EEA Nationals (Indefinite Leave to Remain) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 19th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to support the Bill introduced so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. I sincerely wish him well. There is no reason why that wish should not be fulfilled. The new Prime Minister could very easily decree that the Bill be fast-tracked through both Houses in the same way as the current Northern Ireland legislation.

I want to make another personal reference, not to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, but to the absent noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will do an admirable job today, but the noble Baroness has led on EU affairs with enormous distinction and great dedication. It is monstrous and outrageous that she should have been dismissed from her post. I know that she remains the Deputy Leader of the Labour Peers, and long may she so remain, but that she should have ejected from the Front Bench is frankly appalling and I am sure I speak for everyone in your Lordships’ House in sending her our unanimous good wishes for a happy return.

As I said, I am very glad to support the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, quoted the pledge given by the famous three: Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Priti Patel. That pledge has been echoed by many fervent Brexiteers in the past three, increasingly difficult, years. My noble friend Lord Forsyth has himself made plain in your Lordships’ House that this is an issue on which he sees eye to eye with those three who made the pledge. It is something we should have done immediately after the referendum. I proposed in your Lordships’ House before the end of June 2016, and I was not alone, that we should take the moral high ground and make a unilateral gesture to demonstrate that, if we are preparing to take back control, we could take immediate control on this issue and so put the minds at rest of all those EU citizens living in this country, many of whom make an enormous contribution to our country.

One has only to think of our universities and the number of EU students and—much more important in this context, in a sense—lecturers and professors who give leadership, add distinction and help make our universities what they are, recognised among the greatest in the world. I had personal experience at the end of last year when I unfortunately had to be in hospital for a time and I frankly lost count of the number of EU citizens working as doctors and nurses and in other capacities in that hospital. That has been the experience, I am sure, of many noble Lords. These are people who have helped to make our country the community or communities that it is. They deserve that unilateral gesture. How much better it would have been had we got this out of the way before the end of 2016.

However, in those time-honoured words, we are where we are. Of course I welcome the fact, as does the noble Lord, Lord Oates, that the Government did make a unilateral declaration. I do not for a moment doubt their total sincerity in making that declaration but, as the noble Lord pointed out in his admirable introductory speech, there are a number of problems with it and it will not give that immediate peace of mind that a far-sweeping piece of legislation could have given. I therefore strongly support what the noble Lord is arguing for today. As I said when I began, at the moment we have a demonstration of how legislation can be fast-tracked, and this is something that deserves that treatment.

Whatever the fate of this Bill, it is really important that the new Prime Minister repeats what he said to that Polish audience a little while ago and that he takes immediate action. Speaking as one who was a remainer but who fully accepted the result of the referendum, and would have accepted the Prime Minister’s deal, as I made plain on many occasions, I look to Mr Johnson, who is so likely to be Prime Minister, to show that he is a man of his word in this area. Because a lot could hang on that—for Mr Johnson, for the Conservative Party and for our country. I am delighted to support the Bill.