Brexit: UK-EU Relations (EUC Report)

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, as the first Member of your Lordships’ House to speak who is not a member of the European Union Committee or one of its sub-committees, I none the less congratulate the committee and the relevant sub-committees very warmly on this report. It is a concise report that none the less covers a huge amount of ground and many different subjects, and does so in a very straightforward and comprehensible way. Indeed, reading it I wished that similar straightforward material had been put through every door during the referendum campaign over two years ago.

When I look at the speakers’ list and around the Chamber, I see a number of Members with whom I have worked on European issues over a long period of time. Perhaps I could mention those doughty trade unionists—my noble friend Lord Whitty, who has just spoken, and my noble friends Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Monks. I rather wish that, with their wealth of negotiating experience they were negotiating for us at the moment instead of the current Cabinet, which, unfortunately, seems to be catastrophically divided, and whose squabbling in public has been such a feature of recent days. Indeed, in the report that we have in front of us, there is a very helpful list in different colours—red, green, yellow and white—of the state of negotiations. I imagined when I was reading the report a similar table outlining the positions of the various members of the Cabinet. But I suspect that a tremendous amount of that report would have been covered in bright red.

At the time of the referendum, many prominent people who voted leave were prone to say to people like myself, who voted remain, “What part of the word leave don’t you understand?” At the time, there was a very great deal that we did not understand about the word leave—such as what the result would mean in terms of trade, financial services and the National Health Service, about which there has been much reporting over this past weekend. Then there is security policy, police co-operation, environmental action and so on. What worries me is that, two years on, we still do not know what the Government’s position is on some of the many fundamental issues that confront us. I hope that we will be clearer by the end of this week, with the Chequers away day and the publication of the White Paper—but it worries me that, while a lot of Ministers seem to support the Prime Minister in her undoubted goal of future close co-operation with the European Union in the interests of both Britain and Europe, others seem to want to have almost nothing to do with the EU and contemplate a no-deal scenario with enthusiasm. Some have even gone as far as the Foreign Secretary apparently did when confronted by the economic worries and uncertainties facing both our large and small companies, just to tell business to “Eff off”. Indeed, on the same occasion, apparently he said something to the effect that he imagined that it would be the hard-liners and no-dealers who would win in the forthcoming Cabinet discussions.

So this is a very worrying and alarming situation, but against that situation the committee’s report makes some interesting suggestions about the way in which we can move forward. I agree with the report in its call for a change of tone in the negotiations, with less concentration on red lines and more concentration on those areas where co-operation is undoubtedly needed and in the interests of both sides, and we should try to build on that for the future. I have a feeling that the Prime Minister and her closest supporters would welcome such a change in approach, but I am not sure that is true of the whole Cabinet or of the whole of the Conservative parliamentary party.

I was also struck—the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, referred to this—by the report’s highlighting of the proposal from the European Parliament that some kind of association agreement could come forward from the negotiations, as my noble friend Lord Whitty also mentioned. The relevant section of the committee’s report is paragraph 105. I was interested that this approach was welcomed by people from both sides of the argument, including Daniel Hannan MEP and the excellent North East MEP Jude Kirton-Darling, to whom I would like to pay tribute because she is a very devoted and hard-working MEP. It was interesting that they both welcomed that approach, which also occasioned some warm, or warmish, words from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

Certainly, I agree with the report that, if we do not manage to get the negotiations on to a more positive footing, the prospects are deeply alarming. Even so, we have to confront very real difficulties. In listening to what has been said so far in this debate about Northern Ireland, and what has been said about Northern Ireland really from the outset of the leave vote, I cannot see how that can be resolved without something that closely resembles the customs union and the single market arrangements that we already have, which are very much in the UK’s interests but also very much in the interests of Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Before I close, I have two questions for the Minister. One is a general question, and one is specific to the north-east of England, to which both the Minister and I belong. The general question relates to paragraph 52 of the report, which quotes Professor Derrick Wyatt, who said that negotiations on free trade agreements,

“used to be mainly about tariffs, but now they are relatively little about tariffs. They are about non-tariff barriers and harmonisation of regulatory standards. They reach deep into the domestic policy-making sphere”.

Does the Minister agree with that statement? Does not that make a nonsense of the claims that we will be free to adopt whatever standards or rules we want after Brexit, either in our relationship with the European Union or in any free trade agreements that we may negotiate with other countries?

My second question, relating to the north-east, arises from an Oral Question that I asked the Minister, about a month ago now, on the impact assessments that the Government had carried out on the likely impact of Brexit on particular regions of the UK. Those showed that the north-east was likely to take by far the biggest hit economically under any of the scenarios but particularly under the scenario of no deal. At the time, the Minister said in response that the assessments were “incomplete”. My question to him is: when will those impact assessments be refined and completed; when will the completed assessments be published; and will they be shared with us here in Parliament and more widely with the public?

I know, as many people tell me, that my region, the north-east, voted by a majority to leave—although it has to be said that the city of Newcastle voted to remain—but none of us wants to see the north-east punished for having voted leave, and yet the Government’s own figures suggest that it will be. Therefore, I want answers to the questions that I have raised. It is such a serious issue that I intend to keep on raising them again and again, as I am sure the Minister will appreciate.

I conclude by warmly congratulating the committee once again. I hope that the Government will listen to the recommendations in the report, that they might, indeed, even be influenced by the report in their deliberations at Chequers and in the publication of the White Paper, and that they will turn their back on the folly of a no-deal outcome to these negotiations, which are so important for the future of our country.