European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

On 1 February 2016, a cross-party meeting was held in Committee Room 9 in the Commons for any Peers and MPs interested in supporting a campaign to leave the EU. There was a reasonable turnout from both Houses. Part-way through the meeting, an MP rose and said, “If anyone thinks there’s any point in campaigning to leave in the north-east—and probably the north-west—of England, forget it. There is no point; they’re all going to vote out”. On 12 December 2019, the voices of those people were finally heard.

At last I can say, without the constraints of a ministerial role, how pleased I am that those of us who have believed in all the good reasons for leaving the EU have been vindicated by such overwhelming support from the electorate. If ever I had a moment of doubt about our purpose over the past three years, I would recall two private events that I attended in support of the leave campaign. Almost all invited were highly intelligent, intellectually curious and successful men and women, mostly self-made wealth creators, major employers and believers in our nation and our ability to punch above our weight as global Britain.

I also kept thinking, “How come so many parliamentarians are suddenly so pro the EU?” Until 2016, many Members of the House of Commons, regardless of party, hardly gave visiting Members of the European Parliament houseroom at Westminster, and showed little interest in scrutinising EU legislation. For 40 years, our nation’s own broadcaster, the BBC, never made the case for the EU beyond the odd “From Our Own Correspondent”. It failed in its duty to educate and inform as to the EU’s remit and purpose and our role within it. Little wonder that people did not feel in any way connected to our EU partners.

Turning swiftly to the Bill, I will touch on just a few areas that were a focus of debate in another place. It is surely time to, yes, debate its clauses, express our opinions and scrutinise—and then support the elected Chamber. As a lawyer, I firmly believe that less is more; in other words, I urge noble Lords, do not shackle our Government’s ability to do the right thing. We must take care to avoid unintended consequences and thereby narrow our options, and, from all accounts of our negotiations with the EU to date, our Government must be free to be tough. We surely celebrate the fact that we are once again able to make our own laws and regulations—to decide our destiny and not have it decided by others.

Of course there are clear areas where regulatory alignment makes sense, and many of those have already been debated ad nauseam in your Lordships’ House. Through those debates, it has become clear that in some key areas, such as regulations relating to our Health and Safety Executive, alignment makes complete sense, and in others—for example, animal welfare—our standards are often higher and we want to be even better still than our EU neighbours.

Technology is an area where regulatory alignment does not make sense. We must be careful what we wish for. We need to be free to embrace and champion innovation and new ideas. We can be the tech hub of Europe. In contrast with the EU, we must not shackle businesses with, for example, draconian privacy rules and punitive fines, and thereby lose out on our opportunity—and right—to be the best. Let France, for example, continue with its protectionist approach whereby it does not allow the streaming of new films on channels such as Netflix in a bid to protect its film industry from disruptive competition. Let the EU, with its focus upon protectionism, be the slowest ship in the tech convoy.

With regard to rights related to residence, the EU settlement scheme is already up and running, working, and far more generous than those offered by many countries in Europe to UK citizens. What do we really mean by reciprocity of citizens’ rights? For our welfare system to be affordable, given that this year alone we are already spending over £220 billion in the Department for Work and Pensions, and with current calls to end the benefit freeze, the Government must now do more to compare our system with others across Europe, given that others do not, for example, shy away from much tougher conditions for those fit and able to work. It is notable that the EU has never had the courage to tackle fundamental and, in many cases, grossly unfair differences in welfare support across the EU.

There is a great deal to do; let us support the Bill and get on with it.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

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

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I very much support Amendment 37, tabled by my noble friends, but I want to talk to Amendment 44, which is in my name and in this group. It concerns retaining European citizenship for UK nationals. I do not expect this provision to appear in the final version of the Bill when it becomes an Act, as in a way this is a probing amendment, but it is of huge importance and something that many people feel strongly about.

I remind the House of the privileges that come with European citizenship. We know about the freedom of movement, which is often discussed, but there is also the freedom to establish a business. There is the freedom to carry on your education in the whole of the European Union, and there is the freedom of being able to buy property without permit within the European Union. On the health side, we have our European health cards. We also have consular protection from other EU member states, should we need it. We have visa-free travel in 153 other nations. We have no customs queues as we come into the then-to-be 27 member states and, of course, we have voting rights in a number of elections. Those are fundamental rights that we have had as European citizens and that we will lose as UK citizens once we leave the European Union, which we will do on 31 January.

By an accident of birth in the 19th century, I am able to retain my European citizenship, as I think a number of Members of the House are through various other historic reasons. But that ability is entirely random and not available to the vast majority of our citizens who wish to do that. I recognise entirely, as the constitutionalists will say, that it is generally agreed that it would require a treaty change for full European citizenship to be bestowed upon UK citizens once we are a third country. However, there are perhaps alternatives to that, such as associate citizenship, and there is a will among certain European institutions to allow it or to find a way for it to move forward over time, once we have left.

I thank the Government in that, when I have raised this in the past, they have been very open and said, “It’s not within our power as such, but if that offer came to the United Kingdom then we would not necessarily shy away from it”. I congratulate the Government on that quite brave statement, and I hope that they will continue to have that attitude in future. I also think, perhaps strangely and counterintuitively, that if a way were to be found for some form of associate citizenship, it could be one way in which the country could come back together again, because it would clearly not be compulsory. Those who do not want their European citizenship—I recognise that, for many years, many people have treated that status with disdain and have said they do not want it—can keep that “non-citizenship”. Only those who want to volunteer for this citizen status need take up the offer.

This is perhaps a way forward; it is one method by which the country could come together, so that people feel that they have not lost all of those rights that are so important to them. Yet those people who feel strongly, and who were the majority in the referendum who wanted to exit their citizenship, will indeed still be in that position. I would like to hear from the Minister that this is something on which the Government will keep their mind open, should such an approach ever come from the European institutions—many of us may continue to encourage that.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, can he tell me: do you have to pay tax in any EU country in order to obtain EU citizenship?

[Lord Teverson]

Well, at the moment, you are automatically a European citizen if you are a national citizen of one of the member states, so your tax position is no different to your position as a national. You are subject as an individual to the treaties and the book of law of the EU and its member states, so I do not see that it makes any difference. If you become an associate citizen, then clearly it will depend on the details of that associate citizenship.

[Baroness Buscombe]

So the answer is that you do not necessarily have to pay tax in any EU country in order to obtain that citizenship. You could be claiming benefits in—or, in other words, not contributing to—any one of those countries.

[Lord Teverson]

No, it just stays as it is.