European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Dinton]

I am not arguing that. I am worried that the Government’s powerful position, and their glee and joy, which is understandable, will lead them to a certain arrogance and to ignore the role which Parliament can properly play. These amendments are a good reminder of the role that Parliament must play. I urge the Government to work with Parliament, with noble Lords and with influences that can be brought to bear behind the scenes, to listen and not to think that they know all the answers and can just go in and negotiate, because they cannot.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I should like to briefly follow that very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Wilson of Dinton. The spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is about consultation. It is about making sure that people behind the scenes know what is happening and can understand if they have to give something up rather than it being delivered on them.

The Senedd, the National Assembly of Wales, has responsibility for a set of devolved competences. When negotiations become difficult and tough, it is almost inevitable that at times people will have to give things up. If people in Wales, behind the scenes, know what is happening and understand why, they can support it. If something is just delivered on them as a fait accompli afterwards, trust is lost. There is a Chinese saying that I think we should remember: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback—and it is trustworthiness in behaviour that wins trust.

The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations was set up with promises by the Government to seek consensus over approaches behind the scenes—yet, sadly, I understand that sometimes the committee had no more information than could be found in the previous day’s newspapers. Sometimes those attending were told that they could not be told more because it was not in the public domain. If there is a small group of people whom you are taking into your confidence and you trust them to observe that confidence, it is not helpful for them to be told, “You can’t be told what’s going on because it isn’t in the public domain”—because the role of that group is to share that confidential information and thinking before the next round of negotiations.

The spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, completely encapsulates a need: where devolved competences are at stake and will be deeply constitutionally affected, it is only right that the devolved Administrations are involved and that their thinking is sought early on, so that they can explain it both to their own legislatures and to the people who voted them into office.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 27 and 28, and I would have put my name to Amendment 40 had I seen it before the deadline. This is a sad day for me, not just because these amendments are necessary but because today I have disagreed very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. We have sat together companionably for six years. He is like a human form of Wikipedia. He knows everything that there is to know about all noble Lords and this saves me from having to use my phone.

Returning to the amendments, I hope that Hansard has a copy and paste function, because, quite honestly, we have been over this time and again. Noble Lords have said the same things to the Government again and again, and at one point it seemed to have sunk in, because the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill last year contained a whole load of provision for parliamentary scrutiny. I know that the Minister will reply to us with his tried and tested lines that we have heard before—but, quite honestly, that is not enough. The election has changed things and now the Government have gutted the agreement Bill of all scrutiny. I say to the Minister that, just because his Government now have a majority in the other place, that does not make them right or mean that this is the right thing to do. It does not make them immune from parliamentary scrutiny. Our job is to hold the Government to account, and if they scrap us—well, actually, I have been trying to abolish the House of Lords for six years and it has not worked so far.

Is it not obvious that a lack of parliamentary engagement—a failure to bring the majority on board—is what led to the parliamentary deadlock when the final deal was secured? Instead of working with Parliament, the Government told us that there would be no running commentary and that the sharing of details would undermine the negotiations and so on. Scrutiny was deferred until the very last stages of the negotiations when, instead of it being a mere inconvenience, it culminated in a crescendo of chaos. Had the Government engaged constructively with Parliament, things could have turned out very differently. However, despite all those lessons, the Government are, once again, trying to sideline Parliament.

Over the coming weeks and months, much will be made of the Salisbury convention and the extent to which this House should exercise its powers and functions to scrutinise, correct and improve. My stomach slightly turned over when the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that we had to trust the Government. Well, actually, no, we do not. It is our job to trust when it is appropriate to trust and to distrust when we can see that they are going wrong. When the Government try to shut down scrutiny in the way they have with this amended Bill, it leaves this House with no choice but to exercise its constitutional might as far as that extends. The last stage of the negotiations was the easy bit. It is the next stage that is going to set out all our future concerns. That negotiation must be got right, and this sovereign Parliament absolutely must play its role in securing that for the national interest.