European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Darling of Roulanish Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Darling of Roulanish (Lab)]

I will not follow the noble Lord in the time available to me, but I refer the House to my entry in the register of interests. I start by making a fundamental point in view of many of the remarks, especially from the Benches opposite. I do not think anyone can doubt that the Government have a mandate to pass this legislation. That does not stop the House questioning and holding Ministers to account, but I am very clear that they have a mandate: we may wish it otherwise but that is the case. Indeed, I argue that that has been the case since the referendum in 2016. I did not support the call for a second referendum, mainly because of my experience in Scotland, where I said repeatedly that this was a once-in-a-generation chance. It is only sad that the other side do not appear to have accepted that.

I will say one final thing about referendums. I hope there is not another referendum any time soon anywhere in the United Kingdom. They are divisive and anyone who thinks that things will heal over afterwards is, I am afraid, wildly optimistic. However, I think that if there is another one and legislation is passed to enable it, it should be incumbent on the other side to have a done deal—something to vote on—so we know what the choices are. Part of our problem today is that for the last three years no one has been very clear what Brexit actually means, least of all the Prime Minister. The difficulty we have now is that people voted for something different, but that something was never defined. We should never do that again.

I said that the House is entitled to question the Government and to hold Ministers to account: I think that is absolutely right. In particular, I do not expect any amendments to be made, or the Minister to accept this point in winding up, but I think Clause 33 does rather tie the Government’s hands. It is not a year: in something like six months’ time we have to decide things we have been putting off deciding for the last three years. We have to decide on our trade relationship, on free movement and so on, and Clause 33 rather ties our hands. When you go into a negotiation, if the other side know that you have to decide something, it rather undermines your negotiating position.

Let us look at three areas. In our economic relationship, for example, we say we want a free trade agreement with the European Union; it says, “Yes, but we want a level playing field.” A free trade agreement and a level playing field are not consistent with our going off and doing a deal with other countries in other parts of the world. How is that to be resolved in six months? We heard excellent maiden speeches today by my noble friend Lord Mann and the noble Lord, Lord Barwell. I was struck by the warning of the noble Lord, Lord Barwell, who has some experience in this, to not underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead. In services, which of course make up the lion’s share of our economy, or financial services, about which we have not heard, we would like something like equivalence, as it is known. Equivalence is all very well, except that it is open to the European Union to say it is coming to an end, and giving us very short notice indeed. Having accepted that we are going to leave the European Union, I do not see the point in farming out our regulation, in effect, to the European Union: it is something we have to keep within the United Kingdom.

Equally, the Brexiteers have been telling the fishermen of the north-east of Scotland and the south-west of England, “Don’t worry, you’re going to get your waters back.” Countries in the European Union want access to these. There will have to be compromises and we know it, but how we are going to do that in three months, judging by the history of the last three years, I fail to see.

Equally, I have never understood the position on the Irish border; if you have a customs union, you have to have a border. It has now moved from the border between north and south to somewhere along the Irish Sea, and during the election there were at least two different versions—if not three—of what this meant. Again, this has to be nailed down within a comparatively short period.

During the last election and certainly since then, much attention has rightly been paid to those parts of England, particularly in the Midlands and the north, which feel that they have not done as well as they should have. They will be the first to pay the penalty if all this goes wrong, if there is no deal and we fall back on working on WTO terms. All the infrastructure in the world will not solve these problems. Within weeks we could face real difficulties with suppliers of engineering equipment, the automotive industry and so on. Infrastructure, as I well know, takes years to work up—it is very quick to announce, but takes years if not decades to deliver. Anyone who thinks that will be the answer to these problems is profoundly mistaken. That is why Clause 33 unnecessarily ties the Government’s hands.

As a final broader issue, which will no doubt be explored another time—and perhaps I am biased through having sat round the Cabinet table for 13 years—Ministers are accountable to this House and the other place, but I do not think it is any part of our constitutional arrangements that Parliament actually runs departments or negotiations. I would certainly have found it something of an impediment, although maybe I am wrong on that. We are not asking for that. What we are saying to the Government is this: we have three months, maybe six at the maximum, to sort out an awful lot of complicated problems. I fail to see how we will do it. I would like to be surprised, because it is in all our interests to get the best possible deal, but we are some way off that yet.