European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, said, this is a technical Bill. But, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and my noble friend Lord Davies so ably pointed out, it has human consequences. We cannot escape these consequences, which are massive, and I want to dwell on them briefly.

When Ministers talk of science, they talk about and quote Nobel Prize winners and great scientists. However, when perhaps the greatest scientist of the last century, Albert Einstein, died, within seven hours his brain was taken out of his head, cut into small bits by a pathologist, looked at under a microscope and put in a jar marked “Pickles”. Subsequently, a lady pathologist at Stanford University, miles away from where Einstein had died in New Jersey, had another look at his brain. After excessive dissection, she decided that there was no difference between his and anyone else’s: it had a 100 billion neurons and each was connected in the usual way to 5,000 to 10,000 other neurons. There is a message here, which is rather well explained by my two noble friends on the Front Bench: put together, they have more brain capacity than Albert Einstein—I exclude the Whips and, of course, the Front Bench on the opposite side.

The fact of the matter is that our best innovations and attempts at becoming human come through collaboration and co-operation. This has been said repeatedly in this debate but it is often forgotten; increasingly, it is the key to Europe. Do not forget that for a long time we have stood at the head of science in this country. I genuinely believe, and I think there is evidence to support the belief, that this will slip away. Other European countries are starting to overtake us and we are being left behind. The economy, which has been so important to the Government, must be considered as well.

I want to explain the consequences for one scientist I have come across who is not from my university but from University College London. I left the Chamber to print out his email to me just 10 minutes ago as what he says is a revelation about how many European scientists feel, though he represents far more people than just scientists. He says that he is married to an Englishwoman and has two children, but does not want to take British nationality. Why should he, when he is Italian? He feels totally insecure. This professor—his name, which he has said I can use, is Professor Andrea Sella—wakes up at night with cold sweats worrying about his position in Europe. He says that this is common among many of his friends and I see this at Imperial College as well. He describes what he feels so amazingly that I want to read it to noble Lords. He says:

“The government keeps claiming that in regard to EU nationals all is settled. Yet it remains completely unclear what rights we will have in the UK after the UK leaves the EU. We’ve paid our taxes for decades but everything is uncertain. What is our access to healthcare? What about other services?”.


He goes on to ask about elderly parents who live overseas who may need care and who may wish to come to this country for that care, with their children’s help. He says he had always assumed that people might be able to bring their elderly parents over but now he is not so certain. He talks about the 3 million people who can apply for citizenship but points out that the Home Office is completely overwhelmed—that passports are missing for months on end and that in the past people have had to fill out an 85-page document, which adds to the complication. Of course, this becomes completely impossible for many people to manage.

He goes on to say something rather sad:

“Just a few days ago David Davis sat in front of Hilary Benn’s parliamentary select committee and waffled about our ‘anxiety, real or imagined’. What planet does he live on?”.


That is a really serious issue. There is an aspect of unreality about how this affects so many people whom we regard as our friends and colleagues and who contribute massively.

I shall tell your Lordships about Andrea Sella. This man is a leading chemist in this country—a professor. He regularly goes into schools and has probably spoken to around 100,000 schoolchildren in the United Kingdom over the last five or seven years. I have seen his activities—they are immense and purely charitable. There are very many scientists like him who help with our civilisation, and what is happening is a real risk.

He ends his email on a very poignant note. Perhaps in saying this, I could point out that I watched the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, shake his head when he heard my noble friend Lord Triesman speak. At the end of his email Andrea Sella talks about a maternal ancestor. He is not Jewish but his ancestor was. Apparently she called him early in the morning when the result of the referendum became clear. She said, her voice choking with emotion:

“How can these people forget so soon where nationalism leads you?”.


I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, that, amazingly, a number of Jewish people are now applying for German citizenship, so perhaps he will understand that some of us feel a bit offended when he talks about the House of Lords in the way that he apparently did—if what my noble friend Lord Adonis said is true. I hope that, when he comes to sum up at the end of this debate tomorrow evening, he will put the record straight and point out that these human issues are really important—and really important to us in the House of Lords.