European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, there may be some flaws in the Bill—hence the support from these Benches for some of the other amendments. However, we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that this amendment is unnecessary and that it should be for the other place to set a date.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords are saying that it is for the other place to set a date. My understanding is that it will have one hour to consider our amendments and every aspect of the Bill. It is apparent from the speech made by my noble friend that there is an issue here. As I raised on Thursday, I do not understand why the Bill did not have a money resolution. It is perfectly possible that, in return for agreeing a date, the European Union could demand even more than the £39 billion already offered by the Prime Minister, and that the financial consequences could be considerable. This amendment seeks some kind of time limit on the process, which is sensible.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her amendment and for inviting us to consider the issues she identified. Any damage our economy is experiencing at the moment is on account not of the people’s decision in the 2016 referendum but of the highly protracted process and continuing uncertainty that is paralysing economic decision-making, particularly in investment and consumer decisions. The noble Baroness is absolutely right: we need the best objective assessment available as to the damage that the continuation of this uncertainty would cause. The proponents of a long extension of Article 50 must address the question of their responsibility for the continuing economic damage that would result.

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[Lord Goldsmith]

I think it speaks for itself. We have not found ourselves in this sort of situation before. Others in the House can deal with this, if they would like, through the Procedure Committee later.

So far as the amendment itself is concerned—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Could the noble Lord help us understand what the word “exceptional” means? On Thursday we had five closure Motions, where the Lord Speaker had to read out a text that says this should be used only in the most exceptional circumstances.

[Lord Goldsmith]

That was the view the House took on each of those closure Motions.

To deal with the substance, we oppose the amendment, essentially for the reason put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—that we should not send this Bill back with constraints on the other place. What will then happen is for the Prime Minister and the other House to determine, but I urge the noble Baroness not to press her amendment.

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[Baroness Deech]

I would be the mover of Amendment 6. I originally proposed with the Public Bill Office precisely the amendment that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, tabled. I am sorry that we were not able to communicate about it. However, it shows how wise it was for this House to have had the weekend to think about things. Not only has the temperature cooled a bit but it has given us the chance to read two very important reports that were hastily brought out over the weekend. I congratulate the members of the two Select Committees—the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—and all those who worked to achieve this on getting the reports published. They raised an important issue and, to some extent, answered my question. My amendment would have been a probing amendment.

I tabled this amendment for clarification. After we have debated all the amendments, it will demonstrate even further just how toothless and pointless this Bill is. I was minded to put this amendment down for the following reason, which has also been suggested by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Let us suppose that the Prime Minister picks up the phone to Brussels, or goes there, and it says that it will give an extension for however many months, provided we pay more, or enter into discussions with Spain about Gibraltar, for example. I am glad to see the return of the royal prerogative because I assume that that will mean that she can simply say no and put the receiver down. As drafted, the Bill concerns only the date; it has nothing about conditions. The date may well be inextricably mixed up with conditions.

As things stand, there would be nothing to get either House involved, or to stop the Prime Minister rejecting or accepting such a condition. Moreover, if you look at the drafting—of course, you draft in haste and repent at leisure—Clause 1(2) requires her only to seek an extension, not to achieve or accept it, or anything like that. Going back to my phone call metaphor, if she seeks an extension, and picks up the phone to Monsieur Barnier and says whatever, and he says no or she does not like what he says, she puts the phone down—end of. I maintain that this Bill does not wholly achieve what it sets out to do, which is to stop no deal, but I am happy to see a return of the royal prerogative. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that those two final clauses should be removed because they simply confuse the issue.

How wise we were to wait for those reports. The one from the Constitution Committee explains exactly what I have said. Paragraph 5(c) says:

“The European Council might agree to the extension but subject to certain conditions (e.g. UK participation in elections to the European Parliament)”.


I add in brackets that our human rights will be broken if we are still members of the EU and cannot vote—there was a case on this a few years ago. The report continues:

“If such a situation were to arise, the Bill would have no further application—that is, it would not impose any further duties on the Prime Minister nor make any relevant further provision”.


I am glad to hear that. In other words, if Monsieur Barnier says we have to enter into talks with Spain about Gibraltar, the Prime Minister can put down the phone and say no. We will come to the other report later in this discussion.

In sum, no deal is not blocked by this Bill, but the House of Lords is relegated, as has happened quite often, I am afraid, in all our interesting and productive debates about withdrawal. We do not get reported in the media and we are completely sidelined from future decisions by this Bill. If the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, is accepted, then mine will of course be withdrawn, but I am glad to get this clarification on the record.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I am rather confused as to what is going on here. Who is answering these important points?

[A noble Lord]

The Minister.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

No, it is not for the Minister to answer them, as it is not a Government Bill. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, is going to deal with these points, because we have the Opposition criticising the Bill, and seeking to amend it as we go along in Committee. To my mind—I am blessed with not being a lawyer—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, is riding two horses at once. On the one hand, he is saying that it is important that we retain the royal prerogative, because the Prime Minister has to be able to deal with the situation as it arises, and on the other hand, he says that we need this Bill in order to prevent the Prime Minister doing what she thinks is appropriate. If the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, is the sponsor of this Bill, perhaps he could enlighten us and deal with the important points which the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has just made.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, accepted that Amendments 5 and 7 remove the concern that she otherwise had—that is what she told the House.

I support Amendment 5 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, and I also want to speak to Amendment 7, which has, as I understand it, now been grouped with Amendment 5.

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[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, as I mentioned before, there is nothing in this Bill specifically to stop no deal. It requires the Prime Minister to seek and seek again. The root of the trouble is that for more than a hundred years we have observed the separation of powers in our constitution. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, is one of the greatest experts on this—I think he is not in his place, but if he were he would probably say that that separation is sometimes not exact. However, this Bill is a very good illustration of why it is not a good idea to mix up the powers of the Executive and the legislature. I would like to hear from whoever is the surrogate parent of this odd little embryo quite how it will prevent no deal. An abortion?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Will the noble Baroness send a copy of her excellent contribution just now to the Minister for Children, who appeared on Radio 4 on Saturday morning and told an astonished nation that it was now illegal for us to leave without a deal?

[Viscount Hailsham]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention in the hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, will respond to it. I entirely understand that in negotiations—the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, described the situation in which the Prime Minister and the EU are negotiating—there has to be give and take. What disturbs me is this: the Prime Minister might decide in advance to move outside the dates previously agreed by Parliament and go with an entirely fresh date into a negotiation. That is different in kind from negotiating when they sat down to discussion. It would be a deliberate attempt to go outside what Parliament has previously agreed to. It seems to me that Amendment 7 would enable her to do that, and I am profoundly uneasy about that prospect.

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[Lord Lisvane]

My Lords, I speak as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is unable to be here today because he is absent on parliamentary business. No doubt noble Lords have a copy of the 51st report of the Delegated Powers Committee. The argument set out by the committee is brief, concise and telling. I will not attempt to summarise it or indeed to read out the report, because paragraph 5 could hardly be summarised more briefly than it has been set out by the committee.

The committee acknowledges in paragraph 4:

“The principal justification for clause 2 of this Bill is that it might be necessary to legislate at speed next week”—


in other words, this week—

“to change exit day. The affirmative procedure might cause delays, with the risk that exit day in domestic law might not be aligned with exit day agreed under EU law”.

The committee goes on to say that on the other hand, there are powerful and telling arguments in favour of the affirmative procedure. It notes that were Clause 2 to be removed from the Bill, we would simply return to, as it were, the default setting.

Because this will be a matter of business management, the most helpful thing for your Lordships might be to have some indication from the Minister as to whether there is a balance of advantage of using the negative or the affirmative procedure. On that basis, it may be for your Lordships to decide whether Clause 2 remains in the Bill.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, again, I am disadvantaged as being neither a member of the committee or a lawyer. I am surprised that the noble Lord has not drawn the attention of the House to the fact that, as I understand it, the committee report makes it clear that this House would no longer be able to be consulted on those matters. Is that not correct?

[Lord Lisvane]

It is indeed; the noble Lord is correctly quoting from the final bullet point of paragraph 5. I did not want to delay your Lordships further, but that is a helpful, additional piece of information set out in the report.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, uncharacteristically, I think the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made a slight slip when he said that the Prime Minister would come back with a deal. She will not be coming back with a deal; she will be coming back with a date. The committee report states:

“The date of the UK’s exit from the EU remains a matter of the greatest political and legal significance. It is right that the matter be debated in Parliament before the current date of 12 April is changed in our domestic law”.


When the Government changed the date from 29 March to 12 April, they did so by statutory instrument placed before both Houses, and we were able to discuss and debate that matter. What is proposed, as the 51st report of the committee makes clear, is to remove that right from both Houses to approve a change.

I must say that in introducing the debate the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, was very brief in his description. The outside world may not realise what is proposed here, which is entirely to cut the House of Lords out of approving the date, which the report rightly says is of the greatest political significance. Judging from the amount of grief I had at the weekend from people who are very disillusioned by the performance of Parliament on this matter, it is something that concerns many millions of our fellow citizens. I am therefore very surprised that this should be treated as just a matter of convenience.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which is held in the highest regard and afforded the highest respect, made clear recommendations. The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is important: if this is to be done through a negative resolution, we will be invited after the event to consider whether we agreed with it, thus creating uncertainty. Again, we had the same discussion on Thursday. This is not about what the House thinks on whether we should leave the European Union; it is about whether our procedures and processes should be respected. The idea that it might be inconvenient or difficult to meet the timetable, and that we should therefore ignore our processes, is not good.

[Viscount Hailsham]

Normally, my noble friend and I disagree on these matters but I am rather inclined to agree with him on this one.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Hooray.

[Viscount Hailsham]

In the penultimate bullet point, it is clear that if the negative procedure is adopted and a Motion against the date is successful, the exit date will be invalidated and we will have to start again.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am grateful for my noble friend’s intervention. I am most obliged to him as a lawyer for backing up my case—and doing so for free. We should treat the amendment very seriously. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister has to say. We have not heard a squeak from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, who is apparently the midwife responsible for the Bill.

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, our position is similar to that of the Opposition, as outlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. We on these Benches would of course normally want to uphold the affirmative procedure; after all, we fought hard for it in the EU withdrawal Act. However, we are in exceptional times and it would be absurd for us to get to the end of the week with procedure having got in the way of good legal order.

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[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I hope that this is an unnecessary fear, but it ought to be clarified. My worry, which I am sorry to say has been intensified by what happened on Thursday, is that if an affirmative resolution is needed on Friday or Saturday, is there a risk that it could be filibustered and therefore not passed? We would then crash out because of that obstruction to the business of the House. As I say, that worries me very much, so for that reason I support the inclusion of Clause 2.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I know nothing of these matters but perhaps the noble Lord could explain how you can filibuster a statutory instrument?

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

I imagine that you can filibuster it by continuously talking and thus prolonging the debate until past midnight on 12 April. That is what I fear.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

As the noble Lord will have discovered, we have a procedure which last Thursday was used on five occasions in order to bring the matter to a close.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, it is worth reminding the Committee that the first steps to dictatorship have, through the centuries, consistently been related to abandoning procedures and precedents which are put in place in order to ensure that legislation is properly considered. I am not saying that we are going as far as the Enabling Act, but this is a very dangerous path.

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[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, this amendment is not needed to ensure that the provisions in the Bill are temporary. They are temporary in any event because the Bill is concerned with only the period for negotiations for withdrawing. Once we withdraw, the Bill has no effect whatever.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, if that is the case, there is no reason at all why we should not accept this amendment. The Prime Minister sent her letter asking for an extension on Friday, so I have spent most of the weekend trying to work out what the point of this Bill was in the first place. Given that we have amended it in respect of the prerogative powers, it is just a very bad piece of legislation. My noble friend Lady Noakes is offering the House the opportunity to get rid of a very embarrassing relative. The Bill and its genesis are not something of which this House or the other place can be particularly proud. It is a very bad Bill, conceived for all the wrong reasons. It has ridden roughshod over our procedures. Having a sunset clause, which is what this amendment offers, would be a very good thing indeed. I very much support my noble friend.

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[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, I understand the misgivings that many in this House have about this Bill, but I have to say to the noble Baroness that her amendment would not stop the Bill becoming an Act. It is going to become an Act, and that is the mischief, so she cannot stop through her amendment the mischief that she wishes to stop. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the Bill ceases to have an effect, so she need not worry about that either.

There is another reason why we should not pass this amendment: with the amendments we have passed so far, supported by the Government, they will be supported in the House of Commons, and so we will not have ping-pong. If we were to pass the noble Baroness’s amendment and the Government resisted it in the House of Commons, the Bill would have to come back here and there would be further delay. Therefore, I urge her not to press her amendment, because it is unnecessary and it will cause unnecessary prolongation of the procedures.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Before the noble Lord sits down, why does he think the Government would resist this?

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is right, though I understand where the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is coming from. The point has been made about the Bill itself, but this does not take the Bill away—it will have served its purpose, or not, and therefore we could not support this amendment. I imagine the Government would not either, but I wait to hear.