European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

This Bill not only restrict the freedoms of British citizens but leads to us having fewer good people to do the things we need to do. No sensible country which has successfully drawn on the talent of the whole of the continent would slam the door closed. No country would shut out people whom we need in social care, healthcare and all the other areas. Today’s figures on the success of the British tech start-ups are a direct result of the fact that we have been a magnet for the best people in Europe. The highly successful creative and media industry is about all the people we have been able to attract to this country, many of whom are paid less than £30,000 per annum. Free movement has benefited the whole country. This amendment sets out a means by which the UK can continue to reap those benefits. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I wish to say something about services since this amendment in significant respects covers their operation for UK workers living in this country and in Europe. I feel that we should be moving on from making the case to considering the details of the solution, yet services is an area that right through the Brexit debate has not been given the proper attention it has deserved, and continues not to be given it. Services are 80% of our economy, account for 40% of our exports, and most services go to Europe.

This is urgent. We are, for example, already losing large numbers of jobs in tourism in Europe, and Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, referred in May of last year to:

“Creative and tech firms that should be the foundation of our future economy moving their headquarters to Europe.”


This is before the transition period has even started. As I said last year in the debate on a similar amendment to the Trade Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned, services are the canary in the coal mine. The problem is that the free movement of people is integral to the success of services, because so many individual citizens, including freelancers, not only drive these industries but are in many respects the product itself.

It is not just the financial industries—which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who is not in his place, singled out in his reply to my Question last week on this area—but creative, IT, translators, tourism, and many more. I ask the Minister whether any impact analysis has been done on the effect of Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal on our trade in services with the EU. The sense from industry is that unless a mobility framework is put in place, the result is going to be devastating for those industries. As one IT worker put it this week, “A deal without a mobility framework for professionals delivering services in person will mean enforced redundancies and loss of income for thousands of people.”

Many of the sectors that will be affected have many of the same or similar concerns. What consultations have the Government had with relevant sectors to list and compare requirements? How much have they talked to the creative sector, to IT, and so on? There has been a lot of discussion about transparency and consultation today. In many ways it has been the theme, but those working in services currently feel that they have no idea what the Government intend to fight for on their behalf. EU companies do not know either.

A solution needs to be found that neither discourages European employers or clients—as indeed is unfortunately already happening—nor is impractical or costly for UK workers. More fundamentally, even at this stage, the Government need to look more closely at the effect of the loss of free movement on our hugely important services. For their continuing success, UK and, through reciprocity, EU workers urgently need an appropriate mobility framework.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I want to add a couple of words to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in his amendment. As far as the NHS is concerned, if the Government do not allow more people to come in and work in a highly labour-intensive industry, then they will not be able to spend the money that they are promising to put into the NHS in a way that is useful to patients. But that is not my main point.

My main point is to emphasise the extent to which there is continual movement between the UK and European countries, as part of big research projects in medicine, science and technology. People can freely move around Europe for six weeks, a month, a week or a weekend, and many of these projects have EU money, which has come to this country to be used to set up and run projects, but not all the work is done here. The work may be done with partners in other parts of the EU, and there is a constant flow of people. If we put barriers in the way of that movement around Europe of expert people—and many are not highly paid professors but PhD students who have come to this country—working on joint research projects, not only for basic research but for translational research, we will get ourselves ostracised. We will not be a partner that people want to play with, because it is difficult for people from other countries to move around Europe as part of those projects. We will cut off our nose to spite our face. We need something like this amendment to ensure that mobility and a mobility framework get the attention that they need for the future.