European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Wednesday 13th December 2017
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberEuropean Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 View all European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 13 December 2017 - (13 Dec 2017)
19:00 - divided: - Ayes: 309 / Noes: 305 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:17 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 297 / Noes: 316 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:30 - divided: - Ayes: 294 / Noes: 315 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:42 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 292 / Noes: 311 - Question accordingly negatived.
21:00 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 292 / Noes: 314 - Question accordingly negatived.
21:14 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 291 / Noes: 315 - Question accordingly negatived.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 4—Arrangements for withdrawing from the EU—
“Notwithstanding any powers granted under this Act, no Minister of the Crown may agree to the arrangements for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union referred to in Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union until Royal Assent is granted to an Act of Parliament—
(a) authorising the Minister to agree to an exit day to be specified in the Act,
(b) authorising the Minister to agree to those arrangements that will apply after exit day, the arrangements to be specified in the Act.”
This new clause would ensure that a separate Act of Parliament would be required for Ministers to determine exit day and to set out the arrangements that will apply after exit day.
New clause 19—Publication of the Withdrawal Agreement—
“The powers for Ministers set out in section 9 shall not come into force unless and until a final withdrawal agreement made between the United Kingdom and the European Union has been published and copies placed in the Libraries of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.”
This new clause would ensure that the wide-ranging powers for Ministers to implement the withdrawal agreement set out in Clause 9 of the Bill cannot come into force until the withdrawal agreement has been published.
New clause 38—Status of Irish citizens in the United Kingdom—
“Before making any regulations under section 9, the Minister shall commit to making available to Irish citizens lawfully resident in the United Kingdom after exit day any status, rights and entitlements available to Irish citizens before exit day, inclusive of and in addition to their status, rights and entitlements as EU citizens.”
New clause 66—Parliamentary approval for the outcome of negotiations with the European Union—
“No exit day may be appointed under this Act until the terms of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, including leaving the EU without an agreement, have been approved by both Houses of Parliament.”
This new clause is intended to establish that Parliament has a meaningful vote on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.
New clause 68—Terms of withdrawal: approval by Parliament—
“(1) The Government shall not conclude any agreement on terms of withdrawal from the European Union, or on the UK’s future relationship with the European Union, until those terms have been approved by resolution in both Houses of Parliament.
(2) Approval by resolution of both Houses of Parliament must be sought no later than three months before exit day.”
This new clause would require the Government to seek Parliamentary approval for its exit agreement with the EU at least three months before exit day.
New clause 69—United Kingdom withdrawal from the EU—
“(1) Subsection (2) applies if either of the conditions in subsection (3) or (4) is met.
(2) The Prime Minister must seek an agreement with the EU on one or more of the following—
(a) extending the negotiations beyond the two-year period specified in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union; or
(b) agreeing that negotiations over the final terms of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU may take place during a negotiated transitional arrangement which broadly reflect current arrangements and which begins immediately after the Article 50 notice period expires and the EU treaties cease to apply to the UK; or
(c) any other course of action in relation to the negotiations (with the EU over the withdrawal of the United Kingdom) which has been approved in accordance with this section by a resolution of the House of Commons.
(3) The condition in this subsection is that no Article 50 withdrawal agreement has been reached between the United Kingdom and the EU by 31 October 2018.
(4) The condition in this subsection is that an Article 50 withdrawal agreement has been reached between the United Kingdom and the EU but the proposed terms of withdrawal have not been approved by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament by 28 February 2019.
(5) Nothing in this section may be amended by regulations made under any provision of this Act.”
The intention of this new clause, which could be amended only by primary legislation, is to specify the actions that should be taken if the Government does not secure a withdrawal agreement by 31 Oct 2018 or that Parliament does not approve a withdrawal agreement by 28 February 2019.
New clause 75—Implementing the withdrawal agreement (No. 2)—
“(1) No powers to make regulations under this Act may be used for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement.
(2) The Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament detailing how implementing the withdrawal agreement will be achieved through primary legislation.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1) and (2), “implementing the withdrawal agreement” may include any necessary provision for a transitional period after the exit day appointed for section 1 of this Act.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (1) and (2), “implementing the withdrawal agreement” must include any necessary provision to ensure that any citizens of any EU Member State who are lawfully resident in the UK on any day before exit day can continue to be lawfully resident after exit day on terms no less favorable than they currently enjoy.”
This new clause is intended to ensure that primary legislation is used to implement the withdrawal agreement, including maintaining EU citizens’ rights.
Amendment 7, in clause 9, page 6, line 45, at end insert
“, subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”
To require the final deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by Parliament.
Amendment 355, page 6, line 45, at end insert “, subject to—
(a) the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament, and
(b) an affirmative resolution passed by the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”
This amendment would require the final deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by both Parliament and by the devolved administrations.
Amendment 361, page 7, line 2, at end insert—
“( ) Regulations under this section may, notwithstanding sections 1 and 5(1), make provision to replicate, for such an implementation period as is provided for in the withdrawal agreement, any aspect of the operation of EU law in the United Kingdom.”
The amendment would make clear that aspects of EU membership, such as the automatic effect of EU law and enforcement and adjudication mechanisms, can be maintained for an implementation period if the Government agrees to do so as part of the withdrawal agreement.
Amendment 142, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(e) remove, reduce or otherwise amend the rights of any citizen of an EU Member State who was lawfully resident in the UK on any day before 30 March 2019.”
This amendment seeks to protect the existing rights of EU citizens living in the UK.
Amendment 47, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section unless the terms of the withdrawal agreement have been approved by both Houses of Parliament.”
Amendment 196, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a member of the European Union’s Political and Security Committee after exit day.”
Amendment 197, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a signatory to all agreements signed through the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.”
Amendment 198, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a member of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council.”
Amendment 199, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.”
Amendment 227, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the impact of the UK leaving the EU single market on the forecast to the UK’s public finances.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom exiting the EU single market on the UK public finances, before any regulations are made under section 9.
Amendment 228, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the impact of exiting the EU single market on levels of GDP growth.
(3B) Any assessment under subsection (3A) shall set out an assessment of the impact of exiting the EU single market on levels of GDP growth in—
(a) Scotland,
(b) Northern Ireland,
(c) England, and
(d) Wales.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom exiting the EU single market on the levels of GDP growth in the UK and in each part of the UK, before any regulations are made under section 9.
Amendment 229, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the impact of ending freedom of movement on the UK’s public finances.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom ending freedom of movement on the UK’s public finances, before any regulations are made under section 9.
Amendment 230, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the broadened responsibilities of the UK Treasury following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the broadened responsibilities of the UK Treasury following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, before any regulations are made under section 9.
Amendment 300, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until—
(a) the Government has laid before Parliament a strategy for maintaining those protections, safeguards, programmes for participation in nuclear research and development, and trading or other arrangements which will lapse as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from membership of, and participation in, the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and
(b) the strategy has been approved by both Houses of Parliament.”
This amendment would prevent the Government using any delegated powers under Clause 9 until it had secured Parliamentary approval for its proposals to replace any provisions that cease to apply as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from membership of Euratom.
Amendment 55, page 7, line 9, at end insert
“or until the withdrawal agreement has been published and legislation proposed in the 2017 Gracious Speech in relation to customs, trade, immigration, fisheries, agriculture, nuclear safeguards and international sanctions has been published.”
This amendment would ensure that powers to Ministers to make regulations implementing the withdrawal agreement cannot be exercised until such time as the withdrawal agreement has been published along with the publication of associated legislative proposals on customs, trade, immigration, fisheries, agriculture, nuclear safeguards and international sanctions.
Amendment 19, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) Regulations under this section will lapse two years after exit day.”
Although the power conferred by this clause lapses on exit day, there is no sunset clause for the statutory instruments provided under it. This would make all such statutory instruments lapse two years after exit day and require the Government to introduce primary legislation if it wanted to keep them in force.
Amendment 74, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has signed an agreement with the EU guaranteeing that the UK will remain a permanent member of the EU Single Market.”
Amendment 75, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has signed an agreement with the EU guaranteeing that the UK will remain a permanent member of the EU Customs Union.”
Amendment 116, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until such time as the terms of the withdrawal agreement have been approved by a Ratification Referendum, giving voters the options of supporting the terms of the withdrawal agreement, or remaining in the EU.”
This amendment seeks to ensure that Ministers cannot make and use secondary legislation for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement until such time as that agreement has been approved by a Ratification Referendum.
Amendment 143, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until such time as the Government has signed an agreement with the EU that maintains and guarantees the existing rights of EU citizens living in the UK, and UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU, as of 29 March 2019.”
This amendment seeks to protect the existing rights of both EU citizens living in the UK, and UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU.
Amendment 156, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section unless the requirement in section [Status of Irish citizens in the United Kingdom] has been satisfied.”
Amendment 224, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for the UK to retain access to the EU’s Emissions Trading System markets after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy to retain access to the EU’s Emissions Trading System markets after withdrawal.
Amendment 225, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for the UK’s continued participation in the North Seas Countries’ Offshore Grid Initiative after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for the UK to continue participation in the North Seas Countries’ Offshore Grid Initiative after withdrawal from the EU.”
Amendment 231, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has published a statement setting out a strategy for retaining access to the European Investment Bank.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for retaining access to the European Investment Bank.
Amendment 232, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has published a statement setting out a strategy for retaining membership of the European Investment Fund.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for retaining access to the European Investment Fund.
Amendment 238, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking the maintenance of UK membership of the European Food Safety Authority on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Food Safety Authority.
Amendment 241, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking the preservation of reciprocal healthcare agreements on existing terms as under social security coordination regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009 after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
(6) Any changes to regulations in subsection (5) shall only be made after—
(a) the House of Commons has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5),
(b) the Scottish Parliament has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5),
(c) the National Assembly of Wales has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5), and
(d) the Northern Ireland Assembly has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5).”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for seeking to ensure that reciprocal healthcare arrangements continue after the UK leaves the EU.
Amendment 242, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Medicines Agency on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Medicines Agency.
Amendment 243, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.
Amendment 244, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Chemicals Agency after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Chemicals Agency.
Amendment 245, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Single Sky Agreement on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Single Sky Agreement.
Amendment 246, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Government to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continues to be a member of the European Aviation Safety Agency after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 247, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to retain UK membership of the European Maritime Safety Agency on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continues to be a member of the European Maritime Safety Agency after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 248, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to retain UK membership of ERASMUS on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continued to be a member of the ERASMUS scheme after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 249, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain access for the UK to reciprocal roaming charge agreements on existing terms as under Regulation 2017/920, after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would seek to ensure that roaming charges do not come into effect after exit day for UK citizens in the EU and vice versa.
Amendment 250, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to retain UK membership of Creative Europe on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continued to be a member of Creative Europe after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 251, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has made a formal request to President of the European Council that the UK continues membership of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the UK to make a request to the President of the European Council for continued UK membership of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 252, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has published a strategy for reaching an agreement with the EU to enable the UK to have continued access to Passenger Name Records after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continued to have access to Passenger Name Records after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 253, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Schengen Information System after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Schengen Information System after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 254, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have continued access to the European Arrest Warrant.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the European Arrest Warrant after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 255, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROPOL.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROPOL after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 256, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROJUST.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROJUST after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 257, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the European Criminal Records Information system with the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the European Criminal Records Information system with the EU after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 258, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Prüm Council decisions relating to fingerprint and DNA exchange with the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Prüm Council decisions relating to fingerprint and DNA exchange with the EU, after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 259, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the False and Authentic Documents Online (“FADO”) internet-based image archiving system.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the False and Authentic Documents Online (“FADO”) internet-based image archiving system after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 260, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to participate in the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Cooperation between Customs Administrations of 1997 (“Naples II Convention”).”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to participate in the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Cooperation between Customs Administrations of 1997 (“Naples II Convention”), after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 261, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 262, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out a strategy for ensuring that lawyers registered to practise in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland shall not lose their right of audience at the European Court after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable British-registered lawyers to continue to appear before the Court of Justice of the European Union, after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 263, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out a strategy for ensuring that lawyers from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland shall not lose their status of legal profession privilege concerning communications with regard to proceedings before the European Court, after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to ensure that communications from British-registered lawyers with regard to proceedings before the European Court continue to be covered by legal profession privilege, after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 275, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before both Houses of Parliament an agreement with the Scottish Government for the freedom of movement of EU citizens in Scotland to continue after exit day.”
This amendment would facilitate the continuance of free movement in and out of Scotland after exit day.
Amendment 276, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out a strategy for continued participation by the United Kingdom in the common European Asylum System.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for continued participation by the United Kingdom in the common European Asylum System, after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 343, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for a food standards framework after withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for a food standards framework after withdrawal from the EU, before making any regulations implementing the withdrawal agreement.
Amendment 351, page 7, line 9, at end insert—
“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out plans that seek to secure continued clinical trials agreements as under EU Regulation 536/2014 after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”
This amendment would ensure harmonisation of clinical trials across the EU Member States will continue in the UK after the UK leaves the EU.
Clause 9 stand part.
New clause 7—Consultation—
“The Government shall follow the principles set out in the Cabinet Office Code of Practice in respect of public consultation in advance of regulations being made under powers granted by this Act.”
This new clause would commit Ministers to abiding by the existing Cabinet Office code of practice on consultations in respect of regulations to be made under the Bill.
New clause 12—Social, employment and environmental protection—
“Any rights, protections, liabilities, obligations, powers, remedies and procedures which exist immediately before exit day in the fields of—
(a) social and employment law, and
(b) environmental law
will not be amended through any regulations made to deal with deficiencies or withdrawal unless approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament or by Act of Parliament”
This new Clause would ensure that social, employment and environmental laws cannot be changed by the order-making powers delegated to Ministers without a vote in Parliament.
New clause 57—Citizens’ Jury on Brexit Negotiations—
“(1) A citizens’ jury shall be established to enable UK citizens to be consulted on the progress of negotiations between the UK and the EU on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, and the approach outlined in UK Government White Papers.
(2) The citizens’ jury shall in total be composed of exactly 1501 persons.
(3) Members of the citizens’ jury shall be randomly selected by means of eligibility from UK citizens on the current electoral register as registered on the date of this Act receiving Royal Assent, with allocation across the nine UK Government Regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland weighted by population, and a stratification plan, with the aim of securing a group of people who are broadly representative demographically of the UK electorate across characteristics including whether they voted Leave or Remain.
(4) The jury will be broken down into individual sittings for each of the nine UK Government Regions in England, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
(5) The sittings will be for no more than 72 hours at a time, facilitated by independent facilitators, and if required, by electing fore-people from within their number.
(6) Membership of the jury will be subject to the same regulations and exceptions as a regular jury, but membership can be declined without penalty.
(7) The citizens’ jury will be able to require Ministerial and official representatives of the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations to give testimony to them to inform their work, and to have the power to invite other witnesses to give evidence as required.
(8) The citizens’ jury shall publish reports setting out their conclusions on the negotiations and UK Government White Papers.
(9) The first report from the citizens’ jury shall be published within two months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, and subsequent reports shall be published at intervals of no more than two months.
(10) Costs incurred by the citizens’ jury shall be met by the Exchequer.”
Clause 16 stand part.
Amendment 226, in schedule 7, page 39, line 29, at end insert—
“(g) makes changes to the application of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive in the UK.”
This amendment would make any changes to the application of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive in the UK subject to approval by resolution of each House of Parliament.
Amendment 235, page 39, line 29, at end insert—
“(g) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning the rights of workers in the UK.”
This amendment would require that the rights of workers currently afforded by EU law that are being transposed into UK law can be changed only through affirmative procedure.
Amendment 236, page 39, line 29, at end insert—
“(g) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning rights for disabled people in the UK.”
This amendment would require that the rights of disabled people currently afforded by EU law that are being transposed into UK law can be changed only through affirmative procedure.
Amendment 237, page 39, line 29, at end insert—
“(g) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning annual leave rights,
(h) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning agency worker rights,
(i) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning part-time worker rights,
(j) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning fixed-term worker rights,
(k) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning work-based health and safety obligations,
(l) makes changes to EU-derived legislation concerning state-guaranteed payments upon an employer’s insolvency,
(m) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning collective redundancy rights,
(n) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning terms and conditions of employment rights,
(o) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning posted worker rights,
(p) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning paternity, maternity and parental leave rights,
(q) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning protection of employment upon the transfer of a business, or
(r) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning anti-discrimination.”
This amendment would list areas regarding workers’ rights where changes to EU-derived law could be made only through affirmative procedure.
Amendment 293, page 39, line 33, at end insert—
“(3A) Regulations appointing any exit day may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
This amendment would require regulations appointing an exit day to be subject to the affirmative procedure.
Amendment 328, page 39, line 42, leave out sub-paragraphs (6) and (7).
This amendment, and Amendments 329 and 331, would remove provisions in the Bill that prescribe scrutiny procedures for the National Assembly for Wales. These amendments, coupled with Amendment 330, would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.
Amendment 329, page 41, line 15, leave out sub-paragraphs (10) and (11).
This amendment, and Amendments 328 and 331, would remove provisions in the Bill that prescribe scrutiny procedures for the National Assembly for Wales. These amendments, coupled with Amendment 330, would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.
Amendment 155, page 42, line 17, at end insert—
“(3A) A Minister cannot make a declaration under sub-paragraph (2) unless they have satisfied themselves that they have sufficiently consulted—
(a) relevant public authorities,
(b) businesses,
(c) people, and
(d) other organisations
who are likely to be affected by the instrument.”
This amendment would require that, when using the urgent cases provision in the Bill, the Minister must first consult with businesses and other relevant organisations.
Amendment 154, page 42, line 31, at end insert—
“(7) For the purposes of this paragraph “urgent” has the same meaning as “emergency” in Section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.”
This amendment would limit the circumstances in which Ministers can use procedures for urgent cases to circumstances in which there is a serious threat of damage to human welfare, the environment or the security of the United Kingdom.
Amendment 51, page 43, line 26, leave out paragraph 6
This amendment is linked to New Clause 3 to require the Government to implement the withdrawal agreement through separate primary and secondary legislation rather than through this Bill.
Amendment 294, page 44, line 37, after “section 17(5)” insert “, other than regulations to appoint an exit day,”
Consequential to amendment 293.
Amendment 295, page 45, line 5, after “section 17(5)” insert “, other than regulations to appoint an exit day,”
Consequential to amendment 293.
Amendment 344, page 45, line 11, at end insert—
The intention of this amendment is that tertiary legislation under the Act should be subject to the same parliamentary control and time-limits as are applicable to secondary legislation.
Amendment 58, page 45, line 23, leave out “urgency” and insert “emergency”
This amendment would remove the wider latitude currently allowing Ministers to make regulations without Parliamentary approval “by reason of urgency” and instead only allow such executive action “by reason of emergency”. An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to human health, life, property, or environment.
Amendment 330, page 45, line 40, at end insert—
“Scrutiny of regulations made by Welsh Ministers
11A (1) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this Act of the Welsh Ministers must be made in accordance with the procedures from time to time set out in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly for Wales for the scrutiny of regulations under this Act.
(2) Sub-paragraph (1) applies to statutory instruments made by the Welsh Ministers acting alone and to statutory instruments made by the Welsh Ministers acting jointly with a Minister of the Crown.
(3) The Standing Orders of the National Assembly for Wales may set out different procedures for the making of different statutory instruments or for different categories of statutory instruments under this Act and, for the avoidance of doubt, may empower the Assembly or a committee of the Assembly to decide which of those procedures is to apply to an instrument or category of instruments.
(4) For the purposes of section 11A of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, and any other provisions of that Act referred to in that section, the provisions set out from time to time in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly for Wales for the scrutiny of regulations under this Act shall be deemed to be provisions of an Act.”
This amendment would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.
Amendment 301, page 46, line 18, at end insert—
“12A Any power to make regulations under this Act may not be exercised by a Minister of the Crown until 14 days after the Minister has circulated a draft of the regulations to the citizens’ jury appointed under section [Citizens’ jury on Brexit negotiations].”
The intention of this amendment is to provide for a citizens’ jury to be consulted before regulations are made under this Act.
Amendment 223, page 46, line 29, at end insert—
“14A Any power to make regulations in this Act relating to the oil and gas sector may not be made without—
(a) consultation, and
(b) an impact assessment, a copy of which must be laid before Parliament.”
This amendment would require consultation and an impact assessment before legislation affecting the relating to the oil and gas sector is changed by regulations made under the Act.
Amendment 331, page 48, line 14, leave out sub-paragraph (4).
This amendment, and Amendments 328 and 329, would remove provisions in the Bill that prescribe scrutiny procedures for the National Assembly for Wales. These amendments, coupled with Amendment 330, would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.
That schedule 7 be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.
Amendment 29, in clause 17, page 13, line 34, leave out subsections (1) to (3)
This amendment would remove a widely drawn delegated power, which covers anything that happens as a consequence of the Act.
Amendment 99, page 14, line 13, at end insert—
“(8) Regulations under this section may not limit the scope or weaken standards of environmental protection.”
This amendment ensures that the power to make regulations in Clause 17 may not be exercised to reduce environmental protection.
Amendment 100, page 14, line 13, at end insert—
“(8) No regulations may be made under this section after the end of the period of two years beginning with exit day.”
This amendment imposes the same restriction on the regulation making powers under Clause 17 as applies to other regulation powers in the Bill.
Amendment 296, page 14, line 13, at end insert—
“(8) No regulations may be made under this section after the end of the period of two years beginning with exit day.
(9) Regulations made under this section may not amend or repeal retained EU law.”
This amendment would place restrictions on the power to make consequential and transitional provision.
Clause 17 stand part.
Yvette Cooper
I rise to speak to new clause 3, which has cross-party support, but also amendment 7, which does something similar to my new clause, albeit, I confess, in a rather more elegant way. I defer to the drafting powers of the former Attorney General in drafting his amendment.
This, on day seven in Committee, is really where we get to the crunch on this Bill. There are two big anxieties about the content of the Bill that finally come clashing together in clause 9. The first is the sweeping use of secondary legislation through Henry VIII powers, which, regardless of one’s views on the overall legislation, have caused some unease in all parts of the House because of the way in which they concentrate power in the hands of the Executive and cut deep into our historic role in Parliament to hold the Executive to account. The second anxiety is about getting the final Brexit deal right and about making sure that Parliament has a real, meaningful say on the deal, which will define our country for generations, and that we decide together what “taking back control” should mean.
Clause 9 is where those two anxieties come crashing together, because it allows a huge concentration of power in the hands of the Executive, and it does so over the final withdrawal agreement on the outcome of Brexit. Notwithstanding the commitments that the Prime Minister has made today and the written statement that we have seen, the reality is that clause 9 would allow Ministers to start to implement a withdrawal agreement entirely through secondary legislation and to do so even before Parliament has endorsed the withdrawal agreement.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Many of us hear what the right hon. Lady says about the Henry VIII clauses and the power grab, but does she not accept that the quid pro quo of that is that, while many in this House were quite happy for the EU to conduct a power grab, they seem less trusting of their own Government when it comes to these clauses?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about parliamentary sovereignty, which was indeed a key issue that was debated in the referendum. In fact, many people argued in the referendum that what they were doing was bringing sovereignty back here, from having shared sovereignty with the EU. I do not think we are arguing that sovereignty should be handed over in a concentrated way to a small group of Ministers instead. That is the responsibility on us. We know that of course there are times when Parliament needs to give Ministers power on our behalf to use through secondary legislation, but we should do so cautiously and sensibly and make sure that the right safeguards are in place. That is the problem with the Henry VIII powers in this Bill, and not just in clause 9 but in clause 7. The challenge, too, is that we are being asked to do that on an issue that will define our country for generations. Each and every one of us will be judged on what we did in this place to get that Brexit deal right.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is most welcome that, since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) tabled his amendment 7, it has been agreed that there does need to be an Act of Parliament? Is not the weakness of clause 9 that there is still no trigger requiring the consent of Parliament to the withdrawal agreement before the regulations can be laid and used?
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is exactly right, and that is why we have a cross-party interest in these issues. Not only is there no trigger on the face of the Bill—clause 9 will still allow Ministers this huge concentrated power to go ahead and implement the withdrawal agreement without Parliament’s agreement—but there is also a second difference, certainly for me in what Ministers have set out so far, about how a meaningful vote should take place. I want to come on to that as well.
New clause 3 says that Parliament will not yet give the Government permission to use secondary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, and that instead the Government must set out their plans for primary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement. If secondary legislation is needed at that time, as part of the implementation process, those powers should be taken in the withdrawal agreement Bill—the second Bill—so that Parliament is not just handing over a blank cheque, but is deciding what powers are needed and making sure that the proper scrutiny and checks and balances are in place at that time.
I do not think this is really a controversial proposal. It is basically saying that Parliament should hand over no more power to the Executive than it needs to and should not hand over power to the Executive until it needs to and until it knows what is going on. New clause 3 also has the effect of requiring a meaningful vote in primary legislation on the withdrawal agreement before it can be implemented. That is not really a controversial proposal either. It simply says that we should have a proper vote on the most important thing to pass through Parliament in a generation—and a meaningful vote in primary legislation, as is fitting for something so important—and that we should do so before and not after we give Government the powers to start implementing it.
Amendment 7, which was tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), has broadly the same effect. Rather than removing the powers from clause 9, it simply says that they cannot be used until a statute or primary legislation has been passed supporting the withdrawal agreement. Again, that means that Parliament does not blindly hand over powers to the Executive in a trusting way without knowing what the consequences will be or what the agreement looks like.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
The whole point of this Bill is that it is taking back power to this country and this Parliament, so that we can decide for ourselves what will happen. All the significant powers in the Bill are subject to the affirmative resolution and those that are not will now be subject to a sifting committee. We are recovering from a situation where, as members of the European Union, we had handed over all these decisions, lock, stock and barrel, to the European Union, so the Bill is a massive improvement, and to dress up this attempt to reverse Brexit as an argument in favour of parliamentary sovereignty is nothing but cant.
Yvette Cooper
Oh my, what Stalinism is this?—that any attempt to disagree with the way in which this Bill is drawn up is somehow a betrayal of Brexit! What rubbish! How insecure are Members who object to any changes in the Bill, if they cannot see that it is Parliament’s job—a job that they argued for when they stood up and tried to defend parliamentary sovereignty—to take some responsibility by scrutinising legislation and proposing amendments to it? That is all we are doing now. We are putting forward an amendment to the way in which the Brexit process—the withdrawal process—should take place. The idea that this somehow undermines the referendum decision is just a load of rubbish and the hon. Gentleman well knows it, and if he had any better arguments, he would put them, rather than using something that is so ridiculous.
Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
The argument that we have heard from the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is really quite ludicrous. They opposed what they described as a power grab by Brussels—by the European Union—while we were members of the European Union. They now seem to be advocating a power grab by the Executive, although they said that they wanted to take back control for the legislature of this country. If taking back control does not mean taking back control for the legislature, why on earth did we have the referendum in the first place?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is exactly right. Let me say to the Conservative Members who seem to be suddenly so keen to give away powers from Parliament to the Executive, that part of our historic tradition has always been our objection to concentrations of power, and indeed our relationship with the EU was a sharing of power rather than a concentration of power. I realise that people objected to that, and this debate is not a rerun of the referendum; it is about how we implement the referendum result. However, it is also—or should be—about Parliament having the confidence to say, “We do not believe in concentrations of power, and we think that each and every one of us has a responsibility to do what we, as elected parliamentarians, think is right, and get the best Brexit deal for the country.”
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
The power that the Executive will have in making regulations under the clause will be subject to Parliament, because secondary legislation comes to Parliament. These regulations are of a different order of magnitude from regulations made by the European Union, which can be made by qualified majority vote against the will of the British Government and are automatically British law. So this is, in fact, restoring parliamentary oversight to the making of laws.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Gentleman has himself been a strong advocate of the responsibilities and powers of Parliament, but it does not take long for him to become completely lost down a sidetrack and start talking about what our relationship with the EU has been for very many years. The point is that this process is about how that relationship will change. We know that it is due to change as a result of the referendum and the article 50 negotiations, but the responsibility for all of us is to determine how it should change. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do, and as well as every other Member in the House, that the giving of powers in secondary legislation concentrates powers in the hands of Ministers, and does not receive the same scrutiny. Furthermore, this is not just about the concentration of power through clause 9; it is also about the process through which the Government want to make the decisions on the withdrawal agreement in order to trigger clause 9.
Anna Soubry
I assume that the right hon. Lady has read clause 9. Does she share my concern about the fact that some people seem not to have done so? Am I right to conclude that the clause means that the Government negotiate a withdrawal agreement—arguably one of the most important things that have happened for decades—which will not come to us here, but will be implemented by Ministers? As the Bill stands, that is it: apparently there will be no further involvement of this sovereign Parliament.
Yvette Cooper
I do agree, and I think that goes to the heart of our concern.
It ought to be possible for the Government to agree to my new clause 3, or to amendment 7. Let us think about the points that they have already made. First, they have recognised that there is a problem if too much power is concentrated in the hands of the Executive. They said so yesterday during the debate on clause 7, and I think that they recognise the importance of safeguards on the use of Executive powers. Secondly, they have said that there will be a meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement. I welcome that, but I think there is still a difference between us on what counts as a meaningful vote. Thirdly, they have said that there will now be primary legislation on the withdrawal agreement, and I welcome that as well. If we put all those three things together in the right way—the commitment to primary legislation, the commitment to a proper vote and say for Parliament, and concern about the concentration of powers—we get amendment 7 or new clause 3. It is the same thing.
Sir Oliver Heald
Following the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), may I ask whether the right hon. Lady agrees that the statutory instruments that we are discussing relate to matters of constitutional significance—matters of the sort that we normally only debate on the Floor of the House? It would be wrong for those matters to be dealt with in Committee when the House has not necessarily even agreed to the withdrawal agreement.
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. This is not the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, which was all about minor and detailed changes and consolidating legislation through secondary legislation—or that, at least, was its intention. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, this is about hugely constitutionally significant legislation and changes that will affect the course of events in this country for generations.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The right hon. Lady mentioned the different definitions of a “meaningful vote”. Does she agree that a vote that took place at a point at which, for instance, Parliament could not say to the Government, “What you have negotiated is not acceptable” would not constitute a meaningful vote?
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. The timing of the vote matters, but so does its constitutional status. That is why I think it immensely important for this to be a statutory vote.
Let me explain why the Government’s words and the Prime Minister’s words—in the written ministerial statement, in various letters and so on—are not enough, and why we need to vote on either amendment 7 or my new clause 3. First, the Government’s unwillingness to put their promises on the face of the Bill is a problem. Parliament needs commitments in legislation before we can give the Executive such strong powers—such constitutional powers—and we need that commitment on the face of the Bill before and not after we do so. Secondly, there is still a difference between us on what counts as a meaningful vote. Without either new clause 3 or amendment 7, it would still be possible for Ministers to offer only a vote on a motion on the withdrawal agreement, and that indeed is the Prime Minister’s intention. The written ministerial statement published this morning says:
“This vote will take the form of a resolution in both Houses of Parliament and will cover both the Withdrawal Agreement and the terms for our future relationship.”
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
Does the right hon. Lady share my concern about the fact that the vote on the motion of both Houses will come after the ratification of the treaty, and the fact that this House has no power or ability to change treaty terms under the ratification, which renders any vote on the motion meaningless?
Yvette Cooper
I think the hon. Lady is right. The Minister will be able to clarify this later, but I think it is a key point that the vote on the primary legislation— on the implementation of the Bill—will not happen until after the treaty has been ratified. I think that there is still some confusion about whether the vote on a motion, or a resolution, will happen before or after the ratification of the treaty, but the main point I want to make about the weakness of trying to do this simply through a resolution is that it is the primary legislation that counts, and it is clear from what the Minister has said, and what has been said in the written ministerial statement, that the primary legislation vote, the statutory vote, will not happen until after the ratification and the whole legal process have been completed.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Dominic Raab)
The written ministerial statement makes it very clear that the meaningful vote will come after the negotiations have been concluded, but before ratification. That is precisely why it was published today.
Yvette Cooper
I think that there is a big difference between us on the word “meaningful”. I shall be happy to give way to the Minister again, but I think that he should clarify the position, and confirm that the only vote that we will have before the ratification of the treaty is a vote on a motion.
We are talking about a “take it or leave it” deal, and about a “take it or leave it” vote on the completed deal. That is the only thing that is there, even in the written ministerial statement; and there is no guarantee in the legislation, by the way. The Minister is not proposing to put that on the face of the Bill. Even if we take the written ministerial statement in good faith, and even if we rip up our commitment to putting things on the face of the Bill, all that the Minister has given us is the possibility of a vote on a motion, not a vote on primary legislation before the ratification of the treaty.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I would not take any consolation from what the Minister has said. The formal process of ratification of a treaty, under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, is that the treaty is laid before the House by a Minister, and if the House has not annulled it within 21 days, it goes ahead. However, we can only have a vote on annulment if the Government allow it, and in recent years they have regularly chosen not to do so. It is perfectly possible, consistent with what the Minister has just said, that the only vote we would have—and this may be what he means by a meaningful vote—is the vote on annulment, which is a “take it or leave it”, completely meaningless vote.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that goes to the heart of this: in the end, the power is still concentrated in the Executive’s hands, whether it is the power to give us a vote on the treaty at all or the power over the timing of any of these votes. That is all still in the Government’s hands, with no reassurances in the Bill, and then there is still only this proposal simply to have a vote on a motion, not a vote on statute with all the scrutiny that brings.
Several hon. Members rose—
Yvette Cooper
I am conscious of time; I will give way again, but many Members want to speak in this important debate.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Has my right hon. Friend given any thought to the consequences of the possibility, under the Government’s proposed procedure, of this House voting in favour but the other place voting against the motion?
Yvette Cooper
That is clearly a possibility, but I think we should trust in the maturity of Parliament. It is possible for people to vote in different ways, but we have long-standing processes between our two Houses for resolving differences and debating them. My problem is that we are not actually being given the opportunity to have those proper meaningful votes through legislation, and instead we just have these motions, which have no constitutional status.
Anna Soubry
Can the right hon. Lady confirm that it is Government policy that this place will be given, to use their expression, a meaningful vote? For example, as the talks progress, some hon. Members might say, “Well, hang on a moment; my pharmaceutical industry is being excluded from this arrangement on trade under this particular head of agreement.” That is an example of doing something “meaningful”—the ability of those of us in this place, acting on behalf of our constituents, to change some of the drift of the negotiations, to get a deal that suits everybody in our country.
Yvette Cooper
I agree: it is hugely important that this vote has the proper status in Parliament, as well as our being able to debate the detail.
Chris Bryant
The point about a potential difference between the House of Lords and the House of Commons again makes me concerned that the Government are toying with only allowing a vote on an annulment motion, presumably tabled by the Opposition rather than the Government, on the original treaty, because then they would have sanction under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which determines what happens if there is a difference between the Lords and the Commons. So, again, I spy a rat.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right, and that again shows the importance of having these commitments in the Bill, so that there can be no doubt and no possibility of the Government using clause 9 to start implementing an agreement on which there has been no meaningful vote.
Mr Jenkin
Can the right hon. Lady explain how the timing will work? If there is to be legislation to approve a withdrawal agreement before March 2019, what happens if the agreement is reached too late to allow that legislation to go through all its stages—[Interruption]—or is this a plan to delay the Brexit date?
Yvette Cooper
I thought part of the way through the hon. Gentleman’s intervention that he was finally coming up with a sensible point. I have no control over the timing of the Government’s negotiations; I hope that they and the EU will get on with this quickly, because in particular we need the transitional agreement pinned down as early as possible, as businesses need certainty—and they need that as much in my constituency as in the hon. Gentleman’s. So I hugely hope there will be plenty of time for all these debates to take place. In the event that, against the Government’s will—they have said they do not want this—it ends up being a late deal, Parliament should have the opportunity to ask the Government to extend article 50 for a couple of months, to be able to implement it properly. In fact, the Government will have to do that anyway, because they will not be able to bring clause 9 powers through fast enough not to have to do so.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Is it not far more likely that the Government will have to do that long before then, because everyone, including the Brexit Secretary, recognises that it is simply not possible to get everything agreed within the next year, plus a few months?
Yvette Cooper
That may be the case. It is clearly not what the Government want, and many of us want the certainty early on. Either way, in the end, however, the timing of the article 50 process will be determined by the Government and the EU states together, but Parliament should be able to put its view to the Government, and Parliament so far in this process will be given no choice in that and no opportunity to have its say.
There is another problem with doing this through a resolution. It is not a fit and proper way to decide something so constitutional to simply do it through a resolution or motion of this House, especially when the Government have shown, in their attitude to Opposition day motions and to resolutions they have lost, that they do not give those sorts of motions and resolutions much status and significance at all, and they do not have constitutional or legal status.
It is only fitting, therefore, for us in this Parliament to say that we should do this through statute, but that is also the most important way to make sure the vote is meaningful. As several Members have said, a motion being put to Parliament that, as the Brexit Secretary has suggested, basically says, “Vote for this deal, whatever it is, or leave with no deal at all,” in the end is not a meaningful vote for Parliament. If Parliament is being given the choice of endorsing the deal the Government have come up with, whatever it is, or alternatively saying in effect that we want no transitional agreement, no security co-operation—nothing at all—and we want to just go straight off the edge of a cliff, that in the end is not proper scrutiny and not a proper meaningful vote. It also provides no incentive for Ministers to have to make sure that what they negotiate can get support in Parliament.
At present, the Government have more incentive to come up with a deal that will get the support of the European Parliament than the support of this place. That is not on; that is not acceptable. It is unacceptable that they have more incentive to focus on the interests of the European Parliament than they have to focus on the interests of, and the potential to build consensus in, this Parliament. That is why we need a vote on statute; that is why we need a statutory vote; and that is why we need either amendment 7 or new clause 3, to have a meaningful vote before, not after, the treaty is ratified.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
The right hon. Lady talked about a delay of perhaps a couple of months, but if the treaty is not right in the eyes of this Parliament, a couple of months could turn into a couple years, and, indeed, some people would like it to be a couple of decades. Therefore, she talks about a meaningful vote, but what about the meaningful vote of the people of this country, who voted last June to leave the European Union? We need to get this done as quickly as possible, to deliver what the British people voted for.
Yvette Cooper
We had a referendum on whether or not Britain should leave the EU. That referendum has taken place; that decision has taken place; and Parliament has respected that decision. Despite how individual Members might have voted in that referendum, or on which side we might have campaigned, as a whole Parliament has respected that referendum result. The referendum did not decide how we leave the EU, however, or what the Brexit deal or transitional agreement should be. That is the responsibility now for the Government in negotiations, but also for this Parliament.
I point out to Members who claim that somehow we cannot have a parliamentary debate on this because it is an internationally negotiated deal—because, somehow, it is a done deal—that Parliament must be able to have a say in this process and we should trust Parliament to be mature and responsible. A lot of Conservative Members said that if we let Parliament vote on article 50, the sky would fall in because it would somehow stop the Brexit process, rip up the referendum result and get in the way of democracy. But actually, the Members of this Parliament know that we have a responsibility towards democracy. We have a mature responsibility to our constituents to defend the very principles of democracy. That is exactly why many of us, including me, voted for article 50, to respect the referendum result, but we do not believe that we should then concentrate powers in the hands of Ministers to enable them do whatever they like. We have a responsibility to defend democracy and those democratic principles. It is our responsibility as Members of Parliament to have our say and to ensure that we get the best deal for the country, rather than just give our power to Ministers.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
The right hon. Lady might agree with me that what causes more consternation overseas among those observing what is going on are the signs that we as a Parliament and as a Government seem from time to time to completely lose our marbles and get involved in polemical arguments that are far removed from the actual matters that we are supposed to be discussing.
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is exactly right, and I will defer to him to set out his amendment and describe its impact. The idea that we should make a confidence issue out of every single adjustment to the Brexit process or to the withdrawal Bill is just nonsense.
If we have a Bill before Parliament, it has to be possible for Members of Parliament to table amendments to it and to vote on them. In a hung Parliament, that is even more the case. The Prime Minister asked for a mandate to do all this her own way, but she did not get it. She got a hung Parliament. That puts even more responsibility on us all to work together to find something that will build consensus across Parliament and across the country. In a hung Parliament, the Government sometimes lose votes because Parliament has to do its job to build the right kind of consensus and to get the right kind of outcome.
In the end, this is all about Parliament and democracy. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to our constituents not to hand over, share or give up our authority and our sovereignty, but to exercise our responsibility to get the very best deal. For centuries, Members of Parliament have fought tooth and nail to defend democracy and the powers of Parliament against Executive power. We cannot be the generation that just rips that up and hands over all the power to the Executive. We have a responsibility—now more than ever, given the gravity of the decisions before us—to use that power responsibly and to try to build consensus. To be honest, if the Government cannot build a broader consensus in Parliament, there is no chance of their building a broader consensus in the country, and if they cannot do that, we will end up with everybody rowing over the Brexit deal for a generation to come. For the sake of all of us who want to get back to discussing our schools, our hospitals and all the other issues that face our Parliament, I urge Ministers to accept either amendment 7 or new clause 3, and to start trying to build a consensus that can get us a sustainable Brexit deal.
Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
I rise to support new clause 3 and amendment 7. As mine is the second name attached to amendment 7, which was tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who is mainly responsible for it, I also incline to the view that it is slightly the better drafted, but I will support either proposal if one or both are put to the vote.
I might well succeed in being reasonably brief, because I agreed with every word of the speech made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and I will not repeat what she said. A welcome note of cross-party consensus exists across a large part of the House, and it represents the cross-party consensus that is in favour of what is lazily called a soft Brexit and of having the best possible close relationship with the European Union after we leave.
The main issue in this debate seems to turn on what we mean by a “meaningful vote”, which relates to our discussion on the role of parliamentary sovereignty in a situation of this kind. I accept that today the Prime Minister—not for the first time—promised us a meaningful vote, but she later went on to qualify that slightly by talking about the need for statutory instruments to be brought forward during the period of the Bill, within the extraordinary powers that the Bill gives Ministers to enact, by regulation, even changes to British statute law. We have to be clear what a meaningful vote is, and the key is the timing. It is quite obvious that if the British Government are to be responsible to the British Parliament, the vote must take place before the Government have committed themselves to the terms of the treaty-like agreement that is entered into with the other member states. Any other vote will not be meaningful.
Mr Clarke
I will give way in just a second, but let me finish this point.
That means that a meaningful vote cannot take place until a detailed agreement has been arrived at about certainly the precise nature of our trading and economic relationships with the single market of the European Union, and actually quite a lot else besides, because we still have to embark on the security discussions, the policing discussions and the discussions about which agencies we are going to remain in and which agency rules we are going to comply with. This is, we all agree, a huge and complex agreement, and it is going to determine this country’s relationships with the rest of the continent of Europe and the wider world for generations to come. Can that happen before March 2019?
We face the genuine difficulty that it is quite obvious that we will not be remotely near to reaching that agreement by March 2019, and we have to think through what that actually means. The negotiators have been very optimistic in saying that they will have first a transition deal and then a deal by 2019. I am sure that they will try, but they have not a chance. I think that what they are actually saying—certainly the continental negotiators—is that they might be able to have some heads of agreement on the eventual destination by March 2019, which we can all carefully consider. They will certainly have to agree a transition deal of at least two years within which the rest of the process will have to be completed.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that everybody wants things to be speedy, because one of things that this country is suffering from most at the moment is the appalling uncertainty caused by the fact that we have taken a ridiculous length of time to reach three obvious conclusions on the three preliminary points that had to be determined as the basis of our withdrawal. At the moment, however, we do not quite know what the British Government are going to be seeking as their end goal in the negotiations that are about to start, because the British Government, within the Cabinet, have not yet been able to agree exactly what they are seeking.
If I may say this to my desperately paranoid Eurosceptic friends, it is not as if I am somehow trying in some surreptitious remainer way to put a spoke in the wheels of the fast progress of the United Kingdom towards our destination. The Government do not know what leave means. Nobody discussed what leave meant when we were having the referendum. Our overriding duty is not just to our political allegiances and so on; it is to provide this country with a good, responsible Government who face up to the problems of the real world and, accountable to Parliament, can produce the best new order that they can for the benefit of future generations.
Mr Lammy
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is demonstrating why he is Father of the House, so I hesitate to interrupt him, but on his point about having a meaningful vote prior to the Prime Minister of the day making the deal, does he agree, with his wealth of experience, that if we are to keep the country together, it is important that that Prime Minister has in the back of her head when trying to pull off that agreement, “I have to get this through my Parliament”?
Mr Clarke
The right hon. Gentleman makes one of the points that I was going to make. The most important effect of passing either new clause 3 or amendment 7 —there is actually more to this than a meaningful vote, if we consider the various stages—and achieving proper parliamentary accountability is that that would affect the tenor of the negotiations. Like every other Head of Government in the European Union, our Prime Minister would need to have at the back of her mind, “Can I deliver to the House of Commons what I am thinking of conceding?” Every other political leader in Europe will do that, because they will have to sell what they sign up to to their own Parliaments. If we do not have a meaningful vote, we will be the only member state whose negotiators are not under a legally or constitutionally binding commitment to sell the deal, because they will be able to make the deal and then come back to the House of Commons and the House of Lords and say, “This is it. What do you think of it?”
Chuka Umunna
The Father of the House is absolutely right that the Bill essentially gives the Government a blank cheque. On timing, the only commitment I can see in today’s written ministerial statement from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union about what will happen before we leave the EU is that the proposed withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will be introduced before we leave. That is clearly unacceptable. Any piece of legislation seeking to do what that Bill has in mind must be passed before we leave the European Union, even if that means extending the process to maintain parliamentary sovereignty.
Mr Clarke
I agree entirely, and my next point is linked to that. The nature of the parliamentary approval cannot just be a motion; it must have statutory basis, which is the route that the Prime Minister has followed. There are various reasons for that, but the obvious one is the extremely uncertain status of resolutions of this House under current parliamentary practice. The Brexit Secretary is only the latest example of someone saying that anything that is not statutory is not legally enforceable, but just a “statement of intent”. The House of Commons keeps passing all kinds of motions with which I ferociously disagree, but they get carried by this House and make all kinds of criticisms of what the Government are doing. We have moved into a new era in which the Government are allowed to keep saying, “Parliament may pass motions, but they are worthless expressions of opinion. They are not part of our being accountable to the elected body of the House.”
Sir Oliver Heald
Of course the original plan was not to have a Bill, but to rely on statutory instruments under clause 9 to effect changes of constitutional significance. It was then made clear recently—I think on 17 November—that we will in fact have a Bill. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that to try to make such changes by secondary legislation just is not on? It is very unlikely that the courts would say that such constitutionally significant changes could be made under secondary legislation.
Mr Clarke
Again, I agree entirely, and that takes me back to something that has occurred all the way through this process. I am obviously standing here in disagreement with the Government, of whom I am critical in many respects, due to both the policy and how it has been conducted, but I have had some sympathy with them since the election, because they are trying to carry through this enormous, controversial and historic measure when they do not have a parliamentary majority, except when they can persuade the Democratic Unionist party to turn up and support them.
The process started with the extraordinary suggestion that the royal prerogative would be invoked, that treaty making was not going to involve Parliament at all, and that leaving did not require parliamentary consent. Rather astonishingly, that matter had to be taken to court, and it came to a fairly predictable conclusion. The next idea—I will not repeat what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) said—was that everything would be done by statutory instruments under broad powers. However, we are slowly getting to what I would have thought is the fundamental minimum that a real parliamentary democracy should be demanding: the country will not be able to enter into a binding treaty commitment until the details have received full parliamentary approval. How we get there is no doubt a matter of some difficulty, but it must be addressed.
Mr Clarke
I will give way in a second.
The debates on this Bill have typified this Government’s approach to parliamentary scrutiny. I understand their difficulties when they have no majority and their Members include people like me and those who are trying to interrupt me—we are allegedly on the same side of the House—who fundamentally disagree with each other.
I have attended every day of our debates on this Bill. We spent yesterday discussing parliamentary scrutiny, but our proceedings have not been a great advertisement for such scrutiny. The Government’s reaction to each and every proposal is to say how carefully they have listened, how important it is and how they will go away and think about it, but then to explain why the drafting of the Bill will not currently be amended. I am sure that I have done that myself when taking legislation through the House, and it is always a joy to find out that one can get away with it for quite a long time. After a bit, one gets used to the fact that one can get away with it as long as one is suitably polite and flattering to those who are proposing amendments. The actual reasons that have been given for rejecting proposals have been all about administrative convenience—that they are obscure drafting amendments. I congratulate the parliamentary draftsmen on creating arguments of such extraordinary minutiae to support the amazing aspirations of civil servants who see a mountain of work before them and hope that most of it can proceed with the minimum of political scrutiny.
What we have not heard, and I will have to hear it today, is the political argument against Parliament having a meaningful say. What is the constitutional argument that says Parliament should be denied a statute before the Government enter into all these commitments? I have not so far heard a word expressed to try to explain that to me. That should be the key, dominant thought in the Government’s mind as they negotiate. Of course they will have to think about what will satisfy the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary, and of course they will have to get something for which the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Sun will criticise them least, and so on, but I do not think Parliament is an afterthought to those vital considerations; I think it is the parliamentary process that matters. The rest is a problem for some press officer.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend said earlier that other Parliaments across Europe will have a say and we will not, but I posit that that is not true. This is about the withdrawal agreement, which will be agreed under qualified majority voting by the European Council, so it is not true that every Parliament across Europe will get a say on this subject.
Mr Clarke
Qualified majority voting is an excellent innovation achieved by the Thatcher Government when we were explaining to the other Europeans how they could have an effective free trade agreement. The number of times that British Governments have ever been outvoted under qualified majority voting is tiny. Qualified majority voting could be extremely important in these negotiations, because otherwise a Government of some small state—I will not name any, because they are all friendly—could suddenly decide they have some great lobby group at home that does not want to concede to the British something that the British Government have set out to achieve. The whole thing could then be held up.
The agreement will have to go to all the Parliaments. The Parliament of Wallonia will no doubt be allowed to have a say, which, if this Government have their way, this Parliament will not. The Parliament of Wallonia will be allowed to have a say, and I am not sure whether the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments will—that remains to be seen. European Governments will all have to take a view and defend that view to their own Parliament in each and every case.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
It is disorderly to say that an hon. Member is misleading the Committee. I suggest that the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) settles down and allows the Father of the House to continue.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
Qualified majority voting means that each Government cast a vote and, if we get a qualified majority, that is the effective decision. Each Minister who takes part in that vote is, of course, accountable to their own Parliament, to which they go home and defend their vote. If it is on a difficult, controversial subject, any sensible Minister—all those Ministers—will take the view of their Parliament before going to cast their vote on behalf of their country. It is utterly ludicrous to say that this Parliament should be denied a vote and not allowed a role because qualified majority voting somehow replaces it. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) says that what I say is untrue and, with great respect, I would say that his argument is an absurdity.
Mr Baron
I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s consistency on this issue. He is on public record as having once said that he looks forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament will be nothing more than a council chamber of the European Parliament.
When my right hon. and learned Friend says that leavers did not know what they were voting for, he risks sounding very condescending, because we knew exactly what we were voting for: to reclaim our laws and to reclaim our finances. Although one accepts his point that one cannot predict the future in any detail, that is as much true for the EU as it is for this country.
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend is not the sort who usually repeats the more scurrilous right-wing rubbish that fanatical Eurosceptics come up with about what I have and have not said in the past. I am not, and never have been, a federalist. I would not pursue a united states of Europe. It is social media stuff to start throwing in that kind of thing when we are in the middle of a serious parliamentary debate.
When the public were invited to vote in a referendum, they were invited to take back control, which was not defined. It was mainly about the borders and about the 70 million Turks and all the rest of it. They were told in the campaign that our trade with the European Union would not be affected in any way. Indeed, that is still being held out as a prospect by the Brexit Secretary and others, who seem to believe that they will get unfettered trade without any of the obligations.
The discussions we have had in Committee on previous days about the details of what “single market” and “customs union” mean, and so on, would have been a mystery to anybody whose knowledge of the subject is confined to the arguments reported in the national media on both sides. Those arguments are largely rubbish, and it is now for this House to turn to the real world and decide in detail what we will do.
Anna Soubry
The Father of the House is right that there will be a qualified majority vote on the withdrawal agreement. That agreement will not go to each individual Parliament in the same way that the actual trade agreement will. Does he share the concerns of many people, as that now dawns upon them? They had thought that this place would have some sort of say on the trade deal—the actual final relationship that we will have with the European Union—but, actually, we will have no such say because the deal will not be finalised until after we have left the European Union. Does he agree that that is now concerning many citizens across the length and breadth of this land who did indeed apparently vote to take back control?
Mr Clarke
I agree entirely. My right hon. Friend eloquently underlines the point that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford raised and that I am trying to make. We must have a meaningful vote before the final trade deal—indeed, the whole deal—is agreed by the Government.
Let me try to lower the temperature by going back, as I rarely do, to reminisce for a moment.
Sir William Cash
My right hon. and learned Friend and, I believe, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), both concede that amendment 7, at this crucial moment, is defective and would not work for a variety of reasons. I have indulged what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) has said about scrutiny and responsibility and the rest, but does he agree that it is not appropriate to press such an amendment to a vote when, in fact, it would make a nonsense of itself? It would be a meaningless vote about a meaningful vote.
Mr Clarke
No doubt my hon. Friend will catch your eye, Dame Rosie, when he will be able to explain why he thinks the amendment is technically defective, but this is the kind of argument we have had against every proposition that has been put forward throughout the passage of the Bill. I heard the Prime Minister personally promise us a meaningful vote and then go on to explain how the Bill would have to be used to make statutory instruments; so we are talking about the very wide powers in the Bill being used probably even before the end of the article 50 period—I think that is what she said. This amendment would prevent that; it would prevent those powers from being used until a statute has been passed by this House confirming its approval and also giving legal effect to whatever final agreement has been arrived at. I bow to my hon. Friend’s legal skill—he was indeed in parliamentary law when he practised—but I cannot for the life of me see why this is defective.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Rosie, just as it is to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the Father of the House, who gave an informed and powerful speech that we would do well to take on board as we proceed in today’s debate.
I rise to speak to new clause 66 and amendments 30, 27 and 29, which stand in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I also intend to speak to amendment 28 and to the wider question of whether clause 9 should stand part of the Bill. In its policy impact, clause 9 is arguably the most important in the Bill and, taken together, clauses 9 and 17 give rise to a very wide range of interlocking issues. For the purposes of clarity, I intend to speak first to amendments 30, 27 and 28, which relate to the purpose, scope and limits of clause 9 and whether it should stand part of the Bill. I will then turn to amendment 29, which relates to the purpose, scope and limits of clause 17. I will finish by dealing with new clause 66 and the thorny issue of Parliament’s role in approving the final terms of the UK’s exit from the EU and any associated transitional arrangements that might be agreed.
I turn first to the purpose, scope and limits of clause 9. The Government have argued that the clause 9 power is necessary in order that they have sufficient flexibility to give effect to whatever is in the withdrawal agreement and to ensure that there are no holes in the statute book after exit day. The withdrawal agreement, it should be noted, is defined in clause 14 as an agreement, whether or not ratified, agreed with the EU under article 50, meaning that the powers in clause 9 could be used before a withdrawal agreement is ratified but not, as the clause makes clear, after exit day for the purposes of the Bill, because the power will expire at that point.
In the light of the Secretary of State’s announcement on 13 November that the Government intend to bring forward a withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill in order to give the agreement and any agreed transitional arrangements domestic legal effect, an announcement, it should be noted, that was confirmed in writing in the joint UK-EU report published last Friday, it is entirely unclear why the Government still require the powers provided for by clause 9.
Let me set out why we believe that to be the case. In that announcement on 13 November, the Secretary of State made it clear that the major policies set out in the withdrawal agreement, including those reached last week on citizens’ rights, Northern Ireland and the financial settlement, along with any agreement on transitional arrangements, would be implemented by means of the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill and not by secondary legislation provided for by the Bill before us. So barring some unforeseen delay in the concluding of a withdrawal agreement, if the Government are not to create significant legal uncertainty following our departure with regard to the major policies covered by such an agreement, the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will have to have come into force by 29 March 2019 at the latest. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) covered that point.
In legal terms, any transitional arrangements agreed to could not bridge a post-exit gap, because even if some elements of the withdrawal agreement come into effect at the end of any such period, an agreement on transition itself will have had to have been given legal effect in the UK by means of the very same primary legislation, namely the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill. As such, unless the Government are proposing to begin the process of implementing the withdrawal agreement and any agreed transitional arrangements immediately after the final terms of such an agreement are reached, but pre-ratification, by means of secondary legislation in this Bill—a point made earlier by the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald), who is not in his place—a course of action for which there is no justification, given that the phase 1 joint report published last week sets out in black and white the intention to provide a specified period to approve the agreement and transitional arrangements in accordance with our own constitutional procedures and to prepare the statute book in accordance with that agreement, there is simply no need for the powers provided for by clause 9, including the broad power under that clause to amend the Bill itself.
Mr Jenkin
I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but is it really that unreasonable that the Government might need to avail themselves of these powers in clause 9 while the withdrawal and implementation Bill is proceeding through the House of Commons? If the timetable is compressed, that Bill would not be on the statute book and the powers there would not be available. So clause 9 is necessary for that purpose. Of course the withdrawal and implementation Bill could circumscribe the powers in clause 9 and indeed close them off once that Bill is on the statute book.
Matthew Pennycook
The hon. Gentleman has pre-empted a point I was going to come to. In the scenario he gives, there is no need for the timetable necessarily to be compressed. If it were squeezed, what would that say about the role that Parliament will have on the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill? In his scenario, there would also be no need for the secondary legislation in this Bill, which could be included in a similar form in the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, when we would have a better idea about what it will be needed for and can more adequately circumscribe its scope. As for this idea that we have a withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill making its way through this House at the same time as secondary legislation implementing elements of that agreement hang over this place, such an approach would create serious confusion.
Anna Soubry
Has it come to the hon. Gentleman’s attention that, were the Bill passed without either amendment 7 or amendment 4 being made, and were there then a change of Government to one who believe in a hard Brexit, we could leave the European Union on absolutely no agreement, with no deal and no recourse whatever to this Parliament to have any say in that, because the Bill is completely silent about what would happen in the event of no deal?
Matthew Pennycook
The right hon. Lady makes a very important point. Although I concede that amendment 7 provides for an additional check because it requires primary legislation, our new clause 66 highlights an important point: we would wish to bind the Government so that Parliament would get a say even in the event of a no-deal scenario. I shall return to that point later.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is concerned about the potential for a compressed timetable and the consequences of what may flow from that, but is that not actually following from the will and vote of Parliament? Parliament passed into law article 50, which it agreed to by bringing the Lisbon treaty into law, so this is the natural consequence of what Parliament itself has determined.
Matthew Pennycook
The hon. Gentleman is right that the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 and the article 50 notification gave effect to their own timetable. That is why it is so important that we have transitional arrangements on current terms that allow us flexibility to negotiate the final deal. I will return to this point later, but there is no way that, before we leave in March 2019, we will have agreed the future relationship. We will have agreed heads of terms at best.
Matthew Pennycook
If it is all right, I am going to make a bit of progress because many Members wish to speak.
As I have said, I do not think there is a need for the powers in clause 9 because secondary legislation of a similar type could be included in the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill. Why the need for such powers? We do not think there is any justification for them. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s justification for why the clause needs to stand part of the Bill but, unless amendment 7, tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), is passed, the Opposition will vote for the clause to be struck from the Bill.
If clause 9 remains part of the Bill at the end of the parliamentary process, its constitutional potency and scope must be highly circumscribed. I do not intend to dwell extensively on what limits should be placed on the clause 9 power because, in general, the same arguments apply as those that I set out at length in the Committee’s deliberations on clause 7 yesterday. I will say, though, that amendment 27 to clause 9, similar to our amendment 25 to clause 7, would constrain the capacity of the powers in clause 9 to reduce rights or protections.
The powers in clause 9 are different from the powers in clause 7 in a particular way: namely, the extraordinarily wide power explicitly provided for by clause 9(2) gives Ministers the power by regulation to modify—a term that clause 14 makes clear covers amendment and repeal—the Bill itself once enacted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out on Second Reading, there is no example throughout the history of the 20th century of a Bill that has ever sought to do that—not in time of war and not in time of civil emergency. In fact—this is a point that my hon. Friend continues to make, and should—every single emergency powers Act has specified that there should not be a power in such legislation for Ministers to alter primary legislation. We do not believe the power is justified, and amendment 30 would limit the potency of the delegated powers in clause 9 by preventing them from being used to amend or repeal the Act itself.
Let me turn briefly to the purpose, scope and limits of clause 17, which gives powers to Ministers to make any consequential provisions that they consider appropriate in consequence of the Act and to make any transitional provisions that might be needed as a result of the Bill coming into force. In contrast to our position on clause 9, we acknowledge that there is an established precedent with regard to consequential and transitional provisions, so we will not be voting against clause 17 standing part of the Bill, but it must be circumscribed.
A clause as widely drawn as clause 17—it is arguably the most widely drawn of all—set in the context of a Bill of such constitutional and legal significance that it covers almost every element of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and, it could be argued, nearly every facet of our national life, means that the power to make consequential provisions under clause 17 is not as tightly limited as it might be in other pieces of legislation. As such, it inevitably throws up the possibility that the powers in subsections (1), (2) and (3) of clause 17 could be used to make changes to vast swathes of secondary and primary legislation, including legislation in this Session up to May 2019.
When he responds, the Minister will no doubt cite other statutes that provide for not dissimilar powers, but having looked closely at a fair number of them, I am not convinced that any are so widely drawn as this one, and none are contained in legislation as constitutionally significant as this Bill. The Hansard Society was right to refer to clause 17 as a “legislative blank cheque” for the Government, and the power must be restricted. Amendment 29 would achieve that aim by removing subsections (1), (2) and (3) of clause 17. If the Government believe that that is the wrong way to restrict the sweeping powers in the clause, they can of course come forward with their own suggestions, but the principle of circumscribing the powers in the clause must be accepted.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
I just want to clarify whether the hon. Gentleman means what I think he means by what he just said. Does he mean that if the House did not approve a withdrawal agreement, his view is that the Government should have to ask for an indefinite extension of article 50 until the House has approved a set-up that it finds acceptable?
Matthew Pennycook
I do not think that is necessarily the case, for several reasons. First, there is no reason why a withdrawal agreement cannot be reached, perhaps even sooner than October 2018—
Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
You told us it would take a long time.
Matthew Pennycook
I think it will take a long time. The Minister can confirm this, but I assume the Government would be pleased to conclude the withdrawal agreement before October 2018, if possible. However, there are several things that might happen, one of which is that the Government go back to the negotiating table and try to improve on the deal. I cannot see what is unreasonable about filling in the gaps or asking for revisions, were that the expressed will of the House.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way yet again. I think that he has just confirmed not that it would necessarily follow that the Government would have to extend indefinitely, but that it would be possible that the Government, in his view, should have to extend indefinitely because this House had not agreed to the withdrawal agreement. In other words, he is saying, is he not, that, if this House does not approve the terms on which we leave, until and unless it approves the terms on which we leave, we should not leave. Is he saying that, or not?
Matthew Pennycook
What I am saying is that there is any number of options that might happen, but let us bear in mind there is a period after October 2018 for the Government to return to the negotiating table and seek to revise or improve the terms. It does not necessarily mean an extension of article 50—I know that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to draw me down that path.
Several hon. Members rose—
Matthew Pennycook
I wish to make a little progress.
That is why we tabled new clause 66, which would guarantee, by means of prescribing when exit day for the purposes of this Bill can be appointed, that both Houses have a meaningful vote on the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and, just as critically, a vote in the event that no such agreement is reached and the Government are determined to take us out of the EU without a deal—a catastrophic scenario that would result in legal chaos, significant damage to our economy, the erection of a hard border in Northern Ireland and serious harm to Britain’s standing in the world. We have consistently called for the Government to make it clear that no deal is not a viable outcome.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
In the event of a no deal, people are concerned about falling into World Trade Organisation rules and tariffs, but will my hon. Friend confirm that, of course, the WTO does not cover services, which are the majority—in fact, 80%—of our exports and which require intricate, detailed negotiations? In the case of a car, two thirds of it are now services and often parts of the car go across borders. Therefore, does he not accept that having no deal would not be a disaster—it would be a catastrophe?
Matthew Pennycook
I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about services. I say to all hon. Members who are happy to contemplate a scenario in which the Government walk away from the negotiations and this House is merely a spectator in that outcome, that that is not acceptable and this House should not accept it.
Matthew Pennycook
I will make some progress, I am afraid, because a number of hon. Members wish to speak. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) will do so.
New clause 66 would ensure that there is a vote on a motion, not just in the event of a withdrawal agreement being concluded, but, crucially, when no such deal has been concluded, should that be the case. That outcome appears less likely following the agreement the Government reached last week and the clarification that the default position in the event of no deal will be regulatory alignment, but it remains a possibility, and Parliament must have a say.
As I have said, there are many, many ways of ensuring that Parliament has a meaningful vote. Amendment 7, tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), is very well drafted. I do not think that it is deficient. We would definitely support it and we would not press new clause 66 if he pressed it to a vote.
Matthew Pennycook
I am very, very pleased to hear that. We will support the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the amendment in that eventuality.
I will conclude by saying that, subject to the kind of constraint that would be put in place if amendment 7 were incorporated into the Bill, we remain of the view that the power to appoint an exit day for the purposes of the Bill should be placed in the hands of Parliament, not Ministers, and also that the flexibility inherent in clause 14 with regard to exit day should be retained, because it is essential to finalising in some scenarios a withdrawal agreement and any transitional arrangements that need to be agreed to. We need only look at the mess last week to justify the need for such flexibility. As such, we believe that amendments 381 and 382 tabled by the Government with the aim of putting a specified exit date, and indeed time, in the Bill are an ill-conceived and unnecessary gimmick and on that basis we intend to oppose them if they are pushed to a vote.
This whole debate is about whether right hon. and hon. Members are content for Parliament to be a spectator, a passive observer, of one of the most important decisions that has faced our country in generations. Parliament must have a grip on the process, which is why we have tabled our amendments and new clauses.
Mr Grieve
I am most grateful to have the opportunity to participate in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). I agreed with virtually every word that he said.
In speaking to amendment 7, in the name of my hon. Friends, myself and other hon. Members, I am conscious that it has taken on a life of its own. When the Committee stage of the Bill started, it was my intention—and I hope one that I have observed and honoured throughout—to try to approach the amendments that I tabled in the spirit in which they are intended, which is to try to improve difficult legislation while entirely recognising the many challenges that the Government face. Brexit is full of risk and full of complexity—legal and otherwise—and the Government are entitled to my support, wherever possible, to carry Brexit out as smoothly as they can and with the least impact on the well-being of the citizens of our country. That has been my aim throughout.
I very much regret that—as often tends to happen in these matters—while some sessions in Committee have led to sensible amendment and the Government considering matters, or going away to look again and making some helpful suggestions, in the case of amendment 7 we seem to have run out of road. What happens in those circumstances, I regret to say, is that all rational discourse starts to evaporate. The purpose of the amendment, the nature of it, is entirely lost in a confrontation in which it is suggested that the underlying purpose is the sabotage of the will of the people, which it most manifestly is not. That is then followed by a hurling of public abuse; large numbers of people telling one that one is a traitor; and, I regret to say, some of one’s hon. and right hon. Friends saying slightly startling things. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), for example, said that I am grandstanding, when I do not remember ever having suggested such a thing to him about the way that he has expressed his views on Europe at any time in his career—including, I might add, when I tried to be a loyal member of his team when he was leader of my own party.
Mr Baron
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that I have never participated in any of that sort of language. May I gently put it to him that amendment 7 leaves open at least the possibility that, given that the EU does not want any member to leave and that there is therefore no incentive for it to negotiate a good deal that would be acceptable to this Parliament, we could find ourselves in a permanent state of limbo, deadlocked in unproductive negotiations?
Mr Grieve
I note what my hon. Friend has said and I am very grateful to him for the way in which he put it, but I happen to disagree with him. If he listens to me he will understand why I think that I am right on that point.
The consequence is that we completely lose sight of what the key issues are, and if I may say so before I move on, that matters a lot, because in the course of this, we also lose sight of the fact that we are the Parliament of a deeply divided country on this issue. When I go and lecture to sixth-formers occasionally and talk to them, I point out that the parliamentary process is not just about the imposition of the will of the majority on the minority; it is the process by which we obtain consent for what the majority chooses to do.
The difficulty with this referendum is that, having invoked the public will, which, I regret to say, is not entirely tempered in its expressions of view by some of the courtesies that we extend to each other here, we run the risk of losing sight of the fact that 48% of the electorate did not wish for the policy that we are currently pursuing and have deep concerns about, not trying to reverse it, but the extent to which it will have an adverse impact on their well-being, and request us as a Parliament to pay as much attention to what they are saying as we undoubtedly have to do to those who voted in the referendum and said that they wanted to leave. The most worrying aspect of the debate, as it has progressed, is how we become polarised and so fixated on ends that we fail completely to look at means. We look at the top of the mountain, but not at where we are going to put our foot next. As a consequence, we run serious risks of badly letting them down—all of them, collectively—by enacting bad legislation and taking very foolish decisions.
Of course, when this confrontation comes along, the negotiations immediately stop, the conversation ceases, the Government’s steamroller is invoked, and the atmosphere can suddenly get really quite unpleasant; and I regret it. As a consequence—I will come back to this in a moment—I have to tell my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that I think they have lost a series of opportunities in the dialogue we have had on this to come to a sensible outcome. With that, I turn to the issue that is, in truth, under debate.
Paul Farrelly
Is not the advantage of the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s very helpful amendment that it would give certainty? It would nail down, in black and white, what we have agreed and would place a legal responsibility on the Government. We would then avoid a situation whereby what people think has been agreed simply becomes a statement of intent within a matter of hours and days.
Mr Grieve
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that I will be able to develop some of those points in a moment.
As was rightly said by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the Government had a notion when this debate started that it was possible to pull out of the European Union by use of the royal prerogative. Fortunately, time, common sense, debate and a small amount of judicial intervention has pointed out that that is not possible. As a consequence, my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench have correctly begun to understand that in fact there has to be a proper process. I appreciate the points that have been made about a meaningful vote and how we can actually get that in the context of Brexit; it is a real, live issue. Nevertheless, I greatly welcome the written ministerial statement, which sets out what appears to be a constitutionally tenable process for Parliament approving or considering the deal by motion, and then moving on to implement the deal by primary legislation.
Of course, the Government know that they must proceed by primary legislation because, in view of the comments during the Miller case, it is blindingly apparent that there must be a serious risk of legal uncertainty if anything other than a statute were to be used to take us out of the EU at the end. That is the last thing that my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench should want, because that will cause even more trouble and difficulty than they already have in the challenges they have to face.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will forgive me if I appear pedantic, but does not this Bill and the enactment of article 50 take us out of the European Union at the end, whereas the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill legislate for the consequences?
Mr Grieve
Yes. If, indeed, we were leaving with nothing further to do, that might be a good point. But it seems to be a pretty universal view, even on the Government Benches—although this perhaps does not apply to my hon. Friend—that simply leaving to jump off the top of the tower block is not the best thing to do. Therefore, there will need to be primary legislation to implement the undoubted new constitutional order that we will have after 29 March 2019.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr Grieve
May I just make a tiny bit more progress?
As the Government’s position has shifted, they have come up with a written ministerial statement, which seems accurately to reflect the right direction of travel. But the difficulty is that clause 9 is entirely incompatible with what the Government have set out.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I happen to agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that it would be undesirable for us to leave without an agreement. Indeed, I think that the Government agree with that. But I will go back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) a moment ago. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, in the event that it were not possible to reach a further agreement, it would then be the case that the actions of Parliament already taken—including in triggering article 50—would constitute a proper answer to the Supreme Court’s point that Parliament, and Parliament alone, can remove us from the EU?
Mr Grieve
Yes, I think I agree with my right hon. Friend that the action of Parliament in triggering article 50 would do that. But it is not, I think, the intention of the Government to do any such thing, and never has been. Indeed, if it is the intention of the Government to do such a thing, I hope very much that they will tell me as soon as possible, because I think I might be withdrawing my support from them.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
Is not the point that, everything else being equal, even if nothing else happens, article 50 has been triggered so we are leaving the European Union on a set date, unless 27 other countries decide to extend the date? Therefore, this argument is about the UK’s internal process. It is not a question of the EU or anyone else holding things up.
Mr Grieve
There are a series of processes. I do not wish to get too diverted from my main point. We are intending, and will require, a further statute in order to achieve what the Government have set out. I hope very much that we do not leave with a no deal on anything, because we would not be able to fly off to Rome on the day after, we would have no security co-operation and we would, indeed, be mired in complete and utter chaos.
The reality is that clause 9 is incompatible with the programme that the Government have set out. At the time that clause 9 was inserted, I think that the Government had not yet fully worked out the implications of how withdrawal had to take place.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr Grieve
In a moment. I do not wish to take up too much of the Committee’s time.
My point brings me to the specifics of clause 9, which is an extraordinary and wide power to remove us from the EU by statutory instrument, and moreover—this is the most telling point—to ask the House to give the Government effectively a blank cheque to draft statutory instruments to achieve something when at the moment we do not know what that is.
Mr Jenkin
I am listening very carefully, but clause 9 is not about implementing our leaving the European Union; it is about implementing a withdrawal agreement. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) did not vote for article 50, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) did. That is when he voted to leave the European Union and that is decided, so he is incorrect to say that clause 9 is deciding when or how we leave the European Union.
Mr Grieve
If I may say so, I think my hon. Friend has misunderstood what I said. The fact is that clause 9 provides a power, exercisable once this Bill comes into force before exit day, to implement something when we do not at present know what that is. Therefore, it is a very strange thing to ask Parliament to sign off.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Is not the supreme irony the fact that clause 9 is actually the child of article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which the Government are now supporting? This provision is the Lisbon treaty timetable. It is not in any way trying to give power or control back to this House to amend that in any way or to ensure that the UK leaves the European Union at the time that is fortuitous. The UK is just accepting what is in the Lisbon treaty and the Government have welded themselves to that very idea.
Mr Grieve
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.
Ultimately, the centre of this point is that we are being asked to give the Government a power that can be exercised on something, but we do not know what that something is. Logically, the moment to make the statutory instruments to enact our withdrawal would come when we have this further statute—whatever it happens to be called—and have debated it in this House. We will then have structured the powers conferred by statutory instrument to achieve what Parliament wants and thinks is necessary to carry out withdrawal. That is the point, and pre-empting matters in this fashion is odd. Indeed, it is so odd that I heard one Minister—I will not reveal who—informally saying that they questioned whether the clause 9 power was in fact still needed, in view of how the Government were progressing this matter.
Mr Grieve
In a moment.
On my key issue and what I was trying to tease out in tabling amendment 7, I could, I suppose, have simply said that I will not support clause 9. Indeed, if my amendment is not accepted, I am afraid I shall be voting against clause 9 this evening—I have no option—but rather than do that, the purpose of my amendment is to try to explore what it is that the Government want clause 9 to do that, in fact, we should not be doing when we enact the legislation at the end.
It is for the Government, in those circumstances, to explain themselves; it is not for Parliament simply to roll over and accept something because the Government say that that is what we should do. Indeed, if we all get told that we must support the Government out of loyalty because to do otherwise would undermine the Prime Minister—I think that is cuckoo, for the reasons given by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—we need to know why.
Last week, I engaged in a whole series of dialogues with the Government, trying to understand what was bothering them. At one point, I thought we might be getting to the point where we would reach an agreement that some power might be needed in the Bill before we came to the final Bill, although I will come back to that in a moment. It started to dawn on me that one possibility was that this power might be exercisable, but only provided it could not be used to bring anything into force—we might lay some statutory instruments, but they could not be brought into force in any way until the end statute had been passed.
That is where I thought we might be—and then everything closed down, and I am none the wiser why the Government need this power, except that I note that a journalist who seemed to have been speaking to a briefing was told it might be required to effect the registration of EU citizens. I thought to myself, “I thought we were going to have an immigration Act to do that.” So I am still at this moment—this afternoon—absolutely at sea about why this power is needed. If the Government cannot make a case for this power, it should not be here.
Even at this stage, I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench, if they accept this amendment, which is absolutely central and necessary to ensuring that a power of this scope cannot be abused in a way that the House should not tolerate, and if they want to come back on Report and tidy it up because there is some adjustment or some caveat they want to put in, I will of course listen to what they want to say—my job is not to make their lives more difficult—but I am not prepared to sign away such an extensive power, when it appears to be contrary to the Government’s stated policy on how Brexit will be carried out and, in fact, surrenders without any good reason the control of this House over how the Government conduct Brexit.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
If my right hon. and learned Friend’s version of what our vote would be were to prevail, rather than the Government’s version, what would happen if, close to our leaving date, Parliament voted against any agreement there might have been and against no deal?
Mr Grieve
Ultimately, as my right hon. Friend knows, this Parliament is sovereign, although its sovereignty does not extend to concluding agreements with other parties in international relations that the Government do not wish to adhere to or sign up to. I have no idea what the circumstances are going to be in 12 months’ time. I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich: we are dealing with a whole series of hypothetical questions. I get a bit fed up when I keep on being asked, “What is it? Surely, it is a choice between the deal on offer and no deal.” I do not know. There is no way that any of us can know, and that is why the process matters so much. If we get the process right, we will answer correctly each question as and when it arises. Far from that hurting or damaging the Government, it will enhance their power. To come back to the point I made in an intervention, it will convey an impression of purpose and method to our EU partners in negotiation, whereas, at the moment, the major thing that has been undermining our negotiations is the impression of chaos in our procedure and our aims.
Sir William Cash
I am extremely intrigued by the line that my right hon. and learned Friend has taken, with which I largely agree in relation not to the substance, but to the deficiencies he now seems to have accepted could, in some shape or other, be tidied up, as he put it, on Report if we were to get to that unfortunate situation. I simply ask him: is he able to elucidate how his amendment would actually work in practice?
Mr Grieve
I have been pleading with the Government throughout the past four weeks, pointing out to them that this is a really important amendment, and asking them please to respond to it. I have asked them what alternative they might have that could persuade me that they had a working proposal that should command the approval of the House and my own approval. I have been doing that repeatedly, and I was striving to achieve those things last week, but the blunt reality is—I am sorry to have to say this to the Committee—that I have been left in the lurch as a Back Bencher trying to improve this legislation, because silence has fallen. There has simply not been a credible explanation. The last explanation was, “Here is your written ministerial statement. That ought to be enough for you. In loyalty, you should now support the Government.” However, that does not answer the question.
Anna Soubry
Has my right hon. and learned Friend also looked at this issue: does he think that, should the Government decide that the best deal is the European Free Trade Association—we would effectively be Norway—some right hon. and hon. Government Members have worked out that, without his amendment or the new clause moved by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), this country would become like Norway and go straight into EFTA, without this Parliament having a say on whether that is what leave meant?
Mr Grieve
It would indeed be a remarkable outcome. Certainly, I think that Parliament ought to have a say. Those reasons highlight the difficulty of clause 9. There are other difficulties with the Bill, but clause 9 really has it.
I want to bring my remarks to an end, and I simply say that I do want the Government to listen. The opportunity is here for them to accept the amendment and then to come back on Report and explain themselves further or to tidy the amendment up, and I will listen and try constructively to help them if, indeed, any of this power is needed, but I am not prepared to sign off clause 9 in its present form.
The one merit of amendment 7—I tailored it very carefully and I tried quite deliberately to avoid the no-deal scenario, which is a very legitimate issue, but it is not what I went for—is that I wanted to make sure that these powers could not be used to pre-empt a statute that we should probably be considering this time next year. It is plainly wrong, and if it is to be departed from, the Government have to provide a credible reason for it.
Alex Chalk
May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend about a point I am struggling with and that others may be struggling with, too? On the one hand, given that the Government have conceded that there will need to be a statute to implement any agreement, it is difficult, for me at any rate, to see what the point is of clause 9, and Parliament should not legislate in vain. That is point one. On the other hand is the key point not that we will get a vote on that statute, so does this really matter? That is the part I am struggling with, and I would very much welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s views.
Mr Grieve
I think that this does matter. If I understand the reason why the Government want this power, it is that, at the time when we may be considering the next statute, they will also be pushing through this House statutory instruments setting up structures for our departure from the EU that may be, or that we might consider to be, at variance with what we need in the fresh statute that we are considering. I think that that is a form of constitutional chaos, actually. I cannot see how it produces any clarity at all. For that reason—a reason of good process—this is a mistaken course of action, particularly because it is not necessary.
We have heard the argument, “We’re going to run out of time in leaving the EU.” I simply repeat what I have said previously. I realise that this is hugely objected to by some of my right hon. and hon. Friends because they are so fixated on getting us out. The article 50 mechanism provides for a sensible structure to enable us to leave smoothly, yet for reasons that I do not understand, the aim of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends seems to be to mess it up as much as possible. There is the famous amendment 381, for example, which we are going to come back to next week and which I have already indicated I will not support under any circumstances whatsoever. If we actually stick to a sensible process, I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), then we will get the right answers. As I say, if the Government are to justify keeping clause 9, they have to provide us with chapter and verse—and they simply have not done so. I have asked, and I have not had it.
In those circumstances, the only proper course of action—I say this with the greatest reluctance—is that I am going to have to vote for my amendment, and, if necessary, if it is not passed, I will vote against clause 9, because without my amendment, clause 9 becomes a really very worrying tool of Executive power that does not appear to have any reasonable presence in this legislation. Apart from on HS2, I do not think that I have ever rebelled against the Government in my 20 and a half years in this House. I do find it quite entertaining that some who criticise me for speaking my mind on this matter are individuals who appear to have exercised the luxury of rebellion on many, many occasions. But that said, there is a time for everybody to stand up and be counted. As Churchill said, “He is good party man—he puts the party before himself and the country before his party.” And that is what I intend to do.
Several hon. Members rose—
The Temporary Chair (Sir David Amess)
Order. The Chair obviously recognises the importance of this debate. There is a very, very long list of colleagues wishing to speak, so unless colleagues keep their remarks to about seven or eight minutes, without interventions, there will be many disappointed Members.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendment 47, which stands in my name. It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who has shown great resolution, fortitude and reason in the face of unreasonable criticism. We admire him for it.
We are debating the single most important question in the Bill: how the House can exercise its view on the withdrawal agreement in a way that gives us control. “Control”—there is a word we have heard before. It resonated throughout the referendum campaign, but when Members start to argue that Parliament should have some control over this process, it seems to send shivers down Ministers’ spines.
Amendment 47 arises from an exchange that I had with the Secretary of State on Second Reading. When I asked him to give us a very simple assurance that clause 9 will not be used to implement the withdrawal agreement until Parliament has had the opportunity to vote on it, he replied:
“It seems to me to be logical”.—[Official Report, 7 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 354.]
What has been set out in today’s written ministerial statement appears to give that undertaking, but if that is what Ministers are prepared to do, why not put that into the Bill? I similarly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that there will be separate legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, but if Ministers are prepared to give that commitment, we want to see that in the Bill, too, which is why I shall vote for amendment 7.
The question has been asked—I want to ask it, too, because it has exercised the Select Committee—“What is clause 9 now for?” It is a very simple question indeed. Timing and the order in which these things are done are absolutely crucial in this debate, and that point was made forensically and forcefully by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield. May I suggest a new principle? We often heard it said during reports back from the negotiations that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, so I suggest that we agree that nothing should be implemented until everything is agreed.
The written ministerial statement says something interesting, and rather puzzling:
“The Bill will implement the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement in UK law…Similarly, we expect any steps taken through secondary legislation to implement any part of the Withdrawal Agreement will only be operational from the moment of exit, though preparatory provisions may be necessary in certain cases.”
My simple question for Ministers is this: secondary legislation where, and arising from what? Does this refer to clause 9, which a lot of Members think should no longer be in the Bill, or is it advance notification that there will be provision for secondary legislation under the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill that we have been promised? We need some clarification.
My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who spoke so ably from the Front Bench, drew attention to the statement by the Secretary of State on 13 November in which he said, in announcing that Bill:
“This confirms that the major policies set out in the withdrawal agreement will be directly implemented into UK law by primary legislation”.—[Official Report, 13 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 37.]
That is very interesting. I must confess that I did not understand the full significance at the time, so will Ministers also enlighten us on this? What are the major policies and what are the minor policies, and in which Bill, and by what means, will those minor policies be implemented?
The next issue of timing is the idea that exit day should be set as 11 o’clock in the evening of 29 March 2019. The Government amendment to implement that proposal would cause all sorts of trouble, not least because of the way that this Bill was originally drafted, as the Select Committee heard in evidence from Ministers, who confirmed that they would be able to set different exit days for different purposes. The Committee thought that that seemed to provide a great deal of flexibility, but the amendment would bring that possibility to an end, and in the process bind the Government’s hands to an hour of the clock on a day at the very moment when they may well need maximum flexibility so that they can bring the negotiations successfully to an end. The amendment really makes no sense.
As the Committee said in its report, the proposal would cause “significant difficulties” if the negotiations went down to the wire. Of course, we had the famous evidence from the Secretary of State in which he suggested that the negotiations might go to the 59th minute of the 11th hour, although since then there has been a certain amount of rowing back, because that would not be consistent with the pledge that we have been given. That was why the Committee said that it would not be acceptable for Parliament to be asked to vote after we had actually left the European Union. The timing of all this is absolutely fundamental to making the vote meaningful. A vote may be meaningless unless at some point in the procedure the timing ensures that it is meaningful. We have to get the order right.
Michel Barnier said at the start of the process that he wanted to bring the negotiations to an end next October. We have 11 months to go to deal with a very long list of issues that we have not even started to broach. The agreement that was reached last week, which we welcome, is the easy bit of this negotiation—the really difficult bit is about to begin. Those who had thought that leaving the European Union would be about keeping all the things they liked and getting rid of all the things they did not like are now in for a rude awakening as they come to realise that choices have consequences and trade-offs will need to be made.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The right hon. Gentleman is getting to the nub of the issue. If a meaningful vote, by his definition, means that Parliament should be able to say to the Government, “We don’t like the deal that you have got, and we’re not accepting no deal, so go back to the EU and negotiate another deal,” what chance does he think there is that those who do not want us to leave in the first place will ever offer a deal that this House could buy into?
Hilary Benn
The hon. Gentleman anticipates precisely the point that I was going to make—[Interruption.] I was. As we have already heard, all the Ministers and Prime Ministers who negotiate in this process will say at some point, either in the main forum or in other discussions, “I’ll never get this through my Parliament.” That is the accountability we are talking about. It is called democracy, and it is really important that Ministers, Prime Ministers and negotiators have that thought in their minds when they are negotiating on behalf of the country and the House. In such circumstances, I think the House would first want to ask why we were facing no deal, and it might well wish to give the Government fresh negotiating instructions. The House might want to tell the Government to go back in and say, “On reflection, we would like to suggest that we do the following.” There must be sufficient time for that to take place if we are going to get a reasonable deal.
Another point I want to make—I am conscious, Sir David, of what you said about the time—is that Ministers need to understand why they are having such difficulty with this fundamental debate on the Bill. It has to do with the history of the Government’s handling of the whole process. At every single stage, this House has had to demand our role and our voice. I remember the answer when people first asked what the Government’s negotiating objectives were: “Brexit means Brexit.” When a follow-up question was asked, we were told—
Hilary Benn
I am still wrestling with the concept of a red, white and blue Brexit, and I did not find it very enlightening.
The second answer was, “No running commentary,” but that eventually had to give way to the Lancaster House speech and a White Paper. Then we asked, “Will Parliament get a vote?” Almost exactly a year ago, when the Prime Minister last appeared before the Liaison Committee, I asked her that question. She was unwilling to give me a commitment on that occasion, but we all pressed, and in the end the Government conceded that there would be a vote.
We argued that there would need to be separate primary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, but what did the Government do? They produced this Bill, which says, “No, no. We’ll just do it all by statutory instrument.” That was until amendment 7 appeared on the horizon, at which point the Government changed their mind. If the Committee insists, as I hope it will, on amendment 7 later today, that will be because of our experience of the Government’s handling of the Bill so far. They have not acted in the spirit of seeking consensus, even though the Prime Minister said earlier that that was what she wanted to achieve.
The final point I want to make is simply this. Parliament has no intention of being a bystander in this process. We intend to be a participant, as I have said on a number of occasions, because this decision affects every part of the country, every business and every family. Today’s debate and vote are all about control, which must ultimately rest not in Ministers’ hands but in our hands. It is up to us to make sure that that happens.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Until now, with the exception of some interventions, I believe that all contributions have been, in one way or another, in support of amendment 7 and its correlative amendments. I hope, Sir David, that you will allow me a little leeway with timing to address my points, because I do believe that the debate has so far been one-sided.
I want to start by talking about the speech made by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who was characteristically good-humoured and articulate, and the fine speech from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). I will then turn to amendment 7 and the speech made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). They all brought the cat out of the bag very well. As I will explain in a moment, I distinguish between what the Opposition are after and what my right hon. and learned Friend is after.
The right hon. Member for Leeds Central and the Opposition spokesman in effect said this. The House of Commons voted by a vast majority for a referendum, the people by a narrow majority voted to leave and the House of Commons voted by a vast majority to trigger article 50, which says:
“The Treaties shall cease to apply…from the date of…the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification”.
That has been accurately described by some on the EU side of the negotiations as an inevitable process to leaving, but the Opposition say that the House should be capable of telling the Government that they must seek to reverse the process by seeking—not necessarily by obtaining, because we cannot guarantee that they would obtain—
Sir Oliver Letwin
Yes, that is what the right hon. Gentleman said. The logic of what he was saying carries us remorselessly there, and I will come on to explain why.
Sir Oliver Letwin
The right hon. Gentleman cannot continue to shake his head with conviction. His logic carries him there because he defines a meaningful vote as one that gives the House the capacity to reject either a deal it does not like, or the possibility of exiting with no deal. This is not a matter of opinion or value; it is a matter of logical fact. The only alternative to accepting a deal that we do not like or refusing to accept no deal is to leave the whole matter aside and not exit the Union. We either exit without a deal or we exit with a deal. If the deal is rejected but the Government are told that we cannot leave without a deal, we cannot leave.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I will, of course, give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment. I just wanted to expose the logic very clearly, because there are no other logical possibilities. I challenge him to explain what the other possibility is.
Hilary Benn
I set out—very clearly I thought—in my speech what the other possibility is. For the avoidance of any doubt on the right hon. Gentleman’s part, I have said repeatedly in this House that we are leaving the European Union at the end of March 2019—and, indeed, I voted for the article 50 legislation. I was discussing today the terms on which we will leave. It is perfectly possible for Parliament to look at the terms and say, “We do not like them; we would like different ones,” and to give the Government different instructions, provided that there is time. That was my point.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Of course it is possible for the House of Commons to tell the Government that it does not like the terms, and of course it is possible for the Government to go back and ask for the terms to be changed, but it is also possible—
Sir Oliver Letwin
Please, allow me to continue. It is also perfectly possible, as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central knows, because he is a fine logician, for the other side in the EU negotiations to reject such alternative terms. We therefore hit the question that he cannot evade: under those circumstances, is he or is he not hoping—the Opposition spokesman made what he was hoping for perfectly clear—that Parliament will have the right to tell the Government that they cannot leave on terms that Parliament does not accept? I really think that that is important, if we are to be honest about this, because that is what the right hon. Gentleman and the Opposition spokesman are suggesting.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I have no doubt that it is also what the right hon. Lady who is now seeking to catch my eye wishes to suggest. I will let her do so, and then I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford).
Yvette Cooper
The logic of the right hon. Gentleman’s position is that he wants to rule out any possibility for Parliament even to ask the Government to go back to the negotiating table. Of course he is right that, in the end, this is about a negotiation, and the 27 other European countries will have a view and such a negotiation will take place. The logic of his position, however, is that he wants to rule out any say for Parliament at all, or any attempt by Parliament to ask the Government to try to get a different or better deal, or to change the terms, and that makes absolutely no sense at all for anybody who believes in the role of Parliament.
Sir Oliver Letwin
First, the right hon. Lady has said nothing to contradict my point about what she and other Labour Members are arguing, and secondly, as a matter of fact, that is not a correct characterisation of my position. I am perfectly happy that Parliament should ask the Government, if there is time, to go back and reconsider the terms they are negotiating. I have no problem with that at all. The question is what happens if they cannot succeed in negotiating those terms and, in the end, we reach that crunch point.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am not going to give way to anyone except my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford.
Vicky Ford
May I take my right hon. Friend back to what he said about article 50? It is true that that says:
“The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless”—
I repeat, unless—
“the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.”
That is exactly the point. If we are close to a deal but, for example, struggling to get the last vote through the European Parliament, the 28 countries may wish to take a little more time.
Sir Oliver Letwin
My hon. Friend makes my point for me. The very point I am making is that no UK Government and no UK Parliament can guarantee that the other side would agree to any such thing.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I will give way to the Opposition spokesman in a moment.
There therefore can arise circumstances in which the choice, in the end, is between accepting leaving with no deal and not accepting leaving. I continue to believe—it is important that there is honesty on this point—that Opposition Members are essentially arguing that this House should have the ability to derail the process.
Matthew Pennycook
I do not think that that is a fair characterisation of my argument. The right hon. Gentleman has said that there is a possibility, in certain circumstances, of sending the Government back to ask for the deal to be changed. It is possible that that might be turned down, so it is not certain, but it is possible. Does he think that that should be an option, and if so, if he votes against amendment 7, what other mechanism might we use to send the Government back to at least try to improve a deal that this House felt was sub-optimal?
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am very happy to answer that question, and it will bring me neatly on to the point I want to make about the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. The answer, of course, lies in the combination of the proceedings on the resolution that will have to be agreed by this House, during which it will be perfectly possible for this House, both in debate and in the way it votes, to tell the Government, if there is time, to go back and try again; and of the proceedings on the withdrawal and implementation Bill, during which again, if there is time, the House could reject the proposition and ask the Government to go back.
We then come to the nub of what happens if there is no time anymore because the Government cannot get a renegotiation and cannot get an agreement—a further prolongation—of the kind that my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford describes. The question arises of whether Opposition Front Benchers are recommending, in those circumstances, that leaving without a deal is the possibility it needs to be for article 50 and the referendum to be respected. That is a crunch question that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich cannot avoid.
Matthew Pennycook
I will be brief, and then leave it there, but I want to pick up on two of the right hon. Gentleman’s points. First, I think there will be time. Last week’s joint agreement makes it clear that there must be time, in accordance with our own procedures, to look at the withdrawal agreement and then ratify it.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there is a possibility, on the basis of the Government’s commitment to a motion, to send them back to renegotiate, but that is not what his Secretary of State says. The Secretary of State says of the motion it is an up/down deal, and that a no vote would be the end of it—leaving without an agreement; not going back to the negotiating table.
Sir Oliver Letwin
There is no possibility of precluding Parliament from making such a resolution one way or the other. That is up to Parliament, and it is up to the Government of the day at that point to respond as they choose. No Government would sensibly respond in the way the hon. Gentleman describes, so I do not think that that is a realistic possibility.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I will give way to each of my hon. Friends, but let me say that I will not then give way again before I turn to the main part of my speech, which is about amendment 7.
Mr Djanogly
My right hon. Friend will be aware that all parties are aiming for next October for the negotiation of the final deal, but the Secretary of State has said that he will keep negotiating until March 2019 and that, if necessary, he will go on after that into the implementation period, so there should be time one way or another.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I agree with my hon. Friend. There may well be time; I am not in any way denying that. The point I was trying to make is that Labour Members have alleged that it is proper for Parliament to be able to have what they have described as a meaningful vote. They have made it perfectly clear that what they mean by a meaningful vote includes the ability to tell the Government that they cannot continue to leave the European Union if the terms on which they wish to leave are not acceptable to Parliament. That is a logical fact, and people can agree with it or disagree with it. I do not in any way impugn the motives of Labour Members; it is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to think. It is just that we ought to be honest about the fact that that is the proposition they are putting forward, which is in marked contrast to the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield in his amendment 7.
Mr Baron
May I suggest that amendment 7, as presently drafted—this is central to my right hon. Friend’s point—has a major deficiency, because it could leave things in a permanent state of limbo? There is no incentive on the EU’s side to help to negotiate a good deal that is acceptable to this Parliament, which means that we could be left in deadlock for a period of years. I raised that point with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), but he did not cover it in his speech.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, which I will come back to in a moment.
In turning to amendment 7, let me start by saying something on a personal level. I have been in the House for exactly the same length of time as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield—I think we entered it on the same day, as it happens—and I have served with him in a number of capacities both in opposition and in government, and I have the highest personal regard for him. I have invariably found that when he says something he means it, and I have never found him to be one of those who plays games. Moreover, although I profoundly disagree with him about his amendment, for reasons that I will put forward, I think his motives in producing it are totally honourable and straightforward, and deserve the respect of everyone in the House of whatever persuasion they may be.
There is a reason, however, why I think the amendment is a very bad one. I want to expose an extremely important point about it, which began to come out in the remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend and others. It would not have the effect that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central or the Opposition spokesman seek: it would not actually make it impossible to continue the article 50 process and leave without an agreement. There may be some Members on either side of the House who are tempted to vote for amendment 7 on the basis that it would have such an effect, but it plainly would not.
What amendment 7 would prevent is the issuing of orders under this Bill until another Bill that the Government intend to bring forward has been enacted. If it was agreed and we had not been able to pass the withdrawal and implementation Bill, it might in certain circumstances create the inconvenience of our not being able to issue orders to implement a withdrawal agreement to which the Government had signed up. However, not being able to implement the provisions of an agreement in domestic law does not prevent us from signing and ratifying the agreement and does not prevent us from leaving the European Union. Anybody on either side of the House who imagines that amendment 7 would have the effect of creating what the right hon. Member for Leeds Central called a meaningful vote is under a severe logical illusion. It would do no such thing. The Opposition have tabled, I think, a new clause that would have the effect of giving that power to Parliament, but amendment 7 would not do it.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
My right hon. Friend perfectly clearly sets out that a serious constitutional impasse is possible if this House does not pass an agreement, because article 50, even if it is delayed a bit, will eventually lead to our leaving. That assumes—he does not do so, but some of the more hard-line Eurosceptics do—that there are people in the EU who want no deal. I have never met any such person, because actually they would suffer from having no agreements on flights, security, policing and all the rest of it. As has been said, we are inevitably dealing with hypotheses and nobody, whatever their views, really has the first idea where we will be in 18 months’ time, but his suggestion is a most unlikely consequence. If this House rejected a deal, the British Government would go back and say, “We’ve got to have a better one.” I personally would guess that the other 27 nation states would reconsider and see whether they did not have to give a better one in order to the get the deal that they had already tried to sign up to.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I think that is a very possible eventuality, which takes us back to our earlier discussion. I certainly agree that if, upon a resolution, the House refused to accept the withdrawal agreement suggested by the Government and agreed by the EU, it is very likely that the Government would go back and try to renegotiate it, and it is very possible that they would succeed in doing so. I do not deny any of that. My point is that amendment 7 would not force that result, because all it would do is, under certain circumstances, stop certain kinds of orders being issued under this Bill.
Mr Grieve
I picked this amendment with some care, precisely because I wanted to avoid the suggestion that by tabling it I was trying to sabotage Brexit. I was trying to prevent the potentially abusive use of a power in clause 9 when the Government were saying that they were going to do something different. That was the purpose behind the amendment. It was also, if I might say so, to prod the Government into responding, which I very much regret they have failed to do.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am delighted by my right hon. and learned Friend’s intervention, because I agree that he has succeeded in doing that. He has not created the so-called meaningful vote that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and the Opposition want. He has instead pointed out an issue with the use of the order-making power in this Bill. The question is: is it a good amendment in those terms? We have accepted that it is not a question of creating or not creating a meaningful vote, to use the term used by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central, but just a question of trying to get the Bill into good order—a pursuit in which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield and I have joined on many occasions during Committee proceedings. However, I think that on this particular occasion, this particular amendment is not a particularly good way of doing that. I will explain why I think that is the case, and I hope that the Government will instead come forward with another way of achieving the same effect.
It is a very odd situation indeed to have an amendment to what will become a section of an Act that refers to another piece of primary legislation as the basis for an order-making power in the first piece of legislation. In fact I think it is virtually unprecedented.
Mr Grieve
The Bill is unprecedented, because it is asking us, in the light of what the Government themselves say they are going to do, to sanction a power that undermines a further statute that the Government intend to pass, which should be the source of power for removing us from the EU.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Now I am beginning rather to agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. Therefore, my suggestion is that if that is the purpose of his amendment, it would be far better that it come back as a Government amendment on Report that achieves that effect in a different way and directly, without the gross inelegance of referring to another piece of legislation. It should mainly limit the power in clause 9 to things that are urgent and immediate, and perhaps even specify what sorts of things they might be.
As a matter of fact, I rather share my right hon. and learned Friend’s inclination to believe that clause 9 in its present form came forward before the Government were clear about the need for the implementation and withdrawal Bill, and that Ministers and officials have so far been quite hard pressed to identify exactly which powers are required in clause 9 under the new dispensation of that forthcoming Bill. The Government therefore have a good opportunity to promise from the Dispatch Box today that they will come back on Report with an amendment that is correctly phrased in such a way as to limit the order-making power in clause 9. That would avoid the possibility—this is the point that I want to make to my right hon. and learned Friend and other hon. Friends—of suggesting that we are in any way creating a launch pad for the efforts of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and Opposition Front Benchers to create what they call a meaningful vote, which is in fact an ability to trigger us not leaving.
Mr Grieve
There will undoubtedly be an opportunity at the end of this process, if this House were so minded, to reject a deal. I have to say—my right hon. Friend may agree with me—that ultimately the House could bring this Government down, if it had to or wanted to do so. That is our constitutional ability.
My right hon. Friend’s main point does not find favour with me, because the only way we will get something sensible on Report is by getting amendment 7 on the statute book and on the face of the Bill. I asked repeatedly for an engagement along precisely the lines that my right hon. Friend has identified, and it was consistently rejected. That is why I will vote for amendment 7, and if I may say so, I would encourage him to do likewise.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am surprised by that, because my right hon. and learned Friend has a long and distinguished record of voting for good law. I do not think that this is good law, for the reasons I have identified. I think it really would be better if we had a correct amendment at a later stage of proceedings.
Sir Oliver Heald
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the current plans create the risk of parallel legislation, with an Act of Parliament dealing with our withdrawal agreement going through at the same time as all sorts of orders, because there is no trigger mechanism for, or constraint on, the order-making power? Therefore, is not my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), the former Attorney General, doing the House a service by seeking to avoid the risk of parallel proceedings, which is something that this House never does?
Sir Oliver Letwin
I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that we ought to avoid the possibility of parallel proceedings, but my suggestion would certainly achieve that. If the Government were to come forward at a later stage with an amendment that made it clear that clause 9 could be used only for urgent things of a specified kind, that would prevent the possibility of parallel proceedings.
Anna Soubry
May I suggest another way forward, which is that we agree to the amendment and then, given that this is Committee stage, the Government can go away and fine-tune it, which is what they thought it needed? They had the opportunity to the table their own amendment, but they did not see that commitment through and table one by 3 o’clock on Friday. There is another way. Let us vote on and accept the amendment today and put a meaningful vote in the Bill; and if it needs a twiddle and a tweak, we can come back on Report and I am sure we will all agree to that.
Sir Oliver Letwin
But if my right hon. Friend agrees with me that our purpose in this case is not to create a so-called meaningful vote but simply to ensure that clause 9 is not used to create parallel proceedings or to give carte blanche, it would clearly make sense for the Government to make that undertaking rather than to accept an amendment that has an unnecessary effect.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)
Looking at this matter independently, as one does these days, it strikes me that my right hon. Friend’s argument raises a serious question about why clause 9 needs to be in the Bill at all. We are going to have a withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, and if the Government cannot say what it is that might be urgent, why should we have this clause at all?
Sir Oliver Letwin
Now that there is to be an implementation and withdrawal agreement Bill I do not personally yet understand the need for clause 9. However, the right way to deal with that is for the Government either to say that they will consider getting rid of clause 9 or to make the kind of restricted amendments on Report that I was describing. In any of those ways, the problem would be resolved without the need for this kind of tension, and that would surely be desirable.
Mr Grieve
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way again. In a sense, he unmasks my strategy. I have spent the whole time trying to be sotto voce about this, trying to get some common sense into the Government, which I have been unable to do. It is for that reason that, I very much regret, there really is no alternative to amendment 7. It may be inelegant—although I do not think it is—but it does the business. It would stop the Government doing something that they should not be doing. I could not agree with him more that clause 9 could be removed entirely. It would very sensible if the Government were to do that, but if I had suggested that they would have been upset with me, and it would have made the relationship and the negotiation even harder. In the spirit of conciliation I avoided that brutality and came up with something different.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Speaking personally, I do not think there would be anything very brutal about the Government deciding on Report that it would be sensible to not have clause 9 in the Bill, given that there will now be a separate piece of legislation to achieve the same effect.
Chris Bryant
I hope that means the right hon. Gentleman is now calling on the Government not to move that clause 9 stand part of the Bill, and that, if they do not do that and instead insist that clause 9 does stand part of the Bill, he will vote against it. That is the obvious logic of what he is saying.
Sir Oliver Letwin
It was with some regret that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. I have never known him to take a position that was not partisan and slightly ludicrous, and that was a classic example. Here am I irenically trying to achieve a result that would be in the interests of the nation—good legislation that has the effect my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield agrees he is trying to achieve, but which would not have the disadvantage of enabling the Opposition Front Benchers, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and others, including the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), to achieve the meaningful vote they want to achieve. But what does he want to do? He wants to create some trouble. Well, that is fine—that is what happens in Parliament. My suggestion, however, is not that the Government should be defeated tonight or engage in some huge reversal, but that they should make the sort of change they often make in Committee and on Report—there is, after all, much time to consider the issue on Report if necessary. I want them either to make an adjustment to clause 9 or remove it. That would overcome the difficulty without creating a platform for ending our withdrawal, which is I think the subterranean motive of many on the Opposition Benches—although not, I stress, of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir Oliver Letwin
I will give way two last times and then I really must sit down, because I have said everything I wanted to say and I am now just responding.
Heidi Allen
I am afraid I am little overwhelmed by the legal expertise all around me—I will just speak very plainly. Does my right hon. Friend not understand the difficulty and the trust issue when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has been trying for weeks and weeks, with all good intentions, to engage the Government in this process and has failed? There comes a point when enough is enough and the voice of Parliament has a role in saying, “Put this in the Bill.”
Sir Oliver Letwin
I understand what my hon. Friend is saying, but I do not agree with her. There is a well established process for Bills in this House that includes a Report stage. If one wishes to table an amendment in the House of Commons that the Government will not accept, it is perfectly possible to do so on Report. There is no reason to force the issue in Committee. As a matter of fact, the Bill will proceed through the other place, where there will be many, many proceedings. I do not have the slightest doubt—I am sure all my hon. Friends would agree—that it will send messages back to this place, so that will give us another opportunity. I do not stress that, though; it is enough that we have the Report stage. I quite agree that there is a mischief here, but I think it is a restricted mischief and I do not think the amendment is needed to deal with it. There are other means of dealing with it. It could be done on Report, and I therefore do not think that “enough is enough” applies now.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman has been digging a hole for himself on clause 9 quite successfully. The way he has been speaking, he seems not to understand that the amendment would only giving the House the possibility of a vote. Given the way the Brexiteers have been winning every vote, if a vote was held on a deal the only reason it would be lost is if it was a terrible deal for the UK. His argument is the equivalent of somebody setting sail on the Titanic and refusing to take any lifeboats.
Sir Oliver Letwin
It is very odd—it is as if the hon. Gentleman has not been here, but I have seen his body here all the time. The fact of the matter is that the House has had a series of votes, it is going to have a further series of votes, and then it is going to have a whole pile of votes on, inter alia, the new implementation and withdrawal Bill. In fact, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is totally in agreement with that. There is no question of whether we give the House a vote. It is going to have a vote. The question is: what is the articulation of that with clause 9? That is what those of us who are being serious about this have been trying to discuss.
I really feel that I have come to the end of my remarks. I apologise, Sir David, that I am long past time. I hope you will accept that it is because I was answering points from other Members.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
We have been discussing new clause 3 and amendment 7, which is about process in this place and, as has been said, whether there is any point in clause 9 if there is going to be a withdrawal agreement Bill. The problem is that, if clause 9 remains in the Bill, the Government will still have powers in the interim to make changes, including to the Bill itself. That means that, when the Bill completes, the Executive could simply change it in any way they wanted.
On the issue of having a vote that is meaningful, if the only option we have is the deal that comes back or no deal, frankly, that is Hobson’s choice. What should have been happening is what the Prime Minister categorically refused: a running commentary. Other Governments in Europe have sent people back to the negotiating table to try to make changes when legislation has been enacted. It is important that we remember the paucity of the debate running up to June 2016. We did not explore all the impacts. There was one debate in this Chamber on the EU and the economy. There was no debate in this Chamber on the health or social impacts, or on the loss of rights and opportunities. We did not have that. We did not air these issues—it is like having the Brexit debate now.
I want to speak to amendment 143, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), which looks for a signed agreement to protect EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU.
Antoinette Sandbach
On a point of order, Sir David. I am not able to hear what the hon. Lady is saying because behind me there seems to be an inordinate racket being made by one of my colleagues. I wonder whether it would be in order for you, Sir David, to make the point clear that this is an incredibly important debate and Members of Parliament should be able to hear what is being said.
The Temporary Chair (Sir David Amess)
The hon. Lady is entirely right. We should be courteous to each other. I should also add, while I am on my feet, that I said at the start that with so many people wishing to speak, if people spoke for seven or eight minutes each, everyone would be called. It is now down to three or four minutes.
Dr Whitford
Thank you, Sir David. I hope, as my party’s Front-Bench representative, and perhaps as the only SNP Member who will get to speak, that that timing does not apply to me.
I also wish to speak to amendment 241, which stands in my name and those of my colleagues, and which would preserve reciprocal healthcare and social security rights under the social security co-ordination regulations 883/2004 and 987/200, and to amendments 270 and 271, which stand in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and which would prevent the Executive from using clauses 8 and 9 to reduce the rights of EU citizens in this country.
There was supposedly a breakthrough last week. The phase 1 agreement having been achieved, some level of agreement was meant to be fixed, but unfortunately it was then unpicked on “The Andrew Marr Show”. Moreover, we are still hearing the phrase, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, which completely undermines the agreement made last week. I make this plea: having reached a phase 1 agreement on citizens’ rights, this issue should now be taken out of the negotiations and a deal to give them security should be brought forward in the upcoming immigration Bill, and not left another year for the withdrawal agreement Bill.
It has been a year and a half already. Many Members know that my husband is German. There are many people here with EU spouses. We have friends who have been in extreme anxiety and uncertainty for a year and a half. This is not happening in March 2019; it is happening now. Ten thousand EU nationals have left the four NHSs because their children are being bullied and they feel insecure. They are going home “to be safe”. That is an appalling indictment of the current situation.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The hon. Lady is making an incredibly strong point, and one that gets lost in all this debate about article this and article that: these are real people’s lives. Does she share my anger at the way the Brexit Secretary has played fast and loose with people’s lives? He went on “The Andrew Marr Show” and completely ripped up an agreement that people thought on Friday was done and which would have a big impact on their lives.
Dr Whitford
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Among other things, we are talking about preparing for a future deal, but the suffering and anxiety of EU nationals and EU national families in this country is already happening. They should have been given surety the morning after the vote, but instead we heard phrases such as “bargaining chips” and “playing cards” and were told they were key in the negotiations.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that young early-career researchers in the academic sector, for example, are highly mobile and can easily move elsewhere? We should be rolling out the red carpet for them to make sure they stay, but instead we are treating them worse than dirt on our shoes.
Dr Whitford
I absolutely agree. As I said, we have lost 10,000 EU nationals from our health services. We have seen a greater than 90% drop in the number of EU national nurses registering to come here. It is not just about protecting the people already here. For the four NHSs across the UK, the workforce is one of their biggest issues, yet we are sending out such an unwelcoming signal that we will struggle to attract anyone else.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I agree with many of the hon. Lady’s points, but is it not vital that we send out the clear reassurance, which the Prime Minister gave at the Dispatch Box to all our NHS and care staff, that they and their families are welcome to stay, that we want them to stay and that their rights are now guaranteed?
Dr Whitford
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, but unfortunately it is not enough to come to the Dispatch Box every couple of months with warm words of welcome to EU staff, when in between women who are raising families here, with British partners or partners of EU origin, are being turned down for permanent residency because they have not taken out private comprehensive health insurance. We have had 100 EU nationals sent “prepare to leave” letters. Friends of ours tried to get citizenship for their three children, who were born and grew up in Scotland: the eldest and youngest were given passports; the middle child was refused. I am sorry but the experience of EU nationals on the ground over the past year and a half has been horrendous. If the phase 1 agreement last week is to mean anything, we must incorporate it into the immigration Bill to give them certainty now, instead of telling them they might have to wait another year before they find out what their future will be.
To exercise the right to live anywhere, access to healthcare and social security is crucial. It has made such a difference, not just to EU nationals here, but to our pensioners who have settled in the sunny uplands of the northern Mediterranean. What position will they be in if they cannot access healthcare? We must recognise that freedom of movement was not a one-way street; our young people and professionals have been able to take advantage of it for the past 40 years. We are taking that away from the next generation, which is something that I find terrible.
The Government say, and it is in the phase 1 agreement, that they accept keeping regulations 883 and 987, so let us bring that in. Let us get that down on paper and get it passed, because saying to EU nationals, “You’re welcome to stay, but there might be no deal, which means you’ll have no legal standing and you won’t be able to use the NHS,” is no use to anyone.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
In relation to the points and the amendments from the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), does my hon. Friend agree that, without the transparency of knowing what we are progressing to, many of the items that she is talking about cannot be agreed in the House? We leave ourselves open to the accusation made by Kathy Sheridan in The Irish Times this morning that the Government are
“failing to establish in advance what questions should be asked. Of utterly disdaining an alternative, unifying vision while obsessing about trade, blue passports and colonial nostalgia.”—[Interruption.]
Dr Whitford
Okay, I am just going to move swiftly on. It was a speech, so my hon. Friend has had his chance to get that in.
There are multiple agencies that are important for the nations across the UK, but my particular interest is of course health. We know that the European Medicines Agency is moving to Amsterdam, but the much bigger issue is the UK coming out of the European Medicines Agency. This is a body that has massively reduced bureaucracy, streamlined the launch of new drugs and meant that the pharmaceutical industry has to go through only one registration process for 500 million people. That is why drugs are launched in Europe at much the same time as America and about a year before Canada and Australia. Given some of what is going on in NHS England—including the budget impact assessment, which can allow expensive drugs to be delayed for three years—what I am hearing from those in the pharmaceutical industry is that they see the UK as a hostile market and that they may not come six months later or a year later. It may take longer than that because they only see the point in paying the extra cost to register when they have a chance of their drug being used in the NHS.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Lady is making an important point. Is she also mindful of the fact that, at a critical time for the future of the pharmaceuticals industry, there is currently no certainty even on cross-border production, which many of our companies are involved in, including GlaxoSmithKline in my constituency?
Dr Whitford
I agree. Processes such as quality control, batch certification and lot release must take place in the EU. Several centres in Scotland and, indeed, throughout the United Kingdom will have to move.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Whitford
I must make progress. A long queue of Members are waiting to speak.
The EMA also leads on research, especially on rare and paediatric diseases. It simply is not possible for a single country to carry out such research. My amendment 351 is intended to ensure that we continue to participate in clinical trials under the clinical trials regulation that will come into effect in April, and maintaining standards of data protection is crucial to that. If we rush into a race to the bottom, we will end up as pariahs and we will simply not be able to co-operate with others.
I support amendment 300, which was tabled by the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) and which concerns Euratom, but I want to clear up one point. The issue of access to a secure supply of medical radioisotopes was raised by the Royal College of Radiologists, but was dismissed by the Government because the isotopes are non-fissile. It is true that they are non-fissile, but we had a catastrophic shortage between 2008 and 2010 as a result of which I, as a breast cancer surgeon, could not carry out my bone scans. The new technique of sentinel node biopsy which was being rolled out had to be delayed and stalled, and I would have to choose which of my patients might have access to the one dose of technetium that we had to do a bone scan. That is why the Euratom Supply Agency set up the European Observatory on the Supply of Medical Isotopes, and it managed the situation.
We face real challenges in the coming years. The reactors that produce molybdenum, from which we get technetium, are not in the UK. We do not produce any of that stuff, and we do not yet have a replacement technique as those reactors go offline. It is important for the Government to realise that, if we are not part of the observatory, if we are not participators, the Euratom Supply Agency will have no obligation to us. It might help us, but we will be at the back of the queue, and that will affect patients.
New clause 44, tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), calls for an assessment of the impact of Brexit on health and social care and on workforces, especially social care workers. The percentage of EU nationals working in social care is even higher than the percentage in the NHS, but they will not qualify for tier 2-type visas. They are often not highly paid, but we rely on them utterly.
Staying in the single market and the customs union would solve all our problems, including the problem of the Irish border, but consideration of that is still being ruled out. I call on the Government to step back from creating all these difficulties, and reconsider the possibility of our staying in the single market and the customs union. The EU is not just about trade; it is also about rights and opportunities, and about co-operation.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I am very grateful, Mr Amess—[Hon. Members: “Sir David Amess.”] I am so sorry. I should remember that nearly everyone who is speaking in this debate has a knighthood.
I am very grateful, Sir David, for the chance to speak in this important debate. It has been extraordinarily interesting and, actually, enjoyable. I want to make a brief detour on amendment 7, because the dialogue between my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) was absolutely terrific. Listening to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset took me back—to a certain extent—to meetings that I had with him when I was a Minister. You could not go in and order a cup of coffee without engaging in a two-hour debate about exactly what was meant.
In the end, however, the answer emerged, and it emerged in this exchange. Notwithstanding all the technical debate, it is extremely simple. Clause 9 was written before the Government realised that they would have to put the withdrawal agreement into a statute, and now that they have to put it into a statute, both clause 9 and, potentially, amendment 7 have reached their sell-by date. The offer from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset is serious and real: to come back, effectively, with a rewritten clause 9 which tells Parliament exactly what the Government need to do as we implement the withdrawal agreement in legislation. Do they need some powers—I could understand that—to do some things that are essential preparatory work? I thought my point was good enough to stimulate—
Mr Rees-Mogg
What my right hon. Friend is saying is spot-on: clause 9 gives some powers that trouble even Eurosceptics. I have never felt comfortable with the self-amending part of the Bill, and the solution advocated by my right hon. Friend, and proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), is very attractive.
Mr Vaizey
I can barely stand up again, because I am slightly overwhelmed by the outbreak of consensus.
I shall end this section of the speech with some unashamed flattery, as I look at the triumvirate of titans on the Treasury Front Bench: three Ministers for whom I have the utmost admiration, including my constituency neighbour, the Solicitor General, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland). They have heard this debate, and they are thoughtful and effective Ministers and I am sure they will have taken the mood at least from a certain part of this House about the brilliant opportunity for a solution to this Gordian knot.
Mr Clarke
Before my right hon. Friend tries to urge us all into withdrawing these amendments and waiting for the Government to bring forward their own amendments on Report, let me say that we have been trying to do that through 70 hours of Committee stage. It is no good regarding the Committee stage of this House as an interesting opportunity for Members of Parliament to talk to each other and for Ministers to get up and say they will think about it; we have two days for Report and Third Reading, and the plain aim of the Government is to just enjoy going through this slightly tumultuous and interesting debate and sail on to the House of Lords with the Bill largely intact as it stands. That has been their obvious tactic from a very early stage.
Mr Vaizey
I bow to my right hon. and learned Friend’s wisdom and experience on that point. I am a consensus merchant and simply thought there might be a way forward, but I totally understand that votes might have to be exercised tonight in order to stiffen the Government’s backbone to provide a solution. But nevertheless it has always been the case proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield that the Government will have an opportunity on Report potentially to alter his amendment.
Mr Vaizey
If they can justify it, of course.
The second part of my remarks, which will be as brief as possible because so much time has been taken up, is about amendment 300, standing in my name, which has the largest number of signatories of any amendment to this Bill. I am astonished that only four of them are Conservatives, but I think that reflects the standing in which I am held in my own party; I could not even persuade the leader of the rebel alliance, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, to sign my Euratom amendment, and I really do not want my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset to talk about bad law when he comes to look at it.
The point of the amendment is simply to put the issue of Euratom under parliamentary scrutiny, and I note the comments made by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) in her excellent speech about the importance of Euratom in our medical life, and her own real experience at the chalkface in her extraordinary work. So Euratom is not an esoteric issue; it affects us all. It has been debated in the House before and I shall not spend a lot of time talking about how extraordinarily successful our nuclear industry is. My own personal interest comes from the fact that although Culham is not in my constituency, many of my constituents work there, and it depends on Euratom. I thank the Government for last week’s announcement of £86 million of investment in Culham for two new centres of excellence for the testing of components and for fuel storage; that is a real vote of confidence in Culham.
The point, of course, about Euratom is that nobody voted to leave it. Euratom was not in the European Union Referendum Act 2015, and was not on the ballot; it falls under a separate treaty. So the British people did not have a chance to have a referendum on our membership of Euratom.
The reason we are leaving Euratom is technical. Legal advice, which we have not seen, deems Euratom to be inextricably linked to the European Union and therefore an article 50 notice would be defective if it did not include Euratom. However, the mood of the Government and, I think, the House is that we are leaving Euratom on a technicality, not because we object to being governed by Euratom. There is no mood among the general population to leave Euratom as far as I am aware, and I think that only one hon. Member has managed to stand up and say that there is a plausible reason to leave it.
Mr Vaizey
The implications of leaving Euratom, some of which have already been identified by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, also extend to our nuclear industry, which provides 20% of this country’s energy. At the moment, we simply cannot move nuclear material around unless we are members of Euratom. So when we leave Euratom, we will have to have, in effect, a Euratom-style arrangement to allow us to move goods around. “Goods” can mean a variety of things. We imagine highly radioactive canisters being moved in special trains at the dead of night, but the movement of goods also involves mundane things such as heat pumps, motors, spares and other components, all of which, because they are part of the civil nuclear ecosystem, have to be moved under the terms of these treaties.
Euratom covers not only objects but the freedom of movement of people. We depend on our membership of Euratom for a nuclear power industry, for our medical industry—isotopes have been mentioned—and for the Joint European Torus at Culham, where Britain has done extraordinarily well. Huge advantages have been made in robotics and other sciences, and there are £500 million-worth of contracts already in ITER, the successor to Culham, thanks to the expertise we have built up here.
Let me make it clear that, throughout this process of our technical move to leave Euratom, Ministers have been absolutely brilliant in engaging with me and other hon. Members who share my concerns and have similar interests. They have bent over backwards to do what they can to accommodate our concerns. Looking forward, we need Ministers to give us clarity on a number of issues. We need nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and possibly the European Union as well—and they need to be in place by March 2019. These agreements can be complex, and they can depend on the legislation in other legislatures. For example, the US Congress would have to pass a new nuclear co-operation agreement with us. We will also need a new safeguards regime, and this will come in through the Nuclear Safeguards Bill as a contingency, although I understand that the Government might want Euratom to continue to cover the safeguarding role.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for tabling this amendment. As he knows, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee published a report today on our future relationship with Euratom. The cross-party Committee agreed that we needed as close a relationship as possible with Euratom, in part because of the safeguarding issue. Dr Golshan of the Office for Nuclear Regulation said in evidence to the Committee that our safeguarding would not be at Euratom standards by March 2019, notwithstanding the Nuclear Safeguards Bill that is going through Parliament. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that until we have reached Euratom standards, we need either a transition period or a close association with Euratom to ensure that there is no deterioration in standards in our civil nuclear sector?
Mr Vaizey
The hon. Lady and her Committee have published an excellent 45-page report this morning, and I read it when it was hot off the press. It makes all the points that I want to make about the need to have as close an association as possible with Euratom, particularly in regard to safeguarding. What worries me about the Office for Nuclear Regulation is that, while the will and desire are there, this is another job that cannot be done overnight. It will need to triple the number of inspectors over the next four years, for example. Training a qualified inspector takes between 12 and 18 months; it takes five years to train an unqualified one. The ONR already needs another £10 million just for recruitment and IT, not even for specialist equipment. Some people argue—in fact, I think it is in the BEIS Committee report—that the specialist equipment at Sellafield, which is currently owned by Euratom, would have to be replaced, at a cost of £150 million.
We need clarity on the nuclear co-operation agreements, clarity on the safeguarding regime and who will conduct it, and clarity on whether we will reach International Atomic Energy Agency standards, which the ONR is currently aiming for as a realistic target—Euratom’s standards are higher. We also need free movement of nuclear workers in the broadest sense, and I am not talking about nuclear scientists; I mean the people who actually build nuclear power stations. For example, I think the UK has 2,700 registered steel fixers, half of which will be needed to build Hinkley Point C. That kind of specialist construction worker will come under the category of nuclear workers. As for the future of our continued international co-operation, a particularly live issue at the moment is the extension of funding for the Joint European Torus, which is currently going through the Council for the fiscal years 2019-20, and the European Union is keen to get clarity from the Government on our intentions.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The key point about that work programme is that Austria will be taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union next year. That is incredibly worrying and means that the timeframe to which we are working is July 2018, not later, which is one of the reasons why we need parliamentary scrutiny of what is happening.
Mr Vaizey
The hon. Lady is entirely correct because Austria is an anti-nuclear state, and there is some suspicion that some difficulties may emerge if the matter is not wrapped up before the Austrian presidency.
The amendment’s purpose is to provide parliamentary scrutiny of the important process of replicating the effect of a treaty that nobody wanted to leave. My challenge to Ministers is to engage with the amendment, and I look forward to hearing from the Dispatch Box whether the amendment is acceptable or whether they have an alternative way of providing the House with a strategy. On that note, after 14 minutes, I will sit down.
Chris Bryant
Sir David—for you are indeed beknighted—it is good to take part in this debate immediately after the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). However, I am slightly saddened that he was so disparaging of all the Opposition Members who have signed his amendment. If we are just cast aside with such casual, reckless, gay abandon, we are never going to do that again, are we?
The British way in parliamentary matters has always been that we govern by consent, not by Government fiat, so Parliament should never be conceived of by a Government as an inconvenience that has to be avoided if possible. Parliament should be seen as an essential part of how we carry the whole nation with us. The Government should have more strength in Parliament than they do if they try to circumvent Parliament.
Getting the process right, as several hon. Members have already said, is absolutely essential. We are going to be deciding what many assume will be a long-term settlement for this country for generations to come. We cannot simply try to go ahead with a railroaded version of that settlement that only carries 52% of the country, or perhaps even less by then—who knows?—because we will in the end undermine the very institutions that people have been trying to say should be sovereign. I say to the Government that no amount of jiggery-pokery will sort things out. At the end of the day, parliamentary shenanigans will do far more harm to this country’s political institutions than we should countenance.
The Government already have phenomenal power and—I have used this figure before, but it is true—this is the first time in our history that more than half of Government Members are now either Ministers, trade envoys or Parliamentary Private Secretaries and are beholden unto the Government in some way or other. We have more Ministers than Italy, France and Germany put together, so the Government’s hold on Parliament in our system is already phenomenal, yet they have introduced clause 9, which is truly exceptional. I have tabled several amendments, which I will not address because I do not think there is any great point. The honest truth is that I would prefer to see the whole clause out of the Bill.
The moment I saw clause 9, I thought, “If there is a real reason for this, surely by now the Government would have argued why they have to have these powers.” Now the Government say a Bill will be introduced on the agreement and its implementation. If there really is a need for those powers, clause 9 should be in that Bill and not in this Bill at all.
I love all four of the Ministers sitting on the Government Front Bench to death, and obviously the safest thing to do today is for one of them to stand up—they could stand up one after another, as in “Spartacus”—and say, “We will not support this. We will not urge the Committee to consider taking on this clause as part of the Bill, because we know we do not really need it.”
People might ask, “If the Government do not really need clause 9, why does it matter if the clause is in the Bill at all?” The problem is that every single Government in the history of the world have always used every power they have to the umpteenth degree. It is a temptation, and we should take temptation out of the Government’s hands if they are not prepared to take it out of their own hands. Let us bear in mind that the Bill will allow the Government to change the Parliament Acts and the Representation of the People Acts. [Interruption.] The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice is standing up! Oh, he’s not.
Admittedly, changes to the Parliament Acts and the Representation of the People Acts by secondary legislation would have to be made via the affirmative process and there would be a vote in both Houses.
Chris Bryant
I will give way to the 16th century, but I cannot imagine for an instant how the hon. Gentleman could support such a change.
Mr Rees-Mogg
As I have said, I have my doubts about parts of clause 9, but it says that a Minister of the Crown may, “by regulations,” do things
“for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement”.
It is hard to see how that could change the Representation of the People Acts. The hon. Gentleman slightly overstates his case.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman entices me down the road of one of my amendments. Previous legislation allowing Governments such extensive powers, such as the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, has made it clear that, when tabling statutory instruments, Governments have to argue the case for why those statutory instruments are necessary. In this case, the Government have not even added that provision to the Bill, which is what makes me suspicious.
A doubting Thomas is a good man, but he should follow through on his doubts. I hope that means the hon. Gentleman will be joining us in the Lobby tonight, although I have a sneaking suspicion the smile that just crept across his face indicates that he has no intention of doing so.
There has been much talk about what is a meaningful vote. I read theology at university. My theology professor, John Macquarrie, was a wonderful man who had a rather strange half-American, half-Scottish accent. He was asked by a student, “What is the meaning of God?” And he answered, “You should not ask me, ‘What is the meaning of God?’ You should ask me, ‘What is the meaning of meaning?’” That is the kind of existential debate we are having today.
What does it mean to have a meaningful vote? First, I would say that the vote cannot simply be on a fait accompli. It is not meaningful to vote on something after it has already happened and it has already been decided. It cannot just be a vote on a treaty because, as I have already tried to explain, the provisions on treaties in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 state that the Government do not have to provide for a vote on treaties, because it is not an affirmative process. They merely state that, if the House says within 21 sitting days that the treaty should not be agreed, the Government have to have another go, if they want to. That is a problematic process for us.
In addition, a treaty is unamendable. One thing everybody has been arguing in this debate is that we need to be able to send the Government back to negotiate again if we think the deal is not good enough. This cannot be simply be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. That is what Hobson, the 17th century stable owner said: “You can either take the horse closest to the door or you will not take a horse at all.” It is like Henry Ford’s saying:
“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”
My fear is that the Prime Minister will want to be a stable owner trying to persuade everybody to take the horse closest to the door, and I do not believe that will be a meaningful vote.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman not concede that there was a meaningful vote on 23 June 2016, when people voted to leave the European Union? The problem with the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) is that it could be, and no doubt is designed to be, used to try to overturn and frustrate that meaningful vote. [Interruption.] My right hon. and learned Friend laughs, but it is a shame he does not have the courage of his convictions to admit that that is what his game is. If people in this House use that amendment for those purposes, the backlash from the British public will be like none seen before, and he should beware of that consequence.
Chris Bryant
Plenty of Members have plenty of courage about their convictions and have demonstrated it effectively in recent weeks. I do not think the hon. Gentleman should be deriding others because they have chosen to take a different direction. I am not sure whether he has been here for the whole debate—he might have missed a few minutes or indeed most of the hours. He is right that I am a remainer and I would prefer the country to remain in the EU—I admit that openly—but my constituents voted to leave and the country voted to leave, and we are going to leave. But we have to make sure we take the whole country with us, and we will not do that by a parliamentary process that gives far too much power to the Government and does not allow for proper scrutiny in this House.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman join me in my call to the Secretary of State, which I have made in this House, to set out a timetable whereby we understand what the process is and how he conceives the process of decision making being? That would give us all some certainty about when we would have that meaningful vote and whether we could amend things.
Chris Bryant
I would love to, but the truth is that the Government do not have the foggiest idea when anything is going to happen. They have suggested that something might be available in October 2018—perhaps it will, but perhaps it will not. This reminds me of the hymn we used to sing:
“God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year”
The Government are trying to work out what their purpose is, day by day, hour by hour. They have no idea at the moment, which is why we have to make sure we get the process right before we engage in it; otherwise there is a danger that we will be railroaded without making proper, good decisions.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman said earlier that he was focused on getting the best possible process. Should we not be focused on getting the best possible deal in our negotiations? We know the EU does not want us to leave, so if he puts a process in place where the EU can simply knock a deal back to this Parliament, does that not give the EU the incentive to give us the worst possible deal, on the basis that we are more likely to reject it? We will simply have endless negotiations.
Chris Bryant
That is where we disagree. I believe that we will get the best possible deal only if we have the best possible process; the two go hand in hand. Indeed, if the Government introduced a Bill to implement an agreement and they started to lose votes on individual elements, they would probably then go back to Brussels and say, “You know what? I cannot get this through Parliament, so you’re going to have to give me a better deal.” At that point, I think that our colleagues and friends in other countries in Europe would improve the deal. I believe we would end up with a better deal.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s argument with great interest, because I was waiting for the “or”. He has just asserted what would happen if we did not have a good deal, Parliament rejected it and the negotiators were sent back, but then what? If it is felt that the best deal has been offered, what is his fall-back procedure? We would leave with no deal whatsoever.
Chris Bryant
Obviously, if the Government cannot get their deal through Parliament, they may be in trouble. That is a certain truth. However, if the Government get nearly all their deal but key amendments are carried by the House—for instance, on immigration, the financial deal or the rights of EU citizens in this country or elsewhere—we could help to strengthen the Government’s arm, not weaken it at all. When I was Europe Minister, my experience was that when something was on the table in Brussels that I disagreed with and did not want to see implemented, the strongest argument I had with Brussels was, “I won’t be able to get that through the British Parliament.” If we have a system in which a deal does not have to go through the British Parliament in line-by-line detail, the Government will be weakened in the negotiating process.
Anna Soubry
Is not that the whole point about what happened last week? After what happened on the Monday, when things all fell apart and were ghastly, we saw an absolute desire and it was clear that everybody, including the EU, came together to make sure that our Prime Minister got a deal. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when we talk to people, we hear that it is now absolutely clear that the leaders and all the various other people from the other EU countries accept that we are leaving? They have heavy hearts about it, but they know that we are leaving and it is now simply a question of sorting out the deal. Of course, it is not as simple as all that, but they have accepted that we are leaving. People really have to stop the conspiracy stories and the myths.
Chris Bryant
I agree. As I have said before, I also believe that there is a significant degree of agreement among all parties in this House, and probably in the House of Lords as well, about what the final agreement should look like. If the Government abandoned the strategy that they have so far adopted and decided to search for that consensus—“We’re going to try to get 650 MPs through the Division Lobby in favour of the final deal”—they would stand a better chance of getting the best deal for Parliament.
Chris Bryant
I am sorry, but I am not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Chris Bryant
No. The hon. Gentleman can point and hail as many cabs as he wants, but I am not going to give way to him again because others wish to speak.
All too often, the Government have urged us to accept clause 9 and the related measures on the basis of trust alone. As has already been said, it is just too difficult to see how we can put that trust in their hands. For a start, they have systematically ignored resolutions of the House over the past seven years; they have regularly refused to allow annulment debates on statutory instruments so that they could be meaningful—they have refused to do that even when they have guaranteed at the Dispatch Box that they were going to do so; and they have insisted on having majorities on all Committees. I fear that if we allow the Government to have excessive powers, they will tend to use every single one of those powers. The truth is that they seem to want a carte blanche.
I wish the Government welcomed the role of Parliament in this process, but I just do not detect that. The devil will be in the detail. The Government cannot just bamboozle the people with verbiage that has absolutely no meaning whatsoever: “Brexit means Brexit”, “a red, white and blue Brexit”, “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”, and all the rest of it. It is a denigration of the English language, let alone anything else.
What we actually need is a Bill, with words in it that have legal effect, because, in the end, this is an existential matter for Parliament. Are we really a sovereign Parliament if we surrender our power to the Government? Not really. Are we really a representative democracy if MPs are denied a truly meaningful role in the process? Not really. Are we really a United Kingdom Parliament if we carry only 52% of the country with us? Not really.
Dominic Raab
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who made some very serious constitutional points with great colour and eloquence. I am grateful to hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this debate through their various amendments and speeches. My approach over the course of my speech—I suspect that it will take me an hour to get through it—will be to take clause 9 first, and then to come on to clauses 16 and 17 as well as schedule 7.
It may be helpful to hon. Members who want to intervene to know that I will first explain the function of clause 9 and why it is necessary, and then set out some of the illustrations that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) suggested were required. I will come on to talk about the limits, and then I will address the amendments, including amendment 7, which was tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). The key issue will come down to timing, so I will also touch on that, but first, let me set the scene.
Clause 9 highlights the interaction between diplomacy at the international level and the domestic legislative preparation for Brexit. The Government are committed to securing the best deal that we can with our EU partners for the whole United Kingdom against the very acute time pressure set out under the article 50 process imposed on us.
Clause 9 enables regulations to be made for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement. It is now, as hon. Members have said, a supplementary provision to give us agility in the negotiations and the flexibility of legislative procedure to deliver the best deal under time pressure. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union announced to this House on 13 November the Government’s intention to bring forward new primary legislation in the form of the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill to give effect to the major elements of the withdrawal agreement. That will include citizens’ rights, the implementation period, the financial settlement and the other issues wrapped up within the exit negotiations.
Dominic Raab
May I just make a little progress?
I am not sure whether every hon. Member has had a chance to read the written ministerial statement that was published today—it is entitled “Procedures for the Approval and Implementation of EU Exit Agreements”—but it is worth taking a look at it with regard to some of the concerns that have been expressed. We intend to introduce the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill after there has been a successful vote on the final deal in Parliament. Notwithstanding that, it remains essential that clause 9 stands part of this Bill. We do not yet know the precise shape or outcome of future negotiations, and it is important that the necessary legislative mechanisms are available to us so that we fully implement the withdrawal agreement in time for the exit date.
Dominic Raab
I will make a small amount of progress but then, of course, I will take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
There will be a wide range of more technical separation issues that will need to be legislated for in time for our exit on 29 March 2019. Some will be better suited to secondary legislation, and it would not be practical to account for the sheer volume of all these issues in primary legislation. It is of course not uncommon for the principles of an international agreement to be implemented, at least to some degree, through secondary legislation. To give just one example, the Nuclear Installations (Liability for Damage) Order 2016 implements the 2004 protocol to the convention on third party liability in the field of nuclear energy.
As for how we implement such secondary legislation, clause 9—this is the crux—offers a material benefit in terms of timing. We would be able to start—not complete—laying some of the statutory instruments soon after reaching agreement with our EU friends alongside the passage of new primary legislation. It is impossible to say with 100% precision at this point all the technical regulations that will be required to implement the withdrawal agreement before the full terms have been negotiated. That is obvious, and is accepted by Members on both sides of the House. However, some regulations might be required, and some will require a lead time of several months, so we need to reserve the ability to use clause 9 as soon as practically possible after a deal has been concluded. If we waited for further primary legislation to receive Royal Assent, that might be too late and we could be too squeezed for time, even in the scenario in which we reach an agreement in October, as is our current aim.
Dr Whitford
Does the Minister recognise my point about the situation that EU nationals are in now? Will the Government consider moving their issue into the immigration Bill, which should be coming imminently, rather than leaving them in limbo for another year?
Dominic Raab
All hon. Members should heartily welcome the agreement we have reached on the principles that will protect the 3 million EU nationals in this country—we want them to stay and to know they are valued—and the 1 million British expats abroad. Of course, there is still a significant amount of detail in the withdrawal agreement that will need to be worked up, so the hon. Lady may be putting the legislative cart before the diplomatic horse. Can we at least recognise that we have made substantial progress—and substantial progress from the EU’s point of view—which is why we are proceeding to trade talks?
Dominic Raab
I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman shortly. He has been very patient and I did say that would take his amendment. Sorry, I meant that I would take his intervention, not his amendment—just teasing.
Clause 9 is not intended to be used to implement major elements of the withdrawal agreement. Its role will be to assist with making regulations to deal with the more technical separation issues that are better suited to secondary legislation. There will be a large number of such regulations and they will need to be in place in time for exit day.
Mr McFadden
The Minister said that the House would vote on a resolution. This morning’s written ministerial statement also refers to the House voting on a resolution on the final agreement. What would the Government’s response be if the House were to vote against that resolution? What would it mean for Parliament and for the country?
Dominic Raab
I will come to that. It is very clear that we would not be able to proceed with the withdrawal agreement, but that does not mean that we would stop Brexit from happening. That is set out very clearly in the written statement, which also repeats points that have been made before in statements at the Dispatch Box.
Dominic Raab
I am just going to make a bit more progress.
I will address the point raised by the Labour spokesperson, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, because I think he was on to something regarding the need to spell out and illustrate, albeit not necessarily exhaustively, the kinds of scenarios in which clause 9 remains relevant in the light of the proposed primary legislation. Let me offer a few illustrative examples.
Clause 9 may be required to legislate for the position of ongoing administrative proceedings when we leave the EU. This is a broad basket of technical issues, including the technical aspects of ongoing proceedings on competition and anti-trust issues under regulation 1/2003, for example, which sets out the co-ordination between the Commission and national competition authorities. Another example is the ongoing procedures on concentrations between undertakings in mergers under regulation 139/2004, and the allocation of jurisdiction between the EU and national authorities. These detailed and technical issues do not need to be put on the face of a Bill, but they must be legislated for in time for exit.
Another area for which clause 9 could be used relates to the privileges and immunities afforded by the UK to the EU—its institutions, bodies and staff—post exit. Privileges and immunities are a standard feature of international law, and are generally considered necessary for the proper functioning of international organisations. Privileges and immunities for the EU are currently implemented under protocol 7 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. After exit, the EU will continue to require privileges and immunities to cover any functions it has, although the precise contours may differ according to the deal that we strike. Our agreement on privileges and immunities will need to be implemented in domestic legislation.
Antoinette Sandbach
The point is that clause 9 is so widely drafted that it could apply to absolutely anything that could be linked with EU withdrawal. I am sure that the Department for Exiting the European Union has done a great deal of analysis—indeed, the Minister is showing that in his speech—of the areas that may be affected at the point of withdrawal. Surely that is the point at which the Government need to come to the House and, rather than speculating about what might be affected, actually identify that to us so that the powers can be limited precisely to those areas for which the Government need them.
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for the constructive way she makes her point. Of course, until we have the withdrawal agreement, we will not know precisely the nature of the technical—
Dominic Raab
May I at least give the answer before my right hon. and learned Friend jumps in?
That is why the agility that clause 9 gives us is important. I do not mean to correct my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) in a lawyerly way, but it is not quite right to say that clause 9 can legislate for anything in the context of departing the EU. It relates only to the withdrawal agreement, and I think she said it related to withdrawing from the EU.
Another illustration of what clause 9 could be used for is the spelling out of the technical detail of how ongoing UK cases at the European Court of Justice should be handled, and how the UK courts should treat resulting judgments. Some of that might be done under this Bill, and some under the withdrawal agreement, but we will need to clarify things such as the types of cases that would be in scope and the precise procedural points in terms of whether a case could be considered to be pending, among others. Without that clarification, how such cases should be treated might not be clear. We would run the risk of legal uncertainty, as well as uncertainty for the individuals involved in those cases.
I do not want to make too much of that before my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield jumps in. He is quite right—he has made this point before, and he may want to hear me out before I take his intervention—that, in 2016, there were 23 preliminary references from UK courts and just one infraction case against the UK. So we do not expect this issue to affect large numbers. None the less, for those affected, it is still important to get this right.
Mr Grieve
I want to understand this, because it is rather important. We are going to enact a withdrawal agreement Bill—I think that is what it is called. I would expect that to have statutory instrument powers—the very statutory instrument powers we can consider in relation to the scope of the withdrawal agreement when deciding what we then enact by secondary legislation to take us out. I begin to wonder whether, in fact, it is the Government’s intention not to have any statutory instruments made under that agreement at all, but to seek to make them entirely through the mechanism of clause 9 before we have had the opportunity of considering what we actually want. That is why clause 9 is, I have to say to my hon. Friend, so mischievous. While I would be prepared to listen to some great exception, abandoning the normal legislative process in this way seems to be utterly undesirable, so I would press my hon. Friend on what is going to happen with this withdrawal agreement Bill. Are we going to have secondary legislation under it?
Dominic Raab
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend. I should just say to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury that I will come on to talk about the restraints on the exercise of clause 9 later. However, in relation to my right hon. and learned Friend’s point, if we waited for the withdrawal agreement Bill not just to be introduced after the withdrawal agreement has been signed but to be fully enacted—if we waited for it to complete its full passage—we would not have time to deal with the volume of technical secondary legislation that we need to put through.
Dominic Raab
No, that is not right. We would be required to wait for the withdrawal agreement Bill to be enacted, so that is not right.
Dominic Raab
No, I am going to make some progress.
I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is engaging with this very seriously and constructively and that he is frustrated, but there is no getting around the timing issue that we have.
Dominic Raab
No, I am going to make some progress.
Nor is there any getting around the long tail of technical, regulatory secondary legislation that we will need to get through if we want to provide the legal certainty that will make for a smooth Brexit.
Dominic Raab
I will give way to the right hon. Lady later, and I am coming on to talk about her amendment.
I just want to address the point made by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich about illustrations of what this power will be used for, because I hope that that will serve to assuage some of the concerns. The power could also be used to legislate, for example, for the status of goods that have been placed on the UK market at the time of our withdrawal, subject, of course, to what we agree with the EU on that. That could include a whole range of very technical, detailed measures to ensure that EU products continue to be made available in the UK, with no additional requirements on relabelling; to define what is meant by “placed on the market” for those products that benefit from the measures agreed; or to establish measures to facilitate continued oversight of those products. Again, these examples are illustrative, not exhaustive. However, I hope that I have at least addressed the kinds of cases that we are talking about, and also given an idea of the scale and volume of the technical separation issues that will need to be legislated for in time for exit day. Clause 9 will make an important contribution to a smooth Brexit in precisely those areas.
Yvette Cooper
Timing is the crucial issue. Given that there are many examples of an accelerated process being used to get primary legislation through this place on many different matters, including in a single day when that has been necessary, why would it not be possible, if time was starting to run out, to have a very simple one or two-clause Bill that would do the bits of things on which the Minister needs to get agreement and to put the secondary powers in place, and therefore at least have a vote on primary legislation? Why is it not possible to do that very quickly to deal with the concerns that have been expressed?
Dominic Raab
It is just not practicable. I will come on to address the timeframe for how we are going to approach the agreement, the meaningful vote on a resolution, and then the withdrawal agreement Bill.
Sir Oliver Heald
Does not my hon. Friend think that there should be a trigger within clause 9 to require the consent of the House to the overall withdrawal agreement that is reached before the powers are exercised? Otherwise those powers are unrestrained, and that seems wrong. Does he have a view on that?
Dominic Raab
My right hon. and learned Friend touches on a very important principle. I hope that I will be able to give him satisfaction on that precise point later.
Having dealt with the technical scope of the power and some illustrations of the scale of what it is going to be used for, and before I address the timing issues, I want to touch on the limitations and parameters—
Dominic Raab
I will give way to my right hon. Friend later. If she will just be patient, I want to make a bit of progress, given the time available.
It is worth looking very carefully at the limitations and parameters constraining the exercise of clause 9. It can only be used to implement the withdrawal agreement, and even then subsection (3) makes it clear that it cannot be used to levy taxation, to make retrospective provision, to create relevant criminal offences, or to repeal or amend the Human Rights Act 1998. Paragraph 6 of schedule 7 further requires the affirmative procedure in a whole range of scenarios, from the establishment of new public authority functions to the imposition of any fee exercised by any such authority. Critically—I am not sure that all hon. Members have picked this up—the power endures only until exit day. Its operation is shorter than that under clause 7. On the Government’s current expected timetable, it would, in practice, be used for only about six months, so it is not the open-ended power that some have suggested.
In addition, the Government have accepted the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) to establish a sifting committee to advise on the scrutiny procedures used for secondary legislation under the Bill. That will apply to this clause. That is on top of the Government amendment tabled last week that mandates Ministers to provide explanatory material for all the statutory instruments made under the principal powers of the Bill. We are listening. We are committed to making sure that Parliament plays a crucial role—a fully transparent scrutiny role—in the exercise of clause 9.
In sum, the power under clause 9 is required to legislate domestically for the large number of more technical separation issues that must be settled in time for exit day if we are to have the smooth Brexit that, whether we voted leave or remain, we all agree is crucial from here on in. The regulations—
Dominic Raab
I will just finish this point before I finally give way to my right hon. Friend, who has been very patient.
The regulations will be subject to the established methods of parliamentary scrutiny, with additional scrutiny provided by the new sifting committee. This is a time-limited and constrained power, but it is also an important power to help us to prepare for a smooth Brexit.
Anna Soubry
Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Bill was drafted before the general election on 8 June? If I am wrong about that, could he please tell us when the Bill was drafted?
Dominic Raab
As someone who was brought into government reasonably recently and on to the Committee even more recently, I would have to check. I am happy to provide that clarity by the end of proceedings. I suspect that the process has been an iterative one, but let me see whether I can come back to my right hon. Friend on that.
Clause 9 is not just an important part of the procedural toolkit; it serves a much bigger function that we must not overlook. It sends a message of clarity and confidence to our EU partners that we are ready, willing and able to conclude and implement a deal. By the same virtue, it sends an equally important message to our citizens and businesses that we are equipped to secure a smooth legal transition. I understand the concerns raised through the various amendments, and we should debate them. I will come on to them, and I hope that I will be able to give hon. Members some further reassurance.
Chuka Umunna
May I ask the Minister two questions? First, in respect of the statement made by the Brexit Secretary this morning, can the Minister confirm that the withdrawal agreement Bill is not guaranteed to come before the House for a vote before exit day? All the statement says is that the Bill will be introduced before exit day.
Secondly, why do the Government find so objectionable the idea of activating, if necessary, the third part of article 50, which allows for the Government to ask for an extension if we run out of time as a result of the many unforeseen practical problems? Ministers are talking from the Dispatch Box as though that third part of article 50 did not exist. Why was it included, if not to allow for an extension if the time expires and we have not achieved what we want?
Dominic Raab
I have enjoyed having proper debates with the hon. Gentleman both during the referendum and since. I point out that, as the written ministerial statement makes clear,
“the substantive provisions will only take effect from the moment of exit.”
I know that he wants to drag me down into the territory of the no deal scenario and Parliament’s ability to send the Government back to renegotiate. As a former Foreign Office lawyer who spent six years in that Department and worked on EU matters, in practice I think it unlikely that that would be meaningful in any way, shape or form. The point has been made in the debate that if that looked likely, we would be positively incentivising the EU to give us, and we would end up with, worse terms. [Interruption.] It is not pure speculation; it is grounded on six years of working as a lawyer in the Foreign Office and conducting negotiations. [Interruption.]
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. [Interruption.] Order. The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) should not have been shouting in the first place, and he definitely should not have been shouting over me as I called for order. We are having a very detailed discussion here, which does not lend itself to shouting from Members on one Bench or the other.
Dominic Raab
Thank you, Mrs Laing. Many of the amendments that have been tabled have focused on the exact nature of the regulations that will be made under the power in clause 9. The exact use of the power will, of course, depend on the content of the withdrawal agreement that we reach with the EU. That agreement will be debated and voted on by this Parliament. The Government have made a clear commitment on that, and it should not be prejudiced or pre-empted now. There has been a lot of talk about a meaningful vote in this House, and the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) has raised the matter again. I will come on to that, and to the key issue of timing. May I say to hon. Members gently, and with the greatest respect, that such a vote would be pretty meaningless in any event if we were not ready to implement on time the deal that we want to do with the EU?
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I thought a moment ago that the Minister was rejecting the idea of a meaningful vote, but I am delighted to hear that he is getting on to it. Does he accept that it is perfectly likely that as the negotiations come to an end, the Government will want to enter into a deal, but they will have given in to pressure from the right wing of the Cabinet and Back-Bench Members of the party and rejected various things on offer from other EU members? That is a far more likely scenario than no deal being the other EU members’ preferred option. In such a case, it would be absolutely essential that the first thing we had was a parliamentary decision on a meaningful vote. We could then legislate, once that particular British issue had been resolved where it should be resolved—in Parliament.
Dominic Raab
From my experience, I must say that I think that is a rather rose-tinted perspective on EU negotiations. I should also say that the same arguments were made about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister going into the phase 1 negotiations, yet we are on the cusp of formal ratification of the joint report dealing with the first phase issues. The Prime Minister has made some difficult compromises and shown flexibility precisely to get the deal that I think my right hon. and learned Friend welcomes—I also welcome it—even though we were on different sides during the referendum campaign.
I turn to new clauses 3 and 75, which attempt to remove clause 9 wholesale from the Bill. They would undermine one of the important strategic objectives of the Bill, which is to provide the legal means to implement the withdrawal agreement thoroughly in domestic law. I hope I have explained the important, albeit residual, role that clause 9 stands to play in light of the separate primary legislation covering the withdrawal agreement. To remove clause 9 would increase the legal uncertainty, and I hope that the new clauses will not be pressed.
I want to spend a little bit of time focusing on amendments 7, 47 and 355 and new clause 68, but particularly on amendment 7 in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. May I say at the outset that I do not think he has any ulterior motive in tabling the amendment? I have had a number of constructive conversations with him, and I look forward to more in the future. By dint of that, I hope he accepts that I have followed through on every assurance I have given him, and that I have not failed to live up to the undertakings I have given him. It is in that spirit that we on both sides of the debate need to proceed as the Bill goes through the House.
Amendments 7 and 355 call for a separate statute to be enacted approving the withdrawal agreement before the powers in clause 9 can be used. There are a number of problems with doing so. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) mentioned the constitutional issue, and I agree with him about that. From a practical point of view, however, the crucial problem is the effect that amendment 7 would have in significantly curtailing the timely advantage that we will gain from clause 9. One of the key benefits of the clause is the ability to start to use it reasonably swiftly after the withdrawal agreement has been reached.
To add an unnecessary Bill to the parliamentary agenda—in addition to Parliament’s meaningful vote, as set out in today’s written ministerial statement, and on top of the new withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill—would be restrictive enough. However, to make the first use of the powers in clause 9 wait until the additional legislation has fully passed through Parliament would unduly compress the time we will have to prepare the legislative groundwork, and would risk greater uncertainty. With the greatest respect in the world, I am afraid that is why the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is defective.
Dominic Raab
If I may, I will finish my comments on this amendment, and I will then let my right hon. and learned Friend critique them in the round. I suspect such a critique is coming.
In rare and exceptional cases, we may need to exercise the powers in clause 9 to pass statutory instruments before the final enactment of the primary legislation, which will be on the date of exit. Let me give an illustration of why it may be necessary for operational changes to be in put in place before that point. An example is where specific statutory authority is needed for a monitoring body to supervise the implementation of the terms of the agreement on citizens’ rights, if that cannot be done in advance under other primary legislation. Such a body would need to be set up beforehand so that it was ready to operate on day one, but we may not know its precise content and contours until relatively late on in the negotiations.
Yes, the potential scope for reliance on clause 9 has been reduced by the Government’s commitment to primary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement and the implementation period, but it is still important to retain it. The fetter imposed by amendment 7 would risk materially damaging responsible preparations for exit, including in sensitive areas such as citizens’ rights. I know that that is not the intention of my right hon. and learned Friend, to whom I am very happy to give way.
Mr Grieve
I am again most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He will know—I touched on this in my comments—that when this issue was first raised, I suggested that one possibility might be to allow statutory instruments to be laid and voted on by this House prior to the enactment of the further statute, but not allow them to be brought into force until that further statute had been enacted. That would allow the House to stop the statutory process if it was not happy with it. As I understand it, the further statute has to be enacted before the date we leave, because without it we do not have the powers to pull out. In those circumstances, I find it impossible to understand why my suggestion might not solve his problem. I think he will agree that that is where our dialogue stopped. If he actually wants to do something even before that, I have to say to him that, as a matter of principle, I object.
Dominic Raab
My right hon. and learned Friend is right about almost everything; the only point he is not right about is that I think he will find that my suggestion to him was the appropriate way to deal with that. I will come on to give him precisely the assurance he is asking for, although we have not had a chance to get it on to the face of the Bill. I would argue that a political assurance, which I will give him on top of the others that have been given, ought adequately to address his concerns.
With the genuine and material risk of my right hon. and learned Friend’s amendment in mind, I hope I can go further, bridge the gap and reassure hon. Members, and assuage any residual concerns they may have about the operation of clause 9 in practice. I want to provide three very clear assurances to the House.
First, secondary legislation passed under clause 9 will either be affirmative or considered by the Committee established under the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne. Secondly, the Government are committed to publishing such statutory instruments in draft as far as possible, as early as possible, to facilitate maximum scrutiny, which is another point we have discussed.
Thirdly, we expect that the vast majority of statutory instruments enacted under clause 9 will not come into force until exit day, when the withdrawal agreement comes into force. But I can give my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, and the Committee, the concrete assurance that, following the timeframe set out in today’s written ministerial statement, none of the SIs introduced under clause 9 will come into effect until Parliament has voted on the final deal. I hope that that provides important reassurance and is sufficient for hon. Members to withdraw their amendments.
That approach has two advantages. First, it retains our ability to use clause 9 in time to fully implement the withdrawal agreement. It also squarely addresses the concern, fairly and honestly reflected in amendment 7, that there should be a meaningful vote—the critical point made by my right hon. and learned Friend—and that we should not bring new law implementing the withdrawal agreement into effect if Parliament votes that agreement down.
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady, as ever, sums up the situation very neatly. Clause 9 is absolutely necessary to make sure that we can fully implement the withdrawal agreement and provide legal certainty. The problem with amendment 7 is that it emasculates that ability because of the time pressure it places on us. That is why, with the greatest respect to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, it is not an effective amendment and we cannot accept it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dominic Raab
We have only two hours left, and I want to make some progress, but I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I think that my hon. Friend is suggesting a route to solving the problem raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). Could not the requirement that the resolution be sanctioned by the House before the implementation of those orders be put into a revised version of clause 9 on Report?
Dominic Raab
I would hope that the assurances we have made, along with the written ministerial statement, are adequate, but there is nothing stopping any hon. Member coming back and having another go. We have—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda is sitting there tapping knowingly. He has been talking about the separation of powers between the legislature and the Executive, and now I am being asked to correct homework for hon. Members. That is not necessarily the course on which to proceed. What I will do, as we have done all along and as I think as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield knows, is to continue to discuss all these matters with my right hon. and hon. Friends as we progress. The important point to understand—we have not had a huge amount of time to go into the details of what the compromise assurances might be—is that at the moment amendment 7 is defective and would have very real consequences for our ability to deliver on the deal we do with our European partners.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Does that mean, therefore, that the Government would accept an amendment on Report that put on the face of the Bill that there would be a vote, as is stated in the written statement, on a resolution in both Houses of Parliament that would cover the withdrawal agreement and the terms of our future relationship? Is that what the Minister is saying?
Dominic Raab
What I am saying is that my hon. Friend has had an assurance, given by me at the Dispatch Box, that I hope addresses his concern. If hon. Members want to come back on Report with further amendments, I will continue to give them proper consideration. I think all hon. Members who have dealt with me directly have found that I have been true to that commitment.
Dominic Raab
No, I am not going to give way again.
Amendment 47, tabled by the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, is slightly different in that it would make the use of clause 9 dependent on approval of the withdrawal agreement by both Houses without specifying statute. Similar timing concerns apply. We would need to retain the option to ready statutory instruments before such approval, but I have made clear, and I make clear again, that they would not enter into force until Parliament had held its meaningful vote.
New clause 68 replicates the provisions of amendment 47, with the addition that the Government must seek the approval of Parliament no later than three months before the date of exit. We cannot bind ourselves to such strict sequencing constraints when the latter stages of the negotiations remain unknown. To do so, in fact, would be irresponsible. It is also a vague and arguably defective new clause, I say with the greatest respect, because it is not clear whether by the “conclusion” of the agreement the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) means finalisation of the text, signature, ratification or entry into force. For those reasons, I hope hon. Members will not press their new clauses and amendments.
Dominic Raab
I am going to make some progress.
Amendment 116 would require a referendum on accepting the deal or remaining in the EU before the clause 9 power could be used. I do not think that is feasible, and it is not desirable. The Government are clear that the British people have voted to leave the EU. We will deliver on their direction. We will deliver on their mandate. Frankly, this is a pretty thinly veiled attempt to block Brexit and defy the result of the referendum, in contrast to some of the other, legitimate, concerns raised across the House. If hon. Members wanted to hold a second referendum on the terms agreed with the EU, the proper time and place to argue for such a requirement was when the EU Referendum Act 2015 was passed. I therefore urge that the amendment not be pressed.
New clause 4 would require separate legislation to set the exit day, and new clause 66 states that the exit day cannot be set before Parliament has given its approval for the terms of the withdrawal agreement. The Government accept the case for legislative prescription of the exit day for the sake of finality and legal certainty, so I hope that the new clause has been rendered unnecessary.
New clause 19 and amendment 55 mandate that the power in clause 9 cannot be used until the publication of the withdrawal agreement, and that it should not be available until all other exit Bills have passed. It is clear that regulations cannot be made under clause 9 until an agreement exists and its contents are known. It is not necessary, then, to require on top of that that the agreement be published and placed in the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries before the power can be relied on. It is of course standard practice to lay international treaties before Parliament under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. Equally, it is not right to tie the use of this power to the publication of other primary legislation passed in this Session. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) not to press the amendment.
Amendment 361 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who is the Chair of the Justice Committee.
The amendment would create a separate power to legislate for the implementation period. I hope that the Government’s announcement of a separate Bill—primary legislation—covering the withdrawal agreement and the implementation period addresses his concern.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am grateful for that. It was intended as a probing amendment, particularly to ensure that these issues were ventilated. Given the assurances in previous days of the debate, I obviously will not push it. While I am on my feet, however, may I ask the Minister to reflect again on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)? I really think that the Government would find a means of resolving these matters if they were to bring forward their own amendment in the form suggested.
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I hope he understands how, in good faith, I am seeking to engage with hon. Members on all sides of the House. It was my suggestion that the assurance would be made to him. We will reflect further as we lead into Report—
Robert Neill
I mentioned the wrong constituency name. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford would not at all want to be involved in that matter. The Minister knew who I meant. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) who made the point, and I hope that the Minister will consider it.
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend’s point is well made.
I turn now to equalities legislation. Last week, the Government tabled amendment 391 to schedule 7. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said that the Government had not come back with any amendments in response to requests. This is a clear example of where we have listened and returned. The amendment will require Ministers to state in writing, when using the powers in clauses 7 to 9, whether they amend equalities legislation and that they have
“so far as required to do so by equalities legislation, had due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010.”
Dominic Raab
The right hon. Gentleman is quick off the mark. I am about to address his point. When the Bill was introduced, the Government published an equalities analysis of the Bill, and I can reassure the Committee and him—I know that he raised this on a previous day—that, as promised, we will make a similar statement in relation to all other Brexit primary legislation that has been or will be introduced to this House. I pay tribute—if she is here—to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), the Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, for raising this important issue and for her advice in helping us to address it in a sensible and practical way.
Dominic Raab
The amendment has been tabled, and I am giving the right hon. Gentleman the assurance now that the same formula will be applied to all Brexit-related primary legislation, so he can take that one to the bank.
I turn now to amendment 19, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda. I understand his position and what he is trying to establish, but if the regulations made under clause 9 were to lapse two years after exit day, it would set a very rigid legislative timeframe for the Government and risk unnecessary disruption. If the two-year deadline expired unmet, it would create holes or risk creating holes in the statute book. I sympathise with the intentions behind the amendment, and I just wonder whether it was intended to tempt Eurosceptics on the Government Benches, but it is too rigid a fetter on Parliament’s ability to manage its legislative priorities between now and 2021, and it would risk exacerbating the very uncertainty that the Bill is designed to reduce.
Amendments 74 and 75 attempt to tie the use of clause 9 to our continued membership of the single market and the customs union. The Government have been clear that we are leaving the EU, and that necessarily means we are leaving the single market and the customs union. The amendments rehash old ground. The Government are clear that we are seeking a deep and special partnership with the EU, including as frictionless free trade as possible, and that will inevitably be linked to the withdrawal agreement. It is good news that we are moving to the negotiations on that area, following the success of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and the Prime Minister. The amendments, with the greatest respect to their SNP authors, would be counterproductive on their own terms, because they would undermine our ability to secure and implement the withdrawal agreement, which itself will be necessary for agreeing the future partnership agreement and maintaining barrier-free trade.
Charlie Elphicke
I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend’s argument on clause 9. It seems to me that the initial intention was to do the withdrawal agreement by regulation, since when the principle of a withdrawal agreement implementation Bill has been conceded. Under the circumstances, is not the proper thing to withdraw clause 9, to prevent Opposition Members, particularly from the SNP, from using it as a Christmas tree to put Brexit-stopping measures in place?
Dominic Raab
The problem is that clause 9, although now of residual use and scope, remains vital if we want the smooth Brexit that hon. Members in all parts of the House profess to want.
In fairness, we have spent a lot of time on those amendments. I want now to turn to amendments 142, 143, 275 and 156 and new clause 38, which seek to restrict the use of clause 9 with respect to citizens’ rights. As the Prime Minister reiterated in her speech in Florence on 22 September and since, we value the contributions of EU citizens living in the UK. We want them to stay. That is why the Government repeatedly made it clear that securing the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK on exit, and equally the rights of UK nationals living on the continent, was a top priority. I am sure the whole House will join me in welcoming the fact that the joint report by the UK and EU negotiators published last Friday forms the basis of the agreement after the first phase of negotiations, which will cover the rights of EU citizens here and British citizens on the continent, giving them the security, the assurances and the confidence they need.
Again, I acknowledge the vital contribution that EU citizens make to our economy and our social and national life. We will ensure that EU citizens living in the UK at the date to be specified in the light of the negotiations will be able to apply for settled status under UK immigration law once they have completed five years’ residence here. In the light of the agreement reached, I hope that hon. Members will not press those amendments.
New clause 38 and amendment 156, meanwhile, cover the specific issue of Irish citizens’ rights. Maintaining the common travel area with Ireland, protecting the reciprocal rights of British and Irish citizens, is a primary objective for the UK and has been since the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech in January. The common travel area arrangements between the UK and Ireland and the Crown dependencies, and the associated rights, have existed for many years. They pre-date the UK and Ireland’s membership of the European Union. Although it extends to the whole of the UK, the value of the common travel area and associated rights is clearly most felt in Northern Ireland. These arrangements facilitate, among other things, the north-south co-operation provided for in the Good Friday agreement and daily life on the island of Ireland.
There is a strong appetite on both sides of the border and in all parts of the UK to maintain those rights. They are distinct from EU membership and are already provided for by domestic legislation. The joint report by UK and EU negotiators safeguards these interests. Given that agreement and the strong commitment from both the UK Government and, in fairness, the European Commission that these arrangements are protected and will be protected, new clause 38 and amendment 156 are unnecessary, and I respectfully ask hon. Members not to press them.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am very grateful indeed to the Minister for allowing me to intervene. I just want him to clarify a very important issue. We are talking about clause 9 and amendments to it. The Minister and his colleagues will know that any regulations that could be made under clause 7 are restricted, in that they cannot create new criminal offences, cannot have retrospective effect and cannot affect the Human Rights Act. Those exemptions are mirrored in clause 9, apart from the reference to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the protections given to the Good Friday agreement. In the light of the Prime Minister’s statement to the House on Monday about the commitments to the Northern Ireland Act and the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, why is there such a glaring omission in clause 9, in terms of the protections offered to the Northern Ireland Act?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. There is absolutely no intention to use clause 9 in any way that would disrupt the Belfast agreement. The short answer to her is that these are just different technical devices, dealing with different technical aspects of withdrawal.
Lady Hermon
Forgive me for correcting the Minister. I do not mean to be rude, but clauses 7 to 9 extend to Northern Ireland, so these powers will also be extended to Northern Ireland—schedule 2 extends them to Northern Ireland—so if we had an Executive up and running again, Ministers in a devolved Assembly could make regulations that affected the Good Friday agreement. The protection to the Good Friday agreement—the Belfast agreement—has to be written into clause 9, so I suggest that the Government take it away tonight, redraft it and come back on Report with something that satisfies everyone in this House, including the Minister.
Dominic Raab
It is important that any changes that may need to be made to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to ensure that the UK can honour its international commitments can be made. Any such changes could be made only to ensure ongoing compliance with our international obligations, and could not substantively change the agreed devolution settlement or deviate from the terms of the Belfast agreement. I should be happy to write to the hon. Lady and spell that out in more detail.
Vicky Ford
As a new Member, I have listened intently as many Members on both sides of the Committee—some who voted to remain and others who voted to leave—have talked about the fundamental flaws in clause 9. The rest of the world is watching how we regulate at the moment. Will the Minister give an undertaking that the Government will come up with amendments to clause 9 on Report?
Dominic Raab
As I said earlier, clause 9 retains the residual necessity to provide us with agility in these negotiations. I think that I have given the assurances on substance that Conservative Members and, I believe, some Opposition Members wished to hear. If other Members want to table amendments on Report, I will of course continue the dialogue in which I have engaged all along.
Dominic Raab
I am going to make some progress, because I have been on my feet for some time.
Dominic Raab
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I have given way to him already. I am going to make some progress.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) knows better—and he also knows better than to raise his eyebrows because I have called for order. He does it often enough, and it is not his job.
Dominic Raab
A number of Members have tabled amendments seeking to maintain the UK’s membership of EU agencies, institutions and international agreements, as well as our participation in EU programmes and access to EU systems and databases. They also seek to ensure that measures are put in place so that we are ready domestically to thrive when we leave the EU. Those amendments include amendments 196 to 199, 241 to 261, 276, 224 and 225, and a number of others.
The Government recognise that a large number of the UK’s relationships with non-EU partners and international organisations are linked to our membership of the EU, and specifically to the Euratom treaty, which deals with nuclear co-operation. Maintaining close links after we leave is important, and in many cases will be in the interests of both the UK and the EU.
Mr Vaizey
I know that my hon. Friend has been on his feet for 50 minutes. We should be happy to have another 50 minutes, because he is doing brilliantly. He has just mentioned Euratom. As he knows, amendment 300 was signed by more Members than any of the other amendments. I hate to keep asking him to come back with proposals on Report, but will he give a commitment that the Government will at least publish a strategy for their future relationship with Euratom by then, and that the strategy will be updated quarterly so that we can maintain progress? As I said in my speech earlier, Ministers have been brilliant on this issue, but we do need to partner with them.
Dominic Raab
The Government intend to present a written ministerial statement to Parliament before Report which will set out our vision, or strategy, for a close association with Euratom. I hope that the commitment to that statement will reassure my right hon. Friend, and that he will not feel the need to press his amendment to a vote.
Dominic Raab
I want to make some progress, but I will give way once to the hon. Lady.
Rachel Reeves
On the subject of amendment 300, will the Minister confirm that the Government intend any implementation period for leaving the EU to apply to leaving Euratom as well?
Dominic Raab
That will be addressed in the written ministerial statement and the strategy that will be forthcoming very shortly, and the hon. Lady will have an opportunity for scrutiny then.
We will work with the Commission on addressing those international agreements when the parties have a shared stake, and a shared interest, in continuity. Similarly, the Government recognise the need to maintain a strong relationship with the EU in the future. We are seeking to forge a deep and special partnership with our EU friends, and our relationship with the EU’s agencies and bodies on exit will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. No final decisions have yet been made on our future relationship with the EU’s agencies and bodies after leaving the EU, and we are carefully considering a range of options. Where there is a demonstrable national interest in pursuing a continued relationship with an agency or other EU body, the Government will look very carefully at whether and how we can pursue that, and of course it is a matter for negotiations.
That brings me to why these amendments are, while well-intentioned, unhelpful. The first reason is because negotiations are ongoing and we cannot allow our negotiating position to be prejudiced or pre-empted. The Government are working to achieve the best possible deal with the EU. We welcome the constructive and thoughtful amendments from hon. Members, but we cannot accept any that might undermine the Government’s negotiating position or restrict our room for manoeuvre, not least in terms of striking the kind of arrangements that hon. Members in tabling these amendments want to see.
Dominic Raab
I am going to make some more progress, if I may.
Secondly, the Government have committed to ensuring that the withdrawal agreement with the EU can be fully implemented in UK law by exit day. The clause 9 power to implement the withdrawal agreement will be crucial in achieving this in the way I have described. This power will help to ensure we are in a position to swiftly implement the contents of the withdrawal agreement required to be in place for day one, ensuring maximum legal certainty upon exit. Again, I respectfully remind hon. Members that, if the UK is unable to implement the withdrawal agreement in time, that risks us being unable to meet our obligations under international law and scuppering the prospects of the very deal I think Members on all sides want to achieve.
To ensure a smooth and orderly exit, it is essential that appropriate legislative changes have been made by the point of exit. We want to give ourselves the capability to make those appropriate changes swiftly, and to support businesses and individuals and make sure the country is ready. The power in the Bill enables that, and those aims will be put at risk by these amendments.
I now turn briefly to amendments 227, 228 and 229, which prevent the clause 9 power from being used until a number of economic assessments have been published. The Government have been undertaking rigorous and extensive analysis to support our exit negotiations, to define our future partnership with the EU and to inform our understanding of how EU exit will affect the UK’s domestic policies. The Government have already established a process for providing economic and fiscal reports. The OBR independently produces official forecasts for the Government and is required to produce detailed five-year forecasts for the economy and public finances twice a year at autumn Budget and spring statement. Those forecasts reflect publicly stated Government policy at the time that those forecasts are made, and that includes policy on leaving the EU.
We have been very clear that we will not disclose material that might undermine the UK in the negotiations. In particular, in any negotiation, information on potential economic considerations is very important to the negotiating capital and negotiating position of all parties.
The Government want to get the best deal for the UK and hope—and, indeed, are confident—that this House is united in that goal, even if the means to achieve it may differ on some aspects of detail, and we do not want the UK’s negotiating position to be undermined. For that reason, we cannot support those amendments.
Amendment 230 requests an assessment of the broader responsibility of the Treasury. That is unnecessary. The Treasury’s core purpose is to be an effective finance and economics Ministry. As a finance Ministry, the Treasury will continue to account for public expenditure and manage the public finances. As an economics Ministry, it will continue to prioritise policy that reduces obstacles to growth, and manage key relationships with finance Ministries overseas. The Government do not see the UK’s withdrawal from the EU changing those core responsibilities of the Treasury, and an assessment to confirm that would be a waste of valuable public finances and is unnecessary.
I turn now to amendments 262 and 263. The Government recognise the huge importance of the legal services sector to the UK economy; it contributed £24 billion in 2015. The Government also recognise that legal services underpin many other important parts of the UK economy, including financial services, manufacturing and the creative industries. We propose a bold and ambitious partnership between the UK and the EU, and we will prioritise securing the freest trade possible in services. The Government are committed to securing the best deal for the legal profession.
In the Government’s July position paper, “Ongoing Union judicial and administrative proceedings”, the Government also made it clear that leaving the EU will end the direct jurisdiction of the European Court. At the same time, the UK is committed to minimising uncertainty and disruption for individuals and businesses, including those arising from changes in the treatment of cases pending at the time of exit. That is why we want an agreement on an implementation period based on the existing structure of rules and regulations, so that there is only one set of changes. The laying of such reports, as proposed in the amendments, would delay and impede the important legislative work necessary to prepare the legal services sector for all possible negotiation outcomes, and I urge hon. Members to withdraw the amendments.
Amendment 343 would prevent regulations from being made under clause 9 before the Secretary of State had laid before Parliament a strategy for a food standards framework after EU withdrawal. The UK has a world-leading set of standards on food safety and quality, backed up by a rigorous legislative framework. The Department of Health, the Food Standards Agency and other relevant Government bodies are working closely together to ensure that the regulatory regime for food safety remains robust as Britain leaves the EU. The Government are committed to ensuring high food standards at home and promoting high standards internationally. There will be opportunities to build on our world-leading reputation for quality and standards, but it would not be appropriate for the Government to tie their use of the clause 9 power to the publishing of any individual or particular reports.
The purpose of clause 9 is to incorporate the withdrawal agreement fully and comprehensively into UK law, so that we can fulfil our obligations under the withdrawal agreement and under international law. The power is not intended to be used to report on the Government’s post-exit domestic strategy. To caveat the power or to define it in that way would cause uncertainty, both for our EU partners and for businesses and citizens in this country. I hope that I have addressed as many of the amendments relating to clause 9 as possible, and that clause 9 will now stand part of the Bill unamended.
I shall now turn briefly to clauses 16 and 17 and schedule 7. Clause 16 gives effect to schedule 7, which provides for the parliamentary scrutiny of the secondary legislation made under the powers in the Bill, including under clause 9. The Bill attempts to strike a balance between the need to prepare our statute book in time for the end of the article 50 process and the need, on the other side, for Parliament to undertake proper scrutiny. The Bill does this using long-established parliamentary procedures. These are the usual procedures that have been used by all Governments for decades with no dilution of the normal scrutiny process.
However, the Government have always said that we would listen and reflect on the concerns raised by the House. We understand the concern that there might not be enough scrutiny of the instruments made under the Bill. That is why the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), made it clear in the Committee yesterday that the Government would support the amendments tabled by the Chair of the Procedure Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), which I hope will be supported by the whole of this Committee.
These amendments draw on the Procedure Committee’s expertise and its recent interim report, and will ensure that the House has an opportunity to challenge the appropriateness of the use of the procedure for instruments made under the three main powers in the Bill. The amendments do this without undermining the certainty that we wish to provide. For instruments brought forward under clause 9, as with the other powers in the Bill, this means that where the Government propose the negative procedure for an instrument, the House will be able to recommend that it should instead be debated and voted on as an affirmative instrument, giving an even clearer voice to this House in scrutinising how these powers are used. Other instruments, if not made using the urgency procedure—which I will come to—will be affirmative, guaranteeing the opportunity for a debate on the instrument.
Schedule 7 sets out a series of triggers for the use of the affirmative procedure. These are for some of the substantial uses of the power or for those where more complex decisions are required—for example, creating a new public body, creating new fees or other charges, or creating new powers to legislate. The Minister responsible for the instrument can also choose the affirmative procedure even where the instrument does not meet any of the tests in schedule 7. We have taken the same approach to changes to either primary or secondary legislation. Some changes to primary legislation can be mechanistic and minor, and adopting the affirmative procedure for small corrections to primary legislation would be impractical. Instead, the requirement for affirmative procedures is based on the type of change rather than the type of legislation in which the change is being made.
In rare cases, there are urgency procedures, both in the Bill as introduced and in the amendments tabled by the Chair of the Procedure Committee. I can assure the Committee that we would only use those procedures very sparingly—for example, in cases where there was a clear practical reason to have a correction made in time for exit day or for a particular other day when limited time was available. Such a situation could arise, for example, because the content of a particular statutory instrument was dependent on a negotiation that took place nearer the end of the exit process. I know there are amendments on the paper today, such as those in the name of the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie)—I am trying to see whether he is still in his place, but no, he is not at the moment—which seek to restrict the use of this power to “emergency” situations. I hope the Committee will understand that the word “emergency” is not quite right in these circumstances, and that “urgency” is the more accurate description if we are to ensure that we have legal certainty.
Finally—I am grateful to the Committee for its patience—clause 17 is designed to make consequential and transitional provision to other laws as a result, not of our exit from the EU, but of the operation of the Bill. It contains powers to ensure that the Bill is properly bedded into the statute book and could be used, for instance, for housekeeping tasks such as revoking designation orders.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
This debate started with an extremely eloquent and passionate contribution by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on the meaningful vote that this House has been promised, on the timing of that vote, and on how we can ensure that the Government do not proceed with the detail of the withdrawal agreement, and probably the ultimate trade agreement, without the consent of this House. My hon. Friend the Minister has spent an extremely valuable hour taking us through the foothills of the drafting of the Bill and the administrative procedures that might be necessary before we leave. I asked him for a political argument if he wants to resist the idea, put forward by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, that this House demands a meaningful vote before the Government actually start enacting the outcome of any agreement they have made, so does he have a little time to address that? Is there anything left in his notes that covers that?
Dominic Raab
I welcome the chance to reiterate what has already been said and what is already set out in the written ministerial statement: we will guarantee that there will be a meaningful vote in this House, and that none of statutory instruments introduced under clause 9 will enter into force until we have had that meaningful vote. That squarely addresses the substantive issue that my right hon. and learned Friend is getting at. He criticises me for dealing with all the other amendments, but it is only fair in the proper course of parliamentary proceedings to ensure that all amendments from all hon. Members are fairly addressed.
Dominic Raab
I will not. I am going to finish, because I have been at it for well over an hour and I want to make my final points and give other Members the opportunity to have their say.
Orders under clause 7 will designate Ministers so that they can exercise the power in section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 to implement EU obligations. Once the 1972 Act is repealed, designation orders will be redundant, so we need to be able to tidy up such laws on the statute book. Hon. Members will know that consequential provisions are a standard part of many pieces of legislation, even legislation of constitutional importance such as the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 or the devolution Acts. Equally, transitional provisions are a standard way of smoothing the application of a change in the UK statute book.
The Bill already includes the lengthy schedule 8, which contains consequential amendments, but some more may be needed, and it will take time for departmental experts to identify and correctly resolve others. For example, the Bill amends the definition of “enactment” in the Interpretation Act 1978, and Departments will need to review all the references to “enactment” across the whole statute book to identify any that need amending as a consequence of the Bill. That is not a novel use of a consequential power, because the definition of “enactment” was inserted into the 1978 Act by the Scotland Act 1998, and the consequential power in the 1998 Act was then used to amend other references as a consequence. The Government are therefore taking a normal power to make these and other important but technical consequential amendments as they are identified.
Hon. Members will know that transitional, transitory and saving provisions are standard ways to smooth the introduction of change to the statute book. As with clause 9, it is important that we can provide legal certainty to everyone in the UK, from businesses to individual citizens. For example, the Bill removes the UK from the direct jurisdiction of the Luxembourg Court, but the UK will remain a full member of the EU up until the very moment of exit. The power could therefore make specific provision for court cases still before a court on exit day. Again, schedule 8 introduces some of those measures, but Government will need some residual flexibility to ensure that we do not create uncertainty as we leave. I can reassure the Committee that the Government cannot abuse such powers. Case law and an array of legal authorities provide a very narrow scope for the exercise of the powers, which are necessary to ensure that we can enable a process of exit from the EU that promotes maximum certainty. I commend clauses 16 and 17 and schedule 7 to the Committee.
Several hon. Members rose—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Now that the Minister has spoken and taken a great many interventions, many of the issues before us have been fully discussed. I appreciate there are a lot more amendments to be spoken to, but the Committee will know that a lot of people have just risen to indicate that they wish to speak, and we have less than an hour and a half left.
I cannot impose a time limit in Committee, but if hon. Members speak for more than three minutes, they are depriving someone else of the opportunity to speak. That might indeed be the intention of some hon. Members, and there are many hon. Members who prefer to listen to their own voice than to give any time to others. We shall see in the next hour and a half which is which.
I am sure I can rely on Seema Malhotra to behave properly.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mrs Laing. I will do my best but, with short notice, I may struggle to bring my speech down to three minutes.
It is a pleasure to follow many hon. Friends and hon. Members in lending my support to new clause 3, amendment 7 and new clause 66, which speak to the intention of Members on both sides of the Committee to engage constructively and thoughtfully on the role of Parliament and on when, and how, Parliament has a say on the fundamental issue of the withdrawal agreement.
I am grateful to have the opportunity to address my new clause 69 and to thank the 40 hon. Members from both sides of the Committee who put their name to it. New clause 69 seeks to lay out a simple road map to provide clarity on the role of Parliament in the final months before Brexit.
The Government put out a statement today, setting out the role of Parliament in approving the agreements and how the agreements will be put into force. Notwithstanding the Minister’s comments, I will lay out why the statement does not go far enough in addressing this fundamental issue—the Minister also did not adequately address these points.
The Brexit Secretary said in his written statement—there is no disagreement with this—that:
“A Withdrawal Agreement will be negotiated under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union…whilst the UK is a member of the EU. It will set out the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU…as well as…any implementation period agreed between both sides.
Article 50(2) of the TEU sets out that the Withdrawal Agreement should take account of the terms for the departing Member State’s future relationship with the EU.”
We believe that partially parallel process is soon to be under way.
Michel Barnier has said that he wants to have the withdrawal agreement finalised by October 2018, which is indeed the Government’s stated intention. The Prime Minister said today that she fully expects the vote to be “well before March 2019.” The Government have committed to holding a vote on the final deal as soon as possible after the negotiations have been finalised, and the Brexit Secretary’s statement says:
“This legislation will be introduced before the UK exits the EU”.
I very much hope that all goes according to plan. It is in the interest of the country for there to be an orderly, stable and predictable Brexit process that enables businesses and families to plan ahead and do all they can to manage the risks of transition. If the Government are as confident of that as they would wish us to believe, I hope they are able to confirm today that they will accept amendment 7 and respond to the points raised in my new clause 69, which seeks to do nothing other than include in the Bill the commitments the Government made in their stated policy intentions. Although I will not be pressing new clause 69 to a vote, I reserve the right to bring back the issues at a later stage.
Legislation is not passed to plan for when things go well but to provide protections and a route map for action when things do not go well. There may well be an honest intention to reach a deal by October 2018, but there is no guarantee. I am not attempting to talk down the Government’s negotiation attempts, but there has been a consistent view—indeed, reiterated by the Prime Minister today—that she fully expects a vote before March 2019. That is not a promise, because we know it cannot be.
I am also representing the views expressed by the Brexit Secretary on 25 October 2017, when he said we could go up to the 59th minute of the eleventh hour. The Government may have sought to row back on that, but the experience suggests and the reality is that it may well end up being the case.
Michel Barnier said this morning that negotiations are difficult and “tough” and that he wants steps to be taken for an “orderly withdrawal”. He has stated today that a full trade deal will not be possible by the time the UK leaves the EU. With only 15 months left to Brexit day, we must recognise that in these complex times the unpredictable can happen, and that in those circumstances, which none of us would wish to see, we need to have planned ahead effectively. We need certainty for Parliament, for our constituents, and for business and industry about how we will proceed.
My new clause states that in the event of no deal being reached by October 2018 or a deal not having been passed by both Houses of Parliament by February 2019, with a month to go the Prime Minister must: seek agreement with the EU to extend the article 50 time period; or seek agreement with the EU to finalise the terms of the withdrawal agreement through the period of transition after the article 50 notice expires and the EU treaties cease to apply to the UK; or seek agreement on any other course of action in line with a resolution of this House. This is important as it gives an opportunity for timely—I repeat, timely—engagement of this House, which is critical in order for any vote to be meaningful.
My new clause does not specify which of those the Government should seek to do, but it sets out three clear options that could be vital in keeping order and stability in the weeks and months before exit day. Let me be clear also that this is not about an unnecessary extension of the process; it is about allowing provision for and clarity on the circumstances in which it may be called upon, most likely for a short period of months. That can only be helpful in managing the risks of Brexit, particularly in the event that a deal is well under way but has not been finalised. It would certainly not be against the spirit of the referendum result, and at the time could precisely be in the national interest.
I do not believe that in truth this approach should be any great distance from Government policy, and it simply picks up on paragraph 3 of article 50, which states:
“The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.”
I do not believe there has been any suggestion from the European Council or elsewhere that such a request would not be agreed to if it were proven to be necessary.
In the light of aspects of stated Government policy, new clause 69 and amendment 7 should be nothing other than helpful. I wish to make a few points on this, Mrs Laing, which I shall summarise. The Government have made it clear that they will want to see a vote of this Parliament—after a challenging journey on that policy, they made that commitment in their manifesto in May. As has been stated today, however, the challenge is that it is not clear, and there certainly is no consensus on, what constitutes “meaningful”. Indeed, there has been a difference in view on this. First, the Secretary of State said:
“The House will have the opportunity to vote on any number of pieces of legislation before we get to the end and then will have a vote to decide whether what it gets is acceptable. I cannot see how it can be made more meaningful than that.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2017; Vol. 620, c. 1222.]
Yet, five days later, his deputy Minister at the time, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), said:
“Let me say this. It will be a meaningful vote. As I have said, it will be the choice between leaving the European Union with a negotiated deal or not. To send the Government back to the negotiating table would be the surest way of undermining our negotiating position and delivering a worse deal.”—[Official Report, 7 February 2017; Vol. 621, c. 273.]
This is surely the crux of the issue about the ability of Parliament to influence this Government and the negotiations to get the best deal for our country.
That brings me to my final point, which is about the issue of no deal. If the Government were to proceed on the basis of no deal, that itself would not be after a vote of this House. No deal obviously would bring huge risks to our economy and it would have a legally questionable status, and those views of stakeholders are of no surprise to Ministers in this House.
I would rather we were not in this positon and I would rather not have had to table the new clause, but I believe strongly that it would provide important safeguards for the country and for people in our constituencies, who will be picking up the pieces if we crash out of the European Union. Parliamentary scrutiny and sovereignty are our duty and responsibility. I may not push for a vote today, but I reserve the right to bring my new clause back to the House, depending on what further comments the Minister makes. The House deserves a definite timeline for a vote, and to be confident of the meaningfulness of that vote.
Mr Jenkin
I have listened to this entire debate with close interest. I think that we are all agreed that we want an orderly process for leaving the EU, which means a sensible withdrawal agreement along with a clear and detailed commitment to an EU-UK trade agreement and a period of implementation, but I also think we all agree that if no satisfactory agreement arrives, we still all voted to leave the EU. Well, we nearly all voted to leave the EU: I respect my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), but he voted against the triggering of article 50, as did some others. Those of us who voted to trigger article 50 voted to leave on 29 March 2019.
Stephen Kinnock
Article 50 clearly states that an extension can be requested, so when we voted to trigger it, we voted to trigger a clause that included the possibility of requesting an extension.
Mr Jenkin
I will come back to the way Parliament interacts with the process, but it would be really rather foolish for this House and the Government to premise all their plans on the basis that that request would be acceded to, because it would require unanimity. I have not heard a single public statement from the EU or a European diplomat that suggested for a moment that they would countenance extending the deadline. Of course, why would they? The deadline written into article 50 is to their advantage. I expect that the hon. Gentleman would have voted for the Lisbon treaty, which contains article 50, but I did not vote for it. I have always thought that article 50 was a snare and a trap. It sets a deadline, against which we are now negotiating, and that is the only prudent way to negotiate.
I loathe secondary legislation that amends primary legislation expressed in Acts of Parliament. It is an odious practice that has entered the legislative process in this House—this is by no means the first Bill that contains so-called Henry VIII clauses—but I can justify such powers as a basis for reversing the effects of our membership of the EU. It may seem to be an irony, but it is by the process of secondary legislation that we have been gradually integrated into the EU.
We have seen order after order coming under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. More often than not, it was a “take it or take it” option: we did not even have a “take it or leave it” option once it was expressed in EU law. The advantages of allowing secondary legislation under this Bill are that, first, the legislation will ultimately be answerable to the House; secondly, the powers are temporary; thirdly, they can be subject to revision or annulment at any future time; and finally, they are underpinned by the democratic authority of a referendum.
On a “take it or leave it” vote, I do not remember debating a single new treaty that was offered to the House on the basis that we could amend the treaty by passing an Act of Parliament. Whether to accept the Lisbon treaty was a “take it or leave it” decision. We were told that if we did not accept the treaty, it would create such chaos that it would force us to leave the EU.
I do not doubt the bona fides of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and others on the Government Benches, but my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) exposed very ably the fact that there are people in the House who want to use amendment 7 as a means to extend the negotiation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe was absolutely explicit on that point. I appreciate that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), did his best to avoid answering the question, but he made it clear that he thinks the deadline will have to be extended.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I thought for a moment that my hon. Friend meant all that stuff about my challenging the result of the referendum.
Mr Clarke
I am sorry; I misheard my hon. Friend. I do not think for one moment that we will have completed any of these negotiations by March 2019, but I will wait to see. There are perfectly clear arrangements in article 50 for the time to be extended. I have met several other European politicians, including some of those involved in the negotiations, who rather expect that to happen.
Mr Jenkin
As I say, it is not something that we can bank on.
May I just deal with this question of what is a meaningful vote? I cannot find anything clearer than the ministerial statement that was issued this morning. It says that
“the Government has committed to hold a vote on the final deal in Parliament as soon as possible after the negotiations have concluded.”
It continues:
“This vote will take the form of a resolution in both Houses of Parliament and will cover both the withdrawal agreement and the terms for our future relationship. The Government will not implement any parts of the withdrawal agreement—for example by using clause 9 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill—until after this vote has taken place.”
That seems to provide the assurances that my right hon. and learned Friend is looking for and that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice has repeated already from the Dispatch Box.
Anna Soubry
Does my hon. Friend agree that, to be meaningful, there has to be some time between that vote and such time as we leave the European Union? That is the whole point. A meaningful vote comes before something that is basically to be rubber-stamped. That is the whole point of “meaningful”. When does he anticipate that we will have that vote?
Mr Jenkin
The right hon. Lady knows as well as I do that the intention is to try to conclude an agreement by October 2018, but, again, there is no guarantee of that fact, in which case the resolution will be tabled soon after 2018. May I just point out that amendment 7, proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, is trying to create a meaningful vote by turning this resolution of both Houses into a statute?
Mr Jenkin
Yes, a statute has been promised, but not as a means of second-guessing the negotiations. At what stage in the passage of the statute does my right hon. and learned Friend expect the Government to use that moment and say, “Oh, well, they haven’t agreed with this bit of the agreement; we’ll have to go back.” Is it during the passage of the statute that the negotiations would have to continue? Making this decision a statute does not alter the discussion about a meaningful vote.
Mr Grieve
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I think that he may misunderstand the position. The House will have an opportunity, at the time that it is asked to move a motion approving the deal, to express its view, but it will also have an opportunity to express its view during the passage of the statute. Both those are necessary pre-conditions constitutionally for our leaving the European Union. I cannot help that; that is just how it is. Let me reiterate: the purpose of my amendment is to prevent the powers in clause 9 being used until this key statute has been enacted. That is the purpose.
John Redwood
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a process completely driven by Parliament? We have an Act of Parliament to send the letter, an Act of Parliament proposed now to withdraw and then another Act of Parliament to implement any agreement. The whole thing is completely under parliamentary sovereignty. Will he also confirm that we must have the date in the Bill to ensure legal continuity, as, under international law, we are leaving at the end of March because of the treaty?
Mr Jenkin
It is wishful thinking that the deadline will be extended. Where I disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is over the fact that, somehow, he thinks that the withdrawal agreement is necessary for us to leave the European Union and that the statute for the agreement is therefore necessary. Unfortunately, it is not. He voted for article 50, which triggered the process of leaving. Everything else is for our domestic legislation. Let us hope that there is a withdrawal agreement, but, actually, this Bill is what is necessary to provide legal continuity. Unfortunately, requiring another Act of Parliament before provisions of this Bill come into effect is just muddying the waters.
As the Minister has already demonstrated very forcefully, this is not an effective amendment. If my right hon. and learned Friend wants to table a different amendment, as colleagues almost seem to be suggesting, that might be a way to resolve this. I beg my right hon. and hon. Friends on this point. There is a summit tomorrow. This is not the moment to try to defeat the Government—[Interruption.]
Angus Brendan MacNeil
On a point of order, Mrs Laing. Are summits now to be sovereign over Parliament?
Anna Soubry
On a point of order, Mrs Laing. I will put up with all sorts of things, but I will not have an hon. Member saying that I have said things that I have not said. Will my hon. Friend retract what he said, because I have not said, “It’s too late”? What I have said is that we have been speaking to the Government for months. This matter was first raised in this place in February and we are still waiting for a resolution.
The First Deputy Chairman
The right hon. Lady knows that that is not a point of order. It is a point of debate. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is about to conclude his speech, and the more that other hon. Members shout at him and interrupt him, the less chance other Members will have to speak.
Mr Jenkin
I think that some people in this House might be trying to delay Brexit, some of whom may be supporting the amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, but I perfectly accept his bona fides and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage. I simply conclude that there is an opportunity for the discussions to continue. It is not necessary to bring this matter to a vote this evening.
Chuka Umunna
I will try to do this in three minutes, and I have three principal points. I do not want to speak for long because the points I will make in support of amendment 7 and new clause 3 have already been made very well by the right hon. and learned Members for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), my right hon. Friends the Members for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and others.
My first point is that if taking back control does not mean passing amendment 7, I do not know what does. We were told that we were leaving the European Union to reassert parliamentary sovereignty, and it seems to me that that is exactly what amendment 7 would do. Clearly, the Government are refusing to accept it. We have heard nothing from the Dispatch Box that suggests that they are prepared to concede on this, forcing the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield to press the amendment to a vote. That brings me to my second point.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman and others who are supporting his amendment have been attacked, as he mentioned earlier, not just in this place, but beyond. They have been called mutineers and saboteurs, and have faced all the rest of the abuse. Ministers and other Tory Members of Parliament in particular who have been attacking them have absolutely no right whatever to do so because the reason that the right hon. and learned Gentleman tabled his amendment was that he felt that it was in the national interest.
Now, the Brexit Secretary has voted against his party over 90 times. The International Trade Secretary has done so 19 times; the International Development Secretary, five times; and the Leader of the House, who was here earlier, seven times. Actually, look around the Government Benches. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has voted against his party 73 times; the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), 64 times; the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), 95 times; and we cannot, of course, forget the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who has voted against his party more than 100 times. So none of these people can now lecture people who are seeking to do the right thing in the national interest on this amendment. None of them can lecture people about rebelling on this or any other matter.
Antoinette Sandbach
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is deeply insulting for those who have time and again voted against their Prime Minister and their Government to suggest in this crucial Bill, which will help to set the future course of this country, that it would be wrong for us to do the proper scrutiny and to apply for votes in this House?
Chuka Umunna
I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. She is absolutely right.
As my third point, before I quickly wrap up, I want to be absolutely clear about what I believe we mean when we talk about a meaningful vote. For all the technical points that have been made from the Dispatch Box today and for all the high-quality legal debate we have had in this Chamber, the fact of the matter is that we cannot have a meaningful vote on the terms of our withdrawal unless it comes before we leave the European Union. Nothing said from the Government Dispatch Box today or at any other time has committed us to ensuring that we have that vote before we leave.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, who is no longer in his place, talked about time. The reason for the third part of article 50 allowing for an extension is so that people can extend the time if they run out of time to make the practical arrangements for a country’s withdrawal from the European Union. With all due respect to the Minister and his seven years as a Foreign Office lawyer, or whatever his experience, we do not know, unless we ask the question, whether we will be able to get the extension provided for in that article. It is pure speculation on his part to suggest that, somehow, if we run out of time by 29 March 2018, our EU partners will not be reasonable enough to grant us the time to follow the correct procedures in this Parliament.
In a way, my final point was made just now by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). We have a duty as legislators to properly scrutinise things that come before us. We will not be forgiven by future generations—of course, many of these people did not vote for us to leave the European Union—unless we scrutinise what the Government are doing to ensure that we get the best deal for these people. Of course, there are many issues that weigh on our shoulders. Everybody here will say they are acting in the national interest, and they act on behalf of their constituents, but let us be honest: there are other issues that always play on people’s minds. How will this affect me and my political journey? How will it affect my party? However, the hon. Lady was absolutely right: this is one of those moments when we have to do the right thing by the country—and nothing else.
Mr Baron
I rise to address amendment 7, in particular, which I hope the Committee will reject if it is put to a vote. However, may I first quickly put on record an exchange I had with the Father of the House—I am sorry he is not in the Chamber. In his usual courteous manner, he suggested that I had misquoted him when I said he had once said:
“I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe.”
He suggested I had got the quote from social media, but, in reality, it is given in volume 23 of the International Currency Review from 1996. I thought it wise to put that right, if only for the record.
I note the amendment in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and I see that he is also not in the Chamber. He once suggested that, having been the only Conservative to vote against going into Libya, I was leading the charmed life of a rebel. I think he now knows that when we vote against our Government, we are not leading a charmed life—it is a pretty awkward situation sometimes, and I think he is now finding that out for himself.
Amendment 7 has several flaws. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) set out a number of them. He also spoke about the importance of having clarity of intention when addressing this issue, but I want to raise an additional point that has not been covered. Amendment 7 is fundamentally flawed because it leaves open at least the possibility—given that the EU does not, in reality, want any member to leave—that as there would be no incentive for the EU to negotiate a good deal that this Parliament could accept, we could find ourselves in a permanent state of limbo, deadlocked in unproductive negotiations for months and months with no incentive for the other side to pursue a constructive deal. Members should reflect hard on that practical flaw as they go through the Lobby, assuming that the amendment is put to the vote.
Sammy Wilson
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the incentive would be to make sure that the deal was as bad as possible so that we would be left in a limbo whereby we cannot leave, yet cannot move on?
Mr Baron
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are trying to negotiate a good deal, but it takes two to tango. The amendment leaves open the door for the other side not to try to negotiate a good deal, knowing that it could drag out the negotiations and therefore prevent, at least until this Parliament were to accept the deal, our leaving the EU. If that was the case—
Mr Baron
I will in a second if I can just finish my point.
If that was the case, it would be an outrage with regard to the result of the EU referendum, in which over 17 million people voted to leave with the best possible deal. Those 17 million people had no third option on the ballot paper. There was not an option of staying in a semi-permanent state of negotiating limbo while talks progressed over a period of months and maybe years; it was a very clear yes or no. In addition, such a limbo—
Antoinette Sandbach
I am slightly confused by the point that my hon. Friend is making. I thought that taking back control meant taking back control to this Parliament, but that is clearly not his argument. In fact, he almost seems to distrust parliamentarians, despite the fact that we voted for the referendum and to trigger article 50.
Mr Baron
I can help my hon. Friend with her confusion, because the point is very simple. If an amendment suggests that the option is left open for the other side in any negotiation not to negotiate in good faith, so that this Parliament does not sanction the deal because it is not a good deal, that will delay our exit. It is very straightforward. It takes two to tango in a negotiation. I suggest that she reflects on that.
While most of us want a deal, those who criticise the Prime Minister’s position that no deal is better than a bad deal create a series of straw men to support their case. The term “no deal” itself is something of a misnomer, because it creates the idea of some sort of cliff edge. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trade flows regardless of trade deals. The UK would simply revert to using the same WTO rules that govern its trade with countries such as the United States, China, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil—hardly unimportant countries.
As for the trade deals themselves, the next straw man is the suggestion that the UK would find it difficult to negotiate them in sufficient time. If Australia can negotiate trade deals with China, South Korea and Japan within 18 months, there is no reason why the UK cannot do likewise. If anything, a trade deal with the EU will be easy to negotiate because many of the trade barriers have already been removed.
The suggestion that inward investment would suffer without a trade deal is another straw man. That is to ignore the fact that investment is about relative advantage, as anybody who has worked in the City or in industry will understand. Our much lower corporation tax rates, our more flexible labour market practices and policies, the strength of our R and D and science, our language and our time zone more than compensate for having to pay an average WTO tariff of 3% to 5%, particularly given that the currency has already depreciated.
Tonight I will be supporting the Government and rejecting amendment 7. The Prime Minister has been very clear that we will be leaving the EU—that includes the customs union and the single market—in March 2019, and that the European Court of Justice will have no further jurisdiction over British law. I support the stance that no deal is better than a bad deal, and that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That includes any proposed financial settlement.
My final point is that there is another reason why I support the Government, and it relates to trust. We are not privy to the ups and downs or the ins and outs of the negotiations, so one has to make a judgment as to whether the individuals concerned are honourable. I believe the Prime Minister to be honourable in what she has said. Having known the Ministers involved for many years, I also trust them to deliver the best possible deal. I suggest that those who support proposals such as amendment 7 should trust the EU a little less and their own Government a little more. Our Government have, after all, made concessions in good faith.
Tom Brake
Perhaps I could suggest a handicap system for Members who observe the advisory time limit on speeches.
If the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) thinks that the European Union is keen to drag things out, he has clearly not spoken to many EU diplomats. They want this to be over; they are not as obsessed with Brexit as he might be.
I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) for his rational discourse in relation to amendment 7. Unlike me, he cannot be described as wanting to stop Brexit. He does not want to, but I do—democratically, with a vote on the deal. That is covered by amendment 120, which we will vote on next Wednesday. But he and I are certainly in the same place when it comes to the importance of parliamentary sovereignty, and legislative rigour and accuracy. He set out cogent arguments in favour of amendment 7, and he described the extent to which he has bent over backwards in the last few weeks to try to secure agreement from the Government on a way forward, but failed to do so.
The Minister’s main argument against amendment 7 was time pressure. The Government have, to a great extent, inflicted that problem on themselves, whether through the general election that they called, by triggering article 50 when they did, or by refusing to entertain the option of extending the article 50 process. The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said that EU had not offered such an extension but, as I understand it, the UK has at no point ever asked for one. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield set out a very neat solution to the problem that the Government outlined, and the Minister did not manage to convince the very experienced senior Members who were sitting behind him. He might not have seen it, but the body language and facial expressions of those behind him reinforced the point that, frankly, the Government have not deployed very cogent arguments in favour of opposing amendment 7. I look forward to voting on that amendment, and to Parliament taking back control.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I will not be voting for article 7, because I think it is a mistake—[Interruption.] I am extremely grateful; I mean amendment 7. The amendment calls for legislation to be put in afterwards, which is a very unusual thing for a Bill to do—I believe it is unprecedented. If people do not like clause 9, they should vote against it, rather than voting for this unusual amendment.
I want to make it clear, however, that I very much accept the good faith of those who argue for amendment 7. Those of us who opposed the Government when they were very pro-European should not criticise Members such as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve)—Disraeli pronounced the constituency name slightly differently—when they decide to take the reverse position of the one we took in previous years. What they are doing is completely reasonable.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a quite natural solution, which is to put the assurance given at the Dispatch Box into the clause when the Bill comes back on Report?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend’s speech was absolutely brilliant. He got to the heart of all these matters, and indeed he provided a solution, which is that there should be such a good-spirited compromise that places some faith in the Government, as it is reasonable for Members of Parliament to do. We should recognise that it is better to have a clear response on Report that covers the whole problem than to agree an amendment that is constitutionally abnormal, because we should not agree to such amendments.
I follow the Minister’s argument that there are circumstances in which clause 9 could be useful. If an agreement comes relatively late on, I understand that there will be an urgency in getting statutory instruments presented. There also will be a Prorogation before May 2019, so there might be a delay in the proceedings on the withdrawal and implementation Bill and therefore a need for urgent action. If we pass a motion, as may be legislatively required, to accept the proposed statutory instruments, that will both maintain parliamentary control and give the Government the flexibility that they are likely to need.
This issue becomes very significant because, as we leave, we will want legislative continuity and clarity. The date has been set, and that has been debated, but the key is that the date has been set by previous decisions of Parliament. It is in no sense an erosion of parliamentary sovereignty, because the date is set out in the Act triggering article 50 and in the Act incorporating the Lisbon treaty into UK law. The timeframe was set under voluntary Acts of Parliament requiring things to be done by 29 March 2019. It therefore follows that there is some pressure on time, so it is perfectly reasonable for the Government to ask for such flexibility.
I conclude on the vote at the end—the final meaningful vote. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), as he so often does, made an elegant point when he said that this is a metaphysical decision for us about the meaning of meaning. The issue is that Her Majesty’s Government have already promised that we will have a vote on the deal before the European Parliament does, but there is no deal until the European Parliament has voted. The European Parliament has to agree to the deal—as part of the article 50 package, this is decided by an enhanced qualified majority vote, subject to the approval of the European Parliament—but we have already been promised a vote before the matter is voted on by the European Parliament.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend is probably right, but my understanding is that the definition of withdrawal agreement clearly says “whether ratified or not”, so we do not have to follow the European Parliament. However, unless we get a meaningful vote, it may well end up being able to vote on something that, frankly, we will not be able to vote on.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but the Government have already said that we will have a chance to vote on the withdrawal agreement before the European Parliament.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Well, that vote must by its nature be meaningful. As we know, it is very easy to have a meaningful vote: we just table an Humble Address, and then it is binding on Her Majesty’s Government, as is quite clear from all previous parliamentary and constitutional procedure. We can engineer a meaningful vote even if the Government are trying to be a bit slippery, which I happen to doubt very much, because I think Her Majesty’s Government would never dream of being slippery—they would not know how to be slippery. It is hard to think of a Government in the whole of history being slippery.
In the whole schedule leading to the ratification and approval of the withdrawal agreement, there is a requirement for a vote in this House. There is also a requirement, now agreed with the European Union, that there will be a withdrawal and implementation Bill—[Interruption.] I am sorry that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) is getting impatient, but this is a very important matter. The rights of Parliament will absolutely and clearly be preserved, and I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, because his is a solution with which I think everybody can be happy.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The votes we will have at 7 o’clock will be the most important since this House voted to trigger article 50. Those of us who want to have any real influence over how we leave the EU must vote for a meaningful vote in Parliament. That is not being guaranteed. We will not have a meaningful vote on either the initial withdrawal agreement and the very broad terms—which is all they will be—of our future relationship with the EU, or the full agreement governing our future relationship with the EU, which the Government have finally admitted can be legally concluded only once the UK has left the EU.
On the first issue, all that is being offered is a take-it-or-leave-it vote on whatever the Government agree, with no guarantee that the actual vote will take place before exit day. The written ministerial statement is clear that the legislation—not the vote—
“will be introduced before the UK exits the EU”.
In reality, it will be a choice between giving the Government a blank cheque and in effect turning this Parliament into a rubber stamp, or taking a leap into the abyss.
What meaningful say will this House have if the alternative to rubber-stamping the Government’s deal is no transition agreement, meaning that our businesses will face a cliff edge; no deal for EU citizens living here or for UK citizens abroad; and no deal on the Irish border, which is so vital for protecting the Good Friday agreement? The sword of Damocles is over our heads, and we should say no.
A meaningful vote would give this House sufficient time and mean that it would not face a last-minute threat. It would give this House the power to send the Government back to the negotiating table, and the power to request that the remaining EU27 extend the article 50 deadline if we needed to get a better deal. That is also why it is so important not to have a fixed time and date in the Bill—because we may well need all the flexibility we can get.
The final overall trade deal with the EU will govern the UK’s future relationship with the EU for decades to come, but what is on offer is even worse. The written ministerial statement says that
“the agreement governing our future relationship…may take the form of a single agreement or a number of agreements covering different aspects of the relationship.”
It is pretty clear what will happen in the EU27 countries. The statement says that
“agreements on the future relationship are likely to require the consent of the European Parliament and conclusion by the Council. If both the EU and Member States are exercising their competences in an agreement, Member States will also need to ratify it.”
What do we get here? The statement says that the Government will introduce further legislation only
“where it is needed to implement the terms of the future relationship”.
There is no guarantee of any legislation, apart from when the Government deem it necessary, and there is no ability to disagree to or amend those deals, only to implement them.
That is unacceptable. MPs must have a meaningful vote on the initial withdrawal agreement and on the future trade agreement or agreements—and that must be on the face of the Bill. Nothing that the Prime Minister or the Brexit Minister have said today, or in the Brexit Secretary’s written ministerial statement, have addressed those concerns at all. Even if they had, words and assurances are not enough. The Prime Minister is not in a position to give us those assurances—indeed, no one on the Government Front Bench is, because they may not be there when our future trade and other deals with the EU are agreed. It will be many years before that happens. They have not addressed any of those points, and I say to hon. Members on both the Opposition and Government Benches that this is the time to put country before party. If we want an influence and a say over the future of this country, I urge them to vote for amendment 7.
George Freeman
This House and the people voted to leave in the referendum, and I respect that. Like the vast majority of hon. Members across the House, I am committed to making a success of Brexit in the spirit of a Brexit that works for the whole country. I strongly support the Prime Minister in her endeavours, her Lancaster House speech and her Florence speech. Indeed, I was proud that my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) described me as a model convert to the cause. We have to show those who did not vote for Brexit that this is a moment of national renewal that will inspire renewal economically, culturally and politically. That brings us to clause 9.
The people of Mid Norfolk voted to bring powers back to Parliament. They want Parliament to be given the powers to scrutinise legislation, and they want to stop the process of European legislation too often passing through unscrutinised and this House passing bad legislation. Do not take it from me, take it from my hon. Friends who I suspect I am going to disagree with tonight. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) put it beautifully:
“This referendum gives the British people the great opportunity to restore their precious but damaged democracy.”
He went on to say that
“the sovereignty of the British people required a sovereign Parliament that they could dismiss and they could influence”—[Official Report, 9 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 1099.]
in the legislation that we pass. Clause 9 goes right to the heart of whether we have that power. Do not take it from me, take it from the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has argued that clause 9 could enable significant constitutional rights, such as the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK, to be implemented in domestic law by negative procedure regulations, even if that requires amendments to primary legislation. The Committee also criticised clause 9 for providing the ability to amend provisions of the Bill through secondary legislation, saying that it was “wholly unacceptable”. The report argues that clause 9 is the widest Henry VIII power in the Bill.
It is for those reasons, I think, that we have heard doubts about the clause this afternoon, in a most fascinating debate, from hon. Members who, like me, support the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) described the clause as containing “mischief” and urged the Government to take heed and recommend a compromise. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) has said very eloquently and very consistently that he is not comfortable with the clause. We all know what happened—the clause was drafted before the Government, laudably, promised to give this House a vote. That having been done, as my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald), a former Attorney General and a former Solicitor General, have made clear in legal terms rather more powerfully than I can, the clause makes no sense.
This afternoon we have heard Back Benchers on all sides ask Ministers to provide clarity on why these extraordinary powers are needed. We have not heard the answer. In such circumstances, the all-important trust that goes right to the heart of this issue—between Back Benchers and Front Benchers, between Parliament and the Executive, and between the people and their Parliament—is stretched. Those who fear a conspiracy against Brexit—a conspiracy to use the scrutiny they have fought so hard against them. However, to turn that back around on those of us who want to reassure the people of this country that this is not a conspiracy against them but a moment of renewal inverts the logic of this moment. To hear only a traditional stubbornness from the Front Bench—one that I have shared in my time on the Front Bench; we know the brief, with civil servants saying, “Don’t give an inch”—without any reason or explanation is worrying. If this was simply some technocratic measure to do with a minor implementation of minor secondary legislation, I dare say the Committee would not be worried, but this is a Committee of the whole House for good reason: this goes right to the heart of the protection of our liberties. One of the worst aspects of the problem we are all trying to solve is Parliament passing legislation without scrutinising it.
Several hon. Members rose—
The Temporary Chair (Sir David Crausby)
Order. I remind Members that if they keep their contributions short, more hon. Members will be called.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Brexit has had many titles, but in my view it is fast becoming the Laurel and Hardy Brexit, because it is one never-ending fine mess—a multifaceted fine mess, indeed. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) keeps a running total on how time is passing. It is 530 days since the Brexit vote, when apparently all the voters knew what they were voting for, yet we are still working out what it meant—there are Committees in this place trying to work out what it meant. He also tells me that there are 470 days to go before the cliff edge. The fine mess and the vanity are coinciding with the Government’s avoidance of a meaningful vote. They are tied to the timescale of article 50 as laid out in the Lisbon treaty—a strange place for a Brexiteer Government to be.
To me, it is pretty obvious. If the vote is between a deal and a crash-out, a deal wins. If the vote is between a deal and the status quo, with access to the single market, the status quo wins. Surely nobody is going to put the country—our constituents, themselves and their families—into a worse situation than we have now or raise the possibility of higher trade tariffs with up to 94 countries, as well the base load of the 27 EU countries. Another question: is this going to be a transition deal or a maintenance deal? Last Monday, the Prime Minister said she did not want two cliff edges, so it looks as if there is going to be a maintenance deal.
Opponents of amendment 7 are treating it as if it somehow aims to block Brexit or remove powers from their hands. It does not block Brexit. This is a Brexiteer Parliament, unfortunately. It is rolling over to article 50. Both Front-Bench teams want out of the single market and out of the customs union. The amendment, tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), would put power in the hands of parliamentarians. To reject the amendment would be like setting sail on a cruise liner, striking an iceberg and finding out you had refused to bring any lifeboats. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) fears that the other side will not be incentivised to make a deal. If that situation arises, deal with it then—do not tie our hands now for the sake of actions we might want to take in the future. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) finds himself deferring, I think, to the European Parliament, which is a very interesting thing.
My final plea tonight is to wider society. As Chair of the International Trade Committee, I have companies coming to me moaning and telling me about Brexit. They have to step up to the plate and take part in this debate. We should have had impact assessments tonight, but we did not get any—they are more elusive than Donald Trump’s tax returns. Companies in the City have to start informing this debate. They should have been doing it before now, because it would have helped tonight. My plea is aimed at boardrooms across the UK: they must get their voices heard, because if they do not, they will go down with this lot here.
Sir Oliver Heald
Parliament should have a meaningful vote on the EU withdrawal agreement before it is implemented. Clause 9, which is the subject of amendment 7, allows Ministers to implement the EU withdrawal agreement by secondary legislation. That was always a mistake. The courts were never going to accept a situation whereby the EU withdrawal agreement was brought into our law by secondary legislation—major constitutional legislation brought in by statutory instrument.
The Government, to be fair, acknowledged that. After presenting the Bill to Parliament, there came a point where they said, “No, we will need a Bill to implement the EU withdrawal agreement.” That is right, but what a mess. In my view, Parliament is entitled to have a meaningful vote on the agreement before the powers in clause 9 are used, so there needs to be a trigger in clause 9; otherwise, once the Government have reached agreement with the EU, they would be able just to start laying legislation.
Of course, we have had some welcome commitments tonight and during the day, but on something as important as this, where there are very significant powers involved, I feel that as parliamentarians and lawmakers we should have a say and the Bill should reflect what the Government are saying. If they are saying, as I believe they are, that what I have described will not happen until Parliament has approved the agreement, it should say that in the Bill. Indeed, it was noticeable that those who do not agree with the amendment, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), all agree that the provisions are flawed. It has been some time now that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) has been saying, “Come forward with your own amendment, O Government, so that this is in the right order and it has the protections that lawmakers would expect in the Bill.”
I am sad to vote, as I am going to, for article 7—[Interruption.] I said “article”, just like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. I am sad to vote for amendment 7, but I feel I should and that it is an important principle that, when we make the law, we get it right in the Bill.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I rise to speak to amendment 355, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friends and sets out our position that an affirmative vote by devolved bodies prior to enactment is required.
If the process of Brexit could be summed up in one word, it would be “control”. For me, taking back control also means bringing the exercise of powers as close as possible to the people. The final deal will be subject to ratification by all EU member states, the EU Parliament and sub-state parliaments, variously numbered at 33, 37 or 38—take your pick. By the same token, I believe that the constituent parts of the UK should have the same final say as our counterparts in the EU. The final deal with the EU should be approved in statute passed by both the Westminster Parliament and the devolved Administrations, hence amendment 355.
We have repeated our arguments many times for remaining in the European single market and customs union. Wales’s goods-based, export-led economy relies on its close links with the EU single market, with 67% of all Welsh exports going to the EU and the single market sustaining 200,000 jobs. We already know that the stakes are high for Wales, so Wales must have a stake and a say in the final deal. I will not revisit the arguments I have made during previous debates on the Bill about the constitutional intricacies of the Sewel convention, but I wish to say to my Labour friends that not giving the devolved Governments a stake in the final deal risks subjecting our nation to policies, and indeed an ideology, that have so far caused our country grievous harm.
To conclude these brief remarks, the whole argument boils down to control. Following the referendum, the principle of returning control is not at issue. What is at issue is where that control lies. The minority Government party asserts that finally control rests here and here alone, but if the UK is a shared enterprise, based on mutual respect between Westminster and the devolved Governments, that party should also accept my amendment 355, which, to adapt a phrase from the Father of the House, is the fundamental minimum for a devolved parliamentary democracy.
Kevin Hollinrake
I have listened carefully to the many esoteric legal arguments that have been advanced this evening. I am afraid that my comments will be far more prosaic and practical. I was on the remain side of the referendum debate, but, like most of my colleagues, I am now focusing on trying to secure the best possible deal, and that deal must centre on what a meaningful vote would be.
What does “a meaningful vote” mean? If it means “deal or no deal”, I think that that is a recipe for securing the best possible deal, but if it means “deal or no deal, or go back to the negotiating table”, perhaps indefinitely and with no time limit, I think that that is counterproductive. It would be detrimental, and would undermine our negotiating position. I am not suggesting for a second that that is the desire of those who promote a meaningful vote of that kind, but I think that that would be the effect.
Rather than looking only at the legal context, we need also to look at the political, economic and financial contexts. Of course the negotiations were always going to be difficult after 44 years of integration with the European Union, but they will also be difficult because of the European Union’s position. The EU clearly does not want us to leave, which is understandable for some of the reasons that I have given, but also, primarily, it does not want others to leave, and that must be its priority during the negotiations. If this were a marriage of equals and therefore a divorce of equals, that meaningful vote with those three different options would be fine, but that is not where we are. Of course, the EU also recognises that 75% of Members of Parliament were on the remain side of the argument.
We have to look at the EU’s perspective as well as that of the UK, which is why I think that the Prime Minister was not only right to offer a fair deal in her Florence speech, but right to say that we would not be afraid to walk away with no deal. That gives the EU one chance to get this right, whereas a meaningful vote-plus would give the EU many, many chances to get this right—to give the worst possible deal to get it right. Its incentive would be to put the worst deal on the table initially, knowing that Parliament would reject it and keep going back to the table. That cannot be the right negotiating position.
None of us wants to leave on the basis of no deal. WTO rules would clearly not be in the country’s interests, and it would not be in my own interests outside Parliament either. Nevertheless, I do not want to be locked into an organisation that simply will not let us leave other than on disadvantageous terms.
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Let me say to him that—reflecting the mood of the Committee, having taken advice, and, in particular, having listened very carefully to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin)—the Government are willing to return on Report with an amendment on the face of the Bill clarifying the undertaking and assurance that I gave in my speech that statutory instruments under clause 9 will not come into force until we have had a meaningful vote in Parliament.
Kevin Hollinrake
I hope that the Minister’s intervention will satisfy some of my colleagues.
Let me end by saying that I will be supporting the Government this evening. In my view, it is time for us to grit our teeth and simply get on with it.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I rise to speak about my amendments 293, 294 and 295, which deal with the issue of who decides exit day, but rather than making the speech that I originally prepared, I will keep my remarks brief and broad.
The Prime Minister’s decision to set the exit date and to write it into law is another panic move, and it puts her into a self-tying straitjacket. It is a sop to the hard Brexiteers, and it creates a rod for the negotiators’ backs. It weakens, rather than strengthens, the UK’s position in the crucial nine months that are left for us to negotiate a good deal. Eighteen months after the referendum, we have seen the bluff and bluster on the withdrawal agreement. The Foreign Secretary has gone from telling our European partners to go whistle to being little Tommy Tucker singing for his supper to the tune of £40 billion. We have seen a tug of war take place on EU citizens’ rights, and a deal on no hard border with Ireland taking place in frantic late-night phone calls—a deal that the Brexit Secretary later undermined by calling it a mere “statement of intent”, which has caused all sorts of problems.
Antoinette Sandbach
Throughout the referendum campaign, leave campaigners spoke about taking back control, and it was seemingly a powerful message that resonated with the electorate. There is no doubt that the message, which was one of the crucial undertones of the campaign, meant bringing powers back to this Parliament, not to the Executive. That is why amendment 7 is so crucial.
It may be stating the obvious, but it cannot be reiterated enough that the Government are presiding over a monumental task of immense importance for the future of this country. In any such change, it is imperative that Parliament maintains close scrutiny and oversight of the process—of all aspects of the withdrawal agreement, from security co-operation to ease of trade with our European partners—so that we, as Members of Parliament, can best represent our constituents. These aspects must be scrutinised and debated by this House. If we are not given a say on that detail, we cannot fulfil our responsibilities to our constituents, and those responsibilities are the most motivating factor behind my support for a meaningful vote on the deal.
Clause 9 provides sweeping powers to the Government to deal with some residual situation, as the Minister described it, that he would like to retain control over. I am afraid that I am not willing to vote to give away the parliamentary sovereignty that I exercise on behalf of my constituents for some residual control to the Executive. If the Minister needs that power in relation to the withdrawal Bill, he needs to come back to this House and ask for it and explain why. I am afraid I found his explanation at the Dispatch Box today utterly unconvincing. Although I am grateful for the indication he has given about Report stage, unless that amendment is submitted in manuscript now, or amendment 7 is accepted, I will vote for amendment 7 tonight.
We have been pushing discussions with this Government for weeks and we have made our point very clear. I fully back the Prime Minister. I support her in trying to get the best deal for Britain, but I will not give away parliamentary sovereignty to the Executive on the basis of a request for them to have residual powers in this Bill.
Mr Grieve
While I was briefly out of the Chamber, an announcement was made of a Government concession, but I have to say, it is too late. I am sorry, but you cannot treat the House in this fashion. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) may agree with me that the best way of getting progress in this area is by moving amendment 7 and thereafter we can co-operate with the Government in trying to achieve its aim.
Stephen Kinnock
I rise to support amendment 7, tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I have listened with great interest to all the excellent speeches and interventions by right hon. and hon. Members this afternoon and, for me, three key themes have emerged. First, there is real disagreement about the meaning of “meaningful”. Secondly, there is confusion about the terms of article 50. Thirdly, there is an issue of trust.
On the first point, it is crystal clear that this vote cannot be meaningful if it is binary. It has to be taken on the basis of us having an opportunity to instruct the Government to extend article 50 if necessary. On the second point, article 50 clearly gives the Government the opportunity to seek an extension of the period, and there is no reason whatever why the EU27 would reject that request. It is enshrined in the treaties, and for that to have meaning, they would clearly have to listen to our request. Why on earth would they not accept that request if it was in our mutual interest to do so?
Anna Soubry
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a moment comes in one’s life when, on the most important issue that this nation has faced in decades, we have to set aside party differences and even party loyalty and be true to our principles and to what we believe in? It could be that that moment is now.
Stephen Kinnock
I agree absolutely with the right hon. Lady. I pay tribute to her and to a range of other right hon. and hon. Members across the House. This is not an easy choice to make. It is always difficult in these circumstances when there is a huge amount of interest and focus on what we are about to do in this House. It is essential that hon. Members stick with their principles, and sometimes that means putting country before party. I pay tribute to every right hon. and hon. Member who will do that this evening. This is indeed a matter of trust. The challenge that we face is that if this provision is not put on the face of the Bill, we will not have the confidence and the assurance that we in this place can indeed take back control and reassert the sovereignty of this place, which is what 17 million people voted for on 23 June 2016.
Stephen Kinnock
I am afraid I must push on, because we are moving towards the deadline.
Having paid tribute to those right hon. and hon. Members for what they are doing this evening, I commend the terms of amendment 7 to the Committee. I will be honoured to go through the Division Lobby with those right hon. and hon. Members this evening.
Charlie Elphicke
The Committee will know that, from my point of view, we cannot get out of the European Union fast enough. Time and again, I have said that we need to be ready on day one and be prepared for every eventuality, deal or no deal—or, should I say, regional deal or global deal—but we must remember why we are taking back control. It is because of the vision we have for our country and because of our values. Those values include the rule of law, natural justice and the sovereignty of Parliament. The rule of law exists to ensure that executive power is not abused, and that is why I object to clause 9. It is not right that a measure of this sort should be put through by any form of statutory instrument.
I welcome the fact that the Government are going to bring forward a withdrawal agreement and an implementation Bill, and nothing I have heard today has indicated to me any sense of urgency or any reason why a statutory instrument will need to be put through in a hurry. As far as I am concerned, I am prepared to stay up all night long to pass legislation to get us out of the European Union as soon as possible. For that reason, I urge the Government to withdraw clause 9, and I have to say that I will not be able to support it on stand part.
Mr Lammy
I am coming up to my 18th year in the House. During that time, we have had serious votes on going to war in Iraq and in Syria, and on different occasions, parliamentary sovereignty has asserted itself. On the war in Iraq, we thought we had the information, but it turned out that we did not, and we went to war. On Syria, despite some strong arguments to intervene, we chose not to. I also remember sitting through the night for the 90-day detention legislation under Tony Blair, and this House resisted the move to a 90-day detention period for those arrested for terrorism offences. Tonight, we are again being asked to make a very important decision that will affect the future of this country.
I might say that the sovereignty of this Parliament is why we are here in the first place, so I applaud the Government Members who are standing by their principles and remembering the importance of coming back to debate in this House. This is about timing. We may have had a discussion about what is meaningful, but I think we all know what is meaningless. It is meaningless to have a debate and a vote in this House after the decision is made. For all those reasons, I hope that we will return after the vote on amendment 7 and find that we really have given back sovereignty to the UK Parliament.
Vicky Ford
The Government have now made it clear that the House will have a final meaningful vote on the EU withdrawal agreement before the UK leaves, which is extraordinarily important because the last point in the process of withdrawal is actually the vote in the European Parliament. My former colleagues—the ones who are trying to help us get an amicable agreement in that Parliament—have told me that unless there is a full democratic process here, there will be people who try to scupper the deal in that last vote in the European Parliament. The rest of the world is watching how we legislate, and transparency is important.
I am new to British legislation, but I have heard it time and again from Members as diverse as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that the powers in clause 9 are inappropriate, too strong and could mean that the Government are able to make material changes to legislation without a scrutiny process before we leave. I am therefore extremely pleased that the Minister made his announcement at the last minute. If he would like to, I would love him to intervene once more to ensure that everybody has heard exactly what he said.
Dominic Raab
I am delighted to intervene again and, reflecting the mood of the House, I can tell my hon. Friend that we are willing to return on Report to put an amendment on the face of the Bill making it crystal clear that statutory instruments under clause 9 will not enter into force until we have had a meaningful vote in Parliament.
Yvette Cooper
This has been a thoughtful debate that has shown the strength of this House, but the thoughtfulness and strength of this House are exactly why the House needs to have a meaningful statutory vote on the withdrawal agreement before the extremely extensive powers in clause 9 are used. The Minister had an hour on his feet; we have had six hours of debate today and many months of debate beforehand, and he still has not come up with a manuscript amendment to clarify what he will do, nor have we had a commitment yet from the Government that the vote will in fact be a statutory one. The only reason that the Minister could give as to why there should not be a statutory vote on the withdrawal agreement was the timing, and yet there are so many examples of when this Parliament has used expedited procedures to get a statute in place just as fast as any resolution.
Mr Kenneth Clarke
My understanding is that the Minister has just said that the Government will use clause 9, and will start legislating statutory instruments, long before the due day; it is just, having been legislated, they will not come into force until the due day. That is some kind of concession, but does the right hon. Lady agree that something better might be arrived at in the later stages of this Bill?
Yvette Cooper
I certainly think that something much better is needed, because the powers in clause 9 are unprecedented, and Parliament should not hand over such unprecedented powers to the Executive blindfold, without our knowing what the withdrawal agreement will be. There have been so many examples, whether it is the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013, the Police (Detention and Bail) Act 2011, the Loans to Ireland Act 2010, the Mental Health (Approval Functions) Act 2012, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 or the Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Act 2017, Act after Act that has been through an expedited process—they can be done within a week. We can do this if we need to. Timeliness is not a problem.
That is why we need a vote, and that is why Ministers should just stop arguing. They should either ditch clause 9 and agree to new clause 3, or agree to amendment 7.
In order to support the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9
Implementing the Withdrawal Agreement
Amendment proposed: 7, page 6, line 45, at end insert “, subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”—(Mr Grieve.)
To require the final deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by Parliament.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 345, in clause 8, page 6, line 32, at end insert—
“(2A) Regulations under subsection (1) may, in particular, include regulations to match or exceed World Health Organisation air quality standards.”
This amendment is intended to ensure that the UK continues to meet international air quality standards after withdrawal from the EU.
Amendment 292, page 6, line 38, at end insert—
“(e) impose or increase taxation”
This amendment would prevent the imposition or increase of a tax by regulations made under Clause 8 to comply with international obligations.
Amendment 390, page 6, line 38, at end insert—
“(e) confer a power to legislate (other than a power to make rules of procedure for a court or tribunal).”
Amendment 352, page 6, line 40, at end insert—
“(5) Any power to make, confirm or approve subordinate legislation conferred or modified under this Act and its schedules must be used, and may only be used, insofar as is necessary to ensure that standards of equalities, environmental protection and employment protection, and consumer standards will continue to remain in all respects equivalent to those extant in the EU.
(6) In particular, no agreement relating to international trade or investment with the EU or with a third-party state or states shall be made that permits or requires standards of equalities, environmental protection and employment protection, and consumer standards to fall below those extant in the EU at the time.”
This amendment would ensure that in exercising the powers under this provision, the Government maintains equivalent standards to the EU, and in particular, in making trade agreements.
Clause 8 stand part.
Mr Leslie
What a privilege it is to have the opportunity to speak on such a momentous evening when Parliament has had the guts and foresight to stand up to the Executive, take back control and give hope to those who thought that all hope was lost, and to see Members from all parties working together in the national interest.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is wonderful to see so many former Ministers on the Conservative Benches discovering their love of parliamentary sovereignty when they are no longer on the ministerial merry-go-round. I have far greater respect in this place for those parliamentarians who have never held ministerial office and actually respect this place, even when things are not going their way.
Mr Leslie
I have even more respect for those who have never held ministerial office and who actually vote with their conscience, rather than looking at the ministerial ladder ahead of them and deciding to suppress their views for other reasons. Anyway, we have been there and dealt with that issue.
In speaking to new clause 20, I want to make a couple of introductory remarks. Over the last 44 years, I think, of Britain’s membership of the EU, the UK has accrued a massive array of international obligations, rights and authorisations via a series of 759 treaties—this is absolutely right—with 168 non-EU countries. Of course, after 29 March 2019, those treaties, because we have accrued them by virtue of our membership of the EU, will fall away. They will cease to exist; they will be no more; they will have ceased to be; they will have expired—they will be ex-treaties. The United Kingdom will no longer be party to those agreements with those third countries, unless of course we have made efforts to replace them beforehand to provide for a smooth continuation.
New clause 20 would require Her Majesty’s Government to publish one month after Royal Assent—we can give them that month to get themselves together—a comprehensive assessment of each of those treaties, agreements and obligations; to set out if there are any requirements they want to amend or renegotiate; and to make an assessment of whether the powers in clause 8 might need to be used. Sir David, you will know, in your eagle-eyed way, that clause 8 gives powers to Ministers, for two years at least, to make a series of orders and regulations to prevent or remedy any breach in those international treaties, as if achieved by an Act of Parliament. I pay tribute to the late Paul McClean, the Financial Times journalist who sadly died in September, who, in one of his final reports, carried out an extremely comprehensive analysis and assessment of some of these many treaties and international obligations.
Mr Leslie
That is indeed a question I was coming to. I am sure that the Minister will tell us that the Government have made an itemised assessment of all those 759 treaties.
Those treaties break down as follows: 295 bilateral and multilateral trade deals, whose approval is needed to recreate any multilateral arrangements that will fall away as we leave the European Union; 202 regulatory co-operation agreements, including on data sharing, anti-trust and so forth; 69 treaties on fisheries, including access to waters and sustainable stocks; 65 treaties on transport and aviation services agreements; 49 treaties on customs agreements, including on the transportation of goods; 45 treaties on nuclear agreements, including on the use of nuclear fuel with other countries, parts and know-how; and 34 treaties on agriculture.
Mr Leslie
Indeed, and after the Minister has finished the first page of his speech, on the impact assessment, he will turn it over and tell us about the contingency plans that will be in place.
Imagine, Sir David, that you are a Government Minister at this point in time and you are thinking, “Well okay, I’ve got all these 759 treaties. What are we going to do? How are we going to deal with this? How much time is it going to take to renegotiate them or at least make sure they can be carried over?” Let us assume that all the other parties to those agreements are happy simply to cut and paste them across. Of course, we cannot necessarily assume that, but let us do so. If, for each agreement, it took a civil servant one day to analyse the contents, a day to contact the third party country concerned, of which there are 160, perhaps a day to track down the decision makers in the relevant Departments here in the UK and the other country, perhaps a couple of days in dialogue with that other country—it would be pretty good if they could do it in a couple of days—and maybe a day to bring together our Ministers and their Ministers, we would be talking, on top of the costs of travelling to those other countries and legal costs, some tens of thousands of hours of civil service time.
Sir Desmond Swayne
Because the hon. Gentleman has, notwithstanding his personal views, accepted the will of the electorate, no doubt the logic of where he is leading us is to put off leaving the European Union for some indeterminate period of time until all these issues are sorted out.
Mr Leslie
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents knew all this before they voted in the referendum. I am not convinced that many members of the public, whether they voted remain or leave, actually spotted the downstream consequentials of exiting the European Union in this way. Of course, they employ us, as Members of Parliament, to answer these questions. That is our job and it is what we are here to do.
Sir Desmond Swayne
On that basis, is it therefore the hon. Gentleman’s intention to reopen the question so that the public can revisit their decision?
Mr Leslie
My view is that the British public always have the right to think again and decide the fate of this country as they see fit, but for the time being, in this Bill and with new clause 20, it is reasonable for us to scrutinise the Executive and to say, “How are you going to do it? How are you going to make sure that all the important aspects of those 759 international treaties will be smoothly transposed after 29 March 2019?”
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the other parties to these treaties may not quite have the incentive to be as quick as we might need them to be?
Mr Leslie
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As these are potentially fresh treaty discussions, other countries may wish to take the opportunity to reopen or revisit the treaty provisions. We may, of course, have entered into those agreements in different political times, so who knows what they may be?
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
As always, my hon. Friend makes a compelling case for changing the Bill. Given that the Government are battered and bruised this evening after their outstanding defeat, if the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box and says that they do have assessments of the impact of our leaving these international treaties, should we believe them?
Mr Leslie
I will believe the Government if they publish the assessments, and I am prepared to make an appointment to go to a private reading room in the ex-Treasury building if needs be, but this must be a bit more than an analysis of how many treaties there are: it must be an assessment of their impact and importance.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. Of course, I support his new clause.
I have long been in favour of the arms trade treaty, parts of which fall within EU competence. The EU as a whole was involved in the negotiations on the treaty, and we are a party to it as an individual country. We also have the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria as well as domestic legislation. The arms trade is one of the issues that cut across many different areas of competence, and we are party to a number of treaties relating to it. Is that not exactly the sort of issue that should be examined?
Mr Leslie
It is, and I think it is particularly incumbent on those who advocated Britain’s exit from the EU to tell us what their plan was. How were they going to solve that problem? It should not be entirely incumbent on the myriad Conservative Members who were fighting for Britain to leave the EU only to disappear when the really tough job came along of deciding how we were to pick up the pieces and ensure that the treaties could continue in some way, shape or form.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should carry out an impact assessment to establish whether they have the capacity to negotiate the treaties, given, for example, the Secretary of State for International Trade’s recent admission that they do not have the capacity to negotiate trade deals?
Mr Leslie
Indeed. For example, last time I heard, only three officials at the Department for Transport were dedicated to negotiating aviation agreements. Those three poor civil servants, although hopefully there are four or five by now, will have a heck of a job on their hands to repair all the open skies agreements and international aviation treaties—that is in just one sector, so think of the implications. But I am sure that those who were advocating a leave vote have a plan to cope with the whole scenario.
Tom Brake
I just wanted to help the hon. Gentleman. Given his position in the Chamber, he might not have been able to see that both Ministers were frantically texting earlier. I suspect that they did not have the list of treaties to which he is referring. He might need to supply it at the end of the debate so that they can start doing some work on this.
Mr Leslie
I want to make a bit of progress as others want to speak.
We in the UK are thinking that we must replace a lot of these treaties. When we leave the EU, our exit will affect not just us but the EU, because a great many of its treaties, obligations and agreements with third countries around the world were predicated on the existence of 28 members. Minus the UK, the other members may need to renegotiate their treaties as well. Ministers might not give two hoots about the implications of that, but those on the EU side of the negotiating table probably do care about it, and that will have ramifications for our negotiations.
Of course, the Foreign Secretary was always telling us that all the other countries around the world were queuing up to do deals with us. He had to fight them off as they asked, “Please may we have a new trade agreement with you?” I have not personally seen that particular queue, but perhaps when the Minister winds up the debate he will be able to tell us how many countries have been knocking on our door seeking new trade agreements.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman obviously thinks very little of this country if he feels that other countries around the world do not want to do trade deals with the United Kingdom. Why does he think that?
Mr Leslie
Those countries already have very good trade agreements with us by virtue of our membership of the European Union, and they are worried about losing the opportunity to have good trade arrangements not just with us, but with the rest of the EU, if those agreements are ripped up and thrown up into air, creating uncertainty. I will be the first person, as a member of the International Trade Committee, to go around the world and try to get those trade agreements, if indeed we do have Brexit, but until that point, I want the right hon. Gentleman to say whether he explained to his constituents before the referendum that all these international treaties were going to be ripped up. Did he say that to them?
Sir Hugo Swire
The hon. Gentleman needs to answer the question that I asked him first, with all due respect. He said there would be concern among many of these other countries—he did not say which—about what kind of trade agreement there would be, and about access to markets and so forth. Of course they will have concerns; we will also have concerns—that is part of any bilateral trade negotiation. Why does he think, despite these concerns, that they will not wish to do deals with us?
Mr Leslie
I hope that countries do, and we will need them to, otherwise we will literally be planting carrots in our back gardens. If we do not have trade deals with the rest of the world, we will have to produce more domestically, rather than having the living standards we have previously enjoyed. I am a very pro-trade Member of Parliament, and the right hon. Gentleman should know where I stand on many of these questions. That is why I am asking what the consequences will be not just if we move away from the trade arrangements we have—the finest, frictionless free trade agreement of anywhere in the world that we have right now with the single market and the customs union—but if we then rip up the free trade agreements with non-EU countries that we have enjoyed by virtue of our EU membership. That is another 12% of our exports. Some 50% of our exports are with the EU through our existing trade arrangements, and then there is another 12%—actually, there is another 14% because there are other territories of those non-EU countries as well. That is a big chunk of our trade. I am very concerned about how effectively we can carry out the grandfathering of those FTAs with the rest of the EU.
We must also bear in mind that there are 164 members of the WTO, and they have rights of veto and objection on many occasions. In fact, we recently tried to lodge a suggestion on dividing tariff-rate quotas. This is getting technical, but that is basically dividing up the EU’s share of low or zero-tariff allowances when countries such as New Zealand or Australia try to import lamb. Amazingly, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America have lodged an objection to the British divvy-up of those tariff-rate quotas. Of course, apparently America should have been knocking on our door, as we were at the front of the queue, supposedly, but it still lodged an objection to our very first relationship with the WTO.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend rightly raises the issue of these countries objecting to any changes to quota, because they will first and foremost seek to protect their own economies, not our economy. In the event that we get a percentage of the EU quota but for whatever reason—customs barriers; non-tariff barriers; the withdrawal of purchasing power—that quota of goods cannot be sold into the UK, those countries’ flexibility to then sell those goods to the EU is lost. That is why they are digging their heels in so early on this issue.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
There is another complication. If we are saying that we are going to have regulatory alignment on cross-border issues with regard to Northern Ireland, specifically on agriculture, given that we are in the EU orbit in that sense, how on earth can we then have WTO trade arrangements elsewhere unless we give the same conditions that apply to the Irish Republic to every other country in the world, which the EU cannot accept?
Mr Leslie
There is a big issue relating to the most favoured nation status arrangement because of clauses in the existing EU free trade agreements. If we are given a deep and special relationship with the EU, the EU will be obliged to offer the same access to Korea and to Canada under the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. There are implications to all this. If we pull one thread, all sorts of things appear.
Mr Leslie
I will finish shortly. I know that I am trying the right hon. Gentleman’s patience.
The 36 regional and bilateral free trade agreements with 63 other countries are exceptionally important, but there are also trade-related agreements, including mutual recognition agreements and standards for conformity assessments. The Department for International Trade has also said that there are multiple hundreds of mutual recognition agreements. The list is getting bigger and bigger, and it is all on the shoulders of the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker).
Hannah Bardell
The hon. Gentleman is going into great detail about the amount of time and effort that is going to be spent, and the number of treaties and trade deals that will need to be done. Does he agree with me on the broader point that we are treading water here? A huge amount of money and parliamentary time is going to be spent, and nothing else will be able to be done.
Mr Leslie
Let us think about all the important priorities for our constituents, including public service reform and living standards. This is one of the most frustrating things: we are treading water just to keep up what we already have. Indeed, things will not be as good as the arrangements we already have. What annoys me most is when Ministers try to gloss over this and pretend that it is all going to be fine, saying, “There’s no problem here. There’s nothing to see.” Lord Price, who used to be a International Trade Minister, tweeted about the 36 free trade agreements, saying that they were all fine and that:
“All have agreed roll over.”
The current Minister of State at the Department, the Minister for Trade Policy, retweeted that. However, when we ask the Secretary of State whether countries have agreed that they all roll over, we are told, “Well, we haven’t had any objections from them to suggest they might not roll over.” Will they want to renegotiate? We are told, “Well, we haven’t heard from them yet.” This is an incredible example of trying to put the best possible gloss on the situation, and to get past exit day and worry about it all afterwards. The Government will then pretend that everybody knew about this beforehand.
I will finish my remarks now because I want to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies); we need an assessment of these treaties and of what could be lost; we need an assessment of the risks and of what is at stake; and we need honesty and transparency from Ministers about the consequences. This is not what the public expected when they voted in the referendum, and that is why I urge Members to support new clause 20.
Geraint Davies
I shall speak to amendment 352, which seeks to maintain for future trade deals the EU rights and protections that are currently enjoyed in other trade deals. A problem that has already been mentioned is that we are going to move away from the comfort zone of the EU, a massive trading bloc which, on 8 December, agreed the key provisions for a trade deal with Japan that will embrace 30% of global GDP and 600 million people and that has integrated in it the Paris agreement. It does not have investor-state dispute settlement, but it does have various protections. One of my key fears about that particular agreement, which will come into effect in March 2019, is that such agreements take a long time to put together. If we want to come along after the event and say, “Can we join in?” the chances are that the terms will not be as good.
As for our negotiations with other countries, if we exit the EU and expect Chile or Uruguay or some other country to offer us the same trade terms that it has with the EU, which is a much bigger bloc, at a time when we are much weaker, we will be seen among the international trading community as a vulnerable victim of our own self-inflicted harm. They will say, “We will give these terms to the EU, but you are just a small player compared with the critical mass of the EU.” That would undermine not only the financial impact of the terms of trade, but the standards that we currently enjoy.
People will be aware that the REACH arrangements—the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—mean that manufacturers in Europe are required to prove that a chemical is safe before it is sold. In America, however, manufacturers can basically sell asbestos and other harmful products, and it is for the United States Environmental Protection Agency to tell them that they cannot. The worry is that our regime and our standards may change as we are thrust into the hands of the United States, and that workers’ rights, human rights and other rights may change due to China.
The Minister will know that the widespread use of hormones in meat production in America is giving rise to premature puberty among children, and that the widespread use of antibiotics is leading to much greater resistance to them. There is also chlorinated chicken, genetically modified food and other things, and we will be under enormous pressure from the United States to accept standards that are below those that we enjoy as a member of the EU. Donald Trump stood up at his inauguration and said that he would protect the American economy from the foreign countries that were taking America’s jobs, and he has already shown in the Bombardier case that he will play tough. The United States is a much bigger player than Britain, and the competition between the EU and the US is a matched fight when it comes to the negotiation of a deal such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. We will be a much smaller player, and we will have left the conditions of the EU.
Ministers currently have quite widespread powers to sign deals. The current International Trade Secretary signed a provisional agreement for the comprehensive economic and trade agreement without parliamentary approval, and we should be drawing such powers in for parliamentary scrutiny, amendment and agreement. There is a risk that a negotiated settlement that reduces the standards that our citizens enjoy will happen outside this place. I therefore tabled amendment 352, which seeks to maintain the same standards, rights and protections that we enjoy in Europe, as protection in case we end up being asked to vote on trade deals that have all sorts of dire consequences beneath the surface for public health, workers’ rights and consumer protection.
Tom Brake
The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned chlorinated chicken, and he should be worried not only that the Americans may seek to impose it on us, but that our International Trade Secretary has said:
“There are no health reasons why you could not eat chicken that had been washed in chlorinated water.”
Our own International Trade Secretary therefore seems to be advocating the consumption of chlorinated chicken.
Geraint Davies
It is an interesting idea that foxes have been eating chlorinated chicken.
As the right hon. Gentleman says, the concern is that the International Trade Secretary, even at this early stage, will look to undermine consumer standards, health standards and other standards in order to fix a deal and have something on the table to avoid the humiliation we see coming. As has been pointed out, it is in the interest of other countries to hold back from striking an early deal and to let the UK sweat. We will be in a difficult place if we do not have agreement on tariffs with the EU and elsewhere.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as well as chlorinated chicken and other items, infant formula is regulated differently in the US from in the EU? There are higher levels of aflatoxins in US infant formula than in EU infant formula, which could prove detrimental to infant health.
Geraint Davies
People will know that the EU has enormous capacity for negotiating trade deals, and we have been relying on it for the past 40 years. Over the past few years the EU has had an intricate dialogue with the United States on TTIP and with the Canadians on CETA to try to bring about some sort of harmonisation and agreement. TTIP has hit the buffers and is not going forward, but my point is that we simply do not have that negotiating capacity. If the EU’s huge capacity cannot achieve agreement in a short amount of time—it takes a long time to get these things right—what hope do we have? Very little.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the EU was able to extract additional protections on the environment and workers’ rights from the Canada deal because the EU worked together as a big bloc? At one moment it looked like the EU would be unable to extract those protections, and it happened only because Belgium and other countries insisted. On our own, we must not be able to be picked off by Canada, the US or any other country—they have already tried to pick off the EU.
Geraint Davies
That is precisely right. What we are now seeing with the Japan deal, as with CETA, is that it will now explicitly protect the right of states to set higher regulatory standards than their treaty partners; public services; the precautionary principle; labour rights; and sensitive economic areas. The deal will also make an explicit commitment to the Paris climate agreement and will safeguard policies intended to protect the environment.
With those blueprints for a harmonious future, we are now jumping ship. We will be left on our own, floating around in the sea and striking out to hold on to bits of timber for dear life. This is very frightening. Earlier we discussed the situation of a deal or no deal, but the problem is that when we do strike a deal, the EU is not there to penalise or punish us; it is simply there to respect the interests of the EU27, which it will. The EU27 will tell us what we are getting, and we will have to like it or lump it. Lump it would be much more painful—we would go on to WTO rules, which people often mention in this Chamber. People need to remember that WTO rules apply only to goods, not services. The trade in services agreement is currently being negotiated outside the WTO so, because 80% of our exports are services, a large amount of our exports will not even have trade with tariffs; there will simply be no agreement on trade. As there is ambiguity between goods and services, such as with cars—cars are two thirds services because of subcontracted labour, lawyers, payroll and various other things—it is a complex area.
A no deal situation would be catastrophic, and the Europeans know that, so they will say what they want and we will have to accept it. If that is unacceptable and much worse than the status quo, the people of Britain should have a final say with a vote on the exit deal. That is not in amendment 352—people do not need to worry about that—although the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has tabled amendment 120, which we will consider next week. Half the public already want a vote on the exit deal. Only 34% do not want a vote, and 16% do not know. As it emerges how appalling the future being created at the hands of this Government will be, there will be growth in support for such a vote.
Amendment 352 simply says that we should aim to, and would require us to, enjoy the current protections, rights and standards we have in the EU in future trade agreements, in the knowledge that those standards are going up, as I pointed out is happening in the case of Japan. All I am asking for is that we keep the current parity, so that as Europe moves up we at least stay the same, rather than plunge down into the depths of poverty, lower health standards and so on.
Sir Desmond Swayne
I have a great deal of affection and respect for the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), and he has drawn attention to a perfectly proper area of concern, to which, strangely, his remedy is merely a report—but then the mask slipped. We have heard all this sanctimonious guff this afternoon about the need for this House to take back control and about proper scrutiny—everything we heard in the earlier debates —but now we see the real motive. Of course he was assisted by others, whom comrade Lenin would have properly referred to as “useful idiots”, but now the mask has slipped.
The real motive—the hon. Gentleman made it absolutely explicit—is to reopen a question that he does not believe was given sufficient attention at the referendum. That has just been confirmed by the hon. Member for Swansea East—
Sir Desmond Swayne
Swansea West. The hon. Member for Nottingham East said that he did not believe that people should not have an opportunity to revisit their decision, and that they have a perfect right to change their mind—I accept that. I am not in favour of some sort of African democracy of one man, one vote, once. People perfectly rightly have an opportunity to do that, but if there was one thing on which both sides in the referendum campaign were agreed it was on the importance of the vote that took place on 23 June 2016. He has every right to campaign for a second referendum, and I am glad that he has made it explicit this evening in advocating for his amendment that that is the real agenda. The purpose is to delay for long enough for something to turn up. An essential ingredient of giving time for something to turn up so that people will change their minds is delay, and that is what the process of all today’s amendments has, in essence, been about.
Matthew Pennycook
I am not sure how to follow both of those contributions, but hon. Members may be relieved to know that I am going to make a brief one as I rise to speak to amendment 26, which seeks to change clause 8. I will focus on two specific points, the first being the purpose of clause 8 and the second being its scope.
The purpose of the clause, as set out in the Bill’s explanatory notes, is to give
“ministers of the Crown the power to make secondary legislation to enable continued compliance with the UK’s international obligations by preventing or remedying any breaches that might otherwise arise as a result of withdrawal.”
I say to the Minister gently that it is not entirely clear what breaches might require the clause 8 power. It is not clear to us that where breaches occur they could not, in most cases, be remedied by clause 7 or by powers contained in other legislation, for example the Trade Bill, which has already been published, or domestic legislation. I do not intend to discuss what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) said in his comprehensive speech, in which he gave a set of examples about the types of international treaties and obligations the Government will have to deal with. However, it would be useful to hear some further examples from the Minister. To date, we have heard about only one international obligation, or perhaps a couple, where the Government believe the clause 8 power must be used. As the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee noted, the Government have not been explicit about the sort of obligations they have in mind for this clause.
On the scope of clause 8, we have many of the same concerns that we have about the scope of the powers in clauses 7, 9 and 17. Clause 8(3) contains some, although not all, of the explicit restrictions that apply in clause 7. In any case, we believe, just as we do with those clauses—that is why we tabled amendment 27 to clause 9 and amendment 25 to clause 7—that the scope of the delegated powers in clause 8 should be circumscribed so that they cannot be used to reduce rights or freedoms.
I know that many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), wish to make speeches, so with that I draw my remarks to a close.
Hannah Bardell
The House has heard many technical and legalistic arguments focused on the economic, trade and legal impacts of our leaving the EU, but so far in the Brexit process and debate, the interests of children and their rights have been barely mentioned. That said, I was pleased to hear the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) about baby milk and the related regulations.
It is important to focus on children, their rights and the effect of Brexit on their future. In all of this, our children have had very little voice or decision-making opportunities for the future of the UK. All our children depend on UK, EU, international and UN provisions and treaties to protect them and to secure their future rights. It is sad and ironic that it was this Conservative Government who refused to let 16 and 17-year-olds participate in the EU referendum.
No one said it better than my former colleague and my dear friend, the previous Member for Gordon—I know all Members miss him as much as I do—who summed up the hokey-cokey politics of this Conservative Government by saying:
“The case for votes for 16 and 17-year-olds has been demonstrated by the Scottish referendum—not as some academic exercise but on the joyful and practical experience of a generation of Scotland’s young people…Claims that teenagers are disengaged with politics or incapable of understanding constitutional issues was blown apart by the great contribution by young people in Scotland during the campaign…It is a ludicrous situation and nothing better illustrates the total lack of imagination which typifies the Conservative Party at its worst and their headlong pursuit of self-interest…It encapsulates Tory arrogance and the insult to young people will neither be forgotten nor forgiven.”
That is an extremely good point.
I remember studying, not that long ago, politics at the University of Stirling, where I learned about further EU integration. It seems very sad that the students of the future will be studying this process, our performance and the decisions that were made. I wonder what the textbooks and political history books will say and how they will read. I think they will say that this has been a political catastrophe—a series of unfortunate events.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
One key thing that future students will read about and find incredibly difficult to understand is how the same people who for 40 years argued that the EU had taken sovereignty away from this Chamber were prepared to give that sovereignty so quickly to the United Kingdom Government Executive. That is what all these clauses, including clause 8, will end up doing.
Hannah Bardell
Not surprisingly, I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.
Tom Brake
Does the hon. Lady agree that there will probably be a chapter in the history books called “Impact Assessments”, and students will study the reasons why a Government took the most catastrophic economic decision for the country without having conducted any impact assessments of its effect on the economy?
Hannah Bardell
I absolutely do agree. It will probably say “Impact Assessments” and there will just be a blank page, because that is the reality of the situation. It will probably serve as an abject example of how not to do democracy, and sadly we will all be judged under that banner. I do hope, though, that the history books will include those of us who opposed how this process is being carried out.
It is important to reflect on the fact that, whatever people thought of the Scottish referendum, it was held up as a gold standard and that, when the Electoral Commission reflected on the referendum on Brexit, its view was that it happened in too short a timescale and that there was not proper opportunity for debate and discussion. That is important. It is sad that we set a gold standard on one referendum and then seemed to go backwards.
The other day, sitting on the Tube, reading the Evening Standard, I was quite aghast to read an article celebrating its new appointment of a journalist to Brussels. Is it not ironic that news agencies and the press are suddenly appointing journalists to Brussels? Not that long ago, I read a report that said that, out of all the countries in the EU, the nations of the UK had the worst representation in terms of journalistic reportage. So it is no surprise that, after 10 years and longer of blaming the EU for all our ills and of not properly reporting on it, people were ill-informed and we did not have a proper period for debate.
I come back to my point about children. The House of Commons Library briefing paper on Brexit stretches to almost 200 pages, yet children are mentioned only three times. The Brexit White Paper mentions children only once. It urges us all to work towards a stronger, fairer and more global Britain. Well, is that not ironic because we are going to be weaker, less equal and less outward-looking? We are going to be the exact opposite of what those right-wing Brexiteers seemed to want for us across the UK.
Alison Thewliss
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there has been no proper commitment yet to continuing with Erasmus+, which gives so many children in my constituency opportunities to go and make friends, to travel out into the world and to broaden their horizons?
Hannah Bardell
I absolutely agree. A delegation from across the EU—from Spain, France and many other countries—came to my constituency to meet and work with our children. It was so incredible to see the friendships that were struck up and the experiences that were shared. The thought that my three-year-old niece, or any children that I have, will not get to experience that is heart-breaking. We should all reflect on that. What are the young people of the nations of the UK going to miss out on because of the poor decision making and the poor decisions that are being pushed by this UK Government?
The Executive powers provided in clause 8 put current UK international obligations under serious threat. As we know, the UK Government cannot be trusted to uphold international obligations. We have seen time and again instances of them turning a blind eye to our obligations. In Yemen, for example, more than 300 incidents that could violate international law have been tracked by the Ministry of Defence since the conflict began two years ago, yet the UK continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia.
One of my hon. Friends talked about the Trade Union Act 2016 and how workers’ rights have been rolled back. When all this power comes back, supposedly, to the UK, what faith can we have that our rights and obligations will be upheld by this Government?
We have spoken about Erasmus, regulations and what our young people are going to do. I strongly believe that the whole rhetoric in this process has been damaging. Some of the phrases that have emerged, the slogans that have been put on the side of buses and the way that political discourse has developed during this period echo, sadly, the Trump Administration. That scares me and, I am sure, many others deeply. We hear that Brexit means Brexit, that it will be a red, white and blue Brexit, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, that there are economic impact studies, there are no economic impact studies—yes there are, oh no there are not—and that the post-Brexit trade deal will be the easiest in human history. We have had a political hokey-cokey on the grandest scale and who are going to be the ones who lose out the most? It is going to be the young people of our nations who have to deal with the impact of Brexit and clean up the mess that many in this Government seem hell-bent on creating. For their sake—for your children’s sake—and for the future of all our nations in the UK, let us stop this madness.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
It has been a pleasure to listen to this wide-ranging debate and to hear some of the speeches, not all of which seemed to be specifically about clause 8. I compliment my opposite number, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who very accurately described the clause.
Mary Creagh
I do have a speech on clause 8 and I would like to raise some specific points, but I am slightly concerned that the Minister might now be about to speak for 15 minutes, in the tradition that he started yesterday, and I am worried that he will not be able to respond to my specific points.
Mr Walker
I am very happy to do my best endeavours to ensure that the hon. Lady does get five minutes to make her speech; she often has interesting points to bring to these debates. Let me discuss briefly, therefore, what clause 8 is for.
As we leave the EU, it is essential that the Government can ensure that we do not breach any of the UK’s international obligations. These international obligations stretch from our promises to other nations, some of which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), to those we have undertaken as a sovereign and responsible participant in international organisations such as the Council of Europe and global ones such as the WTO. This need to prevent breaches of our international obligations is the reasoning behind the clause.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
I appreciate the Minister’s explanation of the scope of clause 8. Does he agree that, just like clause 7, clause 8 is limited in that it relates only to withdrawal issues and is a sunset clause?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend make a good point on the exact matter that I was going to come to in a moment; she pre-empts me brilliantly.
Clause 8 is needed—I think that this answers the point made by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich—because not all the UK’s international obligations that might be affected by withdrawing from the EU are implemented domestically in what will be retained EU law. Those which are implemented elsewhere are therefore out of scope of the correcting power in clause 7. In addition, there are restrictions on the use of clause 7 relating to, for example, taxation that might, in some circumstances, prevent important changes to comply with international arrangements from being made. We need this power because we need to be prepared for all eventualities.
I would like to clarify that any SIs made under clause 8 that transfer a legislative function, or create or amend any power to legislate, will be subject to the affirmative procedure, as provided for in clause 7. Therefore, Parliament will be able to debate any transfer of powers, and consider the proposed scope of such powers and the scrutiny proposed for their future exercise. Clause 8 gives Ministers a temporary and limited power, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) said, to make regulations to prevent or remedy breaches of international obligations. The provision contained in the secondary legislation must be an appropriate way of doing so and will have to pass before this House under the parliamentary procedures that we have been discussing over the past couple of days. In addition to its limited goals, the power is subject to a number of further limitations. It expires two years after exit day and, as listed in subsection (3), it cannot “make retrospective provision”, create certain types of criminal offence,
“implement the withdrawal agreement, or…amend…the Human Rights Act”.
Mr Walker
Perhaps I can respond to the hon. Lady’s intervention before she even makes it. It is important that we have the power to maintain all our international obligations. As we have discussed in a previous debate, one of those international obligations is to the international element of the Belfast agreement. We will absolutely maintain our commitment to that.
Lady Hermon
I am grateful to the Minister for pre-empting the intervention, but he is referring to my earlier intervention regarding clause 9. Will he use this opportunity to confirm at the Dispatch Box that neither clause 8 nor clause 9, which we have just passed as amended, will be used in any circumstances to amend the Good Friday agreement by regulation?
Mr Walker
At all—by regulation or in any other way.
I will turn briefly to the amendments and respond to new clause 20 in the name of the hon. Member for Nottingham East. My Department is leading cross-Government work to assess and act on the international agreements for which, as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, arrangements will need to be made to ensure continuity for businesses and individuals. Any that require implementing legislation or parliamentary scrutiny before ratification will go through the appropriate, well-established procedures. We are working with our international partners to identify the full range of our agreements that might be impacted by our exit from the EU, and we will be taking their views into account. It would not be appropriate at this stage to publish the type of assessment proposed in new clause 20. Doing so would prejudice the outcome of these discussions and how any action would be put into practice.
Mr Leslie
I am just looking for a small concession. If the Minister will not do an assessment, will he at least publish a list? The Financial Times has its list of the 759 treaties. Could we have some information from the Government in the public domain about the task that has to be undertaken? That, at least, would be a welcome step.
Mr Walker
We will be coming forward with more information on this front in due course. However, a lot of the hon. Gentleman’s speech was specifically about trade issues, and we have a Trade Bill that deals specifically with those issues. If I might gently say, a lot of what the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) talked about related to the content of the Trade Bill rather than this Bill.
We do recognise the need to promote stability for businesses and individuals, and we will aim to transition agreements as seamlessly as possible. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Swansea West—I am afraid he is no longer in his place—and I would like to reassure him that this clause has nothing to do with future trade agreements. It is purely to do with our existing international commitments and how we make sure we continue to meet them in the context of leaving the EU.
Clause 8 is a very specific power, which will be available only where a breach of our current international obligations arises from the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. It ensures that we will be able to continue to honour international obligations, which might otherwise be affected by our withdrawal, and it is key to ensuring that we can take our place on the global stage as a fully independent nation. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Members for Nottingham East and for Swansea West will consider not pressing their amendments.
I want to address amendment 345 in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. It is well intentioned but unnecessary. The power in clause 8 has a narrow and specific purpose, and can be used where our international obligations might be breached as a result of leaving the EU. World Health Organisation guidelines are not international obligations; they are used to inform air quality standards in international and EU legislation, but they do not, of themselves, form an obligation to be complied with.
The UK has a strong track record on protecting our environment, and in leaving the EU, we will safeguard and improve on that. The whole purpose of this clause is to ensure that we leave the EU with maximum certainty, continuity and control, and that, as far as possible, the same rules, laws and international obligations apply on the day after exit as on the day before.
Of course, some of the existing mechanisms that allow scrutiny of environmental targets and standards by Governments will not be carried over into our law, and that is why the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced on 12 November our intention to consult on a new, independent statutory body to advise and challenge Government, and potentially other bodies—
Mr Walker
I am going to give the hon. Lady a chance to speak, so I hope she will wait.
That body will also potentially advise and challenge other bodies on environmental legislation, stepping in when needed to hold them to account and to enforce standards. The Government will consult on the specific scope and powers of that body early next year.
We have a number of amendments—from the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and the hon. Member for Wakefield, whom I will do my best to give a chance to speak—that seek to place further restrictions on the use of the clause 8 power, beyond those already in the clause. These amendments give me another opportunity to restate our firm commitment to ensuring that environmental protections and the rights of individuals—particularly EU citizens resident in the UK—are maintained as we bring EU law on to the UK statute book. This commitment will be reflected in the use of this clause to ensure that, from day one of withdrawal from the EU, the UK is able to comply with its international obligations.
As we stressed during yesterday’s debate on clause 7, the defence and security of the realm is always the first duty of Government, and the Government are absolutely committed to national security and securing the right future arrangements for security with the EU. I would like to take the opportunity to reassure the Committee that we cannot see that anything that damages our national security would be an appropriate way to ensure continued compliance with international obligations. The same would be true of any change to equalities legislation.
All these amendments are well intentioned, but we have been clear in previous debates that we will preserve rights through this Bill, and not reduce them. In those earlier debates, we also set out that, by giving no definition of what, for example, an environmental protection is, or how one might judge that such a protection was being weakened, amendments along these lines risk unnecessary litigation, undermining the certainty that this Bill aims to create.
In the specific context of clause 8, which is about upholding our international obligations, it is very difficult to see how that could do anything other than require us to preserve rights and protections. Parliament has already approved the UK being party to a number of international conventions and international organisations, such as the World Trade Organisation. We are committed to these international relationships. A key part of that is ensuring that we fully comply with our international obligations. Leaving the customs union and the single market may alter the way in which the UK complies with some of these obligations, specifically with regard to the treatment of WTO most favoured nation status.
Amendment 292 in the name of the hon. Member for Wakefield—I know that she wants to speak to it—does not acknowledge these changes in respect of taxation, or the fact that there will not always be a clear choice about how to comply with such obligations in future. Clause 8 gives Ministers the flexibility to make those changes. Of course, however, we will listen to what she has to say. I understand the honourable intentions behind these amendments, but we believe that this clause is well drafted to continue to meet our international obligations.
The UK is a nation whose word is its bond. This Government introduced the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill to ensure a smooth and orderly exit from the EU. Our desire to leave the EU in this way applies both to the actions we take domestically and to our actions in relation to international partners. Clause 8 is key to delivering that, and I commend it to the Committee.
Mary Creagh
I thank the Minister for rushing through his speech so that I get the chance to have my five minutes to talk about amendment 292.
Clause 8 allows Ministers to make any regulations to prevent or remedy any breach in our international obligations as we leave the EU, but it also contains a Henry VIII power allowing for those regulations to do anything that an Act of Parliament can do. That includes amending or repealing any Act of Parliament ever passed. It is the most extraordinary and unusual power. I was going to raise the Northern Ireland Act 1998, so I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) for getting the Minister on the record on that.
The Government have been very scant on the details about the sorts of international obligations that may be affected. They have also been unable to say—I was listening carefully to the Minister—why regulations under clause 8 can impose or increase taxation. We do not want to end up in a situation where the Government can raise tax-like charges by statutory instrument. That gives away the supremacy of this place on taxation. The “appropriateness” test is too broad, and it undermines the supremacy of Parliament. We cannot have taxation by the back door.
Crucially, I did not hear the Minister say anything about tertiary legislation. We have focused a lot on SIs—the secondary stuff. Tertiary legislation enables a new public body that needs to be set up, such as a chemicals body, to charge fees. This may not be controversial at first, but there may come a time when such bodies want to increase the fees, as happened when the Ministry of Justice wanted to increase probate fees by, I think, 1,500%. Why is there a double standard in clause 8 as regards secondary and tertiary legislation? We want tertiary legislation to be given the same parliamentary control and the same time limits as secondary legislation. My amendment 292 seeks to restore the supremacy of the House on financial matters.
I want briefly to deal with the environmental regulation that the Minister talked about. The Government currently have a “one in, three out” rule. Many of our environmental regulations come from international mixed agreements signed and ratified, as he said, by the UK and the EU; some are bilateral and some are multilateral. The Environmental Audit Committee has been looking at our progress in reducing fluorinated gases. These are very powerful greenhouse gases with a global warming potential 14,000 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. They are in commercial refrigeration systems, in our car air-conditioning systems, and in 70% of the 60 million asthma inhalers that we use in this country every year. Targets for reducing those gases are set and monitored by the European Union, but we are also a signatory to the UN framework, so it is a mixed agreement. We have just ratified the Kigali amendment to reduce F-gases by 85% by 2036. That agreement is monitored by the EU, so the Bill will convert the regulation into UK law and we will need new regulations.
The explanatory memorandum states that the new regulations may be subject to the Government’s “one in, three out” rule. We cannot have the Government making hundreds, if not thousands, of new regulations that get caught under that absurd administrative rule, so I want the Minister to assure the House that it will be scrapped. I have written about that as the Committee Chair, and Lord Henley has said that there is no clarity about it and no decision has been made. That has to change.
Mr Leslie
This is an incredibly important series of discussions. We need more information on the 759 international treaties that may fall on exit day, and I am glad that the Minister indicated that more information would be forthcoming. I want to vote for new clause 22 on the European economic area and the single market, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 22
EEA Agreement
“(1) No Minister may, under this Act, notify the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EEA Agreement, whether under Article 127 of that Agreement or otherwise.
(2) Regulations under this Act may not make any provision that would constitute a breach of the United Kingdom’s obligations under the EEA Agreement.
(3) Regulations under this Act may not amend or repeal subsection (1) or (2).”—(Heidi Alexander.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.