Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, particularly with that endorsement of the Liberal Democrats, which I have never heard him make previously. I probably never will again.

There is a mixture of former MPs and MEPs here, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said. When I first became a Member of the European Parliament, some time ago now, I was wet behind the ears as a parliamentarian. I remember an instance of the plenary session, which I think was in Brussels, when a commissioner failed to turn up at the beginning of a debate which he had been called to. My Dutch colleague said, “This is utterly outrageous”. He said that in the lower chamber of Parliament in Holland, if ever a Minister did not arrive in time for a debate, it would effectively be a matter of resignation because of the predominance of parliament. In the European Parliament, I never came across that happening again because of the respect that there was for the Parliament and the parliamentary process. Since I have been privileged to be a Member of this House, for 11 years, I have not found that to be the case in Westminster generally. In my four minutes, some of my criticism will be as much of Parliament as of the Government during this process.

The Government have form on listening to Parliament. I still cannot understand why they decided to fight the Article 50 issue through the courts to the Supreme Court. It wasted time. It was obvious that Parliament was not going to stand in the way of Article 50—partly because of where the Labour Party stood at the time—and it made it look as if the Government were trying to take back control from the British Parliament, when the referendum was about so much else. That court case should not have been necessary because Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, should have insisted. It could have voted to resolve that issue but decided not to. That is a weakness in our parliamentary system.

As a member of the EU Committee, I particularly want to raise—I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, will as well—the fact that it was our duty as parliamentarians and as members of the committee, having been appointed by the whole House, to bring the Government to account. That was one of our core roles. Because of that, the committee decided that it would come back during August to hear about the latest round of negotiations from the Secretary of State. I was astounded by the letter that came back from him telling us why he was not doing that. One reason that he gave was because of the parliamentary recess. Yet Parliament—this House, that committee that had been given that responsibility—was willing and eager to come back to keep that dialogue going. The Government are not in recess during August. Ministers do not give up their duties and go on holiday. The process of government does not stop. Yes, Parliament does, but we were prepared to come back and the Government decided not to.

The arrangements that we have in this House and in the Commons are not good enough for what we need for this great change to the constitution of this country. I have said this in EU Committee sittings when the Secretary of State has been there: the more that Government involve Parliament, the more credibility they will have and, I suspect, the more wisdom they will have in their negotiation as they find their way to the end of this process. By keeping things to themselves, by not consulting, by getting into groupthink, the outcome for them, as well as the country, will be far from good.