Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bowness (Con)]

My Lords, the chaos of our proposed exit from the European Union continues to swirl around us as the latest chapter in a sorry tale. From Mr Cameron’s appeasement of Brexiteers, who were and still are the minority in the Conservative Party, to the current Prime Minister’s disastrous decision to invoke Article 50 without any agreement in the country or even in her own party as to what kind of Brexit we wanted, and the equally disastrous commitment to red lines that obviously would make it impossible to achieve the desired close and frictionless arrangements with our European partners—none of which does the Government, who I have supported, any credit.

At this late stage, there is an acknowledgement that the agreement is a compromise and that the scenario of enjoying all the benefits of membership while being free of the rules and obligations of membership was, and always has been, a fantasy. It is obvious that any arrangement that keeps us close to the European Union cannot be as good as that which we have as members. Before we espouse the doubtful procedure of a referendum, is this not the time for honesty and leadership from the Government and for the people to be told, “We have tried to do your will, but this is the best we can do”? With the knowledge that we now have, do we really want to leave? I put it to my noble friends on the Front Bench that the agreement does not meet the wishes of either leavers or remainers. How can they come to the House and tell us that they are, nevertheless, pressing on with the plan with so many opponents and which is unlikely to pass in the other place? How can they maintain the fiction that we will be better off outside the European Union?

We cannot blame the European Union. The 27 want to preserve the integrity of the Union, its institutions, the single market and the customs union. They knew what they wanted from the start and gave a clear mandate to Monsieur Barnier, while we were unable to agree among ourselves about what we wanted.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of this sorry story. We still do not have the fully agreed version of the political declaration which, unlike the withdrawal agreement, will not be legally binding. What we have is full of generalities and mere aspirations, to which we have become too accustomed over the past two years. Realistically, how long will it be before they put flesh on those bones? How long will it take?

Some who are calling for rejection of the agreement seem to contemplate a catastrophic no deal with equanimity, despite the consequences. If the agreement does not pass in the other place, what is the Government’s plan B? I hope that we will not be told, “We cannot disclose our negotiating position”. We have spent some two years trying to agree what we wanted, but now we have only a few months to plan against a no deal. Stockpiling medicines, chartering ferries and turning motorways into lorry parks may meet the short-term emergency but are not the answer for the long term. I therefore ask again: what are the Government going to do to ensure that there is no deal?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I will come to the relevance to EU withdrawal in a moment. I will just say that I feel that I have not lived in vain, because the noble Viscount has listened to what I said and thought about it for several days. I was perhaps speaking figuratively; in this life you can never apply the word “infinity” or “zero” in a completely literal sense. He may have been to the wrong part of Texas, or to parts where there are expensive ranches and the oil billionaires who own them like to have some longhorn on display. Those ranches exist, and I have seen one or two of them. Perhaps the noble Viscount has some friends who invited him there. That is not the heart of the beef economy. If the noble Viscount knows anything about Texas—he obviously does—he will know that Fort Worth used to be the centre of the Texas meat industry. I used to go there very frequently because I had a lot of dealings with Lockheed Martin, which is based there. I went there at different times of the year and I got to know the countryside around Fort Worth and towards Dallas quite well. That would have been cattle country 100 years ago; there would have been cattle on every horizon. I have literally never seen a single live animal in the area around Fort Worth, which was the headquarters of that industry. That is not a part of the United States where wealthy people have ranches with animals on display, which is a very different matter.

The point I was making—I will not say before I was interrupted, because I was pleased to have the intervention from the noble Viscount, particularly if he has been listening to my speeches carefully—was that there is no point in having any kind of regard to animal welfare and persuading ourselves that we are being humane and civilised in doing so if we then let in, in our imports, meat or other agricultural products which derive from inhuman practices. All we are then doing is making sure that the business and the activity moves from this country abroad with not a single iota of gain to animal welfare or happiness, and causing the destruction of the British livestock industry in the process. That makes no sense.

If we are to do this, we have to do it properly. We should make it a matter of moral commitment that when we leave the European Union—if indeed we do—we stick to the high standards which the European Union has set in this matter and certainly do not dilute them, and secondly, that we ensure that we impose those standards if we have left the European Union and are in a position to sign free trade agreements with other countries. I have explained why I think it is unlikely that we will be in that position in practice with the United States, but supposing that we were, we should in that eventuality impose exactly the same standards on anybody who wants to sell us meat or other agricultural products in future.

[Lord Bowness (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords will be pleased to know that I will be brief. I put on record my support for Amendments 30 and 98, and for the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I cannot imagine what good reasons there can be for opposing this amendment. I appreciate that a number of directives and regulations will be incorporated into our law, but not this important treaty provision. As other noble Lords have already said, a hallmark of a civilised country is how one treats one’s animals, and recognition of animal sentience is key to that.