UK and EU Relations

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, I usually enjoy a few improbable detective novels as summer reading. However, this year the Government supplied their own—some might say, improbable—reading matter over the Summer Recess. Some of the position papers I read were wildly optimistic: “hope” and “belief” appeared several times. Some of the papers were thin to the point of emaciation. The Confidentiality and Access to Documents paper ran to a full one and a half pages, as did that on Privileges and Immunities, while the Nuclear Materials and Safeguards Issues position paper did little better. It came in at a full four pages.

On the vastly important issue of the border with Northern Ireland, which will become the EU’s new external border, we were treated to more detail on the Good Friday agreement, the free movement of goods, the common travel area and energy supply on the island of Ireland. However, the paper still does not meet the EU’s concerns that there is a distinct possibility of a return to a hard border and of damage to the existing frameworks of funding for the peace process, such as the EU-funded PEACE programme. The EU believes that the issues relating to the Irish border, created by Brexit, are the UK’s responsibility to resolve and it is right. Both Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland have been well and truly dropped in it by our decision to leave the European Union. The complex and difficult issues created by Brexit, as it relates to Ireland, would be far better tackled if the UK stayed in the single market and the customs union.

The position paper on safeguarding EU citizens living in the UK and UK nationals living in the EU raises so many new questions that it is hardly a comfort to those left in limbo as to their future status. The paper states that we—the UK—are,

“ready to make commitments in the Withdrawal Agreement which will have the status of international law”.

What does that mean if we are not going to recognise the Court of Justice of the European Union? Is it the case that those EU citizens who have already obtained a certificate of their permanent residence must still reapply? How much better for everyone, and how much more humane, would it have been for the Government to have said, the day after the referendum result, that those EU citizens legally residing in the UK were more than welcome to remain—full stop?

The science and innovation position paper ran to an impressive 16 pages but it managed to do so only by having page 1 marked as page 3, oddly. We are reminded in the paper of the Government’s achievements and how, in the years of our collaboration within Europe, the UK has brought about so much in the field of research and innovation. We have been there in the development of new therapies and in the medical technologies that have benefited all EU patients. We have, in so much, been participatory leaders in science and innovation in the EU. There is an attempt in the paper to say, “It’s not going to be so bad. We can continue to do all this innovation and science after Brexit, but as a non-EU country”. Yet, it does not take much probing to see that, as a non-EU country, we cannot lead projects as we have done in the past—projects in CERN, the European centre for nuclear research, for example.

In another part of the paper is the suggestion that we, the UK, could have special access to these research programmes that other non-EU countries have never had. This, I suggest, is wishful thinking, and so we will go from leading in research, as we do now, to having no influence, no vote and bringing our own credit card to the table every time, as a non-EU country. We would have indeed voluntarily put ourselves out of the Premier League and settled for the Vauxhall Conference, or whatever its equivalent is today.

April 2019 looms, as many noble Lords have said, and these position papers, with their wishful thinking and special pleading, do not yet make for the detailed road map that this country so desperately needs.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to Amendment 16 in my name and that of others and support all the amendments in this group. I will not delay the Committee for long, but it is important to explain and emphasise why I and parliamentarians across parties and across both Houses wish to pursue this amendment. As previous speakers have explained, the amendment covers protections for groups with protected characteristics who are covered by secondary legislation that arose in the EU. We need these protections built in before Article 50 is triggered because otherwise they could be altered by the Executive and might not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

We are simply asking for oversight by one Parliament, the European Parliament, to be replaced by that of another, the UK Parliament. We believe that women will be disproportionately affected and at risk. Protections already mentioned include: preventing less favourable terms for part-time workers, under the part-time workers’ regulations; the duty of employers to assess health and safety aspects of work for pregnant workers afforded under the pregnant workers directive; the right to return to work to an equivalent post or equally favourable conditions after maternity leave, in the maternity and parental leave regulations; and, perhaps the most at risk—and one over which the Government dragged their heels for two years in implementing—the working time directive, which protects rights to rest breaks, annual leave and not to be required to work excessively long hours.

We are not saying that the Government would use the opportunity to get rid of worker protections in this way, but it would reassure this House if they were not able to do so without scrutiny from both Houses of Parliament. We must not wait until Article 50 is triggered. As soon as it is triggered, these rights become exposed and unprotected. If the Government have no intention of taking the opportunity to change some of these protections without benefit of parliamentary scrutiny, there is no reason why they should not accept this amendment.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I particularly support my noble friend Lady Drake’s compelling case for preserving and improving workplace rights for women after we leave the European Union. That is not least because I, as a former MEP, like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe—or “another obscure MEP”, as the Daily Mail put it—played a modest part in the creation of the maternity leave directive 25 years ago. As my noble friend Lady Drake said, so many British women—hundreds of thousands—have benefited from that EU law in the intervening years.

Maternity rights for British women have indeed progressed—in that sense the Minister is right—and we should be proud of that. But in the early 1990s, they came from a very low base, much lower than the rest of the European Union, and we do not want to go back to that low base. Therefore I call on the Minister to give us what guarantees he can that we will not go back to bargain-basement rights.

In this debate on the importance of securing transitional arrangements, as my noble friend has said, I ask the Minister whether he agrees with his noble friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie—he was in his place but I do not see him now. In our debate on this Bill on Monday, in answer to a question on the EEA from my noble friend Lord Liddle, the noble and learned Lord said,

“I do not accept that we face a cliff edge—there is no cliff and therefore no edge”.—[Official Report, 27/2/17; col. 588.]

Does the Minister agree? That was certainly not the message that the Prime Minister took to the CBI last autumn when it was extremely worried, and it continues to be worried about the need for transitional arrangements.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

This has been a wide-ranging debate. I put my name to Amendment 34. The fishing industry is important; part of the problem is that people have too often tried to shut the fishing industry up, when it has had genuine concerns about the way the common fisheries policy has operated over many years. Indeed, there are concerns now that in the Brexit negotiations it might yet be forgotten about.

I had the privilege of representing for 18 years in the House of Commons and for eight years in the Scottish Parliament a constituency which had many fishing communities. I am aware that there was a concern as to what happened when Britain entered the European Union and that the interests of the fishing industry were sold short. It was a belief that, when the papers were subsequently released under the 30-year rule, was proved to have some substance. A briefing note from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland in the early 1970s warned:

“In short, at present it is much easier to see the drawbacks for our fishermen likely to be involved in the Common Fisheries Policy than to be at all positive that there will be benefits to offset, let alone outweigh them”.


The amendment that my noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie and I have put forward is intended to try to ensure that some way or other there will be an engagement of the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to help allay some of these concerns.

The House has had the benefit of a very good and well-informed report on Brexit and fisheries from the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Teverson. It makes clear the complexities of untangling the United Kingdom from the common fisheries policy and the need for agreement. For example, my noble friend Lord Teverson said in Grand Committee on 16 January that,

“the moment we leave the European Union, the EEZ will become our exclusive economic zone, exactly as it says on the tin. There will be no automatic right for us to fish in other people’s EEZs; nor will there be any automatic right for other nation states to fish in ours. We will be excluded immediately, if we have not renegotiated access, from agreements with Iceland, Norway and the Faroes, which are particularly important to our Scottish fleets”.—[Official Report, 16/1/17; col. GC 1.]

It is not academic. Important negotiations will have to take place about the future of our fisheries, not only in terms of fishing opportunities but in terms of our trade in fish. It is said that we export the majority of fish caught by our UK vessels and import the majority of fish that we eat. Measured by volume, 49% of our domestic production is exported to the European Union and 32% of the imports that we eat are from the European Union. Fishing will be an important part of these negotiations in terms of catching opportunities and in terms of trade, not only for the fishermen in the immediate area but for the fish processors and all who are dependent on the fishing industry.

In terms of our total United Kingdom GDP, the fishing industry does not loom very large, but in terms of the many communities around our coast in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and many parts of England it is important. I remember taking part in the annual debate on fisheries in the House of Commons where it was clear from the wide range of people who took part the importance to many communities of the fishing industry. Therefore, it is important we focus on this and that we give the devolved Administrations, Parliaments and Assemblies an opportunity for involvement.

In replying to the debate on 16 January, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, said:

“Obviously, we must work—and are working—as closely as we have always done with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations and Crown dependencies as we develop our positions, and will ensure that their views are fully taken into account as negotiations move forward”.—[Official Report, 16/1/17; col. 29.]


I do not expect the Minister to have the answer tonight so he can write to me, but can he tell us up until now what discussions have taken place at official and ministerial level on fisheries with the respective devolved Administrations? As I said, it is a small part of our GDP but vital for our many coastal communities and it is vital that their interests are advanced and safeguarded as we go forward into these negotiations.

Exiting the European Union

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I thank my noble friend very much. I use this opportunity to say once again that my door is very much open to all your Lordships to discuss the matters and challenges that lie ahead.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Crawley]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Time!