European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the support for this Bill and the agreement underlying it, as anyone with common sense should surely do. It is plainly an historic and remarkably comprehensive achievement.

I have two quick observations. First, now that we have an agreement on which to build, I plead for a new phase of illusion-dissolving honesty from our leadership, our opinion-formers and our phrase-makers. Could we henceforth take much more care in using the overworked phrase “taking back control”? This is accurate in narrow legal terms in that our Parliament will make our laws and British courts under British judges will implement them. But it is equally obvious that we cannot do exactly what we want in today’s conditions. Unless we wish to become a hermit kingdom, a large number of our laws and rules will be constrained by the realities of an increasingly interdependent and connected planet and by multiple international standards, treaty commitments and solemn agreements.

Therefore, could we perhaps give the “control” mantra a rest, at least until we are clearer as to who exactly is getting back this control? Is it our sovereign Parliament—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was urging—the devolved Administrations, the Executive or the proposed EU-UK partnership council and the arbitration bodies set up by the agreement, whose rulings on alignment and fair competition will control us, without their being subject to parliamentary scrutiny, although they will be international law? Some of these questions were rightly raised earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, chair of the Constitution Committee, of which I am privileged to be a member.

Secondly, the Government constantly get accused of having no coherent vision—no narrative—as we move out of the EU treaty system. Actually, our future narrative is there for the telling. The International Trade Secretary, who is doing an excellent job, was rightly calling the other day for a “Pacific mindset”, or an Indo-Pacific mindset, in repositioning the UK in an utterly changed world.

Of course, we need good and settled relations with our nearest neighbours, although a Europe of constant bargaining is what we have to look forward to regionally. However, the bigger, and much faster-growing, markets, are taking shape elsewhere; for instance, in dynamic south-east Asia and in parts of the Commonwealth network, where investment is now being sucked away from China and where most future world growth in both goods and services lies.

In a networked world and in this hyper-connected age, the whole nature of global trade has changed, the distribution of power has changed, the nature of security threats has changed, and the very texture and character of international relations have changed. So, in passing this Bill and validating this excellent agreement, please could the tone and phraseology now be updated accordingly to give people an honest and balanced assessment of where we are going and by whom we will be controlled?

Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Access for Goods

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I will write to the noble Lord on his very specific point about labelling. Of course, I acknowledge that there are ongoing discussions in the joint committee, and that that is an issue. But the Government have a range of measures, already taken and in hand, which we have discussed with business, to facilitate GB-NI movement.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, but is not unfettered trade access what we want, what we have always wanted all along and what the withdrawal agreement guarantees, both for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland—with a few minor checks—and of course trade between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic? We are committed to all these things. Does my noble friend agree that, if President-elect Biden seeks reassurance against the destabilisation of the Northern Ireland peace process—reassurance that we all want—it is the European Union authorities and negotiators in Brussels who are his best port of call and whom he should be ringing?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I will not follow the noble Lord into international diplomacy. What I will say is what I said with some force to the House on Monday: this Government are absolutely dedicated to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. That agreement has east-west as well as north-south aspects, and the rejection of the unfettered access commitment by your Lordships’ House was deeply unhelpful.

Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I regret that I cannot add anything to my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney. I am not in a position to advise the House at this stage on the composition and focus of the commission. Of course, I take note of what the noble Lord says.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, further to the question put by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, will the proposed commission look at the relationship between the Supreme Court and Parliament? If so, will it look in particular at the recent controversial court judgment on interim custody orders in Northern Ireland and exactly who signed them back in the 1970s, given that the judgment seemed to ignore completely the clear wishes and intentions of Parliament, to misunderstand the normal workings of ministerial and departmental government and to take no account of the practicalities of direct rule administration in Belfast at the time?

[Lord True]

My Lords, my noble friend has great and direct experience of this issue. Obviously, the Government will look closely at the outcome of that judgment. I regret that, as far as the commission is concerned, I cannot add anything to my prior answers on its scope and composition. I assure the noble Lord that the Government will proceed with care and consideration.

Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, the Government remain absolutely committed to replacing the Act, and I totally agree with the noble Baroness about its impact. We all lived those days, months and years, and we do not wish to see a recurrence.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this Act has clearly served Parliament badly but I worry that we are getting too many reviews and commissions confused together. Bearing in mind that many other parliaments around the world have a fixed term and that we are in a completely new age from the point of view of the electorate, who are now digitally empowered, is not the length of parliamentary Sessions a prime subject for the constitutional commission? Should not the review of the workings of this Act somehow be worked into the commission, where we will look closely at the effectiveness and functioning of Parliament, which has not been too good in the past and where people are now looking for a very much more effective and stronger performance?

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, again, my noble friend makes important points. It is certainly the Government’s intention to improve electoral procedures—separate announcements have been made on that—but Section 7 of the Act lays specific duties on the Prime Minister, and the Government must observe the law of the land.

Beyond Brexit (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I am the first to acknowledge the excellent work of our EU committees and their reports, under both my noble friend Lord Boswell and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. However, in the case of this report and as we come to the end of this debate—it is not really a debate at all, but a series of statements—I have to register my profound disappointment. The strong commitment in the report for scrutiny both during the transformation period and in the future is admirable, but my disappointment can be summed up in a single sentence. Neither the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union nor this report takes any account whatever of the fast-changing events and trends on the other side of the channel, within the EU and its institutions.

Everyone acknowledges that Brexit will profoundly reshape the EU, and many European leaders and thinkers accept that the EU needs fundamental reform, having been created in the pre-digital age. Many also see that these changes are going on fast anyway, regardless of whether officials in Brussels recognise them. Treating the EU as an unchanging monolith, as a hierarchy, will take our future relations straight into a brick wall. This is over and above the major effects on the EU of the current pandemic crisis, which themselves will have considerable long-term impact on the whole EU structure and the relations between member states and the central authorities.

These enormous forces of change in Europe long predate this crisis and will continue long after it has subsided. My question to the Minister is: when are we really going to address them?

EU: Future Relationship

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

I warmly welcome my noble friend to his new role, and I warmly welcome the comments he has just made and the whole tone of his speech, particularly its emphasis on the principles of our co-operation with the rest of Europe—in a sense, our European policy for the decades ahead. Does he accept that the Statement might have benefited from a description of what is going on in the EU, where radical change is under way? It is adjusting to a completely new style and emphasis in the digital age. Would he applaud a statement from the 19th century and the famous statesman Leopold von Ranke that

“the union of all depends on the independence of each”?

If we stick to that principle, old though it may be, we will be able to influence our Europe—which we still belong to—constructively in the future, along his lines.

[Lord True]

I thank my noble friend and agree with him, but this Government are not going to lecture the European Union on how it should manage its own home. We respect their right, as 27 sovereign nations, to determine their own future, but the points that my noble friend made are germane and important. We will, and I personally will, bear them all in mind.