Brexit: Food, Environment, Energy and Health (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, as always, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who made some extremely important points in her speech, as did all colleagues who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He was an admirable, exemplary chairman of the committee and it was a joy to serve under him—particularly as the committee never met. Nobody has mentioned this during the debate, but all our meetings were on Zoom and Microsoft Teams. I grew to know those two devices, to have enormous admiration for those who made it possible, but to develop an increasing hatred for the wretched business, because I could not sit, as I can now, with my colleagues, look them in the face and discuss things with them: we were all on the screen.

That is where the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was brilliant, because he made enormous efforts to make sure that every one of us got in. We had to raise hands or press a yellow button, but his eyesight was impeccable, his judgment marvellous and we all got in. During all that time, as has been referred to, we were served by a wonderful staff, with Jennifer, our clerk, Laura and the others. They, too, were exemplary, but I have still not met them, and we will not meet them until the beginning of next month, when we are having a retrospective on the committee. I just think that ought to go on record.

I find this a somewhat dismal occasion, not just because the committee no longer exists but because—and one hates to say this—we told you so. When the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, quoted from paragraphs 35 and 80, my immediate reaction was would that people had taken these points seriously. The underlying lesson—and I hope the Minister takes this back—is that when you try to achieve great things to artificial deadlines you almost always fail. I made the point time and time again. I was not trying to be a remoaner; I was not trying to suggest Brexit could or should not happen. But I begged the Prime Minister in this very Room when he came to speak to a gathering of the Association of Conservative Peers not to be driven by a deadline.

Of course, what happened as a result of the deadline is the Irish protocol. The Prime Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who were responsible for agreeing it—not only commending it to Parliament but urging us to get it through—now seem to find that it is full of holes, which indeed it is.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, my noble friend Lord Caithness, in a perceptive and excellent speech, and my noble friend the Duke of Montrose—everyone —has pointed to things that could have been done better and to threats that now exist to British farming, in particular. Deals that have been driven through with Australia and New Zealand are going to threaten the sheep farmers in Wales, potato growers in Scotland and all sorts of other people. I took part in the debates, as I think did everyone present, on the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill. We welcomed both of them but their success hangs in the balance, and it is important that we notch things down a bit as we move over the next few rather difficult weeks.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made an extremely good point about COP 26. Like him, I metaphorically take off my hat to Alok Sharma for the way in which he conducted proceedings. He deserves the thanks of us all, but he did not have united European back-up, because we were not able to lead it as we had done when the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was wielding his stick a few years ago. It really is crucial, more important than anything else, that we repair relations with our European friends and neighbours. The world is getting more dangerous almost by the day, but the atlas does not change. The map of Europe does not change. France remains our nearest neighbour. Germany, although going through a difficult time at the moment, remains the most powerful member of the European Union. We are no longer part of that team and we cannot be. Talk of having another referendum is rubbish, but we owe it to ourselves to try to have the closest possible relations with our European friends and neighbours who, until a short time ago, were our partners as well.

When the noble Lord, Lord Frost, delivered his Statement in the Chamber last week, I reminded him of the famous saying—which was actually written by WS Gilbert, but it was on the desk of Harold Macmillan—that

“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot”.


This is the time when we must not bang drums or issue threats, warnings or deadlines. We must come to an agreement. The statement made by the European Union a few weeks ago indicated that it is ready for that.

Negotiations mean that everybody has to be prepared to give, take and compromise. But it would be a political tragedy of the worst sort if we did poison relations with our European friends and neighbours through over-haste. Your Lordships should think of the trouble brewing in the Balkans at the moment, the stand-off with the Polish-Belarusian border, and the trouble brewing, which has been there for a long time, in Ukraine. Never has there been a greater need for a cohesive Europe: one that can develop relations with some of the difficult countries—we must have better relations with Russia—but one that can work so far as possible together.

I have strayed off the subject a little. I do not apologise for that, because I believe this report was extremely perceptive and far-seeing. The evidence we received from some very fine people had one thread running through it: we must not leave with no deal. Thank God we did not leave with no deal, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, indicated in his opening remarks, a real bust-up over the protocol could put the deal itself in jeopardy. We must not have that. We owe it to our farmers, our fishermen and others.

It was a privilege to be on this committee. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and all my colleagues for that privilege, and all the officials. But if this report —which is now outdated; we have all said that—can be reread in the Government and if they could realise that some of the pitfalls could have been avoided, this debate will not have been in vain. My only request to my noble friend is that he draws the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, to this debate and to what colleagues have said. We are united across party, as we were in this committee throughout its deliberations, in wanting the Government and Brexit to succeed. But we must use all our diplomatic gifts—and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, is a trained diplomat—to make sure that that happens.