European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

The point I am focusing on is that this is our opportunity to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the event of there being no deal.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I deeply regret and resent the fact that we are having to discuss this and waste the House’s time. We had an opportunity at the beginning of the day to make an unequivocal declaration that we would grant these rights to EU citizens. We voted in that sense, a number of us spoke in that sense and we had a large majority in that sense. Yet here we are, arguing. Frankly, I agree that the amendment is necessary, but we are now arguing unnecessarily about something we could have taken the moral high ground over and dealt with immediately after we had activated Article 50. It is indicative of the mess into which we have got ourselves, and we are taking up so much parliamentary time that should be devoted to other things. I bitterly resent it and wanted to get that on the record.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, as someone who is a co-signatory of the amendment that was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, I support what he said and also endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said. This should be a no-brainer.

The United Kingdom Government have agreed with the European Union; the terms of that agreement were set out in paragraph 38 of the document of 8 December 2017, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has spoken them into the record. If one goes back to paragraph 33 of the same document, it is interesting to read that:

“It is of paramount importance to both Parties to give as much certainty as possible to UK citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK about their future rights. The Parties have therefore reached agreement on the following specific set of arrangements to implement and enforce the citizens’ rights Part of the agreement”.


Admittedly, a later paragraph suggests that the bestowing of or guarantee of rights will come in the withdrawal agreement implementation Bill, but if one reads the paragraph on the consistent interpretation of citizens’ rights, one will see that there is no such commitment there with regard to a future Bill. It would not be right for this Parliament to pass a Bill which cuts off recourse to the Court of Justice of the European Union when we have already agreed that that avenue should be open in this specific case of ensuring consistency in determining the rights of EU citizens living in the United Kingdom and UK citizens living in the European Union.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that if at the end of the day there is no agreement and we go crashing out, surely he is not suggesting that we would not honour our commitment. We have made that commitment to European Union citizens living in the United Kingdom and United Kingdom citizens living in the European Union. It must send some very alarming signs to UK citizens living abroad if it is suggested that, should we go crashing out, nothing will be done to establish or secure the rights of those citizens—

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[Lord Cormack]

Do we not have a particular responsibility for the smallest group of citizens for which this Government have responsibility—namely those living in Gibraltar?

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[Lord Keen of Elie]

At the present time, no, but we are only now undertaking the detailed negotiation of the withdrawal agreement. It may be, for example, that the situation of UK citizens in Europe will alter during the course of those negotiations. It may be that the European Parliament will take a different view on how the rights and interests of those UK citizens in Europe should be approached. The noble and learned Lord will recall that, at an earlier stage, there were some suggestions that the rights of UK citizens in Europe would be limited to the member state in which they were resident at the time of exit. There are all sorts of possibilities and I am not going to indulge in an analysis of those possibilities—we are concerned with achieving certainty. We have achieved, by way of the joint report in December, an expression of joint opinion about where we are going, with regard not only to the rights of EU citizens in the United Kingdom but also to the rights of UK citizens in the EU. Of course we want to bring that in to the final withdrawal agreement, in order that we can then draw it down and implement it in domestic law.

[Lord Cormack]

My noble and learned friend is being very honest with the Committee, but in a way that gives me some cause for alarm. He has made it absolutely plain that, at the moment, there is no guarantee. Would it still be possible—I believe that it would—for this Government to give and enact in Parliament a guarantee such as this House voted for at the time of the debates on the Article 50 Bill?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With respect, no, my Lords, because we are not in a position to guarantee that which has been arrived at in terms of the joint report. For example, we cannot by ourselves guarantee the rights of UK citizens in Europe. To try to dissect the joint report and say, “We’ll take one piece out and leave another piece in”, is not a way forward in the context of an ongoing international-level negotiation. It is not the way in which this Government would proceed in that context.