European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann—particularly as I find myself in a large measure of agreement with her on this issue, as on the many other issues that she raised.

I shall support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter. I am in no way challenging the referendum decision—that is water under the bridge—but these negotiations represent a brave effort, although “brave” is perhaps too complimentary, at damage limitation and making the best of a bad job. I do not think that anybody has contradicted that sentiment.

I have a sadness about this because I believe in the EU, its values and its internationalism. Many of these attributes are British attributes—things that we helped to develop and encouraged within the EU. However, we have to move forward. Over the years, I have had the privilege of serving on the EU Select Committee and two of its sub-committees. These committees and their work were well regarded across the EU; sometimes, their reports were translated into local languages, indicating the high regard in which many parliamentarians throughout the 27 have held this country for a long time.

In the negotiations, I was impressed by the solidarity that the 27 showed—something that our negotiators never expected, I think. Our Government acted as if we could pick off the EU leaders one by one and try, as it were, to sign little deals and try to get a more favourable outcome, but we were thwarted in that. The solidarity shown by the 27 was commendable; I congratulate the EU on the way on which it retained that sense of unity.

I will refer briefly to a number of specific issues. All of us individually, and the Government and both Houses of Parliament, must work hard at improving our relations with the 27, which have gone through a bad patch during the negotiations. We must use all the existing methods whereby we can relate to parliamentarians from EU countries. For example, the Council of Europe is not exclusively EU, but many European parliamentarians are there. There is the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, of which I am a member, and its parliamentary assembly, the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly, and the sterling work done by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. We have to use those opportunities.

Like many others, I am saddened by Erasmus. It gave young people an opportunity to see Europe and become more international in their outlook. I am sorry that we have closed that door.

I regret that we are in a very vulnerable position as regards maintaining workers’ rights, some of which stem from the sensible policies of the EU. I hope that we will be able to debate them more fully in future.

We are also in a much more vulnerable position regarding security. Over the past 10 years, using the European arrest warrant, we have sent back 10,500 people and received in return 1,500 criminals, including drug traffickers, rapists and murderers. The Schengen Information System was consulted 600 million times by British police forces in one year.

Finally, I am saddened that refugees and asylum seekers have been left to separate declarations, which we will have to negotiate.

I will vote for this with a heavy heart. I look forward to a better day in the future.