European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mandelson (Lab)]

My Lords, this House has already voted in favour of the customs union to stop the imposition of trade barriers that would decimate our manufacturing base. We did so, I suggest, with the tacit support of half the Cabinet, and a majority of Conservative MPs, including in her dreams, I suspect, the Prime Minister. We have to do the same for Britain’s services industries as well. Unlike manufactured goods, cross-border services trade does not have effective WTO rules to fall back on in the absence of any preferential trade agreement between Britain and the European Union. It is absolutely fundamental for us to be clear in our minds that services are not the same as goods. WTO rules effectively provide for goods; they do not provide for services.

Such a free trade agreement between Britain and the EU would be extremely hard to negotiate services into; there is almost no precedent for it—goods tariffs quite possibly, but services very unlikely. Therefore we are not talking of a trade agreement between ourselves and the EU, which is Canada-plus, plus, plus. This is far from it. I have been both a British Trade Secretary and a European Trade Commissioner, so I have seen these issues from both ends of the telescope. It is not possible, given EU rules, and the red line of the British Government, for us to achieve anything like the sort of trade agreement that the Government speak of.

This, therefore, is the crux of the matter in the debate. Without effective WTO rules for trade in services, and without the likelihood of a full bilateral agreement covering all services, we have to maintain our services access by other means, and the only dependable means available to us outside the European Union is membership of the EEA. This would give us coverage by right of all the regulatory standards and rules, harmonised within Europe’s single market, and would give us what amounts to free trade in services. Such single market rules apply to Britain’s pre-eminent EU exports. Our exports to Europe in financial services, including other business services and broadcast services, are colossal. These sectors represent over half of our services economy, which in turn amounts to 80% of Britain’s economy as a whole. This is how important they are to our future economic well-being in this country. Financial and professional services alone account for 25% of all UK services exports, using the automatic passporting arrangements that presently come with our membership of the European Union and the single market.

If we quit the single market as a result of leaving the EU, without the access that the EEA gives us, these rights and their powers of enforcement would be forfeited—no ifs and no buts: that would be consequence that we would face. The impact on cross-border delivery of services to Europe would be savage. A significant proportion of our broadcast content production, as well as cross-border banking and insurance, would be hit for six. This will have a major knock-on effect on the whole of our creative industries in this country and on employment in Britain. In financial services, Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin and Amsterdam will be the principal beneficiaries, as we are already beginning to see.

Our economy simply cannot afford this loss. We are not talking about the next few months; we are not talking about the next couple of years. We are talking about the medium-term consequences, as investment strategies shift to reflect our exclusion from the single market. I understand why the hard Brexiters will probably not lose any sleep over this at all because, for them, it is not economic—it is political. But for the rest of the country, it is their jobs, their livelihoods and the future of their businesses, as well as our country’s income and, moreover, our public services and what we will be able to afford to spend on them, that will be at stake.

I know fully well the arguments about the obligations as well as the advantages of being out of the EU but in the single market via the EEA. We would indeed be presented with a dilemma over rule-making because we would no longer be full voting members of the EU. But no economy of our size and status as a former EU member has ever attempted to join the EEA before. We would be in a reasonable position to frame the negotiations over our EEA membership. It would be a first—but it would also be a welcome first for the EU 27 seeking to keep trade barriers to a minimum, and I think we would be entitled to expect and receive some flexibility.

As for free movement of labour, it is already open to Britain to operate less liberal labour market policies, and we can do so as EEA members. Let us be honest: we all know, do we not, what the Government’s intention is? They know fully well that businesses and public services in our country, including the National Health Service, will continue to need EU nationals as employees, which is why they intend to allow them to keep coming, whatever they say or do not say now. To pretend otherwise is simply to perpetrate another Brexit fraud on the British public.

As I say, as a former Trade Commissioner, I know only too well what is at stake and how we would need to navigate our EEA membership application to gain the maximum national advantage—and I believe it can be done. On Brexit, the time has come for economic reality and common sense to prevail over political dogma and wishful thinking. In this House, in making up our minds on these crucial issues, we are not so easily bullied, and we know why. That is the privilege we have of being Members of this House. This amendment gives us the opportunity to do the right thing for the country and, in my view, that is what we have a duty to do and why we should support this amendment.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Alli addressed the House on the basis of principle and with passion—and so did the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I greatly respect the commitment to the national interest of all who have spoken, including of course those who have spoken in support of the amendment. I suggest that it would be good for our proceedings if, whatever side we are on in these passionate debates, we could all work on the assumption that each other’s motives are to be respected.

Of course the future of UK services industries is of immense importance—that is not in doubt at all, and it has to be a major concern of the Government as they develop their negotiations with the European Union on the terms of Brexit. My noble friend Lord Mandelson is pessimistic about their prospects, but it seems to me that it must be in the interests of the European Union as well as of the United Kingdom that the EU does not put impossible barriers in the way of our services exports.

I feel bound to point out that membership of the European Economic Area does entail certain conditions. Non-EU members of the EEA have agreed to enact a large volume of legislation similar to that of the European Union. Non-EU members are consulted on prospective legislation, but they are not represented in the governing institutions of the European Union. The Norwegians refer to the legislation that is presented to them as “fax democracy”: they wait by their fax machines in Oslo to find out what the legislation is that it has been determined in Brussels should govern them.

It is also worth noting, as my noble friend Lord Alli did, that agriculture and fisheries are not part of the terms of reference of the European Economic Area and, therefore, that membership of the EEA would do nothing to assist us in resolving the problems of the Irish border.

A second condition of membership of the EEA is to accept the principle of the free movement of people. My noble friend Lord Alli suggested that somehow this could be got around. My noble friend Lord Mandelson and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, drew attention to the possibility that, under existing EU provisions, it would have been possible for us to have operated a tighter regime on immigration. Those things may be so, but the fact remains that, if you are a member of the European Economic Area, you accept the principle of free movement of people. The noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, explained calmly and clearly what the possibilities and the difficulties are.

A third condition of membership of the European Economic Area is that those who are in membership have agreed that they will pay in considerable sums of money to finance grant schemes intended to reduce the economic and social disparities within the EEA. We should note that the size of those payments greatly increased following enlargement in 2004.

As we all know very well, those who voted leave in the referendum—a majority of our people in, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, rightly reminded us, the biggest exercise in democratic participation that we have ever seen in this country—voted advisedly to take back control of our laws, our borders and our money. In respect of the three principles of membership of the European Economic Area that I have just mentioned, it is clear that, if we remained in the EEA or applied to join it—whatever the precise status would be—we would not have taken back control of our laws, our borders and our money.

We were told again this evening that it will be a cataclysm for the economy if we do not find ourselves members of the EEA. I am afraid that the citizens of this country, who were unimpressed by the forecasts of doom that were presented to them when they were so strenuously advised that it would be a terrible mistake to vote leave, will not be impressed by renewed forecasts of doom. They expect the wish that they so clearly expressed in the referendum—a referendum which they were told by the Government would be determinative and not advisory—to be met. If they perceive, as I think they would if this amendment were passed, that your Lordships’ House is seeking after all to keep them effectively in the EU by another name and to thwart the very clear decision that they expressed at the referendum, they will, to use the term of my noble friend Lord Mandelson, feel that a fraud has been perpetrated on them.

We of course have the right in this House to send our advice to the other place by way of amendments. The question that we have to judge is not whether we have that right but whether it is wise in these circumstances to exercise it. It seems to me that now is a time for a politics not of confrontation but of healing.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I am sceptical about the EEA option. I am not sure that the EFTA EEA partners particularly want us—some of them tend to say that they do not—and I am not sure that the consultative arrangements that they find sufficient, or reasonably satisfactory, would be found satisfactory by this country.

I have always thought that the sort of consultative arrangements that we could secure would be best devised here and put forward in the proposal for the framework of the future relationship. I have always thought it very strange that the Government always insist on playing away—that it is for the other side to put forward the drafts. I do not know why we have not put forward our own prescription. I think we still should—but I begin to despair that we ever will.

I am very impressed by the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson. We have not yet done anything on services, and we really must do something. I am not sure that the EEA is right—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said, if we applied to join the EEA, it would be a different EEA that would emerge. It is not, therefore, a knock-down argument that the template that suits Liechtenstein would be imposed on the United Kingdom. I think we could do better. So, although it is not for me the ideal way to go, I would much rather that Britain put forward a British proposal optimised for the British relationship with the European Union that we will have left. If we are not going to do that, this is the next best thing. So, despite my doubts about the EEA option, I will vote for the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alli, if he chooses to test the opinion of the House—and I hope that others will, too.