Common Rules for Exports (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, after hearing Conservatives and Ukippers preach year after year about the unnecessary bureaucracy of European regulations, it is sad that we now have a Government hurrying to transpose European regulations into domestic law as necessary and useful elements in diverse aspects of government and in managing our economy. That is a sad irony.

My first question to the Minister is to ask whether he can tell us yet how many more SIs are still to come before the House from his department before transposition and replacement are complete. We will be very busy between now and the new year with continuing legislation to clarify our future external trade policy and our relations with the EU and others. How many more SIs are still to come? Secondly, has preparation for this transposition been accompanied by any contingency planning in Whitehall about products not easily available in Britain that could be critical in an emergency?

I understand that constraints on exports of specific foodstuffs might be rational and necessary in an emergency. I am aware that the UK produces a range of pharmaceuticals to which this SI might apply. However, we have learned during the current Covid-19 emergency that there are a number of medicines that we do not produce in quantity, and a wide range of other medical supplies of which we have lacked domestic stocks—and which the Government had failed to ensure were available in usable forms in stockpiles.

Now that the UK is abandoning its guaranteed access to its largest market from which to source many essential products, have the Government embarked on any discussions with the EU and its member Governments about future co-operation in any shared or global emergency? Do they have plans to increase domestic production or expand domestic stockpiles?

I shall leave the Irish dimension to others, beyond noting that the growing prosperity of the Irish economy means that Ireland has also become a significant source of medical and related products used within the UK. Instead, I wish to inquire what the officials who gave evidence to our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee meant when they said that our pursuit of national priorities and constraint of exports would be limited by the need “to meet international obligations”. What international obligations would limit government sovereignty under such circumstances? Which states or international organisations could impose such obligations on us?

I understood from the Brexiteers that the UK was asserting its sovereignty from international obligations by leaving the EU. Were those officials saying that there are nevertheless unavoidable limits on UK sovereignty? Are they saying that it is not only the European Union that cramps our freedom, but that, even after we have escaped from European domination, we will be held down by other foreign commands?

Lastly, is there any prospect of being able to use the powers set out in this SI in early 2021? The NAO report, published last week, put it bluntly, saying that

“preparations to manage the border at the end of the transition period remain very challenging”.

Does this SI set out an aspiration, rather than a deliverable set of proposals?

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, some of the language of the Bill brings back distant memories from over 35 years ago. Proponents of free trade and open markets, including Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, argued then that the absence of a common framework for regulation across the European Community disadvantaged UK exports to our neighbours. It also meant that British standards usually copied US standards; American regulators exercised what lawyers termed “extraterritorial jurisdiction” over foreign markets such as the UK. For Mrs Thatcher, a European single market would mean that British Ministers could take an active part in negotiating international standards rather than swallowing American ones.

A generation later, in a far more integrated global economy, it has become clear that standards and regulations will emerge from one of three major global players: the United States, China or the European Union. However, our Government are pursuing an antique and absolutist version of Westminster sovereignty, breaking free of the EU. In practice, that means we will end up following either American or European standards on food safety, financial regulation and the internet without much influence on either—losing control, not taking back control.

The doctrine of sovereignty that underlies the Bill was set out by Albert Venn Dicey in his 1885 Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution. Dicey insisted that Westminster sovereignty was supreme and indivisible, internally and externally. Sir William Cash frequently quotes him and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, cited Dicey in this House when challenged about the subject. However, Dicey was writing at the high point of British imperialism when English politicians could assume that Britain shaped international law and other countries had to follow. The Empire has gone, but the mixture of imperial nostalgia and English nationalism that motivates hard-right Conservatives resists negotiating international law with other states. That is disastrous for Britain’s reputation, for London as a global centre for litigation and legal expertise and for our ability to negotiate future trade deals with others, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others have noted.

Dicey’s approach to domestic sovereignty was shaped by his bitter opposition to Irish home rule. He refused to accept that powers could be shared with a parliament in Dublin. Conservative unionists follow Dicey, insisting that all authority in the UK rests in Westminster. That absolutist view, through opposition to successive proposals for home rule, led to Ireland breaking away from the United Kingdom.

This is a constitutional Bill. It goes to the heart of the rule of law within the UK as well as in relation to other states, and it threatens the further disintegration of our state, with Scotland leaving and Ulster moving towards reunification to leave England diminished and internally divided.

We are now watching right-wing Republicans bend America’s written constitution until it is close to breaking. We have even seen the embittered partisanship of American politics spilling over into this debate in the attack by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on the Bishops who are addressing the moral dimensions of the Bill. We should not allow our increasingly authoritarian Government to bend the conventions of our own unwritten constitution any further.

Covid-19: Businesses and the Private Sector

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said that the private sector is the only solution to get us out of this. I disagree. We are a mixed economy, a society and a national community. We need our society, community and democracy to have the same high quality if we are to recover from all this.

The Government’s early mistakes in responding to this endeavour were in turning to large outsourcing companies to provide services in testing, and now in recruiting for tracing and managing PPE, and neglecting our local democracy and local authorities—which have been bypassed time and time again—and the local volunteers wanting to join. I have just contributed to a school in Bradford, which sent out an appeal for a new cutting edge for its 3D printer because, while the school was closed, it has been printing screens for local hospitals. There are all sorts of local initiatives like that going on, and I have heard the frustrations of people at the local level who have applied and offered to help.

The SMEs so strongly supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and I, have not been caught up, because this approach has been so top-down. I have also heard from those in universities, particularly biologists, who have wanted to help and turn over their facilities, but take-up has been slow from an overly centralised Government in England.

My strong message here is that we have made mistakes in not engaging local democracy and local enthusiasm, and in not treating people as citizens, as well as consumers and patients. The private sector at the local, as well as the national, level has to be part of that. We are a national community of citizens, as well as consumers, and this is a national emergency that involves us all.

Brexit: Galileo Space Project

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a perfectly good point. My right honourable friend has made these points in his letter to the other Ministers involved in this country. That is why the other Ministers— certainly in my department, and in others—have already started engaging on this and will continue to do so. This is a proposal from the Commission but we want to see what the other countries feel about it as well.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the Government investigating co-operation with other partners. If we are talking about other Governments with satellite programmes, I imagine it is a choice of China, Russia, India and the United States. Are the Government investigating all of those as options?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, all I said—I am not going to go much further than this—is that we are looking at other options. I also stress that we have the capability to do quite a lot ourselves. I am not suggesting that we will engage with Russia and other similar countries.

Brexit: Fashion Industry

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think I had better confine myself purely to questions about fashion rather than other areas, but on that particular subject I can agree with my noble friend.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord’s department have an estimate yet of how many statutory instruments will be required to fulfil the pledge he has just given us? Will those statutory instruments be by the affirmative or the negative procedure?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, on the overall number of statutory instruments that will be required, different people have put forward different estimates of very large numbers. As regards this particular subject, as far as I know, we need just one statutory instrument. There might be more, and I will write to the noble Lord if that is the case. Whether they will be affirmative or negative is again something that I cannot answer at this stage, but I will write to the noble Lord if a decision has been made.

Productivity

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

Obviously the level of employees coming in from other countries has an influence on wages and employment in this country. The noble Lord is right to point that out.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, there is substantial evidence that a large number of companies are using the new apprentice levy to train people already employed, often in mid-executive positions, rather than going out and finding young people and training them up as new apprentices, which is what one understood the scheme was for. Are the Government going to look into that and do their best to persuade companies that they should be training young apprentices as the first priority?

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is right to point that out. It is anecdotal evidence at this stage, but it is something that we should certainly look at.

Euratom

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I note the silence on the Conservative Benches in this debate. I fear it is perhaps because no Conservative Peers are willing to defend the Government’s current position on this matter. I want to quote the Commons report on this, which states at paragraph 85:

“We are not aware of any substantive arguments in favour of leaving Euratom made either during the referendum campaign or afterwards. This outcome seems to be an unfortunate, and perhaps unforeseen, consequence of the Prime Minister’s decision to leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice”.


Liam Fox said on the “Today” programme this morning that our negotiations to join the WTO would be entirely straightforward, provided people did not put politics ahead of economics. He lacks a sense of self-irony to some extent, because it is quite clear that the politics of getting out from under the ECJ have driven the decision to leave Euratom. I was told this morning that, of all the cases on Euratom that the ECJ has considered, none has been decided against the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the wickedness of the existence of the ECJ and the passionate feeling of Sir William Cash, Martin Howe QC and a small number of ultra-Europhobes who believe that common law is wonderful and Roman law is subversive have pushed the Prime Minister into making this a red line.

It is quite clear, however, that if we leave Euratom, the international nature of the nuclear industry means that some other form of legal arbitration in this as in so many other sectors would have to be used. Absolute sovereignty is not possible in the current global economy. That is one thing that the Prime Minister has to admit if we are to get through the current complex series of negotiations that we are about to undertake.

Timescale questions come in here. We leave in less than two years if we carry on without the process of transitional implementation. I see from the various reports that I have read that it takes five years to train a new nuclear inspector if we wish to set up our own nuclear safeguards agency. It takes a minimum of 10 years to build and get into operation a new research reactor, if we think that we are going to find radioisotopes from a British source.

I also note that the continued free movement of nuclear workers is vital. I am not sure what the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, would say about that, because not only would they be foreigners but they would bring in foreign wives and might have foreign children. There are real questions here which relate to some of the absurdities of our debate.

My noble friend Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted has talked about the difficulties of finding alternative sources of supply. We cannot go to China or to Australia; geographical propinquity matters.

Managing the many complex aspects of a global economy means that international regulation is necessary and that some form of legal arbitration is required. Getting out of Euratom because you are not prepared to accept that it is a regional organisation in which regional legal arbitration is needed seems an enormous mistake. The Nuclear Industry Association stated that,

“Euratom has played a key role in underpinning the UK’s nuclear industry since the country joined the EEC in 1973”.

Our companies benefit from the supply chain. Our researchers and research centres benefit enormously from the networks to which they belong. The Government are jeopardising all that; they need to think again.

Brexit: Consumer Rights Policy

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

We will want to work to ensure that enforcement is effective across borders. There is, of course, a mutuality of interest here, because online goes both ways, and there are issues online, such as cyber and counterfeits, which need to be addressed. We are continuing to develop the digital single market in our ongoing work in the Competitiveness Council, and our enforcement regimes are well respected. The noble Lord is right to highlight this area, but I am optimistic that we can find a way forward and that there will be opportunities to do things better, from the studies that we shall be doing and the work that we shall be taking forward.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister said that EU consumer law would be converted into domestic law where it is practical. Could she give the House an example of where the Government consider it will not be practical to do so?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

That is a difficult question to answer—I am always straight. What I would say is that, as I mentioned earlier, we have planned a series of engagements with consumer bodies. That applies right across Whitehall, so that, for example, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has been talking to consumer groups—because, of course, financial services are very important—and there have been talks between MoJ and the Legal Services Consumer Panel. It is clear to me that we will be able to highlight, well before March, the particular pinch points, so that in our negotiations we will know which are the important areas that we need to preserve. This is an important piece of work, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.