Brexit

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, in repeating my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s Statement, I have already given the Government’s position on next steps. Therefore, to avoid repetition and detaining the House further, I propose that we move straight on to the speakers’ list for the Motion standing in my name. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. My guess is that it was through gritted teeth, given that we are not leaving this Friday. However, that Statement leaves us no wiser, no more confident and no less ashamed to be led by a Government and a Cabinet unable to lead, to unite, to listen or to put the national interest first.

But first, a confession: 10 days ago, when we were debating the Private Member’s Bill of my noble friend Lord Grocott to end by-elections for hereditary Peers, I noted that I was not here by virtue of the achievements or wisdom of my father. Perhaps I misled the House, because I learned from my much-loved father—and maybe it was his wisdom that, in one way or another, got me here—a tale he told me when I was eight or nine, which has stayed with me. It was about a passing-out parade—he was in the military—where one proud mother, viewing the march, sighed, “What a shame that my son is the only one in step, and all the others have got it wrong”. It does not take much imagination to hear the remaining supporters of our Prime Minister echoing the same: “What a shame that only she is right and all the others have got it wrong”.

Who are the others? They are the Church, business, the CBI, the TUC, the Government of Wales, the people of Northern Ireland, your Lordships’ House and, significantly, the EU, its Commission and 27 leaders of member states. That is quite a roll call to dismiss. The 27 Prime Ministers or Presidents from across the continent are experienced in governing, politics, negotiating and consensus-building. The Archbishop of Canterbury—whose task of uniting 85 million Christians worldwide the Prime Minister has made look like a walk in the park—has launched five days of prayer as we approach Brexit. Business—the people importing and exporting—knows the cold reality of tariffs, non-tariff barriers, checks, delays, transport and handling costs, and also the need for legal, banking and contract certainty. The TUC and the CBI, which we normally call two sides of industry, have quite exceptionally joined together in the light of the “national emergency”, in their words, to warn that a no-deal,

“shock to our economy would be felt by generations to come”.

The First Minister of Wales is imploring the Prime Minister to work on a cross-party basis to amend the political declaration, not the withdrawal agreement, and then to negotiate with the EU to adapt the framework. Gibraltar and UK citizens abroad will feel the reality of a no-deal exit in hours or weeks of departure. Your Lordships’ House is staunchly against no deal and repeatedly in favour of a customs union. The Opposition have spelled out our alternative approach and are open to continued EU trade via a customs union and single market alignment. The Commons—the elected Members steeped in their own communities, their businesses, people, trading and academia—are knowledgeable about the realities of a chaotic or ill-designed Brexit. The Prime Minister’s senior colleague Philip Hammond says that a no-deal Brexit,

“would cause catastrophic economic dislocation in the short term and in the longer term it would leave us with a smaller economy, poorer as a nation relative to our neighbours in the European Union”.

But the Prime Minister ignores all these. She continues to threaten no deal and, instead of talking to them, invites to Chequers Jacob Rees-Mogg, Steve Baker, Dominic Raab, David Davis and Iain Duncan Smith—the very people who have been writing her script for two years and now will not support her deal. Oh, and I forgot Boris Johnson, who seems to think we have an implementation period without a deal. No, ex-Foreign Secretary, no deal means no transition period. He does not even understand that—and these are the people who our Prime Minister heeds.

Now, to avoid no deal, we need the Prime Minister to listen to those she has ignored and to amend the future framework, even at this late stage. The FT’s Jim Pickard commented today:

“It’s March 25, 2019 and MPs are about to have multiple votes on what kind of Brexit we might have. If you’d told people this two years ago they’d have thought you were out of your mind”.


We do, however, have a breathing space, the Prime Minister having been thrown a lifeline—albeit just 14 days—by the European Council. It will be only a breathing space, and not a suffocating pause, if we open a fresh approach to our future relationships with the EU, an approach shorn of the Prime Minister’s disastrous red lines. We know that this is possible: Michel Barnier said that the political declaration that sets out the framework for our future relations could be made more ambitious in the coming days, if a majority in the House of Commons so wishes.

The Prime Minister, however, appears bent—we have heard it again just now—on trying to flog her very dead horse. For some of us her deal, which has been overwhelmingly rejected twice by MPs, is the Monty Python parrot. Here we are, however, in the last chance saloon, so our MPs must be heard and their preferences set out. This is in the national interest and is the democratic way forward. Despite the most extraordinary view of the ERG’s Steve Baker, who claimed that “national humiliation is imminent” through these indicative votes—his way of listening to elected politicians—

Lord Speaker: Powers

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Baroness will be aware that aspects of the Lord Speaker’s role were considered by a group on working practices, chaired by my noble friend Lord Goodlad, which produced a report in 2011. In subsequent years, the House took various decisions on its proposals, including deciding not to change the role of the Lord Speaker at Question Time. As I said in my original Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I believe a discussion will be had in the Procedure Committee. If any recommendations are made, it will be for the House to decide whether it wishes to support them.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

The important thing is that this is done; it is not good for it to fester. The word “timely” was just used, and this is a point we should consider. I would like to make a minor correction. If I understood the Leader of the House correctly, she said that the Chief Whip or somebody else had to intervene 13 times—I think that means from the Dispatch Box. The number of hands pushing and indicating is way above that. We have to recognise that this happens far more often than the figure of 13 perhaps suggests.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Baroness is right: that is interventions from the Dispatch Box. Generally, though, as we have said, I believe that Question Time works, that noble Lords show respect and courtesy towards one another, and that self-regulation is an important characteristic of this House.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, on Monday evening this House voted to send Amendment 19P back to the other place because, as noble Lords supporting it made clear during the debate, they wanted to guarantee that the other place had the chance to consider that amendment. The other place has now had that chance and has voted to reject Amendment 19P, by a majority of 16, and to offer in its place the Government’s amendment. As noble Lords will be aware, this issue is the only outstanding point of difference on the Bill after many months of intensive scrutiny by both Houses. We and the House of Commons have debated this issue on multiple occasions. Where we stand today demonstrates the movement that has happened as a result.

As I outlined to the House on Monday, the amendment before us again today provides that, if Parliament rejects the final deal we make with the EU, the Government must bring forward not just a Statement but also a Motion. This will guarantee an opportunity for both Houses to express their views on the Government’s proposed next steps. The amendment also covers three sets of circumstances in which that opportunity would arise: should Parliament reject the Government’s deal with the EU, should no agreement be reached, or should no deal be agreed by 21 January 2019. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said earlier today, the amendment sets out in law a formal structure for Parliament to express its views in each of three possible scenarios set out. Importantly, the amendment also passes the Government’s three tests: it does not undermine the negotiations; it does not change the constitutional role of Parliament and Government in negotiating international treaties; and it respects the result of the referendum.

Respectfully, I submit that your Lordships’ House has done its job. We asked the House of Commons to consider this issue again. They have done that. They have rejected our suggestion and supported the Government’s amendment. I believe that our role is now to accept their view as expressed in the vote only a few hours ago. I hope that noble Lords, whatever their personal views on the issue at hand, will agree. In conclusion, I think we should reflect for a moment, as a House, on the milestone that the passage of the Bill will represent. This House and the other place have spent 11 months considering the Bill line by line. It is better for that work. The Bill’s passage will mean that the UK has the tools it needs to preserve the statute book after exit day, but it is not the end of the process of legislating for Brexit: this House will continue to play a critical role in the months and years ahead and I, for my part, know that it will be more than up to performing this task and complementing the work of the other place. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the House of Commons has done what we had hoped: they have considered and debated our meaningful vote amendment. They have not done what some of us hoped and agreed with it, but I think we should celebrate how far we have come on this issue since the Bill arrived in this House. At that stage, there was absolutely nothing in the Bill about a vote, meaningful or otherwise, on the withdrawal deal and there was no mention of no deal. All the Prime Minister had said was that there would be a vote in both Houses on a deal. There was no commitment to that in law and the result of such a vote would have had no legislative consequence. The vote would have simply been on a Motion, which could be ignored—I will not go into whether it would have been amendable. Any such vote in this Chamber would have been particularly meaningless, as either we would have felt obliged to vote the same way as the Commons, whatever our view, or we would have voted differently and then been ignored, both of those, of course, being meaningless for this House, because as my noble friend Lord Grocott rightly feared, if there were two votes, one in each House, it would raise the question of the primacy of the House of Commons.

So that was all we had: the promise of a Motion but untied to any legislation. What we now have in the Bill is that the withdrawal agreement, including the framework for the future relationship, can be ratified only if it has been approved by the Commons and debated here. That is a legislative requirement akin to the Article 50 requirement for a vote in the European Parliament. That is a major concession. It would not have been there without the hard work of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, without your Lordships’ commitment to ensuring that this matter was in the Bill, and without us sending the amendment back on Monday.

However, I have a query about what would happen if there was no deal, as to my mind the rather extraordinary last-minute Written Ministerial Statement, as a result of which Dominic Grieve seems to have felt that he could support the Government this afternoon, does not really clarify things. I am not sure what it means. Will the Motion be amendable? Liam Fox is already out and about, briefing that actually there is no change as a result of that. To me, it reads that it still leaves it to the Speaker to decide whether or not it is sufficiently neutral to be amendable. So it is not actually an undertaking that such a Motion will be amendable. Perhaps the Leader could shed a bit of light on the significance of what made such a difference to the right honourable Dominic Grieve.

In the meantime, with the catalogue of changes to the Bill outlined by my noble friend Lady Smith on Monday and the insertion of parliamentary approval of the withdrawal deal agreed today, I hope even the Government will recognise the vital role played by your Lordships’ House, and that our detractors, particularly in parts of the press, will realise that it is our role to ask the Government, and the Commons, to think again. We have done that, and to quite a large extent we have been heard.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I can be very brief, because the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has noted exactly the same words as I have—“at pace”. These words alarmed me, because although some of us feel that we worked very hard on this Bill, it is as nothing to what the people on those committees will be doing. I wish them luck.

My question is related to that: when are we expecting the first of these SIs? Now that we have this, we need to move fairly fast to set that up. I very much hope that the colleagues sitting on the other side of the Leader will accept the Motion that we passed today. In that case this would be our last meeting on this Bill. We have already thanked the Bill team again, but it would be wonderful if they did not have to come back. In the meantime, they have at least another day’s work. For the members of these committees, however, their work has just started.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, the Government’s amendments deliver to this House parity with the Commons, ensuring that all the expertise concentrated here will be properly available to provide proper scrutiny of the SIs that come under this Bill. The noble Baroness asked about timing. Once this Bill receives Royal Assent, SIs can obviously start to be tabled. Therefore, we are not quite there yet, but like her I hope that we will be very soon.

These amendments will also ensure that any Minister who disagrees—and I may have misspoken in my opening speech by saying “agree” when I meant to say “disagree”; I put that on the record for clarity—with the recommendations of one or both of the sitting committees has to explain themselves.

I can certainly assure the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that the Government will play their part in ensuring that we have a functioning statute book, and indeed the proposal that has come forward under this amendment—to have two committees in order to expand the work on secondary legislation—will also give the House the ability to do its side of things. We will certainly be working together to make sure that we have the functioning statute book that we want. On that basis I hope that noble Lords will agree with the proposition that the Government have put forward.

Crown Dependencies

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, if we cannot have order, we will have the Labour Front Bench.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Oh, I bring order to chaos! My Lords, the EU Committee has published a report on Brexit and the Crown dependencies, along with many other excellent reports, and we are still awaiting government responses to them. I am tabling lots of very serious Questions to try to get the best out of Brexit. Despite what the former Leader of the House says in HuffPost this morning, we are trying to get information. Therefore, can the Minister try to get government responses not just to these reports but to the Written Questions? Those of us who are trying to move forward seriously on this need that information.