European Union (Approvals) Bill

Debate between Bill Esterson and Paul Scully

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make that point, and I thank him for it; I join him in praising colleagues across the House for their work on these important matters.

However, I have a particular question for the Minister, which also came up in some of the interventions: what would be the nature of our involvement in the agency both immediately after Brexit in handling transitional arrangements and in the longer term? A similar question would apply to a number of other agencies. Perhaps the Minister can address that in her concluding remarks.

There is already an agreement between the EU and Canada on competition. This decision extends the powers so that both sides will be able to exchange evidence collected in the course of their investigations.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I would like the hon. Gentleman to repeat his question in a little more detail, as my understanding of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights is that it is there to help to interpret and work on Community law in its member states, so presumably if we left the EU it would no longer be relevant in that context to the UK itself.

[Bill Esterson]

I had moved on to the second part, but I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s question. We need to know what our relationship will be, given the important work—as the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) rightly described it—carried out by Members in this House over many years, which has been extremely important in making progress in the countries named in this Bill and others. It is important that we have a sense from the Government as to how we will stay involved in the work of such agencies. I am sure all Members will agree that this country still has a very important role to play whether or not we are in the EU.