United Kingdom Internal Market Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-19
Topic: International Affairs
David Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, shortly after the Singing Revolution restored democracy to Estonia, its legal profession welcomed a British delegation to Tallinn’s largest law firm. At the centre of its new partners’ table was a brass disc, proudly engraved with the words "pacta sunt servanda". As a newly independent nation, our hosts knew the importance of ensuring that promises are honoured, whether in commercial agreements or international treaties The precise meaning of such promises is often disputed, but Part 5 of this Bill is no inadvertent or merely arguable breach of some vague or trivial international undertaking. Its whole purpose is to signal to our negotiating partners a kind of anarchic disdain: disdain for this Government’s recent, specific and binding commitments on export declarations and state aid, and disdain for the very principle—fundamental to our status in the world—that treaties must be observed. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, the Kadi case in which I appeared against the EU is no sort of precedent for a similar attitude on the part of the EU or its court. In that very case, the Court of Justice of the European Union affirmed its long-standing insistence that "the European Community must respect international law in the exercise of its powers." The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and a unanimous Constitution Committee have expressed the view that the Bill itself is in breach of the withdrawal agreement, or will be by the time it is entered into force. I agree, although perhaps it matters little since whether it is unlawful itself, the whole point of Part 5 is, on any view, to enable unlawfulness Then there are the judges: Francis Bacon’s "lions under the throne". Here too, the Bill is deeply troubling. It not only authorises the Government to act unlawfully but deems such unlawful actions to be lawful. The lions are still on show, but they are comprehensively defanged by successive subsections of Clause 47. Deprived of their usual power to strike down unlawful regulations, they might as well be mounted on the wall Imagine, if we can, that the EU were to renege on the guarantees that it gave to British citizens in the withdrawal agreement. There would be justified accusations of perfidy and duplicity, yet it is, I am afraid, precisely such duplicity that we are asked to facilitate today. Can the strategic damage to our reputation as a trustworthy international partner be mitigated by any tactical advantage in the negotiations? Rather the reverse, I suspect, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, suggested with all his diplomatic experience. Showing contempt for our existing agreement with the EU will hardly encourage it to sign a new one. More likely it will enhance the unity of the 27, at just the time when we should be testing it, and its determination not to give us the benefit of any doubt The Bill seeks to make Parliament complicit in a scheme that openly flouts two foundational principles: that agreements, once made, should be kept, and that government is not above the law. How could we possibly go along with that This is not a House of opposition, as the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, rightly reminded us; but it is a guardian of constitutional principle and, as such, it needs to send a strong and clear signal. For my part, I look forward to supporting the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, to voting at the earliest feasible opportunity not for some messy compromise but for the simple removal of Clauses 44, 45 and 47, and, like my noble friends Lord Butler and Lord Lisvane, to strapping in, if necessary, for a bumpy ride.