European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, I remind the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and those noble Lords who, in reality, want us to stay in the European Union, that a referendum in 1975 confirmed our membership of the then European Community and that our recent referendum decided we should leave it. A Written Answer to me on 9 January this year revealed that some 20,000 pieces of EU law have been imposed on this country since 1973 and there was nothing the Commons or your Lordships’ House could do to stop it. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, referred to this. How do those who accepted the result of that first referendum and approved all those laws from the anti-democratic EU law-making system now think that Parliament should decide the manner of our going?

I wonder how many of our people understand how anti-democratic that system is and whether the result may have been even more in favour of leaving if they had known it. Indeed, I am tempted to wonder how many of your Lordships’ understand it. To test that knowledge, I ask noble Lords who know what COREPER is and what it does to raise their hands—former Eurocrats excluded. Not many—in fact hardly any. I will explain what it does. It is our most—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I merely wish to ask the noble Lord whether he is asking the House to play a game of Trivial Pursuit.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, the pursuit will be far from trivial when the answer is seen.

It is our most significant law-making body. After all EU legislation has been proposed, in secret, by the unelected Commission, it is then negotiated, still in secret, in the Committee of Permanent Representatives, or COREPER. Now most of your Lordships know what it is. When it has finished, the legislation goes to the Council of Ministers, where the United Kingdom has been outvoted on every single piece of legislation that we have opposed in the past 10 years. That is the system which has resulted in those 20,000 laws being passed, with our Parliament wholly irrelevant.

I look forward to an explanation from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, or one of his noble remainer friends, as to why they want to go on with it and how they have the nerve to pray Parliament in aid of their desire to do so.

[Baroness Ludford]

My Lords, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is in the national interest that Parliament should not be faced by a take-it-or-leave-it vote. It must be able to prevent a slide into a disastrous no deal outcome. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that is not an arcane interest because many ordinary citizens would be hugely harmed, including those who voted for Brexit, if that happened.

Was not the referendum fought by the leave side partly on the basis of a need for the Westminster Parliament to take back sovereignty? It is truly ironic that many of those who said that oppose a meaningful vote for Parliament now. Indeed, some noble Lords opposite who have spoken want specifically to hobble Parliament by barring it from amending a Motion. This is not a remainer cause. It is not about destroying or sabotaging Brexit—that is a distortion and misrepresentation—but about whether Parliament has a constitutional right and duty to call the Government to account and should have a decisive political role on the course of Brexit. The idea that that undermines the Government’s negotiating position is farcical.

The noble Lord, Lord Spicer, said that the essence of why he opposed staying in the EU is that the nation state is the best unit for democracy, that Britain is the home of democracy and that it offers a forum for accountability. That is the point. That is what Motion F3—I avoid “Grieve II”—achieves. It is not a negotiating power for Parliament but a power to call the Government to account for how they are conducting the Brexit negotiations. Its purpose is to prevent or at least manage a crisis by thinking ahead of that time and what the structures would be. The virtue of writing this into the Bill is that we will then know what mechanisms need to be followed if a crisis arises. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said, it is important to give the Commons the opportunity to vote on what the Government apparently agreed last week.

I have great admiration for Dominic Grieve as a parliamentarian and constitutional lawyer of the highest calibre and integrity. He is a loyal Conservative, much to the regret of some of us because we would like him to be a little more of a rebel. I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, about the character of Mr Grieve and that the hatchet job on him by the Daily Mail was a total disgrace. It showed the degradation of our political media culture and discourse.

The noble Lord, Lord True, said that his amendment was not the best way to accomplish what he wants. I do not need to elaborate any further. It would unhelpfully complicate matters. I will accept the guidance of a former Speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, on Commons procedure, which I do not understand, that it is necessary to pass Motion F3 to allow the other place to consider how it wants to proceed.