EU: Future Relationship

Baroness Noakes Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I thank my noble friend Lord True for his usual masterful summary in opening the debate. It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and to confirm that our views remain some way apart. Given the amount of excitement in the House that is normally engendered whenever our relationship with the EU is raised, I am quite surprised that our numbers today are rather modest. However, I am grateful for the fact that at least we have a decent amount of time to speak, which is rare in this ghastly hybrid House, and we must treasure the opportunity.

When we celebrated our freedom from the EU on 31 January this year, it seemed such a huge relief. We had put behind us the disastrous negotiations by the previous Administration and the prolonged period when Parliament tried to thwart the will of the people. We might briefly have cherished the thought that negotiating the future relationship was going to be the easy part after all that. But that did not last, and we have had to face the reality of trying to negotiate with an EU that does not yet accept us as a sovereign equal. It is completely natural for the EU to prioritise its own interests, but the EU seems also to want to punish the naughty child across the channel for its temerity in leaving. The EU knows that if we make a success of Brexit, other EU countries may well question the value of staying locked into the European project.

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Frost for the calm, measured and thorough way in which he has conducted the negotiations so far. It is certainly not his fault that we have failed thus far to deliver a deal on the basis of our own very reasonable requirements. We have asked for a free trade agreement like those that the EU negotiates with other trading partners. The EU has responded by saying that, because of our geographical proximity, we must have more restrictions placed on us, in particular in the area of the so-called level playing field. We have been clear, as my noble friend Lord True emphasised, that sovereignty is of paramount importance, but I do not think that the message has yet been received in Brussels. In the case of the level playing field, we do not need anything beyond WTO terms.

The issue of sovereignty is also at the root of the lack of agreement on fisheries. Our fishing industry was decimated by the EU’s quotas, which allowed France and Spain in particular to take our fish. We have said, perfectly reasonably, that we want sovereignty over our fishing waters back and that we will set the agenda for access for other countries. The EU thinks that it can carry on as before.

Northern Ireland was never going to be easy. It was the most difficult part of the withdrawal agreement, and it looks as if it is going to be the most difficult part of the long-term arrangements. The EU’s bully-boy tactics of threatening to stop food imports into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK are completely unacceptable, and I have it on very good authority that those threats were actually made. We should perhaps have expected trouble. Although he has denied it, Martin Selmayr is believed to have said that Northern Ireland is the price that the UK will pay for Brexit. While Mr Selmayr has been moved to somewhere he can do less damage, I expect that his spirit lives on in Brussels.

I shall support the Government when the internal market Bill comes to your Lordships’ House. I believe that it is necessary to create the powers that are in that Bill to allow us to reconcile the conflicts between the withdrawal agreement, including the Northern Ireland protocol, and the Belfast agreement. I regret the clumsy initial characterisation of it as a breach of international law, because it is no more than a reserve power to deal with problems. I hope that we do not have to use it, but the EU needs to recognise that we are not giving it carte blanche in Northern Ireland, which remains a sovereign part of the United Kingdom.

I do not know how many other problems remain in the negotiations with the EU. While it would be interesting to have a bird’s-eye view of the negotiations, they are best conducted behind closed doors. I was grateful for the update from the Minister on the negotiations when he introduced this debate. At the weekend, however, I read with incredulity that the Channel Tunnel, governed by the bilateral Canterbury agreement between the UK and France, is now part of the EU’s power grab. I certainly hope that that story is untrue; perhaps the Minister can comment on it when he winds up.

I have always said that, while I favour a deal with the EU, it would not be the end of the world if we left without a deal. It would certainly be inconvenient and would cause some confusion in the early part of next year, which would not be helpful given the damage already done to our economy from the public health response to the coronavirus pandemic. But we would survive. We are a resilient nation and are capable of overcoming that. In the meantime, the Government are pressing ahead with free trade agreements with other countries, and will seek to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership next year. While the EU is certainly a large market, around 90% of global growth is expected to arise outside the EU, and that is where we must set our sights.