Queen’s Speech

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend the Minister made clear at the outset of this debate, and as many others have made clear in the course of it, the Brexit negotiations are immensely complicated. That is a far cry from what some of the most prominent leavers suggested, with their talk of cake, money for the NHS and independence day a year ago. I believe that those people who made it appear so simple a year ago now have a special responsibility to rally to the Government and explain and defend the compromises and trade-offs that will be necessary to secure a deal, which have already become apparent in the discussions over the rights of EU citizens. As we all know, nobody was more carried away by the exuberance of his own verbosity than our Foreign Secretary, and it is noticeable that we have heard nothing from him in defence of the Government as they seek to bring about an agreement that will demand compromises and trade-offs of a sort that will sometimes be quite painful. It is time that he took a part in defending what is going to be required.

I hope, too, that there can be as much cross-party co-operation as possible between all those who believe that the British people did not vote to become poorer. There has been a wide measure of agreement across the Chamber in all parties about the desirability of co-operating, where possible. That is what is in the best interests of the British economy and society, and British jobs, within the context of securing a close and enduring relationship with our European friends, which should be our chief consideration. In this context, I welcome Sir Keir Starmer’s appointment to the Privy Council, which is a useful step. I also believe that the suggestion of the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury of an all-party committee should be considered, whether in the form that he proposed it or in some other form.

I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. Normally, I find myself in agreement with him on European matters and, indeed, on a great many other matters, so it grieves me to find myself on the opposite side of the argument on this occasion. Like him, I certainly believe that we want to secure the most frictionless trading relationship possible with the EU as part of a wider and closer relationship, but I do not believe that the best way in which to achieve that is by making continued membership of the single market and the customs union an object of policy. To do so gives rise to all kinds of issues of principle for the European Union, and I do not think that that is what the European Union itself wants. My noble friend the Minister dealt with that point very capably in her speech at the opening of this debate. It also runs the risk that we will be accused of cherry-picking, as we were at the outset of the discussions; that accusation of cherry-picking has gone away a good deal since the Lancaster House speech and since it became apparent that we were not going down the road that the noble Lord suggested. I think, too, that if we make membership of the single market and customs union an object of policy, we also run the risk that we will end up with too many of the disadvantages of leaving the European Union and too few of the potential gains.

The best way to proceed, as my noble friend the Minister proposed, is to pursue an EU-UK agreement. To the extent that we can incorporate into that as much as possible of the single market and the customs union, so much the better, but that is a different way of approaching the matter. We want to achieve as much as possible of what is in the single market and customs union, but I think that we need to do it within a different framework and with a different branding, so as to avoid some of the difficulties that will arise for our colleagues on the other side of the Channel. Of course, all that will take time, so I am sure that it is right that we should stay in the single market and customs union as far as possible during a transitional period—but it should be a transitional period. For the long term, we should, if we can, reach a more imaginative and bespoke agreement, incorporating not just trade but co-operation on foreign and defence policy, security, research and other areas. That is the way to proceed.