Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)]

My Lords, while many of us wish that we were engaged in a different debate today, the fact of the matter is that the people told us in the referendum that they wanted to leave the European Union. Our Government have listened and we are about to leave.

Many knew the generalities of leaving but were confused by the contradictions in the information being bandied around in speeches, leaflets and of course the famous bus, which told us we would get billions of pounds back in return. It was a simple in/out decision. Some of us thought there was a team of Ministers and civil servants working in Whitehall to put in place a plan for the process of leaving and for how Brexit would impact on the lives of our people. Since then, we have been presented with more contradictions by those who believe that the sun will always shine when we leave the European Union, while on the other hand, others believe that jumping off a cliff is better than the unknown.

How can the public judge what is best for the country? The political declaration makes promises that sound wonderful, but it is a declaration of promises which are non-binding. When I was general secretary of my union, I did not give much credence to employers making declarations. I was more interested in the signature on the bottom line of the legal contract. Your Lordships will therefore understand my suspicion when I read in the declaration that the Union and the United Kingdom will work together to safeguard a variety of rules, laws and standards, including workers’ rights.

I do not have to rehearse my commitment to workers’ rights. British workers have benefited from a number of changes introduced by the European Union, and integrated into UK law. These include the working time directive, health and safety protection, equal pay for work of equal value, maternity rights, parental leave, anti-discrimination laws, time off for annual leave, protection against workers being exploited—I could go on.

I want more than a non-binding declaration on workers’ rights to satisfy me that these and other rights are not going to be swept away the day following our departure from the European Union. There has already been some erosion, as we move much closer to zero hour contracts for agency workers and the gig economy, and more is to come.

Lest we forget, the future of the people of this country cannot be determined only by a conversation between the Prime Minister and Mr Barnier, and certainly not by the non-binding declaration, or even the withdrawal agreement. In the end, it is this Parliament, or its successors, which will determine the people’s future, and we know not what will happen post Brexit.