Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, it is nearly a decade since 23 June 2016, when I voted to remain, and campaigned to stay in the European Union, partly because I did not want to spend the next 10 years of my parliamentary career having to deal with all the issues that came about as a consequence of Brexit. But I am a democrat; I still am. That is why, when I was appointed by my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead to go into Defra, where I worked for three years, we continued to go to the European Council and to respect and interact with all the different regulations that were going through—but also starting to plan how best to leave.

There is no doubt that I would have agreed with the summary statement put out in Appendix 9, but I appreciate that the committee was not unanimous in its report and I certainly did not support the alternative summary. It is important to try to get a sense from the Government—having had these manifesto commitments to not go back into the single market or the customs union and not have freedom of movement—as to why they think that having the SPS does not drive a coach and horses through the single market.

One of the constant issues in the early years of negotiation was that we could not be a rule-taker if we were not a rule-maker. That continues to be the real problem that is being put forward by the Government. I am conscious already that the only reform that they have approved as a consequence of Brexit is to put VAT on school fees, which they would not have been allowed to do if we were still part of the European Union.

It comes back to some of the differences, where often the UK was not necessarily a sole voice but a leading voice in trying to address quite a lot of not just environmental regulations but chemical regulations, all these different ones, to which we brought our sense of our large economy—this was often how so much was negotiated. For heaven’s sake, the fishing agreements were negotiated with countries that had no fish being taken out of the sea. But that was done because they could use it as leverage on many other issues. I appreciate that we have a former Permanent Representative to the European Union in the Chamber. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Barrow, who went to Brussels as one of our representatives after the referendum result.

One of the things that I have found frustrating in this whole debate, not just on this report but more generally, is the continued gaslighting. We need to be honest with the British public. The Labour Party has been driving a coach around Manchester ahead of the by-election today, repeating the lie that £350 million per week has not gone into the NHS. It has. It happened when my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead was Prime Minister. We put the money in then. It is that sort of approach, the rewriting of history, that is one of the reasons why this will continue to be a thorn in the challenge of trying to do what is best for Britain.

That, of course, is to have a very strong relationship with the European Union. But since then, we have joined the CPTPP and other free trade agreements. We should be taking more advantage. Frankly, if it had not been for Covid, in many ways, we would have got on with a lot of the freedoms. But it was due to Covid and not being part of the European Union that we were the first country in the world to be able to authorise a vaccine and deploy it successfully.

I am afraid that this report will continue to be somewhat controversial and quite divisive—not necessarily between political parties. I appreciate that many of my noble friends would love to rejoin the European Union tomorrow. There is an element of reminding ourselves, as part of this reset relationship, that we would not go back in on the same terms that we left. To try to pretend otherwise, I am afraid, is not displaying the candour which this debate deserves.