European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, the objective of Amendment 41 is to require the Minister to present, both to Parliament and to the devolved legislatures, an economic impact assessment of the potential outcomes of negotiations so that we may know where we are heading.

First, over the past three years, numerous prophecies have been made as to the economic implications of Brexit, most of which were based on guess-work at the time as to what would be the outcome. All those guesstimates are now largely irrelevant. We now know three basic dimensions of our way forward. We know that we shall be leaving at the end of this month and that the implementation period will last until next December.

Secondly, the Government, presumably, know exactly what they want in any agreement reached with the European Union. They therefore will have made their own assessment of the economic impact if they get their way. The House and the devolved Governments have a right to know the detail of any such assessment, as well as a right to know the implications for each of our four nations and for the standard regions—in the amendment this is covered by virtue of a reference to the NUTS areas.

Thirdly, the Government have made it clear that, if they fail to reach and to achieve their negotiating objectives, they will choose to leave without a deal. Again, they have presumably estimated the effect of any such course of action. The implication could be disastrous for manufacturing, exporters, hill farmers and many others. However, surely the Government have, at the very least, a duty to make known the detail of any such estimates. Anyone in the world of trade, agriculture, manufacturing, industry or finance will clearly want to know, at the earliest time possible, what are the official forecasts for these implications, for the basic reason that they are quite fundamental to making any future investment decisions.

If the Government have their own estimates, they are surely duty-bound to share them, and if they do not, they should step back from negotiating a trade deal until they have the basic tools needed to make such a major and far-reaching decision, and to have those tools and the information on a logical and quantified basis. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, perhaps it is a symptom of the way that Brexit has been handled that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, even needs to table this amendment; we would have hoped that all this work had been done, published and debated well before any decisions were made. Indeed, I think reference was made yesterday to the Room 101 experience we had when we were called to be shown in secret the so-called sector-by-sector analyses of the impact of the withdrawal. They were of course no such thing—they were A-level descriptions which could have been got from published documents. Now we find that the Government want to head into negotiations on the future of the UK and its constituent parts with no prior appraisal of the impact of a range of outcomes, either on sectors or on geographical areas, and importantly, with no debate with either the industries concerned or with elected representatives of the geographical areas. Yet as we heard in the debate yesterday, important trade-offs and difficult judgments are going to have to be made as we struggle to find a workable trade relationship with the EU.

This should not be done in the dark. We should have full knowledge of the likely impact of each possible approach. The Government should have done this work, but I have little confidence that they have, which is why the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is so relevant.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, the first objective of the proposed new clause is to test whether the Article 50 notice is revocable. If so, its second objective is to suggest that in certain circumstances the Government might avail themselves of that option. Clearly, that could be an issue if we find ourselves with a no deal Brexit or a breakdown in negotiations at the very last moment. We touched on aspects of this in an earlier debate.

There have been no rulings on the revocability of Article 50. It is widely assumed that the interpretation of the treaty could ultimately be a matter for the Court of Justice of the European Union, although I noted the qualifications outlined earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in that context. The parties to the Gina Miller case assumed that notice of withdrawal is irrevocable. However, a preponderance of academic opinion maintains that it is revocable. One attempt to refer to the CJEU for a ruling was dropped—the Dublin case—on the basis of costs, as I understand it. Another—the Edinburgh case—is in the process of being appealed.

There is considerable opinion that an Article 50 notice could be revoked. Professor Closa has raised a number of formal and substantive objections to the assumption of Article 50’s irrevocability; the most compelling one draws on a comparative assessment of international law and practice under which a withdrawing state is bestowed a cooling-off period, allowing it to change its decision. Furthermore, Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, has asserted in his political capacity that on conclusion of the Article 50 negotiation process, the status quo could be maintained, meaning that if the UK was not happy with the agreed terms of Brexit, it could opt to continue to be a member of the EU.

The interpretation of Article 50, if one were needed, would be a matter of EU, not UK, law. The EU treaty is silent on the matter of revocability, but under Article 267 of the TFEU, there could be a role for the CJEU in determining whether an Article 50(2) notice can be withdrawn if a member state that has served notice of an intention to withdraw changes its mind. There is a general principle of international law, set out in Article 68 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, that a notification of intention to withdraw from a treaty,

“may be revoked at any time before it takes effect”.

This provision does not override any specific arrangements in a treaty, but are questions about the decision to trigger Article 50 under national constitutional arrangements relevant to the CJEU? If a court of last instance has some uncertainty as to the correct interpretation of EU law, it must refer a question on the interpretation of EU law or the EU treaties to the CJEU, but not, I stress, if the national court decides that something is clear “beyond reasonable doubt”. This is known as the “acte clair doctrine” and has been established in the case law of the CJEU. The courts have not ruled on revocability. I therefore contend that the amendment is both valid and necessary and I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, for the reasons I have given before, the amendment restricts what we did on Amendment 49 so I have some queries about its wording. However, on the question of revocability, if we came to a point in Parliament where we were looking at the next steps, should the deal not be accepted, it would be important for Parliament to know as far as the Government do the advice on this.

There are examples of legal advice given to the Government being disclosed to Parliament where it has been relevant to an Act before it. Clearly, the Government will have got legal advice on the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley; can the Minister indicate whether that could be shared with Parliament?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I intervene briefly to support Amendment 8, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, which also stands in my name. I spoke on this matter in Committee so I shall not repeat the points I made then. We were seeking greater clarity at that stage—and as far as I can see we still need that from the Minister—on the status of EU directives adopted but not implemented before exit day. I seek an assurance from the Minister that if an amendment of this kind is not accepted for inclusion in the Bill, the loose ends that will undoubtedly exist will be tied up by some other process later, whether in the implementation and withdrawal Bill or by some other device. Clearly some very valid issues have been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and we need to be sure that they have been looked after in the legislative process.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, as has been said, this is an issue for which the Government simply have to produce a solution. For once I am quite glad that I am at the Dispatch Box on this side of the Chamber so it is not my problem—but I do know that it is a problem that the Government absolutely must solve. Let us consider some of the subjects covered by the list in the amendment: safeguards for child suspects in criminal proceedings; the recognition of professional qualifications, which will be extraordinarily important for business; health and safety; and the trademarks directive. We cannot afford to have gaps, particularly with something such as trademarks. This list covers issues that are already our policy and have been adopted with our consent, so we need to find a way of getting them into our legislation. How that can be done, I hope the Minister will now tell us.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I will raise a couple of points—and not simply to defend my aunt. I said that she worked at the Conservative club. She was the barmaid and cleaner. The noble Lord is very lucky that she is no longer with us.

[Lord Wigley]

I have been mulling over this point. Is the noble Baroness sure that she is not inadvertently misleading the Committee? Surely there is no such thing as a Conservative club in Ystradgynlais.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Perhaps I may ask a couple more questions. I think that the Minister said that the figure I used of 50,000 was wrong because the only people who would lose out are those working between two and five hours at the national minimum wage. However, it is exactly those sorts of people who are carers and who will be doing quite small numbers of hours: the six-to-eight shift, if you like. Even though it is a small number of people, it would be interesting to know whether there was an impact assessment of the effect on carers and whether it showed how they would be affected.

I have two other points. One is about the figure of £4 billion, which gets used a lot. The disregards will not necessarily cost the Government money; if they are encouraging people into work, those people will quite quickly start paying tax and NI—not immediately but fairly quickly—and they will quickly pay for themselves. I realise that that will not happen at the moment as there is rather a lot of unemployment because of the Government’s policies, but we will not go there. Normally, though, the incentive is to get people into work, so that will soon begin to pay itself off.