European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate could have been, and—the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is right—should have been, about the state of the negotiations with the EU. It was not simply about the withdrawal deal, although the agreement did include the political declaration, and that is essential to the discussions that are going on. That is what we should have been debating this evening, and we should have had an update from the Government. Instead, as the noble Baroness indicated, we are faced with a Bill that shuns all such future requirements for reporting to Parliament. Indeed, it is hard to reconcile Clause 38(1) of the withdrawal Bill, which recognises

“that the Parliament of the UK is sovereign”,

with the rest of the content of the Bill, which takes mammoth powers to the Executive and away from Parliament.

It repeals the Benn/Cooper requirements to report to Parliament, it disapplies CRaG for the withdrawal deal, it abolishes the meaningful vote for the withdrawal and final deals, and it deprives Parliament of any say on whether the implementation period should be extended, other than what is in the Bill. Of course, that is a decision taken before we have left, before the interests of the devolved Administrations have been taken into account, before we have seen any negotiating mandate—either from the EU or from our Government—and before we know how such negotiations are progressing, or what obstacles, from Northern Ireland or elsewhere, may stand in the way of a satisfactory agreement. So, before all that, the Government have decided to rule out any possibility of an extension. Yet only in October, Robert Buckland promised the Commons that the Government would bring forward an amendment to

“allow Parliament to have its say on the merits of an extension of the implementation period”.

The Government claim that the Bill will

“ensure Ministerial oversight of the Joint Committee”.

Of course, the Joint Committee is in the withdrawal deal, not in the political declaration. So the Bill will ensure ministerial oversight of the Joint Committee, but not parliamentary oversight of what our EU Committee calls

“a uniquely powerful and influential body”,

which can even amend the withdrawal agreement. These are issues that should be reported here for discussion.

So in future we will have no MEPs in the European Parliament and, under this Bill, no British parliamentarians will be able to consider and debate the actions of the Government and the Joint Committee other than take-note Motions. This absence of political oversight goes beyond the Joint Committee, beyond the implementation date of the withdrawal deal and beyond the implementation of the deal itself. Parliament will lose its role on the mandate for and progress of negotiations on our trading, diplomatic, cultural, consumer, environmental and security relations with the EU. There will be no MEPs to put the British view in Strasbourg and we will not be allowed a view here. It is taking away what in the earlier Bill was an undertaking that Parliament would have some input into these talks. That means that Parliament will be left with only take-note debates or responses to Ministerial Statements. That is not proper scrutiny and of course leaves the devolved authorities out of the game altogether.

As we have said, the withdrawal deal may be implemented through this Bill, but there is the political declaration, which was part of the agreement reached with the EU. That is the framework for future negotiations. Those negotiations will not be quick or easy, but the Government still seem to think that they can complete them within the timeframe that they have dictated, regardless of advice from anyone else. The Commission warns that

“reaching a final agreement usually takes several years. It involves over 30 stages.”

Michel Barnier says:

“It is unrealistic that a global negotiation can be done in 11 months, so we can’t do it all”—


only the “vital minimum” to establish a relationship with the UK.

Sabine Weyand, the deputy negotiator, thought that there would be only a “bare bones” deal covering only goods, which will itself cost money for people trading in goods. But more importantly, most goods now also have an element of service, whether intellectual property, servicing of what is sold, expertise or data movement. These are all issues that were covered in the Benn Bill expectations of what would be brought here, but they are not being discussed by us.

The Institute for Government reckons that

“it will not be possible to complete everything necessary to leave with a deal”,

because of course it is not just the negotiations but the practicalities that have to be sorted out in 11 months, which would mean that we will be only partially ready by December.

David Henig from the UK Trade Policy Project says that for a free trade agreement to come into force on 1 January next year, the political agreement would be needed by October this year. There is not just the issue of implementation; it will need ratification by national parliaments in many cases and sometimes by regional parliaments. So an even louder clock is ticking than we talked about before. Professor Catherine Barnard reckons that these agreements usefully take 48 months, not a mere nine months—what the British Chambers of Commerce called a “crazy rush”. Today, we heard from no less than the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, that striking a comprehensive trade deal before the end of the year was “impossible”.

But the Prime Minister just will not listen to that, and he reiterated that he wanted a broad free trade agreement covering goods and services by 31 December, and that any future partnership must not involve any kind of alignment. That is at complete variance with what the Commission president said. Although she would like to

“design a new partnership—zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dumping”

and a partnership with the UK that

“goes well beyond trade and is unprecedented in scope”,

she said that

“without a level playing field on the environment, labour, taxation and state aid, you cannot have the highest quality access to the world’s largest single market.”

That is what we face at the moment without any debate in Parliament.

Business understands the need for alignment. In October, the car sector, chemicals, food and drink, pharmaceuticals and aerospace warned of “serious risk” to competitiveness and

“huge new costs and disruption”

if the Prime Minister ended regulatory alignment, and five trade bodies, worth £98 billion to the economy between them, urged the Government to recognise the

“importance of continued regulatory alignment in negotiations”

on a deal and not to tear up regulations which enable them to work with EU customers and suppliers. This is vital for the future of our economy. These are debates which should be happening here on more than just take-note Motions.

I find it quite hard to understand the objection to a level playing field with our largest trading partner. I find it even harder to imagine that that is a slogan. I was staggered that just before Christmas there was a demonstration outside Parliament with printed posters that called for “No level playing field”. This is a strange way to negotiate and to think about the future of our economy.

This debate was called to take note of the negotiations. They are not formally in place, but they are clearly happening in shadow form, with the Prime Minister already sketching out his objectives. As I have just said, those objectives are at variance with what might be possible and he does not plan to present them to the Commons for approval. That is typical of the withdrawal agreement Bill, which will severely undermine parliamentary democracy. The Minister seems to think it is enough to say that this is a take-note on something that was published some months ago. He really has to do better to reassure the House that our withdrawal is not going to happen simply under governmental diktat rather than with parliamentary approval.