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?