It has been two weeks since the last update as I have been away, but nothing much has happened. The Brexit bill is still being debated in the House of Lords. The bill has passed its first and second reading in the house, as these stages went ahead, as usual, with no vote. Now though, the bill is in the committee stage and will be subjected to debate and scrutiny for the next couple of weeks. As expected, things are not going quite as smoothly as they did in the Commons. Bloomberg is reporting that insider sources claim that the government is setting aside time for a potential parliamentary battle over changes to the bill. Two amendments in particular stand a chance of entering the ping-pong process with the Commons: first, one which would guarantee the right to live and work in the UK to all EU citizens currently residing here, and a second which would legally bind a vote for parliament on the final deal. Both of the amendments are garnering cross-party support and May's team have been told to expect a final vote on the bill on March 13th, with Article 50 set to be triggered on March 15th.

The Telegraph reported this weekend that Theresa May is next month expected to announce that freedom of movement for new EU migrants will end once we leave the bloc at the same time as Article 50 is invoked. It is likely that this will mean that the automatic right to remain for any EU citizens coming to the UK after A50 is triggered will not be guaranteed, and that when we officially exit the EU, a new migration policy will be in place. The Home Office is looking at options for a new regime, which might include a visa system and restricted access to welfare, but the specifics will be decided upon in conjunction with the A50 negotiations. The thinking behind the announcement is that it might avoid a rush of new migration before the door closes (or becomes harder to open, at least), but whether this will be the case remains to be seen. There are other concerns too, is our border force up to the job of actually policing any significant regime change? For us to retroactively alter the rights of anyone arriving after A50 is invoked will require us to have a comprehensive list of exactly who all those people are - something I'm not confident the Home Office is currently prepared for. Furthermore, what exactly do we plan to do with those that arrive here if their right to remain is not granted once outside the EU? Of course, at this stage we are still in negotiating tactics land, and the final outcome of these policies is anything but set in stone.

Finally, ourselves and Pearson financial consultants have recorded the first Last Week In Brexit podcast, a new weekly half-hour chat between three interlopers into this brave new world. The first should go live this week, so watch this space.

alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk

​@GMCC_Alex

On Wednesday night, MPs overwhelmingly backed Theresa May and the government to formally begin the Brexit process, approving The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill after around 40 hours of debate during which all nine proposals to amend it were rejected. Some of the amendments included a clause to guarantee the status of EU citizens currently living in Britain, one to specify that the triggering of A50 does not signal our exit from the EEA, and another clause that would retain our EU membership if parliament votes against the final deal. Having made it through the Commons with no alterations by 494 votes to 122, the bill now makes its way to the House of Lords, where things should prove more interesting.

The first reading of the bill in the Lords happened following the vote last Wednesday, and the Lords have already started tabling suggested amendments (running list here) which will be debated and voted upon on February 20th and 21st. Many of the amendments mirror those tabled in the Commons, asking for involvement of the devolved parliaments, continued EEA membership, guaranteed status of EU citizens and continued membership of European schemes such as Horizon 2020, Erasmus and Euratom.
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The bill is expected to have made its way through the Lords by 7th March, although if amendments are made it returns to the Commons where MPs will once again debate and vote on whether to keep them. This part of the process, known as “ping-pong” sees the bill repeatedly passed from Commons to Lords until an agreement on the final text is reached. This is the most likely stage for the bill to be held up, although peers will be very aware that being seen to frustrate the process could lead to dissenting cries from the public and the government. The Lib Dems in particular are still looking to achieve a promise of a referendum on the final deal, while the SNP and Plaid Cymru will be looking to protect their voice in the process. If the bill passes through to the 3rd reading by the Lords on March 7th, it will receive royal assent, if not the government’s Brexit timescale may start to look shaky. 

alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk

@GMCC_Alex

Last week, MPs voted in principal of the A50 bill 498 for, 114 against. Today, the bill goes to the committee stage in the House of Commons, where amendments (142 pages of which have been tabled) will be debated. Amendments are more likely to be put forward in the House of Lords stage of the process, which will then be ping-ponged back and forth between the Lords and the Commons. The Independent is reporting that 27 Tory MPs are preparing to work with the opposition parties to back key amendments. The one most likely to receive a decent backing will be the one to make the Parliamentary vote on the final deal more "meaningful", potentially halting the process if the deal is seen by MPs to be unsatisfactory. This stage will last until Wednesday, where a vote will be held to push the bill through to the next stage. Even if no amendments are passed, what happens in the Commons will affect what happens in the Lords.

We also had the Brexit White Paper released on Thursday, which was ambitious in its attempt to buy time and reveal nothing new of substance across 77 pages. The paper is essentially just an expanded version of May's "Plan for Britain" Speech with lots of added graphs and statistics. The paper at least demonstrates that the government has some grasp over the sheer number and complexity of the issues we may face. However, the government seems to be going out of its way to avoid properly discussing either the EEA or EFTA as part of the strategy. Use of the EFTA court is straight-up not mentioned in the dispute resolution mechanism section which is just bizarre. David Davis said soon after that membership of EFTA is not being considered because it leaves us within the reach of “European courts”. This is despite the fact that we can join EFTA essentially as a trade deal, which would expose us to no such thing (without doing this we must negotiate new trade deals with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein individually, as I understand it). Similarly, whilst many arguments can be made against EEA membership the fact remains that as a transitional platform it would render most of the issues raised in the paper moot for the foreseeable future. Yet the arguments for and against are simply not made, which is really just odd at this point. It also doesn’t square particularly with this bit:

Or this bit:

Why this phased implementation process should absolutely not incorporate the EEA of EFTA in any way, or why they are apparently not even being considered, I do not know. It makes no sense to start from scratch, and exploring these options would certainly be in our mutual interests, as the paper says itself. The paper also ends by reiterating the "No deal is better than a bad deal" line, which whilst understandably a negotiating tool does not feel compatible with the admissions of the previous 70-odd pages.

Finally, the legal case over Article 127 of the EEA agreement, and whether A50 can pull us out of the single market, was thrown out of the High Court in little over an hour on Friday. The case was thrown out for being "premature", which I don't really understand, but the group can now appeal and have suggested that "unless the Government gives business and the country the certainty it needs and deserves, it is highly likely we will be here again".

alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk

​@GMCC_Alex