European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I accept that they are not the same thing. Perhaps by definition, Clause 9 relates to the withdrawal agreement, but that will be made by the United Kingdom Government. As the member state, it will be the United Kingdom Government who will sign the withdrawal agreement. There may—indeed, I am sure there will—be issues about ensuring that our law is compliant with the withdrawal agreement in all parts of the United Kingdom, in both the Westminster Parliament and the devolved Administrations. That is why we need it.

Noble Lords will be aware that it is quite normal to use delegated powers in such ways, including Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which amends the devolution statutes to ensure that our legislation reflects the most accurate position in law and ultimately to ensure that we fulfil our international obligations. To give an example, the Treaty of Lisbon (Changes in Terminology) Order 2011 was made under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act. It amended the Scotland Act, the Northern Ireland Act and the Government of Wales Act to give effect to new terminology relating to the EU. This is not the stuff of power grabs, believe me; it is the stuff of ensuring that day-to-day business can continue. Leaving the EU requires changes of a similar technical nature across the settlements, and we will need the flexibility to ensure that these important Acts operate effectively once we have left the EU. That is precisely what these powers enable.

Amendments 148 and 149 also speak to the concurrent powers for United Kingdom Ministers and would apply a requirement for devolved Ministers to consent to their use. We will consider this matter fully in the next group, but I am very willing to engage with noble Lords on the subject that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised when she talked about the use of the word “normally”. “Normally” is not subject to definition by government, it is subject to definition in law, but of course we would normally expect the consent of devolved Administrations in conducting discussions on these matters. A lot of this, believe me, is down to ensuring good housekeeping and common sense. If we have the prospect, by agreement, of dealing with this just once in one United Kingdom Parliament rather than repeating it in all the different legislatures of the country, that makes sense.

I shall try to deal quickly with the points raised by noble Lords, I hope in more or less the order in which they were raised. Forgive me if I miss points; I will try to pick them up by letter and will place a copy in the Library for those who did not participate in the debate.

First, I restate my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for tabling the amendment and ably and cogently setting out what it was about. I followed precisely what he said and sympathise with a lot of it. I suspect we may disagree on some of the detail and emphasis, but I am certainly willing to engage with the issues he has raised. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, for bringing forward the Northern Ireland dimension. She asked who we will engage with. Sadly, we cannot engage with an Executive at the moment, but we continue to put all our energies into ensuring that we have an Executive in place to engage with. Whatever our differences with them will be, that is far a more desirable form of government and governance of Northern Ireland.

I think the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, spoke next, and spoke also on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. As I said, we will look at Clause 11 later. If I am not mistaken, we sought and obtained agreement from both Scotland and Wales to publish that. There are deep dives, as the parlance has it, going on in all framework areas—I think we are now down to 24 from 27. Full and active engagement on that is the way forward, and significant work is being done.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, spoke next. He has massive experience and knowledge of this area, so I listened very carefully to what he was saying. I appreciated our earlier chat. I can confirm that these framework areas are frozen, as it were, until we can get down to the substance in the deep dives of the things that need to be devolved and the things that need to be held in the centre. I think there is common agreement, including in Scotland, on the principle that some things will have to be retained in the centre. If we are seeking to pull something back—I do not see that that will happen, but if we were, through some of these other Acts—of course we would need LCMs just as we are seeking an LCM on this legislation. That is, again, a reassurance that I am able to give.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for the engagement that we have had on this. I can confirm that we are seeking an LCM, as I believe she knows, on this legislation in both Scotland and Wales, and on the other legislation—on agriculture and so on—insofar as this involves potentially encroaching on devolved areas. Of course, once again we would seek to have long and deep discussions, as we are doing. If it were to impinge on devolved areas, we would fairly clearly need that LCM.

I hope I have answered on deficiencies; all of those will be covered in the Bill. An example of an international obligation would be something perhaps not mundane, but, for example, complying with a new law of the sea if there was a new law of the sea convention. That may be something we would seek to amend. It would be that sort of issue.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked for full details of the amendments. She will see that we have published the Clause 11 amendments. The amendments to Clause 7 will be tabled on Report. I have given that undertaking. They are not yet ready for reasons I have sought to explain but they will be there for Report stage. I hope she will take some comfort from that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, spoke with great experience of the devolved areas, and I thank her for her contribution about how things have moved and how there are still rough edges. I share some of the frustration of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, because we tried to solve some of this together on asbestos. This is not a power grab. Nobody knows where that power lies. Indeed, there is perhaps a little bit of, “You do it”, “No, you do it”. It is just lack of clarity rather than a power grab, but I hope we will be able to solve and settle it before too long.

I think I have dealt with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is not in his place at the moment, on the Good Friday agreement. It will not involve any amendments in relation to that agreement, to which we are totally wedded, but there will be some amendments on Report in relation to Northern Ireland and some of the deficiencies that need correcting, in just the same way as in relation to Scotland and Wales. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, once again for the clarity of what he said. I agree that we should look, perhaps through conversation and discussion, to move this forward. Like my noble friend Lord Forsyth, I have grave doubts. We will not be moving to a position of consent but I would certainly like to see us talking and consulting, and I am very happy to engage with that. To move to a position of consent in non-devolved areas would be dangerous to the union.

I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern once again for what he said. I totally agree: if we think this is difficult, just wait until we get to Clause 11. I think this is relatively straightforward and I can see a way through this where we would have broad agreement. As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, indicated, Clause 11 will be a much more difficult area.

The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, knows so much about this area, through both his political and legal experience. I agree with him that it is important to move to a position where, for things related to devolved areas, there is a convention that has grown up and is widely accepted about consent. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, for his clarity. I agree with him about the importance of transparency and coming up with some common sense; I think that is essentially what he was saying and I do not disagree at all.

We have probably reached agreement on Clause 7. In relation to Clauses 8 and 9, I am very happy to look at the points that were made and discuss them further ahead of Report stage. In the meantime, I ask the noble and learned Lord and the noble Baroness to withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

I believe the amendment under debate is that of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie.

[Baroness Suttie]

I thank the Minister for his characteristically detailed and courteous response. We look forward to examining these amendments in greater detail ahead of Report stage, when we will probably have many longer discussions about them. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle]

I understand the noble Lord’s explanation, and I will not speak for 11 minutes. However, I will say something and ask the Minister serious questions. The facts have been explained by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the Government are perfectly well aware of these facts. They produced a paper on customs arrangements, I think last July or August. What work has been done on developing the proposals in those papers? If the Government were serious about developing what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, wants, they would have presented a proposal to Brussels in the last couple of months. In December, in the agreement that the Prime Minister is so proud of—I was delighted that it occurred —it was said that joint work would be done on the Irish border and the other issues to draw up a draft withdrawal agreement in the coming months. What work has happened? How many meetings were there between British and Commission officials before the Commission produced its draft withdrawal agreement? If the Government had a clear view of how the problems set out by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, could be addressed, they would have come forward with a compelling alternative proposal to what the Commission has come forward with. Can we therefore please have a balanced, sensible explanation of what the Government are doing and why they refuse to face facts and produce objective reports on how they will deal with very serious economic issues?

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, it may be convenient for the Committee for me to set out the Opposition’s view—

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords—

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

The noble Lord may speak after me, and as many times as he likes, but—

[Lord Wigley]

Not on this amendment, because these points have not been covered. This is Committee, and we have a right to put our points.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Those who are familiar with the rules will know that as many Lords as they like can speak after me. They cannot speak after the Minister.

I think it will be useful if I simply set out the position of the Opposition. The seriousness of the situation, as described by a number of speakers, is entirely accepted. Those of us who have slogged through the road haulage and trailers Bill know that the extant law that a no-deal would fall back on is totally unfit for purpose and would give us perhaps only 4% of the capacity we need. I think there is a consensus on that. The fear of customs friction, which, once again, we raised at Second Reading, is acknowledged. It was neatly summed up by the chief executive of the Road Haulage Association:

“Simply using current customs practices and applying them to UK/EU traffic risks delays of biblical proportions which would strangle growth and hurt the entire economy”.


Basically, these amendments say, “Sort this mess out before you start executing change through Clause 7”, and, “Don’t misuse the regulations to do it”. We broadly agree, and we hope everybody agrees. We hope everybody recognises that we need these problems solved in road haulage—I will not repeat myself later; it is the same in railways and in aviation—before we can contemplate leaving the Union. They are not related to soft or hard Brexit, although each means different problems; they are related to transport problems. No deal means no transport, and that has to be sorted out.

Are these amendments the best way of doing that? I am not sure. At the moment we have an open mind on that. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the Government to propose a series of meetings for interested Peers off the Floor of the House with senior Ministers—no doubt with the noble Baroness, and perhaps the Secretary of State should intervene because this is so important—so that we can get to the bottom of the progress that the Government are making and find out how they propose to tackle what is a real problem. We have a common interest in it being tackled, and the Government have a duty to put a lot of effort into convincing sceptical Peers. They should tell us what they plan to do, respond to ideas and come back with amendments to assure the House that we are not going to drift into a disaster of biblical proportions.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords—

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[Lord Whitty]

It was both the EU and Mr Davis and they were both wrong because in all negotiations whenever you enter negotiations you agree some things and you then park them. We could have agreed this. It is ridiculous that airlines are now faced with selling tickets in three weeks’ time not knowing whether they can deliver on them. I just make that more general point because the Minister keeps saying it is all down to the negotiations, but the negotiations went wrong from day one, and this is one example where we could have delivered something, albeit it would need to be part of a total package at the end of the day.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I spent 22 years in the airline industry from the mid-1960s onwards as everything from co-pilot to number two in the marketing department. I learned two things from that. One was that aeroplanes are very dangerous. When I first joined the industry, we would crash a jet aircraft about every two years in the United Kingdom, and it has been a long, hard slog. That slog has not been all UK—it was the UK, the US, Canada and France, working together through international co-operation, producing the safety we take for granted today. It is crucial that those mechanisms stay in place to achieve that.

The other thing I remember is what air services agreements are. They are treaties, and if you are not part of one of these more modern situations, such as the European one, there are country-by-country treaties between pairs of countries—all of which would have to be renegotiated. Falling out of the present situation would create enormous problems. I am very sorry that the Minister did not like my suggestion of contact between interested Peers and senior transport people on these three groups. I hope that perhaps that could be reconsidered—I am glad they are nodding now on the Front Bench, but the Minister said nothing in either of his two speeches to suggest that. Obviously in all parts of the House there is a genuine concern that progress is not being made in these very important areas. I do not want to have that concern; I want to share the Government’s optimism. At the moment, given the responses we have had, I do not.

[Baroness Altmann]

I rise briefly to explain why I have added my name to these important amendments. One thing that has not been mentioned in Committee so far is the idea that the arrangements we have with Europe also protect the safety, maintenance and repair facilities around our country for our aviation and aerospace industries. We must maintain alignment of regulation. We have 100 airports and 172 maintenance and repair facilities, and if we jeopardise the standards of safety, if we are not in the open skies agreement and not in EASA, then the US apparently is already planning to send its own inspectors to make sure that our standards are up to scratch. If we cannot reassure people that we will maintain those standards, we will not have a functioning aerospace and aviation industry.

Another important element that must not be forgotten is that if we do not maintain our membership of the open skies agreement and EASA, the flights taken by ordinary citizens will increase in price. One estimate from the consultancy Oxera is that if all flights operated by third country airlines were removed, air fares for UK passengers would rise by between 15% and 30%—a Brexit surcharge which people were never told to expect to pay when they voted to leave the EU. These restrictions cannot be overcome simply by airlines setting up subsidiaries in Europe, because ownership restrictions do not allow non-EU investors to own a controlling interest in EU airlines.

I urge my noble friend the Minister to make a commitment to the Committee that we intend to maintain membership of EASA and the open skies agreement, notwithstanding the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.