European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I am terribly sorry that I missed the birthday and wedding anniversary of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but I am sure that I shall find another reason to celebrate with him. I still have the image before me of the unedifying tussles that he mentioned, which must have been a sight to see. I seek to defend myself a little against the accusation that he made as regards not providing examples. I gave two examples on the previous occasion and said that I would come back to him if I could find any more. I have not found any more. The examples that I gave were the best available. I hope that reassures him as it means there are not loads of examples of how the UK might find itself in that position. I reiterate what I said in the previous debate. The phrase ““financial penalty”” does not appear anywhere in the treaty. It is not a concept at all. The treaty says that if the UK were to come out of something and that rendered it inoperable—““inoperable”” is the first of three words which should reassure the noble Lord because they are clear and precise—it is reasonable that the UK should bear the costs of such action, should there be any. The qualified majority vote would be the process by which a decision on whether a measure was inoperable would be reached. For obvious reasons of collaboration across the European Union it is important that if we have created a situation in which a measure is inoperable, that decision should be reached in an appropriate manner. I believe that is the appropriate way to reach it. Then a second decision would have to be reached to say that the measure had become inoperable and whether any financial consequences arose from that. However, they would have to be direct financial consequences necessarily and unavoidably incurred as a result of our withdrawal from the measure. The two examples I gave concerned where a software program could no longer be used because the UK’s withdrawal from it meant that it had to be completely rewritten, or if we withdrew from an agency where we had staff we should bear the costs of repatriating them, make any redundancy payments and so on because it was because of us that they were having to be removed from the agency. They are the only two examples that I can think of and the only two examples that make sense to me. There may be other circumstances, but I hope that the noble Lord will be reassured by the fact that there were not lots of circumstances where I could see inoperability applying and financial consequences unavoidably occurring as a direct result of what the UK had done. Those words reassure me. I am not an optimist or a pessimist, but a realist. If you look at what has been agreed and test those words against our understanding of what it would mean; if you look long and hard at what the consequences could be and think of examples where it might apply; then you have reached a realistic assessment of what we believe to be the case. Our Committee in your Lordships’ House recognised that this was a strict threshold. I do not know what else I can add; nor should I take your Lordships’ time in seeking to flower this any further. The wording is clear. It sets out the conditions that would have to be met and that could be tested in court if need be. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.