Lords Chamber

Thursday 26th February 2026

(began 3 weeks, 1 day ago)

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11:07
None Portrait Introduction(s): Baroness Leaman
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I I know.

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Charles Charles III. Charles III. By Charles III. By the

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Charles III. By the grace Charles III. By the grace of Charles III. By the grace of God of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Britain and Northern Ireland, and of our other realms and territories. King, head of the Commonwealth, King, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the Faith to all Lords, spiritual and temporal, and all other our subjects. Whatsoever to other our subjects. Whatsoever to whom these presents shall come. Greeting. Know ye that we of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, in pursuance of the Life Peerages Act 1958, and of all other powers, in that behalf us enabling do by these presents advance, create and prefer our trusty and well-beloved Rhiannon Victoria Leman to the state degree, style, dignity, title and honour of Baroness Leaman of Chipping Sodbury in our County of Gloucestershire, and for us, our heirs and successors do appoint, give and grant unto her the said name, state, degree, style, dignity, title and honour of Baroness Leaman to have and to hold unto her for her life, willing and by these presents granting for us our heirs and successors, that she may have, hold, and possess a seat, place, and voice in the parliaments and public assemblies and councils of us, our heirs and successors within our United Kingdom, amongst the Barons, and also that she may enjoy and use all the rights, privileges, Preeminences, immunities and advantages to the degree of a Baron duly and of right belonging, which Barons of our United Kingdom have heretofore used and enjoyed, or, as they do at present, use and enjoy.

In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent witness ourself at Westminster in the forenoon of the 29th day of January, in the fourth year of our

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sign-manual. I Rhiannon, Baroness Leaman do

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I Rhiannon, Baroness Leaman do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to
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Lord Livermore Portrait Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)
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Well, I think the government is on top of this and perhaps more slightly more on top of it than the noble Lady is. Given that her question was incorrect, I've already very clearly said that these facilitations under the Windsor framework are unaffected by the EU's change to its duty relief exemption, and therefore there will be no need to pay duty.

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Isn't it the case that the vast majority, I think this side. My majority, I think this side. My Lords, what is at stake here ultimately, is the stability of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. The EU, to its credit, stretched itself in the lead into the Windsor framework, contacted the open the negotiations with the government and then and the Sunak government, and we a moment was government, and we a moment was reached which allowed the return to be part of that process, largely returning functioning institutions.

Since then, the EU seems to have returned slightly to its older ways. A series of interventions which are causing destabilising, strengthening the forces in Northern Ireland which are politically opposed to the Good Friday Agreement. Will the Nobel Minister please noble Lord, the Minister, please in in dealings with the EU, make clear a fundamental thing is the survival of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and actions which strengthen the support of those hostile to the Good Friday Agreement should be avoided at all

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costs here. Absolutely. Of course, we are fully committed to implementing the fully committed to implementing the Windsor framework in good faith and protecting the UK internal market. The Windsor Framework is the best workable solution to Northern Ireland's unique circumstances. We will work constructively with all stakeholders with the EU, the Northern Ireland Executive, businesses, political parties and civil society in Northern Ireland to achieve this aim, taking into

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to achieve this aim, taking into account the implementation deadlines. Second, Oral Question Lord Strasburger beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
11:23
None Portrait Oral questions: Organisations consulted regarding the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations
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My Lords, the Minister is following the process in the
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None Portrait Oral questions: Consultation with the fire and rescue services in England regarding clean energy projects such as battery storage plants
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Third Oral Question Baroness. >> The third Oral Question, Baroness McIntosh or Pickering. >> Ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Conservative)
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Garcia military base and British Indian Ocean territories.

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My Lords, can I firstly warmly welcome the statement. From the Minister in the other place that this dreadful surrender bill is this dreadful surrender bill is being paused pending further discussions with the United States. discussions with the United States. My amendment of a few weeks ago that the noble Lady at the time described as wrecking, of course, described as wrecking, of course, called for exactly that. So it's great that the government now seem to be in the same place. Does the to be in the same place.

Does the noble Lady agree that had the government followed the logical sequence of agreeing their new treaty, and then amendments to the 1966 treaty with the US before progressing with this bill, then they would not be in this embarrassing position today. On the subject of pauses, can I ask the noble Lady to pause the no fault eviction of the group of Chagossians who have returned to take up residence on one of the outer Chagos Islands? Throughout the passage of the bill? The noble Lady on many occasions rightly expressed her sadness and her shame at the way a previous Labour government had evicted the Chagossians from their homes.

We will now, of course, see just how sincere she was in those comments by whether this current Labour government carries out another forceful eviction of British citizens from a British territory. And finally, does the noble Lady agree that the current international crisis and the possible use of Diego Garcia for military strikes against Iran demonstrates the absolutely vital strategic importance of the base and why we should retain it under control.
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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Well, as the noble Lord Davies of Gower rightly said, this scheme has been in planning now for some three years. It was introduced by the previous government. We have seen it through. There is always going to be a deadline at some point in any scheme, and the deadline for this scheme introduction was the 26th of February, i.e. this week. So therefore we have a position. Now. What we've tried to do is that if there are individuals who are impacted today or this week or in the near future, there is the temporary mitigation which carriers may at their discretion, as the noble Lady has said, accept an expired UK passport alongside a non-visa national third country passport as evidence of British nationality.

Dual nationals may also ask their carrier to contact the Home Office's carrier support, which is available now. Dual nationals overseas may also wish to contact the embassy. There is provision for urgent travel without a British passport in certain circumstances that's set out in Gov.uk. If the particular problems my colleague, the Immigration Minister, is holding some drop in sessions in the Houses of Parliament next week and the week after, and I would say also that at the end of the day, now the scheme is available, people who wish to have the availability to come to the UK, who are dual nationals, can apply for a British passport or be can apply for a certificate which is a lifetime allowance on that dual national approach.
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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For any Australian dual national >> For any Australian dual national who wishes to prove their British nationality can do one of two things. They can apply for a British passport and that is usually a nine day, eight day wait at the moment. Or they can even get one speedily if they need one, because that can be done. Or they can apply for a specific exemption, which is a lifetime exemption that can be attached to their Australian passport and that will allow them to travel to the United Kingdom without the need for an ETA.

That's a reasonably sensible approach to make. It's a short term thing. Now that the system is introduced, any Australian citizen who wishes to travel to the UK can either get a certificate, get a British passport or travel here and if they travel here and are refused. In the meantime, there are a number of mechanisms of outlined to the noble Baroness Ludford that they can adopt, but in the long term this scheme is a sensible thing to do

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and I commend it to the House. Yeah. My Lords, before the first

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My Lords, before the first debate gets underway, I want to highlight the four minute advisory time for backbench contributions. time for backbench contributions. This is designed to ensure the debate can finish within three hours, in line with the usual timings for Thursday debates, and timings for Thursday debates, and so the House can rise at a reasonable time this evening. I would therefore urge noble Lords to keep their remarks within four
12:20
None Portrait Debate: European Affairs Committee report: 'Unfinished Business: Resetting the UK-EU relationship'
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minutes to meet these aims.
12:20
Lord Ricketts Portrait Lord Ricketts (Crossbench)
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Motion for debate. European Affairs Committee report Lord Ricketts.

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My Lords, I'm delighted to lead this debate on the report from the European Affairs Committee, which European Affairs Committee, which was my privilege to chair until last month, when I handed the baton to the noble Lord Lord Stirrup. I'm to the noble Lord Lord Stirrup. I'm glad to see such a distinguished group of people in the chamber to group of people in the chamber to debate this report, which shows, I think, how salient the issue is think, how salient the issue is right now.

I thank the government for getting their response to us in a timely way, which enables us to hold the debate now in good time at a at a very important moment. My Lords, it wasn't an entirely straightforward report to produce. We thought it was essential that the House should have an overall assessment of what used to be known as the reset, which is, after all, the government's flagship policy towards the EU. And as the only committee of Parliament conducting systematic scrutiny of the government's European policy, we concluded that we were the right people to do it.

It was a long inquiry. It covered a wide range of complex issues. We found it quite difficult to get our hands around exactly what the reset covered. Since the government did not produce a white paper on its negotiating objectives. Initially, we only had the Labour Party manifesto to go on, and we also found that we were aiming at a moving target because in the course of our work, the range of the reset increased. A number of important areas were added at the May 2025 UQ summit, and members of the committee held deep and very different convictions about what the reset should cover, whether indeed it was necessary at all.

And although we strove to find a consensus that proved elusive, we therefore took the unusual, although not unprecedented, step of voting on the committee's report. As a chair, I would always prefer to have a reconciliation of differences, but if that's not possible without a meaningless fudge, then I think it is more useful to the House to have different views clearly set out, and members will have seen that. In appendix nine of the report. There is an alternative summary and the outcome of the voting on it.

Given all these circumstances, I'm very grateful to all the members of the committee who contributed through this long inquiry, and we all owe a particular debt of gratitude to our committee staff. Derek Vishnevskiy, Bridget Fowler, Tim Mitchell, Tabitha Brown, Luis Nunez, assisted by our press adviser, Louise Shuey. I also want to pay a word of thanks to our national Parliament representative, Jack Sheldon, and his assistant leader for the vital work they do in liaising between European parliamentarians and this House.

My Lords, I think the government are right to have dropped the misleading term, reset. The UQ relationship will be a continual process of adjustment and adaptation. There is no end point. Even since we finished our report three months ago, there have been further significant developments, driven largely by the increasingly stark reality that we Europeans can simply no longer depend on the US as our ally. I won't try and summarise the detail of the snapshot that we gave in our report. As of last November.

I want to focus in particular on the issues that will arise in implementation of the various agreements that are now under negotiation, and also to arrange a bit more widely to consider where we go from here, especially in the light of the Prime Minister's interest in Munich. Speech on 14th February. Let me start with security and defence cooperation with the EU. This is, of course, the area where progress is most urgently needed in the face of Putin's war in Ukraine. Now entering its fifth year, and Trump's total unpredictability, our report welcomed the security and Defence Partnership, which the government concluded at the 2025 summit.

But that is only an enabler. Closer consultations are useful, of course, but translating them into real improvements in military capability is much more difficult. That was all too obvious when the negotiations for the EU to participate in the UK's 150 billion Safe Defence Investment programme broke down in December. The sticking point, as noble Lords will remember, was a completely unreasonable EU demand for an entry fee running into several billion pounds. This was a remarkably short sighted EU position given the geopolitics, and one which I think many member states were actually unhappy with.

There have been suggestions in the media since then that the government planned to re-open discussions with the aim of participating on more reasonable terms in Safe. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether that's the case. Staying with our report, we looked also at the area of police and law enforcement cooperation. The key here is more automation and streamlining of data sharing between law enforcement communities. A specific example arises when the government has to decide to participate or not.

In the updated version of the prune programme, the database, which will have facial image data as well as the existing database of fingerprints and DNA. And that will be an important decision that I'm sure Parliament will need to scrutinise carefully on the economic issues. Most of our witnesses supported the government's manifesto commitment to negotiate agreements on sanitary and phytosanitary checks on food and animal products, SPS, and on the emissions trading system ETS. Our witnesses were also clear that the Electricity Trading Scheme proposals, outlined in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement would simply not work.

They therefore supported the idea of exploring UK access to the EU's single market for electricity trading, and that's now underway, as well as a negotiation. Our report lays out the implications of agreements in these areas of the single market for UK access. In particular, they are going to require dynamic alignment with EU regulations as they change, subject to any exceptions that are carved out in negotiations. This is going to raise important issues for Parliament. We're promised a bill soon which will be interesting.

The SPS agreement is likely to involve a continuous process of alignment, much of it highly technical, but with each change potentially having the impact on businesses across the UK, how will Parliament exercise any useful scrutiny of this constant drip of administrative change? At the very least, I guess that the European Affairs Committee is going to need more staff to keep abreast of the constantly changing regulatory landscape. Agreements with the EU will have other implications as well. In particular, the UK is going to have to make a financial contribution.

In the case of SPS and ETS, the 2025 summit agreed that payments would be towards EU costs in running the schemes, which seems fair enough. But the draft negotiating mandate by the Commission on Electricity Market Trading introduces the idea of cohesion funding. In other words, British payments to reduce disparities in EU regions. Norway does make such cohesion payments director projects in poorer regions. The Minister was able to give us more detail on whether that would be the UK's approach, as well to the inevitable demand for cohesion funding.

When we seek to apply to single market access in other sectors, that would be interesting. Two aspects of the Trade and Cooperation agreement were set to expire in June 2026. The arrangement on Fisheries and on Trade and Investment in Energy. The May summit agreed to roll over the existing access for fishermen from the EU to UK waters for 12 years, but only to extend the energy title one year at a time. That fisheries deal was strongly criticised by many of our witnesses from the fishing industry in particular.

The committee had also serious doubts about the process. Within one month of the deal being struck, it was enacted in the specialised Committee on Fisheries with no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny. I should add that the Scottish salmon industry were very pleased at the prospect of an SPS agreement, given their export oriented business on the cultural front. Briefly, our report welcomed the prospect of UK associating with Erasmus+ from 2027. Agreement on that has now been reached, which is good news for young people across the UK and the EU.

Negotiations are also underway for a youth experience scheme. Is the Minister confident that a deal can be struck on that in time for the next summit planned for May? I note that both of those schemes were EU, not UK negotiating objectives, and I welcome the fact that progress is being made. But it's disappointing that there's been absolutely no progress, as far as I can tell, on the UK's one priority in the cultural field, which is a deal to help touring artists that enjoys wide, widespread support in both houses of Parliament and indeed in the European Parliament.

Given the discussions we've had in the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, I hope the Minister can update us on how the government is planning to break the logjam on touring artists. In conclusion, I want to spend a bit of time on the wider context for the future UK EU relationship. My own view as we went through this inquiry was that the government's level of ambition, even as extended at the May summit, was not nearly bold enough. Our witnesses were unanimous that even if all the highly technical negotiations now underway were successful, the economic impact would be marginal.

If positive, the government itself predicts a boost of around £9 billion a year by 2040, which is not much for a £3 trillion economy. The reality, as Mark Carney put it so well in Davos, is that we are now living in a world where, as he said, the great powers are using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains and chains as vulnerable vulnerabilities. My Lords, in that world, marginal benefits are nowhere near enough.

The Prime Minister, in his excellent Munich speech, seemed to agree. He saw closer UK EU economic relations as part of the answer, setting the aim of deeper economic integration and moving closer to the single market in other sectors. If the Minister can give us any details on what sectors those are, it would be interesting. I personally welcome the aspiration to move closer to the single market, but that does, of course, mean the EU will need to respond to that. The failure of the safe negotiations and the restrictive rules that are now under discussion around their Made in Europe initiative remind us that for the EU institutions, the UK is still a third country and they are tending to apply their rules pretty inflexibly.

Despite the mutual interest in working together. The reality, of course, is that the hard strategic choices facing European nations, including Britain, won't be made in the UK EU framework again. The Prime Minister recognised that in Munich he talked of the need to step up, work with like minded allies on options for a collective approach to defence financing. He said we must come together to integrate our capabilities and spending and procurement and build a joint defence industry in Europe. He added that we should be turbocharging our defence production again.

If the Minister could give us any detail on that rather important new initiative, it would be very interesting. It sounds as if the idea is to mobilise a wider group of European countries, going well beyond the EU, leapfrogging the stalemate over safe. There must be a question about whether there's room for two separate defence financing initiatives that I welcome the willingness to think big in facing up to the new reality that we are going to have to take much more responsibility for our own security.

After all, Trump is dismissive of international law. He sees no value in allies. His treatment of Denmark over Greenland has broken all the bonds of trust, which has kept NATO together for 75 years. New forms of cooperation among like minded middle powers are therefore urgently needed to deal with a hostile Russia and an indifferent America. Such groupings tend to take shape under the pressure of great events, and don't necessarily follow the blueprint set out in foreign ministries. It may be that this coalition of the willing, which has done such interesting work on under UK French leadership in supporting Ukraine, can grow into a load bearing forum for wider strategic thinking outside NATO.

For the moment it's informal and unstructured, but it has a very interesting membership covering many European countries and also Asian allies. I'm sure other noble Lords will have wisdom to bring to bear on this crucial subject, my Lords. Whatever the shape of the future, in my view, we need a turbocharging of our relationships with our closest neighbours in the EU who share our values and interests that will need more vision and more consistent political focus on both sides than we've had so far.

But it's an objective that becomes more important every month given the international situation we face. I look forward to the debate and to the minister's comments and I beg

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to move to. Be agreed to.

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Be agreed to. My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to all the witnesses who my thanks to all the witnesses who contributed to this report, to the committee staff who worked so hard to bring it together, and not least to the noble Lord Lord Ricketts, to the noble Lord Lord Ricketts, for his excellent chairmanship and his clear and comprehensive his clear and comprehensive introduction of the report in the limited time available. I shall mainly confine myself to a few
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Lord Stirrup Portrait Lord Stirrup (Crossbench)
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brief comments on just one of the many important issues covered in the report, that of European the report, that of European security. But before I do so, I want to register a quick point on want to register a quick point on the vexed matter of touring artists on which others will no doubt wish to elaborate. A couple of weeks ago, to elaborate. A couple of weeks ago, I met with representatives of the European Parliament's Culture Committee. They had just come from DCMS, where they had been told that the problems faced by our artists seeking to perform in Europe were not a priority issue for the UK.

That is certainly not the view that Ministers have rightly expressed from the Dispatch Box. Can I suggest to the government that we might do better in our negotiations with the EU if we sent them rather more consistent messages? But back to the Security and Defence Partnership. This was the area that seemed to hold most promise in the run up to the UQ summit last May, since the threat looming over the European continent, not just over the EU, seemed to give us common cause, despite any Brexit hangover on either side.

In the event, it turned out to be the area of perhaps greatest disappointment. Defences, of course, not an EU competence, but neither is it strictly a national responsibility. Our necessarily corporate approach to defence in Europe is given substance through NATO. But even the alliance, even the alliance, cannot address what is perhaps our most urgent military challenge today. And this is not, in my view, increasing the number of ships or soldiers or aircraft. Important though those things are the priority is to create an innovative, agile and rapidly scalable defence industrial base across Europe.

And I'm not just talking about traditional defence industries. We've seen in Ukraine how important the normally civilian orientated sector can be in time of conflict. Without such an industrial hinterland, our armed forces will quickly become impotent in any sustained conflict, through lack of the wherewithal to fight. And developing such capacity is where the EU can, and indeed has started to play a part. But it is about European defence, not EU defence. The latter is frankly a meaningless, not to say dangerous concept.

It was therefore very disappointing to see UK companies excluded from full participation in the safe mechanism. This was a significant setback for the kind of integrated defence industrial enterprise we shall need on this continent, if we are to develop the strategic capabilities for which we are still overreliant on the United States, and in which the UK should play a leading role. We must do better going forward. But if we are to do better, if we are to play a leading role, we must recognise that in terms of defence, we are increasingly viewed as something of a paper tiger.

Even amongst our closest friends in EU. We talk a good game but seem less and less able to play one. Not exactly a leadership position in Munich. Recently, the Prime Minister said that European nations need to increase defence spending further and farther. Amen to that. But where is the UK action to match the rhetoric? We need to argue for a much more coherent approach to defence industrial capability within Europe as a whole. But if we are to convince, we must at the

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very least put our money where our mouth is. Yeah.

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My Lords, I also want to thank the noble Lord Lord Ricketts for his measured, calm chairmanship of his measured, calm chairmanship of the European Affairs Committee and welcome his successor, the noble and gallant Lord Lord Stirrup, whose military experience will be, I am sure, up to dealing with a lot of us. My Lords, I served in
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Baroness Ashton of Upholland Portrait Baroness Ashton of Upholland (Labour)
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of us. My Lords, I served in Brussels for six years, the only woman Britain ever sent as a commissioner. And after being the first woman to take on the trade portfolio, I became the first High Representative for foreign and security policy, responsible, among many other things, for leading the Iran nuclear talks. Europe's response to the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and up to ten military and civilian missions. I also set up the European External Action Service, but in my short contribution to this debate, I want to focus on the collaboration on law enforcement and intelligence gathering.

My Lords, the committee was fortunate to hear from witnesses from the Crown Prosecution Service, National Crime Agency and National Police Chiefs Council. We asked them about part three of the TCA covering law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. This gives the UK unprecedented access compared to any other third country, but of course falls short of the access we would gain as a member state. Our interest in the committee was in how effective this has been, and where more could be done to increase that effectiveness.

Our witnesses told us that aspects of their work were more challenging, more cumbersome than before. Within a system that is process heavy, there was a limited opportunity to automate, meaning a lot of manual processes had to be deployed. My Lords, I want to be clear, they were not suggesting the system was broken, nor that they were unable to achieve what they needed to do. But it took longer, required more bureaucracy, relied on 27 bilateral relationships rather than one overarching one, and was just a little bit harder.

The analysis was summed up by them in one word clunky. A very diplomatic way of saying it's harder now than it used to be. One of the greatest practical losses was access to CIS two. CIS two, the information sharing system amongst not only EU member states, but also Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. This gives real time information sharing from police databases. It was used until Brexit, an estimated 600 million times a year by the UK. We can of course use Interpol red notices and information systems, but they are less efficient.

We need to find ways to streamline and access more easily information and to share knowledge across the continent. Crime does not stop at borders, and criminals rely to an extent on the clunkiness and the gaps to pursue their activities. We were told that the real prize would be the signing of a multilateral agreement with the EU member states that would enable alert sharing through the I leap platform. While it would not restore in full information sharing, it would be much better.

My Lords, the European arrest warrant we all know was used after the attempted bombings after seven over seven, which of course, on that day claimed the lives of 52 people and injured over 700 more. The suspect was taken in Rome and extradited to the UK using the European Arrest Warrant. And at the time, the Minister Andy Burnham, told your Lordships Committee in 2006 this case very well illustrated the potential benefits of the smooth functioning of this system. It is not and was not perfect, and other cases have not been as swiftly dealt with.

But it and I quote the Lords report has a key role to play in the fight against terrorism and in bringing those accused of serious crime to justice. Our law enforcement witnesses have asked to find ways to recognise the European Arrest warrant as a valid request. As one of our witnesses said, give us the agility that organised crime exercises. We owe it to their professionalism, dedication. My Lords, to get this done and soon.
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Lord Tugendhat Portrait Lord Tugendhat (Conservative)
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It is a pleasure for me to speak after the noble Lady whose service in Brussels was so distinguished, and whose experience of the Commission is so much more recent than mine. I believe that this report has the potential to transform British politics. If the reset is successful, it will set us on a path to creating a new relationship with the EU. That that marks a break with the past and reflects the realities of the present. A relationship that has a life of its own and is not a road, something else, a relationship that will involve evolve in response to the needs and interests of the two parties, not in accordance with some pre-determined and underlying plan.

As it progresses, so its ambitions, its ambitions can increase and the sooner the better. This is vital in the national interest, on the one hand, in a threatening and uncertain world, our defence and security interests are intimately bound up with those of our EU neighbours. On the other, the EU, one of the world's three great trading blocs and the one nearest to us, is by far our largest trading partner. Yet there are those in this country who are so obsessed with the Brexit battles that instead of looking for a new beginning, they present any change in the situation as a plot to subvert the result of the Brexit referendum.

We must move on from that attitude. I believe, as I said in a debate a few weeks ago, that the policy that the policy being pursued by the government on which this report makes a number of helpful suggestions, is the right path, is on the right path. By that I mean the pursuit of agreements with the EU on a range of specific and often technical issues that create a balance of tangible benefits for both sides. If the two sides can do that successfully, it will create a habit of cooperation on the basis of which the new relationship can be built.

This report is a constructive contribution. To that end, I just hope, my Lords, that the EU will be able to respond in the same spirit. Its own agenda is so full, and its recent record of reaching the internal consensus required to carry forward difficult ventures is not encouraging. So the question is, can it? As well as we rise to the challenge of our times, will it shake the hand that the government is extending?
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Baroness Suttie Portrait Baroness Suttie (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, I too would like to congratulate the Lord Ricketts. It is a credit to his diplomatic skills, as well as the excellent committee staff that we were able, committee staff that we were able, in the end, to produce this excellent and comprehensive report. The Committee began its work on this inquiry a little over a year ago, when President Trump had just started his second term. And this week, my Lords, we have marked the fourth anniversary of the devastating war in Ukraine.

And it is through the prism of these two events that we have to view our reset of our relations with the European Union. In May this year, it will be the 10th anniversary of the EU referendum. It is now quite hard to find anyone on either side of the argument who believes that the process and outcomes following Brexit have been positive, not least because of the strain it has put on the unity of this country. Perhaps, perhaps most of all in Northern Ireland, resetting our relationship with the EU is not just a good thing to do.

It is increasingly a necessity necessary for our economy, our trade and for our security. Last year's summit in May was welcome, but so far has been longer on rhetoric than tangible outcomes. A commitment to an SPS agreement is welcome and could do much to boost trade. It would be very helpful to know from the Minister. However, if they expect substantial progress to have been made on that agreement in time for this year's EU UK summit with an SPS agreement.

As Lord Ricketts has said, comes the issue of dynamic alignment. This raises important questions of parliamentary oversight, transparency and how to feed into the EU's policy development process at an earlier stage. It would be very good to hear from the Minister more details of the government's thinking on this regard in her closing remarks, and in particular, can she say if it is the intention to substantially increase the EU's UK's influencing capacity in Brussels, and how, in practical terms, they intend to ensure parliamentary oversight, particularly in the House of Commons, which no longer has a European Affairs Committee.

In the past, the UK has played a pivotal role in driving EU enlargement and we always regarded it as a process for positive change. Clearly our influence on these matters is now much diminished. But can the Minister say what is the government's position on a fast track approach to Ukrainian membership of the EU, and whether such an approach might also be in the UK's best interest? On these benches, my Lords, we favour the closest possible relations with our European partners.

The government should be congratulated on removing some of the toxicity of the years immediately following Brexit, but I now hope that they can begin to match the positive words with concrete actions and courage.
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Lord Dodds of Duncairn Portrait Lord Dodds of Duncairn (Democratic Unionist Party)
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EDA.

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The publication of this report. But the process in these negotiations is a very uncertain one, and the outcome remains to be seen whether it will be in the best interests of the United Kingdom. The report suggests that the government has made a good start. government has made a good start. But for Northern Ireland, that assessment simply doesn't reflect reality, as the noble Baroness has reality, as the noble Baroness has just spoken mentioned. And I am very much aware that the committee's remit was not to discuss Northern Ireland because there is a separate Northern Ireland scrutiny Committee within your Lordships' House, which looks at that matter.

However, I think it's important the context of this debate that we do reflect the fact that we have this Windsor Framework Protocol, which impacts not just on Northern Ireland trade, politics, constitutional position, but also has a direct impact on the United Kingdom because the government has made it clear that it is preferring to align in order to avoid divergence with Northern Ireland in many respects. So in our view, unless the Protocol Windsor framework is fundamentally dealt with, there can be no genuine reset of relations with the UK.

And some might say, well, things are settled. But as we were reminded by the words of the noble Lord Bew earlier in question times, the situation in Northern Ireland is far from settled. And when there comes a point when this issue remains unresolved of Windsor Framework Protocol and our relationship with the EU, that the institutions of the Northern Ireland Assembly and other institutions are imperilled. People in this House and in the other place will say, how did we get to this place? The reality is that unless we deal with the issue of the Windsor framework, its economic detriment for Northern Ireland, its constitutional detriment and the denial of democracy, we are inevitably going to reach that place.

And I think that at that point this House will say we need to take these matters much more seriously, because the Windsor framework leaves large volumes of EU law in place over Northern Ireland. There's no democratic control. Preserves a customs border down the Irish Sea between one part of the United Kingdom and the other. It maintains a role for a foreign court in the internal trade of the United Kingdom, and embeds regulatory divergence inside our own country. Just as the backstop proposals would have done as well, this is not normal or sustainable in any modern democracy, and it's not compatible with equal citizenship within the United Kingdom.

Businesses. As the Federation of Small Businesses report recently said, are facing massive bureaucracy and compliance costs. The trading support services costing half £1 billion already of public money just to help traders negotiate this labyrinthine process. So we have to accept that this is not what sovereignty in a modern country looks like. It's what colonialism looks like, and the principle of consent that lies at the heart of the Northern Ireland political settlement is being devastatingly eroded day by day.

Legal changes imposed without that consent have altered Northern Ireland's place within the UK internal market. So when we discuss the issues of UK EU relationship, we must fundamentally not turn our backs or turn our eyes away from the fundamental problem that faces us as a country in this United Kingdom, which is the democratic denial of consent to British citizens in this country in the 21st century. And this needs to be continually highlighted because it's going to lead to real problems going forward, not just for Northern Ireland, but for this whole country.
12:54
Lord Howell of Guildford Portrait Lord Howell of Guildford (Conservative)
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Very bad. >> Indeed that the title of this report we are discussing today, this excellent report, contains the this excellent report, contains the words reset. And indeed this is general agreement in all documents, including the government's response, that it is a reset, which is we can define as a very wide thing. And indeed it's certainly unfinished business, and it certainly raises issues as Lord Ricketts. No Lord Low, Lord Ricketts rightly said of wider geopolitical significance. Some of us have been at this issue for, in my case, half a century long before we actually joined the European Union or European Community, as it was then called.

Or was it European Economic Community or Common Market? I can't remember. It's been so many changes, but it's really dominated the lives of many of us in and out of politics and public affairs for, well, more than half a century before the Treaty of Rome, and to try and add anything in four minutes is it's a bit of an insult, actually, to the wisdom of this report and to the proverbial skills of the noble Lord. Lord Ricketts. So I suppose until we can change this extraordinary Lords procedure, which I think we should somehow can undo a bit harder, we're stuck with it.

Now. What are the evolving changes? Well, obviously everyone is pointing out the hell the hell you European Union, like everyone else, is in a new world context, operating under new pressures. And it's very, very different from the body that we left when we left the customs union and the Common Market arrangements some years ago. The new factors are high security as Lord. Observes, I can't forget I have a name problem. It's already been pointed out in this debate in excellent opening speeches.

The new problems are changing security as well. We know people talk about what will happen with Ukraine. Should we do this, that and the other. There is no outcome in Ukraine in prospect. Meanwhile, Russia is moving to a new situation and beginning to raise agitations and war hybrid activities with the Baltic states, which are our friends and I think have not been given nearly enough attention in our view of our partners, in our sort of Europe. That should lie ahead.

It's going to come anyway. It's no use just saying we should. We're just an applicant to rejoin certain aspects and as it were, without because we have enormous cards, we belong with the middle nations that Mr. Carney was talking about the other day. We have immense pressures to mobilise. If you use them carefully, and the Baltic states are our friends, and Russia is busily working now to to disturb not by a military invasion, but by all kinds of other activities, the Baltic states, and cause additional problems there, even though they may not see any more than we do, any more than we do to the Ukraine situation.

That's a fact. The second point has also been raised that defence and warfare have totally changed, requiring completely different politics from what we were discussing ten years ago. The the drones, as many of us predicted 30 years ago, have transformed the system of war, the nature of war, the dispositions of trenches and troops, and the use of AI coming along which will transform it even further. Third, the whole of Europe, including the EU, are underwater on debt, at a at A level and at a scale which has never been, which has never been seen before in history.

And the euro is weakening. All this must be something we be very careful not to be involved in before we understand what is really happening. And finally, we must get ahead with rebuilding the global governance which we set set up in 1945 from the rubble of the Second World War and is now out of date and out of time and in great trouble, and requires a new a new architecture in order to provide us with a sort of shell of protection, the shield under which we can reform ourselves.

As in 1945, Britain played a major part. I can't actually see that major part being played in 19. In 2026.
12:58
Duke of Wellington Portrait The Duke of Wellington (Crossbench)
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My Lords, I want to first pay tribute to Lord Ricketts, who is chair of the European Affairs Committee. For the last three years. He skilfully led us to a consensus on most occasions, and all members of the committee are grateful to him. The government were elected on a manifesto to reset this country's relationship with the European Union, and I very much support that objective departure from the EU has affected the lives of so many people who wish to trade with, or travel to, or work or study in the EU.

There is no doubt that it is in the national interest to improve our relations with the European Union, and I commend the work of Nick Thomas-symonds in the Cabinet Office, who has responsibility in the government. He has twice come to the committee with Stephen Doughty in the Foreign Office, thus demonstrating close cooperation between the two departments in this matter. I will comment in the very brief time we're allowed on just two elements of the negotiations. The first is the need to reach a new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement for food producers, farmers and fishermen, and for food processors.

This is important and urgent. Fresh, perishable food cannot wait for 48 hours, while checks and paperwork are completed. Food processors of non perishable products can be held up in customs for weeks. Importers in the EU will very understandably eventually prefer to buy from elsewhere in the EU or from countries which are not subject to the same regulations as we are. It is disappointing that even the Minister does not expect a new SPS agreement to be operational until the second half of 2027.

I simply urge the Minister to do everything possible to hasten this agreement, which is so important to the food and drinks industries. The second is the Youth Experience Scheme for young people to travel to, to study or for work. Experience is beneficial both for the individual and for this country. And this works both ways. The fact that so many foreigners who have gone on to become leaders in business or politics or academia, when the military have spent part of their education or youth in this country, contributes enormously to the soft power of the United Kingdom.

So I congratulate the government for having, as an important policy objective, the reset and improvement of our relations with the EU. And they have already achieved a considerable change in approach in Brussels and willingness there to negotiate. I am sure they will have much public support to pursue this policy with vigour and imagination.
13:02
Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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I welcome the. Government's emphasis on growth and I look forward to future debates where we can exchange debates where we can exchange positive ideas on how to get more people into work, have better paid people into work, have better paid jobs, and how to extend investment in these islands. But I must say to the government that the measures the government that the measures currently being discussed, often secret without proper text, are very worrying. They will either add nothing to our growth rate at all, or worse still, they will subtract from it and do damage.

Just look at what will happen to our fishing industry now that for many more years, so much of the catch is being offered to continental Supertrawlers and other vessels. It has delayed the rebuilding of the British fishing industry and means we don't get all that inward investment and domestic investment in fish processing and food processing, which would follow from having more catch landed in the United Kingdom. Or look at the idea that we should join the the Carbon Taxes and Emissions Scheme and the electricity scheme of the European Union.

It would be another ratchet up in the costs of electricity and energy in this country. Their carbon taxes are higher even than our high ones aren't. Our carbon tax is doing enough damage already. Do do the frontbench opposite, not see the factories closing and the plants being destroyed by ultra high energy prices. And yet they want to volunteer for more of the same and take it out of our control. Or if they decide to offer large new sums of money to the European Union, as they usually seem to do when they go visiting Brussels, that will all be borrowed money.

We are in a time of stress in our public finances. We are not looking for new ways to spend money, and the more they spend giving it to Brussels, the more it will be resented by many people here in the United Kingdom, and the more it will mean that those high levels of borrowing keep our interest rates above other competitors and stifle private investment and private growth, which is what we so clearly need now. We don't need to look forward or even to forecast to know what is going to happen with ever closer alignment to the European Union, because we've lived through it.

And in the 20 years that elapsed before we joined the European Economic Community, our economy grew at 3.4% per year. A very good rate of growth for our 20 years. When we remember of the European Customs Union, until the full single market was said to be declared in 1992, for that 20 years of our early membership, our growth rate slumped to 1.76%. Well, of course it did, because we took all the tariffs off the things that the European continent was good at and just watched as it laid waste to so much of our industry with all those closures.

And we didn't get the market opening on the services, which are driving the success of our economy. So of course that is what happened. But if you then roll the camera forward to 1992, on to 2020, our years in the single market, our growth rate fell again. Even compared with the poor performance when we were just in the customs union. And again, of course it did, because you just look at the anti innovation, high cost spirit of so many of those regulations.

The last thing we need now for a growth strategy is more laws made in Europe. We know they don't work. We know they slow us down. Why do we want to link to the part of the world which is growing so slowly? When our great friends and allies in the United States of America are growing at twice the pace of the European Union, and yet we seem to be negative about them and positive about joining the slow lane. Well, we shouldn't want to

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join the slow lane. This set of negotiations is bad for Britain and bad for growth. Yes.

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Yes. My Lords, it was a pleasure to serve under the chairmanship of Lord Ricketts, who indeed had a Lord Ricketts, who indeed had a difficult task. Indeed, his choice of title, I think, is apposite. of title, I think, is apposite. Firstly because resetting our relationship is a continual process, not a single act. So it's rightly unfinished business. But secondly,
13:07
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Portrait Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour)
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because he had to preside over some unfinished disagreements as to whether Brexit was good or bad. A whether Brexit was good or bad. A quick look at the committee's membership. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, who myself sitting side by side, rather describes the tack the side, rather describes the tack the task that faced him as he has indeed referenced. As a result, the indeed referenced. As a result, the report is perhaps a little more factual than prescriptive, and we were, in my mind, unable to fully welcome the government's move to rebuild trust and to boost trade with the EU and indeed its advances over defence.

Ukraine and the USA. Labour's reset should be judged against the 2024 manifesto, which sought to deepen ties with European friends, neighbours and allies and to make the UK a leading nation in Europe with an improved relationship with our European partners. Without crossing Labour's red lines. The May 2025 summit witnessed a new strategic partnership, alongside an agenda for greater cooperation with the EU in relation to safety, security and economic prosperity. And we saw when we visited Brussels how the atmospherics had already changed.

We were no longer hearing all about us and you, you and us, but much more about we, about a common endeavour based on trust and approach to work on major challenges and challenges. There are with Ukraine, or rather, Russia being perhaps the greatest challenge. However, aside that we also have the impulsive US presidency, especially its impact on the rules based trading framework, which also necessitates a European response which goes beyond the EU to encompass both US and the EEA.

With our shared approach to the rule of law and respect for treaties, the Security and Defence Partnership was significant in itself, but also for the potential for closer industrial, industrial and strategic working. It's disappointing that Safe has not yet progressed. I hope it may, and I endorse every word of the chairs. The committee's new chair, the noble and gallant Lord Lord Stirrup, as he said today, security is also about organised crime, illegal migration, people trafficking and threats to our borders.

So we hope for further intelligence and data sharing and closer policing, interrogation integration. As outlined by my noble friend Baroness Ashton. My Lords, much as I hated Brexit, I knew we had to make it work via a closer, trusting and evolving relationship with the 27. The government's reset agenda, its open and positive approach to EU is the right approach for a mutually beneficial relationship. As the noble Lord Lord Tugendhat and the Duke of Wellington and others have stressed.

Oddly, both Putin and Trump have made this more likely by forcing us to work together on Ukraine. And in response to the UAE's US new politics, my Lords, I believe we're in a better position with the EU than we were in July 2024, so we should welcome the

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start of this reset. And my Lords. In foreign. In following the noble Baroness

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In following the noble Baroness Baroness Hayter, you're going to get an encapsulation of the difficulties that the noble Lords Lord Ricketts had in chairing our committee. He did have a very difficult task, and the disagreements were very strong. But as he noted, I could not endorse it as he noted, I could not endorse it in the end. And I summarised what I
13:11
Lord Frost Portrait Lord Frost (Non-affiliated)
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felt the report ought to have said in annexe nine, kindly supported by in annexe nine, kindly supported by the noble Lords, Lord Jackson and the noble Baroness Nicholson. And I the noble Baroness Nicholson. And I said in that annexe nine that the reset was, quote, somewhat unsatisfactory, and quote, I do not believe the government made the best possible use of its negotiating hand, and I think negotiating hand, and I think that's the least that one can say. And now I'm not using committee language.

I think I can say the outcomes were so poor that even poor negotiating can't explain the point where we've got to. There is more going on. For one thing, I do not think the government's really being honest with us about what it's trying to do. On the one hand, we hear about the red lines on the single market and the customs union. On the other. The Prime Minister says we have to keep moving towards a closer relationship. His Ministers muse about joining the customs union.

The business Minister says yesterday that being aligned is where the magic happens. The truth is, we know that single market SPS ETS electricity, but claim we are not joining the single market. We join bits of customs, the sea bands, the carbon border adjustment mechanisms which will expand out of our control. We start opening migration doors again with the work experience scheme and we start paying for it all. Erasmus. The nebulous future bill on single market access safe and much more.

And this, my Lords, I think is, is this direction of travel is really the only way to understand what otherwise you might think were quite amateur night negotiating tactics. The truth is that the government doesn't care about the concessions, it only cares about the destination. It just wants to get close to the EU, and they are prepared to do so on any terms that are available. How else? How else, my Lords, are we supposed to understand why they've agreed subordination again of this Parliament to EU laws as the only way to improve food, agriculture, electricity trading? We know it didn't have to be done that way.

They've chosen to do it that way. How else are we to understand the shameful giveaway on fisheries for nothing more than a statement communiqué? How else are we to understand the failure to get anything on matters of interest to Britain in return for these concessions, other than the much vaunted access to E-gates barely touched on on our committee report, by the way, which the EU. The EU regards us with such contempt, they haven't even bothered to deliver that.

The one thing that was came out of this nine months later. My Lords, this approach is dangerous. The truth is, we're not going to succeed as a country if outside the EU we just do what the EU does. Yet hitching EU policy regimes is going to leave us in that situation. And I'm sorry to say that the committee's report doesn't come close to acknowledging these issues, and that is why I could not support it. What it should have said is quite simple. This is a dangerous reset.

It's being done in a dangerous way, and this country's independence is not safe in this government's hands.

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Yes. It is nearly a decade since June

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It is nearly a decade since June 23rd, 2016, and I voted to remain and campaign to stay in the European Union, partly because I European Union, partly because I didn't want to spend the next ten years of my parliamentary career having to deal with all the issues that came about as a consequence of breakfast Brexit. But I am sorry breakfast Brexit. But I am sorry Brexit, but I am a Democrat. Still am. And that's why I then when I
13:15
Baroness Coffey Portrait Baroness Coffey (Conservative)
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was appointed by my noble friend Baroness May of Maidenhead to go into DEFRA, where I worked for three years, we set about trying to. three years, we set about trying to. We continued to go to European Council. We continued to respect and interact with all the different and interact with all the different regulations that were going through, but also starting to plan about how but also starting to plan about how to best leave. So there's no doubt that I would have agreed with the summary statement put out in summary statement put out in appendix nine, but I appreciate the committee were not unanimous in their report, but and certainly not did not support the alternative summary.

But I think it's important to just try and get a sense from the government that having had these manifesto commitments to not go back into the single market, not go back into customs union, not have freedom of movement, why it is that they think that having the SPS doesn't really actually put a coach in horses, particularly through the single market. One of the constant issues that happened in the early years of negotiation was that we could not be a rule taker if we weren't a rule maker, and that continues to be the real problem that is being put forward by the government.

And I'm conscious already, the only reform that they've approved are being consequence of Brexit is actually to put VAT on school fees, which if you were still part of the European Union, they would not be allowed to do so. It is coming back to some of the differences, where often the UK was not necessarily a sole voice, but a leading voice in trying to address quite a lot of not just environmental regulations, but chemical regulations, all these different ones bringing our sense of our large economy.

How often so much was negotiated. I mean, for heaven's sake, the fishing agreements were negotiated with countries that had no fish. The being taken out of the sea, but that was done and used because they could use it as leverage on many other issues that happen. Now, I appreciate we've got a former permanent representative to the European Union. I'm actually looking at the noble Lord Doyle Burrow, who, of course, went into Brussels as one of our representatives after the referendum result.

But I think it's we one of the things that I have found frustrating in this whole debate, not just about this report, but more generally, is the continued gaslighting. And we need to continue to be honest with the British public. The Labour Party has been putting a coach around Manchester in the ahead of the by election today, repeating the lies about £350 million per week has not gone into the NHS. My Lords, it has. It happened when my noble friend Baroness May of Maidenhead was Prime Minister.

We put the money in then, and it's that sort of approach that somehow there's this rewriting of history is one of the reasons why this will continue to be a thorn in the issues of really trying to do what is best for Britain. That, of course, is to have a very strong relationship with the European Union. But since then, let's remember we've joined the CPTPP, we've joined other free trade agreements. We should be taking more advantage. And frankly, if it hadn't been for Covid in many ways, we would have got on, I think, with a lot of the freedoms.

But of course it was due to Covid and not being part of the European Union, that we were the first country in the world to be able to authorise a vaccine and to be able to deploy that successfully. So, my Lords, of course, this I'm afraid this will continue to be somewhat controversial. This report recognising a quite a divide between not political parties necessarily in this regard, I appreciate there are many of my noble friends who never would love to rejoin the European Union tomorrow, but I think there is an element of reminding ourselves as part of this reset relationship.

We would not go back in on the same terms that we left, and to try and pretend otherwise, I'm afraid, is not the candour which really this

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debate deserves. Yeah. My Lords, this. Is a.

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Is a. Full and comprehensive report

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Full and comprehensive report from the European Affairs Committee. Controversial, perhaps, as the noble Lady has just said. And I noble Lady has just said. And I might also say that noble Lord Lord Frost and I used to work amicably, amicably together in the Foreign amicably together in the Foreign Office many years ago, and it's good to be speaking after him today. But what I wanted to do today in this debate is just say a few words about defence. And let me start by
13:20
Lord Jay of Ewelme Portrait Lord Jay of Ewelme (Crossbench)
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saying that the UK's relationship with the US, on defence and on with the US, on defence and on security is exceptionally close and should remain so. Our submarine should remain so. Our submarine nuclear deterrent is unsustainable without US support. Much of our military equipment is made in the military equipment is made in the US and is dependent on American spare parts, and we have a close spare parts, and we have a close and important intelligence relationship to now, for the last 50 years and more, that relationship has gone hand in glove with NATO.

And let us hope that that continues, not least, as others have said already in supporting Ukraine. But NATO depends heavily on the US, and at least at present, the US is, alas, an uncertain ally. So a closer security and defence relationship with the EU makes sense, and the UQ security and defence partnership is a good start. But the government's response to the EU committee's excellent report describes the Security and Defence Partnership, and I quote, as a structured framework for cooperation.

My Lord, structured frameworks are necessary, but it's what goes into them that matters. Let us hope that flexibility on both sides, as suggested perhaps in Munich, recently leads to a sensible agreement, including on safe, on which, like the noble Lord Lord Ricketts, I hope the noble Lady the Minister can bring us up to date. Let us hope, too, that this developing UK, EU relationship and security and defence can work closely and effectively with NATO. Let us hope that is the ideal, but we can't be sure.

NATO, as I have said, is facing uncertainty and the EU is essentially an economic construct with nimbleness not exactly its watchword. So as on that point, I may, I think, perhaps agree with the noble Lord, Lord Redwood. I don't agree with the noble Lord Lord Redwood on many things, but I think I probably do agree with him on, on on that. So, agree with him on, on on that. So, my Lords. As the nature of defence changes, as the noble Lord Lord Stirrup mentioned, we need a more informal, nimbler, less bureaucratic association, a coalition of the willing that is developing fast with the UK, France and Germany at its core and Poland and the Baltic states and outside the EU, Canada working with it too.

But my Lord, all this needs money. Money that is needed for our security. The Prime Minister has promised it. I hope the noble Lady, the Minister, could confirm that that promise is not a chimaera, a bubble without substance, but a firm commitment to provide men and

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up to date equipment. Soon. My Lords, this is an important report, not least because we are report, not least because we are the only committee which has a bespoke role of looking at the relationships between the United Kingdom and the government. And there was mainly consensus in this there was mainly consensus in this report notwithstanding, as my noble friend Lord Frost said. Appendix nine, which is the alternative nine, which is the alternative summary and the the consensus was around the government's failure to outline a clear and comprehensive negotiating mandate, perhaps by way of a white paper which was broadly
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Lord Jackson of Peterborough Portrait Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative)
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supported. That point of view, which obviously undermined the ability of the Committee and the House more widely to exercise proper scrutiny and oversight. And there's a reason there was an there's a reason there was an alternative summary. And that's because in in essence, some of us believed that the government's believed that the government's policy, even measured by their own measures, was incoherent, insubstantial and deliberately obfuscatory. Kind words butter. No parsnips. The government failed to leverage strong negotiating hands in, say, defence and security and fishing, despite the UK being the number two in the world for soft power and being pre-eminent in defence, for instance.

And and it unilaterally, unilaterally surrendered those advantages with very little to show for it. Such as on the fisheries deal. I have to say, in all fairness and balance, I think the EU made a strategic miscalculation over safe and hopefully those negotiations will be more fruitful in areas like mutual recognition of of professional qualifications and touring artists. It has made little or no progress despite being in the manifesto, and it has capitulated on key areas to support the EU's strategic objectives in policy areas absent from the manifesto, such as Erasmus+, the 12 year fisheries deal and the Electricity Trading Scheme.

Most egregiously, my Lords, is a commitment to moving from improving the SPS regime, which of course is laudable in reducing frictions at the border, and that is morphed into a full blown commitment to dynamic alignment, which is likely to cost, according to the Growth Commission. In their report published this week, £15 billion to the economy and currently a system and a regime that cost the EU itself $39 billion euros a year. Although the government has not itself yet produced any information on legislation, on costings, on the likely commitment of cohesion funds and impact assessment, or in a number of areas, the government proposals are opaque on, for instance, economic impact and carve outs.

A good example is gene editing, which the National Farmers Union has pressed for over the last few months, and we're no nearer to understanding the impact globally on UK sovereignty. On what? On the nebulous concept of, quote, decision shaping, unquote, and the status of governance in respect of dispute resolution and the likely role of the European Court of Justice. Finally, my my Lords, may I ask the Minister specifically what legal form will the new agreements take? What commitment will the government make to parliamentary sovereignty and oversight of the new arrangements? What carve outs will be sought in the new dynamic alignment regime? What are the likely costs to be borne in order to participate in Safe and the new partial membership of the single market? And what stance will the government take on the new Trade and Cooperation review due this year? My Lords, in conclusion, our committee will be pressing the government to on all these issues and will hold them to their commitment to their red lines, not least in our forthcoming inquiry into dynamic alignment.

They will not have a free pass to subvert Brexit and take us back into the European Union by subterfuge and sleight of hand here.
13:27
Lord Liddle Portrait Lord Liddle (Labour)
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My Lords, I'd like to join in >> My Lords, I'd like to join in the. Congratulations to Lord Ricketts about the excellent report that he's produced, which is exactly what I would expect of a committee which is chaired. But I think our debate this morning has shown the difficulties that he had in producing a consensus, because there are clearly many members opposite who do not want to move beyond the Brexit debate, who do not want to see a closer relationship with our friends and allies in the European Union.

And they seem completely oblivious of the economic cost of what Brexit has brought. Virtually every estimates at least 4% of GDP, every estimate, and also the fact that the public believes overwhelmingly now that Brexit was a mistake. So. We need this reset of the relationship. We need to get closer. And I'd just like to make three brief points about what I think is necessary if it's going to succeed. First of all, I think all these issues to do with closer relationship with Europe are extremely complex, very, very complex.

And what you need is a top Whitehall team in every department working on these issues. A top Whitehall team. You need a centre at the centre of government, someone bringing all these people together to hammer out differences where there will be between departments and the very strong permanent representation in Brussels. I believe that these things have weakened since Brexit. I experienced it for seven and a half years when I was in Downing Street and saw how effective it was, but we must rebuild these institutional capacities if we're going to make a success of the relationship.

Secondly, we must be willing, if we want much greater access to the single market to make a meaningful contributions financially. Now, I'm not talking about the nonsense of the 7 billion which came up in the ridiculous arguments about safe, but we have to be prepared to pay more to the budget than simply administrative costs. The French, Germans, Dutch, Swedes and others are very significant net contributors to the EU budget. And the reason why it's necessary is that in order to get the weaker members of the union to cooperate in the single market, there has to be some kind of measure of cohesion, and I think we will have to pay into that.

Thirdly, I think the government has got to make the case to the country much more strongly about why we need to get closer to Europe. I think it's necessary to convince our European partners of our seriousness. That's what making the case at home will help convince them of our seriousness. But at the same time, for us as the Labour Party, it will help unite at home the opposition to the far right populism, which is such a danger to this whole venture.

And the argument for Europe is now, in a way, I think the 2016 arguments are completely redundant. The world has changed enormously in the last decade. Economically. We have Trump tariffs, we have the rise of China. We have a world of greater instability. And we need to be part of the EU. And then, of course, defence issues we face. I'm finishing. And it is an advisory time. We we we we face huge challenges.

The transatlantic alliance now hangs by a very insecure thread. In my view. We have to be much closer to our European allies and partners. We have to get closer to Europe, and we need to explain to the British public why, both in economic terms, to give us a greater security against the China and, and, and the United States tariffs, and also in defence terms as well.

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My Lord, I will. Seek to be quick, not just because we advise to be so, but I because we advise to be so, but I find myself in former Permanent Representative corner and going first in this company is a bit dangerous. So just a few quick points, not least as a new member of the European Affairs Committee of the European Affairs Committee under the Marshall leadership of the noble Lord Lord Stirrup, with whose remarks I fully associate myself, and can I extend my thanks? And welcome to noble Lord Lord Ricketts for the report we have in front of us, including the clear statement that the reset is a process, not an event.

When I was in Brussels talking to those missions, which were third country missions at that time, I think all of them said that all meaningful third country relationships with the EU are unfinished business in perpetuity. And in that context, I would just like to join with the noble Lady Baroness Suttie question what is the government's assessment of the possibility of Ukraine membership of the EU, and what are the consequences for UK interests of such a move? Secondly, I welcome the breadth of the agenda for the UK and EU, and I think this demonstrates a strength of ambition and good relations at the top on both sides.

But as many in this chamber know, and as we saw with safe, that at the top is necessary but is not always sufficient. So delivery will be difficult. And although we have the welcome news on the Gibraltar negotiations, which I very much commend, that took many years. Maybe that was the fault of some of us negotiating it, but we need more rapid pro gress. So I asked the Minister for her assessment of progress ahead of the summit, in particular in two areas.

Firstly, I join all of those, including the noble Lady Baroness Ashton, who highlighted law enforcement cooperation. This was one of the most frustrating areas of negotiations in which I took part. There was clear, direct and mutual benefit for citizens in the UK and in the EU, but we weren't able to do all that I felt we could do. So I asked that the noble Lady update on possible progress, including on existing measures like sis two, Prüm as the noble Lord Lord Ricketts mentioned, or any new innovations.

The second area which I would welcome an update on is defence cooperation. What happened with Safe was regrettable, although
13:35
Lord Barrow Portrait Lord Barrow (Crossbench)
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saying no in negotiations is sometimes necessary, important and valuable as saying yes. And I would valuable as saying yes. And I would politely suggest to some of my friends in Brussels that if your position leads to Lord Ricketts position leads to Lord Ricketts leading the charge with trenchant criticism on the media, something has gone wrong with your position. has gone wrong with your position. There is, however, still scope for cooperation in the security area, as the noble Lord Lord Jay advocated.

I think, as the report notes, that includes European Defence Agency, perhaps with the Ukraine Loan scheme, or even safe or safe to like the report. I am, however, more sceptical on UK participation in CSDp missions under the current third country rules. But all of this, as many noble Lords have said, is part of a much bigger question. The question of how we across Europe will respond to the present evidence security challenge, and what the UK role will be in that response.

As was obvious at the Munich Security Conference, Europe wants to do more. The US wants Europe to do more. Ukraine chides us for not doing more. But how is that response to be delivered? The report rightly notes consensus on NATO is the cornerstone of our defence. But are we going to deliver that response through NATO mechanisms, alongside a patchwork of coalition of the willing? Maybe, Jeff, maybe Eu-uk cooperation, the welcome intensified cooperation? Or does there need to be some new security architecture, as others have said, a vehicle to galvanise and focus efforts? For instance, Carl Bildt just recently advocated reviving the woohoo! Well, that would be the answer which would commend itself.

But it's the question which needs answering, and I do not ask the soon, not least if the UK is to play the role we want to play in this. So I conclude with asking that we seek to answer that question urgently, not least in this week, where we mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine and the terrible suffering which continues there. continues there.
13:38
Lord Taylor of Warwick Portrait Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated)
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I also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for introducing this important debate. My thanks also go to the European Affairs Committee for producing such a comprehensive report. For more than 40 years, the UK was part of the European Union. The famous soul music song We Are Family was cited by some to describe that relationship, but wedlock eventually became padlock. As a result of Brexit, the British people decided to adopt another tune. This could best be described by the rock supergroup Queen's anthem I Want to Break Free.

But as the report points out, Brexit is a process, not an event. It is in everyone's interest that progress is made. About 45% of UK exports go to the EU, and 53% of our imports are from the EU. I had the privilege of speaking at an Inter-Parliamentary Union event in Geneva some years ago. I raised the issue of tariffs. I described tariffs as a way to promote trade or a weapon to prevent trade. It is ironic that tariffs are once again a worldwide topical issue.

It is important that the EU and the UK strive to maintain a zero tariff and zero quota relationship. But my Lords, one of the lessons of history is that we do not learn lessons from history. It is interesting that throughout the Bible there is a theme of one empire after another, eventually overreaching itself and gradually collapsing. In the Old Testament there were the Egyptians, followed by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and finally the Persian Empire. In the New Testament, there was a powerful and mighty Roman Empire.

But all these empires eventually fell because national independence proved more durable than empire. I do have some questions for the Minister arising from the committee's report. First of all, why did the government not produce a white paper setting out its objectives concerning resetting this relationship with the EU? Surely this would have helped the committee's task in holding the government to account, as the Committee noted, and I quote, we were scrutinising a moving target throughout and have continued to do so as we prepared this report.

I am a vice chairman of the all party Parliamentary Artificial Intelligence Group. The report alludes to data protection and cyber security issues. AI is changing all aspects of the modern world. So what progress is the government making with the EU concerning AI related issues, including data protection, cyber security and AI regulation? My Lords, the first duty of any government is to protect its people. What progress is the government making with the EU concerning defence related issues and NATO? Young people represent our future? What progress is the government making concerning rejoining the European Erasmus programme which provides valuable education and training? Are we still on course to rejoin by next year? What date has been set for the next UK EU summit? When the Cabinet Minister, Nick Thomas-symonds, gave evidence to the committee last year, he said this would be some time in 2026, but when will that summit be? I believe that resetting a positive relationship with the EU can work, but if we fail to plan, then we plan to fail.

There are those who would spread fear that this reset will never work. But fear is that dark room where only negatives are developed. We must not be like the paranoid patient who visits the doctor to be told, please listen, you've got hypochondria. And the patient replies, oh no, not that as well. It is said that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. And so it is with this Brexit process. But my Lords, when fear knocks at the door, let us answer it with faith.
13:42
Baroness Lawlor Portrait Baroness Lawlor (Conservative)
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My Lords. The government's EU trade reset has failed to achieve its three main trade objects on which I focus it has. There has been no agreement on mutual recognition of professional qualifications, no end to the restrictions on UK touring artists. And indeed, we've heard more about that today and it has conceded instead of a veterinary agreement, which it announced in the manifesto and trailed publicly for two years previously, it has agreed to reimpose EU law.

EU SPS law on agriculture foods with dynamic regulatory alignment for the agri food sector and a role for the Court of Justice of the European Union. The manifesto pledge not to return to the EU, the single market or the Customs Union Union has thus been broken. Moreover, the government has caved in, as we've heard today, to EU demands for long term fishing access to UK waters and promises to work towards a youth mobility, now called Youth Experience Scheme.

My Lords, there could be up to 70 million potential EU youths seeking to avail of this scheme. The report follows the government's line in seeing the reset as an emerging process and yet, by its title, Unfinished Business, there is no assessment of the costs of dynamic alignment for Agrifoods on the UK economy, though an assessment this week by the Growth Commission estimates an estimate by, I think, 13 economists and their independent economists suggested 15 billion would be the hit.

Nor, my Lords, is there an analysis of the economic and trade impact of returning to EU regulatory alignment with on our on trade and the economy? Are our relationships with other trading partners. We now have 40 trading partners apart from the EU and 40 trade agreements apart from the EU, with 70 trading partners. And this will bring the SPS sign up to regulatory alignment, will bring legal challenges because we have changed the basis for agrifoods in this country and the law on it, and nothing here to consider the repercussions on Britain's democracy of the breach of a manifesto pledge at a time when the confidence right across Europe and in this country is at an all time low, with the established order and politicians.

The alternative summary by Lord Frost and other co-signatories highlights two failures the government's to make the best possible use of its negotiating hand, and the committees to do its duty to scrutinise and assess that policy and make clear the reality of the reset. The presence of this alternative summary highlights the problems which the consensus approach makes for scrutiny. It suggests what I, as a member of the committee at the outset of its investigation, came to to consider that we would as members and if we had a diversity of view, both from members and we tolerated it from members and from witnesses, we might produce a more useful and critical report for, for and because that is our job in the Select Committee to scrutinise on behalf of Parliament and the taxpayer what the government is doing in legislation.
13:46
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Portrait Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (Crossbench)
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It's an excellent report and very well presented. But I wonder why the negotiation has to be so transactional, so timid, so slow. What could be done to speed it up? I suspect that one of the reasons is that the commission negotiators are are the same guys who were involved in the Brexit negotiation, and it may be that our current negotiators suffer for the sins of their predecessors. I also think that we suffer from a degree of timidity in what we are putting forward, and the other side suffers from a bit of excessive ambition.

I don't think we should be paying contributions into the EU budget. I don't think it is right to try and charge us 10 billion to join safe. I don't think it's right to try charges to for integration into the EU electricity market. These things are a common benefit. They suit both sides. So why should why should we be paying? What should we do to to speed things up? Well, there's a common crossbench speech emerging today because I do think we have to play the security card.

I think we need to play it anyway. I would like to see the negotiations become more top down. I'd like to look at the big picture. The big picture was the prophet was Mark Carney. It is a serious transatlantic rupture that we're seeing. It is, of course, we must retain as much as we possibly can of the nature architecture, but within it we need to build new or European structures and capabilities. I agree with Lord Ricketts. The the coalition of the willing is the place to start, but I think we need an E3 blueprint.

Why E3? Because it exists. Because we work well with the French. Our military worked well with the French, and because German defence spending has taken off and is set to surpass ours and the French put together, it was another healing. Denis Healey, working with Helmut Schmidt, who created the NATO Eurogroup and developed the NATO nuclear planning group. The need for big picture thinking about European defence is much greater now than it was then. Now economic security is the EU's business.

Energy security, not military security, but a British initiative in the military sphere leading to an E3 security blueprint would, in my view, or could, in my view, transform the atmosphere in the EU Council. With two provisos. First, no direct linkage, explicit or implicit. We mustn't repeat Prime Minister May's mistake. And secondly, provided we back our words with action, the noble Lord Lord Stern Lord Lord Stirrup was absolutely right. Our friends, just like our foes, I fear no that our uniform numbers are too low.

Our stockpiles are too low. Our forces are hollowed out. We talk a good game, but we're living on history and reputation. We're not investing enough. We're where the polls were when Putin invaded Ukraine four years ago. Poland was spending 2.2% of GDP on defence. Today it's 4.8% and rising because the poles know that Putin wouldn't stop at Ukraine. If our financial commitment rose, rising to match theirs and the Germans, and if our Healey today and us, the Schmidt's of today, could produce an E3 plan, our friends in Brussels would be more likely to override the the transactional technicians and identify common interests.

And anyway, upping our defence spending is what we need to do because we're at a 1938 moment and we need to respond, with or without Trump to the Putin challenge. That's the big picture.
13:51
Lord Empey Portrait Lord Empey (Ulster Unionist Party)
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My Lords. We. In his opening remarks, Lord Ricketts pointed out that this the EU committee is the only committee in Parliament that is actually looking in detail at these matters and given the direction of travel, given the concept of reset, given the manifesto commitments, while of course it is entirely their own business, it is extraordinary that the Other place does not have a committee that is specifically looking at these matters. Given the commitments that have been made, it's entirely a matter for them.

But it seems odd to me. Reset to some extent is in the eye of the beholder. It can mean sensible and practical cooperation, or some for some. On the other hand, as we've seen from some of the contributions today, it is another way of getting back into the European Union in one form or another. We held a referendum in 2016 and irrespective of what side of the argument one was on, and the noble Lord Murphy will know from his experience that people like me were very worried, worried about the direction of travel and what would happen, particularly in Northern Ireland, where we share a border with an EU country.

We went to the Prime Minister of the day to establish what the negotiating position was going to be, and came away clearly of the view that no such position existed. And consequently we've ended up in the constitutional and economic sludge through which we're waiting as a result of the arrangements that we are now working in. But the point I'm making is that if a government or a party feels that it wants to take a different trajectory and go back into the European Union, then I think they should have the guts to stand up and say so, because what we're doing is undermining trust.

And I think that is a mistake. I simply would say that the SPS has been raised on a number of occasions to someone, and other colleagues are in the same position. We have been effectively in this position for some years now, and people don't seem to recognise the implications because it means, and it will mean that people in Brussels will be deciding what regulations to employ to determine how we do our own business. That's the inevitable consequences.

So we will be a rule taker, we'll have no meaningful influence and we will not be a decision maker. So let's be absolutely honest with each other. That's what this means from a local perspective in Ireland. As I said, you join us in the sludge because we will then all be in the same boat, but be under no circumstances. You will not have anybody effectively taking a decision for you in in the other place or in this place. It will be taken away from you elsewhere.

And if that's what we want, then we should say so. But I've just bear that in mind that there is no. A way of avoiding the fact that parliamentary sovereignty is going to be transferred in significant quantities to the European Union. The fishing has been mentioned with the tobacco and vapes things were growing. Numbers of European countries are likely to challenge our decisions on these. So, you know, I would have to say to folks in terms of the referendum, I know situations have changed.

We all can see that. But we had a referendum in Scotland and a decision was taken to remain within the UK. Now, if we say in ten years time we can avoid the decision we took on the European Union. The nationalists will say the same thing for the independence referendum. So we're digging a hole for ourselves.
13:55
Lord Murphy of Torfaen Portrait Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Labour)
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My Lords, I very much welcome the report of the committee, very ably introduced by Lord Ricketts. And I particularly welcome the aspects on Erasmus, on electricity, and of course, on defence and security. But I want to make some reference in my brief remarks to follow Lord Empey and Lord Dobbs with regard to Northern Ireland, and to remind your Lordships' House that the protocol which was developed after Brexit was very badly negotiated. It led eventually to the complete destruction of the Assembly and of the Executive in Northern Ireland.

Because of the differences of views. And it was after that, of course, it was succeeded by the winds of framework, which was definitely an improvement, but it still didn't satisfy everybody in Northern Ireland because it is very difficult constitutionally for unionism to accept what Lord MP has just referred to. Nationalists, however, took a different view, and indeed there was a majority in favour of staying in the European Union when the referendum was held. However, the difficulties have to be addressed and last year the government asked me to review the Windsor framework, which I did.

I came up with, I think it was 16 or 17 recommendations to try to improve the working of that Windsor framework, because there is no doubt the burdens placed on Northern Ireland businesses large, medium and small are huge. Those recommendations also included a recommendation regarding SPS. Now I know the constitutional question is different from the practical issues that I was trying to address, and that's for another time, perhaps in today. Important as that constitutional issue is, however, businesses said to me that they regarded the SPS as extremely important in trying to ensure that the burdens which they currently face would be removed.

My plea to the government and to my noble friend the Minister, is that the recommendations that I made, which have all been accepted by the government, should act upon them speedily. I hope, too, that the European Union will be speedy in the negotiations, have enormous confidence in my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, Nick Thomas-symonds, not least because he succeeded me as the Member of Parliament for Torbay.
13:58
Lord Hannay of Chiswick Portrait Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench)
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My Lords, the report were debating today, so ably introduced by my noble friend Lord Ricketts is an important one, as it marks the first six months of the follow up and implementation of the UQ summit last May. It's important to, because our debate marks the beginning of the run up to the probable next summit this summer, which will hopefully register the conclusion of some, if not all, of the negotiations already begun, and the engaging of new steps.

And the report is also notable because it recalls the vote against the attempt by one of the co-authors of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement of 2019, noble Lord Lord Frost, to emasculate its conclusions and recommendations. Let's be grateful for small mercies. The top priority, I would suggest, along with many others, must be the security of Europe and the restoration of a strengthened deterrent against Russian aggression, which has been unleashed on Ukraine. Deterrent based on a far more effective European pillar of NATO than we've had hitherto.

Fortunately, talks on security are resuming now after an unfortunate setback, and our own government is refusing to take no for an answer. And I welcome that. There are, of course, plenty of critics of the reset, but those critics need to be able to answer some of the following questions. Do they seriously discount the benefits to our agri food exporters of SPS agreement, lifting the costly and time consuming checks that EU border do they ignore the likening of the burden on Northern Ireland's commercial operators of such a veterinary agreement? Do they not think that a youth mobility scheme would benefit both sides, supplementing the decision to join the Erasmus+ scheme, which we, like many other third countries, should never have left in the first place.

Is there not clear mutual benefit in linking our own and EU's emission trading schemes in ensuring that the cross-border admission schemes we are both setting up to deal with carbon content, the Cbams are broadly equivalent and thus to avoid creating new non-tariff barriers and seeing exports from third countries being diverted to us, is there not mutual benefit to in more energy interconnectors, as was foreseen by the recent Hamburg meeting and a more integrated electricity market? Should we not be rejoining the pan-European rules of origin convention? All these and more are hard to answer in the negative, though there are some in this chamber who have no difficulty doing that.

And if they cannot be so answered convincingly, are they not more the fruit of unthinking obstruction to suggest that they are somehow betraying Brexit is the height of absurd two catchwords, one on each side of the UQ divide seems to me to be overly heavily overused. The first is the description of UK objectives as cherry picking. Well, in reality, every negotiator tries to achieve their own prime objectives. The EU Commission certainly does so, or at least they did when I was a commission negotiator in the 1970s.

And every negotiator recognises that there is only a successful negotiation where there is a balance of mutual benefit, including some form of continuous alignment and some financial contributions to joint objectives. The second of these two. Problems that I see in the way people address these issues is the incessant repetition of the description, quote, red lines, unquote. Naturally, both sides have such limits to their negotiating flexibility, but endless repetition is merely a recipe for not thinking things through, and a disincentive to the other side, to subject their own limits, to critical scrutiny.

So I would make a plea to reduce the brandishing of those two facile catchphrases, cherry picking and red lines, and a sharper focus in the phase ahead on where we can agree common ground and not on where we cannot.
14:02
Lord Moynihan of Chelsea Portrait Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Conservative)
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My Lords. protest at the four minute limit. Hardly enough time to clear one's throat, although quite a few noble Lords seem to have happily breezed through that, that time limit. But given that time I discuss only one matter so far abortive as described by the noble and gallant Lord Lord Stirrup negotiations to join the Safe project in the face of a changed world, the UK, the EU and the US must work together in an adult way to ensure the West has the best possible defence capabilities, avoiding national self-interest or mercantilism.

Yet the European Commission, in classic mode, demanded Britain should pay an entrance fee of up to nearly 7 billion before it could join safe. As the noble Lord Lord Ricketts just put it, totally unreasonable. Canada paid 10 million, 1/700 of that. Allegedly. We could get it all back in contracts, but there were no guarantees whatsoever that we would get any contracts at all. I found no published analysis from the commission HM Treasury the Mod or the IFS or any parliamentary committee demonstrating how that 7 billion outlay could ever be recouped.

Contrast the noble Lord Lord Liddle EU members states do not pay. AU contraire, France is given loaned 16 billion for safe. So why is the noble Lord Lord Kerr just asked? Should we an equal partner in this pay? And it's not just the money. There are profound contractual problems with Safe. The EU demands exclusive design authority and strategic autonomy, likely compelling UK firms to transfer their proprietary technical knowhow to the EU. Cash equal to 10% of our entire annual defence budget handed over.

No guaranteed return, loss of valuable IP. Reciprocal market opening for the privilege of becoming merely a subcontractor. Allowed to take no more than 35% of any contract. Yet Europe is irreplaceably dependent on the UK's defence capability. We have capabilities no EU member state can replicate nuclear intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, advanced air combat, long range strike, air to air refuelling, submarine building expertise unmatched in Europe. There's a noble Lord Lord Jay of Ewelme just said the UK's defence relationship with the United States, including Five Eyes, is key for us and for Europe too.

Across virtually every capability. Aukus, for example, includes cooperation with the US on AI, quantum, cyber, hypersonics and electronic warfare. That relationship with the US, my Lords, is highly important for our economy to over 20,000 direct and 94,000 indirect jobs with US owned firms. So why is France for it? Is they, my Lords, not Germany? Why is France trying so hard, apparently to ensure that we refuse to join or to extort us? If we do, do they not care about the existential threat to Western Europe? These safe negotiations embody a view that is hostile to creating the best possible defence for Europe.

Not treating the UK as an equal partner in this important task, but as a supplicant to be fleeced. So to conclude, my Lords, if this is how the EU allows itself to behave on defence, how can we expect it will behave in the negotiations on SPS or energy? My Lords, let the

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government let our country beware. My Lords, I thank the noble Lord Lord Ricketts his then committee Lord Ricketts his then committee for the report and his clear, calm introduction to it. As Lord introduction to it. As Lord Ricketts said, and as Lord Kerr of Kinlochard agreed, President Trump has broken the bonds of trust, and has broken the bonds of trust, and we can no longer depend on the US as our ally over Greenland and many as our ally over Greenland and many other matters that has put the UK and the EU in a very different position than we were in 2016.

As a middle ranking power in an uncertain world, we need to tighten
14:08
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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the bonds that have been severed and frayed with the EU. But we also must not forget also with the rest must not forget also with the rest of the world, the majority of which are not the US, China or Russia, and for which, with the right approach, one of humility, generosity and realism, we can work in partnership to tackle the many crises we face. I also want to just mention, I know others will cover mention, I know others will cover it in detail, the utter failure by successive governments to deal with the critical, often career threatening impacts of Brexit on our creative community that makes us all poorer, not just financially, but also culturally.

Also, the huge loss to young people of the now happily to be restored Erasmus+ scheme. But I'm going to focus on an issue crucial to the reset and public and environmental health of the UK, to which the committee played only glancing attention. That's not a criticism. As Lord Ricketts said, there are many highly technical areas that will need to be sorted and Parliament is going to struggle to have a proper oversight of them. This is one of those areas fitting under the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards Label.

The regulation of pharmaceuticals and chemicals. The EU is prohibiting the import of animal products from countries that routinely use antibiotics for growth promotion. Taking effect in September. We banned these practices domestically in 2006, yet the UK has not committed to the same rule for imports. Last November, I asked the government in a written question whether the UK would align with these EU import rules. It stopped short of committing to an import ban. Hopefully this will come with the SPS negotiations, but we need it now.

I'm not expecting a Dispatch Box declaration, but please make this a priority. The public and environmental health gap also extends particularly to water. The EU's 2024 Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive mandates advanced treatment of urban wastewater to remove pharmaceutical residues, microplastics and other pollutants, along with harmonised antimicrobial resistance monitoring and producer responsibility schemes. What a contrast to our dirty water, the title of a recent television programme on this issue, providing an account that is horrified so many here.

We have no legally binding requirements for water companies to monitor emerging pollutants, including microplastics, antimicrobial residues, resistant bacteria or genes in effluent. The noble Lord, Lord MP, spoke about being a rule taker if other others have better rules consistently, why don't we take those rules on chemicals? The UK is also falling behind. Since we left the EU reach, the EU has adopted 13 new restrictions initiated 24 more. The UK has begun, only three. We are trailing EU protections on chemicals, including the planned restrictions covering 10,000 PFAS, the forever chemicals.

We are also being subject to all of this a cocktail of chemicals of particular concern in terms of the health of our young. We have only begun action on one PFAS restriction, despite civil society calling for alignment again with the EU. There's also pesticides. The EU is ahead of us in this. Brexit has left us as this area as so many others. Worst off, left us behind, left us less healthy, our environment dirtier, and left us without the precautionary principle that we so urgently need to restore.
14:12
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Portrait Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lord, I start by expressing my sympathy with the Baroness Brown who has to wind up and present a who has to wind up and present a coherent and responsible, constructive opposition position on constructive opposition position on this for the Conservative Party. After hearing several speeches from behind her, which would have done behind her, which would have done very well for members of the Reform Party, instead, I want to take from this report the comment that this is a process, not an event.

And and to make three points about the domestic conditions of a successful reset process. First, as Lord Liddle Lord Liddle said, we need to rebuild expertise within Whitehall, including training and other major European languages and in multilateral negotiation. I'm old enough to remember when we first joined the European Community. The scale of the task of familiarising the civil servants with the multilateral style of EU meetings and the skills required to negotiate successfully for British interests. In that context, Whitehall then developed an expert cadre of European specialists familiar not just with EU regulations, but with the complexities of other countries domestic priorities.

That pool of expertise has now been dispersed, and I hear from officials that fluency in French, German, Italian and Spanish are not highly valued in Whitehall as we again work to build closer relations with our European neighbours. I asked the Minister what efforts the government is now making to rebuild negotiating and language skills and knowledge, both about the EU's institutions and about other member governments across our public service, from DEFRA to DESNZ to the Mod. Second, Ministers and parliamentarians of all parties need to rebuild wider links with political parties and policy advisers in other member states.

I was struck when I was in the coalition government by how much closer and wider were the links that my conservative colleagues had with Washington politicians and think tanks than with French, German, Dutch or Italian. That was partly a result of David Cameron's unfortunate decision to withdraw the Conservatives from the European People's Party. I recall many occasions in the Foreign Office when I personally knew some of the Ministers who were meeting in Berlin, The Hague, Copenhagen and Brussels as fellow members of the Liberal International and our my conservative colleagues did not.

I hope the Labour government is better than its predecessor in promoting international contacts with our neighbours. But it is the government planning any new initiatives in this sphere. Thirdly, we need the government to lead a national conversation on why closer relations with our European partners and their institutions is now central to our national interests. Political leadership is about changing the political agenda to tell the public that we are no longer in a world in which we can balance between the USA and Europe, let alone, as Gafam is currently suggesting.

Imagine I quote, a new Elizabethan age in which British ships will sail away from Europe, across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, or put our trust in trade with China, as Lord Redwood seems to be suggesting, the reset we need will not go far unless the government carries the public with it, and the Conservative Party resists retreating into imperial nostalgia, or simple dependency on

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Trump's Republican America. Thank you. As I look back over the last

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As I look back over the last decade and Brexit Britain, I am ever more convinced that the arguments for Britain's arguments for Britain's wholehearted engagement with mainland Europe are a strong now, as they were when I first, in the as they were when I first, in the late 1960s, became a supporter of this country's joining the European this country's joining the European Economic Community. Brexit is not an endorsement of treating the European Union as a political leper, or pretending our near neighbours either don't exist, or that we do not share a whole range of interests with them.

Rather, it indicated that our then way of doing the necessary business with them. About that at least this was the state on polling day, did not command the country's support. Against that background, the national interest demands that we find a different way of conducting that business, which is not only acceptable to us, but also to our interlocutors who need to have a firm belief in our good faith. No doubt that's much easier said than done. Now, my Lords, this excellent report, Unfinished Business Resetting the UQ relationship mostly spells out what nowadays might be described as the elite, high level aspect of much of this, which, as this debate has shown, current geopolitical circumstances shows a priority.

And but at the same time, I think we want to just think about some of the more domestic implications of it. And I say this because for a number of years recently, I chaired the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, and there are many less high level, less, quote, politically sexy, but nevertheless very important issues which need to be taken into account. My Lords, the point of business is business. The business of business is business, and the closer to home the better. Many SMEs that I know of, which had integrated EU wide supply chain business, could found they could no longer compete because of tariffs and bureaucracy.

The rules of cabotage have seriously diminished opportunities for hauliers, because the truck that you send abroad has got to come home. The current crisis in agriculture, and which I myself am engaged, owes a great deal to what was agreed as part of leaving. All
14:18
Lord Inglewood Portrait Lord Inglewood (Crossbench)
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this amounts to the loss of real jobs and negative growth, affecting real people with great immediacy real people with great immediacy all the time across the whole country. Now, my Lords, it's country. Now, my Lords, it's commonplace to say that one of the reasons for our national current distrust with politics goes back to distrust with politics goes back to alienation from the European Union, because, it is said, it was so distant and failed to understand distant and failed to understand much of the real world, away from the glitzy, centre eyed view.

I don't actually myself entirely share, but I think at least as significant was the estrangement of the UK of UK national politics from the European aspect. The European Political Party party, the UK political parties and the House of Commons as a whole. Always, it seemed to me, resented it. I speak as someone who served ten years in the European Parliament with a dual mandate. Rather surprisingly, I was elected on a Sunday and inherited a peerage on the following Thursday, and some, neither of which is now possible.

Now, My Lords, as the report rightly points out, resetting this relationship is an ongoing process. But that process has got to provide an emotional buy in by the political establishment and the wider public as a whole. So it becomes part of the political normal to avoid a repeat of last time. And the past is advice to retail investors, always points out, is not necessarily a good guide to future performance. But as this report report points out, it has got to be the starting point.

Recognising, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said all those years ago that no man can stand in the same river twice, since both the man and the river are not the same the second time round. Nevertheless, the national interest demands we get into the water. water.
14:20
Baroness Meyer Portrait Baroness Meyer (Conservative)
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My Lords, today's debate is ultimately about the national interest. Would a closer relationship with the EU best serve the UK's economic and strategic needs as an outward looking global nation? The Chancellor has described stronger EU ties as the country's biggest prize. But, my Lords, would they materially improve growth and living standards? How much would they cost to the taxpayer, and what trade offs would be required? Since leaving the customs union, we have regained important freedoms.

I will not list them here as we only have four minutes and the list is too long. That flexibility matters, particularly in industries such as AI, life science and fintech, which will define our future prosperity. A customs union would require us to apply the EU's external tariffs. It might produce some of our trade bureaucracy but not eliminated. It would mean less autonomy while offering only partial market access. Take food prices, for instance. We already trade tariff free with the EU and global sourcing from other countries such as Australia and New Zealand can keep costs down.

We also no longer make regular net contributions to the EU budget. A substantial fiscal saving. Meanwhile, meanwhile, parts of the EU economy face high debt and slow growth. No doubt the EU will negotiate firmly in its own interest and on this occasion, considering that they have a big budget deficit and they are angry towards the UK for leaving the European Union in the first place, they will negotiate particularly hard. History shows that success in Brussels requires clarity and resolve.

Margaret Thatcher secured a substantial rebate by being clear and firm, a big chunk of which Tony Blair later gave away. Under pressure from the member states. The 2016 negotiations under David Cameron showed just how difficult it is to secure concessions from Brussels. Recent experience, including Chagos and the current EU talks, raise serious doubts about whether this government can really stand up for Britain's best interests. The Prime Minister speaks of red lines on the single market and the customs union.

But how can we be confident when the committee itself has pointed out that there are no clear negotiating objectives without a clear plan and a firm bottom line? Red lines may sound strong, but they will no doubt prove to be flexible. My Lords regularly. Alignment rarely comes without conditions. Financial contributions, legal obligations or constraints on domestic policy. The Prosperity Institute has warned that such a reset could deliver limited gains and increase costs for British businesses.

So may I ask the Minister, what precisely are the benefits of this recess, and what is the price in money control and flexibility? If growth is our objective? Should we not prioritise domestic reform, competitiveness and broader global trade with faster growing economies than the failing EU economies? That interest.
14:24
Earl of Clancarty Portrait The Earl of Clancarty (Crossbench)
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My Lords. Unfinished Business and the quicker we finish the business and properly cement our relationship with the EU, the better. It is becoming increasingly likely that our own democracy could be severely tested in the coming years if we have a different government. We need to have structures in place that are rock solid and not easily undone. A sympathetic relationship with the EU, to which so much import is given today, will be the first thing swept away.

There needs to be a rock solid commitment to all the European structures which, contrary to what some claim, does, strengthen our sovereignty and help protect our democracy. And the two things are related by virtue of being part of something larger than ourselves that is itself a democratic structure. And if people believe that the EU is not perfect, we need to be in there making it so. My Lords, some specifics. I welcome the government's agreement to rejoin Erasmus+. Since the publication of this excellent report led by Lord Ricketts, I asked the government whether they will not extend the time for committing to this scheme to give it the best chance of success.

Ten months is too short a period to take. Astounding considering the scheme needs to bed in and eligible groups encouraged to reply. Secondly, there is the concern about travel restrictions, including visas and passports. Will the government look at the possibility of group passports for school pupils, assuming school trips and exchanges will be a significant part of the scheme? My Lords, almost 20 months into this Labour government, there is still no tangible evidence of any improvement in the lot of musicians touring.

Indeed, UK music have made the point that costs and bureaucracy in terms of visas and carnets have increased, meaning that things have actually gone backwards. And my Lords, what the noble and gallant Lord Stirrup said earlier in this debate about the possible attitude of the DCMS is worrying. And as the Minister will know, and the DCMS should know, this is an urgent matter about which the sector is hugely concerned. And, my Lords, there are, of course, the wider trade concerns for all the arts and creative industries, with ongoing losses in terms of job opportunities and huge monetary losses, including what we have lost in not rejoining Creative Europe, which the government absolutely needs to rethink, both for that reason and the role that could play in helping to unblock progress in other areas.

Finally, my Lords, perhaps the most intransigent problem of all for the creative industries and further afield is the huge difficulty of obtaining jobs in Europe. Artists and creators, from film actors to opera singers, are now commonly faced with applications that insist on an EU passport so that many fall at the first hurdle. I understand that this is a legally grey area, but I ask the Minister whether the government will look at this, including in relation to the Youth Mobility scheme, because what good is such a scheme if our young people continue to be shut out of jobs in Europe because of frankly understandable concerns from reputable potential employers, when the rest of the pool to draw from has no such relevant red tape or financial costs attached.

And as important, there is no time element involved. Will the government promise to look at this in a purely practical way? Because it is the practicalities here that are crucial?
14:28
Lord Whitty Portrait Lord Whitty (Labour)
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Yeah, very good speaker. in particular has inspired me to make a few more. My my Lords, I join in with others to commend the noble Lord, the chair of this committee and the committee itself, to get over the rewriting of Brexit campaigns. As we've seen a bit again today, to produce a report that at least has some signpost for the future. I tried to insert taking Lord Wallace's point some linguistic points here.

Reset in English means two different things. If you take your telly, it means you're either reverting back to its original setting or you're resetting it to a new one. And the title of this debate and this report, Unfinished Business, suggests there is a finish. There isn't a finish. We are actually going to go on developing a new relationship with Europe, which will not have a fixed terminal point, and therefore resetting and continuing to reset and continuing positively to engage with Europe is what we need to focus on.

And in that context, beyond the linguistic point, the need that Lord Inglewood and Lord Wallace underline for us to engage, not just with the institutions of the EU and the representatives of those institutions, we found ourselves as a committee very well received by those institutions in Brussels. But we also need a much more, more effective engagement with the member states. I think the we we thought that on the security and defence side, we'd already made a significant move forward with the proposals there, but with the cost attachment that has now become evidence that emanating, most people assume from the French government must indicate to us we've got to operate at the member state level very effectively, as well as keep doors open to Europe at EU level.

My Lords, I do think this government has made a start on that, but we do need to reinforce it. And whilst we supported the changes in in the Whitehall structures for dealing with EU and EU related issues, I think they still need some significant strengthening. My other point is that during this debate and during the whole discussion, one important issue has hardly been mentioned at all, except negatively by the noble Lord Lord Redwood. And that relates to a need now for Europe as a whole to address the issue of climate change, environmental change, particularly now the Americans have effectively abdicated from that stage.

And nobody, nobody clearly has taken up the reins, my Lords, unless Europe and the UK and other positive states. Reaffirm and recommit to tackling climate change, then all the stuff that we're negotiating today and all the structures in the world will actually be overwhelmed by a dramatic change to our climate and a dramatic change to the way our industry operates and our trade operates, and become the major issue confronting governments. That will happen not next year or the year after, but it will happen within the next decade.

And I do believe that part of our engagement with Europe has to focus on our. Starting again with the initiatives which were so well started in the Paris Agreement, and ensure that we both make a contribution to tackling climate change and to achieving something like net zero.
14:32
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell Portrait Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Conservative)
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By Lord Sewell.

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Our speaker number 31, I'm relieved to have picked an aspect of the report which is yet to be discussed in much detail. I would like to use my time to concur with like to use my time to concur with recommendation 24, the report, which asks the government to set out how joining Erasmus+ brings out how joining Erasmus+ brings added value to the UK. I question whether this scheme, set up in 1987, aligns with the travel preferences of young people.

In 2027, I question the quality of the education I receive and I question its cost effectiveness. On this point. I can appreciate how in the immediate post-war period, young people were excited about studying in France, Germany, Italy. My father speaks fondly about his cycling tour around France in between school and university, but that picture has changed dramatically. In 2024, a British Council survey found that the most attractive countries for 18 to 30 year olds were Australia, the United States and Canada.

And this is backed up by the data of the 51,018 to 31 year olds who left the UK in 2023. Just 9000 went to the EU. In contrast, 17,000 flew to the other side of the globe, to Australia and New Zealand, and 13,000 went to North America. So perhaps we're joining Erasmus+ because the EU has the best universities in the world. Again, this doesn't appear to be the case. According to the Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings for 2026, none of the top 25 universities are located in the EU.

There are 16 in the United States, four in the UK, two in China and one each in Switzerland, Singapore and Canada. Zooming out to the top 50, the UK has more top universities than France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined. So if young people are not looking to the EU as somewhere where they want to live, and if the world's top universities are not mainly located outside the EU, perhaps rejoining Erasmus+ is extremely good value for money, or since the UK has proportionately uni EU is paying us to join the scheme.

Sadly, this isn't the case. Our membership fee for Erasmus+ is set to be £570 million in 2027. We paid £296 million for the scheme in 2019, just over £400 million with inflation. So despite the purported 30% discount negotiated by the government, we are set to pay £170 million more in real terms than our contribution to the scheme. In 2019. My Lords, I hope the person responsible for the negotiation isn't going on holiday to Turkey this year to buy a carpet.

In contrast with the same £770 million budget, we could quintuple the size of the Turing scheme, which covers universities across the world, all who keep the Turing scheme and create an additional 69,000 apprenticeships, which would do more to help the million NEETs struggling to find work. To conclude, the government clearly needs to be upfront about the cost of joining Erasmus+ and why they deem it to be cost effective. We should not simply assume that a scheme set up in 1987 is still fit for purpose in 2027.
14:36
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Portrait Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (Crossbench)
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Yeah, yeah. the European Affairs Committee on their report. Our EU relationship has always concerned trade regulation and security. What has changed is that each of these now run through technology competitiveness, resilience and strategic influence increasingly depend on data, digital markets, infrastructure and talent. If this reset is to be durable, it must reflect that reality. I want to emphasise for technology related themes that underpin many of the committee's recommendations. First scale if we are serious about producing world leading companies, firms that shape markets rather than follow them.

Scale is decisive. Advanced technology and AI businesses rely on large markets, secure cross-border data flows and regulatory clarity that enables rapid deployment. AI systems improve through real world use. They learn from diverse data and data users and data sets. Fragmentation does not just add friction. It shapes where capital flows and where growth ultimately anchors. The European Union represents a market of around 450 million people. For a British technology firm deciding where to expand engineering capacity or launch a new platform.

Predictable access to that market is strategically significant. Secondly, talent frontier industries depend on people AI researchers, engineers, chip designers and cyber specialists are globally mobile. The strength of our technology sector has long rested on the flow of European talent into our universities and Start-Ups and on British talent collaborating across Europe. We have many examples of British companies with genuine global ambition. I declare an interest on one of them as non-executive director of multiverse, which uses digital platforms to transform workforce workforce skills across borders.

Or there is wave, the autonomous vehicle developer, much in the news this week, which is advancing frontier AI systems that require diverse European testing environments at scale. These firms want to operate within integrated markets. The question is whether that integration will be as seamless as it can with our nearest partner. Barriers to mobility may not show immediately in trade statistics, but over time they erode innovative capacity. Thirdly, standards and alignment in digital markets, those who set standards shape outcomes. Rules governing AI, cyber security and data protection define the environment in which innovation occurs.

We instinctively look to the United States when we think about technology, leadership, and as many have said, it must remain an indispensable partner. Yet deeper transatlantic digital alignment has stalled recently, and some of the deals already announced are looking increasingly flaky. Meanwhile, Europe is not a peripheral player. It has serious research depth, industrial capacity and firms such as Mistral, Europe's leading foundation model company. In a world where compute standards and deployment scale matter proximity matters to the British firms serving European customers already work within European frameworks.

The choice is whether we help shape those rules or simply adapt them from the outside. Finally, resilience and security. Recent UQ discussions are rightly put. Cyber emerging technologies and even shared AI and supercomputing on the agenda. But no European state, including our own, can secure that resilience alone. These steps still fall short of a comprehensive technology pillar in our relationship. The Prime Minister speaks often of Britain as an AI and technology superpower. That ambition cannot be delivered by domestic policy in isolation without a fuller reset of our technology relationship with the European Union.

On talent regulation data as well as security, we will not reach the scale that that ambition implies. So may I end by asking the Minister whether the government is prepared to put a serious technology negotiation on the in the heart of the future UK EU relationship, rather than treating it all as individual, isolated initiatives?
14:40
Lord Lilley Portrait Lord Lilley (Conservative)
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I congratulate.

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Establish the government's reset negotiating objectives, which the government has. Failed to publish, government has. Failed to publish, but the government has published but the government has published what it calls an explainer. I have a copy here. It lists the items on the government's reset menu, but the government's reset menu, but it's a menu without prices. I first came across that as a naive young came across that as a naive young man, when I was invited to a very exclusive and expensive West End club and embarrassed my hosts by asking the chief waiter why there were no prices on the menu, to which he replied, If Monsieur needs to know the prices, Monsieur probably cannot afford to dine here.

And that is the problem with this reset. We don't know the cost, and if we did, we wouldn't want it. I have when I. I mean, the government knows that they told us at last, at least in that club, the menu gave a wide choice of dishes. But with the EU it's take it or leave it dish of the day, chef's special or in case of fish catch of the day. And there is the catch because the EU said we would not even they would not even initiate negotiations unless we first agreed not to increase our catch of our fish from our own waters for another 12 years.

And this supine government enacted that irrevocably, even if all other aspects of it negotiations fail. Although the explainer doesn't mention prices, the EU's negotiating mandate reveals that we are expected to pay into the EU coffers for almost every item for the SPS deal, we must pay the EU's extra administrative costs for not carrying out checks on our own UK exports. Quite. Why not? Checking goods involves extra costs? Beats me. But given that the EU exports four times as much food to us as we do to them, they should surely pay us for not checking their food on the carbon border adjustment mechanism.

The EU insists that we pay their additional costs despite the agreement, eliminating calculation and charging for the carbon content of imports. This two mainly benefits the EU since we produce fewer carbon intensive goods thanks to our crippling net zero energy costs, which this agreement will enhance. On Erasmus, the government claims that the price is a 30% discount, but that's relevant relative to the cost in future years. It's twice what we paid in 2019 and will be three times as much after the first year discount expires.

But my Lords, the most egregious cost is actually in the title of the EU negotiating mandate mandate which demands, and I quote, financial contribution from the UK towards reducing economic and social disparities between the regions of the Union. End quote. So we are to contribute to levelling up the EU money, which

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could and should be used to level up the UK. Yes. Minister Kyle today justified

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Minister Kyle today justified breaking Labour's manifesto pledge of no return to the single market on the grounds that that is where on the grounds that that is where the magic happens. I'm afraid he's off with the fairies. As trade off with the fairies. As trade secretary of overseeing our entry into the single market, I too predicted it would boost our predicted it would boost our exports. But over the ensuing 25 years, our goods exports to the EU stagnated, growing at less than 1% a year, whereas goods exports to the 100 countries we trade with just on WTO terms grew up, grew by 87%.

My Lords, what drives trade is producing goods and services people want to buy. Getting out and selling them, preferably in fast growing markets, not submitting to EU rules and regulations and protectionism, which have made Europe the slowest growing continent in the world.
14:44
Baroness Ludford Portrait Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat)
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Yes. this debate. I've recently been chucked off the European Affairs Committee due simply to my three years being up, I hasten to add. Not for misbehaviour, but I participated fully in keenly in the preparation of this report, although I'm very happy to have found a berth on the equally absorbing and admirably chaired Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, I will very much miss the European Affairs Committee and would like to pay tribute to its members and first rate staff, who were named by the noble Lord Lord Ricketts.

But above all, I wish to congratulate our then Chairman Lord Ricketts, for his superb leadership of the committee, from which he has also been rotated off, and for his introductory speech from my new committee berth, I take very seriously the problems for trade, business and indeed the democratic deficit in Northern Ireland. The links of this country with the EU are only going in one direction, a development I wholeheartedly support as the EU ambassador to the UK, Pedro Serrano has said the UK and the EU are indispensable partners, and the statement from last May summit a new narrative for the relationship.

The president, speaker of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, echoed similar sentiments in her visit in the last few days, including in a speech at Chatham House and at a reception by Mr. Speaker, to which he kindly invited me. I believe the Prime Minister is serving this country in Europe well, in fully supporting Ukraine and working with allies. To that end, I applaud his speech at the recent Munich Security Conference. Although his welcome words have not, so far as we know, secured UK participation in the Safe project for defence capability improvements.

And like other speakers, I very much look forward to the noble Lord Minister's reply on this. We recently saw in a poll for ITV that over 80% of 16 to 24 year olds would vote to rejoin the EU in a new referendum. Only 17% of this age group would vote to stay outside, compared to an overwhelming 83% who would vote to rejoin. I am soon 75, but I intend to live long enough, even to the age of 100, to see us rejoin the EU.

I venture to suggest that the Prime Minister could reinvigorate could reinvigorate his support through the EU question. Now the route to rejoin is not, of course, where we are now, but it will be before too very long. The young and politics will see to that. I would say to the noble Lord Lord Elliott, that we would serve the young well if we ensured that they were not monolingual. In a significant article for The Telegraph last November, Jeremy Warner wrote time to admit the truth.

Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure, confirming that from an economic perspective at least, Brexit has so far proved close to disastrous. And the noble Lord Lord Inglewood illustrated some of the ways that this is true. Hence, no government that cared about economic growth could avoid the need to seek a better trade relationship with the EU, which from these benches we welcome as far as it goes. I would, though, sound a cautionary note which others have done. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, as well as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that the government is going to have to be more candid and transparent sooner rather than later with the public about where it is headed.

There is a limit to how much can be done piecemeal or by stealth, without placing it in a coherent framework and goal. And I have to say, I disagree with noble Lord Lord Whitty that a process without a destination is satisfactory if that coherence is not visible to the public. There are risks being a lack of confidence or even a backlash, as well as loss of support for the Labour Party. Though I'll leave them to worry more than me about that particular consequence.

The EU will be looking for, if not political consensus, which is unattainable, as we well heard today, then a solid and consistent majority for better ties with the EU and the government, in my opinion, would do well to bring the public more into a conversation about where all this will be headed. As the noble Lord Lord Ricketts pointed out, and others have said too, there was no reset at white paper. While the government has previously asserted that it will not cross its red lines of no single market or customs union participation and no freedom of movement, it is already not quite practising what it preaches.

The Prime Minister's recently expressed goal of deeper economic integration and closeness to the single market smudges the red lines, and I gather that the business secretary said something today and that gaslighting the public, which they never appreciate. For instance, we understand that in the negotiations on the Youth Experience scheme, the government is seeking freedom for British participants to move from one member state to another. That is something that would be particularly welcome in, for instance, the travel and hospitality hospitality sectors.

But the term for this is in fact free movement. We now have a list of half a dozen sectors in which closer links are being pursued. Some present themselves, such as security and easing of SPS veterinary controls. But would it not be wise to share more of the thinking behind the choice of all these areas, as well as the neglect of the important issues of touring artists and lack of much emphasis on law enforcement, as well as lack of clarity? There's a problem of lack of transparency and accountability.

Both Brexit and Reset have given a lot of leeway to executive freedom over parliamentary authority. I would suggest this cannot go on while intergovernmentalism outside formal structures can have its advantages. They say it also has its limitations and comes up against the need for parliaments, as well as the public, to get a handle on what governments are up to. It would be a great advantage, as my noble friend Baroness Suttie said, if the Other place was able to restore a European Affairs committee to increase scrutiny and seek to keep the government honest.

The European Parliament managed to make considerable progress. When I was an MEP from 1999 to 2014. In getting a grip on the member states liking for unaccountable intergovernmental arrangements, which is how the data sharing arrangement started. Prom is a database of biometric as well as other data, and there are a lot of rows about its content. When it finally got computerised, the Data Retention Directive, which the Labour government had 20 years ago, policy laundered through Brussels under the UK presidency.

Later come later came unstuck in the European Court of Justice. So firm foundations are a good investment, trying to escape the kind of detailed scrutiny and joint legislative powers that parliaments need. But foreign and home offices are not quite so keen on is only a short term fix. The UK EU relationship has provided a context and pretext for slipping back to that executive comfort zone. I predict we could see some revolting parliamentarians on both sides of the channel, and I know the European Parliament is very upset that it's not included in the design of the safe system.

Now we hear the government claiming that the reset will involve British influence on relevant laws through, quote, decision decision shaping. But I would respond, tell that to the Marines. No one who's been an MEP as as others in this House were, believes that a country can call any shots on EU laws from outside EU legislative codecision structures. Just a few words to finish on a very important issue in UK EU relations, which is citizens rights. The UK's EU settlement scheme has largely been a success, although there remain some problematic issues, such as the cancellation of Pre-settled status for some without any appeal rights, the very harsh treatment of a particular cohort of families with a British citizen, but EU family members which could yet become another Windrush scandal.

The loss of funding for organisations to assist people with their applications, and in particular the government's insistence on digital only proof and refusal to let holders have a paper, document or card as proof of status. But the platform of a largely successful EU settlement scheme in the UK entitles this government to put more pressure on member states where there are problems for British citizens, and push the European Commission to monitor and intervene more effectively and with greater power than it currently does.

And I hope, noble Lady, the Minister, can tell us that the government intends to do just that.
14:53
Baroness Finn Portrait Baroness Finn (Conservative)
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My Lords. debate the European Affairs European Affairs Committee's report on resetting the United Kingdom's relationship with the European Union. And I thank the noble Lord Lord Ricketts for setting out the current position with his customary clarity. And I pay tribute to the committee members in the clerks, who have, as always, produced an outstanding report. As anyone who has served on a committee knows, it takes real skill to steer a single text through competing views and legitimate nuances.

And on that note, I'm very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his kind advice on how to reconcile disparate views within one's own party, because I know that that is a key, a core Liberal Democrat skill. Anyway, my Lords, I also wish to place on record a warm word for the noble Lord Lord Frost. During the committee's consideration, he circulated an alternative summary which, although not agreed, was thoughtful, well-argued, and an important reminder that questions of sovereignty, democratic consent and national self-confidence sit beneath the technical detail.

It strengthened the committee's work by ensuring that those concerns were tested and heard. The report is a serious assessment of the progress the government has made in pursuing what it describes as a closer, more cooperative relationship with the European Union, while maintaining the position that there will be no return to the customs union, the single market or freedom of movement as the noble, as a noble, Baroness, Lady Hayter and the noble Lord Lord Barrow have, among others have noted this reset is a process rather than a single event, so it is not possible to draw definitive conclusions at this stage.

However, there are areas where the House would welcome further clarity from the noble Baroness, the Minister, particularly on objectives, costs and parliamentary scrutiny. Like my noble friend Lord Tugendhat, I hope that this debate can mark a shift from rehearsing 2016 to concentrate to concentrating on how we secure practical cooperation without diluting the hard won principle that decisions affecting the United Kingdom should be made with the consent of this sovereign Parliament. My Lords, the Committee raises several concerns about the government's approach.

Foremost is the absence of a clear published plan before entering negotiations ahead of the UK EU summit of the 19th May 2025, the committee regretted that the government did not produce a White Paper this. These concerns were raised by the noble Lord Lord Taylor of Warwick and by my noble friend Baroness Mayer, or a similar document setting out its objectives that matters without clarity on aims, red lines and trade offs, Parliament and the public are left to infer strategy after the fact.

Contrast this with the European Union's more clearly articulated priorities in the summit documents. The parties committed to work towards a balanced Youth Experience scheme, to work towards UK Association, to Erasmus+ on terms to be agreed, and they reach political agreement to extend existing reciprocal fisheries access arrangements for a further 12 years to June 2038. Whatever one's views of the merits, these are substantial policy directions and they carry costs, constraints and distributional consequences. As the noble Lord Lord Frost and my noble friend Baroness Coffee made clear, honesty matters on fisheries, it is important to be precise, this is not a return to the Common Fisheries Policy, but it is a long extension of reciprocal access arrangements under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the committee recorded evidence that the length of the agreement was at the outer limits of what many in the sector expected, and it criticised the absence of a meaningful assessment of impact and the limited explanatory memorandum provided to Parliament before the agreement was reached and enacted.

That is exactly the wrong way round on Erasmus+. I welcome opportunities for young people and universities, but we must be candid about the bill and the balance of advantage. A case very well made by my noble friend Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell. Since the committee reported, the government has announced that the UK will join Erasmus+ from 2027 with a contribution of around £570 million for the 2728 academic year. It is therefore vital that Ministers set out transparently the criteria by which they judge this to be value for money.

How participation will complement domestic schemes, and what safeguards exist should costs rise in future budget cycles? On the proposed Youth Experience Scheme, welcomed by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, the government has said it would be capped and visa based, and the common understanding speaks of numbers acceptable to both sides. This is not, on its own, a sufficient description for Parliament to scrutinise. We need clarity about the proposed cap duration, eligible activities, enforcement and the interaction with the domestic labour market, especially when the office for National Statistics estimates around 946,000 people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training in mid 2025.

Against that backdrop, Ministers should explain how the scheme will be designed so that it is balanced and controlled. A number Have, including the noble and gallant Lord Stirrup, have raised the lack of progress on helping UK artists touring in the UK and I hope the noble Baroness, the Minister, can give assurance that the government will maintain focus on this very important area. My Lords, the government will no doubt point to the proposed linking of the UK and EU emissions trading systems.

Yet it is a matter of record that since 2023, UK allowance prices have generally traded below EU prices. An analysis for the European Parliament noted periods in which the EU prices were over 60% higher than the UK carbon price in early 2025. Linking markets could therefore raise carbon costs for some UK firms by up to 50%. As the noble, my noble friend Lord Redwood has pointed out, at least in the short term, the government argues that linkage would also reduce exposure to the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism and provide greater market stability.

Those are legitimate objectives, but Parliament needs the distributional analysis. Who pays, who benefits and on what timetable? Many noble Lords, such as the noble Baroness, Baroness Ashton, the noble and gallant Lord Stirrup, my noble friend Lord Howell and the noble Lord Lord Jay have raised the issues of defence, the much discussed security and defence partnership is so far more a framework of intent, rather than a settled set of instruments. The committee identified potential access to Safe as one of the key practical tests the government has said it is not yet has not yet been able to conclude an agreement on terms it considers to be in the national interest.

Press reporting has suggested the EU sought a very substantial UK financial contribution, rightly criticised by the noble Lord Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. Lord noble Lord Lord Ricketts and my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea. And recent commentary has contrasted that with Canada's participation fee, though comparisons are not straightforward and need careful unpacking. What matters for the UK is this if safe access is genuinely central to the partnership, Ministers set up the strategic benefit to the UK's defence ecosystem. The likely cost and how UK industry will be treated under any rules on component origin and supply chains.

A further concern is that prospective agreements on an area ETS linkage and possible possible participation in the EU internal electricity market are being explored on the basis of dynamic alignment with EU rules, along some form of decision shaping role. The government has said disputes would be resolved by independent arbitration, that any role for the Court of Justice would be limited to the interpretation of EU law for an arbitration panel. Those assurances are welcome as far as they go. But as my noble friend Lord Jackson and Baroness Lawlor have highlighted, the constitutional question remains how will Parliament scrutinise in real time a system in which rules may evolve dynamically and the UK is not in the room when decisions are taken? My Lords, it is one thing for the government to advocate a policy of closer alignment.

It is quite another to proceed without giving Parliament the opportunity to examine objectives. Costs. As my noble friend Lord Lilley Lord Lilley highlighted. And legal consequences. The Committee was right to call for stronger parliamentary scrutiny, including sight of draft texts where possible, explanatory material that genuinely explains trade offs, and a presumption that any major new agreement will be implemented through primary legislation. So, given those concerns, can the noble Baroness, the Minister, reassure the House on several points? First, can she confirm that the government is not seeking a model that would saw general judicial oversight by the Court of Justice of the European Union over domestic law? Secondly, will she commit that any major agreement allies arising from the reset, whether on SPS ETS linkage, mobility, defence will be accompanied by a published impact assessment, including costings and presented to Parliament in time for meaningful scrutiny before implementation.

Thirdly, can she explain how decision shaping will operate in practice and what arrangements the government proposes so that this House and the other place can scrutinise dynamic alignment effectively? My Lords, any step towards the European Union should be taken with utmost caution and with full democratic transparency. Whatever our views of the referendum and its aftermath, the public rightly expect that Parliament, not private committees and not opaque processes, will scrutinise agreements that shape regulation, taxation, borders and livelihoods. I hope the noble Baroness can provide the assurances the House is entitled to expect, and to commit to a reset that strengthens co-operation where it is in our interest, while safeguarding sovereignty, accountability and the primacy of Parliament.
15:04
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Portrait Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)
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My Lords, may I thank all noble Lords on the European Affairs Committee for their wide ranging and considered report. I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the government, and I believe the whole House to especially thank the noble Lord Lord Ricketts, for securing the debate and for his skilled chairing of the committee. I think proving himself to be the eternal diplomat with something I am not known for. My Lords. Since the general election, the collaborative approach he has taken to engaging with the government has been very welcome.

I also want to welcome the noble and gallant Lord Lord Stirrup as new chair of the Committee, and look forward to continuing our constructive engagement. I am also extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in today's debate for their insightful contributions. Whether I agreed with them or not, which are a tribute to the report and its authors, I will, of course, attempt to answer all of the questions raised, but with 34 contributions. I will also reflect on Hansard and revert on any issues I have missed, not least the scale of our debate.

And the range of debate means that I am going to struggle even within the time. My Lords, this report was an was an important opportunity to look at the positive progress the government has made on our manifesto commitment and whilst welcoming the progress that has been made, it is important questions on issues such as security and defence partnership, the SPS agreement, linkage of our emissions trading schemes, a youth experience scheme and potential participation in EU internal electricity market. It also highlights the important role of Parliament in scrutinising existing and future agreements with the EU.

In terms of progress to date. My Lords, when this government was elected, it was with a clear manifesto commitment to reset relations with our European partners. That meant tearing down unnecessary barriers to trade and increasing national security through strong borders and greater international cooperation. And while I don't wish to bring forth the wrath of Lord Hannay by use of the use of the phrase red lines, I want to be clear that there are no return within our red lines to the single market or customs union, and no return to freedom of movement.

Our red lines were clear in our manifesto as a gentle reminder to the noble Lords Lord Frost and Lord and Baroness Laura, and I'd like to reassure Lord MP that we were clear on what that meant. As your Lordships' House knows, at the UK EU summit in May last year, this government agreed a new strategic partnership with the EU. The strategic partnership will unlock huge benefits for the UK, reducing barriers to trade, accelerating economic growth and keeping us secure in an uncertain world.

It is good for bills, good for our borders and good for jobs. We took this decision exercising our sovereignty to strike a deal in the national interest, and we are making good progress on talks with the EU since the summit to implement the joint commitments made noble Lords, I was, I wrote down every noble Lords name who mentioned the issue of security and defence. But as that was, over 20 of you noble Lords will have to bear with me that I was listening and am very grateful for their contributions.

At the recent summit, we secured a new national and security. A new national, a new Security and Defence Partnership Agreement agreement. And as Lord Barrow reminded us, something that is all the more salient this week as we mark four years since Putins illegal invasion of Ukraine. This agreement represents a joint commitment to European security, built on the longstanding commitment of the UK to support Ukraine and our cross-continent work to protect our NATO allies, where we continue our leadership role on European security, including our role in building the coalition of the willing for Ukraine.

And this sits alongside defence cooperation agreements we have struck with our other European partners. Last year, the Prime Minister refreshed the Lancaster House agreements with France, deepening our defence and security cooperation, including nuclear cooperation, through the Northwood Declaration. The Prime Minister also signed the Kensington Treaty with Germany, a generational shift in our relationship with our cooperation across defence and security issues. Building on the Trinity House agreement, we are working quickly with the EU to implement our security and defence partnership and have already stepped up our cooperation on supporting Ukraine, tackling hybrid threats and increasing stability in the Western Balkans.

And our cooperation is already delivering results. We have worked together to maximise the impact of sanctions on Russia, including jointly lowering the crude oil price cap to kerb Moscow's energy revenues. We have we also worked with the EU to ensure a successful UK host Berlin process on the Western Balkans in October, to promote regional cooperation and delivery of security and growth. Since our agreement of the partnership, we have also established senior structured dialogues with EU counterparts. This is all to ensure cooperation delivers tangible benefits to European security.

We remain fully committed to our continued close cooperation with the EU and European partners to strengthen European security and maintain unwavering support for Ukraine. Now, as the Prime Minister said at the Munich Security Conference, we want to we want to work together to lead a generational shift in defence industrial cooperation. We must come together to build a joint European defence industry and go beyond the historic steps that we took at last year's UQ summit to build the formidable, productive power and innovative strength that we need.

Obviously, my Lords, this then takes us to the questions of safe that were raised by many members of your Lordships House, but specifically the noble Lord Lord Ricketts, the noble and gallant Lord Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord Lord Moynihan. The Security and Defence partnership unlocks the security. The possibility for enhanced UK participation in the Security Action for Europe scheme, also known as Safe. We entered those discussions with the EU in good faith. We were prepared to make a fair financial contribution that reflected the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship and value for the UK taxpayer.

It is disappointing that we were unable to come to an agreement, but we have always said that we won't sign any deals unless they are in our national interest, and the UK's defence industry continues to have access to safe Understanded third country terms. UK companies will be able to participate and benefit from safe contracts to provide up to 35% of their content. Moving on to issues related to Erasmus and the Youth Experience Scheme, which were raised by the Duke of Wellington.

Since this report's publication, the government has reached an agreement with the European Commission for the UK Association to Erasmus+ in 2027, fulfilling a key commitment made at the summit in response to the noble Lord Lord Elliott and the benefits of Erasmus Association will open up world class opportunities for learners, educators, young people as well as youth workers, sports sector professionals and communities of all ages across the UK. We expect over 100,000 people could benefit from participation in 2027, and we will work with the national agency to encourage people to sign up when applications open and welcome the focus of Erasmus scheme on disadvantaged and disenfranchised communities.

We will further strengthen the people to people ties between the UK and the EU by creating opportunities for young people to travel, to take up short term work or study, to broaden their horizons and get to know new people and places. Through the establishment of a balanced youth Experience scheme with the EU. We are also currently negotiating the parameters of the scheme with EU, and aim to conclude these negotiations by the time of the next summit. In terms of the costings that were touched upon, the UK will contribute around £570 million to Erasmus+ programme in 2027.

This is down from the approximately £810 million we would have paid. Under default terms. The UK will receive most of that money back to distribute among the UK beneficiaries. UK beneficiaries will also have the opportunity to compete for grants from £1 billion billion pound central pot directly managed by the European Commission. This is a good deal for the UK. We have negotiated financial terms which reflect a fair balance between the UK's financial contribution and the number of UK participants receiving funding.

Noble Lords rightly challenged me on the issues relating to touring artists. This was a manifesto commitment and to reassure the noble and gallant Lord Lord Stirrup we because it was in our manifesto, we are consistent and clear in the importance of this to and on the importance of this issue. Just as we recognise the importance of opportunities for young people at the UK EU summit, we also jointly recognise the value of travel and cultural and artistic exchanges, including the activities of touring artists.

We will continue our efforts to support travel and cultural exchange, and exploring how best to improve arrangements for touring across the European continent with the EU and Member States. We are determined to make progress, including the ambition to agree improvements as soon as possible. Moving on my Lords. There are some I will answer specific questions that were asked to on some of these issues if noble Lords will bear with. But moving on to the issue of electricity, which was raised by electricity and trade, which was raised by several noble Lords following last year's summit, the EU and the EU have also concluded the UK and EU have also concluded exploratory talks on the UK's participation in the EU's internal electricity market.

Participating in the EU's electricity market will have tangible benefits for the people of the UK, driving down energy costs and protecting consumers against volatile fossil fuel markets. We are now in the process of negotiating a new EU electricity agreement. Moving on to the SPS agreement, a key issue which was raised by many members of your Lordships House. And to reassure noble Lords, especially the noble Baroness, lady and the Duke of Wellington, we are moving at pace on these negotiations.

Although I love the phrase at pace, it's good civil service language. My Lords. The committee's report also contained recommendations on next steps for the agreement. For the agreement, let me be clear, my Lords, the UK is the largest, is the EU's largest market for agri food and vice versa. UK agri food exports to the EU were worth £14.1 billion in 2024, while the UK imports from the EU were £45.5 billion. In the same year. Agri food producers are among those most affected by increased paperwork and checks associated with exporting to the to the EU, as we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood.

But a food and drink agreement will change that, boosting our exports and cutting costs for importers. We are working with Defra on negotiations and implementation of the agreement, and the implementation of the SPS deal will be a matter for Defra. But let me be clear, this government believes that in some areas, like SPS, it is in our national interest to align our rules with the EU. This is a sovereign choice we make because it will cut paperwork, costs and barriers that have a negative impact on our business and consumers every day.

We know that there are trade offs with that approach, but we believe they are worth it. And to reassure noble Lords, as agreed with the EU, we will have decision shaping rights when new EU policies are made. Parliament will rightly have a say on those new rules. Any disputes will be overseen by an independent arbitration panel, not the European Court of Justice. And of course, many of the rules that we expect to be in scope of the agreement already exist in UK statute, with minor divergence between the UK and the EU since we left in 2020.

This reflects the fact that we are like minded trading partners with mutually high standards. And to the noble Lord Lord Redwood. On the issue of growth, we may have to agree to disagree as deeper economic integration is in all our interests. So we must look at where we can move closer to the single market in other sectors, as well as as well as where that would work for both sides moving to ETS and Cbam British businesses and consumers will also feel the benefit of linking our consumer, our carbon markets, cutting costs, making it cheaper for UK companies to move to greener energy and once again saving the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism charge being paid on £7 billion worth of UK goods exports to the EU.

To the EU, where the UK needs access to EU agencies or databases to make the agreement set out in the common understanding a reality, it is reasonable that the UK pays for these services. For example, the UK should make a fair contribution towards the running costs. God bless you of the EU agencies, systems and databases that administer the food and drink and carbon market. Linking deals. We will negotiate the details of any financial contributions with the EU. My Lords, the food and drink and carbon market linking measures alone are set to add up to 9 billion a year to the UK economy by 2040, in a significant boost for growth, and we aim to conclude negotiations on these areas by the time of the next summit.

The government will introduce primary legislation later this year to ensure that we can deliver these agreements and ensure that benefits can be felt as soon as possible. It is important that Parliament has its say so where we are making commitments to introduce new laws. As always, Parliament will play its role in scrutinising the legislation that implements those commitments. My Lords, I think we have many hours in your Lordships House ahead of us and the precise timing of legislative agreements, including the precise details, including timing, are naturally subject to the course of more detailed negotiations which are taking place.

We look forward to working with Parliament on the exact arrangements for scrutiny of the legislation as negotiations continue. Noble Lords will appreciate. We cannot talk about the European Union and our relationships with them without touching on the issues of the Windsor framework, something I feel somewhat informed about by my note by many members of your Lordships' House who I enjoy being educated about this issue. My Lords, I want to firstly reiterate that we are committed to implementing the Windsor framework in good faith and protecting the UK internal market, and I wish to express my gratitude to my noble friend, Lord Murphy for his comprehensive review of the Windsor Framework, and to thank him for reminding us today of the impact on Northern Ireland, to reassure him that I hope we will be acting speedily on both the SPS and on the other recommendations on his report.

The insights provided by him are the direct result of his personal investment in the process, and his extensive outreach to groups and individuals across the board. And while these issues are incredibly charged in Northern Ireland and here about making this work, I think all noble Lords, but especially Lord Dobbs and Lord Empey, have constructively engaged to make sure that we can get a way through. Moving on to some of the specifics raised, the noble Lord Lord Ricketts asked me about the UK cohesion payments, the EU.

We accept the principle that when the UK participates in EU instrument programme or other activity, we shall make a fair financial contribution to its budget to cover the costs of our participation. In December, the European Commission set out a proposal to the European Council to open negotiations with the UK on the financial contribution of the UK towards reducing economic and social disparities between regions of the Union. This does not represent a proposal by the government, and the details of any contribution would be subject to negotiation.

My noble friend Baroness Ashton and others touched on the issue of law enforcement and judicial cooperation. The summit package aims to strengthen our law enforcement and judicial cooperation capabilities, making our streets safer and ensuring criminals are brought to justice. It will support our police officers and help enhance our intelligence and investigative capabilities against murderers, rapists and drug smugglers, including via facial imagery. It will also help ensure investigations are equipped with the full facts of a suspect's criminal history, and that those are fully utilised to protect UK citizens from harm.

Lord Barrow specifically asked about the second generation Schengen Information System two at the May 2025 UK EU summit, we were pleased to agree a package which enabled further work to be undertaken with the EU to strengthen our law enforcement through new data exchange capabilities. The government committed within its manifesto to ensure access to real time intelligence whilst at the EU UK summit, it was not possible to secure references to real time reciprocal alert sharing for border security and law enforcement processes.

The summit represented an opportunity to further strengthen our capabilities, cooperation and relationship. Many members of your Lordships' House, but specifically the noble Lord Lord Jay, touched on defence spending, a subject that I am as an honorary captain in the Royal Navy, particularly exercised about two. As the PM said in his Munich speech, to meet the wider threat, it is clear we are going to have to spend more faster and we have shown our collective intent in this regard as well. With the historic agreement to increase spending to 5% on security and defence, and noble Lords have had the opportunity and will continue to have the opportunity to discuss that matter with my noble friend Lord Coaker.

On many occasions. With regards to the White Paper, a genuine issue raised by Lord Peter of Jackson, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, Lord Taylor of Warwick and Baroness Finn. My Lords, the government's manifesto, which we were elected on, was clear on our approach to resetting relations with the EU, including negotiating and SPS agreements to prevent unnecessary border checks and to help reduce pressure on prices. At the UK EU summit in May last year, the Prime Minister announced a new strategic partnership with the.

Underpinned by the Common Understanding. The common understanding sets out an agenda in writing for strengthening cooperation with the EU across safety, security and economic prosperity. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Warwick and as well as the noble Lady, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-fox, asked rightly about AI. We have had good discussions with the EU on AI a number of times, including through the committees established under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and are now in discussions with our EU partners about how we take forward further collaboration on AI and other digital issues.

And if the noble Lady will indulge me, I will write to her regarding her specific questions. At the end of her speech, the noble Lord Lord Wallace of Saltaire asked specifically about training for civil servants. The FCDO has a dedicated team leading work to build Europe capability across government. We are keeping our learning offer under regular review to ensure we are partnering and influencing the EU and European allies in the most effective way. I was surprised by one of the questions from the noble Lady Baroness, sorry noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, about free movement by the back door and how the European Experience Scheme could be regarded as such.

But to reassure her, the youth mobility arrangements are clearly not freedom of movement. They are based on strict control controls subject to a visa requirement, capped and time limited. We already have agreements with 13 other countries. No one has suggested we have freedom of movement with them. Any scheme that will be subject to an allotted number of places where any. And we have made it clear that this will be in line with the UK's existing schemes. With countries like Australia and New Zealand, they will have limits on numbers and length of stay, and can and will be subject to a visa

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application so we can decide. Oh apologies. Minister, but I clearly didn't make myself clear. I didn't say that that the government was wanting free movement inwards, but wanting free movement inwards, but as I understand it is asking for British citizens go go and use experience scheme to the continent experience scheme to the continent to be able to move freely between different EU member states, which different EU member states, which is free movement inside the EU for Brits but not reciprocal.

Well, of course we're only one country.

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The scheme will have a cap and quota both ways. With regards to quota both ways. With regards to some of the other fisheries, I will write to the noble Lady about her specific points, just because I'm specific points, just because I'm aware I'm out of time. But there's a couple of final points that are important. If your Lordships' House important. If your Lordships' House will indulge me to Lord Hogan-Howe, he may enjoy the comments of the EU Parliament President Roberta Parliament President Roberta Metsola in yesterday's Telegraph about how the European Union feel about next steps.

I would advise him to read her op ed. Baroness Suttie and Lord Barrow both asked me about the European Union's membership for Ukraine. That is a matter for EU members, of which we are no longer one. Lord Taylor, the. In terms of dates of the next summit, we are in discussions with the EU on timings, but it will be this year. Can I thank Lord Kerr, the noble Lord Lord Kerr, for his suggestions in the defence space, but most importantly for referencing one of my personal political heroes, Denis Healey and Lord Wallace, about wider engagement with across Europe, with European politicians? I think it's fair to say that the Prime Minister has actively sought to engage in this space and to make sure we have solid relationships.

He also has been a strong advocate, at least throughout the period of time. I've known him for making sure that we all, as parliamentarians, engage with our sister parties across the European Union and further beyond the Earl of Clancarty asked me about Erasmus beyond 2027. The scheme does not yet exist, but which is why we have joined year one and we will review after year one whether we will have further issues. I will write to him on the issue of group passports and in terms of a user experience scheme, I can't comment on the details of ongoing negotiations, but I am sure we will be discussing it at great length in your Lordships' House when I can.

My Lords, in closing, the government remains committed to strengthening our strategic partnership with the European Union and delivering real results for the people of the UK. Will sticking to the red line set out in our manifesto? As the Committee notes in its report, the strengthening of the UQ strategic partnership is an ongoing process. The summit in 2025 was the first in a series of annual summits and as the Prime Minister set out in his speech at the Munich Security Conference recently, we must look at, we must look at what more we can do with the.

My Lords, I want to reassure you all that although I can understand that we are going to have many different views in your Lordships House, I think the one thing that we all agree on, especially in such a volatile world, is that having positive relationships with our neighbours is a very good idea. And we. Yeah.
15:28
Lord Ricketts Portrait Lord Ricketts (Crossbench)
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My Lords, in closing, I want to >> My Lords, in closing, I want to thank the Minister for such a comprehensive speech delivered at pace, if I may say so. And I'm glad pace, if I may say so. And I'm glad that our report has stimulated such a wide ranging and lively debate in the House. You see, I'm trying to be the eternal diplomat again. Many members raise points that I didn't have time to raise in my own speech. I'm left with a feeling that our title, Unfinished Business, was not that bad.

It's unfinished in the sense that it will never be done. And it's unfinished business in the sense that in British politics, the whole issue of whether closer relations with the EU is in our interest or not is still a very live one. That debate will continue in the months ahead, and one of the issues will be on the legislation connected with dynamic alignment. But I think the big message from our debate is that the EU UK relationship cannot be seen in a vacuum, isolated from the wider geopolitical upheaval.

And indeed it is encouraging the government to go faster on the reset, which I personally welcome. I think there was widespread support in the debate for the idea that we should get closer to the EU on defence industrial cooperation, if we can do so in a way that is in our interests, which requires the EU to think again about its entry ticket. But the real strategic decisions are not going to be taken in the EU. And I do hope that the House will continue to discuss the issues that we touched on here.

What is the right forum in the future to do that? And bearing in mind the points of a number of noble Lords, that Britain's leadership in a future forum for strategic decision making in Europe depends on us having the defence resources rising at a pace to make us credible. My Lords, I personally think that a close and confident relationship with the EU is part of the response to the generation generational upheaval that we are facing. I am surprised that our debate didn't produce a consensus on that point of view, but I think it was a valuable debate and I beg to move.

The motion be agreed to.

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As many as are of that opinion will say content, the contrary, not content. The contents have it question for short debate offensive, misleading the public Baroness
15:31
None Portrait Short debate: Why Members of Parliament and members of the House of Lords are excluded from Clause 11, “Offence of misleading the public”, of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill; and what consideration has been given to removing this exclusion Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party)
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>> My Lords, what a small, >> My Lords, what a small, select, charming little group we are to charming little group we are to discuss topic. That could be. It could feature quite high in news media later, because I think it's an issue that the public will actually care about. This bill has rightly been recognised for its proposed duty of candour. But there's another provision within it, less understood and yet actually vastly more consequential. The creation, for the first time in modern democratic history of a criminal offence, of misleading the public.

It provides that where a public official, including our very own Prime Minister, knowingly or recklessly deceives the public on a matter of significant public concern, and if that deception is proven to the criminal standard, a prison sentence of up to two years may follow. In short, the Prime Minister is proposing to criminalise lying in politics for the first time, and he's leading by example by applying it to himself. This has never happened before, and I do congratulate the government for being brave and decent enough to lead to to criminalise lying by their own Ministers.

I think that's a very big step. Now, this bill has commonly been called the Hillsborough Law because of the stadium crush in 1989, in Hillsborough, Sheffield, in which 97 Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed, followed by years in which police and other officials advanced misleading accounts that falsely blamed the victims, deceived families over the paying their loved ones, suffered before death and obscured institutional failings. The sustained campaign by the bereaved families for truth and accountability led to the Hillsborough Law Now movement, and to the introduction in Parliament of this bill.

It is intended to impose a duty of candour, a statutory duty, and criminalise serious deception by public officials. It's worth noting that the inaccurate account by Sheffield police has never been corrected, and that is something the government should resolve. Amongst others, the Hicks family lost two daughters and they and other still grieving families deserve the truth. This bill will correct an inconsistency. For centuries, we've criminalised deception in almost every professional sphere. Except for some politicians. Fraud is an offence.

Perjury is an offence. False advertising is unlawful under consumer protection legislation. Tradesmen may not mislead the public about serious matters in finance, in commerce, in the courts, in taxation, truthfulness is not optional. It's legally enforceable. We already accept, under the Representation of People Act, that dishonest statements about a rival candidate during an election may be criminal. So the principle that deliberate political falsehoods can be legislated against isn't novel. It has existed for decades without overwhelming the courts or extinguishing debate.

No equivalent statutory standard has governed broader public claims made by politicians. That anomaly can be set against the collapse of public trust. The Ipsos Mori Veracity Index once again ranks politicians amongst the least trusted professions in the UK. That distrust weakens democratic consent. It discourages civic participation. It feeds a corrosive cynicism that democratic institutions cannot be trusted and that Parliament is full of liars. It makes the lives of members of the Commons and the Lords much harder, and doubtless impacts on our well-being as well.

But this this bill does offer some hope. This proposed new offence of misleading the public attempts to respond to that crisis, not by criminalising opinion, not by silencing debate, not by punishing error or failed prediction, but by addressing something narrower and more serious, deliberate or reckless deception about matters of significant concern to the public, proven beyond reasonable doubt. Some have raised concerns about free expression. Those concerns deserve deserve respect, but the offence, as drafted is confined to intentional or reckless deception.

It does not criminalise political disagreement. It does not capture advocacy. It does not police rhetoric. It does not apply to anything said within Parliament. As privilege is still in place, it only targets proven deceit elsewhere, such as online, on television, on radio and at events. And I hope that this narrow definition will stop people with expensive lawyers from launching malicious legal cases in the hope of silencing legitimate claims. Criticisms. In short, this provision affirms a simple democratic proposition those who exercise public authority should not be permitted to lie to the public with impunity.

So far, so good. And yet the following exemptions have been brought to my attention by campaigner Marcus Ball of Itsec, who is working with Jennifer Nadel of Compassion in Politics and with Luke Meyer, MP from The Other Place as currently drafted. That proposition excludes some parliamentarians. Civil servants would be bound by this. Police officers would be bound. Members of the armed forces would be bound, NHS staff would be bound and government Ministers, even the Prime Minister would be bound.

But backbench members of Parliament and members of your Lordships House would not. The Shadow Cabinet would not. The opposition in its entirety would not. There may be procedural explanations for excluding peers and backbench MPs, or there may even be technical constitutional arguments. But I just wonder what the public is going to think. They will see a law that criminalises deception by nearly every category of public official, except the very people who are making this bill become law. They will not be persuaded by constitutional nuance.

They will draw a much simpler conclusion. If Parliament legislates a requirement not to lie for others while reserving exemption for itself, the perception will be that we parliamentarians are hypocrites. That perception will endure each time the offence is invoked, each time a prosecution is considered, each time accountability is pursued, each time any parliamentarian is accused of being dishonest, the public will be reminded that Parliament chose to criminalise lying by almost all public officials apart from themselves. Equality before the law is the foundation of democratic legitimacy.

If nurses, teachers, civil servants, Ministers, even the Prime Minister are to be subject to this standard, it's impossible to persuasively justify a position in which members of either House of Parliament are not. Surely those who make the law should be subject to the same standard of honesty that we as legislators impose on others. This House has long seen itself as the guardian of constitutional principle. We are uniquely placed to consider not only how legislation functions in the courts, but how it will be understood by the public.

I'm concerned that if we don't apply this law to ourselves, we will be causing reputational self-harm. We are legislators. We pass laws that relate to everyone else, so why not to us as well? To conclude, I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. I sense the government probably won't accept what I'm saying, but I wonder if she would meet me at a future date to discuss this, perhaps with 1 or 2 lawyers along who can argue more persuasively than I can.

But I do want to ask why members of Parliament, both in both houses, are excluded from clause 11. And will the government now give serious consideration to removing that exclusion, so that this bill may stand as a testament to integrity rather than a monument to hypocrisy? I beg to move.
15:39
Lord Knight of Weymouth Portrait Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour)
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I begin by thanking and congratulating the noble Baroness Jones in bringing forward this important debate. It's a good question. I agree with her that the Public Office Accountability Bill should be welcomed, but I will wait until our Second Reading in this place before talking to the wider merits of the Bill. My Lords, few matters strike more directly at the moral core of public life than the question of honesty, and few touch this house more directly than the standards we set for ourselves.

Clause 11 of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill creates a new criminal offence, as we've heard, where a public authority or official acting in that capacity intentionally or recklessly misleads the public, knowing or reasonably expected to know that such conduct is seriously improper. The intention, as I understand it, is to ensure that those exercising the powers of the state are held to the highest standards of truthfulness. It would apply to government departments, to local authorities, to the police, the NHS, to schools and others exercising public functions.

And yet, as we've heard, both members, members of both houses of Parliament, are to be excluded. The government's reasoning is that the clause is aimed at those who wield executive authority, rather than those in representative or political roles. But is that distinction defensible? Does this fly in the court of public opinion? Would such? Why should accountability in public life be limited only to those who administer the state, rather than those who make its laws or shape its policies? To be a member of either House is to possess a particular form of public authority.

The authority of trust. As recent events relating to Lord Mandelson have shown, parliamentarians are not above the system. We are the system in the eyes of the public, our words, our votes and our conduct influence government action, policy direction and public belief that is power by any reasonable definition, and it is power that depends entirely upon trust. And as the clause stands, it it applies yes to a government Minister acting in an executive capacity. But in that case, Ministers face a legal duty not to seriously mislead the public, but not their opposition shadow.

That asymmetry is, quite frankly, bonkers and unfair on political incumbents. We are in an age of disinformation, elected politicians who consistently, deliberately and cynically mislead the public should be subject to criminal sanctions in extremists outside the protections rightly offered by parliamentary privilege. Should we not be prepared to hold ourselves to account when serious or repeated dishonesty on matters of public concern causes demonstrable harm? The damage caused by misleading the public goes far beyond a single misstatement.

It corrodes the foundations of confidence upon which democratic governance rests. It also creates fertile ground for those who thrive on distrust and resentment. For the bad faith actors, who see cynicism as a political opportunity. We've seen again and again how false narratives can take hold and persist. Hillsborough the infected blood scandal, the horizon cases. More recently the Partygate affair. Each has shown how misinformation and evasion can compound tragedy, turning mistakes into long term injustice. The bill bears the Hillsborough name advisedly.

It reminds us that misleading the public is not a victimless act. The evidence of eroded trust in politicians in this context is stark. The 2024 British Social Attitudes Survey found that 58% of people almost never trust politicians to tell the truth. 4 in 5 said they were dissatisfied with how they were governed. The Electoral Commission's 2025 findings were similar. Only 14% expressed trust in politicians. According to the Constitution, unit, being honest ranks as the single most desirable quality in a parliamentarian, and nearly three quarters of respondents support the removal of MPs who lie in that context.

The amendment, already tabled in the Commons by my political friend Luke Meyer MP, deserves serious consideration. It would extend clause 11 to members of both houses in a proportionate and carefully safeguarded way, not to stifle political disagreement, as Baroness Jones has said, but to make clear that those who knowingly and deliberately mislead the public cannot do so with impunity. That principle, I believe, commands widespread public support, and to do otherwise confirms exactly the perception that has done such damage to trust in political institutions, that there's one rule for us and another for everybody else.

That sentiment has helped drive the rising populist tide that every democracy now faces, and mention of populism triggers me to say something about valid concerns about freedom of expression. These are understandable, but I think in this case, misplaced. The threshold in clause 11 is intentionally high. It is directed only at conduct that is serious, significant and harmful. The clause includes a reasonable excuse defence and require a demanding evidential standard. It's not about slips of the tongue, robust political rhetoric or contested interpretation.

It is about substantiated, deliberate dishonesty causing real harm. In practice, prosecutions would likely be rare, but the deterrent effect of the law, the statement of principles it represents, is powerful. So some may observe that the common law offence of misconduct in public office, that we've been hearing quite a lot about lately, already covers such ground. In theory, yes, but in practice, this common law offence is notoriously ill defined and difficult to sustain. Clause 11, however carefully drafted, offers a clearer modern test for the same fundamental idea that the abuse of public trust is, at its most serious, a criminal matter.

So, my Lords, this is, in my view, about leading by example. We cannot credibly legislate for honesty in public life while exempting ourselves. If we do, we risk deepening the very scepticism this bill seeks to repair. The British public are remarkably forgiving of error. They are far less forgiving of hypocrisy. A Parliament that will not hold itself to its own standards invites precisely the accusations of entitlement and complacency that have weakened respect for institutions across the democratic world, and fuel the growing belief that we are an entitled, self-serving elite.

The restoration of trust will never come solely through codes of conduct or ministerial guidance. It will come through action through showing that no one, however senior or unelected, is beyond accountability. Extending clause 11 to members of both houses with proper safeguards for privilege and free expression would mark a principled step in that direction. So, my Lords, if honesty in public life is to be more than a slogan, we must be prepared to bound ourselves by it in law and not just in aspiration.
15:47
Lord Young of Acton Portrait Lord Young of Acton (Conservative)
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My Lords, I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union, which may well end up defending people as a result of the Public Office Accountability Bill, given that it creates a new speech offence. That offence, as we've heard, is that of misleading the public. A public authority or public official commits an offence if, in their capacity as such an authority or official A they act with the intention of misleading the public or a reckless as to whether their act will do so, and b they know or ought to know that their act is seriously improper.

The problem is not that MPs and peers are immune to being prosecuted for this offence, but that the carve out is not large enough. According to my reading of the Bill, MPs or peers acting as public officials, i.e. as Ministers of the Crown, would be liable. That, my Lords, is a gold embossed invitation to the Jolyon moms of this world. It will unleash a wave of politically motivated lawfare. Is that really what we want? The new offence of misleading the public is, as the noble Lord just pointed out, intended to replace the offence of misconduct in public office.

And let's not forget that attempts have been made by political activists to bring private prosecutions against their opponents for committing that offence. For instance, in 2019, an outfit called the British Brexit Justice Group brought a private prosecution against Boris Johnson for misconduct in public office because he had, according to them, knowingly misled the electorate in the EU referendum campaign by claiming leaving would bring a bounty of £350 million a week, an obviously vexatious case, my Lords. But a magistrate issued three summonses against the then Prime Minister before the case was eventually thrown out in the High Court.

Should this bill become law, we can look forward to a slew of similar cases. Rachel Reeves, for instance, might find herself in the dock for claiming she wouldn't raise taxes on working people, while Ed Miliband could have his collar felt for promising household energy bills would fall by £300 if the bill is amended. Along the lines the noble Lady Baroness Jones wants, wouldn't her party's candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection find herself in difficulty, assuming she becomes an MP during her now infamous campaign video in Urdu released a few days ago, she said of reform UK, quote they want to put higher taxes on people who were born abroad.

That, my Lords, is misleading. To put it at its most charitable. The noble Lady Baroness O'Loan said there are safeguards in the bill to prevent private prosecutions, but what's to stop members of the public bringing judicial reviews against the police for not prosecuting politicians for misleading the public? The Free Speech Union recently defended an SNP activist and the editor of a blog called Wings Over Scotland, who had supposedly said something transphobic on social media. A trans activist called Lindsay Watson tried to sue Greater Manchester Police for not prosecuting him.

I'm happy to say he failed, but that's not to say others won't attempt to sue the police for not arresting lying politicians. But I don't want to see Hannah Spencer behind bars for misleading the public any more than I do the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero candidates campaign in poetry and govern in prose, my Lords. And if they do fail to keep their promises or traffic in obvious mistruths, there is already an adequate mechanism for punishing them, namely the ballot box.

So rather than extend the scope of this bill to include MPs and peers, let's limit it to make sure that members of both houses, in whatever capacity, are properly excluded. Indeed, I go further and urge the government to amend the bill to exclude civil servants too, and not just those working in the intelligence services, as a recent piece in The Economist pointed out, making Whitehall officials liable for prosecution for misleading the public could have disastrous unintended consequences. It will mean fewer civil servants willing to take responsibility for decisions or giving ministerial advice, more decision making by committee to dilute liability, rather than provide Ministers with timely, sensible advice, they will mitigate the risk of a prosecution down the line by obfuscation and delay.

To quote from the economists, Ministers complain that the civil service is bogged in a sludge of slow decision making, but officials will have an incentive to take more detailed minutes, keep more records and give risk assessments even even lengthier consideration to insure against future court challenges. I am reminded of the effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Rather than lead to greater transparency when it comes to official decision making, it just resulted in MPs, peers and Whitehall officials abandoning email in favour of WhatsApp, with disappearing messages switched on less transparency rather than more.

My Lords, the intention behind this bill are undoubtedly good. The families of those who died in the Hillsborough tragedy deserve to hear the truth from public officials, including those particularly those testifying to various inquiries. But candour is something it's hard to legislate for, and to pretend that this bill will, quote once and for all, end the culture of cover ups and hiding the truth, unquote, as the Labour manifesto promised is, I'm afraid, just another example of misleading

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the public. Could I possibly thank the noble

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Could I possibly thank the noble Lord for raising the profile of our candidate in the Gorton and Denton

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byelection? That's very kind of him. I. Too, welcome the obtaining of

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Too, welcome the obtaining of this debate by Baroness James, and I want to return because I think we I want to return because I think we often should to the actual question in the debate, we shall have plenty of time to look at the bill when it gets here. When on the bill, we're on this very narrow point, narrow though it is. It is important. And it seems to me that although I think that presently that what the government has proposed, namely excluding MPs and peers, is probably right, because that
15:54
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Portrait Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (Crossbench)
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because it is the government and the executive that are dealt with the executive that are dealt with in the scope of this bill, it is worthwhile considering what the implications of this are. And I think we can take two, two things by way of some help in examining the question, because the acuteness of this issue will arise primarily of this issue will arise primarily when we get close to an election or when political tensions are high. And it's quite interesting to see what we did in the representation of the people act as or to go back to the time it was originally enacted in 1895.

In distinguishing between untruths in relation to people's personal characteristics and untruths in relation to all other matters. And it is remarkable, it seems to me, that that distinction which, looking at the debates in 1895, was one that was very carefully made, has stood us in good stead because we addressed a particular problem in elections. When you look at the debates, you can see what was worrying politicians. In 1895. One was worried about the fact that during an election he had been on a bench of magistrates and was said to have sent a man to prison for a month with hard labour for stealing three penny penn'orth worth of oats.

He had dissented from the decision of the others. Another was accused of his yacht being used to poach salmon with a net on a Sunday in Scotland. And it was this very concern that untruths were being told about people's personal characteristics, for which there was no effective remedy, because you couldn't bring an action for slander during an election. And therefore, in 1895, it was decided one ought to focus. What was the problem, what was the remedy? And should we and should it be enacted? It was enacted then, and has been re-enacted successively as recently as the 80.

Sorry, the 1983 legislation and why that has been restricted in this way. Looking at the case law that has elucidated these provisions, it seems to me that what Parliament then thought and which is, to my mind a very tenable position, that whereas it's wrong to be allowed to tell lies about someone's personal characteristics because it's very difficult to disprove those, do you leave the good sense of lying about politics to the public? And that was a question that on an issue that has served us well, I would think for over 125, 130 years.

But the question is, should we continue that distinction? And I think it's useful to look at a second matter, which is the proceedings in zenith, Cumbria, where in relation to elections to the in Wales, it is proposed that there be an offence very similar to what is here, what is envisaged in the Bill applicable during elections, namely telling untruths of any fact or matter completely and the report of the examination by the Senate Committee is useful reading because they had evidence from the Electoral Commission, from the Bar in Wales, from Transparency International and from Professor Halder and others in relation to the problems that you create by having a wide ranging offence of this kind.

Now, it seems to me the way forward is to look and see what is the problem with those in this House and in the other place, and is there a remedy that should be brought, and in what circumstances? Because I think the one thing that would be very, very undesirable is to create a huge amount of potential for people to complain to the police, to say X is lying, Y is lying about this and seek to engage in political prosecutions of that kind.

I think that is a real worry. But I go this far in supporting Baroness Jay that we simply ought to look at the difficulties, look and see what the problem is. But it is a difficult problem on which there is an awful lot of experience and we need a proper examination. But on what I have read so far, I regret to say that I agree with leaving the there Lordships or should I say your Lordships, including myself and others, out of the scope of this bill, because there's a logic to confining this to the executive and not opening the door to lengthy, politically inspired prosecutions.

But it's a question that should be examined. And that's why I'm so grateful to Baroness Jenkin for raising this very difficult point. Yeah.
16:00
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Portrait Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords. >> I join with everybody in congratulating and thanking the noble Lady Baroness Noakes for noble Lady Baroness Noakes for raising this issue and for the powerful and eloquent way in which powerful and eloquent way in which she opened it and presented her arguments. And as we've heard, the question the debate raises is whether it's right that schedule two of the bill would exclude parliamentarians from both houses, from the definition of public authorities and public officials who might be guilty of an offence of misleading the public under clause 11.

And I agree also with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who described this as a very difficult issue that was not going to be simple to determine, and that look required a great deal of consideration. On the one hand, as the noble Lady Baroness O'Loan pointed out, the exclusion of parliamentarians from the ambit of this offence could well be perceived by the public as putting parliamentarians above the law. Some Labour MPs have expressed that view in the House of Commons and the media, and Baroness Bowles gained powerful support from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, who also made the point which is of considerable significance, that Ministers, acting in their executive capacity would be liable to be prosecuted under this offence, whereas their shadows, the shadow Ministers, would be an entirely different position.

On the other hand, if the exclusion were removed, then it could be said that peers and MPs might be deterred from speaking freely on important issues, and that is the basis upon which parliamentary privilege is founded. The reason given in the explanatory Notes to the Bill for the exclusion of parliamentarians is, and I quote, in recognition of long standing conventions around the independence of the judiciary, I might say are also excluded from offences under clause 11 and Parliament's ability to regulate its own affairs and the notes continue.

These institutions have their own processes of establishing and enforcing ethical standards. No more detailed explanation was given on behalf of the government in committee by the Minister, the MoJ Alex Davies-jones MP. He referred only to long standing conventions of self-regulation and independence and independence. For my part, I am not sure that is a convincing response. In my view, the mere existence of long standing conventions should not prevent Parliament from examining those conventions and, if necessary, legislating to overturn them.

So I have a great deal of sympathy with Baroness Jones position. She rightly points out that the clause 11 offence is directed not at innocent mistake or honest disagreement, but it deliberately or recklessly misleading the public when the accused knows or ought to know, that their act is seriously improper. That is a pretty heinous wrong, and one that the Bill is rightly determined to prevent and penalise. The threshold for conviction is a high one. So why, she asks, should parliamentary privilege and MPs and peers freedom of speech get in the way of that worthwhile aim? Against the background that we have seen of unacceptable institutional cover ups and outright dishonesty by some official bodies, which this bill is intended to address, but mine.

My concern with Baroness Jones position is not principally that without the exclusion, parliaments would in fact, in practice be prosecuted for this offence that parliamentarians would. My concern is rather that without the exclusion, parliamentarians could be threatened publicly and in correspondence with prosecution, and that the threat of attempted prosecutions could deter MPs and peers from speaking their mind openly and without fear of the consequences. It is in that context that the protection of parliamentary privilege is genuinely an important democratic protection.

It is true that under schedule three, clause two two, proceedings for a clause 11 offence could only be brought with the consent of the DPP, but nevertheless the whole process of investigation and consideration, and the threat of prosecution could have a chilling effect on parliamentarians and parliamentary debate. So it's not just freedom from prosecution that is important. It's also freedom from the threat of prosecution. I'm reminded of the argument around slaps, litigation slaps, standing for the obscure description, strategic lawsuits against public prosecution.

But as we all know, slaps are Unmeritorious actions threatened or brought, often for alleged defamation by powerful or wealthy individuals generally, or organisations, to frighten off critics who would attack them in the press or elsewhere, and slaps are used as a form of oppressive censorship of investigative journalism and legitimate criticism, which we are rightly attempting to regulate, control or penalise. In the context of this bill, a parallel argument was advanced at Second Reading in the House of Commons by the conservative MP mike wood.

He foresaw a risk of parliamentarians being subjected to what he called politically motivated lawfare, and I note that that was an expression repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, which the exclusions are designed to prevent. I'm bound to say I found some of the noble Lord, Lord Young's examples, a little overstated at times, but nevertheless it's a point that is worth making. I found the argument of the noble and learned Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd very persuasive, including his distinction, which may not be directly in point, but is helpful between Lord Porter of Spalding about politics and lying, about personal characteristic characteristics.

And that distinction is illuminating. My Lords, we should not be so complacent as to believe that parliamentarians would be so immune to threats, as always, to stick to our guns in the face of them. Parliamentarians expect and welcome criticism and argument and disagreement, but the threat of prosecution for speaking their minds is not a legitimate hazard of parliamentary life, I suggest, and at worst it may drive some to trim or curtail their arguments, even if not abandoning them.

So on the whole, and with some hesitation, I've come down on the side of parliamentary privilege and in favour of the exclusion that is written into the Bill, despite the very powerful arguments set out by the noble Lady Baroness Jones and the noble Lord Lord Knight of Weymouth and others. My Lords, I'm grateful for the noble Lady Baroness Jay for providing the opportunity for noble Lords to
16:08
Lord Sandhurst Portrait Lord Sandhurst (Conservative)
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raise a matter of deep and real public interest, the exclusion of public interest, the exclusion of members of this House and of the House of Commons from clause 11 of the Public Office (Accountability) the Public Office (Accountability) Bill is a topic which touches on both constitutional issues and those which relate to public trust. those which relate to public trust. The bill engages long standing concerns about transparency in concerns about transparency in public life. It will impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness, and to maintain ethical conduct within all parts of their authority.

It creates offences for those who in that capacity, and I emphasise the word in that capacity, mislead the public and in relation to the misconduct of persons who hold public office. The Hillsborough Families Campaign for accountability has been one of the most powerful calls for reform in recent decades. It is right that we act on their concerns. Here. I declare an interest. I acted in some civil claims subsequently on behalf of South Yorkshire Police, but at a later date for victims who sued their solicitors who had settled their original claims for too little, I have also represented a health authority in a public inquiry against a dishonest consultant, so I know and have practical experience of what dishonesty and cover ups can mean for the victims.

The new offences will apply when a public authority or official acting with intention or reckless disregard, commits improper acts that mislead in respect of matters of significant public concern. But MPs and peers do not by virtue of that status alone, and we must remember that act as officials by schedule two of the bill. Public authority means a government department, a Minister of the Crown, the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers, Northern Ireland devolved authority. So individual officers, office holders and their departments, when acting, are within scope.

It is only when acting personally, in a purely parliamentary capacity, that an MP or a peer will be immune. This debate raises the interesting and difficult question when, if ever, should MPs and peers be guilty of the criminal offences contained in this Bill? Neither House of Parliament will, for that purpose be a public authority. This reflects long standing constitutional conventions of Parliament's self-regulation and independence, parliamentary privilege and constitutional autonomy are vital. They must not be compromised.

Article nine of the Bill of rights, 1689 remains a cornerstone of our constitutional settlement. It provides that freedom of speech and debate in Parliament and, I quote, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament. Article nine safeguards the core functions of this House in the other place, in debating and scrutinising the government without fear of legal sanction. Those who abuse parliamentary privilege are susceptible to punishment and expulsion by Parliament.

The problems with the Hillsborough and infected blood scandals stem from cover ups by those acting in official positions, whether as Ministers or officials, and I'm not suggesting anyone in particular here, but they were in positions of authority. The noble and learned Lord Thomas has explained some of the hazards which might arise from going beyond the bill, and the significance of the representation of the People Act. For example, my noble friend Lord Young of Acton has explained other risks.

Lord Marks has rightly highlighted the danger of the mere threat of proceedings to what people may then be prepared to say in either House of Parliament. So article nine rightly protects proceedings in Parliament. It does not protect conduct by individuals outside those parameters, those formal proceedings, nor does it provide immunity from the criminal law for conduct outside parliamentary debate. See the expenses scandal, where at least one MP attempted to run the argument but failed in the courts.

The scope of parliamentary privilege is carefully constrained, and rightly so. My Lords, Parliament should be very cautious. Cautious lest any words spoken on the floors of either House or in its committees are put at risk of being caught by a criminal offences, or indeed civil actions. The threat of prosecution would have a chilling effect on robust debate, which is the essence of parliamentary democracy. An authoritarian government with majorities in both houses or any mischief maker in either house, or any outsider, might raise specious allegations for bad motives or just out of ignorance.

The fact that the member in question might ultimately be acquitted, whether in the criminal courts or the civil courts of wrongdoing, will not prevent it. Exposure to frightening pressures. Our legislators must not be so exposed. The Bill of rights is a bulwark. History is on its side. Some members in the other place, as we have heard, have suggested that extending the offence to MPs and peers might improve public trust and perception. Amendments have been tabled from some MPs to bring Members of Parliament within the scope of the offence.

That would be a grave error. MPs and peers acting as such do not make decisions on behalf of the state. They are not Ministers or officials. Their misconduct, if and when it occurs, will be addressed by Parliament. And we've had examples in recent, in the recent past, Parliament does and will police its members. No one else should when acting within the bounds which I have set out. My Lords, we on these benches believe that creating a criminal offence would be wrong, but we also recognise that the exclusion of Parliament from the offence, if it is not properly explained to the public, risks sending the wrong message.

And it's not an easy topic to explain in plain and simple terms to a wider public. Accountability and integrity in public life must be strengthened and supported, and public trust in our institutions is frankly fragile at the present time. But the way to hell is paved with good intentions, so beware the remedy will be worse than the cure than the disease. I'm sorry. Given these considerations, I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, what consideration has the government given to alternative models to ensure meaningful accountability without infringing on this privilege? Does the government believe the current system of parliamentary sanctions alone is sufficient and effective? Third, what further parliamentary sanctions might be of value? And fourth, what steps will the government take during the currency of this bill to explain these important principles of our Constitution?
16:17
Baroness Levitt Portrait Baroness Levitt, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Labour)
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My Lords, it's customary to >> My Lords, it's customary to begin by thanking the noble Lady Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb for securing this debate, but I'm sure securing this debate, but I'm sure she would agree with me that actually, I should start by paying tribute to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster and their families. And in doing this, I want to make it clear that the victims and bereaved must always be front and centre of the government's mind, as this bill makes its long overdue way through Parliament.

I hope your Lordships will understand what I mean when I say that this bill is not just about justice for Hillsborough victims and families and those of the other disasters, but it determines what kind of a society we are. Do we protect vested interests, or do we believe in the importance and rights of, and protections for our fellow citizens as individuals? And to that extent, I entirely understand the points made very forcefully by the noble Lady Baroness Jenkin and my noble friend, Lord Knight.

The noble Lady and I had a very short discussion yesterday when she explained her concerns to me, and I'm grateful to her for that. And I hope she knows that my objective in this matter is not to make partisan points, or to be stubborn about legislation, but to make sure that as we go through the process of introducing a new law, we get it right. And by right I mean that the law captures the behaviour that we think is so egregious that it merits being criminalised whilst not trespassing on other important issues, which will include convention rights.

So by securing today's debate, the noble Lady and all the other members of your Lordships House have spoken, have given the government food for thought, and I have treated the contributions as everybody, as in effect, being those of critical friends. My Lords, the offence of misleading the public is a brand new offence contained in the Public Office (Accountability) Bill and your Lordships will, as was said by the noble and learned Lord Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, be have the opportunity to scrutinise it fully when it's sent to us from the other place.

My intention today is to explain the policy reasoning behind the government's decision to limit the offence to the executive, rather than extending it to all MPs and peers. In order to do this, I need briefly to outline what the bill in general and this clause in particular is intended to do. The government is clear that what happened following the Hillsborough disaster must never happen again. In that case, police lied. They changed witness statements to protect their reputations, the bereaved families from Hillsborough and indeed to many other examples over many years, faced an inquest process with no funding for legal representative representation, and all of this was underpinned by a lack of duty, of candour.

So the bill contains a powerful new package of measures to address these failings, and others, such as the infected blood and horizon scandals. Now, as part of the measure, this bill creates not one but in fact four new criminal offences, and they fall into two groups. And there's plainly some level of misunderstanding about this, articulated perhaps most clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, to my own apology, because in a letter the other day on the Crime and Policing Bill, I addressed him as the Lord Young of Action, though perhaps he won't mind too much.

The first group of these four offences is two offences to replace the common law offence of misconduct in public office, which is going to be repealed. The first of those new offences is committing seriously improper acts, and the second is breaching the duty to prevent death or serious injury. And these new offences broadly replicate the effect of the common law offence, and they have a very wide reach. They cover a lot of the behaviour, not just of the kind that we've seen at Hillsborough, but a much broader range.

For example, misconduct in public office has in the past been used to prosecute for offences such as corruption in public office, and that is what these two new offences are intended to replicate. The reason we're replacing it is because there was a lack of certainty with it, and one of the issues with the old common law offence is a lack of a list of those to whom the law applied. So to deal with that, those two new offences do have a list, and both of those two very broad offences do apply to MPs and to peers, as well as a number of other public office holders, including judges.

But secondly, we have created another two new offences which are completely separate from the old misconduct in public office, and they were designed specifically to deal with a narrower range of circumstances and to deal with this situation that has arisen in these large scale disasters. And these two new offences are, first, breach of the new duty of candour, and secondly, the offence of misleading the public contained in clause 11. And it's only this one of these four new offences with which we're concerned today.

My Lords, as I've already said, this offence is designed to be a much narrower offence than the ones designed to replace misconduct in public office. And it was designed specifically with what happened at Hillsborough in the front of our minds. And the reason is this, as the scale of the disaster at Hillsborough was becoming apparent, the police lied about its cause, saying that Liverpool fans had broken into the stadium. But as we now know, as the Taylor inquiry uncovered, in fact the main reason for the disaster was the failure of the police control.

So this new offence is aimed squarely at those who intentionally or recklessly aim to mislead the public and cover up the truth. It's intended to capture only the most serious instances of public officials or authorities misleading the public. So an example might be a chief executive of a hospital instructing staff to lie about a major incident in order to avoid criticism of the hospital. It is not intended to apply to instances of accidental or inadvertent misleading, and to reassure the noble Lord, Lord young.

Prosecutions cannot be brought without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, specifically to avoid vexatious private prosecutions. He mentioned judicial review, but the doorway to into a judicial review is a narrow one. It's very restricted set of circumstances, and it's subject to a permission stage from the High Court. My Lords, the government thought very carefully about whom this offence should apply. It does apply to public officials and public authorities, so it captures those working in government and the wider public sector who take decisions on behalf of the state.

So that includes Ministers and other politicians in executive roles, but not MPs peers. And our thinking is this Parliament has a unique role in our society parliaments, our parliamentarians are responsible for legislating and scrutinising legislation, holding the government to account. And as well as this, MPs are responsible for representing representing their constituents. But individual MPs and peers do not directly take decisions on behalf of the state, nor do they have access to the kind of government information that would be available to Ministers.

And for that reason, we've come to the conclusion that it would not be appropriate to extend the offences in the Bill to all MPs and peers, and then not extended to judges either. So you have the wide group designed to replace misconduct in public office applies to backbenchers, the opposition, so on and so forth and the judiciary. And this narrow offence designed to basically cover those who take decisions. Of course, the government agrees that misleading the public in any capacity is not acceptable.

There should be consequences for parliamentarians who do so. But my Lords, this new offence is not the appropriate vehicle for regulating political speech. Parliament has its own arrangements for ensuring accuracy and truthfulness in proceedings, including processes for determining if MPs have misled the Other place. And it's for the House of Lords Procedure and Privileges Committee to consider any instances where a member of your Lordships House is alleged to have misled the House. This reflects the important principle that parliamentary proceedings are rightly privileged and cannot be questioned in a court of law.

So each House is responsible for determining the rights actions. When it's alleged that someone has misled the House. Members of both houses must also act in accordance with the Nolan Principles in all of their public functions, and the very high standards expected of public office holders conducting themselves with honesty and integrity. My Lords, it is for each House to determine the procedures for investigating and sanctioning those who break the rules. My Lords, the government is confident that the scope of the new offence, combined with the existing arrangements and the codes of conduct for parliamentarians, strike the right balance between capturing the most serious wrongdoing whilst not infringing the tried and tested procedures that govern all of your Lordships and all those in the other place, to ensure that we conduct ourselves to the highest standards.

But this has been an interesting and important debate. I will, of course, meet the noble Lady, any lawyer she wants to bring with her, and indeed any other members of your Lordships House who would like to discuss

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this further. My Lords, we will allow a moment for the chamber to rearrange itself My My Lords, motion for debate. Joint Committee on Human Rights report. Lord Alton of Liverpool, my Lords, it's. of Liverpool, my Lords, it's.
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16:28
Lord Alton of Liverpool Portrait Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)
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My Lords, it is an honour to open today's debate on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report Transnational Repression in the United Kingdom. As chair of the JCHR, I pay tribute to my committee colleagues from both houses and thank the terrific JCHR team headed up by our clerks Rhiannon Hollis, Maria Iola and Lauren Marchant. My thanks also, my Lords, to the library for their briefing note to the Minister and to his the officials who who have briefed him.

But the work that's been done by him and his colleagues in the department, but especially, my Lords, to the noble Lord Lord Isaac, who will make his maiden speech today. And we look forward to hearing that our report highlights the absence of a universally accepted definition of TNR transnational repression. We recommend the government to adopt a formal definition, to systematically collect data and to develop monitoring mechanisms. We agree with James Lynch, the co-director of Fairsquare, who told our committee that we are missing a big opportunity to properly monitor and analyse the trends and then develop a coherent strategy.

We query the way in which TNR is treated in diplomacy with hostile states, and contend that failure to incorporate it as part of the UK's diplomatic engagement with perpetrator countries risks emboldening authoritarian regimes to escalate their TNR activities. The report calls for international cooperation with other democracies. We mentioned Canada in combating TNR and we make some specific recommendations about the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, slapps and the misuse of Interpol red notices. Closer to home, we call for a national hotline for victims.

More systematic and specialised training for police officers to identify early warning signs of TNR. And at paragraph 96 of the report, we say, I quote the UK's response to TNR would benefit significantly from more structured and consistent coordination across government departments. Andrew Scurry, the director of Homeland Security Group at the Home Office, told us that we are looking still with the police at how best to gather data and more information and indeed intelligence. It would be good for the House to hear, I think, my Lords, how that is going.

During a discussion this morning with academics from Bristol and Oxford universities, facilitated by the International Affairs Parliamentary Hub, I was struck that they're finding that TNR is profoundly on the rise in the UK, chimed entirely with our own committee's view that TNR is not a peripheral or minor issue. MI5 say that in 2024, the number of state threat investigations run by them jumped by some 48%, with more than 20 threats to life cases relating to Iran alone since the start of 2022.

The true scale, though, is likely to be far greater still given the significant underreporting and the often covert nature of TNR criminality. The Joint Committee on Human Rights commends the National Security Act of 2023, which created new offences relating to foreign interference in the UK and didn't identify any significant gaps in criminal law related to TNR. But we do want the existing laws to be better used and more effectively enforced. It's essential, my Lords, that the legal framework remains agile and responsive to evolving threats.

We recognise the rapidly evolving nature of digital technologies and the increasing sophistication of methods used to conduct TNR. We call for the government to keep relevant legislation under regular review, and have asked for an annual update to the JCHR on the effectiveness of current legislation in addressing evolving digital forms of TNR. My Lords, our country has a long history of giving protection to courageous dissidents, being hunted down by dictatorships. In the 1980s, in my early days as a young member of Parliament, I met extraordinary heroes who had escaped the Soviet bloc and continued to work for the liberties which would ultimately come with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Back then and today, two dictatorial regimes have a long reach. Let me draw on the evidence given to our inquiry to illustrate the nature of the threats which people resident in the United Kingdom now face. A number of noble Lords have experienced a small dose of transnational repression themselves. In my case, collecting sanctions from Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. But this is small, small beer in comparison with some of the appalling intimidation experienced by others. Perhaps the noble Lord, the Minister, could tell us whether China has lifted sanctions on parliamentarians families on others, including Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who chaired the Uyghur tribunal, doctor Joseph Finlay, Essex Court Chambers and the Conservative Party Human Rights Committee.

And will he comment on the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty placed on the head of a 19 year old young woman, Chloe Cheung, and others in the United Kingdom by the CCP, read her courageous testimony to our inquiry, waiving her anonymity, in which she described the profound effect which was CCP targeting has had on her. She spoke recently against the proposed CCP mega embassy in London, fearful that if it is built and she is snatched, she will use her words never come out.

Read the evidence of the brave Uyghur activist Rahima mahmut, whose relatives in China have been subjected to intimidation and coercion, forced to publicly condemn her in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals, she movingly described to the committee what she called the human cost of speaking out. Read the evidence of the disgraceful treatment by University College London of Professor Michelle Skipworth. And I would add to this the shameful mistreatment of Sheffield Hallam's Professor Laura Murphy, following her brilliant work on Uyghur slave labour in Xinjiang.

Their treatment is an affront to British sovereignty. It's an affront to academic freedom, to free speech, transnational repression driven by overreliance on Chinese money. Note two that earlier this month, MI5 Ken McCallum identified threats to university students and academics at a meeting he convened with 70 Vice-Chancellors. My Lord, how will the government implement a direct reporting route on foreign interference? Implement the complaints scheme in the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act and strengthen overseas transparency regulatory powers. Unsurprisingly, the JCHR received a large amount of evidence recommending the designation of China under the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration scheme Firs.

It was an issue raised by Keelan Gallagher KC, the lawyer of British citizen Jimmy Lai, incarcerated in Hong Kong for five years and in solitary confinement. She told our inquiry that as his lawyer, she had been subjected to threats and harassments. She criticised the feeble response to bounties and sanctions against parliamentarians, and described how peaceful protesters in Manchester have been assaulted by diplomats. She said this we send such a terrible message. If we have a situation where a diplomat can drag an activist by the hair into the Manchester consulate and the use of language such as calling individuals rats who need to be hunted down worldwide.

And yet, she says, China is not in the enhanced tier. The JCHR concluded that I quote decisions on which countries to specify under the enhanced tier of Firs must be guided by objective assessments of threat, not influenced by broader foreign policy considerations. We recommend that the government specify China under the enhanced tier of Firs, and that I quote the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 do not capture the full range of TNR tactics, and that China's omission from the enhanced tier risks undermining the credibility and coherence of Firs.

The JCHR found, I quote, that China conducts the most comprehensive TNR campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK. I would be grateful if the noble Lord, the Minister, would respond to my previously voiced proposal, but which also appears at paragraph 90 on page 37, as a JCHR recommendation that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the noble Lord himself served with great distinction, should have confidential oversight of Firs and sanctions, and which, like appointments of high level British ambassadors or the expulsion of diplomats connected to TNR, should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Such scrutiny, my Lord, should extend to issues of proscriptions. Consider Iran and the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. We heard shocking evidence of the lethality of Iranian transnational repression. We heard about an Iranian journalist left seriously wounded on the streets of London, about intimidation of BBC Persian journalists and their families. One witness, Hossein Abedini, the deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, almost lost his life in a vicious, brutal attack by Iranian operatives. He told the JCR that cultural centres in the UK are used as fronts for surveillance operations, targeting members of the Iranian diaspora, and listen to what the Reporters Without Borders told us.

Iranian women journalists have been subjected to gendered and sexualised abuse, including explicit threats of rape or sexual violence towards them or their families, including children. The circulation of fake stories designed to ruin their reputations and photoshopped pornographic images. My Lords, in this week marking the fourth anniversary of Putins illegal war in Ukraine, consider also how Putins regime has engaged in the most terrible war crimes and egregious forms of transnational repression. Recall the Salisbury nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

But the Russian TNR comes in other forms, too. The JCHR received evidence relating to the misuse of slapps to intimidate and silence journalists, activists and other critics. Although slapps are typically initiated by private individuals rather than states. We heard that they are often used as a TNR tactic. Susan Kothari, the director of Foreign Policy Centre, told us that individuals closely aligned with the state are utilised to carry out TNR through legal harassment. She cited the case of Catherine Belton, the journalist and author who wrote the book Putins People.

She was pursued by, quote, originally by five oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, but also Rosneft, which is the Russian state gas company. So there was a very direct link, she said, there to the Russian state. The inquiry found that flats are increasingly used to silence and intimidate people who expose or criticise the actions of authoritarian regimes. So the committee would also like the government to look at the cost and strength of lengthy legal action to provide a clear timeline for a review of the effectiveness of the slapps provisions in the economic, Crime and Corporate Transparency Act of 2023, and to ensure that future legislation deals with slapps that are not related to economic crime.

Our inquiry also found that Interpol red notices had been issued without the knowledge of those targeted, leaving people uncertain about whether they can travel without risk or detention. And we concluded that red notices are being systematically exploited to pursue political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists beyond national borders, beyond Russia, Iran and China. The committee also received evidence quite credible that a number of other states had engaged in acts of transnational repression on UK soil, and those included allegations concerning Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Emirates.

And I particularly draw attention to the evidence and testimony given to our inquiry concerning Eritrea by Martin Plaut, the accomplished former BBC journalist, author and academic. The UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea told the inquiry. Those who refused to contribute a tax which is levied on the diaspora, are considered government opponents and face harassment, intimidation and ultimately social isolation. I would welcome an update on what the government is doing about this. In the last few days I have received further additional disturbing depositions.

One I know the noble Baroness Blackstone will refer to in her remarks. I received evidence also about a Burmese artist who has been targeted, and I will send those to the noble Lords Minister because they are outside the scope of the inquiry itself. But let me end with our national security interests and way of life, threatened on a scale unparalleled since the 1930s and 40s, democracies must act together in strong alliances to combat multipolar threats to our way of life. We are fools to take for granted our privileges and freedoms, including the right to think, to speak, to believe, even to live all over the world.

The 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are under concerted attack. We have been far too complacent, far too dependent on the states which threaten us and insufficiently focus on resilience. Transnational repression is a harbinger of far worse to come. Our committee concluded that transnational repression risks undermining the UK's ability to protect people who have sought safety within our borders, like the witnesses to whom I have referred. But we also found that a failure to deal robustly with TNR and the malign activities of hostile states will also increasingly put the UK's indigenous population at risk.

Today, debates like this one will bring the JCHR report to a wider audience, and I hope that the noble Lords who participate and I am grateful to them all, will circulate its findings far and wide, and I beg to move.
16:43
Lord Isaac Portrait Lord Isaac (Labour)
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And be agreed to. noble Baron, Lord Alton, for his warm welcome, but also for introducing this important debate, one that is fundamental to protecting freedoms and human rights in this country, and one that I believe highlights the important work of his committee. I rise for my maiden speech with a real sense of responsibility and duty that comes from joining this August body. I would like to begin by thanking Black Rod Garter, the clerk, the Doorkeepers, and all the staff of this House for the kindness that they have shown me since joining.

I thank noble Lords for from every side, for the very warm welcome, without exception, that they have also given to me. I would especially like to thank my supporters, my noble friends, Lady Royle and Lord Collins, for their encouragement, wisdom and support, as well as my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, an alumnus of my college in Oxford and someone who has been a great supporter and friend for my work in and beyond Oxford. I grew up in a small village called Llanfoist, outside Abergavenny in South Wales, where many of my family for many, many generations had lived.

I attended the village primary school and I went on to the local secondary school, where I was privileged to receive an excellent state education, something that we Welsh are rightly proud of and something that should be the right of every child, not a privilege. Yeah, that education enabled me to go to Cambridge. The first member of my family to go to university and ultimately to establish a successful career as a lawyer in the city. Education really did transform my life and my life chances.

It gave me important skills. It widened my horizons, and it also taught me about the importance of music, art and culture and how they enhance the world. My commitment to education has led me to the most recent phase of my career, being Provost of Worcester College in Oxford and the chair of the University of the Arts in London. These roles have enabled me to give something back to current students, but they have also given me an opportunity to argue for a number of things, for improved funding for students and universities, the need to continue to support initiatives to widen participation.

And last but not least, the importance of creative education. Let's not forget that the creative industries contributed £125 billion to the UK economy in 2022, improved support for students educational institutions, including creative educational institutions, is, in my view, essential if this country and future generations are to flourish. I'm very conscious that this debate is about transnational repression of freedoms and human rights. Human rights have played a key role in my life. I grew up in the 1980s during the Aids pandemic, and later lived through the chilling effect of section 28, working with others, I realised that we could use our legal and advocacy skills to work to end discrimination against the gay community in this country.

Progress in delivering legal and cultural change has succeeded, in no small part because of our focus on human rights. Later, as the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it was a privilege not only to lead a national organisation committed to promoting equality and human rights, but to work with international organisations promoting greater understanding, particularly in countries where human rights are not yet as well embedded in law as they are in the UK. At the same time as protecting the rights of our own citizens and, dare I say, resisting culture war attacks on the very notion of human rights, we must, in my view, stop foreign state directed crimes against individuals deemed by their governments to be a security threat, and the noble Lord has provided ample evidence of those threats.

I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Hanson, the Minister, for meeting with me, to discuss his department's response to this important report, and I thank him for his work, which I'm confident is in line with the ambitions of the JCHR report. The freedoms and human rights of journalists, lawyers and political opponents in this country are, as we have heard, being undermined. I also know that anxieties about such threats can and do have a chilling effect in our universities.

We must work hard to ensure that human rights and freedom of speech are protected in our universities and more generally. And it is for that reason that I am committed to support the work of the JCHR in this really important area. I'd like to end by making it clear that it would have been beyond the imagination of my teenage self to think that today I would be a member of this House. It is thanks to the support of my parents, and particularly to the confidence that my teachers had in me while I was growing up, that I hope to play a role in this chamber in promoting not only human rights, but also the importance of education and culture.
16:50
Lord Cryer Portrait Lord Cryer (Labour)
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Thank you. pleasure to welcome Lord Isaac, to take his place and to congratulate him on an outstanding maiden speech. The rest of us are going to have to look to our laurels in the next few years, I suspect. Lord Isaac CBE, I should say, is, as you've heard, the Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, and chair of both the governors of the University of the Arts, London, and of the Henry Moore Foundation. Throughout his career, he's consistently been involved in the arts, education and human rights.

And we just heard some of that a few minutes ago. He's also the former chair, as you've heard, as we've heard of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission of Stonewall and of modern Art Oxford. On a personal note, I'd like to thank Lord Isaac for the delivery of the report on antisemitism in the Labour Party. He wasn't chair when the report was actually delivered, but he oversaw it and he initiated it. And that, for me personally, was a major turning point in Labour Party history, but also probably more widely in British political history.

That was an enormous turning point. He was also trustee of Cumberland Lodge, a director of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. The Human Dignity Trust, Big Lottery and 1418 now. And he was also for many years, as you've heard, a partner at Pinsent Masons. And he was made a CBE in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours list. I don't know where he found the time for all that, but there we are, turning now to the to the debate before us.

I'd like to start by paying tribute to Lord Dalton, who's got an exemplary track record on issues of human rights around the around the world, and to pay tribute to the JCHR and the report that they've produced, which clearly demonstrates that some regimes actually quite a lot of regimes are using physical and digital means to target individuals across borders. The key passage from the report, from my point of view, says this testimonies point to a continuing gap between policy commitments and lived experience, including delayed police responses, subpar case management, and persistent intimidation faced by diaspora communities.

I think that that's very, very clear about where we are. The report points to a number of countries, but I just want to in the short time I've I've got to speak. I just want to focus on two countries, China and and, and Iran, who both use force against expats. And we've heard a lot of that already from Lord Alton and against certain types of British citizens as well. The recent events in in Iran shouldn't need any repetition, but unfortunately they do.

We've seen night after night after night the persecution during the recent demonstrations, the persecution of Iranian citizens. The recent crackdown has probably involved the murder of 36,000 Iranian citizens. The figure is very likely very much higher than that. But that's 36,000 that can be that are readily attributable to the Iranian, to the Iranian regime and agents of the Iranian state. Again, as we've heard, have attacked peaceful demonstrators in central London on a number of occasions when peaceful demonstrations have been have been going on.

Now I'm pleased and I welcome the fact that the government has recently and I've I've engaged in questions with my noble friend, the Minister about this. The the government has introduced new statute, new criminal charges. They've been put on the statute book whereby if you have undeclared links to the Tehran regime, you can be prosecuted. That wasn't the case before, and that's to be welcomed. However, and again, this has been mentioned many times, the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps remains unprescribed individually, they can be prosecuted and individuals have been prescribed.

But as a collective unit. And we're talking about an enormous organisation and employ something like 140, 150,000 people globally. And it uses proxies in many countries, including in this country, but across Europe and the and the globe. We failed to prescribe them. And I've seen both in the other place and here I see Ministers come to the Dispatch Box. This is from both governments, clearly with sympathies towards prescribing the IRGC. And then it doesn't happen. I think that points to a culture at the Foreign Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which clearly militates against prescribing the IRGC.

And that brings me on to the case of China that I also want to focus on. We've all we've all read regularly and seen the reports about the prosecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, and that's, well, well known. I'd like to remind your Lordships that 3 or 4 years ago, for those who who weren't aware that it happened at the time, 3 or 4 years ago, Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, extraordinarily enough, this sounds like a work of fiction, but they actually invited the governor of Xinjiang province.

The Butcher of Xinjiang invited him to come to London to a meeting. Now, the reason that didn't happen is that my former parliamentary neighbour found out about it, had a UQ on it and it didn't happen. However, what we need to see now and I say I've run out of time, so I'll just mention a couple of points very quickly. We need to stop the construction of the embassy. That permission has to be revoked. We need to see the proscription of the IRGC. And finally, and more widely, we need to see a greater capacity in Britain's military abilities because the best, the best protection against war is preparing for it.
16:56
Lord Blencathra Portrait Lord Blencathra (Conservative)
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And what a delight to listen to the noble Lord, and what a pleasure it was to listen to the noble Lord, it was to listen to the noble Lord, the Lord Isaac and his maiden speech. Now, some of us may have been sceptical about the achievements of some new peers in achievements of some new peers in their past local government or party political careers. But today we've got a new peer who has actually done things, and he's achieved a tremendous lot a provost of Worcester College, chair of Stonewall, of course, chair of EHRC.

Now, I read my Lords that he was concerned a few years ago about interference in the work of the commission by Boris Johnson. So I hope he will express concern that the current government is also messing around with the Commission's report and implementing the Supreme Court decision. However, my Lords, he is a very able man, a great addition to this House and we look forward to hearing from him in future. Now, my Lords, having said nice things about his new noble friend, I hope the noble Lord, the whip and Lord Lemos will allow an extra 30s since I've been so nice to him.

My Lords, once again I congratulate my friend, the noble Lord, the Lord Alton, on yet another frightening masterpiece where the United Kingdom must confront a stark reality transnational regression, a repression. Repression is not an abstract threat, but a deliberate, systematic campaign by authoritarian states to silence dissent, intimidate communities, and export coercion into our streets and institutions. And the main threat, in my opinion, comes from China. Once again, the committee concluded that transnational repression risks undermining the United Kingdom's ability to protect the human rights of our own citizens and those who have sought safety within our borders.

We have seen the tactics these oppressive states use surveillance, online harassment, threats to family members abroad, the operation of unofficial police outpost, bounties on activists, misuse of international law enforcement tools, and even attempts to enforce foreign judgements in our own courts. Beijing has deliberately built an extraterritorial legal architecture that's a long arm jurisdiction that's been used to suppress free speech, to coerce, return, and to weaponise ordinary legal and commercial processes against exiles and critics. Let me be plain, my Lords.

This is an assault on the rule of law. In this, our United Kingdom, when foreign states use bogus Interpol red notices as political instruments, when they seek to enforce civil judgements abroad, to punish dissidents, when they cultivate networks that monitor and intimidate diaspora communities on our own soil, then they're attacking the fundamental freedoms it is our duty to protect. UK's response under all governments has been feeble. We fail to use the National Security Act, the Foreign influence registration scheme and sanctions regimes with the urgency, coherence or transparency this threat demands.

And worse still, we put trade and access to cheap Chinese goods ahead of defence of the freedoms of our people. China is a real threat to our fundamental freedoms and our way of life, and yet our governments call it a strategic partner, and we and we kowtow to them. My Lords, that must change. I therefore propose five immediate practical steps out of the 37 recommendations in the report. I believe we should adopt these without delay. First, adopt a formal UK definition of transnational repression and mandate routine data collection across police forces and relevant agencies so we can measure the scale patterns and the perpetrators.

Second, designate China under the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, where objective threat assessment is supported and published. Clear guidance on how data will be used to investigate TNR. Third, create a dedicated national TNR reporting and support hotline. Multilingual and staffed by trained specialists, and require anonymised data from that service to feed threat analysis. Fourth reform Judicial Committee and Foreign judgement enforcement rules so that our courts do not blindly accept that Chinese courts have similar integrity to ours.

My Lords, they do not. As we have seen in the appalling case of Jimmy Lai and Fifth Lead, an international push to reform Interpol procedures. Working with Five Eyes, G7 and like minded partners to stop the abuse of red notices being used to punish political critics. My Lords, these are essential measures to defend our citizens and institutions and the open society we cherish. The United Kingdom is a refuge for those fleeing persecution. If we allow foreign states to turn our streets, our campuses and courts into extensions of the coercive apparatus, we will.

We betray that duty. In conclusion, My Lords, let us act now decisively, coherently, and in concert with our allies, to protect those who look to Britain for safety and to defend the rule of law at home and abroad. My Lords.
17:01
Lord Dholakia Portrait Lord Dholakia (Liberal Democrat)
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I'm delighted to congratulate noble Lord, Lord Isaacs for his main contribution. May I also thank Lord Alton for securing this debate, and particularly highlighting the work on the Joint Human Rights Committee on Transnational Repression for the purpose of declaring my interest. I should mention that I was a member of this of of of his committee. And this is unanimous report was produced. It has been a great delight to work under his leadership, Lord Alton has been responsible for highlighting human rights issues in your Lordship chamber on frequent occasions, and this report is no exception.

We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his contribution. My Lords, we live today in an uncertain world. A few years ago, we would not have heard the word transnational repression. It still requires a great deal of explanation in many parts of the world of what meaning we attach to it. I am pleased that the clarity now exists for a common definition, and it should leave no doubt where civilised world world stands. But, my Lords, we need to ensure that the FCDO and other agencies are involved in educating the rest of the world about the transnational repression.

This will not happen unless a common definition is agreed. Could the Minister give some indication when this would likely to happen? The recommendation is regrettably not been accepted by the government. I said earlier in my speech that we live in an uncertain world. Human rights are frequently in confrontation with authorities and governments. The acts of threats against individuals, groups and communities across territorial borders are carried out by governments or their proxies. This violates human rights. For example, they are cited.

Examples that are cited on Hong Kong, in China, Iran, and some countries in the Horn of Africa. Many of these are anonymized to protect the identities for obvious reasons. In the report, I shall ignore China and Hong Kong, but would concentrate on Iran because the time is fairly limited. The principal Iranian actors are the supreme leader and senior regime leadership. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, diplomatic missions and proxies. Hundreds of people have been killed simply to protect regime survival.

Fragment the opposition. Prevent unity in any form of independent organised resistance through intimidation, infiltration, smear campaigns and manipulations. The Intelligence and Security Committee report on Iran has concluded that Iran poses a wide ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated. It is persistent and crucially, unpredictable. Since 19. Since 20 2022, there has been a sharp rise in physical attacks and a The report further stresses that our security service and police have stopped at least 15 murders or kidnap arrests against British nationals.

My Lords, let me conclude. We must introduce immediate legislation to proscribe the IRGC as a terror organisation and constraint a transnational repression. We should expel identified diplomats linked to the IRGC with evidence of abusive and illegal activities exist. We should strengthen our investigative and prosecution capacity, fund a special policing and legal resources to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals and networks facilitating transnational repression. This is the best outcome of this particular report. Thank you.

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My Lords. Can I also join in congratulating Lord Isaac on his congratulating Lord Isaac on his maiden speech? I think we all remember what a daunting prospect that was. So many congratulations that was. So many congratulations to him. And of course, I also want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for Lord Alton of Liverpool, for securing this debate and for introducing it as he always does, with compelling evidence, incisive
17:06
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Portrait Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-affiliated)
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with compelling evidence, incisive analysis, practical recommendations and of course, his typical passion and principle. I also congratulate the JCHR which the noble Lord shares for producing this powerful report on transnational repression in the United Kingdom. The subject of which we're talking about today. And it is a very real threat. Hong Kong exiles who have been welcomed into the United Kingdom, quite rightly, now feel afraid that they're being watched by the Chinese Communist Party from which they fled. Several have received arrest warrants from the Hong Kong authorities, accompanied by bounties placed on their heads.

Some, such as Carmen Lau, as reported in the media, have faced an appalling campaign of harassment, with anonymous letters sent to neighbours telling them to hand over these Hong Kong activists to the Chinese embassy or report to the Chinese Embassy on their whereabouts and their activities. And in Carmen Liu's case, it was even worse, involving sexually explicit images created by artificial intelligence, amounting to a campaign of sexual harassment. A young former Hong Kong district councillor who fled repression in Hong Kong in search of freedom in this country, should not have to endure such obscene and grave abuse in the United Kingdom.

And of course, China is not the only perpetrator of transnational repression, though it is one of the most active and significant. Of course, several members of this House and the Other place have been sanctioned by China and other regimes and have been subject to various threats of harassment and espionage. Furthermore, several British citizens, including the co-founder of Hong Kong Watch Benedict Rogers, have faced sustained harassment as a result of their activism on human rights. Cases and in his case, for several years, he received anonymous threatening letters at his home address.

His neighbours in a London suburb received letters urging them to monitor him, and even his mother received letters stamped and postmarked with Hong Kong, urging her to tell her son to shut up. He also received an official threat of a jail sentence from the Hong Kong Police Force if he did not cease his activism and advocacy for Hong Kong. My Lords, transnational repression frequently targets dissidents living abroad. The family members of political prisoners, and individuals who engage with UN mechanism.

And just last week, I was made aware of an example of this of a young man, Ma artist called Sai, who was trying to put on an exhibition in Bangkok looking at artists from who were in exile from Hong Kong, from Tibet, the Uyghurs, Iran, Russia and Syria. However, the exhibition, which was scheduled to open for almost three months, was shut down by officials in Bangkok because of the pressure the diplomatic pressure from the Chinese regime. Finally, I just want to talk about one of the most important aspects of the report, and that's the foreign influence registration scheme.

It was introduced under the National Security Act in 2023. The Joint Committee's report welcomes the introduction of Firs and the designation of Iran and Russia on the enhanced tier, and so do I. However, the report expresses concerns about the evidence it received regarding TNR by China and therefore the absence of China from the enhanced tier. And I would ask the noble Lord, the Minister, in concluding, if he could advise the House whether TNR is a high priority consideration when deciding which countries should be specified under the enhanced tier of fares, and will it designate China on that enhanced tier in compliance with what the report has said? My Lords, once again, I commend the noble Lord, his committee and this report and look forward to hearing what the noble Lord the Minister, has to say.
17:10
Baroness Blackstone Portrait Baroness Blackstone (Labour)
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I want to start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Isaac on his really excellent maiden speech, and particularly what he had to say about education, creative industries and the arts. I also want to congratulate Lord Alton and his committee's members for their excellent report on on this issue that has had all too little attention. Indeed, many people probably have absolutely no idea what transnational repression actually means. In fact, the committee noted that there is no widely agreed definition, but that it amounts to, and I quote, certain foreign state directed crimes against individuals.

The best known example is probably the Salisbury poisoning of Skripals by agents of the Russian government. Besides Russia, other countries which have been cited for intimidating and harassing, sometimes very violently, their subjects in the UK include Iran, China and Eritrea, all of which have been mentioned now also on the list. They are less frequently cited is Pakistan, and I want to devote my speech largely to a current case concerning a Pakistani human rights lawyer who is living in exile in the UK.

She was called to the bar in the UK and subsequently had a distinguished career in Pakistan, working on human rights issues such as forced disappearances and the death penalty. He then became a Minister in Imran Khan's government and was responsible particularly for anti-corruption, when Khan was removed from office, he fled to the UK in 2022, in fearing that what would happen to him if he stayed in Pakistan. I'm grateful to reprieve for briefing me on the appalling attacks to which Akbar has been subjected since coming to this country.

Unknown assailants have thrown acid at his face outside his home, assaulted him physically, tried to set fire to his house, forcing him and his wife and children to go into hiding. After gunshots were fired through the windows of his house. Counter-Terrorism police consider the attacks on to be highly targeted and have arrested several people. It appears to be a recent example of a sophisticated plot to intimidate him and to assault him. The response by the police is, of course, very welcome, but the committee report rightly contends that treating each case of this kind individually is not enough.

Law enforcement can pursue the perpetrators, but what is needed to is a commitment to address the behaviour in the foreign governments who are determined to destroy opposition to them by truly vicious means, and certainly denying those targeted their rights of freedom of expression. In the specific case of Shahzad Akhtar, can the Minister tell the House what action the government has taken to put pressure on the Pakistani government? Does he agree that to address the root causes in a political and diplomatic response is needed in cases of this kind? Second, what reassurance is Mr.

Actor being given from a senior level in the government that his safety is a matter of concern and that everything possible will be done to protect him and his family? There are a number of dissident communities that are at high risk of transnational repression, such as. The critics of the Iranian regime has been mentioned by other speakers, and they have escaped from the likelihood of imprisonment without trial in Iran. But can the Minister tell the House or elaborate on what special measures have been taken to protect them? When he replies, I hope he will be able to give a positive response on a number of the issues the committee report identified, including better data collection, the coordination of inter-agency responses to TNR, and the possibility of specific sanctions against it.

My Lords, we need to address these questions to maintain our reputation as a country which does not tolerate the denial of free speech through violent intimidation. My Lords, I thank the noble Lord Lord Alton.
17:15
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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And the Joint Committee for this excellent and important report. excellent and important report. This report, and many other noble Lords already in this debate, have referred to concern about transnational repression by China, by Russia. And you don't get much more extreme than actual and attempted assassination by Iran and by other states and speaking, excuse me. As the founding and now former co-chair of the all party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, someone who has often spoken particularly about the concern for Hong Kong and other Chinese students at UK universities.

These are very grave concerns on which I've often spoken, but today I'm going to talk about another state, a rising threat. And at the moment, most of this threat is not in the form of physical threat, obviously, but in terms of intimidation. And we know that intimidation and physical threats are often closely linked together, and that intimidation can have very serious effects on people's lives. And I'm going to start with what's really quite a mild example, a mild case.

It's the case of the head of a British public relations company about whom this states embassy, the official representatives of its government complained to the companies for which his firm worked, not about the quality of his work or about his representations, but about private social media posts, posts that were critical in really very mild terms about the leader of the state that embassy represents. The individual has now left the company. It's called Hanover, and one of its key clients is American pharmaceutical manufacturers.

And yes, the state is the United States of America. The Financial Times reports that the embassy refused to continue to support the US pharma firms unless the executive was fired. These, of course, are the same pharmaceutical companies who, with embassy help, have considerably raised the costs of drugs for our NHS. Now, some might say that's just the rough and tumble of capitalism, the unequal and all too often subsidiary position that the UK finds itself in in relation to the US.

It's only that individual's economic rights affected. But of course, what about his successor and what about his and others free speech rights? But now look, let's look at the other end of the scale, the top of society. The US vice president, JD Vance, last year shocked Europe at the Munich Security Conference by attacking democratically agreed laws debated in this very chamber to protect women's health care rights. JD Vance suggested that US might not live up to treaty obligations unless we changed our laws.

Now the noble Lord Lord Blencathra spoke about Chinese assault on the rule of law. Here we are seeing an assault from the US on our rule of law. Now, this year, of course, the speech from Secretary of State Marco Rubio was much better received. The tone was much more conciliatory, but the content was no different. It attacked the obstructions of international law, the very human rights we're talking about, and suggested that this hamstrung future Western colonialism. He asked, you might say, demanded, that Europe join again with the US to expand with missionaries and soldiers, to build vast empires extending across the globe, which is definitely not in line with human rights.

Now, what does this mean practically? I spoke earlier today in the EU debate about the precautionary principle, and we might have wished whether we think about Chinese technology, we think about action earlier on other forms of transnational repression that we'd acted earlier. Well, perhaps we should apply the precautionary principle, particularly when we're thinking about US tech firms and their hold in our society and their hold over individuals in society. And if we're going to protect not just British individuals, not just the US diaspora, but our whole rule of law and human rights, and think about how we can protect those against a new threat of transnational repression.



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Thank you. And my congratulations to the noble Lord Lord Isaac on an excellent and very informative maiden speech. I also want to congratulate my noble friend Lord congratulate my noble friend Lord Alton and the members of the JCHR for producing this excellent report, and the noble Lord Lord Alton for securing the debate. It will not come as a surprise to noble Lords come as a surprise to noble Lords to hear that I support all the recommendations in this report.

The
17:20
Baroness O'Loan Portrait Baroness O'Loan (Crossbench)
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JCHR has articulated clearly the problems caused by TNR, a growing threat to democratic values, the threat to democratic values, the rule of law and freedom of expression. Foreign policy decisions and international trade partnerships are often made without sufficient consideration of the TNR sufficient consideration of the TNR record of perpetrators, States which risk undermining of perpetrator states, which risks perpetrator states, which risks undermining the UK's credibility as a leader on global human rights issues and emboldening these authoritarian regimes to escalate their TNR activities.

My Lords, the JCHR has called for definition of TNR. We do need it, but I think we recognise it. We recognise it in state directed cross-border actions to coerce, intimidate, conduct surveillance, kidnap, prosecute or even assassinate critics, dissidents and diaspora opponents. And all this, of course, in the wider context of the torture, harassment, intimidation and even execution of diaspora family members who live in the country in question. We know Lords have spoken of Russia and China. I want to speak briefly about Iran and the impact of its TNR activities in the UK.

The Supreme Leader, as he calls himself, Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Iran are very active. They utilise the resources of diplomatic missions and embassies across the world. I can give you an example of the case of the conviction of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat who was convicted in Belgium in 1921 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to bomb the gathering of the Iranian opposition coalition, the Ncri, in support of a free Paris, a free Iran which was held in Paris in 2018 and which was attended by members of your Lordships House and the Other place.

My Lords. They use various criminal methods to work assiduously to undermine any protest against the regime. They arrest and prosecute dual nationals on fabricated charges so that they can leave a leave a releases of regime operatives and convicted diplomats. They have developed extensive and coordinated transnational repression. Last July, the ISC issued a report which said Iran poses a wide ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated and is persistent and crucially, unpredictable.

Since 2022, the previous major rising in Iran, there has been a sharp rise in physical attacks and kidnap. Assassination attempts. Our security services and police have stopped at least 15 murders of kidnap attempts against British nationals or UK based individuals since 2022. The threat to US has increased sharply, and there is now an acute national security and human rights concern. The the designation of Iran and Russia as countries on the Foreign Influence Registration scheme is the advanced tier of that scheme, is evidence of the threat posed by TNR originating from these countries.

Anyone working for or directed by the Iranian state is at peril if they carry out such activities without compliance, and the JCHR has recognised the need to support efforts to elevate TNR as a priority on the UN agenda and to promote coordinated international action against its use by authoritarian regimes and the need to ensure information and data sharing on TNR with like minded countries in fora such as the Council of Europe, Interpol, the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, the OSCE, the UN.

In January, the people of Iran rose up and that we know that tens of thousands of them have been killed, including women and children. My Lords, we should use the powers which are available to us. We should close the Iranian embassy in London, where there is evidence, for example, of coordination of attempts to silence Iranian dissidents. We should work with allied states to condemn Iranian state threats. I do not know, as other noble Lords have said, why we are allowing China to build the embassy which it is being allowed to build in our country.

This should not happen. We should adopt a more positive approach to sanctions, particularly, perhaps against our members of the new Lordships House. We have heard the governments and I have read the government's response to the report, and I would be very grateful if the noble Lord, the Minister, could tell us particularly how long it will be before the IRGC is prescribed.
17:25
Lord Morrow Portrait Lord Morrow (Democratic Unionist Party)
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I too, welcome Lord Isaac to >> I too, welcome Lord Isaac to your Lordships House, and may I also congratulate the noble Lord also congratulate the noble Lord Lord Alton Lord Alton of Liverpool, both on his comprehensive and informative opening speech and on informative opening speech and on the excellent report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights under his chairmanship. I think it is fair to say that on these sort of issues, in my opinion, anyway, Lord Alderdice or Lord Alton stands head and shoulders above the rest of us, and I thoroughly congratulate him.

The committee obviously knew what they were doing when they appointed him as chairman. I can't think of anybody better and that's no reflection on others. My Lords, as the noble Lord and as the Joint Committee's report have made clear, transnational repression is about many other state actors besides China, notably Russia, Iran and North Korea, but also Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, some of which are recognised threats to our security and geopolitical challenges, while others are among countries which we may consider important trading partners and strategic allies.

Nevertheless, as the JCHR states, China conducts the most comprehensive international repression campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK. This is consistent with the finding of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security report in 2023, which found that China had penetrated every sector of the United Kingdom and poses a whole of state challenge. Given the findings of these two important joint committees, report three years apart, may I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, to explain to your Lordships House how His Majesty's Government's new reproachment with China addresses these concerns? What priority the Prime Minister placed on addressing China's transnational repression, influence and espionage campaigns in the UK, and his discussions during his recent visit to China? And what steps has the government taken to ensure that China's new mega embassy, which was recently approved, if it is indeed, indeed goes ahead as it is now subject to a judicial review, will not serve as the hub for transnational repression and espionage which many of us fear.

My Lords, the noble Lord Lord Alton referred to evidence provided by Hong Kong activist Chloe Chung and the examples of transnational repression faced by other Hong Kongers now in exile in the UK, such as Carmen Lee, and the effects this has had on their safety, mental and physical wellbeing, and also the threats made to Cofilin Gallagher Casey, head of Jimmy Lee's international legal team. I am also aware of threats made to British citizens such as Benedict Rogers, co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, who was who has faced numerous anonymous threatening letters to himself, his neighbours and his mother, and who has also been named more than 95 times in the trial of Jimmy Lee and received threats of a prison sentence.

Similarly, Luke de Pulford, co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, has been the target of such threats. Also, my Lord, this prompts the question when Hong Kongers who have fled Hong Kong to escape repression and sought refuge in the United Kingdom in the expectation of freedom and security, are pursued by the long arms of the Chinese Communist Party. And when the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party reach into the letterboxes and emails boxes of British citizens who happen to be its critic, what is his Government's majesty doing in response? What is the government which has a duty to protect the citizens and to keep us safe during to ensure the safety of our own citizens and those whom we have rightly welcomed into this country as a pathway towards citizenship.

Is there a dedicated police line? What efforts are the police and our intelligence agencies making to brief and advise those who are being threatened? And I look forward to the Minister's response. Thank you.
17:29
Baroness Ludford Portrait Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lord. I thank the JCHR for this very important report and the. this very important report and the. >> Noble Lord Lord Alton for moving it. Now, the government recognised in its response to the report that in its response to the report that not only can transnational repression undermine an individual's ability to exercise their freedoms and human rights, but it is also a matter of national sovereignty and national security. But there seems to be an insufficient follow through from these conclusions.

And the government, although it says it cannot publish its Defending Democracy review, says that this review found the UK had a, quote, hard operating environment for states trying to or wishing to conduct transnational repression, and that the UK had robust tools and system wide safeguards. I think the JCHR begs to differ. Finding that the UK currently lacks a clear strategy to address it with no clear definition. As we've heard of transnational repression and a failure to routinely collect data on the issue, Hong Kong Watch advises that activists from Hong Kong have highlighted concerns that UK police officers see harassment, disruptions and verbal abuses by Chinese individuals against Hong Kong diaspora as, quote, internal conflicts between groups with differing political views, and one activist stated he felt this framing helped the police.

De-politicize TNR, omitting the role of foreign governments in pursuing activists and thus avoiding highly sensitive aspects of UK diplomacy and national security. And I think we want the government to to show that that charge is not true. It is a mystery to me why the government resists a definition of TNR in favour of a description. The tackling Transnational Repression in the UK working Group, a coalition of 60 individuals and organisations, have has produced what seems to me a good definition, quote, acts or threats against individuals, groups and communities across territorial borders carried out by governments or their proxies, which violate human rights and or intimidate, control, coerce or silence dissent.

It seems to me that it's impossible to have an effective policy and operational response from the government and police to something that is undefined, and therefore it seems fair to to claim that there are unresolved protection gaps, a gap between policy commitments and lived experience, and that the UK response is fragmented and difficult to access. A dedicated reporting line, for instance, which is something JCHR asked for. The government, considers this would be duplicative and potentially cause confusion, which I don't really understand does seem to me to be slight echoes of the experience and complaints from victims of domestic abuse and sexual crimes in in this sector, particularly the the committee wants, understandably wants China to be specified on the enhanced tier of the scheme.

The government's response says we will not rush this decision. There's also, as has been widely referred to, the lack of prescription of the IRDC. And lastly, I would like to ask the government to the Minister or the Minister, what is the government doing at Interpol to stop the abuse of Interpol red notices. This is, of course, a cause that Bill Browder, Sir William Browder, I should call him, has long taken up after the case of Sergei Magnitsky and the other tool of pressure and silencing that the committee mentions is is slapps and the global law.

Lord Jordan also mentioned that. What is the government doing on all these matters? Yeah.
17:34
Lord Moore of Etchingham Portrait Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-affiliated)
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I also. Baroness, Lady Ludford, and I want to take up and apply what she's been saying in relation in the short time we have to one country and one subject, the country is China and the subject is our universities. And because some of these I know, Chloe Cheung, for example, and these individual cases are appalling, of course, but they are described as TNR events. And I think what's underrated by the government is the systemic quality of all of this.

It's not just 1 or 2 horrible or even several horrible. It is working right through the system. And above all, in this country, it's working right through our universities because of the whole of state approach that China has to its engagement with this country and other foreign countries. And the problem arises partly here, because our universities are so incredibly dependent on Chinese money for their survival and therefore uncritical of the terms on which they receive that money. Recent figures obtained by the UK by UK China Transparency show that in the Russell Group universities, Chinese postgraduates in Stem subjects now outnumber British postgraduate students in the same in the same Stem subject in Stem subjects.

So this is a very rich ground for universities for CCP, CCP intervention and Chinese. And now I'm afraid also, Hong Kong students are incentivised to report dissident fellow students, and it gives them the people who report the dissident and a leg up in their educational careers. If they do that, they are rewarded. In the past five years, 260 Chinese students in this country have applied for asylum because of the problems they faced in this way, and I have seen no admission at all by any vice Chancellor in this country.

I'm very pleased to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I don't think I've seen one of this problem, and which that seems to me amounts to complicity. And I want to quote an article written by recently in the Times Higher Education Supplement by Doctor Michael Spence, who's the provost and president of UCL. And of course, at UCL, there are more than 10,000 China nationals studying. He spoke of the idea that Chinese students might be persecuted in the way I've described, but is only, in his view, an idea rather than a reality.

And then he went on to say, ironically, the experience of many of our Chinese students is that anti-China sentiment. Anti-China sentiment in the UK has an impact on their ability to speak freely about the positives they see in their country and its culture. Well, I think Doctor Spence is setting up a really utterly false moral equivalence here. It may be true that people here criticise some Chinese attitudes, but they do not threaten them or. Or with arrest by national security police and imprisoned back home, or by harassing or inflicting financial penalties on their families.

That is what China does to the students that it disparages. And I'm sorry, I should have said earlier, I would like to join. Congratulations to the noble Lord and welcoming him Lord Isaac particularly in this context, because he, of course, has great experience of universities. And in this article, Doctor Spence said that he had the his university was, quote, stamping out the culture of fear. I'm sorry to say, I think that's almost the reverse of what is going on.

The. The and this will continue unless it's as as people now say, called out. And this is something where the government I would beg to give a lead, particularly in the light of this report. And therefore it's very important that the report's recommendation of raising China to the enhanced tier happens. But I'm not very optimistic about this, because I've noticed that with the government's mantra of challenge compete and cooperate, the power of money constantly means that the idea of cooperating is always

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preferred to the idea of challenge. Yeah, right. So. My Lords, I declare my interest

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My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of the Free Speech Union. I'd like to praise Lord Union. I'd like to praise Lord Alton and the work of the Joint Committee for producing this report, and praise Lord Isaac for his brilliant maiden speech. As he knows, I'm a big fan because of the
17:38
Lord Young of Acton Portrait Lord Young of Acton (Conservative)
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knows, I'm a big fan because of the work he's done to promote free speech at the University of Oxford, Lord Alton mentioned the case of Laura Murphy at Sheffield Hallam University, so I won't dwell on that one. Instead, I wanted to draw your Lordships attention to the case of Michelle Lipworth, an associate professor in the social sciences at UCL. She was stopped from teaching her long running Data Detectives module in 2024 after a Chinese student in her class complained about her use of data about China and its treatment of the Uyghurs from the global the Global Slavery Index.

In her module, as she wrote in The Times Higher recently, quote, the department made a decision to protect what it saw as a risk to its income owing to potential reputational damage from the student complaint and the core content teaching how to critically evaluate factual claims and secondary data was removed. My Lords, there's an obvious remedy to these instances of what, on the face of it, look like transnational repression in Britain's universities. And that is to commence sections eight and nine of the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act.

Section nine would create a complaint scheme to enable academics and visiting speakers to complain to the office for students if they feel their right to free speech and their academic freedom has been breached, including by repressive foreign states or at their behest. The government has said it wants to amend the complaint scheme to exclude students, and is waiting for a suitable legislative vehicle. It can attach an amendment to containing a revised scheme. But as I pointed out in this House earlier this week, there's no constitutional reason why this section cannot be partially commenced via a Statutory Instrument excluding students from having access to the scheme, even if even if that is just a stopgap for a scheme meeting, all the Secretary of State's concerns can be introduced via primary legislation.

My Lords, we need to introduce a cost free way for academics to defend themselves other than by taking Ruinously expensive legal action. If their speech rights are breached, including by university leaders worried about jeopardising their income from repressive foreign states. You owe it to Laura Murphy and Michelle Lipworth and countless others to introduce this scheme. Section eight of the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act should also be commenced without delay. It would require the office for students to monitor higher education providers and student unions to assess the extent to which overseas funding presents a risk to free speech, and imposes a mandatory reporting requirement for providers to disclose information on foreign funding above a certain amount.

The noble law of the Minister will say that the government has now created an academic interference reporting route for senior university leaders to pass on their concerns about foreign interference to the security services. But while this is a step in the right direction, it is insufficient. And incidentally, it could be improved by allowing academics to use this route, not just senior university leaders. As Michelle Skipworth pointed out in her Times Higher article, this route is reliant on self-reporting, and senior university leaders may not be aware of inappropriate foreign influence in their institutions, with Michael Spence, the VC of UCL being a case in point.

As the noble law Lord Lord Moore just pointed out. And even if they are aware of it, they may be conflicted about reporting it. Under section eight, all significant foreign income would have to be declared, and it would then be the student's job to monitor whether that funding came with strings attached. My Lords, the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act was voted for by a majority of both Houses of Parliament and received Royal Assent in 2023. But how much longer does the Education Secretary intend to delay activating these clauses? My Lords, we know there's a problem with transnational repression in our universities, and the government has the remedy at hand.

When is it going to put it in place?
17:43
Lord Rooker Portrait Lord Rooker (Labour)
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Lord. >> It was a privilege to be. wonderful. >> Maiden speech. >> Of my. >> Noble friend. This is a.

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Noble friend. This is a. Brilliant and long overdue select committee report. The committee said it had received credible evidence that a number of states have engaged in transnational repression on UK soil. The UK lacks a clear strategy to address TNR. No formal definition of TNR, and the government does not routinely collect data on TNR events. Police officers often lack training necessary to respond effectively to TNR, and this results in inconsistent and negative support for TNR victims.

The government response is clear, it says. Select committee's recommendations are constructive. It recognises the term TNR as foreign state directed crimes against individuals, and efforts are underway to improve data. My short contribution is therefore to ask the government to conduct a cold case review of a group of TNR alleged crimes against individuals. I raised this group in the debate on the Queen's Speech in June 2017 at columns 3992401, they reported in the BuzzFeed reports of June 2017.

It involves more than a dozen suspicious non suspicious deaths in the UK. According to the reports. The then government declined to comment on any of the deaths due to national security concerns. Nine of the deaths relate to one circle of people. Police declared them non-suspicious, but MI6 asked the US counterparts for information about each of them. 11 of the deaths occurred after the murder of Mr. Litvinenko, which of course, we knew from the report of Earl of Courtown ten years after his death in 2016.

Some were UK public sector employees, about one of whom I had correspondence with the government. After the debate. These deaths were claimed to be out of scope of local police. One named senior counter-terrorism officer claimed they were, and I quote brazen Russian assassinations in Britain, right out in the daylight. I regret the claims were made that the UK failed to get a grip, partly due to the desire to preserve the flow of Russian money into banks and properties in London.

I do not propose to go into detail, but I am going to do as I did. A column 400 on the 27th of June 2017 to list the names of the people whose deaths were the focus of the reports and the year they occurred. Scott Young, 2014 Boris Berezovsky 2013. Badri Patarkatsishvili 2008. Yuri Goloubev 2007 Stephen Moss 2003 Stephen Curtis 2004 Paul Cassell 2010 Robbie Curtis 2012 Gianni Illycaffe 2014 and of course, Alexander Litvinenko 2006, though that was accused was found to be murder.

Matthew Poncher, May 2016 Igor Ponomaryov October 2006 Daniel Mcquarry 2007 Gareth Williams 2010 Alexander Perry, 2012. Now I'm not contacted anyone about this issue that I've raised in the past, and I apologise if there's any distress caused after so long a time, but we now can have a cold case review of these deaths, especially in the light of the UK government now taking transnational repression seriously. And I think this is long overdue.
17:47
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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I declare my interests as chair of the Human Rights Act, Liberal International and my Lords, it's a pleasure to follow Lord Rooker. His focus on querying suspicious, non suspicious deaths over the last nine years is very, very serious. And from these benches we echo his concern and call for a cold case review. I congratulate Lord Isaac on his maiden speech. It was absolutely imbued with his love of learning and of the creative arts. His passion for people in his role of chair of the Ehrc as well, and for our debate today, that passion in fighting for the rights of everyone was evident from these benches.

We welcome him and look forward to his future contributions. My Lords, turning to this report, it highlights in detail how this country responds to attacks on foreign nationals on our soil and indeed some of our own nationals by other governments and repressive regimes. And from these benches, we want to thank Lord Alton and his committee for this excellent piece of work. I also want to echo my noble friend Lord Dholakia comments about Lord Alton's extensive work beyond this committee over many years in human rights.

There is no doubt that transnational repression can be difficult to identify and manage, and the point made by Lord Rooker shows exactly that. And the report clearly sets out these difficulties, as we've heard during this debate, whether it's having a clear definition that makes it obvious when someone needs assistance, whether the existing law is sufficient to enable our police and intelligence agencies to assist them, and very importantly, whether the current practical arrangements are actually working. And Lady Blackstone's example of TNR on a senior Pakistani lawyer was particularly apt here, as Lord Blencathra highlighted, the report also covers the very difficult issue of strategic lawsuits against public participation of Slapps and Interpol's notice and diffusion mechanisms, and how they can be exploited through the use of either lawfare or red notices.

Where the report says the sniper rifle of Autocrat's long distance targeted and Highly effective Lord Alton and Lord Prior emphasised that TNR on Iranian dissidents at home or abroad. And the numbers, my Lords, are very worrying. They reminded us that sometimes our friends, such as the USA, can also behave in a very unacceptable manner to. And I would like to thank Amnesty International, the Stop Uyghur Genocide Campaign and other organisations, as well as the individuals who have been targets of transnational repression who've told me their personal accounts when I was at the UN watch annual Geneva Human Rights Summit last week, the government's response to this report goes some way to accepting the issues raised by the report.

However, it is a shame that it doesn't go further and I will use my time to query some of that in the light of the evidence taken at committee as well as contributions during this debate. And like others, I will not identify individuals. This matter is so serious that we should not put anyone at risk through this debate. And I know that the Committee took equal care with people who felt they could not be named. Although this report focuses on TNR in the UK, we know it happens beyond our borders too, and that comparison may be helpful for us in the Netherlands.

Last year, Dutch society was really shocked when a Dutch Uyghur was assaulted inside a city hall, a blatant attack in a democratic space that is chilling. And the correspondent noted that as a Uyghur activist based in the UK, I've personally experienced this pressure. Chinese police have contacted members of the Uyghur community and demanded that they report on my activities. I have no other contact with my family for nine years. As a direct result of the transnational repression, my relatives have been subjected to intimidation and coercion and forced to publicly condemn me in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals.

This is the human cost of speaking out, end of quote. And we know this is also true for other targets of the Chinese authorities. Hong Kong Watch reports concerns that people have moved home or in the case of one family I heard of a couple of years ago, they had to change their names to. And the psychological effects of this were emphasised by Lord Morrow. The problem, my Lords, with TNR is that we too often think of the appalling extreme events such as the Salisbury poisoning targeting the Skripal families, but also killing civilians as well.

Much more is insidious and affects the families back in the home country to. I spoke recently to an Afghani who fled after the Taliban re-established their power. The TNR that the the this person experienced in the UK came from a number of asylum seekers who also fled Afghanistan. The individuals said that they saw two types. There were those mentioned by other speakers who were blackmailing and pressured to bully and coerce individuals to protect their families who were still in Afghanistan.

But more worryingly, they noted, it was also evident that there were some people who clearly had sympathy with those in power, even though they claimed to have fled them. They said that this particular type of TNR was very worrying because of these people had asylum seeking status. I also talked to Chloe Chung in Geneva, who gave evidence to the committee last week and as with the committee, found her personal testimony very moving and we need to ensure that China's actions are condemned and they should be added to the enhanced tier list.

I also talked last week to a victim of TNR currently living in Europe, and the support they get from the police in their new country is impressive, including armed police supporting them. Either when intelligence suggests that this is necessary or when they may be in a vulnerable environment. But when they came to visit the UK, not only did they lose the support and intelligence of the experts in their own country, but because they weren't based in the UK, they found it very difficult to get support from day one, even though they were still severely under threat.

So can I ask the Minister what should happen when someone currently receiving support and protection in a country that we would regard as a friend of ours, is invited here, particularly for events, but they aren't entitled to that same level of support and protection in the UK as they get in their new base. Lady foster reminded us that TNR changes as technology develops and the use of AI is a real threat. So can I ask the Minister, are those investigating TNR across agencies supported by cyber security experts? TNR in UK working Group, coordinated by amnesty, also points out that we should work closely with our Five Eyes allies to tackle the misuse of red notices.

But I also wonder if we share our experiences with them and with other European colleagues, so that we can all manage to learn to manage TNR better. In order to do that, we need to collect good data. The police are the obvious body for this, but it's also clear talking to those on the receiving end of TNR that it's the other agencies involved local government, FCDO, etc. that broader data should be collected from certainly by the police. Lord Moore of Etchingham was right to highlight the problems of the reliance that our universities have on Chinese students.

Our Australian colleagues have long battled with this subversive influence, attempting to silence our higher education institutions. And Lord Young of Actons illustration of China of Chinese students in the UK trying to pressure he's not to criticise China is also chilling. Not much has been mentioned today about Vietnam, but they have become habitual users of TNR for their opponents, both in country but also else ex abroad as well. And there are many techniques that are familiar with.

They have a particular habit of abducting their people when in other countries, whether it's Berlin, Bangkok or in getting and getting them back into Vietnam. But there is pressure on the diaspora and indirect discrimination, as we've heard about. But there is certainly a risk of abuse from Interpol red notices. But there's other subtle mechanisms as well. By using business techniques to try and scare these people out of country, and that we need to be aware of too. I'm not sure the police always pick this up.

So, my Lords, just to conclude, as many others have said, will the government reconsider the adoption of a definition of TNR? My noble friend Lady Ludford and Lady alone have said that this is important. And they're right. So will they review that? Will the government also undertake a review of the effectiveness of managing TNR cases in the UK? And will the government include a comparison with some of the other nations managing TNR, as I mentioned earlier, and will the government undertake to set up a dedicated hotline within 12 months? Last week I heard of one person who had need to call 999 in an emergency and the call centre staff member said, I don't know what TNR is and was therefore unwilling to pass them on to somebody with more knowledge.

That, my Lords, was very frightening. There was nowhere for them to turn to. So as I end my contribution, I think of people in this sort of position. this sort of position.
17:57
Earl of Effingham Portrait The Earl of Effingham (Conservative)
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My Lords, firstly, please let me congratulate the noble Lord Lord Isaac on his excellent maiden speech. I note that he was a partner at a top law firm established in 1769, so he will fit seamlessly into your Lordships House, which is another amazing place to work, having also been around for many centuries. As my noble friend Lord Blencathra put it so eloquently, the noble Lord Lord Isaac CV is so extensive that I could keep going for quite some time, but I would like to focus on just one further item.

I understand that the noble Lord Lord Isaac is the first Provost of Worcester College to keep bees, and has been known to sell his honey in college, so perhaps he might consider selling a jar to His Majesty's loyal opposition. Moving on to the report in front of us, please let me thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and those on the committee, such as the noble Lord Lord Dholakia, for their thorough and forensic work, which has resulted in the excellent report and debate today.

His Majesty's Loyal Opposition would also like to pay tribute to all of those who had the tenacity and strength of character to give evidence to the Committee, despite the potential personal risk they were taking. In doing so through their voice. Others will hopefully be spared the suffering of transnational repression here in the UK. The security of our nation is clearly the first duty of government. It is a pivotal priority for any administration which aims to foster a high trust society where people are and more importantly, feel free.

Free to speak openly, free to debate, and free to challenge constructively. Transnational repression has a chilling effect on those very freedoms, and it is neither fair nor reasonable that individuals living in the UK are unable to speak out and bring to the fore perceived abuses perpetrated by foreign states, both internationally and here on our home soil. The government's own national security strategy concluded that hostile activity on British soil from countries like Russia and Iran is increasing, threatening our people, critical national infrastructure and prosperity.

And as the noble Lord, Lord Alton said, the committee found that in the last year, the number of state threat investigations run by MI5 jumped by 48%, with them dealing with more than 20 threat to life cases relating to just Iran. Since the start of 2022. And my Lords, this repression is not limited to just those countries. As we've heard, Egypt, Eritrea, Rwanda and others feature in the committee's report. In that same national security strategy, Ministers recognised the vital importance of diplomacy in approaching the threat posed by China.

And they are entirely correct. So as a starting point, we would be most grateful if the noble Lord Lord Hanson would confirm that his government will action at pace an appropriate diplomatic conversation with senior counterparts from every country on the committee's list. An update your Lordships House on what is being done and when. Many noble Lords have made specific reference to Iran. And in the same vein, we would appreciate a blow by blow account of the steps Ministers are taking to address the committee's finding that, I quote, Iran represents one of the highest kidnap and assassination state threats to the UK.

My Lords, surely that is a line that must never be crossed. Regarding evidence calling for a formal definition of transnational repression in line with the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. Is the noble Lord the Minister, in a position to explain why Ministers Ministers have resisted calls to issue a formal definition for transnational repression. What is the logic behind that decision? Does he not agree with all noble Lords? I'm sure what the noble Lord Lord Blencathra has said that a definition might actually improve our data on transnational repression, and if he does not agree, perhaps he could provide colour on why the government believes that data and monitoring of transnational repression can be improved without a further change to the way the government describes the act.

On the specific recommendation that new offences in respect of transnational repression may be required in the future, is it not a sensible idea that Ministers should keep existing offences under review and respond to emerging threats in the way that the committee suggests? Turning my Lords to China? The statistics do not lie, and I'm afraid to say that the government has failed to deliver the growth it promised 18 months ago. One just needs to look at the market standard benchmark of GDP per capita, a measure often highlighted quite correctly by my noble friend Lord Hintze and the Prime Minister's recent trip to China is a sensibly cautious, whilst tangible reset of UK China economic ties.

However, in line with the calls to action from my noble friend Lord Blencathra, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow and the noble Lord Lord Moore of Etchingham. It would be wrong not to challenge the noble Lord Lord Hanson on one on why China remains at a lower foreign influence register scheme designation and not the enhanced tier. Can he please explain what the threshold for China's designation on the enhanced tier of foreign of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme would be my noble friend, Lord Young of Acton quite rightly mentioned, the Uighurs added, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

And indeed the evidence given by the Uyghur Muslims to the committee was both brave and insightful. The same applies to the Uyghur communities in the UK and around the world. Only last week the noble Lord Lord Whitehead at that very Dispatch Box, was asked which UK registered firms imported component parts for solar panels that include polycrystalline silicon from China, and how many of these components were sourced from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, to which he replied, the government does not hold or publish data identifying which UK registered firms imported component parts for solar panels containing polycrystalline silicon from China, nor data on how many of these components may have originated from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

My Lords, the Great British Energy Act is crystal clear. It requires the Secretary of State legally to satisfy himself or herself, that no schools are clad in solar panels made from slave labour. It is only fair and reasonable that the noble Lord, the Minister and the department can confirm to schools, parents and children that they have a cast iron guarantee from this government that none of the schools are clad in solar panels with any component parts made by slave labour.

Noble Lords are also all too familiar with the situation of Jimmy Lai, and indeed, Ministers have flagged that I quote we will continue to protect the Hong Kong community in the UK and others from transnational repression. Is it the case that if the noble Lord, the Minister, were to raise China to the enhanced tier, then Hong Kong as confidence in our national commitment to their safety and security would increase accordingly? And finally, my Lords, the committee's report touched on strategic lawsuits against public participation.

I am assuming the government does not believe it is right to use a slap to silence individuals who are exposing or criticising unacceptable conduct. So does the noble Lord. The Minister, agree with the committee that the current framework for tackling misuse of slapps is too limited. My Lords, it would be wrong to end without touching on a critical element of the entire report, namely support for victims. The Committee welcomed the government's guidance and improved training for the police, as was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton in her live example.

But actions speak louder than words, and all victims of transnational repression will be watching the government's every move to improve communication with and support all of those affected.
18:07
Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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I'm grateful to. important debate and for the work of his Committee on the understanding of the Issues of Transnational Repression. I note he'd been sanctioned by a number of regimes. I've been sanctioned by Russia, and I take that as a badge of honour in some cases. On occasions he brings immense experience and moral clarity to the role as chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. And I think it's clear from the contributions across the House today that this is a subject of utmost importance.

I must, if I may, though, start with my noble friend Lord Isaac, who made an excellent maiden speech combining both his championship of human rights and particularly LGBT rights, and also his warmth and experience in the education field, it is quite clear that he will bring great experience to this House, and I welcome him on behalf of the government, but also, I hope, on behalf of the whole House to his new role. The Committee did bring a very thorough and detailed report, and its inquiry has presented a very thoughtful contribution to the UK's understanding of foreign states and how they operate on our soil, and the government has carefully considered, as the noble Lord knows, the recommendations.

And we did respond formally on the 30th of October. That has included a welcome to much of the committee's reports, including the issue of coordination, the issue of international cooperation, the issues of strengthening resilience, and the issues that the noble Lord Blencathra mentioned in his contribution. I say, if I may, to the noble Baroness Bennett, that I can't share all her analysis of the United States because the United States is part of the international cooperation and strengthening resilience to look at how we deal with some of the state bad actors in the world at large.

But she's made her point in a usual way. And I and I note that point as a whole, let me say at the outset that this government is unequivocal any attempt by any foreign state to intimidate, harass and harm individuals in the UK will not be tolerated. The position that we have is very clear. The transnational repression in the UK will not be tolerated. But I also reassure the House that it is targeted and specific. Perpetrating states focus on individuals they believe to be threats.

Vocal critics, dissidents, activists, like the many examples given in the committee in the House today. And our message, therefore, is that people should be alert but not afraid. But from a government's perspective, we must not inadvertently amplify the fear the perpetrating states actively seek to create. My Lords, the UK is a safe, open and democratic society and we will always defend those principles. And whilst transnational repression does not affect large numbers of people, its impacts can be severe both in terms of those directly targeted but also on the wider communities.

Now we've had some discussion around the terms transnational repression, and we've had some discussion around what that actually means in terms of the behaviour it captures or not. Lord Callanan mentioned this in particular. The UK has a long, mature and well established system across legislation, policing, intelligence, diplomacy and community engagement to counter state threats, including conduct that amounts to TNR. But this issue demands positive, constant vigilance and proactivity to ensure our defences are strong, resilient and robust.

That's why we have already, in the light of the committee's report, but also in the light of our own wish, we have looked through the Defending Democracy Taskforce, a review into the UK's response, which has focussed on building an understanding of the scale of the nature, the collection of data, looking at the nature and impact domestically, and as well as making recommendations to strengthen that response. And I just want to share with the House some of the lessons that we have learned from our own internal examination.

That includes, first of all, and this is partly, again in response to the report, the continued implementation of the National Security Act 23, which provides world leading, modernised tools to counter state linked threats. Notably the first scheme, which colleagues in the House today have referred to. Now, I will talk a little bit more about that in a moment, but it is also important and this is another issue that has been raised, notably just a moment ago by the noble Baroness Brinton training on foreign interference, call handling, delivering counter-terrorism policing across 45 territorial forces in the UK, strengthening frontline identification and state directed activities is all issues that we have reviewed and are working to improve.

There is clear and practical guidance published on the government UK website for those who believe they may be at risk. We have a dedicated TNR team within the Home Office giving a central point of contact and coordination and analysis, and we are deepening the international cooperation, including the Five Eyes. Again in response to the noble Baroness Bennett and looking at how we can work with like minded partners to bring collective resilience. Now, the first scheme, which has been noted, and I know my noble friend Lord Cryer and Baroness Foster mentioned that does feature Iran.

It is included in the first scheme. And we do keep under constant review whether we should expand that to other countries. I've had representations on other countries here today. We keep that under review, but it is not something that we talk about or discuss, I'm afraid, in public, but we will keep that under review at all times. The government has accepted the thrust of the committee's findings, and we must continue to strengthen resilience. The question of the IRGC has been mentioned by a number of people, notably my noble friend Lord Cryer and the Prescription.

And again, I say to him and others who've raised it, that is an issue that we can't comment upon, but we keep under review at all times, and we do so because the safety of individuals, the integrity of our national security, the actions of foreign states in the United Kingdom are foremost priority. The UK is a safe and open democratic society and we must defend those principles. Now, the question of definition has been raised by a number of members. The Earl of Effingham from the government frontbench, Baroness O'Loan Lord Blencathra Lord Kakkar Baroness Blackstone Baroness Ludford and my noble friend Baroness Blackstone and my noble friend Lord Rooker.

The government in our review has considered the issue in depth and recommended the government recognises transnational repression in the following terms. Certain foreign states directing crimes against individuals which may be carried out physically or online, and any such activity will not be tolerated. Now, there's no international universal agreement on a definition of TNR, but our definition has been used as being deliberately broad, so we can capture the totality of the issue, provide maximum flexibility, and ensure that we do look at addressing and evolving threat.

We've looked at the issue of data. My noble friend Lord Rooker Baroness O'Loan, my noble friend Baroness Blackstone, amongst others have mentioned data. We recognise the importance of robust data, the evidence in shaping an effective response. We're taking steps to strengthen our understanding of the threat, to improve data collection and to ensure our systems are responsive. We are further support data collection. The police have established now a system for reporting crimes that include reference to foreign interference, and I'm happy in due course to reflect on the comments that have been made today as a whole.

The noble Lord Alton, in his opening remarks, raised both the question of the FIR scheme and whether we would publish data on that. The government will be publishing data on the first scheme operation in due course. We plan to by the 30th of June 26, which is the first anniversary of its operation, and I hope that will help and give again some colour to the discussions that we're having today. He also mentioned the ISC and whether they can have oversight of Firs and the sanctions regime.

We as a government are trying to proactively update Parliament whenever we can on all these issues. The ISC is the ISC. It has statutory powers to call in anything it wants to. I sat on it for five years. It can call in and examine any of those issues if it so wishes, and we will obviously cooperate with them and it has oversight of those matters, should it so. Wish there was a lot of discussion. Nobody from the noble Lord Young of Acton Baroness Brinton and the noble Baron Moore of Etchingham, with regard to academic issues.

No, our universities, because they are world class, are a prime target for foreign states and hostile actors who seek to erode the reputation by promoting, shaping or censoring what universities can offer. I don't take those threats lightly. We're collaborating with universities, we're meeting with Vice-Chancellors. We've looked at how we can develop a new academic interference reporting route, and we've also put in £3 million of investment package and support to ensure that we give guidance and support on the very issues that the noble Lords have mentioned today.

Freedom of speech. Other fundamental rights are protected under UK law and the Education Number two act 1986, passed by a previous conservative government. Section 43 requires providers to ensure freedom of speech within the law is secured for members, students, employees and indeed visiting speakers. And I will uphold that right to a total limit. A number of noble Lords, including Baroness Brinton and noble Lord Blencathra, have mentioned Interpol and slaps in particular, perpetrating states do use a wide, wide range of methodologies to conduct transnational repression and the UK's response in tackling state directed threats is, I think, world leading.

We do have appropriate tools and systems, and we're going to certainly be examining those issues in detail. A number of noble Lords have raised a lot of individual issues, my noble friend Baroness Blackstone mentioned issues in Pakistan. My noble friend Lord Rooker mentioned a number of particular deaths. I, I have to say to the House that owing to the sensitive nature of the range of topics and the need to protect individuals, both who may be at threat or indeed to compromise cases, I can't talk about routinely individual cases, but I will obviously reflect on what's been said in relation to that as a whole.

But I will say on individual countries, if I may, China has been mentioned, the noble Lord Moore, noble Lord Morrow, noble Lord Blencathra Lord Young of Acton, and indeed the Earl of Effingham from the front bench. Now the government recognises that China poses a series of threats to the UK from cyber attacks, foreign interference, espionage. We do understand the transnational repression of Hong Kongers, and we do understand the China support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and we will challenge those issues robustly.

But we're also alive to the fact that China presents the UK with opportunities to the second largest economy, and it is currently the UK's third largest trading partner. So we have to develop both challenge, but also pragmatism in relation to these issues. We're working with the Five Eyes colleagues to look at how we build collective resistance to the threats China poses. But we also have to look at the business and economy of the United Kingdom in doing so. But I know that was an issue that we will continue to return to.

And again, the foreign influence scheme pressures have been given to me, notably by the Lord Alton, for China to be included. We continually look at how and what and why they should be examined. No decision has been made about China. Adding countries to the enhanced tier requires a consideration of a broad range of issues, and they will remain under consideration at all times. The same is true as I've already mentioned with Iran, we've already put Iran on the first scheme and we will examine and continue to look at Iran in relation to other matters.

And the prescription issue is always under review at all times. The Chinese embassy was mentioned in passing. I just want to touch on that, if I may. The planning decision was independently taken, but actually national security is our first duty as a government and therefore intelligence agencies have been involved throughout the process and extensive range of measures have been developed to manage any risks. And those risks can come from any nation at any time. And following extensive negotiations, the Chinese government has agreed to consolidate seven current sites in London onto one site, which in my view, bring clear security

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advantages. I will. Yeah. I don't seek to delay matters at this time on a Thursday night. But this time on a Thursday night. But he did say China was our third largest trading partner. But could we just make sure, for the record we just make sure, for the record that that I've just looked it up. We have 60 billion deficit with We have 60 billion deficit with China in in 2025. Chinese exports to the UK were 7877 billion, far exceeding British exports to China 17 billion.

So this is a big trading partner. But we are the weak ones and China is the one

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getting all the benefit. We have to work with China. We'll challenge China at all times. We'll trade with China when we need to. And it's important that we hold standards of democracy to account standards of democracy to account across the world. So, my Lords, I'm conscious of time, but.

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conscious of time, but. I want to detain the House at all. And I thank the noble Lord for giving way. But the noble Lord, I think, just said that he'll keep us informed about the prescription issue. This has been said for months and months and months and months. Can you give us some idea of when there might be actually some real news? Please?

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Interests of the UK security or of the security of individuals we are trying to protect? To give a are trying to protect? To give a running commentary on the issue of prescription, this House will be informed if any prescription informed if any prescription decision is ever taken on any individual, country or organisation. That is the process we've done. That is the process we've done. We've we've done that recently. We will continue to do that. But I can't give, unfortunately, a can't give, unfortunately, a running commentary on whether and when and how we're going to consider these matters.

We keep them under review and in the event of a decision being taken, I'll be held to account in this House as Ministers will be in the House of

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Commons to any decision that is taken. Will the Minister tell me then

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Will the Minister tell me then Jonathan Hall produced a proposal for dealing with the issue? Is that being accepted by government?

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being accepted by government? Well, we've got a response to the Jonathan Hall review very shortly. And again, members of this shortly. And again, members of this House will be able to hold me to account for the response the government gives. But I can't I can't give the running commentary can't give the running commentary at a despatch box about issues of national security in the way in which the noble Lady tends me. So can I say that today I'm conscious of time? It's been a very fruitful, useful debate for us.

I will look at the Hansard in detail when it is produced. If there are issues in that detailed Hansard that I wish to respond to further, I will write individually to members. But I thank the noble Lord for securing the debate today, and I hope that we can continue discussions on how we keep people safe in this country from transnational oppression, and how we support the security of the United Kingdom.
18:24
Lord Alton of Liverpool Portrait Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)
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I would like to start by saying >> I would like to start by saying how grateful I am to noble Lord Lord Hanson of Flint for the way in which he has engaged with the JCHR which he has engaged with the JCHR on this issue, and indeed his colleague Dan Jarvis, member of Parliament, another Minister in the government who came and gave evidence to the committee. It has been constructive. We have made progress. He's felt, I think, some of the frustration around some of the issues, like Firs like sanctions, things that he can't give running commentaries on, like the prescription of IRDC.

But that for me does beg the question I raised earlier on about how we deal as a Parliament with such difficult, sensitive, and often controversial questions. They can't be dealt with on the floor of the House, but they can be dealt with in places like the Intelligence and Security Committee. And I hope that he will talk to his colleagues about how maybe some dedicated moment in the course of the year to look at those things can be set aside because he knows as well as I do.

But if the avalanche of issues that come before a committee rumbles on, you never get round to doing some of the other things you might like to do. So I think as a specific thing, if you could take that away, that some of these questions could be looked at in more detail in those kind of more confidential surroundings in camera safeguarding national interests, I'm sure that would be a constructive thing which could come out of this, he said. This is a safe, open and democratic society.

There's unanimity across your Lordships' House that we want to keep it that way. I don't agree with him about the the numbers, and in fact, he himself said we need to look again at the data. And I think that we have underestimated the scale of transnational repression. And if anything, this report and this debate has helped us to see the scale. It's an excellent report. I do congratulate, congratulate everyone who is involved in its compilation. I only regret that my noble friend Lord Dholakia, who was such a very hard working member of the committee, has now rotated off of the committee, but we were grateful to him for the contribution that he made in its compilation.

The noble Baroness. Lady Blackstone said really, very few people know what transnational repression is, and she's quite correct. I hope that the report will and the debate that we've had today will help to put that right. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Earl of Effingham, have complimented the witnesses who came before the committee and the noble Baroness Goldie. Brinton also emphasised the courage that many have shown, specifically those who wanted to waive their anonymity so that people would know what has happened to them.

Maiden speeches, I think, always give special definition to debates, and certainly today the noble Lord Lord Isaac raised our debate. It was noble Lord Lord Cryer, I think, who said that we would all have to look to our laurels as a result of his maiden speech. I agree he brought together two things. One was his commitment to education and the other to human rights. And curiously, those two things have conflated, as we've heard about the threats to our universities. We heard it from noble Lord Lord Moore noble friend, but also from Lord Young of Acton and other noble Lords who have contributed.

You see something we do have to return to, and I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Maldon, the universities Minister, is looking at this, and she could do no worse than go back to the report that was compiled several years ago by the then universities Minister, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, which when I drew that report personally to the attention of his brother, his brother at the time, as the Prime Minister, said he wasn't even aware of it. But I think things have moved on and we need to become very much more aware of the systemic subversion of our universities, which has been referred to today.

The noble Lord Lord Blencathra, who is a long standing friend, always emphasises the importance, as he did in his last intervention a few moments ago, to resilience and getting rid of the dependency that we have billions of pounds of national debt every year. But it goes beyond the funding. It goes into the very heart and nature of our society. We've heard about firs of slaps, red notices, Magnitsky sanctions, common definitions, the collection of data, how to reset diplomatic engagement, proscription of the IRGC and the rest.

These are all important themes, and I'm glad that our committee was able to bring some of them out. And I'm grateful to all noble Lords who have developed the arguments, have delved deeper, and we have proceeded. I'll end, if I may, on one personal reflection, which is I always enjoy listening to the noble Lord Lord Rooker. We have talked today about maiden speeches. He may not remember that in 1979, when a brash new young MP had just been elected in a by election and became the shortest lived ever MP for two and a half days flat, had to make his maiden speech within two hours of arriving because the house was being suspended so that people could go back and fight a general election.

It fell to the noble Lord. Then Jeff Rooker to respond to the new youngest member of the House of Commons and to say nice things about him. He's always given me encouragement as the years have proceeded, and it's always a pleasure to hear him speak in debates like our own today. I hope the noble Lord Lord Isaac will also feel encouraged by all of the commendations that have been made from around your Lordships' House to him. And with those words, my Lords, I conclude my remarks and I

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beg to move. That this motion agreed to, as be many of that opinion are content

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be many of that opinion are content contrary not content to the contents have it. I beg to move the House. Do now adjourn.
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