EU Retained Law — House of Lords, 2022-06-23
Topic: Foreign Trade
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I was not sure whether to laugh or cry when I read the Statement. It takes us into a surreal world of fantastical Government, in which, as the Minister for Brexit Opportunities declares, "our country will achieve great things."—[Official Report, Commons, 22/6/22; col. 866.] That is like Donald Trump promising he will make America great again—just as windy and as empty of content There is no evidence behind this Statement. I challenge the Minister to find any. A great deal of evidence was gathered and analysed on exactly this issue between 2012 and 2015 in what was labelled the balance of competences exercise. Eurosceptic Conservatives in the coalition Government believed that an extensive survey of business, sector by sector, would produce a long list of unnecessary Euro regulations that the UK Government could then demand to be renegotiated Three Ministers oversaw this exercise: David Lidington, Greg Clark and myself—two Conservatives and a Liberal Democrat. Sector by sector the responses came in, saying that companies were happy with the current balance between domestic and European regulation. Several transport companies argued for greater emphasis on common European regulation rather than less of it. The Scotch Whisky Association, whose then chief executive was David Frost, now the noble Lord, Lord Frost, was particularly enthusiastic about the advantages of common regulation with the European single market. Of course, that was before the noble Lord’s damascene conversion from evidence-based argument to embittered opposition to everything European Can the Minister tell us what consultations the Government have conducted in the past year with large and small companies before committing themselves to diverge from EU regulations in the way Mr Rees-Mogg plans? My understanding is that UK exporters, both large and small companies, would much prefer the Government to maintain close alignment between UK regulations and those in our largest overseas market. Does the Minister have any recent evidence to the contrary? Does he understand that the Government have any recent evidence to the contrary? The chimera of making a bonfire of regulations has appealed to the ideological right ever since Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Belief in the superiority of unregulated markets has survived through stark evidence to the contrary, as in the loose regulations that led to the Grenfell fire. Margaret Thatcher understood that a well-regulated market is fundamental to a thriving economy, which is why she pushed for the common regulatory structures of the European single market. British Ministers and officials played a major role in creating that common single market. Many of the regulations that Mr Rees-Mogg is now denouncing were shaped by UK efforts, not imposed by foreign Governments on a powerless UK, as he is now suggesting—but Mr Rees-Mogg’s career has been entirely in finance rather than the real economy of production, marketing and exporting, and much of it offshore in Hong Kong, Singapore and other low-tax financial jurisdictions Mr Rees-Mogg is also the Minister for Government Efficiency. He notes in his Statement the extra work that Whitehall officials have undertaken to grasp these "Brexit freedoms", as he puts it. He does not note that leaving the EU and setting up a range of national regulatory agencies to replace those we shared with our European partners has required a substantial increase in both the number of officials and the costs involved. Part of our contribution to the EU budget went towards funding those common agencies; some of them, such as Europol, were led by British officials. Yet at the same time as being Minister for Efficiency—that wonderfully odd phrase—Mr Rees-Mogg is pushing for a sharp reduction in Civil Service numbers, without regard to the additional tasks that it is taking on. Can the Minister explain how the Government propose to manage this additional effort while slashing the number of staff There are more windy comments in the Statement about restoring the sovereignty of Parliament, followed by the declaration that most of this will be pushed through under secondary, even tertiary, legislation, without effective parliamentary scrutiny. The illusion that we now stand imperially sovereign in the world, freed of the European yoke, is punctured by the letter that the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, circulated yesterday, announcing that we are opening trade negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council—in which we will not mention civil or political rights so as to avoid offence. This Government are willing to negotiate and compromise with the GCC but not with our democratic neighbours. Can the Minister explain how giving concessions to the Gulf autocracies avoids limiting UK sovereignty while Mr Rees-Mogg insists that any compromise with the EU infringes on UK sovereignty Last night, I wondered whether the Minister might revolt as he attempted to justify this irrational ideological waffle and follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, by walking out of the Chamber and the Government mid-Statement. However, I fear that he has not yet reached that point, despite the nonsensical Statement that he is forced to defend.