Leaving the European Union

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As my noble and learned friend will know, neither the EU nor the UK wishes to use the backstop. We have already set out a number of other mechanisms that could be used if a deal is not completed by December 2020, as we believe it will be; for instance, extending the implementation period or looking at facilities for technology. There are other options but, in relation to the backstop itself, the assurances that the Prime Minister brought back from her conversations with the EU did not satisfy Members across the House so we are continuing to work on that. The Prime Minister is focused on solutions and she is interested in the ideas of others but, of course, we have to make sure that whatever we take to the EU is something that it will ultimately be able to agree with.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, last week it appeared that the Prime Minister was saying that she was listening yet had not heard anything at all. This seems to have been going on for about the last two and a half years. This week, there seems to have been a slight change but she has referred to three key changes. One, it would appear, is about a change to her own style; another is about the backstop, where there is no sign of any change whatever; the third is the question of the strongest possible protections on workers’ rights and the environment. Will the Leader tell us, first, how the Prime Minister expects us to believe that that has anything to do with the European Union and the deal rather than being about domestic politics which we can determine at home, regardless of what the EU 27 say? Secondly, how is she going to square those points, which presumably Her Majesty’s Official Opposition want, with what the European Research Group wants?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am surprised that the noble Baroness is not welcoming the guarantee that we will not only not erode protection for workers’ rights and the environment but ensure that the country leads the way. We have been saying that and it is absolutely true. In fact, noble Lords have raised that in numerous ways and we will work with Members, Peers, businesses and trade unions to develop proposals to do this, including looking at legislation where necessary. I would have thought the noble Baroness would strongly welcome that.

EU Council

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the conclusions were published only on Friday, I am afraid I do not know whether the Attorney-General has given any further advice. With regard to the timescale, I very much doubt it, but if that is not the case, I will write to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister in her Statement suggested that another vote,

“would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy that our democracy does not deliver”.

But if there is not a position or a deal on which Members of the House of Commons can agree, democracy is already under challenge. To suggest that voting on the Prime Minister’s deal and pushing that through is the way to deliver democracy is a travesty. It is not what people who voted leave voted for—some of them did; many did not—and it is not what people voted remain for. We need to look again.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We have not had a vote on the deal yet. The vote is coming. To decide further courses of action before we have actually had a vote does not seem that sensible. As I have made clear, if the House of Commons chooses to reject the deal, there is a process set out which will be followed.

Exiting the European Union

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I do not accept the noble Lord’s assertions. As I have said, the Prime Minister has listened to the concerns raised in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords about the perceived indefinite nature of the backstop. She will now focus on trying to address those to make sure that we get a Brexit that works for this country and for the EU.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I have just come back from Brussels, where I was talking about the lessons from Brexit. Essentially what I said was, “Don’t do it”. While I was there a friend said, “It feels rather like the days of David Cameron. We never knew what he wanted. We kept asking what the United Kingdom wanted”. The same is true of Theresa May looking for an agreement now. Can the Leader tell us what the Prime Minister expects to get on Thursday that will be clear to the EU 27 or to any of us?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We have a withdrawal agreement and a political declaration that has been agreed. There is one issue that has been raised—the perceived indefinite nature of the backstop—that is still causing concern. It is that issue that the Prime Minister will be discussing with other leaders over the next few days and it is that issue on which we will hope to provide further reassurances. So I think that is quite clear.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I remember the late Lord Williamson of Horton coming to speak when I was a student at Oxford. He said that one morning Margaret Thatcher came down the stairs in No. 10 waving a piece of paper, saying, “I’ve read it. I agree”. The piece of paper—indeed, it would have been a few pieces of paper—was the Single European Act. We then had a Prime Minister who did her homework, who was a lawyer and who could have been expected to understand the implications of what she had agreed to. Yet, with hindsight, she and many others on the Conservative Benches felt that the Single European Act may have been a mistake.

With the withdrawal agreement that Theresa May—or perhaps one of her Secretaries of State, it is not wholly clear—has negotiated, one wonders whether anybody has read it. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury noted that he has read it, as have I and, I suspect, others across the Chamber, but when the Prime Minister claimed to have agreement in her Cabinet on the withdrawal agreement, that was quickly disproved. At 585 pages, it is difficult to see how members of her Cabinet or Conservative Back-Benchers could possibly have read the agreement within an hour, when they were supposed to be discussing it. There is a question about how much detail has been examined and how much time has been spent scrutinising the withdrawal agreement, which does not do what the Prime Minister claimed. It does not return control from the European Union, as advertised by the leave campaign, as Theresa May has said she wants to do, and as the noble Baroness the Leader of the House suggested earlier.

There are some good points in the withdrawal agreement, and it is important to distinguish between the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. There are some aspects of Part 2 of the withdrawal agreement dealing with the rights of EU citizens and UK nationals which should have been dealt with in June 2016. One might say: what has taken you so long? Despite its good bits there are all sorts of hostages to fortune. The role of the Court of Justice of the European Union might be something that those of us who are passionate pro-Europeans think is a good thing, but should the United Kingdom be tied to the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice in the way it will be under the withdrawal agreement? I suspect that no leavers would want that—I see the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, shaking his head—but I am not sure many remainers want that either.

Of course, the withdrawal agreement is supposed to take us only to the end of December 2020. Thereafter, the political declaration is supposed to lead us towards those great sunlit uplands. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury reminded us of Psalm 121, which talks about mine eyes looking up to the hills. The political declaration is something of a mirage. As the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, suggested, it is vague and does not deliver on the expectations generated by leavers or the Prime Minister.

By now, we should be clear what the future relationship will look like. Arguably, it should have been clear on 23 June 2016. It was not. It should certainly have been clear at the time that the Prime Minister triggered Article 50. It was not. It was almost clear in July this year, when the Prime Minister claimed to have agreement on her Chequers proposal, but it was not clear then and the political declaration that the Prime Minister has negotiated does not have the support of her Cabinet—as we saw with the resignation of a second Brexit Secretary, which seemed to be more than a little careless—and it does not have support in the other place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, states in her Motion that the political declaration,

“would do grave damage to the future economic prosperity, internal security and global influence of the United Kingdom”.

There is nothing to suggest that this is a better arrangement than we have as members of the European Union, and we should not be lured into the false logic that the Prime Minister has put forward, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House reiterated and, I regret to say, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, also suggested: we need a deal, this is the deal, therefore we should accept it. Nobody voted to be poorer, for the country to be diminished and for us also to lose control of our sovereignty. Nobody wanted that. Some leavers might have said that they would rather be worse off if we could reclaim sovereignty, but who in their right mind would want to be poorer, for the country to be diminished and for us to lose control?

I am afraid that, again, I am reminded of the words of Baroness Thatcher. She said consensus is a,

“process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?”

I would say that the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration represent consensus, except the only person who wants this agreement is the Prime Minister. If the House of Commons cannot support this deal, and if almost everyone agrees that no deal would be a disaster for the country, we have another option. We can ask the Prime Minister and the House of Commons to look again, and perhaps it is time to ask the people to think again.

When we voted to trigger Article 50, I was one of the very few Liberal Democrats who did not vote for the amendment on a referendum. I wanted to accept the result of the referendum because I thought that that was the right thing to do. However, if we cannot find a deal and can only put forward ideas that will make the country much worse off, surely it is now time to offer the people the chance to think again.

Brexit: Negotiations

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I say again: we do not intend there to be a gap.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, the Minister suggested that there was no issue for EU citizens and UK citizens resident elsewhere in the European Union, because that deal had been done. But was that legal text of March not contingent on there being a withdrawal agreement? If that agreement does not happen—if there is no deal—what security and certainty is there for EU citizens?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I obviously take a very different view from your Lordships. I anticipate that we will get a deal and we will continue to honour the commitments we have made to EU citizens. The Prime Minister has also been clear that, in the event of no deal, we want EU citizens to stay. We have made that offer already. We have said that we will look at the assurances that we can give and we will continue to do so. I reiterate: we believe we will get a deal.

Exiting the EU

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. He is absolutely right: we will be bringing forward more detail on Thursday in the White Paper. I thoroughly commend it to all noble Lords to read, and we look forward to the debate shortly to talk about it further.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister suggested that we need to work expeditiously. As the EU withdrawal Act took 49 weeks from introduction to Royal Assent, how does she propose that the business of getting the withdrawal implementation Bill through before 29 March will happen? Can she explain how the Government expect the EU 27 to accept a commitment from the Government that the UK will maintain a common rulebook in a sovereign way while retaining a parliamentary lock, given that no Parliament can bind its successor?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We are confident we will be able to reach an agreement with the EU. On the withdrawal Act, a White Paper will be published in the coming weeks which will provide more detail on what will be in the Bill.

European Council

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, we remain committed to what was in the agreement. We will be working with the EU to move forward and to make sure that we get the proper and correct situation on the Irish and Northern Irish border that we are all seeking.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister suggested that many are, frankly, tired of the old arguments. I confess that my heart sank slightly when the Leader suggested that there would be the opportunity to discuss all these issues all over again in the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill. Clearly we have many opportunities to keep rehearsing the same issues, but surely the point is to move forward. One point that the Prime Minister made, which seemed so important, was that she had found great solidarity from our friends and partners in the European Union—and, admittedly, from our NATO allies—over the situation with Russia. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to work through how we retain close relations with the EU 27 assuming we leave on 29 March, or whenever, in 2019? It is by being in the room, discussing and getting to know our partners, that we have been able to get the sort of response that we achieved last week.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

These are exactly the issues we will be discussing in the next phase of the negotiations now that we have the EU guidelines and have set out our position.

European Council

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid I do not agree with the right reverend Prelate that progress has not been made. We have made a lot of progress in phase 1, not least in giving clarity to UK citizens living abroad and EU citizens here about their status. We have discussed a financial settlement. We have discussed the very important issue of Northern Ireland and have all agreed that we do not want a hard border and have thought about how we might achieve that. In terms of where we go next, I think we are in a good position. The EU Council conclusions state:

“The European Council reconfirms its desire to establish a close partnership between the Union and the United Kingdom … The European Council reconfirms its readiness to establish partnerships in areas unrelated to trade, in particular the fight against terrorism and international crime, as well as security, defence and foreign policy”.


These things are the basis for a good deal.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure we welcome the good news brought by the noble Baroness from the Prime Minister, but I think many in your Lordships’ House share the confusion about how we are to get to the Panglossian outcome in Ireland without remaining part of the single market. Is the noble Baroness able to explain that, and how having the Government,

“work closer than ever with all Northern Irish parties”,

fits with the Prime Minister’s confidence and supply measures with the DUP? Has she asked Arlene Foster?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I am afraid I can say only what I have said already today and several times last week. Everyone has pledged that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. We have always said that details of how to maintain an open border will be settled in phase 2 of the negotiations. If we do not achieve that outcome, which we believe we will, we will look to negotiate specific solutions for the Northern Ireland border.

Brexit: UK Plans

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord that this is an extremely important area. As I said, it is very encouraging that the European Council’s negotiating guidelines also identify the importance of partnerships against crime and terrorism. The specific details will obviously be for the negotiations but I say again that no pre-existing model of co-operation between the EU and third countries replicates the scale and depth of the collaboration that exists between the EU and the UK in this area. We want to maintain that, which is why we want to work towards new arrangements that go beyond any arrangements the EU has in this area at the moment.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, commented on the Prime Minister’s consistency in her view of what Brexit ought to look like, but at times it has looked as if the EU 27 have one position on Brexit and the UK Government have 27 positions on it. One of the issues for Monsieur Barnier is that he has been given a negotiating mandate by the EU 27 and cannot exercise flexibility, because that is not within his gift. As we look towards the next European Council meeting and beyond, what bilateral work are Her Majesty’s Government doing behind the scenes, with the ministries and Heads of Government of the other 27 member states, to look at how they could try to persuade the 27 that a different, more flexible mandate might be helpful for Monsieur Barnier going forward?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am sure that the noble Baroness will be aware that the Prime Minister has had regular conversations with other leaders at the events she has been to and at other stages, and that departments are of course working closely with their counterparts. We all understand that getting a good deal for both the UK and the EU is in our best interest, and that is what we are all working towards. There is a lot of engagement going on, through companies and business, on the ground to try to make sure that we can move together towards a position that we both want.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, it will come as little surprise to Members of your Lordships’ House that, on 23 June last year, I voted to remain. I am speaking today not to advocate reopening the debate on seeking to remain, the decision having been taken; rather, what I want briefly to reflect on—it is a different voice and a different perspective—is that, in the debate being held today and tomorrow, I believe that only five Members of the House who are to speak in it are part of what the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, has called “Generation X”, those of us who were born in 1969 or later. So the demographic of the speeches is perhaps a little unbalanced. The average age in the United Kingdom is 40, but I do not believe that any of the speakers in this debate are 40 or younger; five of us fall between 40 and 50. So the demographic is somewhat different from that of the United Kingdom where the majority of people of my age and younger voted to remain. These are people who cannot remember life before the United Kingdom became part of the European Union. They believed that their future was as part of the European Union and their identity is European at least as much as it was British. They felt that our future was as part of a mobile European society.

Over recent days and weeks, many people have emailed me and other noble Lords demanding that we should try to thwart Brexit and amend the Bill, and a lot of those calls are coming from people who were disenfranchised in the referendum: EU nationals resident in the United Kingdom and UK nationals resident in the rest of the European Union who had been abroad for more than 15 years. They are citizens who would not, if there were to be a further referendum or a general election before the UK leaves the European Union, be any more enfranchised then than they were last year. There are many people currently living in the United Kingdom whose rights need to be thought about and secured.

In my remaining minutes I want to touch on two key areas: peace and security, and the rights of EU nationals. The former does not feature at all in the 12 principles outlined in the Prime Minister’s speech or in the White Paper. A reference is made to dealing with crime and terrorism, but there is nothing about the defence of the realm, something that as a sovereign country which has sought to “take back control” one might have expected to be important. While I have no intention of tabling an amendment to raise the issue of the European foreign and security policy, I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure the House that the Government fully intend to do what they have implied by going global, that they are going to work even more closely with other international organisations than they have in the past—the UN, the Commonwealth and NATO and with our erstwhile European partners.

We have an excellent reputation for bilateral and multilateral co-operation. Last week I was in Norway visiting the Royal Marines. Considerable training takes place on a bilateral basis with the Norwegians, the Dutch and the Americans, and that is clearly something we should be doing more of in the future, not less. Yet if inflation and a change in the economy weaken the UK’s economic situation, can the Minister also reassure the House that that it is not going to create a hit on defence? The UK’s global security questions are not going to change because of leaving the European Union, and the situation of Trump and Putin makes European security co-operation more important than it has ever been. Peace was the underlying value of the integration process in the 1950s and 1960s, and for me it was the fundamental reason to vote remain; nothing about the economy changes the importance of that and nothing about voting to leave means that we should do anything to weaken the security of Europe.

One of the things the White Paper does talk about in the first chapter is providing certainty for EU nationals resident in the United Kingdom. That is surely something on which we all agree. For the last six months, Members of your Lordships’ House and Members on the Benches in the other place have been united in their wish that the UK should secure the rights of EU nationals resident in the United Kingdom on the day we voted to leave. However, in recent weeks there seems to have been a shift. The uniting of the country that the Prime Minister has called for really seems to be seen more as a uniting of the Conservative Party. The enthusiasm of those Members on other Benches, who had echoed Members on the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Cross Benches in wanting to secure the rights of EU nationals resident here, seems to have been dimmed in recent weeks. I am sure that the unity of the Conservative Party is important for the Conservative Party, but once this Bill goes through, it would be enormously beneficial to all for certainty to be granted for EU nationals resident in the United Kingdom. That is because our economy relies on them.

We can take the moral leadership. Reciprocity sounds wonderful, but the UK has a bad reputation with our European allies given that we do not always reciprocate. We need to take the lead on this one, because if the idea put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, that no deal is better than a bad deal takes hold, it will mean that at the end of two years the rights of EU nationals will not have been secured in any way. Surely we cannot possibly condone such a situation.