Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, has shown great courage and consistency on this, the greatest question of our times. I think the House owes them a tribute for that.

It is now three months since the Prime Minister reached her withdrawal agreement in Brussels, but we do not seem much further forward. There are very few good options before us. I understand the speech of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, in which he said that we have to vote for this agreement because at least it avoids the calamity of no deal and gives us a transition period in which we can sort out all the problems. I have to say that my main objection to the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement and political declaration is that, despite her constant mantra that the only way to end uncertainty is by voting for her deal, all the deal does is guarantee years and years of uncertainty. We had Ivan Rogers at our Select Committee last week. He thought it would be another five years, if not longer, before we reached what he would call an equilibrium position.

For all the extravagant talk offered by Ministers two years ago, at the start of this process—they said that we would know exactly where we were and that we would have a trade deal by now—none of the key questions about the future relationship between Britain and the European Union has been resolved. In economics, what trade-offs have been faced up to between sovereignty and market access? I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, who first asked about that in the House. What decisions have the Government taken? None. On security, are we determined to align ourselves with the structures of European co-operation, at the same time accepting the legal obligations essential to making those work? On foreign policy and defence, will we stick together with the European partners whose values and interests in this troubled world we most share, or will we drag ourselves off into the foggy mists of some mid-Atlantic anglosphere? The Government have not resolved any of these crucial questions and that is why this deal deserves to fail. All it offers is uncertainty, drift, division and strife for years to come.

There have, however, been a couple of interesting developments in the last week or so. As other noble Lords have pointed out, the first is the Government’s willingness to contemplate some kind of extension of Article 50, at least in theory. In my view, a short extension is not much use, unless the House of Commons has passed the withdrawal agreement and we need that time to carry through the necessary legislation with proper parliamentary scrutiny. In those circumstances, it would be essential, but it is not going to create the conditions in which we can tweak Mrs May’s agreement even more. I do not think Brussels will be prepared to listen again.

The most serious failing of the Prime Minister on this matter is that she appears to have ruled out any possibility of a fundamental rethink of her negotiating position. Although Monsieur Barnier and the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, have said that they would be very interested in further discussing membership of a customs union, single market alignment and all the rest—in fact, they responded rather positively to the letter that the Labour leader sent to the Prime Minister—the Prime Minister has decided this is impossible, so we are not going to get a new approach from her. I think some time ago she decided that her historical role was not that of Robert Peel, but that her main mission in life was to keep the Conservative Party together and in some sort of order. Therefore, I do not think the short extension will do much good. It could be regarded by Brussels simply as giving time for more effective preparation for the consequences of no deal and completing necessary mitigating actions.

The second interesting development is Labour’s commitment to a referendum. I do not often say nice things about my leader, Jeremy Corbyn, but on this occasion I congratulate him on having the good sense to move in this direction. But the whole question of the referendum is not a simple one. Once one has said that one is in favour of a referendum, what would the question on the ballot paper be? I have very clear views. It would be intolerable if the choice offered to the public was between no deal and remain, because no deal is a complete fantasy. At our committee, Ivan Rogers said that if there was no deal, within a week British officials would be on their way to Brussels to negotiate solutions to all the problems we have heard it would create; problems of costs, bureaucracy at the border, EU trade deals we are part of, all sorts of sectoral issues which have been raised in the various SIs that have come before this House. Brussels would say, “Yes, we might discuss this with you, but first you must commit to the £39 billion in the withdrawal agreement that you say you reject and are walking away from”. There is therefore no such thing as no deal: it is a fantasy. I hope that if we do have a referendum and the Bill comes to this House, this House has the courage to say that a no-deal option is not a credible option for us to put to the people.

My final point is that if we are to have a referendum we should not rush into it: we should not try to do it within three months, by the end of June. There is real merit in the idea that is emerging on the continent of a very lengthy Article 50 extension, and we should think about that very carefully. Brussels will not want to deal with Britain during the rest of 2019. It has many other more important things on its plate, including the European Parliament elections, the establishment of a new Commission, and decisions on who the officeholders will be. There will be nobody in Brussels to have a discussion with for most of the remainder of this year. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan—an experienced former MEP—knows that is likely to be the case.

This provides us with an opportunity to try to create a more open and civilised debate than we have had in the past two years about the big questions around what kind of relationship we want with the European Union—questions that have not been properly addressed at all since the referendum, and were certainly not addressed during it. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for whom I have great respect, has suggested some ways in which this might be done. I do not know the details of that but I think that this is an opportunity to try to reset the whole Brexit debate, in order to reach a conclusion that is truly in the national interest.

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[Lord Liddle]

First, is the noble Lord aware that the only areas in which the EU has exclusive competence are trade and competition? Secondly, is he aware that the European Parliament has the power to dismiss the European Commission, which it has in fact done, in a way that I am not aware that our Houses of Parliament have done in recent times?

[Lord Farmer]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I am quoting from the House of Commons Library information on democratic deficit. It goes on to say—

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[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I am particularly grateful to noble Lords who have said something new.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, began by referring to the Prime Minister leaving no-deal threats on the table or not taking such a deal off the table. Similar observations were made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, contented himself with alluding to a fantasy. Let us be clear. This may help some people’s conscience, but the Prime Minister did not put no deal on the table; nor did she threaten with regard to no deal. This Parliament put no deal front and centre of the issue. This Parliament passed the referendum Bill. I wonder how many people here voted against it. They passed the referendum Bill. Then this Parliament passed the Bill to allow the Article 50 notification to be served. I wonder how many people here voted against that. I see one or two.

[Lord Liddle]

I did.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Well done, you are entitled to refer to a fantasy; others are not. The consequence of that was that we were leaving consequent on the application of Article 50, which required at the level of international law that a certain notice period should be given.

Brexit: Parliamentary Approval of the Outcome of Negotiations with the European Union

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests, as recorded in the register, from which it can be readily discovered that I am a Eurofanatic. I am, too, very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, who I have known since we were both in different parties—although he has managed two moves to my one.

I have observed in the past that you can change your history but not your geography, and we will find out, in the years to come, that being 22 or 23 miles from Calais will not change because we leave the EU. We seem to be in danger of talking about the deal as if it settled everything. It settles nothing: all it does is begin the negotiations on getting where we want to get to. We are at a very preliminary stage, and, as I have said many times in this House and elsewhere, we are being totally unrealistic. There is no way in which we leave the European Union and get a better deal than when we are in it, for the simple reason that 27 countries do not want to be reduced to 26 and will make it jolly certain that we get as difficult a deal as they can get away with. That is where the history and geography come together.

I turn now to a couple of practical things. We talk about extending Article 50—let us remember, however, that the European Parliament has to agree to whatever deal is reached. The last sitting of the European Parliament is on Thursday 18 April; it does not return until 2 July. The whole of the week when it returns is a basically ceremonial time when it elects its president, its committee chairs and all the people needed for the negotiations. The European Parliament, therefore, will have to decide whether it wishes to maintain its EU committee and whether Mr Verhofstadt will continue in his role. The European Commission will have to decide whether Mr Barnier is to continue in his role, or perhaps to become the new president of the Commission—an outcome I see as highly likely.

There will also be a change of presidency: at the beginning of July the Finns take over the presidency of the European Union. The odds are that theirs will be a fairly active presidency. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how much discussion there has been between HMG and the incoming Finnish presidency on how they propose to handle the period from July to December.

We then proceed through the autumn, when the European Parliament has hearings for the nominated Commissioners. Every country will nominate a Commissioner. A presidency will be nominated in July and throughout the autumn there will be hearings of the new Commissioners on their new portfolios. The EU will not be in a great position to be doing any negotiation. So an extension of three months is pretty meaningless.

Let me consider the MEPs. The Prime Minister said in her Statement:

“It would require an extension of Article 50”.


This is when she was against it; I am not sure what position she is in today. She continued:

“We would very likely have to return a new set of MEPs to the European Parliament in May”.


We would not, actually. The MEPs could lapse and there is a long-established procedure that when a member state joins the EU, the parliament nominates the MEPs. There is no legal reason why an outgoing state could not nominate MEPs—or, for that matter, have no MEPs at all. As we enjoy shooting ourselves in the foot, that might be the choice. They can be appointed.

We are also told that a second referendum would set a difficult precedent. Of course it would. As Mr Speaker Bercow has shown, precedents are there to be broken. I seem to remember that we had two referendums on Scottish independence and two on Welsh independence—

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

On devolution.

[Lord Balfe]

On devolution—the noble Lord is absolutely right.

It is a case of how long you allow to lapse between them, not that you cannot do it. As the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, rightly said, we could have an election. Let me warn my party what is likely to happen. I think it is highly likely that the Opposition would win an election. To people who think that elections are about Brexit, I say, think again. If you want an example, look at the Soke of Peterborough, as it is called. It had an MP who campaigned vigorously for a no vote. He lost his seat. I am not sure that the person who replaced him is in full communion with the party that she was elected for, but none the less, he lost his seat. Mr Stewart Jackson joined the unemployed as a reward for campaigning for Brexit.

You might well get that result in an election. People have reflected on seeing me on these Benches, but I will have a far bigger laugh when I see the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, as a Minister in a Corbyn Government. As she will remember, we were together in Labour First, the right-wing pressure group within the Labour Party. I think she will make an excellent Corbyn Minister. Let us be aware where we are heading.

On Project Fear, all we get these days is, “The drugs won’t come through” and “The ports will seize up”. Of course there will be difficulty, but we will get over it. We are a resourceful nation. People in East Anglia, where I live, say to me—and, I am sure, to my noble friend Lord Lansley—“We heard all this before, Richard. It was rubbish. We had it in the run-up to the referendum: the world was going to collapse. It hasn’t happened. It won’t. We might have a bit of difficulty, but we’ll get over it”.

I counsel that the argument for Europe is a moral and philosophical one. It is not about a can of beans, even a delayed delivery can of beans. Please do not go on with Project Fear. The next step will be negotiations. After this deal, whatever it is, is agreed, there will be difficult negotiations.

Last Friday, I was in Madrid talking to Spanish politicians. It is clear that they are keeping their powder dry. Their demands will come through when it matters, which is when they start negotiating. That is when you will find the different countries of Europe asking for whatever they want for their particular interests, for what is known in Belgium as the Flemish Christmas tree. Virtually every country of Europe will want to hang a bauble on that tree. That is where the difficult negotiations are going to take place. We will look back on debates like this and think, “Wasn’t it simple? We only had to talk to ourselves. Now we have got to talk to all these foreign people about how we survive”.

So I say to noble Lords, by all means let us extend Article 50, but do not believe that another referendum would necessarily change the result; it probably would not. We have to move forward. This is a great country and whichever way we go, we will survive. I would prefer to survive within the EU, but I do not subscribe to the prophets of doom who say that we are going to collapse if we are not.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. I greatly admire his personal courage and integrity, but I say to him that I think nothing is more likely to strengthen the anti-democratic forces in this country or to see the emergence of a strong populist, nationalist party with tendencies to fascism than the economic disaster that would follow from having no deal on our exit from the European Union. It would set off social forces that I really am concerned about.

As we again debate Brexit, I fear I am again part of the “here we go again” consensus in the debate today. I support my noble friend Lady Smith’s Motion. It seems to me that an Article 50 extension is inevitable if no deal is to be avoided. That would be the case even if by some miracle Mrs May were to get her deal through the House of Commons in the next couple of weeks.

So what is it worth talking about today? Something very significant has happened in the last fortnight, and it is about what the Prime Minister gives her top priority to. After the deal was defeated by 230 votes, there was a lot of talk of a plan B, of seeking cross-party agreement for a compromise that could have carried both Labour and Conservative MPs and other parties. I know this was not helped by the leader of the Opposition’s decision not to join those talks, but the true analysis of what went wrong was well summed up by Hilary Benn, the chair of the Brexit Select Committee in the Commons. He said that he had been to see the Prime Minister and that, yes, there was an open door, but he was faced with a closed mind. That is the only conclusion we can come to on what we are told is now the Government’s plan B: to go back to revising the backstop. So I am afraid the Prime Minister has not taken the good advice that I remember the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, offering her: that she should seek to be Sir Robert Peel in these circumstances. Rather, she continues the pathetic performance of the indecisive Arthur Balfour in the Administration of 1902-1905, faced with Conservative divisions on tariffs.

So what does going back to the backstop mean? Will the Minister give some specific answers to questions about that? This seems to be the substantive point of content in today’s debate. Are the Government, as I hope and assume they are, sticking fully to the commitments they made in the December 2017 agreement with the European Commission and to the amendment that was passed by this House to the EU (Withdrawal) Act—that the Good Friday agreement would be adhered to and that as a consequence of Brexit there would in no circumstances whatever be a reinstatement of a hard border in the island of Ireland? Is that still the Government’s position?

Secondly, do the Government accept—I have heard Ministers say at times that they do—what the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr, have said about what would happen in the event of no deal: in other words, that the problem of the border arises from our adherence to the very WTO rules which the Brexiteers go on about incessantly? If we do not stick to those rules, in the absence of a comprehensive free trade agreement, the most favoured nation principle comes into play, and that means that every other country in the world would have the right to trade with us and the EU on the principle of no tariffs, no quotas and no rules of origin. Do the Government accept that analysis?

Thirdly, do the Government accept that for the foreseeable future—and no one knows how long that future might be—while advanced technology and behind-the-border checks may minimise the policing, bureaucracy and delays involved in border checks, they cannot substitute for them? That was the authoritative evidence given to our Select Committee by the customs experts who came from Norway and Switzerland to talk to us.

Fourthly, do the Government therefore logically agree that the only way of avoiding the re-imposition of border checks in Ireland is an agreement whereby the island of Ireland remains within the EU customs territory and regulations on both sides of the border are closely aligned? If not, will the Minister tell us what might be possible?

Fifthly, if the Minister does agree and the Government want to avoid a customs border in the Irish Sea because they want, reasonably, to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom, is not the logic of that position that it requires Great Britain as a whole to abide by the rules of a customs union and maintain general regulatory alignment with the EU?

The Government have to come clean on these questions. What are their answers? I look forward to the summing up of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and seeing whether he has anything to say.

If the Government accept these propositions, how can they honestly go back to Brussels and argue that the backstop can be time limited, have a unilateral exit clause or even be eliminated altogether, when as recently as last autumn they agreed to all these things? What credibility would such a request have in Brussels without some clearly specified alternative, of which at the moment there is precisely none? Can the Minister give us an inkling of what the alternative to the backstop might be?

Finally, is it not sad and deplorable that a desperate attempt to restore the unity of the Conservative Party is once again being put ahead of the national interest and continued peace in Ireland?

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement Scrutiny

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I am happy to answer as many questions as we have time for. I do not know who the other Member was, but I would be happy to take a question from them afterwards. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Tebbit. We think that the Commission is negotiating in good faith and we hope to reach an agreement. That is in the interest of both sides and we want to do so.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I hate to question the veracity of what the Minister said, but the truth is that the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that 95% of the deal was done. That includes a lot of the areas that were not resolved when the draft agreement was published in March. In addition, we know that work on the political declaration that will accompany the withdrawal treaty is ongoing. There has been no attempt to involve Parliament in the content of that declaration, even though some of it might be in square brackets. Will the Government come clean? Basically, they are trying to bounce the Commons into the argument that there is no alternative to what they have agreed except no deal, and they are trying to bounce us into that position, too.

Brexit: Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

There is always wisdom in my noble friend’s suggestions but I think whether there should be a Joint Committee of both Houses is a matter for Parliament rather than the Government. We are working through the details with the EU at the moment on exactly what the composition of the joint committee will encompass. However, we expect it to be multilayered, possibly with one level of officials similar to UKRep and one ministerial level as well, but that agreement has still to be made.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, returning to paragraph 7, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, paragraph 7.b. refers to Northern Ireland but the only commitment it makes is that,

“the Government has been clear about its steadfast commitment to the Belfast Agreement”.

Is there any reason why, in this document, the Government’s commitment to no hard border has not been put down in black and white or why the amendment that this House passed on Northern Ireland and the avoidance of a hard border, which was accepted by the other place, has not been repeated? Do the Government continue to accept what they accepted in December: that there needs in this withdrawal agreement to be a backstop agreement on the avoidance of a Northern Ireland hard border?

[Lord Callanan]

There was no need to repeat that in the text because it is of course now part of the withdrawal Act, which is the law of the land. We remain committed to there being no hard border and to the backstop, as agreed in December. Negotiations are ongoing with that at the moment and, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, the reason that it is not in this White Paper is because it is not agreed yet.

Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course we are not reneging on the Prime Minister’s words, but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU made it clear yesterday that we expect a future partnership to be agreed at the same time; it will sit alongside the withdrawal agreement and no money will be paid unless the future partnership is delivered. In these circumstances, it is the duty of any responsible Government to prepare for every eventuality, including the unlikely scenario that we reach March 2019 without agreeing a deal. It is essential that plans are in place to mitigate the risks and ensure stability, whatever the outcome of these negotiations. The Government’s legislative programme in this Session provides for a range of negotiation outcomes, including that of no deal.

In the last few months we have passed the Nuclear Safeguards Act, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Act, preparing the UK for a future outside the European Union. I am grateful to the House for the constructive way it has engaged on this legislation.

We have been taking other practical action to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place—for example, recruiting 300 extra Border Force staff, with a further drive to recruit another 1,000, launched earlier this year. The Government have been working on nearly 300 no-deal plans for almost two years. Some of these are already in the public domain. As we announced last week, over August and September the Government will release a series of technical notices to set out what UK businesses and citizens will need to do in a no-deal scenario. This due diligence is designed to provide reassurance that the Government are prepared.

I note the great number of speakers listed for today’s debate and I look forward to hearing all the contributions. Before I resume my place, let me make it clear that we strive to strike the very best deal with the EU, and whatever the outcome of our negotiations, we stand ready to make a success of Brexit.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, will he answer the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about the facilitated customs arrangement? Paragraph 17 of chapter 1 of the White Paper states clearly that,

“the UK is not proposing that the EU applies the UK’s tariffs and trade policy at its border for goods intended for the UK”.

I understand that in the other place last Monday, an amendment was carried saying that this arrangement would not come into effect unless the other member states agreed to apply this dual tariff. What now is the Government’s policy on this critical point?

[Lord Callanan]

That paragraph confirms the answer I gave earlier. We will agree a tariff-sharing formula with the EU. That is part of the discussions we will have, but we are not asking other EU member states to change their arrangements at their borders. We do not believe that the amendment passed last week is incompatible with our White Paper proposals.

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[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, last week I had the great pleasure of being in Brussels with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and my noble friend Lord Whitty under the very good chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. We had a very interesting time, but I fear that I came away from the visit with a great deal of pessimism. My view is that we will return from our Summer Recess to find us heading for the deepest political crisis our nation has faced since the Second World War. It could so easily transmute into an economic crisis, a sterling crisis and an investment crisis once business suddenly comes to terms with the awful fact that the Brexiteer bluff of no deal might soon become—admittedly, I think, by accident—a reality.

No deal will have very serious consequences for 60% of our trade—not just trade with the EU, but with all the other countries the EU has trade agreements with—which now includes Japan. I do not share the optimism of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about trading on WTO terms. No deal would mean a breakdown in aviation and energy markets from day one; an immediate loss of broadcasting rights from the UK as programmes no longer comply with country of origin rules; potential chaos at all our borders as agricultural inspections, customs, rules of origin, regulatory checks and up-front VAT payments are imposed; legal uncertainty about contracts and business licences and authorisations issued by EU agencies; disruption to data flows; and some really awful things, such as confusion about the status of EU citizens living in this country and British citizens living on the continent. What on earth would happen to the Irish border in the event of no deal?

Quite a lot of people have said, “Oh, there is no majority for no deal in Parliament and it is not going to happen”—I wish I was so confident. The no-deal amendment, which twice passed in this House by huge cross-party majorities in the then European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, failed in the Commons when its otherwise wholly admirable mover—the right honourable Dominic Grieve—chose to fall on his sword in the interest of Conservative Party unity.

On the customs Bill last week, the Prime Minister chose to whip her parliamentary party to vote for several Jacob Rees-Mogg amendments which directly contradict the White Paper that she had produced only days before. The facilitated customs arrangement is a fantasy but it is possible that if it had simply been confined to the UK, the Government might have been able to persuade the European Commission to go along with the possibility that—at some stage in the long, long term—it might become technologically feasible, and that we would accept remaining in the customs union until that day happened. The fact is, however, that the Rees-Mogg amendment totally scuppers that possibility, because there is no way whatever that our European partners are going to adopt this plan themselves when, to be polite, it involves a massive increase in bureaucracy. One of the strange things about Brexit is that most of its keenest supporters also support a low-tax, small state. But what are we going to see with Brexit? There will be a massive increase in the size of the Civil Service and bureaucracy. This arrangement would certainly involve a big increase in bureaucracy, with untested technology and an invitation to commit fraud. No one else will go along with it and it is therefore not going to work as a proposition.

Last week left me feeling in a very bad way. I said to myself: is there no instance in which a clear-cut national interest can trump the unity of the Conservative Party as a higher cause? Will the Conservative Party ever not put its own unity first, before the national interest? Sadly, there is a group of misguided Labour MPs—and some of my colleagues here—who are totally oblivious to the pain that a hard Brexit will inflict on their poorest constituents. They are prepared to back Brexit in any form.

While we all hope for an agreement in October, I fear the political dynamic is moving in totally the wrong direction. I am not a fan of the White Paper. It should have been published 18 months ago, before we invoked Article 50, and it completely neglects the services sectors, where so much of Britain’s economic future lies. But if you were to ask me as a European adviser, the model of a customs union plus a single market in goods might have worked as the basis for an agreement with our European partners, as long as the UK was prepared to make concessions in other areas. Those would include: a more clearly defined role for the ECJ; binding rules to implement future single-market legislation; some continuing EU budget payments; and a preference for EU citizens in new labour mobility rules.

Instead of signalling the possibility of flexibility, however, the Cabinet postures that it has no more room for manoeuvre. Mrs Leadsom says we have gone as far as we can. Mr Raab protests that we will not pay the divorce bill—for which we have already signed up, incidentally—unless we are promised the trade agreement that we demand. Even the eminently sensible Mr Lidington uses the argument inside the Conservative Party that Parliament would, under Mrs May’s plan, retain its sovereignty to reject EU laws. Yet David Lidington knows, as well as I do, that the first principle of a common rule book for a common market is that members have to live with laws they do not like to benefit in the round from laws that are in their interests. We cannot trade frictionlessly with Europe on the basis of some pick-and-choose formula. Far too many on the Government Benches—

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Will the noble Lord conclude his remarks?

[Lord Liddle]

I will. I do not think other people have—anyway, there we are.

Some people think the Northern Ireland border is being got up by the Commission to force Britain into so-called vassalage. The truth is, as my noble friend Lord Adonis told us, the problems are very real. The truth is that England chose to impose this problem on Ireland by voting to leave the EU, and we are duty bound to find a solution to it. No deal could be a disaster and could happen. I believe we are heading for a grave national crisis. The Brexiteers think they can lay the blame on Brussels for the untruths they peddled in the referendum about the glorious opportunities Brexit would offer while claiming there would be no costs in trade, economic welfare or influence. It is time that politicians in all parties, including my own, stopped mouthing unworkable cake-and-eat-it solutions. It is time for those on all sides of the political aisle to put the national interest first, and that means revisiting the Norway model, extending Article 50 and contemplating another referendum.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

There is no cause for hysteria and no need for my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom to be upset by 160,000 names on a petition, almost all of them, I imagine, drawn from the Europhobes. I take pride in being a Europhile. My identity is English, my nationality is British and my civilisation is European. I wish us to remain on the closest possible terms. I believe passionately in Parliament, in a House in which I sat for 40 years and in this place, its rights, duties and limitations. All we have done is act according to that.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

Perhaps I may make three brief points or what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, described as hallucinations—although I see that he has gone.

First, I have sat through most of the 156 hours—80 to 90%, I should think—of debate on the Bill. I pay tribute to the Front Benches, my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, the Liberal Democrats and the Ministers who have tried to deal with all the complicated issues that have been put to them. I mean that most sincerely, even though I do not agree with them on many of the fundamentals.

Secondly, I was one of those passionate pro-Europeans like the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I could not bring myself to vote for the Article 50 Bill and voted against the Motion then that the Bill do now pass. I am not going to do that today because we have greatly improved this Bill in the amendments that the Government have brought. In the amendments that we have passed, we have done our duty and it is for the Commons to decide. We are not doing anything undemocratic. I shall put on the back of my bathroom door a photograph of me as an “enemy of democracy” in the Daily Mail. I am proud of that. In fact, we have just been doing our job, and it is up to the Commons to decide. On that, I should say how much I have admired the Conservatives in this House who have spoken so well on many of the issues and their courage in defying the party line.

When the Bill goes to the Commons, a lot of people will debate in their hearts whether they put the national interest before the party interest. However, I have a point for my own party. It is time that the Labour Party stood for the national interest on this issue and opposed a hard Brexit. If all we are going to get is a hard Brexit, then we should have no Brexit at all.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, it may surprise them, but I begin by congratulating and thanking the Government Front Bench. I congratulate the ministerial team on passing the first test of successful politicians: they have survived, and that is a signal achievement. I also thank them for at no point suggesting that your Lordships’ House should not pass amendments. During previous Administrations, it has been common, even at this stage, for Ministers on the Front Bench to stand up, on amendment after amendment, saying, “This should not be passed because the Bill has been through the Commons and the House of Lords should simply do what the Commons has instructed”. It must have been extremely tempting for the Government Front Bench to say that repeatedly as the Bill has gone through. It reflects well on the House that Ministers have not done so, and I thank them for that.

I should like also to thank my team, both in the Chamber and our staff supporting us, on what has been a tiring process—in particular, Elizabeth Plummer and Sophie Lyddon, who worked exceptionally hard.

As the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House, it faces an unclear future. We do not, for example, even know when it is going to be taken in the Commons. Certainly, it is not going to be taken until June. This begins to set the seal on what will be a huge challenge for the rest of the year, because the Bill presages 1,000 statutory instruments, many of which need, I assume, to be in place before the Government’s preferred exit day in March next year. The Government are also committed to bringing forward a whole range of other Brexit-related Bills before that deadline. They even have to bring forward a Bill to disapply the vast bulk of this Bill during the transition period. We are in for a very difficult period. I am not going to embarrass the Minister by asking how he hopes to get through this legislative logjam, because I know he does not know and in any event that is for another day. Today, all we can do is send the Bill to the other place and wait for the explosions.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment and back up what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said. In today’s economy, business is integrated and transactions are global, with goods moving across borders every minute of the day. Our biggest customers are right on our doorstep in the EU—27 countries and half our trade. It is not just finished goods, but ingredients and components. In food and drink, my industry, I can give an example. Bailey’s Original Irish Cream is made in Dublin and goes across the border into Northern Ireland. It is bottled there, comes back into Dublin and is exported to the EU and around the world absolutely seamlessly.

Some 2.5 million lorries pass through Dover. How will we cope if there is any disruption over there? Some 70% of the UK’s food imports by value are from the EU, and 60% to 65% of agricultural exports are to other member states. Any delays on these goods, many of which are perishable, would raise food prices. Some 1.5 million trucks go through the Channel Tunnel. The list of border operations is so complex. What preparations have been made if there is to be a hard Brexit to put up all the infrastructure required, prevent any delays and have a frictionless border?

Some 69% of freight transport goes to the EU as lorry traffic. The FTA has spoken out very clearly for the whole industry. It represents 50% of the UK’s lorries and 90% of rail. It has warned very clearly of 15-mile queues at Calais if border checks are introduced. We need to remember what happened in 2015 with the French ferry workers’ strike. If trucks coming from the EU are treated like non-EU trucks, the ports will be in permanent gridlock. Does the Minister agree? The other aspect is Ireland. From Ireland, goods go to Europe across the UK. It takes trucks 10 hours from leaving Dublin to get to Europe. If they had to go around, it would take them 40 hours, with considerable disruption.

I conclude with a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. Yesterday, in the Sunday Times there was an article in which a company boss said:

“We suddenly caught Brexit blight”.


The article says that:

“A wrinkle in international trade rules is scaring away companies in Europe from British suppliers”.


It talks about a Bristol-based company where the customers which used to give orders well in advance—in Germany and Scandinavia—are suddenly stopping the orders because of rules of origin. The supply chain is worried about this. The local content will not be of 50% value. With many industries such as the car industry, components that are made in the UK are well below 50%. There are companies here that just do not have the capability to move from under 50% to 50% or 60%. It will take many years to be able to have that capability domestically, and we will not be able to do it competitively.

The article concludes by saying that companies like this one in Bristol,

“will gradually be ‘evolved’ out of the supply chains of EU manufacturers that do not want the hassle of providing paperwork for components bought outside the bloc”.

It will, says the company,

“be death by a thousand cuts”.

That is what we are facing. We had a vote on the customs union in this Bill and it is critical because it marks the frontier between hard Brexit and a soft Brexit.

In the Financial Times recently, one leading British political analyst was asked to predict what would happen. He said that Brexit will not happen because there is no version of Brexit that can get a parliamentary majority. There will be no parliamentary majority if we cannot handle this particular situation in this amendment.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, on their remarks. We know that the Government do not have a policy on this issue. We can read in the Financial Times that there will be a great debate tomorrow. The Minister smiles, but he knows perfectly well that it is true that the Government have not resolved the question of what customs model they will go for. This is an extraordinary situation. It is now 22 months since the Brexit vote and yet the Government have not got a policy on the fundamental point of how we will make Brexit work. It is a failure of massive proportions on the Government’s part. I want to hear an apology to business from the Minister for the fact that the Government’s political divisions have basically led to a situation in which business is facing a serious cliff edge. They call themselves the “party of business”. What serious claim have the Benches opposite to be the party of business, given the way they have behaved since the EU referendum?

I also say to my own side that I fully support the amendment we passed on the customs union. I was greatly cheered up by it. It is a breach in this wall of stupidity that the Government have erected, but it is not a complete solution to the business problems that people have talked about. It does not solve entirely the problem of customs checks because of rules of origin and issues with agricultural produce and all the rest. It certainly does not solve the Northern Irish border problem on its own. It does not address the fundamental economic point that it completely neglects services—the dynamic part of our economy where our exports are growing, where we have a strong surplus and which is our economic future. This is a terrible, woeful neglect on the part of the Government of the key, dynamic, entrepreneurial sectors of the British economy. How can they claim to be the party of business?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, the issue raised by the amendment is key to how we depart the EU. Indeed, the urgency of sorting out the logistics, costs and procedures of being outside our current trading arrangements has already been made clear. It should not need repeating that 44% of our goods exports go to the EU, with more than 50% of imports coming from the EU, making the mutual case for continued tariff-free trade unanswerable.

As the CBI says, should the current arrangements—a simple single form for our exporters—change to,

“a 12-page form for each batch of goods”,

where,

“Every consignment will also need a VAT registration and certificates of origin, declaring how much of each product has been made where”,

costs will rise disproportionally. Indeed, one major retailer foresees,

“a five- to ten-fold increase in border documentation”,

should Britain leave the customs union, with a possible extra 200,000 UK businesses having to make customs declarations for the first time.

As we have said, the high degree of integration between UK and EU supply chains means that any new friction—bound to be slow and costly—would force businesses to adapt the way they do business, including over choice of supplier and extra storage space for just-in-time models and such issues. We have already heard of the food and drink industry: 90% of imports and exports of food and non-alcoholic drink are with the EU or those countries with whom the EU has trade arrangements. For manufacturing, according to the EEF, agreeing a preferential set of rules of origin with the EU will be crucial given the complexity of the supply chain and the origin of component parts.

We know all that; we have heard about it in this House before and have heard it again this evening. What I did not know until last week—maybe the Minister can correct what is being said—is that not one single Minister from his department has been down to the Port of Dover to see the problems that will arise there. Lorries coming from outside the customs union are currently subject to about 45 minutes of checks and the same would happen if we were outside the customs union. We understand that neither he nor any of his colleagues has been down there to witness that. Perhaps he could put us right.

The concentration on solving the issues highlighted by the agreement are real ones which we support. Clearly, as I think those behind me know, we might have a little difficulty with some of the words in this amendment but the issues raised by it, which the Government must solve, are ones to which we clearly would add our support.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Committee: 10th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the call by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, that primary legislation should be used to form the necessary frameworks. I made that point at Second Reading when I suggested that Clause 11 and all devolved matters should be taken out of the Bill altogether. It might then not have required any consent from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, the whole matter would have been considerably simplified and the focus could have been put on the very difficult issues that arise with devolution. The original architecture which the Government put forward, which of course they have changed now, was that the powers that were to come back from Brussels—or, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said, the restraints upon the devolved Administration, which is a simpler way of looking at it—should go to the UK Government and then be parcelled out and conferred upon the devolved Administrations. Which powers and when—the timing and the nature of those powers—would be virtually at the whim of the Minister who would decide what was appropriate. It would be done by secondary legislation, either statutory instruments or Orders in Council. We have had debates about that.

The conferred powers model has never been used in relation to the Scottish Parliament. It has always been reserved powers. That is to say that in specific cases of policy, all those powers go to the Scottish Parliament, save those that are named, enumerated and held back— reserved—by the UK Government. Precisely that reserve powers model is about to be employed in Wales under last year’s Wales Act. It is to commence in April. To come forward with a scheme in which, in effect, powers are conferred not by the UK Parliament but by a Minister merely by statutory instruments, which cannot be amended, or by Orders in Council, was clearly inadequate and has given rise to a great deal of difficulty and angst, certainly in Wales.

I shall quote from the evidence that appears in the report of the Committee on the Constitution. It was given by Professor Richard Rawlings of University College London, who has given very valuable advice, in Wales in particular, on devolution issues. What he said about the original architecture was that,

“this process does not establish positive duties on the part of the UK Government to devolve. Legally-speaking, suggested ‘transitional’ elements could so easily become permanent features”.

That is the which and the when. He continued:

“Nor need one be an expert in game theory to appreciate the way in which clause 11 stacks the cards in favour of the centre when negotiating the different design choices with common frameworks”.


If the devolution of powers is simply within the control of the Minister of the UK Government, then the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have lost their bargaining power in the creation of frameworks. The point was made that while UK-wide frameworks will be necessary in a number of policies, they should be agreed on a parity-of-esteem basis between the Governments and legislatures of the United Kingdom, not imposed by the UK Government even on a time-limited basis.

I hope that indicates what the real, critical matter is. It is not just Welsh, Scottish and possibly Northern Irish people whingeing or seeking to stand up for their own individuality—it is nothing like that. It is that they should have equal bargaining power with the UK Government in the construction of the UK frameworks, which everyone agrees are necessary. I wholly support the amendment.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I have listened with great attention to these debates on devolution and found them extremely interesting. However, I have to say that the longer I have listened, the more concerned I have become about the threat that Brexit poses to the unity of the UK. There is a lot of glib talk about processes, agreement and consent, but in fact we are dealing here with some highly political issues that were not greatly controversial as long as we were members of the EU, but could become of considerable controversy between the nations of the UK, given the different political balance in each of those nations.

I shall make three points to illustrate what I think the threat is. First, the European single market is not a complete single market; it is the deepest single market in the world but it is not complete. One of the differences is that tax rates vary between member states. There has never been a completely harmonised tax system; customs vary, as do business taxes. Once we start talking about a UK single market, the debate will be raised to a new level: about whether tax rates can differ in areas where they presently do not between the nations of the UK. That raises fundamental political choices—between those who believe in higher taxes and higher public spending, and those who do not—and you get people going in different directions.

Secondly, issues such as competition, state aid and public procurement will become highly political and divisive, and it is quite likely that the Welsh and Scottish Governments will wish to take a different approach to these issues from a Conservative-led UK Government. That would lead to a lot of tension. Thirdly, in the area of trade, the beef farmers in the north-east of Scotland and Welsh hill farmers who export their sheep, for example, will be greatly alarmed that the UK Government are prepared to sacrifice these interests in order to complete trade agreements with the rest of the world, and they would have no say whatsoever in those agreements. So on all those grounds I believe we are dealing here not just with processes but, potentially, with highly difficult political questions. Consent is absolutely fundamental. The idea that the solution to these problems could be imposed by a UK Government runs the risk of leading ultimately to the break-up of the UK.

My final point is that a lot of these problems—some 90% of them—would not exist if we stayed in the European single market. That is what many of us on these Benches want to do. The simplest way to prevent these divisive issues that threaten the unity of the United Kingdom is to stay in the single market, where we all stick with a set of common rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the noble Baroness needs to be very cautious about taking on the noble Duke, of Wellington in a debate. I hope that she will be able to agree with her ducal colleague. There are two key points here: one is fundamental, the other pragmatic. The noble Duke made the pragmatic one, which is compelling. There could be reasons, perhaps to do with the final ratification processes, why it is in the public interest to delay and we should not put obstacles in the path of that. There is also a reason of fundamental constitutional principle why we should not agree to this. We are being asked to agree to a date for leaving the European Union, and to put it in statute, before we know what we will be doing after we leave. Until we have the withdrawal treaty, we will not be aware of what the terms of withdrawal are—

[Lord Liddle]

I do not think we are going to know what the terms of withdrawal are even when we get that treaty. All we are going to get is a political declaration. It is clear that everyone in Brussels thinks that the British Government want to fudge that as much as possible because that is the only way the Prime Minister, Mrs May, can get an agreement through the House of Commons and her own party.

[Lord Adonis]

My noble friend makes very good points, which will be a subject for discussion when we see the proposed withdrawal treaty. However, this is all the more reason why Parliament should not commit itself now to a date in advance of knowing the basis on which we are going to withdraw. The arguments for taking the date out of the Bill are compelling. It is not sufficient that only a Minister has the power to change the date. It is crucial for Parliament itself to be in charge of setting the date, once it has agreed the terms of departure.

I am always an optimist in these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, did the noble Baroness on the Front Bench a great disservice when he said that he knew in advance what she was going to say. We know that the noble Baroness is highly emollient and listens to debates in the House. She is not her noble friend Lord Callanan, who just reads from the script and is totally unresponsive to the mood of the House. We have great confidence that the noble Baroness will say that she has listened to the compelling arguments which have been put to her, particularly from her ducal colleague; that she is going to depart from the words in her script; that Her Majesty’s Government will consider this matter on the basis of the overwhelming weight of arguments which have been put in this Committee and that she will be delighted to accept the amendments on the Order Paper this afternoon.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 214, to which I have attached my name. I am not sure whether attaching my name to an amendment makes it more or less likely to be considered—perhaps it is less likely. This is an important amendment and I hope that your Lordships’ House will forgive me if I restate things slightly differently. In my political life, I have found that it pays to repeat things, because people do not always hear them the first, second or even 100th time. Repetition is not a bad thing.

The amendment is all the more important when considered in the light of the Prime Minister’s “hard truths” Brexit speech, where she committed to,

“bring our country back together, taking into account the views of everyone who cares about”,

Brexit,

“from both sides of the debate”.

That is laudable, because we all know that this country is deeply divided over Brexit and we have at some point to start some healing. I have not seen any sign of it yet. This amendment is therefore a chance to start that healing process and to reassure those people who are anxious about the prospect of leaving the EU—the number seems to mount every day.

Amendment 214 sets out a legal responsibility for Ministers to ensure that public authorities continue to protect all rights, freedoms and protections that any person might reasonably expect as a member of the EU. Ministers are claiming a whole load of lawmaking powers in the Bill, but the amendment would require them to use those powers for good. We are retaining this whole body of EU law, with certain rather crucial gaps, but we do not want a governance gap, where many of our rights could be contingent on some power or function exercised by an EU authority or entity that we do not have a copy of. As one example, many of our environmental protections and the protection of our health, which stems from them, are currently governed by EU entities. The retained EU laws will be absolutely worthless if there is no organisation or entity through which they can take effect and be held to account. While Ministers will have legal powers under the Bill—far more than we want them to, if they get their way—they have no legal obligation to ensure that those powers are used to protect our rights, so there is a big gap through which much retained EU law could fall without this amendment. As worrying as the Henry VIII powers are, the potential to lose rights by omission is just as worrying.

As someone who voted for Brexit, I know that no one voted to lose their rights, protections and freedoms. With this amendment in place, I would certainly sleep better at night, and many more people, be they Brexiters, remainers, “don’t carers”—I am not sure how many of those are left, but perhaps there are some—or whoever else, would feel reassured about the path down which Brexit is taking us. We all know that Brexit is a leap in the dark. None of us can say how it will work out. This amendment is our opportunity to put some certainty in place by requiring the Government to ensure that all rights, freedoms and protections that we enjoy under the EU will continue to be protected by a public authority once we leave.

I wish to take a moment to pre-empt the Minister, who will probably say lots of things with which I do not agree, and briefly explain what this amendment is not. In case the response is to refer to a list of rights such as voting in EU elections and standing for election to the European Parliament, the amendment pre-empts this by referring only to those rights,

“which do not cease as a result of the withdrawal agreement”,

so we can save ourselves from that response. The withdrawal agreement will be voted on by this Parliament, so there will at least be some democratic basis on which those rights are withdrawn. This is in contrast to rights withdrawn by omission, which has no democratic mandate, scrutiny or oversight. Therefore, I beg the Minister to give real thought to the intent of this amendment. As I said, no one voted to lose their rights. I think that the majority of people in this country would support this amendment and not see it as a measure that would block Brexit. It is about protection for us all. It is our chance to put things right and to start the healing process that is not just necessary but urgent.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

In supporting this amendment, I wish to emphasise an aspect on which noble Lords who have spoken have not focused but which is a vital part of our EU membership, as I see it, that will probably be lost unless we continue to think of ourselves as a European country. This is not about being in the EU but about thinking of ourselves as a European country.

In those far-off days when Labour was in government, I was involved in establishing policy co-ordination under what was called the Lisbon strategy, which covered a range of areas such as early school leavers, which is a problem in many of our member states, child poverty, the extent to which arrangements were in place to achieve a work/life balance and enable families and women to access good childcare, research targets, monitoring how much member states were spending on research and innovation, and the best policies for promoting research and innovation. A range of soft co-ordination is carried out by the EU in areas that are not strict EU competences, which will be lost.

This is important in terms of the policy community—for civil servants, for academics involved in these issues and for people who think about education, social, poverty and innovation policy. If we detach ourselves from this, we will not be a European country any more. Involvement in agencies or bodies such as the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions is important to people who think about policy in these areas. Therefore, I support the amendment.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

I would like to question that intervention. I think that common standards can be a bad thing for free trade. They can be the most effective of all anti-trade policies and, when it comes to the European Union, in many cases they are. They are used, particularly by Germany, to restrict trade in a far more effective way than tariffs might do. Therefore, it is precisely the kind of vague, if I may put it that way, standards to which the noble Lord has just referred that one should be wary of in this amendment.

[Lord Liddle]

If I may say so, the noble Lord has just shown the real objective of people who support Brexit. It is basically to weaken common standards and to turn us into some kind of mid-Atlantic regulatory free market tax haven, which is a horrific prospect for the British people. The fact is that the people who support that, with the exception of the noble Lord, do not have the courage to tell the British people that that is what they want.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I object strongly to that comment about people who support Brexit supporting a lowering of standards. That is absolutely not true.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Dinner breaks are always filled with other business, or usually so. I am happy with the answer that I have given the noble Lord.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, give us an indication of when he proposes to adjourn the Committee this evening? Many of us came here on the basis that it would adjourn at 10.30 pm. Can he tell us why a decision appears to have been taken that this will no longer be the case?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The target for the day is printed on the groupings list. It states that we should,

“go no further than the group beginning amendment 220”.

We have adjusted that because of the amount of time we have spent so far on the amendments today. We have had eight and a half hours of actual discussion on the Bill today and completed four groups. We need to make progress. I am afraid that we are going to have to sit later than 10.30 pm. I would like to conclude the business at that time but I am afraid that it will not be possible unless we have an enormous rush of amendments not being moved. I think that is unrealistic, so I must tell the noble Lord that I think he will be sitting quite late this evening.

[Lord Liddle]

Is it the noble Lord’s view that the Committee has not been reasonable in its treatment of these amendments? We have had four very big, serious debates today which, in my view, have been of the highest quality and have shown the House of Lords at its best. Is the noble Lord telling us that there has been time-wasting?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Not at all. The House is perfectly entitled to take as much time as it wishes in debating these issues. However, as Government Chief Whip, it is my task to get this legislation through the House. I am afraid that noble Lords will have to be prepared to co-operate in that endeavour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie]

The noble Lord identifies the important characteristic of the OBR, which is its statutory independence. That is a strength and something we all commend. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, we have to respect what the OBR by statute is required to do, and we expect it to do that.

There are practical difficulties in addition to those which I was just beginning to outline when the noble Baroness made her intervention. If the Government agreed to have a forecast ahead of the withdrawal legislation being considered by Parliament, there is simply no guarantee the OBR would be able to take the terms of the agreement into account in its forecast. For example, if there was only a short period of time between the agreement being made public and the point at which legislation is introduced, then the OBR may not have capacity to conduct a thorough analysis.

[Lord Liddle]

I have the most recent report from the OBR here. It seems to me that the time point is irrelevant. If we are serious about letting our own Select Committees look at the proposed withdrawal agreement, there will be time for the OBR to do a forecast. It is one of the things that it complains about in the recent report:

“We asked the Government if it wished to provide any additional information on its current policies in respect of Brexit”—


but all the Government did was send it a copy of the Prime Minister’s Florence speech. The report goes on:

“Given the current uncertainty as to how the Government will respond to the choices and trade-offs facing it during the negotiations, we still have no meaningful basis for predicting a precise outcome upon which we could then condition our forecast”.


As soon as the withdrawal agreement is known, the OBR will want to produce that. Is the noble Baroness saying it should not?

[Baroness Goldie]

On the contrary, as I made clear in my initial comments, the Government expect the OBR to include the impact of the withdrawal agreement alongside its forecast for the UK’s economic and fiscal outlook. In fact, the noble Lord perhaps makes the point better for me than I make it myself. The OBR’s comments, which he has just read out to me from the report, are not redolent of criticism of the Government but of an acceptance of the reality of the difficulties of the negotiation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan]

Because they are by nature conservative, of course, and that is what it was: no change, like the noble Lord.

How can we not diminish, as the amendment says, the rights of young people to study in Europe? We want them to go and study. It is up to our friends, neighbours and allies in Europe to let them come, as we will let their people come to our country—not least, it has to be said, because foreign students pay a lot of fees to our universities. I am not going to detain the House for the half hour that I probably have in me, but I think that this amendment makes those of us who do not agree with it feel pretty insulted by the suggestion that we wish to curtail the rights of our children and grandchildren.

[Lord Liddle]

The referendum was won on the basis of controlling immigration by using posters that had 5 million Turks about to enter Britain. People who support Brexit have the gall to say that we are all in favour of people coming to Britain. That is the basis on which the referendum was won. Brexit is withdrawing the fundamental rights of EU citizenship, rights which are in the treaties. We have these rights because we are a member of the European Union. It is the treaties that give young people the right to work, study and travel without let or hindrance anywhere within the European Union. People on the Benches opposite are responsible for taking those rights away.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

I support this amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, to which I have added my name. I thank the noble Earl for tabling such an important amendment and introducing it in such a clear and precise manner.

History is littered with battles to achieve basic rights, and each hard-earned right is seen as an advancement—a sign of progress and enlightenment—as we move forward as civilised nations. Attempts to rescind our rights would and should be met with outrage, and no self-respecting Government would normally attempt such a backward step. So it is in the case of EU citizenship. UK citizens have had, since 1993, the same rights, freedoms and legal protections as every citizen of the EU and, although these are rights that have been bestowed upon us, they are rights that very many of us have embraced and valued. It seems unthinkable that the Government, egged on by the 37% of our population who voted to leave, are happy to see those rights removed.

It is those of us who remain living in the UK who will lose the most. We will lose all the rights that we have held as EU citizens, and it is young people who will feel that loss more than any other group. For those under 25, their EU citizenship is a birthright: they have known nothing else. Many young people in Wales consider themselves to be Welsh, British and European and wear those three identities comfortably, as do their English, Scottish and Irish counterparts. They have embraced the rights to live, work and love in the EU. They have grabbed the opportunity to obtain an international education and have studied at universities throughout the EU, advancing their language skills to enable them to work in an international sphere, and they have travelled freely throughout the Union. These young people voted far more strongly against Brexit than their older counterparts and they are the people who will have to live with the consequences of the votes of the older generation.

It is thought that 74% of under-25s voted to remain, but when will the Government acknowledge how strongly they feel? When will they listen to the voices of the young?