European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the support for this Bill and the agreement underlying it, as anyone with common sense should surely do. It is plainly an historic and remarkably comprehensive achievement.

I have two quick observations. First, now that we have an agreement on which to build, I plead for a new phase of illusion-dissolving honesty from our leadership, our opinion-formers and our phrase-makers. Could we henceforth take much more care in using the overworked phrase “taking back control”? This is accurate in narrow legal terms in that our Parliament will make our laws and British courts under British judges will implement them. But it is equally obvious that we cannot do exactly what we want in today’s conditions. Unless we wish to become a hermit kingdom, a large number of our laws and rules will be constrained by the realities of an increasingly interdependent and connected planet and by multiple international standards, treaty commitments and solemn agreements.

Therefore, could we perhaps give the “control” mantra a rest, at least until we are clearer as to who exactly is getting back this control? Is it our sovereign Parliament—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was urging—the devolved Administrations, the Executive or the proposed EU-UK partnership council and the arbitration bodies set up by the agreement, whose rulings on alignment and fair competition will control us, without their being subject to parliamentary scrutiny, although they will be international law? Some of these questions were rightly raised earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, chair of the Constitution Committee, of which I am privileged to be a member.

Secondly, the Government constantly get accused of having no coherent vision—no narrative—as we move out of the EU treaty system. Actually, our future narrative is there for the telling. The International Trade Secretary, who is doing an excellent job, was rightly calling the other day for a “Pacific mindset”, or an Indo-Pacific mindset, in repositioning the UK in an utterly changed world.

Of course, we need good and settled relations with our nearest neighbours, although a Europe of constant bargaining is what we have to look forward to regionally. However, the bigger, and much faster-growing, markets, are taking shape elsewhere; for instance, in dynamic south-east Asia and in parts of the Commonwealth network, where investment is now being sucked away from China and where most future world growth in both goods and services lies.

In a networked world and in this hyper-connected age, the whole nature of global trade has changed, the distribution of power has changed, the nature of security threats has changed, and the very texture and character of international relations have changed. So, in passing this Bill and validating this excellent agreement, please could the tone and phraseology now be updated accordingly to give people an honest and balanced assessment of where we are going and by whom we will be controlled?