European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, one effect of growing up as a post-war child was hearing the amount of discussion and determination among the political classes that we would never have another war in Europe. At the top of my list of worries about Brexit is that we shall see an insular, narrow-minded nationalism taking hold and turning us from an outgoing, internationalist nation into an inward-looking nation.

We have heard much in the past day and a half about interdependence, which has to be one of the keys when we think about what we should do next. Brexit is not all about trade, although to listen to the Government you might think that it was. I firmly believe that, first and foremost, it should be about peace and security. I agreed strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, when he said yesterday that endangering peace and security in Europe would be grounds to reject the deal. Incidentally, although I agreed with some of the speech made by Tony Blair, I thought it ironic he should tell everyone to rise up. When more millions than were ever seen all rose up and marched when he was Prime Minister, he took not a blind bit of notice.

Many of your Lordships will know that I spend a lot of time in France when I am not here. My experience of reaction to the UK decision to seek Brexit is that it has been one of extreme concern that it will accelerate the rise of extremist nationalist parties. That is happening all over Europe now. Europe and its member states therefore have many concerns and worries other than negotiating a Brexit deal with the UK. Those whose job it is will of course concentrate on it but, politically, any deal will have to be negotiated against a fast-changing political picture in Europe. It is not as though our negotiating partners will stay unchanged. By the end of two years the Europe with which we are negotiating will be very different. It may be a much longer timescale than the Government are thinking.

In the meantime, I worry what we are going to do about the day-to-day legislation we should be looking at. My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie put it so eloquently yesterday when he said that day-to-day life will be sacrificed. We will be spending time on the great repeal Bill and not on all the other incredibly important issues. There are so many pressing issues in the area which I concentrate on in this House—the environment, agriculture and food—yet the immense changes that are going to happen as a result of Brexit will be a threat to our food quality, animal welfare standards, family farms and landscape. If at the end of this we have a hard deal where WTO rules apply, we will see our food production driven down to the lowest common denominator. It would be a disaster in so many ways. It would not be accompanied by lower food bills: another day-to-day effect will be people seeing those go up.

Over the course of this debate it has bothered me that in the Government’s mind there appears to be a direct trade-off between UK citizens living in the EU and European citizens living here. In fact, UK citizens living in the EU face 27 different sorts of issue and their position is not necessarily equivalent to that of EU citizens here. The Government should, therefore, settle the situation of EU citizens here—thereby creating some good will—but at the same time do far more to help British citizens abroad, who have been left with no information, not even a helpline. The Government could decide now to give much more information about the future to those people who have to plan to relocate and find new jobs, schools for their children and care for their elderly. This would be about not the result of the negotiations but what their rights are now. That has been put on the sidelines because of this so-called trade-off.

There has been much talk of patriotic duty: I believe mine is to try and do what is in the best long-term interests of this country. As my noble friend Lord Newby said at the beginning of this debate, it is unconscionable to sit on our hands. If there is no deal, or the final deal is appalling, or it threatens peace and security, there is an absolute duty on us as parliamentarians to call a halt. I hope we will amend the Bill in order that we can offer that safety net to the Government and the country.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, much has been said this afternoon surrounding the whole issue of uncertainty. But the reason I cannot support these amendments is the fundamental flaw that lies at their heart: they will create more uncertainty, in particular for the 1 million British citizens living abroad. Noble Lords opposite have made two defences of that. The first is that they have received some letters from expat groups. Dare we believe that they may be wrong in asserting that giving unilateral rights now to EU citizens living in the United Kingdom will convince overseas Governments to give them the same rights? Secondly, they have said to trust the other EU Governments. But we do not know which Governments they will be dealing with in the EU. There are elections in a few weeks in France and Holland and, in a few months, in Germany.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

I am one of those who lives in France, and I must therefore declare an interest. Perhaps the noble Lord did not hear the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when he made the point that all the ex-pat UK groups living in the EU have come together to make the case that they support this amendment.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, loud and clear. What I suggest is: can we believe that these groups might be wrong and that, therefore, this House is putting at risk the future of a million British citizens living in the EU? That is why we should not support these amendments.

Noble Lords have said that they do not know what the policy of the British Government is. All they have to do is read the White Paper; it is there very clearly:

“We want to secure the status of EU citizens who are already living in the UK”.


We all agree with that. The bit that noble Lords opposite do not agree with says,

“and that of UK nationals in other Member States”.

--- Later in debate ---

Thirdly, the point made by my noble friend Lord Hutton was terrifying. What will happen if negotiations for our exit break down? I know that Ministers will say that we will get a good agreement and so on, but most experts think that there is a high chance that the negotiations will completely break down. Most people I know who have done a lot of European negotiation think that there is a reasonable chance of this happening. What would then be our position in Euratom? Because we would have invoked Article 50, would we be automatically out? In the case of ordinary trade, we have at least the WTO to fall back on. In this case we would have absolutely nothing. The Government are being highly irresponsible on this whole question and have to give this House a clear explanation of their motives, plans and fallback position are if this whole nasty thing goes badly wrong.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, the nuclear industry has been widely mentioned this evening and I should briefly point out that under Euratom and as a nuclear power we have special responsibilities and obligations. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the original Euratom treaty are very closely intertwined. It is not just a question of the nuclear industry. At a point where we are considering building the new generation of Trident, it behoves the Government to give answers on this issue, too.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I was the Lib Dem spokesman on energy for 10 years and was often the lone Peer who was attacking atomic energy as something we should be relying on. Our problem at the moment is that 20.9% of our power—I checked with UK Energy five minutes ago—came from nuclear energy. It is coming from an aged nuclear fleet that is almost past its sell-by date and will be decommissioned. If we are to keep the lights on, we probably will need nuclear power stations. I know that the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, thought that he would never hear me say that.

The Minister will come up with an extremely cogent and persuasive argument for why we should leave the Euratom treaty and how everything will work well. I will ask one question, though. Considering that our new power plants will be designed and built by the French, Chinese, Americans and Japanese, we will need some standards—and, of course, Euratom provides them. The Minister will say, however, that we need to move into the new age and will look at this. Can he say—because work must have been done on this—how much the new standards body will cost to run and set up? I very much hope that he can give me a figure, or perhaps write to me on this issue—or maybe not. If he cannot give me that figure off the top of his head, can he say which department will be responsible for setting up this new body? Will it be BEIS—because DECC has gone the way of many great organisations in the past? If it is BEIS, what new funding will be made available to it to meet its new obligations?