European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

The House may be aware by now that I am in favour of our staying in the European Union. I have great respect for the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds; it is great for bishops to spend a long time in the wilderness, but not for people doing trade and leading the economic life of the country. While the right reverend Prelate is in the wilderness, perhaps he can conduct our negotiations with whoever we are conducting them with in the wilderness on our behalf.

My reading of the amendment is that it has zero impact. I cannot see anything in the Bill that prevents our having any relationship with European agencies. Our issue with the Government is that they do not want relationships with many of them. I do not intervene, however, just to make the point that the amendment is useless. I am concerned by what is becoming a pattern in our debates on the Bill: thinking that changes with no substance whatever amount to great advances in our campaign to reverse Brexit. We should concentrate on things of real substance: the customs union, the single market and the referendum. Those are real changes.

As far as I can see, the Minister will not accept gestures of this kind because he does not accept anything from this House on principle, even from Bishops. Perhaps the Almighty can sway his mind in a way that we mere mortals cannot. He could accept the amendment but he will not. Even if we go to a vote, it is not worth wasting the time of the House on trivial matters of this kind; they may give us the impression of having some impact, but we are in fact having zero impact.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. One of the most important matters is security. In Barcelona the other day, one of Britain’s most wanted fugitives—Jamie Acourt—was arrested in a joint operation between the Metropolitan Police and the Spanish police, possibly assisted by Europol. The NCA head of international operations said:

“Our ability to share information and work at speed with our international partners ensures there is no safe haven for fugitives. We will never stop pursuing these individuals”.


That is no doubt true, but Acourt will be returned under the European arrest warrant. If we do not stay part of the warrant and have to fall back on the long-winded extradition arrangements that predate it—without any participation in Europol to facilitate cross-border police operations—our security will be endangered. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, accepts that security is one of our most important interests. I hear what noble Lords said about the effect of the amendment but, politically, it is important that this House presses on the Government the importance of staying in agencies and institutions.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in support of the key Amendment 93, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith added his name and which was moved so biblically and effectively by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds. Of course, at that time, I had not only a brilliant legal adviser on my right, but a theological one—my noble friend Lord Griffiths—who has now left the Chamber. I said, “I have to have a biblical quote”, but I am afraid he has a sense of humour and said, “The people who were wandering aimlessly in the pre-Brexit wilderness were soon squabbling among themselves, ignoring the advice of their leader”, and so on. But I will leave my noble friend’s helpful comments for another time.

I say this particularly in answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and my noble friend Lord Adonis. This is an important and meaningful amendment because it would restrict the pretty wide powers given to Ministers in the Bill. That is why we need to pass it. We have on a number of occasions, on this Bill and the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, expressed our surprise that nowhere in the referendum process—in the immediate aftermath, nor in this legislation or any other—did the Government ever spell out that the Article 50 process automatically triggered our exit from Euratom. I will not repeat the costs and dangers of that eventuality given earlier debates on it, particularly the input at that point of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

However, equally unremarked on and unmentioned by the Government, or by the Brexiteers during the campaign, was the similar removal of the UK from a swathe of agencies, many of which, as we have heard, we helped to construct and all of which have served this country well. Colleagues will already know, from medical researchers who have been in touch, patient groups, health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry, of the risks of being outside the European Medicines Agency, quite apart from the loss of jobs and specialisms that are now moving to Holland. But the same could be said about the European Food Safety Agency, often referred to, but not today, by my noble friend Lord Rooker; the environment agency, emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and my noble friend Lord Whitty; the railways and aviation agencies, often referred to by my noble friend Lord Berkeley; the European Chemicals Agency, which has been mentioned; and, of course, Eurojust, suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and Europol, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

The commonality is that any mention of those agencies in this House and beyond has included a plea for us to remain members, associates or partners with whichever such agency is in the frame. Sometimes this means following the same rules—as the Government have now accepted for clinical trials—to assist in monitoring; for safety; for easy and rapid transport, as for medical isotopes; to facilitate trade and exchange; to enable skilled persons to undertake checks or repairs; or, as my noble friend Lord Haskel said, to guarantee safe products for users and consumers.

For some of the agencies it might mean paying money in, as the Prime Minister acknowledged. For some it might mean harmonising assurance, governance or penalties for rule-breaking. But for all it will mean a willingness to adapt and respond to requirements, usually simply to maintain our existing rules and practice. What is clear is that, given the wide powers in the Bill for Ministers, we must ensure that none of those powers is used to frustrate our continued involvement with such agencies, whether because, for example, we set different sanctions for breaches, raise fees or charges in a different way that makes it difficult to move along in their way of working, or apply variant rules or any other similar change. That is why it is critical to circumscribe the powers in the Bill so that they cannot be used to prevent us having necessary EU rules or ways of working that would frustrate our participation in any of these agencies. We do not want the powers to be used for that reason, hence the very simple amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, had it right: the Bill should not be used to frustrate the intention, should that be the Government’s wish, to stay in these agencies for the good of the whole country. It is, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds said in his introduction, entirely in line with what the Prime Minister said in Mansion House and it would allow this country to continue such relationships where that continuation is in the national interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, notwithstanding the very reasonable sentiments just expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I think that I would be among others in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for the way in which he has taken the initiative on this subject. It is becoming increasingly complicated with the approach of the so-called exit day—whatever date that may be in legislation and so on—and, therefore, we need to think very carefully about this. Although this was a long time ago, I recall that the Maastricht treaty bestowed on citizens of each member state individual citizenship as EU citizens, too. It was a solemn and profound moment when that was announced many years ago in 1992, and it was made much of, mostly in the other member states but also in Britain as well. A lot of British citizens who were working abroad were delighted at the idea of being citizens of the European Union as well, which added to their obvious practical freedom of movement, although that was not essential to it.

We have now got to be very careful to make sure that the Government respond to the civilised and reasonable request for them to expand their minds a little bit into thinking about this matter, because it will be quite complicated. There is the question of the Irish Republic’s offer, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the special status that may emerge in Northern Ireland, not deliberately, according to the DUP, but accidentally. It is not much to their liking that a special status would be accorded to people there and they would remain individuals citizens of the EU. Is this a matter of collective bestowal of citizenship because of the Maastricht treaty in 1992, or is it now a matter of it being an individual proclivity if the right was there, given that there are exceptions to the idea that you have to be within only one member state to be a citizen and you can apply for citizenship from outside? It therefore may be that the very act of applying for citizenship and continuing to have the protection of the ECJ as individuals because of the bestowal of European citizenship would need to be included in this wide examination. It is a very complicated matter and should not be excluded from people’s mind and, mostly, the Government’s mind. They may be very unwilling to consider these matters, but they need to do so and we are grateful for this amendment and this debate.

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for continuing to champion this important cause, which is dear to the hearts of these Benches. There are several invidious features of this matter. First, it creates a division among United Kingdom citizens. Not only do people in Northern Ireland have the right to acquire Irish citizenship and thus EU citizenship, but many other British citizens have the right to, or are already pursuing, dual citizenship in order to get the passport of another country. I believe that I have the right to an Irish passport because my mother and my grandmother were born in Dublin. That creates two sets of British citizens: those with the additional political expression and practical advantages of EU citizenship and those who are unable to continue to enjoy them.

Another feature of this matter is hypocrisy. Do the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the Minister agree that the following is deeply hypocritical of the leading voices in Legatum? It is reported that the co-founder, who is of New Zealand extraction, and the chief executive have managed to acquire Maltese passports. How they have done so, I have no idea. That will give them EU citizenship, including the right of free movement. As advocates of the hardest of hard Brexits, they have had the ear, we believe, of many leading members of the Government. They have been pushing hard for Brexit so as to deprive the rest of us of EU citizenship, but they have made sure that they are feathering their own nest by obtaining citizenship of another EU member state and thus EU citizenship and free movement.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, she is absolutely right, but is she aware that one of the DUP Peers who spoke at length in the debate last week has an Irish passport?

[Baroness Ludford]

I take the noble Lord’s word for it. I have no reason to doubt that. I have a feeling that there may be many people in similar positions who are saying one thing and doing another. I find that pretty reprehensible.

We strongly advocate that all UK citizens should continue to have the opportunity of EU citizenship. Many of us feel particularly for young people. Those of us who are getting long in the tooth have for 45 years had the advantage of the freedom to move to and work in another EU country. It is extremely sad that the young people of this country are going to be deprived of that opportunity.