Lord Butler of Brockwell
Main Page: Lord Butler of Brockwell (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, because it gives me a chance to amplify the remarks for which he criticised me earlier in the week. First, I will address the subject of the noble Baroness’s Question. I am afraid I cannot get as excited as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about a government assessment of the effect on the economy of leaving without a transition. I do not doubt that leaving without a transition would be worse than getting an agreement to it, but such an assessment on the effect on the economy is, in my view, unlikely to be worth the paper it is written on. We all remember how unreliable were the forecasts on both sides before the referendum of the short-term effects of a vote for Brexit. As a member of your Lordships’ European banking and finance committee, I hear every week from witnesses how speculative are the forecasts on the effects on our financial services of leaving without a transition.
Although I was and still am a remainer, we should now direct all our efforts to getting the best agreement available in the present negotiation. That should certainly include a transition. Here, I find myself in disagreement with my old and noble friend Lord Kerr and others that the Government have not been clear about the ultimate destination. It seems to me that the Government have been clear. They are looking for a bespoke agreement, not an existing agreement, and as wide-ranging and frictionless a trade agreement as can be negotiated.
In her Florence speech, the Prime Minister made a constructive offer on all aspects of stage 1. If the EU now refuses to proceed to discussing our future relationship, it will be acting in bad faith and inconsistently with Article 50. We would be justified in saying to Monsieur Barnier, “We hear the clock ticking”. In this respect, the opposition parties have to be very careful, and I include my noble friend in this. Of course I accept the role and the duty of the Opposition to hold the Government to account and point up what they see as deficiencies. However, if they simply mock the Government and exploit their internal differences for party-political reasons, they risk undermining our negotiators and delivering them into the hands of the EU. There is too much at stake in the national interest for that.