European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

This Bill not only restrict the freedoms of British citizens but leads to us having fewer good people to do the things we need to do. No sensible country which has successfully drawn on the talent of the whole of the continent would slam the door closed. No country would shut out people whom we need in social care, healthcare and all the other areas. Today’s figures on the success of the British tech start-ups are a direct result of the fact that we have been a magnet for the best people in Europe. The highly successful creative and media industry is about all the people we have been able to attract to this country, many of whom are paid less than £30,000 per annum. Free movement has benefited the whole country. This amendment sets out a means by which the UK can continue to reap those benefits. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I wish to say something about services since this amendment in significant respects covers their operation for UK workers living in this country and in Europe. I feel that we should be moving on from making the case to considering the details of the solution, yet services is an area that right through the Brexit debate has not been given the proper attention it has deserved, and continues not to be given it. Services are 80% of our economy, account for 40% of our exports, and most services go to Europe.

This is urgent. We are, for example, already losing large numbers of jobs in tourism in Europe, and Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, referred in May of last year to:

“Creative and tech firms that should be the foundation of our future economy moving their headquarters to Europe.”


This is before the transition period has even started. As I said last year in the debate on a similar amendment to the Trade Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned, services are the canary in the coal mine. The problem is that the free movement of people is integral to the success of services, because so many individual citizens, including freelancers, not only drive these industries but are in many respects the product itself.

It is not just the financial industries—which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who is not in his place, singled out in his reply to my Question last week on this area—but creative, IT, translators, tourism, and many more. I ask the Minister whether any impact analysis has been done on the effect of Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal on our trade in services with the EU. The sense from industry is that unless a mobility framework is put in place, the result is going to be devastating for those industries. As one IT worker put it this week, “A deal without a mobility framework for professionals delivering services in person will mean enforced redundancies and loss of income for thousands of people.”

Many of the sectors that will be affected have many of the same or similar concerns. What consultations have the Government had with relevant sectors to list and compare requirements? How much have they talked to the creative sector, to IT, and so on? There has been a lot of discussion about transparency and consultation today. In many ways it has been the theme, but those working in services currently feel that they have no idea what the Government intend to fight for on their behalf. EU companies do not know either.

A solution needs to be found that neither discourages European employers or clients—as indeed is unfortunately already happening—nor is impractical or costly for UK workers. More fundamentally, even at this stage, the Government need to look more closely at the effect of the loss of free movement on our hugely important services. For their continuing success, UK and, through reciprocity, EU workers urgently need an appropriate mobility framework.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I want to add a couple of words to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in his amendment. As far as the NHS is concerned, if the Government do not allow more people to come in and work in a highly labour-intensive industry, then they will not be able to spend the money that they are promising to put into the NHS in a way that is useful to patients. But that is not my main point.

My main point is to emphasise the extent to which there is continual movement between the UK and European countries, as part of big research projects in medicine, science and technology. People can freely move around Europe for six weeks, a month, a week or a weekend, and many of these projects have EU money, which has come to this country to be used to set up and run projects, but not all the work is done here. The work may be done with partners in other parts of the EU, and there is a constant flow of people. If we put barriers in the way of that movement around Europe of expert people—and many are not highly paid professors but PhD students who have come to this country—working on joint research projects, not only for basic research but for translational research, we will get ourselves ostracised. We will not be a partner that people want to play with, because it is difficult for people from other countries to move around Europe as part of those projects. We will cut off our nose to spite our face. We need something like this amendment to ensure that mobility and a mobility framework get the attention that they need for the future.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the referendum on Brexit shows that young people in particular want to remain in Europe. Now that we are leaving, it is important that young people’s opportunities to learn, study and exchange in Europe are an opportunity to bring young people back together again. Nobody can doubt the value and importance of Erasmus+. Every year, through the Erasmus programme, 17,000 UK university students, plus hundreds more college students and apprentices, study or work abroad. The opportunities that Erasmus offers to UK students, particularly young people, to study, work, volunteer, teach and train abroad are irreplaceable.

For school pupils, the scheme offers the youth exchange programme and volunteering opportunities, and volunteering is something that the Government have always been very keen on. Erasmus+ has paid out tens of millions of pounds in grants to UK schools for exchanges, collaborative programmes and professional development. If we want to be an outward-looking country that realises the importance of friendship, sharing ideas, culture, language, education and opportunities, and brings people together, this is not a programme that you would consider watering down or dispensing with.

As my colleague Layla Moran has said about her amendment,

“what people remember most about studying abroad normally isn’t that they increased their employment prospects”—

which of course they do—

“They recall learning a new language, falling in love with the culture and building new friendships.”


I am somewhat confused about the Government’s stance or policy on Erasmus+. Is it that of the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, who said:

“We do truly understand the value that such exchange programmes bring all students right across the United Kingdom, but to ensure that we are able to continue to offer that we will also develop our own alternative arrangements should they be needed”?—[Official Report, Commons, 14/01/20; col. 912.]


Or is it that of our Prime Minister, who said:

“There is no threat to the Erasmus scheme, and we will continue to participate in it. UK students will continue to be able to enjoy the benefits of exchanges with our European friends and partners, just as they will be able to continue to come to this country”?—[Official Report, Commons, 15/01/20; col. 1021.]


Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to tell me which version it is. The amendment that we are moving certainly supports the Prime Minister’s view that the Erasmus scheme is under no threat.

Currently the in-phrase in government is “levelling up”. We want to ensure with this amendment that there is no levelling down for students and young people across the UK, whether they be from the south or the north. By staying in the Erasmus+ scheme, we can keep that level playing field. UK universities are clear that Erasmus is not broken and so does not need fixing, and they warn that a UK replacement would find it impossible to match the reputation, brand awareness and sheer scale of Erasmus+. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this important amendment. I will be brief.

The Government should have a fairly good idea by now of the views of academics, universities and other institutions. Hopefully, they will have taken note of the strong views of students and former participants in the Erasmus programme that have been expressed in the press and on social media in the last week or so, and their huge concern about the potential loss of this programme.

In terms of projects, Erasmus is now about more than learning and higher education. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has pointed out, there are schemes for apprentices, adult learners, schools, youth programmes and entrepreneurs. On that point, what is less heard and discussed is the implications of Erasmus for business. The Russell Group has spoken of the considerable opportunities in industry that Erasmus opens up for students on their return to the UK. If we are also to maintain our business links with Europe, it will become more important, not less, that young people learn and use languages such as French and German, an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, will no doubt expand on.

I hope the Government will look at this objectively and understand that the loss of Erasmus would represent a significant overall loss in terms of the choices that students will have to study abroad. In those circumstances, where the choice remains it will be at a considerably greater cost, to the extent that for students from poorer backgrounds, that choice would disappear. That is an important point. Erasmus favours those from less privileged backgrounds, a point that has been well made by former participants.

One of the arguments that is put is that we can replace Erasmus with a global arrangement. We have such arrangements already, which Erasmus does not preclude. The loss of Erasmus would be a net loss for students, and a reduction of opportunities to study abroad and to broaden horizons. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that the loss of Erasmus would, in the Government’s own terminology, be a levelling down, not a levelling up. I earnestly hope that the Government will do everything to maintain our meaningful membership—that is, programme membership —of Erasmus. Surely this being an intention endorsed by Parliament will only strengthen our hand in negotiations with the EU. I fully support the amendment.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I too have added my name to Amendment 38. Last week, after the vote in the House of Commons to reject a similar amendment, I was semi-encouraged by the statement issued by the Department for Education:

“The Government is committed to continuing the academic relationship between the UK and the EU, including through the next Erasmus+ programme if it is in our interests to do so.”


I hope I can offer some information and arguments today that will convince the Minister to go back and persuade the Government that it is indeed very much in our interests, and that they should think again and put their commitment to Erasmus+ in the Bill. As we have heard, the Prime Minister said only yesterday that there was no threat to Erasmus. If that is a genuine commitment, fantastic—there can be no reason why that cannot be irrefutably placed in the Bill. Otherwise, all that we actually know we can be sure of is that Erasmus is secure only until the end of 2020.

I have spoken several times before in your Lordships’ House on the importance of Erasmus in the context of the teaching and learning of modern foreign languages, but that is neither the whole picture nor the whole reason for needing to stick with the programme. It is also in the far broader interests of the UK, its economic resilience, its competitiveness and the employability of young people—and I do not just mean relatively privileged students. I understand from a press report in last Saturday’s Times that one of the Government’s reservations is that Erasmus is viewed as mainly benefiting middle-class students and that the money might be much better directed towards the schools budget. If accurate, this view shows a misunderstanding of the breadth, purpose and benefits of the Erasmus programme. I hope I can now shed some light on this, to assist the Government in looking again and changing their mind out of sheer self-interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I can answer that. The point is that nearly every Peer who joined the debate on this amendment was mourning the leaving of Europe. Many of them just said, “We are very sad to be leaving the EU”, but we have got to get beyond that. In two weeks’ time, we are going to be an outward-facing country looking to the rest of the world. The reason that I mentioned Chevening—I put it into the speech, not officials—is because I had direct experience of it recently. I was sent to the OECD conference on education in Argentina about 18 months’ ago. I met the Education Minister, and it is those sorts of contacts which will help the future of this country. I accept that Chevening is a master’s degree programme and that it is for high-potential future leaders, but it is about the connection between institutions in our country and other countries.

[The Earl of Clancarty]

The point I made in my speech was that Erasmus does not preclude these arrangements. My nephew was at Swansea University, which had an exchange with Arizona that had nothing to do with Erasmus. Losing Erasmus means that students would lose choices overall; that is the point.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The reassurance that I can give the noble Earl is that we support the value of Erasmus. We are not signalling that we are going to come out of the next version of it, but we cannot offer a blank cheque on a scheme that has yet to be agreed. It will be part of the far wider withdrawal agreements that we foster with the EU over the next 12 months.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting
Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge. I support the amendment for the principal reason that parliamentary oversight will be a constant reminder to the Government of the importance of participation in the Erasmus programme. Over its 30 years, Erasmus has helped some 3 million students across Europe in all. It is enormously valuable. For our students who have the opportunity to take part in exchanges across Europe, it enriches their education and fulfils their desire to have the best possible experience of life and the world.

One of the things that distresses me most about the Brexit process we have embarked upon is that it fundamentally undermines what I thought our country was all about: having an international spirit and opening our arms to the rest of the world. We are abandoning that. If our politics abandon it, please do not remove that spirit from our students—who are, after all, the hope for a better future than the one we are currently imposing on them.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I want to address a few of the things said by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, in his reply to last week’s debate on Erasmus in Committee.

First, he spent some time talking about the UK’s global programme. Great; let us have more such partnerships. But those partnerships are irrelevant to this debate for the simple reason that Erasmus does not affect those independent programmes in any way. Erasmus does not stop us having such partnerships, so I hope that the Minister does not go down that route again in his reply.

Secondly, perhaps the most worrying thing that the Minister said was that

“it is not realistic for the Government to commit ahead to participation in a programme yet to be defined.”

I agree with what my noble friend Lady Coussins and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said: just on the basis of its proven record over 33 years, we can be 100% sure that the next iteration of Erasmus will also provide immense opportunities for British students. So why the doubt? Perhaps the Minister can tell us. He said:

“We do not need just an EU university scheme but a much wider one.”—[Official Report, 16/1/20; col. 872.]


That is fine, but does the Minister not believe that that is what we already have—and, indeed, that it can continue to expand on a global basis without losing Erasmus? Erasmus should be part of that global network.

Lastly, I stress again that it is the misconception of some that Erasmus is for richer students. As I said in the debate last week, former participants in the programme testify to how important Erasmus was for them as students from poorer backgrounds. It is clearly a great privilege to be an Erasmus student, but you do not have to be from a privileged background to be one.

In last week’s debate, the noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset, summed up perfectly what the loss of the programme would mean, saying that it would be a

“kick in the teeth for so many aspiring young people.”—[Official Report, 16/1/20; col. 870.]

I hope that the Minister can assure us that negotiations on Erasmus will be backed on our part by a serious intent to stay a member of a programme that opens up horizons for so many of our young people.