European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

48: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Transport connectivity
(1) The Secretary of State must within two months of the passing of this Act lay before both Houses of Parliament a report indicating the manner in which continuity and safety of transport is to be maintained following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU.(2) The report referred to in subsection (1) must include proposals to maintain a relationship with the deliberations and operational activities of the EU’s transport Executive Agencies, whether by continued participation in the European Agencies in some form or by establishing an effective equivalent within the United Kingdom or by other means.(3) The Agencies referred to in subsection (2) include—(a) in respect of civil aviation, the European Aviation Safety Agency;(b) in respect of maritime transport, the European Maritime Safety Agency; and(c) in respect of rail transport, the European Railway Agency.(4) A Minister of the Crown must seek approval for the proposals in the report under subsection (2) by means of motions in both Houses of Parliament.(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument provide for the implementation of any proposal approved by both Houses of Parliament under subsection (4).(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 48 is in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Judd. I have often remarked, in my long years in this Chamber, that the attendance in the Chamber is often in inverse proportion to the range of interests in the population and economy as a whole. I am glad we have the additional attendance of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. This is a very important issue to a large proportion of our population and a large chunk of our industry—everybody who is ever a traveller, a tourist, an importer or an exporter, or who buys those imports or sells those exports, everybody who works in the international transport sector and the whole of the aerospace and other manufacturing industries which support all those sectors.

Ministers will recognise that I am returning to my favourite subject in the Bill: the future relationship with the EU agencies. Frankly, I have at no point received clarity from the Government—nor have the industrial sectors—as to their aim in the negotiations and what they would like the future relationship to be between our industries in those sectors and the EU agencies of which we are currently full members.

I was encouraged in this view only yesterday. As noble Lords will know, I am a member of your Lordships’ EU Select Committee. This was in public proceedings, so I can reveal it. We had before us yesterday among our witnesses the director-general of the CBI. We asked her what were the practical problems for her members that were being brought to her, of the uncertainty and lack of clarity over Brexit. The very first thing she mentioned was that there were so many sectors that did not know what their future relationship with those agencies and the processes under those agencies would be—in other words, the very terms of trade and the terms of the relationships under which they will operate. That underlines the Government’s failure to explain what they are after.

We had some glimmer of light from no less a person than the Prime Minister herself. In her Mansion House speech, she referred to having to have continued relationships with the aviation agencies. She referred to associate membership. I have said before that associate membership does not bring the kind of rights and influence that we currently have, but nevertheless it is a step forward on anything else the Government have said. On the rest of the agencies—there are not only the three mentioned in the amendment, but roughly 40 other agencies that affect different sectors of our economic and cultural life—we have no glimmer of what the Government intend.

Transport is a vital sector. I would hope that Ministers could give at least as clear an assurance as I think the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, gave on Monday in relation to my equivalent amendment on the environment and food safety agencies. He said that, because the Government were committed to bringing forward a new statutory authority for environments, before we reach Third Reading greater clarity will be shed by the Government on the role of the environmental agencies. I would hope that we could have at least a glimmer of such hope with regard to the transport agencies.

The aviation industry is probably the most acutely affected by this, as not only British airlines and European airlines but also American and third-party airlines do not know what they will be selling in a year’s time. We do not know what the landing rights will be; we do not know how British-based airlines will operate, even through the transition period. At the moment, in the transition period, if we understand the EU’s position clearly, they will no longer be members of those agencies. EASA, to take the most important example in this amendment, has been greatly influenced by British presence, expertise and regulation. The British aviation industry is the biggest single such industry in Europe, and the tourist industry in Spain and several other Mediterranean countries depend on it continuing to be so. If we are no longer full members of EASA, the airlines themselves will be in difficulty in knowing quite what they will sell to their customers—passengers —in less than 12 months, and even more so beyond 2020.

I am not entirely sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, or the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will reply to this debate. I do not mind who says it, and hope that they are all agreed, but I would like a bit more hope that we can get greater clarity on these vital transport agencies, which are key to connectivity across Europe. We ought to have clarity before we complete the passage of the Bill, and the Government have only a few weeks to provide that clarity. I beg to move.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always good to support my noble friend Lord Whitty. He invariably brings to our deliberations well-argued, well-analysed speeches that in the end boil down to common sense. His arguments are absolutely irresistible, and I cannot imagine that the Government would not want to be positive in their response, in one way or another.

One of the opportunities that you get when living in Cumbria is that when you have clear skies—and we have clear skies more often than the cynics suppose—one sees the indispensability of British airspace to European traffic, using the Arctic routes to North America and beyond. There are mutual interests at stake here, which is partly why this is so urgent. We cannot scramble something together at the last moment as a consequence of the action that we have taken constitutionally; we must plan now for how we are going to guarantee effectiveness in meeting the challenges of that mutual interdependence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Lord for his clarification. This issue will continue to be an important factor as we engage in the negotiations. I have endeavoured in so far as I can to set out for your Lordships the current situation, what the Government’s objectives are and how the Prime Minister anticipates the way forward. I invite the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to withdraw his amendment and observe that the Government do not intend to return to this matter at Third Reading.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, the noble Baroness was doing quite well until her last sentence. I take a limited amount of comfort from what she says are the Government’s desired outcomes. I am sure that we all subscribe to those outcomes on safety and co-operation and so forth. However, these entities have provided the basis on which European railways, European maritime contacts and European air contacts have operated with increasing closeness over the last few decades. The situation is similar with roads. At least yesterday, with regard to haulage, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, provided a necessary but not complete basis for activity to replace the European Community licence system. In these areas, the industries feel uncomfortable that they do not know what is happening and do not know how to plan ahead. That has been underlined to us from time to time and Ministers must have had the same kinds of approaches. Therefore, it would have been helpful if the Minister had given us a promise—in writing, if necessary—that the objectives would be spelled out in a little more detail.

We are in an asymmetrical position. We know what the EU has said. In its guidelines for the negotiations, it has said that not from December 2020 but from March next year we will no longer be a member of those agencies and will be invited only at its request for particular reasons. That is the EU’s negotiating position. We are not clear what the Government’s negotiating position is in relation to these or any other agencies. The Prime Minister has, admittedly, said slightly more about aviation but, even there, she referred at one point to continued participation and at another point to associate membership, which have rather different connotations.

Therefore, despite the noble Baroness’s efforts and some of the reassurances that she has given us, which I appreciate, I am no clearer about which way we are going. If I am not clear, I suspect that those who run our airlines, railways, maritime services—the ferries in particular—and roads are not clear either. On transport depends the rest of our industry and our society. If those industries are not clear, that bodes ill for how we respond economically to the shock of Brexit.

I will beg leave to withdraw the amendment with some regret—I had hoped for better from the Minister—but the issue remains, and I certainly advise Ministers to address that issue with the industries as rapidly as possible.

Amendment 48 withdrawn.