European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-16
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I think the view of the House is that we should conclude On Second Reading, I referred to a mixture of "Hope, Judge and Pannick" as the tasks that faced us. I think my words were prescient, and it is delightful to see all three here who have been through the long nights with us. At the end of Second Reading, I asked the Minister, "to defend the right—no, the duty—of this House to advise him and the Commons on the detail of the Bill".—[Official Report, 31/1/18; col. 1692.] Never was that defence more needed than when two of our national papers, as we have heard, can have thought to threaten to chop off our heads for carrying out our statutory, lawful duty to send back to the Commons those parts of the Bill we find deficient to meet the purpose of the proposed Act. We have even heard prominent Brexiteers in the Commons accuse the Lords of being "drunk with their own prejudices" or "traitors in ermine". Even today the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, talked of "dark days" and of us doing "irreparable damage". I do not think we have been ordering the massacre of the firstborn. Indeed, as we heard from the Minister, we have had 800 amendments, 200 of which went back to the Commons, only 15 of which were because the Government were defeated in the voting Lobbies. This is hardly a constitutional crisis or anything like it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I add very warm thanks to the Bill team, though I have to tell them that their work is not yet quite done. I also thank the team of Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Duncan, is not in his place, but his poor back led to some interesting dancing at the Dispatch Box. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, whose legal exchanges with my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith left me not understanding the language they were speaking at times, let alone the content. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, put up a sterling defence of what we thought of as the indefensible, with charm, humour and great tolerance And what can I say about the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, other than that I share with him the pain at losing a vote, even if it happened to me only once? The noble Lord, Lord Newby, and I did wonder whether we should thank him for making our task easier, but that would be unfair. He has taught us a lesson in sheer commitment to the Brexit cause, whatever is thrown at him, though I do wonder whether he shares the views of his friend, Daniel Hannan, that "leaving the EU is not quite going to plan". I think not. His confidence that it is great for the north-east remains, and for that consistency and persistence—some would say in the face of all evidence—we can only admire him and wish him some well-deserved rest after the rigours of the Bill My own personal thanks are to my colleagues. My noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith of course took on all the tricky amendments—except one. My noble friend Lord Griffiths handled devolution; my noble friends Lord Murphy, Lord Collins and Lord Hunt and my noble friends Lady Jones, Lady Wheeler, Lady Thornton and Lady Sherlock all merit high mentions in dispatches. My noble friend Lord McAvoy marshalled the troops and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe marshalled our preparations. My noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon opened the Second Reading, in the presence of Mrs May, setting out the shortcomings of the Bill and our objectives for change. Of course, I thank our staff back-up team, who do all the hard work—in case noble Lords thought it was down to me—especially Dan Stevens, whose amendment-writing, briefing and negotiating skills have caused the Government such grief We send this much-amended Bill back to the Commons, though with little expectation that they will deal speedily with it, as the Government have first to resolve deep divisions within their own Cabinet, particularly over the very first amendment passed by your Lordships House, on the customs union. So while we take a breather, we hope they will see some sense and accept our changes as improvements to the previously flawed Bill. It is only the first Bill. We still have Bills on trade, customs, agriculture, fishing, immigration and withdrawal and implementation, so we will see noble Lords back here on many occasions. For the moment, I shall say just one thing: this is not about whether we leave the European Union but about how we leave. That we must do properly, in the national interest, and that is what I believe this House has set out to do.