European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith and Lord Callanan

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

If it becomes part of retained EU law before the end of the implementation period, it will be transferred into British law by snapshotting the procedure. I do not know the details of that directive, so I undertake to write to the noble Baroness about it.

[Lord Goldsmith]

I thank the Minister for his reply and thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, particularly those—and it is the majority—who supported this amendment. I will just clear one or two matters out the way, from what the Minister said. The first is on the scope of the Bill. There was no problem including protections of this sort in the Bill before the election. It has been revised now, but I do not follow that point.

Secondly, he sees imperfections in the Bill. I have been in government too, and we always have the ability to improve amendments that have been tabled, the substance of which we agree with, to cure that problem. That is not the reason the Government are resisting this amendment. We all know that. The Government are resisting this amendment because they do not want, despite what has been said before, to be committed to non-regression. The point is about non-regression; the clue is in the title. It is about standards being lowered. Of course, they can be improved or changed, as long as, under this amendment, they are not reduced. That is the concern. For some reason—it appears to be ideological purity—the Government are not prepared to give that guarantee.

I was taken by the vignette—the play—of my noble friend Lord Hendy. I have heard him in court before, but it was the first time I have heard him in Parliament. He was as persuasive here as he is in court. But ideological purity risks damaging this country and the people in it. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is that the Government’s insistence on this divergence has caused damage already. We have given the Government the opportunity to give assurances about this. Everyone will read what the noble Lord said in Hansard very closely. We have given them the opportunity to give stronger assurances to the outside world and the workers in it, and the invitation was not accepted. If, as many think, the result will be damage to the country and the people within it, and the rights that people believed were going to be protected, we know at whose door the fault will lie.

I will not press the amendment because there is no point in doing so with the position that the Government are in in the other place. It is clear that they will not accept this proposal or anything like it, but we will continue to hold them to their warm words and will carefully define and interpret them to see how far they go. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.