European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, I have listened to, I think, nine hours of debate, yesterday and today. I was not going to speak but I somehow think I have to. There are so many things I could say, but I want to make just three points. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and those in the other place who have put together this Bill. It may be a very important example of cross-party working. It is 50 years since I sat in the official Box in this House, and I have been observing its proceedings regularly for that period. I have a sense at the moment that we are in a watershed. Things will never be the same after these Brexit years, not least because Brexit will be with us for 10, 15 or 20 years. It will divide the country, whether we leave or stay, and we have a huge problem dealing with it. Part of that problem is that our political institutions are not keeping up with the world, which is changing around us. At some point we will have to look at ourselves quite radically to ensure that we can keep up with what is expected of us. We are not helping ourselves in the way we are carrying on business at the moment.

Within that, the position of political parties is becoming a problem. I should never talk about political parties; I lack the gene that gives people passion for them. I have for a long time been very privileged to observe politicians closely and I have never, ever understood them. I just accept that I am not “one of you”. Equally, I know the importance of parties. At the moment, both in government and in political and party affairs, there are too many moving parts and too many fixed structures in my life are no longer stable or reliable. That is an unnerving feeling. If I am honest, the dismissal of 21 members of the Conservative Party appals me—I am not a politician but it appals me. It is over 50 years since I observed a number of leading Conservative politicians—the now noble Lords, Lord Howard, Lord Gummer and Lord Lamont, and Mr Kenneth Clarke—in the Cambridge Union. I remember Kenneth Clarke as a blonde, tall, slim chap with a northern accent, and I am utterly dismayed to find his contribution treated so cavalierly.

Listening to the debate and watching what is going on, I feel that I am living in a world that is going mad. Too many things are happening. I cannot be alone in feeling that—it is not just my age; it is true. We need sanity. There is sanity in this House and within the parties, and we will be rescued only if sane people can overcome their differences, act in the national interest and work together. This Bill is an example of that. Maybe it will lead to a referendum because I cannot see how a general election will get us out of our difficulty; what will happen if we again have a hung Parliament? So perhaps there will be a referendum. That is my first point: be true to your parties but also look at the national interest before your party interest when needed.

My second concern is that there is a need for a view about the future of this country in the world. The world around us is changing fast. We are in the middle of a technological revolution that I think is greater than the Industrial Revolution. Just 15 years ago we did not have smart phones and apps but now they are an indispensable part of everybody’s lives. Social media is changing the whole political context not just in this country but in other countries. I have recently chaired conferences and have learned that I can chair meetings without understanding a word of what is said. I chaired a meeting in Cambridge on quantum computing and another on blockchain, which is even worse. I also chaired one on DNA—on CRISPR-Cas 9 for those who are interested.

The things that are being brought to fruition in the world of research at the moment will alter the world more in the next 10, 15 or 20 years than has been the case in the last 10 or 15 years, and that has been fast enough. We in the political world and in political institutions have to keep up with and understand those things. Brexit is important but it is not the only change that is happening, and we need to have a view of the world, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said earlier. We need to have a view of our place in the world and of how we will cope with it and be equipped to deal with it. It is not my field but the tectonic plates of world politics are changing. America and China will dominate the scene. Europe will not be the centre of the world, as we have thought of ourselves. The need to have a position in which we can choose between America and China, when each of them puts pressure on us, will be important. We will lack company if we isolate ourselves from the rest of Europe by behaving badly towards it and having no deal. The context of all this will be fundamental for the future of this country in a way that goes deeper than just politics and economics; it will be cultural too.

I am hugely bothered by the way in which the word “trust” has been used. I am used to people trusting government institutions. Part of my career has involved trying to uphold trust and ensure that people know where the boundaries are in a pragmatic way. One of those boundaries, as my noble friend and successor said just now, concerns special advisers. A lot of my time was taken up with special advisers and I have a detailed question for the Minister when he replies. There were, and I think there still are, rules governing special advisers, one of which was that they are temporary civil servants and do not have Executive powers. Can the Minister assure us that present special advisers are not exercising Executive powers? For instance, sacking another special adviser is the exercise of an Executive power. Special advisers do not have such powers. If someone purports to sack someone and they do not have the power to do it, is that sacking valid? I assume that this has been looked into and that the Government know what is going on, but I raise it because it is a small example of a more general principle. We need to ensure that the codes of conduct—not just gentlemen or good chaps behaving well but the basic rules of government—are being observed. I feel that, at the moment, when people feel able to be careless and cavalier with conventions, we ought to ask whether basic principles are being observed and challenging when they are not.

I think that is enough for now. I could go on at length about the principles at stake today, but so much has been said that I agree with and I will not repeat it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very useful debate, but I think the House may agree that it is perhaps now time to wind up. Today’s has been a much more constructive debate than last night’s—oh, I give way to the noble and learned Lord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have had a very constructive debate today. It has been much more interesting and wide-ranging than the long hours we had yesterday attempting to prevent today’s debate. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on his return. I had understood that he was on a sleeper train to Scotland last night—perhaps he was not—but it is very courteous of him.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord is referring to me and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, told me off for intervening because I did not get here in time. I had to go and speak at a social care conference and came back at the first opportunity—which I would have thought was perfectly admissible. While I am on my feet, perhaps I may correct the noble Lord. What we were doing was preventing this House from having a guillotine Motion—it had nothing whatever to do with the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is all the more courteous of the noble Lord to return if he had a speaking engagement in Scotland. I regret that the noble Lords, Lord Dobbs and Lord True, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, have not had the respect for the House to be here today, having detained us for so long in those circumstances last night. I hope that the Conservative Whips will make it clear to them that respect for the House in these circumstances would have suggested that attendance was more appropriate in their circumstances, as far as those of us who cut short our sleep and returned on time are concerned.

We are discussing some fundamental constitutional issues in this Bill: the relationship between Parliament and the Government. It is highly relevant to that that the leave campaign promised us that Brexit would restore not just British but parliamentary sovereignty.

Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Howard, reminded me of some of my undergraduate studies in history—the 17th-century conflicts and the emergence of the Tories and the Whigs, the Tories being those who defended the Crown against Parliament, with the Whigs favouring a stronger Parliament. However, the noble Lord referred not to the divine right of kings but to the will of the people. In some ways, this is an equally difficult concept to pin down and define.

These are very wide-ranging issues. The future of the union has been mentioned. My son now lives and works in Edinburgh and I have therefore visited it much more frequently in the last three years. I understand that the future of the union is at stake in this debate for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Then there are the questions suggested by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, my noble friend Lord Campbell, the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, and others. What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of values do we think we are about? Do we think that we do not share European values, that we share more with the American right and that that is where we would like to be instead? We have also discussed the conventions of what we used to regard as our wonderful unwritten constitution.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. May I apologise for my discourtesy —in his view—in not being able to be here for today’s debate in its entirety? I have attended the debate and have listened to his wise words on the monitor. Sadly, there are other duties which people must attend to. I would be very appreciative if he would apologise for his discourtesy in getting his facts wrong and personalising something that should be about politics, not personalities.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The question is about the role of this House, the way we all conduct ourselves in this House and the way we conducted our business yesterday evening. I am very happy to discuss this further with him off the Floor of the House.

[Lord Dobbs]

Could the noble Lord give a little moment? This is important. I have been referred to on the Floor of the House. Will the noble Lord simply accept that these matters should be about policy and politics, not personalities? I hope that he will reflect on the fact that referring to personalities actually demeans his case and does not strengthen it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am sorry. I have not read many of the noble Lord’s novels. I am sure that they do not stress that personality is important in politics. It seems to me that it is rather difficult to disentangle personality from politics. Let us discuss this further off the Floor. I even promise to buy the noble Lord a drink.

I was talking about conventions of the British constitution. I have been recalling the answer that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, gave last year when the question was raised about the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments’ sharp letter to the Foreign Secretary when he resigned about the way in which Boris Johnson broke the Ministerial Code in three places within three days of resigning. The noble Lord extremely carefully stressed that the Ministerial Code is an honour code and depends upon the honour of the men who sign it, leaving the question of whether Boris Johnson is a man of honour hanging in the air.

That is part of the issue of trust which the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Hayward, and many others across the House have raised today. The matter of whether the Government would consider ignoring a law passed through Parliament if they did not like it, quoted in the Times today, increases the degree of mistrust. When the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said that he cannot believe that the Prime Minister is negotiating in good faith, he speaks for a large number of people, which is worrying. He also says that we have to remember that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff is in contempt of Parliament and has written a blog showing many examples of his contempt, not only for Parliament but for most politicians in all parties. The problem, therefore, is that we cannot trust this Government, so Parliament is justified in tying their hands, which is the purpose of this Bill.

There is then the question of the role of evidence in policy-making, and of Civil Service advice and impartiality. The relationship between the Civil Service and the Government is based on the principle that civil servants advise on the basis of the best evidence they can find, and Ministers decide. What we have seen throughout this long argument about our membership of the European Community is Ministers and politicians disregarding advice and putting aside the evidence. I recall during my time in government, long before we reached the referendum, when, with David Lidington and Greg Clark, I chaired a Committee which at Conservative insistence looked at the balance of competences between the European Union and the United Kingdom. The Conservatives had insisted on it in the 2010 agreement because they were convinced that the evidence would demonstrate that business and other stakeholders would want to claw substantial powers back from the European Union to the UK. One of the most conscientious suppliers of evidence to the 32 reports that were provided was the director of the Scotch Whisky Association, Mr David Frost. He had been engaged in this for some time and he clearly knew what he was talking about and where the evidence lay. When those reports concluded that the balance of competences as currently established suited British business and other stakeholders well, the Prime Minister’s office did its best to supress further debate.

I hope that I misheard the noble Lord, Lord Howell, when he suggested that David Frost was perhaps not pressing the Prime Minister’s case on the Irish backstop as hard as he might in Brussels—

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord misheard me.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am glad to hear that. We have seen a worrying number of occasions when Ministers have blamed civil servants for decisions that they should have taken responsibility for. Poor Ministers blame officials in the way that poor workmen blame their tools. Michael Gove on experts, David Davis on officials, and others have lowered the quality of political debate in this country. We desperately need to rebuild it. It is not only the Government; the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, reminds us of the migration issue. I have read many of the Migration Watch UK reports over the years, with good evidence presented to suggest that the migration problem in Britain is largely a European one, rather than a global one. That helped the leave campaign very considerably, and I regret that misrepresentation of evidence. Operation Yellowhammer is the most recent example of good evidence being presented by civil servants, so far as we understand it, and suppressed by the Government because it did not fit what they wanted. Again, I may have misheard the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, on Tuesday. I thought he said that the report was based on “reasonable assumptions” about the outcome of a no-deal Brexit, and that it was a “worst-case analysis”. The think tank I worked for dealt in scenario planning, and would have central analyses, and best-case and worst-case analyses. I understand that Operation Yellowhammer was a central-scenario analysis of the risks. The Government should therefore be prepared to share what they think are the potential risks of a no-deal Brexit.

It is three years since the referendum. The focus of negotiations has been within the Conservative Party and not between the UK Government and the European Union. Theresa May, as Prime Minister, was pulled to the right by the European Research Group and imposed tight red lines. There could have been a compromise. Had the Government said that we would have a soft Brexit and stay within the single market and customs union, everything would have been over and dealt with long before now. The red lines were tightened and tightened, in late 2016 and early 2017, which led us to where we are today. After three years, the Conservative Party is even more deeply divided and we now see it crumbling at the edges, with the Cummings purge and even more so with the resignation of Jo Johnson this morning, when he said he is,

“torn between family loyalty and the national interest”.

We need politicians to think about the national interest, although I see Twitter remarked that this is the first occasion that a Minister has resigned to spend less time with his family.

The time remaining is short. The clock is ticking and deadlines are approaching. After three years of drift, without a clear government policy on what sort of exit to take, the idea that a deal could be reached on 17 and 18 October and implemented by 31 October is as absurd as some of the other things we have heard. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, remarked, the legislative basis for an ordinary Brexit will simply not be there. We will be going out without the legal framework that we need; that is not an orderly Brexit. We need more time. We need more honesty about the choices, more respect for evidence, what is possible and what is not. We need a Government and an Opposition who put the national interest ahead of party factionalism. Since we do not sufficiently have these qualities in our national debate at present, we need this Bill.