European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has offered a tutorial in the constitution. I am a relatively new Member of this House—some people have been here far too long, I agree—but I understood that something called the Salisbury convention meant that the opposition parties would agree with those things put forward in the manifesto of a governing party. Perhaps somebody could explain to me why, when the Conservative manifesto said that we would leave the customs union, opposition parties—and, I regret to say, some of my noble friends—have determined that we shall not. Surely if it is in the manifesto, it has been agreed by the people of this country and we should accept the Salisbury convention. Perhaps at some point the noble Lord, Lord Newby, or the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, might explain what happened to the Salisbury convention and why it is being ignored left, right and centre.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, this may be the last time I address this House on a point of substance—unless my health changes. My physiotherapist says that I will be playing tennis again by Christmas, which would be nice because I used to captain the parliamentary tennis team. But at the moment I do not think I could crawl here from the Bishops’ Bar in a straight line without what that nice lady has given me across the counter.

Briefly, I want to make it clear why for the past 30 years I have been a pain in the neck to those who want to stay in Europe. I formed the Fresh Start group and the ERG some 30 years ago. I did so for a one-word reason. I will spend just three or four minutes, if I may, saying what I want to say.

My one word is not “trade”. I think trade is terribly important. One of the reasons I am against the European Union is that it is a defensive trade bloc, basically in the German interest, often not providing the technical solutions that Germany thinks it needs, as has been shown by several cases recently. The word I want to use is “patriotism”. I do not mean the fascist form of wrapping yourself up in a flag; I mean a bit of sentiment—John Major’s warm beer and the shadows of the trees across the cricket pitches, the music of Elgar, the Trooping of the Colour—but that is not the essence. The essence of why I oppose staying in the European Union is that it seems to me that the nation state is the best unit for democracy. It is the only unit that demands and gets loyalty and support from the people, in return for which it offers accountability. That is what it is all about: it is about the nation state being the basic unit for democracy. However much they support Europe, no one can claim that the European Union is a democratic state, in the sense that you cannot chose your Government if you are a citizen of the European Union. That is why I have always been against the European Union and in favour of the nation state, and above all the British nation state, which is in many senses the home of democracy. Democracy is the one word I would use if I were saying why I was against the European Union.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure I can speak for the whole House in saying that I very much hope that that will not be the last time my noble friend addresses this House. I regard him as a good and true friend. We have never agreed on this particular issue, but I respect his deep patriotism, to which he has given expression in his brief speech. All I would say to my noble friend and others who may be on his side of the argument is that it is perfectly possible to be a passionate patriot and to be a little concerned, to put it mildly, at the process we are now going through.

I have never sought to say, and I am not going to say it now, that those of us who voted for certain amendments have been trying, as a noble friend suggests in an article in the Times this morning, to frustrate Brexit. We have not. What we have been seeking to do is to improve a Bill which has to go on to the statute book. I totally accept what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said. Of course it has to go on to the statute book, and it has to do so fairly expeditiously. What we have done in your Lordships’ House has been entirely consistent with our constitutional duty. We have sent the Bill to another place, and it has now come back to your Lordships’ House. I hoped that there would be no need to vote at all today. I think there is one issue—namely, the meaningful vote—which we will have to look at, if only to give what a number of colleagues in the other place want, which is an opportunity to vote on a definite suggestion. We will come to that later.

I think we can be quietly proud of the achievements of your Lordships’ House. We have succeeded in persuading the Government to accept one amendment in its entirety and another almost in its entirety and to make, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, something over 150 changes to the Bill, so we have nothing to be ashamed of. We have not procrastinated or delayed unduly. We have merely exercised our constitutional responsibility. When the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House today, I hope that, with one exception, there will be no need for it come back to your Lordships’ House because the Bill—again, I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—must go on to the statute book. Although many of us across the House, probably a majority in your Lordships’ House, are sorry about what is happening, even those of us who believe that the plebiscite is inimical to representative parliamentary democracy accept what has happened, and we must now try to ensure that whatever the ultimate outcome, it is characterised by understanding and friendship across your Lordships’ House and, more important still, understanding and friendship with those 27 countries which are our allies and our friends and with whom we do indeed wish to have, to quote the Prime Minister, a deep and lasting partnership. I hope we can now proceed fairly expeditiously this afternoon.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I am not sure that I would accept the scenario outlined by the noble Lord. We have always been clear that where there are areas in which we can co-operate with our European partners, in some small areas, we will make an appropriate contribution to the costs, but we have also been clear that the days of making vast contributions to the European budget are at an end.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

Where does the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, get his forecasts of doom and gloom from? I hope it is not the Bank of England.

[Lord Callanan]

I must apologise; I did not quite catch that question.

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, where does the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, get all his forecasts of doom and gloom from? I hope it is not the Bank of England.

[Lord Callanan]

I do not presume to assume where the noble Lord gets his predictions of doom and gloom from, but they are probably wrong.

UK-EU Security Partnership

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord speaks with great experience and makes some very good points about levels of defence spending in other European Union member states—a point I have heard made by the current US Administration many times. His essential points are correct. Of course we want to carry on with foreign policy co-operation, but only in areas where we agree; we have retained the right to opt out of CFSP decisions if we do not agree. But where we can agree on foreign policy objectives and processes, we will do so.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, why could the proposal to switch from the American F35 to the much cheaper Eurofighter not be made earlier? That would have created savings, for instance to give the noble Lord, Lord West, half a dozen destroyers, if not a battleship to boot.

[Lord Callanan]

This is not my area but I am informed by my ministerial colleague that these matters have not been decided yet. I am sure he would be very happy to have a conversation with the noble Lord outside the Chamber.

Brexit: North-East of England

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, the Business Secretary comes from the north-east of England, as does the noble Lord. I totally agree with him that we want an agreement that brings the lowest possible tariffs—if possible, no tariffs at all—and frictionless free trade. That is good for the north-east, as it is for all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, we have been pouring money into the north-east ever since Lord Hailsham went up there in his cloth cap and I fought Emanuel Shinwell in the 1960s in Easington, and yet nothing much seems to change. Surely that can only get better after Brexit.

[Lord Callanan]

Things are getting better for the north-east of England. I cited the unemployment figures. I would have thought that the Labour Party, as the party that is traditionally supposed to be concerned about these issues, would have welcomed—I will repeat it—the lowest unemployment for 40 years. It is a record that the coalition Government and the Conservative Government should be proud of. The area is booming under a Conservative Government.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

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

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I find myself torn between pragmatism and principle—the principle of parliamentary democracy and upholding and preserving the constitution; and on pragmatic terms, the ability the Government need to manage the process we are in. But I keep hearing in this debate the language of “telling the House of Commons what to do”. Call me ignorant, but I did not think that that was what we were doing. I thought the role of the House of Lords was to scrutinise, improve and ask the Government to think again. That is what we are called to do and that is where the principle applies. Then it is up to the House of Commons and the Government to decide what they do with the arguments put forward from this place. Not to do that is to deny the appropriate role of this House in doing its job.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, if this amendment is passed, this day, 30 April, should be called hypocrisy day because the overt objective is the opposite of the covert objective. The overt objective is apparently to give greater powers and a greater say to Parliament. The covert objective, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, will be to do the opposite. If one wanted examples or specific reasons why one says that, we need only look at the Factortame case a few years ago, when Parliament was clear that it wanted its way on a European shipping matter, and our courts eventually came down in favour of the European Court having the final say. There is no question but that if we stay in the European Union, Parliament will be one of the worst sufferers.

The acquis communautaire is another example. It is the basis of what the European Court does and is entirely to do with the centralisation of power away from national institutions and organisations such as Parliament. The proposers of this amendment may argue that they are in some way strengthening Parliament, but exactly the opposite would happen in the end.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

We all know what the intention of the amendment is: not to improve Brexit but to impale it. What does “meaningful” mean? A meaningful vote seems to be one that somebody has won; then, it is meaningful to them. Otherwise, it appears in certain quarters that “meaningful” is meaningless unless you have won. Was the referendum meaningful? Was the last election meaningful? Apparently not. Was the election to this House of the noble Viscount meaningful? I am sure that it was—although perhaps in hindsight we on these Benches might have done well to have inquired a little more deeply into his passions. It would have made for some fascinating hustings.

The Government have repeatedly promised a meaningful vote. Clearly, if words mean anything, that commitment is inescapable. Let us imagine for one moment that the Government broke that promise and tried to offer an unacceptable vote—or no vote at all. What would happen? There would be fury. There would be uproar in the Commons and all sorts of turmoil in the tea rooms. Your Lordships would beat their noble breasts. Speaker Bercow would be brought to bear. I have no idea whether the rather rude sticker about Brexit that was on the back of his car is still there—I cannot possibly repeat it—but I think we can guess that he would leave no parliamentary stone unturned.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was right. The House of Commons has any number of different means to raise this subject. If all else failed, we could surely rely on Mr Corbyn. I know that the prospect terrifies some Members on the Benches opposite; I can see their tight lips and I felt a frisson of anxiety as I mentioned his name. But surely they could rely on their leader to slap down a Motion of no confidence, as happened time and again in 1978 and 1979, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said. In other words, the Government cannot under any conceivable circumstances avoid a meaningful vote.

So the amendment is utterly irrelevant. It is also deeply—and, I believe, deliberately—damaging. It is designed to undermine our negotiating position—to confuse, to cause chaos and to give encouragement to EU negotiators to contrive the worst possible outcome, in the hope that some new vote, parliamentary decision or referendum will force Britain into retreat or even to hold up its hands in surrender.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Skelmersdale (Con)]

My Lords, I have never been a self-respecting MP, nor am I ever likely to be one. The amendment would leave us in total limbo. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, in introducing it, made reference to the phrase:

“A Minister of the Crown may by regulations make”.


He needs, in this amendment, to change the emphasis on the reason for which he does it. Unfortunately, the amendment would leave out the role of the Minister of the Crown. It is Ministers the Crown who make regulations. They always have and presumably always will. Therefore, who will make these regulations under whatever auspices? How is this supposed to work and improve the Bill?

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, I enter one word of caution. The choice might not be between Parliament and Ministers, but between Ministers and civil servants. To change it to “necessary”, one has to use judgment about that word just as much as the previous one.

[Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)]

My Lords, I make a small contribution, having been at the birth of the Bill—if one can be a midwife to a Bill. I always saw the purpose of the Bill as delivering the orderly withdrawal of this country from the European Union and ensuring that we have a coherent statute book on the day we leave. I do not want to detain your Lordships, but as I said at Second Reading and as I still believe, it is imperative that we get the balance right between the powers of the Executive and parliamentary sovereignty. As the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, so rightly said and others have commented, if we take the view that the referendum vote was about Parliament taking back control, it hardly seems right that excessive control be given to Ministers of the Crown.

I had many misgivings about this issue, and I am most grateful to noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for sparing the time to talk to me about it. I have considered it. Your Lordships need to consider it in the round—the round being all the other limitations that currently exist on Ministers—and, most importantly, the amendment my noble friend the Minister is making to this point, which I believe addresses many of the concerns. All I ask your Lordships at this point is to consider this: are the Government acting in a reasonable way to ensure they have the powers necessary to deliver a smooth and orderly Brexit? That is the simple question in my mind. I believe that the Minister has moved enough and that he should be given our support. I completely understand the views of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and my noble friend Lord Cormack on this point. I fear we just differ now on how far the Government have moved.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, it was obvious from contributions at Second Reading and in Committee that this was a particularly thorny and sensitive issue. It is to the credit of the Government and not least to that of the Minister that they have been in listening mode and that a sensible arrangement has been reached. I heard what he said in response to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, not least his affirmation of the independence of the judiciary. We have reached a satisfactory point. There is nothing I can usefully add. I will prove the point by not continuing to speak but by resuming my seat.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, I shall give a brief lay man’s perspective. Being brief, I shall follow the advice of the late Cecil Parkinson, who said to after-dinner speakers, “Get up, say you’re very proud to stand before them and sit down”. I shall be a little longer than that, but not very long.

I think that we can all agree on one thing: that pretty well all of us had a fixed view on Brexit before this Bill even reached this House. Tactics is a different matter. I am very interested in the remain tactics so far as the generality of the Bill is concerned; I shall come to the specifics in a moment. They seem to be along the lines of: “We absolutely agree that we are coming out—no, we’re serious; we agree we’re coming out—but we’re coming out to a new single market backed by a strengthened court in such a way that it is quite indiscernible that we have come out in the first place”. This debate is about the court and what part it is going to play in all this. I think that it is generally accepted that the court is not only very powerful but foreign—my noble and learned friend brilliantly summed up the foreignness of the law being introduced—and different. It is based on politics rather than on precedent in law.

I first came to this in 1992. On 3 June of that year, I tabled an Early Day Motion which started the rebellion against the Maastricht treaty, so I have some form. What is the relationship between a debate which was then concerned with the single currency and today’s debate and amendment? There is a close relationship with matters to do with the currency. As Henry VIII recognised, the currency is immensely important. “This Realm of England as an Empire” was all about changing our currency back to gain control over it. The currency is vital, and the question is what the relationship between it and today’s debate is. If we did not come out of the European Union, I would not rely on us retaining our currency and our control over it. It is unimaginable that the European court would decide to run a competitive trading arrangement with the one country left to manage its own economy. It is therefore of enormous importance not only to the future of this country but to this amendment.

We debated earlier whether it counts for anything that we have become so deeply embroiled in foreign law. I suppose that where I differ from lawyers is that I believe that there are things in politics that matter as symbols, even if the lawyers can prove otherwise. It is therefore vital that we kick out Amendment 21 today.

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Spicer, has made a very interesting observation, but it seems to go wider than the amendments which the House is being asked to approve, so I shall not say anything about the issues that he has raised. He referred to the “remain tactics”. I am not aware that there are any remain tactics in relation to this amendment. On the basis that we are leaving, all the amendment is about is making sure that it works properly. That has certainly been the guiding principle as far as I am concerned.

On the formulation of the amendment, I do not want to use the word “helpful”, because that is the one word that I do not like—the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, knows that. The problem with “helpful” is that it is a little subjective. A noble Lord, who is not in his place so I shall not identify him, told me in the previous debate that he was going to say something. I said, “Okay. Is it going to be helpful?” He said, “You might think so”. Let me tell you that it was not helpful at all. He might have thought it was, which is the problem with “helpful”. In any event, I do not imagine that the courts will have regard to something that they do not think is helpful for the purpose of the issue before them, so I am happy with “relevant”. The important point is that it will not be perceived as a political decision being made by a court in wanting to follow a decision from the European court. That is the point that we were making in earlier stages on this part of the Bill, and I thank the Minister and his department for dealing with it.

That leads to the fourth question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, which was about the protection, safeguarding and upholding of the independence of the judiciary. We raised that on the previous occasion; it is hugely important. I join the noble Lord in congratulating the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, on coming out and supporting the judiciary at a time when others in government sadly were not. The assurance on that sought by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is important, and I am grateful that the noble and learned Lord has succeeded in answering it already—it was slightly out of turn, but it was good. I shall ask him to go a little further, because the obligation to uphold the independence of the judiciary does not rest just on the Lord Chancellor. I believe that the Constitutional Reform Act which set that out imposes that obligation on the whole of the Government, and it is important that it should. We cannot have a situation in which one Minister, in perhaps one of the more political jobs, is able to say unhappy and unhelpful things about the judiciary and think it okay because the Lord Chancellor will stand up and say, “We shouldn’t really be doing that; we should be protecting them”. It is important to recognise that it is the whole Government. I would single out as well the Attorney-General as one who should uphold the independence of the judiciary. When I was in that office, I certainly regarded it as part of my job, although the Lord Chancellor was in that primary position. I would be grateful if the Minister when he replies for the second time could touch on that point and see what assurance he can give.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, raised an important point about ossification, as he put it, which is the one worry I have. As this structure works, so far as the Government are concerned, I think that the effect is that, in the areas to which the subsection would apply, the lower courts will be bound to follow decisions within that scope and it is only the Supreme Court that will be able to depart from them. That leads to the risk that the law will ossify and that cases will have to go to the Supreme Court which really do not need to because they are not that important—although it is important to clarify the law. The noble and learned Lord’s suggestion that the Government should look at the possibility of widening this so that the courts of appeal in different parts of the United Kingdom would be able to depart from what would otherwise be binding law is a good one.

I think that this suggestion would also be welcomed by some others—although I have not specifically raised this with them—who are worried about this provision. They are aware that there are rights—for example, in the field of workers’ rights—where there is some movement in EU law and are concerned that, as it stands, the retained EU law that we will have will lag behind what happens in other jurisdictions, which we all hope will still be partners, although not partners in the same Union. They are concerned that if this has to go to the Supreme Court it may create an unhappy difference between them. There may be circumstances where we all know that a particular piece of law is right for consideration by the top court, but it takes time to get there and it may not always get there.

I was going to ask the Minister whether he could give any assurances about how the Government would assist, at least where they are the other party, in getting cases to the Supreme Court where there is good reason to think that a relevant decision will be departed from. But it seems to me that opening this up to the courts of appeal would actually be a neater and more traditional way of doing that. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that. I should have mentioned at the outset that my name stands on the original amendments as well.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[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.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 150, which, in the somewhat bizarre language that we tend to use when dealing with crucial issues, has come to be known as the “meaningful process amendment”. As we know, this reasonably recent addition to our parliamentary lexicon really means the process by which Parliament deals with the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, an issue that already has quite a long history. Let us start with Article 50. It provides for any deal to be submitted for decision to the European Parliament before it can be finally and formally concluded, so the European Parliament can approve or reject any deal that has been negotiated. It is surely therefore inconceivable that this Parliament should not have the same right, all the more so since the cause in which those who campaigned to leave the EU were speaking was to restore sovereignty and take back control to our own Parliament. The June 2016 referendum has no binding effect and therefore needs to be approved, or not, by Parliament.

Fast-forward, then, to Lancaster House in January 2017, when the Prime Minister committed herself to the fact that any deal would be submitted to both Houses for their decisions—rather oddly, in my view, saying nothing at that stage about the primacy of the House of Commons. So far, so good. Ever since that day at Lancaster House when the Prime Minister gave that commitment, the Government have been taking a series of steps backwards from that step forward, which casts doubt on just how meaningful they intend the process to be. Twice they have attempted to prevent the process being put into statute. On the first occasion, in the context of the Bill triggering Article 50, when this House by a large majority voted to set such a provision in statute, they succeeded. At the time, the Government, it has to be admitted, had a majority in the Commons and therefore this House did not insist. On the second occasion, in the context of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill we are debating today, they were equally determined, but they were defeated, thanks to a cross-party alliance which has provided that statutory provision for a meaningful vote is now not only desirable but necessary. So, the Bill before us provides for that statutory process. The amendment to which I am now speaking is designed not to replace that but to clarify and spell it out, and to say how best the provisions should be applied to give Parliament a genuine and timely say in the matter.

What possible respectable reasons can there be for resisting this provision, this amendment and the clarification being proposed to your Lordships? It is hard, I would suggest, to think of one, although I suspect that the Minister will manage to do his best at the end of this debate. Could it be that the Government’s objective is to ensure that the votes in both Houses to which they are committed will take place only at a moment when it is too late to do very much about things and when the sands of Article 50 are running out? That would be to deprive the whole process of its meaning.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, for whom I have long respect. Is he not proposing a bee sting, in effect—Parliament stings and then dies? The point of the Bill is to give powers to Parliament, which he would take away from Parliament’s control.

--- Later in debate ---

If Churchill could say that about the House of Commons in 1943, we are certainly capable of having adequate procedures in place to debate the Prime Minister’s withdrawal treaty at the end of the year.

[Lord Spicer]

I am not quite sure what credence the noble Lord gives to the referendum. He did not mention it in his speech.

[Lord Adonis]

We are debating these issues precisely because of the referendum. However, the referendum is not the last word on parliamentary democracy; nor is it the last word, crucially, on a treaty which the people did not even see two years ago when they voted. They could not see it because it had not been negotiated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, a point was made by several noble Lords as to a delay in the operation of Article 50. If I remember rightly, under Clause 2, there is a period of two years. Can that be invoked unilaterally or does it need the consent of all 27 other members? I would be most grateful if the Minister could reply. If not, I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will correct us.

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak until the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, spoke. As I understand it, the position of the anti-Brexiteers until recently has been that they accept the verdict of the referendum—we should come out—but that the referendum did not pose the difficult question of how to do so and the whole debate was to make sure that the electorate understood how we will do this very complex thing. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, put the proposition that the referendum was of no account at all and we had to go back to the question as to whether we stayed in the European Union. I have not heard him say that before, I must say.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I did not say that the referendum was of no account at all.

[Lord Spicer]

Giving an option to stay in is saying that we will go over the whole question again.

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

I invite the Minister to explain to my noble friend—who I have known for years and like very much—the difference between parliamentary sovereignty and plebiscitary democracy. It is quite a fundamental difference in our constitution.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I will add a brief note of agreement with the amendment, for the obvious reason that this country’s pharmaceutical industry is our most important and must be involved in drug trials. I have seen this myself, having been involved with various clinical trials in the past. These have been of benefit to British patients and, subsequently, to our economy.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, I have a tentative question. If it is true that we do not trust our own legal environment with medical research in which, as has been said, we have great expertise, why should we trust ourselves with anything else? Across the whole of the Bill, responsibility is being transferred to this country. Why should we not be able to do that for medical research as much as for anything else?

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

This benefits all patient populations, and is particularly important for paediatric and rare cancers—diseases which, precisely because they are uncommon, are among the hardest to research and treat. You therefore need a larger pool than the 66 million people who live in this country: Europe has a combined population of 510 million to draw on. That is nothing to do with trust; it is to do with how clinical trials need to be carried out. You need a larger pool of patients to test these drugs.

I was pleased to add my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I raised this issue in my speech at Second Reading and will mention only one additional matter, which is to do with rare paediatric illness; tumour types which affect relatively few people; and rare cancers which translate to over 20% of all cancer diagnoses across the world. If the UK is to make progress on therapies for paediatric and rare cancer, it is vital that we can work closely with EU nations on clinical trials. Cross-border collaboration is crucial to paediatric and rare cancer clinical trials. Some 75% of clinical trials in the EU involve cross-national collaboration, rising to 86% for rare disease trials. As noble Lords have remarked, that is because of the patient population across Europe. We will be doing a huge disservice to our children, and to the cancers which threaten a few of them, if we fall out of this system. It is as simple as that.

The BEACON clinical trial system is an example of how cross-national collaboration is fighting back against rare paediatric cancers. Neuroblastoma is a form of cancer that affects around 100 children, mostly under the age of five, every year in the UK. More than half the children with aggressive forms of the cancer will see it return and, for these children, there are few treatment options left. In 2013, Cancer Research UK scientists and paediatric cancer specialists launched the BEACON-neuroblastoma trial to find the best chemotherapy treatment for children and young adults with recurring neuroblastoma. To do this, it is bringing together clinicians and scientists from 10 European countries and two international consortia, with funding from Cancer Research UK and European partners. It is a fantastic example of successful European collaboration. The rarity of this neuroblastoma and the low number of patients means that trials could not have happened in a single European country. It is vital that this type of cancer trial—