The Government's Plan for Brexit

Debate between Hilary Benn and Edward Leigh

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I want to begin by expressing my concern about the continuing tone of some of the debate on the UK’s exit from the European Union. I also want to express the hope, which may be vain, that today will mark the end of the phony war.

The decision has been made. We all campaigned on one side or the other and we accept the result. Parliament will vote in favour of triggering article 50. The deal—this is the importance of the motion tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—is that in return the Government will come forward with, and get on with producing, a plan. It is entirely reasonable that the House and the British public should expect the Government to publish a plan well in advance of that vote. I welcome the fact that belatedly—nearly six months on—the Government have finally done so today.

So please, can we have an end to talk about “democracy deniers” and “remoaners”? One headline yesterday read:

“Forty pro-EU Conservative MPs defy the will of the people to ‘side with Labour’”,

and the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said:

“While others have seemingly made clear they want to frustrate the will of the British people, the Government is pressing on with it.”

May we have an end to that? It does a profound disservice to the scale of the task our country faces, to the seriousness of that task and the importance of the outcome to every single person who lives in the United Kingdom. I say to the Secretary of State that the Government and the Prime Minister should be trying to unite our country as they go about their task—we all agree that we should try to achieve the best possible deal—and to recognise their responsibilities to the 48% as well as the 52%. Maybe today will mark the day when they begin to do that.

Of course there are different views about the future of our relationship with the EU. Leaving the EU is not in doubt, but the nature of that new relationship—here I disagree with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)—is up for debate.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We accept that Labour is going to vote for article 50 and we all want the plan, but does the right hon. Gentleman believe that Labour should not put forward an amendment on the article 50 vote that lays down a specific future, for instance, staying in the single market?

[Hilary Benn]

No, I do not. First, we have no idea what the legislation will look like. I would just make the point that, when I last checked, Norway is not a member of the European Union. Unless any hon. Members wish to contradict me, it is not a member. It is outside the EU and it is a member of the single market. What that demonstrates is that there are choices to be made about our future relationship with the EU.

All any unreasonable delay in bringing forward the plan will do is create further uncertainty. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) is no longer in his place, but he said that it might consist of hints. I merely remind the House that when Moses came down from the mountain bearing the tablets, they did not contain the 10 hints. He was pretty clear about what he was telling people to do. I remind the House that the Secretary of State has got up eight times to enlighten us not a great deal about the Government’s objectives, and I have never heard Parliament described as “elbow joggers” before, although I did like the analogy. We are not elbow joggers, but participants in the process and we intend to scrutinise the Government as they undertake it. Apart from anything else, it would have been quite unacceptable for the Government to have told the 27 member states what their objectives were before they told Parliament and the British people. It is therefore really important that we get the plan and that the Government publish one with substance.

To be fair to the Government, in some areas, we know what the plan is. That has been set out very clearly for the car industry. We know what the Government want: no tariffs and no bureaucratic impediments. Those were the words of the Business Secretary. They do not want anything to happen that would make it more difficult to trade. I am sure the rest of the manufacturing sector says, in all the meetings the Secretary of State is having, “Okay, that’s great for cars, but what about us?” Is it unreasonable for the Government then to say what their objectives are for the rest of manufacturing industry? I think that is perfectly reasonable.

There is then the curious case of the customs union, which got even curiouser during the Secretary of State’s speech. The Prime Minister has now told us twice that it is not a binary choice. Now we understand it is a four- way choice. The Secretary of State said there are four different models. The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who unfortunately is no longer in her place, asked a perfectly reasonable question: whether he could at least tell us what the four different options are, so that we can all join in the conversation on which of the four the Government might eventually decide to choose.

Presumably, we are going to seek maximum access to the single market. For financial services, and the jobs and the tax revenue that depend on it, it is really important that we are able to keep access to the single market. I am sure that causes the Chancellor to lie awake at night, worrying about it. How will those controls on free movement, which the Secretary of State reminded us of, work in practice? How will they affect lecturers at universities, doctors and nurses, people picking and processing vegetables, chefs, care workers, highly skilled engineers, technicians and IT specialists? Will companies—this is a question we have heard a lot in the Select Committee—continue to be able to move their staff within their companies to another base elsewhere in Europe to repair a product, solve a problem or create a new business opportunity? When will we be able to offer clarity to EU citizens about their position here? We now know from the Home Secretary that they will all have to be documented. It is a fair question: how many civil servants will that take, how much will it cost and when will it be completed?

What about our universities? Young people from the rest of Europe will be asking themselves whether they are still going to apply to come to Britain, and when will they stop being treated as a home student and become an overseas student? They need to know and the universities need to be able to plan. Will we continue to participate in the Erasmus programme that allows young people in Britain from low-income backgrounds to study elsewhere in Europe? Will we continue to be a part of Horizon 2020?

What about the whole range of agencies? I will pick one: the European Medicines Agency. Now, one could say that wanting to remain a member of the EMA is cherry-picking. However, working with our European neighbours to agree on how quickly and safely we can bring new medicines to market is good for patients in Britain as well as patients in Europe. I plead with the Government to be just a bit more enthusiastic—I do not say this so much about the Secretary of State—and clear that they are determined to find a way of continuing to co-operate on foreign policy, defence, security and the fight against terrorism, because that is so important to us all.

Finally, on transitional arrangements, the cliff edge and the negotiating plan, previous Governments, in respect of a whole host of treaties, including the Lisbon treaty, the constitutional treaty, the Nice treaty, and the Amsterdam treaty, and even when we sought to join the common market in 1967, all set out what they were trying to achieve. George Brown talked about the need for considerable adaptations and an adequate period. If it was sensible to admit the need for transitional arrangements when joining the common market, which was a much simpler organisation, is it not sensible for the Government to admit now that, if they cannot negotiate everything within 18 months—listen to what Michel Barnier said yesterday—they will be prepared, if necessary—

European Affairs

Debate between Hilary Benn and Edward Leigh

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Almost 41 years ago, this House debated the terms of a renegotiation of our place in Europe prior to a referendum of the British people. On 7 April 1975, this is what the opening speaker in that debate said:

“for many hon. Members, as for millions outside the House, the issue is not limited to an assessment of the outcome of the renegotiations. Many…have already made up their minds…There will be a substantial body of opinion…who believe…that Britain should be in the Community for the greater economic good of Britain in a changing world…Equally there is a substantial body of opinion which is fundamentally opposed to British membership and which holds that no possible renegotiations could have changed the nature of the Community sufficiently to enable it to support British participation.”—[Official Report, 7 April 1975; Vol. 889, c. 821.]

Those were the words of the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who, incidentally, gave the British people a decision about their place in Europe. Those words remind us that some things never change, although then it was the Labour party that was split over our place in Europe and the Conservatives who were united, whereas now there has been a complete reversal of roles. History is repeating itself in mirror image.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

As we are talking about history, can we at least agree that the right hon. Gentleman’s late, lamented and great father and Enoch Powell were right during those historic debates in the early 1970s that this was a unique endeavour and that what we were signing up to in the European Communities Act 1972 was quite unlike any other treaty, because it established the supremacy of the European Court of Justice over this House? Can we at least agree that there is no halfway house—we are either under EU law or we are not? That is what this referendum is about.

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed, that is the case. The Labour party—not the Conservative party—decided that the British people should have their say precisely because that kind of transfer of sovereignty is a decision that should rest not with this House of Commons, but with the British people. The British people made their choice and decided by a significant margin to remain in the European Community.

I was about to mention the Prime Minister’s reception on Monday. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) is fond of describing some right hon. and hon. Members as the “desperate to be disappointed”. It is fair to say that on Monday, those people were indeed disappointed, because they were never going to be satisfied.