Brexit: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. It is difficult to do an impact assessment until we know what the final terms of the deal are. The impact could vary across different sectors and parts of the economy but I can only repeat: we will be as open and transparent as possible, subject to preserving our negotiating position.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, it has certainly been a very busy week at the other end, because, of course, there has been an exchange of letters between the chairman of the Exiting the European Union Committee and the Secretary of State; they have spoken, and they have even set a meeting. All that we have managed to do is to send a letter, at our end—and I was glad to hear the Minister say a moment ago that we would be put in the same position. I stress that parity of timing, as the noble Baroness also said, is completely critical, because we have a big staff and a big committee looking at these things. It is very unfair if the timing is not right, and I ask him to confirm that he will do his personal utmost to make sure that changes are made so there is parity of timing.

[Lord Callanan]

I thank the noble Earl for his point, which is well made. With regard to what I said earlier, sharing on the same basis also implies sharing at the same time.

Brexit: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I have been in the department since Monday. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of these assessments. I have read some of them. I do not know whether there is a specific reference to the north-east, or indeed any other regions, in the documents. If there is, I have not seen one yet.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, David Davis has appeared before the European Union Select Committee three times since the Brexit vote, and on more than one occasion he has promised parity of information for us and the committee in the House of Commons. We have now published 20 sectoral reports, and there are more in the pipeline. Therefore, we are in a very high state of knowledge about sectoral issues. Will the Minister go further than saying that he will have a discussion with our chairman about things and actually undertake that we will receive the same information as the equivalent committee in the House of Commons?

[Lord Callanan]

As I said, we still need to have further discussions with the chairman of the Brexit Select Committee in another place. Of course, following those discussions we will reflect further on what information we will want to provide to comply with the Motion, and I have undertaken to have a similar discussion with the chairman of the committee in this place. I do not want to go any further than that at the moment.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

The Government have a perilous path to tread in a very sensitive situation. If they do not tread that path carefully, they will find they are on the slippery slope to Scottish independence and could be on a slippery slope to further turmoil in Northern Ireland—an issue we discussed earlier this week. A sensitive and sensible Government will recognise formally the role of the devolved Administrations and ensure that they are fully consulted. A very sensible Government would use the repatriation of powers from the European Union to establish a new federal state of equals, and a new UK could emerge out of this division and turmoil—although perhaps, as I am talking about a federal state, I am actually already so tired that I am asleep and dreaming, as that is one of the Liberal Democrats’ cherished beliefs about the future of the constitution of the UK.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly make three points about Amendment 21. I should say that I am a member of your Lordships’ European Union Committee, and that I am a great fan of devolution. I am certainly a fan of onward devolution, such as that of the Crown Estate, which has not taken place yet in Scotland.

Recently, the European Union Committee was in Edinburgh and in Cardiff, and I was part of the delegation. We were taking evidence because we are preparing a report on the devolved Administrations in the context of Brexit. My first point is that interestingly we heard in those meetings, which were only two or three business days apart, different takes on the JMC meetings that had just taken place a few days beforehand. The Welsh take appeared to be very much that it was a good start: there could perhaps be some greater level of detail, but it was a start and they were certainly engaged in the JMC process, were grateful for the investment of time and felt that they had traction.

The Scottish team had a very different feeling, and gave us quite a negative report. The reports were so diametrically opposed that one could not help but feeling it was odd that they were talking about the same meeting. I cannot speak for my fellow delegation members, but I left with a feeling that a lot of the Scottish problem was driven by an SNP agenda and trying to drive a grievance, and that they were deliberately setting off to try to persuade the world that the JMC structure—which I think is a good idea—is not working, right at its birth. I think that is unfair, and should be noted.

[Lord Wigley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Far be it for me to try to defend the SNP; I have no authority to do so and probably no ability or knowledge either. But is not one of the factors that the outcome of the referendum in Scotland was a yes vote and, therefore, any Government in Edinburgh will clearly be coming to it from a different viewpoint from that of a Government in Cardiff or the UK as a whole?

[The Earl of Kinnoull]

I am grateful for that point but, as we sit here tonight, we have heard a lot of very different views; it does not mean that we do not sit down, discuss things and try to persuade people to come round to our view. My impression was that there was a lack of engagement on the part of the SNP in the JMC, which is regrettable because, if the SNP does not engage, it cannot represent its own view successfully with the United Kingdom Government. I really wish it would engage; I felt that was a problem.

As I begin to look at Amendment 21 carefully, two areas concern me. The first is in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause, where the words “agreed between” arrive, because if my analysis about a grievance agenda was right, the prospect of there being an agreement between all the parties would seem likely to be bloody difficult and possibly impossible. Accordingly, it is almost like handing a whip to a hostile SNP Government to try to cause difficulties. I do not think that is wise in what will be a jolly difficult set of negotiations with masses of countries; I do not think we need to create another whip.

The second area, on which I have a more general, final point, is to do with the Sewel convention itself. In many ways, we have been quite lucky that the Supreme Court has said that the Sewel convention within the Scotland Act and, I presume, the Wales Act, is exactly that—a convention and not a statutory power. I worry that if we start putting more Sewel convention-type language into statute, we might damage that and end up with a Wallonia-type situation in the UK, which would be problematic. I am afraid I cannot really support Amendment 21 and I, for one, feel that the JMC arrangements should be given a chance to work. I hope that others also feel like that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, I want to add the support of my Front Bench for the amendment and the words written by my noble friend Lady Randerson. Not only do I personally not come from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but I am a Londoner, and I want to make it clear that it is not just the people represented by the devolved Administrations who care about diversity and plurality in this nation. Frankly, none of us, even Londoners, can be at ease if the union does not work properly.

In discussions on the Bill I have heard a lot of people say that they agree with the substance of what is being proposed, but that it must not appear in the Bill. I think it is about time to put some things in the Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said something on this subject. Amendment 21 is only about arrangements for consultation and how views are to be taken into account; it is about mechanics. So some of his criticism was not quite justified.

[The Earl of Kinnoull]

I was referring to subsection (1) of the proposed new clause, where it says that the arrangements “have been agreed”. The word “agreement” surely means agreement.

[Baroness Ludford]

It is agreeing on arrangements. It does not mean that you agree on the outcome. It is agreeing arrangements for consultation and how views will be taken into account. It does not specify that everyone will agree on the final outcome. All I wanted to do was put down a marker. You do not have to be from a devolved region or nation to support this amendment. Even a dastardly Londoner can do so.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra]

Exactly what I was about to say was, if we could have these amendments where we will have an annual report, or a quarterly report, I think I would be happier to have that, in a structured form, agreed between the Government, the usual channels and the Select Committees, so we could have proper, structured debates on good nuggets of EU information, rather than the daily panics we are about to have as colleagues from all sides and in the other place, rush in demanding Urgent Questions on every rumour and scare story which comes from Europe. I do not think that we need to put in the Bill that we are going to have scrutiny: we can do scrutiny at the moment—we may be doing too much of it. Let us try to structure it so as to have sensible debate over the next two years.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, oddly, I am in the very strange position of mildly disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, but certainly disagreeing with Amendment 18. I commented in my Second Reading speech that I felt that anything that added to uncertainty was very bad news and that uncertainty where commerce was concerned was bad news because that was the root of our prosperity and gave us our services that we need so dearly. I felt that uncertainty for people was particularly bad. We have had lots of uncertainty for people; we talked about the people of Northern Ireland this evening and there are lots of other people as well.

The other thing I said was how powerful our Select Committees are. I sit, as I remind the House, on the European Union Select Committee. We have already delivered, since Brexit, 10 reports for debate in eight months and there are a further seven reports for debate coming along. Tomorrow, I am sitting in a meeting talking about other reports that will come up before the anniversary.

Amendment 18 reckons that there should be one debate every quarter. I cannot believe that that is right. The Select Committees are serving up things for the House at a good rate and we are completely impartial. We are of this House and as and when we identify matters that need to be debated, boy are we down there like a rat down a hole. We make sure that the relevant people come before the House and the full expertise of the House can be brought to bear. Putting in place a structure like this makes the work of the Select Committees more difficult. It makes it more difficult for us to get Ministers, their staff and others before us answering sometimes more than two hours of tough questioning from people who are intelligent and engaged in what is going on. It would shut down opportunity to debate in this House were we to support Amendment 18. We should not fetter the House at all.

It is not only the Select Committees that will keep the Government right. One year after the end of this process, of course, there will be an election. If the Government are not right, they will be flung out. Accordingly, the best way of handling this is not to have formal structures, quarterly meetings or any of the other things in these amendments, but to rely on the strength of our own wonderful system of Select Committees. We should use them and the threat of being thrown out at the next election to make sure that the Government are fully held to account in this difficult process which will require all of us to co-operate.

Article 50 (Constitution Committee Report)

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord—as ever, logic and common sense ran throughout his remarks. I declare my interests as set out in the register of the House and in particular as a member of the European Union Select Committee. I also add my thanks to our chief clerk, the very excellent Chris Johnson, and his clerking staff for their work. It was a short and intense inquiry and drawing together the many strands into a cogent report was a testing task, and he did it very well. I also pay warm tribute to our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, ever the provider of a bon mot in our long meetings.

In what is an incisive report, the Constitution Committee has yet again tackled a complex issue with great clarity and admirable brevity. I certainly found it very helpful. The conclusion of the report, in its final paragraph, notes:

“Parliament and the Government should, at this early stage, take the opportunity to establish their respective roles and how they will work together during the negotiation process”.

The all-consuming national conversation that is Brexit has a common single theme, and that is, in various forms, a demand for clarity. There is of course a wide understanding that one cannot have clarity where such clarity would be damaging to the United Kingdom’s interests, or where it is not reasonable to feel that clarity can yet exist. However, it is hard for this House to hold the Government to account properly on the matter of clarity when we ourselves are unclear as to how we will scrutinise Brexit.

The framework for our scrutiny is a matter for the House, and I know we all agree that we need to move quickly to establish that. The European Union Select Committee report, in chapter 9, “Internal arrangements”, addresses how this clarity might be achieved. As a star-studded cast—the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Boswell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie—has said, I stress that good scrutiny is a great help to the Government and to the nation, endorsing good outcomes, analysing tough situations, and using the knowledge and experience that is to be found in the Select Committees greatly to help and guide negotiations.

In our report, at paragraph 98, the committee states:

“we reiterate the recommendation in our July 2016 report, that the House of Lords can best contribute to effective parliamentary oversight of the negotiations by also charging a specific Select Committee with explicit responsibility for scrutinising the negotiations”.

I feel that Select Committee should, and must, be the European Union Select Committee. This is not a sort of land grab; it is simply a practical point. I make it with two important provisos, which I will come to in a second.

There are 25 members of professional staff in the European Union Select Committee structure. Members of this House who are part of that structure comprise nearly 10% of the House. I am told that former members comprise another nearly 10%. In short, the committee and its sub-committees are a deep repository of experience and knowledge and have the resources to be effective right away. I have a great fear of an “all new” structure as, in my long experience, “all new” structures take time to bed in, take time to mature and would be unlikely to “hit the deck running”. This option, to my mind, would be most unwise for our House to follow.

I turn now to my provisos. To make sure we do not trip over each other, I feel, first, that the committee should have a regular interaction with the Liaison Committee on a formal basis. Secondly, there should be a regular and formal interaction with the chairmen of all the standing committees of the House. After all, it is important that we use the full resources of the House on Brexit matters. I certainly accept that the other committees must be part of the scrutiny process and continue to undertake inquiries that, through this structure, will be carried out in a co-ordinated fashion. I believe this, or a similar framework, would give satisfactory clarity as to how the Lords will conduct Brexit scrutiny. To go back to what I first said, I think we can then justifiably hold the Government to account for lack of clarity on their side.

Regarding clarity about what access to information the scrutiny function has, this is unclear as well. However, we have been much helped by the words of David Davis, to which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, referred earlier. I shall quote them in full; they are very brief:

“We will certainly match and, hopefully, improve on what the European Parliament sees”.

Indeed, laid out in box 1 of chapter 5 of our report is what the European Parliament is meant to see. This is therefore what will be available, and I feel it should be available, although I feel that “data room” rules should apply to all Members who access “data room” information. In other words, that would mean a confidentiality agreement, which I suspect would not be dissimilar to the Official Secrets Act regime of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

In summary, for scrutiny I would ask for framework clarity as soon as possible and urge the Leader of the House, the Senior Deputy Speaker and appropriate others, including the chairmen of the Select Committees, to agree on a framework very rapidly and bring proposals forward to the House for adoption. Clarity on access to information can follow on afterwards as it will need the consent of government. At the end of my first, rather long, point, I would like to ask the Minister: does he agree that clarity on Lords’ scrutiny on Brexit would be helpful from the UK’s and the Government’s perspective?

So much for scrutiny; I now turn to my second, final and much shorter theme, which is communication. Being in the privileged position that I am on the EU Select Committee, I am more than aware that a lot of commendable government Brexit work is going on. This is augmented, in my case, by various private briefings from City sectors, and I would like to associate myself with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I come from an underwriting background, and I think it would be a great pity if the underwriting excellence and “world-leading-ness” of the London market were to be damaged in any way by the Brexit process. I am very grateful for the chat that I have already had with the Minister on that point. Of course, briefings from the private sector come from everyone on the planet. I find that it does not matter whether it is a taxi driver or a very senior person on a board; they all want to talk about it and give their view.

I am struck that the media seem entirely to lack understanding and certainly promote a lack of understanding among the public, and I think that this should be addressed at a very early stage. The Scottish Government reportedly have more than 40 professional staff whose sole aim is to put out their message by and in the media and directly to the people. I do not know how many communications staff there are in the department for Brexit at the moment but, as I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, talk about smart Brexit, I thought, “Gosh, that needs to be put out to the public, because it is a very appealing thought”. However, I suspect that there are not nearly enough people in the department to do that at the moment. Accordingly, I urge the Government desperately greatly to beef up their Brexit communications function in numbers of people and capability, and I close by asking the Minister to comment on that thought.