Privileges
Damian Collins Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for his statement. I also thank the Leader of the House for giving me notice that she would be unable to attend the Chamber today, and for the words that the Deputy Leader of the House read out on behalf of the Government. I thank my fellow members of the DCMS Committee, and I thank the Chair of the Privileges Committee and her colleagues for their investigation.
We are not here today as a consequence of a rush of blood to the head and the “at whim” decision of a parliamentary Committee to order a private citizen to give evidence in front of us. Today we are at the end of a process that has run for the best part of 10 months, from the Committee’s first attempts to invite a witness to attend to the process of its ordering that witness to attend, to that being reported to the House and the House also ordering him to attend, and then to the matter being referred to the Committee of Privileges for it to investigate.
I am pleased that that Committee has agreed with the statement in our report that we were within our rights to call the witness, and that the witness should have attended. The witness himself, Mr Cummings, was critical of our Committee’s inquiry, of other witnesses who had attended, and of the evidence that they had given. Our main reason for wishing him to attend was so that he could respond to the allegations made by other witnesses. That is an important part of the inquiry, and also demonstrates the Committee’s desire to hear all sides of the story. We are frustrated in that process when witnesses refuse to confirm dates, put up spurious reasons why they cannot attend, and then, in correspondence with the Committee, seek to behave in a way that is contemptuous of its work and, therefore, of the work of the House.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
This is the heart of the matter. The report states that many of Mr Cummings’s communications were highly inappropriate, including some outside the House. He did not do himself any favours in that respect. I personally wanted to hear what he had to say, and I honestly believe that many members of the Committee had open minds and wanted their questions to be answered. Is it not also true that we asked very probing questions when it came to the other side of the debate? We questioned Christopher Wylie very closely about his desire to hawk information to Vote Leave.
Damian Collins
Indeed. The questions that we wished to put to Mr Cummings were highly relevant to our inquiry. They were also highly relevant to evidence presented by other people, including representatives of organisations that had worked with him in his capacity as director of Vote Leave. I think that we should have had an opportunity to put those questions, as a relevant part of our inquiry and the work of the Committee. As the Committee of Privileges says in its report, it cannot be for individuals to seek to interfere with the work of a parliamentary Committee. We should regard that as a very serious matter.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making, but is there not also an issue of consistency? I am told that Mark Zuckerberg also declined to give evidence to the Committee during the same inquiry. Moreover, it is quite common for Ministers to decline to give evidence to inquiries, including Ministers in some of the devolved Administrations and Assemblies. I think that the point my hon. Friend is making should be applied consistently and across the board to all potential witnesses, and that we should not fall into the trap of singling out one individual.
Damian Collins
I do not believe that we are singling out one individual in this case. It is highly unusual for anyone to behave in the way in which Dominic Cummings behaved towards the Committee. My right hon. Friend is right in saying that we issued an invitation to Mark Zuckerberg, but that is all that we could do. We did not issue a summons or an order for him to appear, because we do not have the jurisdictional powers to do so. He is not a UK national, and is not resident in the UK. We can only issue summonses of that sort to foreign nationals if they happen to be in this country. We said that we would do that, but obviously we do not have an opportunity to do it. So the circumstances in that case are very different.
On the day that we issued the order for Dominic Cummings to appear before the Committee, we also issued an order to Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, and he chose to accept. The personal circumstances of Mr Nix at the time, in terms of the investigations of him and his former company, gave far greater reason for him not to attend than Dominic Cummings, who was not under personal investigation at all at that stage. There were no reasons in law why he should not appear. The normal sub judice rules that protect witnesses from incriminating themselves did not apply in his case. The Committee sought legal advice in that regard. I think that, when we have gone through a thorough process and there are no particular grounds for a witness not to appear, if the Committee and the House believe that it is important for that witness to appear, he should do so.
I agree with what my hon. Friend said about the privileges of Ministers, but the rules of the House in that regard are very different from those applying to private citizens.
George Eustice
Will my hon. Friend confirm, then, that it is his view that it is illegitimate for Ministers ever to claim that they cannot give evidence to a Committee because legal proceedings on a particular issue are under way?
Damian Collins
The House does have rules relating to matters that are before UK courts and may prevent witnesses from giving evidence, but I agree with the principle that my hon. Friend has cited. I do not believe that Ministers should claim special privileges in order not to give evidence to a Committee, but they do have a different status. I do not think that that different status should give any individual in the country an opportunity to ignore an order from a Committee or a summons to appear before Parliament simply because they happen to take exception to the idea that Ministers have special privileges that they do not have—as, indeed, do Members of the House of Lords.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I want to pick up the point about consistency. It is not just my hon. Friend’s Select Committee that may have problems with calling witnesses—important witnesses—to take part in inquiries. The Women and Equalities Committee is currently going through a similar process, but we are only one month into requesting an individual to appear before us. Does my hon. Friend agree that it might be helpful if there were more explicit guidelines on the process to be followed, so that it could take place more speedily? I certainly would not want my inquiry on non- disclosure agreements to drag on for a further 10 months.
Damian Collins
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There needs to be more clarity about the process—clarity within the rules as they stand, and more clarity on what the powers of the House are. We have ancient powers, which in modern law cannot be enforced, and they have not been replaced with anything more suitable.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
As Chair of a Select Committee, I am sure that my hon. Friend will have shared my experience that the difficulty in getting witnesses to appear is not necessarily around private citizens, who are usually very willing to appear before a Select Committee; it is around encouraging ministerial colleagues, on occasion, and public officials to come before Select Committees. That is where the resistance is. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be at least an equivalence of rules regarding the appearance of private citizens and elected individuals and publicly accountable individuals before Select Committees? We have not got that balance right yet.
Damian Collins
As I said to other hon. Members, I am sympathetic to any Select Committee that seeks to interview a public official or Minister as part of their inquiry. In my three years’ experience as Chair of a Select Committee I have never had that problem, but others have. There is a big difference between a Minister of the Crown and a private citizen, in that a Minister is a Member of Parliament and can be questioned, in this House or in the House of Lords, as part of their ministerial duties. The only opportunity we have to question people outside Parliament, as part of an inquiry, is to invite them to appear before the Committee. There is no other avenue, be it a ministerial question time or debate, where we can pursue that person. That is why the rules concerning private citizens are particularly important. I would be very sympathetic to the idea of looking at the rules for Ministers, but at least other avenues are open for challenging a Minister as part of parliamentary process.
George Eustice
I recall, as a Minister, having agreed to give evidence to a Committee of the Welsh Assembly and being told that it was not Government policy for Ministers in Westminster to attend such Committees, since they had no rights to hold us to account. Does my hon. Friend think that, bearing in mind what he has just said, perhaps a different set of rules should apply to the devolved Administrations, and that Westminster Ministers should be required to attend such hearings in devolved assemblies?
Damian Collins
As I said to my hon. Friend earlier, I think there is a basic principle and a presumption that witnesses, be they a Minister or not, should attend Committees conducting inquiries. Select Committees conduct such inquiries on behalf of the House, with powers delegated to them by the House. I also believe that if a Member of the House of Lords chose to use their special privileges as a parliamentarian not to be summoned in front of a Committee, that would not be appropriate if that Member of the House of Lords held an important public position, as many Members of the House of Lords do.
Other options are available to question Members of Parliament and Ministers that are not available to question a private citizen. The only forum we have to question a private citizen as part of a parliamentary inquiry is to invite them to appear before a Select Committee. That power is incredibly important, because the role of a Select Committee is not just to scrutinise the work of a Government Department or a public body, but to scrutinise other matters of public interest, where a Committee believes there is a case for Government intervention, new rules or new laws on something important. It is for the Committees to determine the scope of their inquiries, and witnesses should attend when required. It is very rare that witnesses choose not to attend.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Of course, Mr Cummings cannot be with us today—and did not want to be with us on another occasion. Did he give any indication that he thought there was some legal reason why it would be better if he did not attend?
Damian Collins
The correspondence between me as Chair of the Committee and Mr Cummings is published in full in the Committee’s report, so any Member can read that and make their own judgment as to the case that Mr Cummings made. Obviously, the matter was also reviewed by the Privileges Committee, which also invited Mr Cummings to speak to it as part of its inquiry, which he declined. Mr Cummings stated that other cases were involved, and that he had been guided by the people he had spoken to not to appear, but there was no reason in law for that. He was not under personal investigation; he was not likely to be charged with an offence. He may have all sorts of private grounds for not wanting to do it, but unless there is a particular legal reason why witnesses should not appear, I do not believe it is good enough for them to create reasons why they would rather not give evidence; that would undermine the whole process. If a witness declines to give evidence simply because it is unsatisfactory to him to do so, I do not think we should accept it.
George Eustice
Does my hon. Friend not have at least some sympathy for the argument that Vote Leave was under investigation by the Electoral Commission—a full-scale legal investigation? Given that that was an ongoing investigation, a request to give evidence after that had concluded was not at all unreasonable.
Damian Collins
We had a similar issue with other witnesses during the inquiry. When Arron Banks gave evidence to the Committee, some aspects of Leave.EU’s work that were relevant to the Committee investigation were under investigation by the Electoral Commission at that time. My hon. Friend may check the official record of the evidence session. We told Mr Banks at that session that we would not question him about matters that were under investigation by the Electoral Commission, as it would not be proper to do so, but there were a large number of other topics on which we wanted to pursue relevant lines of inquiry.
It was exactly the same with Dominic Cummings. We could have reached an accommodation, but he was not prepared, in principle, to attend. During the course of our correspondence we set out why we thought he should attend, and it became quite clear that once he was aware that we were determined to issue an order requesting that he appear on a certain day, he would refuse point-blank to appear at all. He then requested all sorts of other conditions—that he would not appear before the DCMS Committee but he might appear before a specially constructed ad hoc Committee of the House, and that members of the Committee should swear an oath before questioning him, in addition to his swearing an oath. This is nonsense. We either respect our rules and the powers that we have, or we do not.
Not just my Committee found this. I am sure that the Chair of the Privileges Committee will speak for herself about her inquiry. During the Treasury Committee’s inquiry before the referendum, different parties were invited to give evidence, and it too is scathing about the experience of dealing with Mr Cummings and the general contempt that he showed. We have to accept that if we do not really take our own powers seriously, other people will behave in a similar way. Other people will look at this case and say, “Actually, you can just ignore the Committees’ requests. There is nothing they can do.”
There are often important reasons why Committees wish to call in private citizens to account for their work. Mr Cummings is not just a private citizen going about his business in a quiet part of the country. He has held a series of important offices, he is a former Government special adviser and he was director of an incredibly important national political campaign. The work of that campaign had been referenced already in a parliamentary inquiry, and we wished to ask him about the evidence that had been given, of which he himself was critical and to which he felt there should have been some right to reply.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
Over the past few years, the likes of Rupert Murdoch have appeared before Committees, and we have seen Sir Philip Green appearing—not wholly successfully—before Committees. Surely, if people of that stature are prepared to face a Committee, others of lesser stature should do so too.
Damian Collins
That is absolutely right. I was a member of the Committee when Rupert Murdoch came to give evidence, in response to a summons of the House. That was right in the middle of the phone-hacking scandal, with legal cases left, right and centre—massive challenges for that business—and yet he considered that it was his responsibility and the proper thing to respond, give evidence in person and answer all the Committee’s questions. If it is good enough for someone of the stature of Rupert Murdoch, surely Dominic Cummings could find time in his busy schedule as well. There was no reason why he should not have done so.
There have been other times when my Committee has struggled to get witnesses to attend and they have attended at the last minute. We are going through that process now with some companies. We may wish to call other organisations as well. We saw during our inquiry that other political campaigns, such as the shadowy Mainstream Network, which was advertising last year on Facebook, were seeking to get members of the public to lobby their MP on what they should or should not do on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Other organisations, such as We are the 52% and Britain’s Future, are doing that right now. We might want to call in such organisations in future as part of investigations, but they could look at the behaviour of Dominic Cummings and say, “We are disinclined to come, and there is not much you can do about it.”
People often cite the ancient powers of the House to lock people up in a prison under Big Ben or in the House, and those powers technically still exist, but they would rightly be considered to be unenforceable. The House must therefore debate and decide what we want to do when witnesses decline to attend. There should be a proper process; it should not just be down to the arbitrary summons of 11 Members of Parliament. There should be a proper process to check—as the Privileges Committee has done—that the Committee was following due process, that it had good grounds, and that there was a public interest in the witness attending. Then, when they fail to attend, there should be some clear sanction. In other Parliaments in the world, there are rules in such cases—a referral to court or some other body that makes the final decision and imposes a sanction. I believe we now need clearly codified rules, on both summoning witnesses and ordering papers.
John Redwood
I am interested in this point. What kind of sanction does my hon. Friend think would be appropriate and might make a difference?
Damian Collins
That is ultimately a matter for the House to determine. Let us look at other jurisdictions. I believe that the United States Congress, for example, can impose a fine or a custodial sentence of up to three months, and I believe that the Scottish Parliament has something similar, but Members will correct me if that is not the case. Other legislatures have processes that include clear sanctions in law that can be applied if a reasonable request for a witness to appear or for documents to be served has not been met. I do not believe that politicians should sit in judgment over private citizens and start ordering those penalties, however. It is probably right that some independent outside body should do that, as happens in other areas of public life. We should determine what our role should be, and if we believe that a reasonable request has been made for a witness to appear or for papers to be issued to a Committee, that should be done. It is reasonable to expect someone who has been asked to give evidence to a Committee to do so honestly and truthfully. If it is proved that they are lying to or misleading the Committee, there should be some sanction for that as well. There is then a separate debate about who should enforce that sanction and what the penalty should be, but if we use these powers responsibly and we expect people to comply with them, there has to be some sanction if they do not do so, as in the case of Mr Cummings.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I am following this argument with great interest. Given the nature of Dominic Cummings—incidentally, I do not think the way he has behaved towards the Select Committee is any different from the way he behaves generally—does my hon. Friend agree that there is a real danger that he would regard an admonishment from the House of Commons as a badge of honour? Does he also agree that we need some form of alternative measure so that future witnesses will not think that an admonishment is the only thing they might have to face?
Damian Collins
My hon. Friend is right; that is an important point. There has to be some penalty. For some people, that would involve damage to their reputation. Someone who is running a public body or a regulated industry, for example, might find that their reputation was damaged because they had behaved in a way that was inconsistent with upholding the high standards of their office. Clearly, Dominic Cummings does not seem to care about those things. We need to ask whether someone who has been found in contempt of Parliament and admonished by Parliament would be an appropriate candidate to hold a public position such as a Government adviser or a member of a public body in the future. Should there be a bar on that?
Julian Knight
Does my hon. Friend envisage a similar bar on someone for being a bankrupt, for example?
Damian Collins
Absolutely; my hon. Friend and fellow member of the Committee makes an excellent point. That is a good example of people finding themselves in a situation of which they are the cause, and of clear penalties being in place that can restrict their future actions and activities, although not necessarily their liberty. Someone who has been found in contempt of the House should face some sort of real-world sanction that takes into account their appropriateness to be a fit and proper person to hold certain positions and roles, and certainly to be appointed to public office. For example, if Mr Cummings were ever again asked to be a Government adviser or special adviser, these sorts of things should be taken into account, and I am sure that they would be.
There needs to be a further sanction in law as well, including a range of penalties depending on the severity of the offence, with someone in authority to adjudicate and enforce those sanctions. As the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has said, there should be a clear process so that we can understand how long it should take and, ideally, a witness could be compelled to come within the scope of an inquiry, rather than doing as I believe Dominic Cummings intended to do, which was to offer to come here at some point in the future, knowing full well that that could be one or two years later. Indeed, I do not believe that the conditions he set out in his initial email have yet been met, so he probably still would not come before the Committee, more than a year later. We have to consider whether that is in any way acceptable, because it massively impedes the work of parliamentary Committees if they cannot summon witnesses who are relevant to their inquiries. In his case, we were asking him to come here in direct response to evidence that the Committee had received that was relevant to him and to our inquiry. We had very strong grounds for asking him to come.
Michael Fabricant
I am slightly concerned about one more thing, which was touched on earlier when my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) mentioned Rupert Murdoch. There was a serious criminal inquiry into Vote Leave going on at the time that my hon. Friend is talking about. Surely he would have some sympathy if there was a danger that someone appearing before the Committee might prejudice their own defence, should a criminal investigation then occur.
Damian Collins
Those conditions certainly applied in the case of Rupert Murdoch, because he was asked expressly what he knew about the practice of phone hacking at his newspapers, as was Rebekah Brooks, who gave evidence on the same day. That was a major part of the hearing. Those people could have used that excuse. There are different questions involved here. The right to non-incrimination for someone who is likely to face court proceedings and be charged with a particular offence, or who has already been charged, is already covered by the House’s sub judice rules. There are already clear rules in place for that. In this case, however, Mr Cummings had not been directly charged with an offence, although there were other ongoing investigations. As I have said, we agreed with other witnesses that there were certain things that we would not discuss as being on topic, so as not to interfere with other ongoing inquiries. Nevertheless, we managed to conduct a proper hearing with those witnesses and gain valuable evidence from them. There is no reason why that could not have been done in Mr Cummings’s case.
George Eustice
The argument that my hon. Friend is making is a curious one, because Dominic Cummings was the director of Vote Leave, and the investigation into Vote Leave was ongoing. As the former director of that organisation, it was obviously legitimate for him to be concerned that the investigation might be prejudiced, in much the same way as a Minister, while not being directly charged with anything, might nevertheless have concern for proceedings being made against the Government.
Damian Collins
Well, it sort of depends on what Mr Cummings thought he was going to say and whether he thought he was likely to be in that position. As I have said, the Committee wished to discuss a range of issues and topics with him that were not at the time being expressly investigated by the Electoral Commission. Its investigation was largely to do with funding issues and the co-ordination between Vote Leave and other campaigns involved in the referendum. We had lots of questions about Vote Leave’s work with AggregateIQ and about its involvement in data analytics and the way data was being gathered, stored and used during the campaign that were highly relevant to our inquiry. He could have come in to discuss those issues. If there were no grounds for him not to appear, and he just did not want to appear, I do not believe that the House should accept that as an excuse.
Sir Hugo Swire
Does my hon. Friend concede that there would be a difference if the gentleman in question had not wished to appear on account of prejudicing an ongoing inquiry with which he was associated, as against his not recognising the legitimacy of Parliament to summon him to appear? I suspect that in this case the latter applied, not the former, and that there might be a difference.
Damian Collins
There is a difference. I do not believe that Mr Cummings ever accepted the legitimacy of Parliament to ask him to appear, which is a matter that we should take seriously in its own right. From the very start, it seemed clear that he thought he should give evidence on his own terms, in his own way, on his own dates—
Damian Collins
And even to his own Committee, yes. He thought it was no business of ours to set parameters for the special ad hoc Committee of the House that should be assembled just to question Dominic Cummings. That is a ridiculous way for someone to behave when they have been asked to give evidence. If he had said at the beginning that he was willing to give evidence even though he did not want to discuss certain topics because of other investigations he was associated with, and that he would discuss other things, that would have been a very different matter. The Committee of Privileges might have taken a different view if that had been the case. It is interesting that he declined to give evidence to that investigation as well, even though it took place sometime after the event. This just shows his general contempt for the House and its practices. He feels that we have no business asking difficult questions or prying into his affairs, but I believe that that is our business and that we have a right to do that.
It is rare for the House to issue a summons—most witnesses come willingly—but when we legitimately seek to summon witnesses to give evidence to our inquiries, we should have that power, and when someone refuses and shows contempt for us, there should be a sanction and we should have a power to act further. Today’s debate is not the end of the discussion on whether Dominic Cummings should have appeared before the DCMS Committee; it is about how we can take this forward and formalise the powers of the House to ensure that we do not find ourselves in this position again.
John Redwood
I agree that it is about balance. My hon. Friend has invited me to reach my conclusion before I have made my argument. However, cutting to part of the conclusion, yes, we do need to look at sanctions, and it would be good if as a result of this debate the relevant Committee considered practice in other good, democratic institutions around the world and looked at which were most effective. We need to be seen, as we are, as a serious body with every right to require any UK citizen to come here and explain themselves, and we need to be able to enforce that in a sensible and proportionate way. I do not think that our current enforcement is proportionate if someone has no good reason to refuse or deny.
I want to develop one or two exceptions to that rule. At the heart of this particular case is the issue of whether or not legal proceedings are under way that could in some way be prejudiced if the witness came here and spoke too widely about the things that the authorities were investigating. There is a sub judice rule. It is always a matter of judgment for any individual who faces that kind of proceeding, and it is also a matter of judgment for lawyers involved in prospective cases. I do not think that we should ignore that, as it could be an important part of this particular case, and can certainly be a crucial part of any future case. If someone has to answer because there is a general worry about their past conduct—I am not talking about Mr Cummings; I am talking about a future case—it is quite likely that there could be a legal inquiry, as well as the wish to have a parliamentary inquiry.
If we are going to have higher sanctions, as I suspect we should, we need to be even clearer about what are the legitimate legal grounds. That brings me to my next point. When people do something that is contentious for the wider public and for Members of Parliament, and which splits opinion in the country, there is a danger of too many inquiries. Suddenly, they are all across the media, and are on the front pages of the newspapers. Everyone is talking about them, and people chase the ambulance—they want to chase the excitement. There is a danger that there will be several Committees in this House wanting to conduct an inquiry into largely the same thing from different departmental perspectives. They may want to home in on the same key witnesses, because they are so newsworthy at the moment. We may then be in a position where we overload potential witnesses, and get in the way of conducting a fair inquiry that can add to our understanding, rather than just adding to glamorous media reports of our involvement.
Damian Collins
I know that my right hon. Friend is talking in general terms about a future case, but for the record, in this particular case involving Mr Cummings, Select Committees were not competing to ask him to come and give evidence. We were the only Committee that sought to invite him to appear, and we took advice from the House authorities on whether or not the concerns raised about other cases were relevant to our request.
John Redwood
I understand that, and I explicitly said that I was not talking about Mr Cummings in that part of my speech. This is about how we enforce in general, as well as being about the sanction that the House wishes to confirm in the motion against a particular individual. Certainly, Mr Cummings, Vote Leave and all the rest of it might have been subject to other inquiries, because there has been huge political interest in that both outside and inside the House, and it is a contentious matter. It is the kind of thing where there could be inquiry overload, with more heat but not a lot of light. We need a period of calm reflection, as I know the Committee Chairman and others are undertaking, to think about a range of possibilities.
There are two issues to deal with before we think of intensifying our sanction regime. First, can a witness give a really good reason, because of some kind of legal advice or legal inquiry? We do not want to get in the way of proper inquiries into possibly serious crimes. Secondly, can we make sure that we do not contribute to chasing excitement, and often false allegations, because an individual is in the media spotlight? Where there is a serious interest, perhaps a lead Committee should take it up and handle that particular person.
It is also important to be fair between the different possible categories of witnesses. We have to bear in mind that an individual will not have the back-up, support and cover for legal and other costs that may be involved in being on the wrong end of an inquiry, whereas a representative of a great company will have enormous support and will have people writing parts of their evidence and drawing on the back data that is needed, and they will obviously have cover for legal expenses.
John Redwood
It is always better to deal in facts than in general allegations or misdescriptions, so I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
The point I am making is that Committees should understand that an individual who does not work for a great corporation, who does not have a well-paid job or who is no longer part of an organisation does not have the same back-up and support as someone who is still the chief executive of a mighty company.
Damian Collins
My right hon. Friend is making an important point. The chief executive of a big company will have a team of people to help them prepare their evidence, but that is not required. Committees well understand that a submission from a company might be different from a submission from a private individual. There are many private individuals who submit written evidence and who freely come to give evidence to Committees without any of that support. All we ask them to do is to come and talk about themselves. In fact, when they seek to give evidence, they have the same legal immunity and protection as members of the Committee do, so they do not have to worry about potentially incriminating themselves or taking legal advice before speaking out.
John Redwood
I was not going to conclude that we should stop asking people who do not have a well backed up job, but we need to understand, as I am sure my hon. Friend does, that if we are asking an individual who was once in an important position, with all that back-up, to come and talk about events of a year or two years ago, and if they do not wish to mislead the Committee and they wish to be factually accurate, they will need somehow to get access to the records of their past institution and they will need to go through a lot of preparation, and they will have to do it all for themselves or spend their own money on getting advice and legal support.
Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill
Damian Collins ExcerptsMonday 8th January 2018
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018 View all Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mel Stride
I am afraid that I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The Bill takes a balanced approach to the issue of protecting our domestic producers including, very importantly, steel producers. By “balanced approach”, I mean that we should also take into account the interests of consumers of those imported goods and businesses that use them in their processes. If the hon. Gentleman looks closely at the measures—we will do that in Committee—he will see that they provide for compensation where dumping has occurred and for appropriate sanctions to be made.
The economic advantage to the UK is very important, and that means continued UK-EU trade that is as frictionless as possible. It also means avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland and establishing an independent international trade policy. As we look forward to the next stage of our negotiations with the European Union, we see that the nature of our future customs relationship with the EU, and therefore the legislation that will allow the Government to give effect to any such relationship, become all the more significant.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentions the need to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. I know that he will also agree that we need to avoid an effective hard border on the channel crossing points, particularly the channel tunnel and the port of Dover. That is our principal road freight route for goods back and forth across the continent of Europe. It is essential that we maintain frictionless trade.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is why we have consulted ports so extensively, most importantly that of Dover, which I visited myself. I met the port authorities down there, and members of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have been closely involved in consultations with the ports. Of course, the Bill allows the facilitations that we will require—both unilateral and bilateral—to ensure that the smooth flow of trade occurs at those vital ports. It is particularly essential that we do not have any delay to the processing of imports and exports that go through roll-on/roll-off ports.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
This debate and the presentation of this Bill are incredibly timely. Before Christmas, at the European Council meeting, the Prime Minister moved our negotiations on leaving the EU on to the second phase, with the agreement of the other member states, and we will now discuss the future relationship and the future trading relationship. It is important that, so soon after that Council meeting, although there is still a lot more to be done and negotiated in terms of how that relationship will work, we are debating a vital piece of enabling legislation that gives the Government the legal power to implement whatever is negotiated.
We could have a different scenario, where the Government could negotiate without any legal basis to implement the agreement. They could just negotiate on the basis that they would then have to bring legislation forward at some point in the future. There is no guarantee there would be the time to do that, and it would be a rather strange process to go through. It is far better that the Government are able to pass enabling legislation that gives us the legal authority to implement what they negotiate. At least then, when negotiating with the Europeans, they know that we can implement what we negotiate and we will not be left high and dry because we have run out of time.
Sammy Wilson
That is an important point, and it has been reflected in the speeches from Members from two Opposition parties. Does not the hon. Gentleman therefore find it rather odd that on one hand they talk about urgency, yet on the other hand they have tabled motions saying we should not proceed with this Bill on Second Reading?
Damian Collins
Absolutely. If we waited until every question that has been posed today could be answered—if, indeed, they can all be answered—before we introduced legislation, we could end up with no time for scrutiny or debate, or to implement the legislation in the first place. We can enter into the negotiations on our future trading relationship with any sort of purpose only if it is clear that we have in place the legal frameworks to implement whatever we agree and only if the EU negotiators can see that the UK has the legal basis to implement its own regime and requirements, whatever the trade deal or scenario.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) presented a compelling amount of detail in her speech. It is tempting to lay out all the difficulties and say that there is no point in introducing legislation until we have an answer to all the problems that seem insurmountable, but that would be entirely the wrong way to go about it. We need to make sure that the enabling legislation is in place. It can also be tempting—I say this as someone who campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU—to rerun all the arguments that were made during the referendum, as if the referendum had not happened, but it did happen and the country voted to leave the EU. It is now our responsibility to put in place the legal framework that enables the Government to negotiate so that we can put in place the best possible deal. It is far better that we do that now than in a year’s time.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
I do not know whether my hon. Friend agrees, but the speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), in which she highlighted some important issues relating to cumulation and other matters, is an example of why the Bill is such a good part of the process. It is giving people the opportunity to highlight important issues for the Government.
Damian Collins
Absolutely, and that is the spirit in which the comments made by the vast array of trade organisations and businesses that are seeking to engage in the process should be interpreted. They are giving us notice of the issues that they believe we need to get right for their sectors. That does not mean that there is a concern that we will not get those things right, but they are right to flag up the things that we have to get right.
I was particularly pleased to hear the Financial Secretary say in his opening remarks that the Government intend to establish a system of frictionless trade at our major ports and other major places of trade with the EU. That is very important for my constituency in Kent, just as it is incredibly important for Northern Ireland. We need to ensure that trade can flow freely.
Ministers from the Department for International Trade will be working hard not only to put in place good trade deals that continue the free trade agreements we currently have with other countries as a consequence of our membership of the EU, but to negotiate trade agreements with other countries around the world. Such agreements will be incredibly important for our future success, but there is something about trade that is rather inevitable: countries tend to trade a lot with other countries to which they are near, because the cost of such trade is obviously far lower. There is a reason why we trade more with Belgium than with Brazil—although I wish we could trade more with Brazil—and that is that Belgium is very nearby. The cross-channel routes and the routes across the border in Northern Ireland are fundamental for our economic success. That is where frictionless trade really matters so that people can move their goods quickly and speedily. In many businesses, particularly those that work in food or with cut flowers and other perishable goods, the quick, “just in time” movement of goods is vital. Businesses on both sides of those borders will be affected equally.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) talk about the initiative he will be undertaking with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) to bring a Wrightbus down to London. I visited the Wrightbus factory in Ballymena, where the company makes a fantastic product that has become an icon of the London streets. Although the Wrightbus Boris buses do not operate on continental Europe, I urge my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman to continue their journey down to my constituency and through the channel tunnel, because it is so important to maintain the flows of trade not only between the countries of the UK but between the UK and continental Europe. A third of the trade of Warrenpoint port in Northern Ireland runs from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, into mainland UK and on to continental Europe. We need to keep trade running frictionlessly through all those points.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
People could not disagree with a lot of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but in the real world at some point we are going to face tariffs, whether it is outside his constituency, on continental Europe or around the rest of the world. If we want a clue about that, we should look at the recent actions of Donald Trump’s Administration in relation to Bombardier. Food supply chains could also be threatened.
Damian Collins
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Manufacturing is such an important part of the economy of Coventry, where his constituency is. Tariffs are important. Of course, we want a free trading environment among the countries with which we trade, not only in Europe but around the world. I looked back at one of Margaret Thatcher’s speeches—I am sure the hon. Gentleman is just as keen a student of those speeches as I am—to see how she made the case for the single market to businesses before it was created. She rightly highlighted that, although trade without tariffs is obviously important, what is much more important is getting rid of artificial barriers to trade, such as the restriction of goods from markets because they are not seen to comply with certain standards or the creation of artificial delays that can make trade in goods that need to be moved quickly uneconomic. It is just as important to get trading agreements and the flow of trade right as it is to get the tariff situation right.
Stephen Kerr
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech in favour of frictionless, free and fair trade. I hope he agrees that, as we go through the Brexit process, it is important that nothing is done to create any barriers to the internal operation of the UK market, by which I mean Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Damian Collins
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Frictionless trade is just as important between Northern Ireland and Great Britain as it is on the island of Ireland. It is vital to the economies of the island of Ireland and Great Britain and to everyone who lives and works on the island of Ireland and in Great Britain. As I said earlier, because of our proximity and the integrated nature of so many of our businesses, that trade is so important, and it is vital to the protection of so many jobs. There should be no artificial borders in the Irish sea, and nor should there be borders that create friction on the island of Ireland or with the continent of Europe across the English channel.
Sammy Wilson
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point that is sometimes overlooked in these debates: it is vital for the Irish economy that there is no line of demarcation or border on the Irish sea, because its main market for either the sale or the transit of goods is Great Britain. If we simply talk about the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, we miss the point: there has to be integration among all the islands.
Damian Collins
That is absolutely right. As the hon. Gentleman will know, a third of the goods processed through Warrenpoint port in Northern Ireland come from the Republic of Ireland, so it would do great damage to the economy of the island of Ireland were artificial barriers to be put in place. The same is true for goods that move through what is effectively the Great Britain land bridge to the continent of Europe. A large amount of goods from the Republic of Ireland are exported to continental Europe through ports such as Dover, as well as through the channel tunnel, and it is vital for so many businesses and for the free flow of trade that they are not treated as goods being imported from a third country but allowed to flow freely just as they currently do.
It is important that we make sure not only that we get the tariff regime and the rules of trade right, but that part of our preparedness is about ensuring that we have the right physical infrastructure alongside the enabling legislation that the Government are seeking to pass. I was really pleased to hear the Chancellor announce £3 billion in the Budget to help the UK to prepare the physical infrastructure it will need for trade. Technological solutions can be put in place to make sure that trade can flow without restrictions and frictionlessly at the key trading points and the key points of entry to other markets, but the infrastructure also needs to be put in place now.
It is particularly important for my constituents in Kent that we provide a long-term solution to deal with issues such as Operation Stack. If trade is being held up, for whatever reason—be it bad weather in the channel or strike action in one of the French ports—we need the physical infrastructure in place to keep Kent’s roads open. As part of our preparations for a future in which we can keep goods and services flowing freely around our key points of trade, it is important that we have in place the right physical infrastructure. That includes a commitment to deliver the Operation Stack relief lorry park in Kent. I was pleased that the Financial Secretary was able to confirm before Christmas that the £250 million that the Government had earmarked for the delivery of that vital piece of infrastructure is still there, and I hope we will see good progress on the design this year. Not only can that relief lorry park be considered as a piece of infrastructure for dealing with Operation Stack, which can happen at any time—it has happened while we have been a member of the EU and could happen again in future—but that physical infrastructure will be there in case we need it because of delays in the movement of goods.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a good speech in which he is, of course, advocating free trade, in which we all believe—or at least Conservative Members do. Does he, like me, see the profound irony in our discussing how we are going to have to have new technologies, put in new systems and do all these other hugely complicated, very expensive things, in order to cope with leaving the customs union, even though we believe in and want free trade? Does he not think it would be much more simple and sensible just to stay in the customs union?
Damian Collins
My right hon. Friend makes a compelling point, but we have to accept that other political issues are being considered alongside the management of trade: our general future relationship with the European Union as a partner European continental country, but not as a member of the EU itself; whether we should have arrangements whereby the level of regulatory alignment is such that we effectively become a satellite state—a client state—of the European Union and not an independent one; and the extent to which we have to fully comply with and implement rules that we have no further part in designing in future. That is what creates difficulties around membership of the customs union and the single market. As she knows as well, the issue of membership of the single market also comes alongside considerations around the issue of free movement of persons as it is defined now.
If there is a way, through negotiation, to resolve those difficulties and to keep a system of trade that we have got used to and that works so well for our economy, without any deviation from the current system at all, and to deliver the other political objectives that people voted for in the referendum, I will welcome that. However, what we are talking about here is making sure that we prepare, both through the laws and the physical infrastructure, for a different scenario whereby, if we are not able through negotiation to replicate what we have now, we have a system in place that can deliver something that is just as good.
There are many unanswered questions because that process is still being negotiated, but, as I said at the start of my remarks, it is far better that we have the debate about what we want the system to look like now, at the same time as giving the Government the legal power to negotiate and implement what they want in future. Now is the right time to be having that debate. I am sure that there will be plenty of other opportunities for the House to debate the specifics of the deal as we progress through the negotiations this year. But now is the right time to be having this debate.
As I have said, maintaining a system of free trade is clearly what we all want and what we want to see delivered. We need to ensure that we have the legal infrastructure in place and invest in the physical infrastructure, so that we can implement the deal that we have, and in particular keep frictionless trade on the island of Ireland and at our key points of trade in Kent —at the channel tunnel and at the port of Dover—with continental Europe.
Duties of Customs
Damian Collins ExcerptsMonday 20th November 2017
(7 years ago)
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Mel Stride
My hon. Friend has put the point very clearly and effectively, and nothing in this Bill acts counter to our ability to act in the way he has suggested.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
As the Minister will know, more than 80% of the UK’s freight movement goes through the channel tunnel and the port of Dover. Anything that slows, let alone delays, that processing will cause massive backlogs, and the physical infrastructure is not yet in place to do this. Alongside the Bill he is presenting this evening, does he believe that we need to make sure the resources are there so that whatever is necessary is in place on day one to make sure the physical infrastructure can support cross-channel trade?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend raises a crucial point for ro-ro—roll on, roll off—ports, and these are just the kinds of issue that I discussed with the personnel and the chief executive at Dover when I visited. I have regular discussions with HMRC on these matters, and it in turn has regular roundtable events and a particularly close association with the port of Dover. He is absolutely right to say that we must ensure that trade is fluid and moves quickly across that border. He will have noted the suggestions set out in the White Paper of the pre-lodging of customs declarations away from the port—from Calais, in this instance—and making sure we have the right inventory software in the port so we can match up those goods coming in against those declarations to make sure we keep the flow going.
Mel Stride
Of course, Operation Stack arose not because of a general deficiency in the customs arrangements but because of the specifics of what occurred on the French side of the channel. If that situation occurred again, which I suppose it could do irrespective of the arrangements we have for customs, the Government would clearly make sure that we had sufficient resource to deal with that eventuality. As I have said, though, in terms of the customs arrangements themselves, the resourcing of the facilities and the arrangements that we need to put into place, we are confident that they will be there to keep the traffic moving on day one.
Damian Collins
As the Minister will know, this is in the interests of my constituents, as well as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). Will he confirm, if not from the Dispatch Box then in writing afterwards, that the £250 million allocated by the Government in the autumn statement two years ago for the provision of an Operation Stack relief lorry park on the M20 is still in place? The Department for Transport has unfortunately had to withdraw its plans for that lorry park because of a judicial review, but it intends to go back into the planning process with new plans. My constituents would benefit from knowing that the funds allocated to that project are still there.
Select Committees
Damian Collins Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I rise to support the motions, and also to say a few words about timetabling. It is good that the House is moving to elect the Chairs of Select Committees next week, but that does not give the House much time to elect members of those Committees before the summer recess, and there should be concern if that means members are elected in September and many Committees will not sit and start their work formally until October. There would therefore be a gap of five months in the working of Committees. In the normal course of a fixed-term Parliament Committees can prepare their workload and work towards the end of the Session, knowing reports have to be finished by then. Because of the nature of the last general election, however, many Committees, including the one I chaired in the last Parliament, have had to abruptly stop their work. If they are looking to pick up some of it, there will be a considerable gap and a change of membership.
There are also a number of other functions that Committees undertake, in scrutinising not just the decisions of Government Ministers and this House but outside bodies. I therefore ask whether consideration can be given to establishing some continuity to allow Committees to finish off work they are doing before new Committees are assembled, rather than for them to be completely disbanded between elections before new Committees can be created. A lot of valuable work that Committees can do is lost in this way, and in the current situation we may have an absence of five months without any Committees sitting.