Brexit: Justice for Families, Individuals and Businesses (EU Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2017-12-20
Topic: Law and Crime
James Hope (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. If he will forgive me, I am afraid that this is a contribution by another lawyer—although not with anything like the experience and insight into these matters of the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton of Belgravia. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, on her committee’s excellent report. I extend my compliments to the members of the committee, many of whom are present At the risk of some repetition, I shall concentrate on the section of the report which deals with Brussels IIa and the Maintenance Regulation. This is a little technical but these are the measures that are concerned with the rights of adults and children with regard to matrimonial matters; parental responsibility, including rights of custody and access; and the very important issue of child abduction. They supplement the Lugano and Hague conventions on these matters. As I shall mention in a moment, they do so in a way that is crucial to the points to which the report draws attention It struck me that there were two words that the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, stressed several times: predictability and certainty. That is what these measures give us, against the rather looser background of the conventions—much to the advantage of everyone involved in these matters, be they commercial entities or families At the end of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, drew attention to the passage in the report which says: "To walk away from these Regulations without putting alternatives in place would seriously undermine the family law rights of UK citizens" I do not think it was an exaggeration for the report to go on to say, as the noble Lord did, that to do that would be, "an act of self-harm" That underlines the crucial nature of the issues we are talking about The issue is of concern to UK citizens in all parts of the United Kingdom, not just the jurisdiction in which we are today: England and Wales. It might be worth inviting the Minister to study an article by Janys Scott QC—whose name, I am sure, is familiar to him; she is a senior practitioner in family law in Scotland—in this month’s edition of the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland. She draws attention, as the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, did, to the risk of conflicting proceedings if our domestic courts are bound to resort to our own procedures without the benefit of the reciprocity in family matters that the regulations provide. She points out that the withdrawal Bill does not create that reciprocity: in fact, it removes it, and puts nothing in its place. The risk is of conflicting actions in different countries ongoing at the same time, with conflicting decisions and no way of deciding which must prevail. That surely is a recipe for much delay and expense and is quite contrary to the principle that gives priority to the best interests of the child. As I mentioned, there are other international treaties, but they are less clear and less decisive than the Brussels measures That point is illustrated very clearly in the European Commission’s guide to the provisions for the return of the child. In the table you find phrases such as "not obliged to" and "may refuse" in the Hague Convention, when for the same stages in the procedure the regulations say "cannot refuse" and "shall ensure". There you see the certainty and predictability that the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, drew attention to. We cannot rely on the conventions to provide the certainty we need. We need to maintain the same reciprocity, attention to detail and standards of precision that operate across the EU. As Janys Scott says, family law deserves serious attention if Brexit is not to result in confusion and expense for families who find themselves stretched between one or other of the jurisdictions in the UK and other European states when the misfortune of break-up strikes This brings me to the Government’s response, bearing in mind the sub-committee’s warning that it was not convinced that the Government had, as yet, "a coherent or workable plan to address the … problems … if alternative arrangements are not put in place" We have now been told in the response that the Government are seeking, "an agreement with the EU that allows for close and comprehensive cross-border … co-operation", in family matters, which would provide a range of reciprocal rules. I am not wholly reassured, so I have two questions for the Minister The first is: can he give us an assurance that, when the Government are seeking an agreement with the EU in these matters, the aim will be to achieve the same high degree of reciprocity and predictability that we have now? The response talks about "close" cross-border co-operation, but the words "close" and "closely" are not really good enough. Precision, predictability and certainty are what we are looking for, leaving no room for doubts that could give rise to dispute. Will that be the aim? I very much hope that it will The second question is: can he assure us that everything will be done to ensure that there will be no cliff edge on these matters when we leave the EU? If the current arrangements are to continue during the transitional or implementation period after the exit date, can we be assured that they will continue even after the end of that period if an agreement cannot be reached and the replacements put in place by then? The Minister will, I am sure, appreciate how highly charged family disputes can be. We must surely do everything possible to avoid a gap in the cross-border arrangements: a black hole, one might say, which would make their resolution even more difficult than it already is.