Brexit: Preparations

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Minister, back again after his long stint on Saturday—and no doubt looking forward to the XO committee, which I believe he serves on, meeting seven days a week—for repeating the Statement.

However, I have to question the underlying assumption, and indeed perhaps even the legality, of these preparations. If Mr Gove is so confident that we will leave on 31 October with a deal, how come he lacks the confidence to put Yellowhammer aside? More importantly, why are the Government continuing to work against the decision of the Commons? He surely does not actually think we will not get an extension from the EU.

On Saturday, the Minister attempted to throw back at me the claim I had made that,

“there is no desire for a deal. It is all a ruse”,—[Official Report, 19/10/19; col. 360.]

by saying—and I paraphrase—“Aha! Here we are: we’ve got a deal”. The truth is that, for all the claims that the withdrawal deal was miraculously reopened by the brilliance of the Prime Minister’s negotiating skills, not only was it reopened only to make it worse and to add a new tariff, VAT and standards border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain—as the Statement says, posing “unique challenges” to Northern Ireland, as well as the possibility of direct rule—but it actually is a ruse. The Government are continuing to plan for a no-deal outcome; if not next Thursday, I think that is what the Government contemplate for the end of 2020. No wonder the Government are still determined to be ready for no deal. It is not simply the legal default; it is becoming clear that it is the desired outcome.

For all the talk of providing certainty, especially for business, this continued no-deal work is unsettling the financial, manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. As Ian Wright of the Food and Drink Federation said, while we might all be “exhausted” by Brexit, this does not,

“mean we sleepwalk into mistakes that will haunt the UK economy for a generation … The most urgent priority for the … industry has been to prevent a no-deal exit”.

He also pleads for sufficient time in the implementation period after the legislation,

“for businesses to fully adapt”,

warning of,

“the damaging loss of frictionless trade and regulatory divergence with the EU that the new deal heralds”.

Similarly, on Saturday my honourable friend Madeleine Moon MP reported:

“Ford is leaving Bridgend, where it has 1,700 jobs—with 12,000 jobs across the south Wales economy—because it was worried about a no-deal Brexit”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/19; col. 615.]


She also fears that even the new deal risks the end of just-in-time manufacturing. What are we doing preparing for an outcome that could devastate our valleys, our industrial heartlands, jobs and the economy?

The pretence that we need to make urgent preparations for a no-deal exit, which the Commons has voted against, is all for show. I do not know whether other noble Lords were as angry as I was when, late on Saturday night, I read in the PM’s billet-doux to Donald Tusk of the,

“corrosive impact of the long delay in delivering”,

Brexit—as if it had nothing to do with him. Who was in Government and then resigned in July last year at the time of the Chequers deal? Who refused to support the original deal in November, causing further delay? Who has now manufactured the totem of 31 October as his own virility test, at enormous expense to Parliament’s ability to scrutinise legislation, business’s ability to prepare and increased uncertainty? It was of course Boris Johnson, who has got what he wanted out of it: he is now Prime Minister. It is now time that, as Prime Minister, he put the national interest first. He should put aside this shroud-waving of 31 October and Yellowhammer and turn his attention to ensuring that the UK’s trading links with the EU are strengthened, that such trade is frictionless as well as growing, and that UK citizens across the EU can have some certainty about their future.

Before I finish, I want to say two positive things. There is one really welcome statement in what we have just heard: that the Commons will be involved in agreeing the mandate for negotiations on our future partnership arrangements with the EU—effectively, I think, the Monks-Lea amendment that we put to the 2018 Bill, and which sadly did not survive in the Commons, and the Trade Bill amendment passed in your Lordships’ House. We have yet to see the withdrawal agreement Bill; we will see it later this evening. If, once we have seen it, that commitment to the prior approval of the negotiating mandate is included in the Bill, we on this side will at least cheer that.

I absolutely concur with what the Minister said on behalf of the other House, and what we should also say here, about the incredible work across the House to enable us to meet on Saturday. If I heard my noble friend right earlier, I fear that they may be requested to do it again, in which case it may have to be a “please” as well as a “thank you”.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will follow on seamlessly from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I have not had the advantage of seeing the Statement before the Minister repeated it, and so I am responding very much on the hoof.

I note that the Secretary of State suggested that it would have just been for the House of Commons to have voted in favour of this deal to honour the will of 17.4 million people. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, pointed out, there were many opportunities: three times, a previous deal was voted down, and one of those who kept voting against the previous deal was the man who is now Prime Minister. The idea that somehow the House of Commons could have, on Saturday, ensured leaving on time is an interesting concept. I understood leaving on time to mean leaving by 29 March 2019. Theresa May, as Prime Minister, said 109 times that we were leaving on 29 March. The idea that, on Saturday, MPs somehow prevented us leaving on time is a little misleading.

If we are to leave the European Union, it ought of course to be done in an orderly way. Preparations for a no-deal scenario make sense. But if preparations for no deal, or to leave at all, were so important, how unfortunate it was that David Cameron prevented the Civil Service even preparing for the eventuality of a vote to leave. How unfortunate that the preparations for a no-deal scenario, which we are led to believe were made in advance of 29 March, were ripped up.

The Minister repeated that freight capacity will be increased from 31 October and that four operators have been contracted for six months to deal with freight. I seem to recall that we spent quite a lot of time earlier in the year asking questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, about the contracts that had been let and subsequently set aside for the previous no-deal arrangements. Will the Minister tell us how much these new contracts cost and what will happen in the event that we do have a deal? Are we contracted to four freight operators for six months whether we need them or not?

It is clearly important to have effective arrangements for a no-deal scenario. Yet it seems that, in the last weeks, the person who has done the most work is Michael Gove. He and his office have been preparing actively for no deal. He is now talking about working seven days a week. How much effort has been put into ensuring that there is sufficient time in the event that a deal is agreed? How much time is being put in place to ensure that Parliament can do its duty? It cannot go forgotten that the Prime Minister tried to prevent Parliament carrying out its scrutiny duty for five weeks by attempting a Prorogation, which was then deemed null and of no validity. That was precisely the time when Members of your Lordships’ House and the other place could have been scrutinising both the prospect of a deal and no deal. That time was wasted.

This afternoon in the other place, quite a lot of time was spent discussing how much time it will have to debate and scrutinise the withdrawal agreement Bill, which, as I understand it, nobody has yet seen. I know that the Minister will throw the Benn Act back at us and say, “Ah! But noble Lords wanted a truncated process”. But the Benn Act was a short and relatively simple piece of legislation. The withdrawal agreement Bill cannot be a short and simple piece of legislation. We are talking about enacting an agreement of over 500 pages. The withdrawal Act of 2018 is extremely detailed legislation. If there is a withdrawal agreement, the Act to bring it into play and to amend the withdrawal Act of 2018 will inevitably be deeply complex. The idea that we can do that within 10 days seems incredible.

Lest the Minister and others on the Government Benches wish to say that this is our own fault, I ask this: how much time are the Government proposing to allow Parliament to sit? Would it not be sensible, as the Father of the House of Commons has suggested, that the Commons sit later into the night and on Friday? It is little use to suggest simply that your Lordships’ House sit on Friday and Saturday. What about ensuring that the democratically elected Chamber has the time to do the job that it is meant to do?

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, talked about a ruse. I wonder too whether there was not a ruse. Are we being told that we must prepare for no deal to make the hysteria so great that MPs feel the need to adopt this deal—any deal—simply to avoid no deal? Surely that is not good decision-making.

[Lord Callanan]

I thank the noble Baronesses for their comments and questions. I will turn first to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

It is important to point out that, in these matters, we are acting on the appropriate official advice. Not to act on that advice would be the irresponsible thing to do. The noble Baroness made the quite incredible statement in her introduction that an extension was guaranteed and that surely we did not have to worry about it. I assume that she has not seen the statements of the President of France, the Taoiseach of Ireland or the President of the European Commission, who all said that an extension was by no means guaranteed. A number of other commentators in Europe have spoken against an extension—so not to prepare would be the irresponsible thing to do.

I repeat that no deal is not our desired outcome. We have negotiated a deal precisely because we want to see it agreed. However, in its absence, 31 October remains the legal default. That was the extension granted previously by the European Union, and of course the solution is in its hands. As I have repeatedly said, if Labour is so keen to avoid a no-deal exit, there is a deal on the table for it to vote for. There was a deal on the table for it to vote for several months ago and it decided not to do so. If it wants to avoid a no-deal exit, the best thing to do is to vote for a deal. However, the suspicion remains that it is not a no-deal exit that Labour is against but an exit at all. It is against Brexit.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, if she did not get a copy of the Statement in advance. It is very difficult to respond to these matters if one has not seen them beforehand, so she has my sympathy. She also has my thanks, because she was one of the few Liberal Democrats who originally said that the referendum result should be respected—although I think she has changed her mind recently.

As to the freight contracts, these are framework contingency plans. We hope that they will not be required, but they are contingency plans in case there is severe disruption to make sure that we can still get category 1 goods—medical supplies et cetera—into the country. It is our hope and expectation that, with all the mitigations and the extensive and expensive planning that we have put in place with the various local resilience forums, the contingency contracts will not be required.

The noble Baroness made her own point about time for parliamentary scrutiny. She is quite right. I was going to throw the Benn Act back at her. However, I do not need to talk about the hypocrisy of that, because I have already made that point. Again, to be fair to the Liberal Democrats, they have been clear that they are against Brexit at all and not just a no-deal Brexit. However, I am sure that they will want to play their part in the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny.