European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, what a historic day to speak on a Bill that makes the Prime Minister’s amazing achievement of a deal into law. Perhaps now we can hear less from all his detractors, who said that he was just a blusterer who would never get us out of the EU and could never pull off a trade deal because he was no good at the details. Well, not only was he the master of the details but a master of strategy too. He knew how to combat the usual EU negotiating tactics that left the hapless Theresa May with a sell-out deal thrice rejected by the Commons. As the Times said yesterday:

“The trade deal … is an extraordinary negotiating achievement by the British and EU teams … Many doubted that the prime minister could get a deal by the end of the year. He has proved those doubters wrong.”


He succeeded where Theresa May failed because, as my noble friend Lord Moore of Etchingham wrote at the weekend, “Brexit: Boris gets it”. Theresa May thought that Brexit meant keeping as close to the EU as possible, but the Prime Minister knew that Brexit meant the ability to do what we want and diverge as much as we like, and this deal offers that.

Many noble Lords today have focused on what we cannot do now in the EU, or on the fact that EU trade is not as frictionless as before. That is irrelevant. What matters are the new freedoms that we will have, and there is no one in Europe to stop us using them now. So I want all Ministers on Friday to start purging our statute book of all EU law and regulations that are not in the UK national interest. Apart from the environment and workers’ rights, let us free up our industry to be as competitive as in the United States and ensure that the City of London has the right regulations to be the finest financial centre in the world. If we get EU equivalence on passporting then great, but the rest of the world is far more important. Then start writing the laws that we need in the UK, such as better environmental protection laws, laws to restore and protect our wildlife and endangered habitats, as well as enhanced phytosanitary measures at our ports.

Of course the Prime Minister must use the diplomatic language of “friends and partners in Europe” but, as we have seen, the EU set out to punish us and it will be ruthless in gaming the system for its benefit. Our Ministers must exploit the agreement just as ruthlessly as our European competitors will. For the first time in 40 years, our Ministers have the freedom to govern again. There is no one in Europe to stop them—no EU court with sanctions—so they should do what is in our national interest. So what if we lose at arbitration? Tariffs might be a small price to pay for the freedom to write our own laws, set our own taxes and regulate our economy. Brexit was all about the freedom to do that. We now have that freedom and I look forward to seeing it in action.