European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

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

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I have my name to Amendments 37 and 70, and declare my interest as a trustee of the charity, Coram. I remind the Minister that it is the hereditary oik from the Cross Benches here again for the second time—good evening.

There appears to be broad agreement that it would be disappointing and unfortunate if we inadvertently managed to let children’s rights slip as a result of our anything-but-straightforward and frictionless departure from the EU. The United Kingdom has often played a prominent role in developing global human rights frameworks, and I sincerely hope that the Government intend that we should continue to do so in the hereafter.

Many of us have taken on board the distaste which many on the pro-leave side feel for the charter. Indeed, I have watched online a video of the Minister lamenting the United Kingdom being told to make prisoners have the vote and to allow some individuals involved in terrorism to be given greater human rights than he thought was entirely appropriate. The European Scrutiny Committee of another place in 2014 described the charter as creating a state of confusion.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I think I heard the noble Lord refer to prisoners’ votes. That was the judgment of the Strasbourg court about the European Convention on Human Rights; it was nothing to do with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. In any case, the way in which it has been demonised is wrong, because it said only, “Please have a scheme”, and not, “All prisoners must vote”.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. All I would say is that the discussion I heard was framed in the context of the European charter of human rights, probably incorrectly.

[Baroness Ludford]

Very incorrectly.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

That committee was chaired by Sir William Cash and included a certain Member for the 18th century, Mr Rees-Mogg, so I think that we can conclude that it was clearly completely impartial. We have got the message.

The question that we are posing to the Government, in response to a wide range of representations which many of us have had, is whether they will honour their commitment to defend the rights of children as we come through this process.

I mentioned at Second Reading that scrutinising and discussing this Bill in a non-partisan and apolitical way might be helpful, so I have a specific question for the Minister: does he have a twin brother or a doppelganger? Can he be same person who on 30 January was responsible for writing two articles? One of them appeared on the ConservativeHome website and said:

“From the beginning we have been clear that we need—and indeed want—to adopt a collaborative approach and listen to the views of Parliamentarians from all sides of the House. The necessity and sheer scope of this legislation means that thorough debate and examination is more important than ever. We took this approach in the House of Commons and we will continue to do so in the Lords … The House of Lords has a well-deserved reputation for its detailed and thorough scrutiny. This Bill should be no exception—it will benefit from the forensic examination the Lords can bring and we look forward to that razor-sharp review”.


On the same day, in the Sun newspaper, he wrote:

“We are seeing a co-ordinated push by the defeated elites; the Europhiles will use their majority in the Lords—a majority that rests heavily on quangocrats and busybodies, some of them in receipt of fat Brussels pensions”—


which possibly includes Members of the European Parliament—and:

“For the Lords to overturn a result supported by more British voters than anything else in history would be outrageous”.


He described some of your Lordships as scheming Peers who want an anti-democratic coup. So I have two more questions for the Minister; could he share with us what he had for breakfast the day he wrote those two reports, because I shall try to avoid eating the same? Secondly, did he ever consider a career in the Foreign Office?

Let us please forget the unending politics and focus on the children, whose voice and interests have hardly been top of mind as a rather unseemly procession of opinionated individuals compete for media airtime and attention. I recall noble Lords to the fact that I am speaking to Amendments 37 and 70. Amendment 37 aims to bring into domestic law the parts of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law that are necessary to protect children’s rights. I appreciate that we are not going to bring the charter overall into our law; however, it has some very important provisions: the child’s best interests must be a primary consideration in all actions, children’s views may be expressed and shall be taken into consideration, and children have a right to maintain a personal relationship with both their parents unless that is contrary to their interests. It contains other articles, as other noble Lords have mentioned, including on education and the prohibition of slave labour—the Minister will be aware that our Prime Minister has a particular interest in anything to do with child slavery.

Amendment 70 goes about achieving the same end in a different way. The UNCRC is viewed by most of us as the gold standard. The Government have stated that the source of the rights of the child set out in Article 24 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights stem from the UNCRC, but as others have mentioned, it is not incorporated into domestic law. We share the concerns outlined by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its recent report, Legislative Scrutiny: The EU (Withdrawal) Bill: A Right by Right Analysis. There are several examples of where the UNCRC and the charter have fundamentally helped where there are gaps in our own law. Among these are cross-border family breakdown; the right to be forgotten and data protection; and where 17 year-olds, who are still children under the law, are arrested and treated as if they are adults, which is against the law.

I believe that we must protect the hard-won protections of children and ensure that they are not inadvertently lost. I also support Amendments 68, 69 and 97, all of which are simply trying to probe the Government, to understand how they see the way forward. What all of us are saying is that, however we go forward, we must ensure that in no way, shape or form are the rights and protections of children in any way impaired.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I hope I can put the noble Lord’s mind at rest.

It is important that we recognise how these functional rights are developed and ongoing. The day after Brexit, our rulebook will be safe. The rights which we have will be incorporated and we will build on them as a foundation. They are not a ceiling. It is right and proper that both this Chamber and the other place are instrumental in taking forward the enhancement of these rights. We have to recognise that over the past 30 years our understanding of what is a necessary family right has entirely evolved. As the vice-chair of the LGBTI group in the European Parliament, I recognised how far we could push things within the European Parliament, but I was very clear about how far we could not push them within the European Parliament because of the inability of certain member states to move forward with us. In that regard, in terms of equalities, on not one occasion have we ranked lower than third in the whole of the EU—indeed, in the whole of the continent of Europe. We have pushed forward those rights far faster, deeper and more surely than many of the other member states, so we should not lightly shake them off. We will remain what we have been, I hope, all the way through: a deliverer of these rights, not just on paper, because that is not a functional right, but in functioning and working in the workplace and elsewhere. It is absolutely right that we do so.

In response to a number of the questions raised, I am conscious that there is unease and a certain regard that the Government today will take the first opportunity to cast these rights aside, to scrape the barnacles off the boat to allow the ship to move faster. I assure the Committee that they are integral parts of the engine of the ship and we shall not be discarding them. That is how important they shall remain.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

If that is the case, and we are all very impressed by this unexpected and thorough assurance from the Minister on behalf of the Government, why can he not accept some amendments in this area and some others to put that in the Bill?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Baroness makes an interesting point as to why people have not been able to hear these points, but I am iterating what the Prime Minister, and a number of other Ministers in the Government, have said as regards this, and am pleased if I have been able to cut through some of the hubbub that has surrounded it. We are and remain a Government committed to ensuring that on day one after Brexit there is no diminution whatever in the rights which are and have been enjoyed through our membership of the EU. It is important to stress that. I hope I have been able to give noble Lords some reassurances this evening and some confidence that they will be able to set aside these amendments on this occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith]

Leaving aside Article 191—we can argue about that and there is a decision that appears to demonstrate the point: the case of Artegodan, where the court appeared to be willing to extrapolate from the precautionary principle a general principle of EU law—does the Minister accept that, so far as the other general principles of EU law are concerned, to exclude them from the ability to found a cause of action and not just be an interpretative tool would be a diminution of the rights that people currently have and would include a diminution of many of the rights that the Government are saying are already protected under English law?

[Baroness Ludford]

So that the Minister does not have to bob up and down, may I also ask him a question? He talked about our approach in this Bill. That leads me to reflect on how far the approach in this Bill fits, for instance, the Prime Minister’s speech on Friday, in which she envisaged not only strong commitments in the area of trading goods but binding commitments in competition law. The noble and learned Lord talked earlier about how there would be EU law and then retained EU law in this country, the interpretation of which could diverge. How will the Prime Minister’s commitment to binding commitments in some areas to stay fully aligned with EU law be reflected in this construction of the Bill? If we diverge, would we then have to have domestic legislation to bring us back on track with the EU?