Gibraltar

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the Rock of Gibraltar has now been British for over 300 years. In 2002, 99% of Gibraltarians rejected the notion of shared sovereignty with Spain and reaffirmed their allegiance, in no uncertain terms, to Britain.

It is against this background that we must consider the Government’s agreement on Gibraltar, to test whether it puts the interests of the Gibraltarians and, of course, our own national interests, first. We are clear that nothing agreed can compromise or infringe the sovereignty and constitutional arrangements of Gibraltar, which should remain British.

The deal must ensure that we are able to operate our military base on the Rock, as we have done until now, to safeguard our defensive capabilities. We are also clear that the deal must be backed by the Government of Gibraltar and, crucially, Gibraltar’s people, to support their interests. It must also address the concerns about the actions of Spain to frustrate and prevent the free flow of goods across the border.

It is vital that these Houses have time to carefully and properly scrutinise the deal that the Government have reached over Gibraltar. I hope that the Minister will join me in recognising the importance of proper oversight and scrutiny if this is to be regarded as a legitimate and proper arrangement. Can the Minister therefore confirm when the House will get to see the full details of the deal and the treaty? Given the importance of the issue, will the Minister commit to making time available for a full discussion of this matter?

One of the reasons that I feel it is so vital that we in these Houses are able to properly scrutinise the treaty is that I seriously question the Government’s ability to negotiate a good deal on behalf of the UK. I need only mention—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, will twist her face at this stage—the Government’s deal on Chagos as an example of poor negotiation.

While this agreement may not be as egregious as Chagos, it is none the less, in my view, flawed. We have seen numerous concessions made to Madrid, which potentially threaten core principles that should underpin any agreement. One of the most significant is the end of Gibraltar’s long-standing VAT-free regime—a central and persistent demand from Spain.

Despite clear and repeated objections from both the UK Government and the Government of Gibraltar, the agreement will also permit Spanish police officers to operate at Gibraltar’s airport. Furthermore, passengers arriving from the UK will now be subject to dual checks, first by Gibraltarian authorities and then by Spanish officials acting on behalf of the EU.

The Foreign Secretary in the other place was at pains to point out that this is not Gibraltar joining Schengen, yet apparently Spanish border officials will be able to stop any British citizen entering Gibraltar if their previous stays have exceeded the 90-day Schengen limit, even if they have no intention of travelling into Spain. Is this in fact true? In what other circumstances will Spanish officials be able to deny the entry of British citizens into Gibraltar? To take another example, the passport requirements for entering Gibraltar are different from those required to enter the EU. To enter Gibraltar, a British citizen needs only a passport valid for the length of their stay in Gibraltar. To enter the EU, you need one valid for three months. So will a British subject with a passport valid for, say, two months be admitted by Gibraltarian officials but then refused entry by Spanish officials?

The Foreign Secretary in the other place stated that our vital military base would be unaffected by this agreement, but what about service personnel arriving at the airport? Will they need to be checked and approved by the Spanish? That might sound a little far-fetched, but there was a fascinating report in the Telegraph only this morning about a military exercise involving British paratroopers parachuting on to the Swedish island of Gotland to reinforce our Swedish NATO partners. All well and good, you might think, but what was the first thing those troops had to do on landing? They had to report to a mobile border control van to clear immigration control. Luckily, this was only an exercise, as I am not entirely convinced that a hostile Russian invasion force would happily wait around for bureaucratic formalities to be concluded before opening fire.

These are concessions that risk diminishing Gibraltar’s status as a distinct jurisdiction. So I ask the Minister: does she accept that a good negotiation involves standing firm on one’s principles, not merely acquiescing to the demands of the other side? From where we stand, it appears that a great many of our priorities have been sidelined and far too many of our red lines quietly erased by this Government. Could the Minister confirm whether the red lines that the last Government set out with the Government of Gibraltar have been met, or whether, during the negotiations and since Labour took office last year, there has been any divergence from them?

The Foreign Secretary in the other place made great play of the insertion of a clause “explicitly protecting our sovereignty”. Great, we think—yet the Spanish Prime Minister, in his tweet welcoming this agreement, concluded by saying, “All this without renouncing Spanish claims to the isthmus and the return of Gibraltar”. Could the Minister tell us who is right, the Foreign Secretary or the Spanish Prime Minister?

These Houses have a responsibility to scrutinise the agreement, not only in the interests of constitutional principle but out of respect for the people of Gibraltar, who have consistently and overwhelmingly affirmed their wish to remain British. The arrangements set out by the Government raise some serious questions and deserve to be answered and discussed in a proper debate. The people of Gibraltar deserve our full support, transparency, proper scrutiny and a deal that reflects their rights, their status and their British identity. Any agreement that we reach over Gibraltar must respect those rights, and I hope the Minister is able to answer these questions fully in her response.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare that I have visited Gibraltar previously, both before and immediately after the Brexit referendum. I am conscious that there has been a regrettable legacy of Brexit—which I note, as the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, did not, the people of Gibraltar rejected in almost equal numbers—for those who determined their own sovereignty. Indeed, the areas of difficulty and complexity that the people of Gibraltar had predicted as a result of leaving the EU came to pass.

The immediate response of one of the previous Government’s significant figures on the Conservative Benches in 2017 was from the noble Lord, Lord Howard, who said that we should send in the fleet but did not send in diplomatic forces to ensure that we would have an agreement for the benefit of the sovereignty, economy and people of Gibraltar. However, it is diplomatic measures rather than bravado that we hope have now ensured that there is a resolution to those difficult and complex issues.

I note that the Chief Minister’s letter to us all says that the agreement puts into place the 2020 border checks agreed by the previous Administration. Presumably, that was not the time when the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, was Brexit Minister, but I suspect that the agreements under the previous Administration are the ones that the noble Lord is asking the Minister about now. I look forward to her response regarding those issues that are being disowned by the Conservative Party.

These Benches will look closely at the details and, if there are legislative measures required to operationalise the agreement, we will give them proper scrutiny. We hope that Parliament will have a considerable say in these issues.

It is worth rehearsing the principles. We on these Benches have an unshakable and irreducible support for the sovereignty of Gibraltar. The self-determination of the people of Gibraltar is irreducible, and any decisions made about Gibraltar need to be made with the participation of the people of Gibraltar. These are significant principles that I hope the Minister will agree with. As a result, our founding belief is that the tests for the agreement will have to meet those. But there are additional tests: do they protect the people of Gibraltar’s security interests, support its economy and contribute to the sensible economic relationship with Andalusia?

I have seen for myself the mutually beneficial relationship between Andalusia and Gibraltar. The UK/Gibraltar relationship and the residents of Gibraltar add considerably to the Spanish economy and to the Andalusian economy in particular, while Spanish workers, especially in health and social care, add considerably to support the services within Gibraltar. The human level of the relationship—the workers, the daily crossings —is therefore of considerable importance, so a workable and sensible arrangement is in their mutual interest and I hope we find that the Government have achieved that when we see all of the details. It was up to this Government to ensure that there was agreement after the almost eight years of inactivity from the previous Administration.

I will close by asking some specific questions of the Minister that the Foreign Secretary did not respond to with clarity in the House of Commons. Regrettably, we have known that, even though acting against their own interests, the Spanish Government have been willing to act unilaterally over Gibraltar, to the detriment not only of Gibraltarians but of their own residents. We therefore cannot predict what future Governments of Spain will be or the positions that they will take, so will the Minister outline what mechanisms exist in the deal to ensure compliance with those areas of agreement? Who will police it, what are the mechanisms of mediation and potential adjudication, and are effective dispute resolution mechanisms in place in the event of future possible unilateral actions? We hope that will not be necessary, but we have to plan for the contingency that it might. Given the experience of the past, giving Gibraltarians confidence that the deal will be enforceable is very important.

Finally, will the Minister confirm what the lifespan of the agreement will be? Will it include any mechanisms so that, if there are circumstances—again, we hope there will not be—where the people of Gibraltar believe that a different agreement and a new deal will be required, there is an opt-out mechanism? Ultimately, we believe in ensuring the ultimate guarantee of Gibraltar’s sovereignty. That should be at the heart of this agreement.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

I thank both noble Lords for their comments and questions. I have to say that the noble Lord opposite is slightly spikier in his approach to this than his friend in the other place, the shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel, who gave it a rather warmer tone of welcome than he did—but he is here to speak for the Opposition on those Benches.

I thank the noble Lord for reminding us of the importance of the sovereignty of Gibraltar, our long history and military ties to it and our base there. This deal achieves something that matters hugely to the Government and people of Gibraltar: the open border. There are 15,000 people crossing the border each day to go to work and to go about their lives. The delays and the problems that can occur, particularly as the EU looks towards implementing its entry and exit processes in a matter of months, make life very difficult for Gibraltarians, so it was important that we were able to reach a pragmatic agreement with the EU to enable daily life to continue.

As both noble Lords said, there needs to be proper oversight and scrutiny. There will be an opportunity for that to happen in both Houses under the CRaG process, which we are all now familiar with. We are aware of the debates around the strengths and flaws of this process, but we are legally obliged to follow it. Unless and until that changes, that is the process we will use.

The Chief Minister of Gibraltar has been incredibly forthcoming with his views on this and is happy with the outcome of the negotiations. There have been 19 rounds of negotiations to achieve this agreement. I think they started when Dominic Raab was Foreign Secretary and continued under James Cleverly and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. They have now concluded. The Foreign Secretary has been very clear in paying tribute to the work of his predecessors in leading these negotiations. Given how complex this is, it has been a relatively smooth process. I also pay tribute to my friend Stephen Doughty, the Minister for Europe, for the role he has played in bringing this about.

On the role of the Spanish police, they will be doing Schengen checks. If noble Lords have been through St Pancras, they will have seen the double-layered checks. Those are to make sure that there is a check before someone enters the Schengen area. If an alert is triggered by that Schengen check, you will not be instantly lifted by Spanish police and taken to Malaga for interrogation; you will maintain your rights and have access to legal advice, as well as the option of returning to your departure airport if that is what you want to do.

I thank the noble Lord for raising the question on service personnel. I am happy to make clear that service personnel at the base are not going to need Schengen checks. This is about pragmatism; there is always a balance to be struck and trade-offs to be made in these circumstances, but the Chief Minister and the Government of Gibraltar, who will also have their own parliamentary process to look at this, are content that this is the right way to proceed. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is also meeting with members of the Gibraltarian opposition, to make sure that everybody is comfortable and that we can proceed.

The noble Lord asked how long this arrangement is intended to last. This does not have an end date. We want this to be the new normal, and for there to be certainty and clarity for the people of Gibraltar. Having an end date would not be conducive to that.

The contents of this agreement do not impact the sovereignty of Gibraltar in any way, and there is a clause that says that this agreement does not affect its sovereignty at all. As the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, pointed out, Spain has its view, but we are clear that Gibraltar is British. There is nothing in this agreement that affects the current status of Gibraltar, and Spain has agreed to that.

We have had no talks without the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, and I do not think the previous Government did either. It is clearly not tenable to have arrived at a position where we have an agreement between the UK and the EU that did not satisfy the leadership and people of Gibraltar, so we have made sure that that has been at the forefront of our work at all times.

I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, on sovereignty, self-determination and our unshakable commitment to the people of Gibraltar. He asked about dispute mechanisms and exit clauses. Yes, they will be included, and, as you would expect, the full text will be available. Should things deteriorate or something happen that we do not foresee—although I emphasise that we do not foresee this happening, because it is in the interests of all four parties of this agreement for this to work—there are clauses that make it possible for us to walk away unilaterally if the view is that that is in the best interests of the people of Gibraltar. But, as I say, we do not anticipate that being the case.

This is a good outcome for the people of Gibraltar, and they are pleased with it. We now have our process to go through; the Gibraltar Government have their process to go through too, and the full text will be made available. Generally, this has been a reasonably well-received outcome—including by the Opposition Benches in the other place—to a long and protracted set of negotiations that were in many ways inevitable following the vote to leave the European Union. For the sake of the people of Gibraltar, I am glad that we have almost resolved this.