European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Although manufacturing is very important, it is a smaller and diminishing proportion of our export earnings. As I think the government White Paper points out, at least 33% of the value embedded in any manufactural product—I think the figure is 37%—comes from services. When you think about manufacturing, you have to think about something that is really not quite a manufacture or a service; it is a product of a service and high technology. A good example for the noble Lord is the Japanese company Uniqlo, which produces garments—not from Japanese manufacturing but from Japanese technology and services. All around the world, this pattern is developing. What I am trying to bring before your Lordships is the realisation—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Is the noble Lord aware that chapter 9 of the White Paper shows that the fastest growth in goods and services exported from this country is in Liechtenstein, at 40%? In the first 20 of the only 21 countries shown in the White Paper, the United States does not even get a mention.

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[Lord Berkeley]

I just wonder if the noble Lord would find it useful if one of the four noble Lords whose name is down on Amendment 22 spoke to it before he responded to it.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

To be absolutely fair, I spoke to Amendment 22 earlier in the name of the others. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Kerslake will now manage to deal with the aspersions cast upon him.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 24 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lea. In the last grouping, I thought that the response of the Minister to my noble friends Lady Massey and Lady Jones on the issues that they raised was very helpful. As we are in Committee, it is reasonable for us to be able to probe issues of concern to us and I hope that we will be able to continue to do that. Amendment 24 asks the Minister whether the Government have considered what will happen to these 22 different agencies—there are probably an awful lot more—with a very wide remit. We will be talking about some of them such as Euratom on Wednesday. What do the Government think will happen to these agencies? It would still be possible under certain circumstances for the UK to be represented on some of these agencies, depending on the future structure of and our relationship with Europe.

What I get from discussions with many different organisations—some of the ones listed here, particularly the railway ones, but quite a few others—is the uncertainty. Manufacturers and the industry are worried about it. My noble friend Lord Mandelson spoke about this earlier. This is to do with standards and who administers them and it affects whether or not a piece of equipment can be sold or operated within the EU.

I hope that the Government have started thinking about all these agencies. They obviously have about some of them because the medical agency has already decided to leave, which is very sad. But each one is a fairly major agency in its own right and affects a lot of people’s jobs and businesses. So I would be very pleased to hear from the Minister what thought has been given to this. I cannot believe that any of it is really confidential, but I look forward to hearing his comments.

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, I support this amendment. A good case was made by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and my noble friend Lord Oates. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, made a very good case for structured scrutiny instead of ad hoc questioning. That is exactly what these amendments do. I cannot see what objection there could be to laying down the parameters for progress reports or access to documents, as proposed in Amendment 18. Today we heard a second former Prime Minister give a very interesting speech. John Major said he has watched with concern as the British people have been led to expect a future that seems unreal and overoptimistic. He urged the Government to be realistic about the timescale and complexity of the huge undertaking that lies ahead. Those are wise words. I thought that the words of Tony Blair were wise, too. It is funny what kind of alliances one is forging in these times.

Such warnings should be heeded. The complexity of the task demands the kind of scrutiny and reassurance that would come from regular reporting. I am sorry to disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who contributes so wisely on the EU Select Committee and, indeed, on the same sub-committee that I do. Select Committee inquiries and reports are very different because they are on certain topics and issues. They are not the same as regular reporting on the progress of negotiations and the detail of what exactly our relationship is going to be with all the agencies listed in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.

We on these Benches believe that it is very important to lay down an overall framework covering the regularity and content of reports and knowledge of documents. We have heard pledges from the Secretary of State that the Westminster Parliament will not be treated any worse than the European Parliament—a scenario evoked by my noble friend Lord Teverson. There cannot be any objection to the Government agreeing these kinds of parameters.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be as quick as I possibly can in supporting my noble friend’s amendment. As my noble friend said, this a disparate group of agencies with different structures. Many of them do not even need funding, but they are necessary for the ongoing business that I hope the UK will continue to do. As chairman of the Rail Freight Group, I attended a meeting today with Brexit Ministers and transport Ministers to talk about how Brexit would affect the rail sector. It was very interesting and very nice of the industry to invite us. They were seeking our advice and our concerns so that they could formulate their policy.

This amendment asks for a report before Article 50 is triggered. It will not happen because they are still looking for ideas—but at least they are asking us. I will give a couple of examples of our concerns. I had three. The first was about what happens at frontiers. Most of our freight these days comes across the Channel from Dover or through the Channel Tunnel and 80% of the drivers are non-British citizens. Will they all have to fill in this 84-page document that we heard about earlier? I hope not—but this is something that has to be recognised.

Secondly, if customs procedures are so long and complicated—I understand that if the port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel were closed for a day, the traffic jam would extend beyond Stansted Airport, which would be a bit of a blockage on the motorway—this, too, must be recognised.

Thirdly, the European Railway Agency sets standards and enforces them. I have worked very hard over the years to make sure the agency does its job properly, because it helps our industry quite dramatically. It means that there is one standard for railways across Europe and, as some noble Lords will know, the railways across Europe are incredibly old-fashioned. It was only recently that they managed to standardise the red lights on the back of trains. Otherwise, when a train got to a frontier, the driver had to walk from the front to the back and change the light—which is ridiculous in this day and age.

The European Railway Agency has stopped all that. We recently had some rail wagons that were manufactured and designed in this country and the company wanted to operate them in France. The French regulators said that they could not come because they did not comply with their regulations—which were probably created especially to keep out other people’s equipment. That kind of thing still goes on until the European Railway Agency gets involved—so if we want to export our equipment to other member states, we will somehow have to remain involved.

I hope we can continue to do so. An awful lot of jobs will be at risk if we do not—in the railways and other sectors. I am sure that a way can be found of doing it—not necessarily in the way that the Minister talked about in the earlier debate on Euratom, but I hope it will happen. I hope that at some point in the summer, as my noble friend said, we will have a report from the Government on their plan for what they intend to do. The industry at our meeting today told us that they needed to plan ahead and needed information. We need to find out what we should do in the future to make sure that we can preserve our jobs here and preserve our export opportunities. I hope that the Minister can give us some comfort on this. I am sure he did not mean to make a derogatory remark on Monday about the Community Plant Variety Office. I do not know anything about that, but some of these other agencies are extremely important for the future of trade with the rest of Europe, however that will be achieved.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly at this late hour, I want to say how grateful we are to the noble Lord, Lord Lea, for raising the list that he has produced for us. On behalf of these Benches, I would say that this emphasises the complexity of what the Government are entering into. We would, of course, like to know exactly how the Government will respond, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

Good morning, my Lords. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this amendment again, as I did on Monday night.

Let me start by saying that these agencies are important and I was not wishing in any shape or form to be derogatory about any agency. The Government dispute the suggestion that we have to wait before triggering Article 50 to publish a report on all these agencies, but I think that the noble Lord made that point in his own words.

The list, as the noble Lord, Lord Lea, pointed out, covers a range of different policy areas: aviation, fisheries, justice and home affairs, banking and customs. Our approach to a lot of these policy areas was, of course, covered in the White Paper. There is a lot of analysis going on.

[Lord Berkeley]

The White Paper has only seven lines addressed to agencies.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I entirely concede that point. Forgive me: I have obviously not expressed myself well at this early hour of the morning. What I am saying is that those agencies touch on different areas of policy.

I entirely understand the noble Lord’s wish for greater clarity and his need to scrutinise our proposals. As I have said before at this Dispatch Box, and I will go on saying it, when we can provide further information we will.

Consequent to that, the noble Lord rightly says that industry and the sectors look for more certainty. I am very aware of that. I, too, have had excellent meetings with, for example, the freight industry, with those involved in ports and so on. We are fully aware of that. It is in our interests, it is in their interests and it is in Parliament’s interests to provide as much detail as we can when we can. I am very sorry to say that I am not now going to be committing to do so at a certain juncture or in a certain format, but I can assure the noble Lord that we are analysing all these points and we will keep the House fully up to date.

I have very little further to add to this. Given the range of policy areas that this touches on, I could talk for a long time—but I do not think that noble Lords would want me to—about banking, about the chemicals agency or such things. Now is not the time for me to do that, so I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.