European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My noble friend Lord Hailsham is a signatory to this amendment and it is right that the House hear from him. Perhaps we can then hear from the Labour Benches, and then from one of my noble friends on the Conservative Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, not for the first time I wholly agree with the analysis of my noble friend Lord Heseltine, with whom I think I entered the House of Commons on the same day over 50 years ago—I agree with his analysis but I am afraid I do not agree with his conclusion. The amendments have clearly been tabled with great sincerity and I appreciate all their aims and concerns. They are trying to impose statutory precision on a Bill that happens to be going through this House in order to make provision for a very uncertain future and for events that are completely unforeseeable. As my noble friend and others have said, we have absolutely no grasp of where the world or this issue will be in two years’ time.

Any commentary one looks at from the other side of the channel shows clear uncertainty as to who is taking the lead. There are daily quarrels between national capitals and Brussels, and there is infighting inside the European Commission—the Visegrad four are already talking about a different treaty. This very hour we have a blog saying that Spain and Poland want to join together on a completely different approach to the negotiations from that offered by the European Commission. What will happen is uncertain. The additional point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, with his usual eloquence, that under certain circumstances—although this is almost inconceivable except under a different Government on this side of the channel—the whole project could be aborted and withdrawn.

The truth, which my noble friend Lord Howard stated with great frankness and eloquence, is that in the Commons the parliamentary majority can do what it likes. I say “majority” and that is different from “Parliament”, which flows from legal lips as though it were an entity—of course, it is not. Parliament is actually the people controlling the majority; that is, the managers of the parties or coalitions that have a majority in the Commons. That is what comes out if you press the button marked “Parliament”.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, whose speech I greatly enjoyed, and to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that I am certainly more Burke than Brezhnev. But I am also a disciple of Karl Popper, who spent a lot of time warning us—as did Isaiah Berlin and others—about the dangers of making things too inevitable and the poverty of determinism. Telling the Commons what to do by statute law about a situation that may be completely different from anything we presently envisage seems a noble but really futile project. The Commons will decide by parliamentary majority. It has not always been able to do so and in past centuries there have, of course, been fights against the royal prerogative. But since Parliament has won that battle, as it did in our history, the parliamentary majority will decide—if its managers can control it, the Whips can keep it in place and it is big enough then it will be the will of Parliament.

The bundle containing the divorce papers and the mixture of new arrangements will be vastly complex and there will be all sorts of uncompleted aspects. That document will be the work of two years of Ministers slaving away, of vastly difficult negotiations and private deals ensuring mutual equivalence and mutually beneficial arrangements between sectors and industries—and heaven knows what else. If after all that there is a vote in Parliament and the Government lose because the majority moves against them and fails to give its approval, I do not see how there can be any doubt about what will happen. That is a declaration of no confidence. We have a five-year rule for Governments but that would not need to be changed if the no-confidence vote was in ringing terms, as it almost certainly would be. That would mean we would arrive at a general election. That seems so obvious and so certain that I cannot understand those who are talking mysteriously about a world beyond rejection. It is inconceivable that Ministers would be sent back to Brussels saying, “Our Parliament has looked at this and does not like it but we will carry on”—it would not be the same Ministers, it would not be the same Government and it would not be the same deal. It would be a completely different situation, regardless of what is written on any piece of paper and regardless of any statute, however beautifully it had been drafted by all the learned people sitting in this House and however firm it was. In reality, it would make no difference to what would actually happen.

I do not want to stray beyond the confines of Report but I realise that behind the longing to get this into statute—to pin it down on paper—is a real concern. It is the concern of those who fear that the deal, when it comes back, will not include membership of the single market and of the customs union. For them, that will brand it a bad deal and it will lead a lot of people in the Commons, but I suspect not the majority, to think about voting it down—they will not succeed but they will think about it. I say to my noble friends in this House and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that there is room for considerable doubt as to whether being in or out of the single market as it exists today is really the end of the world. In an ocean of digital change, in which there are vast new supply chains travelling in every direction, which are perforated with low tariffs, tariff wars, and special arrangements and regulations on every side, as well as a completely new pattern of trade, totally different in character from even 10 years ago, there is room for doubt as to whether being outside the single market is really a catastrophe. The chief economist of the Bank of England, Mr Haldane, actually said last week that it does not matter and that over the next three years it is of no material difference to the growth of the British economy whether it is in or out of the single market.

I put that in as an aside. I appreciate that it moves away from the amendment, but the amendment expresses a genuine fear about being excluded from the single market. All I say is that if you look at the facts and details of what is actually happening, you will see it is very different from what is being said by those who argue that leaving will be a disaster and that we are bound to pay a colossal price. They say that trade will effectively halve because goods will have to travel double the distance but these sort of generalities belong to the past century and to a world that no longer exists.

The whole idea of sending Ministers back to Brussels to get us back into the single market if the deal arranged takes us out is a fantasy; in reality no such situation could ever arise. It is worthy of an animated cartoon but highly disadvantageous. There is a new pattern emerging—a new world governed by the WTO—which many people feel has all sorts of advantages, which have not been discussed at all by this House.

For this House to tell the House of Commons what to do two years hence, in a completely different situation from anything we presently envisage, is to make fools of ourselves twice over. If that is what noble Lords opposite want, so be it, but it will have to be without me. My hope remains that we in this House can contribute not division but unity to a very difficult challenge and a major new situation emerging for this country in the near future. Perhaps we cannot deliver the unity in this amendment but we can at least agree on the facts. At present the full facts are not being presented to us.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that it is Report and we do not want Second Reading speeches. It is not appropriate for Members to give Second Reading speeches. I apologise to my noble friend.