October European Council — House of Lords, 2018-10-22
Topic: International Affairs
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their comments. In particular, I thank them for their strong condemnation of some of the alleged language that was reported in the press about the Prime Minister over the weekend In relation to Mr Khashoggi, the House will be aware that there will be a Statement tomorrow so we will be able to set out some further details there. As the Statement in the Commons made clear, we condemn his killing in the strongest possible terms. The Saudi statement leaves a number of questions around his death unanswered—in particular, the claim that he died in a fight simply does not amount to a credible explanation. Perhaps we can go into a bit more detail in the Statement tomorrow about actions going forward On the noble Baroness’s comments on migration, I confirm that we will, of course, continue to exercise all the influence we can to ensure that migrants are treated fairly and compassionately. She also asked about the COP24 summit in December. I reassure her that we are fully committed to a robust deal on the detailed framework needed to implement the Paris Agreement. As she will be aware, the conference will be focused on the development of a rulebook to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which we continue to fully support. The other major outcome will be from the first phase of the agreement’s five-year cycle to review global efforts and provide direction for future ambition I hope I reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord when I say that the Government are working with urgency to address the outstanding issues relating to Northern Ireland. It has been very clear in the Statement that I made this week and last that this is on the top of our agenda—there is no question at all. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU has said: "The Prime Minister has rightly refused to rule out considering different approaches … as an alternative to the backstop", in order to make sure we can break this impasse. That is why we are working to create this new option—to extend the implementation period—and working further with the EU on the UK-EU joint customs territory proposals at pace Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about the November summit. That was an idea suggested by the European Council president. We remain committed, as I said last week, to continuing negotiations at pace in November. Donald Tusk, after the Council meeting, said he stood ready to convene an EU Council on Brexit if further progress was made. We will continue to work with our EU counterparts to make sure that we can achieve that goal The noble Lord asked about sanctions. He will be aware, as a result of the sanctions legislation that passed through this House, that we will enact our own sanctions regime when we leave the EU but, for the time that we remain a member, we will continue to encourage European partners to extend their diplomatic capabilities In relation to onward movement, I am afraid I can only reiterate what I said in my letter to the noble Baroness: we share her frustration. We have been clear from the start of negotiations that onward movement for UK nationals resident in the EU was a key priority. We raised this with the EU in the first phase of negotiations but they were not ready to discuss the issue and wanted to wait for negotiations on our future relationship. We tried and we have put it forward but we can only negotiate when two parties are negotiating. I share her frustration but I am afraid I cannot go further than what I have said today and what I put in the letter. Of course, I will update the House and the noble Baroness as and when things have moved on I am afraid that I will have to disappoint the noble Lord—the Government will not be holding a second referendum. We have been very clear about that. We had a people’s vote in 2016—the largest democratic exercise this country has ever had—and we will not frustrate the result of that referendum The noble Lord asked about the flow of business in this House. We will continue to work with the usual channels to make sure that this House has the opportunity to scrutinise legislation and SIs as a matter of course. We are very pleased that the work of the sifting committee has already started and I am very grateful to members of the committees for that work. We understand the frustration in this House. We understand that we have to ensure that Parliament has a correct amount of time to look at these issues and we will continue our best endeavours, through the usual channels, to make sure the House has the chance to raise the issues that it wishes to raise.