My Lords, Amendment 138 is in my name. I will concentrate simply on the international treaties and agreements that relate to transport as an illustration of the complexity of the situation that we face. We are party to many hundreds of agreements as members of the EU that we will have to renegotiate as part of leaving the EU. There are other agreements that we will have to join because we cannot rely on EU arrangements.
To illustrate the complexity of the situation, in the field of transport it is estimated that the UK will have to renegotiate and replace 65 international transport agreements following Brexit. The Government’s preparedness for this is perhaps rather doubtful—the signs are not good so far. I give as an illustration the last-minute appearance of the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill, which was not in the Queen’s Speech as an EU Bill, which was sprung on us at very short notice and which is being rushed through with great speed because the Government have discovered that, in future, we will have to rely on the 1968 Vienna convention to transport goods abroad and to take trailers abroad. We will have to rely also on the 1949 Geneva convention to get international driving permits.
We are going back a very long time in history, so it is not surprising that it took the Government a while to wake up to this situation. As a result of the rush in which we are having to deal with this issue—we signed the Vienna convention but never ratified it; we have to give a year’s notice of ratification and are running out of time to do that—we are faced with a Bill which is not so much skeletal as almost a ghost. It is so insubstantial that it fades in front of our eyes. There is perhaps a slight chill surrounding it as well, because the Government give no indication of what they want to do with powers which they admit they would rather not have to seek—and all of this is in preparation for the possibility of a no deal Brexit.
This is no way to make legislation. However well prepared the Government are, there will be dozens of agreements to reconsider. I have raised in this House many times the issue of the single European sky, which was mentioned earlier this evening. It is not just an EU issue; it is crucial to our arrangements with the US as well. Transport-related agreements are only one corner of the problem and are simply an illustration of the complexity that the Government face.