Civil Procedure (Amendment) (EU Exit) Rules 2019

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Hope of Craighead

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to follow the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, mainly because I have been involved in one or two cases in the Supreme Court where this type of procedure has been used. It causes real problems for appellate judges because one of the features of the closed procedure is that you cannot give reasons for your decision that can be made public so you are taking a decision in private, the reasons for which are kept private as well. That is the situation that we are faced with.

With regard to the content of this measure, however, I cannot see it as extending the procedure any further than it exists at present. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I did not get up earlier because I could not see anything to comment on in the substance of the instrument. I cannot speak for other noble and learned Lords but I think there is some virtue in remaining silent if you have nothing to say.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I have never suffered from that difficulty. What the noble and learned Lord has said is very reassuring. It seems to a non-lawyer reading the Explanatory Memorandum as if the issues at stake are significant, not minor. From what he is saying, I think it is fair to say that while no one doubts the significance of closed material procedures, let alone the sanctions regimes to which they apply, this does not involve any changes. Some of my good friends on the Lib Dem Benches are very wary of closed material procedures, as am I. Indeed, I find the noble and learned Lord’s brief description of them—judgments in which no reasons are given in public at all—to be a matter of extreme concern, and they should take place only in the most extreme circumstances. I am amazed that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, allowed measures like that to pass through the House at all, given his views on the growing extent of executive powers.

However, on the basis that there is in fact no actual change in powers that have already been granted by Parliament, clearly we would be doing the right thing just to allow this order to go through.

Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Hope of Craighead

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, it is important that the House does not lose its capacity to be shocked by the scale of the dislocation that may be imposed by the Government on the country in one month’s time if no deal Brexit proceeds.

In a succession of speeches, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has laid out the impact of no deal on motor industry regulation and she did a good job of weaving together the changes in relation to insurance, accidents and international driving licences. The extraordinary thing about it is that, because we are going back to pre-1973 law, not only are many bureaucratic requirements being imposed but they are being imposed in a way that is entirely pre-digital.

Noble Lords will recall the green card but I am still of an age where I do not recall it—I do not think the Minister recalls the green card—which is a telling remark. You have to be—how can I put this delicately?—of a certain age to remember the green card. I certainly do not remember the international driving licence. However, as we go into this Alice in Wonderland world of disaster that the Government propose to inflict on the country, we now know that not only will you require an international driving licence and a green card but you will have to have them as physical constructs because the regulations under which they are imposed go back to the pre-digital era. You will have to get a physical international driver’s licence or licences—the Minister can intervene on me at any stage if she wishes—and a physical green card. Is that correct?

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

I am old enough to remember the green card, which you had to produce when crossing a border. When you went through what were independent countries, at each border you had to produce a green card, which was a document in your hand. Has the noble Lord any solution to the problem of what we must do if we are to satisfy the authorities abroad that we are covered by third-party insurance? That is what the green card is all about. It is a document to show that you have third-party insurance. It should go on your policy anyway. It is a document that shows that what is in your policy is transferrable and understood by the countries you want to visit.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, my submission is that we should not be engaging in a no-deal Brexit in the first place.

Let us be clear about the obligations that the Government are now imposing on the country: it is entirely within the Government’s power to rescind the notice under Article 50 so that we do not crash out in four weeks’ time. If the Government cannot persuade Parliament to agree to arrangements in the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement that do not involve the country descending into Dante’s circles of hell in four weeks’ time by leaving with no deal, the Government’s duty would be to ensure that we do not leave with no deal. There are two ways of doing this: they could rescind the notice under Article 50 or they could have agreed at any point in the last six months to apply for an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period, which Parliament may impose on them next week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I am sorry to intervene again on the noble Lord’s interesting speech. That cost is not the product of this instrument at all but of travelling into a country with which we no longer have the relationship that we have at the moment. Their laws will impose on us the requirement to carry the green card and prove that we have the necessary insurance if we enter their territory. I do not think it follows from the instrument. I may be wrong, but I would be interested if the noble Lord could point me to a paragraph in the instrument itself, rather than the memorandum, which has that effect. I would be very surprised if it did.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I am guided by the Explanatory Memorandum, which has highlighted this as an impact of these new arrangements.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

The noble Lord is obviously pointing out for our information that this is the effect of the problem we are facing, which I think he is suggesting we ought to know about. My point is that it is not the effect of the instrument. If he is asking for a statement on the effect of the instrument in the documents that follow, that is not the right question to ask.

[Lord Adonis]

I now understand the noble and learned Lord’s point, which is to distinguish between the precise provisions of the instrument and the regime that will apply around the matters covered by the instrument when we leave the EU without a deal. That distinction will not pass muster with the 2 to 4 million citizens a year who will be required to have green cards, or with pretty much the entire population of the border territories of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, who will have these obligations imposed.

My final question for the Minister is a serious one. If there is a requirement to have a green card, and therefore new insurance documentation, for all citizens in Ireland’s border territory, what legal advice does she have on how that can be reconciled with the Good Friday agreement to have no further border controls or impediments between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland?

The issues raised by the statutory instrument are profound and need to be properly debated in this House. I for one do not intend to be silenced by Conservative Peers who would much rather these issues were swept under the carpet.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, the noble Lord should be rather careful about drawing comparisons between the EU as a place to travel and to work in, and Australia and Canada. My son studied in Canada, where there is a strict visa system for students: you have to leave as soon as you have finished your course, and he had to be very careful to get himself out of the country before his permission ran out. You need a visa even to visit Australia, and I suspect that it also has rules for visas if you have to work there. Of course people go there, and that visa system is comparatively relaxed, but it is not the same as the freedom we have in the EU.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, if I may take over from where the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, left off, of course even the access we have to Australia is hugely facilitated by the fact that it is a former colony which has the same language and so many practices which are familiar to Brits, and is therefore a comparatively easy and familiar place to travel. It does not at all make the argument that somehow divorcing ourselves from the continent will enlarge opportunities for young people. However, I am a natural optimist—indeed, one could hardly be otherwise in the hours we are all investing in seeking to improve the Bill. Some good things are coming out of the Brexit process; actually, the whole thing might stop as a result of them.

The noble Baroness is completely right that one thing that is happening is the massive engagement by young people in politics and the political process. That did not take place before. We had all bought into the idea that the young were not voting or taking an interest in the future, and that politics was decided by the elderly. We had the triple lock on pensions at the same time as we were trebling tuition fees. Those two policies, more than anything else, symbolise the political centre of gravity in the last 10 years—students were expected to pay more and more of the burden of university education while the retired got a better and better deal. That is all changing now. The young are voting and are engaged as never before. They voted in the last general election in numbers which we have not seen for a generation. It is very clear to me that if we move, as I think is increasingly likely, towards a referendum on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, then either in that referendum or whenever a general election comes we will see very high levels of engagement by the young. I think it is now very likely that that will include votes for 16 and 17 year-olds—there is probably a majority in the House of Commons for that now. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, who is a natural conservative, will be fiercely opposed to that.