European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Patten of Barnes Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

Giving an option to stay in is saying that we will go over the whole question again.

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

I invite the Minister to explain to my noble friend—who I have known for years and like very much—the difference between parliamentary sovereignty and plebiscitary democracy. It is quite a fundamental difference in our constitution.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

If my noble friend will forgive me, I will concentrate on the amendments before us and leave this existential debate for my two noble friends on the Back Benches to conduct among themselves.

The approval of the UK’s final deal with the EU has already been the focus of a great deal of sustained debate during the passage of both the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act and this Bill. The Government have committed to hold a vote on the final deal in Parliament as soon as possible after the negotiations have concluded. Let me say, in direct response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, that this vote will take the form of a resolution in both Houses of Parliament and will cover both the withdrawal agreement and the terms of our future relationship. The Government will not implement any parts of the withdrawal agreement until after this vote has taken place.

As we have repeatedly made clear, we fully expect, intend and will make every effort that this vote will take place before the European Parliament votes. However, I hope noble Lords will understand that we do not control the EU’s timeframe for approving the withdrawal agreement and therefore cannot make any statutory assurances where it is concerned. This would be the case with Amendment 150 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, Amendment 151 tabled by my noble friend Lord Cormack and Amendment 216 tabled by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

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[Lord Callanan]

I do not control the proceedings of the House of Commons. I can only set out the Government’s position on this matter.

The strength of that commitment and the political and public expectation that accompanies it mean that the Government could not conceivably renege on that commitment.

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

Perhaps I can help. This is becoming a rather complicated discussion and some of us are trying very hard to follow what the Minister is saying. Perhaps we are not being as intelligent as we should be. In the phrase “a meaningful vote”, what does the word “meaningful” mean?

[Lord Callanan]

We have never used the term “a meaningful vote”. We recognise clearly the desirability of maximising as much as possible the time between negotiations concluding and a deal coming into force. Knowing the terms of a deal as early as possible is good for business and the public in being able to prepare.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

Certainly, I was unwilling to impute evil motives to the Government, but I am even more unwilling to try to interpret the tergiversations of the Foreign Secretary.

[Lord Patten of Barnes]

My Lords, I was very moved by the speech of the noble and right reverend Lord, the former Primate of All Ireland. I hope I can say without causing too much offence that I wish all the leaders of Christian denominations in Northern Ireland and Ireland as a whole had behaved over the years with his generosity of spirit. In saying that, I include the members of the Church of which I am a member. In his remarks, he reminded us of the terrible collateral damage we can do to things that really matter if we simply blunder forward, motivated in some cases by dogma in what is, after all, very largely a faith-based project. I am sorry to use that expression after referring to the noble and right reverend Lord, but that is what it amounts to.

I do not want to go through all of the arguments that have been so persuasively used or all the evidence that has been stacked up. I spoke about this issue briefly at Second Reading because I feel passionately about it. As an addendum to the Good Friday agreement, I chaired the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland. The report was denounced at the time by some Members of this House and by some present members of the Government. I remember one calling that policing report “a moral stain”, but it has stood the test of time. I am delighted that we have not had the same number of police officers killed in the last 20 years that we had in the preceding 25 or 30 years, when 300 died. I therefore feel very strongly about this and I entirely endorse what the noble Lord said earlier about the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union in taking these things forward.

I remember when I was a junior Minister in Northern Ireland—a destination, according to the Prime Minister’s friends, that she regarded as a Siberian power station. I remember how important it was to meet Ministers from the Republic in Brussels. Very often, they were meeting representatives of Northern Ireland or the Northern Ireland Government for the first time in serious official discussions, so all of that matters. I want to point out the dangers involved when you wrap up together the border.

There is a wonderful book about the border by Colm Tóibín, called Bad Blood. That is not the sort of place for which you can provide easy technological solutions. We have heard a lot about that Smart Border report, which was a consultant’s report to the European Parliament. I thought I had to take it seriously, because I heard it advocated on the “Today” programme by one of the self-titled “Brains for Brexit”, who gave a whole interview about the importance and the value of this report. So I read it, and the first thing he says is that he does not know very much about Northern Ireland. You can say that again. He goes on to point out that the report does not cover agrifood or things such as phytosanitary standards, and says that while he talks about how you can speed up customs arrangements, he does not remotely suggest that you can do without a border or customs arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

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[Lord Patten of Barnes]

I think the most explicit reference to the dangers of a hard border—of border crossings and customs officials being re-established—and the most serious warning about those has come from the chief constable of the Northern Ireland police service. He was very explicit on this subject, and I think he was much more explicit about the dangers than anybody has been in this House. I do not want to question the importance of what the noble Lord is saying, but it is worth recalling that the most outspoken remarks have come from the chief constable.

[Lord Empey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that. I have to say that the chief constable was using as an example the erection of customs posts and things that used to exist in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as all sorts of other concrete establishments and so on which we are not going to have. In many respects, the United Kingdom Government have committed themselves not to produce that material at the border. Whether Brussels wants or would insist on the Irish Government doing so, no Irish Government I can conceive of would do anything of the sort. I just do not believe they would—it would be politically impossible for them to do it. Brussels may have its own objectives and determinations to protect the single market—we understand that—but when push comes to shove. I do not believe it is possible.