European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Baroness Manzoor

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I support this small suite of amendments, to which I have added my name. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. Her excellent speech leaves very little for me to add and I will test the patience of the Committee by making only a couple of brief points.

I emphasise that Amendment 40 is not a grab for any further powers to keep the EU linked to Britain post Brexit. We merely wish to ensure that the UK Government consider any future EU developments in the areas of family-friendly employment rights, gender equality and work/life balance. I hope that the UK would be ahead in these areas, as in the past we have been a leader in these fields. Indeed, we may well introduce changes which the EU would do well to consider.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to an EU directive coming down the line on shared parenting, the uptake of which in this country needs considerable improvement. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, has graciously agreed to meet me and others to discuss some of the proposals that we have been working up. However, that is for the future.

Right now, with suggestions that we could be jettisoning our membership of the European Court of Justice and with talk of leaving the European Court of Human Rights, some colleagues on these and other Benches fear that our proud record of leadership in these areas will be lost and that the United Kingdom will enter a race—not to the top, as Minister David Davis has suggested, but in the opposite direction, to the bottom. Amendments 89A, 129A and 157A would simply enshrine in law the certainty that existing EU protections relating to families in the workplace could not be changed or got rid of under secondary legislation.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness explain where the evidence is that we will be reaching for the bottom in equality laws? I certainly do not see any evidence of that.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. As I have just outlined, my concern is that there has been talk on the Government Benches—it has all been suspended at the moment because nothing will happen pre Brexit—of abandoning our membership of the European Court of Justice and leaving the European Court of Human Rights. That is what worries me and it is why I mentioned it.

[Baroness Manzoor]

With due respect, that does not affect what we are doing with equality and human rights legislation in the UK. Perhaps the noble Baroness could explain a little further what that would mean. I do not see any impact on equality law in the UK from leaving the institutions that she has mentioned.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull]

What I am concerned about is the general direction of movement that is being mooted in certain quarters regarding various types of rights for people in the UK in order to make the UK more amenable to having less protection in the fields we are talking about—employment, equality and human rights.

None of these amendments is unreasonable, and the Government would give considerable comfort to mums, dads and carers throughout the country if these simple amendments could be incorporated into the Bill.