European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer the Green group’s support for this amendment. Noble Lords will have noticed that your Lordships’ House is not quite as crowded as it was when we were debating the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I invite your Lordships to consider all the people who are not here—the people in our supermarkets, streets, workplaces and wilderness areas. We have been talking about EU standards, but I would call them the people’s standards. These standards were won by campaigns and struggles—by people in the UK and across the EU who stood up against the lobbyists and corporate interests. They stood up against those who had so much power in deciding what kinds of standards there should be in places such as the United States of America. They stood up for something better.

The Government keep saying that they want to have higher standards than the people’s standards that we have had to fight so hard to get. I entirely accept the need for much higher standards. In this hugely nature-depleted country, each year we are collectively consuming the resources of our share of three planets—although we have only one. We are pumping out so much greenhouse gas. As the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, so eloquently outlined, we have people in really desperate workplace situations. We need better standards, but these people’s standards are a foundation.

I am sure that we will hear from the Benches opposite about the UK’s crucial place in the UN climate talks as part of COP 26 this year. If the Government do not incorporate this amendment into the withdrawal agreement Bill, what kind of message will this send about us as the chair of COP 26?

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment proposes that we should not regress from the existing EU-derived rights and practices in relation to the protected matters specified in the amendment. I see no difficulty in principle about that. There may be much merit in it in terms of continuity of public policy and of reassuring the public that we will maintain the standards that have so far been established by the EU and continue to conform with them.

But it is surely essential that we retain the right to diverge. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, gave some very important reasons for this. The world is changing, and our country and economy need to be alert to all the changes that will provide opportunity for us in the future, as we seek our fortune in a wider world. The eurozone economy is a relatively inert and sluggish region of the global economy. While much has been achieved and very important protections have been established for workers’ rights and environmental issues, as the noble Baroness has just mentioned, and we do not want to lose that acquis—those achievements and benefits—we have got to be flexible and be able to be innovative.

The essential principle of Brexit is that we take back control of our laws. It is an entirely reasonable proposition that this Parliament should legislate to perpetuate our conformance with certain particular laws that have already been enacted. It is a very different proposition that we should commit ourselves to the proverbial level playing field and the principle of non-divergence following the end of the implementation period. That is not what is envisaged in the amendment, but it seems to have been contemplated by a number of noble Lords in their speeches. If taking back control of our laws means anything, it means that we must reserve the right to diverge. Indeed, we will need to have the right to diverge even from what has already been established and achieved when it proves in some sense obsolescent, as new reasons and new horizons emerge for the kind of changes and developments that we would seek to achieve in our economy.