European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is no surprise to me that we are sitting today, at the last gasp of 2020, to consider legislation published just yesterday to deliver the most radical change of trading circumstances in our history. The Government never wanted Parliament to be involved in the process. We are being bounced into giving the Government sweeping and unspecified powers to do what they please without further reference to Parliament. Much of the detail was clearly agreed months ago, so it is total hypocrisy to suggest that legislators must simply buckle when it could and should have been perfectly possible for adequate time to be provided.

The compromises now reveal that all the braggadocio about sovereignty was just that. It is a pity that it was done with such ill grace and to such long-term damage. We will accept EU rules without having any role in shaping them and face endless argument and disruption should we seek to diverge.

With so little time, I wish to ask for clarification on two points and issue a warning on one. As a member of this House’s EU Services Sub-Committee, I was party to our long letter to the Secretary of State regarding Horizon and Erasmus+. We were concerned that, in participating as a third party to Horizon, we would move from being a net beneficiary of to a significant net contributor to a programme over which we would have limited control. Can the Minister tell me whether that has been addressed?

In the case of Erasmus, 53% of all students who studied abroad did so through Erasmus, which also funded EU students to study in the UK, bringing an academically enriching and economic benefit. Yet we have opted out completely. Why? Can the Minister say what that will mean to current students looking for a placement in the next academic year? Can he also explain how the proposed Turing scheme can possibly deliver comparable benefits to the multinational, multilayered Erasmus scheme? Will it just focus on the English-speaking world and further distance us from our European friends?

The warning relates to the impact of this deal on Scotland, and it is aimed both at the Government and people of the UK and at the Government and people of Scotland. It is becoming too glib and too easy to remark airily that Scotland is on course for independence and to assume that negotiating Scexit—Scotland’s exit from the UK—will be quick and easy compared with Brexit. We have heard that before. The institutions that we share are not peripheral; they are the arteries of our society. Similarly, the assumption that Scotland will achieve a rapid and seamless transition to membership of the EU, regardless of the lack of a central bank or currency and with debt several times the permitted threshold, is simply unreal. More to the point, erecting a border with the rest of the UK before any agreement can be reached with the EU should give anyone pause for thought.

Of course, the devolved Administrations should be treated with more respect, just as the reality of the benefits that we share across the UK should be valued more. The nightmare of the last few years, topped off with Covid, should surely teach us the value of togetherness, however strained relations become. If we do not learn from this, we face a future of endless debilitating division and argument as we decline in influence. If we can learn and find a more constructive way of engaging with each other, we might—just might—begin to see the glimmerings of a brighter future. I do hope so.