Brexit

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, when we first debated the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill—the famous Article 50—on 21 February 2017 and almost a year later the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, little did I imagine that, as we approached the end of 2019, we would still be in the European Union. I said then that it would not be easy, much to the amusement of the Liberal Democrats, but how could we have made it so hard?

The British people were asked a clear question in the 2016 referendum, and they gave a decisive answer. Although I voted remain, I respect that answer. Over the intervening three years, I have watched with increasing despair as we have failed to deliver the promise, made so emphatically by the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservative Party, to uphold the decision of the referendum.

In 1992, had the astute voters of Oldham Central and Royton not rejected me in the general election in favour of my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, and had I been given the honour of serving in another place, like my noble friend Lady Noakes I, too, would have voted for the withdrawal agreement negotiated by my right honourable friend Theresa May. I did not like parts of it; I was particularly uneasy with the backstop and its potential to keep us in the customs union, effectively keeping us in the EU with no voice and no vote. But we would have been out earlier this year, completing the first stage of the process, and would now be some six months down the line in our free trade negotiations with the European Union.

The EU was always crystal clear: we could not discuss in detail our future trading arrangements, such as open and fair competition and standards, nor our future collaborative relationships, until we had left. Yet so much of what we have been discussing these past two years is about the next stage. We just have to get there, to make that decision of which my noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe so eloquently spoke.

I agree with the powerful speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I, too, acknowledge the sincere and passionate views of those who think differently to me. If we were just having a debate with no consequences, that would be fine. But our actions do have consequences, and I can understand, and indeed have sympathy with, the mounting exasperation and anger among the electorate at the parliamentary manoeuvrings that have prolonged and frustrated the delivery of the referendum result. My noble friend Lord Howard is so right to point to the damage that the delay and uncertainty is causing.

Now, on this historic Saturday—and it is historic—Parliament has before it another chance with a revised withdrawal agreement, which those with superior knowledge said would be impossible to obtain. It removes the backstop and, in the words of one the architects of the Good Friday agreement, my noble friend Lord Trimble, it is,

“fully in accordance with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement”.

But, most importantly of all, it fulfils our promise to the British people, which is long overdue.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

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

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I bring this amendment with support from all sides and wonder whether your Lordships would be kind enough to listen to me while I read to you the effect of Clause 9(1) and (2) taken together:

“A Minister of the Crown may by regulations … make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament (including modifying this Act)”.


By contrast with primary legislation, which has been through all the legislative processes in both Houses, with all the opportunity for discussion, debate, rethinking, amendment and, above all, scrutiny that are inherent in our processes to create primary legislation, this clause vests power in a single individual, a Minister, one man or woman, to promulgate new laws by regulation drafted in their own departments. What is worse, that single individual is by regulation empowered to override, repeal or amend primary legislation which has been enacted after both Houses have been through the processes which I have just described.

I have said before, and venture to repeat myself, that in a democracy that is a remarkable lawmaking power given to a single individual. Vesting such power in a single individual is a very dangerous constitutional habit. Clauses such as this are inserted into primary legislation with what I at best can say is casual indifference. It would be interesting to be able to know, and we never shall, when a Minister signing off proposed primary legislation questioned the inclusion of such a clause. Was it last year, 10 years ago or maybe 20? Even more, would it not be wonderful if a Minister not only questioned it but insisted on its removal? I cannot imagine anybody here thinks it happens very often. Such clauses go into Bills like confetti strewn about at a wedding.

What about us, Parliament? We have not been as assiduous as we should have been. As I have said before—I am sorry, it is a mantra that you will hear me repeating—the last time the Commons rejected a statutory instrument was in 1979, just about 40 years before exit day. There was a much more recent example in this House, as all noble Lords will remember, but the proper exercise of those powers by this House was treated as if it had created a constitutional crisis. It had not, of course, but many thought that it had. On the basis that the scrutiny process of regulations in the Commons has become obsolete, this power to make new law and override existing law by ministerial regulation is effectively synonymous with ministerial proclamation running the country.

The very same House of Commons which is said to have given that dangerous Henry VIII these powers would regard our efforts to control them, our distortion of our legislative processes, as at the very best pusillanimous. It is a remarkable feature of Clause 9(2) that it actually repeats words in that notorious Act of Proclamations 1539. The Act provides that royal proclamations were to be obeyed,

“as though they were made by Act of Parliament”.

That is why I read out what our current provisions are proposing to put in. I think that it is a shameful echo. For lawmaking purposes, it means that one man’s or woman’s word is equivalent to the entire parliamentary process. In 1539, that very same Commons—I regret that it was the Commons, not the Lords—did something that it is never given credit for. Remember that it was dealing with Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. But the Commons expressly qualified that very wide grant of powers by making the provision that the words should not be understood to mean that anyone,

“of what estate, degree or condition soever”,

should have,

“their inheritances, lawful possessions, offices, liberties, privileges, franchises, goods … taken from them … nor that by any proclamation to be made by virtue of this act, any acts, common laws (standing at this present time in strength and force) nor yet any lawful or laudable customs of this realm … shall be infringed, broken or subverted, and specially all those acts standing this hour in force which have been made in the King’s Highness’ time”.

Occasionally one needs to reflect on the courage of the Commons to stand up to Henry VIII all those years ago. History has been unkind to it. The Speaker ended up in the Tower. It was on an almost certainly trumped-up charge of dishonesty and fraud, but that was where he ended up. Those noble Lords who think that Thomas Cromwell lost his head because Henry VIII did not find Anne of Cleves bonny and buxom in bed should think again. The reason he lost his head was that for the first time in the whole time when Henry VIII relied on him he did not get from Parliament what the King wanted. So let us remember the express qualifications in that notorious Act of Proclamations. They are magical words and we today have forgotten about them—we do not include them.

These particular Henry VIII clauses are about as pointless as they can ever have been anyway. They do not come into force before the “meaningful vote”—no further words from me on that—and they may not be exercised anyway after exit day, which is less than 12 months away. What is the point of them? The opportunity for exercising these powers, if Parliament chooses to give them to the Minister, are minimal, and such opportunity as there will be will be diminished by the requirement in Amendment 83C for the Minister to explain why it is reasonable for these powers to be exercised. I trust the Minister will accept, and indeed perhaps indicate to the House, that it is perfectly sensible, if the Minister is giving good reasons for any decision, for the Minister to explain which pieces of primary legislation it is proposed to amend, repeal, revoke or tamper with. Then at least the scrutinising process can say what it is we are looking at.

I am using a ridiculous example to make my point: the Statute forbidding Bearing of Armour 1313 says that you must not come within one mile of Parliament armed. Okay, we can get rid of that—I suppose—because we have modern Acts to deal with the problem. But I make this trivial point because we need to know what it is considered that we should interfere with before it is possible for us to say that there are good reasons for doing so. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, if Amendment 52A is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 53 for reasons of pre-emption.

[Lord Lisvane (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 53 in this group is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and Lady Wheatcroft, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and—most recently and much to be welcomed—the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. In Committee I had occasion to speak about the legislative Damascus road so I am very glad that in respect of this issue at least the Minister has added this highway to his travel plans.

I respectfully commend my noble and learned friend Lord Judge for his excoriation of Henry VIII clauses. It is a very poor rejoinder to say that the exercise of these powers is subject to the way that Parliament deals with statutory instruments, whether they be affirmative or negative, because too often that is an occasion for merely perfunctory examination. Over a period of time—and I have looked at quite close quarters at the way that the threshold between primary and secondary legislation has moved upwards over the past couple of decades and more—it is ultimately subversive of the primary legislative process.

If my noble and learned friend presses his amendment, I will of course support him, but if he chooses not to do so or fails to convince your Lordships, I will fall back on my amendment, to which the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has so helpfully added his name.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 55 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, before I call Amendment 55A I must inform noble Lords that there is an error in the Marshalled List. Amendment 55A should read:

“The condition in subsection 3(e)”,


and not 2(e).

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

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

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, although it is now many hours since my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal opened this Second Reading debate with her excellent speech, it has been a remarkable two days and a privilege to take part. Both my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, whose speech I also enjoyed, paid fulsome tribute to the work undertaken by our EU Committee and sub-committees. I had the pleasure and honour of chairing, for a short time until ill health forced me to stand down, the sub-committee on foreign affairs, aid and defence and I, too, praise the exceptional hard work of these committees, their officers and special advisers, whose role will be crucial in the two years ahead.

Over the years I have been critical of and vocal about plans to join the euro and in the early 1990s caused grief to senior members of my party, many of whom are now my very good noble friends and sitting on the privy counsellors’ Bench, by being somewhat less than enthusiastic about our membership of the ERM. But I voted in June 1975 to stay in the Common Market and on 23 June 2016 I voted to remain in the European Union. While in 1975 I voted for economic reasons, that was not the case last June. Like my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham, I thought both sides of the referendum argument made valid points about the effects on our economy of a vote to leave, and I certainly did not feel qualified to know where the greater truth resided. I just suspected what I suppose was glaringly obvious: that there were advantages and disadvantages to both and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, said—in what was a brave speech from the noble Baroness’s Benches—there is an inherent risk in any decision about the future.

As one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys I have reason to be confident that British companies will adapt to life outside the EU and thrive, although I do not pretend that it will always be easy. What ultimately caused me and I suspect a lot of other people to vote remain was the uncertain state of the world. For all its shortcomings and the visible cracks in its structure, I still felt that in a number of complex areas the EU offered relative stability and I was concerned about rocking that stability. So for me and countless others, it is the kind of relationship we build with our European friends and neighbours that will be the test of a good Brexit. Over the past eight months I have been greatly reassured and encouraged by the language and tone of the Prime Minister and her Ministers in seeking to form that new partnership with Europe.

Like many noble Lords I, too, hope that one of the first issues to be resolved once Article 50 has been triggered will be the status of EU nationals working and living in the UK and UK citizens living and working throughout Europe. It is a concern that has been raised across your Lordships’ House and is of equal importance to those who voted leave as to those who voted remain, although no one expressed it quite so well as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, who blushed rather charmingly and modestly when she sat down to applause from the Gallery. All this and more will be the topic of intense debate and difficult negotiation for months to come. That is where I hope that the knowledge and experience of noble Lords who have expressed their deep concerns in this debate will be brought to bear, because the concerns of noble Lords and the ambitions of the Government cannot be properly debated and settled until Article 50 has been triggered. The Bill simply starts that process.

Although I very much heed the sage words of my noble friend Lord Lothian that we must think carefully how we deploy our feelings as we move forward, this House has a right to debate fully the Bill before it and it is an important part of our scrutiny to seek clarification, raise issues and put comments on the record. However, good scrutiny of a Bill does not necessarily mean amendment of it and I hope we send this one, unamended, back to the Commons, from where it came to us, with a thumping majority in order to allow Ministers the greatest possible flexibility to negotiate on our behalf.

I was struck by the powerful speech of my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford, who pointed out that this is not just about us. There are 27 other countries affected by the referendum result last June and they too want and deserve clarity and certainty as soon as possible. At the risk of being labelled an incurable optimist—or maybe I am just one of my noble friend Lord Ridley’s rational optimists—the negotiations might not be as bad as some fear. There seems to be a marked difference in attitude between officials of the European institutions and the politicians of the 27 countries with which we have to reach an agreement. The former feel they have to treat us harshly in order to stop anyone else getting any ideas, but there is more realism in the corridors of power of the individual countries. As reported in the papers a couple of days ago, the German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said at a security conference in Munich that:

“We should resist the temptation to treat Britain overly harshly, not out of pity, but in our own interest”.


He went on to say that:

“We need Britain, for example, as a partner in security policy, and I am also convinced that Britain needs us”.


Last week, at a lunch in Abu Dhabi, I had the pleasure of a brief chat with the Finance Minister of Luxembourg. He is on record as saying that:

“I think everybody should remain calm and make sure that we can do this in an orderly way … the British population has given its verdict. It is now up to the British Government to trigger Article 50”.


I hope we are in a position to do that soon, so that we can start the important task of building the post-Brexit Britain, so eloquently wished for by my noble friend Lady Finn, as a Britain which is open, free-market and liberal.