European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

My Lords, I added my name to an amendment in this group. I spoke at length to a similar amendment...

My Lords, I completely understand the motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and I am of cour...

The noble Lord understandably challenges the point, and he is right to do so, and I too would muc...

My Lords, my understanding is that Greenland became independent of Denmark, so the situation was ...

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Like the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I thought that...

My noble friend Lord Murphy has just made an ingenious suggestion. Under the Good Friday agreemen...

My Lords, I was intervened on and had not finished—in fact, I had barely started. The point is th...

My Lords, for the first time in these debates, I am, sadly, going to have to disagree with my gre...

I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, but my head says that this will not ...

Does the noble Lord not accept that although it happened chronologically before the treaty of 199...

I am afraid it does not apply to 60 million of us. It did apply to 40,000 Greenlanders a long tim...

My Lords, it might be helpful if I, as a half-Dane, set out the position of Greenland. The noble ...

My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the start. I will say very briefly that one aspect ha...

My Lords, I will intervene very briefly. Since the Maastricht treaty, 18 million people have been...

My Lords, in the words of those who tabled the amendments and their supporters, we hear the cry o...

I detect an elegiac and rather defeatist note in what the noble Baroness is saying. Has she read ...

Not only have I looked at that report and a number of other documents, but the noble Earl will ha...

My Lords, at one stage I thought that, for the first time in many days, I was going to agree with...

I apologise for interrupting at this juncture because the Minister has only just begun his intere...

It is so utterly basic to the issue that it is difficult to conceive of many, if any, people who ...

I am afraid I must disappoint the noble and learned Lord because I think we are continuing to agr...

It is not in my gift. It would be a matter for international treaty negotiation between the Unite...

As a point of interest, perhaps one should recommend to all pregnant mothers in Great Britain tha...

I am not going to indulge in an issue regarding maternity at this stage. Let us try to keep focus...

My Lords—

I shall just finish the sentence, so will the noble Lord please sit down? It would effectively pr...

I am very sorry to hear that this would prevent the Bill reaching the statute book. Notwithstandi...

I hope the noble Lord did not pay good money for that opinion. He will perhaps elaborate on the p...

I will not come back after this intervention, but has he read the document to which I referred, o...

I have not read the opinion in question, but I am not unfamiliar with the terms of the Vienna con...

If between now and Report he or his advisers have an opportunity to read that opinion and, having...

I am perfectly content to look at the opinion.

I will take up a point that the noble and learned Lord was making before he took the very sensibl...

The reality is that if Brexit takes place we will not continue to be EU citizens.

My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has participated in this short debate, particularly ...

Moved by

Lord Goldsmith

358: Clause 19, page 15, line 21, at end insert—

“( ) I...

My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to prevent Section 6 coming into force until after the...

My name is to this amendment, but I have little to say because the case for the amendment has bee...

My Lords, I am mystified as to why there is any controversy at all on this matter and why the Gov...

My Lords, I rise in the absence of my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who ha...

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who pressed this point. The answer we rec...

I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord. In a sense, that puts us in an even more diffic...

I had a son who worked in the European Court. As far as I understand it, if an issue comes up whi...

There will be no United Kingdom judge: when we are not members of the European Union, we are not ...

My Lords, the ECJ works at a snail’s pace. There will be a massive amount of undigested legislati...

My Lords, I support this amendment. One of the primary purposes of the Bill is to promote legal c...

My Lords, I too support this amendment. I will be very brief. It seems that if the Government try...

My Lords, I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for raising the issue of Cl...

Presumably that means, too, that because there are so many gigantic individual subjects to be agr...

The Government’s objective is to conclude a withdrawal agreement by October of this year. That ha...

The noble and learned Lord has been quite clear that it will be the withdrawal Bill that is the m...

We have been clear that the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will legislate for the w...

The Minister has just been paying tribute to the delicacy of the drafting of the noble and learne...

It is not a question of difficulty; it is a question of how we have decided to approach dealing w...

Does the Minister not appreciate the absurdity some of us feel? As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, p...

I sympathise with the idea of being left in a somewhat surreal position. As I said at the outset ...

Does my noble friend not think of Sir Thomas More:

“I trust I make myself obscure”?

I often think of Sir Thomas More, but not on this occasion.

I find it rather hard from the Cross Benches and as a non-politician to make this point, but I wo...

There is no betrayal and no perfidy, but I feel misrepresented by the noble Lord because he said ...

I hate to add to the surreal nature of this, but the formula “Nothing is agreed until everything ...

My Lords, we are engaged in a bilateral negotiation; it has not yet concluded. This Bill is desig...

Will my noble friend clarify for the Committee, if nothing is agreed until everything is agreed a...

Because that addresses a distinct issue, which is the exit date from the EU. It is quite distinct...

It is plain and obvious that nothing is agreed, but can the noble and learned Lord be clear with ...

I am not sure I agree with the term “red lines”; it is not one that I am inclined to use. I am ne...

My Lords, there have been moments during the 11 Committee days that we have had so far on this Bi...

The 11th hour of the 11th day.

The 11th hour of the 11th day, as my noble friend Lady Hayter says. If we had had a breakthrough,...

Moved by

Lord Pannick

358C: Schedule 8, page 55, line 33, leave out sub-paragraphs (1...

My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of three other members of your Lordships’ Consti...

My Lords, I am glad to be associated with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in supporting this amendm...

My Lords, I support the amendment. There is not much to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick,...

I am obliged to noble Lords. I begin by making two observations. These amendments are linked clos...

The noble and learned Lord is being reasonable, but he is inviting us to presume that we have mov...

I understand the noble Lord’s point. He appreciates the statements of intent that we have made wi...

My Lords, since we have returned to the subject of Henry VIII powers, I would like to inform the ...

Of course, our constitutional position has altered over the last few years—say, the last 500—and,...

Before the noble Lord announces the fate of his amendment, I have a question for the Minister. He...

I cannot give the noble and learned Lord an answer as to dates, but clearly we are concerned to e...

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, who I have always regarded as a true Renaissance Min...

Moved by

Lord Lisvane

365: Schedule 8, page 64, line 33, leave out from first “time” ...

My Lords, I can hear the strains of the “Farewell” Symphony as we prepare to tackle the penultima...

My Lords, I support this amendment and am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for bringing ...

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for introducing this amendment, which stands also in the na...

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister and to his Opposition shadow for what they have said...

Moved by

Lord Adonis

372: Schedule 9, page 67, leave out line 38

My Lords, it appears to fall to me to move the 372nd and last amendment to the Bill. By my calcul...

My Lords, I have listened with admiration to the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, th...

My Lords, I would like to intervene briefly to support my noble friend Lord Adonis, and I do this...

My Lords, I understand that that political point can be shortly made and it would dispense with a...

My understanding is that it is not consequential that the repeal of the 2011 Act under this sched...

That does not prevent the repeal of the 2011 Act being consequential on the main provision in thi...

My Lords, one has distinct memories of the European Union Bill and it then becoming an Act. The n...

My Lords, the 2011 Act was introduced by the elected Chamber for the express purpose of safeguard...

My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this the last debate of the Committee stage, and I am gr...

My Lords, this is a piece of political opportunism. The context of the 2011 Act, as those who wer...

My Lords, it must be unprecedented to have such a long and well-attended debate on what is almost...

Can my noble and learned friend give his view on whether it is appropriate that the 2011 Act shou...

It is perfectly appropriate, although I do not like the word “appropriate”, as we all know. Perha...

My Lords, after 115 hours of Committee debate, as observed by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, it is...

If I could have a last celebratory intervention on the Minister in Committee, can he indicate to ...

I do not want to give the noble Lord a precise date at this time. We will wait until the legislat...

Is the Minister indicating that the Government may repeal the 2011 Act in advance of the repeal o...

I will not comment any further on the repeal date, I am afraid, no matter how many times the nobl...

The Minister is saying things that directly contradict what the Prime Minister has said: that we ...

I will not accept that point. We have not agreed anything yet. We are still to have those negotia...

Is the Minister saying that he rejects what the Prime Minister said in her Mansion House speech?<...

Of course I am not saying that. I am saying that we are in the process of conducting a negotiatio...

My Lords, I am immensely grateful to the noble Lord for the gift of the Adonis nut bar. I tried t...

I found one of these nut bars the other day. It has lots of impenetrable small talk and carried a...

My Lords, I have always disregarded health warnings on the grounds that one would never eat anyth...

It cannot happen until immediately after Parliament has passed a Bill fixing a date for leaving t...

My Lords, we might not leave the European Union next year. We have not enacted the legislation to...

Does the noble Lord agree that there is no relationship between exit day and the repeal of the Eu...

That is the precise point. The big question that the Minister would not answer—I do not think he ...

To clarify, I did not say that. I deliberately did not express a view as to whether that argument...

My Lords, those legal proceedings will by definition cease if the 2011 Act is repealed soon after...