European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

I am precisely proposing a compromise, which is to take the Prime Minister’s deal, which is the best deal that can be negotiated if we are to have Brexit, and put it to the nation, with the alternative option being to stay in the European Union. That is a compromise that would bring both sides together. The compromise I do not think it is possible to have, which I know the noble Lord, Lord Howell, hankers after, is some half-bastardised form of Brexit. We have spent month after month searching for that and I am afraid that, like the holy grail, it does not exist.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that people were confused three years ago. Does he agree? Now they are much more informed, so they can make a much more informed decision. It is not fair to compare that with the people’s decision three years ago.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Lord makes a very powerful further argument for the second referendum. I support his argument; he will make his speech later and I hope he will develop that important point. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that, because we have not been able to produce a Brexit that lives up to the promises made three years ago, and because there is not—let us be frank—a parliamentary majority prepared to support it on principle, I think the only compromise that is now viable for the country at large is to put that deal to the people, because it is technically possible to implement it, but with an alternative option to stay in the European Union. It is my view that the majority will vote for the option to stay in the European Union because it is now so obviously preferable to the Prime Minister’s deal, and the £39 billion that we would pay the EU for worse trade and economic terms than we have now—the arguments go on. The people could make that judgment.

I will make one final remark about the situation we now face. One former leader of the Conservative Party, the noble Lord, Lord Howard, has spoken and made a very hard-line speech, if I may say so, about how we need to leave with no deal. An equally significant intervention was made this week by another former leader of that party, a Member of this House who, alas, is not in his place and speaking this evening, the noble Lord, Lord Hague of Richmond. On Tuesday, he wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph and it is very important for those engaged in the Brexit debate to read it. I would particularly recommend it to noble Lords on the Conservative Benches and maybe even more so to Conservative MPs, many of whom, from my watching of debates in the House of Commons, have become extremely hard-line and militant on this issue of the need for a no-deal Brexit.

This is what the noble Lord, Lord Hague, wrote:

“Do not underestimate … the immense danger of continuing to pull apart from each other while the public looks on with an irritation that is now turning to dismay, and at any moment could turn to anger … the Conservatives are inevitably identified with the Brexit project, for good or ill, and slowly, steadily, the case for Brexit is being lost … The Conservatives … face the terrible double prospect of voters shifting away from supporting their central policy, while those who do support it become enraged by the failure to deliver it … My advice to my old colleagues is therefore this: if you don't get Brexit over the line now, it will probably never happen”.


Brexit has not been got over the line; it will probably never happen. The right thing for the nation, and maybe even for the Conservative Party, is for it to be buried, for the nightmare to end and for us then to carry on our national life in a much better prospect.

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[Lord Bilimoria]

Could the noble Lord clarify the results he has just cited? When he says, “against”, is it no deal versus revoking Article 50? If not, what is it against?

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

It is no deal versus remain in the EU. That is what the question was in the YouGov poll this morning. I have it on my mobile; I will talk to the noble Lord afterwards and give it to him.

[Lord Bilimoria]

I have got the figures right here. The latest YouGov poll, which I looked at today, says that 37% were for a second referendum, 26% for no deal and 11% for the PM’s deal. No deal being a bad outcome was 50%, versus 25% for it being a good outcome.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

That is very different from the poll I saw. Perhaps after this debate the noble Lord and I might share a drink and we can compare polls. However, I stand by the figures that I cited from today’s YouGov poll.

Earlier this afternoon, the noble Lord, Lord Owen, who is generally admired, warned this House to be very careful. He was right to say that. The reputation of this House has been damaged by the perception—perhaps no more than that—that it is against leaving the EU and against the result of the referendum voted for by 17.4 million people. If this goes on, and the House continues to thwart and block the result of that historic vote, I fear that the feeling will quickly turn to downright contempt, and deservedly so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I was on the phone at 7 am to one of my fellow directors in Australia. I said to him, “What a mess our country is in. It’s harming the UK so much”, and he said to me, “Karan, Brexit is not just a mess for the UK; it is a mess for all of us around the world”.

There is no question that Brexit was caused by the faction within the Conservative Party that has existed for more than 25 years and is vehemently anti-Europe, as we have seen today, and by UKIP, which polled 14% of the vote in the 2015 elections. Sam Gyimah, the former Minister, recently said in the Evening Standard that ambitious Conservative MPs used to talk about the economy and the big society, but:

“Now ambitious … MPs are saying, ‘I have no fear of no deal’”.


We have heard time and again in this debate that no deal would be a disaster by all accounts. The noble Lord, Lord Stern, a world-renowned economist, has said that the damage could be up to £200 billion—20 times the £8 billion to £10 billion a year that we contribute to the European Union. The noble Lord, Lord True, who is not in his place, said that I have spoken in 40 debates about the European Union. It may be more. We have looked at specific aspects of Brexit. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and I spoke on Erasmus and Horizon 2020, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and I have spoken in many such debates. In consumer rights and every field that you look at, no deal is a disaster for that area. It will be a disaster for our universities, our businesses and our consumers. This Bill is required because we are in a crisis. We are in an emergency and are facing a cliff edge. We have been watching a train crash in slow motion. The train is about to crash and in fact it nearly crashed on 29 March.

The Government and the Prime Minister have lost control. By how much more can you lose control than losing by 230 votes—the biggest loss in history—then 140-plus, then 50-plus? Three times the Prime Minister has gone back to MPs and asked them to change their minds, yet the people of this country are not given one chance to change theirs. That is hypocrisy beyond belief. How many times today, throughout the afternoon and in this debate, have I heard mention of the 17.4 million people? As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said: what about the 16.1 million? A true democracy is one that respects a minority, let alone a large minority. Let us not forget that, in the nationwide referendum in 1975, the number of people who voted to remain in the European Community was—wait for this, my Lords—17.4 million. The difference is that that 17.4 million people made up not 52% but 67% of the number that voted—an overwhelming, definite majority.

We have a divided Parliament, a divided House of Commons and a divided country. The House of Commons has voted more than once to say that no deal is not an option, but the Prime Minister has not been willing to legislate for that. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, started this debate by saying that there is a lack of trust. The most important thing that I have learned in business is trust. If there is no trust, there is nothing. How can we now trust the Prime Minister and the Government when they say, “No deal is better than a bad deal”? They refer to “the will of the people”, but which people? They are talking about the people who voted three years ago.

Then they say that the will of the manifesto has now overtaken the will of the people. However, when it suits them, the manifesto is ignored. What about the grammar schools and the dementia tax? What about the fact that people do not read manifestos? There are more than 200 items in every manifesto. First, people do not even know that they exist; secondly, they do not read all 200 items; and, thirdly, they do not vote for the one item in the manifesto that says, “We will implement the result of the referendum”. It is nonsense to say that.

The electorate has changed. We talk about the 17.4 million and the tyranny of the majority, but three years later two of my children are now of voting age, whereas they were not in June 2016. Three years later, there are 2.4 million people of voting age who were not of voting age then. Three years later, the youth who did not turn out to vote regret that they did not. If given another chance, they will mobilise and turn out in droves, and that 1.3 million majority will seem a pittance. This Bill is essential to delay Brexit and prevent no deal.

There is one thing that no one has brought up. In the final stages of Brexit, this House has been left out completely. We should have had all the meaningful votes and indicative votes that have been going on in another place. We should have been doing them side by side in this House to show what we feel about the issue, just as we do with legislation. We were not given the chance, although finally, today, we have been given a chance to have a say through this Bill. Time and again, it has been pointed out in the context of this Bill that the House of Lords is the guardian of our wonderful, special unwritten constitution and that it is a check and balance on the other place, yet time and again the Prime Minister has tried to sideline Parliament. She started by trying to implement Article 50 without coming to Parliament. It took the brave Gina Miller to take on the Government, the law and the whole of our constitution, with the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary being stretched and challenged, and finally we got a say through the courts. The Government then tried to bypass Parliament in not disclosing their legal advice.

Today, after 12 and a half years in this wonderful House, which I absolutely love, I have seen it at its worst. I have seen blatant filibustering by Members of the extreme Brexit wing. Seven Motions took seven and a half hours, but it felt like seven and a half years. They were strung out deliberately; those Motions could have been debated within one hour. In my 12 and a half years, I have never seen anyone use the Motion, “That the Question be now put”, which was moved by my noble Friemd, Lord Pannick, just to put an end to the first round of filibustering, let alone seen it used so many times just to vote to get on with things. The worst part is that a lot of the movers of those Motions had their names down to speak in this debate, but there are only two of them here; the rest have scratched.

Then the Government tried to insert a Motion from the Finance Bill Sub-Committee of the Economic Affairs Committee, which I have sat on for many years, to do with making tax digital. There were two other debates, one of them to do with Europe, which I was going to speak in but were scratched, but that Motion was left in. And who were the speakers in that debate? People who signed up at the last minute who are Members of that extreme pro-Brexit wing, whom I have never seen in all my years in that Finance Bill Sub-Committee having anything to do with the committee or speaking on anything that it has produced. Luckily, that debate was pulled at the last minute.

[Baroness Noakes]

I have been a member of the Finance Bill Sub-Committee for many years, though not absolutely every year. I was a member of that committee this year, so I intended to speak. I hope the noble Lord is not referring to me in those remarks.

[Lord Bilimoria]

Absolutely not. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is here. She was a member of that committee, and I have sat on the committee with her. I was referring to other people. By the way, today’s running order was blessed by the Government. Could the Minister explain how they came to that?

Today, I was not proud of the behaviour of our House. At many stages I felt ashamed of the disgraceful behaviour that I do not think was befitting of the finest, highest-quality debating Chamber in the world. I asked one of our Members who has been here for nearly 50 years, “How bad is this compared with Maastricht?” He said, “Maastricht was a tea party compared with this”.

My noble friend Lord Pannick has clearly said that the Bill is not perfect. None of us says that it is perfect; it was rushed through at the other end. However, he and my noble and learned friend Lord Judge have already found a way of amending the Bill in Committee that will allow it to be effective and will prevent us reaching the cliff edge.

Before I conclude, I want to emphasise how much we need the Bill, because what has been agreed so far is nothing. If my noble friend Lord Kerr were here, he would say, “I wrote Article 50 in order for those two years to be used to agree a future relationship. The withdrawal Bill just becomes part of that, and then you leave after two years having agreed it”. We have not negotiated our future relationship. We have negotiated only three things: people, the backstop and money. And £39 billion out of a £2 trillion economy is absolutely not material in the long run; this big figure is actually not a material figure. What about the political declaration—the wish list of our future? Nothing has been negotiated at all: tariffs, customs, services, market access, regulation, financial services, digital, capital markets, intellectual property, movement of people, aviation, roads, maritime, energy, civil nuclear, data exchange, foreign policy, security, defence, space, cybersecurity or counterterrorism—

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

Would the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Bilimoria]

Do not ruin my momentum, please; I will give way in a second. Nothing has been agreed.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

I have great sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord. Is it not a fact that it was the European Union that insisted on the sequencing of the negotiations and was not prepared to talk about the future relationship until the withdrawal agreement had been effected, contrary to Article 50?

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[Lord Bilimoria]

The noble Lord, with all his experience, has pre-empted what I was about to say next. The European Union has played a blinder. Recently, I gave a master class at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, where I am chair of the advisory board, using Brexit as a case study in textbook negotiating techniques. We have made all the mistakes—including on process, which the European Union dictated.

The biggest reason we are in the position we are is that the 27 different, disparate countries of the EU had one very clear mandate and one negotiator. How many times have our negotiators changed? The position of Brexit Secretary is a revolving door. That is why the EU has done so well: it has negotiated brilliantly and with a clear mandate.

Michel Barnier, in his speech on 1 April in Brussels, said clearly that the EU would accept the current deal, a customs union, a relationship similar to that with Norway or no deal, for which it claims it is better prepared than we are, having taken protective measures—though it has not done so willingly. Lastly, Michel Barnier said the EU will accept an extension, but it will need strong justification. What will that justification be? He has been clear that there will be a painful “political cost” for this extension and, if we have not left by 23 May, we will have to take part in the European elections. He also made it very clear that a long extension is for,

“a member on its way out”.

The uncertainty is something the EU will hate.

This evening, I was meant to be giving a lecture for the London Business School about brands. I thought about the brands of Great Britain and the UK—

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

The noble Lord should have gone.

[Lord Bilimoria]

The noble Lord may not like what I am saying, but it is true. There is lots he has not heard. It is so heartening to see heckling from a sedentary position from a Minister; it makes me even prouder of this House.

I thought about the brands of Great Britain and the UK and the world saying, “What is this great country, at the top of the world table, doing to itself?”

We must pass this Bill. We must extend Article 50. It must be a long extension and we must put it back to the people—today’s people, not the people who voted three years ago. We must put it back to today’s electorate, reflecting today’s world and today’s facts, not those of three years ago. When people are given that chance, it will be a two-thirds majority to remain in the European Union—the best deal by far.

[Earl Cathcart (Con)]

My Lords, this is the first time I have spoken today, but I will try to be brief. I do not think that I can support this Bill, for the following reasons. We are told that this business is an emergency, but of course it is not. We have had nearly three years to prepare for it and the Government have assured us that they are ready to leave without an agreement if necessary. Indeed, more than half the public now thinks that it is the right thing to do. I am rather nervous about using YouGov, but it did a study and asked voters:

“If Britain has not agreed a deal by April 12th, what do you think should happen?”.


I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lords, Lord Hannay, Lord Adonis and Lord Bilimoria, but every English and Welsh region outside the M25 would be happy to leave the EU without a deal if no agreement has been reached by the end of next week.

[Lord Bilimoria]

The overall result for the whole country, if you include Scotland and Northern Ireland, was 44% to 42%—a very narrow margin. It was not as stark as the noble Lord said.

[Earl Cathcart]

The result was still in favour of leaving with no deal. We are told that emergency legislation is necessary, but the reality is that the Prime Minister has already said that she will seek an extension beyond 12 April—so where is the emergency? The convention is that emergency legislation passed in one day has the consent of both Houses before being brought forward: in other words, it is not contentious. This clearly is not the case with this Bill, as could be seen in the voting last night in another place.

Not only is this Bill not an emergency but: it is not necessary. As I said, the Prime Minister has already agreed to seek a further extension, which is what this Bill seeks to achieve. If passed, it will become UK law. When the Prime Minister recently sought an extension to 30 June, the EU came back with the two dates of 12 April and 22 May. The withdrawal agreement said that extensions could be made if passed by a statutory instrument in both Houses. However, the Prime Minister circumvented that by getting Sir Tim Barrow, our man in Brussels, to write to Brussels accepting their offer. Hey presto—we were told that that was sufficient to be an international agreement, and that international agreements trumped UK law, so the SI was just a tidying-up exercise. So what is to stop the Prime Minister seeking another extension by getting our man in Brussels to write another letter? Then, hey presto, we would have another international agreement that would trump this Bill if passed.

I have another point: traditionally, only a Minister may move a money resolution in support of legislation that requires expenditure of public funds. There is a very good reason for that: it is because the Government have responsibility for the Budget. If they want to spend more, they have to raise more money through taxes or borrowing. This Bill could have very significant financial consequences indeed. Staying in the EU for any length of time would be an extremely expensive thing to do and I believe that it would need a money resolution, which must be moved by a Minister of the Crown in the other place. I understand that a report from the other place says that, if we extended our stay in the EU for two more years, it would cost the UK taxpayer some £36 billion—a huge sum of money.

I was quite taken by something that my noble friend the Leader of the House said in her remarks earlier today. She said:

“Because of the speed at which this legislation is being considered, we have genuine concerns that this Bill could tie the hands of government and, in fact, be contrary to its stated objectives”,


and could lock us into leaving without a deal. My noble friend then gave the example of the Prime Minister going to Brussels next Wednesday. She might ask for a further extension to, say, Friday 31 May. Brussels might say no but, late at night—as it has done previously—come back with a counter offer of, say, Monday 22 May. All the leaders of the 27 would then go home. This Bill would then allow Sir Oliver Letwin and his friends in the Labour Party to consider this offer on the Thursday and either agree it or not. That would leave the EU 27 only until Friday 12 April to agree the date or, indeed, a new date chosen by the Commons. We know that, if all the 27 have not agreed by 11pm on the 12th, we will leave with no deal. That, presumably, is not something that the movers of this Bill would want.

I do not think that that will happen. I do not believe that this Bill will have any teeth if it is passed. If the Prime Minister wants to accept the offer of a new date from the EU, she will just get her man in Brussels to write another letter. This will again create an international agreement, which will trump anything that the Commons proposes through this Bill.