European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Baroness makes a powerful point. It is one of our priorities. We have a number of priorities in the negotiations but it is important that we get this one right. The MHRA already licenses nationally 90% of all medicines available in the UK but there is a small percentage regulated abroad, so we need to reach a mutual agreement on that.

Amendment 101, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, would prevent the Government making changes to the licensing or regulation regimes for over-the-counter medicines, to which she just referred. The Government will need to correct deficiencies arising from withdrawal in relation to the regulation regimes for over-the-counter medicines, self-care medical devices and food supplements where the UK’s exit from the EU would result in the retained EU law which governs the regimes being deficient or not operating effectively and where manufacturers of these products would have to adapt to divergent UK requirements, potentially leading to a temporary or permanent withdrawal of their product from our market.

The noble Baroness asked a number of specific questions. The Government have already made it clear that we wish to retain a close working relationship after exit. The Government have been engaging with industry and research charities through the ministerial and industry co-chaired life sciences group, and we will continue to work with that group and industry to ensure adequate notice and sufficient time to implement any changes necessary.

Whatever the outcome of negotiations, the principles which will underpin post-Brexit regulation for this sector will be that patients should not be disadvantaged, that innovators should be able to access the UK market as quickly and simply as possible, and that we will continue to play a leading role in Europe and the world in promoting public health. Over-the-counter products will continue to have an important role in relieving pressure on health professionals and promoting consumer choice to improve public health.

In the event that it is not possible to reach a deal that secures ongoing, close collaboration between the UK and Europe, we will set up a regulatory system in the UK that protects the best interests of patients and supports industry to grow and flourish. I hope that my comments will provide the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Jolly, with the reassurance they need not to press their amendments.

Amendments 9 and 205 were tabled by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. The Government recognise how important reciprocal healthcare is to the 190,000 UK pensioners who currently benefit from it, to UK tourists who use the European Health Insurance Card scheme and to EU nationals visiting and living in the UK. This point was powerfully made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. We want to protect reciprocal healthcare arrangements and have made important progress towards this in this first phase of negotiations. It is the intention of the UK and the EU that the final withdrawal agreement will protect reciprocal healthcare rights for UK citizens resident in the EU on exit day and vice versa on a reciprocal basis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The Minister said that important progress has been made. Will he tell the Committee what that progress is?

[Lord Callanan]

The important progress was announced in the agreement reached in December in the first phase of the negotiations. Reciprocal healthcare benefits were guaranteed for existing UK residents in the EU and for existing EU residents here. The next phase is what happens in the future.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Exactly. I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has just said. I would like to be helpful to the Minister—it is my main purpose in life. I detect that this debate is at present all going one way, although I do not know if the Minister agrees with me on that. If he is a cynic, he might say that that is not altogether surprising, as the collective noun for a group of chancellors, vice-chancellors and university chairmen is the House of Lords.

It is important that the Minister should listen to the Cormack-Deben advice. It really would not do to answer this debate with the same answer he started off with to the last debate about medicines and Amendment 11—where, as I recall, his line was that publishing a strategy would introduce an unwelcome, undesirable and impossible delay to commencement. I may have misunderstood him, but it seems to me that the time when we need such a strategy—the strategy that is called for in this amendment—is now. We need it to be helpful to the Minister because if on Report we do not see a strategy, there is absolutely no doubt how the House would vote. This debate has made very clear, from all sides of the House, that continued membership or a close relationship with the research framework programme and with Erasmus is seen as sine qua non. If the Government do not give us the strategy which they think may achieve that, I am confident we will vote for these amendments.

The strategy would have to contain a little more than a declaration of intent. In relation to Erasmus, it would, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, have to include something about visas. I think it would also have to include something about fees. It is relatively easy to see what one would have to say. On the much bigger issue of research, it would have to include something from the Treasury. If the sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Patten, was accepted by the Treasury, that would be excellent. But it seems to me that the Treasury is going to have to accept a lesser commitment, which is that when it is pay as you go—which is what it is going to be, as my noble friend Lord Hannay has pointed out—we will pay for whatever we get. That seems to me to be a sine qua non.

It is of course the case that we will not be taking the decisions or laying down the policy anymore. But it will still be essential for our universities to have access to these networks. This would not just be helpful for the Minister on Report and in the negotiations in Brussels, where such a Cormack-Deben voluntary offer would go down extremely well, but also be something to deal with the uncertainty problem which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, drew attention to. We are no longer desirable partners in research networks, because it is assumed that we will be country cousins or non-players.

We are no longer receiving the same demand from foreign students to come here to research. We are damaging the sector now—this is an area where the damage of Brexit precedes the deed. So in three contexts, it would be helpful to the Minister if he would say that he will take this away and think about producing a government strategy in both areas before Report.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just uttered. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, said that we were not expecting miracles from the Minister. I think even the Minister’s most ardent admirers do not credit him with miraculous powers, and he is not going to able to produce any rabbits out of a hat for us this evening. But it is not miracles we need here: all we need is a continuation of the status quo. This is one of those areas we come back to time and again—we had it in the long debate on Euratom last week: all we need to do is to avoid massive, self-inflicted damage.

There is no need to create whole new programmes and ways of working. We have Horizon 2020 and Erasmus; the latter has been going on for the best part of 30 years and is a highly successful programme. When you are doing something well, the usual trick is just to keep on doing it. There are so many things that do not work that the idea that Parliament and Government should be spending their time dismantling things that do is clearly crazy. What we want to hear from the Minister is simply that he is open-minded to continuing with the present arrangements. The sooner the Government are prepared to say that, the better.

The most telling contribution to this debate came from the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge. In the higher education world, there is—I shall choose my words slightly diplomatically—a pronounced air of self-congratulation on how excellent everything is in this country and how brilliantly we do it, and if only the rest of world copied us then they would be a great deal better off. In many areas that is true, but in one we have a very poor international record: the propensity of our students to study abroad. According to the Erasmus figures, twice as many European students come to Britain as Brits go abroad. The noble Baroness was right to say there is a big problem with students from poorer backgrounds studying abroad. When I was preparing figures for this debate, I found that it looks as if Singapore, a country less than one-tenth the size of the UK, has about as many students studying abroad as we have in our entirety.

The fact is that we do not have nearly enough of our students studying abroad. When I visited Singapore as Minister for Schools, they were aiming—by about now, so maybe they have achieved it—at requiring all students at the National University of Singapore, regardless of their course, to spend at least six months, one semester, studying abroad. Can your Lordships imagine if we had anything like that commitment here? It might be a good thing if in due course we did. The great irony is that one of the great slogans to emerge from this Brexit policy as it has developed is “Global Britain”—but how can there ever be a global Britain unless far more of our students go and see the rest of the globe and spend time studying there? The first requirement for that is that we should not make the situation worse than it currently is.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was right that what we seek from the Minister is not a miracle; we are clearly not going to get that from the present Minister. We simply expect a commitment to continue with the current programmes, and it is absolutely within the scope of the Government to say unilaterally that the negotiating position of Her Majesty’s Government now, in 2018, is that these programmes will continue with full British participation after 2020. If the Minister does not say that, he is staring at near-certain defeat on this issue on Report.

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for another excellent debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, for their Amendments 10 and 163, which respectively seek clarification on the Government’s future membership of the Erasmus and Horizon 2020 programmes. I am particularly grateful to my noble friends Lord Deben and Lord Patten for their helpful attempts to rewrite my notes for me before I started.

At the December European Council last year, the Prime Minister confirmed that UK students will continue to be able to participate in the Erasmus student exchange programme for at least another three years, until the end of the current budget period. She welcomed the opportunity to provide clarity to young people and the education sector, and she reaffirmed our commitment to the deep and special relationship that we want to build with the EU.

In response to my noble friend Lord Cormack, I say that the Government have made it clear many times that we value the Erasmus+ programme and international exchanges more generally. Cultural exchange helps to build important business, political and diplomatic bridges around the world, not to mention lifelong friendships.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

I am seeking reassurance that either we will confirm today what our future relationship with the EEA will be, and whether we will remain members of it, or whether we intend to adopt the instruments that have currently been adopted through our existing membership of the EEA and through the EU, with other EFTA countries. Perhaps the most difficult unresolved issue of leaving the customs union is, as I have already identified and set out in speaking to the amendment, the fact that we will not be in the customs union—as the Government have clearly stated that we shall take back control of our customs borders—and that will intrinsically lead to potential disputes with our existing European partners and other third countries, of which we will be one. Can the Minister tell us, in replying to the debate, precisely what dispute resolution mechanism the Government have in mind in these circumstances?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is herself a distinguished lawyer, and she has raised one of the critical issues that we shall have to address in our debates: whether our membership of the European Economic Area automatically lapses by virtue of our leaving the European Union, or whether leaving it would require a separate Act on our part. As she said, she was a Member of the European Parliament for many years, and has practised law in Brussels, so will she give the Committee the benefit of her advice on whether she believes that our EEA membership will lapse automatically on leaving the EU or whether it would require a separate and explicit Act of Parliament, and therefore a vote in Parliament, to leave it?

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, but he places too great an emphasis on my legal abilities. I prefaced my remarks by saying that I am not an EU practising lawyer—although we do have a number of EU practising lawyers in this place. I would argue that no, our membership of the EEA will not explicitly lapse when we leave the European Union. This is a conundrum in which we find ourselves—or it could be the saving of us.

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[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I would like to finish a sentence without being interrupted. The EU negotiates free trade agreements but does not take into account what Turkey wants, and Turkey has no say. I will give way one last time; then I will make one other point about the single market; and then, the House will be relieved to know, I shall shut up.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Lord referred to Turkey twice. On the first occasion when he referred to Turkey he said that there were all kinds of disadvantages in its customs arrangements with the EU from being in the customs union but not being free to strike trade deals beyond that. Why therefore does he think that Turkey has willingly and freely stayed a member of the customs union?

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

As the noble Lord knows very well, Turkey aspires—that aspiration may now be fading—to join the European Union, so being in the customs union was for many a halfway house to joining the EU, just as for noble Lords who tabled this amendment it is a halfway house to rejoining the EU. That is what their amendment is really about.

Lastly and briefly on the single market, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, was exhorting us all to go to the Treasury, look at the papers, draw the curtains and see the forecasts that have been made. Of course those documents should be taken into account, but there are many other studies made outside Whitehall that take a very different view. I refer him to the research by the academic Michael Burrage, who was at the LSE and at Harvard. He has done an in-depth analysis, which is published on the Civitas website, of the effect of the single market on the British economy and British exports. He has come to the conclusion that there is no correlation between the single market and the growth of trade between the UK and the EU.

Furthermore, he has pointed out something that people have acknowledged in these debates before—namely, that many non-members of the single market, countries outside the continent of Europe, have increased their exports to the single market much faster than Britain has increased its exports to the single market. So the idea that this great liberalising force has had a huge impact on the British economy is absolutely not proven. I make these points simply because the debate so far has been very unbalanced and, as my noble friend Lord Hailsham said, we ought to be considering, in a sober, balanced way, what is in the interests of our own economy now that the decision has irrevocably been made.

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[Lord Robathan]

Of course it was put together by civil servants. I have worked with civil servants and I rate them: let me say now that I think they are good people working to the best of their ability in the service of this country. But that does not mean that they are always right. I am a bit worried that, by the time I get round to going to look at this document, it might have been flushed down the sewer.

I turn briefly to Northern Ireland. I see at least one Peer here with much greater knowledge on this than me, but when I worked in the NIO four years ago, we had a lot of issues around the smuggling of cattle and diesel across the border. There are customs officials on the Irish border, as noble Lords should know, but animals were smuggled back and forth because of the various subsidies, and diesel was smuggled, particularly from the south, because the duties were different. So let us not say that everything is perfect now, because it ain’t. I believe it is not beyond the wit of man that we can come to some decent arrangement with the Irish Government and use that border.

Lastly—

[Lord Adonis]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Robathan]

Of course; how could I resist?

[Lord Adonis]

Will the noble Lord tell us whether he agrees with those Conservatives who, in the past week, have said that it would be a good idea to end the Good Friday agreement?

[Lord Robathan]

That is slightly off the current debate, but no, I do not. I think that the Good Friday agreement has achieved a great deal. However, as in all agreements, sometimes things have to move on—not be changed necessarily, but move on. The reason for those people saying that there should be an end to the Northern Ireland agreement is the failure to get together a devolved Government; it was nothing to do with Brexit.

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[Lord Adonis]

What would the noble Lord like to move on to?

[Lord Robathan]

This is nothing to do with what we are speaking about. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Hain, was involved with the Northern Ireland agreement, but some people in this House were, and a great deal of time was taken to get it together. But as life changes, so sometimes we need to adjust or amend things. I think that that is what the noble Lord is trying to do today.

My last point is on the national interest, which has been mentioned. I find it quite embarrassing and demeaning when it is suggested that those of us who believe that our national interest is better outside the European Union are in some way unpatriotic. I say, “I’m all right Jack”: I voted for the future of my country, not for my own future. I voted in the national interest and I hope that everybody in this House can agree that the national interest is what we should all be talking about.

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[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether it might not be an idea to hear from the Minister at this stage. I have been watching the debate and it is clear that we are covering a lot of ground that we will cover in Committee. We are in Committee now and not at Second Reading. It would be appropriate if we heard from the Minister.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord should intervene to cut short this debate. There are many amendments that have not yet been spoken to and my noble friend on the Front Bench has not had a chance to speak. Many other noble Lords seek to speak, too. The Minister should speak at the end of the debate after noble Lords who wish to speak have had a chance to do so. These are the most important issues that will face this country over the next generation and I do not think that we should be told by the Government Chief Whip that we have been speaking for too long.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 89 to which I had the privilege of adding my name. I want to draw the House’s attention to that amendment because it addresses a constitutional issue. We are back to the issue of Henry VIII powers. This is to prevent the Government using Henry VIII powers in statutory instruments in order to drive through a separation from the customs union and from the single market rather than bringing those issues directly to this House for its decision. That is exceedingly important.

In supporting that argument, I want to underscore the importance of the customs union and the single market in response to the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. He said that without the customs union we can achieve what we need through a free trade agreement. What he did not say is that free trade agreements do not include services—or do so only at the margin. Our economy is an 80% service economy and a free trade agreement along the pattern and lines of other free trade agreements across the globe would leave us without the ability to sell our services freely as we do today across the European Union. Now the single market in services is not yet complete, but it is fairly close to completion and there is a great deal of opportunity.

The Government turn and occasionally say that there will be a mechanism to do this called mutual recognition. But within this House there are Members who will remember in the early days of Thatcher the development of the single market. This country thought that the route to be able to open up the single market and access across Europe was mutual recognition. But it was not effective, which explains the move towards regulation and harmonisation that currently overwhelmingly underpin our trade with the EU.

The EU has been very clear that it cannot see a way forward along the lines of mutual recognition except in fairly narrow terms. We have an example that the Government often cite with Switzerland where there is in effect mutual recognition through an equivalency agreement. But in December, when that agreement needed to be extended to provide for MiFID II, the EU would agree only to a one-year arrangement because it needed to be underpinned by a great extension of institutional arrangements to deal with disputes and a whole range of other issues.

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[Baroness Altmann]

The industrial success of the British economy is based on the integrated supply chains. The jobs in Sunderland and across the automobile industry, as an example, and the biotech industry and pharma industry depend upon those integrations. The foreign companies that own those operations will be unable to compete if we do not have the same kind of access that we have now.

The Government’s evidence, which is being hidden from the public, shows that Brexit will be a huge cost, the size of which depends on the hardness of the Brexit. I urge colleagues on these Benches and across the House to wake up to the reality that we face and to at least support these amendments to stay in the customs union, the single market, the EEA or equivalent.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I have three amendments in this group, Amendments 4, 152 and 225, but I broadly support all the other amendments that have been discussed.

The most disturbing and alarming thing that has happened in respect of the Brexit process in the recent past has been the collapse of the power-sharing talks in Northern Ireland last week and the response of the DUP leadership and some prominent members of the Conservative Party, including a Conservative former Northern Ireland Secretary, since that collapse, who have said that they believe that the time may have come to end the Northern Ireland agreement, including a tweet from the said former Northern Ireland Secretary, Owen Paterson, saying that he thought that the Northern Ireland agreement had now served its purpose. I do not think I have heard more irresponsible words from a former Cabinet Minister in the recent past than those. As the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said, I do not think it is a coincidence that the people who are calling for an end to the Northern Ireland agreements, with all the potentially calamitous consequences for the people of Northern Ireland as well as the rest of us in the United Kingdom, are also almost to a man and woman ardent Brexiteers.

I know that the Prime Minister shares our concern, because in the Florence speech she said that,

“we and the EU have committed to protecting the Belfast Agreement and the Common Travel Area and, looking ahead, we have both stated explicitly that we will not accept any … infrastructure at the border. We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland—and indeed to everyone on the island of Ireland—to see through these commitments”.

I believe that we too in this House owe it to the people of Northern Ireland to see through those commitments. When I heard Mr Daniel Hannan say that he believed that the Good Friday agreement was a consequence and not a cause of peace in Northern Ireland, I could not think of any statement that is playing with fire more dangerously from a responsible official. He is a Member of the European Parliament.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

Would my noble friend not agree that perhaps the most irresponsible aspect of the remarks that have been made in this debate on Ireland is that painstaking work has gone on for a number of years now in building trust between two communities, with those communities beginning to establish a tradition of working together?

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend, nor with all those other noble Lords who have responsibility for Northern Ireland, or have held it in the past, including the noble Lord, Lord Patten, my noble friends Lord Hain and Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, not least in his role as reviewer of terrorism legislation. Everyone who has been engaged in this sees the continuing value of the Northern Ireland agreement. It is a solemn undertaking on the part of the United Kingdom. It is an international treaty. Playing fast and loose with peace in Northern Ireland in the cause of Brexit is utterly reprehensible.

We are looking forward to the Minister’s reply. I know that he has a mountain of amendments to reply to, but I am afraid that is the fault of the people whose responsibility it is to group them, who seem to want to group almost everything in the Bill into one group. I hope that when he replies he will begin by saying from the Dispatch Box that the Government remain committed to the Good Friday agreement, that they wish to see the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland, and that the Government will use every endeavour to do that and to ensure, as the Prime Minister also said in solemn undertakings at the end of last year, that all of the commitments that the Government of the United Kingdom reach in respect of Brexit will fully honour the Good Friday agreement. I take the amendments that we will discuss later, which my noble friend Lord Hain and others have tabled, which would enshrine a commitment to abide by the Good Friday agreement in the text of the Bill, to be immensely important to our consideration of the Bill, particularly in the light of comments made in the last week.

My amendments focus on two particular areas where I seek the Minister’s guidance, because we have many long debates to come, and we need to establish a good evidence base as we do so. I take to heart the words of the Minister for Exiting the European Union, Mr Baker, when the House of Commons was considering the Bill—I was glad to see him at the Bar earlier—and he said:

“The Government have always been clear that the purpose of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is to ensure that the UK exits the EU with certainty, continuity and control”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/17; col. 206.]


We can have certainty, continuity and control only if we know what will happen as a consequence of enacting the Bill.

Therefore, there are two areas that I particularly wish to probe the Minister on. The first is the extremely important issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about the status of the European Economic Area and our membership of it. There is a debate that will range far and wide across our consideration of this Bill and future Bills as to what is the right status for the United Kingdom if and when we leave the European Union: whether we should be in the EEA, or in the customs union but not the single market, or in the single market but not the customs union; whether we should have bespoke trade arrangements, or whether we should belong to a customs union but not the customs union. The Schleswig-Holstein question was positively simple in comparison with the options and complexity of the options on offer but for our role as legislators, it is crucial that we understand the consequences of decisions that we take in respect of the Bill when we enact it. In many crucial areas—having read, as many other noble Lords will have done, all the debates in the House of Commons on the Bill—it is still unclear what will be the legal position in key respects after the enactment of the Bill.

The issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is of acute concern in this respect. The question that I hope the Minister will address himself to is: what is the procedure under which the United Kingdom will leave the European Economic Area if and when we leave the European Union? The noble Lord, Lord Owen, who I am sorry to say is not in his place this afternoon, has written, with help from serious lawyers—including, I think, one or two in this House—a very long and learned paper on precisely this issue. It says that there are two very different views as to what the position is, partly because the EEA agreement is itself ambiguous about the nature of the relationship between the European Union and the European Economic Area.

The European Union is itself a contracting party to the EEA agreement and on one reading—I am now going into areas where, seeing so many lawyers around me, I am waiting for them to leap in at any moment, but the definitive view from the Government is going to be important here—it is therefore not possible for those states which leave the European Union to remain a party to the EEA agreement. On another reading of the treaty, Her Majesty the Queen is the signatory to the treaty independently of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, and we would therefore continue to be members of the EEA when we leave the European Union. As a layman in these matters, this looks to me to be an issue of huge consequence. When and if we leave the European Union on 29 March next year, do we or do we not continue as a member of the EEA simply by virtue of leaving the European Union? If we do not leave the EEA, what is the procedure under which we do leave the EEA? Does it require a vote, does it require legislation, or are the Government proposing that it should be done by the royal prerogative? These are big issues and I hope the Minister can address himself to them, because they will have a significant bearing on amendments we raise later in Committee and on Report.

The second issue concerning withdrawal from the European Union, which is what the half of the Bill that we are substantially debating at the moment is about, is whether it is necessary to withdraw from the entirety of the European Communities Act 1972, or whether it is in fact legally possible—or what would be the consequences of deciding—to withdraw from some parts but not from others. This is an issue of such importance because of the customs arrangements enshrined in Part 2, Section 5 of the 1972 Act, which sets out all the arrangements under which the United Kingdom agrees to abide by customs rules set by the European Union. That is, as I read it, a large part but not the entirety of our membership of the customs union.

The question that was raised in the House of Commons but not properly debated, and that looks to me to be of significance to our debates going forward, is about not disapplying the customs clauses of the 1972 Act— Part 2, Section 5, and the appropriate schedules. If they remained in force and we repealed the rest of the Act but not those—by virtue of that fact, subject of course to an agreement with the European Union itself, we would remain in the customs union. Again, in terms of the legal means by which we might secure the objective which many noble Lords wish to see, continuing membership of the customs union and single market, that is a point of great significance.

Finally, in terms of the objectives we are seeking to achieve, in her Lancaster House speech, the second of the two significant speeches she has given on government policy in respect of Brexit, the Prime Minister, addressing our European partners, said:

“The decision to leave the EU represents no desire to become more distant to you, our friends and neighbours … We do not want to turn the clock back to the days when Europe was less peaceful, less secure and less able to trade freely”.


In my view it is impossible to see how we can have a Europe which maintains peace unless we start with peace within our own borders, which must mean peace guaranteed in Northern Ireland, hence the centrality of the Good Friday agreement to our consideration of the Bill. When it comes to,

“less able to trade freely”,

I take that to mean not entering into any trade arrangements which are less advantageous for this country and involve any more border controls than currently apply. I look forward to the Minister explaining to the Committee how leaving the customs union and the single market can make it easier for us to trade than the extremely advantageous arrangement we currently have as a member of the European Union.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I cannot match the dazzling intellectual exposition of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but I completely endorse his remarks on the Good Friday agreement. We need to stay in the single market and the customs union and to preserve the integrated economy and the peace and political enjoyment of the Good Friday agreement is one of the best arguments for doing so. I shall speak to Amendment 203 in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham, who sadly feels that there is not time for her to speak. I shall also speak more generally on this group and second the remarks of noble friends who have spoken on it.

Amendment 203 requires a specific parliamentary vote on whether to leave the EEA. This would perhaps both remove any legal doubt about whether the Article 50 notification made that decision—I will slightly sidestep that issue—and be an explicit political decision in itself. Therefore I advocate the merits of Amendment 203.

We are in the dark about the future. The Cabinet is meeting again tomorrow at Chequers and we are all very hopeful that some white smoke will emerge from that meeting. As many noble Lords have said this afternoon, the implications of leaving the single market and the customs union are serious. Indeed, it has been described by my former noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew as a “suicide note”—hence the need to have a specific vote on whether to leave the EEA, which would be a safeguard, at least against sudden death.

We learn from the Financial Times, in advance of having anything explained to us in the open by the Government, that the buzzword for the trade relationship that the Government will be aiming for is “managed divergence”. Apparently:

“Under this approach, economic activity between the UK and the EU would be divided into three baskets: complete alignment, where the UK would follow EU rules”—


presumably to at least encompass the famous paragraph 49 of the phase 1 agreement—

“‘managed mutual recognition’, where both would agree to common objectives but each would choose its own rules; and a third basket where the UK can abandon EU regulations and do whatever it wants”.

That sounds incredibly complicated for citizens and business, as against the simplicity of full membership of the single market and the customs union. This commentator says:

“The beauty of this approach is that it unites the cabinet”.


This is possibly because it has three variations. However, it does not have one single theme.

Of course, we have heard all variants, not least this past week. We had the speech from the Foreign Secretary and the letter from the European Research Group—I am not sure that it does a lot of research but it writes a lot of letters. It wants “full regulatory autonomy”. I hope that I will not embarrass the Minister if I quote him when he was in the European Parliament. He said in 2012:

“Surely one of the best ways for the EU to speed up growth is to scrap the employment and social affairs directorate in the Commission, repatriate its responsibilities to national governments, then we could scrap the working time directive, the agency workers’ directive, the pregnant workers’ directive, and all of the other barriers to actually employing people if we really want to create jobs in Europe”.


We will discuss on other days the maintenance of employment and other rights, but it is illustrative of the problem that we have that there is such an array of opinion within the Government. The advantage of having a parliamentary vote in the context of the implementation of the withdrawal agreement would be that it would allow Parliament to have the backstop of saying, “Actually, we want to stay in the EEA”.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to contribute to the first day in Committee on this historic Bill. Let me say at the outset that I look forward to working constructively with colleagues from across the Chamber throughout the course of Committee to scrutinise and improve this vital Bill in the national interest.

Clause 1 is the shortest of all in the Bill—you would not believe it from the debate—but it could scarcely be more important. This debate has shown the House at its passionate best, but it was not really about Clause 1 at all. I think all noble Lords recognise that, when we leave the EU, we need to repeal the European Communities Act. So we have had a fascinating debate on the UK’s potential ongoing membership of or future relationship with the single market, the customs union, the EEA and EFTA. These are of course issues of profound importance and I understand that noble Lords have strong views on them, but everybody really knows that they are not matters which the Bill is designed to address.

However, I will happily rehearse the Government’s position once again. What this Government seek is a bold and ambitious economic partnership that is of greater scope and ambition than any such existing agreement. We have listened to EU leaders and we understand and respect the position that the four freedoms of the single market are indivisible, and that there can be no cherry picking. For that reason, we do not seek membership of the single market after we leave the EU, and nor do we seek membership of the customs union. By leaving the customs union and establishing a new and ambitious customs arrangement with the EU, we will be able to forge new trade relationships with our partners around the world and maintain as frictionless trade as possible in goods between the UK and the EU, providing a positive and powerful voice for free trade in the world.

Of course, I am talking about our future relationship with the EU. To answer the question which I think came from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, we also seek an implementation period which, we have been very clear, will be based on the existing structure of EU rules and regulations—but during which the UK will be outside the EU.

Let me take this early opportunity to draw the attention of noble Lords to our publication today of our proposed draft legal text for the section of the withdrawal agreement in relation to the implementation period. We have published this in part to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny. It is right, too, that the British public should be able to see our position. The details of that implementation period would be implemented in domestic law through separate primary legislation, after we have reached agreement with the EU and after these Houses of Parliament have voted on that agreement.

In the meantime, a number of amendments in this group seek to mandate our continued membership of one or both of the single market or customs union, presumably in perpetuity. But put simply, this is not something the UK Government could deliver unilaterally, even if we were so minded. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, get around that by proposing maintaining the same rights, freedoms and access within the UK that we have currently, which in practice means staying in the single market in all but name but without any reciprocal guarantees from the EU. That would be the worst of all possible worlds.

Other amendments seek to mandate the Government to take a particular negotiating position or to pursue particular objectives. Leaving aside what I have said about those not being our objectives, the amendments raise constitutional questions about the role of these Houses of Parliament and they raise practical questions too. Who is to say whether the Government have truly made these things their negotiating objectives? How would they be judged? Would we see the courts ruling on the conduct of the negotiations, and what would be the consequences if they did so? I recognise the noble intention behind these amendments, but I do not think we can contemplate making them, especially when the repeal of the ECA or the exercise of crucial delegated powers becomes contingent on them. That is a recipe for undermining the essential certainty that this Bill is designed to create.

Other amendments call merely for reports to be published on certain things. In response to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, we have confirmed that when we bring forward the vote on the final deal we will ensure that this House is presented with the appropriate analysis the Government have done to make an informed decision, and we will take such steps as we can to facilitate scrutiny in the interim. But the particular reports and timetables suggested are arbitrary and may not in fact serve Parliament well.

The Government intend to secure a new partnership with the EU. We will legislate in accordance with that and nothing in this Bill threatens that. This Bill is designed only to prepare our statute book; it is agnostic as to the outcome of the negotiations and rules nothing in or out. We will legislate for the agreement reached with the EU in due course.

Finally, let me say something about the EEA and the amendments tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, concerning the EEA. Amendment 152, for example, seeks to make continued membership of the EEA one of the UK’s negotiating objectives, while Amendments 193 and 203 require a parliamentary vote on withdrawal from the EEA before making regulations under the power in Clause 9. Amendment 225 seeks to prevent notification of the UK’s withdrawal from the EEA agreement. On that specifically, our legal position remains unchanged. Article 127 does not need to be triggered for the agreement to cease to have effect.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh also asked about the EEA. In the absence of any further action, the European Economic Area agreement will no longer operate in respect of the UK when we leave the EU. However, as the Secretary of State has said, our existing international agreements should continue to apply during the proposed time-limited implementation period.

[Lord Adonis]

Will the Government publish the legal advice they have had in respect of that proposed procedure on withdrawal from the EEA?

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord knows the answer to that question.

[Lord Callanan]

We are not going to publish confidential legal advice. That has been the position of previous Governments, and it is the position of this Government. Our aim is to ensure continuity with international partners

[Lord Adonis]

I—

[Lord Callanan]

No, I have given way to the noble Lord once. I have answered his question. I have referred to his points. If he will forgive me, I will make some progress.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

If I can have silence, may I address the Chamber? It is important that this debate proceeds, even at this terminal stage of the first group of amendments, in a courteous manner. The Minister has been accommodating in taking interventions. He needs—

[Lord Adonis]

He has taken one intervention so far.

[Baroness Goldie]

I think the Minister can use his own discretion about what he considers appropriate. I do not think noble Lords would disagree for one moment that we have had a very extensive debate on the first group.

[Lord Adonis]

If I may say so, the Minister has limited experience of this House. He may not be aware that in Committee it is reasonable for him to take interventions on points raised in the debate which have not been properly clarified by his reply. He is not allowed simply to come to that Dispatch Box, read out the brief he has been given and not respond to the debate. That is not acceptable practice in your Lordships’ House.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I am sorry to say this, but the amendments were taken by the Public Bill Office as being in scope. They are therefore relevant to the House.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, before the Minister finishes after the very short intervention that he has just made, I point out that he did not respond at all to the points made by noble Lords from around the Chamber about the Good Friday agreement. Would he give the view of the Government, since it appears to be in question at the moment, about the future of the agreement and whether he agrees with the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who said it had now served its purpose?

[Lord Callanan]

I am happy to clarify for the noble Lord that we remain completely committed to the Good Friday agreement.

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Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out “on exit day” and insert “on a date to be determined by a further Act of Parliament”

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 3, which would leave out “on exit day” and insert,

“on a date to be determined in the Act of Parliament enacted for the purposes of section 9(1) of this Act”.

The first and crucial significance of the Bill is the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972, and a critical issue that noble Lords will wish to address themselves to is the date on which that happens. The provisions in the Bill in respect of that date are not straightforward. Clause 1 provides that the European Communities Act 1972 will be repealed “on exit day”. Clause 14(1) defines exit day as,

“29 March 2019 at 11.00 p.m.”,

but Clause 14(4) provides that,

“A Minister of the Crown may by regulations … amend the definition of ‘exit day’ in subsection (1) to ensure that the day and time specified in the definition are the day and time that the Treaties are to cease to apply to the United Kingdom”.


So exit day is set, but there is a provision for the Government to amend the date. However, my reading of subsection (4) is that a Minister of the Crown may only substitute one date with another date. He cannot suspend the operation of the Act entirely even if there is no agreement and it is in fact the intention of Her Majesty’s Government not to proceed with leaving the EU.

My first question to the Minister is: what is the Government’s understanding of the scope of Clause 14(4)? Is it only possible to substitute 29 March 2019 with another precise date under regulations or is it possible for the Government, by the exercise of the powers under Clause 14(4), to suspend the operation of the Act either indefinitely or in perpetuity? Secondly, in respect of the procedure under Clause 14(4), if the Government wish to change the date of 29 March 2019, what would that procedure be? I would be grateful if he could set it out so that we had it clearly established in Hansard, because I think it is an issue to which the House will wish to return in due course. The procedure for amending the exit date could be of crucial importance if the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister presents later this year or early next year leads, either by her intention or by a decision of Parliament, to a desire to extend the Article 50 period and apply for an extension beyond the end of March 2019.

I have those two specific questions for the Minister, but I wish to make a general point for this debate, about the concept of the exit day and the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972. It is clearly the case that Parliament needs to make provision for the substitution of the 12,000 regulations which have currently been made under the European Communities Act 1972, and there must be a procedure for those to be enshrined in United Kingdom law. There obviously needs to be a functioning statute book on 29 March 2019, or whenever the country leaves the European Union, and therefore there need to be procedures in place for that statute book to be fully in place by the end of March. We will have many debates in due course about what that procedure will be, how far it can be done by the Government making regulations and orders, how far it requires parliamentary consent and what the parliamentary procedure should be—all the issues which your Lordships will be familiar with under the broad heading of Henry VIII powers. We will have long debates on that question.

However, I do not think it reasonable for Parliament at this stage to give the Government a near-unilateral power to set the date of leaving the European Union when it is still not clear that it is the will of Parliament that we should leave the European Union. We have not seen the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister will negotiate or undergone the new procedure instituted by the amendments passed in the House of Commons, which will need to be followed before the withdrawal agreement is ratified by Parliament. As Parliament will itself make the decision on whether we leave when it can fully consider the terms which the Government have negotiated for leaving, it seems to me that the appropriate time to set the date under the Bill for repealing the European Communities Act 1972 is when Parliament agrees or does not agree to the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister has negotiated. To do it in advance in this Bill is a classic legislative case of putting the cart before the horse. The right time to set the date on which the European Communities Act will be repealed is surely when Parliament actually takes the decision and sets the date when it intends the treaty of withdrawal to take effect.

This is significant is because otherwise the danger is that we get into a convoluted and potentially destructive process in terms of relations between Parliament and the Government concerning the operation of the Bill when enacted with the withdrawal agreement. At the moment, the Bill stipulates that the European Communities Act 1972 will cease to have effect on 29 March 2019 or on some other date that a Minister may set. That process is set out in the Bill, but there will then be a withdrawal agreement that will set out the date, to be agreed by Parliament, when the treaties replacing our current European Union commitments will take effect. It seems to me and, I think, to other noble Lords much more straightforward, simpler, less confusing and possibly more conducive to harmony between Parliament and the Government for the decision on the date of the repeal of the European Communities Act to be taken at the same time as Parliament takes its decision on the treaties which will replace it.

These are probing amendments seeking the Minister’s guidance on the scope of Clause 14 (4), but I also wish to start a debate in Committee, which I think will probably continue into Report, on whether this is the appropriate piece of legislation for setting the date of departure from the European Union in respect of the repeal of the European Communities Act independently of Parliament reaching a decision on the withdrawal treaty. I beg to move.

[Lord Hain]

My Lords, having added my name to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Adonis, I want to explain that they are designed to give back to Parliament control of when the European Communities Act 1972 is repealed and to strengthen the effect of the amended Clause 9(1), which was designed to give Parliament a meaningful vote on the final terms of withdrawal and which required that a new statute be put in place before any regulations are made to implement the withdrawal agreement.

I do not need to remind your Lordships’ House that what is at stake is more than a matter of process or procedure. It is ultimately about whether either Parliament or a group of hard Brexiteers who are trying to manipulate the Government will decide the future of the people of this country. What is at stake is people’s jobs and standards of living, which depend on our trading relationships; the protection of labour rights and environmental standards; the alliances on which Britain’s future security depends; and the future of the Good Friday agreement, which has brought peace and stability to the island of Ireland for generations to come but is itself now under attack from assorted Brextremists—including, astonishingly and recklessly, a former Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, who should know a great deal better. It is reckless and downright dangerous to put Brexit dogma before peace and stability on the island of Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

I would like to offer an addendum to what the noble Lord has said. In a way, it is a response to my noble friend Lord True. All those who feel as passionately as he and I clearly do about the Good Friday agreement—I think that it would be slightly unsavoury to try to compare who did what about that agreement, and I am glad to see that my noble friend agrees with that—can later support the amendment to the Bill which will write the Good Friday agreement on to the face of the Bill. I look forward to having the support of my noble friends Lord True and Lord Hamilton and others when that amendment comes before the House. Perhaps even some of the duty Privy Council Brexiteers on their Bench down there will be able to support it too.

[Lord Adonis]

Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—the supreme oracle on Article 50—a question which, again, I think will be important for our deliberations later on. An extension of the Article 50 period requires unanimity in the Council. However, if Her Majesty’s Government wished to extend Article 50 for the purposes of holding a referendum, or conceivably for a parliamentary vote, thus completing our established constitutional procedures, would the Council recognise that automatically because it recognises the domestic procedures of member states when it comes to the ratification of agreements?

[Lord Liddle]

I would like to follow that up with a relevant question to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I agree with all the excellent speeches in favour of this amendment. To me, the politics of the amendment is the question of whether, when exit day is discussed, Parliament knows what it is exiting to. That is the question. If Parliament does not know what it is exiting to, surely the logic is that the date should be extended until it does.

Along with my noble friend Lady Kennedy, I have recently been on Select Committee visits to Brussels, and she can confirm that there is much uncertainty about what information will be available to Parliament in the autumn of this year. If things go well, we might have a withdrawal agreement and a transition period, but the only thing on the future relationship that we will have is a political declaration. There is no question at all of there being a trade agreement when Parliament votes; it will be a political declaration. The European people to whom we talked said that they wanted that to be clear and precise. However, at the same time, people said to us, “We think that possibly your Government might quite like to get away with a fudge”. Why should Parliament be put in the position of taking this crucial decision when all the British Government are offering is a fudge?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister and to all noble Lords who have spoken. We will need to study the Minister’s statements with care before we decide what course to take on Report.

If I may, I will echo the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Patten, about the Good Friday agreement. I fully recognise the huge contribution made by many noble Lords on all sides of the House in negotiating and taking forward the Good Friday agreement. I was very reassured indeed to hear from the noble Lord, Lord True, who from my experience of him in this House I take to be on the right of the Conservative Party, that not all of those on the right of the Conservative Party are turning against the Good Friday agreement. I take that to be a commendable statement, and hope that he manages to persuade his colleagues, including former Ministers, who are starting to call for an end to the Good Friday agreement that that is not an appropriate course. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

Could the noble Lord address the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about the notice of withdrawal under Article 106a? As a distinguished lawyer, is he of the opinion that Her Majesty’s Government could withdraw that notice unilaterally, which could be an issue of some moment if the Minister who is open to persuasive arguments were to form the view that the right course for the Government now is simply to withdraw the notice of withdrawal and seek to stay in Euratom?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

If I could be allowed an ad majorem argument, I would recommend to noble Lords an article written on the Monckton Chambers website by the distinguished competition lawyer, George Peretz QC, which—as I understand it because I am not an expert on European law—provides the answer yes to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Liddle I live in Cumbria and these issues are central for the people of Cumbria. In the wider context of all these things we are discussing, we are not expressly taking the point that it is not just in our political lifetime that the consequences will be felt. That is the gravity of the situation. The implications could reach for hundreds or thousands of years ahead. It is impossible to overstress the significance of the issues with which we are dealing. My noble friend was absolutely right to talk about the irresponsibility of discussing them at this time of night instead of at prime time in the parliamentary timetable. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves: how on earth can we convince people that we are properly scrutinising if we are pushing things through late at night?

In his amendments, with which I am associated, my noble friend Lord Whitty is bringing out very clearly yet again the cavalier, ill-prepared position of the Government as we race towards the conclusion of the negotiations. We have had reference to it in various discussions today. How on earth can all the points that have been raised by my noble friend’s amendments be met in the time available?

There is another crucial point. As my noble friend Lord Liddle said, we will be going ahead with our next generation of nuclear energy only with expertise from abroad. Can the Minister explain to us, very specifically, how we will have the people qualified to undertake inspections of the standard of Euratom if we have not got that kind of expertise available within British society for the development of our next phase of nuclear energy? How can we be lacking in that when it comes to the task itself and then say we can somehow inspect the task? Where are these people with the right qualifications going to come from? We need specific reassurances from the Government on that point.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, there are 101 reasons why people voted for or against leaving the European Union. As the great Lord Salisbury, the last Prime Minister to serve in this House, famously said after a general election, the problem is:

“When the great oracle speaks, we are never quite certain what the great oracle said”.


However, I have not yet met a single person in any walk of life anywhere who told me that they voted to leave the European Union so that they could leave Euratom. Indeed, I imagine that there were not many people outside the confines of your Lordships’ House and the nuclear industry who were even aware that there was this organisation called Euratom, where the final court of appeal was—wait for it—the European Court of Justice.

There is always a problem about loss of face. I have sat on that Bench, too. I know that Ministers do not like having to change their mind. But I do not think the Minister will have any problem with any loss of face with anyone, including those who have been so keen to see that we leave the European Union because of the instruction from the British people, if he were to announce that the Government intend to withdraw the notice under Article 106a of the Euratom treaty and put this complete nonsense behind them. I do not mind what hour of the night he announces it. I would be perfectly happy for him to announce it at 2.30 am if that ensures that it gets less coverage.

The Minister will have noticed that there has been no support at all from behind him. The noble Earl, who is not given to criticising the Government, made a devastating speech. Although the noble Viscount said that he thought the consequences might not be as bad as people had said, I did not detect him saying there would be any positive advantages from leaving Euratom. The noble Baroness gave an equally devastating speech.

[Viscount Trenchard]

I certainly said that Euratom was not the marvellous organisation that it is made out to be. I actually think it would be very good if we can find a way to continue the current arrangements until such time as we put in place the necessary independent arrangements with IAEA accreditation. But I did not say that I thought Euratom was marvellous. I know of one senior officer in the nuclear industry who thinks we should remain in the EU but leave Euratom.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, it is not part of the human condition to think that institutions are marvellous. They can always be improved. But I did not take the noble Viscount’s clarification to be raising the banner for abolishing Euratom because there were going to be such great advantages to the public from us—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, to the House a few weeks ago—walking the “gangplank into thin air”.

However, I have a specific question for the Minister. Can he confirm to the Committee that Her Majesty’s Government can withdraw the notice of withdrawal from Euratom under Article 106a of the Euratom treaty and that they can do that unilaterally? As he knows, I am slightly persistent in these matters. I always thought that part of the argument from those who were in favour of Brexit was that we were going to restore the sovereignty of Parliament. It is not too much to expect that Parliament should be able to see and study the legal advice on which Ministers make decisions. I ask him yet again whether he will make available to the House before Report the legal advice which his department has on the legal basis on which the Government can act in withdrawing the notice of withdrawal under Article 106a of the Euratom treaty.

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, once again I thank noble Lords for an excellent debate on this important issue. I will respond to the point raised by most people who spoke—certainly the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Warner, Lord Teverson, Lord Carlile, Lord Liddle and Lord Adonis—about the reasons for leaving Euratom.

The Euratom treaty is legally distinct from the European Union treaty but it has the same membership, which includes all 28 member states, and makes use of the same institutions. There are no precedents for a non-European Union member state being a member of Euratom.

Noble Lords will recall that the decision to leave Euratom formed part of both Houses’ consideration of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which is now of course an Act. Noble Lords spoke at that time about the unique nature of the relationship between the separate treaties of the European Union and Euratom. As the European Union and Euratom are uniquely legally joined, when we formally notified our intention to leave the European Union we also commenced the process for leaving Euratom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

I am sorry that the noble Lord no longer believes in Father Christmas. I think there will be a warm relationship for the same reason that we will have a good trading relationship with the EU: because it is manifestly in the interests of both sides to do that.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would require the Government to publish a report on how we will engage with a number of EU and Euratom agencies before negotiations had concluded. We believe this would be neither helpful to Parliament nor in the national interest. I can tell him that as soon as negotiations have concluded, we are committed to holding a vote on the final deal in Parliament, and this vote will cover both the withdrawal agreement and the terms of our future relationship, including of course our relationship with various EU agencies.

I hope that I have addressed noble Lords’ concerns expressed through the amendments and that the noble Lord will therefore feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, with respect, the Minister has not answered either of the two questions I put to him. He has not answered the question whether or not the Government are of the opinion that they can withdraw the notice of withdrawal under Article 106a of the Euratom treaty, and he has not told me whether or not the Government will publish or make available to the House in some abbreviated form the legal advice they have on this matter.

[Lord Callanan]

I can tell him that we are not going to withdraw our notification.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, with respect, that is not the question I asked him. I asked him what is the Government’s legal advice on their power to withdraw, which is a very different question.

[Lord Callanan]

I have given the noble Lord the answer he is going to get on that subject.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, with respect, that is not a good enough answer. When we return to this at Report, I fear that that it will simply be grist to the mill for all those noble Lords who feel that this is a colossal error that the Government will not even tell the House what power they possess to rectify the error which they have already committed.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, even at this late hour, we have had a good go at the issue. Seeing so many noble Lords here taking such an interest, I invite them to join us tomorrow morning, when we come to debate the Nuclear Safeguards Bill. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate.

I thank the Minister for his lengthy response, but the reasons he gave for leaving Euratom are simply not credible. He said that we have two distinct treaties. As far as I can see, the only substantive reason he gave why we could not remain a member of Euratom is that all the other members are members of the EU. Presumably the Government’s view is that if we continue to be a member of Euratom with members of the EU, we would in some way be contaminated by having to sit round the table with the countries with which, according to the Q&A which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has obtained, we wish to have a very close and fruitful relationship in future. We will see.

The Government’s position is inane. They have decided that we are going to leave Euratom, but we must maintain the same standards as Euratom and keep a close and warm relationship with the agency. The problem that we face, which is very serious indeed, is the issue of confidence, as the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, said.

I am a passionate believer in the contribution that nuclear energy can make to this country. We were the first country to develop civil nuclear energy. We completely screwed it up. We failed to take advantage of that lead. We have made foolish decisions on nuclear two or three times since then. My fear is that this will come to be seen as another very foolish decision, putting at risk this industry, which we have a chance—even given that we are relying on the French and on Chinese finance to do it—to restart with new nuclear, develop a supply chain and use the incredible skills we still have in nuclear engineering. The risk is that by doing what the Government are doing, alongside some of the financial uncertainties, we will put at risk the development of new nuclear. That would be an absolute tragedy.

The Minister basically says that all will be well, everything will be done to ensure continuity and, essentially, we can maintain the same processes and standards as we have had in the past. But the problem is—and it is why the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, suggested earlier that we need to remain a member of Euratom, at least in the interim—that the ONR, in which I have a great deal of confidence, has clearly stated publicly to the Commons Bill Committee that there is no way that it can recruit and train the number of inspectors that it needs to be able to maintain Euratom standards by March 2019. Alongside that, with the amount of work that would have to be done in negotiating new treaties and understandings with a series of countries, there is simply not the capacity to do it. We are greatly at risk in terms of public confidence in nuclear safeguards, which in turn undermines public confidence in the development of new nuclear.

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. We really have to come back to this as a substantive issue on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I think it was someone other than Burke who said that on all great matters there was more to be said, but I do not think it necessarily needs to be said at 10.18 in the evening after 190 speakers and two days of debate.

These matters will be much debated over the coming months. I expect that the debate on the referendum and the case for the referendum will gather pace over that period, and I was very keen to put down a marker. We have not heard the last of these great national debates. We hope, like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, that they can be conducted in a civilised way. We are very mindful of the fact that the first thing Oliver Cromwell did when he took absolute power was to abolish the House of Lords as dangerous and useless. We intend to ensure that we are not dangerous and that we are very useful. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.

UK and EU Relations

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the most striking Brexit fact that I have learned is that trucks going to and from the European Union through Dover take two minutes to process, while trucks from outside the EU take 20. How long do the Government hope it will take for trucks to and from the present EU states to be processed from April 2019?

The difference between two and 20 minutes at Dover graphically illustrates the challenge we face with Brexit, as does the debate we had on Ireland last week, when the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, was reduced to telling us about pubs he had visited in Enniskillen because he was unable to address the two fundamental concerns of the debate. The first was how the Northern Irish border is going to become the external border of the EU and yet customs checks are going, in 18 months’ time, to be magically frictionless and electronic—presumably as frictionless and electronic as they currently are at Dover. The second was how the common travel area would continue once the UK and Ireland have different visa and immigration rules. Even diverting down the highways and byways of Enniskillen, Lord Bourne could not keep going for 20 minutes in explaining how the Government’s magical thinking will ensure that everything will be fine on 1 April 2019.

The other papers we are discussing today fit into two categories. There are those that claim that everything will be fine because nothing will change; and those that claim that everything will be fine because everything will change. The common thread in both is magical thinking. In the paper on future customs arrangements, we are encouraged to think that everything will be fine because of an entity which at present is a figment of the ministerial imagination, namely, “highly streamlined customs arrangements”. The Government say they will seek to maintain a series of facilitations that are part of the existing customs union: the waiver for the requirement to submit entry and exit summary declarations, continued membership of the common transit convention, and mutual recognition of authorised economic operators. Let us hope that this is possible. However, the revealing part of the position paper is what is not being kept: countless other measures which facilitate frictionless trade and form the existing customs union. We keep coming back to this: if we mean to protect the status quo in trade, why do we not simply maintain the status quo and remain in the customs union and the single market?

This theme recurs in the paper on the exchange and protection of personal data, where our domestic data protection rules, at the time of our exit, will be aligned with the EU data protection framework. The Government’s paper states:

“The UK’s data protection law fully implements the EU framework”,


for once the Data Protection Bill has passed, both the general data protection regulation and the data protection directive will be part of UK law. To maintain the free flow of personal data, the Government suggest that our relationship should be built upon the adequacy model. However, this requires routine validation by the European Court of Justice, so how is this going to work when we are outside that court? And how is this compatible with the Government’s aim of playing a leading global role in the development of data protection standards?

In the paper dealing with cross-border civil judicial co-operation, the Government similarly state that the,

“optimum outcome for both sides will be an agreement reflecting our close existing relationship”.

To do so, the Government are, once again, proposing to incorporate EU law wholesale into domestic law: Rome I and II. EU law is clear: if an international agreement contains provisions which are, in substance, identical to EU law, the European Court of Justice can be the only body which has jurisdiction to give definite interpretations of those provisions. Yet the one thing the Government seem determined to change at all costs is the role—any role—for that court once we have left the European Union.

All the alternatives to the European Court of Justice set out in the paper come with disadvantages highlighted by the Government themselves. A reporting or monitoring clause, or a joint committee, do not possess sufficient legal authority for they are not binding, and the arbitration model has not been tested in non-economic areas of agreement. It is important to note that the reason the Canadian deal and the EU-Singapore free trade agreement are not subject to the European Court of Justice is precisely because they do not wish to co-operate as closely as we would wish to in the construction of a common trading area.

Sharing data as closely as possible, frictionless and free trade, subscribing to the European Court of Justice in certain cases—the Government are investing huge political capital trying to construct a policy infrastructure which, even if it were successful, would never be as good as the status quo. But the price of failure is immense.