Brexit: Deal or No Deal (European Union Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2018-01-16
Topic: International Affairs
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rise to move the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who regrettably is now unable to be here. As a member of his committee, I am therefore introducing this report. The speech I am about to make is, in fact, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, with only minimal interpolation by me. However, I wish to record my appreciation of the work the noble Lord has done on the Select Committee as acting chair. He replaced the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, for the period when he was unable to be here. I am happy to report that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, is now back in harness and has just chaired a meeting of the committee. Your Lordships will also be gratified to hear that speaking in the place of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, means that I will not be speaking in my place in the list as well. Any remarks I have, I shall leave until the end This report was published only last month, and I am therefore grateful that the usual channels have found a place for it early in the agenda. It also means that we have not had a government response, although I am looking forward to receiving one shortly. Indeed, the day after our report was published, on 8 December, a new deal between the Government and the European Commission was reached on the key withdrawal issues. Time is therefore moving on Our report covered two key issues, both of which remain in the forefront of our minds. They are, first, the consequences of a potential no deal outcome, and, secondly, the nature of any transitional period that may follow Brexit on 29 March 2019 First, on no deal, there are some who believe that no deal, a complete break with the EU and a resort to trading on WTO terms, is the right outcome for the UK. The views of that group were represented to our inquiry by John Longworth, of Leave Means Leave, who urged the Government to act now to, as he put it, "crystallise" the benefits of Brexit. That was a minority position, and even many convinced pro-Brexit experts, such as Ruth Lea, of the Institute of Directors, who gave evidence to our inquiry, believe that agreeing a trade deal is vital to our national interest in the post-Brexit era Still more striking, of the 40 written responses to our open invitation to submit evidence, not one argued that no deal would be the preferred outcome. We did not ask them to comment on whether Brexit was a good thing or a bad thing; we simply asked them to assess, on the assumption that Brexit was going to happen, the impact of no deal. The conclusion, contained in paragraph 56 of our report, is clear: "It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom", than no deal Last December’s agreement between the Government and the rest of the EU was a necessary first step to reaching a deal to avoid this damaging outcome, and I hope that the Minister will reassure us tonight that the agreement covering the rights of UK and EU citizens, the implications of Brexit for Northern Ireland and Ireland and the UK’s honouring of financial commitments it has voluntarily entered into is irreversible. What businesses and people across the country now need is an absolute assurance that there will indeed be a deal at the end of this process.