Queen’s Speech

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, for his comprehensive introduction of the topics under debate today on the gracious Speech. He covered the ground very well, which we appreciate. Like many noble Lords, I was struck by the excellent maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, including the information about where St Patrick is buried—something which we did not all know—and particularly by her analysis of the contribution of your Lordships’ House to making good some of the issues raised in her own Province and to the effective governance of the country as a whole. We look forward to her future contributions.

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s full debate. It is, I suppose, a sort of amuse-bouche—a point picked up by a number of noble Lords. It gives your Lordships’ House a sense of the Government’s thinking on their major policies, selected, as they are, from the manifesto. Like my noble friend Lord Judd, I was heartened by the tone set by the Minister in his opening speech but, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, I wonder whether some of the issues outlined there are actually going to appear. As my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone said, the proof of the pudding will come when we see the actual text of the Bills which will carry forward those plans and get a sense of whether, in this Parliament, the Government are prepared to work with this House on amendments which will improve what they are wishing to do.

As some noble Lords have already said, the context is important here. As my noble friend Lord Whitty pointed out, we face a Government who have carefully crafted a majority of 80 seats over their single-issue election—get Brexit done. But they face two significant problems. Will that consensus continue once Brexit is done? Is there a lasting majority for the sorts of policies and spending plans that will be necessary if they are to retain the votes which were lent to them in parts of the country which have never supported the austerity and anti-welfare policies which were the hallmark of previous Conservative and coalition Governments? Many of the policies in the Conservative and Labour manifestos are similar and, if replicated in policy, we would support them. But we have lived through a curious period in British politics this past five years, with Governments in office but not in power. As a result of that, the Opposition have held a great deal of leverage, in the sense that the Bills which have come forward—there were very few of them, in fact—were either uncontentious or were often amended by the Government to avoid votes in the Commons. A classic is the Trade Bill, already referred to, which left this House with 40 amendments, virtually all of which were put in, or supported by, the Government. I will return to that Bill later.

Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, I would like to know more from the Minister, when she comes to respond, about the principles that will underpin some of the Bills which were received from the Government following the Queen’s Speech. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, are we really going to get down to basics on what, at the moment, seem to be fine words and aspirations—proposals for public consumption which will never see the light of day when the realpolitik takes away the rhetoric?

Moving to particular questions, the main driving force behind all this is the withdrawal Bill, which we will see a lot more of next week and the week after. As other noble Lords mentioned, the changes to the Bill, particularly the deletion of the regression of standards, are the main issue here and I would be grateful to hear from the Government what exactly the current position is. As we all know, the real crunch will come with the free trade agreement, to be negotiated in what looks like a ridiculously tight timetable, before December 2020, but in practice will have to be cleared by October 2020 to allow time for validations and verification.

The list of issues that are up for discussion is too long to go through in detail, but it includes financial services, where there are 26 specific areas and not one third country has yet been able to be judged as equivalent on all those. It includes fisheries, which are on a fast track to be decided by July 2020. It includes data, where we already know there are serious problems with some of the issues to do with homeland security. It includes Northern Ireland: who checks, and what tariffs and processes will be involved to make sure that that works? The free trade agreement itself will have a level playing field section covering environmental issues, labour, state aid competition and much more. We will have to deal with rules of origin. That leaves completely untouched and so far without any real examination the question of how we will maintain our services—the bedrock of our economy.

We have an extensive set of issues about which we have very little detail. The problem is the complexity, because if we add in the prospect of parallel negotiations, mentioned by several noble Lords, with the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, we are asking a great deal, particularly as it seems absurd to negotiate with third parties, all of which will need certainty about what our future relationship with EU is going to be before signing up with us.

Then we add climate change and biodiversity. If we are going to achieve the Government target of zero carbon by 2050, we are told we should already have started: we should have alternative fuels in plan and be thinking about them; we should be re-equipping our industrial infrastructure. Perhaps this is already ongoing. If so, can we have the detail? As we pointed out, we are also committing ourselves to new approaches to defence and security alliances in an ever more uncertain world. Will the Minister, when she comes to respond, tell us how that is going to be achieved? Those are all external or outward-facing activities brought on us because of the change in policy. What about the internal work, which we have been discussing for many years, not much of which seems to have been settled?

To take one example, in BEIS productivity has long been an ongoing consideration. When is that going to get sorted? Then there is training and skills policy, and competition policy. Changes are in place, but where is the legislation? What about the role of regulation, particularly in auditing and other functions? There is a new report out, but again no hint of legislation coming. There is also merger policy and late payments. These are all issues that will materially affect our successful British industry, but we have no detail about what is going to be done by our Government about them.

It is interesting that a lot of the issues raised in the debate today, many more than I have been able to cover in this speech, concern the role of Parliament in all this. One might assume that, with the return of majority government, the status quo ante might prevail; in other words, all decisions will be taken by Ministers and later ratified by Parliament. However, my sense is that this is no longer acceptable. As my noble friend Lord Judd said, it is absolutely crystal clear now that civil society needs to be brought more into the debates, particularly on trade and trade policy. Many of the issues raised by Brexit and this Queen’s Speech will bear on that. Why are we being so particularly sensitive about this? The European Parliament has had considerable discussion and debate with civil society for many decades, and even the United States has all its trade policy driven through Congress and the Senate.

The particular question of regression of standards, which I mentioned earlier, has actually been decided, in the sense that both it and the question of the role to be played by Parliament were among the amendments agreed by this House to the Trade Bill that we passed in March 2019. I put it to the Government that a way of opening up a new era of constructive engagement on these and related issues would be to include those amendments in the 2020 trade Bill.