European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Warner

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

[Lord Newby]

I must say that I find it deeply depressing, when we have been members of the European Union for these decades, that noble Lords on the other side should have such a difficult and unfriendly view of the people with whom we have been co-operating to solve common problems to the best of our abilities and against a background of hostilities in Europe which cost people, across Europe and in this country over the decades and centuries, millions of lives.

I was attempting to say that I found the noble Lord’s arguments unconvincing and the arguments for giving the people a final say compelling, and therefore I beg to move.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment and want to make three simple points.

First, the Government have consistently chosen to attribute to the referendum a wider mandate than the result justified. The majority by which people voted to leave the EU was a small one, and they gave no clues about how the withdrawal should be accomplished. The Government know nothing about the views on the withdrawal of the 28% of the electorate who did not vote. Two other groups—British citizens who live in the EU and 16 and 17 year-olds—were not given a chance to vote, and they are now expected just to accept what the Government negotiate. The latter group will be aged over 18 in 2019 when, on present plans, another cohort of 16 and 17 year-olds will have their views similarly ignored. In 2019, the Government will seek to impose, without any say, a withdrawal deal on a majority of the UK’s population who either voted to remain or who have given no consent to the terms of a deal that will have a huge impact on their futures.

Secondly, as the Government reveal more of their negotiating approach, the public is showing signs of not liking what it sees. This includes many who voted to leave the EU. Dissent is growing over the decision to rule out membership of the EEA and the customs union, despite the views of much expert opinion and promises given earlier by some politicians. The so-called “best deal for Britain” is looking decidedly second best because of the barriers, financial and administrative, to be erected where none exists at present. The refusal to grant those EU citizens working here a prompt right to stay, despite our economic dependence on them for several decades to come, looks to many like another own goal. The Government’s insistence that they can reduce net migration to tens of thousands does not seem to be believed even by the Brexit Secretary, let alone by much of the public. A level of public distrust is building before withdrawal negotiations have even started, and that distrust is being fuelled further by the Government’s reluctance to accept the constitutional need for Parliament to be fully involved in the decision-making process on withdrawal—something that I hope we can rectify with Amendment 3.

My third and final point is about whether the Government really want a deal. I have to say that I thought the cat was let out of the bag last week by the Brexit Secretary when he told Cabinet colleagues to prepare for a hard Brexit so that in 2019 the Prime Minister can walk away from the EU negotiations without any deal at all. This will mean diverting large amounts of public expenditure away from our public services to pay for things such as new IT systems for customs declarations, a new immigration system and new air transport agreements. If that is where we end up in 2019, it seems that the public are entitled to have a say in whether that is a future they want to sign up for, irrespective of any narrow referendum vote three years earlier. The Government simply do not know what the majority of people expect will happen and there is growing public concern over the Government’s negotiating approach. That concern could be much greater when we reach 2019. The British people may well want to change their minds when they realise how adversely they will be affected by leaving the EU. We should provide them with an opportunity to do so by giving them the final say, as Amendment 1 would.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Warner

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I strongly support the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Noon, in seeking to promote the role of the not-for-profit sector within the NHS, as indeed I do across the whole of the public sector. They have given reasons why within the NHS, particularly at this point, the not-for profit sector can play a valuable role. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, pointed out, there are a number of serious technical problems facing the sector in successfully bidding for contracts, and he has dealt with some of them.

I remind the House that least week Royal Assent was received for the Public Services (Social Value) Bill which requires all procurers, including those in the NHS, to consider the social value of a tender as well as its financial value, in such explicit terms, for the first time. This is one of the pieces of the jigsaw which I hope will mean that the not-for-profit sector finds it easier to successfully bid for business. The Bill lays a requirement on the public sector, but the problem is whether the public sector will implement the Bill and take the provision seriously. It would be relatively easy for it not to.

Therefore, I and other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who have been supportive of this principle and the Bill, seek to ensure that the Government put in place specific measures to ensure that procurers take account of the Bill rather than it simply lying idle on the statute book. When we debated this issue at an earlier stage in your Lordships’ House, the Minister suggested that it might be possible to refer to this in the draft commission of procurement regulations, and I hope that he will be able to confirm today that that is the Government’s intention.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I commend the Government on making a move in the right direction with these amendments. At earlier stages in the Bill, I tried to raise the whole issue of barriers to entry for new providers of services. This amendment helps in some respects but the noble Lord, Lord Newby, made an extremely important point. How will we know whether the culture has changed not just in relation to not-for-profits and social enterprises but for new providers, sometimes from inside the NHS? There is a deep conservatism—with a small “c”—about how the NHS goes about allowing new players to come into the game. We need the Government to give assurances that they will keep a close eye on this. As I put forward in a previous amendment, they must get Monitor to keep a close eye on the extent to which anti-competitive behaviour by the existing NHS stops new providers from whatever source—not-for-profit, social enterprise, charities, the private sector and from within the NHS—being able, when they offer a better solution to patients’ problems, to make their pitch for an alternative way of doing business.