European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Spicer

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 150, which, in the somewhat bizarre language that we tend to use when dealing with crucial issues, has come to be known as the “meaningful process amendment”. As we know, this reasonably recent addition to our parliamentary lexicon really means the process by which Parliament deals with the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, an issue that already has quite a long history. Let us start with Article 50. It provides for any deal to be submitted for decision to the European Parliament before it can be finally and formally concluded, so the European Parliament can approve or reject any deal that has been negotiated. It is surely therefore inconceivable that this Parliament should not have the same right, all the more so since the cause in which those who campaigned to leave the EU were speaking was to restore sovereignty and take back control to our own Parliament. The June 2016 referendum has no binding effect and therefore needs to be approved, or not, by Parliament.

Fast-forward, then, to Lancaster House in January 2017, when the Prime Minister committed herself to the fact that any deal would be submitted to both Houses for their decisions—rather oddly, in my view, saying nothing at that stage about the primacy of the House of Commons. So far, so good. Ever since that day at Lancaster House when the Prime Minister gave that commitment, the Government have been taking a series of steps backwards from that step forward, which casts doubt on just how meaningful they intend the process to be. Twice they have attempted to prevent the process being put into statute. On the first occasion, in the context of the Bill triggering Article 50, when this House by a large majority voted to set such a provision in statute, they succeeded. At the time, the Government, it has to be admitted, had a majority in the Commons and therefore this House did not insist. On the second occasion, in the context of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill we are debating today, they were equally determined, but they were defeated, thanks to a cross-party alliance which has provided that statutory provision for a meaningful vote is now not only desirable but necessary. So, the Bill before us provides for that statutory process. The amendment to which I am now speaking is designed not to replace that but to clarify and spell it out, and to say how best the provisions should be applied to give Parliament a genuine and timely say in the matter.

What possible respectable reasons can there be for resisting this provision, this amendment and the clarification being proposed to your Lordships? It is hard, I would suggest, to think of one, although I suspect that the Minister will manage to do his best at the end of this debate. Could it be that the Government’s objective is to ensure that the votes in both Houses to which they are committed will take place only at a moment when it is too late to do very much about things and when the sands of Article 50 are running out? That would be to deprive the whole process of its meaning.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, for whom I have long respect. Is he not proposing a bee sting, in effect—Parliament stings and then dies? The point of the Bill is to give powers to Parliament, which he would take away from Parliament’s control.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Spicer

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

I personally agree totally with anything that increases the sovereignty of Parliament. I only make the point that this is totally unnecessary, because if we got on with this Bill, we would end up having a much more sovereign Parliament than we would have without it. That is the whole purpose of what I am saying. Indeed, it is necessary that we should have greater sovereignty because the powers of Parliament have been eroded ever since the Maastricht treaty, with which I was associated. That has been something that has been going on for some time—ever since there was a single currency. The powers of Parliaments have been reduced because the single currency is irrevocable, and we have a system in this country whereby no Parliament can bind another Parliament. There is no doubt in my mind, at least, that had we not started the process of leaving the European Union, the European court, which the noble Lord will know a lot about, would have moved in on us for not joining the single currency at some point. There is no question in my mind about that.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am not sure what is in the noble Lord’s mind. If he just tries reading the treaty, he will see that there is no basis for proceeding against the Government of the United Kingdom for not being a member of the euro. It is actually written in the treaty that we do not have to be, so perhaps he will clear his mind.

[Lord Spicer]

I am also sure that the European court would have found a way into this at some point. I have no doubt about that at all. If one really is concerned with the sovereignty of Parliament, we should get on with passing this Bill as quickly as possible and begin the task of unwinding the historic process of eroding the powers of Parliaments, including our own. We should not take too much notice of the amendments coming up: most of them are irrelevant to the Bill.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Spicer

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments. Amendments 17 and 19, which are mine, are of a similar thrust to that of noble Baroness, Lady Miller, whose amendment has been clearly and compellingly introduced.

When the Minister replies, I hope he will recognise that we are in calmer waters than we were last Wednesday in discussing the franchise. There is no difference of principle between those moving these amendments and the party of which he is a member, which stated in its manifesto that it believed that this category of person—people who have lived abroad for more than 15 years—should get the vote. I heartily support this view.

I hope that the Minister will also recognise that this class of voter—as I hope it will be—in the European Union countries has a greater interest in voting in this referendum than he or she ever had, or will have, in national parliamentary elections. It would be extraordinary if the Government did not exert themselves to ensure that these British citizens have the vote on this occasion, when their own rights and livelihoods are at stake. The Government have made a great deal of the saying, “the people must have their say”. Surely these are people who ought to have their say. They and their futures are directly involved in this. Frankly, it would be appalling if the Government, later in this Parliament, in an act of supreme generosity, gave them the vote—but after the referendum in which they wish to vote. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to this issue.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

When the noble Lord said that all UK citizens living abroad should get these rights, did he mean “abroad”? The first amendment in this group refers just to Europe. If he meant “abroad”, that is very interesting.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Naturally, since I rose to speak to some amendments on the Marshalled List, those are the amendments I am speaking to. If I did not repeat on each occasion, “Those citizens living abroad in other EU countries”, then I am sorry but that is what I intended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Spicer]

It is notable that pretty well every speaker has spoken in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, said. It was the reason why I intervened on the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when I asked him whether he really meant “abroad”—because if he had, it would have been a very significant thing. However, we are where we are. I hope the Government—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sorry; I think the noble Lord has misunderstood yet again what I said. In my opening remarks I said that I welcomed and supported what was in the Conservative manifesto. When it is brought before this House, I will vote in favour of it. I am in favour of the vote being given to all British citizens who live abroad, irrespective of where they live. However, in the context of this Bill, which is about an EU referendum, I have advanced an amendment which is designed to give people who have a serious interest in that referendum the vote. But there should be no mistaking it: I am not distinguishing between the two except in the context of this Bill. I shall be there to vote with the noble Lord when the Representation of the People Act comes forward.

[Lord Spicer]

I very much understand why the noble Lord makes a distinction, because—I will say it again—the amendment that he has produced in its form will hope to skew the results. One point made in this short debate is that the reason for having this rather skewed amendment is that people who live in the European Union like living there. Well, fine, but it gives a perspective on the answer that they might give in a referendum. I have no doubt that the noble Lord has that in his mind. I therefore say to the Government, who are meant to be neutral in all this, that in the interests of fairness and neutrality, and if they are going to extend the franchise, they should listen to the arguments for doing so on a worldwide basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Spicer]

Can I ask one question about what is in the noble Lord’s amendment? In Amendment 21, subsection (2)(e) of the proposed new clause refers to comparing what the effect will be on jurisprudence, criminal law and so on. How dynamic will be the base from which this assessment will be made? It is always argued, for instance, that we will never have a totally Europe-wide criminal law but we all know that that is the direction we are going in. What is the baseline from which this assessment will be made?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I think that the noble Lord is referring to the last paragraph of the subsection, which is on law enforcement. The situation there is fairly easy to follow. The present situation is that we have opted back into, I think, 36 justice and home affairs measures—no, it was fewer than that. It is Protocol 36 but the number is somewhere in the 30s, and those measures are the ones that apply in this country now. The ones that we did not opt back into do not apply and would therefore not be affected by a decision to withdraw. The ones that we did opt back into and which do apply in this country would be affected by a decision to withdraw. They include things such as the European arrest warrant.

If I may skip on to this part of the amendment, the implications for law enforcement, security and justice and, above all, for the European arrest warrant are extraordinarily serious. We discovered at the time of the Protocol 36 discussions, which were pretty intensive in this House, in the other place and in the public press, that the consequences for law and order on the island of Ireland could be extremely serious if the European arrest warrant did not exist. It has in fact managed, for practically the first time in recorded history, to depoliticise the issue of extradition between the two parts of the island of Ireland. It is now possible to get back criminals, including terrorists, who are wanted for trial in Northern Ireland from the south without a highly politicised process, and very expeditiously. That would be lost if the European arrest warrant ceased to apply in this country and, I suggest, that would have pretty serious implications for the rule of law in Northern Ireland.

First World War

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Spicer

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but I am prompted to do so very briefly by the two speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Davies. They were brilliant speeches in many ways and I have tremendous respect for the debating power of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and, indeed, for that of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. However, I profoundly disagreed with their conclusion. Broadly, as I understand it, it was that if we had had the European Union at the time of the two great wars, we would not have had any wars at all. I think that that is an accurate representation. They were saying that a process of centralisation and consolidation would have saved us from having these wars. Arguably, exactly the opposite is the case.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I did not say anything of the sort and I do not happen to think that either. What I said was that we now have the European Union and that we should not turn our backs on it; I did not say that if we had had it before the First World War everything would have been hunky-dory.

[Lord Spicer]

I exonerate the noble Lord. I think that it is fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, did argue that point. Arguably, it is the exact opposite. The thing that caused the wars was the centralisation and determination of one nation—the Germans—and the individual sovereign states were those that created the peace, winning the war, and there was a lasting peace thereafter. So it was the exact opposite of what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was saying. One has only to look at the American Civil War to see the effect of the process of forced centralisation and so on in terms of creating wars. I wanted to set the record straight on that, because that was certainly the impression that I got from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—it was pretty well irrelevant to raise the question of the European Union in the context today, if he did not believe that it would have had some effect on history. I think that it would have been the opposite effect in the wrong hands, and I just want to put that straight.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Spicer

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to the same amendment in this group to which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred: Amendment 73. I would like to do so in a spirit of positive response to what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said—that is to say, to attempt to improve this Bill. I will also, therefore, speak briefly.

The point of Amendment 73, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, is to deal with one of the most glaring defects in this Bill as currently drafted, which is that its sole purpose is to bind the hands of a future Parliament. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, will be able to produce chapter and verse for occasions on which legislation has had a binding effect on future Parliaments, unless they chose to repeal the measure, but I would be delighted if he could produce a single example of a piece of legislation that had no purpose other than to bind the hands of a future Parliament, which is the case with the Bill as drafted.

Amendment 73 would remedy that defect. It would ensure that a future Parliament would have to pass a resolution to bring the Bill into effect. That seems to me to restore the balance in our constitutional practice. I am occasionally astonished by the nonchalance—or, some would say, the recklessness—with which the sponsors of the Bill are lopping great chunks off our constitutional practice. It is really pretty odd. Yesterday in this House, we had a superb debate about the future of the union of the United Kingdom and there was unanimity around the House, but today Members opposite, the sponsors of the Bill, are supporting a Bill that will increase the number of yes votes in Scotland in September 2014 and decrease the number of no votes. I know that logic is not normally a strong suit of our countrymen, and probably me, but I think that we are carrying this a little far now. I hope that, when he comes to reply to this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, will take on board the importance of Amendment 73, as well as the others in this group.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

May I ask the noble Lord whether he is in favour of joining the monetary union?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Lord may very well ask me that, but it would take me too long to answer while at the same time staying within the bounds of not filibustering.

[Lord Spicer]

The reason why I ask him that is that, if he was in favour of joining, under the treaty of Maastricht, that would be irrevocable—it would be binding on another Parliament in future.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Lord has shifted between two tenses. He first asked whether I was in favour of joining the monetary union. The answer to that is yes. He also asked whether I am now in favour of joining the monetary union at this point in time. The answer is no.