European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve and Lord Warner

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, we have already seen this afternoon in our very serious debate about the implications of the present situation—let us put it neutrally—for Northern Ireland that the referendum was, in fact, about a matter of the greatest constitutional importance and about the integrity of the United Kingdom, a great worry to any of us who come from Northern Ireland. However, although I agree with my noble friend Lord Empey that we should not tie the hands of negotiators, that a referendum at the end is a bad idea and that one constitutional error cannot be remedied by another constitutional error, nevertheless something needs to be said about the possibilities of no deal or of a bad deal. Those are two realistically possible outcomes. I think that at this stage it should be possible for the Government to say a bit about their plans in the event of either contingency.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, set out the case pretty well. I do not want to go over that ground again about a second referendum. However, I am a strong believer in the sentiment that those who giveth can also taketh away. It seems that that is an underlying principle: if the people have spoken but they are given new information, they can change their views at the end of the process.

I will say a bit about why I put my name on this amendment because the reason is a theme that will keep coming up on some of the other amendments. It will certainly come up on Amendment 8, which is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Oates. Do we actually trust the Government to conduct these negotiations unsupervised after what we have seen of their behaviour so far? We are entitled to be fairly sceptical. We also have no reason to believe, if I may say so, that in Whitehall—and I speak as an old Whitehall warrior—there is this crack team of negotiators who we are going to send across the English Channel and who are going to do a fantastic job without any involvement in Parliament. We have no reason to believe that they will come up with a solution at the end of this process and we will all sit here and nod very sagely and say, “Fantastic. You have hit every particular button”. The world, on the whole, does not work that way.

We all have views about how to conduct negotiations. Many noble Lords have had a go at conducting such negotiations, and we will all have our own approach. Sometimes I have actually thought it quite useful in negotiations not to have too much flexibility—that I have got a mission that I want to deliver. It is quite good to be able to shelter behind that kind of instruction about the way in which I conduct the negotiations. As a former senior civil servant, I certainly did not want a lot of Ministers telling me to go out there and do my best. I would like to have a bit of guidance. I would have thought the same applies to Ministers. I have been a Minister and wanted to know what the Government and public were likely to accept while I did those negotiations. Therefore, I see nothing wrong in principle with the approaches in the amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, knows as well as I do—he has been a Chief Whip—that it is often the case in Committee that we put down an amendment that may be technically a bit defective. We are trying to have a debate about a principle or an issue and we often withdraw them and come back at a later stage in the Bill with a rectified amendment that meets the concerns expressed. That does not mean it is wrong in principle to put these issues before the House and see what people’s views are. I support the amendment. We should think very seriously, as we discuss further amendments to the Bill, about whether we really believe that it is safe to send the Government into these negotiations without any requirements about the involvement of Parliament with that process.