European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 147C. In this rather pick-and-mix debate, as we go from one important topic to another, my amendment refers to transport. Our transport systems operate on a system of ongoing reciprocal arrangements and there is no WTO fallback position—indeed, I spoke about this in the early hours of yesterday morning. It is essential that we remain part of the arrangements that already exist, because our whole economy and society stand on the shoulders of our transport systems.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness described this as a pick-and-mix debate. Is there not one thing in common, that in every case we would be much better remaining in the European Union?

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord makes an excellent comment. I am not in any way undermining the debate. I said that these are really important topics. Of course, the one thing they have in common in the pick-and-mix—they are all sweets—is that they are all really important aspects that we need to remain part of.

If our transport systems stop, we all stop. It is essential that we continue with the existing international arrangements. In transport, it is estimated that there are some 65 of these sets of international arrangements in total. Do not worry, I am not going to go through all of them, but to illustrate, I spent yesterday in the Moses Room debating the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill, which is being rushed through here because the Government have discovered that for lorries to continue to travel abroad and vice versa, and for us to continue to be able to drive abroad, we might need to fall back on the Vienna convention of 1968 and the Geneva convention of 1949.

We signed the Vienna convention but we never ratified it. We did not need to because we joined the EU. We now need to do so, for which we have to give a year’s notice. Noble Lords might wish to think about what this country will be doing if the Government have their way in a year’s time. Therefore, that Bill is in a bit of a rush. It was not expected and it was not in the Queen’s Speech. It has clearly been put together by the Government at great speed because it is a very skeletal Bill. Indeed, the Delegated Powers Committee report called it not so much “skeletal”, more of “a mission statement”. We have no idea what system the Government will introduce in the regulations. Therefore, it is important that we retain the right to know what will be put forward to scrutinise it. At the moment it allows for only negative instruments, which is very unsatisfactory.

That example does not inspire confidence that the Government are on top of the job. There are probably other corners of the world of international transport that they have not come upon yet. Another example is the open skies agreement between the US and the EU, which we are a member of by virtue of being a member of the EU. I have a Private Member’s Bill on this that your Lordships might like to support. Without this agreement, planes will be grounded. It affects flights to and from the US, as well as within the EU. It affects not just our right for planes in Britain to fly to EU countries, but our right for them to go from one country to another in the EU. It is not easy to renegotiate this because of the complex ownership of our major airlines, several of which have a majority foreign ownership, although they are UK-based airlines. By the international judgment on these things, when we cease to be a member of the EU they in effect cease to be UK airlines, or could cease to be.

There is also the European Aviation Safety Agency, of which we have been a predominant member. It is very important that we remain a member of it. There are many other agreements relating to railways and a whole host of agreements associated with the maritime industry, including many that affect the protection of workers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, has already amply illustrated the importance and impact on consumer rights of these international agreements. Consumers in Britain have benefited enormously from the rights given to them, for example in relation to air travel, as a result of international agreements of which we are members.

The new customs we will have to be part of will have a major impact on our haulage and international travel sector. The British Retail Consortium believes that 180,000 UK companies, many of them small and medium-sized enterprises, will be drawn into customs declarations for the first time with new excise and VAT systems. Although they have exported, they have done so entirely to the EU and therefore have not had to have these customs arrangements. When they talk to me, they describe the huge cost to them of becoming involved in all these new systems. As this is such a massive topic, I am not going to produce any more examples, but I can assure noble Lords that there are many dozens more.