European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, in proposing Amendment 6, I would like to remind noble Lords that in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, moved an important amendment, Amendment 12, on foreign policy and security. International development was mentioned only in passing, so I wish to make up for that today and I am grateful for the support of colleagues who have experience of development. I intervened only briefly in Committee and I promise not to take up more than a few moments of valuable time on Report.

International aid used to be an also-ran subject in Parliament, but the Blair Government and the Cameron-Clegg coalition changed all of that, although some are still restless about the 0.7% target. Foreign policy, security, trade and aid are all closely joined up these days and the aid programme now involves several government departments.

I believe that this country has enjoyed a long and beneficial period of EU membership, during which we have developed close ties with several European aid agencies, the most prominent of which are the European Development Fund, ECHO, the humanitarian fund, and the Commission’s own aid instrument. We have been paying considerable amounts into these funds and we have worked alongside them in our own aid programmes around the world. DfID has a significant EU department which manages these relationships over here, in Europe and in the many countries that benefit. As you would expect, these aid programmes are monitored by committees of both Houses such as our own EU Committee, which I hope we shall retain, as well as by watchdogs like the National Audit Office and the Independent Commission on Aid Impact. How are we going to continue to be associated with these EU programmes after Brexit?

I know that during the passage of the Bill there have been continuous hopes of association with all kinds of things European, but the Government are full of empty reassurances. That is why we have to keep reminding Ministers that they are important, even in a withdrawal Bill. In the words of the amendment, we need,

“continued coordination of international aid and development policy”.

I am sorry for those Peers with distinguished foreign policy backgrounds who spoke on Amendment 12 because they got next to nothing back from the Front Bench except honeyed words. For instance, my old friend the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, wanted to ensure that the UK is a full participant in the formulation of foreign and security policies, while others like my noble friend Lord Hannay warned that it might already be too late for the Government to set up any alternative framework for our future foreign and security policy. Why should we wait so long? The main excuse offered is that we would be showing our cards too early. Do we have to wait for the very final deal or beyond that to transition, or even no deal? How can Monsieur Barnier be expected to negotiate when there is nothing but air to negotiate with, and why should our sovereign Parliament have to wait in the meantime?

If you read the Lancaster House speech made in January 2017 or the partnership paper from last September Foreign Policy, Defence and Development, you might believe that the Prime Minister was already satisfied with our relationship with the EU and our present association with many EU institutions—and perhaps she is. From the vote we have just had, I believe that so are the majority of us here in Parliament. Yet she still delays, and despite all the talk of partnership, what you do not get is any sense that this fine association is going to continue. Instead, you get woolly phrases such as:

“The UK would like to offer a future relationship that is deeper than any current third country partnership”.


I would like to think that the Commission is already making contingency plans for some kind of association agreement between the UK and the EU development agencies. However, the Minister may well say that it has enough trouble already in rethinking its own aid programmes, which is true. However, sitting at the edge of a table is not as good as sitting at the table, especially after you have somewhat ostentatiously kicked back the chair and given up your place.

Moreover, what about the people engaged on the ground—the aid workers and managers of aid programmes; what can they look forward to? Many aid agencies in this country which are receiving grants from various EU budgets are unable to plan ahead. What is being done to help them through this transition, because they cannot expect DflD to pick up the tab at short notice?

Another area is development education, a subject about which we have already heard a lot during the course of the Bill. A wide variety of NGOs are drawing on EU central funding to interpret development issues abroad through events and exhibitions about Africa and subjects in Asia. The Bond organisation has done a lot of work on future collaboration of civil society organisations in the EU which may help Her Majesty’s Government with their plans.

In conclusion, as I said at Second Reading, EU member states form the world’s largest source of development funding and, taken together, they make a huge contribution to poverty reduction and help to defeat epidemics. They are currently interlocked through the various aid organisations and, despite the UK’s prominent position in the EU during these two years of pre-Brexit meandering, we still have no idea how the structures can be dismantled and replaced. I beg to move.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and I was happy to add my name to the amendment. I want just to reinforce the point that currently the UK delivers £1.5 billion a year of its aid through EU institutions, and indeed 15% of the European Development Fund comes from the UK, so it is in the interests both of the UK and the EU that we should continue to co-operate.

Much more practically, in the two multilateral aid reviews that have been carried out by the Department for International Development, the delivery of aid by EU agencies has been described as “Very Good” in terms of the “Match with UK development objectives” and operational performance, so it does deliver for us. It is also the case that it is entirely consistent with the EU for non-member states to contribute to European development funding because both Norway and Switzerland contribute to the European Development Fund.

The other issue that is causing concern if there is no continuing engagement is the Caribbean and Pacific regions, whose relationship with the EU they value very much, but which has been strongly championed by the UK as a member. If we continue to participate, they will be reassured by knowing that our voice will have some influence on ensuring that their interests are safeguarded.

A final point made by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was that many of our NGOs—our development contractors and specialists—are involved in helping to deliver EU programmes. It would be very much in their interests, as well as those of the EU, if they were able to continue to be part of a European objective which—it is important that the House understands this—delivers aid and development in parts of the world that the UK does not reach because it does not have an operational presence where the EU does. I support the amendment; it is entirely consistent with our record in the past and would be a very positive development for the future.

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment because it is very much in the interests of both donor countries and the countries that receive that aid. I agree with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, as well as those made earlier by my noble friend Lord Sandwich in moving the amendment —in particular, his last and hugely important point about co-ordination and continued partnership, building on what we have already got.

I will not labour those points at all. I want to make just one additional and very practical point. For years, recipient countries have received aid from different countries with different monitoring arrangements and different conditions—or, if you like, with different strings attached. This is costly; indeed, it is wasteful because it puts an unnecessary burden on those countries. The international community has tried over many years, with some success, to align or harmonise these arrangements so as to reduce this wasteful burden and, by doing so, make sure that it gets the best value possible from its donations.

Of course, there are also advantages in countries aligning their priorities to have as big an impact as possible, which is helped enormously by the global priorities set out in the sustainable development goals. However, having made those points about alignment, this amendment does not constrain the UK in its future decision-making in any way. It merely seeks to ensure that, wherever possible—I stress that—there is alignment between its donations and those of our neighbours and that they can be made as efficiently as possible. The UK can, of course, choose to diverge from its neighbours, but this amendment would merely require it to do so in full knowledge of what it is doing.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Report: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, perhaps I may come in here to congratulate the Minister on how far the Government have got in solving this rather knotty problem. As I go with this, I feel that I should re-emphasise my authority for speaking as a Scot and as a nationalist, rather as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern did. Mine is founded rather more in history than in current experience, in that members of my family have fought and died for Scottish independence on a number of occasions. They were also responsible for sitting on the whole negotiation for the Acts of Union.

I am not sure whether I can fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, said about all measures going immediately to Scotland. The provision that I tried to raise when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was speaking is that what is devolved was devolved under Schedule 5, but Schedule 5 was subject to the earlier parts of the Act. In attempting to modify Section 29, we are in really novel territory because that provision has remained as it was put in the Act in 1998. This is the first time that we have had to take a hatchet to it but the remaining subsection says that the Scottish Parliament will exceed its powers if it tries to legislate for any provision which,

“would form part of the law of a country or territory other than Scotland”.

A great many of the powers that are coming back affect all parts of the United Kingdom and that element has to be sorted out.

It is very good to hear from the Minister how the agreement on dealing with the powers from Brussels has been achieved. However, it sounds—or rather, it sounded at the start—as if the Scottish Government had the same view as the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood: that all law should immediately be devolved to them. This is clearly not going to do. Accompanying a letter from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was a table, which explained the Government’s view at that point on sorting out what was, I think, a total of 167 measures that they had identified in EU legislation as needing to be addressed. Of these, at that point they had no problem with 12 that needed to be reserved and 49 that could be immediately handed over. Can the Minister give us an update on the Government’s view on how many of these laws could immediately be handed over now, as I am sure that they and such things have been subject to negotiation over the Easter period? At the same time, however, we would like to know what legislative process will be put in place to achieve the handing over to the devolved Parliament and Assemblies and how long it is likely to take for those measures.

One or two noble Lords have quoted from the letter of 26 April from the First Minister of Scotland. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has provided a very good outline of how Section 30 will work. I have no doubt that many of us have much to learn about that. I was slightly worried about the First Minister’s second suggestion in her letter, when she talks about,

“the existing constitutional arrangement where changes to devolved competence are to be made under Section 30 … by Order in Council subject to the approval of both the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament”.

I was led to wonder whether an Order in Council, if passed by Her Majesty, was actually subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament at that stage, whereas I think that the amendments that are now in place are suggesting that approval would be sought and, with any luck, granted before the application was made for the order. If the Scottish Parliament were being offered the chance to turn down such a thing as an Order in Council that had already been made, a constitutional change in this order would need more than a memorandum of understanding, which is how the present system works.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I am comforted by the fact that all of the learned noble Lords who have contributed have acknowledged that this is an extremely complicated situation, one in which there are clearly differences of views. Indeed, the submission that we have had from the Law Society of Scotland took a similar view. However, I also recognise that it is just as well that it is complicated because Clause 11, in its initial format, was brutally simple and wrong. We therefore have got to a position where, after some time, we are now able to debate something that acknowledges the difficulties that Clause 11 originally contained.

Everybody has genuinely welcomed—and should rightly welcome—the progress that has been made, the spirit with which it has been made and the work that has been done to get to a situation which genuinely acknowledges that what we are trying to do is find a decision-making process that carries everybody with us, recognises legitimate interests, but is always left with the elephant in the room, which is, “Where does the buck stop?” Clearly, the buck ultimately stops with the UK because we are a United Kingdom. That, of course, is not entirely acceptable to people who do not believe in the United Kingdom and do not wish it to continue.

It is fair to say that Mike Russell in particular has, on more than one occasion, acknowledged constructive progress and engagement. Indeed, many of us have the view that, left to his own devices, the Scottish Government might have accepted where we are today. The First Minister clearly has not. She has not only sent a letter here to the Lord Speaker, but made fairly—shall we say—lively representations in the Scottish media as to what she thinks is intended. The trouble is that what she said might be legitimately attached to Clause 11 as it was, but it does not legitimately attach to where we are today. That is why the sentiment of this House—and I suspect the sentiment of those people in Scotland who think about it—is that the Scottish Government should be very careful that they do not over-push their position, because Scotland has voted to be in the United Kingdom, is part of the United Kingdom, and recognises that there are shared interests, where we will need to make decisions together. The issue is: how do we find a process that has the trust and confidence and the interests of everybody that can be taken on board?

We might eventually have to talk about a federal constitution; the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was the only speaker to mention quasi-federalism. We are stumbling towards a federal United Kingdom and we may need to acknowledge that, because federalism would provide a legal framework in which the powers were clearly stated in law and disputes were resolved through a constitutional court.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I have been following the noble Lord’s very interesting speech very closely. How would he propose to deal with England, which has not been mentioned at all in this very long debate, and its 53 million inhabitants in his federal constitution?

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie]

Of course I would wish to deal with England in a friendly and constructive manner, but the serious point is that many of us have recognised that ultimately, the United Kingdom is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are the entities. Within England there are lots of other entities, but they fall below the state level. I certainly have never had the difficulty other people have had in saying that a federal constitution would include England having its own voice, but that is for another day. All I am saying is that we have muddled along and now have elected mayors, metropolitan authorities, the London Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament—all with different powers, different terms of reference and different mechanisms. Although it is very British to maintain this pluralism and diversity, at some point or other we may need to try to find a slightly more coherent framework in which these matters can be resolved and in which people can know that where there is a dispute, there will an impartial resolution based on law, rather than the heavier political weight overruling the lighter weights.

The fact remains that the noble Lord’s intervention is entirely right: 85% of the population lives in England. England does not constitute 85% of the land area, but if we have a United Kingdom, there is a responsibility on those of us who live elsewhere than in England to acknowledge the weight of England. But if the English want the United Kingdom to continue, it behoves them to understand that they will have to give probably slightly more than they want to accommodate Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, because the price is holding the union together. That is what this debate has fundamentally been about. The argument I always make is that I wonder at what point, if ever, an ultranationalist would regard anything that left residual power with the United Kingdom as acceptable. If your objective is to leave, my only point is that once you have left, you will suddenly find that England is still there and you still have to deal with it. We have had that debate for the past several weeks—about Europe still being there and still having to deal with it. It is the same point.

This debate has been very academic, legalistic and process-driven. In the end, it is about politics and policy and what the Government believe is essentially determined by the UK’s national interest and where they believe that allowing the devolved authorities to block something would be contrary to the UK interest. I say that as somebody who acknowledges that there is sometimes a danger that if Scotland insists on its rights, it will be in the interests not of Scotland but of an ideological commitment to being Scottish, and there are people in Scotland who would rather be poor and independent than well off and sharing resources with the rest of the United Kingdom. We need to know where people are coming from. In a sense, in Scotland people are clearer about that than they were a few years ago. I suggest that support for the United Kingdom, with all its faults—and, by God, there are many and they are very conspicuous at the moment—is significantly stronger than it was a few years ago because people have seen the abyss. We are looking into another abyss right now, and I suspect opinion will change accordingly.

The sunset clause has been mentioned by many people. It would be helpful if the Minister explained why we need five years rather than three. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, made a point about what the sunset clause applies to. I thought it was to the period to which the process would apply, not to the decisions made under that process. That is a point for clarification. From the Government’s point of view, what does the sunset clause apply to?

My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace articulated that for a regulation on, for example, pesticides there would clearly be a UK agreement and it would be perverse for any component part to resist it. I shall give one final example because agriculture features quite strongly in these powers. We are about to leave the European Union. The common agricultural policy has been the basis of support for Scottish farmers. It has been based on an acquis which is focused on smaller, more marginal farmers in the less-favoured areas. The House will be well aware that most of them live in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, although I acknowledge that they also live in the Pennines, the Lake District and other parts of England.

There are debates in the Conservative Party about abandoning subsidies altogether. There is clear concern in the devolved areas about the impact of that. But we can look at it both ways. For example, somebody who sees Scotland as having twice as much, much more marginal agriculture than England, in most cases, would say, “We want to be able to continue to support our agriculture”. But they might also say, “But we think that is something the United Kingdom should help us with, so there should be a UK policy that helps to contribute to it”. The arch-UK nationalist point would be to say, “Well, you can have the right to support your farmers, but you will pay for it out of your own tax base”. I would suggest that questions the validity of the United Kingdom, and I will say that in friendly terms to Michael Gove and his team in due course.

The other area is social security, where we have decided that we want to transfer the power. I find it interesting that the SNP is saying, “No, no, we want more power”, having said, “We can’t quite accept responsibility for social security just yet, because we haven’t got the mechanisms in place”.

I think we have probably reached a settlement which is the centre of gravity of this debate for now. We now need to devise a process in the longer term whereby collective decision-making can be put into a context where all the component parts honestly feel that they are likely to get their voice heard and a fair and equitable decision, with some kind of external judicial review or appeal process as the final backstop, rather than it being based simply on weight of numbers.

Having said that, I think many of us who saw the beginning of this debate when Clause 11 was published are very grateful that we are now at the end of it and can actually see a way forward. I wish it was true of all other aspects of the Bill.