Brexit: Justice for Families, Individuals and Businesses (EU Committee Report)

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. I found myself in agreement with much of what he said, particularly the emphasis at the end of his speech upon the absence of any firm indication whatever about mechanisms—the working arrangements that will ensure the right outcome. This is becoming deeply disturbing because there are countless thousands of people out there who are uncertain and worried stiff, not only on this count but about so many aspects of Brexit and what is going to happen. Effective reassurance on this is terribly important.

It is significant that the report has had the endorsement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and what he said was important. He emphasised the importance not only of reciprocity but of certainty, and he is absolutely right. For him to bring all his legal experience to bear in emphasising those points is indeed significant.

Other noble Lords have spoken about the need for clarity, relating again to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, that we need to be clear about the structures and arrangements for enforcement. Clarity cannot be overemphasised.

It has been a great joy to serve on the committee, not least because of the very special nature of our chair. She is one of the most effective chairs I have ever served under. She brings a firmness which we all recognise, together with her, if I may use these words, kindly and in the best sense wicked, devastating charm—look out when it is in operation; she is ruthless at times—and her incisiveness. We had a very good indication of that in the way that she introduced the debate.

It has also been a joy to serve on the committee because of the commitment, seriousness and quality of fellow members of the committee. I have never gone away from a committee meeting without feeling challenged and impressed by what is gathered around that table. The House would do well to take its findings seriously.

Sometimes, we fail to thank our witnesses. We owe them a great deal for the candour with which they spoke. I am one of those who learns from personal experiences; I learn from them all the time. I therefore always take away from something in which I am really involved anecdotes which help to inform my attitudes to life. I shall never forget the occasion on which two very distinguished and highly qualified lawyers were giving evidence to the committee, but broke off to say—I am not quoting them literally, I am reporting what I heard—“We are lawyers. What we want to say now is not necessarily professionally in our personal interest, nor in our interest at all, because if things do not work out satisfactorily, there will be lots of work for lawyers in times ahead. But we are dealing with family matters. Surely everyone around this table cares about children. What is so awful in the handling of family matters in the legal system is how children can so easily be trampled on. We want outcomes that are in the best interest of children. What is significant is that it is beginning to work”.

I was taken to task by our chair the other day in a private conversation to say that they did not say “it is beginning”, they said that it is so effectively working on a cross-border basis. Of course, that is related to the role of the European court, enforceability and the system by which every member country is in the end legally accountable to one authority. We must have something very good indeed if it is to replace what the European court has brought.

The other thing that has come across to me in the work of this committee, which has come across day after day—and it has come across to me in other committees in which I have served—is the gap in which we are operating between reality and myth. I cannot find, in all the experience that I have been through on European matters, anything to substantiate the myth about the wicked nature of the European Court and the reasons why we have to extricate ourselves from its operation. Of course, there was a building and learning experience—but those who work in the system find it so effective and important. On the whole European issue, I hope that in this House, if nowhere else, we will want to feel that we have made a contribution not just to the well-being of British people but to the evolution of law within the European Union in the interests of people throughout the European Union. We do not hear enough about that argument. What is going to happen to that? Our lawyers and legal profession has played a key part in the evolution of European law, which is just not recognised or understood by the British people.

The myth has reigned too long. We must have reality—and that reality rests on making sure that, whatever happens, we have something that is as good as the European court.