Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Bates

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

The noble Baroness has just told your Lordships that the House was trying to protect manufacturing through being in “the” customs union. So we have on one side “the” customs union, which is the EU customs union, and on the other side we have a bespoke customs union. That in itself illustrates the problem with those who want to reverse where we are today.

I urge the House to look at the common commercial policy carefully, not only in the light of Articles 206 and 207 of the TFU, and to look at the jurisprudence. The jurisprudence on the part of the CJEU expounds the EU’s common commercial policy into foreign direct investment rules way beyond common commercial policy and into the EU’s external action policy. Some of us may have no problem with that, but the jurisprudence will continue while we are outside the room and not at the table. The jurisprudence will reflect the EU’s priorities, not ours. It would leave us in a vulnerable position going forward whether we were in “a” customs union or the bespoke customs union, which would potentially give us bargaining rights and some say in jurisprudence. Certainly that customs union would give us no rights at all.

I am not used to evoking Mr Blair in support of any cause—I suppose it will have the same impact here as it does elsewhere in the country—but even he has gone public to say that the worst of all worlds would be for us to stay in the customs union. If noble Lords want to support trade in goods they need to move either towards the withdrawal agreement and the FTA that is likely to come with it, or to move to simply remain in the EU. This amendment is an ambush to try to achieve that latter aim. I am pro that latter aim—I am pro remaining in the EU—but I can see, with 20-something days to go, that either we have to agree with the withdrawal agreement, as I voted the last time, or we have to go the other way, as I said in my previous speech, and ask the Prime Minister reconsider our position. A customs union is not going to do that and, on that basis, I will be voting with the Government.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, at this hour, and given the debate, there will probably not be many Members of your Lordships’ House who are carefully weighing the arguments on either side, wanting to know what the Minister is going to say from the Dispatch Box that could just persuade them another way. We have been around this course many times and the arguments have not changed. The House knows the Government’s position on this: they have set it out many times. The people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and to take back control of their laws, borders and money, and have an independent trade policy. If we had a customs union, we would not get that. That is the central point against the amendment. On the other hand, we have a withdrawal agreement that allows us to have many of the benefits of our membership of the European Union without being members of it, and honours the referendum result.

I shall come to two points. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, when moving the amendment—which is worthy of further examination as to what it is seeking the Government to do—said that he wanted to give the other House an opportunity to think again on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in a brilliant, brief contribution—perhaps because we had heard his eloquence on this point in Committee—reminded the House that it voted in favour of his amendment. What they did not mention was that when it went to the other House, giving it an opportunity to think again, it rejected not only your Lordships’ amendment but the concept of a customs union put forward by Stephen Hammond when the Bill was at this stage in the other place. If the purpose is to give that House another opportunity to think again, perhaps it could shout down the Corridor, “We have already said it; did you not hear us the first time?”

Some noble Lords have pointed out that the uncertainty is damaging for business. I accept that. Uncertainty is always damaging for business. What business needs is certainty. However, right at the 11th hour, when we are within sight of and have an agreement, with an exit day that meets the criteria, the amendment proposes to require Her Majesty’s Government to reopen the whole negotiation process that has taken place over the past two years. Somehow that is supposed to help business. Not many businesses would sign up to that level of reopening negotiations and uncertainty. The presentation of the amendment presupposes that the outcome and benefits of a customs union are known. No—they would have to be negotiated. That would be the case unless, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, rightly said, it actually related not to “a” but “the” customs union. In that case, the noble Lords’ option would be there immediately. That is the position of those who want to stay in the European Union, and we understand it.

The amendment therefore plunges us further back into uncertainty and more years of negotiation. The House has already given its view, not once but twice, on this issue. The other place does not need the chance to think again and I therefore urge noble Lords to vote against the amendment if it is pushed to a Division. Most importantly, I urge all Members in the other place not to listen to the amendment but to look at the withdrawal agreement before them next week and make sure that they vote for it, so that we leave the European Union on 29 March, as the British people wanted, but with a deal.

Brexit: The Future of Financial Regulation and Supervision (European Union Committee Report)

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Bates

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke in this debate. Naturally, noble Lords would expect me to be extremely grateful to members of the sub-committee who spoke, but I am also particularly grateful to noble Lords who are no longer members of the sub-committee and to those who have never been members. Their remarks are truly the important ones. I also know that there is another debate and many noble Lords have been sitting here patiently waiting for that to commence, so I will restrict my closing remarks to non-members of the sub-committee —and I will keep them brief.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was extremely critical. I think he is no longer in his place but I will continue.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord apologised that unavoidably he had to leave the Chamber.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

For the record, the noble Lord was critical that we took for granted single market withdrawal. All I would say is that he should read our 2016 report, Brexit: Financial Services, chapter 2, where we cover all the alternative arrangements. So in that case he was shooting the messenger unnecessarily.

The noble Lords, Lord Liddle and Lord Davies of Stamford, and my noble friend Lady Kramer did not at all like our identification of mutual recognition as a solution that had been raised by our witnesses, not least by the IRSG and several others. They, too, are shooting the messenger. If they had glanced at paragraphs 60 to 63, they would have seen that we have our own reservations about achieving that. We say, in terms, that we need more detail and decisions from the Government on how they intend to proceed—if in fact that is the Government’s position. With his usual objectivity and fairness, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, acknowledged that.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, warned us that he was extremely blunt. He knows me well enough to know that I will reciprocate, although rather more softly. I will pick up two points that he made. He said that we were too kind to our regulators as they were tainted by scandals. In the examples that he gave, he omitted to mention that they took place under mainly the watch of a Government whom I believe he was a part of until 2010. They persistently seemed to believe in light-touch regulation. Our belief is that the old tripartite system that has now been replaced by the twin peaks of dual regulation by the FCA and the PRA is rather more robust and resilient. But that is not to say that I believe that banks will never fail. All I am confident of is that the new system will prevent wholesale contagion and a risk to the UK economy overall in terms of the risk to financial stability. In that respect, we should be much more confident of our new system.

Indeed, I know that Members of this House who served on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards helped to create the new system. I believe that my noble friend Lady Kramer was a member of that. So let us have a little more confidence in the new architecture that we have put in place. It has been going for some years and we took our evidence in light of the current framework, not the framework that existed before 2010.

Both the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and my noble friend Lady Kramer commented on how UK institutions were somehow worse than others in terms of the UK institutions’ lack of probity and prudence. I did a quick Google check and I will not detain the House with my findings—we can have a bilateral meeting outside the Chamber. But I can say to the noble Lord rather confidently that Société Générale and BNP Paribas, to mention just two—I am leaving aside Deutsche and all the others—have had whopping fines imposed on them in the period since. So let us not just call out our own institutions. Let us accept that a financial system under a capitalist model will always carry some risk. Let us try to see where regulation can be improved and where it needs to be more resilient and sustained. That is what we were trying to do in this report, in looking forward to how supervision and regulation will take place after we leave the European Union.

It has been a pleasure to take part in this debate. But, above all, it was an incredibly stimulating experience to have conducted this inquiry as chair of the committee. I would just remind the House of the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, who said that, in deliberating what we found in this report, we were unanimous as a committee in coming to the conclusions. That is the way it should be. It is a very grown-up committee, where the members recognise that and behave accordingly. It has been my pleasure to chair the committee. I beg to move.

Disaster and Emergencies Preparedness Programme

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Bates

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We will certainly do that and comply with the Grand Bargain—we were a driving force behind it. That is why we have set out that preparedness and resilience ought to be a key part of the UN’s mission. We have said that and withheld a proportion of its core funding to ensure that it lives up to it. That is also why we are the largest contributor to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the central emergency relief fund. We recognise the importance of that and will continue to live up to our obligations.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I think the Minister said that the programme will end in March 2018—in other words, in a few months. How many of their 45 NGO partners in this programme have the Government consulted, and did they consult them in writing or orally? Finally, I understand that the external evaluation was conducted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Is that report available for public assessment? If not, when can we expect to see it?

[Lord Bates]

On the last point about the Harvard review, yes, we have it on DevTracker, which is a website for all contracts: all the reports are listed there. On the 45 NGOs that play an important part in delivery, DfID chairs that committee, so they were informed at the meeting in October or November. We underscored our commitment to this area and the significant amount of money we are putting in to humanitarian response, but also underlined to them our concern about some of the overhead costs that might be attributed to the complexity of the scheme as it currently stands.