European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd April 2018 Lords Chamber

And what a failure the charter has been in protecting human rights in Europe. On Poland’s interference with the judiciary, Hungary’s interference with higher education, the imprisonment of Catalonian independence leaders, the diminished freedom of the press in Slovakia and Bulgaria, the rise of extremist right-wing parties and the treatment of Roma and migrants, the charter is impotent. For these reasons, a vote for the amendments to keep the charter is tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the ability of our judges and this Parliament to make and interpret the law.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

The noble Baroness just gave a number of instances where she said the charter was of no use. That is for the very good reason that the charter applies only to EU institutions or member states’ implementation of EU law. If she is arguing that the charter should have gone further and deeper into national law that has nothing to do with EU law, that is a very debatable point, but it does not.

[Baroness Deech]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point as to why the retention of the charter would not be of any use once we have left Europe.

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[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I put on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, with whose arguments on Amendment 15 I entirely agree, for his long-standing championing and reaffirming of disability rights both in this House and in the other place.

However, I have a question that I am struggling with and it relates to the brilliance of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, of which we have just heard. I might be disheartened by the noble Lord’s arguments but his genius fills me with confidence that Parliament is well able to assert itself and to advance and protect rights after Brexit. Do we not believe in ourselves and in our proud history of championing rights? I believe that we have much to be proud of, and I personally have much to be grateful to our Parliament for, and your Lordships’ House in particular, due to the invaluable help it has given me and the charities I had the privilege of working with for almost 20 years spent in the voluntary sector.

I recall the crucial support that your Lordships’ House gave the Royal British Legion’s Honour the Covenant campaign when I was its head of public affairs. As a result, David Cameron, to his lasting credit, enshrined the principles of the Armed Forces covenant in law. I remember vividly the pivotal role that your Lordships’ House played in saving the crucial position of the chief coroner during the passage of the Public Bodies Bill, thereby securing long-overdue reforms to the coroners service to the great benefit of bereaved Armed Forces families and, indeed, bereaved families in general. However, I do not recall that those campaigns and changes to the law took place at the behest of the EU, the ECJ or the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. Indeed, the EU, as I recall, barely got a mention.

As a child, my condition meant that I was for ever breaking my legs. I lost count of how many times I had to learn to walk again. You would think that you would remember something so basic, but you do not—not after months in bed with your leg in traction and not when you are afraid to put one foot in front of the other for fear of a fracture. You forget how to walk. I fear that we too have forgotten how to walk, and we need urgently to remember. We need to remember how to walk tall.

We need to reflect the simple fact that the people have spoken and they have chosen, by a clear majority, to leave the EU and to take back control of our laws. The UK is their country, not ours; the UK Parliament is theirs, not ours. We may have been their masters once; we are not now. We are their servants. They are the masters, and they have spoken in a once-in-a-generation referendum.

We do not need this charter. We in this great British Parliament set the benchmark for human rights. That was not done by the EU and certainly not by the ECJ, whose judgments, as we have already heard, are informed by the centrifugal force of everything that emanates from the rejected EU political project of ever closer union.

I conclude by agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that a vote in support of Amendment 15 would be a vote of no confidence in Parliament and in your Lordships’ House. It would be a vote of disdain for the clear majority of the British people, who voted to leave the EU. I urge noble Lords not to support the amendment.

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, I must have explained myself poorly in my intervention on the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, or else the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has misunderstood me. I think I said that the charter did apply when national law implemented EU law, not just when it is EU institutions, and this Bill is meant to freeze EU law. I do not think there has been a response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick: why, uniquely, should the charter be the only element that is left out? As one commentator, Professor Steve Peers, has said, taking the charter out of the case law is like trying to take the egg out of the omelette.

The charter is the key to the rest of retained EU law and its exclusion runs counter to the claim of continuity and certainty that this Bill is meant to deliver. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill say that:

“As a general rule, the same rules and laws will apply on the day after exit as on the day before”,


and that one of the four main functions of the Bill is that it,

“converts EU law as it stands at the moment of exit into domestic law before the UK leaves the EU”.

It will then be for Parliament, and where appropriate the devolved legislatures, to make any future changes. Why should the charter be different from the rest of EU law which is retained under this Bill?

It is perfectly possible to retain the charter and deal with any redundant sections after exit, just like for every other part of retained EU law. If the charter genuinely adds nothing useful, then that can be sorted out in the same way as for other EU law provisions. The arguments can take place later. Yet the only exception to the Government’s general approach is Clause 5(4), which provides that the charter will no longer apply in UK domestic law after exit day. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said in Committee and now, that position is simply unsustainable.

The Government’s rationale that it is not necessary to retain the charter because the rights it contains can all be found elsewhere in domestic law, and consequently that there will be no loss of rights, is disagreed with in advice from Jason Coppel QC for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. He highlights that there will be gaps in protection—for instance, in relation to children’s rights, data protection and non-discrimination.

Various articles of the charter have been referred to in the debate so far. Article 1, providing that “Human dignity is inviolable”, was objected to, but it has been used by the European Court of Justice to help protect LGBT asylum seekers from inappropriate psychological tests and in cases concerning the extradition of individuals to countries where they would face unacceptable detention conditions. That is not some airy-fairy right that we should not care about.

Mention has been made of Article 8:

“the right to the protection of personal data”.

I find it a bit rich that this was relied upon until the Secretary of State pulled out of what was originally the David Watson case, in his successful challenge to DRIPA. Article 8 will not be fully and clearly replicated after withdrawal, even with the retention of the general data protection regulation.

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[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I think that we are probably reaching the end of the debate.

[Baroness Ludford]

I am just concluding my remarks. I want simply to support what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about the importance of the Northern Ireland issue. You cannot have differing rights on each side of the border. The European Commission has said that the Good Friday agreement requires equivalent standards of protection of rights on both sides of the border. I simply remind noble Lords that Jacob Rees-Mogg has opined that EU sanctions for breach of the withdrawal agreement would go against the EU’s own charter of fundamental rights. The irony and hypocrisy of that statement require no elaboration from me.

[Lord Trevethin and Oaksey (CB)]

My Lords—

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Moved by

[Baroness Ludford]

30: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—
“Internal security, justice and police co-operation and counter-terrorism
The Secretary of State must ensure that before exit day all necessary action has been taken to continue the United Kingdom’s participation in EU measures to promote internal security, justice and police co-operation and counter-terrorism to the extent that—(a) the United Kingdom has opted in to those measures,(b) they will be incorporated into UK law as retained EU law, and(c) they will not remove or diminish any rights of the individual in the criminal justice process.”

[Baroness Ludford]

I find myself in a similar position, in moving this amendment on behalf of myself, my noble friend Lord Paddick and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, to my noble friend Lord Wallace in moving his amendment on foreign and defence policy and external security. This is about internal security, where, in theory, we are rather further forward in designing the wiring diagrams that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, talked about.

In her speech at the Munich Security Conference, the Prime Minister said a fair amount about these issues of extradition, Europol and data access and exchange. But there are a few little problems on the way. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister some concrete answers about how a UK-EU security treaty will be taken forward and how it will address some of the problems identified so far. One concerns extradition. The Minister will be aware that in article 168 of the draft withdrawal agreement there is a facility allowing that the EU,

“in respect of any of its Member States which have raised reasons related to its fundamental structures, may declare that, during the transition period, that Member State will not surrender its nationals pursuant to”,

the European arrest warrant framework decision, and then the UK could declare similarly that it will not surrender its nationals.

I have to say that when Ministers from the Ministry of Justice and DExEU came to the EU Justice Sub-Committee four weeks ago, they did not appear to know what this article meant. It meant that some countries would not be able to extradite or surrender their nationals to the UK because they would have to change their constitutions. The one we all know about is Germany, which changed its constitution to be able to extradite its nationals to a fellow EU state under the European arrest warrant, but that did not apply to non-EU states. One reason why the surrender agreement with Norway is still not in force 17 years after negotiations began is that I understand there are 88 pages of declarations and notifications surrounding it, a lot of which will be to do with non-extradition of nationals. That would be a very serious omission from an extradition agreement.

Do the Government know which member states have already indicated that, for constitutional reasons, they would refuse to extradite their nationals to us or would find it impossible or politically difficult to change their constitutions, which in some cases might mean a referendum—perhaps no Governments like referenda—either during the transition or as part of the future relationship? What is the extent of that problem? If we are not going to be able to rely on the European arrest warrant, what is the situation in terms of falling back on bilateral agreements or the 1957 Council of Europe convention? How many member states have maintained in their national law the provisions for extradition outside the European arrest warrant and would they be willing to bring things back in just for us?

On Europol, are we looking at something like the Denmark model? Denmark has an opt out from all justice and home affairs measures, even though it is an EU member state and has no option to opt in on a case-by-case basis, so it is a third country for the purposes of Europol, with no decision-making powers and no access to the Europol database. Do the Government seriously expect to do better than Denmark on participation in Europol?

On enforcement and dispute resolution, is it conceivable that it would not be a requirement of a future UK-EU extradition arrangement for the UK to take account of CJEU case law and charter rights post Brexit? For instance, what is the Government’s analysis of the Irish court’s refusal to extradite to the UK and make a reference to the CJEU because of concerns about lower protections here post Brexit? These difficulties are not just going to arise after next March: they are arising already because of fears that our safeguards and protections are not high enough. I am sure that the Government are extremely grateful that they are being pushed to take these matters into account by this Chamber as well as by the European Council guidelines. Three months ago, the European Commission made a presentation of the main issues affecting police and judicial co-operation with the UK after Brexit. Two very pertinent factors were, first:

“Respect for fundamental rights, essentially equivalent data protection standards”,


and, secondly:

“Strength of enforcement & dispute settlement mechanisms”.


Those similar factors were stressed in the European Council guidelines of 23 March.

Norway, Switzerland and Iceland must not only make contributions to the EU budget to participate in Schengen laws and policies but also accept the supremacy of the CJEU over their national courts in Schengen matters. How do the Government intend to maintain access to one of the most important databases, the Schengen Information System—at the moment, we have access for the policing side though not for immigration—if they neither contribute to the budget nor accept the supremacy of the CJEU? There is no precedent for a non-EU, non-Schengen country having access to the SIS. Do the Government believe that they can, none the less, manage to gain such access? In her Munich speech, the Prime Minister said that,

“when participating in EU agencies the UK will respect the remit of the European Court of Justice”.

However, in the very next sentence, she said that,

“a principled but pragmatic solution to close legal co-operation will be needed to respect our unique status as a third country with our own sovereign legal order”.

That rather seemed to undermine respecting the remit of the ECJ. So which is it? Are we going to respect the remit of the ECJ or insist on our own sovereign legal order? I assume it cannot be both.

On the exchange of data, the Government have not, to my knowledge, confirmed that they will seek an adequacy decision from the Commission under the GDPR. They talked in the partnership paper last August about,

“building on the existing adequacy model”,

as if we could do better, and then the Prime Minister referred in the Munich speech to a “bespoke arrangement”—a term we have become quite familiar with. Would the Government not find it helpful to accept the retention of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which we have tried to assist in today, when they try to demonstrate that they are upholding high data protection standards?

One of the issues, to which we have referred several times in this Chamber, is that our data processing for national security purposes will come under the spotlight in a way that does not happen while we are an EU member state, because national security is outside the competence of the EU. However, once we are outside the purview of the EU, our Investigatory Powers Act and other provisions—including quite possibly our co-operation with the United States on intelligence data matters—will be scrutinised as to whether they sufficiently safeguard privacy. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is sitting next to the Minister who will reply, will know as much as I do from our experience from 2013 how difficult those issues can be. The Court of Justice struck down the safe harbour agreement because of worries about data transfers and data access by security agencies in the United States.

I hope I have given the noble Baroness the Minister a few small questions—or rather the noble Lord; I am sorry, it is difficult to keep up—which deserve quite meaty answers. There was no beef in the response on security and defence policy, but the Prime Minister herself has been much more explicit about the possible arrangements on internal security. I draw attention to the wording of the amendment, which includes showing how the measures,

“will not remove or diminish any rights of the individual in the criminal justice process”.

We participate in some procedural rights—not as many as some of us would like—but we need to uphold the rights of defendants and victims in the criminal justice process as well as to enable the police to catch criminals. I therefore look forward to learning from the Minister some quite explicit and specific details about how the UK-EU security treaty is advancing. I beg to move.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, in warmly supporting this amendment, I will make only two points. First, crime is now global and international; trafficking, drugs and terrorism know no frontiers. When I was serving on the Home Affairs Committee and we looked into these matters, I was impressed by the way in which one person after another who had front-line operational responsibility said how important the European dimension was to them, how any diminution in the effectiveness of co-operation with Europe would not be in the interests of the protection of the British people, and that we needed our colleagues in Europe. When asked, “But what about those elements of Europe which might not be as well equipped professionally and in other ways to undertake the tasks as we regard ourselves as being?”, the answer was, on the whole, very firm. They said, “We had better help them to become as effective and not walk away from them because we shall need them”. This amendment is therefore very important and I commend it to the Minister.

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[Lord Callanan]

It is certainly our intention but, as I have said, these are bilateral relationships and the discussions are continuing. That is one part of the withdrawal agreement that was not quite finalised and so, literally, discussions are continuing on it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, also asked me about databases and the use of EU data on UK databases and vice versa. This is also a matter for negotiations. Our aim is to ensure that we and our EU partners continue to share and use personal data where there are clear benefits to public safety, subject of course to the appropriate safeguards.

For all of those reasons, and given the Government’s clear intentions to continue and strengthen our close collaboration on security, law enforcement and criminal justice after we leave, and given that the new clauses exceed the purpose of this Bill, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. For the sake of clarity, I should say that the Government will not reflect further on this amendment and so, if the noble Baroness wishes, she should take the opportunity to test the opinion of the House this evening.

[Baroness Ludford]

I am quite cross, really. With all respect to the Minister, that is a disrespectful response. Twenty-one months after the referendum, there was not even as much detail in the Minister’s reply as there was in the Prime Minister’s Munich speech. For instance, the Minister said that a new treaty will require respect for legal sovereignty. As I mentioned to him, the Prime Minister said:

“when participating in EU agencies the UK will respect the remit of the European Court of Justice”.

What does that mean? The Minister has enlightened me not a jot on that, nor on the follow-up phrase about,

“our unique status as a third country with our own sovereign legal order”,

which was the only one he talked about.

It is farcical that the Prime Minister can make a speech containing more detail than the Minister is prepared to give in response to an amendment in this House. We are being treated as of no account whatever. The way in which Ministers are responding on this is disrespectful. It is obvious that there are major challenges in getting a UK-EU security treaty. Many commentators are writing about it, with various opinions and insights, but the Government are not among them, at least when it comes to telling us in Parliament. Even though we are the unelected House—I am not aware that they are telling the elected House in any more detail either—it seems poor that this is what we have become and have been reduced to when we seek knowledge about how Parliament will take back control of our future relationship with the EU post Brexit.

We will have to reflect on another way in which to take this issue forward. I hope the Minister will understand that his reply was not worth the paper it was written on. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 30 withdrawn.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am a signatory to the amendment and would like to speak to it. The Government’s paper of last August on future customs arrangements proposed two customs schemes as the alternative to being in the customs union, one based on technology, described as “innovative”, the other with the UK acting as an agent for the EU for EU-bound goods, described as “unprecedented” and “challenging”. Those are words that, if in Jim Hacker’s vocabulary, would have attracted congratulations from Sir Humphrey for the Minister’s bravery.

The issues for manufacturing industries such as cars and aerospace have been covered by the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Patten. They are to do with supply chains, border checks and rules of origin. That all sounds like very dry stuff but it boils down to costs, delays and red tape affecting investment decisions and jobs. Staying in the customs union is an economic and industrial issue. The Freight Transport Association estimates that an even an extra two minutes checking every truck during peak hours could result in queues of almost 30 miles at border points.

The chief executive officer of Airbus, Tom Enders, has summed up the problems for his company. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that Tom Enders sees leaving the customs union, not staying in it, as very damaging. He points out that during production parts of his company’s wings move between the UK and the EU multiple times before final assembly. This is typical for all our UK-assembled products and why the lack of clarity around the customs union and trade is hugely worrying. We think that across our operations and supply chains Brexit will affect 672 sites. Hard borders and regulatory divergence risk blocking trade, creating supply-chain logjams and causing our business to grind to a halt. This is not some esoteric question. Of course, being in the customs union does not solve all the problems; for example, it would be great to have participation in regulatory convergence as well. However, staying in the customs union is a necessary part of preserving the simplicity and streamlined nature of the manufacturing industry. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is right that remain is the gold standard, but let us at least go for silver.

As for the argument that being in a customs union would constrain our freedom to conclude third-party trade deals, the ones that we have by virtue of EU membership are far more valuable. Our food, animal welfare and environmental standards could be compromised by third-party agreements. Many potential partners will want immigration concessions, which has proved difficult. As has been noted by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, you do not need a trade agreement to export, hence Germany exports four times as much to China as we do. That country has not been inhibited so why have we? That is something that we can do inside the customs union. As reported yesterday, China’s top diplomat in Brussels, its head of mission to the EU, has said that a UK deal with the EU is a precondition for trade talks with China. The Chinese need us to have a decent arrangement with the EU before they want to talk about it. If there is not a Brexit deal, they say, there will not be things to talk about. They need to know exactly how we are going to operate with the EU. I add that no member of the Commonwealth has wanted us to leave the EU, so praying that in aid is totally inappropriate.

Not only did people not vote in 2016 to leave the customs union—that was not on the ballot paper—they did not vote to lose their jobs, either. We should protect those jobs by pressing for Britain to stay in a customs union.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, in absentia for her Amendment 12 and to my noble friend Lord Deben for speaking to it on her behalf. I note that this amendment is very similar to an amendment tabled in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, to which the noble Baroness was a signatory. As was the case with that amendment, Amendment 12 seeks to amend what EU law is retained through Clause 4.

As this House is aware, and has been said earlier within the debate, one part of EU law that the Bill does not convert into our domestic law is EU directives. The reason for this is clear. As EU directives as such are not a part of our domestic law now, it is the Government’s view that they should not be part of our domestic law after we leave the EU. Instead, the Bill, under Clause 2, is saving the domestic measures that implement the directives, so it is not necessary to convert the directives themselves. This is not only a pragmatic approach but one that reflects the reality of our departure from the EU. As an EU member state, we were obligated to implement those directives. When we leave the EU, those obligations will cease.

However, the Bill recognises one exception to this approach. Where, in a case decided or commenced before exit day, a domestic court or the European Court of Justice has recognised a particular right, power, liability, obligation, restriction, remedy or procedure provided for in a directive as having direct effect in domestic law, Clause 4 will retain the effect of that right, power, et cetera within UK law.

That seems to the Government to provide a clarity which it is important for this Bill to achieve, and it is why we believe that Clause 4 as currently worded strikes the right balance—ensuring in respect of directives that individuals and businesses will still be able to rely on directly effective rights that are available to them in UK law before exit day, while also providing clarity and certainty within our statute book about what will be retained in UK law at the point of exit.

I shall explain to my noble friend Lord Deben what we see as a difficulty. This certainty would be undermined by the amendment, placing both businesses and individuals in the difficult position where they are uncertain about whether the rights they rely on will change. It could also create practical difficulties for our courts following our exit. There could be new litigation about whether implementing legislation correctly or completely gave effect to a pre-exit directive, and whether Ministers had fulfilled the duty in the amendment’s proposed new subsection (3) to make implementing regulations. This could continue for years after our exit from the EU, effectively sustaining an ongoing, latent duty to implement aspects of EU legislation long after the UK had left the European Union.

I think it would be acknowledged that it would be strange for Ministers to be obligated to make regulations to comply with former international obligations which the UK is no longer bound by. Although Ministers might find that they were obliged to make regulations under the amendment, it would presumably still be open to Parliament to reject the instrument and either require it to be revoked or decline to approve it, depending on the procedure involved, yet the Minister would, under the terms of the amendment, remain under a legal obligation to make regulations. I think that this gets to the heart of the problem: how is that tension to be resolved?

Therefore, I say to my noble friend Lord Deben that, although I understand that the genuine intention behind the amendment is to give confidence and certainty, in practice I do not think that it would necessarily achieve this, and I respectfully suggest that the real consequence would be confusion.

Furthermore, the amendment specifically implies that the Government would have to undertake a thorough investigation, as soon as possible, of all the EU directives that have been domestically implemented over the course of this country’s 40-plus years of EU membership to ensure that they have correctly and completely implemented them all.

[Baroness Ludford]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister and thank her for allowing me to do so. Would it be so terrible if there were to be an audit of whether the UK had correctly implemented EU directives? The Government are marking their own homework if they say, “We’re not implementing the directives; we’re only going to freeze the domestic implementation”. However, if there is something wrong in the way that we have implemented a directive, then the Government are judge and jury of what will be retained.

At the risk of boring everybody—I will probably mention it again on Monday—I have cited before the directive on the European investigation order, which is about summoning evidence or maybe a witness to give a statement. It is the parallel to the European arrest warrant. The directive says that someone could challenge this in, say, a British court on the grounds of a breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Government have substituted for the charter the European Convention on Human Rights, which, as we know—we will be discussing it on Monday—is a bit narrower than the charter. Therefore, they have wrongly transposed the directive. Whether the European Commission is going to do anything about it, I do not know, but I remind myself that I want to find out. What happens if the Government have wrongly implemented the directive? What happens to people’s rights?

Brexit: British Citizens

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Ludford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of their intention for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019, whether, and on what basis, British citizens can be confident that they will have reached agreement by that date on a future relationship with the European Union.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, Article 50 states that the withdrawal agreement must take account of the framework for our future relationship and the terms of withdrawal. We have been working intensively to agree an implementation period, codify the joint report into legal text and reach agreement on the entire withdrawal agreement by October. The deal reached last week provides greater certainty to businesses and citizens. We are confident that we can reach a deal that is in the best interests of both parties.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be the first of four Liberal Democrats asking Questions on this important day. Does the Government’s plan for “Brexit means Brexit” not turn out to mean “Brexit in name only” and that, in the words of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the UK will be a “vassal state”? Can the Government therefore explain, one year before they are set to make us Brexit, what the point is of going through with their version of Brexit and why they will not agree to let the people decide, on the facts, whether it is worth it?

[Lord Callanan]

It is interesting to hear the Liberal Democrats quoting Jacob Rees-Mogg. The point is to implement the results of the referendum. The Liberals will probably want to forget about this but the people have already had a say on the issue, both in the referendum and in the subsequent general election, neither of which went very well for the Liberal Democrats.

Brexit: Immigration

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

As we have said, we are confident that we can get a deal. At every stage so far the doomsayers have said we would not reach agreement and we have. We have agreed all the details of an implementation period. Clearly that needs to be subject to final agreement and, like any responsible Government, we are carefully assessing our contingency options if there is not a deal. However, we are confident that there will be a deal.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, is not the truth that the Government are trying to hoodwink the British people by not revealing their post-Brexit immigration plans this year? What surely will happen because of the sectoral demands for labour is that the volume of people coming from the EU will be similar to now, but we and EU citizens will have lost our free movement rights. It is a lose-lose scenario, and there will be a great deal more red tape for employers.

[Lord Callanan]

More water is being spilt at the Dispatch Box. Where is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, when we need him? I have forgotten the question now. We are confident that we will be able to put in place a new system. The referendum was about taking back control of immigration and when we deliver the results that the British people voted for it will be a win-win situation.

Brexit: European Council and Commission

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

It will be a matter for the negotiations, but we hope to achieve an agreement at least as good as the existing trade agreement with South Korea, yes.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, is not the truth that, despite barbs often directed at Brussels, EU institutions have proved far more transparent, accessible and accountable—and, I might add, more honest—than Ministers and departments in Whitehall? There is no way that we would have this annotated withdrawal agreement if it had been left to the UK Government. Does not the Brexit process show how much our democracy and governance need modernising?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

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

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, we are extremely fortunate to have in this House the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who has such intimate knowledge going back over 30 years and more, and my noble friend Lord Luce—I must call him that as we sat together in the other place—who was such a distinguished Governor of Gibraltar and who still maintains his interest as Chancellor of its new university.

I do not want to be at all critical of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who made a very generous speech, but we have to be careful about the epistle that we who are reckoned to be friends of Gibraltar all received. It was, effectively, a written sigh of relief that at least the UK Government had stepped up to the mark and said that that they were committing themselves to Gibraltar. That commitment is clearly crucial and it is equally very welcome, but it does not solve the problem about which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lord Luce have spoken so eloquently. As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, it is in effect a Northern Ireland situation in miniature, because this is the other border between UK territory and the European Union. People have talked about 350 years, but it is not 350 years, as it is since the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, just over 300 years ago, that we have had this commitment to and legal possession of Gibraltar, which has been continually—or perhaps I should say intermittently—challenged by successive Governments of Spain.

In his speech a few minutes ago, my noble friend Lord Luce made graphically plain what is at stake for the people of Gibraltar. Obviously, I hope that when he replies my noble friend the Minister will reiterate the agreements referred to in the letter we all received, but I hope he will go further and indicate that the UK Government will not sign up to any final agreement that leaves unprotected the people of Gibraltar: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed—the mantra that is repeated again and again. A country should be judged by how it treats its weakest citizens, and by how it treats those parts of its territory which are wholly dependent upon it. The people of Gibraltar are wholly dependent upon the Government of the United Kingdom. There must be no agreement with our European friends and partners—I hope and pray that there will be an agreement—that puts Gibraltar in a precarious, indeed dangerous, position after the end of the transition period.

We talk fairly glibly about the transition period. Of course it is necessary, and we all welcome the progress that was signalled last week and about which we will hear a little more when the Statement is made to your Lordships’ House later this evening; but we are not there yet, and we are a long way from being there over Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. Let us, of course, support the withdrawal of the amendment tonight. I am very glad that there have been no votes in Committee during the long hours we have been debating this Bill, but we may well have to consider another amendment on Report, unless we are utterly confident that there is no question at any time of a sell-out over Gibraltar.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the debate this afternoon has amply demonstrated why in today’s Statement the Prime Minister refers to the particular challenges that Brexit poses for Gibraltar. Staying in the single market would mitigate some of those challenges, particularly the economic ones, but there would still be the risk of political problems from Brexit itself.

There has been much talk from Brexiteers about global Britain and even Empire 2.0, which is pretty gruesome, but the damage to Ireland and Gibraltar—I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others who have drawn an analogy there—from Brexit belies the claim that Brexit is not focused on a rather little-England perspective and instead has a broad and internationalist one. It would be a terrible betrayal of Gibraltar as well as Ireland if the Government do not have those territories in the forefront of their mind.

The Government of Gibraltar told the House of Lords European Committee that Brexit presented,

“few opportunities worthy of mention”,

and that losing access to the single market in services would be a “severe blow” to Gibraltar’s economy—reflecting the fact that it has been a fundamental tool in Gibraltar’s economic development. It is therefore no wonder that, as others have said, 96% of Gibraltarians voted remain.

The point has been strongly made that Gibraltar depends on the free movement of workers. I was very interested to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Luce, is chancellor of the University of Gibraltar, because it gave evidence to the EU Select Committee inquiry and said how valuable the free movement of staff and students across the border with Spain is to it. It also said that the social welfare system is significantly dependent on the income tax paid by cross-border workers in Gibraltar—and a related point is that Gibraltarians will potentially lose access to healthcare facilities in Spain. So there are so many areas of damage to Gibraltar and the residents of the Gibraltar.

Tourism is another element in its economy that would be profoundly harmed by any border problems. The European arrest warrant was described by the Government of Gibraltar as,

“a blessed relief because it took the sovereignty dispute out of the equation of extradition”.

As it involves mutual recognition between judges, it does not depend on Government-to-Government agreement.

The Government of Gibraltar are particularly worried about the possibility of no deal and a cliff-edge scenario. I believe that the Brexiteers have been cavalier in envisaging this possibility. I have to reproach the Minister in this respect, because he mentioned it again last week to the committee—as did his colleague in the other place Robin Walker. Reviving the “no deal” prospect is breathtaking in its irresponsibility to a territory such as Gibraltar. The Government of Gibraltar suggested that it could result in their frontier being severely disrupted or even closed, which would be “potentially disastrous”. It might mean the UK Government having to step in to support Gibraltar’s economy, as they did in the Franco era. I wonder whether British voters have been told about such a possibility, given that they know, or at least have been told, that Britain’s economy is set to deteriorate if we leave the single market—the Prime Minister has said that—and their incomes might well be squeezed. So there could be quite interesting political problems for a Government defending subsidies to Gibraltar.

Lastly, as has been pointed out, Brexit means that Gibraltar will depend on the good will of Spain. It will no longer have EU law there. That law has not been perfect and there are still some issues, but Gibraltar has looked, with justice, to the EU to arbitrate and defend it in disputes with Spain. But it will not have that protection if we Brexit, and the onus will be on the UK to take action. So, like other noble Lords, I think this is a very important issue and I look forward to the Minister telling us exactly how the Government are going to look after Gibraltar, in the same way that there is huge feeling in this House about the maintenance of no internal border in Ireland. I think that the Government have a lot of explaining to do.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had an excellent debate. I appreciate the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Luce. He has initiated debates in this Chamber about Gibraltar, separate from Brexit, and although I did not speak at Second Reading of this Bill I have spoken in a number of those debates. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is absolutely right about the process, and the history lesson that has been given is quite important for understanding the way forward. I did not act as governor-general in Gibraltar like the noble Lord, Lord Luce, but I was a union official there representing workers in a period when the border was closed. In fact there were 6,000 Moroccan workers operating in Gibraltar. They were housed in the old naval dockyard barracks in conditions that we would not find particularly acceptable, but it certainly gave them gainful employment in a way that helped their families in Morocco.

In Spain’s accession process we were able to reach a practical accommodation that served the economic interests of Gibraltar and the people who lived around it, particularly in the Andalusia region of Spain. I have to declare an interest or two here: my husband is Spanish and from Andalusia. The fact is that the people of Andalusia know very well that Madrid does not have them very high up on its agenda either, so these are really important issues to understand. The reason why 96% of the people voted in favour of remaining in the EU is that they know full well that the political and economic conditions that prevailed with membership of the EU are vital to their continuation as a viable society.

The Opposition support the amendment and understand the need for it. Several noble Lords have spoken today, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who posed very specific questions. We believe that at the end of the day the question that will determine the survival of Gibraltar will be the UK Government’s efforts to ensure that it is able to continue to have a relationship with the rest of the EU. That is the question that we want answered but we know full well that we are not going to get one today.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

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

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, Amendments 337 and 341 are in my name. They have a simple aim: to ensure that if there is a breakdown in the negotiations leading to a no-deal Brexit, the position should be fully and properly considered by Parliament before any final decision is taken.

I am encouraged by all that the Government have said about their intention to ensure that there should not be a breakdown in the negotiations. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House has just reiterated that position to us this evening and I noted in particular that David Davis said, over the weekend, that it was “incredibly probable” that a deal would be reached—an odd formulation, but we get the general drift. As I say, I have absolutely no doubt about the Government’s intention to seek a deal which is in the interests of the United Kingdom. But a breakdown of the negotiations cannot be excluded, whether because the Government toughen their position to the stage where the European Union breaks off the negotiations or the European Union toughens its stance to the point where the Government break them off, or because both sides simply run out of time.

The implications of no deal are potentially extremely serious, as the EU Committee of your Lordships’ House recognised in its recent report, Brexit: Deal or No Deal. Much attention has rightly been given to the implications of no deal for our trading relations, for the impact on cross-border supply chains and on specific sectors, including financial services, agri-foods and aviation. Just as serious would be the impact of a breakdown in negotiations and a no-deal scenario on UK-EU co-operation on issues which are vital to our national interest and national security: counterterrorism, police, justice and security matters; nuclear safeguards; and aviation. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has set out clearly this evening the potential implications of no deal for Gibraltar. Even more immediate and perhaps more serious would be the effect on British citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK. With no deal, the agreements reached so far, which are so enormously important to British citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living in Britain, would, as I understand it, fall away.

The implications of no deal, however slight such a prospect is, would therefore be extremely serious. It is surely inconceivable that an outcome of such gravity would not be put to Parliament before it becomes a reality. This is not least because when reality begins to dawn on people, one of the first questions they will surely ask is: “What was Parliament’s view and to what extent has Parliament taken responsibility?” Taking back responsibility seems to me to be as important, and more difficult, than taking back control. I simply cannot see that the argument that the electorate had, or should have had, all this in mind when the referendum took place would carry any weight at all when the consequences of no deal became apparent. These amendments therefore seem essential and I very much hope that the Government will be able to accept them. I beg to move Amendment 337.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment, to which I have added my name. I fully agree with everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme. Perhaps being a mere politician, I am a little more cynical than he is. The February 2017 White Paper on leaving the EU contained statements that gave considerable comfort, including an assurance of the Government’s strong intentions to get a deal. They said, for instance:

“Our fundamental responsibility to the people of the UK is to ensure that we secure the very best deal possible from the negotiations … The Government will then put the final deal that is agreed between the UK and the EU to a vote in both Houses of Parliament”.


When the Government gave their assurance in the other place in February last year, at about the same time as the White Paper, the Minister of State for Exiting the EU said,

“the vote will cover not only the withdrawal arrangements but also the future relationship with the European Union’.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/17; col. 264.]

As we know, there is an issue about what that actually means. It will not be any more than a political declaration.

All this sounded quite reassuring. The trouble is that in the year since then, we have heard too many threats of no deal—not that, as the Brexit Secretary David Davis said over the weekend, it is like an insurance policy, in that you have to be aware that it could happen, but the overwhelming likelihood is a deal. That sounded quite benign, but I am afraid that we have had a rather more celebratory approach to the prospect of no deal from other personalities in the Government. They think that threatening it is a good negotiating tactic. Many of us think that that is not the expression of a committed partner. I do not recall that when the United States was negotiating a possible TTIP agreement with the EU, it kept stressing that it might instead have no deal. It might have made all kinds of comments about the adequacy or otherwise of the EU offer, but we did not hear that sort of rhetoric, and we are not used to it in a trade or political negotiation. These statements have come too often. They are perhaps fewer now, but they still come sometimes and with too great a frequency for there to be total trust in the Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said earlier in another context, there is a fundamental issue of trust as to what the Government’s intentions might be. Therefore, it is necessary to try to dot the “I”s and cross the “T”s on this matter.

The first amendment in this group might have been inspired by my noticing that in one context, the phrase used was “final terms of withdrawal” but in another it was “withdrawal agreement”, which raises the question of whether the Government mean exactly the same thing with those two phrases. That accounts for Amendment 337, in which we say yes, they mean the same thing.

Amendment 341 says that “withdrawal agreement” also means the absence of a withdrawal agreement. It is necessary to spell that out because I am afraid the Government have not always given full grounds for total confidence and trust in their intentions. We need to close off any nefarious options that might still be floating around and make absolutely sure that we pin down the Government on what Parliament will supervise, and that there are no nooks and crannies through which they can duck and weave. That is what the amendments are about: total clarity in order to ensure that the Government act with total trust and in good faith.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, I put my name to these amendments because I believe it is essential that Parliament should have a chance to consider a “no deal” scenario. As others have said, that is not the likely outcome; there is every reason to believe that the Government are doing their best to pursue a deal. However, we have to be prepared for all eventualities. We have heard that no deal is better than a bad deal and that no deal has to be considered, so it is important that we avoid any ambiguities. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, has just spelled out, there are sufficient vagaries about the terminology for it to be important that we now try to clarify that Parliament should have a role in considering a “no deal” scenario. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, it is time for Parliament to reclaim its responsibilities, and looking after the country is surely the responsibility of Parliament.

The noble Lord referred to the problems that will be faced by those companies with cross-EU supply chains. Privately those companies are voicing their fears, but it is not surprising that publicly they are loath to speak out about the horrors that lie before them should there be no deal. Their supply chains will be in tatters, but they are not going to go public right now shouting that it may be the case in a year’s time that their supply chains will break down and they will not be able to fulfil orders,. That would not really do wonders for their business at the moment; the orders would just not be put. So at the moment they are making their fears known privately, and I hope the Government are listening to them. For them, it is essential that a good trade deal is established, and quickly. That is why I support the amendments. I do not think there is anything more to be said, but I wish them well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

We are giving notice of our withdrawal. The title was in the Bill that we passed to trigger it. Keir Starmer also said:

“Having asked the electorate for a view by way of the referendum, we have to respect the result”.


I agree with him.

I say again only to remind noble Lords so that they can understand my point of view that there has been a legitimate process, marked at intervals by the consent of both Parliament and the electorate. As I said in an earlier debate, amendments that could be perceived as a means to delay or disregard the referendum result carry with them their own risks—people’s faith in their democracy and its institutions. With that in mind, I do not think that it would be right to add an express mechanism within this Bill which might prevent the referendum result being acted upon.

The Prime Minister has been very clear: we are leaving the EU at the end of March 2019. That is not a question of domestic legislation; it is now a question of the EU treaties. While the detail of our future relationship with the EU has yet to be negotiated, I believe that remaining in the EU is the only outcome which cannot be reconciled with the decision taken in the referendum. I do not think that it would be in the interests of either the EU or the UK to open the door to an ever-continuing negotiation process with no certainty that the UK will ever reach a new, settled relationship with the EU. I was going to finish there but I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is itching to ask a question.

[Baroness Ludford]

I thank the noble Lord for anticipating my question. He referred to there being a problem with Clause 7(1), which says:

“A Minister … may by regulations make such provision as … appropriate … arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU”.


If it is “may”, it could also mean “may not”. If there are no regulations to be made because there is no deal, and therefore there are no deficiencies in retained EU law to remedy, and that is the Government’s position, that subsection does not need to be invoked.

That is surely different from Clause 9. I do not see the parallel. Clause 9(1) refers to the parliamentary enactment of whatever the final terms are. We are talking about a scenario where there is no deal. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, if you are maintaining that it is unworkable in this situation, the Government need to come up with something that they consider a workable formula. The Minister must surely understand that the point is to make sure there is not wriggle room over where parliamentary responsibility and rights reside, and not to be able to dodge Clause 9(1) by saying, “Well, it’s not really final terms of withdrawal because we are crashing out without a deal”.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

This Bill, with this amendment, is the place to deal with this uncertainty. Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty over withdrawal. This amendment would help a lot towards dealing with this uncertainty by protecting much of what we have come to accept as part of our everyday life. That is why it has to be in the Bill. Our standards will be at risk unless it is. I beg to move.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support this excellent amendment, because it would create a duty to ensure that any governance or regulatory function currently exercised by an EU institution is transposed into UK law. It is not good enough to retain EU law that protects standards and protections if we lack the complementary functions of monitoring and measuring compliance with the requirements, of reporting on compliance, of enforcement, of setting standards and targets and of publicising information, all of which is cited in the amendment.

These rights will be empty of meaning unless they are monitored and enforced. One of the concerns is where we will find the capacity to fulfil these functions to match what the EU has built up by highly expert and specialised institutions such as the Food Standards Agency, the Environment Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, the European Medicines Agency and Euratom.

The 2017 White Paper on legislating for withdrawal gives an example that raises considerable concerns. It says:

“There will be law which will, upon leaving the EU, no longer work at all and which will need to be corrected to continue to work. An example of this”—


we might not all be familiar with these regulations—

“would be the Offshore Petroleum Activities (Conservation of Habitats) Regulations 2001. These domestic regulations contain a requirement to obtain an opinion from the European Commission on particular projects relating to offshore oil and gas activities. Once we leave the EU, the Commission will no longer provide such opinions to the UK”,

which is true.

“However, this requirement in the existing regulations would prevent certain projects from taking place unless we correct it”.

The Government were positing, in what is now this draft legislation, to allow the Government to amend our domestic legislation either to replace the reference to the Commission with a UK body or to remove this requirement entirely. It is the removal of the requirement entirely that is worrying. This is about when a company wishes to build an oil pipeline in a protected habitat, so it is not a negligible issue. So there is a series of regulatory hurdles at the moment. The Government argued that abolishing this reference to the Commission would be a mere “technical” change. However, protecting habitats from potential oil spills is not a technical change. Therefore, there needs to be some substitute for the European Commission.

The powers in the Bill, including in Clause 8, which contains powers that could allow the Government to reduce the level of regulatory protection in the UK to align with international trade partners without consulting Parliament, could be of great concern. We have heard from Wilbur Ross, the US Commerce Secretary, who has specifically described the regulation and documentation of chemical exports, food safety geographical indicators—the things that protect Cornish pasties and Melton Mowbray pork pies, and so on—as presenting “key impediments” to expanded trade between the UK and the US. So this kind of thing will be very much at risk.

We have talked before in Committee about how we cannot implement things unilaterally; we have to be able to have some reciprocal enforcement. The Business Minister, Andrew Griffiths, told MPs last week that there is no,

“cast-iron assurance … that UK products will remain protected”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/18; col. 711.]

They might in the UK but they will not elsewhere in the world. We need an infrastructure of regulatory enforcement, obviously on a reciprocal cross-border basis, to uphold the protection that the Government say they will give to retained EU law standards. The answers that we are supposed to understand that the Government cannot discuss this in any detail because it is part of negotiations, or that no plans are yet in place, are wearing pretty thin.

I therefore share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and I would like to hear an assurance from the Minister that similarly high standards of regulation as well as of protective law will be guaranteed. Otherwise, if you have the law without the regulatory enforcement, it is not a lot of use.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, for tabling this amendment. I believe the intention behind it is to ensure that United Kingdom law will continue to function effectively after our departure from the European Union. This is, of course, the aim of the Bill, and so I welcome his engagement on its content. However, despite these intentions, the Government cannot accept the amendment.

The Bill will take a snapshot of European Union law—including the rights, freedoms, protections and standards it brings—so far as it applies within the United Kingdom immediately before exit day, and seek to retain it in UK law, so far as is practical. It will then be our priority to ensure it will be able to operate consistently and without deficiency within our domestic law through the use of powers given in the Bill. This includes ensuring that there is suitable provision for the transfer of existing functions and roles carried out by the EU or its institutions while we are a member. It is of course right that the Bill is able to do this.

The United Kingdom has a long-standing tradition, one that predates 1972, of ensuring that our rights and standards are protected domestically, and of fulfilling our international obligations with regard to these matters. The decision to leave the European Union does not change this. Any regulation to correct a deficiency in retained EU law, within which such rights, freedoms, standards and protections will sit, will of course be subject to the overview of this Parliament: it will be subject to the established procedures of parliamentary scrutiny and, in addition, to the work of the sifting committee that the Leader has indicated will be constructed in this House.

The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said that standards would be subject to Ministers. But standards, I suggest, will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I say the same in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. We will retain the law and it will not be empty of meaning because again, in so far as we implement it in domestic law, it will be the subject of parliamentary scrutiny. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, suggested that retained EU law would be worthless if there were no body to oversee it, but that body will be Parliament. No body is better equipped for that task than Parliament.

On policy co-ordination, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Liddell, of course, that is bound to be a matter of negotiation and not one for this particular Bill. We want to negotiate questions of the extent and depth to which we co-operate with members of the EU after we leave. As regards standards themselves, is it suggested that because we are in Europe—as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, observed, we still are and still will be—but not in the European Union, somehow our standards are bound to fall? Is it supposed that Switzerland or indeed Norway do not maintain rigorous standards in regard to consumers, the environment and so on?

[Baroness Ludford]

Norway is in the single market. That is why it has to uphold the same standards, and Switzerland is de facto in the single market.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Switzerland is not de facto in the single market. Switzerland has a multiplicity of agreements with the EU that have been negotiated on a bilateral basis, which is the form of negotiation that we intend to carry out in due course. Membership of the EU is not, as I say, the touchstone of rigorous standards either in Europe or beyond.

With regard to the points raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith—

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, as I did at Second Reading, and to answer some of his points. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, did not like it when I quoted the words of his current leader to him, for some reason. He said that I should quote from my own party.

[Baroness Ludford]

I remind the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, of the words of Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has said:

“Indeed, we could have two referendums. As it happens, it might make more sense to have the second referendum after the renegotiation is completed”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/11; col. 108.]


The Brexit Secretary, David Davis, has said:

“Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgment. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/11/02; col. 202.]

[Viscount Ridley]

I was going to quote David Cameron because I was asked for the words of a Conservative. On 10 November 2015, after announcing the referendum, he said:

“It will be your decision … Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide … And it will be the final decision. So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave … would merely produce another stronger renegotiation and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay … I say think again … There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum … Think very carefully, because this choice cannot be undone”.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The Prime Minister did indeed refer to these important level playing field issues and said that we do not want to see a significant diminution of standards in these areas.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

If I recall, the Prime Minister promised binding commitments in the area of state aid and competition, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for reminding me of that element of the speech. The Minister tells us that he does not want to be constrained in the negotiations, but has not the Prime Minister already constrained the negotiations by accepting binding commitments in the area of competition law and by using the phrase “strong commitments”—apparently she was banned from saying “binding commitments”—with regard to regulatory alignment?

[Lord Callanan]

I will allow the Prime Minister’s words to speak for themselves.

It is in the interests of consumers and industry in both the UK and the EU to maintain the freest and most frictionless trade possible in vehicles and automotive products after exit.

I apologise that have I spoken at length about issues of constitutional significance, but—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Does the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, share the surprise I feel that the Prime Minister should have said that we would not be part of the digital single market? I am at a loss to think what domestic regulatory flexibility she could be alluding to. After all, the very point of the Data Protection Act is ostensibly to implement European standards on cross-border transfers of data, which is crucial for the tech industry as well as many other industries. If we are not part of the digital single market, how are British consumers to continue to enjoy the absence—the abolition—of roaming mobile charges? The mobile operators are saying, “We hope we won’t have to put up roaming charges, but it rather depends if we are in the digital single market so that we can get access to European-level wholesale rates”. So first, a British policy not to be in the digital single market does not make any sense. Secondly, British consumers are going to take a hit when they go on the continent for business or holidays. Who is going to explain that to British consumers?

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I agree with everything the noble Baroness has said. When we were given the instruction by the British people two years ago to commence negotiations on leaving the European Union, I did not meet anybody who said that the reason they wanted to leave it was so that they could pay higher mobile phone charges and restart paying roaming charges for travelling on the continent. It is a complete absurdity.

Since in her Mansion House speech the Prime Minister showed movement in many areas, which we have welcomed in earlier debates, on engagement in key areas of the single market and customs arrangements, I find it utterly mystifying that she should specifically have excluded the digital single market. This is one area in which Britain has done more than any other to forge its rules, which have been so advantageous to major British companies that would not exist if it were not for the development of the single market. Vodafone, one of the biggest and most successful companies in the country, would not exist as a serious international company if it were not for the success of successive British Governments in negotiating what has become the digital single market during the last 20 years.

I invite the Minister, with the new-found and emollient flexibility that he has been demonstrating, to say that he is prepared to take away and consider—I think that is the phrase he now uses—Britain’s continued engagement in the digital single market. Specifically, is it the view of the Government that we should start to reintroduce roaming charges for British mobile phone users from the end of March next year?