European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Fox Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 19 is in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. One of the key issues in our debates has been the extent to which the United Kingdom will continue to safeguard the protections of certain rights that derive from EU law. The previous Bill, and assurances by the Government, indicated that protections would remain. The Government have repeatedly stated that, while they do not intend to undercut EU regulations, they want to retain the option of divergence and will therefore now refuse to sign up to level playing field provisions in a free trade agreement. It is time to know, if we can, what that actually means and just what the Government intend.

Just last Friday, the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, told the Financial Times that Britain would never accept ongoing regulatory alignment with Brussels. Ministers are arguing that it is not necessary to sign up to minimum standards, because in most cases the UK already exceeds what is required by EU directives or regulations, but we all know that that is not true in all areas.

The Government are telling us to trust them, even though they stripped out their previous commitments on workers’ rights and parliamentary oversight. As we saw in Committee, they cannot yet define the future relationship they want with a range of the EU’s executive agencies. We have, of course, been promised a ground-breaking new employment Bill, but Ministers will not tell us what its contents will be or set the timescales. We are not certain what engagement has taken place with trade unions and, while there is a need to regulate the gig economy, we need to be certain that this will not water down protections for other workers.

Yesterday, the European Commission briefed EU 27 diplomats on its preparations for the next round of Brexit negotiations. The presentation suggested that the EU will continue to advocate level playing field measures, with future co-operation to be underpinned by a single set of strong enforcement rules. It has been suggested that if the UK breaches any of its commitments under the future trade agreement, it could be fined or lose its preferential access to certain sectors. In response to the comments made by Mr Javid last week, one EU diplomat is quoted as saying:

“In the end it is all rather simple: If Britain wants to diverge from EU rules, it will diverge. Such an approach would obviously lead to new trade hurdles between Britain and the EU and in consequence less trade, less investment, less jobs.”


The Government need to be clear about their intentions. If they want a Canada-style deal, they should be honest with the public about the limitations of that approach. If they want Canada-plus-plus-plus or similar, and the economic and security benefits that a closer relationship would bring, Ministers need to be honest with the public that this will require a greater degree of alignment.

As we know, time is tight. The EU has been clear that it will not even adopt its negotiating mandate until the UK has departed at the end of this month. There needs to be sufficient time left for the ratification of any agreements by national and regional parliaments across the continent. My party has always been clear that it wants a close economic relationship with the EU and that regulatory alignment is not only a price worth paying but would bring benefits to UK citizens. The Government might disagree but, having won the election by promising to get Brexit done, they must now get on with the job of telling people what post-Brexit Britain will actually look like. The purpose of this amendment is to set out the protections that we believe ought to be continued. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the extent to which assurance will be given on to those protections. For those reasons, I beg to move.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and associate myself fully with the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith. As such, I can be brief.

Until last weekend, the Government had resolutely maintained a twin-track narrative. Yes, they said, we will have an independent trading policy; yes, they said, we will have frictionless trading with the European Union. Many of us in Committee tried to point out that these would, in effect, be mutually exclusive, and at the heart of this were regulatory standards. Many of us tried to explain that for frictionless trade to take place, a level playing field with the EU 27 means just that: a level playing field with no divergence. The Minister, at his obdurate best, shrugged off those Committee- stage comments.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, outlined, the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, broke cover in his interview with the Financial Times at the weekend. He quashed any prospect of the Treasury lending its support to our country’s leading manufacturing sectors. He was very clear, saying:

“There will not be alignment”


and he urged companies to adjust to the new reality, for our automotive, aerospace, pharmaceutical, chemical and food and drink industries, all of which have been clear on the vital need for alignment with EU regulations. Mr Javid added

“we will do this by the end of the year”

which is not long to wait.

Therefore, at least one member of the Government has told the truth and told us where the Government are headed. However, it is simply amazing that any Administration, never mind a Conservative one, should turn their back on these important providers of jobs and prosperity. This amendment would prevent Ministers using regulation-making powers under the Bill to diminish standards or protections related to series of protected matters. That sounds very dry and cold, but those protected matters, specified in the amendment, affect everyone. They include the environment, employment, social rights, animal welfare and public health—really important aspects of the everyday lives of people in this country.

The amendment, so ably moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, in essence sets out in writing the aspirations that the political agreement purported to set out. We now know that those aspirations have come to naught. Will the Minister tell us where the Government are headed and what will happen to standards?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I lend my support to the amendment, to which I have put my name, and I will add a couple of points which have not previously been made. We are of course going over ground which we pretty thoroughly discussed yesterday with regard to Amendment 15. The ground is a bit different but the issue is the same: a level playing field, maintenance of EU standards and so on.

First—I hope the Minister will reply to this—this is not an onerous obligation because, as I think he will find if he looks at the record, we voted for every single one of these EU measures, which we will not regress from if this amendment is adopted. Therefore, if we voted for them, why do we now want to diverge from them?

Another important point is that anyone who knows anything about Brussels knows that this will be an absolutely crucial factor in the political declaration implementation—the whole level playing field issue, and so on. I would honestly wager that, if we accept this amendment, we will get a much better deal than the one we will get if we insist on diverging. It is worth remembering that the cost to this country’s trade of insisting on the right to diverge will hit us long before we diverge. It will affect the terms we get in the deal we do, and the way in which inward investors and traders assess the chances of trade between the UK and the 27 not becoming more frictional. Therefore, the costs will be up front; they will not be somewhere down the road and perhaps avoidable if we never diverge. I would not be a bit surprised that, having beaten the tom-toms in this way in favour of divergence, the Government found that diverging was not as brilliant as all that.

Thirdly, noble Lords have probably not paid a huge amount of attention to what has been going on in the internal deliberations in Brussels. One of the Commission’s main proposals in the context of its green deal, which I am sure it will follow up, is to put tariffs on goods coming from countries which do not observe the same environmental conditions as those observed in the European Union. That could be us if we diverged, as the Government, in the form of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, suggested we would. Noble Lords may or may not think that the Commission’s proposal is a good idea; I do not, on the grounds of world trade policy. What noble Lords cannot disagree with, however, is that we are not going to influence greatly what the EU 27 decide to do: they will decide on the basis of their own inward dynamic, and strong forces are pushing for that.