European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Viscount Trenchard

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has talked at great length about a level playing field. The level playing field he refers to is the EU level playing field. It is not any other level playing field, such as the House of Lords level playing field, which seems to suit the Liberal Democrats, who are overrepresented in your Lordships’ House by 67% on the basis of the proportion of votes cast at the last general election.

[Lord Fox]

I congratulate the Member opposite on embracing proportional representation.

[Viscount Trenchard]

That is my pleasure. Proportional representation has its place but it may not be applicable everywhere.

I am very surprised that the noble Lord has sought to require the Government to adopt his amendment seeking a level playing field with the EU on workers’ rights and environmental and consumer standards. Is he not aware that it was a manifesto commitment of the Conservative Party, to which all Conservative candidates signed up, that the Government would get a proper Brexit done and that we would leave the customs union and the single market? It is essential that we do that to have the flexibility we need to develop and maintain our own independent trade policy, and to negotiate free trade agreements with third countries.

The noble Lord’s amendment requires close alignment with the EU single market, underpinned by shared institutions and obligations. “Shared institutions” sounds to me as though we could still be regulated by EU regulators even after we had left. The EU will seek to export its regulatory framework and standards to us in return for providing market access. Dynamic alignment on workers’ and consumers’ rights would completely subjugate us to the EU, ruling us out as a potential trade partner for others and denying us the benefits and upside of Brexit. We know that the noble Lord does not want to leave the EU but surely he understands that, given that Brexit is going to happen anyway, we should make sure that we can play on a level playing field at the global level. That means freeing ourselves from EU strictures, such as the noble Lord’s amendment would make worse.

Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Viscount Trenchard

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment is rather strange in the context of this Bill. It seems intended to restrict the Government’s ability to make changes to the state aid rules unless they have consulted a long list of bodies—and even the public. But as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, the Government do not intend to use this Bill to provide themselves with a device for making such changes. One of the benefits of Brexit is that we will be able to apply our own state aid rules, either based on an equitable free trade area with the EU or consistent with WTO principles. The present EU rules need to be much improved and made proportionate; on occasion, they discriminate against British business and have a negative effect on the economy and jobs.

The UK is, quite properly, a very restrained user of state aid compared with our continental neighbours, spending approximately €90 per capita against a range of €170 to €240 per capita in Germany, France and Belgium. The point is that in cases such as that of Sheffield Forgemasters, the UK Government should be free, with the agreement of another place and your Lordships’ House, to grant state aid under what will rightly be very narrow criteria. Another case in point might be the Horizon Nuclear Power plant, which has been suspended by Hitachi because of a failure to agree the financing structure. Does the Minister agree that Her Majesty’s Government should look again at the extent to which they might commit public funds to ensure the successful completion of a hugely important contributor to our future energy mix—especially against a background where the only other major new nuclear power station, Hinkley Point, is to be financed by the French state and the Chinese state? Does the Minister agree also that this amendment is in any event completely unnecessary, because the Government have no need or intention to implement state aid commitments in rolling over existing free trade agreements?

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, had we debated this amendment during the last session, the night before last, we would not have had the benefit of yesterday’s report from the IPPR think tank on the subject of state aid. It reinforces the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that the United Kingdom is a restrained user of state aid when compared to other countries in the European Union. That gives the lie to some of those who believed that the European Union was restricting the UK Government’s decision on the scale of state aid in this country—and that message might be conveyed to some members of other parties in the other place who are alleged to believe that the European Union would continue to restrict industrial support activities.

I was surprised to hear the huge shopping list that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, presented for further state aid—his is not a voice that I had imagined would be making that point. That highlights the need for a state aid strategy. If we have an industrial strategy—which we do, whether some Members opposite like it or not—the purpose of state aid is to find strategic ways of delivering it in the best possible way for the best possible good of this country and its trading environment with the rest of the world.

Whether we trade as an EU nation, through FTAs or, as some people dream of, on WTO terms—which would be a nightmare for the rest of the world—there will still, sensibly, be restrictions and rules affecting what aid we can give and what restraints we have to apply. In spirit, therefore, I support the amendment, and I am interested to hear the Minister’s response.

I have a query that will probably reveal my ignorance of the process of legislation. Paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 2 contains a more general injunction around statutory instruments and consultation. I wonder whether that part of the Bill may pick up, to a large extent, what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seeks to achieve. I would be happy to be wrong about that, but it would be helpful if the Minister, either now or later, would fill us in on that.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Viscount Trenchard

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I welcome Amendment 6, proposed by the Minister. It makes a lot of sense but I do not think the House would be wise to support Amendments 7 or 9. Amendment 7 is about collaboration with Euratom in future in research and development and the import and export of qualifying nuclear material. I think we will benefit from greater flexibility by making our own decisions about research and development and committing our own funds. Of course Euratom will be an important and continuing partner for us in nuclear but we will be freed of the obligation and in the position where we will own our own research material, which of course in the JET and ITER programmes we do not. We should caution against overoptimism on what ITER is likely to bring; I understand that there is considerable scepticism in the industry about whether it is really worth the massive amount of money that it costs, and that there is some chance of a demonstration operation by 2045 if all goes well. If we were to commit funds to SMR research, by contrast, in which we in this country have several notable qualified players, we would own the outcome and could get ourselves back into the lead in nuclear by selling our new technology to others. We would have greater flexibility and the freedom not to be committed—

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I remind the noble Viscount that the two are not mutually exclusive.