BORIS JOHNSON has suffered a humiliating Brexit defeat as the House of Lords backed a Labour motion urging a delay to the dumping of EU state aid rules.
By LAURA O’CALLAGHAN | UPDATED: 12:35, Thu, Dec 3, 2020
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Peers backed the regret motion by 278 votes to 258 in a ballot in the upper chamber on Wednesday evening. The vote marks an embarrassing defeat for the Government over a move to ditch EU state aid rules in the absence of an agreed new post-Brexit subsidy regime for the UK.ADVERTISING
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The vote comes just four weeks from the end of the Brexit transition period.
Ministers had argued with the ending of the period, Brussels would no longer have any jurisdiction in the UK and so “makes no sense to leave these rules on our statute book”.
Fierce criticism in the Lords came about in response to a Government regulation, which would see the UK from January 1 follow World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules on subsidies and other international commitments agreed in free trade agreements, with the option to legislate for a home-grown system.
The rumblings came after a Lords watchdog raised concerns over the plan to revoke the EU’s rules on state aid.
The group said the planned move appeared to be a shift from the previous Government’s position which had sought continuity.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee also questioned the use of a ministerial order, known as a statutory instrument, to introduce the changes in policy on such important issues rather than primary legislation.
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In a statement, the Lords select committee said: “We take the view that this is neither a welcome nor acceptable use of secondary legislation.”
The vote comes amid intense post-Brexit trade talks between Michel Barnier and Lord Frost in London.
With just weeks to go until the Brexit transition period deadline, both sides are battling it out to secure a free trade deal.
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Labour frontbencher Lord Stevenson of Balmacara said the WTO rules the Government is seeking to usher in are “widely discredited”.
He said: “We have no sense of where the Government wants to take their policy on state aid other than it cannot be the same as it has been under the EU.
“Removing a well-understood policy framework that has been in place for half a century and replacing it with a reliance on WTO rules, which are widely discredited seems a perverse way of making policy, even if the Government need more time before deciding what to do.”
He went on to argue there was a “powerful case” for delaying No10’s planned move.
He added: “This pause for reflection is what this regret motion in my name would achieve.”
Labour’s Lord Liddle, a former Europe adviser to Tony Blair, insisted the WTO rules did not amount to a “credible state aid regime”.
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He summed up the Government’s rush to replace the EU’s regulations as a “typical Brexit act”.
Lord Liddle said: “It is a typical Brexit act taking a leap into the unknown without a clue of what actually you’re trying to achieve.”
But support for Mr. Johnson’s plan came from former Brexit Party MEP Baroness Fox of Buckley.
She called on the Government to “get rid of state aid rules as quickly as possible”.
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