European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two amendments which are grouped with Amendment 8. I am afraid that they probably should not have been included, but like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Liddle, I was in Brussels today and did not have a chance to argue the groupings, so I am afraid that noble Lords are going to have to hear me speak on this issue tonight. My Amendment 114 makes a rather important cross-reference to Euratom.

The amendment seeks essentially to add a clause to the Bill after Clause 7, with an accompanying schedule. Before we understand what is happening to our whole regulatory system and therefore pass this Bill, and certainly before we leave the European Union, we need to know from the Government what their view is on future relationships with the EU executive agencies. The schedule lists those agencies which include two Euratom agencies. It lists the supply agency to which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred. Its observatory plays a key role in dealing with supply chains of extraordinarily sensitive and potentially dangerous material. It lists also the Fusion for Energy agency which deals with some of the aspects to which the noble Lord, Lord Broers, referred in terms of the development of fusion as a new source of energy and the high-level, European-wide research programme at Culham and elsewhere. They are very important agencies. At this point we do not know what future UK participation, arrangements, observer status or links with those agencies are going to be.

In addition to those two Euratom agencies, there are 34 executive agencies of the European Union. I have noticed the time and I will therefore not go through the role and remit of them all, as well as the importance of knowing where we are, but they include a number of agencies of great importance to the lives of our citizens, to our industry and to our environment. There are agencies which deal with safety at work, food safety, environmental safety generally, and of course there is the EU Medicines Agency, which regrettably is moving away from Britain, dealing with medical safety. There is a whole range dealing with police and judicial procedures.

These agencies are not law-making bodies, but they are operationally very important to the sectors to which they apply. The UK has engaged very effectively with most of those agencies, to the benefit of our citizens, industries, sciences and judicial system. I have asked a number of Written Questions as to what the future arrangements are, with the standard reply being: “This will all be sorted out in the negotiations”. However, the negotiations are going on at the same time as we are dealing with the Bill. We need to know, in relation to the Bill, how those agencies will interact with the regulations newly transposed into UK law and the way in which we operate in those industries and systems.

My visit to Brussels in the last couple of days has underlined the urgency of the situation of knowing where we are with such agencies. For the first time, I carefully read the EU’s proposition on how we deal with transition periods. That document says that the UK will not only no longer participate in the institutions of the European Union but also,

“no longer participate in … the decision-making or the governance of the Union bodies, offices and agencies”.

In other words, in approximately one year and 34 days, we will no longer participate in any of these vital agencies. It is possible, if the Government put their mind to it, to establish in that period new relationships. In some of these agencies, non-EU bodies are either observers or participants. At the moment, we have not a clue how the Government are approaching the future in all of these important areas. It is an urgent decision that we cannot delay until the end of the transition period, because unless the Government persuade the EU otherwise in the next few weeks and months, from the date of exit we will no longer participate. This will change the way in which we operate in a range of safety, environmental, scientific, judicial and police areas—including security and defence.

That issue arises for a whole number of areas well beyond Euratom. On Euratom, I agree very much with what virtually everybody else has said: it is unnecessary to come out of Euratom. It is still possible to distinguish our approach to Euratom and effectively rescind our resignation from it without changing our position on the EU. Indeed, all the arguments—from industry, science and environmentalists—indicate that we should do that. At the same time, I urge your Lordships, and the Government in particular, that before we get very far in the process on the Bill, we should get a clear indication, not only on the Euratom agencies, but on the rest of the agencies set out in Amendment 263 proposing a new schedule, so that we will know, well in advance of leaving the European Union and its agencies and well in advance of the beginning of the transition period, quite how we will operate with them in future. I ask the Minister to take seriously the list I have given him and, perhaps in writing or on Report, to indicate to us how the Government intend to deal with this very important tissue.

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I think it is important on these Benches to put in a word of support for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We all recognise that Euratom is a good brand; no one, on any side, is disputing that Euratom has achieved what a good brand should do. It has given confidence to the British and European public on a matter of critical importance, not least in handling medical isotopes with a very short half-life.

It is quite clear to my mind that if we leave for reasons that are obscure to me but probably are concerned only with the notional theory that the European Court of Justice might be able to exert some malign influence on Euratom—that seems to be the only reason that has ever been advanced as to why we should leave Euratom—then that plays second order to how we ensure, in the words of the amendment, which I very much support, that we “maintain equivalent participatory relations” with Euratom. It is essential that we continue to command the confidence of the users of isotopes and other nuclear material and of practitioners. It is not clear to me that the regulation we will have to put in place will be ready in time. In fact, I am absolutely certain that it cannot be. The amendment is a very sensible and modest proposal that I fully support.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, said, and the other speakers who called for the Government to reconsider this question. I speak as a member of Cumbria County Council. Cumbria is very excited by the prospect of nuclear renaissance in this country, but how we are proposing to achieve it is interesting. First, to build a new nuclear power station we hand it over to the French. We are reliant on French leadership at Hinkley Point. Is it not paradoxical that we are not building up a native British industry, but saying to the French, “Please come and we’ll pay you lots of money to do it”, while at the same time saying that, for purely ideological reasons, we will not have anything to do with Euratom? The Government’s policy is contradictory.

Secondly, the Government put nuclear revival as one of the priorities for their industrial strategy. That is one of the things highlighted in the Industrial Strategy White Paper. That requires investment in science and the kind of European co-operation in science that we have seen so successfully with JET and nuclear fusion. Yet what do they want to do for ideological reasons on the other Benches? They want to throw spanners in the works of that co-operation by withdrawing from Euratom. What conceivable sense does this make?

Will the Minister produce a clear statement of reasons as to why this policy is being pursued? What are the reasons for it? Secondly, within what timescale are the many problems that withdrawal from Euratom will cause be addressed and by whom? Do the Government not have a duty to do that? Thirdly, what will the cost be of having our own separate national arrangements? The Government ought to know that by now. This issue was first raised in this House on the Article 50 Bill. What has happened in the succeeding months? What have the Government actually done since then to address these concerns?

Finally, I will make a point about the handling of the Bill in the House. I see this as an extremely important issue of national importance and we are debating it after 11 o’clock at night. Does that make sense? Is that not the duty that we owe people—to provide proper scrutiny? Should we not be allowing proper time for this debate? This is an example of an issue that should have been debated in prime time in this House. It should have been the subject of a vote in Committee. Because of the hour that is clearly not possible, but the fact is that we have failed in our duty to the people on this question.