European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, 20 months after the referendum we are no closer to knowing what the UK will look like in a post-Brexit world. In a series of speeches this morning, the Committee has heard desperate cries for clarity and certainty in everything from football to horseracing, from transport to the law. But there is no clarity or certainty and this really does not feel like taking back control. I put my name to Amendment 142 because it aims to give back some control of this process to Parliament. It was ably described by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, and then by the noble Lord, Lord Lea. It intends to get some process into what, at the moment, looks like a dreadful muddle.

We need to support all the amendments in this group—but they could all, in their way, hang under Amendment 142. They all demonstrate the need, and the wish, to impose some form of direction on a Government who look as if they would appreciate being given it. They need some help in how they conduct their negotiations with the EU 27, and that is what this amendment intends to deliver.

We have heard that the Government do not want to be shackled; they need to be free to negotiate on their own terms. Nonsense. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lea, negotiations benefit from having their terms—for both sides—laid out relatively clearly at the beginning. I have seen it from the other side of the table from the noble Lord, Lord Lea, and it is jolly useful to be able to say, “My board won’t put up with that”. It would surely be very helpful for the government negotiators to go into their next round of negotiations with a clear view that they can say, “This far and no further as far as my board—Parliament—is concerned”. The EU 27 are making it very clear what their terms of negotiation are.

So we need to give clarity. We have heard various wish lists from the Government, but hope does not constitute a policy. We now need to empower the Government to go into negotiations with a clear sense of purpose. Like many in this House, I hope that that will include achieving a customs agreement. That is what business needs; it is what the country wants; and it is certainly part of the solution—although not the entire one—to the issue of Northern Ireland, which will be debated later today.

Time is running out, energy is being expended and money is being spent—getting us, it would seem at the moment, precisely nowhere. The Department for Business is going to be taking on an extra 1,000 people—it is nearly there now—to deal with Brexit. Goodness knows how they are going to do that. One knows that Boy Scouts should be prepared, but these people are having to prepare for they know not what and to cover all eventualities. It is like trying to shape water—without the prospect of an Oscar.

There is no point in the Government going into negotiations if they are going to eventually return to Parliament with the terms of a deal—and if the “meaningful vote” is to have any meaning, they will do—if Parliament is already clear that it will not accept that deal. How much more sensible and time efficient it would be to allow Parliament to hear what the Government really want and for us, in both Houses, to have a chance to debate it and to give the negotiators a mandate. That is what this amendment is about. It is very simple really, and I absolutely support it.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 142 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Monks, to which I also have added my name. I can be brief, in view of the effective, coherent and measured way in which the amendment was introduced, and I will confine my remarks to the question of sovereignty.

On the face of it, the purpose of the amendment, which I support, is to involve Parliament more considerably in the process of Brexit. A recurring theme of those who argued that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union was that we wanted to make our own laws. I interpret that, and believe that I am entitled to do so, as being by implication an assertion of the sovereignty of Parliament. To begin with, that was not an implication recognised by the Government, who were forced to do so by the Supreme Court in the case of Miller.

I think it can be argued fairly that sovereignty carries rights and responsibilities and that both of these exist in parallel—some might put it slightly differently and say that it carries powers and responsibilities. But the negotiations that are being carried on by the Government are being conducted on the principle that the Government are answerable to Parliament. The responsibility for the decisions of the Government, therefore, is a consequence of the sovereignty of Parliament. Governments are not sovereign, although some think they are—and it is not difficult to think of Prime Ministers who thought they were sovereign as well. If the ultimate responsibility is Parliament’s, then Parliament has responsibility but no power. I am not sure what the antonym for a harlot is, but I hope I make the point that the sovereignty that we enjoy is sovereignty that carries responsibility.

The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that we give practical application to the sovereignty of Parliament by giving Parliament in these matters a power to fashion the terms of the future of the United Kingdom’s relations with the European Union. To deny that power to Parliament is a breach of our sovereignty.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 147A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, to which my name is also attached. I have a number of interests to declare in the area of sport, one of which is that I am the chair of ukactive. I am slightly disappointed that sport and physical activity has not had a higher profile within the debate on the EU withdrawal Bill. We cannot assume that sport will be okay just because sport is generally very good at looking after itself.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, raised many issues, and perhaps they are just the tip of the iceberg of the challenges we face as the impact on elite sport filters down to the grass roots. He talked about Cheltenham. It is not just the movement of horses that will be affected. That might be the very visible impact of the legislation, but there will be an impact on the local economy—on the provision of stables, food supplies, grooms and so on—that we will not see until it is too late. We might understand the impact of a high-profile player not coming to the UK or choosing to leave the UK, but we will not see the impact on associated personnel and coaches, on how it filters down to the academy structure, on the potential success of our clubs, and on whether fans choose to go and watch those sports. It will go right down to the individual owner of a burger van parked on the outskirts of a community if there is a huge impact on sport.

We know that the value of community leisure to the UK economy alone is £3.3 billion a year. That has been worked out via a social value calculator. The impact of sport amounts to many more billions. While I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that it might be a pick-and-mix group of amendments, each of them has a massively important impact on the economic prosperity and international standing of our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

Of course Parliament should express its view—but there are a number of ways in which it can do so.

Given that the next grouping on the Order Paper covers approval of the withdrawal agreement, I shall not prejudge that discussion by going into further detail here. That is part of the reason why we have sought to be as transparent as we can while protecting our negotiating position. Noble Lords will, I hope, acknowledge that this is a difficult balance to strike. But they will also note the information contained in speeches by the Prime Minister and other Ministers, in the large number of papers the Government have now published, ranging from White Papers to the raft of position papers on various areas, and in the papers for the negotiations themselves. Most recently, of course, we have also just published our draft text for the implementation period.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem]

Access to information does not constitute the proper exercise of sovereignty.

[Lord Callanan]

Having access to that information helps to inform the views of parliamentarians for their many speeches and committee appearances. On top of these publications, and the legislation we have introduced, the Government have further sought to facilitate scrutiny through the frequent making of oral Statements, the timetabling of debates in both Houses in various forms, and through appearing frequently at a range of Select Committees. Of course, we have not covered every subject or satisfied every member of every committee with our answers to every question, but noble Lords should be in no doubt that there has been more parliamentary scrutiny of EU exit than there can have been of anything else in the history of our modern committee system. That is right and proper, and we support it as well as we can. In order to pay tribute to the wide-ranging debate, I hope noble Lords will be patient as I seek to set out, relatively briefly, the Government’s position on these various issues, many of which will be key parts of the wider negotiations on the future economic partnership.

First, on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, raised in Amendment 144, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, the Government have already stated that they will seek to agree a continued system of mutual recognition as part of the future economic partnership. This system will form part of the wider negotiations underpinning trade in services. The joint report from the first phase already includes provisions on the recognition of professional qualifications which apply to UK nationals already resident in the EU at the specified date and, of course, EU nationals in the UK on that date. Those provisions will be included in the withdrawal agreement to provide clarity and security to the individuals affected.