My Lords, the parliamentary proceedings in which we are participating are a travesty. How else can you describe a Bill set to go through all its processes in one day; a Bill endorsing an agreement of more than 1,200 pages; a Bill accompanied by a distinctly partisan summary circulated by the Government; and a Bill which is getting no genuine parliamentary scrutiny and has not been reported on by either of the two committees of this House explicitly set up to deal with these sorts of agreements? If that is taking back control, it is certainly not effective control by Parliament.
The Government’s case needs, of course, to be listened to and examined with care. But it is not helpful when it is accompanied by a tidal wave of hyperbole, flippancy and plain untruths. Does the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in this country cease on Thursday of this week? No, not in Northern Ireland, and not in respect of issues relating to the status of EU citizens living and working in this country. Are we regaining our independence on Thursday? No, we never lost it. How otherwise could we have decided to leave the EU? Are we regaining unfettered sovereignty, that golden calf before which so many supporters of leaving the EU seem now to worship? No, this agreement we are debating inhibits the exercise of our sovereignty in hundreds of different ways, as does our membership of NATO, our acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the UN’s International Court of Justice and of the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement procedures, as do the provisions of the rules-based international order we are, quite rightly, defending and promoting.
I suggest that one of the best tests of the agreement is what is not covered by it—what we really will lose on Thursday, or at least risk losing. That includes freedom of services, which are 80% of our economy and in substantial surplus with the EU; financial services, which depend on the thread of equivalence of treatment yet to be settled; recognition of professional qualifications, which depends on a cat’s cradle of bilateral arrangements yet to be negotiated; and data exchanges, which are still in limbo. Our internal security and the ways to deal with the challenge of international crime are severely reduced from what we have now, with the Home Secretary surely alone in asserting that we shall be more secure.
The Erasmus student exchange programme is being thrown overboard as too costly, but why on earth, then, do other non-EU European countries belong to it? There is not a trace of any provision on co-operation on foreign policy and security, yet we need not only bilateral co-operation with other European countries, but co-operation with the EU’s decision-making
institutions. I really would like to hear the Minister’s views on Gibraltar when he comes to reply. Why are we not sticking to the commitment that we would not enter into a deal in which Gibraltar was not covered?
This is a sorry tale before we even get to the detail. I suggest a simple set of conclusions: Britain could have done better, Britain needs to do better, and Britain will do better at some future point when we have regained some of our national characteristic of pragmatism.
6.45 pm