European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

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

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, the Government’s position is very clear. We are absolutely going to stand by the instruction given to us by the British people to leave the European Union. That was the decision and that is the Government’s policy, and that is what it will remain.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

Is not the real reason people are calling for a second referendum that one side lost and they do not like it? Then, might it not be the case that somebody loses another referendum and we would have to have a third one? Indeed, we might even have to have a fourth referendum to decide which referendum was the real thing.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I agree with my noble friend, and this is why we have the prospect of a “neverendum”.

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[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to address the question of the single market, which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has just been talking about and rather discounted its importance, both currently and in the future. I do not whether he and other noble Lords have noticed but there is rather a tide of protectionism running through the world at present, not least in the United States of America—“America first” has been said a lot of times. Just remember that that is the context in which we are operating. I am not going to bandy too many statistics, but if 42% of our exports are going to the EU, compared with 15% to the United States of America, that is still a lot on both accounts, but you do not throw 42% into some lottery for the future. You hang on to what you have got and you seek to improve elsewhere. I agree with the noble Lord about the need to improve our game and raise our skill level, our innovation level and business investment—which, by the way, is going down because of the uncertainty which surrounds the future of the British economy at the present time, and that is a major worry. We are not innovating to the extent that we should be, and certainly not to the extent that certain other northern European countries are. Chucking that away rather lightly in the hope that we will catch a surfer wave of innovation and become the new silicon whatever-it-is island seems to be a rather fanciful notion.

I am not familiar with what Mr Haldane said—I read it but I did not get the same impression as the noble Lord, Lord Howell—but the Treasury’s most recent forecast is that if we collapse out of the single market, that will cost us 7.5% of GDP after 15 years. I am not an expert and I do not know who is right and who is wrong, but we should bear those facts in mind.

I am not going to speak for very long as my noble friend Lord Hain covered this topic very well and the earlier debate about the EEA, on the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Lea, covered it too. However, I remind Members of the Conservative Party in particular why they should consider the single market to be important. After all, Mrs Thatcher was, as much as anyone, the originator of the single market. She, with Jacques Delors adding on a social bit, basically came up with the idea of the big single market. I remember, as will my noble friend Lord Lea, Jacques Delors explaining at a TUC conference the conversation that the two of them had had. She said, “I want a big market”, and he said, “You can have one. I’ll do my best”. He added in some helpful social things that the trade unions liked; to be honest, they were about the only reason why we liked the single market. However, we may not like a free-trade agreement that does not have any social protections. A NAFTA-type agreement would certainly not suit us because that becomes a race to the bottom on labour standards, welfare and social considerations.

It was not just Mrs Thatcher, either. My noble friend Lord Hain reminded the other side about the number of people in the referendum campaign who spoke in favour of staying in the single market, not least the current Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who said he would vote for the single market. He differentiated between the single market and EU membership, and that is what we are seeking to do today with this amendment.

The single market is important for inward investment, which is the point that was so important in the 1980s. It is important for companies’ supply chains; we have heard about the milk in Ireland but there are many other examples where things are going backwards and forwards—the car industry, Airbus and so on. Let no one dismiss those as old technology that the digital revolution is going to make redundant; they are not. They are fundamental to who we are and what we are, the kind of country we are and what it is going to be in future.

The tariffs on some goods will be substantial if we collapse into the WTO system. As for the passporting issues in the City of London, there are already signs of banks establishing extra offices and extra staffing within the EU—at the moment, particularly in Paris. Even HSBC, our biggest bank, is doing so, so we should not be complacent about this issue.

Membership of the single market would of course ease the problems in Ireland, as debated earlier, and would perhaps remove at least one reason for another referendum in Scotland. What is at stake here is jobs, living standards and rights. We should bear that in mind; if we go down the Government’s route, we will be playing poker with people’s livelihoods on a big scale. Are we likely to get that comprehensive free- trade agreement within two years? I have not yet met anyone who knows anything about trade negotiations who thinks that is the case. Before we ditch the single market, we should be very careful. I was disappointed when I heard what the Prime Minister said at Lancaster House, and indeed in the government White Paper: that the Government are moving in that direction. I hope they will keep the scope to change direction.

We should also bear in mind the points that my noble friend Lord Liddle made earlier: could this be an issue on which there could be an interim provisional transitional measure while we negotiate a trade agreement? Is there something that we could put in place that we could continue with? In fact we do not have to put anything in place because it is in place already, so why do we have to give it up? It is in place and we should try to hang on to that, pending the negotiations that the Government seem so keen on.

That is my plea today: we should have a look at the amendment and at keeping our membership of the single market. I would like to see us keep it on a permanent basis but, if that is not possible, keeping it on a transitional provisional basis might just be possible. It might in fact be the only game in town when we get to the end of those two years.

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, a distinction is made on purpose between access to the single market and membership of it but most of the speeches made on behalf of remain make that confusion. No one is arguing—or at least I have never met anyone who does—that we should not have access to or do business with the single market, in the same way as they will still want to do business with us. The question is whether we want to be members of it. I so agree with what my noble friend Lord Howell said about the fact that the world is changing now. For a start, the single market is a trade bloc, and it has a long and noble history of being one. It is based upon German technological protection and general French centralisation and protection. That is the foundation of it philosophically. Britain is a high-seas trading nation and, I think, should not be part of that market, but of course it should be trading with it. No one argues otherwise, although of course one has to point out that it is a fairly sluggish market because that is what protected markets are.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

On the idea that you can choose between access and membership—membership has some obligations regarding what you have to do on standards and so on—I ask the noble Lord to reflect on whether it is Alice in Wonderland to say, “Oh, we would much prefer to have access but not membership”.

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[Lord Spicer]

Of course not. The choice is there. As has been said today from the Front Bench, the public certainly believe that by leaving the EU we will be leaving the single market as well. Of course we can make that choice, and of course the members of the single market will want to choose whether they want to continue trading with us, but since we are one of the largest markets the answer is likely to be yes.

I turn to my other point: my noble friend Lord Howell is absolutely correct in his diagnosis of the markets changing. The fact is that much of what is now up for grabs in negotiation is outside the terms of the single market. One example, which the proposer of this amendment and I have had discussions about in the past, is the air service agreements. People talk about Open Skies. When I was Minister for Aviation I started to negotiate that agreement, but I did so on a bilateral basis. The ASAs are outside the terms of the single market. That is just an example of what my noble friend was saying about other aspects of trade, services and so on.

I quite agree with what he said both in its detail and in its contemporary context. In its context, it becomes far less important—in fact, unimportant—to be a member of the single market, but of course we must have the biggest trading relationships that we can with it. In my view the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, made the same confusion about access and membership. I really think we have to get that sorted out.

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[Lord Mandelson]

Why am I not fighting to keep us in the European Union? My word! Judging by my email inbox, the noble Lord must be the only person in the country who does not believe that I am fighting for Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. Of course being a democrat, I respect—oh, there is no point his waving his hand in that Edwardian way.

I am afraid that we have had a referendum, but the point is this: we can now make a choice between leaving the European Union and wrecking our economy, or leaving the European Union and making the best economic job that we can of doing so. There is a huge difference between negotiating our future trade relationship from the safety of being a relative insider, which is what we would be as a member of the EEA, as opposed to being an outsider and jostling for preferential access to Europe’s marketplace like any other country—fighting with many others for access at Europe’s border. Of course the single market is not perfect, notably in its coverage of all services. However, almost half of British trade in goods and services takes place in the European market. It should therefore be an absolute priority for us to secure the continuity of that trade we already have.

There is another crucial issue for us, given the nature of our manufacturing sector in this country. Other noble Lords have touched on that. The point is that the single market is not just a huge trading space: it is also a giant factory floor. Among mature economies trade is now increasingly less in finished goods than in part-finished goods moving back and forth across borders, often many times, as part of increasingly sophisticated value chains.

[Lord Spicer]

If everything is so hunky-dory, why is there such a massive balance of payments deficit?

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

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

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, even if you are a Liberal Democrat you cannot have it both ways. You either give priority to people living here—those you think should have priority—or you do not. This amendment, which the noble Lord has spoken in favour of, does precisely that—it gives priority to EU citizens living here, rather than British citizens living elsewhere. He cannot have it both ways.

[Lord Oates]

Perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me but if he listens to my argument he will understand the answer to his question. Let us take, for example, an elderly couple, resident in Germany, who wrote to me recently—one a British citizen, the other a German citizen. They wrote to say that they are terrified that, if the final agreement does not provide for continuing access to healthcare, they will not be able to continue to live in the same country, and the same fears have been expressed by EU citizens in the UK. These are not abstract issues; this is about the lives of millions of people, it is about the anxiety and fear that has been inflicted on them since Brexit, and it is about the uncertainty that means that their lives have been put on hold. The Home Secretary claims in her letter to us that—

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[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, I am going to be very brief, because I have forgotten most of what I wanted to say. This is part of a group of amendments purporting to strengthen the role of Parliament in our affairs. Like other groups, it is pretty well irrelevant to this Bill, but it is there. It is ironic that those who most object to the Bill are also those who are pressing for greater sovereignty for Parliament. It is ironic because the whole purpose of the Bill—of leaving the European Union—is to give sovereignty to Parliament. It is the essence of the whole process. Therefore, it is very ironic that those who do not particularly like this objective are those pressing most for increased sovereignty. One has to assume, therefore, that they are doing it out of some sort of ulterior purpose.

[Lord Pannick]

I am sorry, but the noble Lord is suggesting that I am bringing forward this amendment for some ulterior purpose. I voted to remain in the EU, but I entirely agree with the Government’s position that in the light of the referendum result, this country has to notify and has to leave the European Union. I am not bringing forward this amendment with any ulterior purpose: my purpose is to ensure parliamentary sovereignty.

[Lord Spicer]

Of course I trust the noble Lord, but what he is doing is slowing down a process that we should get on with as quickly as possible in order to increase the sovereignty of Parliament. That is the whole purpose. It is the main purpose for those of us—

[Viscount Hailsham]

The purpose of the new clause that we are discussing is simply to ensure proper parliamentary control at the end of the negotiations. That does not slow down the negotiations; it merely ensures that at the end of those negotiations, Parliament has a proper say as to the outcome.

[Lord Spicer]

I personally agree totally with anything that increases the sovereignty of Parliament. I only make the point that this is totally unnecessary, because if we got on with this Bill, we would end up having a much more sovereign Parliament than we would have without it. That is the whole purpose of what I am saying. Indeed, it is necessary that we should have greater sovereignty because the powers of Parliament have been eroded ever since the Maastricht treaty, with which I was associated. That has been something that has been going on for some time—ever since there was a single currency. The powers of Parliaments have been reduced because the single currency is irrevocable, and we have a system in this country whereby no Parliament can bind another Parliament. There is no doubt in my mind, at least, that had we not started the process of leaving the European Union, the European court, which the noble Lord will know a lot about, would have moved in on us for not joining the single currency at some point. There is no question in my mind about that.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am not sure what is in the noble Lord’s mind. If he just tries reading the treaty, he will see that there is no basis for proceeding against the Government of the United Kingdom for not being a member of the euro. It is actually written in the treaty that we do not have to be, so perhaps he will clear his mind.

[Lord Spicer]

I am also sure that the European court would have found a way into this at some point. I have no doubt about that at all. If one really is concerned with the sovereignty of Parliament, we should get on with passing this Bill as quickly as possible and begin the task of unwinding the historic process of eroding the powers of Parliaments, including our own. We should not take too much notice of the amendments coming up: most of them are irrelevant to the Bill.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I support Amendment 17, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, which is linked to Amendment 35, standing in my name. Amendment 17 is critically important. If there is no clarity tonight, we should certainly return to this subject on Report next week.

In fact, the amendment arose from the end of one of the banks of debates on Monday night, when I asked the Minister—this is in Hansard, col. 641—what will happen if, at the end of the negotiations, we reach a position where both Houses of Parliament refuse to endorse the basis for Brexit recommended by the Government. Will the Government accept the decision of Parliament as binding or will they under those circumstances allow the voters to decide, either by general election or further referendum? The Minister refused to respond or give any indication of the Government’s intentions. He now has a chance to make clear beyond doubt the Government’s position, which the House has the right to know. The best way to achieve this would be to accept Amendment 17 or, if that cannot be carried, by insisting on Amendment 35 which provides that if the UK Government fail to reach agreement, the status quo would remain in force.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, did not ask the question the noble Lord has just said he asked; he asked whether there might be a third referendum. If the noble Lord cannot give an answer to that, why will there not be a fourth referendum to decide which of the previous three referendums was the real thing?

[Lord Newby]

I would have thought that that is fairly clear. People voted to start the process and we get to the point where there is a deal. At that point, the people should decide, finally, on whether the deal is acceptable. There would be no need, no point, and no issue for having a third referendum after that second decisive referendum.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, talks about everything happening in a smooth, orderly way. I rather agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. Everything will leak. The EU Commission is obliged to report to the European Parliament and the whole idea that the European Parliament will say, “This is all secret information, we should not let it out”, seems to me to be for the birds. Everything will leak and we will hear rumours about how far the negotiations have got, or what has happened. At that point, Parliament will demand a debate. The Government will get up, if this amendment is passed, and say, “No, you must wait for the quarterly review in two months’ time”. I do not think so. I think that the House of Commons will say, “Come on, get on with it, we want a response. Why have we heard these rumours? The Government must put us straight on all of this”.

This amendment, therefore, would achieve nothing. Everything will leak from the negotiations. When things of substance leak, Parliament, particularly the Commons, will demand a debate, and your Lordships’ House will no doubt do the same. This amendment is otiose.

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, I made the point in Committee that if you want sovereignty of Parliament you should vote as quickly as possible for this Bill and subsequent Bills to get us out of the control of the European Union. I make the point now—it is rather similar to that of my noble friend—that it is highly unlikely that the Government will accept this amendment. If it prevails, we will potentially be into a constitutional issue.

Therefore, one has to ask what options are likely to occur in the event of this House passing this amendment and, as my noble friend has just suggested, the other House passing it back to us, with the Government standing firm. There are three options. First, the Government could do nothing and concede the situation, but I think that that is highly unlikely. To lose control of the Bill at this stage on this issue would be very questionable wisdom on the part of the Government. Secondly, they could create 100 Peers. That is unlikely as well and would be rather dramatic at this stage. Thirdly, they could call a general election. That option should be under strong consideration by the Government at the moment. Through a vote of confidence in the Commons or whatever, they could have it out in the well-known democratic way of doing things—through a general election. I want to put on the record that there should be one round of ping-pong and then we should call a general election.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of the amendment. I tabled a similar amendment in Committee which was rather less demanding than this one, but the Government dispatched it extremely briskly.

I suggest that this amendment might be helpful to the Government. The idea that all the special interest groups affected by these negotiations—the different sectors, companies and pressure groups—will sit still, while stuff comes out of the EU about the possibility of doing damage to their particular interests and concerns, is fanciful. If the Minister and the Government do not have any structured way of reporting back to Parliament, we will find that many of those people will lobby your Lordships’ House and there will be a demand for a huge number of Parliamentary Questions, as well as demands for debates, to deal with the latest set of rumours about a particular sector, industry or agency which may be being transferred back to Europe. The EMA would be a good example and Euratom is another. Therefore, the Government might find that their life was made a bit easier if there was a structured way of reporting back to Parliament about the progress that was being made, especially if it was reasonably detailed and told some of these interest groups what was going on in the negotiations.