European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will make some short comments on a number of issues but, first, I must congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the staff of the EU Committee on having put together an extremely authoritative and objective report on the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship. I urge noble Lords who have not read it to do so.

One thing that came out of it really struck me. I have not been much involved in the Northern Ireland aspects of withdrawal, but it is quite clear that Northern Ireland will be separate from the rest of Great Britain. I hear the Minister say that the manifesto says, and the Prime Minister has assured us, that that is not the case—but he has already signed the deal and the division down the Irish Sea is there. I was there when the civil servants corrected the Secretary of State and said that paperwork would be necessary. No wonder the Northern Ireland parties are particularly upset about that. Having said that—I always try to be positive—I very much welcome the fact that there will continue to be a single energy market within the island of Ireland, which I understand is in the agreement.

What really surprises me about this agreement is something that we have debated a number of times—that we will put into legislation the fact that we will not extend the interim period. It is quite obvious that we are putting ourselves in exactly the same situation as we did when we invoked Article 50 without a plan. We immediately put the power into the other party, the European Union. At that time, they must have said, “Yippee, everything is on our side”—and that will be the case this time. We have given away our flexibility and set a deadline that can only work against us. I do not understand that. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Butler, praise the Prime Minister for having got a new deal when it was predicted that he would not get one so quickly. The reason was that he accepted a deal that was already on the table from the European Union some years before—with its preferences. So are we going to have another repeat of history?

One area that particularly concerns me is fisheries—an area that I have been involved in both through committee work and in relation to regulation when I was in the European Parliament. I come from the south-west; big promises have been made to the fishing industry. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others have mentioned this subject. Yet, to me, the fact that we are expected to conclude a fisheries agreement in July this year, with a deadline for overall agreement not long after, means that the two are absolutely and inevitably entwined. There will be either trade-off or submission. I suspect that my fisheries colleagues down in the south-west already expect to be sold out, as they have been in the past. How will the Government ensure that that will not happen to the industry this time?

I will say one thing quickly about the chemicals industry. My committee, the EU Environment and Energy Sub-Committee, looked at REACH and all of that side. Given the Minister’s bird’s-eye view of the silos that sometimes occur in Whitehall, will he make sure through Defra and BEIS, which both have responsibility for the industry—Defra in terms of regulations and the REACH chemical regulations—that that industry, the second-largest manufacturing industry in the United Kingdom, is treated very carefully in terms of regulation? There is still great concern in that area.

Lastly, I will refer to Part 3 of the withdrawal Bill, which is around citizens. But there is not one clause in there about UK citizens; it is all about EU 27 citizens. I welcome most of that, but one of the biggest failures of the Government is that UK citizens in the 27 do not have freedom of movement. That right is kept within individual member states, and to me that is a major failure of negotiation. I want to see UK citizens recognised in this Bill, and not sold out as they have been so far.