European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to follow the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. I support this Bill very reluctantly, but think it would cause greater harm to the nation to disregard the result of last year’s referendum than to proceed on a course to separate ourselves from Europe—though I fear that that will, in the longer term, cause us great harm, and harm our neighbours. If one wants evidence for that one can turn to the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, who focused on two areas: the economy and security. She made a persuasive case that we will be worse off out of Europe than we are in it.

I thank the Leader of the House for introducing the Bill in such a helpful way. I will certainly seek to be constructive. Along with many noble Lords, I feel that at the end of the negotiations, when the deal is clear in the mind of the Government, Parliament needs a proper occasion to debate that. I hope the Minister is prepared to give an undertaking, either today or in Committee, that the Government will extend the offer they made in the Commons and allow Parliament to make a proper contribution to the final deal. If not, I hope the House will move amendments to make that possible.

I am grateful to the Government and, indeed, for certain aspects of last year’s referendum result. It has brought home to all of us that a large part of the nation feels left behind, ignored and that it has not benefited from the economic success many of us have experienced in recent years, or from globalisation. If we look across to the United States, we see a similar experience: many people feel that, despite its great economic success, they have been overlooked. Those in the rust belt feel that they have been left behind. They look at Silicon Valley and feel envious, resentful and neglected. Therefore, I welcome that aspect of the result—it has brought home to us that we need to do more to reach out to the regions of this nation and its poorer groups, and recognise the difficulties they face, say we recognise them and take action to address them. The Prime Minister talks about those forgotten people; we need to see real action being taken to soften austerity. I sense that the Government have begun to talk more about homelessness issues and the many families in this country living in accommodation for the homeless. A Private Member’s Bill—the Homelessness Reduction Bill—is coming very shortly, supported by the Government.

The Government may be in power for many years to come. I enjoin them to be a one-nation Conservative Party, because the referendum last year brought home to all of us that if we are not a one-nation nation, if we allow certain regions and groups of people to be neglected, there is a risk that populist politicians with a narrow understanding of the national interest will take advantage of that. That may be a heavy responsibility on the Government, given that they may in office for several years to come and they have the challenges not only of Brexit but of an uncertain economic future. They have done a good job of recognising the concern of many people across the nation that they have been disregarded. I hope they will persevere with that even in the current difficult circumstances.

Since taking my seat in this House 18 years ago, I have always been worried about the risk of our pivoting towards the United States. On matters of child welfare, one sees that despite many other great things about the country, the United States is a nation of great inequality where the poorest children do very badly. It has a high rate of teenage pregnancy—even higher than here, and we have the worst in the European Union—and high levels of criminalisation. The OECD found in its 2012 report on family functioning that in the United States, about 25% of children were growing up without a father in the home. In this country the figure was about 21%; in Germany I think it was about 18%—Germany and France were lower.

The UNICEF four-yearly tables on child welfare show that of the developed countries, the United States is normally at the bottom. Eight years ago we found ourselves second from the bottom, with the United States following, and the other European nations doing better. From a child and family welfare point of view we should keep looking to the continent rather than the United States, because that is generally the better direction to go in. I am concerned that as a result of the referendum, we may turn even more towards the United States and I hope that the Government—to give them another responsibility—will make every effort to stop that happening.

My time is up. With the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, I visited the German Parliament in Berlin last week. One of the members of the economics and energy committee there asked me what modelling had we done of the economic consequences of Brexit—a question also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, today. Can the Minister provide us with information on what modelling has been done of our future prospects, particularly in the worst-case WTO scenario? I expect the European Select Committee of this House will play an important role in getting the information we as parliamentarians need on this matter. I look forward to the Minister’s response.