My Lords, what a nice invitation to have from the noble Baroness. It is almost impossible to disagree with my noble friends
Lord Hain, Lord Monks and Lord Mandelson, and, indeed, most of the other noble Lords who have spoken, certainly from this side but elsewhere, about the benefit of the single market to the UK’s economic and social prosperity. As many noble Lords know—they have had to hear from me far too many times—my commitment to the EU long predates the creation of the internal market, although it was perhaps more for me the peace project referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, in an earlier amendment. I nevertheless believe that the internal market has contributed to these wider objectives in addition to the trade and prosperity that it has helped to generate.
Indeed, the arguments we have heard are exactly those that I used day after day during the referendum. However, some of the speeches today, I fear, were about trying to rerun that argument. Amendment 4 is rather as if the referendum had not happened and the result was not for leaving. The Bill is about authorising the Prime Minister to begin the process. It is not about going over the arguments. What it demands is a statement from the Prime Minister contrary to her White Paper. I think she is getting the approach wrong, but that it different from making it a statement from her, that only at that point could we trigger Article 50 because that statement makes it conditional within the amendment. I think asking a Prime Minister to eat her own words before she triggers it is something that this House probably cannot and would not want to do.
Anyway, our continued membership of the single market once we are outside the EU—that is, back in the EFTA, which we left in 1972—is also difficult as we would have to accept ECJ jurisdiction as well as free movement. I cannot see the problem with the ECJ. I simply do not understand the Government’s horror at accepting an international court. We will need some sort of adjudication system anyway in any free trade agreement with the EU. Whether the Government will then complain about that I do not know.
9 pm
It is true that during the referendum I heard from a number of leave supporters that they wanted the UK to make its own rules but never once did I hear that they did not like the ECJ. The Government are just wrong on this. If that were the only obstacle to EFTA membership, I certainly believe we could win that argument. However, we cannot simply airbrush free movement from the referendum decision. If we turn round to those who voted out and say, “Yes, well, we’re out but still have everything exactly as it was, with free movement unchanged”, I think that might evince some surprise.
More than that, this Norway/EFTA option contains a large democratic deficit. My noble friend Lord Mandelson says that that is Nelsonian knowledge. I had to ask what that meant but I understand now and I do not think it is: there is a real democratic deficit in what would be on offer. It would mean that instead of being a member of a club that sets the rules we would be mere recipients of rules decided elsewhere.