European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, critics ask what right have I, an unelected Peer, to oppose the Bill or even to seek radically to amend it, especially when the Prime Minister is behaving as if she represents only the 52% of citizens who voted to leave. I do not deny that they won, or that the outcome must be respected, but what about the 48% who voted remain? What about Scotland, where independence is threatened, or Northern Ireland, where the peace settlement is threatened? The truth is that the country was split down the middle and it still is. If the Prime Minister were really acting in the national interest, she would be representing remainers, too. She would be pursuing a one-nation Brexit, not a partisan, hard, right-wing Brexit. However, I fully understand and respect that, for many MPs and noble Lords, the vast majority of whom, like I did, campaigned and voted to remain, the Bill is agonising and they feel duty-bound to act in line with the referendum result. However, for me, a one-nation Brexit would, as a minimum, mean protecting jobs and prosperity by remaining in the single market—in line, by the way, with the last Conservative election manifesto—albeit with a deal on movement of labour to and from the EU being linked to having a job, and on stopping or returning those who do not have one.

A one-nation Brexit would also mean guaranteeing a completely open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, with no security checks and no controls, physical or electronic. Otherwise, the peace process could unravel.

Cutting us off from our biggest market, where nearly half our trade is done, will have devastating consequences for the economy, jobs and millions of individual citizens’ lives. The detailed terms of the divorce are likely to be serious. There will be a cost, estimated at between €40 billion and €60 billion, for the UK to fulfil its existing obligations. The future relocation of the two EU institutions located in the UK, the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency, will lead to a direct loss of highly skilled jobs and an exodus of companies located here which value proximity to these agencies, as the Japanese Government have warned.

Failure fully to protect property, contract, pension and residence rights under European Union law, which we, as EU citizens, have acquired, as well as social security, healthcare and mutual recognition of qualifications, could lead to the repatriation of an estimated 1.25 million British migrants from other European Union countries, both retired and working. Financial services, which provide 11% of Treasury revenue and 10% of our GDP, risk losing their “passport” to the EU of regulatory equivalency, already leading to the banks announcing plans to move jobs to rival financial centres, such as Frankfurt, Dublin, Paris or New York. EasyJet has drawn up plans to leave its Luton headquarters and relocate to the continent, as UK-based airlines risk losing access to the EU’s deregulated aviation market after Brexit. The car industry fears crippling tariffs, while the UK aerospace industry, critically including Airbus in Wales, also fears that European contracts may be at risk. These industries are key to maintaining the UK’s tax base and skilled workforce and are crucial to the regional economies where they are based. Is this really the outcome that voters in these vital sectors wanted to see? Surely not. They voted to leave the EU to take control, not to lose control.

Almost universally overlooked is that the right to free movement has never been unconditional, even under current European Union rules. In fact, the UK already has a number of effective tools available to it to manage migration from the EU, if it wishes to do so. Other European Union countries, such as Belgium, send thousands of people back to their own country every year; for example, if they are not in work. Rather than turning our backs on our largest export market in the EU, would not a more constructive approach have been to try to agree a new interpretation of free movement of labour; namely, that this should apply only to the 60% of EU nationals with offers of employment from British employers who need them?

We now learn that if we cannot get the EU trade deal we want, the Government want to jump into what you might describe as a “Trump Brexit” to make Britain a low-tax haven with lower labour and environmental regulation, in an attempt to attract foreign firms once we have left the EU. That would also mean continued shrinking of the state, even more savage cuts in public services and even greater inequality, hitting our poorest and most vulnerable citizens the hardest. That would be a betrayal of almost everything I have fought for in both Houses of Parliament for more than a quarter of a century. Despite our party leader’s three-line Whip to march through the Lobbies with the Conservatives for this Trump Brexit, and as a matter of principle and conscience, I will vote against the Bill if the Government do not accept key cross-party amendments that have been tabled.

Informal European Council

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Certainly, the fact that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Spain had constructive discussions is very positive. As I said, it shows that there is good will on all sides to try to resolve this matter as quickly as possible.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not striking how often government Ministers say how very, terribly, extremely influential the Prime Minister is? I do not recall that ever being said about Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or, for that matter, Margaret Thatcher. They always were very influential.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am telling you she is influential because you are asking me.

European Council

Lord Hain Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am sure that we will find over the next couple of years that there will be lots of debates about many of these things, but what is very clear to me is that, once Article 50 is triggered, that is the formal start of the exit process. Unless an agreement is reached between the United Kingdom and the other member states in advance of the end of the two-year period—or at the end, if there is unanimous agreement among those member states with the United Kingdom that it should be extended—once that process starts, it will be completed at the end of two years.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that yesterday the Prime Minister was the first in Britain’s history to attend a European Council without a clue as to what the British agenda was? Given that his possible, perhaps likely, successor Boris Johnson wrote a newspaper article on Monday saying that we needed to stay in the single market, only for his aide to say yesterday that he was too tired when he wrote it and did not really mean that, and given that on the doorstep in south Wales, as I can testify, people voted leave because immigration was going to be reduced—a promise also reneged on by the leave leaders—is there not now an irrefutable case for this House to consider a referendum at some point in future after the deal has been agreed, because it is very evident that people voted last Thursday without any idea what was actually going to happen to them?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

We are in a situation where, clearly, this Government campaigned for our recommendation to the British people, which was to remain in the European Union, but a majority of the British people rejected that position and decided that we should exit. This Prime Minister is working hard, between now and the point at which he is replaced, to provide as much as he can by way of factual information so that the next Prime Minister is in a strong position, as soon as possible, to outline the kind of relationship that the United Kingdom should have with the European Union. I have explained that the Article 50 process will be the formal trigger process between the United Kingdom and the European Union. As for the point at which other events will occur, once there is that clarity on the type of relationship that the next Prime Minister wishes the United Kingdom to have with the European Union—when that is presented and other contributions, whether from Parliament or anyone else, are made—I cannot say at the moment, as that will be something that the next Prime Minister has to decide.

European Union: United Kingdom Renegotiation

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for his comments and his support. I agree that people will consider how to vote based on their view of the success of renegotiation—although I keep having to preface my remarks by saying that the Prime Minister has not yet reached an agreement with Europe; as he said in his Statement, he has not yet ruled anything out as regards the next steps. Notwithstanding the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, about a higher level, I am sure that we will see lots of debates about the detail. Some things will be of particular concern to certain people, while for many others there will be an instinctive reaction to the debate rather than attention to the detail, and we will have to cover all people’s interests in this important matter.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, whereas British membership of the European Union costs in net terms about £10 billion now, if we left, presumably we would still want to be a member of the single market. After all, half our national trade is there, but on the Norway model—the only rational basis for that membership—that would cost about £7.5 billion. Will the Government explain that over the coming weeks? Admittedly it is less, but not that much less, and we would be bound by future rules determined in Brussels, without our Ministers accountable to our Parliament and our elected parliamentarians accountable to their voters in Britain being able to influence them. That does not seem much of a bargain—we would pay but have no say. Does the Minister agree?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I agree with the noble Lord’s analysis. When we get to the campaigning stage, it will be important to help people to understand that there are most definitely alternative models, but that they come with costs and disadvantages that people will need to be aware of if those are the routes they want to pursue.