European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Judd

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 60 seeks to maintain opportunities for young people to travel, work and study freely within Europe and to ensure that these opportunities are not diminished. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for adding his name to this amendment. I should say now that I am not going to divide the House on this because of the late hour.

Consideration for the young people of this country should be a major—perhaps even, it could be argued, the major—consideration of the negotiations, because young people are the future of the country, a point that was made in a different context this evening. This amendment is fundamentally about equal opportunities for young people. If the Government cannot guarantee, or at least pledge to try to achieve as far as Europe is concerned, opportunities for our young people which are at the very least equal to those of the majority of young people in the rest of Europe, our withdrawal from Europe will be worthless on that count alone.

I was struck by the forcefulness of some of the comments that were made in Committee, and it is worth repeating a couple. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, who is in his place, said:

“The feeling of dismay and disappointment among young people is hard to overestimate”,


while the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, talked about her eldest grandson being,

“incandescent with anger that he is about to be deprived of the right to look for a job anywhere across Europe”.—[Official Report, 14/3/18; cols. 1741-42.]

I find those observations, which are representative of how young people feel—the huge uncertainty and, yes, the anger—difficult to square with the lack of urgency in the Minister’s reply in Committee in which he tried to conflate the wishes, as he put it, of young and older people. Those needs, rather than wishes, are not necessarily the same. For many young people, travel, work and study are bound up together as part of the experience of broadening horizons, of exploration as well as career development. It needs to be understood that, while the young have energy, they will very likely have neither the financial resources nor, as yet, the standing of established professionals. Of course professional people have their concerns as well, but if opportunities are diminished, including those afforded by Erasmus+, it will be young people from less privileged backgrounds who will be the first to suffer from increased costs, restrictions, bureaucracy and indeed the loss of those opportunities themselves. It has to be added that changing attitudes and expectations will invariably be reduced and narrowed if these opportunities are diminished.

I will not repeat the detailed and passionate arguments that we heard from many Peers in Committee about Erasmus+. I will say simply that we absolutely need to remain a member of a programme that is of benefit not just academically but for sport, apprenticeships, schools and even budding entrepreneurs—and, significantly perhaps, for the intercultural skills that all study, work and travel abroad at their best develop. I hope that the Minister will agree that we should continue to be involved in the development of Erasmus+ and not act as though this is something that we may be withdrawing from.

I have two questions on this for the Minister. If he cannot answer them today, perhaps he could put his answers in writing. First, universities, including in the Russell Group, are worried that the message that we are fully involved at least until the end of the 2020 programme, which the Government have said we will be, is not getting through to everyone, students at home and abroad included. The Government can be more proactive in spreading that message. Accordingly, will the DfE put out a document outlining its position on Erasmus+ akin to that put out in March by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on Horizon 2020? That would be extremely helpful.

Secondly, in reply to this amendment in Committee, the Minister said on participation:

“We will take a decision when we see what the successor programme is”.—[Official Report, 14/3/18; col. 1747.]


That was a very worrying answer. The Government should be helping to influence the shape of the programme to make it even better than the current one already is. Frankly, surely we know already that what it will have to offer will be well worth our participation. The universities know this, as does every expert in this House who spoke in the Erasmus debate in Committee. So will the Government now indicate when they will negotiate our participation to ensure the smoothest transition between the current programme and the next?

I repeat that travel, work and study for young people within Europe is a question of equal opportunities. I remind the Government that, despite the result of the referendum, 75% of under-24 year-olds voted to remain across every section of society. If Brexit is to be successful, we should realise that a Brexit that ignores the needs and demands of young people will be a failure and the Government ignore those needs at their peril. I beg to move.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I am very glad to support the amendment. The world is totally interdependent. Any future for Britain will depend on working out a relationship and practical participating role for Britain within that international, global reality. The young understand this, and this is why there is so much disillusion and disaffection among the young in particular with the whole process of Brexit. The young want to belong to the world and they want Britain to be part of the world.

If we are to have a future as a nation, our educational system depends—it is not an add-on—on the international dimension in which, from the youngest age through to postgraduate degrees, people understand that they are part of a world community and see the world dimension of the study that they are undertaking. The presence of students from other countries and their sharing of experience and perspectives is part of the educational process. It is not just a matter of whether there is more income for universities, it is a matter of the educational process itself and the quality of education. That matters.

Travel is terrifically important, because people want to form relationships. That must start with our immediate neighbours in Europe, and we want people in Britain who will understand and instinctively see the implications of what may be happening in Europe and how Britain can play a part in meeting the challenges that arise.

The amendment is vital in bringing home that reality about the young. The young have a great sense of betrayal—that is the word that has been used to me—by having their futures put, as they see it, in jeopardy as a result of what we are doing with the Brexit legislation. Here is a chance for the Government to redeem the situation, to redeem their reputation and to show that they will take second place to no one in their international commitment.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Judd

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 204 seeks to maintain the rights of, and opportunities for, young people to continue to travel, work and study within Europe, and to ensure that those rights are not diminished. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall of Blaisdon and Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd. One of the reasons I tabled this amendment is that so little has been said about the effect of Brexit on young people’s opportunities, either by the Government or in debate. Young people are the future of this country, yet their future is being almost entirely ignored.

My fear is that, far from the country getting a deal that includes young people, they will become the collateral damage of a hard Brexit, because it is they who will be affected by Brexit more than anyone else. There are various reasons for this, and I will come on to why I believe this is the case. At present we are all treated equally within the EU, young people included. The right to free movement is entirely democratic—but the introduction of any kind of visa system or work permits will change this, as a visa system is by definition a class system. Celebrities, the rich and the lucky will be waved through airports, and established professionals will have a harder time of it, but those at the bottom of the pile will be the young, who are starting out on their careers and who wish to explore other countries and cultures and expand their horizons through work and/or study abroad—the very people for whom free movement within Europe means the most. This includes young people from poorer backgrounds, for whom a flight within Europe is more realistic than one further afield. Those who voted leave surely did not do so to create new hierarchies, new elites.

Some people have expressed the view in this House that things will not be so bad, and that we are worrying about this too much, unless someone is going to work in Europe. However, we cannot take work out of the equation. For many young people, travel and work are inextricably bound up. They are part of the same thing—that experience of exploring their own continent. This is true for the working class and the less well-off, who may need to find work out there to pay for their stay. Thousands of Britons work across Europe in all kinds of temporary jobs—as couriers, doing maintenance work, as waiters, working in bars and much else—in addition, of course, to the permanent jobs young people may be offered, very possibly as the result of an extended stay.

If young people lose these rights, not only will they lose this essential flexibility of travel, they will also be subjected to a double whammy, because every young person who is a citizen of any EEA country, as they will retain these rights and opportunities to a considerable extent, will have an immediate and substantial advantage over young British people in obtaining work abroad, whether permanent or temporary. I have heard recently of someone whose parents we know: a working-class 20 year-old boy who has been told not even to bother to apply for a job in in the kitchens of a top hotel in Paris, because of the uncertainties of Brexit. The effect of Brexit on young people is already happening.

As I have said, it is not true that only the young middle classes make use of the EU. It is worth reiterating the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, in Committee on 26 February, about our relative lack of international student mobility within Europe, particularly among young people from less advantaged groups. But if we start to shut down all opportunities for everyone, including Erasmus+, young people from less privileged backgrounds will again be hurt most, and most immediately, as it will become more difficult for them in particular to take advantage of a system with more restrictions, increased costs and greater bureaucracy in both work and study opportunities, if those opportunities even exist then. We must surely make greater headway in the other direction. I will not say very much about Erasmus+ as we have had a very full debate on this topic. However, in our debate on Erasmus+ in Committee, the Minister said he would reflect on what was said. Has he been able to reflect on that further in the last couple of weeks?

The goal of intercultural skills, which Erasmus+ holds dear, is surely an effect, at its best, of not just study but travel and work abroad as well, with the contact that young people make with others. This is hugely important culturally and has, of course, educational and commercial implications in the exchange of ideas as young people bring those experiences back from Europe. Encouraging young people to go abroad in Europe is good for the country.

Finally, it is worth reminding ourselves that the Ipsos MORI analysis of the results of the referendum estimated that for 18 to 34 year-olds the remain vote beat the leave vote significantly in every class of society. It seems clear that most young people from whatever class feel European in a way that many older people do not. This is not then just about being young and wishing to explore beyond one’s own country; it is a break between generations and, in that sense alone, to deny these rights is culturally a huge backward step.

This amendment sets down the red lines that many young people would not want to see crossed, and I hope the Government will accept it. I beg to move.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly endorse this amendment to which I have put my name. The feeling of dismay and disappointment among young people is hard to overestimate and has been put to me very forcefully. The Government keep saying that we are going to be an international nation whatever happens on Brexit, and that they put our international participation at the forefront of their considerations. It seems to me a very strange way to start if we in any way foreshorten the much appreciated opportunity to enjoy travel, study and the rest abroad, and to bring that experience back to Britain.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Lord Judd

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty]

Absolutely. Whatever happens, we will be at a disadvantage to everyone else in Europe and that is really significant.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. When this whole matter originally came before the House, we had the firm assurance from the Front Bench opposite and the strong assurance from the Prime Minister that this was to be a top-priority issue in their considerations of our future. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said so powerfully, here we are, way down the road, and we have made no progress whatever.

The reason why I feel so strongly and passionately about this issue is that I fear that we are demeaning and undermining the whole concept of citizenship. Citizenship is something that people have fought for and struggled for centuries to establish. There are thousands and thousands of people from Britain in Europe. I declare an interest: in my extended family I have family members living in Europe and family members living in this country who are married to Poles, Czechs and so on, and it is a very rich experience. Such people have gone to Europe in the confidence of citizenship and all it has meant historically—to make new lives and build their future in the knowledge that they have citizenship of Europe.

Do we or do we not stand by the concept of citizenship? If we do, how can we contemplate any future in which we have not absolutely guaranteed that people have their rights of citizenship? My noble friend referred to anxiety being out there, and it certainly is. We are talking about men, women and children; about the futures of people who are working; about vulnerable people who have reached old age in the context of what they believed was European security—about real human situations. We need firm, unequivocal assurances from the Government that we believe not just in the right of citizenship, but in the whole concept of citizenship that has been established across Europe in our history. We want cast-iron guarantees that, in one way or another, that is going to be fulfilled.