My Lords, the European Affairs Committee published our report, The future UK-EU relationship, on 29 April this year. We took oral evidence between October last year and March this year, hearing from 43 witnesses, finishing with the Minister for Europe, Leo Docherty MP. We also received 58 written submissions. The Government responded to the report on 28 June and to certain follow-up questions on 31 August. I am very grateful to the usual channels for expediting this debate today.
Put simply, the report looks at the overarching state of the relationship between the UK and the EU and how this might be developed into the future. This inquiry looks forward and not into the rear-view mirror. We did not address issues specific to Northern Ireland, including the Windsor Framework agreement. These are handled by our sister committee on the protocol.
The inquiry focused on four themes: the overall political, diplomatic and institutional relationship; the foreign policy, defence and security relationship; energy security and climate change; and the mobility of people. These do not comprise an exhaustive list of areas in which the UK-EU relationship could be developed. However, we as a committee believe that they are especially salient at the current juncture.
Here, and on behalf of the committee, I thank our staff: Jarek Wisniewski, Jack Sheldon, Nick Boorer, Tabitha Brown, Tim Mitchell and Louise Shewey. Their commitment and professionalism underpin everything in our report.
I start with the overall political, diplomatic and institutional relationship. It was unhappily the case that, during our inquiry, this was impacted by the impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol. Now, however, there are signs of improvement, not least with the recent welcome news on Horizon Europe.
The current institutional framework under the trade and co-operation agreement and the withdrawal agreement includes a total of 32 committees and working groups that bring together the Government and the Commission. Two of these committees are political, with the others essentially powered by officials. It is a double-headed structure, with two sets of committees reporting to one or other of the political committees, each of which is set up under its respective big agreement.
The committee felt that this huge apparatus was operational but not really operating. We recommended that there should be a “considerable increase” in the intensity of activity within these structures. We must optimise matters, and it is vital that the committees hum with activity to the mutual benefit of all concerned. Can the Minister give us an update on the 32 committees’ level of engagement and work, and assure the House that, from the UK side, at least, activity and warm relations are seen as a priority?
Our second theme was the foreign policy, defence and security relationship. We welcomed the “close and productive” co-operation between the UK and the EU following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the effective co-operation in the imposition of sanctions against Russia, but called for closer co-operation on their implementation and enforcement. We specifically proposed that the UK and the EU agree a memorandum of understanding on the imposition, implementation and enforcement of sanctions, complementary to the G7 enforcement co-ordination mechanism.
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and congratulate him on his chairmanship of the Select Committee. His calm, efficient manner and attention to detail made it a very great pleasure and also made it easier for us to reach a unanimous conclusion to our deliberations. I join him in thanking our staff. I know it is customary and a habit always to say that, but it is well meant. We got some very good advice and service.
I was one of two leavers on a committee of 11, but I strongly support its recommendations. I want to explain today why. I also want to concentrate my remarks, almost entirely on the context, the political background, of the report. The report starts by saying that the relationship since Brexit was initially
“characterised by tension and mistrust”.
I think this is true and awkward. Perhaps it was inevitable. Brexit as an act caused hurt and possibly the desire to punish in some parts of the EU, but as my noble friend Lord Frost said when he gave evidence, the fault was on both sides. We had evidence from a wide range of witnesses. It was interesting that when we had my noble friend Lord Frost and the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, together, their evidence did not diverge very much.
Brexit has happened. It was a seismic event but, having happened, it is in everybody’s interest that we should have as close and co-operative a relationship as possible. It is not a betrayal of Brexit. It was Boris Johnson who said after Brexit that we must concentrate on developing a close and co-operative relationship with Europe. On what basis should that co-operation and collaboration happen? Again, I think my noble friend Lord Frost put it well to the committee when he said that Europe was a port of call, not always the first port of call, but an important port of call. We do not want close alignment, rule taking or the imposition of EU law. We are a third party. We accept that we are a third party, but we can still have a close relationship as third party.
My Lords, this is an admirable report and I agree with virtually all its recommendations. It is a fine swansong for the period of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, as chair of the committee. It is wonderful, in a way, that we were able to reach agreement on the report’s important recommendations. It was a great pleasure to work with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on the committee; although I do not agree with everything he said in his speech, I agree with quite a lot.
Now that we are outside the European Union, we should be striving for consensus on how we can improve the relationship. Consensus does not mean that everyone should agree—for example, I do not think we should allow the populist right a veto over how we try to improve our relationship—but it means that when we talk to Brussels, whether through the present Government or an incoming Labour Government, it should feel that there is some kind of political willingness on Britain’s part to have a constructive relationship.
The big gap in our report, and this was done deliberately, is economics. It is a gap, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, referred to, that Keir Starmer was trying to fill when he announced that he was determined to improve the TCA. Obviously there is some scepticism about that, even among the European academic bubble—yesterday I read a report by the UK in a Changing Europe group that was rather sceptical about what it might achieve—but I think change is achievable in the trading relationship.
A big problem that we have had since Brexit is the lack of trust between the EU and the UK. A lot of that is due to the way in which the present Government threatened to breach their treaty obligations on the Northern Ireland protocol. The present Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, deserves praise for negotiating and agreeing the Windsor Framework, but there is still hesitancy about taking the relationship forward. For example, I do not know how the present Home Secretary thinks that threatening a potential British withdrawal from the EHRC is going to help our efforts to control illegal migration. That would mean a crisis in our relations with the EU and a great interruption in police and justice co-operation. The fact is that we would be less able than we are now to work with our partners in tackling the criminal gangs of people smugglers.
My Lords, I wish I could be as optimistic as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that Keir Starmer will be able to make Brexit work.
I congratulate the committee on this excellent report. It is useful to focus on the non-commercial aspects of this broad relationship: foreign policy, defence, energy co-operation and the mobility of people.
I found the government response disappointingly thin on content. Its preference for the Turing scheme over Erasmus+ is specifically stated to be because Turing does not offer reciprocal benefits. Searching issue by issue for arrangements in which the UK gains and others give is no way to rebuild a close relationship with the EU and our neighbouring states. Good relations depend on mutual trust and broad reciprocity.
I read the article in yesterday’s Telegraph by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, on relations with the EU. As he was the Minister who negotiated the trade and co-operation agreement, it would have been valuable for the House to have heard his comments on this report, and he was in the Chamber earlier today. I was puzzled that he claimed in the article that his negotiations on fisheries and on security had been successful, and I was astonished that he made no reference to the impact of the Ukraine conflict on UK relations with the rest of Europe and on European security as a whole.
I agree with the report that UK participation in the loose framework of the European Political Community—alongside 20 other third countries, including Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Liechtenstein, as well as the European Union—is a useful but small step forward. No doubt its coming meeting in Spain will focus on support for Ukraine and the spillover of conflicts and migrants from north Africa into Europe. I hope that preparations are now well under way for the UK to host the fourth meeting in spring next year, but I note that the Government have already recognised that this is not enough by joining the PESCO Military Mobility project. We need to move much closer towards regular and frequent consultations on foreign and security policy, multilaterally in Brussels as well as bilaterally in national capitals.
My Lords, the report we are debating, so admirably introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who contributed to great effect to its production, is quite simply the first overall analysis of the future development of the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU by either House of Parliament since we left the EU in early 2020, more than three years ago, so it deserves to be taken seriously. It will not be the last word on a subject which, whatever side you voted on in the 2016 referendum, will be prominent in our politics for the foreseeable future, but its long list of suggestions for developing that relationship deserves careful scrutiny and response.
First, it is a great pity that the Government have yet again rejected the idea of negotiating an SPS agreement with the EU, when it has the wholehearted support of the agri-food industries in all four nations and of most parties in Parliament. That industry, which has benefited to an increasing degree from its access to continental markets, is being sacrificed on the altar of sovereignty—that imprecise and poorly understood concept which is trotted out whenever needed to reject a well-argued proposition.
Secondly, the report’s proposal that the UK should establish a structured framework for co-operating with the EU on foreign and security policy issues has been supported strongly by all previous speakers in this debate. It was a concept endorsed by both parties in their joint political declaration, negotiated and ratified in 2019 and 2020, and then dropped by Prime Minister Johnson. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision at that time, the case for such a framework has been greatly strengthened since then by the need to respond effectively to two major challenges: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the rising assertiveness of China worldwide. The Government say that we are getting along just fine by co-operating with the EU on an ad hoc basis on those and other issues, but that demonstrates a not-unprecedented misunderstanding of the way the EU best responds, which is through frameworks for co-operation laid down in advance, while leaving each party autonomy in its own decision-making. Surely this is a moment for a rethink on that issue.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with whom I first became involved in the European adventure, if one might call it that, as far back as 1977. I have listened to his wisdom a very great deal since then. It is also a pleasure for me to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and those who served on the European Affairs Committee that produced this report. I was very sorry when I had to leave the committee earlier this year. I can see that the quality of the work that the committee has done has continued to improve since my departure.
This report is exactly the kind of thing which was needed at present. It is a detailed and workmanlike assessment of how to make the UK-EU relationship work better for this country as a whole, as well as for the EU. When I say as a whole, I mean for individuals, businesses and interest groups. As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, the important thing now is to make Brexit work, and this report is an important contribution towards exactly that aim—towards getting things done which were left undone at the time of our departure, and the sooner that we can act on these matters, the better.
Reading the recommendations relating to creative artists, school visits, higher education and support for small businesses, as well as the sanitary and phytosanitary rules, brings home the extent of the lost opportunities. These are all matters on which my noble friend Lord Frost might have had something to say if he was here today. He could explain how it was that these matters were overlooked at the time of our departure. It is tragic, by which I mean that businesses, interest groups and individuals themselves have all suffered loss and lost opportunities. I am glad that this report has shown the way forward.
There is also much good sense in the report on the big political issues, such as the overall political relationship, defence and foreign policy co-operation, the institutional framework and green-related issues. But these matters will, of course, take time to resolve and will depend very much on circumstances within both this country and the EU. So far as the EU is concerned, they are by no means top of the agenda. The EU has its own problems in relation to immigration, the eurozone, energy security and of course Ukraine.
My Lords, much of the thrust of the committee’s report is on the need for increasing the level and intensity of UK-EU contacts in a context in which Brexit is now behind us. The importance of our relationship with the EU as a bloc and with individual members bilaterally is recognised widely and only disputed by ultra anti-European ideologues who, regrettably, still have some hold in the far-right fringes of the Conservative Party.
The need for close and meaningful contact with the EU has been recognised very recently, I am glad to say, by the leader of the Labour Party. He pointed in particular to the need for a more friction-free trading relationship with Brussels, saying that, if elected, he intends to try to negotiate better post-Brexit arrangements when the TCA comes up for renegotiation in 2025. I would be a little bit more confident that that could produce some improvements than the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, was suggesting—and I think the noble Lord on the Liberal Benches was also a bit pessimistic.
As background, it is also worth noting the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the Tony Blair Institute in which respondents were asked their views about the EU and UK in the post-Brexit environment. Some 53% now think that we were wrong to leave the EU and only 34% still believe the decision was right. They also overwhelmingly support the UK moving closer to the EU in the coming decade, with 73% wanting a closer relationship. Only 7% think it is satisfactory when considering the medium-term future. Their views are surely a consequence of the UK’s poor economic performance since leaving the EU, with a serious fall in economic output, trade openness and investment.
This, then, is the context in which the report’s recommendations need to be considered. There is a willingness to strengthen our ties with the EU at a political level and in the population more widely. The Government in their reply to the report have responded positively to a number of its recommendations but have pushed back on some of them as either undesirable or unnecessary. I will pick up on four specific examples and I hope that, as the Minister replies, she will be able to say whether the Government will be able to think again on them.
Like previous speakers, I congratulate the committee on its excellent report, and the ex-chairman of the committee on the brilliant timing of this debate. Like previous speakers, I believe that we need to work together with the EU
“to safeguard the rules-based international order”
and
“co-operate against internal and external threats”
to the values and interests that we share. That means rebuilding a relationship extending beyond trade and economic partnership to
“law enforcement, criminal justice, foreign policy, defence and wider areas of co-operation”,
and doing so in an institutional framework, with both sides committed to a regular dialogue and efficient and effective arrangements
“for its development over time”.
The House will recognise that I am quoting from the political declaration referred to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, which the May Government agreed with the EU—or rather, I am quoting from the revised version agreed by officials but rejected by Mr Johnson four years ago, when he chose instead to go for deliberate distancing. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who found a splendid quotation about the Johnson desire for close co-operation, that he deliberately went for deliberate distancing, with the noble Lord, Lord Frost, as his disciple. I had hope that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, would explain why, but we are not having that pleasure today.
I do not know why we wanted to burn the bridges. I suppose that we should have seen it coming when Mr Johnson as Foreign Secretary refused to attend the Foreign Affairs Council when it planned to discuss the significance of Trump’s election in America. He dismissed the concerns of the 27 as “Euro-whinge”, and he stayed away. It is usually better to talk and, as Foreign Secretary, the responsible course, if you do not think you like what might be the emerging European consensus, might be to turn up and try to change it.
20 of 53 shown
In its response, the Government said that they are not currently considering an MoU with the EU but that they
“will continue to review options to maximise the efficiency of our cooperation with the EU going forward”.
I ask the Minister: what factors are influencing the Government’s hesitation about this MoU on sanctions, which I assume would track the enhanced sanctions partnership agreement reached already between the Government and the US Treasury?
We heard a lot on having a structured framework for foreign and security policy. The report recommends that the UK and the EU should “deepen and improve” working relations on foreign and security policy, with some limited structured arrangements for ongoing co-operation. We thought that a purely ad hoc approach was not wise. We felt that any such structured arrangements should include provision for the UK Foreign Secretary to engage with the EU Foreign Affairs Council at least twice a year.
To date, the Government’s responses are none too clear on this. On 31 August, the Foreign Secretary said that
“both sides are focused on making sure our cooperation delivers, rather than on institutional changes”.
Can the Minister give some further clarity here? It seems to me that engagement at the General Affairs Council would improve the chances of delivery.
I turn to our third theme, which is energy security. This is obviously a wide area, and we focused on several specific topics in our report. The committee welcomed the close co-operation with the EU since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and noted that, in part thanks to this, there had been no disruption to energy trading. The report made various recommendations —for example, on the need for more interconnectors. I am glad that the government response materials have been positive on the recommendations. I look forward to others developing this vital area.
Turning to emissions trading schemes, the UK left the EU ETS at the end of the transition period. A separate UK ETS was established, which is very similar in design. This began trading in May 2021, and the carbon price has since broadly tracked the EU scheme. The UK scheme is around 10% of the size of the EU one. We saw
“significant mutual benefits to be gained”
from linking the schemes, citing the Swiss precedent. We recommended entering negotiations in what we called a “can-do spirit” and noted that a link would be
“easier to achieve sooner rather than later, given the possibility of greater divergence over time”.
The Government’s response says that they
“partially agree with the Committee’s recommendation”,
but it does not make clear which parts they agree with. A follow up in correspondence has not shed much new light on matters.
Commentators are now referring to a growing divergence between the UK and the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme. As the Government have previously assured us that they are considering linking our respective systems, I ask the Minister: does this remain the case, and what steps are being taken to take this forward?
In December 2022, the EU Council agreed its general approach to a carbon border adjustment mechanism. A draft regulation is now progressing. The EU sees CBAM as a necessary part of its wider efforts to combat climate change. Without a CBAM in place, the EU foresees a risk of carbon leakage, whereby energy-intensive industries might relocate outside the EU and sell their goods back into the EU, effectively undercutting EU-based industry subject to carbon-reduction policies such as the EU ETS.
Under the EU’s current CBAM proposal, countries with an ETS linked to the EU’s would be excluded from such charges. As the UK and EU schemes are not currently linked, it is possible that CBAM could apply to UK-EU trade. I see no reason why the EU’s logic does not apply in reverse to the UK. All this of course strengthens the argument for linking ETSs. The Government have been consulting on measures to combat carbon leakage and their report on this area has not yet been published. Will the Minister say when we might expect the Government to provide an update on their position and where in the existing TCA committee structure CBAMs are being discussed?
The last section of our report examined the broad area of mobility of people, including the implications of the TCA’s provisions for both inward and outward business and professional mobility between the UK and the EU, but I will concentrate only on our work in the education and young persons sectors. The Government have made much of the Turing scheme, and we applauded it in its limited scope. However, we studied the Welsh Government’s Taith scheme. Indeed, we travelled to Cardiff. Introduced in 2022, Taith provides financial support for inbound educational group mobility. A Welsh organisation can apply for funding to send people out of Wales to another country and get funding to bring people to Wales. The Turing scheme provides funding for outbound mobility only. The Scottish Government have recently announced plans for a similar scheme to Taith, although details have not been provided. Of course, students in Northern Ireland can access Erasmus+.
We asked the Minister for Europe whether there are plans to introduce a scheme similar to Taith in England. He said the Government were
“open-minded and we look with great interest at the extent to which we might operate a similar scheme”.
In the most recent correspondence with the committee, the Foreign Secretary said,
“the Turing Scheme’s focus on outward mobility funding has not been a hindrance to forming partnerships between institutions, which may go some way to providing the kind of links the Committee is seeking”.
Three-quarters of the United Kingdom’s nations are already or will be establishing some form of reciprocal student exchange programme. Given the Minister for Europe’s admission that Erasmus+ has been “very beneficial” to the UK and the evidence that Taith has been successful in Wales, will the Minister comment on whether the Turing scheme will be enhanced?
The committee heard evidence that suggested that post-Brexit barriers to mobility between the UK and the EU, in both directions, have had an especially significant impact on young people, including workers and professionals in the early stages of their careers, as well as students across different educational levels. We recommended that the Government discuss with the Commission the possibility of an ambitious reciprocal youth mobility partnership, similar to the youth mobility schemes that the UK and EU member states enjoy with other jurisdictions, allowing young people to apply for fixed-term visas to travel and work. The Government’s response here was lacklustre, saying that the Government are
“exploring bilateral opportunities for reciprocal youth mobility schemes with international partners, including our European neighbours”.
Finally, will the Minister give us an update on discussions with the EU and individual EU member states about youth mobility partnerships?
There are many speakers and I look forward to the debate very much. I beg to move.
It is important while talking about the need for collaboration to be realistic about its limits and about the relationship. We should not delude ourselves that we can sweet-talk our way into a different sort of trade and co-operation agreement while remaining outside the customs union and the single market. It seems to me—I make this point not as a political point but to illustrate my point—that the leader of the Opposition is in some danger of falling into this error, peddling the idea that he can change the relationship profoundly while remaining, as he claims we will be, outside the single market and the customs union.
During the committee, we had a vigorous argument between—if I may still use the terms—remainers and leavers about alignment and divergence. To my way of thinking, both sides make a fetish of this and it is a mistake. We must have the sovereign right to diverge, but we should not diverge in regulations for the point of diverging. We should diverge when it is necessary to diverge and when there is an interest for this country in doing so.
Similarly, what should be our principles in co-operation with the EU programmes? I think an interesting case was that of Horizon. The decision that the Government made to join the Horizon programme got a lot of applause, but at the same time people criticised the delay in reaching that decision. I think that is wrong. I think it was right for the Government to take their time to consider whether this was the only option and whether it really represented value for money. The EU has much to gain from UK participation in Horizon, and it would have been an act of self-harm by the EU to have excluded Britain from it.
Part of our report, perhaps too much of our report, is about how many meetings this committee or that committee has had and which ones were missed. I note the Government’s reply which I thought was a master- piece. They said that the intensity of contact is not a measurement of effectiveness. Hear, hear to that and brilliantly put by the Government.
The most important recommendation of the committee refers to security and foreign affairs, with a call for a more structured dialogue. That does not mean having the bureaucracy or the law of the CFSP. The Government’s reply was non-committal. I read in newspapers in July that the Government had rejected a call from the European Council for more structured dialogue, and I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether that is true. It seems to me that this recommendation is sensible. Ukraine has reminded us, tragically, that the defence of Britain and Europe goes together. Britain is important to the defence of Europe, Europe is our first line of defence and where there is increasing co-operation, after what has happened in this tragic war, that can only be in both our interests. I support that, I support the other recommendations of the committee and I commend the report to the House.
We should stop trying to threaten these things, however sotto voce, and try to build a relationship of trust. Labour can do that. Labour can work strongly with our European partners in the defence of democracy, which is fundamentally what is at stake in Ukraine. If we have a change in the presidency of the United States next year, that will be an existential crisis for whether Europe can work together to defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Secondly, there is common agreement on large parts of the climate change agenda, although I am sorry to see the Government backing off it today.
Thirdly, there is a lot of scope for industrial co-operation on the new technologies. In the 1970s we had the great Airbus project. Let us think about how to work together on new technologies so that European efforts can match the challenge of China and the dominance of the US tech giants.
We can build an atmosphere in which change in the trading relationship is possible. We cannot be stuck with David Frost—the noble Lord, Lord Frost—for ever. That, it seems to me, would be fatal to Britain’s economic growth prospects. It is therefore worth working hard at trying to build a more constructive relationship with our partners and friends.
I remind the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that successive British Foreign Secretaries, from Lord Carrington and Sir Geoffrey Howe onwards, were architects of the development of the common foreign and security policy mechanisms, and I can think of no Foreign Secretary, Labour or Conservative, since the beginning of that process under Jim Callaghan who has not regarded that as an invaluable contribution to British foreign policy.
The article in yesterday’s Times by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, provided another powerful argument for foreign and security co-operation with EU members. We cannot rule out the possibility that Donald Trump might win the next US presidential election. If that happens, the British Government will need to respond with the closest possible co-operation with our European partners, as well as Canada and Australia, and we need to build that relationship now.
The chapter on energy policy restates what everyone following energy policy already knew, but which the proponents of leave denied: our energy supplies are already dependent on interconnectors with other neighbouring states and will become more so as we and others move further towards renewable energy. One might add that these Governments are all now painfully aware that the interconnectors are vulnerable to hostile sabotage and that defence co-operation in protecting the network from attack is a security interest that we share with states across the channel and the North Sea.
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, mentioned extra-European migrants in his Telegraph article but had nothing to say about the current confusion over mobility between the UK and the EU, which the report sets out. Policy here is incoherent, with the Home Office wanting to keep as many people out as possible, and DSIT and DfE proclaiming that we are open to foreign workers, foreign researchers and talented students. Some EU states are now imposing restrictions on the number of weeks that British businesspeople, academics and lawyers can work in their countries in return. I fear we will have to wait for a different Government before any reciprocal arrangements can be agreed that will allow a freer flow in both directions across the channel.
The report also recognises the flimsiness of any European strategy or framework for co-ordination across Whitehall. It has not helped that we have had six Ministers for Europe since the 2019 election, one of whom served for two months and another for five months, with the post now downgraded to a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. It is a great contrast with the coalition period from 2010, when David Lidington was in office for five years as a senior Minister of State, with real influence across Whitehall.
The Government are making almost no effort to get their act together in managing the complex relations with our nearest and most important partners, which cover most of the important interests across Whitehall. Furthermore, the cadre of expertise on the EU—its regulations and institutions—that had been built up in Whitehall is shrinking, at a time when even right-wing Conservatives admit that we need to rebuild political and policy links. We need to rebuild the networks of co-operation among officials, Ministers, political parties, schools, universities and civil society that have been so badly damaged in the past five years. I welcome this report’s contribution to making such arguments.
Thirdly, there was the Government’s response to the report’s proposal that the UK and EU should develop the closest possible co-operation on their climate change policies, in particular linking their emissions trading schemes and ensuring that any cross-border adjustment mechanism did not get at cross purposes and give rise to further friction in their mutual trade. To say, as the Government do, that they agree with the report’s views in part, without saying which parts, is just a curate’s egg reply. Every single professional witness who gave us evidence urged the need for the closest possible co-operation on those issues, but in the real world the UK’s emissions trading scheme is now drifting away from the EU’s and the Government have not yet decided even whether to have a CBAM scheme, let alone what relationship it should have with the EU scheme that is already taking shape. What will the Government do if the EU imposes a CBAM on Chinese steel and cement? Will they just sit back and allow the trade to be diverted here?
The section in the Government’s response on the report’s conclusions on school visits and many other forms of cultural and educational co-operation is, frankly, shameful. The Prime Minister and the French President agreed last March to remedy the free fall in UK-France school visits since Brexit. What has happened since then? Precisely nothing is the answer; something might happen by the end of the year, we are told. Meanwhile, successive generations of schoolchildren are missing out on those formative experiences, and what could be more self-defeating than refusing to make the Turing student exchange system one which operates mutually and opens up possible co-operation with the EU’s Erasmus scheme? There is narrow-mindedness here which is quite shocking.
There is much wrong with the Government’s response so far to our report. How best could that be remedied? First, we should open discussions with the EU on how to strengthen the framework for our co-operation on foreign policy and security issues, as we foresaw doing in the 2019 political declaration. At the same time, we should begin exploratory talks with the EU about how to put to most effective use the 2025-26 review of the trade and co-operation agreement, which is provided for in its terms. None of this will be easy or straight- forward, so the sooner we begin the better. It will be important for both parties to work for ways to strengthen our co-operation to their mutual benefit, as we emphasised and underlined in our report. That should help to answer silly criticisms of cherry-picking, which are bound to surface from some quarters in Brussels.
The first few years following Brexit have hardly been a happy experience. Now we have a real opportunity to get on to the front foot and treat the existing skimpy system as a floor and not a ceiling. The Windsor Framework and the deal on Horizon are a promising beginning, but we need to be more systematic and determined about the next stages. That is the challenge this report makes to Parliament and to all parties represented here. Let us hope they will rise to it.
That brings me to my key point. Looking ahead, it seems that Ukraine will become an increasingly important factor in framing the EU’s approach to its relationship with the United Kingdom. Here, I am thinking of two quite separate but interrelated matters. On the one hand are the consequences that flow from Ukraine’s application to join the EU and how that is dealt with. However it is dealt with—whether Ukraine joins as a full member at some distant date or whether some special arrangement is made—the consequences of that decision are bound to be extremely far reaching on the structures of the European Union and will also create precedents in terms of relationships between the European Union and other countries. Ukraine is a transformational matter.
Another factor will be the huge costs involved in reconstructing the country and preparing it for eventual EU membership—or whatever other relationship is agreed. In the nature of things, the primary responsibility for financing and carrying through the preparations to bring Ukraine into the EU, or into whatever relationship is decided on, will be for the member states. But surely those countries which have played an important part in supporting Ukraine during the war—the United Kingdom has been particularly prominent in that respect—will also play a part in reconstructing Ukraine after the war, whenever that may be.
That reconstruction will involve the creation of a very close and novel relationship with the EU. The terms and conditions on which we co-operate with the EU in Ukraine will, I think, have a very great influence on the nature of our overall relationship and how it might play out, and it is not too soon for us to start thinking about that now.
First, while informal approaches are of course of value, attention must be given to the formal institutional structures for meeting to debate key issues, particularly in foreign policy and security, but elsewhere too. The Government claim that “outcomes” are what matters, not the number of meetings, but it is hard to see how key outcomes—or any outcomes—can be achieved without more properly structured meetings in the first place.
Secondly, because the committee is now doing an inquiry on the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the UK and EU, I will not in this debate go into other foreign policy and security questions, except in one respect. Could the Minister tell the House how the Government intend to respond to the charge made by commentators that their approach to sanctions has been ad-hoc rather than rigorous and well structured? This view was expressed in the committee’s report too.
Thirdly, turning to the report’s recommendations on energy and carbon emissions, what arrangements are the Government making to reach agreement with the EU on ensuring energy flows in the event of a critical supply shortage? The EU and UK must also work together to mitigate the effects of climate change, as has been mentioned by other speakers. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, did too, there are technical issues to be resolved in the UK and Europe concerning linking their respective emissions trading schemes, where there is a growing gap. Can more be done to link them and to narrow this gap?
My last example concerns the section of the report on the mobility of people. Brexit had a disastrous effect on this in many areas—for example, on the work of musicians and performers undertaking European tours, because of the need to obtain multiple visas. The Government have been engaging bilaterally with EU member states to try to reduce visa requirements for short-term touring, which is welcome, but progress is still needed on solutions in the four member states which have not agreed to this.
School visits are a very important way in which children and young people can learn about the culture of our nearest neighbours. There has been a huge, really regrettable decline in these since Brexit. This has been exacerbated by a refusal to accept collective travel documents and an insistence on individual passports instead. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I would like to know more about the Government’s intentions on finding ways to reverse this decline.
To end on positive note, it is excellent news that, at last, we are going to rejoin the Horizon programme, even if it is only as an associate member. Rejoining means that the UK can combine knowledge and research skills with European partners, which will help innovation in the economy and elsewhere. Going it alone was never going to be a good substitute for collaboration. Let us hope that going back into Horizon is a start to greater co-operation with the EU in many areas, which the opinion poll to which I referred earlier suggests the British electorate want.
The problems we share now—aggressive Russian revanchism, the challenge of China, US protectionism, managing migration and the costs of net zero—are problems common to us and the European Union. We live in a world that is more insecure, or feels more insecure—and I think it is more insecure—than it used to be. We could do with precisely the kind of partnership that the EU and we at official level envisaged four years ago. They tell us that they particularly miss our contribution on defence, intelligence and foreign policy analysis of the big geopolitical issues. That is the first bridge that I would try to rebuild.
The Leader of the Opposition was quite right to talk security, not single market, in The Hague and Paris. I look forward to the Minister’s answer to the question from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about the Government’s response to the recommendation from the committee on foreign policy co-operation and the Foreign Secretary’s dismissive reaction to it. This debate shows that the committee’s recommendation is widely supported.
I do not dismiss the possibility of also using the 2026 implementation review of the TCA to correct some of its obvious errors and omissions. There are some additions that would be win-wins for both sides. The report makes very sensible suggestions, but I cannot see any great appetite across the channel for a major renegotiation. The EU has moved on. Rather than try to reopen an agreed text, we might do better to pick up and draw on the one that was agreed. Michel Barnier sweated blood to get this agreed by the Council. Precedent is quite a useful thing to have. It could be best to look at it again.
I have one more point—rather downbeat, I fear. We will be living for some time with the legacy of the posturing and lies, the arrogant amateurism and the dossiers not understood and perhaps not even read, as well as the insult of the deliberate distancing that followed. It will take time to live it all down and rebuild trust. The present Prime Minister has made a good start with the Windsor Framework and, at last, the Horizon decision, but there is a long way to go, and it would help if we could do three or four things.
We could stop making regulatory autarchy paramount and listen to the voice of business. We could stop tabling Bills which, if passed, would break international commitments, and stop threatening to leave the ECHR. We could tone down the bombast a bit—the exceptionalism and chest-beating, as with the Truss trade agreements. It jars a bit here, but it jars a lot more across the channel. Above all, we could try to get the tone right and get away from zero-sum thinking. When things go well for the EU, do we really have to sneer or, when they go badly, cheer? It is our biggest market, and it is in our interests that things go well over there. This is the Ryder Cup that we are playing—we are all on the same side. We are in this together and it is a very cold world outside, so let us build bridges and thaw the frost.