European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barwell, for whom I had great respect when we served together in Croydon some years ago. I think it is important that old arguments are not rerun in this debate: wherever one stands in relation to the 2016 referendum and subsequent debates, we are now where we are. I suspect, however, that it remains important for certain matters of principle to be rearticulated even at this stage, as the record will need to be clear when the history comes to be written, not least regarding the wisdom of writing into law hard deadlines for an implementation period. Do we not have anything to learn from recent history?

I believe it is essential to refute the charge that Parliament stopped Brexit happening. It did not. Parliament did its job and performed its democratic role, fulfilling its responsibility to question, scrutinise and hold the Executive to account. That might be inconvenient to “getting the job done”, but that phrase, widely propagated by people who know very well what they are doing, adds a lie to a lie. Countries where parliament simply nods to the executive’s will are not generally respected as paragons of democratic virtue or freedom. This is the basic reason why amendments will be tabled this week to the Bill as received by this House. The other place might well have the numbers to ignore this House, but it remains this House’s responsibility to make the points, raise the arguments and urge improvement to the text. I will therefore attend to a couple of matters of principle rather than detail.

If the point of Brexit was to restore parliamentary sovereignty, recalling that opponents were seen to be democratically suspect, it seems odd at this stage to seek to limit parliamentary scrutiny of the process after 31 January. Asking the Government to treat Parliament with respect—that is, informing, listening and consulting—must surely lie at the heart of any successful Brexit process, and making Brexit succeed for the good of all in this country must surely be the aim and commitment of all of us, regardless of whether we think Brexit was a wise or good move in the first place.

This in turn means that the Government must assume the best of those who question and not simply write them off as saboteurs; I would be grateful if the Minister, in response, would give this assurance. Failure to do so would risk feeding and fostering the sort of rhetoric and attitude that Brexit was supposed to protect us from as a sovereign nation. Making Brexit work best for everyone and mitigating its negative impacts will require the Government to see questioning and debate as constructive, a means to strengthen parliamentary support. Brexit will not be done by 31 January 2020, and the process beyond then will demand more than just compliance or acquiescence.

Furthermore, it is regrettable that the Bill now seeks to remove what would be universally seen as a touchstone of civilised society. How many children now live in poverty in this affluent country, whose magic money tree has mysteriously started blossoming since the last general election campaign was launched? How many children, surely the most vulnerable people on the planet, find themselves separated from their families through no fault of their own? How many exposed refugee children are now to be kept isolated from familial care and protection because this Parliament appears to deem them incidental to how we do our politics? Their alienation will come at a price later.

I guess noble Lords will hear their own maxims resonating in their consciences. Mine echoes to the sounds of the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, such as Amos, who, despite economic flourishing, religious revival and military security, warned those who

“trample on the heads of the poor”

that this would not be the end of the story. Our integrity and honour will not be judged by whether we rule the world as global Britain, but rather by how we order our society to ensure justice and the dignity of the most vulnerable. Restoring the Dubs provisions would go a long way to restoring that honour.

The Bill will go through. How it goes through matters. It will say something powerful about who we think we are.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not have the numbers for how many people have applied for a document that confirms settled status, but I can find out. The fact that 2.5 million people have been successful should partly satisfy noble Lords that the system is working well. Also, there have been only five rejections on the system so far. I will come to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, later, but that is quite a decent statistic when you think about the—

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Does she agree that many of the 2.5 million people who have registered have done so resentfully and unhappily, because the process that they have been made to go through is effectively applying for a status that many of them have for decades felt that they should have had automatically? Even though I accept that the system might be working successfully, and I applaud that, there are still some reassurances to be given—the soft power, if you like—to those, many of whom I know in my own diocese, who have applied with a great deal of resentment and unhappiness.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I have spoken to my noble friends beside me and I have not had any feedback on resentment. I have had feedback on the fact that we have made the scheme free, which was a noble thing for the previous Home Secretary and Prime Minister to do. The fact that so many people now have a status they can prove can be only a good thing.

We are processing 20,000 applications every day. We are working with communities—sometimes on a one-to-one basis because some people find the filling-in of any application process difficult.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 27 and 28, and I would have put my name to Amendment 40 had I seen it before the deadline. This is a sad day for me, not just because these amendments are necessary but because today I have disagreed very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. We have sat together companionably for six years. He is like a human form of Wikipedia. He knows everything that there is to know about all noble Lords and this saves me from having to use my phone.

Returning to the amendments, I hope that Hansard has a copy and paste function, because, quite honestly, we have been over this time and again. Noble Lords have said the same things to the Government again and again, and at one point it seemed to have sunk in, because the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill last year contained a whole load of provision for parliamentary scrutiny. I know that the Minister will reply to us with his tried and tested lines that we have heard before—but, quite honestly, that is not enough. The election has changed things and now the Government have gutted the agreement Bill of all scrutiny. I say to the Minister that, just because his Government now have a majority in the other place, that does not make them right or mean that this is the right thing to do. It does not make them immune from parliamentary scrutiny. Our job is to hold the Government to account, and if they scrap us—well, actually, I have been trying to abolish the House of Lords for six years and it has not worked so far.

Is it not obvious that a lack of parliamentary engagement—a failure to bring the majority on board—is what led to the parliamentary deadlock when the final deal was secured? Instead of working with Parliament, the Government told us that there would be no running commentary and that the sharing of details would undermine the negotiations and so on. Scrutiny was deferred until the very last stages of the negotiations when, instead of it being a mere inconvenience, it culminated in a crescendo of chaos. Had the Government engaged constructively with Parliament, things could have turned out very differently. However, despite all those lessons, the Government are, once again, trying to sideline Parliament.

Over the coming weeks and months, much will be made of the Salisbury convention and the extent to which this House should exercise its powers and functions to scrutinise, correct and improve. My stomach slightly turned over when the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that we had to trust the Government. Well, actually, no, we do not. It is our job to trust when it is appropriate to trust and to distrust when we can see that they are going wrong. When the Government try to shut down scrutiny in the way they have with this amended Bill, it leaves this House with no choice but to exercise its constitutional might as far as that extends. The last stage of the negotiations was the easy bit. It is the next stage that is going to set out all our future concerns. That negotiation must be got right, and this sovereign Parliament absolutely must play its role in securing that for the national interest.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I think that the context has changed. When the Benn amendment went through, it was suspected of having the intention to thwart or delay Brexit. We are not in that position now: Brexit is going to go ahead. Surely, then, it is the job of the whole of Parliament to defend and promote its own interests and those of the Government in the negotiations going forward. So, in a perverse way, this amendment strengthens the hand of the Government by bringing in Parliament to back it and provide support as they embark on their negotiations; it does not diminish it.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I wish to support Amendment 27, and at this stage in proceedings I will be brief. I found it endearing when the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that we must place our trust in the Government. I tend more to side with the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, on this. The Government have made it very clear that their version of taking back control is to do their best to shut out Parliament as far as possible. We need only to look at the illegal attempt to prorogue Parliament to see that in action. Why, if they were very keen for us to be involved in the trade negotiations, would they go to the trouble of taking out of the Bill the clause that would have given us that involvement? It might be right—as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said—that we should put our faith in the Speaker of the Commons. But, again, why should we do that when we could have the safety of having our own involvement on the face of the Bill?

My second point is quite straightforward. I find it embarrassing when this House is threatened that trying to do its job will result in a potential threat to its survival. We have a very simple role: it is scrutiny—not to thwart the will of the Commons but to ensure that we improve legislation. We can improve this piece of legislation. We should do that, and if we do not have the courage to do that because we are worried about our own survival, we do not deserve to survive.