My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, as I seem to have done for the past 20 years. I refer to my current interests on the register.
In 1972, during Second Reading on the then European Communities Bill in the other place, Sir Geoffrey Rippon said:
“I believe that we shall walk tall into Europe on 1st January 1973. We shall take our rightful place in the counsels of Europe. We shall compete and we shall contribute”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/72; col. 1984.]
In leaving the European Union, we shall undoubtedly diminish our standing and influence in the world. It was Europe that brought me into politics. I was born of a Danish mother and Scottish father. Denmark was occupied during the Second World War, severely restricting the freedoms and liberty my mother could enjoy while growing up with occupying troops and tanks on the streets of Copenhagen.
I fervently believe that bringing our trading relations closer together across Europe, as our membership of the European Union has facilitated, has made the prospect of future conflicts in Europe much less likely. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall—I was there in November 1989, a day I shall remember all my life—we have seen an influx of countries and peoples from the former Soviet bloc, strengthening our defence against a potential foe. That same year, 1973, when we joined the European Union, I left Harrogate Ladies’ College to embark on my legal studies at Edinburgh University. I had high hopes of following a career in the European Community as it then was, and I did. I undertook a “stage”—an internship—in the Commission. I worked for the Conservatives in the European Parliament. I practised European law and I then became a Member of the European Parliament.
My overwhelming feeling in debating this Bill is one of sadness at the fact that many of the opportunities that I had in my 20s and 30s will not be available to future generations—namely, the right to live, study and work in another EU country.
I will set out why, in my view, the Bill is defective. In transposing into UK law those instruments such as regulations and decisions—instruments other than EU directives—the Bill seeks to introduce a new category of retained direct EU law, whose status seems far from clear, as was put most eloquently by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and other noble Lords. The provisions of the Bill lack clarity and legal certainty, and if I was a law student today I would find it impossible to understand its provisions. They do not entirely reflect the well-established principles of direct effect and direct applicability, and the relationship between the supremacy of EU law and retained EU law is simply not clear.
The Bill is further flawed by the huge power given to the Executive to pass secondary legislation through so-called Henry VIII clauses. While there is agreement across Parliament that new procedures are needed to ensure proper scrutiny—to hold the Government to account—I query whether new committees are required or this is best dealt with by beefed-up versions of the existing committees on delegated legislation.
If there is one unique contribution I can bring to the debate today, it is this: I argue—and have long argued in the other place and here—that there should be the opportunity to amend the content of those draft statutory instruments which come before both Houses, not just to vote for or against them. This is especially relevant as the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill states that these laws, once transposed, can then be further revised and amended by Parliament post Brexit. But this would be a new power: a power to amend not just the title but the actual content of each and every statutory instrument. Clauses 2 to 9 are therefore ripe for amendment. I have a word of caution
for my noble friends Lord Astor and Lord Ridley, and fervent readers of the Daily Mail: those of us who wish to improve the Bill stand prepared to perform our statutory and parliamentary duty of making it better.
We are faced with inconvenient truths: the UK simply cannot replicate the free trade agreements with the 70-plus countries with which the EU has a formal trade agreement, including Commonwealth countries. Although there are countries such as Vietnam outside these arrangements, in effect the potential market is very small compared to the existing single market of 505 million consumers. It surprises me that the Government took the key tools in their negotiating pack off the table even before negotiations began—namely, our membership of the single market and customs union. Considering the remaining options available, applying to join the European Free Trade Association would seem the next best thing to membership of the EU; and leaving with no deal, on World Trade Organization most-favoured nation terms, the worst. Being in EFTA would minimise the potential economic damage, solve the question of the Irish border and maintain our sovereignty. Were we to be outside the single market and EFTA, a dispute resolution mechanism must be agreed in regard to cross-border issues involving British goods entering the EU post Brexit.
In terms of agriculture and the environment, I believe that the common agricultural policy has made the EU supply chain more sustainable and kept prices stable. Since the referendum and the collapse in the value of the pound, food prices have risen sharply. The higher environmental standards have turned Britain from the dirty man of Europe to the clean and green land that we are.
I am proud that our history, cultures and destinies are shared with our European partners. The question today is what exactly the nature of our deep and special relationship, going forward, will be and whether that will be in the best interests of this place, of our country, of the British people, of British business and, especially, of the younger generation.
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