European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry to say that I dispute what the noble Baroness is saying. The British people voted to leave. There was a very loud and passionate discussion, with lots of people issuing lots of papers about what it would mean to leave, and the British people made a decision.

My noble friend raised the issue of a “neverendum”. This brings me to certainty. One thing we all agree on is the need for certainty. Therefore, let us think of European families here, of British families in Europe and of the thousands of businesses right across this country that are listening to our debate. For them, the prospect of another referendum at some unknown date years ahead, with a Bill—as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said—and a question we do not yet know, would simply create more uncertainty.

Let me say here a word about business in particular, given that my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft edited the Wall Street Journal. I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to a report just issued by the Institute of Directors. It recommends:

“A … measure to boost both political confidence and certainty for business would be for all parties to rule out a second referendum over the next parliament—either a repeat on EU membership or on the final terms of the deal”.


The IoD represents 35,000 businesses which employ hundreds of thousands of people. Those businesses are saying that they want certainty.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Perhaps I might press the Minister for clarification. He says that people want certainty. Is he saying that if that certainty is, to a business, “Yes, you must move your headquarters, you must take jobs out of this country”, and to people that, “You will face higher prices and fewer opportunities for your children”, that is what the Government will choose to make the British people live with—and with no voice to challenge it?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Baroness and I have many interesting discussions, but I dispute the grounds on which she is approaching this. We have set out very clearly, to provide clarity and certainty, a view regarding what we wish to achieve in the negotiations. That has provided a considerable amount of certainty and clarity to many of the businesses I have spoken to and in nation states across Europe. That is exactly what we now need to deliver on.

I will turn quickly to the issue of parliamentary scrutiny, which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, slightly dismissed. Parliament will be heavily involved in the process of our leaving the EU. This Bill, the Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, primary and secondary legislation, Statements, Select Committee appearances—the list is quite long. On top of that, the Government will bring forward a Motion on the final agreement to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it is concluded. So the nub of the matter is very simple. On 23 June people voted to leave the EU. It was a choice that this Parliament gave them and it is a decision that, now it has been made, we must obey. So I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, it would be difficult to respond to that without tying myself in circles, because the noble Lord has got it slightly wrong. But I will come on to the point about people saying we could access the single market. At one point during the campaign, it may have been my right honourable friend Boris Johnson who said, “We could leave the EU and still access the single market”. What happened? All hell broke loose. It is not that we were shot down but the Government and their advisers dropped the equivalent of all their bunker-busting bombs on us. “No, no”, said the then Prime Minister, the Treasury and the BSE campaign. “If you vote to leave the EU, then you are out of the single market. You are out of the customs union. You can’t have one without the other”, said all the government spokesmen. “You can’t have your cake and eat it”, they said. On that occasion that is what the Government said. Opposition Members have quoted various leave spokesmen who have said, “Oh yes, we want to be in the single market and leave the EU”, or, “We want to access the single market and be in the EU”, but the response from the official BSE campaign, the Prime Minister and the Government was, “No, you can’t. Leaving the EU means leaving the single market too”. On that occasion, the remain campaign was not economical with the truth.

[Baroness Kramer]

I just make the point that the argument that leave made was that the remainers were exaggerating and they were wrong. To their credit, people believed them and voted on that basis. So if you were a leave voter and you had listened to Daniel Hannan, if you were a leave voter and you had listened to Boris Johnson, if you were a leave voter and you were at any one of the many hustings that I went to, you would have heard the leave campaign saying absolutely clearly that you would have identical access; indeed, you would be in the single market even if you voted leave. That happened over and again and there are witnesses to it throughout this House.

[Lord Blencathra]

If the leave campaign tried that early on in the campaign, it was certainly shot down by the Government, the Treasury and all their spokesmen very early on.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I do not know what the Conservatives are worrying about. I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, saying the same thing again and again. We need to have open government, as my noble friend Lord Kerslake has just pointed out. We are helping the Government by moving probing amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, has given a direct reply and that should surely be satisfactory. I am not going to waste too much time but will speak about developing countries, because I believe we should have an impact assessment relating to the effects on those countries. I have spoken to the Minister and know that he is kindly going to reply to this. I will be as quick as I can and will not repeat what I said at Second Reading.

Amendment 28 reflects my concern about the effects of withdrawal on the least developed countries and countries recovering from conflict. I have consulted the Overseas Development Institute and Traidcraft, the experts in this field. I know one of the answers the Minister will give is that we really cannot tell what the effects will be in numerical terms at this point. It might be of interest to him that the ODI estimates that the least developed countries could lose approximately £323 million annually if current preferential access in the UK is discontinued.

I accept that there will be pluses and minuses. On the one hand we may be sacrificing the interests of the ACP countries that currently benefit from their association with the EU, especially the smaller states and islands that are vulnerable to climate change. On the other hand, some countries—sugar cane producers, for example—will have suffered from the EU’s protection of its own markets and may well want us to abandon fortress Europe in favour of bilateral agreements through the WTO, or a new version of the generalised system of preferences, and I accept that.

But not yet knowing the maths does not mean that we can take no action. The interests of LDCs have not been mentioned in any of the documents relating to withdrawal. The Government must surely undertake a review of some kind and assess whether these countries will be damaged; how we respond to that must be part of the negotiations. We may well have to introduce or reintroduce aid policies to make up for any losses in trade and investment. Aid agencies generally see fair trade agreements as more beneficial than aid, but they fear that Brexit will mean new free trade agreements or EPAs that could disadvantage poorer countries. They would like to see trade policies which are linked to the sustainable development goals, so crafted that they are lined up with those countries’ own objectives. I quote Sir Simon Fraser’s Tacitus lecture. He said,

“these EU trade agreements are vital for their development goals. The UK will no longer be able to champion their access to the EU market as we have in the past. We have a moral responsibility to address the concerns of these countries, which illustrate how Brexit may have unforeseen repercussions well beyond Europe”.

Finally, I mentioned security and enlargement in eastern Europe, another area in which we may need to use our aid programme to make up for shortfalls left behind. NATO membership will not be enough. If we withdraw from the EU the economies in those countries will suffer. We need to know the effect of our withdrawal on aid programmes as well.

These are my concerns and it is not asking a lot of the Government to say that they need to make some assessment. We have a considerable reputation as a trading and aiding nation and we must take care not to damage our relations with countries that respect our values and traditions, both in the Commonwealth and in the rest of the world.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, it is getting late and I will therefore try to be brief. First, I congratulate the noble Lords and noble Baronesses who put their names to the various amendments in this group, because probing amendments are an entirely appropriate part of our process. Every one of these amendments reflects an underlying anxiety that exists in different sectors and in different regions of our country. People engaged in activities, from universities to working with less developed countries, feel that their issues are not being considered by the Government at this crucial time as they choose to trigger Article 50 and that, if those issues are not considered at this time as the Government consolidate their negotiating position, they will never be properly considered anywhere in this process, so I see this as entirely appropriate.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I fear that this is an entirely spurious argument. We have wonderful Select Committees in this House which have produced outstanding reports; we have had debate after debate on these matters; we have opportunities for many other such debates; and we have other legislation coming. What we have before us is a one-clause Bill. We have had seven hours of debate and we are on only the fifth group of amendments. We have probing amendments which people say they have no intention to carry. There are other fora in this House to have those kinds of discussions. We should get on with delivering what the people and the House of Commons have asked us to deliver.

[Baroness Kramer]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that there is a real difference of opinion within this House. For many, the point at which Article 50 is triggered is one at which they need that reassurance, and I hope that the Minister will take that on board because we have quite a range of amendments that have come forward. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, stands rather separately because it focuses on issues around the regulation and enforcement of environmental protection under whatever will be the new regime. However, nearly all the other amendments call for an impact assessment because there are regions of the country and sectors of our economy that are concerned that the Government have not taken their issues on board and do not understand the impact that the shape of their negotiations will have on those regions and sectors. My noble friend Lord Shipley is exactly right to say that the Government have thought that impact assessments were entirely appropriate for some sectors and regions, including London, the region that is closest to my heart. That does not mean that the same degree of attention, engagement and dialogue is not necessary for other parts of the country and those many varied sectors. As I say, I hope the Government will take that very much to heart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord De Mauley]

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, told us earlier of a specific example of where our impact assessment was completely different from that of the EU.

[Baroness Kramer]

You can have differences, but the point is that those differences become relevant in the process of negotiation. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out that by being clear about our impact assessment we gained strength and opportunity and were able to position ourselves far more effectively in the negotiation. As someone who has spent a lifetime in negotiation, one thing that bothers me is constantly hearing negotiation discussed as if it were some sort of poker game. It is not; it is a grown-up activity. Making sure that our negotiators fully understand where they stand and what the issues are, and that that is done best by transparency, is fundamental. I say to those who simply dismiss the idea that we need to deal with our weaknesses as well as our strengths that that strikes me as just an extraordinary situation. If we do not recognise, discuss and understand our weaknesses, I do not know how we will put together a negotiating position.

I am not going to continue because these are only probing amendments. I look very much to the Government to take on board the underlying message, which is that many parts of the country and many sectors feel disengaged. The Government have said that they have certain priorities. When I talk to those in the financial services industry, they say, “We’ve been guaranteed top priority. Others will be sacrificed for us”. If that is the message, it is one that leaves people genuinely, and appropriately, worried. That discussion has to take place; we need to know on what basis all this will move forward.

Impact assessments are a normal part of a normal process. Transparency around such assessments is also a normal part of that process. I hope that the Government will recognise that and not try to pretend that they are entering into a poker game rather than a mature negotiation.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 22, on impact assessments, seeks to put us on a level playing field with the Government. We want the information that has already been published—the impact assessments that may have taken place, or have taken place, since the referendum in the various departments listed: nothing more, nothing less. Others have commented on other areas of the work of the European Union where we stand to suffer a loss, and they are right to make those comments. They referred to the north-east, the environment, equalities and so on.

In the Commons the big issue was how to deal with confidentiality. We have made provision for that by the subsection of the proposed new clause in Amendment 22 that defines the right of the Government to hold back from publishing anything that they feel would harm our negotiating position in any way, for any reason, and to restrict it to a few wise heads. We do not even define how that should happen. It could be on Privy Council terms or whatever other terms the Government wanted. That seems to me an entirely sensible way to proceed. I shall not detain the House any longer, but I ask the Minister to respond to these requests in the spirit in which they have been made. These are probing amendments, which we expect to be useful, and we look forward to a positive outcome to the discussion.