European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Viscount Ridley and Baroness Altmann

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by expressing my belief that speaking in favour of any amendment to the Bill does not amount to trying to frustrate the referendum result or to deny the will of the people. I respect the result, and we are trying to implement it as responsibly as we can in the interests of our great country.

The referendum was about taking back control and ensuring parliamentary sovereignty. That is vital to safeguard our democracy and protect our national interests. The people want to be able to trust our Parliament to look after their future. But in the context of the Bill, it seems to me that Parliament is in danger of abrogating its responsibility.

I have heard the arguments to suggest that parliamentary oversight somehow makes it inevitable that the EU will only offer us a bad deal. However, I respectfully disagree. Indeed, I believe that the likelihood is the other way round. If the negotiators and Ministers know that at the end of the day they will have to sell this deal to Parliament, I believe they will be properly incentivised to be more likely to achieve a deal that is acceptable.

As currently proposed, the Bill will effectively hand responsibility for our future to a group of negotiators and Ministers who apparently countenance with a measure of equanimity the idea that no deal is better than a bad deal. If we enter negotiations with a view that the EU will not give us a good deal and that we will just have to leave the single market, the customs union, Euratom and so many other fundamental parts of our current economic security, then we must surely ask ourselves whether those negotiators will be sufficiently incentivised to actually get a good deal for the country.

A no-deal scenario was never put to the British people. The White Paper and the referendum campaign have not considered the consequences either. Leaving the customs union, the single market and Euratom are recent decisions with significant implications for people’s jobs, for standards of living, for national security, for the nuclear industry, for Northern Ireland and so much else. Yet the risks have been skirted over, almost as if they do not really matter. They do matter. In normal negotiations, corporate negotiators would reserve the option of taking an offer back to their board; a lawyer would reserve the option of referring back to their client.

[Viscount Ridley]

Will my noble friend explain how what she is saying now squares with what she said at the start of her speech about not challenging the result of the referendum?

[Baroness Altmann]

I am not challenging the result of the referendum. We are here to debate and discuss how best to safeguard the interests of our country and to discuss what might happen at the end of the negotiation, in light of the referendum, to make sure that we have parliamentary sovereignty. That is what this debate and this amendment are about. Why would we deny Parliament, the heart of our democracy, the authority to approve or push for a better deal, rather than accepting no deal without a proper say? This parliamentary route, giving Parliament, not the Executive, a meaningful final vote is my preferred option, not a referendum. Such a safety net, written into statute, would seem to me to be the most responsible course to take as we negotiate our EU exit.

I believe it is my duty, given the very serious concerns that I have expressed, to ask the other place to reconsider the need for elected MPs to take responsibility for the future of their constituents. I believe that they must have the final say on the Bill and I want to ask them to think again.