European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Far be it for me to argue with my noble friend, but this is not a matter of gender, it is a matter of procedure of the House. If one is able to read out other people’s speeches without limit, it creates a most extraordinary precedent. I hope those in charge of our procedures will consider whether it is something that should be repeated.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

There is no danger that anyone would want to read the noble Lord’s speeches on his behalf, so he need not worry and we can hear more from my noble friend.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am making a perfectly serious point, and I do not think anybody has appointed the noble Lord to decide on the procedures of this House.

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I also commend very much the speech on Amendment 190 from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, because it was the one that most clearly mentioned the magic phrase “or stay in the European Union anyway”, or however it is put. That needs to be said more and more as public opinion changes. I do not wish to deprive the public of the will of that referendum decision in any way; none the less I see the change of feeling that is now occurring in this country, with the beginnings of a clear net majority of the population—including the new, young voters who will come in next time—against the idea of leaving the European Union. That also has to be taken into account by the Government. Whatever the final text of the Bill, that must be acknowledged, and the Government might as well start saying things along those lines to get the public ready for transmission of the Bill back to the Commons and its ultimate verdict on this, the worst incident in post-war politics in Britain. I think someone said it was one of the worst decisions since the refusal to keep to the agreement on home rule for the whole of the Irish territory in the previous century. The British Government went back on that with all the trouble that ensued. This is now the worst decision we have seen, with the Government pursuing very dodgy talks and dubious negotiations on an increasingly weak basis. It is time for greater reality to set in when the Bill goes back to the Commons.

[Lord Adonis]

May I take up the very generous offer of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, that someone else read his speech? I am very keen to get hold of it, and I will make suitable amendments, including accepting the amendments moved this afternoon, which are excellent. I am also keen to get hold of the future speeches of my noble friend on the Front Bench. If we have a meeting minds on what I think will be the increasingly important issue facing the House—that of how the meaningful vote is conducted and whether there should be a vote of the people on the withdrawal treaty—and get to the right place on that, I hope we can live up to the injunction of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that we uphold our democratic traditions. We clearly need to, given the gravity of the issues we face.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said he thought that leaving the European Union was the worst decision taken by Parliament since the rejection of the Irish home rule Bills in the 1880s and 1890s. We all have our lists of the worst decisions taken by Parliament, but on Irish home rule I would note that the first home rule Bill was defeated by the House of Commons and the second by the House of Lords. We have not played an honourable part at all in the conduct of Irish affairs over the last 150 years. The second home rule Bill was possibly the last best chance of devolution to the island of Ireland as a whole, on an agreed basis, and was promoted by arguably the best Prime Minister —Churchill aside—this country has had in the last 150 years: Gladstone. That Bill was rejected in this House by 419 to 41 votes—nearly unanimously—on the recommendation of the then leader of the Conservative Party, Lord Salisbury, who said that the Irish were no more fitted to self-government than Hottentots and uncivilised tribes in Africa. We do not always get these decisions right as a Parliament and we need to pay very careful attention—as we seek to do now—to the frame in which we take these momentous decisions at the end of the year.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Does the noble Lord not appreciate the irony of choosing the home rule Bill as an example? This Bill is about restoring home rule to Britain from Europe.

[Lord Adonis]

What Gladstone showed so brilliantly is that it is possible to share sovereignty both within your nation and between nations. Gladstone was a great champion of the concept of Europe and, indeed, of international arbitration, which he pioneered to a significant extent.

[Baroness McDonagh]

Does the noble Lord agree that this is the point we are making? The Bill allows the European Parliament to vote on the withdrawal agreement without a meaningful vote necessarily taking place in the UK Parliament—unless there is agreement about the way that will be taken, the timing and the procedure for it. Is that not the case?

[Lord Adonis]

I entirely agree with my noble friend.

[Lord Dykes]

I have just a brief point on the previous remark of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. Does he not agree that the great essence of membership of the European Union is that it is a club of equal sovereign members? Can he briefly explain why he thinks the United Kingdom is the only member that has lost the self-confidence and maturity to deem itself an equal sovereign member, like all of the others?

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[Lord Adonis]

That is a hypothetical question because I still do not take it as a foregone conclusion that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. We are engaging in a protracted democratic debate in the country. It is a debate centred on Parliament and which engages the people, and it still has at least a year to go. I think it may end up taking longer than that. I am a profound believer in the wisdom of our democracy if given the time for a proper and full debate, and, as is our duty, we are seeking to ensure that the nation has that full opportunity.

Coming back to the earlier brilliant speeches that we heard from my noble friend Lord Reid, the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Patten, the reason we need to pay such attention to these issues is that Parliament has so far not covered itself in glory. The decision to have a parliamentary process for the invoking of Article 50 had to be dragged out of the Government by the Supreme Court, with Parliament not exerting itself until the Supreme Court had opined. The debates on the Bill in the other House were grossly inadequate. This is the most important Bill that Parliament will discuss until the withdrawal treaty but large chunks of it were entirely undebated in the House of Commons.

The noble Viscount’s father talked very powerfully and movingly about the elective dictatorship. We have seen the elective dictatorship in full operation in the conduct of the negotiations and the procedures over leaving the European Union. I do not think that this House has covered itself in glory so far either. Speeches on the most important issue facing this country in a generation were guillotined at six or seven minutes at Second Reading, and the Government have had to have additional time dragged out of them day by day for the consideration of the Bill in Committee.

We sat until 2.37 am on Monday because the Government would not provide an additional day. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said that I was not here. He is correct. The reason I was not here was that, after eight continuous hours of debate, to be frank, I did not think I should be an agent to prolonging the debate, which I tend to do when I am present, from 2.37 am to what might well have been well after three o’clock in the morning. We were debating the whole of the future of the financial services industry of this country, air traffic control and aviation, and the European Chemicals Agency at 1 am on Monday. That is no way for this House to conduct the business of the nation.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Adonis]

We need these amendments because we simply do not trust the Government to have an adequate parliamentary procedure in place unless Parliament exerts itself in advance. That is why the amendments of the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, which discuss time, are so important.

I want to highlight two issues in respect of the procedure that we need to follow when the Prime Minister submits the withdrawal treaty to Parliament. First, there must be adequate time for Parliament to debate it, because there can be no democracy unless there is time to discuss it. We should remember that Clement Attlee famously said that democracy is government by discussion, but this Government are very keen on closing down discussion. Your Lordships and the other place need to put in place arrangements to ensure that there will be adequate time. To my mind, those arrangements are crucial. At the moment in the existing Clause 9, even as amended by Dominic Grieve’s amendment in the House of Commons, there is no requirement in respect of the time that must be given to Parliament to reach these momentously important decisions. That needs to be put right.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

When the noble Lord talks about timing and Parliament, is he also anticipating that Select Committees will be given time to consider their issues and report back to the House so that Parliament can consider the appropriate course?

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Viscount raises a very important issue which has not been debated in either House of Parliament at all so far—whether there should be a Select Committee procedure when the withdrawal treaty is presented. That is exactly the kind of issue we should be discussing, and not at one o’clock in the morning.

The second issue, which goes to the heart of the bona fides of the Government, is the options that Parliament will debate and reach decisions on when the withdrawal treaty is presented. The Prime Minister has said repeatedly—indeed, the Minister has repeated it—that the only option that Parliament will be given when the treaty is presented is between accepting the treaty or rejecting it and leaving without a treaty on World Trade Organization terms. That is a completely false, misleading and unacceptable statement of what the options facing Parliament should be. Parliament, which is sovereign, can and should itself decide what options will be available to it. An absolutely credible option—indeed, in my view it is the most credible option facing the country—is that we simply stay in the European Union. The idea that this sovereign Parliament will not be allowed to consider that as an option is totally unacceptable. There obviously should be an option. The reason why we need to enshrine that as an option, as other noble Lords have said, is precisely that the Government, by executive fiat, are seeking to rule it out. That is unacceptable.

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[Lord Spicer]

I am not quite sure what credence the noble Lord gives to the referendum. He did not mention it in his speech.

[Lord Adonis]

We are debating these issues precisely because of the referendum. However, the referendum is not the last word on parliamentary democracy; nor is it the last word, crucially, on a treaty which the people did not even see two years ago when they voted. They could not see it because it had not been negotiated.

[Viscount Waverley]

Would the noble Lord wish to encourage the Minister to comment on the effect on timing if the ECJ makes a ruling in relation to the rights of UK citizens, inasmuch as we will still be citizens of the European Union and that ruling may come during the transition period or the implementation period that will be announced after the agreement has been agreed to?

[Lord Adonis]

Perhaps the Minister may say more about this when he replies. Given the complexity and difficulty of these negotiations, it is perfectly possible that the withdrawal treaty will not be submitted until quite late. I would not be surprised if we do not see the withdrawal treaty this side of Christmas, so it will not be a long period. If the withdrawal treaty is presented late, the Government should seek an extension of the Article 50 period so that there is adequate parliamentary scrutiny, debate and opportunity for decision on that treaty. If the Government were serious about respecting the sovereignty of Parliament, the Minister would announce that there will be at least a three-month period between the submission of the withdrawal treaty and the expiration of the date on which we leave the European Union.

I know he will not give that statement because we all know what he seeks to do. He is an ardent Brexiteer and he simply wants us out, come what may, on 29 March next year. He is not worried about parliamentary processes or democracy; he is one of that group of far-right nationalists who simply want us out. Our job is to see that Parliament is respected and that it is the British people and their parliamentary representatives who take this decision, but they cannot do that if they do not have adequate time to debate it.

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[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak until the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, spoke. As I understand it, the position of the anti-Brexiteers until recently has been that they accept the verdict of the referendum—we should come out—but that the referendum did not pose the difficult question of how to do so and the whole debate was to make sure that the electorate understood how we will do this very complex thing. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, put the proposition that the referendum was of no account at all and we had to go back to the question as to whether we stayed in the European Union. I have not heard him say that before, I must say.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I did not say that the referendum was of no account at all.

[Lord Spicer]

Giving an option to stay in is saying that we will go over the whole question again.

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[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, if the Minister is not prepared to give any ground on the timescale in terms of the amount of time we shall have to debate it, will he tell the Committee what he thinks is the latest possible date the Government could submit the treaty?

[Lord Callanan]

I do not want to get into precise timings like that: we have said that we hope to have an agreement concluded by October 2018, which accords with the position set out by Monsieur Barnier. That is the timetable that we are working to. If we achieve that timetable, there should be plenty of time for a vote in this House and in another place, followed by the vote in the European Parliament.

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[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend and I will just have to disagree on this one.

We have also made our position clear that the notice given by the Prime Minister in accordance with Article 50, and which was approved by both Houses of Parliament, will not be revoked. It will not be extended as Amendment 199 tabled by my noble friend Lord Cormack and Amendment 216 tabled by my noble friend Lord Hailsham seek to do.

[Lord Adonis]

If the Minister will forgive me, he is not in any position to make that clear because that is a decision which the House of Commons will take. It is not for the Government to say that there will be no rescinding of the notice under Article 50. If the House of Commons votes to rescind the notice under Article 50, that notice will be revoked. We are a parliamentary democracy.

[Lord Callanan]

The Government’s position is clear that Article 50 will not be revoked. We will discuss the question—

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[Lord Callanan]

Of course Parliament is allowed to change its mind. It does so on many occasions and no doubt will do so in future on other issues.

It is our view that the question of whether to leave and the process of approving how we leave have been decided. Parliament approved the referendum and has signalled its approval to every step the Government have taken since July 2016. Furthermore the people authorised the Government’s negotiating position as a result of the election last year. Lastly, we have made a solemn promise to seek approval, which I am confident will be granted, from Parliament of the outcome of those negotiations.

I stress that I understand many noble Lords’ deeply and honestly held conviction that the UK should not leave the EU. That has become very clear to me throughout the progress of the Bill, but this is a Bill to provide maximum legal certainty upon exit. I do not think it would be in the interests of either the EU or the UK to open the door to an ever-continuing negotiation process with no certainty that the UK will ever reach a new settled relationship with the EU. I do not believe that that is what the noble Lord intends, but that is what is being risked. The terms of the vote on the final deal are clear: to accept the terms of the agreement or to move forward without a deal. This is fully in line with the terms on which the European Parliament will be voting: a yes or no vote.

Amendments 196 and 213 are unnecessary because we have already made a strong commitment to hold this vote as soon as possible after the negotiations have concluded.

[Lord Adonis]

How does the Minister intend to prevent the House of Commons considering the option of remaining in the European Union? How does he intend procedurally to prevent it, given that he has said that that is not going to be an option?

[Lord Callanan]

I do not control the proceedings of the House of Commons. I can only set out the Government’s position on this matter.

The strength of that commitment and the political and public expectation that accompanies it mean that the Government could not conceivably renege on that commitment.

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[Lord Hain]

I know that evidence has been given but I simply stick to what I have argued, supported by the former Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Trade, who is an authority on these matters.

I remind your Lordships of the report of the Public Accounts Committee in the other place, published last December. It said:

“Government departments’ poor track record of delivering critical border programmes, such as e-borders, leaves us sceptical that they are up to the challenges of planning for the border post-Brexit”.


The Foreign Secretary compares it all to the congestion charge between council areas in London. Sadly, he knows little about the issues and cares even less.

The single market and customs union are not political deals but rules-based legal entities. As an EU member state, the UK has rightly insisted on the strict and consistent enforcement of these rules. Brexiteers, no doubt including the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, pretend that the EU can pick and choose to satisfy the UK that we can have all the benefits of being in the customs union and single market with none of the obligations, and that we can have an open Irish border while rejecting all the rules for keeping it open. That is like saying, “I want my country to play in the World Cup but I won’t recognise the offside rule”.

The success of the Good Friday agreement was that it made the border between the two parts of Ireland virtually uncontentious, both to nationalists, because it had to be completely open, and to unionists, because any constitutional change in Northern Ireland’s status could occur only with a referendum. The threat to it which Brexit poses was eminently foreseeable. It is important also to note that the 1998 agreement is not a domestic contract or statement of intent; it is an international treaty between two states. The British and Irish Governments are bound in international law to implement the terms of this agreement. Its legal precedent is the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, signed by Margaret Thatcher, which gave the Irish Government a right of consultation in the affairs of Northern Ireland. The 1998 agreement makes formal recognition of the Irish Government’s,

“special interest in Northern Ireland and … the extent to which issues of mutual concern arise in relation to Northern Ireland”.

The agreement expressed the British Government’s wish to “develop still further” close co-operation with Ireland.

Strands 2 and 3 of the 1998 agreement, the cross-border and British-Irish strands, are international by nature and their future cannot be determined solely by the will of this Parliament. The British Government are legally bound, in partnership with the Irish Government, to ensure that the functions and objectives of this co-operation are unimpeded by withdrawal from the European Union.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, on the question of the Good Friday agreement, did my noble friend notice the significant exchange that took place in the House on Monday between my noble friend Lord Judd and the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth? When my noble friend Lord Judd said,

“could the noble Lord confirm that the amendments to be brought forward by the Government will make absolutely sacrosanct the principle of the preservation of the Good Friday agreement?”,

the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, replied,

“My Lords, I certainly can confirm that”.—[Official Report, 12/3/18; col. 1397.]


So the Government appear to have committed themselves to bringing forward amendments, I assume on Report, to enshrine their obligation to observe the Good Friday agreement.

[Lord Hain]

If that is the case, as my noble friend has reminded us, then the Government should be supporting this amendment and putting it into statute.

During the referendum campaign in 2016 two former Prime Ministers, Sir John Major and Tony Blair, both of whom made significant contributions to the peace process, gave speeches in Derry/Londonderry, in which they stressed that imposing a hard border between the north and the south of the island of Ireland would threaten the very basis of the peace process and the stability that the island of Ireland has enjoyed. Both have cogently reinforced their case in recent weeks and are as alarmed as any of us privileged to have served as Ministers in Northern Ireland.

There are more crossing points along this 310-mile border than there are along the whole of the EU’s eastern frontier: 257 compared with 137. The border crosses family farms and separates towns and villages from their natural hinterlands. It is both invisible and ever present, both unremarkable and deeply contested. Even the younger generation on both sides of the border associates the very idea of border controls with conflict and collective trauma. As well as the formal movement of goods, there are many services from cross-border medical and pharmaceutical transactions to people and data movements between supply chains north and south and the infrastructure issues: energy, telecoms, air and rail travel, environmental standards and so on. If, as the Prime Minister insists, Brexit means the UK leaving the customs union and the single market—a rules-based legal entity, not just a political agreement—then Brexit would unavoidably mean the introduction of a hard Irish border.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I would not want to attribute sinister motives to the Government—I think that somebody managed to get the word “cock-up” into Hansard the other night. Conspiracies are very rare. It is possible—and there are some who believe—that the 26 will lean on Dublin; that is perfectly possible. It is unlikely, and it is of course the case that the European Council decides by unanimity, so if one were looking for a settlement in the European Council which meant that the 26 leaned on Mr Varadkar, Mr Varadkar would have his vote and could say that he did not agree. However, I have seen no signs of the 26 leaning on the Irish. It looks to me from what Mr Tusk said when he went to Dublin the other day that we are heading for another European Council where the Irish position on the hard border and our position on the hard border are recognised by everybody. Nobody wants a hard border.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, surely when he speculates on these matters, the Foreign Secretary himself has publicly contemplated the prospect of a hard border, and his minute to the Prime Minister has been published.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

Certainly, I was unwilling to impute evil motives to the Government, but I am even more unwilling to try to interpret the tergiversations of the Foreign Secretary.

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[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, that being the logical argument, why is the noble Lord against it?

[Lord Empey]

First, I believe that you cannot leave the European Union and remain in the single market and the customs union. I am making the point that the December statement has a contradiction in it.

[Lord Adonis]

But does the noble Lord not also see that he does not have to take account of the Government’s position? He can express his own view freely in this House. Does he not think that remaining in the single market and the customs union would be best for Northern Ireland?

[Lord Empey]

No, I do not. Our big market is here; it is not in the Republic. The same applies to Scotland and everywhere else. The common market of the United Kingdom is more important to us economically than the European Union.

[Lord Adonis]

I am sorry to intervene again, but who knows? Britain might remain in the single market and the customs union too.

[Lord Empey]

It is an incompatibility. There is no point in replacing one incompatibility with another. I am simply saying that if you are in the customs union and the single market, you are in the European Union. If you are out of the European Union, you are not in the single market or the customs union. It is an inevitable consequence. We are arguing for two different things.

Let me point out the scale of the problem we face. The border is not confined to the land border; it is also between the Republic and Great Britain. That side of it is ignored because if you have separate arrangements between Dublin, Holyhead, Fishguard, Rosslare and so on, and you have separate arrangements for us, that is incompatible with the core element of the Good Friday agreement—the principle of consent.

Let us follow the concept in the amendment. In addition to the negotiations with the 27, I see no good reason why we should not have negotiations involving the European Union, ourselves and the Irish Republic, in parallel with or as part of the process. With the European Union as an integral part, in that way we could perhaps narrow down and explore some of the solutions, which I hope and pray exist. I will leave it at that and thank Members for listening to me.

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[Lord Young of Cookham]

That the House do now resume.

[Lord Adonis]

On the subject of the House resuming, we have now been going for nine and a half hours. We have a very important Statement coming up, on relations with Russia, which many noble Lords who have been party to the debate for the past nine and a half hours wish to stay for. I have just been told that the Government are proposing that we do not have any break at all after the Statement, before we resume Committee stage. I see the Leader of the House is in her place. This is totally unacceptable behaviour on the Government’s part. Does she expect us to remain in session for 12 or 15 hours, conducting the business of the House, with no break whatsoever? The way in which the Government are handling Committee stage is simply unacceptable. If the Government do not give us a break, I intend to move a further adjournment when the Government attempt to resume Committee stage in, I assume, 40 minutes’ time.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, there will be an opportunity for those who have been taking an interest in Committee to have a break of 40 minutes while we take the Statement. The Government are anxious to make progress with the Bill.

[Lord Adonis]

The Statement is on one of the most important issues facing the country. Is the noble Lord telling us that we have to choose between having a break and participating in the Statement on Russia? That is simply unacceptable. I do not think that the usual channels should have agreed it, if it has been agreed. It seems to me to be a straightforwardly unacceptable practice.

Motion agreed.