European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in favour of Amendment 93, because it strengthens the argument of some of the amendments which I moved in Committee about maintaining our standards through membership of many of these EU institutions. These institutions set the standards which give us a quality of life that we have come to accept as normal as members of the European Union—indeed, as Europeans. They not only set the standards but have mechanisms to enforce them and are independent of government. In Committee, the Minister assured us that the Bill will seek to retain in UK law all these rights and protections,

“so far as is practical”.—[Official Report, 19/3/18; col. 19.]

The law may well be transposed, but it is toothless unless we have these institutions which monitor, measure and enforce compliance, and which have the right to exact penalties for non-compliance.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds said that to set up our own institutions would require a lot of time, expense and expertise, which we are short of. To accept these institutions would demonstrate that, by opening up our market, we are not entering a race to the bottom and we are not going to abandon the precautionary principle. There is a lot of uncertainty over withdrawal, but this amendment goes some way to ensuring that our quality of life as citizens will not suffer because of this uncertainty. That is why I support it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will be equally brief and will make just one point. When I had the honour to serve on the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the European Union Committee of your Lordships’ House—something that was brought to an abrupt conclusion when I voted for those two amendments on the Article 50 Bill last year—I remember vividly one particular evidence session. Those giving evidence were led by a notable citizen of the United Kingdom, Mr Rob Wainwright, who was the head of Europol. Everything he said throughout his evidence to our committee made it abundantly plain that, if our security and our relations on the police front were to be maintained, we had to have a solution that as closely as possible replicated what we already enjoy. That is why I strongly support the amendment, which was admirably moved by the right reverend Prelate and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh. They have made equally valid points, but at the end of the day what is fundamental to our country’s survival is adequate and proper security and the proper interchange of information throughout the 28 nations of the European Union as it is now. We are leaving, but in doing so we must not jeopardise in any way the security of our people. That is why I strongly support this amendment.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly support what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, and also thank the right reverend Prelate for his able speech, which was strongly reinforcing as regards our gradually becoming ever closer to the European Union itself. That is the reality of these matters, because although the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, wishes to say on behalf of others on his Benches as well that we are leaving, there is now in this country a firm feeling of second thoughts on that matter, and therefore we may not be leaving.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister herself has got closer and closer to the EU in terms of various different parts of our linkages, in particular in respect to the agencies, and in terms of some of the procedures and laws. The strongest one, apart from Europol, which is a good example, is the European arrest warrant part of that security procedure, which is increasingly regarded as an incredibly indispensable instrument of suitable control between the justice systems of the member states, and so on—we had the recent example in Spain of something that was widely welcomed in this country.

With a number of agencies, if we were to relinquish membership of them—or even “almost membership”, however close that might be to them—that would be damaging not only to individuals who are involved in them but to the recipients of those services and the security of the high standards maintained. As we go on with this torturous process—we will see it again with the revival of the discussions about the EEA, the customs union, and so on in later amendments—we realise now that our closeness to the EU is a reality and not just an aspiration.

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[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to acknowledge that this is not an amendment that thrills me, not least because it seems to me to offend one of the great principles of social and economic thought, enunciated in a wondrous book, of which this year is the 60th anniversary—namely, Parkinson’s Law or the Pursuit of Progress. Noble Lords who are old enough to remember it will know that that law as enunciated was that work expands to fill the time available. I have no doubt, as far as negotiations in relation to the EU are concerned, that, whenever the end date was pronounced to be appropriate, there would be no difficulty in filling the time available, and everything that has happened so far confirms me in that impression.

The other related observation about human behaviour, which sadly has governed a lot of my life—I am not proud of it—but seems to be almost an abiding characteristic of the European Union is that you never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. I think that we have seen enough of negotiations EU-style, with late-night ministerial meetings and early-morning press conferences, to know that lastminute.com is one of the abiding principles by which the European Union reaches its decisions.

What troubles me about the amendment—although I shall lose no sleep about what happens to it—is that, whatever the mover’s intentions, the undoubted interpretation from the world outside will be that this amendment is designed to put further down the track the date on which we shall leave the European Union. That is an observation that I hear time and again in talking to people. After all, in March next year it will be almost three years since the British people made that historic and momentous decision.

I cannot help being vain enough to mention just two points that I made at Second Reading about this House and its treatment of this Bill. I simply said that, in all our discussions, there will be an elephant in the room—the chasm between the spread of opinion on Brexit in this House and the spread of opinion in the country at large. I think that I can be allowed to make special reference to my own region of the West Midlands, which was the strongest voting region in favour of leaving the European Union. Coincidentally, the House’s own research tells us that one of the least represented regions in the United Kingdom in this House is the West Midlands. The other two, by the way, are the north-east and east Midlands. Those three regions amount to the three most strongly Brexit parts of the country. It would be nice to have a lot more people here from the West Midlands—and, should the Government want any advice on people whom they might think of putting in the House in order to address that regional imbalance, I would certainly give it to them. But this mismatch is the elephant in the room.

I repeat what I said then: for all that we may try and decipher the motives of people who voted leave, the most generally accepted one is that people felt there was a chasm. So many people in this country sensed that Westminster, and Members in both Houses, were not listening to what they were saying. At the start of the Bill, I was fearful that this House would make that anxiety even more justified, and I have neither seen nor heard anything at Second Reading, in Committee or on Report that has given me any reason whatever to doubt that judgment. We have passed 11 substantial amendments already. There is no doubt that they were all well presented and for good, rational reasons, although I did not agree with them all. However, they have the compound effect of it appearing to be the case that this House is trying to delay, to block or, in the case of my noble friend Lord Adonis, who has been honest enough to say so throughout, to reverse the decision which the people made two and a half years ago. That has undoubtedly been the impression that we have been presenting.

Of course, people say that that is our duty; it is what the House of Lords is for. I agree that it is a perfectly legitimate objective for this House to make the House of Commons think again on any Bill. However, this is not any old Bill. This Bill has the authority of a referendum, with an unprecedented vote, to back and sustain its objectives. It has been moved inexorably on its way by the votes in both Houses to implement Article 50. This House did it; so did the House of Commons. The Bill is an inevitable and necessary consequence of the referendum and of the votes in these two Houses.

[Lord Cormack]

It is also a Bill which is capable of improvement, as is proved by the fact that the Government have put down many amendments themselves.

[Lord Grocott]

I agree that that is our job. The Government, and the House of Commons, can be asked to think again. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and other noble Lords who have made this point on a number of occasions, will agree with the proposition I am about to make. If the Commons does think again on some of these amendments, and sends them back here, our job is then completed. I think that is the consequence of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and is, surely, the way we should proceed.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I feel sometimes in this House that one has wandered into the film “Groundhog Day”; one hears the same arguments over and over again. I thought I might actually address the Bill.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Alli, that I thought we were debating the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill which, on my reading, simply seeks to ensure that we have in place the necessary legal framework when we leave the European Union, which the other place voted for overwhelmingly when it agreed that we would give notice under Article 50. I have no idea why an amendment about membership of the EEA has any relevance whatever to the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said, it is the job of this House to ask the House of Commons to think again: but to think again about the legislation we are actually debating, not policy matters which Members of this House do not agree with. That is what the noble Lord is doing.

For brass neck, the noble Lord really takes the prize when he stands up to criticise the Government for not being clear about what they want to achieve. They are pretty clear about it: they want a negotiation which will ensure the best deal for our country. That is not helped by the noble Lords, Lord Alli and Lord Mandelson, and others who are seeking to undermine their negotiating position by passing amendments of this kind.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

In a second. It is not helping at all to be giving the impression that this House has a different view from the elected House of Commons.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

In a second. My noble friend has quite a lot to say, and I am sure I will give way to him in a moment.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend says “A meaningful vote” from a sedentary position. By that he means a vote to reverse what the British people voted for in a referendum. There will be a vote on the negotiation and on the agreements which have been reached. I urge this House not to undermine the position of the Government in their negotiations or that of the Prime Minister by seeking to argue that her objectives cannot be achieved.

[Lord Cormack]

I am grateful, and at this point an intervention is appropriate. If anybody is undermining the Government at the moment, it is the Foreign Secretary rubbishing the Prime Minister. My noble friend, who is a brilliant debater—I am delighted to be able to debate with him—is arguing for a cause but completely missing the point. I ask him just to reflect: what sort of example are we being given by a Cabinet that is rent asunder by the Foreign Secretary, the second most important member of the Government, rubbishing the Prime Minister in the Daily Mail?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I know that my noble friend is not very keen on the Foreign Secretary, and that he has made a number of attacks on Boris Johnson in this House, including calling on the Government to sack him. I point out that Boris Johnson played an important part in the referendum campaign and that the people voted—