Lord Cashman
Main Page: Lord Cashman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cashman's debates with the Leader of the House
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am afraid that I do not know the answer to that question and will have to write to the noble Viscount.
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. Does she agree with me about the importance of EU agencies such as FRONTEX, which protects our external borders along with those of other member states, the European Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Medicines Agency? Does she believe in the effectiveness of these organisations and their benefit to the United Kingdom? If so, why are we putting that at risk by going for a hard Brexit?
The noble Lord is absolutely right. As we discussed in Questions today, many European bodies play an extremely important role and are highly valued in terms of the standards, co-operation and everything else that we get out of them. All of these will be up for negotiation, and we will obviously want to maintain very close relationships with those organisations that add huge value. However, this will also give us an opportunity to look at how we can perhaps improve standards and quality in this country, because we will be free to do that.