European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

With respect to my noble friend, I did not say that. I repeat what I said: peace in western Europe after the Second World War owed more to the Soviet Union than it did to the European Union. I did not say that the Soviet Union’s threat was the only factor. Of course there were other factors. Many of the things said in questions to me in the past few minutes have considerable truth to them, but it is ridiculous to ignore the extent to which peace in western Europe was a consequence of the existential threat that the western part of the continent faced from the Soviet Union to the east. I would like to proceed to consider the Bill.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I do not intend to prolong this historical debate, other than to say to the noble Lord that he is falling into the trap that an earlier speaker warned us about—he is being too Manichean. He is juxtaposing the Soviet Union threat, the NATO response and the European Union. It is all of them together. It is because they are all working together to common aims that we have managed to come through better. When war broke out in Europe again in the 1990s, in the Balkans, the longer-term response to that has come mainly from the European Union. Surely we can move away from this distorted view of history and accept that the European Union has played an integral part in our security and prosperity but not the only part.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

I do not disagree with the noble Lord. His intervention establishes that we have made some progress because, in common parlance, the European Union is frequently given the entire credit for creating peace in western Europe after the Second World War but I do not believe that to be true.

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[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I want to make two brief points, one of which is directly concerned with the Bill, from which we have been drifting somewhat. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, made a compelling case for the unification of Ireland—but that may be for another day—and that the effect of terrorism seems to have achieved what the terrorists wanted.

Turning to the Bill, it does not answer the question of what the situation will be if there is still no deal by the end of January. Will the extension be continued? Nothing in the Bill prevents the continuation of extensions, months after months, years after years—nothing at all. It is an eternal Bill, an ongoing loop of requests for extensions. It also does not answer the question of what our response will be if Europe grants an extension but subject to conditions. I am sure they will be tempted to add conditions to do with extra payments, losing votes, residence, immigration, tax and so on. There is no answer in the Bill at all.

The only bright thing I see in this Bill, which I regard otherwise as a moment of great national humiliation, is called the Kinnock amendment. I have not seen it in the Bill, but I have read that, somehow, an amendment put in by the MP Stephen Kinnock would allow Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement to return. I would put money on that agreement coming back, sooner or later, maybe with a tweak or two. In a fit, either of exhaustion or realism, that Bill will go through. It may be that history will say that there was a woman, St Theresa of Maidenhead, who laid down her political life to achieve an agreement. If that happens, much of the last three years will have been wasted. I am not the only one putting money on it coming back, as it may be the only solution.

The right reverend Prelate raised the notion of vision. People often talk about the vision of Britain after Brexit. I ask what the European vision is. If this had been put before the public three years ago, the outcome might have been different. I have been looking for a European vision for more than 25 years, since I decided that I did not want any part of it. The only answer has ever been more union, more Europe, marching on. Foreign policy has been raised. It has made us weaker. What is the European attitude towards Iran, Russia, China or the Middle East? We get division, hesitation and some countries that are beholden to Russia, one way or another, because of gas or their former existence under the Soviet shadow.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Baroness asked some questions about the European attitude. The European attitude towards Iran is clear: it wishes to sustain the joint agreement, which stops Iran developing nuclear weapons, and to ease sanctions on Iran. Its position on Russia is clear: it intends to maintain sanctions against Russia, because of its interference in Ukraine and seizure of Crimea. The attitude towards China is clear: the European Union believes that many Chinese trade practices are wrong and need to change. On the Middle East, it is clear that we have supported a two-state solution ever since the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, persuaded the European Union to take it up in 1980. Is that enough?

[Baroness Deech]

The account of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, expresses exactly the failure to which I refer. Not one of these so-called attitudes has paid off, in the least. Our foreign policy, on our own, has been and will in the future be much more successful.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I support the Bill, which is extremely necessary, timely and rather skilfully drafted. I shall not dwell long on the rather dispiriting debates we had yesterday. I note that when you are making sweet white wine, it is usual to leave the grapes on the vine until they have been attacked by something called noble rot. Well, there was quite a lot of noble rot around in this House last night.

I will look, rather, to the future, I want to address one of the central planks of the Government’s belief: that they need to be able to leave without a deal as a negotiating tool. It is something the Prime Minister has said again and again. Most recently he spoke about the Bill as cutting him off at the knees. The trouble with this thesis is that it is not supported by any evidence. There is not a scintilla of evidence that the Prime Minister or his predecessor made any progress at all by threatening to leave without a deal. After all, the previous Prime Minister coined that dreadful phrase “No deal is better than a bad deal” at Lancaster House more than two and a half years ago, and if the European Union 27 really are quaking in their shoes about such an event, we might have seen a bit of quaking by now. We have not seen such quaking, so I think this whole approach—using no deal as a lever—is completely unfounded and false. It does not work. Frankly, we should stop kidding ourselves, on the government side at least, that this is “open sesame” in Brussels. It is not.

The other point, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and one or two others, is that we still do not have a clear picture of the costs and implications of leaving without a deal. This House made a perfectly imaginative proposal to the other place in July, which was ignored and treated with contumely, but would have meant that by the end of September we would have had a joint parliamentary inquiry which could have taken evidence not from people who are parti pris, as many speakers in this House are—I admit I am one—but from organisations such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the budgetary responsibility people, the CBI, the TUC and others. Out of that we could have had, by the end of September, a really clear picture of what was entailed. Do we have a clear picture? No. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked on the radio this morning how much it would cost, did not know. This is why it is essential that this piece of legislation means that when decisions have to be taken, in late October, we actually have some control over it.

My third point has been alluded to by many other speakers and concerns our British union. I am the son of a Scottish father and was brought up for quite a bit of time in Scotland. I am a unionist through and through and if anyone tells me that crashing out without a deal is not going to damage the stability and continuity of that union, in Scotland, Wales and above all in Northern Ireland, frankly they lack all credibility. The Bill is necessary. It was made the more necessary by the decision to prorogue. I will not go on at great length about that. Of course the Government have the right to recommend Prorogation to Her Majesty, but the underhand way this was done and the perfectly obvious intention to deprive Parliament of quite a few sitting days in which it could have considered these matters has triggered and emphasised the need for this piece of legislation.

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[Lord Callanan]

I am always wary when the noble Lord wants to be helpful, particularly when he quotes things taken straight from “Yes Minister” about being brave. All I can say is that he has not said it in any of the meetings that I have been at with him. Obviously, I am not at every meeting with him and I cannot comment on whether he said it. He says that he did not and nobody else in government has said to me that he did. I know Dominic well and I take his word when he says that he did not say that.

We know that member states want to avoid a no-deal exit. As set out by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the other place on Tuesday, we have accelerated our preparations for no deal. For example, as I informed the House in repeating the Statement on Tuesday, there is additional expenditure of £16 million to train thousands of customs staff, traders and hauliers, and an additional £20 million to ensure that traffic can flow freely in Kent and that trucks arriving in Dover are ready to carry our exports into the EU. In addition, the Chancellor has made all necessary funds available to support other preparations.

Perhaps I might say a few words about the Bill itself. Although today’s debate has been of the usual high standard, it was remarkable that very few noble Lords addressed the legislation that we are talking about. However, it is true that continued EU membership would cost the UK roughly £1 billion net a month. The Bill, as it currently stands, would require the Prime Minister immediately to accept any offer made by the EU of an extension to 31 January 2020.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The figure of £1 billion net that the Minister refers to is frequently contested because it appears to be gross and not to take account of the expenditure that the European Union would make in this country if we were still a member. Can he perhaps clarify that?

[Lord Callanan]

Given the previous controversy about the sums of money involved in our exit, I am loath to get into this but I think that that is roughly the net figure. Our net figure is about £10 billion to £12 billion a year. I think that our gross contribution was about £20 billion and—very roughly, off the top of my head and without looking at the numbers—we receive about £10 billion back in receipts for agriculture payments, structural funds, et cetera. If those figures are incorrect, I will write to the noble Lord.