European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord with his customary thoughtful speech. I must admit that I agreed with some of it, but not as much as I agreed with the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Trevethin and Oaksey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

Some noble Lords have suggested that people voted to leave the EU but did not vote to leave the customs union or the single market. I am sorry but that is nonsense. The government-funded propaganda leaflet, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the whole remain machine and the global elite stressed over and over again that a vote to leave would mean leaving the single market and customs union, with all the dire consequences that would entail. Of course, the Treasury in its May 2016 dodgy dossier also said that there would be an immediate loss of 500,000 jobs and the economy would crash into recession.

As John Longworth, writing in the paper on Monday, said, either the Treasury economic experts got their model hopelessly wrong or they were deliberately lying. I thought at the time that it was just sloppy modelling for them to be so wrong by as much as 400%. Now it seems the Treasury is at it again with the leaked Project Fear forecasts. I admire its astonishing accuracy. It forecasts a 0.3% reduction in growth every year for the next 15 years. That is amazingly accurate considering that over the last 12 months it has been 400% out. Producing that dodgy dossier once may have been a mistake but its latest leaked analysis by the same discredited economists is clearly a deliberate attempt to foist more ludicrous forecasts on the British public. I find it a very sad day when reports by Her Majesty’s Treasury have less credibility than the Zinoviev letter.

We have this Bill before us because the electorate wanted back control of our money, laws and trade policy, and they knew that by voting leave we would leave the single market and the customs union. When the Bill goes into Committee, I understand that there will be amendments seeking to ensure that no British Government can diverge from EU rules and regulations, and that is what I want to concentrate on. I believe that is foolish and it shows little faith in our Parliament, which will once again be free to properly hold the Government to account. The whole point of Brexit is to give the UK Government and Parliament the right to make our own laws and diverge from EU bureaucracy, bad law, Luddite regulations and the concept of a socialist Europe, which is making us more and more uncompetitive in comparison to the Far East and the USA. I do not want us stuck at the bottom of the regulatory scrapheap making analogue laws for a digital world. We are a great country and we need the freedom to make better regulations.

I ask noble Lords to cast their minds back to Monday of this week, when we debated the 25-year environment plan. What an inspiring document that is—inspiring because it shows how much better our land and marine environment will be when we do not have EU law destroying our fishing stocks, damaging our wildlife and ruining our soil. We can get rid of the wicked CAP, which the EU still boasts is a marvellous achievement. We can ban any plastic products we like without having to wait for EU approval. We can restore our fish stocks. We can impose proper biosecurity regimes to stop our plants and trees being decimated by imported diseases we are currently unable to stop because of the free movement of goods. And of prime importance, we can impose our own much higher animal welfare standards to replace the cruelty of live animal exports, which the EU happily endorses.

We will have the freedom to set our own VAT rates on any products we choose. German car companies paid out billions to US consumers within months of the diesel car scandal breaking. Not one single EU consumer has had a penny compensation because of the cosy, corrupt cartel between EU policymakers and German car firms. I would hope that an independent UK could impose our own air quality standards and ban dangerous polluting vehicles.

On financial regulations, there are those who say that we must not do a Singapore and have a race to the bottom. I agree entirely: we must not race to the bottom, but Singapore has a GDP per capita of $53,000 and ours is $40,000. The cost of living in Singapore is 14% cheaper than London. It is the third in the world for life expectancy and we are the 20th. If that is the bottom, I want to race to it as soon as possible. Singapore has risen to be one of the most successful economies in the world, with an exceptionally high quality of life, because its people embrace free trade and cutting regulation.

When we read yesterday about the head of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who is a remain supporter, complaining about onerous EU red tape and looking for opportunities outside Europe, we got a snapshot in that tiny area of the dead hand of EU regulation holding back not just our productive industries but our creative ones also.

I have just rushed through a few examples, but in every sector of our economic and public life we are being constrained by poor, bad EU regulation. As the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, said yesterday, we will need the freedom to move very quickly to regulate for technological change, which the Luddite EU cannot do. We will need the freedom to regulate quickly on artificial intelligence, genetic modification, innovative medicines and treatments to name but three. We need better regulation. We need British regulation. We need this withdrawal Bill, with some technical amendments, passed as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, that is rather like suggesting that one ought to remain inside a burning house in the hope of putting out the fire. I am not sure that I follow the logic of the noble Lord’s argument.

I am in a minority in this House with my views on Brexit—I have noticed that. I am very proud of the way that we in the House of Lords have conducted ourselves over the last 36 hours. I read in the newspapers that we were going to reverse the decisions of the House of Commons and wreck the Bill but, instead, we have had a typically incisive debate. We should be particularly proud of the report produced by the Constitution Committee.

I do not know where I come in the speakers list— 194th or something like that—but I thought that I needed to find something new to say, so I would like to tell the House that there is a blue moon tonight. For those who do not know what a blue moon is, it is not a reference to the Tory party; it is a reference to the fact that there has been a full moon twice in the same calendar month—a very rare thing.

When I got an email from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—who I hold in very high regard—asking me to support an amendment that we should spend four days on Second Reading, which would mean that we would now be only halfway through, I thought that perhaps the lunar effect was having an effect upon him. Then, when I read that he wanted to suggest that we have a second referendum, I just reflected that we voted on this last year in this House and voted with a majority of more than 200 against that, so I admire his courage and his consistency.

The best speech of many speeches, I think by far, was the one given from the Cross Benches by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. He set it out absolutely clearly, and I feel guilty that I took the advice from the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House and went through the Lobby the other evening, adding to the burden of these Henry VIII clauses. I am impressed that perhaps this is an opportunity for us to take a stand while looking at this Bill. But I have to say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, disappointed me. He actually compared this Bill to Cromwell. He suggested that it was Cromwellian that we were taking powers away from Parliament in the way that Cromwell had done.

[Lord Blencathra]

Thomas Cromwell.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Ah, Thomas Cromwell.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham]

So there is an overlap, and the question is one of remedies. As my noble friend will know, the remedies under the charter are probably more effective than the remedies under the convention, and that is the point that the noble and learned Lord was making.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My noble friend seems to be saying that we need to incorporate this into British domestic law to protect ourselves from an extremist, wicked Government, but surely if such a Government were elected, one of the first things they would do would be to scrap this law using their parliamentary majority.

[Viscount Hailsham]

That would have to get through both Houses, which would be at least some check on the process. The point I am making is not quite the point that my noble friend has interpreted. I am saying that, if the charter is to be incorporated into domestic law, it has to be the subject of parliamentary scrutiny and amendment, and that is the only basis on which the charter should be incorporated into domestic law.

I accept the noble and learned Lord’s point that a number of aspects of the charter are entirely irrelevant and are hinged on our membership of the Union. Articles 44, 42, 43 and 39 are examples of that. There are also articles in the provision of the charter that many of us would disagree with. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has indicated that she does not like many of them, and I happen to agree with her. I heard my noble friends Lord Howard, Lord Lamont and Lord Blencathra chuntering away, and I agree with them: there are many things in the charter with which I disagree. But I am saying that if it is to be incorporated, it should be incorporated in such a way as to enable this House to scrutinise each and every one of its provisions and amend as appropriate.

I remind the Committee that one reason many noble Lords and others wish to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights is that the judge-made interpretation of the text is incapable of amendment by Parliament. I wish to avoid that criticism being made of the charter if it is to be incorporated. The suggestion in my amendment to make the charter, if incorporated, subject to parliamentary scrutiny and amendment is perhaps the only example in this sorry business of being able to cherry pick, or to have your cake and eat it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

I am sorry; it is late. I would like in principle to retain the charter. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is not part of British law, and the charter has been a means of channelling the principles of the UNCRC into British law. We need that. The minimum age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10 years old; we can lock up children of 10 years of age. Even in Turkey—with respect to Turkey—it is 16, and 14 around the continent. We are really harsh with our children and we need such protections.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, as the tail-end Charlie in this debate, I too shall be brief. I believe that there is nothing fundamental about this so-called charter. It was a political wish list cobbled together by the EU in the year 2000, incorporated into the Lisbon treaty in 2009, and opposed by every Labour Government Minister. In fact, Gordon Brown would not even go to Lisbon on the first day to sign it. He wanted to distance himself from it. It includes such meaningless waffle as the right to “physical and mental integrity”, and such wonderful new rights as the right to marry and the right to freedom of thought. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, so cleverly exposed, my right to freedom of thought seems to apply only to the 20,000 EU laws. If I am thinking about any other UK laws, the charter does not seem to apply.

Of course, the charter contains the fundamental right to a fair trial. Well, 803 years ago, this noble House put the right to a fair trial in Clause 39 of the Magna Carta. That is the most important fundamental right of all, which we have had for more than 800 years. The Magna Carta was also known as the “Great Charter of Freedoms” and the late Lord Denning called it,

“the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot”.

That is what our predecessors in this House did—not the King, not a foreign court but this noble House.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Does the noble Lord recall that the Magna Carta was in 1214, and that the first Parliaments began to sit in the 1270s?

[Lord Blencathra]

The Magna Carta was imposed on King John by the Barons, as I understand it—the Barons being Members of this noble House. The House did not exist in that form, but it was imposed by the Lords and the Barons. The House of Commons passed the Bill of Rights 350 years ago and imposed it on the sovereign, guaranteeing our rights to free elections, no taxes without parliamentary approval and free speech. The Bill of Rights passed 350 years ago by this Parliament formed the basis of the United States Bill of Rights and Bills of rights of other countries around the world.

Then just 70 years ago, we used our unique experience to write the European Convention on Human Rights—largely written by British lawyers. We wrote that for countries which had no history of our fundamental freedoms and had suffered the evils and degradations of National Socialism. What I am saying is that the worst indictment I make of the EU is that it seems to have destroyed the belief among parliamentarians, noble Lords and Members of Parliament that we are capable of governing ourselves and writing our own law.

There is nothing of any value in the Charter of Fundamental Rights which is not already covered in UK law or the European convention. If we find some great new right in the future and decide that freedom of thought must become a law, are we incapable in this House, in the other place and as British parliamentarians of drafting that? Are we so enfeebled and incapable that we cannot do it? If the Barons could do it 800 years ago, Members of Parliament 350 years ago and the British Government and parliamentarians did it for Europe 70 years ago, are we so incapable that we cannot do it now?

The people of this country voted to bring back control of our laws because they believed that Parliament was capable of making better laws than the EU. They believed that we are better at deciding on our essential rights than an ECJ judge from Bulgaria who has a law degree in Marxist-Leninist law—I have checked on that, and he has got a degree from Sofia on Marxist-Leninist law.

I happen to agree with the British people. I see the incredible wealth of talent in this House, with noble and learned Lords and Law Lords, and I trust our courts. We do not need nor want this charter. Let us wear once gain the mantle of our predecessors in the Lords and Commons, who gave us every freedom that has been worth fighting and dying for for the last few hundred years. We need the courage of the electorate, who trusted us to make our own laws once again. We should not let them down.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords—