European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

93: Before Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“Future interaction with the law and agencies of the EU
Nothing in this Act shall prevent the United Kingdom from—(a) replicating in domestic law any EU law made on or after exit day, or(b) continuing to participate in, or have a formal relationship with, the agencies of the European Union after exit day.”

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I move this amendment for two principal reasons: first, in order to assist the Government in their shaping of their case for the UK’s future relationship with the European Union post Brexit; secondly, because it is consistent with Amendment 49, which was passed earlier on Report.

Speakers in these debates have repeatedly suggested that anyone who moves an amendment is a hypocritical remoaner intent on sabotaging the Bill and trying to prevent Brexit from ever happening. I regret the referendum result, but I accept that the UK is to leave—even on this 73rd anniversary of VE Day. My concern, along with that of many in your Lordships’ House, is to ask the Government seriously to consider improvements to the Bill in order that the people should be clear about the how as well as the what of Brexit, and that the transition to a final arrangement is as good as we can get it. It is my understanding that this is both the role and the responsibility of this House.

I remain concerned that a deeply divided country is being offered two stark alternatives which, if you will bear with me, I will put in biblical terms—someone has to. Like the people of Israel in the desert, we too easily romanticise the past and yearn to return to Egypt; or, on the other hand, we promise on the other side of the mountain a land flowing with milk and honey, ignoring the challenges that go with it not actually being our land to do with as we will.

I mean it seriously when I suggest that we should be honest in our discourse on Brexit and acknowledge that we shall be spending some years in the wilderness as we begin to work out the consequences of the decisions we have taken and the implications of the relationships we must now begin to establish. Wilderness time is not necessarily negative time—simply a time of waiting, wishing and hoping or recriminating—but a time for stripping away the clutter, identifying and owning our values and priorities as a nation and actively bringing together a people divided by their varying apprehensions of events that have befallen them. That serious need for a concrete unifying strategy has yet to be addressed seriously in either House of this Parliament: slogans and wishful thinking are not enough.

With this in mind, then, I come to the substance of the amendment standing in my name, and to which, I am sure, the Prime Minister would give her consent as it rests on commitments already articulated by her. In her Mansion House speech of 2 March 2018, the Prime Minister confirmed for the first time that the UK will seek to maintain a formal relationship with certain EU agencies after Brexit. She further acknowledged that the terms of the future UK-EU relationship may see the UK Parliament take the step of replicating certain provisions of EU law. I hope noble Lords will forgive me for quoting in order to obtain clarity. She said:

“Our default is that UK law may not necessarily be identical to EU law, but it should achieve the same outcomes. In some cases Parliament might choose to pass an identical law—businesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets. If the Parliament of the day decided not to achieve the same outcomes as EU law, it would be in the knowledge that there may be consequences for our market access”.


She went on:

“And there will need to be an independent mechanism to oversee these arrangements”.


She also said:

“We will also want to explore with the EU, the terms on which the UK could remain part of EU agencies such as those that are critical for the chemicals, medicines and aerospace industries”.


She added:

“We would, of course, accept that this would mean abiding by the rules of those agencies and making an appropriate financial contribution”.


The Prime Minister then went on to set out what the mutual benefits of such an approach might be. These include: first, that such membership, however described, is the only way to ensure that products need to undergo only one series of approvals in one country; secondly, that such membership would enable the UK to contribute its technical expertise in setting and enforcing appropriate rules; and thirdly, that this might then allow UK firms to resolve certain challenges related to the agencies through UK courts rather than the ECJ.

That is enough for now to demonstrate the Prime Minister’s case. She concluded with a further statement about the sovereignty of Parliament and the acknowledged costs of rejecting agency rules for membership of the relevant agency and linked market access rights. It is important to remember that these decentralised agencies were originally established following a proposal from the European Commission and agreement by both the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, which, if I am correct, means that the establishment of over 40 bodies was achieved with the support of the UK. Surely it makes sense, then, to be consistent and retain access to them.

As the Prime Minister made clear in her speech, there will be consequences of not doing so. For example, and to take just one, there is the European Maritime Safety Agency. Our international reporting and monitoring obligations on maritime safety are currently handled via EMSA and there are shared EU rules on seafarer working conditions. That enables the UK to maintain its status as a “quality flag state” under international law. The complexities involved in replicating this would appear to be immense. Furthermore, establishing a domestic equivalent to the EMSA will inevitably put a huge strain on the Civil Service, taking many years to negotiate, and will be enormously expensive. Could that be yet another uncosted consequence of Brexit? I could equally cite the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, Europol, the European Medicines Agency, and many others.

Is it not probable that any future UK-EU trading relationship might demand replication of certain EU measures—product safety regulations, for example? As other regulations continue to evolve in Brussels in the years to come, is it not probable, if not inevitable, that the UK might have to keep pace if reciprocal arrangements with the EU 27 are to continue—for example, those covering matrimonial and parental judgments?

This amendment does not in any way place an additional burden on the Government, nor does it ask the Government to change their stated policy stance. It formalises and reinforces those commitments made by the Prime Minister in her Mansion House speech. Furthermore, with phase 2 of the negotiations now well under way, the addition of this clause would demonstrate Parliament’s wish for the UK to maintain a close relationship with the EU and, in this sense, it is consistent with the role envisaged for Parliament in Amendment 49.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

I do not believe that it does curtail our powers under the SI provisions of the Bill, on which we have had separate, long discussions.

In conclusion, I do not believe that anything would be gained from its acceptance in the Bill apart from confusion and uncertainty. I therefore hope that the right reverend Prelate will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and all those who have spoken in the debate. I often find myself changing my mind when I hear good argument but I cannot assure the House that I have done that in this case. The Minister referred to the sentiment behind the amendment, but it is not sentiment: what I offered was a rationale, not a sentiment. The intention behind it is as I stated in my speech. I take the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, about “common sense”, but every time I hear the phrase I begin to worry. Usually, common sense is so common and so thinly spread that it does not always apply in the specific, and as they say, the devil lies in the detail. So I am not sure that it is enough just to be sure that things will continue, or that we can continue to hope.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that it is not good for businesses and so on to be in the wilderness. I totally agree, but my point in using that metaphor is that we are, whether we like it or not, going to find ourselves in some sort of wilderness, because it will take a long time to work this through. It will not be that suddenly on day one, whether we stay or leave, everything in the garden is rosy. I am just being realistic about that. Finally, I find the repeated charge that this House is trying to impose on the Government, or tell the Government what to do, tiresome. It seems to me—I may be simple—that the remit and responsibility of this House is to send back to the Government and to the other House arguments that may make them think again. Otherwise, we have no purpose. So, while I take the comments seriously, I wish to test the opinion of the House.