Global Britain

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord obviously knows that the EU published its negotiating mandate only this morning. We will, of course, look in great detail at everything set out in it, as I am sure it will look at ours. I am sure that all negotiations will be done in good faith. We have an excellent international record: we are proud of our standing in human rights across the piece, both in the work that we do and in our support for the international rule of law. We would not want to do anything to put that in jeopardy.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister tell us how the categorical rejection of any regulatory alignment in the Statement squares with the robust commitments the Government signed up to in the political declaration to ensure a level playing field? Secondly, and related to it, the assertion that the UK will have separate and independent policies in areas such as data protection seems to contradict the assertion at the end of the Written Ministerial Statement that seems to expect an easy agreement for data adequacy assessment, because

“the UK will be operating exactly the same regulatory frameworks as the EU at the point of exit.”

Surely that is not the point. If the Government are saying that we have no intention of aligning dynamically in the longer term after we leave, surely that completely undermines any trust that the EU can have in our regulatory standards and means it is impossible for it to work on the basis of a level playing field.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

There is no requirement for alignment under the withdrawal agreement, and the political declaration sets out our commitment to discuss open and fair competition as part of negotiations on an ambitious future relationship. As the noble Baroness rightly says, we already start from a place of exceptionally high standards and we intend to maintain our standards in all these areas. In many instances we actually have higher standards than the EU and we do not need a treaty in order to do that. We are absolutely committed—we have made commitments time and again and have said repeatedly that we do not intend to lower our high standards; we intend to lead the world.