I want to write to Baroness Crawley
Baroness Crawley: .... It would be helpful if the Minister, in his reply, could make clear the exercise of powers across borders, so that it is at least on the record for trading standards professionals. At a post-Brexit time when the UK is building up its new internal market in goods and services, and needs corresponding consumer protection, this current questionable restriction on pursuing officers makes it...
Baroness Crawley: ...friend Lady Andrews. As noble Lords will know, common frameworks are a voluntary way of bringing the nations of the UK together and being the building blocks for the new UK internal market post Brexit. The legal underpinning for these frameworks is EU-derived subordinate legislation and retained EU law, the very law threatened by the Bill and its insistence on sunsetting by the end of...
Baroness Crawley: ...end of the year, law which underpins so much of the daily life of the country. It is law which underpins the common framework, the process by which the new UK internal market is being built post Brexit; consumer laws which protect consumers from scams and rogue traders—as a vice-president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, I see that the Bill as it stands could make...
Baroness Crawley: ...UK Music, an umbrella organisation, it contributed £4 billion to the economy in gross value added terms, down 31% on the £5.8 billion it contributed in 2019, pre-pandemic. UK Music assesses that Brexit-related barriers, alongside a lack of international touring, has restricted export recovery after the pandemic. So we come to the present difficulties faced by all touring British artists,...
Baroness Crawley: ...people and businesses in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The committee on common frameworks—our chair, my noble friend Lady Andrews, is here—looks at building the new UK single market post Brexit. When it took evidence from businesses and farming organisations operating in Northern Ireland last year, the messages we received were mixed. Yes, we heard about great frustration with...
Baroness Crawley: ...the UK today. The long-overdue publication of the Dunlop report is to be welcomed as a positive contribution to the very tetchy discourse that has surrounded the devolution debate, especially since Brexit. As we know, the report calls for new governance to take devolution and union capability forward, such as a new Secretary of State to represent the union and a pool of civil servants with...
Baroness Crawley: ...is still influencing government thinking and decision-making. What is devolved and what is reserved does not have to be thrown out of the window, but it does have to be reformed for modern, post-Brexit times. Devolution for the 2020s, 2030s and 2040s must, first and foremost, be about partnership and parity of esteem and decision-making across the UK. The template set out by Gordon Brown...
Baroness Crawley: ..., our nearest and most important trading partner, does not agree. On the Government’s claims that these disapplying provisions are needed as a safety net against the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, the Irish Government have been very clear that the protocol is designed and empowered to operate in all circumstances, including the absence of an agreement on the future relationship between...
Baroness Crawley: ...being able to recruit staff—from the UK, Europe or the Commonwealth—has been cited for closing services. How will workplace shortages in both the NHS and the social care system be handled post Brexit under the Government’s new immigration strategy? When it comes to staff pay, the social care sector in this country, in particular, as noble Lords have said, has nothing to be proud of....
Baroness Crawley: ...stripped-down, stripped-out withdrawal Bill, weakened protections, a Parliament sidelined, along with a highly unrealistic timetable for a transition period, could all add up to—far from getting Brexit done—getting Britain done for.
Baroness Crawley: ...the Government may have been promoting this farce, we are all to blame for the bad acting in it, in a way. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is right: there has been far more fury than focus in this Brexit debate over these past three years. That is coming from a committed remainer such as myself—or remainiac, as we have been called. We are seen to be sticking so closely to our red lines...
Baroness Crawley: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the restrictions planned for formaldehyde releases from articles, including wood-based panels, under the European Chemical Agency's REACH authorisation list.
Baroness Crawley: ...some of the painful lessons of the war, as the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, said. It is my deep and personal belief—some might say heresy—that, for instance, going ahead in a cavalier fashion with Brexit is not really learning those lessons, but may be flying in the face of them. The veterans of the D-day landings and the bloody battle for Normandy that followed are in their very old age...
Baroness Crawley: ...the CMA’s future architecture, the one issue that will impact it more than anything else is hardly mentioned. This is the dog that does not bark at the elephant in the room—which is, of course, Brexit. Page 1 of the letter states that: “The UK is widely held to be an excellent place to do business”. I would add, “Yes, of course, certainly until Brexit”. On page 2, the letter...
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I have a confession to make: I deserted the field of battle in the last two Brexit debates as I felt I had run out of things to say and the indignation to go with them. But I am back for one last rant—or maybe it will not be the last. Who knows? That is surely the point: no one knows what is going on. My next-door neighbour does not know what is going on, as he continually tells...
Baroness Crawley: ...equality rights and transposing other rights into UK law upon withdrawal from the EU, those rights could become vulnerable to amendment, narrower interpretation and weaker enforcement following Brexit. So for me, Brexit is no good for women. It is inspiring to think that debates such as ours today are taking place in Parliaments all around the world this week—from countries where voting...
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, do the Government know exactly how many workers have been lost to the hospitality and tourism industry in the last couple of years, even before Brexit happens? What are the Government doing to assist those companies that feel they might close down?
Baroness Crawley: ...intention of reopening the Belfast agreement, especially in the light of the very serious news from Londonderry over the weekend. However, I doubt that the Government have any idea what a no-deal Brexit would mean, not only for our country but for our nearest and most important trading neighbour: Ireland. Will the Leader think again about the situation of not taking no deal off the table?
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register as a former MEP. What can I say? What can any of us say now that we are in the end game of this miserable national predicament called Brexit? We have seen the Prime Minister’s deal, which I am afraid gives us even less than Chequers did, especially when it comes to the ambition for frictionless borders. The Government’s latest...
Baroness Crawley: ..., given where she started from, with those misjudged and totally unnecessary red lines in her Lancaster House speech. She has been hamstrung from the start by the fact that this whole misguided Brexit enterprise has been a massive military endeavour, started by David Cameron to keep his party together. The people of this country have for the most part been mere hapless civilians, trying to...