Brexit: Negotiations — House of Lords, 2018-11-22
Topic: International Affairs
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I, too, thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. There was a hope that an expansion of the political declaration would deliver enlightenment, but going from seven pages to 26 has illustrated even better how thin and inadequate our prospective future relationship is as impotent rule takers. The claim that we will make our own laws in our own Parliament is one of the deceptions that I mentioned the other day. We will in fact obey EU laws if we want decent access. This political declaration shows how there is no better deal than remaining in the European Union with a full voice and a great deal of influence. That is why we definitely need a people’s vote to give the opportunity to choose to remain in the EU It is notable how many uses there are in this document of considering options or exploring options with a view to identifying opportunities where something is in mutual interest to the extent possible. How long is a piece of string? This document does not answer that question. It is simply aspirational, not operational, and there are many gaps We are supposed to expect that the combination of at least a single customs territory—the political declaration talks about building on a single customs territory—and the alignment of rules can coexist with an independent trade policy, an end to free movement and an end to the jurisdiction of the ECJ. I shall come back to that latter point. This is an unstable and dishonest pretence that the package can deliver all those things Paragraph 28 of the draft states that, "the extent of the United Kingdom’s commitments on customs and regulatory cooperation … would be taken into account in the application of related checks and controls", and that there can be, "a spectrum of different outcomes for administrative processes as well as checks and controls" That is not what the Chequers White Paper promised. It promised to, "avoid the need for customs and regulatory checks at the border"— that is, all checks—and said it would, "enable products to only undergo one set of approvals and authorisations in either market, before being sold in both" You do not need checks at the borders if that is the case. It promised to, "protect the uniquely integrated supply chains and ‘just-in-time’ processes that have developed", over the last 40-odd years. I heard the Prime Minister claim in the other place that this political declaration represented frictionless trade. It does not; that is a completely groundless assertion. There will be border checks As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned, paragraph 24 talks about exploring, "the possibility of cooperation of United Kingdom authorities with Union agencies such as the European Medicines Agency … the… European Chemicals Agency … and the European Aviation Safety Agency" This is a very long way from the Chequers White Paper, which claimed that we would get participation in key agencies. That is not what the political declaration says. The same is true for Europol and Eurojust, where again there was a claim that we would get participation in those security agencies. Perhaps the Minister could explain the gap between the Chequers White Paper and what is in the political decoration. Working together to identify the extent of co-operation is not participation Perhaps the Minister could also explain how she envisages the financial services markets, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned. Currently there is a huge gap; one of the reasons Jo Johnson resigned is that 80% of our economy is not covered, while one of the reasons lots of City people oppose the deal is that equivalence in financial services is very weak indeed We also have a very thin promise on judicial co-operation, matrimonial and parental responsibility and related matters. I sit on a sub-committee of the EU Select Committee that has spent a great deal of time on this matter. I am afraid that the thin nature of the two and a half lines in the political declaration on this issue is testament to the lack of attention the Government are paying to this In the section on intellectual property, I see no reference to the Unified Patent Court. The Government put a lot of effort into securing the life sciences section of the UPC to be in the UK, which obviously plays to our strengths in that sector. Can they give us an assurance that Britain will be able to stay in the unified patent regulation and in the court even if we are outside the EU On the European Convention on Human Rights, there is an interesting contradiction in the declaration. Paragraph 7 refers only to the UK’s, "continued commitment to respect the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights" What does that mean, as opposed to a commitment to the convention? Later, though, in paragraph 83, there is a reference to, "continued adherence and giving effect to the ECHR", so I hope that paragraph 7 is just a slip of the pen. Perhaps the Minister could reassure us that there is a full commitment by the Government to stay a member of the ECHR Lastly, on ending the jurisdiction of the European court, the declaration says that the arbitration panel must refer any question of the interpretation of union law to the ECJ for a binding ruling. Then, it says: "The arbitration panel should decide the dispute in accordance with the ruling given by the CJEU"— that is, the binding ruling. If a party fails to comply, the other can seek financial compensation or suspend the rights and obligations under the agreement. How is that ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice?