EU: Future Relationship

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

I thank my noble friend and agree with him, but this Government are not going to lecture the European Union on how it should manage its own home. We respect their right, as 27 sovereign nations, to determine their own future, but the points that my noble friend made are germane and important. We will, and I personally will, bear them all in mind.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I appreciate that the Minister had a lot of questions to answer, but I wonder if he could pick up the point raised by my noble friend from our Front Bench about integrated supply chains. Can the Minister assure companies such as Nissan that they would not be adversely affected by the Government’s approach, particularly to alignment? I hope also that the Government will try to avoid a triumphalist approach to the negotiations and their dealings with this House. You would never have guessed from the Minister’s Statement that, actually, 16 million people voted the other way. Neither would you have guessed that the Conservative vote increased by only 1% overall at the last election. It seems the Government should approach these negotiations in a spirit of compromise, and keep as close a relationship with the EU as possible.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am not very good at doing triumphalism, and I do not believe that either this Statement or anything the Government have done has that tone. It is not triumphalism but the act of a historian to point out the result of the recent general election. It is not a mark against any party that took part, but a clear outcome of that election was that the British people renewed an instruction. As for the key question about business interests, the Government are continuing our dialogue with business over the coming months, in the usual way. We are fully aware of all the issues involved, but let us not leap forward and assume the worst at every opportunity. The Government will wish to be informed and to inform, but many supply chains successfully exist in areas where there is no customs union—in North America, for example. I do not accept the advice that we must be defeatist and that problems and issues cannot be satisfactorily addressed, at this early stage, when negotiators have not even met yet.