European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Kerslake Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

The amendment would ensure that the island of Ireland is not forgotten and that Northern Ireland is, just for once, not an afterthought. Any deterioration in the peace process would be a very high price to pay for Brexit.

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak in general support of the issues raised by this group. I have not put my name to any particular amendment but I feel that the issues raised demand proper debate. This is the first time that I have spoken in any of the Brexit debates in this House. I have a personal interest: my mother came over from Ireland after the war and made this country her home. Due to a long-standing personal commitment, I made the start of the Second Reading debate but was not able to take up my speaking slot. Therefore, before coming to specific issues, I will say a few words about my overall position on the Bill.

I voted remain in the referendum. This did not make me a cheerleader for the EU. I could see its current difficulties and challenges all too clearly. Indeed, anyone involved in negotiations on EU structural funds would have been in no doubt about those challenges. However, on balance, I believed that it was clearly in the interests of this country to remain—if you like, a realistic rather than a reluctant remainer.

The referendum result answered one question: whether this country wished to remain in the EU. However, as others have said, it left a whole lot of other questions unanswered. Should we remain in the single market? How can we best secure the future of the United Kingdom, something I feel very passionately about? What should our approach be to EU and EEA citizens? Those are just three examples of questions that we should be debating in these amendments. To want to debate these issues is not the same as wanting to block or delay the Bill. Reviewing, scrutinising and proposing amendments to legislation is, after all, what we are here to do.

Much has been said about the ardent remainers, if I can call them that, being in denial of the referendum result. I have no doubt that there are some—maybe even some in the Chamber—who fit that description. However, my biggest concern is the ardent leavers, who seem to be in denial of the enormous risks that a badly handled Brexit will have for our economic, social and political interests or, indeed, how much we are going to have to give up in order to secure Brexit on the terms currently envisaged. We cannot simply hope for the best and leave these issues to the outcome of the negotiations. The likely result of that approach is that we will be left with Hobson’s choice: vote for a deal that we are deeply unhappy about or face being bundled out of the EU without an agreement. It is much better to discuss, debate and, where necessary, vote on the issues now.

Turning to the amendments in this group, the Government’s Brexit White Paper sets out 12 principles, one of which is:

“Protecting our strong historic ties with Ireland and maintaining the Common Travel Area”.


It rightly highlights the extensive movement of goods, services and people across the border and says that the Government will work with the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to find “a practical solution”. What is much less clear in the plan, however, is how this principle will be reconciled with the other principles in the plan and, if they cannot be reconciled, which principle will take precedence.

Paragraph 4.4 of the White Paper says:

“When the UK leaves the EU we aim to have as seamless and frictionless a border as possible”.


So there will be a border. Like much of the White Paper, the clear headline principle at the start of the chapter is undermined by the text. The question is not whether we have a border, it is how seamless it is.

As many have said this afternoon, the issues here go well beyond free trade and free movement. The report of the EU Committee made it clear that the implications of Brexit for Ireland were more profound than for any other member state. Indeed, in my own discussions with the Republic of Ireland when I was head of the Civil Service, the prospect of Britain exiting from the EU and the potential consequences was by far their biggest concern. This fear has now become a reality. It seems clear that the harder the Brexit, the harder the border. It will in effect become an external customs border of the EU. While of course there may be some shroud waving, we cannot ignore the comments of former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who was after all instrumental to the Good Friday agreement, that Brexit might put the peace process in jeopardy. There must surely be no circumstances in which we could contemplate that happening.

Of course, the EU Commission negotiators have an important role here. I recognise that, but in the end this will come down to the choices we make in the negotiations. What negotiating goal finds priority over another? In my view, our commitment to both the letter and spirit of the Good Friday agreement must—I emphasise must—stand above most if not all our other ambitions. I sincerely hope that the Minister will confirm this in his response.

[Lord Pendry (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lady Quin. Before I do that, I want sincerely to say a word of thanks to the Front Benches on both sides. They have to sit through all these debates—they are obliged to, unlike those of us on the Back Benches. I pay particular tribute to my noble friend Lady Hayter, who has had a very difficult job, treading a high wire; she has done it with great skill and good humour and she deserves our thanks for doing so. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I do not think that under normal circumstances she would have chosen to spend her birthday in this way, but I am sure that we all wish her many congratulations.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that the Labour Party was against this referendum. We did not want a referendum. Mr Cameron got us into it in a casual way, without any careful thought of the implications or the impact that it would have. If we had had impact assessments before the vote, we might not have voted to come out. We would have known the implications. That is when we should have had these. We are going to have some very serious impacts in Northern Ireland, as we heard earlier, and in Scotland. The way things are going, we could end up with this whole United Kingdom breaking up, with Northern Ireland opting to be part of a united Ireland and with Scotland as a separate country. That is what David Cameron in his casual way has let us in for. I think that he will go down in history as one of the worst Prime Ministers this country has ever had.

[Lord Kerslake]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Hannay’s Amendment 22. I do so for one simple reason. I have a passionate belief that open government is better government. If we—as those who are in charge, if you like—want people to buy into what we are trying to do, we have to be able to trust them with the information that should be available to them. That is particularly true in relation to Brexit. We know that the referendum campaign was deep and divisive. We reached a point where virtually no one trusted anyone in that debate. That is fundamentally undermining to democracy. There is a growing gap between the governing and the governed, and one response to that is to have transparent government.

We have heard two arguments this evening for why a very simple amendment—to publish the impact assessments that can sensibly be published, which have already been done since the referendum—cannot be made. The first, from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is that you cannot trust impact assessments. Not every impact assessment is good. I might even have been responsible for a few that were not that good. But if that is the argument we are now making—that we will not publish impact assessments because they might be wrong—that way madness follows. What about trusting the people and Parliament to make their own judgment about the quality of the impact assessments? That is what transparent government is all about. If we cannot trust people to make their own judgment about the information, if we worry that they will be depressed because the impact assessments are too downbeat, there is something seriously wrong with our thinking.

The second argument that we have heard is that it might in some way interfere with the negotiations. It is possible that some information published might cut across them, and there has to be a responsible attitude to that, but I worry that that argument is going to be rolled out time and again to keep Parliament and the public in the dark about what is actually happening through the negotiating period to the point where it is impossible to impact the outcome of the process. We have to have a better system than that. I quite believe that Vladimir Putin does not want to publish his impact assessments, but we are not Russia: we are an open democracy and should trust the people to use the information that is made available to them responsibly. That is why I support the amendment.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords—

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Kerslake Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 25 on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member. It is also supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence, who are also members, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. Inevitably, I will speak a little to the other amendments in the group, but I assure noble Lords that I have crossed out quite a lot of the speech I arrived with.

Of course, I am aware of the statements made by Ministers, most recently the Home Secretary’s letter to noble Lords, but none of these amounts to an acknowledgement of rights—I stress rights. That is almost where we started, with the second speech from the noble Viscount, who referred to natural justice. The JCHR has reported largely on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the spirit of the committee’s very moderate amendment, I assure noble Lords that our amendment, unlike others in this group, does not amount to an attempt to delay or frustrate leaving the EU.

I am puzzled by the logic of the Government being committed to assurances, while at the same time saying that nothing can be settled now. The latter must call the former into question. Noble Lords have talked about how offensive it is to treat people as commodities, but even if it were appropriate, how useful would it be as a bargaining chip? Ministers are saying that we have their assurances that this issue is a priority. Does not that give us the worst of all worlds—a bargaining chip without any negotiating advantage—because we have acknowledged its priority? Have we downgraded other issues? I leave these questions hanging.

It is said that a unilateral arrangement makes no sense, but I put a different view to your Lordships. Even at the cold, unemotional level of negotiating tactics, I believe it does. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, said, a good will gesture or a moral gesture can be a very effective negotiating tool in itself. I do not have other noble Lords’ impressive record of high-level negotiation, but I have done my share of all-night stints constructing some agreements. I have found that it can be effective.

We are putting the responsibility on other states by saying that they insist on no negotiation before notification, but there is no technical reason why there cannot be a unilateral position. Of course, UK citizens in other European states have the same rights—or, if you like, a mirror image of them—so the scope for negotiation may be a little limited. Given the age of the many UK citizens abroad, particularly those living in Spain, I cannot help thinking that if they return at the same time as we lose or send away so many people working in our health service, we will be shooting ourselves in both feet.

It is not the best reason, but there are also practical reasons for the JCHR’s amendment and others. If some such provisions are not embedded, the burden on the Home Office of dealing with large numbers of applicants seeking to establish their position, and on the courts called on to apply Article 8 of the convention, would be enormous. I do not want to start considering what would then be the logical step of deportation.

We have referred to morality as well as rights. A guarantee is simply the right thing to do. Although I am disciplining myself from repeating what other noble Lords have said about representations that have been made to us, I take this opportunity to thank the enormous numbers of people who have emailed us, very personally, individually and in a very heartfelt way. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, said that there are no new facts. I do not think he could argue that there is not an increasing weight of evidence.

There is one cohort I want to mention: people who are vulnerable to exploitation. They are perhaps not hugely competent, and are often in the agriculture, construction and care industries. There is evidence now, which the JCHR has heard, that unscrupulous employers are taking advantage of their readiness to believe it when they are told, “You are illegal”, when no such thing is true.

We have heard many times, “Don’t tell the other side your bottom line. Don’t put your cards on the table”. I think this card is on the table, so that argument falls away. This Chamber should demonstrate that it is with those who want their nation to be one which understands common humanity and, dare I say it, human rights.

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 25, to which I have added my name, and in general support of the amendments in this group. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, I declare my interests: as chair of King’s College Hospital, chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association—this may be the only point of similarity in our speeches. My views are of course my own and not those of the individual organisations.

I should start by saying that this is a difficult judgment for us to make and it will be one of many that we face over the coming years. Like other noble Lords, I have read very carefully the Home Secretary’s letter, much of which I sympathise with, and reflected on the issues overnight. Having reflected, I still come firmly down on the side of supporting an amendment to protect the rights of EU citizens in this country.

The arguments for this are both principled and deeply practical. The principled arguments have already been well made today, so I will not repeat them all. More than 3 million EU citizens have come to this country in good faith. Many have made it their home and, in doing so, contributed enormously to the good of this country. I doubt if there are very many Peers in this House or indeed many people in the country who would actively want them to leave. The only argument we have heard for not confirming their position now, put forward by the Home Secretary in her letter, is that it would weaken our hand in the negotiations on UK citizens in Europe. Whichever way you dress up that argument, whichever way you think about it, it is using the rights of EU citizens as a bargaining chip.

In my view, it is not even a very good bargaining chip, because it is perfectly clear to the Commission negotiators that we need them to stay as much as they wish to do so—if not more so. So our negotiating position amounts to saying, “Do as we wish or we will shoot our own foot off”. I think the EU negotiators will see through that.

My practical reason for supporting the amendment is that, for our own sakes, we need to end the uncertainty for EU citizens now. The Government have said that we can debate this issue at a later stage. They have said that they will seek to reach an early agreement on the matter with the EU. I have no doubt about their sincerity on this point, but the hard truth is that early resolution is not in their gift. In the meantime, the uncertainty creates risks for desperately needed skilled staff, with devastating consequences—let me give just three.

For the building of new homes, which I am passionate about, we know that something like a quarter of construction workers in London come from the EU. In respect of the effective operation of our hospitals, I know that King’s would simply not be able to function without the European doctors and nurses who work for us. For the delivery of social care, EU workers form a vital part of the residential and home care provider workforce. Without those skilled workers, it would simply be impossible to run these functions properly and it is not possible to replace such workers in the short term. It may be that they will continue to stay here, but the survey that we saw in the Guardian today on European doctors immediately puts that in doubt. It may be that early resolution with the EU is possible: I have to say, from my own conversations with those closer to the process, that I am doubtful of this.

In the end, the key question for me is this: given the potentially devastating consequences for all the things I hold dear—new homes, a functioning NHS and delivery of good quality care—do I think that this is a risk worth taking? I do not. Sometimes in life—in fact, very often in life—the right thing to do is to do the right thing. I hope that today we do the right thing.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords—