European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-21
Topic: International Affairs
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord opposite who just spoke constantly makes disparaging references to members of the Conservative Party. I suggest that he might have been better informed about what happens inside the Conservative Party if he had remained a member. I do not consider him a great authority on the subject I would also like to deal with a canard which I find offensive and which I hope will not colour the next 10 days of debate. This is this business about people who favour Brexit wanting to repudiate the Good Friday agreement. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, spoke with great passion on the subject, and I agreed with a great deal of what she said, certainly in the emotional content. She referred also to the cases she had taken which involved people in the Brighton case. Some of us were at Brighton on that day and many of us have lived with the consequences of the terrible events that took place and are passionately attached to the peace process and what happened in Northern Ireland. I am very proud that I served under a Prime Minister who had the courage to start the process that led to the peace agreement, Mr John Major. This false syllogism—it is the worst kind—which says, "Somebody who favours Brexit said that we might move away from the Good Friday agreement; therefore, every Conservative who favours Brexit is against the Good Friday agreement" is one that I find evil and offensive, and I hope it will be dropped. Those who express that view can answer for it, but I do not share it and I do not think that many on this side do Those are general points; the noble Lord, Lord Davies, took the debate a little wider, but I thought that, admirably, this debate had focused on a precise subject, which was raised clearly and forensically by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and by the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Triesman, which is how we deal with this question of a date. The problem of the date is that exit day for the purpose of the Bill—it is in the Bill, although I note that there are now amendments to these clauses—is mentioned in Clauses 2(1) and 3(2)(a), which define laws which are retained as those which are in effect "immediately before exit day". If exit day were not on the same day as the Article 50 date, as my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom said, there would potentially be confusion. You would have a position where the UK had left the European Union but it was not clear what would happen with regard to retained law. This would create the very kind of uncertainty that noble Lords opposite say they wish to avoid. Therefore those two things have to march in parallel Here we come to the crux of the real argument behind these amendments and suggestions, which is that we should not leave so quickly as 29 March 2019; we should delay the matter; we should delay the implementation and extend the Article 50 period. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said in one of our recent debates, we might want to be members again and might come back to reapply. In the first place, as has been pointed out in this debate, those things would require unanimity on the other side, and in the second place it would require legislation in this House and an Act of Parliament, as the Gina Miller case suggested. The reality is that we would have an Act of Parliament if we were taking the thing further down; we are already having an Act of Parliament on the withdrawal agreement. The two things have to march in parallel. At the moment that date is set, accepted and understood in this Parliament and across Europe as 29 March 2019. This is an Act of Parliament, so if Parliament wanted to define a date—we may not like the date of 29 March 2019, but it is the one in the process that has been set in motion—it would be legitimate. I do not particularly care for the amendment that was put in in the House of Commons—at the last minute in Committee, as someone pointed out—to give a power to the Secretary of State, but that is what the House of Commons has sent us. If that needs to be dealt with, deal with that question directly: ask the House of Lords. But do not decouple the date in the law from the date that is working in Article 50. That would create uncertainty and difficulty. It does not require a further Act of Parliament to set the exit day because this is an Act of Parliament; the Bill has already been approved by the other place and it is already there—we can just do it However, of course that is not the course that is being taken, because both these amendments seek to strike out the phrase "on exit day". The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has got out his dandelion clock—you used to blow on it when you wondered whether you would ever have a girlfriend, when you first came to be aware of those things. "This year, next year, sometime, never", was it not? Many of the British people rather thought in 2016 that it might be this year. It has now been two years; many people in this House would agree that we have not got that far in two years, which is a bit disappointing, but it will not be this year. At least the Bill says that it will be next year: 29 March 2019. But along comes the noble Lord, Lord, Adonis, and—next year? No. It is now sometime. His amendment gives the impression that it will be on a date to be determined sometime, but we know that he means "never". I know, the House knows, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, knows, that he would never vote for any exit day to be voted for by this Parliament Therefore we should not support a dandelion clock amendment. If we want to deal with the Secretary of State issue, that is a separate debate, but let us not create new and unnecessary uncertainty by removing the date and uncoupling the exit day and the Article 50 day.