UK Parliament / Open data

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

My Lords, there are plenty of people around to go into the Lobbies tonight, so it is terribly important that the Minister responds very clearly to my noble friend Lord Deben and the others who have spoken.

We must not be complacent about this. We are a land not without litter; we are a land which still has polluted waterways; we are a land with beaches that are, frankly, a disgrace. Much has been achieved, and much that has been achieved has been because of standards laid down by the European Union. We wish to go not backwards but forwards. I made two long journeys yesterday: I drove from Lincolnshire to Staffordshire and from Staffordshire to London and, as always when I am driving, I was deeply depressed by the amount of litter in our countryside. We want a body to be set up that has real teeth, we want regulations and real penalties, and we want a land that we can all be proud of, even those who believe that mistakes have been made over the whole issue of the European Union.

As my noble friend Lord Deben so eloquently said, this ought to be an issue on which we can all unite. The amendment is extremely good, and I hope the Minister can assure us that something very like it will be in the Bill before we send it back to another place.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

790 c1424 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

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