Business of the House (Saturday 19 October)

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Joanna Cherry

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not wish to be ungracious, because I am an admirer of the hon. and learned Lady, who is a very impressive inquisitor—[Interruption]. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar is also an impressive inquisitor. But I am not going to take further interventions, because the Queen’s Speech debate is pressing and I have a few more words to say about the details of Saturday. I apologise to right hon. and hon. Members, but I think I have taken enough interventions.

I recognise that changes to the sittings of the House agreed at short notice can create inconvenience to Members, staff of the House and civil servants, but I am sure hon. Members will agree that it is important to continue to take these matters at greater pace at this important time. Her Majesty’s Government did not choose the date of 19 October to hold this important debate, but it will provide the opportunity for this House to live up to the commitment made by all parties to deliver on the will of the people and to honour the result of the referendum.

If the House agrees to the motion, the arrangement for Saturday will be for the House to sit at 9.30 am. The day will begin with ministerial statements, and I can confirm that, as I have already mentioned, the Prime Minister will make a statement updating the House on the outcome of the negotiations at the European Union Council. The debate that follows will be either on a motion to approve a deal or on a motion to approve a no-deal exit. The debate on one or other of those motions would run for up to 90 minutes under the existing rules of this House. In the event of a motion to approve a deal, that motion, if passed, will meet the terms both of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act and of section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

Business of the House

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Joanna Cherry

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend, who represents a south Gloucestershire constituency, is a near neighbour of mine, and I must confess I have a prejudice in favour of very good transport around Somerset and Gloucestershire, which is in all our interests. He can raise this at Transport questions on Thursday, but I would also encourage him to continue campaigning for it. I understand the beneficial economic consequence that road infrastructure can have.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Fortunately, the legal texts were available from the EU before the Government made them available. Does the Leader of the House, like me, welcome the fact that, under article 12 of the protocol, the courts in the United Kingdom will continue to be able to obtain preliminary rulings from the European Court of Justice and be subject to EU law? Can we have a debate about the benefits that the supremacy of EU law has brought to the UK?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am glad to say that the supremacy of EU law was one of the things rejected in the referendum, and it will fade away. As the morning mist fades, so will the supremacy of that appalling Court.

European Union (Withdrawal)

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Joanna Cherry

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There is so much to say and so little time, and others want to speak.

This motion is extraordinary in a number of ways.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will, of course, give way to the hon. and learned Lady.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I wonder whether I might go back to the matter raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). It was revealed in court this morning in a case raised in my name and that of 70 other Members of this House that on 16 August the Prime Minister agreed to a suggestion that Parliament should be prorogued on 9 September, but on 25 August a No. 10 spokesperson said

“the claim that the Government is considering proroguing Parliament in September in order to stop MPs debating Brexit is entirely false.”

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the spokesperson misled MPs and the public on 25 August?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to say that the most obvious understanding of the ordinary use of the English language, which normally the hon. and learned Lady is pretty good at, makes it quite clear that the two statements are entirely compatible. The Prorogation is the normal Prorogation to have a new Session; it is not to stop debate on matters related to the European Union.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Joanna Cherry

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for that. I think the point is important, and we should try to remember it.

A lot of the legislation that we pass can be explained to everybody—even to ourselves—in an understandable way. If we look at the Treasury Bench, we see some of the finest brains in Britain. They get up at the Dispatch Box and explain to us what is going to be passed into law, in terms that even Members of Parliament—including those of us who are not learned Members—can understand. I think that laws can be explained simply, and that is a worthy ambition.

New clause 21 makes the important point that during our period of membership, the EU increasingly turned out law that people did not understand. We have a golden opportunity to improve the quality of the legislation that we pass, improve people’s general understanding of it and improve our own understanding of it. Clarity is just and fair. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we want to apply this to our own work as well. There is no point in complaining about the European Union in that regard, but making our own laws incomprehensible. As an aside to what he said, one of the reasons why there is so much tax avoidance is that tax law is written in so complicated a manner.

Amendment 348 is important, and as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) rightly said, it touches on the subject of the Humble Address that was brought forward on 1 November. The Government have dealt with the matter, and it is important to look at what they have done in response to the Humble Address. Many Conservative Members have opposed the European Union on the grounds of parliamentary sovereignty and an understanding of the nature of our constitution. We must recognise that a Humble Address motion is unquestionably binding. That has always been the tradition of this place. It is quite clear from “Erskine May” that there is a profound duty on the Government to fulfil the terms of any Humble Address. It will be interesting to see how often the Opposition use that procedure over the next few years to try to get information from the Government.

It is worth noting why the Humble Address procedure fell out of practice. I think the real reason was that Governments tended to command sufficient majorities in the House that a Humble Address motion they opposed would not get through. In the situation of a very slim overall majority, with the help of our friends from the Democratic Unionist party—

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Expensive help.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is not expensive help. That is quite wrong. As the hon. and learned Lady knows, the £1 billion is less than was spent in Northern Ireland in the last Parliament. It is quite right that a Unionist party should help to form a Unionist Government.

Humble Addresses fell out of favour because they simply could not be got through. We need to look at how the Government responded to the Humble Address. My initial reaction was that the Government had not fulfilled the terms of the Humble Address, because it was not initially clear that the impact assessments did not, in fact, exist. The first indication was that the Government were nervous about producing information —they never said “impact assessments”—that might undermine the negotiating position. That seemed a sensible point to make, but not one that could conceivably override a Humble Address, which took precedence over it.

As the information was presented to the Exiting the European Union Committee, it became clear that the Government had been as helpful as they possibly could have been in producing information that had not, in fact, been requested by the Humble Address, which asked for something that did not exist. I think that technicalities in this field are important, and it is rational for Governments to follow them.

I happen to think that that is a lesson for the Opposition. If they are to call for Humble Addresses, they must make sure that those Humble Addresses are correctly—even pedantically—phrased to ensure that they are asking for something that really exists. I feel that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central was being unfair when he criticised the Government for failing to produce information that did not exist. The Government did as much as they could to produce the two folders—the 800 pages—of sectoral analysis. When we look through the record, we see that that is what the Government always admitted existed. The Government were careful to answer questions by referring to sectoral analyses, even if the questioner asked for impact assessments. That, I think, is where the misunderstanding developed that such impact assessments existed.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Joanna Cherry

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire, some hon. Gentlemen and, of course, the Speaker, are gallant, but I can assure them that I have no difficulty with the chuntering going on to my left. It certainly will not put me off my stride.

I was suggesting that the Government need to bring forward a debate on the Floor of the House on the basis for their immigration policy. We heard during the general election campaign that the Prime Minister wants to stick with the unrealistic targets that she has missed for seven years. The reason why the targets are unrealistic is that they are based on ideology, not evidence. We need an evidence-based debate on the Floor of the House about immigration policy for the whole of the UK. If we have that, we will see that immigrants are on average more likely to be in work, better educated and younger than the indigenous population, and that Scotland’s demographic needs are such that we require a progressive immigration policy. As I said earlier, business in Scotland wants this; the Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors in Scotland have said that they want the post-student work visa bought back, and a different immigration policy for Scotland, given its unique democratic needs. Let us have a debate about that, rather than about process.

Countries such as Canada and Australia manage to operate differential immigration procedures within their federation. Professor Christina Boswell of the University of Edinburgh has produced an excellent report evaluating the options for a differentiated approach to immigration policy in Scotland. There is cross-party support in Scotland for the post-study work visa; even the Scottish Tory party supports its return, so what will the Tory MPs do about that, and when will we have a debate about it on the Floor of the House?

Another important issue from the last Parliament is the plight of child refugees in Europe. Many of us, including Conservative Members, fought for their rights, and we got the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016. Last week, I attended the launch of a report by the Human Trafficking Foundation that followed an independent inquiry on separated and unaccompanied minors in Europe. It reveals that the UK Government have woefully failed those children, and that Ministers have done

“as little as legally possible”

to help unaccompanied children in Europe. It says that the Government have turned from a humanitarian crisis that “would not be tolerable” to the British public if they could see the truth of what was happening in France. When will we be able to hold the Government to account for the promises that they made when the Dubs amendment was agreed to, and for bringing only 480 minors to the United Kingdom when the understanding was that they would bring in 3,000? When will we have a debate about that important issue? We must find time in this Parliament to force the Government to rectify their dereliction of the duty that we imposed on them when we agreed the Dubs amendment.

Finally, on the connected issue of human rights, hon. Members have mentioned the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill that was brought forward last week. Clause 5 makes it clear that the Government do not intend the EU charter of fundamental rights to become part of what they call domestic law after Brexit. This must be challenged and debated immediately. There was a time not so long ago when the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union was a great fan of the charter. He liked it so much that he used it to take up a legal challenge against the “snooper’s charter”, which ended up in the European Court of Justice, but he has changed his mind, and he has brought forward a draft Bill under which a whole swathe of rights and protections enjoyed by our constituents will go, if the Bill is passed unamended. Where is the debate about that?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The charter of fundamental rights only applies to citizens of the United Kingdom insofar as it applies to EU law. It therefore cannot have applicability once we have left the European Union because we will no longer be subject to EU law.

[Joanna Cherry]

Yes. But if, as the Government have promised, the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is going to guarantee all the rights that we already enjoy by virtue of our EU citizenship, the charter of fundamental rights should not be going. The charter defends all sorts of rights, such as data protection, children’s rights and the freestanding right to equality, which are not protected by the European convention on human rights.