European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I will make four very brief points. Will the Minister assure the House that this amendment is actually within the scope of the Bill? The Bill is about notifying withdrawal: this seems to me, as with many other amendments, to be about something completely different. Secondly, it is not within our unilateral gift. Even if the Prime Minister is instructed to remain a member of the EEA on our behalf, she cannot necessarily achieve this on her own. Thirdly, it is not a good idea to tie her hands in that fashion, and fourthly, even if this amendment succeeded—and the same is true of many others—and it became a part of this Bill, as the two years unrolled, it might prove to be inconvenient and an obstacle. There would be nothing to stop the Government simply repealing, or bringing forward measures to repeal, this particular measure, were it to be added to the Bill.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, surely the problem with the EEA is that it is a waiting room for people who want to join the EU. It was never designed for people who wanted to leave it. I do not quite understand why we have to sit here saying that we must take one of the options on offer from the EU. We are the third-biggest economy in the EU. The EU sells 50% more to us than we do to it. Why can we not have a unique free trade agreement with the EU? Why do we have to go along with any of these things that are on offer from the EU?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Perhaps I may be permitted to correct the noble Lord, who I know is an expert on these matters and normally gets his facts absolutely right. We have sat on European Union committees together for quite a long time. But he is wrong about the EEA being a waiting room for applicants to the EU. Norway had a referendum which decided against joining the EU. It decided not to be a member of the EU but it decided to be a member of the single market and to join EFTA on that basis. For Norway, it is not an anteroom, it is an alternative, as it could be for us if we so wished.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I accept that but it was designed originally to be a waiting room for those who wanted to join and that is why it has been put in place and you have to comply with all the regulations of the EU. But I come back to my point that if we join the EEA, we do not join the customs union so we have all the problems of the customs regulations. It enables us to do free trade deals with others but it has many disadvantages and I still do not really understand why we have cannot have our own unique arrangement with the EU. I am sure that is the ambition of the Government and that is why the amendment should be opposed.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, in declaring an interest—which is really my only qualification for joining this short debate—as a half-Norwegian, I advise the Minister to test the noble Lord’s assertion that the Norwegians are broadly content with their situation. Conversations I have had over the years with relatives and friends suggest that they see all the disadvantages that my noble friend Lord Forsyth so forcefully expressed five minutes ago.

UK Withdrawal from the EU and Potential Withdrawal from the Single Market

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, many of your Lordships are quite rightly concerned about the status of EU citizens living in this country. But I would have thought that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has done almost everything she could to reassure them that they would be allowed to stay here. What your Lordships are asking is that she should take unilateral action, but there are many people in senior positions within the EU who never stop telling us that Britain has to be punished for voting to leave the EU. So there is a risk—this has to be accepted—that if we gave guarantees to the EU citizens living in this country, that form of punishment might take place and discrimination might be exerted against British citizens living in the EU. I do not want to dwell on that, but I do think that my right honourable friend has done everything she can to reassure citizens living here. I sincerely hope that, once Article 50 is moved, we will see this at the top of the agenda as something that has to be agreed with the EU.

I want to talk about the White Paper that was agreed to by the Government yesterday. I quite understand the attitude of the opposition parties; they hope that a tremendous amount of detail will be put into the White Paper so that the Government can be accused at a later stage of not honouring some pledge made in it and therefore of failing in the negotiations. I have no particular inside information on what is going to be in the White Paper, but I have a very strong feeling that it is actually going to be a repetition, probably with rather more verbiage, of the speech the Prime Minister has already given, laying out the objectives of where she wants the negotiations to go. I do not think that there will be much more in it than that. That will be absolutely the right thing to do. It would be against the interests of this country if we laid out in detail what we want, because that would undermine our negotiating position and would not be in the national interest.

We have also got to bear in mind that a number of European countries are fighting elections over the next nine months or so: the Dutch, the French and the Germans. I was talking to a lobbyist from Brussels on Monday whose wife is Italian, and he reckons that the Italians will have a general election by the end of March. They will all be facing Eurosceptic candidates. So if during this process of negotiation from the end of March we ask for any concessions, there would be tremendous momentum to make sure that no concessions are given. This is the problem we are up against in the short term; all the parties that are fighting these elections have to make out that Brexit is a complete disaster.

As my noble friend, who is no longer in his place, pointed out, the British economy is booming at the moment. It will be very difficult for people in Europe to say that Brexit has been a disaster. The pressure on a number of these countries is going to be very great. It even resulted in Chancellor Merkel saying that if we were going to have access to the single market, we would have to agree to the free movement of labour. That is not true. The United States has access to the single market and certainly does not agree to the free movement of labour between Europe and the United States. So we have a long way to go on all this, but let us try to keep the truth beaming out and let us be optimistic that this is going to work out well in the interests of both the United Kingdom and the EU.

The Process for Triggering Article 50

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I agree with the noble Lord but although I am a relative newcomer to your Lordships’ House I certainly would not call it a sub-committee. I believe that this House performs a valuable role in scrutinising legislation and, as I have said all along, in kicking the tyres of government policy to see that it is both roadworthy and does the right thing. That is something the Government wish to see right the way through the process of Brexit and I am delighted with, and thankful for, the contribution your Lordships have made so far.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that if Parliament were to accept the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to treat the referendum as advisory and then decided that this country should not leave the EU, there would be no option for those of us who were in the majority in voting to leave other than to take to the streets and probably start breaking things?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I can only say that I very much hope that that does not happen. Considering the comments that your Lordships have made and the very constructive approach of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I am sure that we will avoid it.

Brexit: Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am certainly not frit: I am here to answer questions and I will remain here to answer questions from the noble Lord and others.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, are there not great dangers in setting out specifically what we want from these negotiations when many European countries are holding elections and will go to great lengths to tell us that we cannot have anything we are asking for?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, my noble friend is right that we obviously need to strike a balance in the plan between providing your Lordships, the other place and the public as a whole with our overall broad strategic direction and ensuring that the Government still have a negotiating position that preserves the national interest in the negotiations.

Brexit: Single Market

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry but the noble Lord is wrong in the eyes of 17.4 million people. I also disagree with him on the point about our future. There are obviously challenges ahead but the Government are determined to build on the progress we have been making in the economy over the last five to 10 years and to ensure that we deliver a smooth and orderly transition for Brexit.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Will my noble friend confirm that the United States has access to the single market without being a member of it?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My noble friend is absolutely correct. He makes a very good point that precision on language in the weeks and months ahead is key. We need to differentiate between membership of, access to and special access to the single market. It is critical that that point is made.