EU Withdrawal

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, it is fascinating to follow such a fluent speaker. I do not think that I am qualified to challenge what he told your Lordships.

As a convinced supporter of leaving the European Union, I recognise that I am in a tiny minority in your Lordships’ House. I invite noble Lords to pause for thought that this House, for the first time since 1910, has parted company with the people. There was a trust, I believe, between the people and the Peers that we would support them against a high-handed other House. I am not sure that that is entirely significant, but what I would say about people who are very gloomy about the churn and bad temper that the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, touched on is that we might look back and say that this was an extraordinary moment of change in British history and British politics where there was a realignment of people, and the bad temper and hot debate was all part of that and was perhaps more constructive than we see it now on a day-to-day basis.

I was interested, as perhaps other noble Lords were, to read an article in last week’s newspapers drawing our attention to the treaty of Utrecht of 1713. The author—of the article, not of the treaty—Mr Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, made the point that the famous treaty still holds force today because, unlike agreements such as NAFTA, NATO or the World Trade Organization, it contains no escape clause. The withdrawal agreement has no escape clause either. By signing it, we would be bound by its terms literally for ever. No country that I can think of with any significant stature in modern times has ever committed an act of such suicidal folly and self-harm as throwing away indefinitely fundamental sovereign powers.

I accept the advice that the term “best endeavours” may indeed have some force in international law, and, for all I know, “protocol” or some other comfortable form of words might, in diplomatic terms, add value to negotiations, but this is simply not good enough. We have been here before. I remind noble Lords how Mr Tony Blair affected to meet concerns about the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which became legally binding under the Lisbon treaty. He told the other place that, through securing Protocol 30:

“It is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/6/07; col. 37.]


The rest is history. As a consequence of that contemptible episode, the ECJ acquired jurisdiction over swathes of our commercial, social and criminal law that was not intended by Parliament.

Of course, I am not remotely exercised by President Tusk’s preferred choice about where I spend eternity. What I cannot ignore is the EU’s increasingly aggressive attitude to this country in general and its relentless attacks on the City of London in particular. I remind noble Lords, as I have before, that we are morally and legally entitled to leave the European Union.

A gulf is fast developing between the very well-paid and arrogant officials of the EU and the citizens and institutions of individual states. I meet men and women from continental Europe who express acute embarrassment and shame at what is being done and said in their name. A group of top German economists have told the EU to tear up the Irish backstop and ditch its ideological demands in Brexit talks, calling instead for a flexible Europe of concentric circles that preserves friendly ties with the United Kingdom. Brussels must, they said, abandon its indivisibility dogma on the EU’s four freedoms to come up with a creative formula or risk a disastrous showdown with London that could all too easily spin out of control. What welcome and sensible mood music that is, compared with the vile-mannered stuff issuing from the mouths of some Eurocrats. The vexatious backstop is, for me, only one of the wholly unacceptable aspects of the withdrawal agreement. If there is any merit in the political declaration, I think it is that it has little or no legal force. By my reading, it gives away control over the environment, labour law, competition and state aid. Through non-regression clauses, none of this body of law would be capable of repeal. There is no mutual recognition for future trade in services. Accordingly, under the scope of the withdrawal agreement the most valuable and critical part of the economy will have been sacrificed.

During these debates I have asked the opposition parties from time to time what they like about the EU. I do not think there is much interest in the Liberal Democrat view, as it becomes daily clearer that, as a party, they have more appetite for virtue signalling than for governing. Their attitude to EU membership at the last election decimated their numbers, but it has not led them to moderate their actions here in your Lordships’ House to be more in line with their representatives in the House of Commons, a practice followed, I suggest, by both Labour and Conservatives in the past. Labour politicians, as distinct from Labour voters, have an obvious taste for EU membership, as it shields them from any responsibility for their redistributive policies. Their appetite for helping themselves incontinently to money they have not earned is something they can and do blame on the remote people of Brussels.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

The noble Lord refers to things we have not earned. Since he owns 17,000 acres, can he explain how come that is his main critique of the other party in this House?

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

I wish I understood the question. Will the noble Lord repeat it?

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

We know that part of the animus about the Labour Party on the Benches opposite is their attitude to the distribution of wealth. To be more specific, I am simply asking the noble Lord whether, as an Etonian, he believes there is an issue there? Does he have some understanding of why many people in this country would take a different view?

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

How nice to hear from an old class warrior. Yes, I did go to Eton and, yes, I do have land, or my family does—I have declared an interest; it is all in the register—and I should have thought my party were really rather enthusiastic redistributors ourselves. My point is not that we are redistributing other people’s money incontinently but that we are happy to face the voter at election time, but I enjoyed the intervention.

Given that we never hear from Labour politicians so much as a syllable of criticism directed at the EU and its works, I would love to know how ready they are to sign up to the EU’s federal ambitions, how comfortable they are with the well-chronicled defects of its institutions, the vast cost of corruption, the crony capitalism, the protectionist policies that harm developing countries, the democratic deficit and the truly inhuman scale of youth unemployment. Above all, they speculate, wrongly, that Brexit will cause poverty, yet they seem determined to ignore the impact of the common external tariff at between 18% and 20%—I have asked the noble Baroness on the Front Bench several times—that is levied on clothes, footwear and food. So much for Labour’s pretension to care for the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

I will say more generally that I cannot remember a time when the political class was so out of touch with the people they represent—that is a more general point and I do not focus it just on the party opposite. I canvassed opinion quite widely in Cumbria over the weekend, consulting people who voted leave and those who voted remain but have now become leavers. The reason for the change is quite often rather complex. However, overwhelmingly it has been that this has all gone on for far too long and that, to quote my right honourable friend the Prime Minister,

“no deal is better than a bad deal”.

I happen to believe unashamedly, as somebody in business, that a clean break on WTO terms is better even than a second-rate deal. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and all those following her, even some on my own side, have talked about chaos and crashing out. Some 130 countries deal on WTO terms without much distress. Maybe they have been listening to the CBI, an organisation at the heart of crony capitalism that takes money from the European Union.

It is time to take stock. Those on my side of the argument put forward suggestions and ideas almost daily. For example, I have qualified enthusiasm for what has become known as the Malthouse compromise. I wholeheartedly applaud Kit Malthouse for bringing together people of opposing views in a constructive search for solutions.

My understanding remains that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister undertook to achieve certain objectives consistent with the result of the referendum. They were to take back control of our laws, end European Court of Justice jurisdiction in the United Kingdom, end vast sums of money going to the EU, end free movement, allow the UK to leave the single market and the customs union, guarantee control of our agriculture and fisheries policy, allow new, independent trade deals for goods and services, guarantee existing defence and security arrangements with interested allies and keep the parts of our precious country united. In these very difficult circumstances, a reasonable person might allow for some slippage on some of these undertakings but, as I understand it, not a single one of these undertakings has been honoured in full by the withdrawal agreement. I do not know which failure shocks me most; I single out just one. Surely every single loyal British subject is entitled to assurances following the warnings by a former field marshal of the British Army and heads of our Security Service that the withdrawal agreement imperils our security. Can it really be the case that defence of the realm—that principal responsibility of all democratically elected Governments—can be traded away? What is going on?

I agree with the notion that officials advise and Ministers decide, and it would therefore be wrong to point a finger at the Civil Service. To that extent, and only to that extent, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wilson. Might it be, I ask myself, that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s heroic resilience under such unprecedented pressure is the result of the field of advice being too narrow rather than too broad? Might it be the case that she consults with colleagues too little rather than too much? Whatever the case, it seems that confusion reigns. Worse, it feels that as the process winds wearily on, we are being deceived. I know for a fact that I am far from alone in this view. If trust continues to be eroded, and if people are denied the Brexit they voted for, I fear for my party, my country, the new generation and those that follow. Above all, I fear for representative democracy and the rule of law, which our forebears won at such great cost.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, following the longest speech in the debate, I am challenged to make sure that I do not go on quite as long as that.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, whom I regard as a friend—we were colleagues at one stage, on the same side in another place—that he is not being entirely realistic. I share many of his sadnesses and regrets, but it is not realistic to expect a second referendum. To go on about that is not doing Parliament or the people any great service. I do not like the whole concept of a referendum; it is inimical to parliamentary representative democracy. However, we had a referendum and we have to live with it. We heard a wise speech from the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, in which he remarked that nobody will get what he wants as a result of this. He has left the Chamber—but it was still a very wise speech, and doubtless he will come back. He made another comment with which I disagreed: he said that we had become becalmed. In fact we have been caught in a whirlpool that is going round and round and, within the next six weeks, we will come to that artificial date, 29 March.

What do we do over the next six weeks? I do not particularly like the deal that the Prime Minister struck, but it is realistic. It would be sensible to go along with it rather than to plunge ourselves into further chaos, and certainly rather than to have a no-deal conclusion—that would indeed be a disaster. Those who know about these things have warned us repeatedly in recent days and weeks how much of a disaster and a jump into the unknown it would be. I say to my noble friend Lord Cavendish, for whom I have an affectionate regard, that at the end of all this the very rich will not suffer, whatever happens. I am concerned about the workers in Sunderland who—misguidedly, I think—voted by a large majority to leave. I am concerned for the future of people in the West Midlands, and those in Lincolnshire who voted in great numbers to leave, thereby putting the horticultural and agricultural industries in some jeopardy. However, the fact is, as is often said, that we are where we are and we have to go forward.

We cannot retain all the benefits of membership if we are leaving. One cannot leave a club and keep all the benefits. That is as plain as the proverbial pikestaff. This is a great country and I hope that its greatness has not come to an end. We are, I hope, facing a future that is not entirely dire, but I do not mind saying to your Lordships that my sons and grandchildren are deeply despondent about what has happened, and we have to have regard for them. As we have said in this Chamber time and time again over the past two years, although the majority was clear, it was small. So it is entirely wrong to try to behave on a winner-takes-all basis; there has to be compromise. I say to my noble friend Lord Cavendish and those who think as he thinks, quoting the famous words of Cromwell from a different age, conceive it possible that you might be mistaken.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

It goes two ways.

[Lord Cormack]

Of course it does. We all have to do that, and therefore we have to approach this in a spirit of not only compromise but some humility. The ultra-Brexiteers in my party do not represent the Conservative voters in the country, although they most certainly represent and reflect members of Conservative associations. However, they do not represent those who normally vote Conservative and I urge them to have some regard for people’s concerns and try to have—as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, suggested —as amicable an outcome as we can, retaining our friendships and alliances. I implore the adherents or members of the ERG: you are not representing true Conservative opinion in the country but have hijacked the show to a large degree.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

I go to ERG meetings, which my noble friend does not. It is a very broad church; he might be surprised by that.

[Lord Cormack]

I suppose that it is the same sort of broad church as one that is attended only by, say, high Anglicans or low Methodists. There is no room for those who take a different view towards the European Union. The ERG’s members are all very anti the EU and determined to get us out without the sort of connections that our country is going to need.

That illustrates the divide in the party, and what we have to try to do over the next few weeks is bring people together. I do not agree with everything that the Prime Minister has said or done—of course I do not. However, we must give some support to her in the deal that she has reached and try to get it endorsed in Parliament. If it is not, I really fear for the future of our country. As far as your Lordships’ House is concerned, we of course have to acknowledge the political supremacy of the other place. My whole political philosophy is based on that; the elected House is where the power should and does lie, and that is right. We have to go along with whatever the Commons decides at the end of the day, even if decides on another referendum. I hope that it will not, and that MPs will rally round on 27 February or whenever and that there will be a majority for a deal like the Prime Minister’s, because I truly fear for the future if we fall or are pushed off the cliff edge.

I want amicable relations with our friends and allies and a Europe that can work together, including those who are members of the European Union and those who are not. We have to recognise the militant populism surging in so many European countries. Whoever thought that one European neighbour would withdraw its ambassador from another because the Deputy Prime Minister of that country was inciting rebellious forces within the other country? We are living in dangerous times and need to inject some peace and calm into this situation.

I mentioned a while ago that the Prime Minister should appeal across the House to the Leader of the Opposition and give all Members of the other place a free vote when it comes to the meaningful vote. That is essential. It happened when we went into what was then the European Community and it should happen before we come out of the European Union. We should press for that. As for tonight, I do not for the life of me see what point or purpose there would be in voting against the Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. There is not a word in it with which any of us, I hope, would disagree if we want a smooth outcome. So I implore my friends on the Front Bench not to vote. Last time, there was a similar Motion and an overwhelming defeat for the Government, which was wholly unnecessary because we were all singing from the same hymn sheet. Let us try to bring today’s proceedings to a close without dividing this House and in so doing send a message to the other place.

I rest my case but very much hope that by the end of March we will have reached some sensible conclusion, part of which should be an extension of the leaving date to ensure that all the necessary legislation passes through Parliament in a tidy and seemly manner.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. As always, I listened with intense interest to his contribution. I say today with great sadness but with absolute conviction that the agreement so painstakingly negotiated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stems from dreadfully flawed advice and is nothing short of catastrophic. I am on record in your Lordships’ House as recognising the pain felt by many of your Lordships following the referendum result and, in consequence, I always hoped that a compromise that reflected the narrow win by leave was achievable, but today we are asked to take note of an agreement that, to my mind, is worse by magnitudes than anything I could have imagined.

Whatever redeeming features may be embedded in this agreement, and I accept that there are some, I touch today on two aspects that, for me, are quite impossible to accept. Under this deal, we would need to match all and any trade concessions offered by the EU to third countries. However, the obligation of those third countries to reciprocate would apply only to the EU 27 and not to Britain. Put another way, our home market would be at the disposal of EU trade negotiators to use exclusively for the benefit of the remaining EU 27. I wonder how a country such as ours could even contemplate such political and economic suicide.

No one, I think, quarrels with the notion that the first duty of the state is the defence of its citizens. Here I rely on the authority of others in concluding that the withdrawal agreement degrades, perhaps fatally, our ability to discharge that duty, through undermining our place at the heart of NATO and the functioning of the vital Five Eyes alliance. This alarming threat has led Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, to join forces with the former Chief of the Defence Staff, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, to raise this issue in the starkest terms.

It is surely beyond argument that the UK is legally and morally entitled to withdraw from a European project that keeps evolving in a direction in which British voters do not wish to go. I think the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, touched on this. That direction is constantly rehearsed by the functionaries of the EU, who make no secret of their federalist ambitions. The same applies to some, but not all, of the political leaders. Remain-minded people here are entirely silent on the implications of this country becoming part of a federal EU. Either they are too craven to admit to wanting such an outcome or they cherish the hope that somehow it will not happen. I find neither position deserves respect. The late Richard Crossman said:

“The amount of enthusiasm for federal union in any country is a measure of its defeatism and of its feeling of inability to measure up to its own problems”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/6/1950; col. 2039.]


I agree.

Many noble Lords are given to adorning all discussion on a clean break from the EU on WTO terms with the words “unthinkable”, “crashing out”, “disastrous”, “chaos” and more of the same. I wonder whether they paused over the Christmas break to read a wide assortment of contributions from highly capable entrepreneurs and industrialists who take a different and opposite view. Only last week, my remaining noble friend Lord Finkelstein was politely corrected by the hugely distinguished Mr Shanker Singham and others who really understand international trade. Outstandingly successful British manufacturers such as Sir James Dyson or my noble friend Lord Bamford confirm how little we have to fear from a clean break. I respectfully suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake—I do not know if he is in his place—is wrong to imply that only people of means are relaxed about a clean break. I could point to scores of small entrepreneurs who share my view.

I predict, I hope wrongly, that when the noble Baronesses, Lady Ludford and Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, wind up—neither of them, I think, would claim to have even passing personal experience of trade or national security—they will ignore or repudiate the advice of those whose long and distinguished careers confer on them unparalleled authority.

For most of my adult life, I have chaired a diverse SME family business and my personal interests are detailed in the register. I have traded in some 50 countries in the world. Although my preference would be for a deal such as Canada-plus-plus-plus, I harbour no fears about the future under WTO terms—139 other countries manage it without extravagant distress. Do I pretend to know what is in store for my family business outside the EU? Of course I do not; no one does. Do I think everything will be better? Possibly not, but of this I am perfectly certain: it will get worse if we stay shackled to a sclerotic and moribund EU.

The point is that we are up for it and ready to seize the opportunities the future brings. The referendum result was a rebellion against a cast of unaccountable EU officials, whom power has corrupted and who visit pain, misery and financial hardship on the most vulnerable throughout the EU. What is there to like about this construct, over which there already hangs a sense of decay and morbidity? With or without a deal, this ghastly saga must end now so that we can begin once again to build bridges, revive old friendships and look once more to the world outside, where real growth resides.

Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, I follow a powerful and analytical speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

I fear that this White Paper cannot fly. In fact, I wonder if it is not already a casualty of gravity. My principal and reluctant reason for opposing the White Paper is that the more I read it the plainer it becomes to me that its adoption would render this country worse off than we are now. And that is our opening shot. No one seriously believes that the Barnier team are just going to leave it there. Attrition is the means by which these people work.

I home in on two issues. The first is the common rulebook. Its commonality is limited to Britain’s participation in a rule book that is written by the EU and run by the EU. Here I echo the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, when he quoted Mr Martin Howe QC. The UK would have to obey and apply in all respects the laws promulgated by the EU without having a vote on the content of those laws. Further, the UK would be obliged to interpret those rules in accordance with the rulings of the ECJ under a system that would, directly or indirectly, bind UK courts to follow ECJ rulings. I think that on that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, would agree.

Secondly, will we be able to alter current laws? I find nothing in the White Paper to suggest that the UK would be in a position to change any of the existing body of EU laws, however damaging they may be or become in the future. I have in mind restrictive EU laws that block the development or deployment of new technology, such as in the biotech area, where the UK enjoys global pre-eminence. This is a seriously important point. Here in Britain we look to innovation as the single most important pathway to growth. The EU appears to turn its back on it.

As significantly, the system is skewed in favour of existing technologies and against innovators. Once we leave the EU and no longer have a vote on the framing of these types of rules, the EU will have a positive incentive to frame the rules in order to disadvantage UK producers. The recent notorious Dyson case illustrates how the EU regulatory system for goods can already be skewed in favour of continental interests against British manufacturers.

In her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, rehearsed project fear again. Unlike her, I have been in business—as listed in the register of interests—for 50 years, operating in scores of different markets. I have never woken up to certainty in my life—I have never looked for certainty—and I am utterly comfortable with operating under WTO rules, as are an enormous number of people to whom I speak and colleagues in business. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, that it is a vanity of politicians that they run trade. In fact it is the people who produce commodities that can be bought and willing buyers who drive trade, not trade deals. In all of the markets in which I have operated, I never once over 50 years asked, “Do I have a trade deal with you?”

So what is the background to this mess? My inquiry stems from a little-mentioned fact that, for the first time I can remember in my life, the laws and the people have diverged. People used to look to the laws to protect them from an overbearing Executive and overbearing House of Commons—no more, and probably never again.

It is probably a good rule that politicians do not criticise civil servants. However, such has been the extraordinary and partisan involvement on the part of civil servants throughout the Brexit process that it is hard to ignore their role, especially when we reflect on the background to this White Paper. Let me say straightaway that our generally brilliant Civil Service has had to endure great provocation in recent years and better-qualified people than me need to address the many problems that beset the service and find enduring solutions to them. However, there can be no denying that Britain has a new ruling class—new to the extent that the power and influence of the official class has risen steadily as the power and influence of the political class has declined. I venture to suggest that this decline corresponds to the diminishing role of the modern Member of Parliament, a consequence of membership of the European Union. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Perhaps the Bench of superannuated mandarins in your Lordships’ House and the role that they have played in the Brexit process have attracted too little attention. Talk of “coming to heel” is not so far removed from “We are the masters now”. Plainly, former civil servants who come to this House are quite rightly liberated from the constraints of impartiality. They might even be forgiven for being a little demob happy. Some might question, however, whether it is right or indeed dignified for these very clever men to huddle in what my noble friend Lord Ridley has described as an “incantation” of mandarins—a collective term normally applied to warlocks—and, as they are driven by groupthink, they chant and parrot all the most absurd and disingenuous remainer slogans.

It is rather chilling to reflect that a group of people possessed of such famously bulging brains should lend their support to a measure as crassly ill-crafted and unsuitable for English law as the ECHR, a document which attracted, when it first appeared, almost universal derision and which was repudiated by senior members of both main political parties. In that case, it was instructive that the noble and learned Lords, with actual experience of the legal process, did not support that amendment.

We see a class composed of clever, well-paid, unelected, London-centric men and women who have gathered to themselves unprecedented levels of unaccountable power. They show conspicuous solidarity with their opposite numbers in Brussels and conspicuous contempt for the voting public. I suppose that one should be grateful that Mr Olly Robbins remembered to show the White Paper to the Prime Minister. This new power is being harnessed against the rest of us—the majority, as it happens—who ask for little more than to keep our well-tried institutions and preserve the freedoms that we used to enjoy through the ancient and always evolving system of representative democracy.

I conclude with a vivid memory. On Second Reading of the withdrawal Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, expressed strong opposition to Britain leaving the EU, on which he has been consistent. He said that the wording of Clause 1 of the Bill,

“strikes a dagger to my soul”.—[Official Report, 30/1/18; col. 1411.]

It was a much-quoted phrase. Well, of course, out of respect and affection we all felt keenly for him in his anguish. However, we had barely regained control of our emotions when he went on to describe how mistaken the EU was in its rush towards a federal union, which, in the noble Lord’s own words, “may lead to disaster”. It was to avert just that disaster that thousands of people like me campaigned for Brexit and 17.4 million people agreed with us. The prescience of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is already being borne out with yet more eurozone crises looming and yet more federalist solutions being proposed.

People understand the great issues of the day more than the likes of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, give them credit for. While I cannot say that all the election results of my adult life have always given me pleasure, I believe that in every case the people merited the trust that the universal franchise conferred on them. Unlike many, I was privileged to know both my father and grandfather. Both returned from the horrifying conflicts of the 20th century and both bore the scars of those conflicts for the years that remained to them. They and those like them suffered and died so that we might enjoy the freedoms that have been defended by our forebears for probably 1,000 years. It is this priceless legacy that more than 17 million of my fellow countrymen voted to preserve. I can find nothing in this White Paper that will offer these people the hope and reassurance that they are entitled to expect.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I observe that we are now at the halfway point and, if my calculations are correct, it has taken us just under five hours to reach it. More noble Lords wish to speak and we want to hear their contributions. Six minutes can let a lot of very good things be said.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I believe the House now wishes to hear from the Front Bench.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, it may surprise them, but I begin by congratulating and thanking the Government Front Bench. I congratulate the ministerial team on passing the first test of successful politicians: they have survived, and that is a signal achievement. I also thank them for at no point suggesting that your Lordships’ House should not pass amendments. During previous Administrations, it has been common, even at this stage, for Ministers on the Front Bench to stand up, on amendment after amendment, saying, “This should not be passed because the Bill has been through the Commons and the House of Lords should simply do what the Commons has instructed”. It must have been extremely tempting for the Government Front Bench to say that repeatedly as the Bill has gone through. It reflects well on the House that Ministers have not done so, and I thank them for that.

I should like also to thank my team, both in the Chamber and our staff supporting us, on what has been a tiring process—in particular, Elizabeth Plummer and Sophie Lyddon, who worked exceptionally hard.

As the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House, it faces an unclear future. We do not, for example, even know when it is going to be taken in the Commons. Certainly, it is not going to be taken until June. This begins to set the seal on what will be a huge challenge for the rest of the year, because the Bill presages 1,000 statutory instruments, many of which need, I assume, to be in place before the Government’s preferred exit day in March next year. The Government are also committed to bringing forward a whole range of other Brexit-related Bills before that deadline. They even have to bring forward a Bill to disapply the vast bulk of this Bill during the transition period. We are in for a very difficult period. I am not going to embarrass the Minister by asking how he hopes to get through this legislative logjam, because I know he does not know and in any event that is for another day. Today, all we can do is send the Bill to the other place and wait for the explosions.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I think the view of the House is that we should conclude.

On Second Reading, I referred to a mixture of “Hope, Judge and Pannick” as the tasks that faced us. I think my words were prescient, and it is delightful to see all three here who have been through the long nights with us. At the end of Second Reading, I asked the Minister,

“to defend the right—no, the duty—of this House to advise him and the Commons on the detail of the Bill”.—[Official Report, 31/1/18; col. 1692.]

Never was that defence more needed than when two of our national papers, as we have heard, can have thought to threaten to chop off our heads for carrying out our statutory, lawful duty to send back to the Commons those parts of the Bill we find deficient to meet the purpose of the proposed Act. We have even heard prominent Brexiteers in the Commons accuse the Lords of being “drunk with their own prejudices” or “traitors in ermine”. Even today the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, talked of “dark days” and of us doing “irreparable damage”. I do not think we have been ordering the massacre of the firstborn. Indeed, as we heard from the Minister, we have had 800 amendments, 200 of which went back to the Commons, only 15 of which were because the Government were defeated in the voting Lobbies. This is hardly a constitutional crisis or anything like it.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I add very warm thanks to the Bill team, though I have to tell them that their work is not yet quite done. I also thank the team of Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Duncan, is not in his place, but his poor back led to some interesting dancing at the Dispatch Box. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, whose legal exchanges with my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith left me not understanding the language they were speaking at times, let alone the content. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, put up a sterling defence of what we thought of as the indefensible, with charm, humour and great tolerance.

And what can I say about the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, other than that I share with him the pain at losing a vote, even if it happened to me only once? The noble Lord, Lord Newby, and I did wonder whether we should thank him for making our task easier, but that would be unfair. He has taught us a lesson in sheer commitment to the Brexit cause, whatever is thrown at him, though I do wonder whether he shares the views of his friend, Daniel Hannan, that “leaving the EU is not quite going to plan”. I think not. His confidence that it is great for the north-east remains, and for that consistency and persistence—some would say in the face of all evidence—we can only admire him and wish him some well-deserved rest after the rigours of the Bill.

My own personal thanks are to my colleagues. My noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith of course took on all the tricky amendments—except one. My noble friend Lord Griffiths handled devolution; my noble friends Lord Murphy, Lord Collins and Lord Hunt and my noble friends Lady Jones, Lady Wheeler, Lady Thornton and Lady Sherlock all merit high mentions in dispatches. My noble friend Lord McAvoy marshalled the troops and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe marshalled our preparations. My noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon opened the Second Reading, in the presence of Mrs May, setting out the shortcomings of the Bill and our objectives for change. Of course, I thank our staff back-up team, who do all the hard work—in case noble Lords thought it was down to me—especially Dan Stevens, whose amendment-writing, briefing and negotiating skills have caused the Government such grief.

We send this much-amended Bill back to the Commons, though with little expectation that they will deal speedily with it, as the Government have first to resolve deep divisions within their own Cabinet, particularly over the very first amendment passed by your Lordships’ House, on the customs union. So while we take a breather, we hope they will see some sense and accept our changes as improvements to the previously flawed Bill. It is only the first Bill. We still have Bills on trade, customs, agriculture, fishing, immigration and withdrawal and implementation, so we will see noble Lords back here on many occasions. For the moment, I shall say just one thing: this is not about whether we leave the European Union but about how we leave. That we must do properly, in the national interest, and that is what I believe this House has set out to do.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, could he tell us what the question would be in his referendum? Would it be in essence his speech?

[Lord Newby]

I suggest that the noble Lord reads the amendment.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd April 2018 Lords Chamber

The Government assure us that the rights set out in the charter are either already protected by our law or, if any go missing, can be so protected if Parliament chooses to legislate for that. Indeed, they can be added to by Parliament. We will do better to proceed on that basis. The right to dignity proclaimed in Article 1 of the charter—if such a right can in reality be protected by law—can therefore be safe in our hands. As we cease to be a member of the European Union, we should not commit the parliamentary indignity of appropriating the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to the law and constitution of the United Kingdom. I say to noble Lords who were happy with the tide of EU law coming in that that tide has now turned and it is futile to resist it.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, if I may, I will give another non-legal observation. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, whose speech I agree with—and how very eloquent it was.

It is a regret of mine to live in an age which is so much obsessed with human rights and so little concerned with human responsibilities. Saving their presence, I rather think that the spiritual Bench below me might reflect on how little it has succeeded in teaching the parable of the good Samaritan and similar stories. Collectively, those stories almost do away on their own with the provisions of the absurd CFR. My point is that the good Samaritan behaved as he did of his own volition, not because he was told to by a bunch of lawyers and professional politicians. We tend to look at social problems through the wrong end of the telescope: we need a change of culture, not another set of often duplicated rights.

Specifically, as has been mentioned, the charter is EU-specific and EU-centric. It would therefore need extensive retailoring to fit in with our own laws. To a layman, a major defect—as again has been mentioned—of placing CFR into UK law is that it would empower courts to disapply Acts of Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, tried to deal with this, but he did not deal with it accurately; I will, however, leave that to other lawyers. To disapply a law is different from us changing a law when it comes on to our statute book in due process. It strikes me as inevitable that such a move would conflict with the Human Rights Act, the ECHR, our own common law or all three.

The charter has come in for criticism over the years from Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, the noble Lord, Lord Hain—who is, sensibly, not in his place—and, most notably, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. It was also eloquently attacked by my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke. Why was there a change of heart? It was never explained before, and I look forward to hearing why there is a change of heart now.

Some of the provisions are so woolly and aspirational as to render them unsuitable and even dangerous if incorporated into our own law. They include the right to respect for physical and mental integrity and the right to pursue an occupation and a guarantee of a high level of environmental protection. Those are not the sort of things that ought to appear in this sort of document. Such vagueness is surely an invitation to what has been described as judicial adventurism in the courts.

I have no intention, of course, of putting in jeopardy the livelihood of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, although I strongly disagree with him that his amendment adds certainty. The charter mounts to virtue signalling on an industrial scale. Governments need to govern, not to rehearse constantly how virtuous they are. It is time that we destroyed this amendment and voted it down.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and would like to return to three points that I raised in Committee that Ministers have not adequately addressed.

First, I have asked four times how the fundamental requirement in the Good Friday agreement for an equivalent level of human rights protection in Northern Ireland and the Republic will be maintained if citizens of Northern Ireland can no longer look to the charter. The only substantive response that I have received so far was the irrelevant and erroneous point that, because the Good Friday agreement preceded the charter, it will not be affected by it. That is entirely to miss the point, because as I and other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, have said time and again the point is about equivalence. For the fifth time now, how will the foundational Good Friday agreement principle of equivalence of human rights protection be maintained in the absence of the charter? I can only conclude that I still have not received a convincing answer because there is no convincing answer.

Secondly, I asked the Minister in Committee whether he rejected the analysis of the Joint Committee on Human Rights of the Government’s right by right analysis, which identified a number of rights that will be lost in the absence of the charter. I draw attention in particular to children’s rights, to which we will be returning later at Report. It is a particularly important matter. The JCHR analysis said:

“Article 24 of the charter sets out the rights of the child. The Government states that the source of this right is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is not incorporated into domestic law and therefore does not confer enforceable rights upon individuals”.


The Minister’s response was:

“We have considered that analysis, and that is why I indicated that we were still looking at this. As I said, if rights are identified which are not in fact going to be incorporated into our domestic law in the absence of the charter, we will look very carefully at ensuring that those are not lost”.—[Official Report, 26/2/18; col. 570.]


The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has already referred to the fact that certain rights will be lost. What has happened to this careful look again? I have not seen the government amendment which will ensure that we keep these rights. Not only the Joint Committee on Human Rights but the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the Bingham Centre and many others have identified a series of rights that will be lost. Does the Minister reject the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ analysis, the legal opinion given to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and everything that the highly respected Bingham Centre has said on this? What are the Government going to do about the rights that we will no longer have if we lose the charter?

Thirdly, in response to a claim by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that the Government have made clear that they have no intention of repealing the Human Rights Act, I quoted the last Conservative manifesto—bedtime reading for me, of course—which stated:

“we will consider our human rights legal framework when the process of leaving the EU concludes”.

I asked the Minister for an assurance about the Conservative Party’s long-term commitment to the Human Rights Act, but answer came there none. If the Government are planning to consider the human rights legal framework post Brexit, surely that is the time to look at the charter so that Parliament—I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Howarth, although he is perhaps not quite such a friend at this moment—can look at the whole human rights landscape holistically. That is when we should consider what happens to the future of the charter.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

If we stopped the negotiations we would not have left the EU, so we would be in in the EU then as we are now.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

I am not short of sight, but I think I saw the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, leaving before this amendment was debated. If so, it is small wonder, because I have six quotations from him of which one would suffice. He said:

“I think you must accept the sovereign judgment of the British people. If we have to be out then let’s make the best of it”.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I really think that in this point in the debate it is best if people do not revert back to what people said in 2016 or I shall start talking about what people wrote on the side of a bus. It would be completely unproductive.

With the amendment in my name, we are also debating referendum amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Foulkes. There are slight differences in emphasis between them, but on one thing we are all agreed: Brexit is the most important decision that this country will face for decades. Every person in the country will be profoundly affected by it and so every person should have their say on whether it is a future that they wish to embrace.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

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

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to address Amendments 152, 197 and 206, on the matter of the customs union. Before I do so, perhaps I might be permitted to say a word of admiration about and pay tribute to the people outside this building—many of them waving British as well as EU flags—who have been there for several months, hoping to impress on us the importance of the case. We in this House—from the comfort of these Benches—should not be tempted in any way to neglect or slight efforts made by our citizens to bring their concerns to our attention. I have been most impressed by them. I have often spoken with them; one young lady, on a very modest salary, told me that she paid quite a lot of money on a fare from Manchester and was sleeping on a friend’s floor in order to stand for 12 hours outside this House. Her account was very typical. I counted more than 140 people one evening, when the temperature was getting very close to zero. I believe that sort of dedication and selfless concern for the future of the country is most impressive.

I am well aware that many of my colleagues in the House have come to this debate in the belief that they are carrying out an instruction from a referendum. I reject entirely that concept, which clearly contradicts the idea of a sovereign Parliament. By definition, if a body is sovereign, it cannot receive instructions from anyone. That is a matter of definition; it is what philosophers call an analytic truth. Even more absurd would be the idea that we could take instruction from a referendum in a previous Parliament. Heaven knows what Parliament would be subject to after a certain period in which we adopted that proposal. One can easily see to what ridiculous results that would lead. It would also make a nonsense of the fundamental principle of our constitution that no Parliament can commit its successor, and if you abandon the concept of parliamentary sovereignty and the belief that goes with it that no Parliament can commit its successor and therefore every Parliament after a general election can open a new page, there will be very little left of our constitution that people who take that line will still believe in.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

Would it not be true to say that the sovereign Parliament gave the people the decision through the referendum?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, as I have explained, I do not accept that we are in any way under instruction from anybody. I have heard the word “instruction” and it deeply shocks me. As a matter of fact, I heard it from the then Leader of the House in the days following the referendum. For the reasons that I have already set out and I do not need to repeat, that is a pernicious doctrine that is extremely dangerous in its constitutional ramifications and should be rejected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

I declare my interest as in the register: I am a businessman. I would love to lock horns with the likes of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria—he is not in his place—and other speakers who appear to have been overinfluenced by the briefings of the EU-funded CBI and similar organisations. Noble Lords laugh, but they do not deny it.

I am not a sponsor of one of the amendments. Having listened to the Second Reading debate, I am saddened by this group of amendments. I felt—and said so at the time—that the sense of the House was that the Bill would be improved, and examined with a view to improving it, whereas it seems that nearly all these amendments seek to obstruct, delay or simply wreck the Bill. I am afraid I cannot accept the assurance of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who said otherwise. I look at the Marshalled List and all these amendments seem to be wrecking ones.

I know that any suggestion of threatening our future causes resentment in your Lordships’ House, but I want to refer to a quotation from Committee in the House of Commons:

“I think their Lordships should know that if they try to wreck the Bill, many of us will push the nuclear button”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/17; col. 197.]


Those words come from the very well-respected right honourable Member for Birkenhead, Mr Frank Field.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

Is he not respected by the Labour Party? I thought he was. He went on to warn that we would be sounding our own “death knell”. That is probably good news to the Liberal Democrats; they have made no secret of the fact that they would like the House of Lords to be abolished, and therefore take licence with this institution.

[Lord Newby]

That is simply untrue. The position of these Benches has been that the House of Lords has a very valuable role to play. At the time, we sought the support of the Conservative Members of the coalition to reform the membership of your Lordships’ House on a democratic basis. That is a very different proposition to seeking to abolish it.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

The noble Lord did not see behind him, but there were some signs of affirmation there when I said that they were sympathetic. I think he needs rather more careful whipping on that Bench.

The timescales are important. This reason has not been mentioned. Article 50 determines the date—we will come to this later—by which those who are responsible for negotiation have to reach agreement or fail to reach an agreement. Therefore, it is completely absurd to try to add a flexible date.

The Bill is not the narrow economic interest it has been portrayed to be. Many of the minutiae covered by the amendments are important, but they are not what the Bill is about. The Bill takes us out of the European Union on 29 March next year, at the behest of the majority of people in this country. It is about what people thought about their identity, their community’s identity, their country’s identity and their country’s place in the world. Given the way that the Welsh voted, it seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, does not take into account what his countrymen feel in this respect.

[Lord Wigley]

If the noble Lord had listened to the speech I made, he would know that I accept the fact that there has been a vote to leave the European Union, but there was no vote in Wales or elsewhere to leave the customs union and the single market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

That has been thoroughly debated. I think people did understand; certainly, people in Cumbria understood, even if the Welsh did not.

As for the power grab, it is just the opposite. Never again will Ministers be able to offer the excuse that their course of action has been followed at the behest of the European Court of Justice or the European Community. We ought to be extremely cautious about how we treat the amendments and reject them.

[Baroness McDonagh (Lab)]

I am prepared to lock horns with the noble Lord on Amendment 206, which I support. I have some quotes of my own.

In October last year, the Secretary of State for International Trade said,

“believe me we’ll have up to 40”,

free trade agreements,

“ready for one second after midnight in March 2019”.

In July 2016, the now Secretary of State for Exiting the EU wrote:

“I would expect the new Prime Minister on September 9th to immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals with all our most favoured trade partners … So within two years … we can negotiate a free trade area massively larger than the EU”.


He goes on to say that,

“the new trade agreements will come into force at the point of exit from the EU, but they will be fully negotiated and therefore understood in detail well before then”.

Does the Minister agree with his Secretaries of State? Can he tell us how many trade deals the Government expect to be in place one second after midnight on 29 March 2019? Does he understand that the reality of what is happening, and the lack of progress, is driving an increasing number of voices to want to remain in the customs union—particularly those who voted to come out of the EU?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

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

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I am consoled in the thought that I am not alone in living a life of blissful ignorance. Although it may seem like a century ago, I refer back to the beginning of this debate and thank and congratulate my noble friend the Leader of the House for and on her clear, authoritative and altogether excellent speech. Again, it is a distant memory, but I thought that the speech of the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition had some very interesting and constructive ideas as to how the Bill could be improved, and the House is indebted to her for the tone and content of her opening speech.

Having listened to many hours of debate and read Hansard extensively, I am in no doubt that I am in a minority in your Lordships’ House in believing that we should leave the European Union, and even more in a minority in thinking that no deal is better than a bad deal. In fact, I find myself saddened, not that some speakers disagree with me, but that they appear to think that a bad deal is acceptable. I do not see it that way.

Speakers have fallen into distinct groups, and I belong to the smallest. The second group is represented by the majority of the party opposite, and others, who accept that a Bill is needed and whose opposition will have regard to the constitution and conventions of your Lordships’ House. If I am right about this, we have a lot to be grateful for. Then there are the Liberal Democrats, whose was the only party at the last election that wanted by one means or another to reverse the referendum—and look what happened to their vote. They are quite unabashed, rather admirably so, I suppose, by their numbers being so grossly disproportionate to their representation in the country. They lecture the rest of us on the merits of democracy and then threaten to defy the will of the people, manifesto commitments and votes in the other place. I sometimes wonder whether they place less value on your Lordships’ House than many of the rest of us.

Finally, there is the group that appears to be gathering under the flag of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, which quite simply wants to ignore the referendum result, as I see it, and sabotage the Brexit process. I have a copy of the noble Lord’s resignation letter here. It is a very long-winded, petulant and self-serving document. I keep a copy on my desktop so that I can show it to my grandchildren as a masterclass as to how not to resign and keep some vestige of dignity. He characterises those who voted for Brexit as “populist” and undergoing a,

“nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump”.

So he joins fellow aspiring wreckers who insult us leavers as being stupid, ignorant, bigoted, racist or simply, as the mealy mouthed Mr Tony Blair would have it, having “imperfect knowledge”. The noble Lord describes the Bill rather mysteriously as the,

“worst legislation in my lifetime”,

and promises to oppose it relentlessly, and so he begins to do today—or did yesterday.

Perhaps he will be joined by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who last week foretold gleefully that Britain could be made to come to heel. Apparently, he enjoyed the prospect of our country being humiliated so much that he actually said it twice. His tone today was, happily, rather more moderate. Having spoken to other retired mandarins, and I know a few, I am left wondering whether it is legacy that these people worry about. If so, this is a dangerous trend. Surely all of us who have seen policies to which we have devoted time and effort be changed have to live with that without throwing the toys out of the bath.

As has been pointed out, there is something surreal about remainers from all parts of the House affecting to be concerned about parliamentary scrutiny, when you consider that membership of the EU has, over the last 40 years, eroded to vanishing point such scrutiny. That has been raised by others. Since they want to enshrine in perpetuity this grotesque state of affairs, their virtue-signalling pretence at outrage rings pretty hollow.

Time does not allow me to talk of trade beyond saying I have worked in the SME sector for most of my working life, and my personal interests appear in the register. Brexit will indeed mean change, but who is afraid of that? It has been a feature of my life every day for the last 40 years or so. Of course, fat corporatists and their CBI mouthpiece tell you otherwise, because they want to go on buying favours from Brussels so as to disadvantage their smaller competitors.

What has attracted rather little attention is the fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said yesterday, the EU institutions appear to have no appetite for change. This is what seems to embed our position. They continue on the fateful road towards a federal European state; they want to hobble the City, which by my calculation produces revenues enough to pay for the NHS. The EU has become a brutal and amoral protectionist fortress, devoid of humanity, and inflicting pain and suffering on the poorest, not only in the developing world but also among our own EU citizens.

Again to draw attention to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, we can all find lovely quotes from Burke, I think for almost any occasion, but perhaps he might like this one:

“Free trade is not based on utility but on justice”.


The EU wants armies and harmonised taxation regimes, and it wants oversight of national budgets—there is very little that it does not want to control. It is simply beyond me to understand what is attractive about this construct, which is doomed anyway through its total want of accountability.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds quite early in the debate asked,

“what sort of Britain, or indeed Europe, do we want to inhabit?”.[Official Report, 30/1/18; col. 1386.]

His close proximity to me should not make him worry, but I am not confident that he will be entirely happy with my answer to his question. He is right to point out that the question is not solely about economic issues. Of course no one voted to be poorer, and no one will be. Having campaigned daily for a Brexit outcome, it was perfectly clear to me that people put other things ahead of economic concerns. People understood, in ways that the metropolitan elite did not, and will not give them credit for, that this country’s historic embracing of the rule of law is the foundation of freedom.

Since the dawn of time, far earlier than the Magna Carta, in these soggy islands—places of such beauty and enduring romance—it was established that we would be governed by consent and not by diktat. The settlement has at intervals been challenged by the Norman invasion, by the Stuarts and, dare I say it, by families like my own, who from time to time got out of control and had to be reined in. These same people I met on the campaign trail also understood why their parents and grandparents suffered and gave their lives so that we, their successors, could enjoy the golden benefits of the rule of law and breathe the sweet air of freedom. I have inherited their passion and, in consequence, ask for this Bill to be given safe passage.