Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Kramer and Lord Tyler

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The important point is simply this: here is a truly successful scheme where UK Ministers have taken the initiative and grabbed the opportunities in the EU. We cannot allow it to disappear. The threat to a large number of enterprises would be disastrous. It would set such a bad example to the agricultural and food industry if we allowed the scheme to be diluted or dissolved in any way.

As we know, the Bill and the proposed new clause are caught up in the rather absurd contingency planning for the crash-out, no-deal scenario that the Government now insist Parliament must play with, despite the dire warnings about how awful such a result would be. If we are not careful, not carrying forward this very good scheme would be disastrous. Indeed, it would be tragic if this excellent scheme, in which successive Governments have invested so much energy, initiative and political capital and on which so many UK producers rely, were lost in the wash. The threat is there.

Of course, the ideal solution would be for it to continue exactly as it is now, with full UK membership of the EU—but I suppose we have to admit the possibility that the ideal will have to give way to the best available replication: hence the proposed new clause. In the words of the 20th century’s most authoritative actuary, Frank Redington, we are faced at the moment with an “expanding funnel of doubt”. We cannot afford for there to be any doubt about the success of this scheme and the necessity of its continuation. The best we can do is to insist, through the amendment, that we do not throw out this precious baby with the bathwater.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, my son lives in Kent. I enjoy giving sparkling English wine from an excellent local vineyard as a present to various people, so I am slightly put out to understand that some local campaigners for Brexit have been urging vineyard owners to look forward to the day in late March when they will be able to call their product “champagne”—apparently with the Government’s backing, they have been assured. It is important that we understand the reciprocal nature of an arrangement like this. Therefore, to feed the expectation that we will keep our designation but remove it from other people is highly dangerous, and I suspect that the Minister sitting on the opposite Bench will have heard some very similar language.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Kramer and Lord Tyler

Committee: 10th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I endorse the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and draw attention to the work of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, on which the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and I sit. One of the things the committee found most uncomfortable was the extent to which Ministers have played games with words in their explanatory memoranda. We were particularly critical of the reference in Schedule 4 to tax-like charges. The committee stated:

“A ‘tax-like charge’ means a tax. Taxes and tax-like charges should not be allowed in subordinate legislation. They are matters for Parliament, a principle central to the Bill of Rights 1688”.


It is not so late and therefore I shall indulge in some further remarks. My only really respectable connection with your Lordships’ House is that of my ancestor, the great Bishop Jonathan Trelawny, the Cornish folk hero who was one of the seven bishops to defy James II’s attempts to impose rules upon this country without Parliament’s acceptance. His portrait is in the Peers’ Guest Room—he is the one at the end with the Beatles haircut.

I make that point because I am amazed and ashamed that Members of the House of Commons have not seen the dangers in this part of the Bill. I speak as a former Member of the House of Commons. This issue goes back to not just the Bill of Rights and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but far earlier. Reference was made to the Bill of Rights in previous exchanges in Committee. The short-circuiting of the most basic responsibility and role of the House of Commons of approving taxes seems to me an extremely important issue. We should not allow this precedent to be pursued in this Bill. It is the historic role of the House of Commons. I recall that when we had exchanges about tax credits, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr George Osborne, sought to short-circuit and get round the normal process by which the House of Commons decides financial matters. I remember at the time that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred, I think, to ship money and Charles I, saying that the last time a member of the Executive sought to short-circuit Parliament, he lost his head.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I shall add a very quick word because so much has already been said. There is an irony in Schedule 4 which may interest the Committee: namely that the power to provide for fees and charges has been handed to Ministers by means of either secondary or tertiary regulation, depending on which part of this measure you are looking at. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 4 states:

“A Minister of the Crown may only make regulations under paragraph 1 with the consent of the Treasury”.


The irony of that is, frankly, extraordinary because it shows where the Government intend the power of the land to lie. We have always suspected that the Treasury is handed some of the greatest powers that are denied to Parliament. If it is considered fit for the Treasury to be able to intervene in fees and charges, then surely it is Parliament’s right to be able to intervene, scrutinise and monitor those fees and charges.