Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Debate between David Davis and Yvette Cooper

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

That is really flipped logic. The hon. Gentleman is effectively saying, “They do not have to do the checks because they can all just pay the tariffs.” Why on earth are we going through this whole process in the first place if all we are going to get is a tiny reduction in tariffs that no one will take advantage of in order to get any benefits?

[Mr David Davis]

The logic is actually very simple. Empirical evidence shows that in international trade, companies seek to claim their rebates and do what is necessary to avoid tariffs when a tariff is lower than 3%, not when it is above. What that tells us is that the cost of rules of origin administration is less than 3%. Companies are rational operators. The numbers that the right hon. Lady cited from a supposed Government study were wrong.

[Yvette Cooper]

I would caution the right hon. Gentleman against dismissing the rules of origin checks. There is a huge worry about the burden that they will impose on small businesses in particular. There is a big difference between large and small businesses in this regard. It might be worth large businesses claiming the money back because they can set up systems to do so, but for small businesses the process can be devastating. I am thinking particularly of the huge number of small businesses that have not yet traded outside the EU and for which rules of origin will be a new burden.

Why on earth would we want to add these additional burdens and checks on businesses that have not faced them before? I find myself in a very strange position. I, as a Labour MP, am arguing far more strongly and passionately against these additional burdens on businesses than those on the hard right of the Conservative party, who ought to be arguing against such burdens.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I just make two points. First, there is a lot of noise in the Chamber. Members must be heard. Secondly, may I say very gently to the Secretary of State that I appreciate that he has trouble with his voice, but that accentuates the importance of his facing the House so that we can all hear him?

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

In the chaos that was yesterday, it did at least seem to be clear at 9 o’clock in the morning that the Government believed in the idea of regulatory alignment for Northern Ireland and for the Republic, but what is their position now? Have they now ditched any idea of regulatory alignment for Northern Ireland, or do they recognise that actually regulatory alignment is really important not just for the Good Friday agreement, but for businesses right across the United Kingdom? That is what the Secretary of State should be trying to achieve for all of us.

[Mr Davis]

I refer the right hon. Lady to the speech that the Prime Minister made in Florence, because in it she dealt with—[Interruption.] Clearly, if Opposition Members cannot read, that is not a problem. I refer the right hon. Lady to that speech, because in it the Prime Minister made a very plain case for the sorts of divergence that we would see after we left. She said that there are areas in which we want to achieve the same outcomes, but by different regulatory methods. We want to maintain safety, food standards, animal welfare and employment rights, but we do not have to do that by exactly the same mechanism as everybody else. That is what regulatory alignment means.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Yvette Cooper

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

No, I cannot quite confirm that. It will depend on when the withdrawal treaty is negotiated. It is the intention of the Union to try to negotiate that by October next year. Ideally, it will be before the conclusion.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government coming forward with a separate Bill for the withdrawal agreement. That is something on which I and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) have tabled amendments. Can the Secretary of State clarify the timing? He just said that it was only in an ideal world that this withdrawal agreement Bill would come before Brexit day. There is a real problem if the Government think that they can simply use clause 9 provisionally to implement a withdrawal agreement through secondary legislation, while not having the withdrawal agreement Bill until after Brexit day. Will he confirm that the Government will bring the withdrawal agreement Bill to the House before Brexit day, not after?

[Mr Davis]

The right hon. Lady quite rightly corrects me for misspeaking slightly. “Ideal” was perhaps the wrong word. The right words are that it is our principal policy aim—that is what we are trying to do—but there is something that I cannot guarantee: if the Union does not come to a conclusion in negotiations, we cannot actually bring the withdrawal Bill before the House before we have a withdrawal agreement. That is the sequence that I am pointing to.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between David Davis and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

In a moment.

To do that, the first step the Bill takes is to preserve all the domestic law we have made to implement our EU obligations. That mainly means preserving thousands of statutory instruments that have been made under the European Communities Act, with subjects ranging from aeroplane noise to zoo licensing. It also extends to preserving any other domestic law that fulfils our European Union obligations or otherwise relates to the European Union.

Equally, the Bill converts European Union law—principally EU regulations, all 12,000 of them—into domestic law on exit day. It also ensures that rights in the EU treaties that are directly effective—that is, rights that are sufficiently clear, precise and unconditional that they can be relied on in court by an individual—continue to be available in UK law.

I have no doubt that there is much about EU law that could be improved, and I know that this Parliament will, over time, look to improve it. [Interruption.] Including the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who laughed just then. But that is not the purpose of this Bill. It simply brings European Union law into UK law, ensuring that, wherever possible, the rules and laws are the same after exit as before.

Just as important as the text of EU law is the interpretation of that law.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Davis]

In a moment.

For that reason, the Bill ensures that any question as to the meaning of retained law is to be decided on in UK courts in accordance with the Court of Justice’s case law and retained general principles of European Union law as they stood on exit day. That approach maximises stability by ensuring that the meaning of the law does not change overnight and that only the Supreme Court, and the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, will be able to depart from retained EU case law. They will do so on the same basis on which they depart from their own case law. Any other approach would either actively cause uncertainty or fossilise EU case law for ever.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Stephen Doughty]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

Let me be clear: the absence of the charter will not affect the substantive rights available in the UK. As I have said before at the Dispatch Box, if an Opposition Member or anyone in the House—I am thinking of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve); I will come to him in a minute—finds a substantive right that is not carried forward into UK law, they should say so and we will deal with it.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

In the several months since I said that, no one has yet brought my attention to a right we have missed. It may be that that will happen in the next two minutes—I will start by taking the intervention of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and then come to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The Secretary of State will know that the key issue is not what Ministers say is the aim of the Bill, but what are the actual powers in it. So can he tell the House what safeguards there are anywhere in the Bill—in proposed statute—that would prevent Ministers from using clause 7, clause 9 or clause 17 to completely rewrite extradition policy in future, in relation to the demise of the European arrest warrant, without coming back to Parliament with primary legislation?

[Mr Davis]

I will come to the details in a moment, but there are a number of limitations, one of which is that we cannot impinge on the Human Rights Act 1998. That goes straight to the point that the right hon. Lady raises.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

On the day the shadow Brexit Secretary was on “The Andrew Marr Show” saying, if I remember his words correctly, that he was glad to have a unified party behind his current policy—policy No. 10, by the way—on that very same programme the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) was saying exactly that: that the right hon. Gentleman was betraying Labour’s own voters. That is what the Labour party has to come to terms with. Its voters, more than anybody else, want us to leave. They voted for it and they want us to leave, and Labour had better deliver on it.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Last year, UK agencies initiated 3,000 Europol investigations, yet with just 18 months until we are due to lose our Europol membership, our European arrest warrant and our security co-operation underpinnings we still have no idea what the Government want—is it to replace this, to extend it or to include it in a transition? There have been no announcements and there was not even any mention of it in the Secretary of State’s statement today. When are we going to get some substance on this serious issue about public safety and national security? When is he going to realise that this waffle is letting the country down?

[Mr Davis]

In my statement I discussed civil judicial co-operation and criminal judicial co-operation, which relate to the right hon. Lady’s question—or criminal judicial co-operation does, at least. The European Union will only negotiate on the ongoing relationship once it has decided there has been sufficient progress. At that point—I have said this in terms, and it was in the article 50 letter, the Lancaster House speech and the White Paper—we intend to negotiate a parallel arrangement, similar to what we have now, based on the structures we currently have, and we intend to maintain exactly what she says: the high level of co-operation on intelligence, counter-terrorism and anti-criminal work that we have had in the past.