European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully support my noble friend’s decision to raise these questions, which are very important. I suspect the Minister will say that the Government have given a commitment that, when the withdrawal agreement is concluded, it will become before this House an Act of Parliament and we will therefore have the opportunity to debate it then. However, there are two powerful reasons why citizens’ rights should be incorporated in this Bill now.

The first is the high level of anxiety that EU citizens have about their position. I am sure there is relief that, in principle, an agreement was reached in December, but there could still be many a slip between cup and lip in its ratification. Those citizens’ rights should be guaranteed now to provide reassurance.

Secondly, I listened hard to an earlier contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, in which he said that the main utility of this Bill is to make sure there is legal certainty if we crash out of the EU—because, assuming that negotiations work, there will be a transition period during which EU citizens’ rights will not be affected. The problem we are dealing with particularly in this Bill is the risk of a crash-out. Of course, the Government will say to us, “Well, we’re very determined there won’t be a crash-out”, but they will not exclude that possibility. It was clear from the intervention at the end of my noble friend Lord Foulkes’ speech that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, actually relishes the possibility of a crash-out because he thinks, wrongly, that this is some bargaining leverage we have over the EU.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, but he must not put words into my mouth. I simply asked a straightforward question as to what the position would be if this amendment were carried in the event of no deal. Clearly, it would create enormous confusion. There is the separate issue of why we should allow extraterritorial jurisdiction on the part of a foreign court, but I was not embarking on that particular argument. If this is the best the noble Lord can do to support the amendment, I am sure he will support the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in withdrawing it in due course.

[Lord Liddle]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is clearly saying that he thinks there is a real possibility we are going to crash out of the EU. We have heard that from him on other occasions and from people who agree with him. David Davis wrote to Conservative MPs to say that it was a possibility that we would not pay up the money unless we got a good free trade agreement. The fact is that any deal is better than no deal: no deal would be an absolute disaster for this country. But if there is a serious risk of no deal from Members of the governing party—I am sure the Government do not want that but there is pressure in that quarter—I believe we would be right in this Bill to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in this country.

Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report)

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, as a member of the EU Select Committee, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who very ably prepared and chaired this inquiry. I also thank the secretariat, who cut through a very complex issue and produced a very able and well-argued report—I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton.

This speech will be a bit of a first for me. It is the first time I have disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, on a European matter. I believe there is still a horrible danger of a no-deal outcome to these negotiations. I wish I shared the noble Lord’s optimism that we are on course for some kind of beneficial outcome, but I fear not.

It is worth remembering that the soundbite, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, was one of Theresa May’s more politically misjudged lines in her Lancaster House speech last January. It was the Prime Minister who gave life to this soundbite and opened up in the Conservative Party the view that no deal might be a viable stratagem for this country. For the past 12 months, she has spent an awful lot of her time trying to soften the impact and reduce the significance of what she said then.

There are many in the Conservative Party who still appear to believe that this is a viable threat to make. The poor Chancellor of the Exchequer was attacked for awarding only £250 million to be spent on preparations for no deal. He had to up that to £3 billion in the Budget. Perhaps that was the price of him keeping his job in the reshuffle.

As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, the hard Brexit camp is united that Britain must talk up walking away from the negotiations as a realistic possibility. But how big is this threat to walk away? Of course, there is a lot of pub talk where you hear businesspeople say, “In any negotiation I go into, I always have to have the possibility of walking away from it”. That may be true if you are buying a house or a car: if you think the other side is asking far too much for it, you walk away. That is fine, but the reality is that you do not lose very much by walking away because you can always go out and find some other car or house that you want to buy.

However, if Britain were to walk away from the Brexit talks, the result would not be the status quo that we have now of membership of the biggest free trade area in the world. Our walking out would result in a breakdown of our main trading relationship and, on some accounts, would mean that planes flying to the continent would be disrupted, nuclear materials could not be transported across borders, pharmaceutical regulations would no longer be operative, many EU citizens would become illegal foreigners in this country and there would be massive legal uncertainties about all kinds of business and insurance contracts. That seems to me a pretty appalling prospect.

The committee analysed the possibility of walking away and concluded that it is a credible threat only if it is made well in advance of the leaving date. That point had not struck me until it was pointed out. The nearer you get to the deadline, the less credible the threat of walking away becomes because the resulting chaos would be so much greater that you would not be able to cope with it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I read the report over the weekend. He lists all the Armageddon consequences, as he sees it, that would accrue to this country if we left without a deal. Could he explain why his list of disastrous consequences does not mention any of the things that would be disastrous for European countries, and why the report did not look at that?