UK and EU Relations

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the fact is that as we leave the European Union, we will leave Euratom. What I can say to the noble Lord and to the House is that a lot of work has been done, not only with respect to Euratom but with other international obligations, to scope out exactly what all our international agreements mean, whether any need to be replaced and, if they do, how they would be replaced and how that would be affected by our leaving the European Union. So although I cannot say specifically that the two would be contiguous, because we will leave Euratom on the date we leave the European Union, we are in the position whereby we cannot negotiate new agreements until we have left the European Union. However, we can carry out technical exploration of such agreements. Therefore it is important to know what kind of agreements we need to reach. Above all, we are making sure that we do not in any way compromise our current position as members of the European Union. We gave that undertaking and we will keep to it.

I was asked about the transitional implementation period. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe looked very closely at that with great interest, because it is all about making sure that we enable those who are in business, as well as everybody else, to know that they do not have to go through the same process more than once. If we are leaving the European Union, they will not have to keep changing their processes in business. We have certainly heard from business about what an implementation period needs to look like. Different businesses think of different periods. We have said very firmly and clearly that an implementation period is something that we will need to negotiate with the European Union but that we do not see it going beyond the date of the next election. Of course, we are not in a position to be able to discuss the terms of an implementation period until we have reached the next stage, which is to look at what our future relationship with the European Union will be. Clearly, if anyone wishes to stay in both the single market and the customs union, it means that they have to accept the four freedoms. The Commission and the EU 27 made it very clear early on that those freedoms were not divisible.

There was a lot of strong feeling about the customs paper not being clear enough. By the way, I reminded myself the other day that blue-skies thinking was the way in which Apple started its rather special business; it is a way of testing out new ideas that can really take off and work. The real reason we put in alternatives is because that is what you do in a negotiation—test out alternatives.

I turn to money. I was challenged on many occasions to say that we should simply tell the European Union how we were going to work out what we owed. It is a two-way street: the European Union also has obligations to the UK. We recognise that we have obligations with both an international legal basis and a moral one. I am sure that noble Lords will have read the paper put out by the European Union. It is three and a half sheets of paper, two of which simply describe the fact that the UK owes something. It says that the debts ought to be shared out among all the people who need to take a share, without actually quantifying or saying how they were going to calculate that, or giving an idea of how they value certain premises—the wherewithal of the European Union. What is the value of the obligation that is owed? What it did do, which is helpful, is to carefully list, on one and a half pages, a whole load of reference to treaties and regulations saying, “This is the legal basis for us demanding money”. Not how much money or how it should be divided up, but why it wants some money.

I recognise how vital this is to the other EU 27. They face losing the third largest net contributor to the European Union. They have been given a bald choice: either they get less in the way of infrastructure funds, or they pay more. Neither is a particularly attractive option for them—and they have been told that, if they can find a third way to solve the problem, they should let the Commission know. This is a problem—these are our friends, and we want Europe to continue to succeed, so I understand the difficulty. However, our duty to the British people is to challenge the European Commission and say: “You say that that particular section of a treaty confers on the UK an obligation to pay. Let us first of all test that legal basis”. That was what was happening about two weeks ago. We were challenging the legal basis, not in a hostile way, but as lawyers do, by simply saying: “How does this work”? That is at the core of why there has been so much anxiety in Brussels. It is because we have different ways of doing things, not because we do not want to reach agreement. The UK way of doing things is to analyse, challenge, then agree. I promise this House that that is what we will do.

We have had two speeches from noble Lords who nearly always make me want to think and think again, as they did tonight. The first was my noble friend Lord Bridges, who said that we have to think what kind of society we want to build in this country as we leave the European Union. My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford carefully set out how it is important to have an eye to the future and said that we need to challenge what that future is like. How do we look at the reform of institutions across Europe, which we have helped to build but which need to be resilient for the future? Whether it is Europe, the UK or this House, all of us want to be resilient for the future.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Before my noble friend sits down, could she answer the question put to her by my noble friend Lord Caithness and myself? Is it right that we offered the Commission the option of a rolling programme of negotiations and that this was turned down by the EU?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I put the position very early on, in my winding-up speech, I hope, when I explained that the Prime Minister had made it clear that we were prepared now to ramp up the speed and increase the number of days for negotiation. That has not yet happened, but clearly what has happened is constructive and we now have time before 25 September for some of the technical agreements—which are right on the cusp of being made—to be sealed. That is to be welcomed. There is good will on both sides in this negotiation.

Brexit: EU Institution Relocations

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Thursday 6th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, is it not rather early in the day to start anticipating what the outcome of our negotiations with the EU is going to be? It is inevitable that at this point, both sides will be taking more extreme positions. Compromises will eventually be reached, and there is no reason to believe that they will not be for the benefit of both the EU and the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I agree entirely with my noble friend.