European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Baroness Crawley

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I particularly support my noble friend Lady Drake’s compelling case for preserving and improving workplace rights for women after we leave the European Union. That is not least because I, as a former MEP, like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe—or “another obscure MEP”, as the Daily Mail put it—played a modest part in the creation of the maternity leave directive 25 years ago. As my noble friend Lady Drake said, so many British women—hundreds of thousands—have benefited from that EU law in the intervening years.

Maternity rights for British women have indeed progressed—in that sense the Minister is right—and we should be proud of that. But in the early 1990s, they came from a very low base, much lower than the rest of the European Union, and we do not want to go back to that low base. Therefore I call on the Minister to give us what guarantees he can that we will not go back to bargain-basement rights.

In this debate on the importance of securing transitional arrangements, as my noble friend has said, I ask the Minister whether he agrees with his noble friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie—he was in his place but I do not see him now. In our debate on this Bill on Monday, in answer to a question on the EEA from my noble friend Lord Liddle, the noble and learned Lord said,

“I do not accept that we face a cliff edge—there is no cliff and therefore no edge”.—[Official Report, 27/2/17; col. 588.]

Does the Minister agree? That was certainly not the message that the Prime Minister took to the CBI last autumn when it was extremely worried, and it continues to be worried about the need for transitional arrangements.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

This has been a wide-ranging debate. I put my name to Amendment 34. The fishing industry is important; part of the problem is that people have too often tried to shut the fishing industry up, when it has had genuine concerns about the way the common fisheries policy has operated over many years. Indeed, there are concerns now that in the Brexit negotiations it might yet be forgotten about.

I had the privilege of representing for 18 years in the House of Commons and for eight years in the Scottish Parliament a constituency which had many fishing communities. I am aware that there was a concern as to what happened when Britain entered the European Union and that the interests of the fishing industry were sold short. It was a belief that, when the papers were subsequently released under the 30-year rule, was proved to have some substance. A briefing note from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland in the early 1970s warned:

“In short, at present it is much easier to see the drawbacks for our fishermen likely to be involved in the Common Fisheries Policy than to be at all positive that there will be benefits to offset, let alone outweigh them”.


The amendment that my noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie and I have put forward is intended to try to ensure that some way or other there will be an engagement of the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to help allay some of these concerns.

The House has had the benefit of a very good and well-informed report on Brexit and fisheries from the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Teverson. It makes clear the complexities of untangling the United Kingdom from the common fisheries policy and the need for agreement. For example, my noble friend Lord Teverson said in Grand Committee on 16 January that,

“the moment we leave the European Union, the EEZ will become our exclusive economic zone, exactly as it says on the tin. There will be no automatic right for us to fish in other people’s EEZs; nor will there be any automatic right for other nation states to fish in ours. We will be excluded immediately, if we have not renegotiated access, from agreements with Iceland, Norway and the Faroes, which are particularly important to our Scottish fleets”.—[Official Report, 16/1/17; col. GC 1.]

It is not academic. Important negotiations will have to take place about the future of our fisheries, not only in terms of fishing opportunities but in terms of our trade in fish. It is said that we export the majority of fish caught by our UK vessels and import the majority of fish that we eat. Measured by volume, 49% of our domestic production is exported to the European Union and 32% of the imports that we eat are from the European Union. Fishing will be an important part of these negotiations in terms of catching opportunities and in terms of trade, not only for the fishermen in the immediate area but for the fish processors and all who are dependent on the fishing industry.

In terms of our total United Kingdom GDP, the fishing industry does not loom very large, but in terms of the many communities around our coast in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and many parts of England it is important. I remember taking part in the annual debate on fisheries in the House of Commons where it was clear from the wide range of people who took part the importance to many communities of the fishing industry. Therefore, it is important we focus on this and that we give the devolved Administrations, Parliaments and Assemblies an opportunity for involvement.

In replying to the debate on 16 January, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, said:

“Obviously, we must work—and are working—as closely as we have always done with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations and Crown dependencies as we develop our positions, and will ensure that their views are fully taken into account as negotiations move forward”.—[Official Report, 16/1/17; col. 29.]


I do not expect the Minister to have the answer tonight so he can write to me, but can he tell us up until now what discussions have taken place at official and ministerial level on fisheries with the respective devolved Administrations? As I said, it is a small part of our GDP but vital for our many coastal communities and it is vital that their interests are advanced and safeguarded as we go forward into these negotiations.