European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 6th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has been here for what has been a most extraordinary experience. There are some people not in the Chamber who we should also thank. Those in the Public Bill Office and the Printed Paper Office have enabled us to deal with the Bill in an unusual way. They have worked, along with the doorkeepers, above and beyond the call of duty. On our side, to be personal for a moment, we have had in our office Dan Stevens on the content and Ben Coffman keeping our wits together. I know that it was bad news for noble Lords moving amendments that they are so effective, but for our side it was great, and I use this moment to thank them. The work of my noble friend Lady Smith and my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith has been superb over this and I think the whole House will thank them for what they have been able to do. We thank the Minister, of course, and I think we are going to hear from him.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I second everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has said and I add my own thanks to all those who have co-operated so well to ensure that the Bill has passed successfully, especially the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I thank my leader, my noble friend Lord Newby, and my Chief Whip, my noble friend Lord Stoneham. I think we have had an excellent experience in the passage of the Bill.

No-deal Update

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I commiserate with the Minister on having no holiday while the rest of us were away. I thank him for repeating the Statement, but it begs some serious questions. The whole Statement is predicated on the idea that we must leave by 31 October come what may, whatever the costs, whatever the damage to our security and economy and whether or not we have a deal. It seems that everyone bar the Government knows the costs of no deal, whether on UK citizens abroad, from investors already taking billions out of the UK, Toyota ceasing production on 1 November, food, medicines, arrest warrants, data flows or transport disruption, with chaos in Dover and Portsmouth. All of that is known. Alone among business, commentators and academics, only the Government downplay the risks.

Michael Gove told Andrew Marr that,

“everyone will have the food they need”,

with no shortages of fresh food, but the British Retail Consortium immediately retorted:

“It is categorically untrue that the supply of fresh food will be unaffected”.


The British Poultry Council warned that no deal would be catastrophic for consumers of poultry. Even the Government’s own Yellowhammer paper predicted that fresh food supply will decrease, with reduced availability and choice and increased prices, which will affect vulnerable groups.

What was the reason for Mr Gove’s statement to Andrew Marr? It cannot be that he was telling an untruth, because the Minister is an honourable man. It must be that he cannot understand, so let me spell it out. The fashion industry says that we would lose £900 million. The BMA predicts that leaving without a deal would dramatically worsen NHS winter pressures. The Government’s own assessment sees a possible 40% cut to medicines crossing the channel on 31 October, with significant disruption for up to 6 months, reducing our ability to prevent and control disease outbreaks.

There is more. The Yellowhammer report says that autumn and winter risks, such as flooding and flu, could be worsened by no deal. It says that on exit day, between a half and 85% of HGVs may not be ready for French customs and, with limited space in French ports, HGV flow could halve within one day, the worst disruptions lasting for up to three months. There would be queues in Kent, with HGVs possibly facing one and a half to two and a half days’ delay before being able to cross, as well as disruption to fuel distribution, and passenger delays at St Pancras, the channel tunnel and Dover. This is all from the Government: I am not inventing it.

Law enforcement data and information-sharing between us and the EU would be disrupted and, as there is no data agreement in place, the flow of personal data would be disrupted where an alternative legal basis is not in place.

In Northern Ireland, the Government’s “no new checks with limited exceptions” model from March to avoid an immediate return to a hard border is, say the Government, likely to prove unsustainable because of economic, legal and biosecurity risks, while disruption and job losses could result in protests and road blockages. As today’s Statement says, Ireland will have to impose checks on goods arriving from Northern Ireland, with enormous, irresponsible implications for the peace process.

Gibraltar will similarly see disruption to the supply of food and medicines, as well as delays of four-plus hours at the border for at least a few months for frontier workers, residents and tourists, with delays over the longer term likely to harm Gibraltar’s economy. Those are all quotes from the government paper, not from anyone else. Similarly, it says that Britons in Europe will lose their EU citizenship and can expect to lose associated rights and access to services.

The Government set out all those risks. Indeed, they had the honesty to admit that the poor,

“will be disproportionately affected by rises in the price of food and fuel”.

So why do the Government persist in pursuing a no-deal exit? Going back to Shakespeare, we know that the Ministers “are honourable men”, and “I will not do them wrong”, but they have some explaining to do. They state:

“Her Majesty’s government will act in accordance with the rule of law”,


but they fail to promise to obey the law, and with no deal they fail in the first obligation of a Government—to safeguard the security and welfare of the people.

The Statement talks about “trust in our democracy”. What trust can there be in a Government who prorogue Parliament to avoid scrutiny, who play loose and free with people’s futures and who seek to engineer an election rather than allow Parliament to pass a law? The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, reminded us that it is the anniversary of the death of Cromwell, who too became a politician with rather dictatorial ideas beyond his station and was, I think, the last person to get rid of a Parliament that got in his way. I hope that we do not need to be reminded of that in the future.

Therefore, I am not very happy with the Statement but I have three specific questions for the Minister. First, what is the Government’s assessment of the impact of disruption to transport at Portsmouth on the flow of medicines? Secondly, what is their assumption of the risk of public disorder on exit day? Thirdly, what is the evidence that the Government’s “Get ready for Brexit” communications strategy will actually affect business preparedness, which they admit is currently very low? Frankly, the Government will have to do much better than they are currently doing if we are to be anywhere near being prepared to Brexit in an orderly manner.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I start by noting the fact that, after the welcome move of Dr Phillip Lee MP from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats, the Government have no parliamentary majority, let alone any majority for no deal.

Historians of Brexit will examine as a major theme how a party supposedly characterised by conservatism and caution about change got hijacked by radical and revolutionary forces that would make Marx and Trotsky blush. The marketing by Brexiters has morphed from a promise of sunlit uplands to at least a “smooth, orderly exit”, to the gritted teeth of “no deal is better than a bad deal”, to the reckless and irresponsible promotion of destruction, damage and chaos as an actual goal of government. Phrases such as “Do or die” or “Come what may”, which we heard this afternoon, show the incredibly cavalier attitude of the Government and the Prime Minister, who have no mandate whatever for no deal.

The contortions of Brexiters in trying to claim that the narrow leave majority in 2016 knowingly voted for a crash-out Brexit would be laughable were they not so despicable. The real interests of the economy, businesses, workers, citizens, consumers and patients are mere grist to the mill of a dogmatic, ideological obsession. As the TUC’s general-secretary Frances O’Grady has said, a no-deal Brexit will be a disaster for working families. The OBR tells us that the public finances will take a £30 billion hit, and I was interested in all the examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I want to pick up one assertion in the Statement—that outside the EU,

“we can innovate more energetically in pharmaceuticals and life sciences”.

That is the total opposite of what the pharmaceutical industry and the research sector have constantly said for the last three years.

To achieve this disaster, the Government are wasting £6.3 billion. Just think what could be done to improve the lives of British people with that money and, for instance, to help the victims of the Bahamas hurricane. After the confusion and then U-turn on the end of free movement on 31 October, can the Minister specifically tell us how the absence of any transition and of a stable legal framework will help not only to ensure the rights of EU citizens in this country, where we already know that there are difficulties with the settlement scheme, but to improve the prospects for UK citizens in the EU 27? It is difficult to see.

The dishonesty of this whole process is shown by the fact that Mr Gove has refused to publish even what the FT called a “watered-down” version of the Government’s Operation Yellowhammer no-deal contingency plans,

“after ministers decreed that the findings would … alarm the public”.

Indeed, but it is a cover-up. It is rare that I applaud the Daily Mail but it has apparently obtained, I think, the whole document—at least an annexe—showing exactly how major disruption will be caused for months. How can a Government inflict that on the country?

The right honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg outrageously accused a senior doctor who helped to write the Yellowhammer plan of fearmongering—a typical disparagement of experts—but it is legitimate to ask how many extra deaths the Government expect as a result of a lack of drugs and isotopes. I speak as someone whose husband’s life depends on insulin. Can the Minister please tell us the answer?

The Statement claims that,

“this Government are determined to secure our departure with a good deal”.

The former Chancellor tells us that that is nonsense, and even a story in today’s Telegraph says that it is untrue. As for the assertion that the Prime Minister has received a response from European leaders that they are “ready to move”, that is completely unconfirmed by the new noises coming out of Brussels. President Juncker has told the Prime Minister that the EU will look at proposals,

“as long as they are compatible with the Withdrawal Agreement”.

He added that the EU’s support for Ireland—that is, for the backstop—“is steadfast” and that a no-deal scenario will only ever be the UK’s decision, not the EU’s. The blame game is not working.

Meanwhile—I am coming to an end—I have seen an official document from last week about the work on alternative arrangements. It says:

“DExEU has been considering whether a paper consolidating the findings from all of the advisory groups should be published in late September/early October. However, we and other departments have cautioned against this given the potential negative impacts on the renegotiation with the EU and we understand No. 10 are in agreement that we are not in a position yet to publish anything”.


It is later explained that the complexity of combining all the aspects of claimed facilitation,

“into something more systemic and as part of one package is a key missing factor at present”.

I repeat: that document was published last week.

Finally, on the day after crashing out with no transition, the UK would have to come back to the negotiating table and pick up the bits from an even worse position. How would that improve the prospects of the country in the longer term? I hope that the Government can reassure us that, if the anti-no-deal Bill passes, they will obey it and that they will pull the £100 million being spent on the propaganda—I mean “information”—exercise as it will be unnecessary.

Brexit: Article 50 Period Extension Procedure

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Well, I think we all feel rather sorry for the Minister, who has, after all, said again and again that we will leave on 29 March and now knows that we will not—and that is because of the Prime Minister’s failed strategy of running down the clock to get her own way.

We are told that, if the Government are allowed to table the existing deal yet again in the Commons and it wins approval—the Speaker has just suggested that he is not minded to permit a third meaningful vote without a substantial change to the deal; we hear that perhaps we will have to prorogue and then come back—they will apply for an extension to 30 June.

The more likely eventuality is that the Government will fail to get their deal agreed and thus request a longer extension, such that we will need to participate in the European Parliament elections. Given that returning officers must publish notice of the poll by 12 April, with the Government announcing the date beforehand, can the Minister inform the House which date is planned for these elections, whether the Electoral Commission is geared up for this and when purdah will commence?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I think the Speaker in the other place will tonight be a national hero for—

Brexit: Negotiations and No-deal Contingency Planning

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I welcome him back, though I regret that, while we were all at the seaside, his Government—as is clear from the Statement—have failed to provide a workable path through the morass of negotiating objectives. To quote Bloomberg:

“As politicians dither, Britain’s economy is taking a hit”,


with Brexit costing 2% of economic output, even before we have left.

During a summer of government squabbles, I spent time watching how fast lorries could load on to European ferries at the moment. I then went on to feel the effect of the falling pound, while hearing about the likely lack of Danish sperm—I kid you not—portaloos along the M20 and the ending of the EMA pharmaceutical approvals for our Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Meanwhile, I was reading Charlie Clutterbuck’s Bittersweet Brexit, though I have yet to find the sweet bit.

Meanwhile, back here, we have a plethora of groupings, mostly within the governing party. There is Better Brexit, Stand Up 4 Brexit, the ERG’s “Hell, any sort of Brexit”, David Davis’s “I won’t vote for Chequers” Brexit, Boris Johnson’s “diddly squat” Brexit, the Leave.EU members in the Conservative Party’s Brexit, an alternative Best For Britain Brexit, Macron’s “blind Brexit” or perhaps a Europe of concentric circles, a “half DExEU staff leaving” Brexit or even a “jump off the cliff” Brexit. These sound funny, but this is serious stuff. What is clear is that, 44 days before the October summit, Chequers will not fly. We said so at the time; we said that it ignored services, failed Northern Ireland and was logistically unworkable. We now know that the EU will not accept it, but neither will the House of Commons, where there is simply no majority for it.

So, please, no more nonsense of just “some risks” to no deal. And, please, let there be less money wasted on preparatory work which is somewhat otiose. We need a deal that can work. It is time that the Government got honest and ruled out no deal once and for all. It is time that the Prime Minister ended the uncertainty for UK citizens in the EU and for EU citizens here and made firm commitments not just “when” the agreement is “signed”, as in the Statement that the Minister has just read out, but now.

I agree strongly with the No. 10 spokesperson who said:

“What we need at this time is serious leadership with a serious plan”.


But that is not what this Statement provides. Indeed, a survey in the Conservatives’ most marginal seats showed that three-quarters are dissatisfied with the Government’s handling of Brexit—they clearly have judgment.

It is time for the Prime Minister to ditch her red lines and get real. If we want trade to thrive with our nearest neighbours, if we want to continue inward investment as a path into European markets, if we want to continue free flow of our food and agricultural products and if we want a border-free Ireland, we have to be in a customs union with the EU and we need a deal on services. We also have to recognise that while the withdrawal agreement has only—“only”—to win the approval of the Commons, the European Parliament and the European Council, the subsequent trade deal will need the consent of every member state, their various parliaments and assemblies. That will mean us negotiating a deal to win their support. Closing off doors now, with unrealistic demands, will mean only U-turns down the line.

It must be evident to this House that the Government must change course and propose a credible plan that can command the support of Parliament, protect jobs, the economy and the environment, avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland and be acceptable to our partners. The Statement that the Minister has read out gives us no confidence that that is the way that we are going. The Government have six weeks to get this right. More of the same will not do. So will the Minister pledge not just to listen to his hard-Brexit friends but to seek to navigate a way forward that can win parliamentary and EU endorsement?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the DExEU website today displayed a rather apt message:

“We’re experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later”.


That perhaps sums up the incoherent, divided and irresponsible position—or, rather, positions—of this Government. That the Trade Secretary could on Sunday dismiss the Chancellor’s forecast of the need for extra borrowing of £80 billion by 2033 while staying in post shows the Prime Minister’s utter, weak inability to impose rationality or discipline on her Government. The Chequers plan is a dead parrot, so the important question is: where do the Government go from here? I would like an answer and I think that Parliament deserves an answer, as do the people.

The Statement claims that the no-deal notices, of which we expect another batch, “prioritise stability”. The way they seek to get any continuity at all in the event of no deal is, in fact, by relying on a series of mini-deals to prevent the absolute disaster of grounded planes and the absence of crucial trade. The Government are saying, “Please, Brussels, can you rescue us from our absurd no-deal threat?”

There will be a particular set of 5 million people who will be badly hit by no deal: the 3 million EU citizens in this country and the 2 million Brits in the rest of the EU. The failure to give a unilateral guarantee two years ago—which would have been reciprocated, as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said at the time—is creating an agonising limbo of anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, Brexiteers are moving assets or citizenship to other EU countries.

To get a little personal, I do not know whether the Prime Minister gets her glucose patches—on which I can comment, as she is commendably open about them—from abroad, but my type 1 diabetic husband gets his glucose sensors and insulin from elsewhere in the EU. There are many other people with medical conditions who are vitally dependent on such imports. That a Government could calmly contemplate upsetting such a flow and creating distress and potentially worse is breath-taking in its dereliction of a basic duty of care.

The prominence of no-deal planning seems to fulfil a number of purposes, all of them within the Tory party. It is a sop by the Prime Minister to the hard Brexiteers, who positively want this outcome, and a warning to the “chuck Chequers” brigade to accept Chequers as somewhat less bad. There are two things that it does not do: it does not put pressure on the Brussels negotiators and it does not inspire confidence in the public—on the contrary.

There is this sentence in the Statement:

“While it is not what we want, a no-deal scenario would bring some countervailing opportunities”.


This is obviously a bone thrown to the ERG faction. What exactly are the “countervailing opportunities” for small businesses losing their export markets, or patients losing their essential medical supplies? The no-deal scenario means lots more costs to businesses, higher prices for consumers, an avalanche of new bureaucracy—such as pharmaceutical companies having to register medicines twice, showing that EU red tape ain’t got nothing on Tory red, white and blue tape—and more taxpayers’ money spent on quangos and civil servants, stockpiling and so on.

Panasonic and Muji are but the latest companies to announce that they are moving their HQ across the Channel. We face this dire outcome because the Tory Government have proved totally unable to deliver a workable or tolerable Brexit deal. Indeed, not only do they provide absolutely no reassurance about how to resolve issues between the UK and Ireland in the event of no deal, they actually advise businesses and individuals to contact the Irish Government. We know that the Tory Government love outsourcing, but this surely goes shamefully too far in abdicating responsibility for the border communities.

Can the Minister tell us that the Government will reverse their refusal to guarantee that MPs will see the full impact analysis of a no-deal Brexit before the final vote on any departure from the EU? Both the previous and current Brexit Secretaries have, in the past, supported a second referendum, so presumably they think that it is a demonstration of democracy, exposing the PM’s comments as a sham. We on these Benches insist on a final say on the deal. We are joined, it is announced today, by 70% of Mumsnet subscribers: a very sensible bunch.

EU Exit: Future Relationship White Paper

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I obviously have not had time to read the document. It was given to journalists at 9 o’clock this morning. The MPs did not even get it when they should have started, but I did, so I thank the Minister. I have had an hour with the document; we know how to do things in this House. Because I have not had time to read the whole thing I will leave detailed comments to our debate on 23 July—assuming it is still in play by then. The three-page Chequers document having failed to survive three days of Cabinet unity, I hope that this 98-page document perhaps survives 98 days.

It is of course welcome that we now have a negotiating proposal—perhaps some 12 months overdue—and I am pleased that it is more comprehensive than the Chequers statement, acknowledging the importance of services, data issues, broadcasting, justice, security and other issues highlighted in the reports of the Lords EU Committee. We look forward to a second White Paper foreshadowing the withdrawal and implementation Bill next week.

In today’s foreword, the Brexit Secretary talks of achieving agreements that are “unprecedented”, “unrivalled” and “unparalleled”. Given that we will be asking our European partners to break with their conventions and legal norms, it might have been advisable for the Government to set out such detail rather earlier. Furthermore, it would have been better if, as in the Monks amendment passed by your Lordships’ House, the Government had sought Parliament’s endorsement of their negotiating mandate before discussions with Brussels. That would have given real authority to Mrs May ahead of her talks.

The Chequers paper was a rather miserable little “concord”. It had nothing on services, despite the UK being the world’s second-largest exporter of services, with £63 billion of non-financial and £27 billion in financial services being sold in the EU and comprising 80% of our economy. Luckily, though, services have found their way into the White Paper with plans for an “ambitious economic partnership”, with,

“continued and relatively liberalised trade in services”,

and mutual recognition of professional qualifications, the Government acknowledging the importance of access to talent, the ability to move people across borders—including fly-in, fly-out—and cross-border data flows, as well as the needs of the creative industries.

The White Paper wants the new economic and regulatory arrangements to be based on autonomy of each party over decisions regarding access to its markets, with a bilateral framework of treaty-based commitments to underpin the operation of the relationship, respecting the regulatory autonomy of both partners. Whether this amounts to something acceptable to the 27 members of the single market, especially as the White Paper also rules out passporting, which will exclude EU nationals and firms from access over here, is, I contend, a big question. It will be vital for our future relationship to encompass and safeguard our wealth-creating, tax-paying service sector, so what assurance can the Minister give that this White Paper approach will achieve this, and will be acceptable to our European partners?

With regard to EU migration, the Leader of the House said on Monday that,

“no preferential access will be offered to EU workers that is not on offer also to other trading partners”.—[Official Report, 9/7/18; col. 813.]

Today’s Statement confirms this, saying that the approach to EU mobility will be in line with that for other trading partners. Obviously, at present the arrangements for EU workers are very different from those with any of the 57 countries with whom we have trade agreements via the EU and which the Government want to continue. Are the Government therefore saying that in future workers from South Korea, for example, or any other of our trading partners will have equal access to jobs as do EU nationals? Or is Dominic Raab right when he said on the “Today” programme this morning that whether EU citizens would get special treatment was “subject to negotiation”—in which case, why is it not part of the negotiating proposals? Will the Minister clarify which of these two is the Government’s intention?

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation, for example, has stressed that:

“Mobility needs to form part of the exit agreement”,


including temporary and seasonal roles. For example, it wants the right to work to be attached to the individual, so that they can move from job to job as their career moves, and not be attached via sponsorship to a single employer or the promise of a permanent contract. Meanwhile, any move to put EU workers on a par with those from far-flung countries would not be well received by the food and drink industry, highly dependent on EU nationals. Business needs to know about this and soon. What is the position of the Government?

A central tenet of the White Paper is to keep the UK in a free trade area for goods, to help create a frictionless border and reduce supply-chain worries, but there are two big problems with this. First, part and parcel of many goods is the design, the IP and the servicing of those products. An example is Rolls-Royce engines, where the maintenance, the servicing, the training, the data exchange and IP are bound up with the straight export of physical hardware. It is not that easy to distinguish between the two. Secondly, the proposed mechanism, what is called a facilitated customs arrangement, rather makes Heath Robinson look simple. It expects VAT, standards, numbers, rules of origin details, safety and hygiene all to be checked by remote, high-tech and yet to be developed software. I have my doubts.

The negotiation on future relationships with the EU are of immense consequence to Gibraltar as well as to the devolved authorities. Will the Minister therefore reassure the House on their involvement in drafting the White Paper and confirm that Gibraltar and the Scottish and Welsh Governments are content with its content and will be fully consulted as negotiations continue? We all want a successful outcome to negotiations on our long-term relationship with Europe. It is our closest neighbour, our ally and our largest trading partner. It is key that the so-called European Research Group—it may be a group but it is not European in outlook, nor is research its methodology—does not derail a deal that could be in the national interest. The White Paper may not be the right answer—we have yet to digest it—but the Minister would be wise to heed the words of his noble friend Lord Hague, who wrote that hard-line Brexiteers need to realise that the type of Brexit available is constrained by three factors: the current parliamentary arithmetic, the needs of big manufacturers for frictionless trade, and the complex realities of the Irish border. He warned that fighting against that reality, a la David Davis, Boris Johnson and the ERG, with no alternative is an “indulgence not a policy”.

Labour has an alternative, within a customs union and with a proper agreement on services, but for now our attention will be on what has been published today. We will see whether it meets our tests—to preserve and grow jobs, to maintain standards in the environment, to share prosperity throughout the country, and to safeguard peace in Northern Ireland. I look forward to our longer debate on 23 July on all that.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, naturally it is a landmark moment that we finally have a government position on Brexit after more than two years, but that exhausted sense of relief is tempered by a huge number of caveats. The first of these is that it has in fact not calmed tempers within the Conservative Party but ignited an all-out war within the governing party: strong and stable this plan is not.

I will have to mix my foodie metaphors. On Monday, I said that the Chequers plan looked like a series of fig-leaves—over the sovereignty of Westminster to reject EU regulations, over the autonomy of the UK legal order, over the pretence of business-friendliness—and I maintain those critiques now that we have the White Paper. However, in addition I suggest that the White Paper describes not a soft nor a hard Brexit but a scrambled Brexit. This is exemplified by the farce of the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU starting his Statement in the other place before MPs had a copy of the White Paper. He actually tried, after the uproar, to suggest that the clerks might be to blame, but actually the Statement is predicated on being delivered before the White Paper is published. It says:

“Shortly, we will publish the Government’s White Paper”,


on Brexit. So it was always intended that the Statement would be made before the White Paper. I think this is executive arrogance rather than taking back control for Parliament.

The scrambled incoherence of the White Paper is exemplified by the suggestions on the agri-food sector. Page 16 of the White Paper talks about,

“a common rulebook for agriculture, food and fisheries products, encompassing rules that must be checked at the border, alongside equivalence for certain other rules, such as wider food policy”.

There are quite a few contradictions there. How is it frictionless trade if there have to be checks at the border? How does that common rulebook for agri-food work if the UK is outside the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy? How can you have a common rulebook for some aspects of food but equivalence for other aspects of food policy? Perhaps the Minister will explain and unravel some of that. The fact is that the facilitated customs arrangement is baroque, complicated and bureaucratic; it is likely to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, how on earth can you separate goods from the services that are essential to their production, whether that is legal services, software, intellectual property or others? There is also the serious worry about the potential for fraud and smuggling with these differential tariffs that are meant to be applied at the border; that is leaving aside the question of whether the EU will agree to operate its intended side of the arrangement.

Michel Barnier is surely right. He said that only staying fully in the single market and the customs union can guarantee frictionless trade, yet the Government maintain this claim of “frictionless trade”. That is an absolute term; it does not mean a little bit of friction—it means no friction. How do the Government intend trade to be frictionless? How can there be an independent trade policy, which is alleged in the White Paper, if the UK has committed itself to a common rulebook, including on agri-food products? How will that work when the US invites us to accept the famous bleached chickens and GM food?

The cakeism which runs throughout this White Paper is exemplified by the comments on services—a massive hole in the plan—which are 80% of our economy, and which we do not intend to be part of the single market. When one thinks of the efforts previous Conservative and other Governments have made to try and deepen the single market in services, this is a betrayal of everything that Mrs Thatcher tried to do.

Can the Minister tell me how,

“new arrangements on financial services”,

will,

“preserve the mutual benefits of integrated markets”,

while maintaining the autonomy of rule-making? Those two are surely in contradiction. We will not have integrated markets with autonomous rule-making.

I fear that what the Government are setting up is a further loss of trust in the public. There were so many deceitful statements that came out of the three pages after the Chequers meeting last Friday, which appear to be repeated in the bits of this White Paper which I have been able to read. For instance, the White Paper says:

“We share an ambition for our country to be … more prosperous than ever before”.


But the Government’s own impact statements, which we finally wrestled out of them, all show that we will be poorer. Our economy will shrink; we will have less money for public services. So how will we be more prosperous if the Government have committed to the statements made by the OBR? There are so many statements in here that are just not true, such as that this will,

“return accountability over the laws we live by”,

to the UK Parliament. We will comply with the common rulebook, and yet we will have autonomy over our laws. It does not add up; we are setting up for the people to be let down and it is the people, therefore, who should have the final say on what the Government come back with. Otherwise, the forces that led to the decision in the referendum two years ago will just be magnified.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is in the national interest that Parliament should not be faced by a take-it-or-leave-it vote. It must be able to prevent a slide into a disastrous no deal outcome. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that is not an arcane interest because many ordinary citizens would be hugely harmed, including those who voted for Brexit, if that happened.

Was not the referendum fought by the leave side partly on the basis of a need for the Westminster Parliament to take back sovereignty? It is truly ironic that many of those who said that oppose a meaningful vote for Parliament now. Indeed, some noble Lords opposite who have spoken want specifically to hobble Parliament by barring it from amending a Motion. This is not a remainer cause. It is not about destroying or sabotaging Brexit—that is a distortion and misrepresentation—but about whether Parliament has a constitutional right and duty to call the Government to account and should have a decisive political role on the course of Brexit. The idea that that undermines the Government’s negotiating position is farcical.

The noble Lord, Lord Spicer, said that the essence of why he opposed staying in the EU is that the nation state is the best unit for democracy, that Britain is the home of democracy and that it offers a forum for accountability. That is the point. That is what Motion F3—I avoid “Grieve II”—achieves. It is not a negotiating power for Parliament but a power to call the Government to account for how they are conducting the Brexit negotiations. Its purpose is to prevent or at least manage a crisis by thinking ahead of that time and what the structures would be. The virtue of writing this into the Bill is that we will then know what mechanisms need to be followed if a crisis arises. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is important to give the Commons the opportunity to vote on what the Government apparently agreed last week.

I have great admiration for Dominic Grieve as a parliamentarian and constitutional lawyer of the highest calibre and integrity. He is a loyal Conservative, much to the regret of some of us because we would like him to be a little more of a rebel. I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, about the character of Mr Grieve and that the hatchet job on him by the Daily Mail was a total disgrace. It showed the degradation of our political media culture and discourse.

The noble Lord, Lord True, said that his amendment was not the best way to accomplish what he wants. I do not need to elaborate any further. It would unhelpfully complicate matters. I will accept the guidance of a former Speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, on Commons procedure, which I do not understand, that it is necessary to pass Motion F3 to allow the other place to consider how it wants to proceed.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. One of the most important matters is security. In Barcelona the other day, one of Britain’s most wanted fugitives—Jamie Acourt—was arrested in a joint operation between the Metropolitan Police and the Spanish police, possibly assisted by Europol. The NCA head of international operations said:

“Our ability to share information and work at speed with our international partners ensures there is no safe haven for fugitives. We will never stop pursuing these individuals”.


That is no doubt true, but Acourt will be returned under the European arrest warrant. If we do not stay part of the warrant and have to fall back on the long-winded extradition arrangements that predate it—without any participation in Europol to facilitate cross-border police operations—our security will be endangered. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, accepts that security is one of our most important interests. I hear what noble Lords said about the effect of the amendment but, politically, it is important that this House presses on the Government the importance of staying in agencies and institutions.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in support of the key Amendment 93, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith added his name and which was moved so biblically and effectively by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds. Of course, at that time, I had not only a brilliant legal adviser on my right, but a theological one—my noble friend Lord Griffiths—who has now left the Chamber. I said, “I have to have a biblical quote”, but I am afraid he has a sense of humour and said, “The people who were wandering aimlessly in the pre-Brexit wilderness were soon squabbling among themselves, ignoring the advice of their leader”, and so on. But I will leave my noble friend’s helpful comments for another time.

I say this particularly in answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and my noble friend Lord Adonis. This is an important and meaningful amendment because it would restrict the pretty wide powers given to Ministers in the Bill. That is why we need to pass it. We have on a number of occasions, on this Bill and the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, expressed our surprise that nowhere in the referendum process—in the immediate aftermath, nor in this legislation or any other—did the Government ever spell out that the Article 50 process automatically triggered our exit from Euratom. I will not repeat the costs and dangers of that eventuality given earlier debates on it, particularly the input at that point of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

However, equally unremarked on and unmentioned by the Government, or by the Brexiteers during the campaign, was the similar removal of the UK from a swathe of agencies, many of which, as we have heard, we helped to construct and all of which have served this country well. Colleagues will already know, from medical researchers who have been in touch, patient groups, health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry, of the risks of being outside the European Medicines Agency, quite apart from the loss of jobs and specialisms that are now moving to Holland. But the same could be said about the European Food Safety Agency, often referred to, but not today, by my noble friend Lord Rooker; the environment agency, emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and my noble friend Lord Whitty; the railways and aviation agencies, often referred to by my noble friend Lord Berkeley; the European Chemicals Agency, which has been mentioned; and, of course, Eurojust, suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and Europol, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

The commonality is that any mention of those agencies in this House and beyond has included a plea for us to remain members, associates or partners with whichever such agency is in the frame. Sometimes this means following the same rules—as the Government have now accepted for clinical trials—to assist in monitoring; for safety; for easy and rapid transport, as for medical isotopes; to facilitate trade and exchange; to enable skilled persons to undertake checks or repairs; or, as my noble friend Lord Haskel said, to guarantee safe products for users and consumers.

For some of the agencies it might mean paying money in, as the Prime Minister acknowledged. For some it might mean harmonising assurance, governance or penalties for rule-breaking. But for all it will mean a willingness to adapt and respond to requirements, usually simply to maintain our existing rules and practice. What is clear is that, given the wide powers in the Bill for Ministers, we must ensure that none of those powers is used to frustrate our continued involvement with such agencies, whether because, for example, we set different sanctions for breaches, raise fees or charges in a different way that makes it difficult to move along in their way of working, or apply variant rules or any other similar change. That is why it is critical to circumscribe the powers in the Bill so that they cannot be used to prevent us having necessary EU rules or ways of working that would frustrate our participation in any of these agencies. We do not want the powers to be used for that reason, hence the very simple amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, had it right: the Bill should not be used to frustrate the intention, should that be the Government’s wish, to stay in these agencies for the good of the whole country. It is, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds said in his introduction, entirely in line with what the Prime Minister said in Mansion House and it would allow this country to continue such relationships where that continuation is in the national interest.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, as has just been said, the price of the Government’s failure to accept the advice of this House and its EU Committee to offer a unilateral guarantee to the 5 million affected citizens is being paid by those citizens in anxiety, distress and distrust. As a result of taking the bargaining chip approach mentioned by several noble Lords, rather than a simple, light-touch, declaratory procedure, there are mounting concerns about the process, not least in the light of the Windrush scandal. There may be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in that group, but there are 3.5 million EU and EEA citizens here and 1.5 million UK citizens in the EU 27, so altogether that is 5 million people. What assurances can the Government give about the staffing and capacity of the relevant section of the Home Office that will deal with the settled status application process and about the testing plans? Those of us affected by the TSB fiasco are very conscious of the need for good testing and communication plans for customers.

My noble friend mentioned what is apparently the current plan, which means that people will not be able to apply online from Apple devices, such as iPhones, only from Android devices. Apparently Home Office officials told MEPs last week that people could borrow their friends’ Android devices to complete the process. That seems a little bizarre. Will an offline process be available for people without digital skills or access to computers? What are the plans for communications, appeal and redress? We know that the draft withdrawal agreement requires independent oversight of the process, but can the Government give us more of an idea of the practicalities and of how they plan to make sure that vulnerable people are not excluded? A report last week from the Migration Observatory expressed concern about people potentially being excluded. The Government have been ruled to be acting illegally in trying to deport rough sleepers, who are not necessarily in breach of EU free movement law. Is everybody to be included? Have the Government set a cost? Today’s letter from the representative of the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, to the incoming Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, says that the European Parliament expects there to be a cost-free process for applicants and raises other systems issues. He also raises the crucial issue of the need for full rights under the new EU data protection law—the GDPR—to apply, not the Government’s planned exemption. Without these rights, if something goes wrong, people will not be able to find out and get their data corrected. That is a cause that these Benches have championed, and we look forward to others coming on board with that demand.

Can the Government clear up something that has been bothering me? What exactly are they saying about comprehensive sickness insurance? We have had evidence, and this has been said by Ministers in public, that there will be no need to demonstrate the holding of comprehensive sickness insurance as part of the application process for settled status, but the draft withdrawal agreement seems to imply that there will still be a requirement to hold it. So is there a difference between having to hold comprehensive sickness insurance and having to demonstrate it as an evidential requirement? Could the Government clarify exactly what will happen to people who in the past were told they needed CSI? What happens in the application process?

Could the Government clarify the omission from the draft withdrawal agreement of free-movement rights among the EU 27 for Brits who are settled in one of the member states? There is huge concern, particularly among people whose job requires them to move around. I see the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in his place. He and I have depended in the past, as Members of the European Parliament, on the skills of freelance interpreters and translators. Not only do they move around between Brussels and Strasbourg but they might work for other international organisations or businesses, so they live in one member state but travel all over the EU. They need the right to work across borders within the EU 27. What exactly accounts for the gap in the withdrawal agreement?

We do not know what will happen about post-Brexit immigration but it looks as though it will be very similar to EU free movement, except with a lot more red tape, bureaucracy and cost, and less freedom. That is not a terribly good bargain. We are suffering a lot in the process of the Government’s Brexit demands on citizens, and I ask for some answers.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I would have hoped that the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady D’Souza, and my noble friends Lady Smith and Lord Judd would not have needed to table this amendment. It should have been self-evident that those living here who arrived with the reasonable expectation of their right to remain on the same terms would have had that guaranteed by the Government.

Sadly, though, it has proved essential that the movers table the amendment since EU residents retain a level of anxiety born not just of the referendum result but of the Government’s subsequent actions. First, at the time of the Article 50 Bill, the Government refused to guarantee their existing rights and chose instead to use them as bargaining chips, as we have heard, using their majority in the Commons to overturn your Lordships’ amendment. Secondly, more than a year later, there is still no cast-iron guarantee, despite Ministers promising early agreement on this. Indeed, the Government have failed to implement what the Prime Minister said in December would be on offer to EU citizens, and we therefore need to put it into law. That is a priority for the Bill. We cannot wait until December to give these people certainty. They have decisions to make—on schooling, jobs and homes, and perhaps on marriages and children—and need to know where they stand.

Thirdly, in Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, who is not in his place now, insisted that,

“you can only have the domestic law once you have the international treaty, because it is from the international treaty rights and obligations that you allow the domestic rights and obligations to be brought into our domestic law”.—[Official Report, 7/3/18; cols. 1078-79.]

I do not know if he was deliberately misunderstanding what we were asking but, in effect, he was saying that the withdrawal agreement must come first and that without it the Government would refuse to guarantee existing residents their existing rights. That is not necessary in the treaty. It may be a decision by the Government but it is certainly not the case in law. We are not asking that the Government wait until we hear from the EU 27 how they will react to our citizens living there. We are asking the Government to affirm now something it is in the UK Parliament’s gift to decide: what rights we will give to EU citizens currently living here legally.

Lastly, we need this because of the disastrous mishandling, which has just been mentioned, of another group of people also living here quite lawfully: the Windrush generation. Given their overwhelming right to be here, the length of time of their residency and the contribution they have made to the economy, is it any wonder that more recent—albeit equally legal—residents, EU citizens, question whether vague promises of concern will harden into legal guarantees?

The amendment is necessary, morally right and legally justified, so I hope that, even at this late hour, the Government will accept it.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

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—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendment 82, which itself is amended—or, in truth, corrected—by Amendment 82A.

Amendment 80 is pretty simple and is very much in line with the amendments we have debated today, which aim to restrict the very wide powers that Ministers—be they Minister number 1 or number 109 —have dreamed up for themselves in this Bill. The amendment would remove from Ministers the discretion to extend the definition of what constitutes a deficiency in retained law. That is important, given that Ministers have taken considerable powers to correct what they consider to be deficiencies. So it would be a two-way gain for Ministers: first, they could extend what they define as a deficiency and then they could use their powers to correct it.

The main thrust of Amendment 82 is to prevent secondary legislation under Clause 7 from being able to change the Equality Act 2010 or subordinate legislation made under that Act, or, indeed, later legislation, as in Amendment 82A. Again, it is about not reducing the rights and remedies that are available under EU retained law. While we were drafting Amendment 82 we also put in wording to restrict the ability under Clause 7 to impose taxes, fees, charges and to create quangos or introduce new criminal offences under secondary legislation. However, as I have alerted the Minister, we will not deal with that at this point because three separate groups are coming up and we will discuss the issue of criminal offences and fees later. The important thing for now is not allowing Ministers to extend the definition of deficiency or to use the regulations under Clause 7 to change the Equality Act and the subordinate legislation that flows from it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 80 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I cannot speak for her, but my remarks will also encompass Amendment 80A in the name of my noble friend Lady Bowles who, as the Committee will appreciate, is not in a fit state to speak to her amendment, although it relates to Clause 7(3).

Clause 7(3) is rather strange. It was inserted by the Government on Report in the other place. I am trying to resist the word “sneaky”, but the Government gave with one hand and took with another. On 16 January, David Lidington said in the other place:

“The Government remain of the view that the power in clause 7(1) is crucial. We do not take delegated powers lightly, and we want them to be tailored as tightly to their purpose as possible. We have therefore listened to hon. Members’ concerns about the scope of the power in clause 7(1), and in bringing forward Government amendments 14 and 15, we have built on the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve)”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/1/18; col. 838.]


Amendment 14 was the one that led to the change in Clause 7(1) to put in “are” instead of “consist of but are not limited to”. So it was more specific on what ministerial powers could cover.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford]

Actually, there is growing support in the opinion polls for people taking control themselves. I think it was the noble Lord himself who talked about how it is the people who decide, not us—and especially not us in this unelected House. I totally agree with him that it is the people who are now showing through opinion polls that they want to take control of the decision on what should happen to this country and on whether to give a verdict on the Brexit deal.

This has been an extremely valuable debate on the crucial decisions about the single market and the customs union. My last remark will be to mention, as my noble friends did, that being in the EU has not stopped other EU countries, such as Germany, exporting many more times the value of British exports to countries such as India. In fact, Germany is India’s top trade partner in the EU and its sixth biggest overall, and the UK is only India’s 18th-biggest trade partner. Even Belgium has a trade surplus with India, unlike the UK. So being in the EU has certainly not prevented other EU countries making a greater success of trade with India than we have. It is the problem of visas that has prevented a deepening of the trade relationship with India.

I cannot resist mentioning that the noble Lord, Lord Marland, who I understand is the Government’s trade envoy to the Commonwealth, was quoted recently as saying that it would be easy to do trade deals with Commonwealth countries such as Singapore, Malta and Cyprus. Malta and Cyprus of course are in the EU and are not free to do individual trade deals—so good luck with that.

To conclude, I give my full support to the amendments in this group which, one way or another, seek to keep us in the single market and the customs union, which is vital not only to the integrity of the United Kingdom, particularly on the intra-Irish border, but to the economic future of this country.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a valuable and, indeed, an enjoyable debate, but it is particularly important for two major reasons. The Bill is not about whether or not we leave but about how we leave, and there are two important aspects of why we have debated and heard these views today that we should not forget.

One is that Article 50—and its author is here, as always—by which we are leaving, requires that we have the framework for our future relationship with the European Union. That is what all these amendments are about. But the second reason we have to discuss that today is because the Government have absolutely failed to tell us what their vision for that framework is. That is why we are doing this now and why these amendments are key. Indeed, as has just been mentioned, it is only tomorrow that the Prime Minister will finally lock her little brood into Chequers for what the Financial Times today described as “Mission Impossible”, to thrash out some sort of consensus about the future of our country. Meanwhile, both in the UK and among our partners in the EU 27, there is a complete lack of clarity about the direction of travel. We need to know, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, what is going to happen as we go into the negotiations.

What I have found rather strange is that, instead of the Prime Minister bringing her brood together earlier after the referendum 20 months ago, as we have just been reminded, she sent out her little chicks, and, indeed, a Fox, to make speeches far and wide—in fact, almost everywhere other than in Parliament—on their competing visions of what that post-Brexit future will look like. They are mostly doing that without a proper dialogue with consumers, with trade unions, with industry or with farmers. I will not have been the only one listening to “Farming Today” this morning to hear the responses to Michael Gove in Birmingham yesterday, when NFU members—not, incidentally, members of the Labour Party—lined up to say: “Where’s the beef”? They had heard his speech; they still did not know what was going on and wanted to know where this Government are taking us. They do not know whether they can sell their meat tariff and quota free in 13 months’ time. The fishermen in Newlyn have also been given little detail about their future and are beginning to worry about that, too.

Critical to this is the big issue: do we want tariff and barrier-free trade with the EU? Do we want no customs posts, particularly but not solely in Northern Ireland, no checks at borders and smooth, duty-free transit? The ports of Dover, Holyhead and Fishguard would like to know the answer to that, but so indeed would Calais and Rotterdam. But checks and paperwork will be avoided only if we produce and sell according to the same regulations, and if our internal systems of checks on food and manufactured goods are recognised and respected by the importing countries. Frankly, that means regulatory alignment. If that is not what the Government envisage, they must decide pretty quickly so that the plans, buildings, documentation, computer systems and, yes, the personnel can be put in place.

The big political question facing us is one that the Prime Minister seems not to dare ask those chicks: “Do we want to maintain our current, pan-EU high standards?” The Fox seems to think not. Reliable sources in his department—and I mean reliable sources—suggest that they hope trade deals with third countries will become materially easier when there is “less pressure”, in their words, to stick to the high levels of regulations required by the customs union and the single market, and easier because the so-called political factors, which I gather is departmental code for having less respect for human rights, would be “less of a problem”. Furthermore, the secret documents in Room 100 that have been referred to—I also saw them on the first floor—were, incidentally, reported in the Independent, so I am not giving any secrets away. My quotes are from that paper, which describe areas being explored where “maximising regulatory opportunities” are possible. It cited particularly what, as we have heard, was said by the Minister in an earlier life about the opportunity of ending the working time directive.

However, that is not what we heard from the Chancellor at Davos, nor what we heard from Austria yesterday when the Brexit Secretary stressed his support for,

“the principle of fair competition”,

which I would argue implies no lowering of standards to gain competitive advantage. Mr Davis said that the UK and EU should be able,

“to trust each other’s regulations and the institutions that enforce them … Such mutual recognition will naturally require close, even-handed cooperation between these authorities and a common set of principles”.

So the Viennese version is that standards and regulations are the building blocks of free trade. This is of course in contrast to the Foreign Secretary, who asserted:

“The great thing about EU regulation is that it is not primarily there for business convenience, it is not primarily there to create opportunities for companies to trade freely across frontiers, it is primarily there to create a united EU”.


There was not quite the same line coming out of Vienna.

We have also read—perhaps the Minister could confirm this when he comes to reply—that British and American conservative groups, including the Initiative for Free Trade founded by Daniel Hannan MEP, who I gather is his friend, are working on an “ideal trade agreement” that would allow the import of US meats such as chlorinated chicken and hormone-raised beef, along with drugs and chemicals currently banned in Britain. Is that the vision that they want?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, this issue is linked to those under Clauses 9 and 14 about the withdrawal agreement and the exit day in that context. No doubt we will come back to some of these issues, because they are all interlinked and it is quite difficult to get a holistic view. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is quite right: one key issue is what we are going to be exiting to. Flexibility is one thing but an excess of uncertainty is another—particularly, as my noble friend Lord Tyler said, when it is coupled with ministerial discretion.

We have the exit date, we have the date when the treaties cease to apply, and we can add on the layer of what is going to be in the transition terms—I have not had time to read the Government’s proposal today. We also have the question about whether Article 50 might be extended, and the question of whether Parliament might want to put the deal to the citizens for a final say. There is also the question of the post-dated cheque. So, all in all, they went all round the houses in the other place—no fixed date, then an attempt to fix it, then a date movable by Ministers. In all this brew, the amendments raise a very reasonable point about Parliament being in the driving seat—something that has been the theme of so many of our debates in the last year and a half.

We have no idea exactly what being subject to EU law, or even respecting the remit of the ECJ, whatever that will turn out to mean, during transition and even in the longer term—because that was the implication of the Prime Minister’s speech on Saturday—means. That sits uncomfortably with the Bill as a whole, and especially with the specification of exit day. We are being asked to fall into a black hole and trust Ministers to get it right—which on current experience is not a very wise thing to do.

The amendments have been described as probing, but answers from the Government—I am sure that the Minister is about to give very precise answers—will be very helpful to our understanding of how the jigsaw will fit together. At the moment it all looks far too uncertain for anyone to be comfortable.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My first question to the Minister is: why did the Government slot in the calendar date at Committee stage, when that was never foreseen in the original Bill? Was it for some good legislative reason, or was it, as my noble friend Lord Hain suggested, to satisfy a certain hard Brexit group of MPs sitting on the Prime Minister’s shoulder, rather like the 60 who have been writing her helpful letters today? It certainly looks as if this was more to do with party management, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, than being in the national interest, which we have been advised should control everything we do.

Secondly, I ask the Minister to comment on the point discussed a few moments ago—the exact wording of Article 50. The Bill as it stands would allow the date specified to be extended in exceptional circumstances, but this probably deals only with the possibility of an extension to Article 50, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said, provides:

“The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question”—


that is us—

“from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification … unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.”

The date could be amended in accordance with what is in the withdrawal agreement. We indeed might come to an agreement that, for some other reason, chooses an earlier or a later date. Or we might want to amend the date if the withdrawal agreement were not finalised. On the evidence of negotiations so far, it is quite unlikely that this divided Government, seeking to negotiate something which, I have to say in all fairness to them, has never been undertaken before, will keep to their timetable. They should therefore want the flexibility.

There is another issue. Even if we had a deal, what would happen if the European Parliament voted it down? I understand that that vote could be as late as one year from now; it could be as late as February 2019. And the European Parliament has the right to vote any deal down. Guy Verhofstadt told Andrew Marr at the weekend that a thumbs down from the European Parliament meant exit with no deal. So if in a year’s time the Parliament were to vote a deal down, I assume that we would be out a month later, on WTO terms with no transition deal, which would also mean no safeguards for EU citizens—either ours living in EU countries or theirs living here. I do not think that the European Parliament would do that, but my judgment is that if it did, the 27—or indeed the 28, with our Government as well—would speedily get themselves into a room and row back from that. I cannot imagine that we, or they, would want to be in that position. Again, that would mean a change in the date, so the flexibility needs to be there.

Update on EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, although sadly it adds nothing to what we have already seen in the press. Indeed, it is rather less since we have been able to read what the EU negotiators and their political masters think of how things are going, and it was their side that used the words “impasse” or “deadlock”. It is noticeable that the Governments of the 27 EU member states have shown markedly more unity than the 29 people who sit around our Cabinet table. Moreover, while the British side argues, the clock ticks relentlessly on, so it is time to talk turkey for the sake of citizens, business, trade, farmers and consumers. If that means talking money now, so be it. We know that the Government’s reluctance to do so is a fear of their more uncompromising Eurosceptics.

A financial deal will need to be made, a deal that some will not like no matter how good it is, so why put it off for fear of their wrath at such cost to everyone else? Every industry, as well as agriculture, consumers, patients, doctors, lawyers and investors, says that we must end this uncertainty. Just this morning I met representatives from Rolls-Royce who told me how key it is that we can trade freely with the EU. We might make the best aircraft engines, but they include parts from the EU, use the skills of people from the EU, and sell within the EU when complete, as do 90% of Toyota cars made here. Their reps were telling me this morning that non-tariff barriers, rules of origin certificates and so on are as challenging as tariffs if we leave the customs union.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce and other companies are highly dependent on our participation in the European Aviation Safety Agency, but they are hearing nothing from the Government as to what they want in that regard—as with other vital agencies, such as Euratom and the European Medical Agency. I even read talk of us coming under the US Food and Drug Administration in Maryland—or la-la land.

There is a host of other non-trade issues where reciprocity is key: the mutual recognition of civil and family judgments, handling insolvency cases, data protection, and long-term insurance contracts. All those issues need early negotiation and preparation by the Government, which those industries concerned simply find that they are not invited to engage with. They can get no answers on those questions and nor can we. For example, the Minister for Consumers in the Commons said last week that while consumers will retain rights on goods bought,

“from a trader based in the UK”,

beyond that,

“is a matter for negotiations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/10/17; col. 51WH.]

Nothing was set out about what we wanted from those negotiations. She said only that we are exploring options in maintaining early warnings of dangerous non-food products—shared at the moment via Rapex—as with the pharmacovigilance network on unexpected responses to drugs and our key role in the European Consumer Centre Network. It is not simply that Europe is not ready to talk on these issues, though I understand it is on some of them, but that the Government are not engaging with industries or the consumers concerned.

There are three key areas on which Parliament, not just the Government, must have the right to decide. One is future trade with the EU, where the Institute of Directors is demanding to know what the Government want from our EU trade deal. Can the Minister indicate whether achieving tariff-free trade is the Government’s objective? The second area is about transitional agreements. The word “implementation” was used, but I think we are really talking about transitional arrangements. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will press to achieve those arrangements on the same terms as now and to ensure that the withdrawal Bill contains approval of those agreements? Finally, does the Minister agree that any walking away from the negotiations—effectively a “no deal”—should be a matter for Parliament and not Ministers alone? Will the Government therefore agree to amend the withdrawal Bill to ensure that any such decision will be taken by Parliament?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, it is 16 months after the referendum. The brazen and airy assertions by the leave campaign that negotiations would be easy and our economy would prosper have been revealed as the empty rhetoric they always were. The Government believe that,

“we are on the right path”.

That path seems not only to be a long one, but to have an unknown end point.

On citizens’ rights, it seems true that some progress has been made, but 4 million to 5 million citizens are still in limbo. The Government’s approach is still flawed because of their concept that EU citizens resident in the UK will have to secure settled status, even if the Government claim the process will be streamlined and low-cost. Those citizens should not have to secure what they already have by right, and it remains a matter of great regret that the Government refuse to give the unilateral guarantee of existing rights that a majority in this House wanted. Can the Minister assure us that we will have the novel experience of witnessing a process by the Home Office that is administered efficiently, quickly and accurately?

To complain that,

“the sequencing of negotiations, has always been an EU construct”,

is rather feeble. It has always been clear that this sequence would be followed—so what is it now that takes the Government by surprise? The Secretary of State even accepted the sequencing a few months ago after a little bit of huffing and puffing. The Government maintain that they are ready and well prepared to start the negotiations on transition and final status, but as the right honourable Kenneth Clarke MP has said, that sounds like la-la land—there is no substance. The truth is that members of the Cabinet are fighting like ferrets in a sack, with no agreement in prospect. This is a key reason for lack of progress.

The sensible approach would be to stay in the single market and customs union not only in the transition but in the permanent relationship. Instead of that stability, we hear the deeply destabilising nonsense about no deal. The Secretary of State told the other place that he had not talked up no deal, but he has failed to disown it. Many of his ultra-hard Brexiteer colleagues have talked it up. Those ideological obsessives positively want no deal as the destructive revolution they crave. Will the Government now rule out the hugely harmful no-deal prospect?

The former top official at the department of trade, Sir Martin Donnelly, rightly calls this reckless bravado. The OECD says that it would immediately cut UK growth by 1.5 percentage points. The Resolution Foundation predicts that in a no-deal scenario the “just about managing”, the people whom the Prime Minister professes to care about so much, would suffer the most from an inflation hit to the tune of £5 a week on top of the current 3% rate of inflation. No wonder polls show that 47% of people are now against Brexit—it is 49% of women; I shall not make any remarks about how sensible women are—compared to 42%. Has not the time now come to offer the British people an honourable way out of this morass through an opportunity to think again, to really reflect in a further referendum, once they can see the concrete reality of what Brexit entails?

Update on the Progress of EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. In fact, I welcome her back from what has been a busy summer for her—but as nothing to what is to come over the next 18 months. While any progress, however limited, with regard to EU citizens is welcome, how much better it would have been if the Government had heeded our call 12 months ago, made clear our commitment to those living here and got down to the details at that stage, rather than recently. The matter needs to be resolved urgently.

More broadly, however, the overall Statement is rather like a piece of lace trying to protect the Government’s modesty but with rather more gaps than fabric. The Minister’s office kindly sent me the future partnership papers over the summer and at times I wondered whether those rather bland papers—almost non-papers—really represented the true extent of the Government’s thinking, or simply the very least they dare get away with without waking the slumbering Rees-Mogg.

Just yesterday, the Irish Foreign Minister said that the Secretary of State’s plan for the Irish border,

“needs a lot more work”,

and that,

“unless there is progress on that issue, we are not going to get to phase two”.

The mood music from Brussels and across the capitals tells us it is very unlikely that the EU will decide in October that “sufficient progress” has been made to move on to the all-important talks on our future relationship with the EU—our nearest and largest market. So while David Davis claims he remains optimistic that a seamless trade deal can be struck with the EU, Michel Barnier speaks of “no decisive progress” and says that “frictionless trade” is not possible outside the single market and customs union.

Even the Government are unclear on how trade outside a customs union could be frictionless. They have dropped after just a few weeks their untested blue-sky thinking—it sounded more psychedelic to me—for a track-and-trace system, using technology and trust to replace customs controls. Anyway, we understand that the IT for any new customs checks is not anticipated until January 2019, just two months before our supposed departure date. We all know about government procurement of that size.

Looking beyond the EU, Liam Fox now seems to be saying that he is turning down free trade deals because we do not have the capacity to negotiate them, and that instead we should try to duplicate the EU’s trade relations with third countries, with a sort of rollover of existing deals. This cut-and-paste job is, I would have thought, hardly worth the efforts of a Fox negotiator, who is now without his Minister here in the Lords. In January, the Secretary of State claimed to be aiming for,

“a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement that will deliver the exact same benefits as we have”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/1/17; col. 169.]

Can the Minister let us have the Government’s current thinking on this?

Can the Minister also tell us where we are on a transitional agreement and whether the words she just used about not having to negotiate twice suggest that the transitional agreement will be on the same terms as now? I hope she and her colleagues have finally come to accept that there can be no bespoke transitional arrangement. There will be no time to negotiate that and the sensible thing is to remain in a customs union with the EU and operate single market rules, which are key to our vital industries, while the long-term relationship is agreed and given time to bed in. Can she also tell the House whether the Government will publish the Treasury’s analysis, which reportedly shows that the economic benefits of future free trade agreements will be less than the economic costs of leaving the customs union and single market?

Can the Minister also update the House on the involvement of the devolved authorities? The JMC, which brings together Scottish and Welsh Governments and, in theory, the Northern Ireland Government, has not met since February and will not convene again until mid-October, There has been no substantial response to the joint letters of 14 June and 23 June from the relevant Ministers, Mark Drakeford and Mike Russell. Despite the terms of reference for that JMC committee being to seek to agree a UK approach to Article 50 negotiations and to provide oversight of negotiations with the EU, the Government published their summer papers with absolutely no consultation and little advance warning. This means that the Scottish and Welsh Governments have had no opportunity to provide any oversight of the negotiations.

The clock is ticking. Industry, farmers, supermarkets, airlines, road haulage, lawyers and accountants are all coming to me; I am sure they are going to the Government as well. They are all concerned about the lack of clarity and certainty, while consumer representatives are getting virtually no access to Ministers and fear that their interests are being overlooked. It is not just the EU that has to decide whether “sufficient progress” has been made. This House and Parliament must do so, too, and question whether the direction of the Government’s thinking, as well as its speed, is up to the task ahead. I fear that this Statement offers little reassurance.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I also thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I am afraid the Government have shown themselves to be insufficiently prepared and, at times, even undisciplined and undignified in throwing insults at Brussels. They have rather squandered the 14 months since the referendum, including an unnecessary court battle to prevent parliamentary accountability and three months on an unnecessary general election.

There have been some steps forward, with the useful publication of the position papers—albeit in recess and given to the media several hours before they were made available to members of the public, including parliamentarians—and the acceptance of a transitional period, although without specifying how long the Government want that to be and with no acceptance of whether it would mean being in the customs union and the single market. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I was intrigued by the reference in the Statement to it not being in either of our interests to run aspects of the negotiations twice. The only way I can see that happening, unless the Minister can contradict me, is if we stay in the customs union and single market during the transitional period and in the long term. There has also been some progress on EU citizens and an acceptance of some role for the European Court of Justice. In July, there was an acceptance of financial obligations from commitments made while we are a member state. These acceptances, however, were all inevitable. It would have been better if they had not had to be dragged out of the Government.

There are still, however, several impractical red lines and there have been some rather backward steps. The Home Office has sent letters to a significant number of EU nationals threatening them with immediate deportation, which hardly makes for good mood music for the negotiations, apart from being obviously distressing for those individuals. We have had a repeat from the Prime Minister of the “no deal is better than a bad deal” mantra, which we had hoped had been put to bed. There was an agreement on the sequencing of the talks; now that acceptance is put up in the air again by the Government. We understood that the Government had accepted the principle of the financial liabilities; now all that is also being challenged.

This fickleness and lack of reliability is fomenting some distrust of the Government. It makes it much harder for the EU to agree a linkage between the elements of the Article 50 divorce arrangements and the future relationship. For instance, if the Government would state the period of transition they seek, the status, in terms of the customs union and the single market, and what continuing contributions they propose to make in respect of that status, that might facilitate an agreement on the liabilities or the existing commitments. If the Government said that they wanted to stay in the customs union and the single market, that would at a stroke resolve many of the worries over Ireland we are in the course of debating this afternoon.

While the Government rather go round in circles, businesses are having to make relocation decisions now, affecting jobs, the pound drops and the economy slows. The Government keep reproaching the EU for not coming up with concrete suggestions for flexible solutions, but if the Government cannot specify what end goal they are seeking, how can we expect Brussels to come up with flexibility to fit what the Government want? It is Catch-22.

It was suggested that the customs solutions put forward in the paper about three weeks ago were innovative, but they were not practical or thought through, and even the Secretary of State called them blue-sky thinking a mere couple of weeks after the paper was published. That hardly gives a good solid basis on which Brussels can engage with those suggestions. If the Government have a strategy, as opposed to a series of delays, reactive statements and outbursts, will they share that strategy with Parliament and the British public? Are we not secondary to an audience of the ideologically obsessed hard Brexiteers in the Tory party’s ranks and outside them who are not happy? I see that Arron Banks is trying to unseat Tory MPs, including Amber Rudd. Perhaps that accounts for the Prime Minister repeating the “no deal” mantra. It is unhelpful and petulant to raise, even as a possibility, a chaotic, “falling off a cliff-edge” Brexit. Will the Government level with Parliament and the public and be honest about the fact that, as we are proposing to leave the EU club, the UK cannot expect to retain the full benefits of club membership? We cannot have our cake while eating it. The fact that they need us as much as we need them is untrue, and we need to compromise. It is up to Britain to set out in detail its preferred destination and how to get there. As one journalist put it:

“The departing ship is watched”—


by the EU—

“with both sadness and concern, but there is no rush to take on its navigation problems”.

Will the Government please tell us their proposed destination and how they are going to navigate?