Brexit: Financial Settlement

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimates they have made of the impact on the eventual financial settlement with the European Union of those European Union assets towards which the United Kingdom made a financial contribution and which at Brexit will remain part of the European Union.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the treatment of the European Union’s assets will need to be agreed as part of the negotiations. The Government are now performing a line-by-line analysis of our potential commitments. We recognise that the UK has obligations towards the EU and the EU has obligations towards the UK.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, have we not got it exactly the wrong way round with Brussels? How on earth are we meant to decide on the financial matters before we know the more general direction of what has been proposed?

[Lord Bates]

That fits very much with what the Prime Minister said in her Florence speech on 22 September, when she said that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. We see this very much as a single negotiation. We want all of the elements to it agreed—and an important part of that will be the financial settlement.

Barnett Formula

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Thursday 13th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That is a good point. It is recognised, of course, in a lot of funding that goes through at the moment. When we look at employment in the UK, which we are pleased to say reached record levels this week, we recognise that there is a 75.2% employment rate in England, 74.1% in Scotland, 72.6% in Wales but only 68.7% in Northern Ireland. That is one reason why this is a good investment in the future of young people in Northern Ireland.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that the person who was most perplexed by the Barnett formula was the much-loved Joel himself, who came to believe that it was distorted and very unfair—for instance, to the north-east of England?

[Lord Bates]

He did. Although I am no student of history on this, it was introduced very much as a short-term formula to get the then minority Labour Government through to the 1979 election. It was not intended to be ongoing but it has been ongoing, and we have come up with a better solution, which is to have greater fiscal and political devolution.

St Helena: Airport

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I have read the remarks that the noble Lord made in the debate in, I think, June 2014, about the contract with Basil Read. It is important to say that the problem is not necessarily with the airport—the structure is good, strong and sound—but with the wind shear. It is important, particularly in areas of international development, that we ensure that British taxpayers’ money is spent wisely. That is why the Major Projects Authority and now the Infrastructure and Projects Authority have undertaken gateway reviews every year. The noble Lord may also be aware that the National Audit Office looked into this airport in June this year and published a report to say that the business case put forward by the previous Labour Government was in fact sound.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, if they can build a runway on St Helena in the wrong place, why can we not build one over here in the right place, at Heathrow Airport?

[Lord Bates]

Discuss the term “the right place”.

European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EUC Report)

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in paying tribute to the work of the wider EU committees under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and, specifically in this context, to the work of the Sub-Committee on Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Corston.

The report is very thorough and comprehensive, and the body of evidence that it drew upon in arriving at its conclusions was substantial. Anyone who has had anything to do with EU institutions will recognise the high regard that is held throughout the European Union member states for the work of this House in carrying out scrutiny of proposals. It is therefore doubly disappointing that the concerns, which were clearly expressed in the reasoned opinion, were not taken more seriously. The yellow card system could perhaps have worked a little better in that regard. However, the Government have very much welcomed the report. The Home Secretary gave evidence to it, and we have responded to the committee and to its specific recommendations. I now want to cover some of the principal points raised during the debate.

The Government have consistently made it clear that we will not participate in an EPPO, and we have assurances from the Commission and all member states that our non-participation will be respected. We continue to take an active role in negotiations to ensure that it is, and those negotiations are ongoing. I was amazed to see that the idea of an EPPO had its genesis back in 2000 or 2001, so it has been going on for some 14 years. I do not understand why, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, people are not looking at the existing structure and making what we have work better rather than seeking to develop something that is new, untried and untested. That logic escapes the Government, as it has escaped the committee.

The negotiations are contentious and extremely fluid. The focus to date has been on Chapters I to V of the proposal. Participating member states regard these as internal business matters that concern only them. In their view, it is too early to have discussions about impacts on non-participating member states. The Latvian presidency is aiming to reach a partial general approach at the June Justice and Home Affairs Council, which it hopes will firm up the basic structure of the EPPO. Yet member states still have divergent positions on many of these issues.

There are other factors in play, many of which have been mentioned today. Under negotiation are separate EU measures, such as the directive in the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law, known as the PIF directive, as well as the Eurojust regulation. The PIF directive in particular will affect how an EPPO would deal with cases on a day-to-day basis. It is therefore extremely difficult for us to know what effect an EPPO will have on existing EU co-operation mechanisms and systems. It is also still too early for the presidency and other member states to consider how an EPPO will impact on the UK. We totally accept that, as stated by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, there will be very serious implications for the UK, including Scotland, and these will need to be addressed and assessed. However, there will be a continuing need to engage closely in the negotiations, and where we deem that so-called internal issues directly affect the UK we will continue to strongly raise our concerns. We also continue to make it clear that we want to strengthen the existing—

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

The Minister says that there could be serious effects on the UK. Is one of those effects that we could have to go across to a different form of law?

[Lord Bates]

I do not think that is the particular effect that I was thinking about in this context. Clearly we have a system that works to a degree at the moment with Eurojust and OLAF as the two bodies that then refer back, in our case, to the Serious Fraud Office and the newly established National Crime Agency, which is doing very good work in tackling fraud of this nature. They are then prosecuted through a court in the UK. It is more that operational level which the Government are thinking about at this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

Yes. They are extraordinarily large and very worrying sums of money, and this Government remain absolutely committed to tackling that. We continue to support efforts by the EU anti-fraud office to tackle EU fraud, we value the role of OLAF and Eurojust, and we want to minimise disruption to current and future anti-fraud cases if an EPPO is created.

We understand that the EPPO-to-Eurojust relationship and the EPPO’s impact on OLAF will not be discussed until later in the negotiations. We also have no further information from the Commission on any plan for reform of OLAF. I appreciate that this lack of clarity makes assessment of the impact of an EPPO difficult at this stage. The Luxembourg presidency may be in a position in the latter half of this year to begin constructive discussions on EPPO interactions with other EU bodies, third countries and non-participating member states, but that is highly likely to depend on where things stand in June. As soon as there are significant developments, we will update noble Lords in the normal way.

[Lord Spicer]

We always used to be told that European criminal law would not incurse itself into our law, which is a different form of law. This is surely an example of the reverse; this is the incursion of European criminal law into our common law-based system. It is very serious from the point of view of this country, surely.

[Lord Bates]

These are important constitutional matters. I am looking across to the Benches where we have a distinguished constitutional academic and a distinguished former member of the Supreme Court, who may offer opinion, but I think I will slightly side-step the question.

Help is at hand.

Passports

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

Does my noble friend happen to know whether the communications problems between the Passport Office in Liverpool and the Passport Office in London have been sorted out yet?

[Lord Bates]

Yes, for overseas passports it is Durham and Liverpool and we have put in an extra 1,100 staff to clear the backlog and improve our performance. Of those, so far 500 have been appointed and the rest will be appointed in the next few months.

EU: Justice Opt-ins

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their plans for resisting further extensions of United Kingdom opt-ins to a European corpus juris.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, there is no proposal for a European corpus juris. Any proposals to extend EU jurisdiction in criminal law would be subject to the UK’s existing justice and home affairs opt-in, which allows us to choose whether we take part. Those decisions are taken in full consultation with Parliament.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, with the 35 opt-ins to the European criminal law now in place, and with the powers that the European court has to make law, are we not now in very real danger of losing the presumption of innocence, the jury system, case law and habeas corpus?

[Lord Bates]

We have been very clear that, as the treaty of Lisbon states, the presumption as regards criminal law should be that we operate by mutual recognition rather than harmonisation. We have taken very clear steps to say that, because we have the ability to opt in under the Lisbon treaty, we exercise that choice. That is the reason why the Prime Minister decided to opt out of 135 measures before opting back in to 35; otherwise, European Court of Justice jurisdiction would have extended to all of those. Therefore I recognise the noble Lord’s point, but the Prime Minister is arguing our case well.

EU: Migration

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Spicer

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We are not talking about restricting the free movement of labour—we are talking about restricting the free movement of benefits. I have already listed a number of countries, and Germany is a prime one, which have particular concerns on this that are shared. That includes some of the Nordic countries as well. Some of those countries also had transitional arrangements put in place when we enlarged with the A10 countries in 2004, which the previous Government did not put in place. That led to the major problem that we are now living under.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, in the context of this Question, and the previous one, how do we reform the European court?

[Lord Bates]

I was going to say that that is a question for another day. That will of course be part of any wider negotiation, but let us recognise that in the case brought by the German Government before the European court about benefit tourism—the Dano case—the court actually upheld the decision, which is something that we and the German Government welcome.