European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hope of Craighead and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 9th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I do not want to detain the Committee for very long; I will make just one or two points. First, I congratulate the Government on the steps they have taken to amend the original structure of the Bill so that it fits better with the architecture of the devolved statutes. If you look at the list of amendments, there are not just one but 22. That gives an idea of the scale of the exercise that has gone into preparing what we are discussing this evening. I congratulate the team that has been working behind the scenes to put this together. There are one or two loose ends, as I mentioned earlier this afternoon, but this has gone a very long way and—apart from on the one issue of consent, about which perhaps enough has been said—I support entirely the structure and wording of these amendments.

As far as the solution put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, is concerned, one feature that is worth noting is paragraph 11, which is the requirement that, if there is disagreement—a failure to reach unanimous agreement—reasons must be given. I have sat for a long time in court where, if you want to dissent, you have to explain yourself, and it is quite extraordinary; once you start writing these things out, you begin to wonder whether the dissent was justified. It is an extremely good discipline, when somebody is in disagreement, to force them to sit round a table and express themselves in writing as to what the nature of the disagreement is. The disagreement may remain, but at least it focuses the mind and makes it easier for the dispute to be resolved by the final body that has the responsibility of resolving the issue.

Regarding the three solutions offered as to how we might deal with this, there are three different solutions for resolving the issue. I have already suggested that the solution put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, would not work because the Supreme Court could not deal with that kind of issue. As for the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I believe that the panel he is talking about has four members, three of whom are from the devolved institutions and one from the United Kingdom. It is a simple majority decision and the United Kingdom would be in the minority—and I am not sure that that is an entirely satisfactory solution to have arrived at. So I am brought back to the solution offered by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, which, at the end of the day, is to refer to the United Kingdom Parliament. I am not quite sure what procedure would be adopted, but it seems to offer a fairer and better solution than the other two. Broadly speaking, I endorse the thinking behind what the noble and learned Lord suggested.

We have made a great deal of progress. My final point is to comment on the fact that the Government have undertaken to withdraw the amendments. I was arguing for that some days ago, because it seemed to me that if we had to vote on it tonight that would give a rather different flavour to the debate. It is a way of enabling us to talk around the subject and the way in which we on the Back Benches have to operate all the time. It may be unusual but it is part of the constructive way in which the Government are approaching this issue and I commend it.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, we sit here week after week and, wherever we started our careers, we cannot help but look at them now from the Westminster and London perspective—the UK perspective. As I have been sitting here this evening, I have done a head count. More than 10 of us in the Chamber during this debate have been Members of the devolved legislatures as well as here. We have First Ministers, Deputy First Ministers—a huge band of people here who have experience of seeing these things from the devolved perspective. It is important to bear in mind—and I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Lang, who said that there had been much too much emphasis on the importance of legislative consent in these debates—that legislative consent is the firm foundation on which confidence in the devolved system lies, in the absence of a full federal system, which of course we do not have in this country. I am a fierce unionist, but demonising the SNP does not help to bind the UK together. I assure noble Lords that there is a firm cross-party determination in Wales to insist on significant improvements to this Bill. The Government’s amendment is extremely welcome—but, so far, it is too little. It is a great pity that it is so late, because it means that people have not been able to give the full attention to it that it deserves. But I am sure that it is a good foundation upon which to build.

As noble Lords may remember, nearly two hours ago the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, intervened to ask the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, why the devolved legislatures and Administrations had been content to accept EU power but were not content to accept the UK Government’s power on these issues. I can assure the noble Lord that I went to a number of JMCs and, sitting as a Minister in the UK Government, there was never a time when I felt for one minute that the devolved Administrations did not question the need for more power to go to them. They have persistently and determinedly asked for greater powers and a greater say in negotiations with the EU. This is not something that has come out of nowhere; it is a persistent requirement from the devolved Administrations and legislatures that they should have a stronger voice. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, devolved Ministers could go to those meetings—and, indeed, often go to meetings of the European Council. I give way.