come? This debate is not neutral.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, in declaring my interests as set out in the register, I welcome the progress embodied in the new White Paper. As the Prime Minister said in Belfast on Friday, a new approach was needed, an approach that,
“needs to honour the Belfast Agreement, deliver on the referendum result and be good for our economy. And for the EU to consider it, it needs to be a proposal that they can see works for them as well as us”.
I wholeheartedly agree that the White Paper will indeed prove to be the foundation of such a proposal and I congratulate all those involved in crafting it.
I turn now to the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds. I am also concerned about the points he made about culture. As a one-nation politician, I find the continuing talk of the 48% versus the 52% insupportable as well as divisive and dangerous. We must never allow that crude device of a binary referendum to blind us to the complex, nuanced and continuous kaleidoscope that is public opinion. A so-called hard Brexit did not feature on the ballot paper. Equally, not everyone who voted to remain was a devout believer in the concept of ever-closer union as set out in the treaties. Millions of our fellow citizens voted not ideologically but rationally, according to where they perceived the balance of advantage to lie for them, for their families and for the nation. In this debate, as with all political arguments, there is a middle ground, a common ground where surely people of good will can come together and build a mighty coalition around a reasonable and constructive set of propositions. I am sure of one thing: no one voted in June 2016 to be poorer.
The White Paper does much to reassure us that the importation and export of goods will be protected, but as we have already heard, the services sector is not sufficiently dealt with. It now represents around 80% of the UK economy. The UK financial services sector is one of the jewels—perhaps the pre-eminent jewel—in the crown of our modern economy, with insurance at its heart. It is therefore of considerable concern that the White Paper should suggest that the UK might no longer operate under the EU passporting regime. I speak, of course, as chairman of the British Insurance Brokers’ Association. There are almost 3,000 UK insurance brokers with passports to trade in the EU, accounting for about £8 billion of business.
In his HSBC speech on 7 March, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared optimistic about the chances of securing a suitable new arrangement, saying that,
“it is hard to see how any deal that did not include services could look like a fair and balanced settlement. So I am clear not only that it is possible to include financial services within a trade deal, but that it is very much in our mutual interest to do so”.
In paragraph 49(d) of the White Paper, there is a commitment to negotiate a,
“new economic and regulatory arrangement for financial services”.
There is also encouragement to be found elsewhere—for instance, in paragraphs 63 and 65. But are vague words enough, at this rather advanced stage? Equivalence in insurance relates to standards for capital, supervision and reinsurance, and there is now a fear within the industry that it might retain EU regulation and rules while losing market access—the worst of both worlds. It is still not too late to seek a bold new agreement that would preserve tariff-free access and/or authorisation for UK brokers.
Even after Brexit, the City of London can, must and will continue to be a vital, pivotal asset—and a vital, pivotal European asset. Furthermore, as we build this new relationship with the EU, we must not only signal our determination to protect the jobs and welfare of our people, but reaffirm our continuing leading role in the western alliance as a proud, free and outspoken people, standing shoulder to shoulder with our neighbours, friends and allies, in good times and in bad. It is very much in all our interests that the voice of financial services should continue to be heard and heeded as that relationship begins to take shape.
I conclude by quoting the excellent Ruth Davidson, who wrote over the weekend:
“We have a duty to serve the public in the national interest, to deliver the Brexit referendum result in a way that mitigates risks and maximises opportunities ... That means compromise, whichever side of the debate we were on two years ago”.
To paraphrase the celebrated sentiments of that great Englishman and proud European Winston Churchill, the situation demands rather less defiance from those who lost the referendum and more magnanimity from those who won it. For many of us on these Benches, compromise is not a dirty word: it is the necessary foundation of any approach that will heal the ugly scars that the referendum has left behind it, and the one and only way to restore one nation.
Lord Radice (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the balanced and considered speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I would have expected nothing less from him and I congratulate him on it.
It was Michael Bloomberg, the American media mogul, who said about the referendum result that it was the,
“stupidest thing any country has ever done”.
He based this harsh judgment on the underlying reasons for Britain’s pre-referendum prosperity: the UK’s massive trade with other member states and its 40% share of the EU’s inward investment, with foreign companies coming to the UK as a base for trading within the EU, and with the UK, like Germany, using its membership of the EU to facilitate its entry into other global markets. As my noble friend Lord Anderson—he is not here now—said, the recent fantastic trade deal between the EU and Japan is a good example of what EU membership can bring. It is interesting that it has been hardly mentioned in the Eurosceptic press.
The UK’s position within the EU has been buttressed by special opt-outs, the prime examples being on the single market and Schengen. If Bloomberg is right, the main purpose of our Brexit negotiations should be to mitigate as far as possible the loss of these great advantages. Instead, Mrs May’s negotiating strategy has so far—I hope that she will improve in the future—been to try to buy off the hard-line Brexiteers in her own party rather than negotiating realistically with the EU to achieve the best possible deal for the UK.
Mrs May in her Lancaster House speech of 17 January 2017, which I consider was a bit of a disaster and I see was much quoted by the former Foreign Secretary in his extremely thin resignation speech, laid down her red lines. She confirmed that the UK would end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain; she made it clear that the UK would leave both the single market and the customs union; she foolishly announced that
“no deal … is better than a bad deal”,
and talked airily about a “Global Britain”. In short, to win over her Eurosceptics, she became a prisoner of their Eurosceptic “red lines” and she has been a prisoner ever since.
The White Paper, which, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said, should have been produced long ago and certainly before Mrs May triggered Article 50, is at least an attempt to row back from Lancaster House—to that extent it is an improvement and should be welcomed—but we are still no clearer on what the Government really mean on a number of key issues, including the Northern Ireland border and the customs union.
As Alex Barker pointed out in the FT, within the space of a year Mrs May has floated five variations of a customs union: a customs union associate membership, a highly streamlined customs arrangement, a new customs partnership, a temporary customs arrangement, and now a facilitated customs arrangement. This is surely carrying circumlocution a bit far. It enables Monsieur Barnier to claim that he is mystified by the Government’s position, and I see his point.
For there to be any realistic chance of a good deal, we will have to accept that we should remain a member of the customs union and probably the single market as well. That in itself is no bad thing. It was Sir Martin Donnelly, Liam Fox’s former Permanent Secretary, who remarked that leaving the single market and the customs union was like,
“giving up a three-course meal … now, for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future”.
He is right. It is also the case, of course, that no trading deal that we can now achieve with the EU is better than our existing one as a member of the EU. Indeed, in the two years since the referendum it has become ever clearer that leaving the EU, especially at this time, is a dangerous, high-risk strategy. By contrast, the case for remaining in the EU is gathering force by the day, which is why the Brexiteers are so vocal.
Maybe we will leave the EU, I do not know; I do not have the certainty of the spokesman of the Liberal Democrats. I hope that it will be with a half-sensible deal, a so-called soft Brexit, which to some extent will mitigate the cost of leaving the EU. Even if that happens, I for one am increasingly certain that at some stage in the future, maybe during the so-called transition period—I am not absolutely clear what this is for—or not long after, a new consensus will emerge in the UK for a return to the EU, perhaps in a new form but certainly as a member. If I am right it will be on the conclusive, unanswerable grounds that a medium-sized European power such as the UK must act together with its continental neighbours, not only for its own good and the good of its citizens but also for Europe as a whole.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, the White Paper is in tatters, the country is riven and, frankly I fear that we face a no-deal Brexit. I can see no sensible way forward other than a people’s vote. I say this after getting reinforcement for that view from an unexpected quarter: namely, a series of conversations with leaders in the financial services sector, who are quite frankly in shock. Most will not put their heads above the parapet, which I really regret at this stage, when I think it would be very helpful and important—but I understand their reluctance to scare investors, customers and employees.
My noble friend Lord Newby quoted the key statement in the White Paper, which is that,
“the UK and the EU will not have current levels of access to each other’s markets”.
How can a Government wilfully draw red lines which hurt our primary industry in its primary non-domestic market—indeed, a market that accounts for roughly one-third of the total financial services sector? I discussed with the City a year ago the benefits that financial services bring to the UK: £76 billion a year in taxes—think what that delivers in terms of the public sector—and some 2 million jobs. The City told me: “We have been abandoned by May. We are not a popular industry and they will not go in to bat for us”. I wrote down that quote. The required battle is frankly not with the EU—because the financial services sector is very satisfied with the current arrangement and, if it could get a single market in financial services, that would answer so many of its difficulties. The battle, frankly, is with the Brexiteers.
I find when I talk to Brexiteers that they live in a world of delusion, where something called “different regulation”—let us be honest and admit that “different regulation” is faux for “deregulation”—brings some mythical great opportunity. It is telling, when I go around to talk to people and ask what regulation they would remove, that the only one that gets suggested is removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I declare my interest as the chairman of a bank. I will give the noble Baroness an example of a regulation: the regulation that increased the capital weighting for lending to housebuilders from 100% to 150%, making less money available to build the houses the Government say they need and making housing and mortgages more expensive.
Baroness Kramer
I understand that we are to stay within international standards, however—and the noble Lord will know that that is Basel-derived.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She will also know that the United States does not implement those Basel standards and that we are required to do so because of the European Central Bank.
Baroness Kramer
Then I draw to the noble Lord’s attention the constant reaffirmation that we intend to stick to Basel standards. If we do not and we go for this broader deregulation, some honesty from the Government would be very relevant, frankly, at this point in time, and I will tell him why. The reason why I am so concerned about the lifting of the bankers’ bonuses cap is that it is a return to animal spirits and excessive risk taking, which we certainly cannot afford.
The noble Lord will know, if he talks to the asset managers and many of the other institutions that underpin financial services in the UK—I talked to the largest of those asset managers only a week ago—they will say that, if there is any move to deregulate, they will leave London for reputational reasons. They cannot afford the risk of being based and regulated in what is perceived to be an environment that is moving towards lighter-touch regulation. I understand that the reputation they have earned over the past years matters more than just about anything else.
I accept that financial services are complex and that different activities are impacted differently by Brexit. Purely domestic financial services—retail banking, for example—are pretty much untouched. But the opposite is entirely true for services sold from the UK directly to EU customers, and the White Paper makes it quite clear that these activities will move to the EU 27. They include commercial and specialty insurance, trade-related banking services—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, would add others to the list of banking services—and large parts of fintech that are very much tied to passporting and to the e-commerce directive. Ironically, when the UK has third-country status, because of the way local rules work within the EU, it will be less burdensome to sell to UK clients from the EU than it will be—not for all, but for many services—to sell to the EU from the UK. That is a powerful incentive to make that move—certainly for those core sales to EU companies, but more broadly.
Finally, we come to the capital and wholesale markets, which are at the heart of the City of London and underpin the financial services industry in the UK. These are, essentially, capital raising, and even more so because we are the global leader in FX trading and derivatives trading. We can easily forget that London is a global centre not despite but because of its role as the regional powerhouse for all the EU countries and for the euro. With the wholesale markets comes a further ecosystem of asset management and treasury operations, since senior managers prefer to be in one place, so they co-locate absolutely key operations.
I accept that no other capital or city in the EU could take London’s capital and wholesale markets away tomorrow. If the EU were to strip EU and euro activity out of London, it would go largely to New York. But that is day one. Read everything that Barnier says about financial markets, look at the rule changes put in place by the ECB and ESMA and it is clear that the EU has a 10 to 15-year strategy to build its capacity and leach these activities slowly into the EU. The battle is not really between London and the EU. It is a battle between Frankfurt and Paris to receive that business over the next 10 to 15 years.
One could say, “Why shouldn’t they?”. It is the EU economy—not the UK economy—that generates the core customers for so much of financial services that are, almost uniquely, wrapped up with financial stability issues. Could the EU rely on a UK regulator in a financial crisis when the whole point of Brexit is to put the UK interest first? If some businesses leave London and go to New York, why should the EU care? We are both third countries. So I believe that the consequences of any kind of leach are devastating over time—but financial services is an industry of the future, not the past, and it is key to opportunities for our young people, to our tax base and to our prosperity.
I quickly turn to two last issues. The first is timing. The political chaos in the Tory party, which makes a “no deal” prospect more likely, is having an immediate impact. Firms in the group that I described, which are selling services to the EU, have prepared for a move. They have licences in place, they have leased office space and they have optioned technology—but so far they have moved few people. Many pressed the go button after the Chequers fiasco and the disappointment of the White Paper. I hope, too, that we will look at this whole immigration issue. I would love to pick that up but I do not have time.
I urge the Government, even at this late stage, to find a way to stay in the single market for financial services. Nothing else will do and, quite frankly, if they cannot do it, they should tell people the consequences and let them have the final say.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, I voted remain but I none the less share the widespread acceptance that the verdict of the referendum must be honoured. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that it has taken the governing party, racked by internal division, two years to produce a White Paper on the form of Brexit—a White Paper which is long on generalisations and short on detail, particularly, as others have observed, in respect of the mainstay of our economy: services.
In the Times last week, Sam Coates, an excellent journalist, convincingly delineated 14 colourfully labelled factions in the other place, each with its own distinct outlook on Brexit, from “Paramilitary Brexiteers” to “The Known Unknowns” and “The Sammy Wilson One”. Self-evidently, Britain remains bitterly fragmented and divided on how precisely Brexit is to be delivered. Yet the challenge we face is truly monumental, as the Government’s own excellent context papers compellingly illuminate.
Britain is trying to unravel and reorder an existing relationship of extraordinary complexity with our nearest neighbours—our biggest trading partner and by far the world’s largest economic bloc. This is a divorce negotiation, not a marriage contract. UK financial services have £1.4 trillion of EU assets under management. Nearly half of all EU equity capital is raised in the City. UK banks underwrite half the debt issued by EU companies. Negotiating a new regulatory dispensation for the City in a period of months is a very tall order, and WTO rules have limited application for this sector if there were to be a car-crash Brexit. In aviation, we are Europe’s biggest player by far, flying to 370 cities. Eight out of 10 of the leading destinations are in the EU, but international travel is governed by bilateral agreements between countries, not by the WTO. We have but months to negotiate new arrangements. Finance and aviation are but two sectors among many.
The long, bitter division that we are experiencing has cost us time; it has lost us momentum; it has provoked disenchantment within the EU; and it has placed us in a perilous position. Moreover, absent a compelling incentive, it seems highly unlikely that the EU will agree to extend Article 50 and allow us more time. Some in Parliament, of course, welcome the prospect of an early hard Brexit, but we are ill prepared for that eventuality, which would deliver an enormous shock to the UK economy. Moreover, we have nothing in the locker to withstand such a shock, as our public finances have not yet fully recovered from the global financial crisis of 2008.
Whatever our reservations, our only immediate hope is to support the Government’s White Paper as the basis for an urgent, full and detailed negotiation with the EU. Plainly, the EU’s negotiators are lukewarm about the White Paper, but let us hope that the gallant President Macron, the wise Chancellor Merkel and other country leaders will recognise that our Prime Minister, as we all know all too well, has very little room for manoeuvre, and that they will show some flexibility, rather than themselves face the disruption, pain and disharmony that a hard Brexit would bring us all.
If, in the event, the Prime Minister cannot fashion an economically sound deal with the EU then I doubt, as I think others have said already, that Parliament will ratify an immediate hard Brexit. Our political nightmare will then intensify. Political realignment across the spectrum may well result, but even if that occurs, only a referendum on the true and limited options then remaining will resolve uncertainty and begin to end Britain’s long-lasting division and trauma.
Lord Heseltine (Con)
My Lords, it behoves someone rising from these Benches to say nice things about the Prime Minister, and I want unreservedly to salute a judgment she got 100% right, which was to put the Brexiteers in charge of the negotiations for our severance with Europe. I advocated that in the immediate aftermath of the referendum, and I did it for two reasons: first, because if they had not been put in charge they would have blamed whoever was for the resulting challenges that emerged; and, secondly, I had unbounded faith that if those particular people were put in charge, they would make a resounding nonsense of it.
It is quite clear that those two judgments were manifestly right. The first person to spot how right they were was the Prime Minister herself. Those of us who have lived through the traumas of the past 40 or 50 years of public life, knew that when Olly Robbins was moved from David Davis’s wing to Number 10 the game was up. Some of us remember Percy Cradock and Alan Walters—I notice my very good noble friend Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, is not in his place and, sadly, Geoffrey Howe is not with us at all—and when I saw the movement of Olly Robbins, I knew the game was up. I had a very similar experience when I was Secretary of State when a civil servant from the Ministry of Defence was moved to Number 10. I knew that that meant that all the gossip, intrigue and dirt within the ministry would be purveyed to Number 10 to my disadvantage, so I laid down a very simple rule. I said, “I am very happy that this civil servant from the ministry in Number 10 can communicate in any way and properly with the Ministry of Defence, but only in the presence of my private secretary”. Three weeks later, he was back in the Ministry of Defence, and that was a wise protection on my part.
After the protracted period of the Brexiteers in charge, we have seen what Brexit really amounts to in their mind. There is no plan, there is no detail. There are phrases, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said, but there is no reality behind the rhetoric and the emotion. The question that has to be asked is: what is Brexit? We know Brexit means Brexit—that is a very clear statement—but what actually is Brexit? The noble Lord, Lord Newby, went through the options. Boris Johnson started with the White Paper some time ago. How good it was, he said, but that moved on. We then had the Chequers document. I glanced at it and said, “This is dead. It won’t work”. Within a very short period it has been disowned by the Europeans, the right wing of the Conservative Party and, doubtless, parts of the Labour Party as well. Self-evidently, we narrow the field down to, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, an amended Chequers announcement or no deal. If this House cannot tell me what Brexit is, if the Government cannot tell me, if the newspapers cannot tell me and everybody has got their own version—600 versions here, another 600 versions there and thousands outside—what did the people vote for? What was in their mind? How are we, as servants of the people, as people wishing to implement the referendum, to do what the public want, to know what they want when we do not know ourselves? It is no surprise to me that growing in volume and articulation is the demand: “Let the people have another chance. Let them say when they have seen the facts”. The interesting thing is that that they are now all saying that the facts were never there. We were not told.
That is not true. All the facts were laid out. All the warnings were there. Everything was in front of them, all within a giant smokescreen called Project Fear. Every warning, however factual, however realistic, was out, gone, just a scare. A lot of people believed that it was just a scare. And there was the bribe, not only a scare but 350 million quid a week—all blown of course. Nevertheless, how could anyone conceivably make a judgment about something we cannot define for them until we know what the deal looks like? And we cannot know what the deal looks like until the Europeans have said what they are prepared to do. In my view, there is a growing argument for another referendum.
I think I have some idea of what Brexit is. I think it is two things. First, it is the frustration of eight years of post-2008 stagnating living standards. All my political experience tells me that there is a tolerance of limited dimension in the electorate for frozen living standards. They do not ask for much from us, but they ask us to try to keep the show on the road, keep prosperity rising and make sure that the country is relatively well run. For eight years following the 2008 crash, we have failed to deliver that. Not that I blame the British, because the Americans and the Europeans failed in the same way. We went on a great spending spree—personally, collectively, industrially, commercially and in the public sector—there had to be an adjustment, and people do not like the consequences. Of course, you do not deal with that by the Brexit solution, which makes us poorer. As Sir John Major articulately reminded us—something that the Government had already said—we will not only be poorer, we will remain poorer, and those who will be the poorest are those who voted most persistently to be made poorer, without knowing what they were doing.
As the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Radice and, I think, my noble friend Lord Birt said, the right solution is to ask the second question about Brexit and see whether there is a way to revisit the fundamentals. Immigration has not raised its voice very articulately this afternoon. I think that if you have the frustration to which I have referred, there has to be someone to blame, and the person who is the easiest to blame is the foreigner. You cannot argue they are taking your job, because they all have jobs. You cannot argue that they are all a lot of scroungers coming here to live in our welfare state because they are all in work. But there is something about immigration on too high a scale that challenges people’s willingness to accept the change it involves.
That is not a British problem. It is all over Europe. It is called Le Pen, and the AFG in Germany. The Dutch have it. It is Donald Trump in America, who has played ruthlessly with the issue. In my humble submission, we have to understand that the electronicalisation—the communications revolution—of the world means that everywhere, in every darkest corner of poverty, they know how prosperous we are. The most energetic, the most talented, the most adventurous of them see the honeypot. We are the honeypot, and they are coming here. They are not coming to land off the Mediterranean, in Greece, Italy or Spain; they are coming here to northern Europe. There is an opportunity, in looking at Brexit and Europe, to see whether we can become engaged in a dialogue with the Europeans which recognises that this issue engages us all, and that we will have to address it in one way or another. I have always believed that Stalin made a terrible mistake in closing the wall. If he had left it open, we would have had to build the wall.
In another context, in another generation, there will be the same issue—they will keep coming. I have one question for the Minister. The Government have total control over the non-European immigration figures. The European figures are going down, with all the economic consequences of which we are aware. What are the Government doing about the rising non-European figures, which have soared to replace the Europeans going home? Is it just possible that they are not doing anything significant because they do not want to expose the dependence of our social services and our economy on the creaming of talented, energetic and skilled people? I say to the Government: wait until you get to the undeveloped world with which you will be trying to do all these great trade deals, and tell them, “Everything is all right. You train all these people at great taxpayers’ expense, in the poverty-ridden world in which you live, and we will then take them here because they are the only ones we want”.
Brexit is a disaster. I accept—I am afraid in conflict with my noble friend Lord Hunt, of whom I am a great admirer—that there is no compromise with Brexiteers. There never has been and there never will be. For my money, here we stand and fight.
Lord Mandelson (Lab)
What a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, with his wounding insight and sagacity. I agree with him that this White Paper will not endure as a basis of our negotiation with the European Union, and I shall come back to that in a moment. It has served, in my view, one very useful and significant purpose already. It has completely buried the idea of a Canada-style bilateral free trade agreement between Britain and the European Union as being anything other than a completely inadequate basis for our future trade. The Government now accept the principle that if we are to safeguard frictionless trade in goods, we need to maintain closer integration. They accept that we have to adhere to EU rules. They accept that we have to respect the role of the ECJ, however much their verbal gymnastics try to disguise all these things.
This simply reflects the economic and commercial reality after 40 years of progressive economic integration. This reality goes to the heart of why the White Paper has sparked such a backlash against it from both sides of the argument. For leavers, who want a clean break, it is nothing short of a capitulation—a sell-out because it leaves us tied to the EU rule book for goods and large numbers of EU programmes without any reciprocal rights to influence or to interpret those rules. On this basis they ask: “What on earth is the point of leaving the European Union?” For remainers, on the other hand, it offers a half-in, half-out concept that concedes influence and sovereignty without getting back the full economic benefit of the single market for both goods and, importantly, services. For them, it is too high a price to pay. So a mixture of “what is the point?” and “what is the price?” now stymies this White Paper.
Worse than that, it does not even provide a viable basis for reaching an agreement with the European Union. It seeks special treatment for the UK in goods, in ways that, in the EU’s view, would contravene fundamental legal principles. In the view of the EU 27, it would offer an undesirable precedent to other countries inside and outside the EU, if it were to be adopted. It does not provide a hard-and-fast level playing field in social, environmental, consumer and competition policies. The EU could not accept the complicated dual tariff system, never tried and almost certainly unworkable—and I speak as a former Trade Commissioner—because it could never be confident that the system would be properly enforced, even if it was willing to accept the principle. Lastly, the White Paper fails completely to set out a credible plan for services. The proposals on financial services would reduce Europe’s regulatory prerogatives, which is certainly not going to be acceptable to it.
And then there is the question of the Irish border. The White Paper repeats Britain’s total commitment to no hard border, yet insists that we will leave Europe’s single market, its customs union and its VAT area, and a customs border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is also ruled out. Those conditions simply cannot be met simultaneously if we are going to avoid a hard border, and it may well be the rock on which any deal with the EU founders unless, in return for flexibility by the EU—and I can see where it might put that forward—Britain finally decides to stay in the customs union indefinitely. In my view, that is a likely outcome, but may become explicit only during the transition period, if we depart in 2019.
That brings me to the last and main point that I want to reinforce. This White Paper crosses the Rubicon—there is no doubt about that, hence the fury of the Brexiteers. But here is the point. Having left Canada’s model, however difficult the politics will be, the logic of the Government’s position leads towards Norway and remaining in Europe’s economic area, where we would be firmly anchored in a properly established structure with full participation in the single market, with basic rights and protections afforded to us by that structure, from where we could negotiate a more appropriate deal for a country of our size and recent membership of the European Union. But that can be done only—and I think this is slowly dawning on many—from inside, not outside, Europe’s economic area. That is the point that both Front Benches, if I may say so, will need to come to terms with in the coming months. The alternative—crashing out of the European Union with no future trade deal—would leave us completely beholden to how the EU chooses to treat our trade. We would be virtually powerless, with minimum WTO rules—applied, by the way, to goods but not to services in the main—coming to our aid, assuming of course that the WTO survives intact President Trump’s tenure in the White House.
This is a fundamental choice that Parliament may be unwilling or unable to make. Perhaps it is a choice that Parliament should not make by itself, because it goes to the heart of the original referendum decision, when this unpalatable choice with which we are faced was neither revealed nor properly debated at the time. No one is advocating a people’s vote on the final deal as a sort of re-run fixture because the first result was disappointing. That is not my view. It is because the whole process surrounding the referendum was flawed, and the handling of Brexit ever since has been totally chaotic. I am not saying that it would be easy or simple to hold another referendum. However, I believe—as John Major argued most persuasively on BBC Television yesterday—that a fresh people’s vote is the only way to give democratic legitimacy to the profound choice that now has to be made: to leave on such sub-optimal terms as we will be presented with, or to remain in the European Union.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, this debate has been superseded by events since the Chequers meeting two weeks ago, when the White Paper was supposedly agreed by a united Cabinet.
No one can oppose the objective of a White Paper. Parliament, citizens and our European partners have a right to know how the Government see the Brexit process moving forward and to know the choices the Government have made and for what reason. But why on earth has it taken so long to appear, and what benefits were obtained by such delays? After two long years of preparing for this moment, we are in real danger of taking a path that leads us to a no-deal Brexit. For the Government to have set, over a year ago, a Brexit deadline of 29 March 2019, and not until now to have spelled out their intended course to meet that deadline, reflects incredible indecision. In addition, for the former Brexit Minister David Davis to have been engaged directly in negotiation with Michel Barnier for less than five hours—yes, five hours in two years—borders on a dereliction of duty.
If it was possible for the Welsh Government to have produced their own White Paper 18 months ago, why on earth has it taken the UK Government so long? That paper, entitled Securing Wales’ Future, accepted the reality of Brexit but spelt out the essential safeguards needed for manufacturing industry, tourism and agriculture. It was quickly recognised by European Parliament negotiator Guy Verhofstadt as providing a realistic basis for negotiation. Had the Welsh White Paper been adopted by the Government 12 months ago, we would now have a potential Brexit deal which would satisfy manufacturing, industry and agricultural exporters, and it would have provided a solution to the Northern Ireland border and Gibraltar issues. It would have been accomplished within a timescale that enabled other challenges to be addressed: aviation, security, Euratom, healthcare, citizenship, and an acceptable compromise on the movement of people. It is now increasingly unlikely that agreement can be secured within the Government’s self-imposed deadline of 29 March next year, and that we shall consequently crash out without a deal.
The White Paper recognises the need to provide tariff-free access for UK manufactured goods and agricultural products into the EU market, and for this to be frictionless so that supply chains can work without hindrance. This is as pressing a requirement for UK exporters as it is for those trading across the border in Ireland. The White Paper recognises that there will need to be common standards and safeguards to ensure that one partner does not steal a competitive edge, and it recognises the need for a mutually acceptable judicial process. Yet, despite recognising these factors, it steps back from the obvious solution of maintaining a single market and a customs union—a framework endorsed by this Chamber when the Brexit Bill was before us, and which was rejected in the Commons last week only by cheating in the pairing system. We are told that such a single market and customs union agreement would jeopardise the claimed benefits which await us from trading with the rest of the world. Yet this week the EU has concluded a trade deal with Japan as good as the UK could expect to negotiate on a bilateral basis. The White Paper proposes a convoluted system of mutual charging of tariffs on goods entering the UK from the rest of the world, which are sold on into EU markets. We are asked to opt for a pig in a poke, via a complex, bureaucratic customs arrangement.
This nonsense has to stop. Unless people wake up and demand a confirmatory vote to boot this disastrous course to oblivion, progress must be on the basis of a customs union and single market participation. We should seek a sensible compromise on freedom of movement which recognises workers’ rights to move to fill job vacancies but accepts limitations on open-ended population movements, which might cause economic or social problems. There is widespread sympathy within the EU for such an approach, and the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, focused on that issue very effectively.
Such a sensible Brexit is achievable, but it is not on the agenda because the Government are in hock to the extreme Brexit wing of the Tory party. I do not usually read the Sunday Express, but I could not help but notice its headline yesterday:
“Brexit: Time to Start Again”.
To start again—in all seriousness! David Davis is quoted as saying that the Brexit negotiating process will have to “start again” and that it would not be the end of the world if Britain left the EU empty-handed. That confirms the worst fear of many of my colleagues: that it never was the intention of Mr Davis or Boris Johnson ever to have any deal, and that they have spun it out for two years knowing that at this late stage it will be impossible to secure a deal ahead of the 29 March deadline. This means that we are heading for a crash. If that is not the Government’s intention, let the Minister confirm that changing the 29 March date is under consideration. We need clarification on this before Parliament adjourns for the Summer Recess.
To fail to allow adequate time to negotiate a practical Brexit will confirm our worst fears that a no-deal Brexit has now become the Government’s expectation. In that case, the sooner the better that this Government are replaced by a cross-party Government, pledged to secure a Brexit based on a customs union and single market engagement. The sensible majority in both Houses should take control of these matters and steer these islands away from the disastrous cliff edge towards which we are heading, and for which the ordinary working people of these islands will most assuredly pay the price.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who has made a passionate speech against what was determined by more than 400 votes in the other place—that is, withdrawal from the European Union on 29 March.
In my youth I was a keen rock climber and one summer evening I nearly ended both when I wandered off route on a cliff face high above the valley of Glencoe. As I climbed upwards, the holds became smaller and less frequent, and the rock ahead smoother, greasier and unstable. Hanging on by my fingernails with a big drop below my heels, my legs began to tremble and fear suffused me. I had a choice: continue further in the hope that good jugs lay ahead but risk not being able to reverse my moves and a spectacular fall, or, with great difficulty and considerable risk, climb back to the point where I had gone astray and return to the known route I had set out to follow. The response to the White Paper by MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate, the public, Conservative voters, the Opposition and an arrogant and bullying EU suggests that the Prime Minister finds herself in an equally uncomfortable and precarious position.
My noble friend Lord Heseltine says that the Government have no plan and blames this on the Brexiteers. The White Paper is Olly Robbins’s plan; it is not the Brexiteers’ plan. Indeed, the constitutional outrage is that the Secretary of State’s plan was being ignored. This paper was produced in parallel and he was presented with it some 48 hours before a meeting at which members of the Cabinet were invited to agree it or take a taxi home.
My response on that cliff face was to climb down to the point where I had gone astray. For the Prime Minister, contrary to what the noble Lord suggests, that means taking the rejected Chequers deal off the table now and returning—the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, does not seem to have noticed it—to Mr Barnier’s previous offer of a Canada-plus free trade deal and, if that cannot be agreed, putting in place arrangements to trade with the EU on the same terms as most countries in the world under the WTO, of which we are a member and to which we have been paying a substantial subscription every year. We do most of our trade now with non-EU countries under WTO rules, which incidentally require members to facilitate frictionless trade—that is a rule of the WTO—and that includes the EU.
If we end up trading under WTO rules, with no EU trade deal—although, contrary to what the noble Lord suggests, there has never been any suggestion that any government Minister has not wanted to do better than that—we will, of course, save every penny of the £39 billion that the EU is demanding. I defy anyone—although this does not, of course, apply to anyone in this House—to stand for election in this country and explain that they want to spend £39 billion to receive no conceivable advantage.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
I do not know whether the noble Lord has noticed this week’s Economist, whose headline is that the WTO is in danger of collapsing. That seems rather to undermine his suggestion that we should rely entirely on the WTO. He will, of course, recall that it is the US Administration who are doing the collapsing.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
The Economist has a particular view of these matters—but if the noble Lord is correct and the WTO is collapsing, the least of our problems will be leaving the EU.
The Prime Minister should reject the bogus posturing of the Taoiseach, the latest recruit to Project Fear, who claims that if the UK left the EU it would mean that our planes could not fly over Ireland. As flyover rules are a matter for an international treaty and have nothing to do with our EU membership, the most charitable interpretation I can put on that is that he did not know what he was talking about. The least-charitable interpretation is that he has the same advisers as George Osborne, who promised a punishment Budget, higher taxes, soaring interest rates, rising unemployment, inflation and a recession within weeks of any decision to vote to leave the EU.
Even Mr Osborne did not suggest civil unrest, which the UK chief executive of Amazon is predicting on the front page of today’s Times. He would do well to address the unrest among his own workforce arising from Amazon’s poor employment practices. If we leave the EU we will be able to introduce a tax on internet sales and level the playing field for our retailers, who pay rates and taxes and face unfair competition from online retailers. As members of the EU we cannot do that. Amazon in 2016 routed its revenues for the whole of the EU through Mr Juncker’s tax haven in Luxembourg, and paid a total of £15 million in tax on revenues of £19.5 billion.
The Irish Prime Minister has a short memory. When the EU left Ireland swinging in the wind after the financial crisis it was the United Kingdom that lent it tens of billions to lessen the catastrophic consequences of its membership of the euro. The Taoiseach’s position on the border is, to say the least, confusing. The Irish Times of 19 July reports him as saying that the European Union had assured him that no physical checks would be needed on the border even if the UK crashed out without a deal. Ireland’s exports to Britain across the Irish Sea are essential to the Irish economy. For example, 70% of their beef comes to the UK. There is already a land border for tax, duty and currency differences between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Customs officials on both sides have said that our leaving the EU does not create a need for a so-called hard border. The actual trade across the land border is a tiny fraction of that with the UK. If both Governments say they will not countenance a hard border, who exactly is going to put one there? The EU? I think not. This border issue is a Trojan horse pushed into the negotiations by people determined to reverse the UK’s decision to leave the EU—and we have heard a lot from them this afternoon.
My noble friend Lord Heseltine asked what the people voted for. The reasons why people voted to leave the EU were not just economic, although I believe that in time our leaving offers a bright future for our country once we are unshackled from the sclerotic bureaucracy that is the European Union. It was about being free again to make and unmake our own laws, to hold Governments to account for the rules and regulations that dominate our daily lives, to decide for ourselves our immigration policy and how our money is spent, to be free of the jurisdiction of a foreign court, to control our own natural resources, and to offer markets to developing countries around the world.
As a boy I was brought up in Arbroath. I watched a great fishing fleet, along with its associated industries, being destroyed by the CFP, with successive Governments of this country powerless to help. It is not for this or any other Parliament to give away the powers which come from the people and with which it is entrusted without their consent, far less wilfully to ignore the results of a referendum.
The year 2020 will be the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath. It was a letter, in Latin, to the Pope, signed by eight earls and 45 barons, some of whose descendants are actually in the House today. The words come tumbling down the centuries: “We fight, not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but for freedom alone, which no honest man surrenders but with his life”.
Those words were delivered to Rome; today we should dispatch them to Brussels.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I spent most of last week in Northern Ireland, and I was recently also in Dublin. The threat which Brexit poses to the island of Ireland is, despite the complacency of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, very serious—potentially the most serious failure of British public policy in Ireland since the collapse of the Sunningdale power-sharing agreement in 1974.
Boris Johnson complained last week that Northern Ireland was,
“the tail wagging the dog”,
of Brexit. This is the most irresponsible statement by a former Minister in my lifetime. The reason why the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, Parliament, the European Commission and the other Governments of the European Union have all made the Irish border a critical issue is that it is a critical issue.
Boris Johnson has spent virtually no time talking to those affected. Had he done so, they would have told him, as they told me and everyone else engaged in Brexit, that peace in Northern Ireland cannot be taken for granted, that the Troubles in the 1960s started with the shooting and murder of customs officials on the north/south border in South Armagh and County Down, and that the Northern Ireland police force sees Brexit as its most serious threat. That is not because there is likely to be any immediate return of widespread terrorism—although the systematic community violence in Londonderry over the past fortnight is very worrying—but because of its fear that differential north/south customs and regulatory regimes, even if there is no physical border infrastructure, will inevitably breed mass smuggling and contraband, of which there is a long history across the Irish border. That will in turn breed illegality, organised crime linked to extremists and a big new challenge of enforcement and policing.
Lest anyone have any doubt about what all this means, I suggest they go, as I did, to the border at Newry, where the A1 Belfast/Dublin motorway passes, and talk to Damian McGenity and the many other campaigners against a new border and against Brexit. They will tell you their horrific stories of the past; they will tell you about the thousands of businesses and people who constantly trade and travel across the border; and they will take you to their huge banner across the border, containing a picture of a watchtower with the words, “Listen to our voices: no EU frontier in Ireland”.
Theresa May is contradictory about the Irish border, as is the Democratic Unionist Party, with which she is effectively in coalition. Both claim to want no hard border, yet both support a hard Brexit which will inevitably entail a new border. For Mrs May, it is because of what she calls the instruction of the British people, which she bizarrely chose to interpret as a hard Brexit, despite her own better judgment before the referendum against any Brexit. It became clear to me after hours in Stormont and other discussions last week that despite its public protestations to the contrary, the DUP strongly supports a hard Brexit precisely because, for cultural and sectarian reasons, it wants new barriers with the Republic of Ireland. Hence the DUP’s decisive vote last week in the House of Commons against a customs union, when it would have carried a customs union had it voted the other way. This, of course, comes after its refusal to restart the devolved institutions and, indeed, its bitter opposition to the Good Friday agreement.
As Prime Minister, Mrs May knows that she has basic duties to maintain the peace and to try to maintain trade. It was also starkly clear to her last December that the European Union, quite rightly, would not allow Brexit negotiations to start at all if there were not bankable guarantees against a hard border in Ireland. The upshot in the UK-EU joint report of 8 December last year was that if, at the end of the transition period in December 2020, there is no new treaty relationship between Britain and the EU that absolutely avoids a new border in Ireland, the backstop will be a continuation of the status quo.
The problem for Mrs May—indeed, the Achilles heel of Brexit—is that this backstop is, at one and the same time, utterly essential and totally unviable if the rest of the United Kingdom undertakes a hard Brexit that involves leaving the European customs union and single market. It is unviable for a perfectly simple reason, which it took Arlene Foster and the DUP leadership about 30 seconds to work out: if the backstop applies to Northern Ireland but not to the rest of the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom leaves the customs union and the single market, there will have to be a hard internal border in the United Kingdom, down the Irish Sea. For this reason, amidst great crisis last December, the DUP extracted a last-minute concession from Mrs May that there would be no internal UK tariffs or customs controls—a concession which, amidst equal crisis in the House of Commons last week, the Government had to agree to enshrine into law. If, however, there can be no border down the Irish Sea, how is it possible to leave the customs union and the single market while Ireland, north and south, does not do so? The answer is: it is totally impossible.
Boris Johnson wishes that this unviable problem would simply go away and wants Theresa May to walk away from her solemn Irish commitments—just as he has walked away from the Foreign Office and all his promises on Brexit. However, this cannot be done by the Prime Minister if she is to retain any shred of credibility and honour. She is, however, coming close to it. In Belfast last week, as a constant companion of Arlene Foster, Mrs May said, as is now ritualistic, that,
“there can never be a hard border … Anything that undermines that is a breach of the spirit of the Belfast agreement”.
Equally ritualistically, she said,
“we could never accept … a new border within the United Kingdom”.
She then, however, went on to attack the very backstop arrangement to prevent an Irish border that she had agreed to last December. The precise words that she used are very important for the House to note. She said that,
“the Commission’s proposed ‘backstop’ text does not deliver … The economic and constitutional dislocation … is something I will never accept”.
So the Prime Minister is saying that she will never accept what she has already accepted and that the backstop, which is there precisely to avoid unacceptable economic dislocation, is now unacceptable to her and to the DUP, precisely because she does want to bring about the very economic and constitutional dislocation which she claims to oppose.
These are very grave issues. The future prosperity and peace of the entire British Isles—Great Britain and Ireland—depend upon them. I suggest that we are not talking about the tail wagging the dog but the whole British bulldog, tail and all, being trapped in a room with no exits, increasingly desperate with frustration.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I was fascinated to hear the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, quoting the Declaration of Arbroath, and I look forward to discussing Scottish history a little with him. The declaration, after all, was aimed at the papacy, but Scottish independence was defended primarily against the English and was maintained through trade with the Hanseatic League in the Low Countries and through the alliance with the French. But let us leave that matter.
I would like to start by talking about borders. When the Cold War ended, the Metropolitan Police approached Chatham House, for which I then worked, to ask us to convene a seminar on border control and cross-border co-operation in this transformed circumstance. Before I chaired the conference, I was briefed by various border staff who had managed the east-west border. I particularly remember what the Finns told me about the way they managed their border with the Soviet Union. They stated bluntly: “You can’t manage a border on your own. You have to co-operate with those on the other side, however difficult or hostile they may be. And the more open the border becomes, the closer the co-operation you need”.
This White Paper fails to grapple with the contradiction between unilateral insistence on sovereignty and the necessity of close and institutionalised co-operation with neighbouring states with which we share intensive economic independence, mass travel and security. We still hear hard Brexiteers say—as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—that we could unilaterally declare the Irish border open if we leave the EU without a deal and challenge the Irish to accept or reject it.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I was quoting the Irish Taoiseach saying that he had that assurance from the EU. Is he wrong?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the point I am making is that either side cannot deal with it unilaterally; we have to work together. We are condemned to work together.
We cannot manage our Channel border on our own either. We have several hundred UK Border Force personnel stationed in France with the agreement of the French Government. We also depend on active co-operation with customs and border staff in Belgium and the Netherlands.
There is a similar contradiction at the heart of the White Paper’s approach to foreign policy and security. The executive summary proclaims that we will reclaim the UK’s sovereignty and assert,
“a fully independent foreign policy”.
Chapter 2, in contrast, goes into great detail about the Government’s,
“ambitious vision for the UK’s future relationship with the EU … that goes beyond existing precedents”.
It then lists a long succession of EU agencies in which we wish to remain either as a full or associated member. These include Europol and Eurojust, the Schengen Information System, the European Criminal Records Information System, passenger name records and the passenger information unit, the Prüm data exchange arrangements on DNA and fingerprints, the European arrest warrant, joint investigation teams, the European Union Satellite Centre, the EU military staff, the EU intelligence and situation centre, the European Defence Agency, the European defence fund, Galileo and the European defence technological and industrial base—15 different legal and institutional frameworks. We wish, that is, to move from being a full member with a number of significant opt-outs to being a non-member with a lot of significant opt-ins.
The UK also proposes close co-operation across all foreign policy areas, with invitations to informal sessions of the EU’s Political and Security Committee, regular dialogue between officials, reciprocal exchange of personnel and expertise and provision for discussion between EU 27 leaders and the British Prime Minister on as regular a basis as possible. There is no mention here of the Government’s earlier proposal for a new security treaty with the EU—perhaps the Minister will tell us whether that goal has been explicitly abandoned—but Chapter 4 sets out an extensive institutional framework, with layers of committees, which will clearly require legal backing and ratification.
That is all very ambitious—and unavoidably constraining of British sovereignty. The White Paper notes, as others have said, that,
“where the UK participates in an EU agency, the UK will respect the remit of the Court of Justice of the EU”.
That will be hard to sell to the members of the European Research Group and the columnists of the Telegraph and the Mail. It suggests that,
“much of this can be done within existing third country precedents … There are opportunities to build on existing precedents”.
This contradicts what the Prime Minister has said repeatedly and in the foreword about the unprecedented character of the deep and special relationship that the UK wishes to build. I ask the Minister specifically to tell us which precedents the White Paper is referring to as a model for our future foreign policy and security relationship. Is it EU-Turkey, EU-Ukraine, EU-Georgia or EU-Azerbaijan? I assume that it is not EU-Norway, because that is a closer association than the Government think is compatible with UK sovereignty.
Chapter 2 of the White Paper tries desperately to bridge the gap between sovereign independence and intensive co-operation—and fails. Perhaps that is not surprising when for the past two years our Foreign Secretary has entirely failed to engage with the question of the future institutional framework for Britain’s place in the world. He said in his resignation speech last week that:
“We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave … but as great independent actors on the world stage”.
In effect, that dismisses almost everything presented in Chapter 2. His only formulation of Britain’s future place in the world was,
“to take one decision now before all others, and that is to believe in this country and in what it can do”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/18; cols. 449-450.]
If we just believe, everything will be all right. That is rather like Peter Pan or like the song in Disney’s “Pinocchio”—
“When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true”.
However, one difference between Pinocchio and Boris Johnson is that when Pinocchio told a lie, his nose grew longer; our former Foreign Secretary’s nose remains unchanged.
In 1962, some 56 years ago, the US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, famously said:
“Britain’s attempt to play a separate power role … a role apart from Europe … is about played out”.
All these years later, the Eurosceptics are still dreaming of some sort of global Britain apart from Europe. The White Paper tries to offer them independence while struggling to maintain essential links with Europe and fails to resolve the contradiction. This leaves Britain without any coherent foreign policy drifting offshore in the eastern Atlantic while Russia becomes more threatening, the Middle East more dangerous and the United States more erratic. What a position for a Conservative Government.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord has just talked about Boris Johnson, but I want to talk about a great Foreign Secretary. A fortnight ago we lost Peter Carrington, a great Foreign Secretary, a great Defence Secretary, a great Secretary-General, a great patriot and a great European. It is 46 years since I first worked with Peter Carrington. I knew him well and I know what he thought about Brexit. For that generation—that of Denis Healey on the beach at Anzio or Peter Carrington in the Guards Armoured Division liberating the Low Countries—“Never again” really meant something. For that generation, “Never again” meant ensuring no more war in Europe, ensuring the collective defence of Europe against external threat, rebuilding a broken Europe and working for its prosperity, and fostering and entrenching the values of Europe’s better nature. For all his endearingly laconic understatement, the commitment of Peter Carrington was very clear. Britain in Europe was a non-transactional relationship. It was about common values, a common effort to protect, and a commitment to advancement.
What would Peter Carrington have made of this White Paper? We do not know but, if he had written it, I do not think that it would have started with a “facilitated customs arrangement”. One can sense his shudder of patrician disdain. I think it would have started with something about values. It might have said something about the future rights of our fellow Europeans in our country and our citizens in continental Europe. The silence on legal immigration is very strange. As a great Defence Secretary, he might have wanted some restatement of the absolute nature of the British commitment to European defence. Whatever happens between the Brussels bean-counters, when the chips are down the Brits will be there. The Prime Minister fudged that a bit in her Lancaster House speech, but I thought she got it absolutely right in Munich in February. It is odd that the White Paper is totally silent on it. The reference on page 66 to a possible defence “enhanced Framework Participation Agreement” does not quite do the trick. The White Paper is a bit technical and bottom up. It is very transactional and it does not seem to have a lot of vision in it.
That is what Peter Carrington might have thought, but I do not know. He was a very skilled diplomat so he certainly would not have said, as the Prime Minister did on television and as Mrs Leadsom said in the other place, that the proposals in the White Paper are non-negotiable. Concrete on the feet is rarely wise. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, pointed out at the outset, the proposals have already changed. The passage that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, read out on the facilitated customs arrangement gave the foreigners the good news that we would not insist that third-country flows through their ports should be slowed down while they handled the segregated goods heading for us and operated two systems of taxation and checking. That was a relief for them, I am sure, except that the amendments made in the House of Commons mean that we do so insist that the ports of Rotterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp be clogged up operating two systems. So the proposals are negotiable after all, but only if you are British, Tory and a rebel. The 27 have to operate two systems where they now run one. They will not, of course. Why would they?
Actually, they would not have agreed with the White Paper’s proposal anyway, because the reciprocal regime at our ports is not one that they would be prepared to put up with. It is as inconceivable as it would be unprecedented that the EU should allow a third country, not a member state, to collect its taxes, which are important for its common budget, when no longer under the control of its court. As I mentioned to the House two weeks ago, the EU anti-fraud agency, OLAF, currently has two cases in the ECJ, each worth more than €3 billion, against the United Kingdom for undercharging customs duty and for allowing VAT fraud at our ports. I thought that Monsieur Barnier was spectacularly diplomatic when he said quizzically on Friday about the facilitated customs arrangement, “Would there not be a risk of fraud?”
Anyway, it does not work like that. If we leave the customs union we leave the customs territory and each check will take place at its frontier—unless, of course, we form a new customs union with the EU, as this House recommended when it accepted the amendment to the withdrawal Bill that I moved. We encouraged the Government to explore a customs union with the EU. I really think that they should. The facilitated customs arrangement will not run—it is dead already—and without a workable solution such as a genuine customs union I do not see how we can avoid the hard border in Ireland. The situation is now really very grave. We have accepted that a solution to the Irish question is integral to the withdrawal agreement. If we do not get one we do not get the other. We would kill off the transition period, so the no-deal cliff edge would be not December 2020 but next March.
Then there is the point from the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. The Minister appeared to put himself in the same camp as Mr Raab, who yesterday asserted that if what we have put in our White Paper is not agreed by the EU by October and if there is not an agreed framework text by October, we will resile on our financial commitments, refusing to pay the sum that we agreed in December that we owed. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that it is the cost not of the future but of the past. These are commitments. If we were to do a runner all bets would be off, with no deals doable, and not just with the EU. Third countries would be very chary of striking agreements with a UK that had no working relationships at all with its 27 neighbours—we would not have while they were dunning us in the courts for the money that we owe them.
I still hope that wiser counsels will prevail. I wish that we had a Carrington to provide them. I think that he would have been much less dismissive than Mr Johnson of the concerns of business on the no-deal scenario and of the importance of the Good Friday agreement. On the debt question, I think that he would have thought the idea of doing a runner a tiny bit dishonourable.
How do we get out of this mess? I have two suggestions. First, the Government should look again at the amendment proposed by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, which the House also passed. No one knows—at least I do not—why the Prime Minister sent in the Article 50 notification on 29 March 2017. I have no idea. No one can assert that the country voted on 23 June 2016 to leave the EU on 29 March 2019. An extension is possible under Article 50 if all agree. Would they agree? I do not know. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, was doubtful. I think that it would depend on why we asked.
Let us bear in mind that if we go over the cliff in March, it is suicidal for us but it is bad for all 27 as well. Nobody wants that to happen. The EU has contingency plans for dealing with the European Parliament election should our departure date be pushed back. Mr Benn’s committee in the other place has recommended that it should be pushed back. The issue should be explored; it would be irresponsible not to. It would be irresponsible to crash out in eight months’ time if there is no done deal, doing huge damage to the economy, to jobs, to the stability of Northern Ireland and the well-being of our fellow citizens. Mr Rees-Mogg would be just fine—he has his money in Ireland—as would the Bullingdon boys, but as Sir John Major said at the weekend, the people who have the least would be hit the worst.
My final point is one that I have made before—I am afraid that I have made it tediously, but I must do it again. An Article 50 invocation is not an irrevocable act. Withdrawing the invocation would carry no price, political or financial. We would never have left. The terms of membership would not have, and could not be, changed without our agreement. If the Government cannot negotiate a Brexit which even remotely resembles what was promised in June 2016 and if the red lines which Mrs May wrote in September 2016 in the party conference speech turn out to preclude any workable solution to the Irish border, the country should certainly be asked whether—knowing what we now know—they would prefer that the notification be withdrawn. That might mean an election; it might mean a referendum; it might mean both. It would certainly mean an Article 50 extension, and this is the scenario in which we can be absolutely certain that we would get that extension. The 27 would unanimously agree straightaway to give us an extension if the purpose was to permit a people’s vote. The case for such a vote, before the people’s EU citizenship rights are extinguished and before the damage to their well-being really starts to bite, seems to me to grow stronger with every passing day and with every new lurch by the Government away from what a Carrington would have thought about Britain in Europe and about responsible leadership.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, while the contributions are extremely interesting, the advisory time limit has been somewhat generously interpreted. In deference to the speakers further down the list, perhaps your Lordships could see what they can do to co-operate in rough adherence to the advisory time limit. Otherwise, we will be very unfair to some of the later contributors. We want to hear from them as well.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, I shall do my best to follow that. I begin by drawing attention to my interests as entered in the register. I voted remain in the referendum. As events emerge, I cannot help feeling more and more that the nation made a terrible mistake during it.
I want to raise two issues. First, I hear voices, and have heard some of them today, demanding a second referendum. I recall those same pleas being made two years ago, immediately after the referendum. I said then that this was not, and it is not now, the time to be doing that. A second referendum is an issue only when we know the outcome of the negotiations. It becomes a possibility then, only if the public broadly see the result as a disaster, which they may well do. I do not see the point of having a second referendum if all the indications are that public opinion is not in favour of thinking again.
Clearly, the negotiations will, as usual, drag on until the last midnight or later. I have vivid memories of my patience being tested as president of the agriculture council many years ago, when I had to keep it in continuous sitting for 91 hours, finally getting agreement at 4 am on the Monday. A second referendum must remain a possibility, but it depends on events and how public opinion reacts to them. The time to decide and discuss it will be when we have our promised meaningful vote.
Secondly, I want to turn to the negotiations. Following the referendum, the Government made a serious mistake at an early stage in saying that we would leave the single market and the customs union. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, spoke at length about this; I agreed with a good deal of what he said. It was not necessary then to say that we would leave the single market and customs union. That decision has been at the centre of the problems of Northern Ireland, where the Government have quite rightly made an essential red line, which I strongly support, of no barriers between north and south and no barriers within the UK down the Irish Sea.
I have never understood how the Northern Ireland problem can be solved without going back on those earlier statements on the single market and the customs union. We may move back in the direction of the Norway settlement, but, now, with the Chequers plan, the Government have clearly back-pedalled and in my view recognised that it was a mistake to say that we would leave the single market and the customs union.
I do not discount the Chequers plan. It is a first step for continuing the negotiations. It is only a start but it is clear that more work needs to be done, and more concessions will have to be made, particularly if we are to avoid the no deal outcome, which would have dreadful consequences.
The Northern Ireland problem could be solved by the United Kingdom adopting the same external tariffs within Brexit as those in existence in the European Union. This would be to honour the Brexit decision and deal at a stroke with the Northern Ireland problem. The European Union’s tariff arrangements have never been subject to prolonged debate or controversy in the UK. I hope that it will not be forgotten in the negotiations that really, nobody much has ever questioned the tariff arrangements within the European Union, under which we have worked all these years.
I am particularly concerned to hear some people speak about the merits of moving to a free trade regime. This comes as something of a surprise and out of the blue. There have been very few discussions that I am aware of, of the merits of a free trade settlement. A free trade settlement could be exactly what we do not need in the UK. It could have disastrous consequences for UK industry. Our domestic markets could be flooded by cheap imports, and at the same time we would have a second kick in the teeth when our substantial exports to the European Union would be subject to its common external tariff. That, I believe, would be a disaster and it should be avoided at all possible costs.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, wondered what Brexit may actually mean. I think it is now very clear that soft Brexit is an illusion. The Chequers statement and the White Paper that elaborates it describe a Brexit in name only. This compromise, the nearest the Prime Minister has been able to get to a soft Brexit, is unacceptable to remainers and leavers alike, and today’s debate has underscored that. The EU has made it clear that it represents unacceptable cherry picking and offends EU ideology.
Martin Howe QC, dissecting the Government’s statement, has explained that the common rulebook for all goods, including agri-food, would be common only in the sense that the UK would have to obey and apply in complete detail the laws promulgated by the EU without having a vote on the content of those laws. The UK would be obliged to interpret the rules in accordance with rulings of the European Court of Justice under a system which would, whether directly or indirectly, bind UK courts to follow ECJ rulings: that was confirmed this afternoon in a significant speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. Moreover, the Government propose that the UK should commit by treaty to ongoing harmonisation in the extensive area covered by the EU rulebook. Parliament’s notional ability to reject future changes to the EU rulebook would be no more real than Norway’s right under the EEA agreement, which has never been successfully exercised. The common rulebook would prevent the UK making new trade agreements with other countries such as the US and Australia, because we would be required to apply EU laws against imports from third countries. This is not taking back control.
This long-awaited White Paper falls far below the level of events, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, just suggested. Here is a sample of its prose, from page 19:
“Diagonal cumulation would allow UK, EU and FTA partner content to be considered interchangeable in trilateral trade”.
At such an existential moment in our national life, when the country needs leadership, our Government express themselves in slogans that are contradicted by their policy and in incomprehensible bureaucratic mumblings.
What is to be done now? I am glad to see it reported that the Government may, instead, seek a free trade arrangement with the EU—including services, I trust—based on the EU’s existing arrangements with Canada, Switzerland and South Korea. M Barnier has signalled that the EU may be amenable to such an arrangement. If the EU can negotiate a free trade agreement with Japan, it could far more easily negotiate a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. However, it is also reported that a deal of this kind is unacceptable to the Prime Minister, because it would mean a hard border in Ireland. It cannot be right that Brexit should be held hostage by the politics of Ireland. Here is an area where compromise is very definitely needed. With common sense and good will there need be no such problem. A system of trusted traders, intelligence-led checks and observation by means of cameras, drones and satellite surveillance would not amount, in any real sense, to a hard border. It is offensive to the Irish to assume that if they are not in a customs union, they will revert to murdering each other. I reject the alarmism of my noble friend Lord Adonis.
If the EU rejects a free trade agreement, we will have no choice but to leave without a deal and move to WTO rules. Let us not be bamboozled into supposing that that will be a disaster. Yes, some growth may be forgone, if forecasts are to be trusted, but we trade very successfully with major partners under WTO rules. Nor need the transition be remotely cataclysmic. We, on our side, can wave the lorries through and continue to operate air traffic control and all the other systems that facilitate movement, extended supply chains and innumerable legal and financial transactions. Even Messieurs Barnier, Juncker and Selmayr, for all their fundamentalism and punitive zeal, would surely not be so pig-headed and destructive as to set up hard borders between the EU and the UK and inflict grievous damage on their own businesses and people. The Government are right to be doing serious work to prepare us for no deal. The Treasury and the Bank of England should now refrain from fabricating fear. They must be willing to boost the economy to take us through the period following our departure.
People want a politics that can make us proud. The passion of leave voters is for our country and our democracy. There is no point in the Prime Minister and her Ministers spending the summer trying to sell the unsellable. She needs to speak to the nation about our future in visionary and compelling terms: in her own style, without rodomontade, she must brace us for some turbulence during the transition, and she must restore faith in those who doubt that we are a great country and that on leaving the EU we can renew our democracy and thrive. At present, however, we are effectively without a Government. Urgent problems of the health service, social care, poverty and inequality, crime, prisons, housing and education are neglected. Brexit absorbs all the energies of Whitehall and Westminster, yet the Government and the House of Commons are unable to rise to this challenge. Ruses such as a second referendum or a Government of national unity would only deepen and further embitter our divisions.
Support for UKIP is rising strongly. Machinations to form new parties abound. Steve Bannon and other US Republicans are fishing in the filthy waters of the far right here and across Europe. Mr Putin has his own ways of stirring the pot. The viruses of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are infecting our body politic. The chaos at Westminster leaves the field open to the kind of neo-fascist populists that we can no longer assume our native British decency will see off. Salvaging the status quo for the sake of short-term economic comfort would be a wholly inadequate response to this crisis. Let us boldly and confidently accept that it is right for Britain to leave an EU that is economically sclerotic, that generates traumatic social divisions, that represses the democratic aspirations of its peoples and that has no remedy against the advance of the far right. It is absurd to suppose that the peoples of Europe will no longer want to work with us, trade with us, ally with us, study with us, share their lives with us. If their rulers try to stop them, it will not last. Let us grasp our future as a great trading nation and as an independent, strong, self-reliant people.
Lord Boswell of Aynho (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I shall contribute as chair of your Lordships’ European Union Committee and I shall be as short as I can. I shall focus on the Government’s recent White Paper on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. As many noble Lords will already be aware, the EU Committee published its report, UK-EU Relations after Brexit, on 8 June, and the House debated it on 2 July. Our six sub-committees are now all considering relevant sections of the White Paper, and I hope that the results of our collective work will appear after the Summer Recess. In the meantime, I shall briefly set out my own sense of how the White Paper measures up against the five principles we set out in the report I have referred to.
First, we said that the White Paper should focus on achieving benefits from the future UK-EU relationship, rather than on defending red lines. In this respect the White Paper is muddled, as exemplified by the proposition on page 14 that the new economic partnership sought will “end free movement”, thereby delivering on one of the Government’s red lines. It is not the economic partnership that will end free movement but the act of withdrawing from the European Union, as a result of which its treaties, on which the concept of free movement rests, will cease to apply to the United Kingdom. Setting aside the prospect of a transition period, it is a legal fact that free movement will end on 29 March of next year.
The aim of the future economic partnership, in contrast, is to deliver certain economic benefits. The first thing the Government need to do is to identify and quantify them before making a pragmatic, evidence-based assessment of the extent of our reliance on European Union labour, and thus of the trade-offs that may be necessary or appropriate if we are to secure the benefits. On all of this, the White Paper is disappointingly silent.
The committee’s second principle was that the White Paper should build on areas of mutual UK and EU interest. Here it is a mixed picture. In some places it does quite well, for example in addressing aspects of the security partnership and the need to avoid operational gaps in law enforcement. In others, it pays only lip service to mutual interests without building on them. For example, the paragraphs on climate change on page 40 acknowledge a shared interest, but no joint approach is proposed and no reference at all is made to emissions trading. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the pace of policy development has not been consistent: some areas are well thought out and detailed while others are still half-cooked.
Our third principle was that the White Paper should be realistic. It should acknowledge that the benefits of a new relationship will come at a cost, requiring compromises and trade-offs. Again, the White Paper is uneven. I will not labour the issue of the Government’s proposed facilitated customs arrangement, other than to report that when the Select Committee visited Brussels last week—talking to Michel Barnier, among others—nobody outside UKRep saw the proposal as without problems. Instead, I will give a much more specific example—reciprocal healthcare—where the White Paper simply says that the Government want UK and EU nationals to continue to be able to use the EHIC. That is all it says. Here is mine—go or no go after 29 March next.
I find that, having overseen the extraordinary efforts of the 70-plus members of our committee and its 25 staff over the last two years to respond to the Brexit challenge—which has led to the production of over 30 thorough evidence-based reports on different aspects of Brexit—that this effort does not really strike me as a realistic starting point for negotiation in this area. I do not do it invidiously for that particular department—there are other areas of lacunae.
Finally, the fourth and fifth principles in our report were that the White Paper should present an inclusive vision of future relations, commanding broad support, and that it should use the language of partnership between the UK and the EU. Noble Lords will have their own thoughts on the first of these principles, particularly given last week’s events in the House of Commons. As a non-affiliated officer in this House, I will resist the temptation to comment further, except to say that European interests read our language and are well aware of the psychodrama that has been taking place here.
As for our partnership with the European Union, the Government’s support for an association agreement, long championed by the European Parliament, is welcome, and I hope it will change the tone of the negotiations. That of course depends on the other European Union institutions, in particular the Council, which ultimately calls the shots—but they have to react in the same spirit.
In summary, the White Paper is a curate’s egg. It represents progress and the change of tone is welcome, but it is far from the finished article. There are still worrying holes in the Government’s policy—and, of course, the need to agree an Irish backstop, to which the Government committed in last December’s joint report, has not gone away. Time is short and my deepest fear is that the Government might now imagine that time in fact is its ally—that, as the deadline approaches and the threat of no deal looms ever larger, the EU will be first to blink.
If that is the Government’s view, I submit that it is a delusion. As we said in our report last year, Brexit: Deal or No Deal, it is difficult to imagine a worse outcome for the United Kingdom than “no deal”. This is borne out by the Government’s and others’ economic analysis. We know that no deal would be disastrous, and the European Union knows that we know it. This is not the time to be playing chicken.
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, who speaks such calm words of reason in a stormy sea. Before I start, I should draw your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the register of interests.
For the last few weeks, that line by WB Yeats has been ringing through my mind—
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”—
as I watched the political eruptions caused by the White Paper. I was not that surprised by what has happened. For months I have been arguing that the Cabinet must answer the question—perhaps the most important question—that Brexit poses: “What matters more: parliamentary sovereignty or market access?”. We all knew that any attempt to answer that question would trigger a political explosion, and so it has proven.
The White Paper is a compromise and, like all compromises, both sides feel aggrieved—some very aggrieved. I have some misgivings about the White Paper, not least the Heath Robinson approach to customs, but overall I support its approach. I think that remaining closely aligned to the EU on goods, but not on financial services, is a reasonable and balanced basis for further negotiation. Yes, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, the ECJ will still have a role and influence on our way of our life—for example, as regards the common set of rules. But I would argue that that is a price to pay—and worth paying—to guarantee free and frictionless trade. I wish the Government were a lot more honest about all this and would sell the White Paper for what it is: a pragmatic approach to the negotiations. It is not a deal, as some have said, nor is it an agreement. It is just that—an approach.
But, in many respects, these points are irrelevant quibbles, for the White Paper appears to have been rejected by the Labour Party as not going far enough, and by scores of Conservatives and others as going too far. That is even before the EU gives us its considered views. So, what should we do? First, just as members of the Cabinet have had to come out from their trenches and drop their positions, I would hope the European Union does likewise. Both sides need to understand the pressures that the other side is under. The Prime Minister has compromised; I hope that, in the spirit of sincere co-operation, the European Union now does likewise. For there is a risk—a very real, growing risk—that inflexibility, combined with a miscalculation, could trigger a sequence of events where things really do fall apart. And that need for flexibility applies here too.
Let us not forget the overriding aim of the next six months: to secure in the withdrawal treaty the transition and the clear heads of terms about our future relationship with the EU. The closer we get to the end of this year without an agreement on the transition, the more businesses will accelerate implementing their plans for no deal. Some of those decisions may be irreversible. As important is the need for clear heads of terms in the treaty. Having agreed to pay the divorce bill, and quite possibly signed a backstop agreement, we may find that the EU will have an even stronger hand in the next phase of the negotiations. As I have said before, if all we get is meaningless waffle in the treaty, and we have no clear sense of the future framework for our relationship with the EU, next year we will be forced to walk a gangplank into thin air. We cannot afford more years of uncertainty, but to get that clarity means engaging constructively, now, with the EU, on the basis of the White Paper.
I hear what some say: “The Government have already made too many concessions and we should not use the White Paper as the basis for any negotiation”. Implicit in this argument is the view that falling back on WTO terms, the so-called no-deal option, is preferable to the approach set out in the White Paper. I share the views of those who believe that, in a negotiation, one should always be able to walk away. I have written before of my fear that the Prime Minister would become handcuffed to the negotiating table, forced to make one concession after another, as no deal is not an option. I know that few in this House agree with me on this so, rather than debate again and again its merits, let us remember that prime rule of politics: learn to count.
As things stand, is there a firm, cast-iron majority in the other place to allow the Prime Minister to walk away from the negotiations? The answer is no. What is more, are the public aware of what implications a no-deal outcome would entail? Are businesses fully briefed and fully prepared on what to do? The answers are no, and no again. If the situation does not change at all, in Parliament and in the country, let us imagine that the Prime Minister now took a truly inflexible position. If we reach a point where the EU asks us to choose between being in a customs union and agreeing to an FTA which puts a hard border in the Irish Sea, what option would the Prime Minister have but to sign?
I ask those who balk at this train of thought and refuse to concede to any further negotiations on the basis of the White Paper, claiming it would be a betrayal of the referendum, to confront political reality. The White Paper provides us with the only path to follow. We have only just now begun to confront the choice between parliamentary sovereignty and market access. Let the European Union and ourselves see if, and where, further compromise is necessary—by them and by us. In this long hot summer, cool calm heads are needed. Otherwise, there is a real danger that Yeats’s words will become a reality.
Lord Taverne (LD)
My Lords, there has been one change since we last debated Brexit: Boris Johnson has gone. What will be his legacy? On this I differ profoundly from what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, with whom I normally agree. He thought what a wise decision Mrs May had made in putting Johnson in charge of the negotiations. I believe the verdict of history will be that Mrs May’s choice of Johnson as Foreign Secretary was the most bizarre public appointment since the Roman Emperor Caligula appointed his horse as consul.
The Government will have to do without Johnson’s counsel when they come to face the very real possibility of no deal. In several speeches over the last year and more, I have argued that, given the Government’s red lines, we were heading for no deal. This is now taken very seriously by the European Union, as well as by business. No deal may result for three reasons: because the Cabinet cannot agree what it wants; because, even if the Cabinet agrees, the Conservative Party may not; and because, even if both agree, it will not be accepted by the 27. The first signs are not very favourable: the White Paper was received with well-concealed enthusiasm in Brussels.
What is generally agreed—the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, pointed this out and his committee’s report agrees—is that no deal would be a disaster. It would be falling off the proverbial cliff. This is of course disputed by the extra-terrestrials who run the European Research Group. I believe that it would be a disaster, unless it is avoided by a series of events which are far from inconceivable. First, I believe that Parliament will reject no deal and insist on a meaningful alternative. Might this be a general election? Would a Conservative Government, responsible for a failed negotiation leading to a state of chaos, fancy their chances of victory? It is not likely. Should Parliament tell the Government to go back to the negotiating table and come back with a better deal? That is mission impossible. The only meaningful alternative will be to let the people have the final say, especially if Parliament cannot reach a clear conclusion.
At first, the idea of a second referendum was contemptuously dismissed and had little support. Now, the idea of giving the people the final say is steadily gaining ground. Of course we will be told that the people have spoken and to question their verdict is to treat them with contempt; this is the leavers’ mantra. Leavers had many different reasons for voting leave, but ending up with the catastrophe of no deal was certainly not one of them. It was to be all sunny uplands. This time, voters cannot be gulled by promises of £350 million a week for the NHS because we will be paying a divorce bill of some £40 billion, nor by scares about millions of Turks about to invade Britain. This time, they will know what Brexit actually means. In the early days after the referendum, Donald Tusk forecast that the final choice would be between a very hard Brexit, such as no deal, and remain. I have always thought he was right. In the end, that is likely to be the only real choice, as the halfway-house compromise of the Chequers paper is a dead option.
As a final point, I have always opposed a referendum. During debate on the then European Union Bill in 2011, I argued in favour of the tradition of Locke—in favour of parliamentary democracy based on the rule of law and the rights of the individual, not the pernicious Rousseau doctrine that the will of the people must always prevail. That is a doctrine invoked, ever since the days of the Committee of Public Safety, by dictators past and present. I also argued for the principle expounded by Burke: that for Parliament to work effectively, MPs must be representatives not delegates. So why do I support another people’s vote? Because a vote to leave by plebiscite cannot be reversed without another vote by plebiscite. But then we should follow the example of the Germans, who wisely adopted a post-war democratic constitution, which, in the light of their experience of Hitler, forbids the federal Government from calling referendums except on very limited local issues. Then we go back to Locke and Burke, and down with Rousseau.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)
My Lords, the White Paper is very welcome. It is a very familiar document to those of us who have worked with the Commission on enlargement and foreign policy. It merits high praise to the Whitehall and regional civil servants for their dedicated work and to their colleagues, the Commission officials. As a large set of teams tackling a unique task of historic proportions in a very short time, their combined work has been magnificent.
We are presented with an opportunity that no other nation and no other British Parliament has ever encountered. We are leaving—yes, that is the case—a vast and somewhat controlling intercountry bloc to which we, the British people, have been the second-largest net contributor and much more for nearly half a century. Our task is an enthralling one. The British people voted to change the course of history. While a referendum is not the preferred choice of most people, for nobody ever trusts the outcome—even in California, the home of multiple referendums—this outcome was very clear indeed. To those who say that the information they were given was insufficient or misleading, I have to say that if 43 years in the same institution does not tell one how it works, then no amount of information will provide the understanding to ever satisfy the doubters who cry for a rerun.
It is tempting to recall that the latest eminent former Prime Minister to declare another referendum to be morally justifiable is the same former Prime Minister who achieved the notorious “empty chair” policy which ensured a full cessation of information and of political involvement by the UK in the EU. It was ignorance by choice for several years, which our nation paid heavily for in finance, in influence and in the information and knowledge that we are painfully reacquiring. We do not yet know the final detail of our leaving, but the way ahead is clear.
The earlier 1970s referendum resulted in a higher percentage of voters ticking the yes box, but voter confidence in the outcome was no higher. For all my political life, I have attempted, but failed, to dispel the subsequent view of the electorate that they had not got what they thought they were voting for. They believed that we were entering a single market; instead, our nation came under Roman law, which has intruded to such an extent that thousands of inherited British Magna Carta freedoms have been swallowed up. Unlike Ahab and the whale, we have no God-like powers to recover them. The earlier EU referendum campaign misspoke—in the endearing terminology of our recent presidential visitor. No one informed the electorate that by an almost invisible sleight of hand, certainly unknown here, the Luxembourg court had earlier passed a single case law judgment making Brussels law superior to that of member states. This judgment cascaded through the entire EU system, degrading Parliament’s unique position in our democracy. Never again since joining the EU has the Westminster Parliament been omnipotent and omnicompetent. It became, and still is, subsidiary to Brussels. Our electorate had no knowledge of that fundamental change of locus of decision-making nor of the coming Niagara deluge of frequently irrelevant and somewhat harmful legislation which has poured in over our heads and swamped our inherited systems. Measurements of window cleaners’ steps determined in Brussels for nearly half a billion people is just one of the multiplicity of mini-laws that affect us here today.
No further referendums on any matter affecting our EU status can ever hold the confidence of the British people as they were misled. The fundamental transfer of sovereignty was neither explained nor understood, even in Government or Parliament 20 years later. Were we to succumb to the siren voices suggesting a further referendum now and on the same subject, parliamentary government would be dashed on the rocks and our democracy could not recover. The voter understands that, and the electorate decided that we should regain our autonomy, reshape our future as a nation and ensure that there is a harmony of vision between the European Union and the UK and that there is no sharp, abrupt cessation of partnerships or deep, historic ties, and that our capacity to trade is heightened and enlarged, not shrunken. The statistics today about our economy are looking very good indeed, while the latest PwC global forecast for Britain is even better. The popular will as expressed at the ballot box was incontrovertible, and this White Paper, with the amendments it will acquire as it progresses through both Houses, will reinforce the confidence of the electorate in a powerfully positive future for our country—with a strong economy; financial services at the heart of a digital economy; greater exporting and outward and inward investment; a swifter reaction to the shifting centres of modern power internationally, and a creative shaping together of our nation’s future.
As for that pesky voice shouting too loudly that a 4% majority is not good enough and that we must rerun the entire competition, do we assume that they disregard the previous nationwide referendum which decided that first past the post was the way for British votes to be cast and counted? Shall we rerun that referendum too and the last election and the one before as well? That is not going to happen, not now nor in the future. Let us make friends again, not just with the EU but with ourselves. We are in Parliament to serve the British people and to enhance our nation’s greatness in her post-Brexit new clothes. As the Prime Minister has declared, we should back the White Paper. I believe we should win or lose any wished-for amendments with good grace, meeting political opposition with courtesy and never with personal hostility. Above all, let us get on with the job. I support the White Paper, the Prime Minister and the Government’s policy to the full.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, speaking at number 23 in this debate, I did not think that I would succeed the first person to speak on behalf of the Government’s White Paper, but so it has been. I am afraid to say that I will make one point in common with the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, and pay tribute to those who put together the 98 pages. It is the first comprehensive explanation of the Government’s negotiating position that we have had in the two years since the referendum. However, apart from that, I am afraid that I will depart rather widely from what the noble Baroness said.
The White Paper, which had such a troubled birth and has had a pretty troubled life in its short three weeks, is not under any circumstances a blueprint for a deal, and anyone who believes that it is is doomed to be disappointed. That is all the more so given that there are so many holes in this White Paper, which other speakers before me have mentioned—as many as in the ordinary piece of Swiss cheese—and so many inbuilt contradictions, some of them, of course, forced on the Government by their own capitulation to the European Research Group, that most Orwellian of brand names. That is really what leads me to my overall conclusion about the White Paper, which is: too little, too late.
It is too late because it should have appeared nearly two years ago before the Prime Minister drew all those red lines, without any Cabinet or parliamentary authority, on the customs union, the single market and the European Court of Justice, when she spoke in October 2016. If it was not made clear then, it should have been done before triggering the Article 50 letter, with its two-year cut-off. If it was not done then, it should have been produced at the time that political agreement was reached on the withdrawal arrangements in December 2017. If it was not done then, it should have been done when the rather inadequate transitional period was agreed in March this year. That is quite a list of chances missed.
If that is too late, it is too little because of all the holes and contradictions. I shall mention just a few, and I would welcome a response from the Minister when he comes to wind up this debate. The first is the Irish backstop. We settled for something. We agreed to it in December 2017. Now all we can say is that we do not agree and will never agree with the legal language that the Commission has produced. Okay, so what can we agree to? What legal language are we prepared to accept? Legal language there will have to be; if not, there will not be a deal.
The second is the free movement of people. For the first time, the White Paper speaks about a framework for mobility to be negotiated with the EU 27. When I spoke about this at the time of the Statement, the Minister rattled off a number of references where I would find all I needed. Alas, no, there is not a word about what this mobility partnership means. This framework for mobility remains a great mystery. We have no White Paper on immigration and no post-Brexit immigration Bill. We have nothing. The negotiators—ours and theirs—do not have a clue from reading those 98 pages.
The third is dispute settlement. A hugely complex and cumbersome procedure is put forward which might conceivably handle disputes between Governments but is quite inadequate and unfit to deal with disputes about the rights of individuals, most importantly on the European arrest warrant, which is a crucial part of any security arrangements that we may reach. What I do not quite understand is why the Government have never paid any attention to the possibility of borrowing the example of the EFTA court, which would provide a British judge and which reaches decisions which are not legally binding and immediately applicable. I think that they could have done better than this cat’s cradle.
The fourth is the service industries, which form 80% of our economy and are hugely competitive across Europe and the world. There is nothing in the White Paper that says what will be done for them. They are simply being hung out to dry, with no solutions proposed.
The fifth is the backstop, or what is called the lock for Parliament on changes in the EU rulebook, in which we are told that Parliament will be able to reject them. That, frankly, is a sham. Using that would bring the whole edifice tumbling down and, as the Swiss discovered when they started to monkey about with free movement, it does not take long to come down.
Last, but not least, I come to the customs facilitation arrangement, an extraordinarily ambitious and untried system. Is it even consistent with our WTO obligations, where exporters on the whole expect to know what rate they will trade in when they send their exports? Is it even faintly possible that it can be introduced in the rather short timescale of the 20-month transitional agreement?
We are now approaching the endgame for these Brexit negotiations. It is no good saying, as has the leader of the other place, that this White Paper is our final word. It is no good saying, as has the Prime Minister, that the White Paper is,
“a set of outcomes which are non-negotiable”.
That is a recipe for the worst possible outcome: no deal. There would have to be consequences, and they would be pretty dire.
As many speakers before me have said, we must recognise that there will have to be further compromises—I agree, compromises by both parties to the negotiations. To pretend otherwise is to bring up more trouble in the autumn. I hope that the lesson will have been learned. Otherwise, the negotiations will continue—I say this with some sadness—to be the most ill prepared and ill conducted in this long saga of our relationship with the European Union. The historians who write the story of this will not be kind to those who take us over the cliff.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who takes a great interest in these issues. I note that we have already had contributions in this debate from people who know a tremendous lot about all the detail of these matters. I have therefore decided to take on the role of the common man, the person who does not understand all the details of everything, but of some people who voted in the first referendum. An awful lot of people voted in the first referendum not beginning to comprehend some of the extraordinarily complicated issues that have been raised in these debates, some of which were misrepresented and some of which were never mentioned at all.
I make my position clear, to be honest to the House. I am what I call a conditional remainer. I should have liked us to remain in the European Union, but I was getting increasingly concerned about developments there. I was glad that we were becoming what I would call more of a country member, with our opting out of the eurozone and of membership of Schengen. I was concerned about what seemed to be an everlasting expansion of the European Union, having represented the United Kingdom in the Council of Ministers in various departments, as I did for six years, with eight other countries represented. I fail to see how 28 and rising can be managed in the same way without the larger but looser plan, which I understood was the original concept but which the European Union and the Commission seemed unable to adopt.
On the referendum, one particular remark of the leavers sticks with me: they say that this was the largest vote ever in the history of any vote in this country. I think that 17 million voted. I simply make the point that it was the largest vote against that has ever been registered at any election in this country as well. Relatively speaking, at 52:48, it was a completely split vote, as close to a dead heat as one might imagine. It is that situation and the serious division within our country that we all seek to address here today.
I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Heseltine that I was under no illusion but that migration was one of the factors at the time. It coincided with that sudden burst of activity across the Mediterranean into Greece and up through the Balkans that gave such concern about the implications of free movement of people.
My particular concern is that this is taking place at a time when the world has undoubtedly become a much more dangerous place. We are obsessed at the moment with the Brexit situation; it is paralysing some of the work of government. That is at a time when we look at the absolute tragedy of what is happening in the Middle East, in Syria and neighbouring countries, with a population explosion in Africa which we see reflected in the migration figures, and with the reassertion of Russian power and influence. We saw only this weekend the allegations of Russian activity in Greece and North Macedonia, as it will be called.
Europe has of course changed in this time. In each country—in Italy, Spain, France and Greece—people are arguing about who will handle the migration figures. There is the rise of the far right in eastern Europe, a weaker Chancellor Merkel than we might have hoped to have had during this difficult time and, on top of all that, we have the slightly uncertain activities of President Trump, who now appears to be launching pretty aggressive actions towards Iran, disapproves of the common structures of NATO, the EU, the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, and is initiating some form of trade war. All of those are very dangerous developments in which we are involved.
It is against that background that I look for early action, because there is too great a risk of no deal and general agreement that no deal could be extremely damaging. I was struck by the comment of the German European Minister, coming out of the meeting on Friday in Brussels discussing the British White Paper, when he said that they do not want to punish the UK. We do not want to punish the UK. We do not want to punish Germany. We do not want to punish France, Holland, Denmark or, in particular, Ireland, if there is a breakdown. I draw support from that from the IMF, which stated that it would be a loss for both sides.
I add the comment that there is a lot of talk about not having a hard Irish border. From my experience of Northern Ireland, I will not tender to build that border. I should not think that there will be a firm Irish border, whatever statements may be made about it.
More positively, I look at the need for maintaining a good, constructive relationship with our friends. I was struck by a remark of José Manuel Barroso at a recent meeting when he said that the UK would always be a most important country for the EU and he wanted us to go forward as friends.
Some think that there might even be a referendum now. Obviously there cannot be, because we would fall straight into the trap that we had before of a referendum without people being properly informed and knowing the issues. For that reason, I strongly support the position of the Government now that there is a White Paper—a proposition on the table. I am encouraged by the start made by the new Secretary of State for Brexit, who I think may be slightly more energetic than his predecessor. I wish him good luck in his activities. I think his initial appearance on the Marr programme gave one some encouragement. We must see whether it is possible to reach an agreement and some understanding.
As for the alternatives: a government of national unity? Certainly not. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that I find it extremely difficult to support the idea that the Greening concept—having three alternative propositions to vote for, so you might end up with a decisive result in which 40% was the victory vote—would build national unity. Having said that, there is urgency. As my noble friend Lord Boswell said, we cannot expect that if we hold them to it, the EU will feel the need urgently to reach agreement. Whatever the EU wants to do, its procedures will make that very difficult.
The situation now, as the Times correctly put it in its recent leader, is that the present proposition put forward by the Government is the worst plan, except for all the others. That is what we now have to proceed with, and at the end of the day, it will be up to Parliament and the meaningful vote to decide whether what comes out of this is acceptable. Parliament may then feel the need to enlist the support of the people, but only after it has had the opportunity to make a full and responsible assessment of the outcome of those discussions.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, I want to make four points, the first of which is a rather sad—perhaps very sad—observation. The British have been associated over the generations with different qualities—some positive, some negative. We have often been thought of as being arrogant, complacent, too self-satisfied. There may be something in all of those criticisms, but we have never ever, until now, been considered incompetent. That has now changed. We are in a situation in which the Government have been presiding over a shambles which has been watched right across the world, with, first of all, unbelief, sometimes amusement and, frankly, horror by all of those who wish us well in the world.
The Prime Minister decided to give notice, under Article 50 of the treaty, that we were leaving the EU, without any preparation whatever, without even establishing in a written document what her own view was. We have had to wait two years for that—in the paper before us, and we have heard about its many shortcomings today. This paper has been brought forward just eight months before the deadline, before the day we may go over the cliff. What an extraordinary way to plan for any kind of negotiation. We have had delays, an inability to keep to deadlines, vacillation, indecision, changes of mind, and the incoherence of the Government once the whole principle of Cabinet responsibility had been suspended. All of that is unbelievable. Whatever comes out of this, we have already lost, sadly, quite a lot of the soft power that we had in this world, as a result of this process—even long before the process itself has been terminated either by an agreement with our European Union partners or in any other way.
My second observation is this. If you read through the White Paper, it is impossible honestly to come to the conclusion that it is in the interests of this country to leave the European Union. On every single subject mentioned in this paper, except for one, which I shall come to in a second, it is quite clear that the deal we currently have is much more advantageous to the United Kingdom—in many cases, spectacularly more advantageous to the United Kingdom—than anything that is on offer, either in this paper, or having been suggested by anybody else, or having been asked for by ourselves as a substitute. That is a pretty extraordinary set of affairs. Before I go any further, I had better mention that the exception is fish, but even that is misrepresented in the paper.
The White Paper makes it apparently clear that, if we leave the European Union, we can claim all the fish within our exclusive economic zone and drive everybody else out. That is not true for three reasons which were not mentioned. One is that our British fishermen catch in other EU waters about a quarter of the amount they catch in UK waters, so they will presumably lose that, which mitigates the benefit. Secondly, quite a number—more than 10% some time ago, but I do not know the latest figure—of British licensed fishing boats, are licences held by other EU nationals, so that muddles the calculation somewhat. Thirdly, customary international law and positive law in the form of the 1964 fisheries convention makes it clear that the rights of traditional and historic fishermen cannot be ignored. They cannot just be driven out when they have been fishing in those waters for two generations or more.
The situation is almost unbelievable. If we look at everything in this paper, except for fish, such as Euratom, goods, services, civil aviation, pharmaceuticals, the very important security issues, our membership of Europol, the common arrest warrant, and so forth, on every single instance it is more advantageous to stay in than to leave. The present regime is more advantageous than any conceivable alternative.
The third observation I have on this paper, which hit me quite hard between the eyes when I read it, is the extraordinary abandonment of services in this country. I thought we were very proud of our success in services in the world—success in the City, success of our media industry, which is so important, the success we have in technology and IT. I thought that, as a nation, we were proud of that. I thought that all Governments considered it part of their obligation to nurture these strengths, these industries. Far, far from it, this paper rejects them completely. They are forgotten about and cut off. The paper suggests the means by which we can help producers of goods, but on services there is nothing at all. That seems to be a fundamental dereliction of duty by this Government, and would be by the Government of any country to do such a thing to large sectors of investment and employment with all the human and financial consequences that would flow from that.
My fourth point is this. The great issue in this country is: why? Why are we being condemned with this self-destructive policy? Why do we have a Government who are actually in the process of destroying important industries in this country? That is unprecedented. I cannot think of any historical instance of that being done, and certainly not in a civilised country in recent times.
When one asks why, one gets from Eurosceptics two different sets of answers. One is, “Because we are implementing the referendum”. Leave aside the fact that the Supreme Court made it quite clear that the referendum was an advisory referendum. Leave aside the fact that no Parliament can commit its successor, because Parliaments have to take a new view on where national interest arises—we have had a new Parliament and two years have gone by, so it is the responsibility of Parliament to look at the matter again. Leave aside the fact that the referendum has been very much discredited because it was corrupted by serious breaches of electoral law, by gross overspending which in a Westminster election would cause the immediate unseating of the apparent winner of the election. Apparently, that sanction does not exist in this particular context. Leave aside the fact that the whole referendum was based on a lie—the famous lie by Boris Johnson about the National Health Service, and now we have, no less, the Office for Budget Responsibility confirming that far from having a dividend from Brexit, we have a penalty—less ability to spend money on any public service, the National Health Service included.
The other answer from Eurosceptics and the Government is, “We have wonderful new opportunities around the world that we can seize”. We know that that is nonsense. I have spoken on this on several occasions. We will not get a trade deal with the United States. It is has nothing do with the volatility of Mr Trump personally, but because no US Congress would ratify a trade treaty that did not provide for the sale of American agricultural products, and we will not accept in this country, as would not be accepted anywhere else in the European Union, chlorinated chicken and antibiotic-infused beef, and so forth, which we would have to accept in the circumstances. We will not do a trade deal with China because the Chinese will never accept steel quotas against them, and we cannot accept getting rid of steel quotas unless we abandon the British steel industry and Port Talbot, which the Government have promised not to do.
That is all rubbish, complete nonsense and pie in the sky. Who believes it? I heard the other day on Radio 4 somebody asking Dr Fox, “Where will you start replacing all the business we may have lost in the EU?”. He said that India would be a good place to start. I have the figures here showing that our exports to the whole of the rest of the EU are about €300 billion and exports to India including goods and services are about €7 billion. What does that mean? It means that if you were to increase that by 50%—which we never would of course, but let us suppose that we were to increase them by 50% as a result of a a trade deal with India—we would gain another €3.5 billion of exports. If we lost 10% of our business with the EU, as we might well do, as a result of either new tariffs, quotas, or just the ill will we are generating, we would lose €30 billion, and on that basis we would lose €16.5 billion.
What businessman would accept that as a good proposition? No businessman would do so. What politician would accept that as a good proposition for his or her country? Only a Brexit politician, and only a politician for whom Brexit was more important than the future of the country that he or she is representing.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out that, speaking at number 20 or so in the order of speakers, he was a little surprised to have heard only one Member of your Lordships’ House actively supporting the White Paper. Speaking at number 26, I find myself at the disadvantage that the noble Lord said many of the things that I had written in my notes, starting with the very idea that this document is not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, suggested, a welcome one. It is, rather, too little, too late. The time for a White Paper on the UK’s relations with the European Union was before the Prime Minister triggered Article 50. The time for the United Kingdom—for members of the public, Members of your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons, and members of the Conservative grass roots—to know what the Prime Minister thought that she wished to negotiate was not two weeks ago at Chequers but before she triggered Article 50.
For two years, the Prime Minister kept suggesting, “It doesn’t do to show our negotiating hand—it will weaken our position”. But the EU 27 told us their position almost on day one; before the negotiations began, we knew where they were positioning themselves.
Perhaps the Prime Minister did know what she wanted. Indeed, that appears to be the case—because, in the White Paper, in her opening words the Prime Minister already begins to suggest that the White Paper is not the starting point but already the product of some sort of compromise. She points out that we need “pragmatism and compromise”. The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, suggested that we need pragmatism and compromise for an effective negotiation, but I suspect that a former Conservative Prime Minister might be turning in her grave at the suggestion that the United Kingdom should be compromising. The only thing that might stop her turning in her grave is, I suspect, that she believes, in death as in life, that turning is not something that we should be doing.
This White Paper suggests that already Prime Minister May has begun to turn, that the document before us—many noble Lords have been focusing on it today—is a response to two years during which the EU 27, and Monsieur Barnier in particular, have been saying what the EU position is and making clear what the United Kingdom might be able to get.
Right at the start of the White Paper, the Prime Minister says that,
“we have evolved our proposals, while sticking to our principles”.
The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in his opening speech this afternoon, said something very similar. How would we know what the principles are that are being stuck to? It is wholly unclear.
The idea that the document is non-negotiable is, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others suggested, rather mistaken. Already it has become clear that, if you are a Tory Brexiteer and one of the European Research Group and you threaten to rebel in the House of Commons, you will be rewarded with a government-sanctioned amendment. If you are a rather more loyal remainer threatening to put forward an amendment, you are told by the Prime Minister, as I understand it, “No, you mustn’t put forward an amendment—if you vote against the Government you will bring them down and that will be catastrophic”.
So what principles are these that underpin the White Paper? Are they really in the UK national interest? I am not persuaded that they are. What is clear in the White Paper is a whole set of contradictions. The Prime Minister tells us that the days of sending vast sums of money to the EU every year are over. Yet, as my noble friends Lord Newby and Lord Wallace pointed out, there are many cases—62, I believe—where the Government say that they want to go back into this agency or be part of that policy. How are we going to do that? We want to contribute financially. So this great Brexit dividend, the £20 billion going to the NHS that we have been promised, is a mirage. There is not going to be a £20 billion dividend from leaving. As far as we can see from the White Paper, the costs are wholly unclear. So I should be most grateful if the Minister, in winding up, could tell us whether the Government have done any costings of what opting back in to various agencies and policies will mean in practice. Can he tell us politically where we stand? We want to pay to be part of a whole set of agencies—and, obviously, as somebody who was a passionate remainer and still believes that we would be better off in the European Union than outside it, I can see that we might want to be part of 62 agencies and policies. But apart from the financial cost, what role will we play? As a member of the EU, we have a seat at the table; what this White Paper suggests is that we want to go almost grovelling to ask to participate. What say are we going to have?
The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, suggested that this was taking us to a Norwegian model. I am a great fan of Norway, but I am afraid that I am not a great fan of the Norwegian model—and this is no Norwegian model. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, pointed out so eloquently, this White Paper at best talks about goods. It ignores any meaningful deal on services, which comprise 80% of the UK economy. What do Her Majesty’s Government think that they are doing? Why are they going for a set of proposals that look like a watered-down version of Norway? Where do they see the United Kingdom in the long term? So far, they do not appear to be offering anything that offers great succour to erstwhile remainers, ongoing remainers or even the Brexiteers. So far this evening we have found that the Minister’s opening remarks merely served to unite the noble Lords, Lord Liddle, Lord Forsyth and Lord Hannay. That does not very often happen. The Minister and the Government might think that they are doing very well if they have found a way in which to unite such disparate voices—but they were all voices that were very sceptical about the White Paper.
Where are we going to end up? The Minister told us that there would be a set of technical documents. Finally, I will ask a specific question on that, because I believe that technical documents are intended to say to EU citizens resident here, “This is what you need to do”. The Minister told us, with regard to these technical documents, that planning for no deal has been going on for two years. Those EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom have been led to believe, since the end of 2017, that their rights would be secured. Is there any truth in that whatever, or should they look to find some secure future elsewhere? Are the Government letting them down as they are letting UK citizens down?
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
For the assistance of the House, I remind noble Lords that the advisory speaking time is six minutes. To get through the business today and allow everybody the opportunity to speak, I would be very grateful if we can keep as close to that as possible.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I refer to my interests in the register and to one that is not in it: I am immensely proud to be half-Danish, and that colours my approach to the whole debate on our membership and how we leave the European Union.
I welcome the White Paper and the direction of travel on which it embarks. In considering how we are to leave the European Union, I would like the House to reflect on the importance of the food and farming sectors to the UK economy. The value of the food and drink industry to the UK economy is £112 billion, and it employs about 4 million people. Food and drink exports are worth about £22 billion per annum, and it is in fact the main manufacturing sector. Our main exports are whisky, salmon and chocolate. Some 70% of the UK’s agri-food imports came from the EU in 2017.
In the scenario of a free trade agreement with the EU post Brexit, the implications for the food and drink sector are potentially extremely severe. It could lead to a potential drop of 26% in exports and 29% in imports, with a 3% projected increase in prices. In the scenario of our continued membership or rejoining of the European Economic Area, this could see a 7% drop in exports and a 7% drop in imports, with only a 1% increase in prices. If we were to crash out on World Trade Organization rules, this would necessitate the agreeing of rules of origin, nomenclatures and descriptions of products for every item, which would impose huge regulatory burdens on the businesses concerned. All those advocating that we leave on World Trade Organization rules and most-favoured-nation clauses must be aware that rules of origin checks may be needed to check precisely third-country imports into our exports to ensure that the UK would not be taking advantage of preferential tariffs. So, potentially, the consequences of leaving for the food, farming and drink sector are higher prices and less consumer choice.
Why would we prefer, and why have the Government set out, a facilitated customs arrangement with access to a single market? Goods between the UK and the EU would avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, and it would protect integrated supply chains and “just in time” processes. It would include the facilitated customs arrangement, which would remove customs checks and controls between both partners. However, I will press the Government and the Minister further this evening for what is not currently in the White Paper.
The food industry is asking for labelling: we need consistent food labelling so that we can continue to maintain the same stock-keeping units in the UK and Ireland rather than separate parallel listings. We need to have safeguards for EU staff, protecting the rights of EU citizens who currently live and work in Britain. We need to have access to priority markets: we must be aware that if there is no deal on the day we leave the EU, the UK will become a third country and will lose access to all country markets—even those with whom we currently trade—through the EU free trade deals, which includes our Commonwealth partners. There is currently no mention of a continuing role within the UK for the European Food Safety Authority, yet we must have consistent food laws so that EU products can remain on sale in the UK and vice versa. Will the Minister confirm this evening that we intend to maintain a relationship with the European Food Safety Authority?
We must be aware of the length of time needed to negotiate new trade deals. The deal between the EU and Canada took seven years, and it included a partial agreement on services, which obviously was welcome. We must also be aware that the Irish border issue is now agreed. It is not just in the Belfast agreement but has been written into the European Union (Withdrawal) Act by way of a government amendment. Many noble Lords speaking in the House this evening seem to be in denial of that. We must also be mindful of the fact that movement of animals and food products across the Irish border cannot be monitored by technology.
There has been criticism of the common rulebook, but why is it important? We always need rules. In the terms of the White Paper, the common rulebook would allow equivalence in certain specified areas and the maintenance of food standards, and would protect against substandard food imports. In other areas it will be possible to diverge and divert from agreed regulatory standards. In the past, rules at EU level were always criticised, which is probably why many farmers in North Yorkshire voted to leave the European Union. But most of the gold-plating—making the rules more demanding—was done through statutory instruments under the implementing legislation in this country, piling obligations on our farmers and food producers that were never demanded in other EU countries.
As other noble Lords have said this evening, we need to spell out what is happening with services.
I will conclude on the impact of currency. Today, sterling has recovered slightly from a four-month low reached last Thursday. The day after the referendum, the pound fell about 14% and recovered by 4%. The additional cost of these sterling fluctuations to one food manufacturer alone has been £300 million in the last three years, and at the same time, food inflation has swung from a low almost 10 years ago to an historic high of 5.1% in December 2017.
My conclusion is that realistically, to avoid a huge shock to the economy, the Government should seek continued membership of the EEA or should apply to join EFTA. To crash out of the EU without the deal would have lasting and damaging consequences for the UK and the EU. It simply cannot be allowed to happen.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and I pay tribute to her for her consistent championing of the UK agri-food industry throughout this whole Brexit process. This evening she has again made a knowledgeable contribution. My contribution will be restricted to the defence and security issues referred to in chapter 2 of the White Paper. I say to the Minister that it deserved more than four or five sentences in his opening remarks.
Without wishing to devalue the importance of the issues which have dominated this debate, I remind your Lordships’ House that the Government’s first duty is to protect the public, and that both the Government and the EU are agreed that the maintenance of shared security capabilities between the EU and the UK is essential to keeping citizens in the UK and the EU safe.
When the Leader of the House repeated the Prime Minister’s Statement on exiting the EU, she reminded us—supported by the Minister, who was nodding his head furiously—that, post Brexit, the Government sought to achieve an “ambitious”, or, as Dominic Raab now says, an unrivalled “future security partnership” with the EU, and sought to reassure your Lordships’ House that:
“We are working very constructively with our EU partners”.
The noble Baroness went on to explain by example, saying that,
“since the Salisbury incident we have led work with them to propose a package of measures to step up our communications against online disinformation, strengthen our capabilities against cybersecurity threats and further reduce the threat from hostile intelligence agencies. We have an excellent relationship in this area”.—[Official Report, 9/7/18; col. 817.]
This is of course commendable, but these are examples of co-operation within the current situation—within the European Union—and, with respect, are no indication of progress or likely progress to the achievement of our post-Brexit ambitions, which are set out so extensively and ambitiously in the White Paper.
Since her Munich security conference speech, our Prime Minister has repeatedly called for a defence and security treaty by 2019—just five or so months away. Just how well are we doing? To aid our deliberations today, we have the recently published excellent report of the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the European Union Select Committee: Brexit: the Proposed UK EU Security Treaty. I regret that I am unable to do justice to this report today, but I hope that before long, your Lordships’ House will have an opportunity to debate it. In the meantime, I draw attention to an important conclusion, which is summarised in the report’s executive summary, at the first paragraph at the top of page 4, and which I will shorten in the interests of time:
“We have, however, seen no evidence that sufficient progress has yet been made towards negotiating a comprehensive security treaty. On balance … we believe that it is unlikely that such a treaty can be agreed in the time available”.
So it appears that we are to go out of the European Union without this treaty.
On this, as on many other aspects of Brexit, the Government are failing the British people. Far from improving, the situation is deteriorating. There are two separate but complementary aspects to this negotiation: externally, defence and foreign policy, and an internal security aspect, which is significant for our security. No part of the EU withdrawal agreement relating to internal security is in green, which means that agreement has not yet been reached on any issue.
On 19 June, speaking at the EU Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna, Michel Barnier said that the EU and the UK will “co-operate strongly” on security post Brexit, but he urged the UK to show “more realism” on the degree of co-operation possible and warned that the UK will lose access to Europol databases and the Schengen Information System, as well as the right to participate in the European arrest warrant, and that new procedures for “effective” information exchange will need to be agreed urgently.
On the external side, within days of the Munich speech, apparently because of the logistical problems caused by Brexit, the UK informed the chairman of the European Union Military Committee that, contrary to a previous and extant agreement, it would no longer be the lead nation in a battlegroup for EU defence in 2019, causing understandable concern about our commitment to EU defence after Brexit, despite the Prime Minister’s repeated assurances otherwise. We have discovered from the EU’s High Representative, Federica Mogherini, that we can have a security partnership with the EU but as a third party, not as a partner. The European Commission has stressed the bloc’s status as a members-only club, seeing Britain as a third-party outsider post Brexit.
Apparently the Government are very disappointed that the UK will indeed be a third country in the glorious post-Brexit future. At least, that is what the then Minister for Defence Procurement, Guto Bebb, told the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee when he appeared before it on 26 June to explain developments in co-operation on the Galileo project. Presumably expecting to be part of Galileo, Bebb explained that the UK had expected to land about a quarter of the next round of the valuable Galileo contracts but, following the Brexit referendum, that figure had at least halved and direct job losses would be measured in the hundreds. This is partly because in future, all Galileo contracts will include a break clause, which we agreed to and which means that the EU can get out of them if the contractor is not an EU member, effectively freezing out British companies.
Now, anticipating that we will be locked out of Galileo altogether—only yesterday according to the Prime Minister—we are preparing for the eventuality that we will need our own satellite. Perhaps when he winds up, the Minister can indicate whether that is expected to be part of or in addition to the existing defence budget, costing more than the £20 billion that is being asked for to meet the already large procurement hole in that budget.
The fact is that, despite the UK and the EU being uniquely bound by common interests and values, despite the absence in the UK of any party-political difference on these issues, and despite the fact that even the Cabinet has been united on them all along the line, progress on a negotiated partnership under a treaty is at best lamentable and at worst negative. We have in UK-EU security an example of just how successful a negotiator our Prime Minister and her Government can be when they have a united Cabinet and a united country behind them—and it is not encouraging.
I have four short questions for the Minister. First, have formal negotiations on the post-Brexit security relationship between the EU and Britain yet started? Secondly, if not, when do the Government expect them to begin? Thirdly, if they have started, since the Munich security conference what progress have we made in negotiating a deep and meaningful security arrangement with the EU? Finally, what does a no-deal, hard Brexit on defence and security look like for the security of the people of the United Kingdom?
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, not for the first time in this House, I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Bridges. I feel that, if we have to be critical of the Government’s White Paper, we have a duty to be constructively critical. It is very tempting for opposition parties and for remainers like me to be entirely destructive—and there is plenty of scope for it—but we have to remember that the Government and the EU are involved in a negotiation that is more important than any other in our recent history. This is not a political game.
I believe that the proposals in the White Paper on trade in goods are more realistic than the Government’s previous total rejection of the single market, because no other basis has been put forward that is credible as a means of achieving frictionless trade and the avoidance of physical checks at the Irish borders, including the Northern Ireland border.
The much-criticised acceptance of the common rulebook on goods has been described as a compromise, and indeed it is. For some people it is a compromise too far, and they fear that in the course of negotiations the Government will make further concessions, as they are described. I do not see it that way; I see the White Paper very much as a wish list, and the Government and the Prime Minister described it as ambitious. I doubt whether we will achieve all the objectives in the White Paper. Indeed, it might fall at the first hurdle of securing EU agreement to our collecting EU tariffs on its behalf—although I hope that it does not. But I do not see failing to achieve all the objectives as the same as making further concessions.
One area where sceptics fear further concessions is on immigration policy. I hope that we will have an immigration policy that is liberal enough to admit people whom our economy and public services need. But the Prime Minister is surely right that the White Paper respects her red lines by making it clear that it will be our decision. EU rules already provide that EU citizens who wish to live in another member state must be able to find work or be self-sufficient. I regard it as a tragic irony that our Government have never sought to apply those requirements, which would have satisfied the concerns of many who voted for Brexit because of their concern about EU migration.
I am determined to observe the advisory time limit, so, as a member of the House’s EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee, I will add just one thing about financial services. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, were a little unfair to the White Paper in saying that it had nothing to say about financial services or that it had abandoned them. The White Paper proposes that in this area, which is so important for the UK, we should rely on achieving an agreement for what is described as “enhanced equivalence”.
The EU sub-committee has hitherto taken the view that equivalence is not a satisfactory basis for our relationship because it does not provide long-term reliability for financial service providers. The Government no doubt feel that access to UK financial services is sufficiently important to the EU that it will agree to an enhanced regime. I was therefore disappointed to see in the Financial Times this morning that Monsieur Barnier was quoted as having ruled out the possibility of enhanced equivalence in his remarks on Friday on grounds that I regard as specious—that it would infringe too much on the EU’s ability to make its own regulations. I believe that the EU could be more flexible about that, and I am comforted by the fact that Mr Barney Reynolds of New Direction has published a pamphlet arguing that an agreement for enhanced equivalence along these lines should be easily negotiated. Indeed, he has published a draft EU regulation for it. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government have seen Mr Reynolds’s pamphlet and whether they agree with it?
I feel that, if we are to leave the EU, we have a duty to be constructive about the proposals in the White Paper. As the noble Lord, Lord King, said, quoting the Times and Winston Churchill, the proposals in the White Paper might be the worst basis for negotiations apart from all the alternatives. Having said that, I have never disguised from the House my view that, despite the manifold imperfections of the EU, it would be better for the UK, the EU and the world if we were to withdraw our notice under Article 50 and join in reforming the EU from within.
Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)
My Lords, that was a constructive speech, even if the last sentence or two differed from the earlier part of it—in an attempt to be helpful, it seemed to me. The noble Lord always makes a thoughtful and useful contribution to our debates.
The Chequers White Paper encouraged me, because of its indication that the Government really want to get down to negotiating in detail on all these complex matters—and, like the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and others who have spoken, I hope that the EU will respond. I, too, agreed with the excellent speech by my noble friend Lord Bridges, who described the White Paper as a pragmatic approach to negotiations, and went on to the considerations that followed.
Some decades ago I was involved in negotiating in the Council of Ministers as a Minister of State in various roles—on health and safety issues involving the Department of Employment, and later on the EU budget and indirect tax on behalf of the Treasury, and so on. My previous enthusiasm for the EU took some knocks during those years, because of the difficulties of the negotiations—and that was when there were only 12 members, not 28 as there are now, for the moment at any rate. Looking back, I see that the important negotiations at that time were really with the other countries sitting round the table, and not so much with the Commission itself. There is an important lesson in that for our present negotiators, and also for those who comment on such matters—that they should not always take Mr Barnier’s word as the only possible word to come out of the EU. I should add that I was greatly assisted in some of my time dealing with such matters by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in his then role as the United Kingdom’s representative.
One important aspect that has been referred to several times this afternoon in apocalyptic terms is the Northern Ireland border—which I, like the noble Lord, Lord King, came to know during a spell in the Northern Ireland Office. The land, sea and air borders between the EU and the UK have long been important fiscal borders, and VAT and excise duties vary widely in scope, coverage and amounts across all those borders. VAT was supposed to be harmonised across the EU some years ago, but of course it was not, and will not be—and nor will excise duties.
The financial incentive for smuggling is therefore, as one would expect, considerable across all those borders, and the anti-smuggling work is consequently vigorous. But the tax involved—the same will apply to any customs duties that come in—has long been collected well away from the borders, through accountancy, which these days is entirely digital. Most companies want to comply, and digital collection, as VAT and excise duties show, does not require a hard border with customs posts.
The Republic of Ireland will clearly suffer more from Brexit than we will, more or less whatever happens. The end of our contributions to the EU will affect all the countries, but on trade the Irish have every self-interest in negotiating an agreement on customs facilitation, whatever problems that may give the theologians in the Commission. The best thing would be to sit the British and Irish customs teams together in a room, and they would work out a solution. Then we should do the same with France—allowing personal shopping to continue as normal across all these borders, both the Northern Ireland border and the channel border, and involving trusted trader arrangements. Dublin politics are more difficult than usual at the moment, but the technical problems are soluble, and the self-interest is strong and mutual, so a deal can be done—and in the end, the EU must accept that.
The Commons debates last week were depressing, but the Recess is coming. The zealots at both ends of the spectrum suspect the motives of their opposite numbers, and both ends build up the scare stories and read difficulties into any wording that is chosen—and all that weakens our negotiating position. My right honourable friend Dominic Raab should do his best to ignore them and get on with detailed negotiations. He has a reputation as a hard worker and a pragmatist, and he needs to be both. He and his colleagues, both Ministers and officials, must talk to all the countries, businesses and interests involved across the EU to reach agreement. The message is that summer holidays are cancelled.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said, “The recess is coming”, with all the passion and fervour of a former Chief Whip. We worked together for a number of years as the usual channels and it was great to hear him again.
At home I have a cartoon which I have mentioned in such debates since the early 1960s. Like all good cartoons, it says more than many pages of writing could. In a football changing room, well-known figures of the time—De Gaulle, Erhard and Adenauer—are putting on their football kit. Framed in the doorway is Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who was then the Government’s representative in Macmillan’s preliminary negotiations about joining the then Common Market. Sir Alec is standing there pristine in his cricket whites, with his cricket bat under his arm and his cap at a jaunty angle. The title of the cartoon is “Joining the Game”. One of the problems with Britain’s relationship with Europe over these 70 years and more has been that the British have often wanted to join a game that the Europeans did not want to play. This goes back to EFTA, free trade and all that.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, who sadly is no longer in his place, put his finger on it when he identified a lack of understanding on the part of the British, under successive Governments, of a dimension to Europe that we have never felt. In the early 1970s I had the honour and pleasure of working with Jean Monnet. I once asked him what were the drive and the motivation behind his ideas for the Schuman plan and then for Europe. He said, “I wanted to create something that would make it impossible for Germany and France ever to go to war with each other again”.
The Brits do not really understand that passion and what it means to Europeans who have gone through all the traumas of war and defeat, the Stasi and all the rest. We have never really bought in to the idea that Europe is more than a trading relationship. It is also a social relationship, and much of the beneficial legislation, from which our trade union movement benefits, such as protection of consumers and workers, was as much part of Christian democrat Europe as it was of social democrat Europe. There was always that drive and that other dimension to Europe, which is important and needs protecting. One of the reasons I oppose the Brexiteers is that I believe that their hidden agenda is to dismantle a great deal of the gains of social Europe so that they can play the buccaneer in this mythical free-trade world in which they want to sail.
Time and again over the last few weeks, from all parts of the House, we have heard the general view that this cannot go on. I can think of no decision since the war when the Government have been in such disarray—and, believe me, I have worked for one or two Governments who might have come close. We finally got the White Paper and it may be that the Government achieve a kind of settlement—certainly the approach that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, put forward might give them a fair chance of doing so—or we may end up with a no-deal Brexit. But what is absolutely clear is that, whatever the outcome, it is light years from the prospectus put to the British people in 2016. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who unfortunately is not in his place, that Brexit must be honoured. This is not the Charge of the Light Brigade—we do not have to go on league after league regardless of the facts, regardless of the change in circumstances and regardless of what is put before us.
I knew we were in trouble when Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg debated this. Nick raised a whole range of problems about Brexit and all were dismissed, rather in the way that the Minister dismisses questions that we put to him on a variety of issues. Matters will always be dealt with by some great, special deal, as yet unspecified. It reminds me of that line in “Henry IV”:
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep”.
Of course, the next line is:
“Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?”
This is the uncertainty that still prevails, but when we get certainty we have to move to a decision that gives the British people a final say, with all the facts in line. It will demand a kind of courage that was referred to by my noble friend Lord Taverne—the courage of Burke, of each parliamentarian making his decision. I really believe that we will have to make a decision quite as important as the time when Leo Amery shouted to Arthur Greenwood, “Speak for England, Arthur”, at the 1940 Norway debate. What a tragic misunderstanding of history Jacob Rees-Mogg showed about Robert Peel, who turned to his Front Bench and said, “You must answer them, for I cannot”, in abandoning the corn laws. Each parliamentarian will have to make a key decision, which, in all justice, must be to give the British people another choice.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
It is good to follow the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in his robust defence of common sense. I refer noble Lords to my interests as a former MEP for Birmingham.
I wish I could say, like the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, that the Chequers agreement—or disagreement, as it is now—could be a practical way of ensuring anything like economic and security progress in our country after Brexit. I am a remainer; I take what I can get, so I cling like a limpet on steroids to anything that looks like maintaining relations with our largest and most important trading bloc.
If Chequers was the practical way forward, it could have been that jumping-off point in the next round of negotiations on our future relationship with the EU. However, once again, the White Paper, now with its absurd wrecking amendments from last Monday night, is at heart about the Conservative Party—or, rather, the battle to keep the party together. Just as the referendum was at heart about those extreme members who never accepted the result of the 1975 referendum—and probably did not accept the result of 1066 for all I know—the Rees-Mogg acolytes think nothing of scuppering their own Government, past and present, and, indeed, scuppering the whole country in some extraordinary homage to a “la-la sovereign land”, untroubled by pesky foreigners, which never existed and never will.
The country cannot believe that, in such uncertain times for everyone, Parliament is making such an exhibition of itself rather than finding a way through— Thailand cave rescue-style—the complexity of Brexit. I do not exempt from that criticism a certain gang of four in my own party in the House of Commons.
The Chequers White Paper lays out its key objectives on the economy, jobs and the Irish border, and many of us would be hard-pressed to disagree with those objectives. However, the means by which those objectives are arrived at are so head-scratchingly obtuse, far-fetched, bureaucratic and, in some instances, whimsical that it is hardly surprising that Mr Barnier’s Gallic shrug on receiving the White Paper was in danger of resulting in a pair of dislocated shoulders. In the chapter on economic partnership, I cannot see how our integrated supply chains and our just-in-time processes, so vital to our manufacturing base, will survive the convoluted conclusions of the White Paper. At least here the Government admit that there will no longer be the current levels of access to EU markets for UK firms. I wonder how that anodyne sentence will translate into job losses over the coming years in the West Midlands, the north-east and other regions.
On any future security partnership, there is in the White Paper a call for operational consistency in the future between the EU and the UK, while also stating that we will of course no longer be part of the EU’s common policies on foreign defence, security, justice and home affairs. Well, good luck with that consistency, as highlighted by my noble friend Lord Browne. The paper offers us a facilitated customs arrangement that relies on new technology that has still to see the light of day, and a consumer workplace and environmental set of rights that promises only non-regression. Have we already given up on leading the world in these areas?
What is our future? I have no idea, and in that sense I am at one with the Government, Parliament and the rest of the country. If the Chequers White Paper is the best that is on offer, after £700 million of additional funding for planning to leave the EU, a further £3 billion in the last Budget, 313 workstreams set up across government and up to 8,000 more civil servants taken on to boost work on leaving the EU—I thank the House of Lords Library for those figures—another way has to be found out of this unholy Brexit mess.
Shortly, I understand, 70 technical notices—it should really be emergency notices—will be sent to British families and businesses explaining what to do if there is no deal and we crash out of Europe into a WTO bargain-basement regime for trade. No major trading nation trades with the EU on WTO rules alone. Will there be food and medical shortages? I do not know. Will lorries be backed up at our ports? I do not know. Will EU skies be closed to UK flights? I can but give a Gallic shrug. We are entering emergency territory and the clock is ticking. If we are not careful, we will indeed be “midnight’s children” on 29 March, and Parliament is deadlocked. Never mind asking the House of Commons to think again; it is time to ask the country to think again.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, I begin by associating myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about Lord Carrington. I think at this time we are all very conscious that, in the Conservative Party, we miss Lord Carrington’s wisdom and his sense of honour.
The noble Lord, Lord Birt, was quite right when he said that, while one might regret the result of the referendum—as he and I do—the Government have a duty to seek to carry out the instruction of the majority of the British people. The Prime Minister deserves credit for the efforts she is making to do that in a manner that mitigates the economic damage that might flow from the decision and seeks to puts us in a position from which we can compete successfully under a new regime. Her document may not be perfect, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord Jopling, that it provides a basis for negotiation and should be treated in a positive fashion in that light.
What I find so hard to understand about so many members of my party—in particular Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and others who think like them—is their refusal to recognise the practical difficulties in leaving the EU. They attack the Prime Minister’s plans with grandiloquent verbosity, ludicrous historical analogies and sweeping generalisations, but they put nothing in their place. They also talk only to the British people, with no consideration of how our departure from the EU involves negotiating with the Commission and the EU 27, and that they too have legitimate interests to defend and aspirations to pursue. The right reverend Prelate had something sensible to say on that score.
As the White Paper points out, the nature of our trade with the EU is quite different in many important respects from our trade with the rest of the world because of the supply chains and the just-in-time processes that link our manufacturing industry inexorably with plants in other EU countries, and they with us. This is the result in part of the EU system that has been built up over the past 40 or more years, but it is also a result of geography. It is very important that we should seek to maintain frictionless trade in Europe, because the arrangements we have in Europe cannot be replicated elsewhere in the world. I hope very much that the ambitions—although rather unquantified—of the great free-traders who support Brexit are realised. I hope that we achieve the success that they promise us. However, it is very important to preserve what we have as far as we can within Europe, because those arrangements cannot be replicated elsewhere. The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, dwelt wisely on these issues, and I suspect that what he said may be a harbinger of the future.
Whatever happens, our Prime Minister is not going to be able to negotiate successfully on the issues in the White Paper, or on any other issues, unless she enjoys the support of her colleagues in government and in Parliament. For as long as the Commission and the EU 27 have good reason to believe that she cannot get a deal through Parliament, they will be reluctant to make concessions or to compromise. There is a direct correlation between the strength of the Prime Minister’s position at Westminster, and among public opinion, and her strength at the negotiating table. Those who constantly seek to undermine her, while pleading patriotism, are doing the country a great disservice.
I have one final issue to raise about those who look forward so blithely to working under WTO rules. My first point—and I stand ready to be corrected—is that there is no significant trading partner of the European Union that relies solely on WTO rules in its trade with the Union. Secondly, this is a particularly bad moment to become wholly dependent on WTO rules, as its dispute arbitration mechanism is on the verge of breakdown, owing to the fact that President Trump is unwilling to appoint a judge to the panel, and, very shortly, it is unlikely to be quorate. Thirdly, there is all the difference in the world between a carefully prepared and transitioned change on the one hand, and an overnight crash out on the other. Fourthly, given the nature and intensity of our trade with the European Union, and the role of the supply chains and the just-in-time processes, we in any case need something much better than WTO rules. The Prime Minister deserves our support in trying to achieve it and I believe that, with the White Paper, she has at least thrown the ball into the lineout. I hope it comes out in a satisfactory way.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, if the people had been given a vote on the Maastricht treaty or the Lisbon treaty, we would not be where we are now. If Mrs Merkel had made some concessions to David Cameron a few years ago, the referendum might well have gone the other way. When her epitaph comes to be written, I think it may well conclude that she was the woman who started the break-up of the European Union.
The European ideal has collapsed, and that is why they cannot negotiate and why they behave so irrationally rigidly. Remainers wanted the status quo and were averse to any cost of complexity, and they cared about their personal finances. I respect that. On a higher level, they thought that they had bought into an EU of collaboration and democracy, and here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McNally. However, there have been many references to changes in the past two years: the European ideal has gone.
The extreme right prejudices and nationalism that the EU was invented to cover up and prevent have vanquished the EU structures. The extreme right has risen in France, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Germany; Italy has called for the Roma to be registered; Austria has called for the Jews to be registered; Poland has attacked the judiciary, the press and the environment, and, with Hungary, refused migrants; Russia’s leverage over energy has brought silence; Spain punishes Catalonia; Greece is reduced to penury; Cyprus bank accounts were threatened; the fences are going up and border controls have reappeared; and Schengen is crumbling like a picked cherry.
Mrs Merkel, who bears much responsibility for the collapse of belief in the EU dream, is no longer stable, and yet those who would remain are presumably committed to calling for more Europe, less national identity, a bigger budget, an army, the spread of the euro and the abolition of our seat on the Security Council. And what in the future? We do not know what the future of the EU is.
It is therefore essential to get out as cleanly as possible, for there is nothing we can do to alter the trend—and it went that way under our watch. If the EU accepts Mrs May’s latest compromise—a bad one—so be it, but already it has said it will not. The squabbling of MPs over the Trade Bill, which will no doubt be replicated here, is a waste of time. There is no rationale behind the four freedoms, no reason why there should not be picking and choosing, a luxury the eurocrats give themselves but not to the leaving state. We might reasonably require free trade, protection of citizens, mutual recognition of joint institutions, professional and commercial services, nothing less. A second referendum—a third, actually—would destroy the integrity of all referendums. It would be tainted by resentment and be no more mandatory in result than a fourth or a fifth.
The EU has failed to comply with Article 50, which requires that the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with the leaving state, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. If the UK was wholly unreasonable and unyielding, one might say that the failure was due to the UK rather than the EU, but the EU has called on the UK to make offers and then rejected them seriatim. I therefore acquit the Government of not doing their best.
The EU has made no proposals to protect UK citizens living abroad and will find itself in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights if it does not treat them the same as its own citizens, mutatis mutandis. There is no protection of the integrity of the UK in its proposals. It threatens to punish us, interferes in domestic affairs such as the registration of EU citizens living here and demands arbitrary sums with nothing in return. It has seized on the Irish border as an impediment to our leaving. The Republic of Ireland no doubt sees the prize of unification with the north on the horizon.
There is little to fear in no deal because there are underlying and older treaties to rescue flights and trade. Any visa requirements will hurt the European tourist industry. Indeed, the 27 will come off worse if there is no deal, and that is what we should be saying to them. Their financial services and their tourist industries, to take two examples, will go into meltdown if they do not allow free movement of flights and service. We can withdraw our offer of a £39 billion divorce bill.
Most of the rest of the world does not trade with us or the EU countries as a part of a customs union and it causes no problem. The EU would face tariffs on sales to us if we go along the WTO route. We must not have a transition period which enables the EU and the remain ideologues to try and draw us back into a union.
This is the land of the common law, of courts of unimpeachable integrity and impartiality, of centuries-old freedoms such as habeas corpus and innocent until proven guilty, of the rule of law and the right to vote—which, incidentally, would be breached if we were subject to EU rules but without a vote in the elections. We have successfully managed immigration; we are fiercely protective of non-discrimination. Those—our values—are threatened by the EU project’s direction, which is why we must protect our freedoms, almost regardless of cost.
We do not have our sovereignty back yet. We hope to get it restored on 29 March next. In the meantime, we are like prisoners squabbling about who is the kingpin in the jail while the warders are still outside with their keys. We must back Mrs May and hope for the best.
Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)
My Lords, I follow a powerful and analytical speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.
I fear that this White Paper cannot fly. In fact, I wonder if it is not already a casualty of gravity. My principal and reluctant reason for opposing the White Paper is that the more I read it the plainer it becomes to me that its adoption would render this country worse off than we are now. And that is our opening shot. No one seriously believes that the Barnier team are just going to leave it there. Attrition is the means by which these people work.
I home in on two issues. The first is the common rulebook. Its commonality is limited to Britain’s participation in a rule book that is written by the EU and run by the EU. Here I echo the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, when he quoted Mr Martin Howe QC. The UK would have to obey and apply in all respects the laws promulgated by the EU without having a vote on the content of those laws. Further, the UK would be obliged to interpret those rules in accordance with the rulings of the ECJ under a system that would, directly or indirectly, bind UK courts to follow ECJ rulings. I think that on that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, would agree.
Secondly, will we be able to alter current laws? I find nothing in the White Paper to suggest that the UK would be in a position to change any of the existing body of EU laws, however damaging they may be or become in the future. I have in mind restrictive EU laws that block the development or deployment of new technology, such as in the biotech area, where the UK enjoys global pre-eminence. This is a seriously important point. Here in Britain we look to innovation as the single most important pathway to growth. The EU appears to turn its back on it.
As significantly, the system is skewed in favour of existing technologies and against innovators. Once we leave the EU and no longer have a vote on the framing of these types of rules, the EU will have a positive incentive to frame the rules in order to disadvantage UK producers. The recent notorious Dyson case illustrates how the EU regulatory system for goods can already be skewed in favour of continental interests against British manufacturers.
In her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, rehearsed project fear again. Unlike her, I have been in business—as listed in the register of interests—for 50 years, operating in scores of different markets. I have never woken up to certainty in my life—I have never looked for certainty—and I am utterly comfortable with operating under WTO rules, as are an enormous number of people to whom I speak and colleagues in business. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, that it is a vanity of politicians that they run trade. In fact it is the people who produce commodities that can be bought and willing buyers who drive trade, not trade deals. In all of the markets in which I have operated, I never once over 50 years asked, “Do I have a trade deal with you?”
So what is the background to this mess? My inquiry stems from a little-mentioned fact that, for the first time I can remember in my life, the laws and the people have diverged. People used to look to the laws to protect them from an overbearing Executive and overbearing House of Commons—no more, and probably never again.
It is probably a good rule that politicians do not criticise civil servants. However, such has been the extraordinary and partisan involvement on the part of civil servants throughout the Brexit process that it is hard to ignore their role, especially when we reflect on the background to this White Paper. Let me say straightaway that our generally brilliant Civil Service has had to endure great provocation in recent years and better-qualified people than me need to address the many problems that beset the service and find enduring solutions to them. However, there can be no denying that Britain has a new ruling class—new to the extent that the power and influence of the official class has risen steadily as the power and influence of the political class has declined. I venture to suggest that this decline corresponds to the diminishing role of the modern Member of Parliament, a consequence of membership of the European Union. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Perhaps the Bench of superannuated mandarins in your Lordships’ House and the role that they have played in the Brexit process have attracted too little attention. Talk of “coming to heel” is not so far removed from “We are the masters now”. Plainly, former civil servants who come to this House are quite rightly liberated from the constraints of impartiality. They might even be forgiven for being a little demob happy. Some might question, however, whether it is right or indeed dignified for these very clever men to huddle in what my noble friend Lord Ridley has described as an “incantation” of mandarins—a collective term normally applied to warlocks—and, as they are driven by groupthink, they chant and parrot all the most absurd and disingenuous remainer slogans.
It is rather chilling to reflect that a group of people possessed of such famously bulging brains should lend their support to a measure as crassly ill-crafted and unsuitable for English law as the ECHR, a document which attracted, when it first appeared, almost universal derision and which was repudiated by senior members of both main political parties. In that case, it was instructive that the noble and learned Lords, with actual experience of the legal process, did not support that amendment.
We see a class composed of clever, well-paid, unelected, London-centric men and women who have gathered to themselves unprecedented levels of unaccountable power. They show conspicuous solidarity with their opposite numbers in Brussels and conspicuous contempt for the voting public. I suppose that one should be grateful that Mr Olly Robbins remembered to show the White Paper to the Prime Minister. This new power is being harnessed against the rest of us—the majority, as it happens—who ask for little more than to keep our well-tried institutions and preserve the freedoms that we used to enjoy through the ancient and always evolving system of representative democracy.
I conclude with a vivid memory. On Second Reading of the withdrawal Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, expressed strong opposition to Britain leaving the EU, on which he has been consistent. He said that the wording of Clause 1 of the Bill,
“strikes a dagger to my soul”.—[Official Report, 30/1/18; col. 1411.]
It was a much-quoted phrase. Well, of course, out of respect and affection we all felt keenly for him in his anguish. However, we had barely regained control of our emotions when he went on to describe how mistaken the EU was in its rush towards a federal union, which, in the noble Lord’s own words, “may lead to disaster”. It was to avert just that disaster that thousands of people like me campaigned for Brexit and 17.4 million people agreed with us. The prescience of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is already being borne out with yet more eurozone crises looming and yet more federalist solutions being proposed.
People understand the great issues of the day more than the likes of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, give them credit for. While I cannot say that all the election results of my adult life have always given me pleasure, I believe that in every case the people merited the trust that the universal franchise conferred on them. Unlike many, I was privileged to know both my father and grandfather. Both returned from the horrifying conflicts of the 20th century and both bore the scars of those conflicts for the years that remained to them. They and those like them suffered and died so that we might enjoy the freedoms that have been defended by our forebears for probably 1,000 years. It is this priceless legacy that more than 17 million of my fellow countrymen voted to preserve. I can find nothing in this White Paper that will offer these people the hope and reassurance that they are entitled to expect.
Baroness Goldie
My Lords, I observe that we are now at the halfway point and, if my calculations are correct, it has taken us just under five hours to reach it. More noble Lords wish to speak and we want to hear their contributions. Six minutes can let a lot of very good things be said.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, has just told us, the White Paper is too little and too late. It was intended as a compromise between the various factions in the Conservative Party, as many noble Lords have observed, but sadly it seems to be unravelling. As a result, while Ministers are working on national recognition agreements, the rest of us are having to prepare seriously for the absence of these agreements. We have to prepare for shortages of goods and medicines, we have to prepare for disruption in deliveries at ports and airports and, as my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton explained, we have to prepare for an increase in security risks. The EU has issued a 15-page document with these warnings and, although firms are busily looking up the WTO rules, they will find blanks in many service areas and in areas dealing with medicine and health. As the Minister told us, our Government are preparing to issue 70 technical notices of their own.
I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. The economic implications of no deal are enormous. There are warning red lights flashing all over the place. That is because instead of addressing a sensible, negotiated agreement phased over a two-year transition period, we are having to prepare for no agreement within a few months. What concerns me is that, while all this is going on, we do not clearly state whose side we are on in world trade. We have to be on the side of multilateralism, international order and international co-operation, supporting the institutions that are dedicated to their maintenance—the UN, the WTO and, yes, the EU. On the other side are nations whose terms of trade are that each stands only for itself: world trade without rules or standards. I know which side I want to be on.
As my noble friend Lady Hayter explained, America is pursuing trade actions against China and against its near neighbours, Canada and Mexico, as well as against the EU. It is a trade war where might makes right. Moreover, WTO rules, already under attack, then become meaningless. This is what it means to be free to trade with anybody anywhere in the divided world that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, seems to prefer. Compare that with the recent agreement negotiated by the EU extending the common market to Japan, which many noble Lords have mentioned.
The White Paper tried to rescue us from this as far as manufacturing is concerned and that is welcome. If agreed, it may save jobs and avoid a dilution of labour standards, environmental standards and all the other standards that make up our quality of life. That is because it is these standards that are invariably the victims of a trade war. We can maintain these standards only in an orderly world of trade agreements and non-regression clauses.
Our ability to trade with the EU in services will have to come under a new legal structure. But before the Government go down that road, I urge them to make sure that we all agree on what services are. The distinction between goods and services has become very blurred. The Office for National Statistics has said that in 2016 we had a surplus of some £23 billion on our trade in services with the EU, but has the Minister looked at this from the Brussels standpoint? According to Eurostat, the remaining 27 have a surplus in their trade in services with us of a similar amount. Presumably we cannot both be right, unless we are counting different things. The ONS does not have an explanation.
You only have to listen to this debate to realise that the chances are slim of Parliament, never mind the Conservative Party, agreeing on a deal in the time remaining. Added to that, regulators now find that one side in the referendum broke the law and that, during the campaign, personal data was used illegally. To be constructive, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, has asked us to be, a strong and principled leadership would seek to extend the Article 50 process until there is a good chance of consensus in Parliament and clarity on the legal issues. The Government could use the time to deal with people’s concerns about immigration, as the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, suggested. Can the Government concentrate on finding a moral middle ground, which probably means staying in the common market, because that is what will work best for all of us in Britain? If we do not, a few may flourish, but most of us will become the victims of the inevitable rising inequality.
Lord Gadhia (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I will bring a business voice to this debate, among a sea of politicians and former civil servants. My comments build on two previous speeches in this Chamber. The first was in March 2017, immediately before Article 50 was triggered, when I described certain flaws in the Government’s negotiating strategy, particularly in the sequencing of discussions. The other was in January this year, about the inherent lack of credibility in threatening a no deal scenario, while acknowledging that it might be the unintended consequence of a breakdown in negotiations. Subsequent events have been like watching a slow motion car crash: utterly predictable but still excruciating to witness, because remedial action at an earlier stage could have averted some of the difficulties we now face.
Despite these frustrations, we should welcome the White Paper and find a way to make it work in the national interest—assuming, crucially, that it is not killed off prematurely in Brussels or Westminster. The Chequers proposal might be a grubby compromise, but it is a necessary one to deliver a softer Brexit, which the economy, parliamentary arithmetic and the Irish border require. The romantic idea of Brexit was always more alluring than the messy reality of implementing it. That is perhaps why some lament the dying of the Brexit dream. It is no surprise that it is fading rapidly, because it was always an illusion about regaining sovereignty. Modern democracies pool sovereignty so that they can secure better economic and security outcomes for their citizens than any individual country can achieve acting alone. So the argument is really about where we draw the boundaries between collaboration and self-determination. The idea of absolute parliamentary sovereignty is as outdated as the Corn Laws.
We are now entering a critical phase of the Brexit negotiations, during which the prospects for a deal could diminish dramatically and talks might even break down before being revived. It will be a turbulent six months and I will focus my comments on four specific points relevant to this next phase.
First, will the EU be open for serious discussions on the Chequers proposal, or is it simply going through the motions before killing it off and, instead, offering us CETA with a border down the Irish Sea, since the EEA alternative would require accepting freedom of movement? Michel Barnier has played the UK like a fiddle and it has been simultaneously impressive and deeply depressing to endure. It is clear that the Prime Minister is walking the tightest of tightropes, so if the EU overplays its negotiating hand, it will not take much to throw the discussions off balance.
Secondly, the weakest link in the Chequers plan is the facilitated customs arrangement. It was the target of the wrecking amendments to the customs Bill last week and is viewed sceptically by key stakeholders in Europe as unworkable. Last week I joined a cross-party visit of the Industry and Parliament Trust to Germany, where we heard first hand from the influential Federation of German Industries, or BDI. The tracking of goods could be a bureaucratic nightmare and potentially open up a smugglers’ charter. The advice going from German business to Angela Merkel does not support our customs solution.
Thirdly, the White Paper says that,
“the Withdrawal Agreement and the framework for the future relationship are inextricably linked”.
However, it is clear that the withdrawal agreement will be a binding treaty under international law, but the future framework will take the form of a political declaration. I ask the Minister—he is not in his place, but maybe through the Front Bench—precisely what legal status and interconditionality will attach to these two agreements? The new Secretary of State at DExEU has said that no payments will be made to the EU unless we get an acceptable trade deal. It is a novel legal concept to have a binding agreement with non-binding terms. Will the Minister please explain how that would work? Otherwise, Parliament is destined for a meaningful vote on a meaningless deal, since the political declaration gives us nothing more than the option to negotiate a binding treaty during the transition period.
Finally, I turn to the future of financial services, which appears to be the sacrificial lamb of the Chequers plan. In March this year, in his HSBC speech, the Chancellor acknowledged that the EU’s established third-country equivalence regime would be wholly inadequate for the scale and complexity of UK-EU financial services trade and argued for mutual recognition. He explained that the EU regime is unilateral and that access can be withdrawn at short notice. We now have a volte-face where the White Paper proposes something close to equivalence but with “expanded” scope. Exactly how significant that enhancement will be is not clear and there is very little time to pin down the precise details.
All the major financial services bodies have expressed their deep disappointment at this reversal. The inevitable consequence is that we are destined for split platforms across the UK and EU, which means the transfer of jobs and investment and, most importantly, the loss of a chunk of tax revenue from the £72 billion which the sector contributes to the Exchequer annually. If the Government are set on equivalence, they must now look at a comprehensive sector deal for financial and related professional services, much as they have done for other areas of industrial strategy, to reinforce the competitiveness of these world-leading sectors of our economy.
In conclusion, it would be churlish not to respect the quietly heroic way in which the Prime Minister is attempting a Houdini act to beat all others. The road ahead is treacherous, but I still hope for an 11th hour deal, cloaked in high drama, which is typical of how the EU resolves all major crises. There is, however, only so much uncertainty that the business community can stomach before voting with its feet and its investment cheque book. All the other alternatives for Brexit are too unpalatable and the mood of the country is to get on with it, so I hope that the great British tradition of pragmatism will prevail and the Government will persevere with their plan, as no deal would be a monumental tragedy for all sides.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Gadhia, as I share many of his concerns. This White Paper represents a step in the right direction. It recognises the harsh realities of the single market and opens the way for a more pragmatic negotiation. But, as I read it, I had in mind the maiden aunts of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. Your Lordships will recall that they planned a trip to the cinema, only to be confronted with a choice between “Reservoir Dogs” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. Did the White Paper promise them something more alluring? The answer has to be yes, but I believe that the noble Lord’s aunts would be as discerning as he, and would quickly realise that, while the programme might not be quite as gory as some, it would be a deeply uncomfortable experience, perhaps more akin to the psychological horror of “The Birds”.
There are elements of the White Paper that Monsieur Barnier has already indicated are for the birds. Most importantly, he has indicated that proposals for enhanced equivalence to ensure that our financial services industry can still flourish will not be acceptable to the 27. Why would they be? Why would they be willing to water down their concept of the single market and the rules that govern it to accommodate our financial services industry? The White Paper acknowledges repeatedly that, even in its suggested version of Brexit, Britain’s access to the EU markets for services would be reduced. I have asked my noble friend the Minister, who sadly is not in his place, if he could give an indication of how much we will have to pay for that reduction in access. I ask again: could we have an estimate of what we will lose?
Financial firms are already moving their operations out of Britain. Brexit would produce a stampede. My friend from the other place, the honourable Member for North East Somerset, is already showing the way, having just launched a second fund in Ireland—a wise move, since he has suggested that any benefits of Brexit could be 50 years away. He has said:
“We won’t know the full economic consequences for a very long time, we really won’t”.
He is in a position to do this, perhaps. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds suggested, wealthy fund managers can afford to gamble and to take such a cavalier action with their own finances, but to suggest that they should bully the Prime Minister into taking such a gamble with the finances of the country seems appalling.
The Bank of China’s UK head, Sun Yu, says that no deal would threaten London’s status as a hub for international banks. Any version of Brexit does that. The no-deal Brexit which some now favour over the White Paper version could create real hardship. The IMF calculates that no deal could cost nearly £200 billion in lost output to this country.
On trade in goods, the White Paper accepts that the price of access to the EU’s markets will be accepting EU rules without any say in their formulation. The aunts of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, would be reaching for the smelling salts by the time they reached paragraph 16(b) of chapter 1 of the paper. This attempts to spell out how tariff collection will work. We have already heard about the inevitable tailbacks and the threat to foodstuffs and medicines, but charging the right tariff will be a matter of guesswork. The White Paper envisages that in,
“up to 96 per cent”,
of cases the tariff will be correct, but note the “up to”. For the rest, there will have to be a repayment mechanism. Given that the EU sells us more than £300 billion-worth of goods every year, that provides ample scope for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to be rather bogged down in requests for refunds.
The benefits of being in the EU are huge. The realisation of that is why the White Paper states, somewhat plaintively, that we wish to remain in many EU institutions, even while accepting that we will not have any say in their deliberations.
The benefits were what persuaded the country to join the Common Market in 1971. Incidentally, in an excellent article in the Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole recently pointed out that the 1971 White Paper sold more than 1 million copies. I doubt that this one is such a bestseller. The 1971 White Paper began by stating:
“The prime objective of any British Government must be to safeguard the security and prosperity of the United Kingdom and its peoples … The Government are convinced that our country will be more secure, our ability to maintain peace and promote development in the world greater, our economy stronger, and our industries and peoples more prosperous, if we join the European Communities than if we remain outside them”.
That remains true of our involvement in the EU today.
The calamitous cost of Brexit becomes more evident every day. It is no wonder the public are waking up and a majority have decided that they would prefer to remain in the EU than face a hard Brexit. A customs agreement and single market access, the Norway option, would be less painful and is probably the best that will eventually be on offer, but that means paying through the nose for less than we have now. It is not my idea of a bargain.
I end up in the same place as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane: faced with two, deeply unattractive options, should not his aunts have a choice to change their mind and not to go to the movies after all? That is why the country should be given a vote on the deal. I have now to declare my interest as a director of the People’s Vote media hub. The country deserves a chance to vote on what is on offer.
Lord Razzall (LD)
My Lords, it is apparent that, since the publication of the White Paper, all hell has broken loose within the Tory party. It is not for me to intrude on private grief, so I shall concentrate my remarks on a number of concerns where, if we are not careful, withdrawal without agreement will throw a spanner in many works.
I speak for my party on manufacturing, and the concerns of manufacturing industry have been clear since the referendum. Some companies are concerned about tariff barriers, although those may not be the major issue, as they are often simply a function of how a product is priced. In any event, apart from President Trump’s interventions, worldwide tariffs have in recent years been coming down. However, as most noble Lords will have realised by now, the overwhelming concern for manufacturing industry is frictionless borders. We all appreciate that the Government have been going through endless dances to come up with a scheme that provides for frictionless borders, solves the Irish border issue, but does not involve remaining in a customs union. Who knows whether that is achievable, but it is clear that, unless a satisfactory solution is arrived at, we are at risk of losing many major manufacturing companies from the UK. The motor car industry depends on just-in-time delivery of components which often pass two or three times across our borders. Airbus has similar requirements and has made it very clear that unless it can continue with its current arrangements, significant capacity will be moved to France or Germany.
The second major requirement for manufacturing industry is access to skilled labour. I appreciate that this is a concern also in relation to many other sectors, such as care home assistants and workers in the NHS, let alone fruit pickers and restaurant staff, but unless industry can continue to recruit qualified workers from the European Union, the tendency for many manufacturers will be to relocate outside Britain.
As always in international negotiations, the devil is in the detail. My noble friend Lord Newby mentioned more than 60 European bodies in which we would like to participate after Brexit. In the time available, I want to highlight a few of the 62.
The first is Euratom. Last year Theresa May notified the EU of the UK’s intention to leave the EU nuclear safety and research watchdog. As Ken Clarke memorably said on “Question Time”, he did not think his constituents who voted leave had Euratom in mind. I understand that even Vote Leave’s director, Dominic Cummings, has questioned the value of this—he has other problems at the moment, of course. Is this wise? Secondly, there is framework programme 9, the successor to the EU Horizon 2020 science funding programme. We are currently a net recipient of funding from 2020, but will the EU allow this to continue? Should we negotiate associate membership, similar to Norway, with a likely increase in contributions? What do the Government intend?
Thirdly, I want to highlight Copernicus. The European Space Agency’s programme has currently launched six earth observation satellites, with UK companies involved in the manufacture of hardware and instrumentation. The programme is 70% funded by the European Union. What is the Government’s intention regarding the status of these manufacturing contracts? Fourthly, we have the European Medicines Agency. While NICE makes judgments on drugs’ cost effectiveness for the NHS, the European Medicines Agency rules on safety and efficacy. Until now, the EMA has been based in London, but following Brexit it will move to Amsterdam. It is not clear how drugs will be regulated in the United Kingdom following Brexit. Can the Government give an indication?
Fifthly, there is Galileo. This system is a rival to GPS and was commissioned in 2003 for completion in 2020. I understand that there is deadlock, as the European Commission has decided to block the United Kingdom working on the system and we are threatening to demand a £900 million refund of contributions. Will the Minister tell the House the latest position? Lastly, I want to highlight aviation. The Government’s policy is to secure liberal aviation market access arrangements following Brexit, including continuing participation in EASA, but time is running out. Does the Minister believe that this is still achievable, or is there a danger of significant disruption to airline travel after Brexit?
If I had time I would add to the list of issues where decisions are urgently required, as the six I have mentioned are simply the tip of the iceberg. Those of us on the remain side of the argument are terrified that the current government chaos could lead to a no-deal Brexit, producing financial chaos, industrial disruption, planes not flying, queues on either side of the Channel and shortages of medicines and foods. Let us hope and pray that it does not come to that.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I have framed three questions on the Government’s White Paper and here is a spoiler alert: none has a positive answer. Monsieur Barnier has already asked the first question, which is whether the White Paper provides the foundation for an agreement with the EU. He has not, in terms, declared the White Paper a non-starter, but he has given a laundry list of reasons for dismissing its proposals on goods: fraud risks, burdens on EU businesses, impracticality and even illegality. The Commission hates anything that might allow the UK to gain a competitive advantage and has used that excuse to damn the White Paper’s proposals to keep services separate from goods. In financial services, as we have heard already this afternoon, where the EU has much to lose if cross-border transactions do not work well, Monsieur Barnier has already rejected our generous proposals.
It seems that nothing will satisfy the Commission, apart from our subjugation to the EU on its terms and without any prospect that we could prosper once we have left. Of course, no UK Government should even contemplate agreeing on that basis. There may well be some discussion during the summer on the White Paper for form’s sake, but real negotiations cannot work if one side is intransigent—and I am not talking about our Government here. On current form, I can see no way in which the White Paper can form the basis of an agreement with the EU.
My second question is whether the White Paper delivers what people voted for in the referendum, in which 17.4 million people voted for one very big idea—to take back control from the EU. They were not concerned with the details of single markets, exactly how to control immigration or what a customs union meant. They expected, and were entitled to expect, that the Government would implement the big idea and sort out the details in practice. Let me be clear: the White Paper does not take back control. We will be tied in to what is euphemistically described as “a common rulebook”. The truth, as we have already heard, is that the common rulebook is, and always will be, the EU’s rulebook. We shall be expected to keep pace with it in future but will have no say whatever in those rules, and the ECJ will continue to be the arbiter. The White Paper says that Parliament can decide whether to apply the rules, but in truth Parliament will be emasculated: if we do not stay signed up to the rulebook, there will be “consequences”. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has already reminded us that Switzerland has experience of not agreeing to continue with the rules imposed by the EU.
My third question is whether the UK will prosper if we leave on the White Paper terms. There is no reason to think that we will. We will be tied in to the EU’s rulebook on goods and will be under constant pressure if we do anything that smacks of obtaining a competitive advantage in our trade with the EU. Our route to economic prosperity does not lie in the EU but in the high-growth economies outside the EU. Goods account for only 20% of our economy and less than half of our exported goods go to the EU, but signing up to the EU’s rulebook on goods will be a constant drag on our scope for free trade agreements with the rest of the world. The White Paper’s promise of freedom to negotiate trade agreements with other countries is illusory.
Free trade agreements are always anchored in trade in goods and, in particular, agricultural products. We need to be flexible here in order to gain opportunities for our all-important services sector in free trade agreements. If we cannot be flexible—which may well mean ignoring the EU’s rulebook—the prospect of free trade deals will evaporate. The ball and chain of the EU rulebook will drag us down.
I continue to believe that a negotiated deal would be the best outcome for everyone, but I am not afraid of a future that sees us trading on WTO terms. Much of world trade is already on WTO terms. It is a sound basis, especially from which to start, and especially if we are also prepared to lower or eliminate tariffs to demonstrate our commitment to free trade. We do not have to believe that Project Fear mark 2 economic forecasts are any more accurate than those we were given before the referendum in Project Fear mark 1.
Of course, if we exit on WTO terms things will not be the same as they are now. That is why the part of the Chequers outcome which deals with intensifying preparations for exit in all scenarios, although not in the White Paper itself, is probably the most important thing to come out of the Cabinet’s agreement. Change happens. We should embrace change and prepare in earnest for the UK operating outside the EU on terms which offer us the maximum chances of our future economic success. I am afraid to say that we should forget this White Paper.
Lord Liddle
My Lords, last week I had the great pleasure of being in Brussels with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and my noble friend Lord Whitty under the very good chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. We had a very interesting time, but I fear that I came away from the visit with a great deal of pessimism. My view is that we will return from our Summer Recess to find us heading for the deepest political crisis our nation has faced since the Second World War. It could so easily transmute into an economic crisis, a sterling crisis and an investment crisis once business suddenly comes to terms with the awful fact that the Brexiteer bluff of no deal might soon become—admittedly, I think, by accident—a reality.
No deal will have very serious consequences for 60% of our trade—not just trade with the EU, but with all the other countries the EU has trade agreements with—which now includes Japan. I do not share the optimism of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about trading on WTO terms. No deal would mean a breakdown in aviation and energy markets from day one; an immediate loss of broadcasting rights from the UK as programmes no longer comply with country of origin rules; potential chaos at all our borders as agricultural inspections, customs, rules of origin, regulatory checks and up-front VAT payments are imposed; legal uncertainty about contracts and business licences and authorisations issued by EU agencies; disruption to data flows; and some really awful things, such as confusion about the status of EU citizens living in this country and British citizens living on the continent. What on earth would happen to the Irish border in the event of no deal?
Quite a lot of people have said, “Oh, there is no majority for no deal in Parliament and it is not going to happen”—I wish I was so confident. The no-deal amendment, which twice passed in this House by huge cross-party majorities in the then European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, failed in the Commons when its otherwise wholly admirable mover—the right honourable Dominic Grieve—chose to fall on his sword in the interest of Conservative Party unity.
On the customs Bill last week, the Prime Minister chose to whip her parliamentary party to vote for several Jacob Rees-Mogg amendments which directly contradict the White Paper that she had produced only days before. The facilitated customs arrangement is a fantasy but it is possible that if it had simply been confined to the UK, the Government might have been able to persuade the European Commission to go along with the possibility that—at some stage in the long, long term—it might become technologically feasible, and that we would accept remaining in the customs union until that day happened. The fact is, however, that the Rees-Mogg amendment totally scuppers that possibility, because there is no way whatever that our European partners are going to adopt this plan themselves when, to be polite, it involves a massive increase in bureaucracy. One of the strange things about Brexit is that most of its keenest supporters also support a low-tax, small state. But what are we going to see with Brexit? There will be a massive increase in the size of the Civil Service and bureaucracy. This arrangement would certainly involve a big increase in bureaucracy, with untested technology and an invitation to commit fraud. No one else will go along with it and it is therefore not going to work as a proposition.
Last week left me feeling in a very bad way. I said to myself: is there no instance in which a clear-cut national interest can trump the unity of the Conservative Party as a higher cause? Will the Conservative Party ever not put its own unity first, before the national interest? Sadly, there is a group of misguided Labour MPs—and some of my colleagues here—who are totally oblivious to the pain that a hard Brexit will inflict on their poorest constituents. They are prepared to back Brexit in any form.
While we all hope for an agreement in October, I fear the political dynamic is moving in totally the wrong direction. I am not a fan of the White Paper. It should have been published 18 months ago, before we invoked Article 50, and it completely neglects the services sectors, where so much of Britain’s economic future lies. But if you were to ask me as a European adviser, the model of a customs union plus a single market in goods might have worked as the basis for an agreement with our European partners, as long as the UK was prepared to make concessions in other areas. Those would include: a more clearly defined role for the ECJ; binding rules to implement future single-market legislation; some continuing EU budget payments; and a preference for EU citizens in new labour mobility rules.
Instead of signalling the possibility of flexibility, however, the Cabinet postures that it has no more room for manoeuvre. Mrs Leadsom says we have gone as far as we can. Mr Raab protests that we will not pay the divorce bill—for which we have already signed up, incidentally—unless we are promised the trade agreement that we demand. Even the eminently sensible Mr Lidington uses the argument inside the Conservative Party that Parliament would, under Mrs May’s plan, retain its sovereignty to reject EU laws. Yet David Lidington knows, as well as I do, that the first principle of a common rule book for a common market is that members have to live with laws they do not like to benefit in the round from laws that are in their interests. We cannot trade frictionlessly with Europe on the basis of some pick-and-choose formula. Far too many on the Government Benches—
Lord Liddle
I will. I do not think other people have—anyway, there we are.
Some people think the Northern Ireland border is being got up by the Commission to force Britain into so-called vassalage. The truth is, as my noble friend Lord Adonis told us, the problems are very real. The truth is that England chose to impose this problem on Ireland by voting to leave the EU, and we are duty bound to find a solution to it. No deal could be a disaster and could happen. I believe we are heading for a grave national crisis. The Brexiteers think they can lay the blame on Brussels for the untruths they peddled in the referendum about the glorious opportunities Brexit would offer while claiming there would be no costs in trade, economic welfare or influence. It is time that politicians in all parties, including my own, stopped mouthing unworkable cake-and-eat-it solutions. It is time for those on all sides of the political aisle to put the national interest first, and that means revisiting the Norway model, extending Article 50 and contemplating another referendum.
Lord Skidelsky (CB)
My Lords, it is very cold in this spot at the moment. That is a comment not on the Cross Benches but on the fierceness of the air conditioning—but I shall struggle through.
I have heard with increasing incredulity the efforts of noble Lords in this House, some of them my good friends, to reverse the results of the referendum of 2016. It may have been a mistake to hold a referendum on such a complex issue, but, having asked the question and promised to treat the answer as binding, it seems to me inconceivable that responsible politicians can disregard it. This is the answer to the noble Lord, Lord McNally. David Cameron gave repeated assurances that he would respect the result of the referendum, and I do not think we can ignore that.
So although I voted remain, I agree with the Prime Minister that our exit from the EU must be taken as given. As she writes in the foreword to the White Paper,
“the British people voted to leave the European Union. And that is what we will do”.
What I have to say is shaped by my view that any attempt not to leave would be to take serious risks with our democracy at a time when a revolt against the elites is sweeping across Europe and the United States.
The White Paper presents the Government’s proposals for the permanent future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It envisages a bespoke association to be agreed by Parliament and the European Union negotiators before we leave, and then a 20-month implementation period. The implementation period is simply designed to put in place the association agreement.
The Prime Minister’s belief that she can get the White Paper proposals through Parliament and Europe by the exit date seems completely unrealistic for three reasons. First, it expects too many complicated and contentious matters to be agreed in too short a time. Customs arrangements, arrangements for financial services, a new mobility contract and Ireland are very difficult issues all to be settled within the next two or three months. Secondly, Michel Barnier has already rejected the Government’s association plan as unworkable. Only on Friday he simply dismissed the proposals dealing with access for our financial services. Finally, there is no majority for the White Paper proposals in the other place. The White Paper makes too many concessions for the Brexiteers and not enough for the remainers, and I do not see the politics of coming to a conclusion on how they will work themselves out.
Precisely because it is highly possible that we will leave the EU in March 2019 without a final agreement, it is essential for the Government to develop a reserve position which will protect our domestic polity and external relations from disastrous damage.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, made an eloquent argument that there is no good leaving option, and therefore we should not leave. He expects or hopes that that decision will be ratified by another referendum. Other noble Lords argued for a middle way, a reserve position—I am thinking of the noble Lords, Lord Mandelson, Lord Tugendhat and Lord Haskel.
I think that there is a good reserve position, which is simply for Britain to remain a member of the European Economic Area. It was conceived by Jacques Delors in 1989 as a way for EFTA and ex-Communist states to transit into the European Union, and Britain could use it to transit out of the European Union. Continuing membership of the EEA would put into touch for two or more years after we leave the most explosive obstacles to an agreement today—the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, access for financial services and the permanent immigration regime—while leaving us free to negotiate our own trade agreements with third countries.
As a member of the EEA, Britain would continue temporarily with the same tariff arrangements as at present. Under Article 112, it could impose temporary restrictions on immigration, immediately regain control of agriculture and fisheries and join the EFTA side of shared rule-making.
The question is: could Britain stay in the European Economic Area after it left the customs union? That is legally obscure. The Government’s original position was that it would automatically cease to be a member. Then it was urged that the UK was a contracting party to the EEA in its own right, so its membership would not automatically lapse. The latest twist is that on 26 February, the Prime Minister informed the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that Britain would be,
“seeking continued application of the EEA Agreement for the duration of the implementation period”.
So where are we in all this? The bottom line seems to be that no one can force us to leave the single market when we leave the EU, and membership of it will give us important safeguards in the transition out of the customs union. However, it is most important to insist that the EEA is not a permanent resting place. Britain would leave the customs union on 31 March and give a year’s notice of its intention to leave the EEA. In my view, this is the only way to respect the decision of the referendum while avoiding a politically calamitous exit—and I have stuck to my time.
Lord Bowness (Con)
My Lords, for a short time following the publication of the White Paper it appeared that after months of mere aspirational talk, a small dose of reality was beginning to dawn in government circles. It was too late in the day, there were serious omissions, such as services, but it could, perhaps, be the basis of negotiation.
Those hopes were soon dashed by Cabinet resignations and others, inside and outside government, who lined up to denounce what had been agreed in Cabinet. Of course, it is a paper for negotiation, not a final position, but if it is to go anywhere, then compromises will be required on both sides. The first required compromise concerns the attitude of the hard Brexit team which manifests itself in the ERG in the other place. I say to my noble friend Lady Noakes, who is not here now, that if there is any intransigence, it is they who are intransigent, rather than the European Union.
Our other difficulty is with the way the Brexit negotiations have been handled. We tied our own hands by rejecting the customs union, the single market, any involvement in the European Court of Justice and membership of the EEA without any idea of what we wanted or what the relationship would look like, other than some delusional idea of post-imperial gloriana.
How do the Government intend to go ahead with their proposals, given the lack of agreement in the other place? Is the answer that nothing has changed since Chequers? I hope that I will not be told that there is no problem because the Government won all but one of the votes on Monday and Tuesday last week. We know that the defeat by the ERG Brexiteers was averted only by adopting the amendments to the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill. Everybody accepts that those amendments are contradictory to the terms of the White Paper as published.
Why do the Government allow themselves to be hijacked and taken prisoner in this way? My question to my noble friend the Minister is not rhetorical. I am asking for an answer. While looking at votes, the vote lost—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Does he not think he is in something of a glass house, having voted against so many three-line Whips, against the Government, in this way?
Lord Bowness
No, I do not consider myself to be in a glass house. When I look at the people whose amendments were accepted, they are experts in disloyalty to Conservative Governments over the years.
In looking at the votes on the trade Bill last week, and the vote on the European Medicines Agency, which was lost, will my noble friend confirm that reports in the press that the Government might try to reverse that—notwithstanding that membership of the agency is Government policy—are not true? Will he confirm that the Government will not try to reverse that in your Lordships’ House? It is not clear how the parliamentary timetable can cope with the withdrawal Bill and the other major measures promised. The Government should give an indication to Parliament or perhaps in the delayed White Paper, which we will see if we are lucky before going home tomorrow. Will my noble friend tell us?
Whether one is a reasonable, moderate leaver or a disappointed remainer wanting to preserve as much as possible what we have, we are not in a good place. A major reassessment of our position is needed. People should be given some stark advice and, most of all, leadership. The Government promised to deliver Brexit. Recklessly they laid down the red lines to which I have referred, and now people need to be told where this is leading—the damage to the economy, unspecified costs and a less beneficial place than we are in now. So some, if not all of our red lines must go, in whole or in part. We cannot continue as we are.
Who believes that WTO rules are the answer? Perhaps my noble friend will tell the House the position regarding the objections lodged by the US, New Zealand, Canada and others—countries we are hoping to do deals with—to the proposed division of quotas on foodstuffs following Brexit. Who believes that the free trade agreement with Trump’s “America First” will be easy or advantageous? We want a wide-ranging security partnership, and part of that is the European arrest warrant. Will my noble friend the Minister please tell the House specifically how many countries are prevented by their domestic or constitutional law—their law, not EU law—from extraditing persons under a European arrest warrant to a non-EU country?
After the Statement on the White Paper, we were told that some 80% of the withdrawal agreement is settled; the remaining 20% is the most difficult. Perhaps we can hear from my noble friend what that 20% consists of. We were told a long time ago that there was agreement on EU and UK citizens’ rights but, as he reminded us, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. We will not be signing until we have a satisfactory prospective future deal, and we will not be paying any taxpayers’ money.
Should the Government not be making it very clear to EU and UK citizens that their position has not been finally secured? Eight months from the planned Brexit day, nothing but nothing is certain. It will not be any good, and I hope that we will not end up trying to put all the blame for our failures on to the EU. Among the Brexit press, Monsieur Barnier is already being built up to be the villain of the piece. However, he has his mandate from the 27, which stands until they change it. We really cannot complain that, because we do not know what to do or where to go, the EU does and is somehow responsible for our own shortcomings.
How far we are from agreement has been emphasised this week by the Brexit Secretary’s statement that, if we do not get what we want as laid down, we will not pay the moneys on exit. That is a very serious statement—and I am not sure that it is a very smart negotiating ploy, either. I referred to this in my question and in the opening of this debate. A number of assurances were given that we had agreed that, and would honour it. According to the Statement in another place,
“we will pay our fair share of the outstanding commitments and liabilities to which we committed during our membership”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/12/17; col. 26.]
Of course, I want the best deal possible for the UK. I happen to believe that it would be better if we stayed in the EU but, if that is not possible, we must keep as close as possible and investigate further the EEA/EFTA route, keeping as much as possible of the present arrangements. While the final decisions must properly remain in the other place, I shall not hesitate where appropriate, and in accordance with this House’s constitutional and parliamentary conventions, to vote to ask the other place to further consider some of these issues where necessary.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I intend to confine my remarks to the Irish dimension of this problem. I am well aware that there is a debate about the White Paper and the pros and cons that exist, but I do not want to engage with that. I want to deal with the impact of the White Paper, and initially of Chequers, on the evolution of the problems that we are all aware exist around the Northern Irish border. I accept that the Irish border question has been inflated beyond its proper weight—and I am not particularly defending the way in which the Government have chosen to handle it. But we are where we are and, while it has been inflated, it is a real problem that requires a resolution.
The important thing to say is that, in the period since the Chequers summit, there has definitely been a feeling that this problem is moving towards a more benign compromise. Mr Brian Walker, a Northern Irish journalist—and senior editor at the BBC in London in the past—published an article immediately saying that the bogey of the Irish border was starting to vanish before our eyes. The next day the Sunday Independent, the largest-selling Sunday paper in Ireland, said that it was now time for Ireland to stop working against Britain and to work with Britain to get a good compromise.
I draw noble Lords’ attention to how Michel Barnier’s views have evolved between March and May and up to the present time. The FT reports today his conciliatory remarks on the Irish question after the White Paper. That is part of a pattern. The EU in the earlier part of this year made a bid to expand the backstop already agreed on 8 December in a way that effectively removed Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom. It was as simple as that—constitutional separation as the price of the deal. There has been a steady retreat from that. The Prime Minister has said that no British Government or Prime Minister would ever accept such a proposal. In fact, I can think of a couple who might have, but she is quite right in saying that the vast majority of British Prime Ministers would never have accepted such a proposal. Gradually, the language of Michel Barnier has changed—saying that he is not proposing any alteration in the constitutional order of the United Kingdom and that he wants proposals that work on the basis of precedent. He is not proposing now a border, with a capital “B”, in the Irish Sea. There already are checks with respect to agricultural foodstuffs and so on—and there is a precedent already for the type of thing that he envisages. All the signs are that we are moving away from the very extravagant EU negotiating stance towards something that can be dealt with.
Members of this House have mentioned the role of the DUP. The Government must take their views in mind, given the voting balance of the House of Commons. There was a famous moment, recorded in Jonathan Powell’s book, The New Machiavelli, when Ian Paisley was in a meeting with Tony Blair and said to him, “My farmers are British, but unfortunately my cattle are Irish”, by which he meant that he recognised that there were issues around foodstuffs—at that time, the BSE crisis—in which Ireland might require separate treatment. It is not a constitutional atrocity to acknowledge that simple, physical fact. Can the DUP not handle it when the White Paper says at paragraph 42 that we regard Ireland as an epidemiological unit—one unit, north and south—in the context of a discussion about agriculture and foodstuffs? We are moving towards a settlement here, or should be.
Despite what the Taoiseach said last week—he said that he did not want to have any checks, even in the event of a hard border—the European Union has told him that that is not on. He has tried to say it twice now and he has twice received a stern message: “No, you can’t do that—it’s a hole in our defences and we won’t accept it”. He wants to do that, but he cannot. Consequently, as we head towards a no deal, the consequences are dramatically bad for Ireland; most Dublin commentators seem to think that the IMF report understates the damage that would be done in the event of a no deal. Another report was done by the French Council of Economic Analysis in the last couple of days, and another one from Copenhagen Economics. All of them stress the heavy damage that would be done to the Irish economy in the event of a no deal. Everything—every economic reality and political reality—points towards some compromise.
As for the timing, the longer Ireland lets it drift, you get into what the former Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, calls a “terrible Halloween party”, by which he means that Ireland, having failed to get its issues dealt with on its own in June, will go into the mix with all the other 27 countries, which have their own issues and all the things that they want from Britain. If we go to that Halloween party, Ireland will lose out.
Therefore, everything now points towards moving this dreadfully divisive issue into a better place. I have not stressed it, but everybody knows that the broad proposals on alignment in the White Paper will probably make it easier to handle the issues of the internal border as well. I am not saying that this is the way it should have been approached, but it is where we are now. There has been a failure in the discussion of the implications of the White Paper to draw out the fact that, at least with regard to Ireland, the approach that has been adopted has, thus far—it could be overturned tomorrow—been relatively successful.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for his very interesting clarification of the Irish issue.
I think we can all agree that Brexit has been divisive. However, after much internal debate we have produced our trading position, which has gone a long way to meet the EU’s demands and which has brought people on opposing sides together in what I might describe as mutual disappointment. As a trader, I have to say that this tends to be the hallmark of a deal that is beneficial to both parties. That said, we have in our negotiations continually made concessions and moved a long way from where we started. Instead of Lancaster House or Mansion House, we now have Bleak House. Now we must say, “This is our set of terms. Take it or leave it, and, as the Prime Minister has hinted, with nothing else negotiated away. If you leave it, we will withdraw it from the table”.
This is le crunch. We cannot allow the EU to revert to past practice and whittle away at the Chequers position. As a trader I have been in many negotiations that have seemed terribly important for my company, but one always needs to evaluate the worst-case scenario, that the negotiations come to nothing—in this case not no deal but World Trade Organization terms, where there is in reality little to fear and much to feel adventurous about. We should not rubbish such terms—they are foundational to all international trade. The WTO is a rules-based body that enables the EU to trade; it is of course a member. Can the Minister confirm that novation would allow us to continue to trade with countries that currently have a deal with the EU?
I sense an almost morbid fear of the tariffs to which we might be subject under WTO. I have two points to make on that. First, tariffs under WTO terms tend to be small, not punitive, and the “tariff advantage” of membership of the EU in the context of WTO had declined to about 1% on average by 2011. We would not be paying very much more, although one market where the EU hits importers is that of motor cars, with the imposition of a much higher 9.8% tariff. The EU needs carefully to consider the consequences if we were to reciprocate, and that leads on to my second point.
According to the ONS, we have a £94.6 billion trade deficit with the EU and specifically a £10.5 billion deficit on motor cars, so our Government could collect a healthy level of revenue on tariffs, and EU states must be aware of that. Moreover, last week my noble friend Lady Fairhead announced consultations on free trade agreements with the United States, Australia and New Zealand—some of our closest strategic allies—as well as with members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
Negotiations conducted by the EU to date have been filtered through a political and ideological lens. The priority has been to humiliate and intimidate us, and to make it so incredibly punitive to leave the EU that no country acting in its citizens’ best interest would act on any nascent pressure to do it. It was the EU’s inflexibility and the unappetising morsel that was all David Cameron could get out of it that made the referendum inevitable. The time will come when the EU’s countries and industries will be negotiating instead from a position of self-interest. German car manufacturers will not abandon their biggest export market—the UK.
By cutting ourselves loose from an oppressive and dictatorial relationship with a superstate that has sought to retain us by fear, we will regain our sovereignty and fall back on ourselves and on the ingenuity, acumen and audacity that have enabled us as a trading nation to thrive in the past without the clunking fist of excessive regulation. On that subject, it should be noted that EU diktat did not prevent the disgraceful and deceitful German “dieselgate”.
We here are all lawmakers and we should be aware that creeping European federalism will eventually hollow out our jobs—and this Parliament—of all meaningful power. Many, through a Stockholm-syndrome-like process of insinuation, have already been made willing captives of a fundamentally undemocratic system. The important issue of the democratic deficit of the EU was discussed extensively before the referendum, so all I will say on that front is that I have never met anyone, except the very occasional politics junkie, who knows the name of our Commissioner in Europe, what his portfolio is, what the European Council of Ministers does and how much power the European Parliament has, et cetera. To quote one person after the referendum campaign, I like to be able to look into the eyes of the people who make my laws. The European Union’s Kafkaesque operation makes that virtually impossible.
Guidance has been published by the EU for member states on preparing for the fallout from a so-called no-deal scenario. However, those responsible for any damage due to their ideologically inspired stonewalling —Juncker, Barnier, Selmayr et al—are completely untouchable. The rest of the EU should be deeply concerned that appointed Commissioners and negotiators, unaccountable to any electorate, cannot be voted out for failing to get a deal. It is democratically elected Governments, including our own, who will ultimately take the hit at the ballot box for the disruption they say will be caused.
To reiterate, with regard to our trading position, I did not expect or welcome the Chequers plan, but I do not want to fight the last war. Some 17.4 million people said they wanted to leave the European Union and this barely achieves that, but what matters now is that, in taking the plan to Monsieur Barnier, our negotiators need to be keenly aware of the democratic pressure that the referendum result represents. Will the Minister confirm that our side will look into Monsieur Barnier’s eyes and say, “This is our backstop position, not our starting point. This is where we have come in response to your continuous demands. If you don’t accept this, we will take it, and the divorce payment, off the table. You need to understand that”?
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, on 5 July 2016 this House held a debate on the referendum results. I spoke on the impact of Brexit on transport, which is, after all, the foundation on which our economy rests. I reread this morning what I said on that day, and what struck me forcefully was the fact that all the issues I raised then remain unresolved today. The impact on the Channel Tunnel, the Single European Sky, our EASA membership, the freight industry, the time taken to clear customs, vehicle standards and driver safety: all these are not yet sorted.
The transport industry, in all its many iterations, has been in a state of suspended activity since the referendum, waiting to know exactly what will happen, holding back on investment decisions and decisions to transfer jobs abroad, hoping that things will get organised. I was speaking to a senior figure in transport manufacturing last week, and to that person the Government have crossed the Rubicon with the Chequers White Paper. The picture is very different from that just painted by the noble Lord. The transport industry now simply has to move in preparation for the previously unthinkable. Plans must now be implemented and jobs will move abroad, because the Chequers plan is simply impossible for the industry to implement.
The big issues for transport-related industries remain: flexible and rapid access to labour, skilled and unskilled; delays at the ports, which play havoc with just-in-time delivery in a modern global industry; and certainty about what is to come—because such a complex industry needs at least five years to prepare, not the five months it now has. The Government have no answer to any of these things.
In recent days the tone of discussion has been very dark. Yesterday Dominic Raab significantly failed to deny that the Government were planning to stockpile food. Amazon warned of civil unrest preparations. The EU has warned member states that planes may not be able to fly, and that they must recruit many more customs officers. The National Audit Office has produced a critical report that points out that the Department for Transport has 63 new Brexit-related SIs to draft and get through Parliament by March 2019—and that is in addition to 64 others that it has to produce on normal day-to-day business. Major companies like Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover and several others warn of job losses as they move at least part of their operations abroad.
In short, people are really turning their minds to the realities of a no-deal scenario now. Two years have passed since the referendum and a lot has changed—not just the economy but the level of the terrorist threat, the threat from Russia and instability in the attitude of our closest non-European ally, the USA. It is a different world out there. Given the chaos that the Brexit vote has unleashed on our politics—the endless, bitter, inconclusive argument and the failure of the leavers to come up with any kind of coherent plan—there is just one of their arguments that holds any traction nowadays. That is their claim about the will of the people.
In 2015 the will of the people was to give the Conservatives a working majority in the general election. By 2017 the will of the people was to deny them that majority. That is the process of democracy in action. As John Major said yesterday, quoting John Maynard Keynes:
“When the facts change, I change my mind”.
The people must be allowed to change their mind in the face of a changing world. That means setting before them a referendum on the terms of the final deal by giving them a people’s vote.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I congratulate the Prime Minister on publishing the White Paper, which could at last enable us to talk meaningfully with the EU. We all recognise that the White Paper is a compromise, designed to ensure that the UK position is more realistic than the previous strict red lines, often mutually exclusive, which seem to have been imposed upon the Prime Minister by the extreme wing of our party.
As a starting position, the White Paper is an achievement, but Cabinet reticence and changes to legislation forced through in the other place last week undermine even that position. I am afraid that it becomes clearer by the day that there are some, such as members of the ERG, who will never accept any reasonable deal with the EU. The ideologues have no plan of their own, just threats, obstructions and impossible demands. Indeed, the UK’s approach to Brexit has been rather like Gareth Southgate going to FIFA during the World Cup and saying, “We would like to continue playing in the competition but some of our players don’t want to participate any more as they don’t like the rules. However, the players have agreed that they will play in a few matches as long as England can choose its own referees, ditch the offside rule and play with 12 men sometimes if they want to”.
Such unreasonableness is not helpful. Therefore, I believe that if the Prime Minister wants to make progress in our Brexit negotiations—and I believe she does—she must accept that some in the party will never agree to any position that the majority in Parliament recognise to be vital to protecting our national interest. She needs to proceed with the more sensible, softer approach that this White Paper alludes to—no more fudge, no more bluff, no more stringing everyone along and hoping it will be all right; no more threats against our partners and fighting among ourselves. To thrive in the 21st century requires open arms, not raised fists. The time has come to face down the fantasy of cake and eating it. In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today”.
Some key issues of concern have already been brilliantly exposed by previous speakers. Many noble Lords have insisted that democracy requires that the 2016 vote is sacrosanct. We must of course respect the will of the British people, but Parliament has respected the result of the referendum. It has triggered Article 50 and is now trying to negotiate a good outcome for the whole UK from a new EU relationship. However, the referendum did not specify a date on which we must leave, nor did it give a direction of travel.
This is about the ordinary people of this country who are trusting us to look after their future as best we can. Therefore, the current threats of no deal fill me, like so many other noble Lords, with horror. I fear that some are determined to obstruct progress in the negotiations for the next few months just to get to March 2019 when we will be out, due to the two-year limit, no matter the consequences.
People did not vote for no deal. By countenancing this, we are betraying most of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave in order to be better off, as the leave side promised, and all of the 16.8 million people who did not want Brexit at all. The referendum did not ask whether people wanted to leave the single market, the customs union, ECJ jurisdiction, all the agencies, and abandon the Good Friday agreement. People did not vote for that. The impact of no deal would be catastrophic. Indeed, the light at the end of the Brexit tunnel that so many leavers have told us about is really, I fear, an oncoming train.
The Japanese embassy has said that no deal is impossible for it to accept—the normally polite, understated and inscrutable Japanese have expressed their outrage with unusual forcefulness. London is a hub for European, Middle Eastern and African banking, but this would be at risk. The Chinese embassy itself has said that London risks losing its status as a banking hub if there is no deal.
No deal would mean the end of our manufacturing success, as integrated supply chains collapse, with workers’ jobs at risk. Car manufacturers have profit margins between 3% and 10%. Under WTO rules, car exports to the EU face 10% tariffs and car parts a 5% tariff. Indeed, the WTO has 135 different tariff rates on imports from third countries and 150,000 goods classifications to determine those tariffs. How do we think UK firms will cope with that? Much of our manufacturing is of intermediary goods: 70% of UK goods exports are intermediate inputs for manufacturers in the EU, which they then sell to the rest of the world. If the UK does not count in the EU rules of origin, EU firms will have to go elsewhere and will look to EU firms for their inputs.
Even in trying to negotiate new trade deals with other countries, the benefits have been overblown. The UK is no longer a hub to the rest of the globe as it was in the days of our Empire. We are a medium-sized country, dwarfed by the US, China, Russia, India and the EU. Countries of our size cannot define their own terms of trade when negotiating with whole continents. Those who naively hope for a trade deal with the US should wake up. The US has a vested interest in weakening the EU. Encouraging the UK to break away will increase American power and, once the UK is out, the US will be in a stronger position to give us a deal that is much more in its interest than ours.
Leaving the customs union and single market are acts of economic vandalism against both our own industry and that of the EU. Our negotiating position has asked the impossible. The EU cannot and will not give us the advantages of being in the EU, including security co-operation and membership of all the agencies that are so important to our way of life, while we do not have to obey its rules. It seems that many Brexiteers are willing even to put peace in Northern Ireland at risk—surely the Conservative and Unionist Party cannot accept that.
Something hardly mentioned is the enormous cost we have already imposed on the EU and on other EU countries. Domestic firms have also had huge costs imposed on them, and so have UK taxpayers. Our Government have taken no responsibility for this, and there has been no acknowledgement of the impacts of our decision. This has already resulted in a loss of respect for the UK on the international stage.
British values of decency, fair play and tolerance have been subsumed in the Brexit mania. If we do not retain EEA membership and a customs union or partnership, British people will be poorer as a result of the vote they were told would make them better off. To quote Cicero: “the welfare of the people is the highest law”.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, unlike the late Dr Martin Luther King, I do not have a dream. However, I feel that I am in a dream, rather as I suspect does the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, and it is not a very comfortable sensation. The dream starts with the result of the referendum—not an ideal starting point, but a striking demonstration of an exercise in direct democracy where people manifestly voted not on traditional party-political grounds, creating a deafening echo that has contributed to the wall of noise that is all around us.
In January 2017, Sir Ivan Rogers, our ambassador to the EU, resigned. He had spent the previous six months trying as hard as he could to persuade the Prime Minister not to trigger Article 50 until she, her Cabinet, Parliament, the devolved Administrations and the Civil Service had worked out exactly where we wanted to get to and, most importantly, how we were going to get there. He knew, as we now know, that no proper detailed planning had been done, but he failed to persuade her and we are living with the consequences.
In February 2017, during the debate on the triggering of Article 50, the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing since we were fellow history undergraduates at Trinity College, Cambridge, many decades ago, gave us fair warning of what he thought we were in for. He said:
“I did not feel that I could sit out this debate without saying something about what seems to be missing almost altogether in many of our discussions about Brexit: the views of our European neighbours. Sometimes it seems that the debate about Brexit is one that only we Brits are allowed to take part in and that, once we have sorted out our internal disagreements between leavers and remainers, all we have to do is present our demands to the European Union and it can take it or leave it … they need to be able to trust the British side to be clear and consistent. They need to know that what our negotiators say our negotiators can deliver. They cannot sit there thinking that at any point the timing or the content might change, or indeed that the whole thing might be put to a second referendum”.—[Official Report, 20/2/17; col. 32.]
At this point my dream fast reverses to 1984, as depicted by George Orwell. We have had to endure a never-ending Brexit version of Newspeak. Orwell wrote that doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both of them. Brexitspeak manifests itself in phrases such as “deep and special”, “our EU friends and partners”, “leaving the EU, not leaving Europe”, “the Brexit dividend”, “Brexit means Brexit”—and my favourite new phrase from our newly appointed Foreign Secretary, “a no-deal-by-accident scenario”.
Now we fast forward to today, 16 days after the rather unfortunately named Chequers agreement. The reaction of the EU 27, as anticipated by both the noble Lord, Lord Hill, and Sir Ivan, was pithily summed up by the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel. He said:
“Before, they were in with a lot of opt-outs; now they are out and want a lot of opt-ins”.
In May of this year, Sir Ivan forensically skewered the wishful thinking that led to the Chequers document. He said:
“You simply cannot, with any honesty or coherence, make an argument for taking back control and full autonomy of decision-making on the UK side of the Channel, and simultaneously argue for the EU 27 to restrict to a certain extent its own decision-making, precisely in order to give you, a non-member of the club, a real say in the direction of its policy”.
At this point my dream is in danger of taking on a nightmarish quality. I sense all around us the hostile environment that now colours so much discussion around Brexit. I sense a nightmare unfolding as a well-meaning but hopelessly ill-suited and ill-prepared Dad’s Army platoon of Ministers, with little or no appropriate diplomatic, commercial or negotiating experience, scatters across the capitals of the EU 27, sowing yet more confusing and contradictory doublethink soundbites that may inadvertently weaken our negotiating position.
I have now woken up and have returned once again to the uncomfortably prescient words of the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, in January of this year. He said:
“We need speed, honesty and certainty”.—[Official Report, 30/1/18; col. 1389.]
We are still waiting for any and all of these to transpire. We voted in June 2016 on non-party lines. The best way to find our way out of our predicament is to forget about party and focus on country—and, above all, to be brutally and painfully honest with ourselves.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, earlier my noble friend Lord Heseltine speculated as to why the majority of people voted to leave. I am a natural European. I had happy years at school in Portugal as a child and I am married to an Italian. I certainly did not vote to leave in order to keep EU citizens out of the UK. Indeed, I believe that they have made and will continue to make a tremendous contribution. The reason I voted was that the more closely I looked at the entrails of Brussels, the less I liked them. I had the advantage of looking at them from the perspective of being fortunate enough to have served four terms on your Lordships’ European Union Committee and its sub-committees.
The EU Commission is supposed to be subordinate to the Council of Ministers, yet it is taking more and more powers away from the council and bringing them to itself. On immigration, it has been foolish enough to presume to take away, or try to take away, from individual member states of the EU their own immigration policies. Thank goodness we have never signed up to that possibility. Europe has moved further and further away from De Gaulle’s Europe des Patries. If there were to be another referendum, which I believe to be quite impractical, I would vote to leave again. However, I noted the trick of the Liberal Democrat Peer who said he would have three alternatives so that the leave alternative could not win. I can see the attraction for him but I do not believe that there could or should be another referendum.
The most recent example of Europe overstepping the mark was Herr Juncker in his September 2017 State of the Union message. He actually suggested that the presidency of the Commission should be amalgamated with the presidency of the Council of Ministers. If you follow the logic of that, it is like suggesting in British terms that the Cabinet Secretary should preside over Cabinet meetings rather than the Prime Minister. I realise that there may be Members of your Lordships’ House who think that that would be a good idea, but in general it does not totally fit with our constitution.
There has been quite a high level of incompetence in the handling of the affair. When David Cameron made his Bloomberg speech he tossed off the idea of a referendum, apparently without any proper analysis of its feasibility. He then went to Europe for so-called negotiations and got absolutely nowhere in his quest for reform, but he came back pretending that he had been successful. During the actual campaign we had the discredited Project Fear, and of course the British people felt that they were being bullied; they do not like being bullied. I thought it was very sad that, when the vote went the way it did, my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford deserted his post because it was very important that Britain held that Commissioner seat for financial services.
Whitehall has been playing a big part in this. We all know that Whitehall does not like Brexit. David Davis spent months preparing HMG’s position for the negotiations and his proposal was based on Canada-plus. The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, recommended that that had some advantages, and I agree. However, on 18 September last year, his Permanent Secretary, Mr Olly Robbins, was moved over to No. 10. Then, on the Monday before the crucial Cabinet meeting on the Friday at Chequers, a new version of the negotiating position was produced by No. 10, totally changing all the work that David Davis had done. It is not surprising that he quit pretty quickly. In nearly 50 years of observing how Whitehall operates, I do not think I have ever seen quite such a barefaced hijack.
As a footnote, I remind noble Lords that in the big change in the White Paper we introduced this common rulebook. Of course, we spent 160 hours in this House discussing the withdrawal Bill, which had the clever idea of putting all the EU legislation into British legislation so there is a smooth transition. We could then consider at our leisure whether to keep, repeal or amend it. At a stroke, it has now been put back into being mandatory. There is talk about Parliament having a lock on it. It is a lock with no key.
Imagine for a moment the negotiations—where Brussels has made really specious threats on absurd things such as aviation and defence and security, where we have far more to give them that they have to give us—as a game of snap, where the two sides play cards and when they get the same card they say “snap”, and then they can start negotiating. The problem is that the cards provided for Monsieur Barnier—I do not really blame him at all—have been carefully worked out by Herr Juncker and Mrs May’s cards have been carefully worked out in Whitehall. The trouble is that Herr Juncker’s cards all say “demand” and Mrs May’s cards all say “concede”. That is not a way to get a sensible solution.
I believe we have friends in Europe who really want us to stay, but, if we cannot stay, they want us to have a good deal. We should seek out those friends. We should reach out above the Commission. I have much more hope about Monsieur Barnier getting the instructions he might or might not get from the Commission changed than I have about the Commission itself.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I chair the EU Sub-Committee on Financial Affairs. The committee also has responsibility for the UK contribution into the EU budget, so the current discussion about cannot pay or will not pay is also pertinent to our role. I was also part of the EU Select Committee’s delegation to Brussels last week to Mr Barnier, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. It was my fourth discussion with Mr Barnier. In the light of what I heard there, I will concentrate my remarks on three things: the budget contribution in the light of calls for a second referendum; the cost of the Norway option and the EEA; and the exit fee. In doing so, I remind the House that I speak in a personal capacity. I could hardly do otherwise, having heard the rather diverse speeches of other members of the committee, such as the noble Lords, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Cavendish of Furness, excellent members as they all are.
Several noble Lords talked about the possibility of holding a second referendum or a people’s vote on the outcome of negotiations. A lot of people believe that if you put the facts to the people they will change their minds and remain, as if no facts were available last time around. We heard that in the Chamber today. If facts were distorted last time, people nevertheless thought that they would pay less to the EU if we left and more money would therefore be available for UK priorities. The next vote will also focus on money, so the question is what the offer of “remaining” in that future referendum would involve.
Noble Lords may not know that the negotiations for the EU’s next multiannual financial framework are currently under way. The Commission intends to conclude them in May 2019, just weeks after the UK’s projected leaving date. We are not present during those negotiations on the basis that they do not concern us, as they cover the period from 2021 till 2028. We are not there and are not fighting for our interests.
One issue under discussion is the phasing out of the rebates paid to member states over a period of five to seven years in that MFF. It is likely that net contributors will try to resist this, or at least to prolong the period, but the rebate is unlikely to last in its current form. Other aspects under discussion are an increase in the EU’s own resources through the EU raising direct taxation, which the UK fiercely resists on the basis that tax-raising powers belong to member states alone. It is envisaged that some €200 billion will be raised directly by the EU in the next period, through visitor taxes, environment taxes and a tax on plastic among others.
What will happen if the UK does not retain its rebate? The Office for Budget Responsibility shows that the net contribution to the EU budget paid by the UK in 2016 was £8.1 billion. This was equivalent to £123 per head. The UK rebate was worth £5 billion, or £76 per head, so the UK contribution to the EU budget if we did not have the rebate would be £200 per head. Several people to whom I speak in Brussels who are experts on the budget and have knowledge of the MFF negotiations confirm that it would be difficult for the UK to swan back in and keep its happy rebate.
If the figure on the side of arguments last time around was based on £123 per head, the new figure would be some 60% higher. Do those who want another people’s vote really think that they would win a referendum on the basis that the UK would pay more than it currently does? Several noble Lords believe, as the EU negotiators told us last week, that the only other option—
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
The own-resources decision, in which the British rebate is embedded, can be amended only by unanimity. If we did not leave, we presumably would not vote the amendment that would kill our rebate. If we do not leave, we do not lose the rebate, unless we are accepting enough to vote to lose it, which I do not think we are likely to do.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
The noble Lord was of course a member of that committee and he knows the system well. What he loses sight of is the timing. The discussions are happening now. As far as I know, and I am sure the noble Lord knows, we are not at the table—this is a point I made early on.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
If I could conclude answering one intervention, I may be disposed to take another, but I am limited in my time and will perhaps wish to continue this bilaterally. Let me deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
No, I am sorry. I am not going to give way until I have dealt with the point made by the noble Lord.
The noble Lord’s point was that if we were full members sitting at the table we would negotiate not to give away our rebate—of course, because there is unanimity. The essence of what I am saying is that the EU is making these decisions now while we are not at the table, because the decision deals with the period 2021 to 2028. We have absented ourselves because the withdrawal agreement suggests that we will leave in March 2019. His hope that we can somehow exercise a veto while we are not at the table seems somewhat futile.
I need to make progress so I will not continue on this point, but rather deal with those who believe that a Norwegian option is the answer. I have indicated to the House that I will not give way and I see the Government Whip urging me to come to my concluding remarks, so I will continue. Several noble Lords believe, as in fact the EU negotiators told us last week, that the only other option would be to remain in the single market, through membership of the EEA—in other words, the Norway option. We are told that this would give us access to everything we want. Yes, it might do so, but returning to the Norway option would involve us giving up the rebate, as we would no longer be a member of the EU, merely a member of the EEA; hence, no rebate. The resulting maths goes like this. In 2016 we paid £123 per head. Norway paid roughly £135 per head. The general belief is that Norway does not receive a great deal in receipts, as it participates in fewer programmes, so it actually pays more than we are currently paying. So those who think that the EEA is a good option need to think about how they would sell that to the people. It would be rather difficult to say that paying a bit more would result in a good deal.
I turn, in concluding, to the issue of the UK withholding the exit fee of £39 billion. My committee conducted an inquiry into Brexit and the EU budget in March 2017. We came to the view that while the UK had a moral and political obligation if it wanted a good deal, there was no jurisdiction in which the EU could challenge the UK in a court case. The negotiation on a figure was just that—a negotiation. In light of that, if the rest of the negotiation fails, I would find it odd that we would stick to just one element of it: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. I suggest that the Government abandon this White Paper and pursue the creativity that the Foreign Secretary has called for today: either a Canada-plus-plus or another option that delivers an association agreement with enhancements as we leave.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, like the noble Baronesses, Lady Falkner and Lady Noakes—the latter is no longer in her place—and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, we were all in Brussels last week. We seem to have come to slightly different conclusions, one has to say. However, in view of the time and of the time limitation, I want to concentrate on one big point that I think everybody would agree on. One thing that I came away from there with is that we are running out of time: these negotiations are closer to collapse than I think many noble Lords recognise.
I have had occasion over the past few months to draw attention to the inadequacies of both the UK and the EU negotiators. I speak as someone who has observed negotiations in many contexts over the years. There are many prime rules of negotiation which have been lost on those who are supposed to be our official negotiators. In recent days I have sensed something even worse, which is, as I say, the imminent collapse of these negotiations. In negotiations, when it becomes clear that one party no longer has the confidence of those they are supposed to represent—as appears to be the case with Brussels and the European capitals in the case of our Government—then negotiations are close to collapse. When one side, or in this case, both sides, start to threaten to abandon agreements that were made in principle pending the full settlement, then you know you are close to collapse. And when one party starts trying to appeal behind the backs of the front-line negotiators, as appears to be the case with our appeals to the capitals of the 27 at the moment, then you also know that negotiations are close to collapse. When you are running out of time, then you certainly know it.
Only a couple of weeks ago, both Mr Davis—remember him?—and Monsieur Barnier were saying that the withdrawal agreement was 80% concluded and agreed, and we had green marks across the text circulated to our committees. Now, not only is Mr Raab threatening not to pay the agreed budget figure, but the European Union is threatening not to observe the agreement on citizens’ rights. That also suggests we are close to the precipice.
Several noble Lords have rightly said that this is the kind of document which should have been produced 15 months, 18 months ago, maybe even before we triggered Article 50. I do not disagree with that, but the question is: what is its status now and what can we do with it? Does it represent a sensible, good arrangement for UK industry and is it likely to be acceptable to the EU 27? I am afraid that the answer on both counts, as many noble Lords have indicated, is no. The document does not provide a secure basis for our future trade with Europe, in particular for our services sectors. It is also full of wishful thinking on the customs agreement; meeting the aspirations for frictionless trade in our goods sector will be hugely complex.
It was already clear to us in Brussels that you cannot get an agreement with Brussels which appears to fragment the single market: which cherry picks, in their terms, how we treat different services and sectors, and breaches the four central freedoms. That has become apparent. It is also clear that our day-to-day participation in EU agencies—from aviation and medicines through to Europol—is unlikely to be conceded if we stick to the approach of the White Paper. Had this document been produced 15 months ago, all sides could have regarded it as a basis for negotiation. Instead, given the problems within the Cabinet, the Conservative Party and Parliament, it is now being seen as our text, from which the Prime Minister will find great difficulty in departing. It is therefore a real problem for us domestically to agree to further concessions, and it is difficult for the European Union to use that document as a negotiating text. That is a real problem in developing the future relationship. Regrettably, it is worse than that because the withdrawal agreement depends on us having some idea of where we are going on future trade relations.
We will not solve the Northern Ireland border question unless we have an idea of where we are going. Regrettably, the Northern Ireland border, for the EU’s own reasons, was put on the list of things we had to agree within the divorce settlement. We are nowhere near to agreeing it and until there is some light at the end of the tunnel on the future trade agreement, it is difficult to have a long-term solution to the Irish border question. Instead, the tension around that is rising. You only have to read the British press’s reaction to the Irish Government’s position and the remarks of the Taoiseach himself about British airlines. Probably most pernicious of all is the DUP’s deciding that it will be the defenders of hard Brexit—which, I remind the House, is not the view of the population of Northern Ireland, a majority of whom voted to stay in the Union.
It is unfortunate that, in these episodic times, as a result of the last general election our Government are somewhat hamstrung by being dependent on the vote of the DUP, most of whose members—but not most of their electorate—are hard Brexiteers. At this very difficult time, the one thing I would advise the Government to do is to resolve the problem of not having reached agreements on Ireland. Also, given the very limited time to reach a settlement on the trade arrangements, they should ask the EU 27 for more time. It difficult to ask for more time on the leaving date, but not impossible. It is easier for us to ask the EU to agree to a lengthier transition period, which, in reality, is not a transition period but negotiating time to establish all the details of our future trade and security arrangements. It will not be easy to do that, but I would advise the Prime Minister—who I understand is today flying to various capitals and sending her Cabinet Ministers around— that, rather than trying to divide the EU, they should be uniting it. They should get it to agree that we need more time to resolve what is an existential crisis for Europe as a whole, and to deal with the terrible possibility of no deal between ourselves and the European Union.
Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the famous British group, the Beatles, had worldwide success with the song “Don’t Let Me Down”. I am confident that the Government will not let Britain down as we leave the European Union. “We Can Work It Out” was another huge hit for the Beatles; I believe that working it out is what will happen. Although that song was No. 1 around the world in 1965, its opening lyrics are timely for Britain and the EU today. I am not going to sing them, but they read as follows:
“Try to see it my way,
Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?
While you see it your way,
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone.
We can work it out”.
Brexit was always going to be a process, not an event. Let us not forget that three Brexit-related Acts of Parliament, including the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, have already been passed this year. Progress is being made. Furthermore, 80% of a draft withdrawal agreement has been agreed between the UK and the EU.
In April last year in this House, I described Brexit as a “Deal or No Deal” scenario. Then in January this year, we had a debate entitled “Brexit: Deal or No Deal”. There has been growing talk of a no-deal result, which would have us walking away from discussions—whipped up, I have to say, mainly by the media—but the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, is on record as saying:
“The ‘no deal’ scenario is not the scenario we are looking for. We are looking for success, not against the United Kingdom but with the United Kingdom”.
Let us not forget: the EU will not gain from a no-deal outcome and it has an incentive to offer compromise and concessions. The most glaring is in the area of security. Britain is one of Europe’s biggest military and intelligence powers. Limiting its role in projects such as the Galileo system, at a time when questions are being asked about NATO and Russia is causing concern, would endanger all Europeans.
Furthermore, a no-deal scenario would mean the EU losing that £39 billion divorce payment, in sterling, which the UK has agreed to pay. That would leave an unwelcome hole in the EU budget, which I cannot see the other EU member nations being too keen to fill. Let us also not forget, please, that 45% of UK exports go to the EU while 53% of our imports are from the EU, so a no-deal result could cause real damage to EU exports. The EU Heads of Government have voters whose livelihoods would suffer greatly if no agreement is reached. We should be bold as we continue discussions with the EU, but I am not convinced that calling it names such as the “European Mafia”, as some in the other place have done, is that helpful. There is an old saying: “We cannot shake hands with a clenched fist”.
While the EU has said that the White Paper in its present form is not acceptable, Mr Barnier has said that it is a constructive way of going forward. I very much echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, in that regard. Let us build on that foundation and not destroy it. This morning on the BBC’s “Today” programme, the German Minister, Stephan Mayer, was very positive about the White Paper as a foundation for discussion. At lunchtime on BBC Radio 4’s “The World at One”, Karin Kneissl, the Austrian Foreign Minister, was also positive.
It is illuminating that throughout history there is a clear theme of one empire after another eventually overreaching itself, often through excessive taxation and overbearing rules. In Old Testament times it was the Egyptian empire, followed by the Assyrian empire, the Babylonian empire and finally the Persian empire. They all collapsed. In the New Testament we see the powerful rulers of the Roman empire, such as Nero, but they all eventually fell. Now we have the European empire, with discontent with Brussels bureaucracy showing itself in ballot boxes throughout the Union, so the Bible and history demonstrate how national sovereignty always proves more durable than the politics of imposed empire.
Brexit does not mean replacing trade with the EU; it means adding trade on top of existing trade with the EU. There will be 27 members in the EU, but 195 other nations worldwide are not tied into deals with the EU and trade freely. We already trade more outside the EU than inside the EU. We are just talking about building on that. My American wife Laura is always reminding me that the United States remains the UK’s largest trading partner. As a nation we have much in common with Commonwealth countries, and Brexit will allow us to expand on all these trading ties.
I have two questions for the Minister. First, will the Government provide more detail on the future for financial and other services post Brexit, since they account for 80% of our economy? My second question is about the EU’s requirement for freedom of movement. How will that align with the Government’s proposal of a mobility framework?
The mood of the nation this summer was lifted by a rather unusual occurrence: the England football team showing itself to be a giant nation again in world soccer. It proved what can be achieved through a strong vision and teamwork. Brexit provides the opportunity for both. It will allow Britain to leave the single market and the customs union and take back control of its borders, laws and finances.
Some years ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Nelson Mandela while he was President of South Africa. We enjoyed lunch together and he wrote out a message to me, placing it in my hand. The world celebrated his centenary last week. As President Mandela famously said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done”.
Lord Risby (Con)
My Lords, I am not entirely sure what conclusion I have come to about a betting experience I had while attending the racing on Saturday at Newmarket. I bet on a horse called Brexit Time. It was 20-1 and not expected to win, so I was cautious and bet both ways. For the first six furlongs the horse led the field, but at the seventh and final furlong it fell back. Nevertheless, although it did not secure victory, it was regarded as a very good and successful effort by the horse. I do not know whether there is any moral to be drawn about what might happen in Brussels in the next few weeks.
The first thing to say is that we should welcome this White Paper as a way to address the advance in a comprehensive negotiation taking place to fulfil the commitments made by the Government to the British people while trying to ensure the continuity of our close relationship. Given that EU member states will be involved in any ultimate agreement, I greatly welcome the energy and activity now being shown by government Ministers to explain our proposals to the member states directly.
Of course, the EU would fall apart if there were not a comprehensive and tight rulebook, but, if the mantra is solely the indivisibility of the four freedoms, the negotiations could fail. If we move on to the complex proposed tariff collection processes, the European Commission will—wholly legitimately—require assurances about fraud. Will the Minister be able to flesh this matter out this evening to enhance our understanding? The British commitment to no tariffs and adherence to EU goods regulations is hugely important to our businesses.
We have historically suffered a trade imbalance, not only with the EU but with the world, compensated for by the attractiveness of the UK as a recipient of enormous foreign direct investment. All of us know that much of this crucial investment was based on unfettered access to European markets. This has been supplemented in the White Paper by a clear and welcome commitment to parallel standards across the full spectrum of activity.
One concern which has come through this debate is anxiety about future defence and security relationships in Europe once we have left. That applies particularly in middle and eastern European countries. For whatever reason, the absence so far of any agreement is a source of concern to them. As the European Commission examines these concerns in our discussions and looks at the handling of the Galileo project, criticised even in the French press, some fresh thinking, out of the box, should be required urgently.
I should also be grateful if my noble friend could elaborate on the model of expanded equivalence, and how it will ensure that the City of London remains a jewel in the crown of Europe overall. This was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Competition for us in future does not lie in Europe, in Paris or Frankfurt, but in New York, Singapore and elsewhere. Frankly, it is greatly to the disadvantage of Europe overall if financial services activities here are impaired. It is not clear to me why our world-beating financial sector, with its unique reach, experience and reputation, is not seen as an asset for all of Europe and recognised as such. I note with interest that Mr Barnier has rejected our financial services proposal—but, given the centrality of importance of our financial sector for the whole of Europe, I hope that the view that it requires unilateral authority can be revisited, because it certainly should be.
I do not want to delay the House at this late hour, but I will make reference to Northern Ireland. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for his contribution and the pragmatic proposals put forward by my noble friend Lord Cope. As a new Member of Parliament, I had a very minor role for a short period in Northern Ireland at a tense and difficult time. At different times, it was appropriate for those who were leading a resolution of this problem, such as Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Members of this House to whom we pay great tribute, to make bold public statements. However, quietly and discreetly, much progress was made in discussions to move the peace process on in a totally different way.
Today, resolution of the border issue is of course most important—indeed, it is regarded as pivotal by the European Commission. However, it is a matter of regret that the lessons of the past have not been absorbed in dealing with some of the problems on our neighbouring island. Megaphone diplomacy has not made the issue any easier to resolve. Indeed, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, it has been overinflated.
Every interested party wants this matter to be sorted out, and everybody agrees that there should be no hard border. This is not an insoluble problem. The matter is now centre stage, and I hope that greater wisdom and discretion will now prevail.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, as the Government begin to make their arrangements for the UK’s potential exit from the EU, I want to make a few comments on and pose a few questions about issues important to Wales: Welsh agriculture, Welsh industry, particularly in north Wales, and the port of Holyhead.
However, at the outset, I repeat a question that I and others have asked before in these debates. West Wales and the Valleys have qualified for and benefited from Objective 1 funding for almost 20 years and have seen many improvements in road and community infrastructure and connectivity. Have the Government planned for similar funding to continue if Brexit happens? I ask for probably the third time: will it be allocated on the EU’s basis of need or on the outdated and by now infamous Barnett formula, which relies on crude population counts?
I turn to agriculture and place on record some of the findings of the Welsh Affairs Committee in the other place in its report Brexit: Priorities for Welsh Agriculture, published earlier this month. Those of us who live in rural north Wales already know and appreciate the contribution and value of agriculture, its central role in community life and its essential role in maintaining the Welsh language. Fewer people might be aware of its impact on the Welsh economy, where it accounts for a higher proportion of jobs and economic value than in the rest of the UK. Because over 80% of Welsh food and animal exports are to the EU, the report repeats the overwhelming view of witnesses and Welsh Members on this side of the Chamber that barrier-free access to current markets is essential for Welsh agricultural products, and could be best achieved by retaining membership of the single market and customs union.
If a post-Brexit Britain is to become a reality, Wales needs its fair share of agricultural funding. It needs clarity on the formula to be used in any replacement agricultural funding scheme, as with the structural funding that I mentioned earlier. We are told that funding will be broadly the same over the next few years, but the Welsh Affairs Committee’s report recommends that,
“before Committee stage of the Agriculture Bill in the House of Commons—the UK Government agree with the devolved administrations a mechanism for future allocations of funding for agricultural support”.
We cannot tolerate a repetition of the earlier stages of the withdrawal Bill, where UK Ministers sought to take decisions regarding EU laws in Wales into their own hands. There is no place for a similar colonialist attitude now—the voice of the devolved Administrations must be heard.
The situation facing Airbus and other manufacturers that rely on the highly efficient and highly cost-effective just-in-time supply system is now surely beyond parody. After initially welcoming the Chequers White Paper as going “in the right direction”, Airbus’s CEO, Tom Enders, expressed his concern at the Government’s decision to accept the European Research Group’s hard-line amendments to the customs Bill and sees the Government’s strategy for leaving the EU as “unravelling”.
Consequently, the company has taken measures to activate its contingency plans and begin stockpiling parts to mitigate the effects of this change in government policy. Have the Government made an assessment of the long-term impact of funding these contingency plans on future investment in companies such as this? The ERG’s small group of about 40 MPs appears to revel in holding the Government to ransom. I recognise that they will have scant regard for the potential loss of Airbus’s 6,000 jobs in Broughton in north-east Wales, but these full-time, well-paid jobs are vital to our economy. While millionaires manipulate the situation for their own benefit, secure in the knowledge that their fortunes and pensions protect them, workers in places such as Airbus are beginning to understand the potential impact of a hard or no-deal Brexit on them, their jobs and their families.
In north-west Wales, if there is a hard or no-deal Brexit, the port of Holyhead faces the same problems as Dover in terms of customs checks, leading to delays, but infrastructure problems could make the situation there even worse. Now that the new Brexit Secretary appears to be preparing us for a no-deal Brexit, can we assume that the Government will publish contingency plans for the port? Whatever happens, whether there is a soft, or hard, or red, white and blue, or no-deal Brexit—or even no Brexit—Holyhead faces a reduction in trade and probably a reduction in employment. Ireland, and the shipping industry, have been incredibly proactive in the face of Brexit and have sought ways to avoid the land bridge between Ireland and the EU. Now the world’s largest short sea roll-on roll-off ship has begun running between Dublin and the continent. Officially, it is called the MV “Celine” but, unofficially, it is the “Brexit Buster”. Sadly, only about 20% or 30% of Ireland’s trade is with the EU. A massive 70% is with the UK. With chaos on the horizon, a situation that has been an act of national self-harm risks harming our closest neighbours, and the remaining EU 26 as well.
Finally, this weekend I was horrified yet strangely satisfied to see the leader of the European Research Group being forced finally to admit that it will probably take some 50 years for the country to know whether Brexit has been a success or not. By then my eldest grandchild will be 60 years old. What will her life have been like if Brexit is a failure?
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, I start by agreeing with most noble Lords who have said that we have a White Paper and need to be constructive about it and help the Prime Minister to get some order back into our Parliament.
I want to speak on the concerns of small and medium-sized businesses and the supply chain with regard to customs issues. The trusted trader scheme is often floated by noble Lords, but we have come to find that those schemes are very difficult to navigate for small businesses. They add cost and administration and often require small businesses to put up huge financial collateral. What will my noble friend the Minister do to ensure that we make the processes easier as a third country, when we leave the EU, for the supply chain and small and medium-sized businesses?
I listened very carefully to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and my noble friend Lord Heseltine. I was going to read the speech that I prepared over the weekend, but I decided to change course because so much has already been said of what I was going to say. I want to come back to something that my noble friend Lord Heseltine said about immigration. I am tired—actually, I am sick to death—of immigration and immigrants becoming the scapegoat for every single problem that any country has. I now feel as I did as a child in the 1960s, growing up with the “rivers of blood” speech, and I am really sick to death. If we have not learned anything, we have a lot more to learn.
I want to say to all noble Lords who think that Brexit will stop immigration and stop people from coming here because they want to have a better life that they really need a real reality check. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Green, that yes, we do talk immigration, but the noble Lord keeps bringing it up as a negative process. Immigrants have been great for wherever they have gone, and it is up to Governments and government policy to make sure that they do it in the interests of their country, through policy, and not blame people who just want to make a better life.
I have been in your Lordships’ House for 12 years, and in all that time I have listened very carefully to debates and I have tried to be very easy on the ear, because, as a Minister and in opposition on the Front Bench, I was bound by collective responsibility. I was absolutely ashamed that, after a collective decision at Chequers, people should come out and give the Prime Minister such a difficult time. The Prime Minister has more than enough to do to try to unite a country that was split almost down the middle by this decision. It is up to all of us—including Ministers who may not agree with our point of view—to come together and give the Prime Minister some space. If we cannot bring something constructive to the table, we should sit at the back, keep our opinions to ourselves and not self-indulge in what I can see only as self-promotion for a new job some time in the future.
I will end by saying that some noble Lords have said that maybe we should be part of the EEA for a short while during our transition, perhaps to work out some of the difficulties we will face, and that may be a useful idea. Maybe it is time we considered these things without dismissing them without any proper debate.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, much that could be said has been said. I am just grateful that I am speaking immediately before rather than after the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, with his eloquence and humour. How is that for a build-up?
I want to give two examples of what a mess the process is in and why crashing out—a no-deal Brexit—is a strong possibility but cannot possibly be contemplated. I will try not to sound like someone out of “Dad’s Army” saying, “We’re doomed! We’re all doomed!”, but to give a practical appreciation of the fact that this thing is much more complex than any of us ever realised and that we are rapidly running out of time.
The example that I want to give is aviation, and perhaps “crash out” is not a phrase that we should use about aviation, so let us call it “a non-negotiated withdrawal”. That could have significant implications for the aviation industry. The White Paper plan is to maintain membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency. If that does not happen in time, the CAA here in the UK will need to kit up and organise to take over the safety regulatory tasks. It cannot possibly do that in time. I therefore share with my noble friend Lord Whitty the belief that we are running out of that precious commodity, time.
Without design organisation approval, UK manufacturers currently holding EASA design certificates will not be able to deliver products to EU manufacturers, which will dramatically slow down the production of aircraft. That is why Rolls-Royce is moving its engine design approval work to Germany. The aviation industry has called on the EU Commission to allow technical talks to proceed between the EASA and the CAA on the transition of responsibilities. So far, the Commission has rejected these requests.
The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, highlighted air transport agreements governing the rights to fly between two countries which need to be negotiated before Brexit or continuity of service will be threatened. UK carriers are signalling their lack of confidence that such agreements will be negotiated in time and are setting up entities in EU 27 states to protect their right to fly. What evidence does the Minister have that these complex agreements can be reached in time, or, indeed, at all?
There is a similar situation in the chemicals industry, which is the UK’s second-largest manufacturing industry. The White Paper says that we will seek to participate in the European Chemicals Agency, but this negotiation has not happened yet. The industry is in a state of high uncertainty about what it needs to do. If we crash out, the UK will have to create its own system for authorising and regulating chemicals, with additional cost and complexity for companies having to register chemicals in two different systems. Again, what evidence does the Minister have that all this can happen in time? Last week, your Lordships’ EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee was magnificently unconvinced by the Defra Minister on this.
Those are simply two practical examples of the cliff edge that we are rapidly approaching. They are mirrored across virtually all of the 131 Brexit work streams. Whatever you think about Brexit, crashing out cannot be an option. It is a recipe for chaos for businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, and for the people of this country.
I am angry and sad about all this. I am sad that, in reality, the split in views about Brexit across the nation and across politics means that our political institutions are simply not working any more. In reality, the lack of coalescence around solutions is due to the fact that there is no effective majority for Brexit at all. In any other walk of life, for a cataclysmic change—a major, brave change like this—I would want 75% support behind me before I decided to push out the boat, but we simply do not have that; it is virtually a 50:50 issue.
I am angry that so much of our negotiating energy and time have been spent on the Government trying to pacify their paramilitary hard-Brexit wing, but I am also angry that all of us in this House acquiesced to a simple majority for a referendum on something as fundamental as leaving the EU when there was no clarity about what that would mean. Therefore, we need to wake up and smell the coffee. Crashing out would be disastrous but the negotiated exit enshrined in the White Paper is unlikely to be negotiable in time. It is only not the worst of all options because crashing out is the worst of all options. There is indeed an insufficient public mandate for the lunge into the dark that Brexit represents. We must not shut the door on remaining in the EU. As negotiations continue and when the meaningful vote takes place, if remaining looks, on a practical rather than a political basis, like the only sensible option, we must not duck that conclusion.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)
My Lords, in a history department somewhere within the British university system, there may well have sat this very afternoon a young man or woman sifting their way through the paper trail already laid down by Brexit. When in 10, 15 or 20 years one or other of them sets out to write The Strange Birth, Life and Death of European Britain—the book which will make their scholarly reputation—what might they make of the document before us this evening?
Much, of course, will depend on the coming days, weeks and months as our civil war—almost sometimes, I think, our war of religion—over Brexit fights over the White Paper’s pages, especially if the contents of those pages are at some stage somehow fashioned into an instrument for removing the Prime Minister from 10 Downing Street. Whatever happens, I think that the young scholar will linger long over Command Paper 9593. Why is that? There are three reasons.
First, The Future Relationship Between the United Kingdom and the European Union captures in its 98 pages the sheer mass of factors, complications and pitfalls that have to be tackled if 46 years of European Britain are to be unravelled successfully and a viable set of successor relationships put in place. The White Paper, in my judgment, is a fascinating—almost overwhelming —piece of geopolitical cartography without, I think, parallel in our history.
The second reason that I adduce for the enduring significance of Command Paper 9593 can be found in a cascade of paragraphs in the Prime Minister’s foreword to the White Paper. Mrs May says,
“over the last two years I have travelled up and down the country, listening to views from all four nations of our United Kingdom and every side of the debate ... We share an ambition for our country to be fairer and more prosperous than ever before … Leaving the EU gives us the opportunity to deliver on that ambition once and for all—strengthening our economy, our communities, our union, our democracy, and our place in the world, while maintaining a close friendship and strong partnership with our European neighbours”.
Those paragraphs alone illustrate why this is such a heavily freighted White Paper. Like all properly trained historians, our young scholar and future biographer of the relationship between Britain and Europe will have been trained how to slice up history into capital Q “Questions”.
Think how many can be extracted just from that snatch of the Prime Minister’s opening refrain. The European Question, obviously—that great tormentor of successive British political generations—has prised wide open once more the Britain’s-place-in-the-world Question; the stress generated by Brexit has reheated the very union of the UK Question and the possibility of a Scottish separation some time in the 2020s; and, as we are all aware, the need for a friction-free border between Northern Ireland and the Republic has re-posed the Irish Question. The European Question has, too, revived what Disraeli would have called the condition-of-Britain Question, as the referendum result showed that the UK was an extended family but no longer knew itself or fully appreciated the disparities in life chances and outlooks across large parts of our country.
There lurks, too, a special post-Brexit problem in the pages of this White Paper. Chapter 4, which I do not think we have discussed much today, on post-leaving institutional arrangements, makes for sobering reading. It assumes a high level of harmony to make its complicated mechanics work. I fear that there will be a rich harvest here for those whose political lives have so far put them on permanent grudge-watch with Europe. That will continue.
Perhaps my greatest anxiety, apart from the possibility of Scotland one day leaving the UK, is the coarsening, sometimes even the envenoming, effect of the European question on our national political conversation more generally. Once we have left the European Union we will need to put much care and real persistence into putting that right: the first people we have to get on with are ourselves. I live in hope—and there is no tariff on hope.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, may I first declare my interests? Next year will be the 40th year that I have been in Brussels—25 years in the European Parliament and since then as chair of the 28-member voluntary pension fund of the Parliament, as a member of its Former Members Association executive, and as a board member of the charitable foundation that it supports. So I am an eternal disappointment to my noble friend Lord Forsyth, for a start. I am also vice-president of BALPA, the pilots union, and very much welcome the points made by the noble Baroness opposite.
I shall start by repeating, or firming up, some of those points. The White Paper recognises the special needs of aviation, and I pay tribute to the Minister who was formerly in this job and his successor, my noble friend Lady Sugg, for the attention they have paid to the representations received from BALPA. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, the pilots are looking for a Canadian-style agreement with a Swiss-style involvement with the European Aviation Safety Agency. However, they are concerned because the principle “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” is stopping meaningful conversations at official and regulatory level. It is no longer sensible not to start those conversations. I do not expect the Minister to have the answer to this in his brief, but I would welcome an assurance that he will write to me, and possibly copy in the noble Baroness, on this subject—in particular on the limited subject of whether we can get further discussions going.
My second point is also taken from the good book, the Command Paper. The second paragraph of the Prime Minister’s foreword to the White Paper talks about,
“ending the days of sending vast sums of money to the EU every year”.
I contend that we do not send vast sums of money to the EU every year. We have let this idea come into our national discourse in a way that it should not have done. The principle of the EU—a fundamentally sound one—is that generally speaking the richer member states are contributors to the budget and the poorer states are beneficiaries. Our net contribution of £8.9 billion, which has been mentioned, is around 1% of UK government expenditure. The cost of what is called the settlement after we leave is estimated in the House of Commons briefing paper as between £35 billion and £39 billion—in other words, four years’ worth of full payments straight away.
The cost of the EU per head of population depends on the exchange rate, but my figure is £130. I heard a slightly different figure earlier, but it is in that ball park. We are not the biggest contributor, by a long way. Per head of population we are number six. The countries above us are, in order, Germany first, Denmark second, France third, the Netherlands fourth, and Sweden fifth. They all pay more than we do per head of population—as, incidentally, does Norway, which I add to the list just in case we want a Norwegian-style deal.
What is happening here is a good basic principle of international relations, which is that richer nations are helping to support poorer nations. So when we talk of bringing “our money back”, we are substantially talking about withdrawing from such programmes as those which support the development of poorer regions through the regional fund. Is this what the Government want? Do they want to desert the new democracies of eastern Europe? Is this now their programme? Do we want to save money by withdrawing from the Erasmus programme that supports students, or are we going to carry on with it so that there will not be any savings from Brexit anyway? I assume that the money that is spent through the EU on aid will continue to be spent, because it comes out of our aid commitment, so that will also not be saved.
Have the Government counted up how much it will cost to participate in the various agencies, numbered at 62 in this debate, and policies that, according to the White Paper, we wish to join? I see all of the supposed saving of this modest amount disappearing before my eyes.
We talk about a trade agreement but we will not get one without paying for it. It is not a free trade agreement—it will be a costed trade agreement, as Norway has found. Do we think we will be paying more or less into the budget than its £135 per head per year? How much better off than Norway will we be? I predict that we will not be any better off at all. We have already said that we are going to keep all sorts of programmes going, and that will cost us money. That is not a bad thing except that we are withdrawing money from a lot of people who need it.
If we decide that we are going to crash out, or whatever we call it, what message will we be sending to British public servants who work for international organisations? International organisations at the Foreign Office used to have a programme to get people through the concours so they could work for the European Union. Will we be saying to the brightest brains in Britain, “Go and work for the international organisation; if we get fed up with it we will desert you and leave you without your pensions, your pay and your promotion prospects”? Is that the Government’s message to the brightest and best in Whitehall, who used to be encouraged to go into international bodies?
I ask the Minister to look at the facts behind this. I think that he will find that we are indulging in a very paltry saving for a truly disastrous policy.
Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, whose views and activities in Europe I have known about for many years.
In 1975 I was a relatively new Member of the other place. As Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, I travelled with him during the referendum campaign that year to various parts of the country, along with others of the all-party remain group, such as Willie Whitelaw and my now noble friend David Steel. More than once, Roy illustrated the case for membership of the then Common Market with a quote from Gladstone. He suggested that the European Common Market was,
“an affair of men just as much as of packages”.
He was distinguishing between the economic and the political aspects of European unity.
Much of the comment on the White Paper and much of the debate that has taken place over the past two years since the last referendum has been about what Gladstone referred to as packages. But for many of us, our membership of the European movement, the European Community and the European Union is about much more than that. It is because our participation reflects a view that war and other problems facing the world are best overcome by close co-operation and by friendship. The European Union was born out of the highest motives—to keep peace in Europe, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, reminded us.
Most remainers are, in my experience, committed internationalists with less interest in the nation state and more in building a community of nations. Their philosophy is one of uniting people in their common humanity across race, religious and other boundaries. It is a pity, to my mind, that we have not heard more of that in the debate on our membership of the European Union. After all, there is much evidence to show that a major motivation for those wishing to leave the EU was the issue of immigration, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine.
Right-wing populism has risen in many parts of Europe and in the United States. It needs to be refuted because, as has been pointed out in the debate, never has there been a more precarious time in post-war years than now. We have President Trump stalking the world with his divisive actions and pronouncements, and in those circumstances we need more co-operation with the EU, not less.
There is another reason why we need more co-operation and not less. The world is becoming smaller and smaller and more and more international; it is happening almost daily. We are swamped by new technologies, which have a massive impact upon social and economic activity. It is staggering to me that Facebook is only 12 years old; Google is 19 years old; the iPhone is 11 years old; Twitter is 12 years old; Amazon is 21 years old; and YouTube is 11 years old. That companies and technologies of that scale can grow in that period is almost unprecedented in the world. They have a profound influence upon all of us and affect every aspect of our lives: retail, health, pharmaceuticals, music, films, television, taxation, sport, securities, financial services and much more—I could go on at great length. In those circumstances, and to cope with these developments, we need the force and co-operation of 27 European countries, using them and working with them as partners in the European Union. How can we control these organisations and technologies to the benefit of all unless we have the governmental means of doing it?
As I have sat in the Chamber over recent weeks and months, listening to the debates on Brexit, I have frequently thought to myself, “We must all be mad”. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said earlier, the contents of the White Paper rather suggest that I was right. In some respects, it should be entitled, “Fantasy meets reality”. Down the track, as the negotiations progress—or do not progress—those of us who are not supporters of the Government must all beware of the Government blaming the EU and turning it into the enemy that is trying to frustrate United Kingdom intentions and interests. It would be very easy to blame Johnny Foreigner for the predicament that this Government and that party have got us into.
I am struck by how much the Government seek continued participation in the EU in the White Paper—and I am not surprised that the Brexiteers have objected to it. I want to go through it quickly, because I do not think the public were aware that such consequences flowed from the vote on the referendum. The Government want participation in an EU free trade area; EU standards organisations; EU technical committees and compliance committees; the European Medicines Agency; the European Chemicals Agency; the European Aviation Safety Agency; the EU rule book on agri-food; the EU’s communications systems, including rapid alerts, modern surveillance and mutual recognition of qualifications; the European health insurance card; the reciprocal arrangements on travel for business and holidays; the common rulebook on state aid; the Unified Patent Court; rail, road and maritime transport organisations; European networks for transmission systems operating for gas, electricity and Euratom; and to remain part of the Lugano convention on civil judicial co-operation.
I could go on, but time is limited and I do not think I need to tell many people in this House the extent of the impact that withdrawal from the European Union will have, not only upon businesses and many other institutions and organisations but on the lives of millions of individuals. In those circumstances—and we have not even talked about the governing bodies referred to in the White Paper—people should be given the opportunity to understand the full implications of withdrawal from the European Union and to express their view on it in another vote.
Lord Suri (Con)
My Lords, the clock is ticking—so said Michel Barnier in the early stages of negotiations and I must give credit where it is due. The only fundamentally unchanging point throughout all of this process has been the slow running-out of our precious negotiating time.
I backed the Prime Minister through her Florence and Lancaster House speeches, and the Chequers plan—with tweaks—could work. However, I fear we are giving far too much up. Throughout this, we have moved closer and closer to the EU’s position without it respecting a number of our red lines. In fact, it has actively attempted to politicise a number of issues which could have been achieved through bureaucratic or legal means. The border in Ireland is by far the most important.
The former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union made a number of key points some time ago in his speeches on the customs Bill, some relating to the border. I am inclined to believe him when he says that the border was progressing smoothly until the Commission made it into a political issue. The insistence on full UK rules and an entirely frictionless border can only mean the whole of the country is forced into rules we do not have a say on. This is a client state of affairs and not the correct path for this proud trading nation.
While there was no manifesto or unified platform that people voted for, we can reasonably say that several policies are quite plainly necessary. The most important is that voters want to regain full control of our borders. Barnier, Juncker, Merkel, Macron, Tusk, all agree that the four freedoms are inseparable. This is their prerogative. The internal market is a fine achievement but, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, noted some time back, there is no fundamental reason why freedom of capital and goods must be accompanied by people. Yes, there are some advantages in liquid labour markets, but voters have the final say on how porous borders should be, and those on the losing side of the argument cannot blithely battle on in defiance of democracy. The Chequers plan is far too vague on this topic and I expect a full plan and enforcement strategy to be laid before the other place in short order.
I see a trap ahead. If we come to the end of our negotiations without a deal, we will not in fact go to no deal. As a country, we will be forced to go into the plan set out in the Northern Irish backstop. This provides an extremely favourable deal for the EU. We would pay in, obey the rules, fail to diverge and not have robust borders. Much as Article 50 has an institutional bias to the EU, so does the backstop. It would be in the EU’s interest to take us to the wire and then force the emergency backstop. Such a move would rob us of our essential sovereignty and fail to respect the terms of the vote. This must be avoided at all costs.
I welcome the call of the new Secretary of State to intensify negotiations. We must renegotiate the backstop so that it cannot be used against us in an underhand way. I hope that the Minister appreciates the need for such a reappraisal and I ask whether this is the Government’s policy or whether he thinks that the backstop is acceptable as it stands.
Lord Green of Deddington
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Suri, and to hear some common sense on freedom of movement from a member of the immigrant community. I intend to be extremely brief, given that the hour is late, and I shall focus on the dog that hardly barked. Some noble Lords may be able to guess what that is.
I am sure that many noble Lords will have noticed a kind of developing enthusiasm among those in the remain camp for another referendum—yet, strangely, they do not seem to have considered why they lost the last one. All serious studies have found that immigration, whether you like it or not, was a major factor. In August 2016, the director of the LSE Centre for Economic Performance wrote this:
“There are multiple reasons for the Brexit vote, but by far the most important one can be summarised in a single word: immigration”.
Just before the vote itself, MORI found that immigration was by far the most important issue, running 11 points ahead of the National Health Service and 21 points ahead of the economy. So there seems to be little doubt —and I do not know that anyone actually challenges it—that immigration was a major factor in the outcome.
Two years on, public concern is still strong, whether we like it or not. Polling conducted by Channel 4, of all people, and published only last month found that 70% of the public want to see a cut in EU migration. Some 42% want to see a large cut while 14% want to see an increase. Furthermore, in April this year a YouGov poll found that 63% of voters consider that immigration levels over the past 10 years have been too high—and even among younger voters, about whom we hear so much, more thought that immigration had been too high than thought that it had been about right or too low. So there is just no doubt about the strength and breadth and continuity of public opinion on this matter, and it is not good enough, frankly, to say that it is about blaming immigrants because it is absolutely nothing of the kind.
It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, pointed out, that EU migration has fallen since the referendum, probably due to uncertainties about the future. But it is still running at 100,000 a year, with another 200,000 from outside the EU. But I repeat: this is not a question of blaming immigrants. That is simply an attempt to close down a very important debate and a very important aspect of the problems that confront us.
What can we conclude on this narrow but important point? First, there can be no doubt about the continuing strength of public concern. Secondly, the public seem to particularly dislike what they perceive to be the complete absence of control, notwithstanding the Government’s failure to reduce non-EU immigration. As they see it, there is just no limit, no prospective limit, no brakes and no way of preventing a continued and significant inflow from Europe. This is how the public see it. For many, therefore, a touchstone of how they judge the Brexit outcome will be whether the Government are able to get a grip on immigration.
Lastly—I am up to three minutes—I will conclude by saying that I wonder whether behind all this there is a perhaps a still greater issue: namely, the question of public trust in our political system. It is trust on which the system depends, and it is not going terribly well.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington. It is an inescapable fact that many of the debates your Lordships’ House has held on Brexit have sounded like a rerun of the referendum campaign. It is as if somehow we believe we could change the result and ignore the meaningful vote that a majority of people cast in the referendum. Today’s debate has been no exception. Indeed, listening to many of the contributions from noble Lords, one could be forgiven for thinking that the referendum had never happened and that the people had never spoken. Their vote to leave has been practically airbrushed out of the picture.
So when we consider how the negotiations are progressing, what matters is not so much what we think but what the majority of the people think—whether we are honouring their democratic decision to leave the EU. How do the people think the negotiations are going? Professor John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde highlights that, according to YouGov, as many as 58% of leave voters do not think that the Chequers agreement reflects what they believe the country voted for in the EU referendum. Only yesterday, Paul Goodman of “ConservativeHome” reported that 68% of respondents to a snapshot survey of leave voters think that it would be bad for the country if the White Paper were implemented; 67% oppose it.
The British people are not fools. They can see that this is not a fight between government and Parliament. It is between the establishment in Parliament, government and some of the media on the one hand and the people on the other. The well-respected journalist Tim Stanley, writing in the Daily Telegraph, talks of the people being ignored. I would go further. There is a very real danger of the majority who voted to leave feeling that they have been betrayed. The evidence suggests that people think that the Chequers agreement and the White Paper are recipes for remaining. So, even if the White Paper were accepted by the EU, we, the establishment, are playing with fire if we think that we can tell the people that we have honoured their vote to leave when they can see—we can guarantee that the EU Commission will make this point to them—that we have not left at all.
We need to accept that the referendum result was a vote for honest politics and for a break with the endemic defeatism of the establishment. We should be thanking the British people for giving us this amazing opportunity, not bottling it and losing our nerve. We need to tell Brussels unambiguously, “We are British. Get over it. We will not be bullied. We will not surrender taxpayers’ money unless and until the British people see that we have genuinely left and that their meaningful vote in the referendum has been honoured in full”. That is what the people are entitled to expect of us. We patronise the people at our peril.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, what a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, although I have to say that I do not agree with very much of what he has said.
I came with a detailed exegesis of the White Paper, but since I am the 64th person to make a speech in this debate and we are already almost an hour behind the time at which we were supposed to finish, I shall leave that—no doubt to the relief of Members of the House—to another day.
I might just make a point about immigration: there were not too many complaints in the United Kingdom when Polish and Czech pilots came and flew over Kent and gave their lives in the Battle of Britain, any more perhaps than when the Polish airborne division went on and was cut to pieces, along with others, on that occasion.
Let me turn to a point introduced by the noble Lord, Lord—a terrible moment; I have forgotten his name.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem
No. It is ridiculous. We travelled on the plane this morning.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem
It was the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. He is memorable for many reasons. He mentioned that he grew up in Arbroath and was affected by the statue which reflects the Declaration of Arbroath. I grew up, quite a few years before him, in a Glasgow filled with gaps—if one can fill something with gaps—where buildings had been bombed and had fallen, and where people had died. Therefore, my affinity for Europe is about the fact that, together with NATO, the European Union has managed to keep, broadly, peace in a continent previously scarred with war. It was the European Union, assisted by Marshall aid, which helped to repair the damage caused in Europe.
I am unequivocal in my belief that it is in the best interest of the United Kingdom that we should remain within the European Union. That is not to say that I am slavish about following everything that it says or does; in particular, the attitude of the Commission towards the Galileo project is, to put it mildly, not particularly helpful—on other occasions, I might put it rather more strongly. If I had any doubts about my position on this matter, what has happened since the referendum has served only to confirm me in my view: that it is much better for Britain to be in the European Union than not. When we read the White Paper and see the extent to which our future will be part of that very fabric of Europe which people seem now to wish to deny, all that serves to confirm me in my fundamental belief—it is a question of belief in my case; I respect the beliefs of others who think otherwise, but I believe that I am entitled to have respect for my views in return.
The White Paper has been universally condemned in this debate, but what did we expect? It had a long and troubled gestation period from a deeply divided Cabinet, a deeply divided party of government, a deeply divided Parliament and a deeply divided country, and a Prime Minister—if I may be forgiven the colloquialism—who is in hock to the DUP. There was never any prospect that tablets of stone would be brought down from some Swiss mountain top during the Easter Recess. The fact is that this document will not fly. It meets neither the expectations of remainers nor the anxieties of Brexiteers, added to which the Prime Minister has not had the strength to ward off the mob marauders of the ERG.
The question is what to do now. The Prime Minister has a choice. She can continue to negotiate on the White Paper. That is going to be difficult because she has already made it plain, she says, that she can make no further concessions. If it is truly a negotiation, then concessions will be expected. She cannot go into the negotiation and expect the Europeans to make all the concessions. Even if she were to get some kind of agreement, what chance is there of her being able to sell that to her own party and, indeed, to Parliament? Someone suggested a little earlier that she could withdraw this White Paper and start again. The truth is that she could not do that and remain in office. Indeed, if she were to do that, what would she propose anew? What would she propose that is in any material way different from the terms of the White Paper?
The noble Lord, Lord Liddell, made a very eloquent point about the implications of a hard Brexit for those who, by some contrast, were the people who voted most strongly that Britain should leave the European Union. If we are driven to a hard Brexit—there are those in this debate who seem not to be concerned about that possibility—the consequences will be extremely severe indeed. If we are to rely on trade deals arising out of that Brexit, ask yourself this question: if you had some money to invest, would you go into partnership with President Trump? I doubt it very much. He is “America first”, he is highly unpredictable, and we would be in the position of supplicants: we would have nowhere else to go and we would be a soft touch for President Trump.
There has not been much talk about India or Australia recently, because when these issues were first raised both countries said, “Yes, we will do a trade deal but we want much greater access for our citizens than we are presently allowed”. Against that background we have just had the announcement of the remarkable deal struck between the European Union and Japan. We have a third choice: we could stay in the European Union. We could not effect that without having another referendum but, as Justine Greening said, we are in deadlock. There has to be a way out of it. That is why the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, and of Sir John Major on Saturday in my view make a powerful case for putting to the British people in precise terms—and on this occasion with a detailed account of their consequences—a further referendum. It would have one further benefit: it would force Mr Corbyn to declare himself.
Lord Ricketts (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, and to agree with every word he said. I spend a lot of time outside your Lordships’ House and I want to bring noble Lords news from abroad. Our friends around the world are looking on with dismay at the political system breaking down under the weight of Brexit. They see political parties consumed by infighting and efforts to have a mature debate drowned out by lies and personal abuse. They do not recognise the United Kingdom in this as the pragmatic, common-sense country that they know.
However, two years on from the referendum, we now have a position. I pay tribute to my former colleagues in the Civil Service who have twisted themselves in knots to reconcile, as best they can, the Prime Minister’s red lines with the imperatives of close co-operation with our nearest neighbours and business partners. In particular, the name of Olly Robbins has come up in the course of this debate. He is a civil servant of the highest competence and personal integrity and I think he has done his very best in this White Paper. However, like many others, my own judgment is that it will not work. The first reason for that is that it is unnegotiable in Brussels and other noble Lords with greater experience than me have explained why. The EU negotiators will continue to insist that we come off the fence and make a choice between either staying in the single market with all the disciplines—the Norway model—or leaving it completely based on the Canada model, with all the implications that has for borders.
The second reason that the White Paper will not work is that it is not a basis for this country’s future relations with Europe. I do not see this Parliament continuing, decade after decade, to align with every change of regulation in trade policy in Brussels. It is bound to unravel and it will deliver the next crisis on Europe in a few years’ time.
The third reason is that there is no time now to negotiate a document of this complexity. The White Paper goes into completely uncharted territory as far as the EU is concerned, and it is also full of phrases that, to an old civil servant like me, ring an alarm bell—“appropriate mechanisms” will be needed, and we will “explore options”. That shows that the civil servants have outlined where they want to get to but have no idea how they will get there. We have 12 weeks of negotiating time left, so I think we are very likely to find ourselves in the position that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, described earlier on, with the EU demanding that we sign the withdrawal agreement, including paying our debts, but offering us no more than a very vague political declaration about the future framework. Will that pass muster in the other place?
I conclude that we are in a mess and I am not the first in this debate to say that. As time ticks away, the risk of no deal rises. I find it deeply irresponsible to talk as if that might be a solution to the mess we are in. It would be an absolute catastrophe for this country, as becomes clearer day after day and as businesses and individuals start to face up to it. One service that the White Paper has done for all of us is to show how fully Britain’s economy and way of life is enmeshed with that of our European neighbours, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, has just said. All those interconnections would be disrupted by a no-deal Brexit.
There is also the risk, not much discussed in this debate this evening, to our national security. If we had a sudden halt to law-enforcement co-operation so that our police services could not access the European databases which are regulated by European law, they could not work through Europol or extradite people through the European arrest warrant. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked, what has happened to the UK-EU security treaty? I did not find it in the White Paper—it seems to have done a disappearing act.
No deal would leave hundreds of thousands of British and EU citizens in doubt about their rights to residence in the other EU countries. As many noble Lords have said, this disaster of a no deal cannot be allowed to happen. The international order out there is troubled enough without the UK disrupting it further with a disorderly Brexit. On this, I find that the Foreign Secretary agrees with me. For those who have not been checking their Twitter account as assiduously as they should have been this afternoon, I will read his tweet. Having met the German Foreign Minister today, he said:
“Excellent discussion with … @HeikoMaas about the unintended geopolitical consequences of no deal. Only person rejoicing would be Putin”.
I agree. Faced with the choice between the unnegotiable and the unthinkable, there has to be another way. Ideally, that would be the Government recognising that the national interest requires us to stay in the single market and customs union, at least while longer-term issues are worked out. But since the political process seems to be broken, and there does not seem to be a majority for any option in the other place, perhaps the only option is to put the issue back to the people before we take any irrevocable step to leave the EU.
The EU has its faults, but at this time in the evening it may be worth reflecting that it is not a “mafia-like” state. It is a group of prosperous, tolerant, law-abiding countries, sharing our values and our world view. In my view, it is where we belong.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, having the last slot as a Back-Bench speaker at this late hour is marvellous for attracting an audience—it is amazing to see how people are coming in—but it is misery for thinking of something fresh to say after 66 speeches. However, let me try this.
At the risk of being labelled an absurd optimist, I am in some ways very encouraged by the debate that we have been conducting all this afternoon and evening. Why? It is because it has made all the dead ends, blind alleys and disaster scenarios which lie ahead much clearer. It has therefore made the need—the absolute necessity—for a compromise of some clever kind much more essential and clearer as well. That was obvious not only from the negative speeches about the White Paper, of which we heard plenty, but also from the positive ones such as those from my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord King, the noble Lords, Lord Boswell and Lord Taylor, and several others. Theirs were voices of logic and common sense on the point that we have been driven to amid all the cascade of criticism and inspissated gloom, from every angle and viewpoint, which we heard regularly throughout the debate.
My second reason for being encouraged instead of cast down is that whatever the diehards and extremists on either side tell us about the EU standing rock-solid firm, about how its four freedoms cannot be challenged and how it is bound to reject the White Paper, I hear the real voice of Europe sounding a very different note. This morning, we heard a German Minister saying how the Chequers plan was a step forward and how Germany was anxious to meet it. Last week the Financial Times, where most stories are usually slanted almost comically against Brexit, carried a letter from a Polish authority reminding us of the reality: that the famous four EU freedoms and principles are certainly now much more an aspiration than a reality. That article in the FT said:
“The European Commission states that unfree services amount to almost 40 per cent of Union gross domestic product. Capital flows are famously imperfect, myriad barriers block the free exchange of goods”,
within the EU.
As for the free movement of labour, we now see borders being closed between member states—so much for the freedom of movement—in the face of impossible migrant pressures, which my noble friend Lord Heseltine rightly pointed to. Central Europe and now Austria simply rejects Brussels’s rule. Why is that important and should one draw any cheer from it? It simply tells us that those who insist that the EU will never, we are told, accept the British plan and will not compromise its sacred freedoms when confronted with a clear British compromise, as it will now be, are likely to be quite wrong. This kind of view takes no account of the immense changes, disruption and challenges going on now inside the EU—about which your Lordships have today been remarkably quiet, except in one or two cases—nor of the immense changes in recent years in the whole pattern and nature of international commerce.
Technology is racing far ahead and leaving politics far behind. The proposed common rules, which have been causing the hard-line Brexiteers so much agony, cover a relatively diminishing area of UK-EU trade, of which in turn only a tiny proportion—4% at the most, if that—will be checked for tariffs and destinations at border posts under the proposed plans. As for the so-called EU single market in services, which was so worrying to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, whose speeches I usually enjoy so much, in all the 40 years that we have been in the European Union that has never really taken off. The rules governing services, data and digital exports are anyway global, as is the market for them. The White Paper is quite right to keep them clear of EU restrictions, except of course for financial services, where a special arrangement to help not just London but all European interests—because of all the funds that are raised in London on behalf of a prosperous Europe—is entirely achievable.
The talk of Britain becoming a vassal state or colony, or in limbo, gets the situation completely upside down. It implies that the EU is an empire to which we would be in vassalage. Right now, with the EU in fact hard pressed to hold together at all, this is just about as far from the truth as one can get. Not only that, it seriously downgrades and underestimates the capacities and strengths of the British nation, which anyway has not been a vassal since the time of King John and never will be again. The whole concept is a ridiculous notion which we have had to endure.
In a totally transformed international order, Britain now needs a sensible, friendly and constructive accommodation with continental Europe, which we have been deeply engaged with, on and off, for the last 1,000 years. There never was a prospect of a clean break with Europe—that really was a dream—any more than there was a prospect of a permanent break with the Commonwealth network back in the 1970s, to which we are now at last mercifully returning as we realise where our true friends and our markets are going to be and as we find new networks to take us deep into booming Asia, rising Africa and, above all, China.
My hope, which I believe is well within realisation, is that Brexiteers and Europhiles alike—and all those on the Benches opposite who want to put, in the fine words of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, national interest ahead of party interest—will come to their senses. That wise advice from the noble Baroness applies just as much to her own party as to ours. This should now be matched by compromise on the other side of the channel which the EU authorities, member states and the great economies and great peoples of Europe would be foolhardy, to put it at its mildest, not to buy into and accept. That is the optimistic note on which I wish to end this evening from the Back Benches. Let us now see whether we hear the same optimism from the Front Benches.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, today is the start of a summer charm offensive at home and abroad to sell the Prime Minister’s Chequers Brexit deal and the White Paper. I hope it is more successful than her efforts in her own party, and more successful than the translations of the White Paper that the Government have had done. I believe that the new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is starting his own grand tour today in Berlin. I hope he can do a good job of translating “dog’s breakfast” into German. One native German-speaking senior EU official is reported to have said of the German translation:
“To be honest I haven’t seen it. I have worked with the English translation so far and while my English isn’t perfect, the questions I would have are not related to language problems and more related to content”.
The attitude of specialness and unreality that permeates the White Paper—we can have a tailored deal breaking all the EU structures just because we are British and do not have to fit the rules that others live by—has done us a lot of harm over the years, not least now. As a member of the EU we have had opt-outs, rebates and special treatment, but it was never enough. I was going to say it was summed up in the memorable words of the witty liberal Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel:
“They were in with a load of opt-outs. Now they are out, and want a load of opt-ins”—
but the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, got there first. An example of this cherry-picking is accepting the common rulebook only for standards checked at the border, which would not include food labelling, pesticides or GMOs. Michel Barnier asked:
“How are we going to protect European consumers?”
The new Brexit Secretary is hardly on the right course to persuade and charm. His idea of diplomacy is to resurrect the mindless threat of refusing to settle agreed debts via the divorce bill. This is not only in contradiction of the Prime Minister’s pledge in Florence that the UK would honour its commitments, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, pointed out, but it would mean that no country would trust a Conservative Government to negotiate a trade deal in good faith.
Le Monde notes that the Government have sent “contradictory messages”—really helpful. The whole country is tired of the Conservative civil war. Brexit was always going to be a painful process, as many noble Lords, not least on my side, have explained, but this civil war inside the Tory party—not the easy deal they promised—has made Brexit chaotic and incoherent. They have created a mess that is now the stuff of nightmares. Was it the will of the people to be issued with ration books? Will they be blue like the passports, but printed in France?
Many Tory Brexiteers are in fact irresponsible nihilists and anarchists, just wanting to destroy, with no positive ideas of their own and mostly too lazy to engage in the detail, such that all the hard work of trying to make any sense out of Brexit without destroying the country has in fact had to be done by remainers. Many Brexiteers are either irresponsibly cavalier about a kamikaze no deal or positively wish for it, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said.
I fear that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, confirmed this when she said that we should Brexit “at almost any cost”. The noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, said that he was “comfortable with uncertainty”. Those people leading lives where they are only just keeping their head above water cannot afford more uncertainty.
I would say that it is us remainers who are in a way the heirs to Thatcher. We may not agree with her on much, but at least on the EU she sought to change, not destroy, and she would have been sharp on the detail and committed to the economic benefits. As was reported in the press this weekend, a draft of a 1988 speech by her read, regarding her attitude to the EU:
“Above all, it means a positive attitude of mind: a decision to go all out to make a success of the single market”.
Margaret Thatcher would surely be horrified by the insistence of one of her successors on pulling out of the single market and the customs union.
Theresa May has taken her Cabinet to the north-east today to prove that her Government are listening to the nation beyond London. I understand that she was to take part in a televised Q&A with workers at a local firm near Gateshead. I hope that she heeds the one valuable comment made by Boris Johnson in his Personal Statement last week—although in his case, it is a bit pot and kettle—when he said that,
“we continue to make the fatal mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the public, saying one thing to the EU about what we are really doing and saying another thing to the electorate”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/18; col. 450.]
There are many such examples in the White Paper and in the amendments that the Government accepted to the customs Bill last week. That has been explored, so I will not dwell on it. There is no reciprocity in the White Paper; there is reciprocity in the customs Bill. The Minister said today that the Government are asking for a “reciprocal revenue formula”, whatever that means. He might have a chance to explain further.
The Government have pledged not to lower high standards of employment, environmental and consumer law, yet we know from their previous statements that many Brexiteer Ministers want to do just that.
As for human rights, not only have the Government refused to embed the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in domestic law and played fast and loose with abolishing the Human Rights Act and pulling out of the ECHR—imperilling cross-border co-operation in law enforcement and data flows—but now the Home Secretary has, unbelievably, said that he is relaxed about the US imposing the death penalty on British citizens. This is contrary to the fixed policy and decades of effort by the EU as well as the UK. It will go down very badly when we try to argue about continued participation in EU extradition and database arrangements.
Another example is the European Court of Justice. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said, “We will end the jurisdiction of the ECJ”—not even the usual formula of “direct jurisdiction”. As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out, this is fiction. We will be subject to a lot of ECJ case law. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, pointed out, the ECJ will interpret the common rulebook. He made a persuasive case for the Supreme Court to continue to be able to refer.
As my noble friend Lord Wallace pointed out, where the UK participates in an EU agency:
“The UK will respect the remit of the ECJ”.
That is the wording of the White Paper. We will be in about 15 agencies in the security field—and about 60 altogether, said my noble friend Lord Newby. So we have just smoke and mirrors here.
As for the assertion that we will be taking back control of our laws and reclaiming UK sovereignty—having domestic regulatory freedom, said the Minister—in fact we will be implementing the EU’s rulebook. The word “common” is a fig leaf. If Parliament refuses to implement it, we will face the withdrawal of trade access. It is a sham, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, and it will unravel, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, said.
There are other examples that I do not have time to explore, including fisheries and financial services. A large motivating factor in Brexit is recognised to be mistrust of politicians and the elite—which, despite their protestations to the contrary, very much includes Brexiteers—and their failure to tell the truth about the reality of trade-offs. The White Paper will just compound the problem.
I hope that the Prime Minister can explain the double standards to the people in the north-east, where Jacob Rees-Mogg is feathering his own nest with licences in Dublin while telling ordinary people that they will have to wait 50 years for the benefits of Brexit. That is not a good look. Did the Prime Minister tell the people in the north-east about the accurate forecast of one of her predecessors this weekend—John Major—who said that those who have least will be hurt most?
Boris Johnson made one other pertinent remark last week when he said:
“It is absolute nonsense to imagine, as I fear some of my colleagues do, that we can somehow afford to make a botched treaty now, and then break and reset the bone later on”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/18; col. 450.]
That is precisely where the Government are headed on the political declaration on the future relationship that will be appended to the withdrawal agreement. If that consists of only vague principles and nebulous aims, as looks likely, it will amount to jumping off a cliff without ensuring that a safety net awaits at the bottom. We need a political declaration that is comprehensive, detailed and unambiguous about rights and obligations.
Finally, many noble Lords have tonight backed a people’s vote on the deal. There is a very encouraging trend of increased support. The people must have an option to remain—and, instead of Brexit, we need a new fairness deal for Britain and a national discussion on our identities and feelings, grievances or otherwise, in order to heal this country.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I rise as the last speaker before the Minister, very conscious of the fact that the most important thing I can do is be brief and sit down.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Having achieved a level of agreement, I celebrate.
I will, however, make a few comments on the White Paper. We should pause a moment to look at it, not from our point of view, which is where most of the speeches have come from, but from a neutral point of view. The White Paper is overwhelmingly cherry picking in nature. It is all about, “Can we have the good bits?” Its central theme on the free trade area and the common rulebook suggests a complicated system of the UK charging EU tariffs at our borders. That was complicated enough, but now we have the ERG amendment, which requires reciprocity.
However, even before that amendment, Michel Barnier had set out his reaction. He said that the facilitated customs arrangement raised practical, legal, economic and budgetary questions. Setting out the questions he had posed to the new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab during their first meeting on Thursday, Barnier said that he was concerned that European business would mean higher administrative costs, and there would be increased opportunity for fraud. He also questioned whether a non-EU country could collect EU customs without being subject to EU oversight. For this reason, EU diplomats say privately that the British plan can never be accepted.
The EU is also deeply concerned that the customs plan would give outside companies a competitive edge over European rivals if Britain and other countries used the UK as a route to avoid higher EU tariffs.
“Are the British proposals in the interests of the EU?”,
Barnier said. This is what we have to recognise—that the people we are negotiating with are there to get the best deal for the remaining 27. Very probably, they are trying to do the best they can for the people whom they represent.
The White Paper assumes that we are going to get wonderful trade deals. One wonderful trade deal that we have to get is with America, where we have President Trump, who seems to have succeeded in starting four trade wars—first, with both his neighbours, Canada and Mexico, and then with China and the European Union. If he negotiates a trade deal with us, he will have one objective: to have better access to the UK, on his terms. Trump is nothing if not honest. He believes in, and was elected on, “America first”. How long do we really believe it will take to do a trade deal with America, and how good do we think it will be? Why should the UK, with a population of circa 60 million, do better than the EU with 500 million? That is not in the real world.
Let us look at the White Paper’s aspirations on the movement of people. Once again, it is a cherry-picking arrangement. It wants to control workers from the EU on our terms: we want only the best and cleverest. Freedom for business people and tourists we want as part of the deal, but we want to control movement of workers.
Let us just look briefly at services. There was a briefing today from the City of London, which was terribly polite, but what it means is, “They’ve abandoned us”. The White Paper abandons the City and the service sector.
What does the White Paper ask for? It asks for the essence of being in the European Union, in one sense—for free access to the EU—but it wants conditions. When you compare that with the situation of a member of the EU, it has to agree to the four freedoms to get that access. EU members expect to pay money, if they are more successful members, because they rightly believe that the EU is a safer and fairer place with transfer of money between the richer and poorer members. In this White Paper, do we offer anything to the EU? No.
Many people are clearly comfortable with the idea of no deal, but let us make it clear that we are not comfortable with that idea. We believe that it would produce hard borders and kill the Belfast agreement. The borders would have queues and delays. I know something about running transport operations, and the smallest delays spiral completely out of control. It would cut out co-operation with EU agencies. A big chunk of the White Paper talks about all the things that we want to opt into. None of these would be available in a no deal situation. There would be no agreement on aviation or road haulage, and the IMF says that growth would be 8% less. We know that that 8% would not be spread among most of us; it would be spread among the poorest and weakest in our society. No deal is simply not acceptable. If we really refused to pay the divorce bill, we would be overwhelmed with legal action, trade wars and the worst relations with Europe since the Second World War.
In negotiations it is important to try to understand the other side. Having spent many years in negotiations, I believe that they consist of three directions: emotion, power and logic. In my experience, emotion is the most powerful and logic the least. We have to remember who we are negotiating with in Europe. We are negotiating with people, many of whom have spent their lives making the European Union work, and doing so in the belief that the European Union has preserved peace in Europe. It is so easy to forget that the last 70-plus years has been one of the most peaceful periods in the history of Europe, going back 1,000 years. We are saying to these people, “We don’t like your club—it’s not good enough for us”. We have to remember that we have hit an emotional headwind.
Power is the next thing that matters in negotiation—what cards you have. Frankly, we seem willing to offer nothing, and we have no credible threats. Perhaps only in logic is there any argument. Yes, it is almost true that a bad deal for us will hurt most European nations as well, but on average, it will hurt them less. It is clear that Ireland will suffer significantly in a bad deal situation, but the European Union so believes in itself that it will sort that out.
The Government should go back to the drawing board, change this White Paper and produce a plan that has some chance of success.
Lord Callanan
My Lords, I am profoundly grateful for the many contributions that we have had to this wide-ranging debate. I had almost forgotten how much I missed spending my Monday evenings debating our exit from the EU with fellow EU obsessives—the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is still here, which is good—following the passage of the EU withdrawal Act. I shall try to address as many of the points raised this evening as possible. I apologise if it is not possible to respond to every point raised by noble Lords, but I am conscious of the late hour.
The White Paper sets out detailed proposals for a principled and pragmatic future relationship with the EU, delivering on the result of the referendum and taking back control over our money, laws and borders. We have made significant progress on the withdrawal agreement, including on citizens’ rights and the terms of an implementation period. As my noble friend Lord Bridges noted, both sides must now work at pace to deliver a mutually beneficial, sustainable deal later this year.
Our proposed free trade area for goods, including agri-foods, would be enabled by: a common rulebook covering only those rules necessary to provide for a frictionless border; participation in EU agencies that provide authorisations for goods in highly regulated sectors; and a new facilitated customs arrangement. In designing this model, the Government have responded to feedback on overcoming the shortcomings of both the new customs partnership and the highly streamlined customs arrangement. Unlike previous models, the FCA allows many businesses to pay the correct tariff at the start so that they will not need to interact with the repayment mechanism at all. For businesses that do not qualify, HMRC has committed to making the rebate process as simple and streamlined as possible. Even then, the rebate mechanism is voluntary. Businesses will be able to choose whether they wish to take advantage of any lower UK tariffs.
Noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, raised the Government’s acceptance of new Clause 36 of the customs Bill in the other place. The clause would prevent the implementation of a new arrangement that would see HMRC collecting duty on behalf of the Government of another territory or country, unless it was reciprocal. The Government have been clear that under the FCA the UK and the EU would agree a mechanism for the remittance of relevant tariff revenue. We proposed a reciprocal tariff revenue formula, taking into account goods destined for the UK entering via the EU and goods destined for the EU entering via the UK. This clause is therefore consistent with the White Paper. To my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I reaffirm that we are not proposing that the EU applies the UK’s tariffs at its borders for goods destined for the UK.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, yes, the FCA model is consistent with WTO law. The UK will be an independent member of the WTO and we will be able to set our own tariffs. We will be able to pursue trade agreements in line with the UK’s interests.
In response to my noble friend Lord Bowness, we want to be part of the network of the EMA but it has to be on the right terms and meet the objective set out in the White Paper of our being an active participant and making an appropriate financial contribution. That is why we decided to oppose the amendment. However, we will revisit it when it comes to this House.
In response to the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and my noble friend Lord Farmer, under the terms of the withdrawal agreement the UK will be free to negotiate, sign and ratify free trade agreements during the implementation period and to bring these into force from January 2021.
A number of noble Lords raised our proposals on services. As the White Paper sets out, we want an ambitious deal on services and digital that allows us to exercise greater regulatory freedom for the UK’s world-leading services-based economy. In response to the points on financial services raised by noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, my noble friend Lord Hunt, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, we are proposing a new economic and regulatory partnership based on binding bilateral commitments.
We have listened carefully to the EU’s concerns and we agree that, particularly for reasons of financial stability, market access should be a decision that remains autonomous for each party. However, this could work only with improvements to the current EU system to reflect the fact that equivalence as it exists today is not, in our view, sufficient to support the close relationship that we seek. The UK will continue to be the most open financial services market in Europe, with the best environment for innovation, an unparalleled talent pool and a legal system that is respected around the world. Furthermore, we will have the flexibility to agree new global financial partnerships with other countries.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Green, and others that the Government are clear that free movement will end and that we will take back control over the number of people who come to live in the United Kingdom. However, in reference to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Heseltine and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, we are not closing our borders to the talent that an outward-looking global Britain needs to succeed. The UK will remain an open and tolerant nation, and we will want to continue to attract people from the EU and elsewhere to work here.
The noble Lords, Lord Boswell and Lord Hannay, also touched on the future immigration system. The UK will design an immigration system that works for all parts of the UK. To inform this, the Migration Advisory Committee report due in September will provide important evidence on patterns of EU migration and the role of migration in the wider economy.
On leaving the EU, we will end the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the UK. The proposal set out in the White Paper delivers on that commitment. No longer will UK courts refer cases to the CJEU; nor will the CJEU arbitrate disputes between the UK and the EU. Additionally, the CJEU will no longer have the power to make laws for the UK, and the principles of direct effect and of the supremacy of EU law will no longer apply to the UK.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, raised the resolution of disputes. We have proposed a robust and appropriate mechanism, including through a joint committee and, in many areas, binding independent arbitration. In response to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on the proposed framework, these arrangements are proportionate and necessary for the depth of the relationship with the EU that the UK envisages. They will ensure that the co-operation functions properly and that the relationship is transparent and accountable.
Where we have a common rulebook and there is a dispute between the UK and the EU, the joint committee, by mutual consent, or an independent arbitration panel will be able to ask the CJEU to give a binding interpretation of the rules in question. It will be for the joint committee or the arbitration panel to decide the dispute, consistent with the essential principle that the court of one party cannot resolve disputes between the two.
In areas where we have a common rulebook—a question raised by noble Lords including my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord Cavendish—it will be important for the UK and for EU businesses and citizens that they are interpreted and applied consistently. This will be done in the UK by UK courts and in the EU by EU courts, because preliminary references from UK courts to the CJEU will have ended. Therefore, where the UK agrees to retain a common rulebook, our courts will pay due regard to the relevant CJEU case law when deciding a case. In practice this is what our courts would do anyway. But it will be for UK courts to decide the cases before them, applying UK law.
In response to the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Bew, I should say that the Government’s proposal for a principled Brexit will deliver for our union—for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—while protecting the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. Our proposals mean that goods and agri-food will flow freely between Northern Ireland and Ireland, so the backstop would not have to be used. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I should say that we remain committed to agreeing a legally operative backstop in the withdrawal agreement, and we are continuing to negotiate that with the EU over the coming weeks.
In response to the points made on the security partnership by the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Browne, I emphasise that. although there is no off-the-shelf model for third countries, the UK is indeed no ordinary third country. We have been intimately involved in the evolution of EU security architecture, we will continue to be a European neighbour, facing the same threats and sharing the same values and interests, and it is clearly in our mutual interest to stand united in our efforts to ensure the collective security of UK and EU citizens.
On foreign policy co-operation, the UK proposes continued consultation and combining efforts to the greatest effect where it is in the EU’s and the UK’s shared interest—for example, in the application of sanctions. The EU discusses foreign policy issues with a number of third countries, which can provide the basis for this new relationship. But the UK’s proposals are for a broader and deeper dialogue, underpinned by the exchange of information and expertise.
Noble Lords including the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Browne, raised the issue of Galileo. The UK is home to a world-leading space technology sector which has helped drive the EU space programmes. Our clear preference remains to participate in Galileo in a new balance of rights and obligations after we have left the EU. The programme must also, of course, offer value for money to justify an ongoing UK contribution. As a logical consequence of the exclusion and uncertainty surrounding future UK participation, the UK is exploring alternatives to fulfil its needs for secure and resilient position, navigation and timing information.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Liddle, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised the prospect of leaving without a deal. The Government are confident that, with the good will of both sides, we will achieve a deal, but, as a responsible Government, we must prepare for all scenarios, whatever the outcome of the negotiations. As I said earlier, we have been working on nearly 300 no-deal plans for nearly two years, and to prepare businesses and citizens for a no-deal scenario we will make more of this planning public by issuing a series of technical notices over August and September. Rest assured that the Government are clear that a mutually beneficial deal is in the interests of both sides, and that our firm objective is for our negotiating teams to reach an agreement by October.
I will respond to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, by saying that both the UK and the EU have been clear that the withdrawal agreement and the future framework form a package. If either side should fail to meet its commitments—although we certainly do not expect that to be the case—this would have consequences for the package as a whole that we agree.
Many noble Lords have returned to their favourite topic. They include the noble Lord, Lord Newby, the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady Kramer, my noble friend Lord Heseltine, the noble Lords, Lord Taverne, Lord Butler and Lord McNally, my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. We are back on to the subject of a second referendum—or, as it has now been renamed, the people’s vote—which leads me to wonder who voted in the first referendum. Aliens, perhaps, or farm animals?
Lord Callanan
I did not think I had mentioned the noble Lord, but I apologise.
Lord Callanan
I was going to mention the noble Lord as responsible for renaming it as the people’s vote in a worthy spin operation, but perhaps he was not involved. I apologise.
The Government’s position remains unchanged, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear, from the time of the first referendum. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky—to mention him—and others that it is essential for our democracy that we respect the result of the referendum. I am pleased to say that this appears to be a position that we share with the Labour Party. Last week the Huffington Post reported that the shadow Foreign Secretary categorically ruled out a second Brexit referendum. She said that,
“we went ahead and had a referendum and we lost it and overwhelmingly, above everything else, we are Democrats, so we have to do as instructed”.
On this one occasion, I agree with Emily.
Furthermore, in response to points made by the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Kerr, let me make it clear that we will not be seeking an extension of Article 50. We are leaving the EU on 29 March 2019 and we will deliver the necessary legal framework in time.
The Government are delivering a principled and practical Brexit. For our economy, we are developing a deep trading relationship with the EU; for our security, we are building on our close co-operation with the EU to keep all of our citizens safe; for our communities, we are ending free movement and responding to concerns raised during the referendum; for our union, we are meeting our commitments to Northern Ireland, and for our democracy, we are restoring sovereignty to this Parliament. For the UK’s place in the world as a champion of democracy and free trade, we are building on progress made so far in negotiations and the ambitious and credible proposals in our future relationship White Paper and must now redouble our efforts to achieve a sustainable and lasting settlement with our European partners.
Lord Balfe
Before the Minister sits down, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and I raised a point on the European Aviation Safety Agency. We asked whether the Minister could write to us dealing with the points we made, and I repeat that request.
Lord Callanan
As the noble Lord knows, we have made a commitment to remaining part of the European Aviation Safety Agency if that can be negotiated. There are four or five paragraphs in the White Paper on future aviation agreements, but I would be very happy to write to both noble Lords with clarification.