Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. She mentioned climate change. I will talk about climate change and then about UK citizens in the EU.

It is an awful irony that, as we sit here discussing internal UK miseries and divisions, decision-makers from the rest of the world are gathered in Poland, trying to work out how to avert the climate change disaster facing us. As Sir David Attenborough has said, it is the worst threat to life on earth as we know it. What a contrast to 2008, when the UK led the world with the Climate Change Act.

Here in the UK, all our political energy and will has been squandered by the Conservative Party, which is refighting fractures from the 20th century. It is no surprise to me that our younger generation, about whom the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, and my noble friend Lady Kramer spoke so eloquently, is so disillusioned and angry. It is their future and their children’s. It is not our future now; we have had our chance. The future is already precarious given climate change, and now we are about to stack more odds against the younger generation with an economic future that everyone agrees is worse and much more limited in terms of study, travel and opportunity. That is why I get so angry when people, such as noble Lords opposite, speak glibly of the will of the people having decided Brexit. It was overwhelmingly the will of the old people.

I see no reason why a people’s vote, based on the information on what the future actually looks like, should be construed as anti-democratic. The same people who say that such a vote would be undemocratic talk of taking back sovereignty. The fact is that, in this globalised world, sovereignty is not of the same value and does not have the same meaning as it did in 1918. Brexiteers talk about WTO rules: that is taking someone else’s rules, generally with much lower standards for the food we eat and the air we breathe.

I am sure noble Lords will remember what the UK was called before we joined the EU: the dirty man of Europe. Belonging to the EU meant we had to clean up our beaches and our water. That work is ongoing. Even the Thames, flowing past us now, still suffers becoming an open sewer every time it rains very heavily. The Thames tideway tunnel is now being constructed due to the EU and my noble friend Lady Ludford, who has ensured, through the EU, that Londoners are finally getting a decent, clean river all of the time.

EU standards and a willingness to enforce them have made an incredible difference to public health, but that work is far from finished, as air quality in many of our cities proves. I do not feel that the deal before us, which weakens co-operation and undermines the scientific community, as we have heard from many in your Lordships’ House involved in that community, will help us to deliver a cleaner environment or tackle the overwhelming threat of climate change.

I turn to the position of UK citizens in Europe and, in doing so, I declare my interests as in the register. This deal provides insufficient protection of citizens’ rights. It does not protect freedom of movement in the EU 27. It fundamentally undermines democratic rights. Britons in France, for example, will no longer have the right to vote even in municipal elections, nor can many of them vote in the UK anymore because the Conservatives reneged on their promise to deliver votes for life. They will be voteless.

What if there is no deal? When the UK leaves the EU on 29 March, UK nationals in the EU will immediately have only the rights of third country nationals. Just yesterday our EU Committee published its report. I quote paragraph 97:

“It remains far from clear what would happen to EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Throughout the negotiations, we have called on the Government to give a clear and unilateral assurance that all EU nationals in the UK would be entitled to stay and retain their rights”.


When the future is so precarious politically and it is so hard to foresee what will happen, can the Government actually give certainty to EU nationals in the UK by giving that clear and unilateral assurance? That by itself would undoubtedly help the position of UK citizens in the EU too—a point that those UK citizens have often made. What possible reason can the Government have to delay giving that assurance? When the Minister comes to reply on Monday, could he make sure that that assurance is given?

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, one effect of growing up as a post-war child was hearing the amount of discussion and determination among the political classes that we would never have another war in Europe. At the top of my list of worries about Brexit is that we shall see an insular, narrow-minded nationalism taking hold and turning us from an outgoing, internationalist nation into an inward-looking nation.

We have heard much in the past day and a half about interdependence, which has to be one of the keys when we think about what we should do next. Brexit is not all about trade, although to listen to the Government you might think that it was. I firmly believe that, first and foremost, it should be about peace and security. I agreed strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, when he said yesterday that endangering peace and security in Europe would be grounds to reject the deal. Incidentally, although I agreed with some of the speech made by Tony Blair, I thought it ironic he should tell everyone to rise up. When more millions than were ever seen all rose up and marched when he was Prime Minister, he took not a blind bit of notice.

Many of your Lordships will know that I spend a lot of time in France when I am not here. My experience of reaction to the UK decision to seek Brexit is that it has been one of extreme concern that it will accelerate the rise of extremist nationalist parties. That is happening all over Europe now. Europe and its member states therefore have many concerns and worries other than negotiating a Brexit deal with the UK. Those whose job it is will of course concentrate on it but, politically, any deal will have to be negotiated against a fast-changing political picture in Europe. It is not as though our negotiating partners will stay unchanged. By the end of two years the Europe with which we are negotiating will be very different. It may be a much longer timescale than the Government are thinking.

In the meantime, I worry what we are going to do about the day-to-day legislation we should be looking at. My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie put it so eloquently yesterday when he said that day-to-day life will be sacrificed. We will be spending time on the great repeal Bill and not on all the other incredibly important issues. There are so many pressing issues in the area which I concentrate on in this House—the environment, agriculture and food—yet the immense changes that are going to happen as a result of Brexit will be a threat to our food quality, animal welfare standards, family farms and landscape. If at the end of this we have a hard deal where WTO rules apply, we will see our food production driven down to the lowest common denominator. It would be a disaster in so many ways. It would not be accompanied by lower food bills: another day-to-day effect will be people seeing those go up.

Over the course of this debate it has bothered me that in the Government’s mind there appears to be a direct trade-off between UK citizens living in the EU and European citizens living here. In fact, UK citizens living in the EU face 27 different sorts of issue and their position is not necessarily equivalent to that of EU citizens here. The Government should, therefore, settle the situation of EU citizens here—thereby creating some good will—but at the same time do far more to help British citizens abroad, who have been left with no information, not even a helpline. The Government could decide now to give much more information about the future to those people who have to plan to relocate and find new jobs, schools for their children and care for their elderly. This would be about not the result of the negotiations but what their rights are now. That has been put on the sidelines because of this so-called trade-off.

There has been much talk of patriotic duty: I believe mine is to try and do what is in the best long-term interests of this country. As my noble friend Lord Newby said at the beginning of this debate, it is unconscionable to sit on our hands. If there is no deal, or the final deal is appalling, or it threatens peace and security, there is an absolute duty on us as parliamentarians to call a halt. I hope we will amend the Bill in order that we can offer that safety net to the Government and the country.

House of Lords: Debates

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask the Leader of the House whether he will bring forward proposals to encourage greater interactivity of debate, and to allow time for interventions, in time-limited debates in the House and Grand Committee.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, our existing procedures allow for a degree of spontaneity. Interventions are permitted in moderation and we allow speakers in the gap. Most importantly, the Companion discourages Members from reading their speeches. Indeed, your Lordships have resolved that it is alien to the custom of this House. Not reading speeches would certainly encourage greater interactivity of debate.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I warmly thank my noble friend for his positive Answer. I am sure that he will have heard, as I have, concerns from many Members of your Lordships’ House that debate is in fact not living up to its name, partly for the reasons that he has outlined. Given that the quality of contributions remains extremely high, so the problem is not quality but rather interactivity, will he consider reconvening the Leader’s Group on Working Practices to look at this issue in depth before we get much further down the road of more introductions?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As I have said, there are a number of ways in which we can all try to make it easier for debates to be more spontaneous. If people are not stuck to a script, they are more likely to listen to the debate that is going on and respond to the points that are raised in it. It is open to any Member to take suggestions forward to the Procedure Committee—for example, as to how one might make improvements in this area—and I know that all noble Lords are concerned to ensure that the quality of our debates is as high as it possibly can be.

Energy: Nuclear Power

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

The fact is that we have enormous expertise and knowledge in this House. On the last Bill I included everyone I possibly could in the debate and that will continue—that is a commitment from me. We cannot take this Bill forward without the enormous expertise in this room, which is hugely appreciated by the Government. Noble Lords have our commitment to that.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, leaving aside the estimated subsidy of about £8,000 per UK household to build new nuclear power stations, how confident is the Minister in the future of EDF as a nuclear power partner, given the fact that it is 83% state-owned and President Hollande has committed to cutting back France’s nuclear programme substantially?

[Lord Marland]

Naturally I have had many discussions with EDF and AREVA, two of the key French operators. We feel confident—and, much more to the point, they feel confident—that Britain offers them a very good future for new nuclear. At the moment there is nothing to shake my confidence.