European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Green of Deddington and Baroness Kramer

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

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Perhaps I may make a brief point. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about India. What is missing from this discussion, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred to it, is that in the future we will be able to substantially reduce migration from the European Union, much of which is low paid and therefore of less value, and that will give us some leeway when talking to countries such as India.

[Baroness Kramer]

The answer that I give to the noble Lord, Lord Green, is one that would be given by many people in this House. To reduce immigration to the tens of thousands means not only drastically and dramatically reducing European migration; it means drastically and dramatically reducing migration from elsewhere in the world. That is the reality that our employers in the various industry sectors face.

I will tell the noble Lord one more thing if we are talking about inconsistencies. Let me go back to the point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, about going to 100 Parliament Street, which I recognise. I will attempt to ensure that I do not breach the confidential content of the papers, but in the various scenarios, every one of which is frankly quite scary, there is a discussion about potential mitigations. Without breaching confidentiality I cannot define those mitigations—as I say, noble Lords should read the papers for themselves—but if one were to follow them, the speech that Michael Gove gave to the National Farmers Union is in absolute and complete contradiction to the mitigations. The speech given by David Davis about rising to higher standards is in complete contrast to the identified mitigations. The speeches or the comments that Theresa May has made about not weakening the rights of the workforce of the UK are completely contradicted. That is one of the reasons I recommend that people from this House should read the papers because all the contradictions in the statements being made are finally pulled together.