European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

At end insert “and this House welcomes that the agreement with the European Union has avoided the United Kingdom leaving the transition period without a deal, but regrets the many shortcomings including the bureaucratic burdens, regulatory hurdles, relative neglect of the services sector, limited provision for mutual recognition of qualifications, uncertainty on regulation of data flows, and limited concessions on integrated supply chains outside the European Union, included in that agreement; further regrets the failure to secure all the vital shared tools on security and policing required to keep people safe; notes that there are considerable details yet to be negotiated; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to work with Parliament and the devolved authorities (1) to establish robust oversight procedures over the remaining areas to be agreed and the implementation of those aspects already in the agreement, and (2) to move quickly to establish the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly jointly with the European Parliament.”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we are sitting at an unusual time, are we not—although not on 25 December, which would have been a first since 1656, nor on Christmas Eve, which would have been a first since 1929 when, as Esther Webber assures me, the discussion included the quality of oysters in the Commons restaurant. Perhaps that was because they were not Morecambe Bay oysters—something about which the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, might enlighten us in his valedictory speech. As he leaves, another Member arrives. I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Austin of Dudley, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing and working alongside for many a year.

Today, we are asked to put into domestic law the Christmas Eve agreement. I hope that we will also agree the amendment to the Motion standing in my name. I am a child of the British Army on the Rhine, born in a war-ravaged Germany and schooled in a divided Germany. However, I am also a child of democracy, the rebuilding of which in Germany my father and his generation played a role. What I also saw was the gradual regrowth of friendship of nations, the dismantling of trade barriers, the increased movement of people and the development of security, personal and cultural links to ground the continent’s future in its people and economic well-being. How can I not feel European?

So today, because of all that has happened since 1945 and 1973—and because of what happened in 2016—as we start on a new journey, we owe it to the past as well as the future to ensure that we continue with the motivation and drive that built such a successful, peaceful and co-operating bloc. This will not be easy as we erect new trading barriers with our neighbours, reduce access to jobs and education across Europe and step outside the customs union and single market. That is the treaty that the Prime Minister, having led the Brexit campaign, has now signed. Today, we are asked to pass the Bill, agreed to overwhelmingly by the elected House of Commons, to put his deal into law.

In normal times, our role would be to scrutinise this Bill, to test whether it fulfils its role, and to ensure that it is workable and allows for transparency and accountability. Sadly, that is not what we can do today, thanks to the Government having delayed and delayed, perhaps even to avoid such scrutiny in your Lordships’ House. Nevertheless, this is the beginning, not the end, of our process of our scrutinising how we leave and how we build our future with the EU. There remain many areas yet to be negotiated and many decisions on the implementation of the deal, so we will have the chance to exercise proper scrutiny post-ratification, including thorough examination by our European and other committees, and full debates on whatever reports they produce.

The agreement allows for a review and I hope that either a special committee here or a parliamentary-appointed major independent study prepares for that review, looking at all aspects of the UK-EU relationship and how it might be improved and developed across economic, social, cultural, environmental and climate change areas. Never again should we stumble into a profound shift in our international, security and trading relationships without full debate of the options and the paths to be taken.

Turning to today, we should remember two things, both relating to the mode of our leaving and our future relationship with the EU. First, the treaty is supported by all our EU colleagues and partners. Their Governments, including the Irish, have unanimously endorsed this deal. And for us on the Labour Benches, our continental sister parties support it and look to us to help make it work. Business has similarly welcomed the fact that we have a deal, removing the horrendous possibility of trading on WTO terms next week and at least beginning to see a new certainty.

Secondly, we face a seismic change in our relationship with the EU, but we are not leaving the continent; we are not turning our back on these major trading, security and friendship partners. Looking to the future, Labour, as an internationalist party, will forge a close relationship with the EU in the national interest—from the personal, where we want Erasmus-type arrangements so that our young people can live, work and study together, to industrial and service provision, where Europe-wide businesses will flourish where trade is easy, and with our consumers not only being spared import tariffs but having the ability to travel, holiday and explore the lands around our islands.

The agreement is not a Labour one. It is tariff-free for UK-made goods, and quota-free, and that we welcome, but it is sadly lacking on those invisibles—the service sectors, financial, educational and cultural, which are such a vital part of our economy. There are gaps in security and data exchange. There are real weaknesses in the protection of workers’ rights—one of the great benefits of our EU membership, where we worked in step across the Union. There is added bureaucracy for business—rather more, I fear, than Mr Gove’s “bumpy moments” and hardly amounting to frictionless trade. There are new regulatory hurdles, especially in chemicals and pharmaceuticals; limited mutual recognition of qualifications; and the ending of current police and security co-operation, with uncertainty over the European arrest warrant replacement. There is a lost opportunity for a far-reaching and comprehensive approach to foreign policy, defence and security co-operation, and a lost opportunity to safeguard the future status and economic prosperity of Gibraltar. Despite the people of Gibraltar being assured that there would be no UK-EU deal without Gibraltar, in fact this deal excludes Gibraltar. Yesterday, the Spanish Foreign Minister warned that if there is no deal in the next 72 hours, the Rock will become

“the only place where there is a hard Brexit.”

With Gibraltar becoming the external border of the EU, there could be passport-stamping and many other checks, leading to lengthy queues.

So this Bill implements a deal that we would not have negotiated: a deal that is less than it should or could have been and one made in No. 10 with an eye, I think, on the ERG rather than the whole of the UK. But it is the deal that we have, and it is so much better than the no deal favoured by some on the government side. For that reason, we accept the Bill, but with sincere regret that it is so late that we cannot do our job properly and that it excludes some of the country’s most vital interests.

Because there remains so much still to be negotiated, we call on the Government to work with Parliament to ensure full transparency and oversight of the umpteen special committees and working groups that still have big decisions to take. We call on them also to work with Parliament and the devolved authorities urgently and quickly to establish the parliamentary partnership assembly, so that parliamentarians across the EU and the UK can play their part in the remaining stages. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I regret the tone of much of that response, which I think does not become the Minister and does not respond fairly to the debate he has heard tonight. I do not know what his history was of “47 tempestuous years” within the European Union, but I seem to recall that we started rather as a basket case economically and it was through the European Union that we grew. However, I am not going to rehearse that argument. I think he accused me of denying the referendum. He knows, not only because I gave him my European history today, that I am Welsh, and he knows how the Welsh voted. He knows jolly well, because he has heard all this, that I have never questioned the referendum and I never called for a second one. I think he knows that he was perhaps a little unwise in some of his words.

Our amendment is not as described by the Minister. My regret amendment goes along with giving this Bill a Second Reading, which we are going to vote for. It does four things, none of which—despite what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, asserts—undermines the decision to take us out of the European Union. First, it starts by welcoming the deal as it has avoided a no-deal exit. That is what I think the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, called “worse than chaos.” Secondly, it regrets that it leaves much to be desired, as was reflected in many of the speeches today. Thirdly, it asks the Government to work with Parliament—this is not delaying anything—to ensure the sort of transparency and accountability outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and by my noble friend Lady Taylor, and with regard to secondary legislation, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and to answer the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I say that asking for accountability is not delaying anything. Fourthly, the amendment asks the Government to work speedily to set up the agreed parliamentary partnership assembly—an assembly agreed by the Prime Minister. We are asking for progress on that. This does not in any way deny that we should, as we will want to do, give the Bill a Second Reading. It simply asks the Government to work with Parliament on how we see the next stage. I wish to test the opinion of the House.