Brexit: Sanctions Policy (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, particularly his last point. I also very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said. It will come as a huge surprise to the House, I should think, that he and I agree—he is coming on quite nicely. My worry is that we ourselves, as far as I know, have not yet put forward any proposal to our European Union partners in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, ended by asking the Minister to flesh out the tailored arrangement that Sir Alan Duncan had in mind. All we get in the report is that the Government’s ambition is for an “unprecedented” level of co-operation, which is an “untested” approach. That seems to me a slightly tautologous statement: if it is unprecedented, probably it is a little bit untested.

The report goes on to say:

“If participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy after Brexit is not possible—or not sought by the UK”—


well, participation in the common foreign and security policy will not be possible after Brexit: the CFSP is for members of the European Union—

“then the Government should propose that a political forum be established between the UK and the EU, for regular discussion and co-ordination of sanctions policy”.

I entirely agree. It sounds very mechanistic, but you need to have a structure, with regular meetings. We will not be in the room, having a voice in the decision taken on sanctions in the European Union, but we need to have the room next door. We need to be there regularly, the day before they decide or the morning of the day they are going to decide, able to influence the decision they take. Putting forward a proposal for that kind of consultative architecture would be well worth doing in itself, for the reasons I have just given. It would also be extremely helpful to the atmosphere of the ongoing negotiation with the European Union.