European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Committee: 8th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords—

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords—

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Baroness Goldie]

For once, I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite. Can I ask one of my colleagues to determine who should precede the other?

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

I would just like to put the opposite view. Some of the regulations that we have had to accept from the EU on health matters were likely to be completely unhelpful and possibly even make matters worse. I remember when people were concerned about harmful additives in food and parents, in particular, wanted to know more, so the EU produced a regulation in which the information was to be given in tiny letters, smaller than anything else on the label. You had the vision of a busy mother with a child on each arm who possibly needed her glasses to read what it said. She would get a completely opposite view because the writing was so small: she would think that it was the good thing that they should have when in fact it was trying to warn her against it. I was unable to get that amended at the time. That was just one small example of such misinformation or lack of information. I am looking forward, when we complete everything and achieve Brexit, to redrafting a number of these regulations that we had to accept to make them much more sensible for those who are rightly concerned about these matters.

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

Amendment 11A (to Amendment 11) not moved.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, it is not often in your Lordships’ House that I have been at odds with the noble Baroness—we usually make quite a good gang together—but I have to say that the very last thing that I want to remain after we leave the EU is a lot of these badly drafted regulations, which do not achieve their objectives in many cases and can be improved. I shall not detain the House by going into the detail now, but I have had many meetings with enforcers who are used to having to deal with the problems arising. The situation is that, the day that this Bill becomes law, it will be possible for us to draft or improve regulations which we do not think are helpful enough—not less helpful—or possibly a bit deceptive. This can be done quite easily after the Bill has passed by tabling new, different and improved regulations. It is not that I do not think they are necessary; I just do not think they are good enough or that they achieve what they are supposed to achieve under the present situation.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, I am very sympathetic to this amendment’s aims, and have been ever since we joined the market. It relates to an issue that was one of my strongest concerns when making up my mind to vote against going in in the first place, which I did: the question of all the animal welfare measures, little and big, and the worst measure of all, which sees animals waiting overnight and longer at the docks—for perhaps two or three days—without any care. That alone would be good enough to make me Brexit for life, if I was not already. This debate allows me to bring to the cause a little good news. I understand that the animals which were being held at the ports because they had to be delivered alive in France have now been given help. The local animal welfare departments have removed them from the ports and are giving them water and food while they wait. That is only a small thing, but it is important and it is taking the lead.

I too am concerned about the judicial review. I do not want to see the whole issue bound up by complicated legal matters when the kind of thing that is necessary is available in a much less complicated way—and because it is less complicated, it is easier to police and to maintain. I hope that those moving this amendment, with whom I have great sympathy, will look again at these provisions. I want us to get this right. I do not want us to regret it. When the time comes, I want us to be able to say of this big achievement that what we have done is acceptable, enforceable and very badly needed.

[Lord Judge]

My Lords, I want to add my voice and underline, if I may, how serious the issue arising under subsections (3) to (7) is. There are many executives that would be desperately pleased to have provisions such as these in primary legislation. There is no reason whatever why Parliament should not be able to deal with any issue arising in the context of sentient animals—there is no exclusion about that. However, to exclude the possibility of somebody seeking a remedy before the court would be an astonishingly dangerous principle to put into any legislation. The fact that it arises in this very sensitive issue relating to animals is one thing, but a lot of citizens, and individuals who happen to live in this country, rely on the possibility of taking the Government or the local authority to court to make them account for the exercise of, or failure to exercise, their powers. This would set an alarming precedent.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

I congratulate the noble Lord on his “hwyl”—

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, my eyes have misted over with gratitude that I have lived long enough to see this happening. My congratulations go to the Government and everybody who has participated in making this possible and making it acceptable to all sides. Thinking of the day when I voted not to stay in the first place, I can only say that, now at last, the air is fresher. We can breathe again and do all the things that we, and we alone, believe are in the interests of this country and of many friends across all countries in Europe.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, in moving the Motion that we are now discussing, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made one assertion which cannot go without comment. I had intended to ask him—I now ask your Lordships—to recognise that, whereas an elected House would be stronger against a weak Government, an elected and paid House would be weaker against a strong Government. I do not think that the noble Lord was here, because I think that it was in 1953, when the terrorism Bill was passed by this House. The ping-pong stage lasted from 2.30 pm on a Thursday till 7.31 pm on a Friday without interruption. I doubt whether the Whips of any Government with any majority in the House of Commons and a paid House here would fail to drive through such legislation. There would be no such resistance.

I raise that now merely because it will be a big issue later on. Let us not swallow the fiction that an elected and paid House is a stronger protection against an overmighty Government.