Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, is the Minister aware—
Lord Lea of Crondall: Will my noble friend allow me to interrupt to check that I have understood what has been said in the last five minutes by both him and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr? As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said that we cannot have a vacuum and have to have what I would call a treaty. A treaty, in turn, has to be an agreed document. It cannot be just a piece of paper to say that we want to...
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, unlike for the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, this is my first as well as last contribution to the Committee stage, but it is on a very big question indeed. While I support the amendment effectively introduced by my noble friend Lord Monks, I have become rather sceptical about the value of most of the debates about the withdrawal Bill, because they are not put in any sort of picture about...
Lord Lea of Crondall: If I may echo the Leader of the Opposition, this is a movement towards realism. However, is this Statement not really on two rather inconsistent themes? On the positive side, the calculus is, on page 4: “What matters is that our rights and obligations are held in balance”. That is an excellent idea of a calculus. But in the same Statement, on page 2, it makes the unqualified statement,...
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, perhaps I might check that, in interpreting the clause as it now stands, it is not possible for there to be a freeze on implementation by a particular exit day, whereby Ministers can cherry-pick the pieces of legislation they want to take through. That was not the intention. Can the Minister comment on that possible consequence of the exit date?
Lord Lea of Crondall: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether remaining in the European Single Market, post-Brexit, would require the United Kingdom to retain membership of the European Economic Area and associated European Union agencies through re-joining the European Free Trade Association.
Lord Lea of Crondall: I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. The customs union and the European single market are, from a practical and industrial perspective in the advanced economies, intertwined—technical standards being a good example. Is not the way to make the best of a bad job to move from where we are now, in Pillar 1 of the European Economic Area—namely, the EU—to Pillar 2, namely EFTA? We...
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, will the Minister comment on the ongoing role and remit of the Financial Conduct Authority, not only on the narrow point but on such questions as its relation with the big four auditing companies? Is this within the scope of this separate inquiry?
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, the debate about Brexit is becoming a debate about what are settling down to be three broad options for the country. The first is a hard Brexit, by which I mean pulling up more of a drawbridge on migration. At the opposite end, the second is the status quo as near as possible. The third, which I would put somewhere in the middle, is the European Economic Area option, where you still...
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords—
Lord Lea of Crondall: I was going to pick up a totally fresh point that has just been made, but if the noble Lord does not want to deal with it I will leave it. I am sure he will write a letter on many of these points.
Lord Lea of Crondall: It is a very simple point. The noble Lord has made a fresh point along the lines that we have no basis on which we can do other than be a rule-taker. I thought that most people who are adamant that we must leave the European Union and all of its manifestations object to anything that leaves them in the position of rule-taker instead of rule-maker. The noble Lord is now saying, “Let’s keep...
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, first, I will refer again briefly to the question I raised in my earlier intervention about the umbilical—or otherwise—relationship between EU membership and Euratom membership. I am endeavouring merely to ascertain the objective truth about this matter. It cannot be a matter of opinion; it must be somehow a matter of fact. I hope that the Minister, if he cannot give a more...
Lord Lea of Crondall: This part of the noble Lord’s speech suggests that it is a given that we are leaving Euratom, and the noble Lord is nodding in assent. Is he not aware that leaving the European Union does not necessitate leaving Euratom? If we were to stay in the European Economic Area by switching to being a member of EFTA, there is a whole raft of EU agencies which people can still belong to. Are the...
Lord Lea of Crondall: No.
Lord Lea of Crondall: No, not true.
Lord Lea of Crondall: I will withdraw that particular remark which used the words, “not true”, but if we stay in the European Economic Area, we would have withdrawn from the European Union but would still be able to be part of these agencies.
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, the Bill before us is a dog’s breakfast. In my view, it is inevitably so, for the reasons touched on only a few minutes ago, first by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and then by my noble friend Lord Judd; namely, it was obliged to spatchcock parliamentary sovereignty and procedure with plebiscitary democracy. As my noble friend Lord Judd said, the two do not fit. That is why there...
Lord Lea of Crondall: Will the Minister confirm, as will be confirmed by the Norwegian foreign office, that the EU EEA agreement provides not only for membership of the single market but of the EU/EEA agencies, and that it would be very foolish, given the 50% chance that that is where we will wind up, if we continue to wind down our involvement in these agencies, which is certainly not an automatic consequence of...
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I pick up a point arising from the two speeches from these Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches respectively. It is a long time since I did my two years’ national service, but I was for 35 years after that a trade union official. I pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe—namely, the services should reflect that in some respects service life is becoming more...