European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Oates and Lord Green of Deddington

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD)]

I support Amendment 4. I do so because what the Government are doing is beyond me with their extreme form of Brexit in taking us out of the single market. Why are they doing it? Above all, why are those on the Conservative Benches who supported remain allowing them to do it? It is true that there was an instruction from the British people that we should leave the European Union but there was not an instruction for us to leave the single market, however much the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, might wish there was. That was for the very simple reason that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, pointed out, that matter was not on the ballot paper. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and other noble Lords on the leave side of this argument can speculate as much as they want about the reasons people voted the way they did, and I can speculate as well. However, the truth is that none of us actually knows. All we know is the instruction that was given on 23 June. The referendum campaign did not help much. The campaign on either side, frankly, in terms of getting to the facts, was not terribly helpful. The noble Lord quoted a number of Conservative politicians. That is part of the problem. The referendum campaign was effectively a factional fight between two wings of the Conservative Party, which did very little to illuminate the facts but, tragically, a very great deal to divide and damage the country.

What we do know—however much those opposite may protest—is what all the mainstream parties promised the electorate at the time of the last general election. It was that we would stay in the single market. That was at a time when the referendum was likely. Indeed, it was a pledge in the manifesto of the Conservative Party. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, also mentioned, the Conservative Party manifesto could not have been clearer. To avoid any ambiguity it emphasised its clarity. It said:

“We say: yes to the Single Market”.


There was no caveat in the way that people suggest, so it is unclear to me why the Prime Minister has decided—given that she has no other mandate on this matter than that manifesto—that she is saying no to the single market. I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and other noble Lords, including some Ministers, argue that the unambiguous pledge in the Conservative manifesto was somehow trumped by the fact that there would be a referendum and the Government would respect the result. You can respect the result of the referendum and withdraw from the European Union without withdrawing from the single market. Deciding to leave the EU does not mean leaving the single market, however much noble Lords opposite would like it to do so.

As has been mentioned, a number of countries are members of the European single market but not members of the European Union. Norway, in particular, was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Norway sought to negotiate joining the EU at the same time as us in the 1970s. In the end, it had a referendum and voted against but it became a member of the single market. We should be very clear that when Norwegian Ministers were saying it was not ideal, they were not saying, “Don’t be members of the single market”; they were saying, “For goodness’ sake, stay in the European Union”. To suggest otherwise is just nonsense.

It is clear that it is possible to be both outside the EU and inside the single market. The question, therefore, is whether it is desirable. In my very strong view, it is. We know that the issue in world trade increasingly is not tariffs but non-tariff barriers. As the IFS noted in its report on the single market published in August last year, the service sector is particularly important to our economy and to our tax receipts and is particularly vulnerable. The financial services sector is likely to be disproportionately hit by loss of the single market.

For many of us, the decision to leave the EU is a tragedy that goes far beyond economics but it is compounded by the Government’s decision to pursue extreme Brexit no matter the cost to our economy. We have the opportunity tonight to ask them to think again. We should take it.

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I can be extremely brief. I just want to take up one point that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, raised earlier. He acknowledged the significance of immigration to the result of the referendum. He did not say that it was the main reason but he acknowledged its significance. So it seems to me that a key question is whether we can stay in the single market and control immigration. He mentioned that other countries such as Belgium have found a way to control immigration within the single market by removing people without a job.

The situation in the UK is entirely different from that of Belgium. We have more than 2 million European citizens working here—which is fine, but we cannot skate over the fact that the whole situation is different. The numbers are much larger. Noble Lords may not know that last year 625,000 EU citizens took out national insurance numbers. They will not all be working; some will be short term. But the scale of it is enormous. We know that net EU migration is 180,000, equal almost to that from the rest of the world. There is no prospect of any serious measures of control if we remain in the single market.