European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, during the referendum campaign I argued and voted for the UK to remain a member of the European Union. I still believe that to have been the better choice, but I and those who think as I do were outvoted, and I must accept that. However, the fact that we are leaving the EU leads me to certain general conclusions about the way ahead. I will touch upon these briefly, as they have been raised in this debate already and are relevant to my approach to the Bill before us today.

I start from the proposition that no one, not one single person on this planet, whatever their political persuasion, can be trusted with power. Of course some people have to hold power and wield it if systems are to work and society is to function effectively—but they should never be trusted while they hold it. Our constitutional solution to this conundrum is to ensure that qualifying citizens have the undoubted and frequently exercised right to throw out those who have the ultimate power to make the laws under which we live and by which we are governed—that is, Members of the other place.

The need for such a check on power is what makes me believe, with regret but very firmly, that, transitional arrangements aside, we cannot both leave the EU and remain within the single market and the customs union as they are currently structured. To do so would leave us exposed to the power of those who govern those institutions and subject to the costs which they would levy upon us, with no opportunity to influence their decisions or to hold them to account. We would be left in a position that in many respects would be similar to that which caused such distress to the American colonists in the 1760s and 1770s.

Equally, it is the need for a check on power that leaves me so very uneasy about several things that are proposed in the Bill. It would give the Government the authority to create laws without parliamentary authority and without adequate scrutiny. That already happens to a degree, but it is the unprecedented scale of the executive power now being sought that is of such concern to me. The Government will say that they need the ability to operate free of parliamentary constraint if they are to cope in a timely fashion with the unexpected twists and turns that they will encounter on the road to Brexit. I accept that argument to a point—but only to a point. Whatever the practical considerations may be, the kind of unfettered powers envisaged in the Bill are dangerous both in principle and in practice.

The stated purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the UK has a functioning statute book the day that it leaves the EU. Very well—that is of course important. But the statute book also has to contain laws that have been arrived at through due process. Nobody could reasonably argue against the requirement for effective laws, but that requirement by itself is insufficient. Effective laws are not necessarily good laws. The Government will perhaps argue that they have already conceded a degree of parliamentary scrutiny through amendments passed in the other place—but these are little more than a broken reed. They give Parliament no real power in the matter.

Having had experience of both sides of the divide, I know that government departments often view parliamentary oversight as a nuisance. They believe that it creates a lot of work over issues that are not of great moment. That can in some cases be true, but it is no reason for weakening such oversight. Like many other noble Lords, I suspect, I have seen a number of occasions when Ministers have used scrutiny override powers, citing the pressure of time. Sometimes the excuse has been valid, but sometimes just a little effort would have avoided the need for such an override. The pre-emption of parliamentary scrutiny has sometimes been a matter of departmental convenience rather than true force majeure.

With this in mind, I am forced to conclude that parliamentary scrutiny is of value only if it has real muscle—certainly much more than is proposed in the Bill. I entirely accept that it is all a question of balance. The trouble is that the proposals before us today are grossly unbalanced and imperil an important control within our democracy. I do not expect the Government automatically to do the wrong thing, but neither do I trust them always to do the right thing. I urge the Minister to think very carefully about the fundamental issues involved here rather than just about the short-term practicalities.

I will support no amendment to the proposed legislation that attempts to derail the Brexit process, but I will be inclined very strongly to favour any amendment that is intended to constrain the largely unfettered power with which the Executive have so unwisely sought to clothe themselves through the provisions in the Bill.