That this House agrees with the conclusion of the European Union Select Committee, that the Council Decision authorising the opening of negotiations for a new partnership with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published in draft on 3 February 2020, and adopted in amended form by the General Affairs Council on 25 February 2020, raises matters of vital national interest to the United Kingdom.
Relevant document: 8th Report from the European Union Committee
My Lords, I thank those who, despite difficult national circumstances, have signed up for this debate. I extend my best wishes to those who are, for entirely understandable reasons, staying away from Westminster.
This is the first time that the House is debating a Motion under Section 29 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act. Section 29 imposes a duty and a power on the European Union Committee of this House. This is in addition to the remit already reflected in our terms of reference, which, inter alia, is to help inform parliamentary and public debate on EU-related matters. The new Section 29 comes into play once we have identified a document of “vital national interest”, and leads on to the production of a report, a Motion and a debate in a relatively short timespan. The document we are concerned with today is the Council’s decision that was adopted on 25 February: the EU’s negotiating mandate for our future relationship.
Before I address the detail of the report, I will say how glad I am that the Government have tabled their Motion today, as we had expressed our regret—at paragraph 29 of our report—that the UK Parliament had not had the opportunity to debate these vital matters to date. The fact that the Government also have put down their Motion sets a good precedent. Can the Minister commit to tabling further Motions in government time as and when there are significant developments in the negotiations?
I thank Michael Gove, who has agreed to appear before us shortly. However, we are still trying to establish clarity and structure as to how the Government will work with committees scrutinising the future relationship negotiations and, importantly, the withdrawal agreement’s implementation. As a committee, we have commented on this several times. It is very important to get it right. Will the Minister commit to working with me in agreeing in short order the structure of this engagement for the months ahead?
Our report is neutral, factual and analytical. We have sought to compare the Council decision of 25 February with the Government’s command paper of 27 February on the future relationship and the political declaration that was agreed by both parties in October 2019. A further relevant item is Article 184 of the withdrawal agreement, ratified in January this year. This places a treaty obligation upon both parties to
“use their best endeavours, in good faith and in full respect of their respective legal orders, to take the necessary steps to negotiate expeditiously the agreements governing their future relationship referred to in the Political Declaration”.
The Council decision is structured very similarly to the political declaration, with some texts simply copied over. Naturally, there are areas where the EU has expanded on the political declaration, a number where the emphasis has changed and some that are omitted. Broadly, however, the council decision is a mark-up and development of the political declaration, and this has facilitated our analysis.
At end insert “and notes the undertaking of Her Majesty’s Government in paragraph 40 of the Department for International Trade’s summary of responses to a public consultation on trade negotiations with the United States, published on 18 July 2019, to ‘draw on the expertise and experience of Parliamentarians’ by working with a parliamentary committee which would be afforded ‘access to sensitive information’ during the process, before taking a ‘comprehensive and informed position on the final agreement’; and therefore calls on Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that, in a manner consistent with the European Commission’s treatment of the European Parliament, both Houses of Parliament are able to receive regular updates from ministers, scrutinise all relevant policy documents and legal texts, and debate the terms of emerging agreements, as negotiations on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union progress.”
My Lords, this is a timely debate. It is two days before the second round of face-to-face negotiations was due to open in London. As we know, the negotiations cancelled because of the virus, a matter of serious national concern. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has just set out, there were also these EU talks, which are matters of vital national interest.
Despite the description clearly and persuasively set out in the report, our Government seem curiously shy about the content, unlike the EU side: while Monsieur Barnier had a press conference and took questions after round one, this Parliament had a 200-word Written Statement and no discussion in either Chamber until today. I am thankful to our brilliant EU committee, the Bill Cash amendment and the Chief Whip, who agreed to table the Government’s Command Paper for debate. It is this reluctance to engage with Parliament that leads to my amendment.
It is somewhat strange that a civil servant rather than a Minister has been sent out to bat for Britain in these talks. I am sure that Mr Frost, who likes to quote Edmund Burke, is excellent. However, as a Member of neither House, he is neither here nor there to explain or be questioned. Is it not shameful that our Government hide behind him to avoid accountability and debate?
In their response to an earlier consultation about discussions with the US, the Government promised
“to draw on the expertise and experience of Parliamentarians”
by working with a parliamentary committee that would be afforded “access to sensitive information” during the process. This would, in the Government’s words, enable Members to take an
“informed position on the final agreement”
before being asked to ratify.
The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Simon) (Lab)
My Lords, the original question was that this Motion be agreed to, since when an amendment has been moved at the end to insert the words as set out in the Order Paper. The question I therefore have to put is that this amendment be agreed to.
My Lords, as a preliminary, I just want to send best wishes to colleagues from any Benches who are ill or staying at home because of coronavirus. Just before I left home, I was pleased that Radio 4 on“The World at One” responded to the plea from Esther Rantzen for some amusing material to keep up morale and played a clip of Martin Jarvis as Bertie Wooster. More from where that came from, please.
Yet again, we on these Benches are very grateful to our EU Committee for a timely and high-quality report of the standard we have come to expect from it. I can say that now without any vestige of self-congratulation as I have, alas, been rotated off even a sub-committee. The report’s finding that there is a wide gap between what the Government committed to in the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration and the policies now espoused in the Written Ministerial Statement in last month’s Command Paper is deeply concerning. I shall focus on the question of trust, as exemplified by the Government’s behaviour over the Ireland protocol; on the triumph of absurd hard-line ideology over pragmatism, as illustrated by the rejection of heath co-operation; and on the damage that the Government’s limited ambition for the future relationship will cause.
In the current coronavirus crisis, trust is an essential component of the Government’s credibility; people will not follow advice they feel does not have a grounding in facts and competence, as opposed to political posturing. A Government who acquire a reputation for playing games or crying wolf will not be trusted in a crisis. This is one reason it is so essential that the Government can be trusted in their conduct of the Brexit negotiations —both to comply with their legal obligations and to deliver a Brexit that meets, as far as possible, the pledges made by the leaders of the leave campaign in 2016.
Under those legal obligations, respect for the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol, which came at the request of the May and then Johnson Governments and which became, at their request, a front-stop instead of a backstop, is at the core of this. A few weeks ago, Tony Connelly of RTÉ wrote a commentary in which he noted that, in one breath, Michael Gove had told the House of Commons that
My Lords, it will not surprise the House to find that I will not be echoing the sentiments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Ludford. I welcome the Government’s plans for a future relationship with the EU, as set out in their White Paper, and I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord True as the Minister in this debate; it is in very capable hands.
I could not be more proud of the approach that the Government are taking to our relationship with the EU. We have left behind us the servile acquiescence that characterised the first three years of negotiations with the EU after the referendum. In its place, we now have a confident Government who really believe in our future outside the EU and have the strong backing of the British people from last year’s general election.
In the Command Paper, the Government have set out their vision of
“friendly co-operation between sovereign equals”.
Those of us who strongly supported the UK’s exit from the EU are much heartened by both the content and the spirit of the Government’s position, and I look forward to my noble friend’s summary of the key elements of our policy when he winds up.
For me, the most important aspect is that we are seeking a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. We are one of the world’s largest economies, and we expect to be able to negotiate trade agreements with our trading partners on a basis of mutual respect on both sides. The EU is no different from any other trade counterparty in this respect. It is the same basis on which we should approach negotiations with other important trading partners, such as the USA.
Of course, that means that we do not want an association agreement and will not bind ourselves to the rules and mechanisms of the EU, whether for a level playing field or any other purpose. Our country did not vote to leave the EU in order to recreate the past relationship all over again. We especially did not vote to leave the EU to be bound to mirror any part of its regulatory environment in perpetuity. Dynamic alignment is a million miles from any reasonable interpretation of what the British people voted for in 2016.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
Is the noble Baroness saying that she is advocating no deal?
I will come on to that in a short while. I was saying that dynamic alignment is simply not what the British people voted for in 2016 or in last year’s general election. It is right that it forms no part of our approach to our longer-term relationship with the EU.
One symbol of being an independent nation again is fisheries. The EU seems to think it can recreate the existing quota arrangements, which are so disadvantageous to our home fishing industry. That simply cannot happen. The fishing industry may not be the most important contributor to the nation’s GDP, but it is symbolic of what it means to be a free nation: controlling our own waters and setting the rules by which we will be responsible conservators of our fishing stocks.
I am also completely behind the Government’s decision that we should not seek any extension of the transition period at the end of this year, even in the face of the current pandemic, which may well disrupt negotiations but does not present an excuse for not completing them. It is essential that we move to prepare for life without a comprehensive agreement if we do not make enough progress by the summer. I have never been afraid of trading on WTO terms and I will not start now.
All in all, I believe that the Government’s approach as set out in Command Paper 211 and as illuminated by the wonderful speech last month by Mr David Frost, our chief negotiator, is terrific. I hope that the House will support it.
I turn now to the other Motions before us, namely the Motion in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on behalf of the EU Select Committee, and the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. If I had to sum up both of these Motions, I would say that they are seeking to rerun battles that have already been fought and lost. I was absolutely amazed that the EU Committee managed to hang its first report on Section 29 of the EU withdrawal Act. I shall express no opinion on the validity of the argumentation around this as set out in chapter 1 of the report. It may well be technically accurate. I do not, however, believe that Section 29 was intended to be used for the purpose of requiring a debate on the negotiations on our longer-term relationship. I had understood that section to allow Parliament to raise important issues about EU legislation passed in the transition period and therefore applying to the UK while we do not have any representation in the EU.
Will the noble Baroness explain why it is that she believes that the European Union is not behaving in a manner consistent with the political declaration when my noble friend’s report says quite explicitly that it is?
I will say to the noble Lord only that it may have the headings of the political declaration but the content is significantly different in a number of places, as indeed was set out in the EU Committee’s report.
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Things have been rather more difficult where the UK’s Command Paper is concerned. During the passage of the withdrawal agreement Act in January, we heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, who said:
“The political declaration ... sets out the framework for a comprehensive and ambitious free trade agreement with the EU. The general election result has clearly shown that the public support that vision and we consider that we have been given the mandate to begin negotiations on that basis.” [Official Report, 13/1/20; col. 553.]
This was clarified later by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who said that
“the Government’s vision for the future relationship with the EU is already set out … in the political declaration”. [Official Report, 20/01/20; col. 1004.]
Yet the Command Paper is a wholly different structure from that of the political declaration and is instead based on existing EU free trade agreements, such as its Canadian and Japanese ones. This makes it very difficult to conduct a line-by-line comparison with the political declaration, or to trace and explain changes to the Government’s position since the political declaration was settled in October last year.
At paragraph 26 of our report we said:
“It would be helpful if the Government, without prejudicing its negotiating position, could publish a comparative analysis of the Political Declaration and the Command Paper, explaining the changes in its approach.”
Will the Minister commit to provide this in the near future?
The bulk of our report is taken up by a comparison of the UK and EU opening negotiating positions. These are opening positions; it is the haka at the start of a match, and both sides will have left themselves room to manoeuvre. But the current trajectory, as exposed by our analysis, is clear: the two sides are currently diverging, not converging. I draw your Lordships’ attention to four examples.
The first is the overarching structure that the two sides state they are aiming for. The Council decision envisages a single association agreement. The Command Paper proposes a “suite” of agreements within a “broader friendly dialogue”. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister about the strength of feeling that the UK has on this.
The second is fisheries—I have no doubt we will hear more about this in the debate. I stress that this is very much one area where the devolved Administrations need to be involved. The political declaration looks to a new fisheries agreement but lacks detail in this difficult area. Both sides have now set out their vision in considerable detail. There is a lot to be said for the Government’s position, in particular their reliance upon scientific evidence. But it is fundamentally incompatible with the EU’s position, and it is not easy to see how this gap will be bridged.
Thirdly, and equally difficult, is the “level playing field”. The political declaration again lacked detail in this difficult area. Since agreeing the political declaration, the EU has toughened its line, as we set out in paragraphs 107 and 108 of the report. The political declaration contained no explicit reference to continuing UK alignment to EU rules. Instead, it referred to
“appropriate and relevant Union and international standards”.
The Council decision now wants to use
“Union standards as a reference point”
and, more importantly, for EU state aid rules to apply “to and in” the UK. So the EU’s position has hardened, and state aid will necessarily be a key point of disagreement. Again, the widening gap looks hard to bridge, not least given the position of Northern Ireland, where EU state aid rules will apply directly as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol of the withdrawal agreement.
My fourth and final example concerns foreign and defence policy. The Government have set their face against a formal structure and there are no discussions about this in the future relationship negotiations. The terms of reference document notes that while the EU would be open to have them, the UK feels that none are needed. The political declaration on this area states that the future partnership
“should provide for appropriate dialogue, consultation, coordination, exchange of information and cooperation mechanisms.”
To take sanctions as an example, co-ordination is vital if they are to have real bite. It seems to me that effective co-ordination would require at least some structure. Given the political declaration’s language, I ask the Minister to comment.
We expect both sides to produce draft legal texts shortly—indeed, the EU’s text was leaked over the weekend. I have received four copies through separate leaking arrangements. It is 441 pages long. I very much hope that we will be able to scrutinise both texts. The risk is that, on the current trajectory, these texts will reinforce the divergence between the UK and EU approaches and that, in effect, both parties could back themselves into opposing corners.
In closing, I come to time: the ticking clock so often cited in this era of silent digital timepieces. The Government’s insistence on the 31 December deadline and the threat of walking away after June have added greatly to this time pressure. Current world events must be adding further to it. Statecraft might be best served by at least some flexibility here.
I hope that the Minister will offer a considered explanation of the Government’s approach to the negotiations. I certainly do not expect him to give away the Government’s negotiating confidences. However, simply restating their demands and insisting that they will walk away if those are not met is not enough for Parliament in our bounden duty to play our scrutiny role in these vital negotiations. I beg to move.
That is what we are requesting for the EU negotiations: this Parliament should have the same access as that given by the European Commission to the European Parliament, receiving regular updates from Ministers, as well as seeing relevant documents and legal texts. Our debates would therefore inform the UK negotiators and ensure that at the end of the process we have a treaty acceptable to the Government and the Commons, who have to agree it.
The report of the EU committee was brilliant. It did all the work that the rest of us would otherwise have had to do. From the Command Paper in the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord True, it is clear why we need such dialogue, given the disparity between the opening gambits of the two sides and the shift in the Government’s stand since the political declaration signed by the Prime Minister in October and ratified on 31 January this year. As the Financial Times noted,
“the longer Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds power, the faster Brexit is evolving into a project more extreme than most British people”
anticipated
“at the time of the … referendum”.
No wonder Monsieur Barnier said that “very serious divergences” had emerged and, as we have heard, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, talked about the widening gap.
I shall mention only a handful of issues, as other speakers have much more experience in dealing with some of the very thorny issues on the path towards a settlement satisfactory to both sides. My first point is about the tone of the Government’s paper. “Mean spirited” is the kindest way I can describe it. It goes on and on, saying, “We’ll only do what’s fair to us”—as if any sovereign state would settle for anything less. It reiterates again and again its hang-up about any contamination by the ECJ, while at the same time proposing no ideas on dispute resolution that do not use that sort of mechanism It repeats five times that various of the elements will not be subject to the Chapter 32 dispute resolution mechanism, which itself excludes the ECJ. It goes on and on about what we will not accept, but offers no ideas about what to put in its place.
That abhorrence of the ECJ means that we will even pull out of EASA, to the consternation of ADS, the aerospace industry and every specialist carrier and business involved. They all see this as a threat to the very future of the air sector. Similar prejudice about the ECJ undermines our withdrawal from the EMA and from the Early Warning and Response System, which is particularly significant at this moment.
Secondly, the crucial, and possibly the most problematic, issue is fair competition and the level playing field. Competitiveness is good for consumers, who get a better deal; it is good for business and good for the economy. The competition remit of the EU has driven much of its focus and much of the bloc’s economic growth. As we leave that regime, it will be imperative that the UK strengthen its competition authorities, as disturbance of trade could lead to less competition, and greater opportunities for rip-offs.
In addition, after December the UK will face major cross-border competition and merger cases. This is urgent, and demands Ministers’ attention now. Following the CMA’s proposals for new duties to put consumers first and to act quickly, and the Conservative manifesto’s welcome commitment to provide those powers, can the Minister update the House as to whether such legislation, to end rip-offs and bad business practice, will be introduced, when it will be introduced, and also assure us that it will be in time to be effective from January next year?
Thirdly, the Government say that they want no tariffs, charges or restrictions, but this would mean shared standards, recognised enforcement, independent checks and a level playing field. EU countries are hardly going to accept our goods tariff-free if they are produced to lower standards, or simply by paying workers less.
The Government have finally admitted that no alignment means checks, costs and paperwork. Indeed, we hear that 50,000 extra pairs of hands will be needed across the piece—a number well in excess of the 32,000 employed by the European Commission. Unsurprisingly, British Chambers of Commerce is calling for more funding for customs agents, as declarations on goods will rise from 55 million to 300 million a year from January. Oh, and by the way, the NAO reckons that we have already spent £4 billion on Brexit preparations —with, of course, more to come.
Fourthly, turning to financial services, the Government plan to streamline how firms are regulated, raising concerns in Brussels that Brexit will allow London to reduce oversight of the industry. Trillions are at stake if the EU, perhaps as a result, decides to deny the UK so-called equivalence. As Michel Barnier has said, granting access to EU financial markets is a unilateral decision so there will be dialogue but no negotiations. I wonder whether the tone of our language and apparent light-touch regulation will damage the chances of a satisfactory outcome.
Fifthly, the Government’s document fails to include a demand that that UK tourists should be able to travel to the EU visa-free, despite other Statements referencing that. It is slightly hard to imagine why that is not in this important Command Paper.
In addition to what my amendment is about—dialogue with this Parliament—there is the crucial issue of the involvement of devolved authorities. I hope it was simply an error when on 27 February, the noble Lord, Lord True, said:
“We will keep the devolved Administrations informed”.—[Official Report, 27/02/18; col. 287.]
That is not good enough. Involvement is needed, not just information.
The Welsh Government have tried to reach agreement with the UK Government to facilitate a united position as we enter the negotiations. However, Welsh Ministers had no early involvement in negotiating objectives and saw the text less than a week before publication, with a mere telephone conference with Ministers hours before the Cabinet sign-off. Ever since the referendum, the Government have consistently ignored, as we have repeatedly said in this House, the terms of reference of the JMC(EN) which require it to seek agreement on negotiation positions with the devolved Governments. This does not bode well for the future negotiations where the devolved regions have particular concerns, be they over agriculture, non-tariff barriers, regional and economic development, or other things, and those must be central to the Government’s thinking.
This side of the House continues to worry that the Government will either accept no deal or else something as bad as no deal. The document itself threatens that if by June there does not appear to be the outline of an agreement which could be finalised by September, then the UK should move from negotiating to preparing for a no-deal exit. Michael Gove has been telling business groups that, while he wants a Canada-style agreement, they should nevertheless prepare for no deal on 31 December, while Boris Johnson has said he was prepared to walk away from talks in June if there was insufficient progress. No wonder the EU committee said that this raises matters of vital national interest. So it is imperative that Parliament is not shut out; my amendment is about dialogue and engagement with Parliament. I beg to move.
“this government are wholly committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement, to respecting and enacting the Northern Ireland protocol,’ yet minutes later told the DUP’s Jim Shannon that ‘there will be no border down the Irish Sea’.”
Mr Connelly reminded us that public messaging from Boris Johnson and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has added to the confusion, such that Michel Barnier could barely conceal his irritation at the UK’s apparent doublespeak on the protocol after the EU adopted its negotiating mandate.
After suggestions that Suella Braverman, former chair of the hard-line European Research Group, had been appointed Attorney-General to help Downing Street extricate itself from some of the obligations of the protocol, one EU diplomat reportedly said, “The UK can’t mess around with peremptory norms of international law, as that goes to the heart of the UK’s reputation as a reliable international partner.”
Paragraph 42 of the EU Committee’s report says that the Government have explicitly distanced themselves from the withdrawal agreement and the protocol on Ireland, with a consequence that some of the language in the Command Paper is misleading. We are entitled to be shocked and dismayed. In particular, the Command Paper rejects any obligation to align with EU laws, or to allow the CJEU any jurisdiction in the UK. Yet, as the committee points out, such jurisdiction is conferred in respect of Northern Ireland by the protocol. Can the Minister make it very clear in his reply today how the Government intend to comply with the Ireland protocol? Can he give an assurance that they are not trying to wriggle out of that protocol, which would be totally corrosive of trust?
Turning to what sort of Brexit the Government are now pursuing, let us recall that, after many twists and turns, Prime Minister May finally settled on the goal of a “high alignment” future relationship. Perhaps nothing demonstrates how far we have come from Mrs May’s intentions than the question of co-operation on health matters.
The Written Ministerial Statement said rather pompously:
“The UK is ready to consider participation in certain EU programmes”,—[Official Report, Commons, 3/2/2020; col. 4WS.]
oddly, making it sound as though we would be doing everyone else a favour by such participation. In fact, this Government have not only pulled out of the European Medicines Agency, booting it out of London and therefore booting the UK out of its fast-track drug and vaccine approval system and the joint procurement system, they have also declined to take part in meetings of EU Health Ministers, which Switzerland asked to be part of and was allowed to be. The Government have also declined to participate in the EU systems of public health co-ordination in the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and its early warning and response system. The ECDC was set up in 2004, just after the SARS epidemic, and has been active in advising and co-ordinating in respect of bird flu. Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are associates, and Switzerland has been granted temporary access to cope with coronavirus.
What possible justification can there be for the Government’s refusal to participate in these mechanisms? It goes against the pleas of, we understand, the Department of Health and Social Care and sectoral bodies such as the Brexit Health Alliance, whose co-chair is Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which, as its website says,
“speaks on behalf of the whole NHS.”
This Government’s failure to seek association with these EU bodies and networks, as well as their failure to prioritise staying plugged into research programmes, is nothing less than a dereliction of their duty to do all in their power to keep the people of this country safe. Do they seriously think that sovereignty trumps safety? Have they discovered a way to instruct a virus to respect national borders? Of what value is autonomy in these dangerous times? It is all very well seeking, in the words of the Written Ministerial Statement, for the UK to
“have recovered in full its economic and political independence”,—[Official Report, Commons, 3/2/20; col. 86WS.]
but at what price in terms of the social and economic welfare of the people of this country? Why should they be put at risk because of some idiotic ideological bee in the bonnet of hard Brexiters such as Dominic Cummings? Can the Minister give any other explanation?
Another example of the triumph of hard-line ideology over pragmatism is the Government’s rejection, as a matter of policy, of the notion of an extension to the negotiations, which has to be requested by 1 July. This was untenable before coronavirus hit; it is even more so now. Will the Minister assure us that the question of an extension will be guided by the needs of this country, not the prejudices of the ERG?
It is increasingly suspected that this Government have reverted not only to a preparedness for no deal but to an ambition to that end. They have certainly set the bar of ambition very low—for a minimalist free trade agreement of zero tariffs and zero quotas, rejecting any level playing field, regulatory alignment obligations or shared governance akin to an association agreement. This Government also reject the mutual respect for core values and principles, including explicitly staying in the European Convention on Human Rights and keeping the Human Rights Act, which the Council decision calls for. This will also hit the prospect of co-operation on internal security, which is supposed to be a high priority for the Government.
Outside the single market and customs union, the costs for business, including mountains more red tape, and the risk to jobs will be very high. Of course, we know what the Prime Minister’s attitude to business, including manufacturing in aerospace and cars, is—he expressed it very pithily—but that is a bit tricky when you are appealing to manufacturers to turn their hand to the production of ventilators. New border frictions and delays due to checks and formalities instead of just-in-time deliveries are very bad for filling supermarket shelves. This is a long way from what was promised in 2016, when a “deep and special partnership” was said to be the goal. Hostility and resentment have characterised the approach of those who won the referendum. The aim now, apparently, is the dogmatic rejection of anything and everything remotely connected to the EU, whether that is in health, Galileo, Erasmus, Euratom, EASA, REACH, the Unified Patent Court, the European arrest warrant and many more.
The Government intend to replicate the functions of these agencies at huge cost, but money is one thing that will be in short supply. Not only is there absolutely no Brexit dividend, but the OBR says that we have already lost 2% of GDP since the leave vote; it also warned that leaving the EU will hit growth, exports and the public finances at a time of rising uncertainty, predicting a 5.2% loss of potential GDP over 15 years if a “typical” FTA is struck. It blames trade friction, restrictions on migration and red tape. Even before coronavirus struck, economic growth had sunk to zero. Why are the Government refusing to publish their own economic impact assessment of the limited Canada-style trade deal that they are aiming for, when they published one on the not very beneficial US deal that they want? Are the Government afraid that the citizens of this country will wake up to the price they are paying for the ideological dogmatism of the hard Brexiters, who are now in charge of this country’s fortunes—or, rather, misfortunes?
Our EU Committee has done us a huge service with its forensic report, but it sets off many alarm bells. The country cannot afford the hard-line, doctrinaire Brexit policy of this Government, especially when our health is so much under threat. As one commentator, Professor Chris Gray, observed, their policy is indeed demented.
Noble Lords will be aware that the terms of the 2020 withdrawal Act differed significantly from the version of the earlier Bill that was considered by the last Parliament. The earlier Bill required the approval of Parliament to the Government’s negotiating objectives, which themselves had to be consistent with the political declaration. It also required three-monthly reports to Parliament on the progress of negotiations. Those provisions were inserted in a doomed attempt to get the last Parliament to pass the withdrawal Bill. But since then, the general election has given a huge mandate to the Prime Minister to “Get Brexit done”. The provisions for involving Parliament in the negotiations were removed from the Bill which became law in January this year. The will of Parliament is now clear: these provisions of parliamentary scrutiny are neither necessary nor desirable; yet here we are with the EU Committee using Section 29 of the Act to achieve a debate on negotiating principles, and even calling for the Government to publish a comparative analysis of the political declaration and the Command Paper.
The political declaration has no legal force and, as the EU Committee’s report makes clear, neither the Government nor the EU are using the political declaration as the starting point for their negotiations. We have moved on. I respectfully suggest that the EU Committee does as well.