Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement but I wonder whether the Government actually own a calendar. After 18 months, and just 171 days before we are due to leave, we have more pages on no deal than on the deal, or indeed on the framework for our future relationship. Do the Government really want us to crash out despite the warm words we just heard in the Statement, or dare they not set out their plans given their fear of the Eurosceptics on their own party Benches?

The Government promised that the deal to be put to Parliament will include a “clear blueprint” for our future relationship with the EU. When will we see this blueprint? I had thought we would see a draft tomorrow but I gather it has now been delayed—perhaps because it is so vague that it is more a leap into the unknown than a blueprint for future policy. Or does the Minister think there is a third way—neither Chequers nor no deal—as David Davis set out today in his letter to MPs, albeit one he was not able to negotiate himself during two years as Secretary of State? Or perhaps the Minister thinks, along with Jacob Rees-Mogg, that we should have a “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Canada”—hardly a game for serious negotiators.

Given that the Government have effectively and finally retreated from their claim that a deal would be done by October, could the Minister be a little more specific than “autumn” as to when he anticipates it will be done and when the deal will be brought to this House, as required in legislation? What assurances can he give the House that the Government’s solemn commitment to a legally binding backstop in Northern Ireland “in all circumstances” will be honoured? Have the Government accepted the view of this House that the UK should be in a customs union with the EU to ensure frictionless trade? This is not only important in itself, but the only viable solution to the Irish border.

The Statement includes,

“the commitment that no new regulatory barriers should be created between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK unless the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree”,

which leaves the door open. This possibility is, of course, what would lead to a border in the sea despite the assurances just given in the Commons and repeated. Different rules in two areas mean checks between the two. That possibility—mentioning only the Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly—also raises questions about the role this Parliament would have in any such change, and it challenges earlier government undertakings of no diminution of standards or rights, since any regulatory boundaries between Belfast and London sounds like different standards between the two.

The Statement says:

“The UK’s White Paper proposals are the best way of ensuring there is continued frictionless trade in goods after Britain leaves the EU”.


It still sounds like “Chequers or no deal” despite, as we know, Chequers being acceptable to neither this Parliament nor our EU allies. The no-deal option is not acceptable to business, the public, our allies or, indeed, to Parliament, let alone to the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland, where there would have to be an immediate border.

The last time I asked the Minister whether he had been to the port of Dover, he said he had not. Has he now been, and has he discussed a no-deal option at the port? I was in Rotterdam yesterday, where thought, planning and preparation is in hand at its massive port to deal with a no-deal outcome—preparation to safeguard its economy and trade. Has the Minister any shame about how less prepared the UK—the country that filed for divorce—is for such an eventuality? Has he digested, as I have had to, these 77 technical notices, which alert us to green cards being reissued? Many in this House are old enough to remember those—down the other end, less so.

There is also the possibility of new driving licences being needed; the end of free movement of trade, with customs and tariff checks; the adoption of new classifications of goods, with a wonderful example given of how a grand piano would be classified if exported to the EU; the end of “goods on the market” rules; data exchange challenges; drastic changes to civil law enforcement; the end of mutual recognition of testing for safety of consumer goods; and uncertainty over travel to the EU. Are these all issues that the Minister feels it is reasonable to threaten at the end of March? As the CBI states, serious disruption will be caused to business and families. Is the Minister really serious that that is a realistic option for our country, and is it useful for the Government to threaten to refuse to pay the £39 billion divorce settlement if the EU fails to give Britain a precise future trade deal within weeks, when it is the UK that cannot get unity on its own Benches within its own Parliament on a future trade deal?

This House needs to know where the Government stand on the deal they want, and particularly on our future relationship. It needs to know whether they are with Steve Baker, who seems to prioritise a trade deal that leaves us independent over and above a trade deal that is good for the economy, or with Boris Johnson, who says that we should “chuck Chequers” and have a super-Canada FTA, spending money on,

“all the customs procedures … needed to ensure … frictionless trade, and to prepare … for a WTO deal”.

It seems he does not understand that frictionless trade comes from having the same regulations and rules rather than having a barrier of border agents checking for all the disparities in rules and regulations.

Regrettably, we are no clearer from this Statement than from what we have been reading in the press over the summer. Because I am a great optimist, I just hope that beneath everything that is going on there is serious negotiation taking place below the water level so that we can find a deal that is neither Chequers, as that is not acceptable, nor no deal, but a deal that is good for the whole economy across the whole country.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I start by remarking that I went to the Printed Paper Office to ask for a copy of the Written Ministerial Statement and technical notices that have been published today, but they were not available. I find that very regrettable, as we need to be informed about these things, and I hope that the Minister will ensure that on the next occasion the Written Statement is available.

I find this a profoundly worrying and in some ways surreal Statement. It talks about preparing the UK for Brexit, irrespective of the outcome of the negotiations—in other words, if necessary at the end of March to break all our relations with the European Union. Can the Minister assure us that the British Government are really prepared for that? As the noble Baroness has just said, Rotterdam is well in advance of the port of Dover in its preparations. We are beginning to train the extra customs officials that we would like and to reverse the cut in the number of Border Force officers that the Government have pushed through in the last three years, but there is no way that we can do that between now and March.

I find the confusion within the Government deeply worrying. For example, the Home Secretary has said that we will have the same visa regime for European exchanges as we have now for the rest of the world. In the last two weeks, I have been collecting a certain amount of evidence on how far universities are suffering from the refusal of the visa authorities to allow academic and scientific researchers from outside the EEA to attend conferences in Britain. If we start doing that to the EEA next April, we shall blow up half the networks for scientific research that we have in this country. I speak with particular passion because my son is involved in many of them.

There are elements here which one can really only be humorous about. I congratulate the Government on the element of irony in the Statement with the reference to their pragmatism and the suggestion that it is the European Union that is being rigid while the Conservative Party, which is so well represented on those Benches, is being entirely pragmatic.

On the Northern Ireland issue, I recognise that this is the Conservative and Unionist Party, which by its rigidity in dealing with the Irish problem over 100 years ago contributed to the division of Ireland. It seems to me that now its rigidity may well risk losing not only Northern Ireland but also potentially Scotland. I wonder whether the Government have considered taking more seriously Boris Johnson’s proposal to build a bridge across the Irish Sea. It would have a number of advantages. We could maintain the temporary customs arrangement until the bridge was completed and opened, which would certainly take us 20 or 30 years, and if one were to construct the bridge in such a way that there was room for customs arrangements to be conducted on the bridge, it could become a garden bridge in the event that those arrangements were not needed.

To move on, my wife has just been to a conference in Geneva to discuss as a model EU-Swiss relations, on which she has been an expert for some years, and the question of whether the Liechtenstein model should be taken more seriously. As some people will know, it has a customs union with both Switzerland and the European Union. That seems almost as attractive as the Jersey model, which has been talked about by various sources. The Government refer to their “ambition”, but ambition that would perhaps take us as far as being like Liechtenstein or Jersey is really beyond a joke.

On the question of how we get from here to April, I ask the Minister how far the Government will take the other parties into their confidence over the management of the business that is required. We do not know what has happened to the Trade Bill. When are we going to continue with its Committee stage? What other major pieces of legislation do we need to take through between now and March? The Institute for Government has just produced a report on the very large number of statutory instruments that we will need to consider between now and March. Can the Minister assure us that both Houses will be given time to consider these legislative instruments properly and that they will not be bulldozed through in a panic at the last minute?

I should like to move on to the subject of the future relationship. There was no reference to it in this Statement or to any sort of declaration about our future foreign policy and defence relationships. Again, the Government seem to be in great confusion on this. We have a new Foreign Secretary, who compares the European Union to the Soviet Union. Clearly, we would not wish to maintain foreign policy and defence relationships with an area that was naturally so hostile, yet for the last 40 years much of Britain’s foreign policy and security relationships externally have been conducted multilaterally in partnership with the European Union. When will the Government tell us a little more about what they consider to be important and what sort of pattern they intend the future relationship to have?

Perhaps most worrying is the reference in the Statement to a potential gap, in the case of a delay, between the end of the implementation period and the entry into force of the treaty on our future relationship. Do the Government consider that there may well be a hole whereby we have come to the end of the implementation period but have not yet negotiated a treaty on the future relationship and there is somehow a void, with no firm treaty foundation for the relationship between, say, 2021 and 2024 or 2025? If so, that is deeply worrying. I presume that that is the point at which we would go back to WTO terms, or perhaps that is another piece of loose wording in the Statement.

[Lord Callanan]

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their comments. I shall deal first with the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I reiterate that our blueprint is the White Paper and we continue to negotiate on that basis. We are convinced that it offers frictionless trade, which is what we want to achieve. We are taking forward discussions on that basis and are waiting for a formal response to those proposals from the EU.

On the timescale, as soon as we have an agreement we will bring forward a debate in this House and a vote in the other place on the so-called meaningful vote, and we will then introduce legislation as quickly as possible to implement the withdrawal agreement. We are mindful of the short timescale between then and our leaving date of 29 March to get that legislation through, but considerable planning is being carried out on that basis. Of course, we produced the White Paper before the summer to illustrate that.

With regard to the backstop, the Commission proposal was unacceptable. We will shortly produce our counterproposal, which will meet the requirements as set out in the joint statement in December.

I have not visited the port of Dover. I and ministerial colleagues have visited European capitals and considerable discussions are going on between officials to make sure that there is minimal disruption at Dover.

With regard to no-deal notices, to reiterate the point, we do not want or expect a no deal, but we think a responsible Government should plan for the possibility, and we will continue to publish the no-deal notices to take account of that unlikely possibility.

Lastly, I agree with the noble Baroness’s final point: that we are seriously negotiating at pace. Negotiations in Brussels are ongoing as we speak, and detailed discussions on all the outstanding issues are proceeding.

I can only apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, if he was not given an advance copy of the Statement—he should have been. I have already raised it with officials and I will ensure it does not happen again, but please accept my apologies for that. He referred to the no-deal notices. I do not know if there is some confusion; we are not publishing any additional no-deal notices today, but there was a Written Ministerial Statement accounting for the no-deal notices that were published a couple of weeks ago.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

They could not find the Written Ministerial Statement.

[Lord Callanan]

I apologise; you should have been given a copy of that.

Regarding the immigration system, the Home Secretary will be setting out our proposals for a future immigration system shortly.

There are no plans of which I am aware to build a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland; maybe other parts of the Government are working on it, but if they are, nobody has told me.

I am not quite sure of the noble Lord’s point on Liechtenstein. I have never heard anybody else talking about a Liechtenstein model, apart from himself. He will of course be aware that Liechtenstein is a member of the EEA, which was rejected a number of times as an option in House of Commons votes. The population of Liechtenstein is about 39,000—about 1/10th of the population of Bradford. I hope he is not seriously suggesting this could be a model we would wish to follow.

Regarding the Trade Bill, our position is that Parliament is likely to be asked to take decisions on amendments relating to the UK’s future relationship. We think it is in Parliament’s best interest to know the terms of the UK’s future relationship with the EU when being asked to take decisions on the Trade Bill, so there will be a pause before we resume progress on this Bill, to ensure we can operate our independent trade policy in all scenarios.