Brexit: UK-EU Relationship

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Liddle on this debate, because it provides opportunities for yet another time when we can discuss the future, or not, of Brexit. I spend a lot of time on the continent talking about railways and transport, particularly in Brussels, and I share the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Monks and the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts—whom I certainly welcome to this House—that they are sad that we are leaving. However, it is not a question of how we leave; it is either hard Brexit or no Brexit. The approach that some of our Ministers and other commentators seem to be taking, which I term arrogant, will not make the negotiations any easier at all. We will not be able to pick and choose what we can have. We have had many discussions today and in previous debates about picking and choosing, and we will probably go on doing that for a long time. We really need to focus on what we want to get out of it.

We read reports daily in the press of UK business and industry sectors expressing concerns and alarm about job losses or economic problems if we have a hard Brexit. To name but a few, they include research, agriculture, the building industry, finance and transport. I suppose one could add to the list regional aid. It is not an industry but it dramatically helps jobs and so on.

I have looked at transport in a certain amount of detail. There could be problems in the air sector over agreements with the EU on designated routes. Will we continue to be part of the EU open skies policies? There could also be problems regarding ownership of some of the airlines. Would UK carriers be excluded from certain routes? Then there are the possible problems concerning extra customs formalities. Some noble Lords may remember the pictures of queues of trucks trying to cross the Iron Curtain. That could happen again.

There is also the issue of Calais. The camp of the potential immigrants has been removed, so the situation at the moment is much better, but if the French Government got a bit angry with us—although not as the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, suggested—there is no reason why they should not say, “If you’re leaving the EU, you can sort out your own immigration problem. And not only will we not allow the British immigration people to work in Calais any more but we’ll send anybody with a problem across to the UK, where they can claim asylum and it’ll be your problem”. I know that the treaty is not part of the European Union agreements but that could still happen. So my worry is that there will be a risk of a lack of compliance without any ability to make representations and participate if we want to stay in the single market.

I am sure that there is a solution to sorting out the immigration problem—if it is a problem—and it worries me that the Government have already decided what they are going to do. Yesterday, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, said in answer to the first Oral Question:

“The Government have been clear that as we conduct our negotiations it must be a priority to regain more control of the numbers of people who come here from Europe”.—[Official Report, 30/11/16; col. 195.]

We are still in Europe—we have been in Europe for 40 years—and if she is assuming that we have already left, that is probably why we are getting into the trouble we are in.

I suspect that over the next few months, when all the job losses have been added up, people will appreciate the threats much more. If there were another referendum, we would probably have at least 52% in favour of staying in rather than 52%—a very small majority—in favour of trying to get out. As other noble Lords have said, the referendum was advisory. I hope that the Government accept that the will of Parliament has to be tested and that Members of Parliament, having taken the views of their constituents, will be able to vote, as will we in this House, on whether they like the terms of the negotiations and, if necessary, reject them.