EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

It is indeed, but the difference is that many people who signed that petition would like to see us just revoke article 50 now—straightaway—and that would be an end of the matter. I would quite like to see that myself, but that is not what this motion seeks to do. The motion is about using revocation as an insurance policy. In respectful recognition of the fact that the issue of Brexit will not go away if we simply revoke to avoid no deal, the motion seeks to mandate the Government to set up a public inquiry, under the Inquiries Act 2005, within three months of revocation to establish whether a model of a future relationship with the European Union could be found that would command majority support in the United Kingdom. It also says that, if that could be done, another referendum would be held on the question of whether to retrigger article 50 and renegotiate that model.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

I will give way in a moment, but I just want to knock on the head at this stage a myth that has been peddled by some people that, if this motion were passed, the EU would object to our revoking article 50. That is not the case. It is a misunderstanding of the judgment of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg in the Scottish case, which did not say that, once we revoke article 50, we can never issue an article 50 notice ever again. It categorically did not say that. If Members cannot take that from me, then please read the judgment of the court, which I put on my Twitter feed this afternoon.

[Richard Benyon]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Richard Benyon]

I am very grateful to the hon. and learned Lady. Does she agree that one of the failures of this debate, in this House and beyond, is that we do not talk about exactly what no deal is all about—what it actually means for our constituents? We talk about it in too much of a conceptual way, and we let those who are in favour of leaving with no deal get away with not going into the real details—whether on agriculture, or the 83 trade deals of which we would no longer be part.

[Joanna Cherry]

I absolutely agree. That has been one of the many failures of this process—that this House has not been afforded sufficient time to knock on the head the sort of misinformation peddled about the consequences of no deal. Fortunately, we have much independent research on the consequences of no deal and Members will find that that independent research wholly tells us that no deal would be bad for the economies of these islands, for jobs and for the living standards of people who live here. It would be to shoot ourselves in the foot and to cut off our nose to spite our face.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I will curtail my remarks to focus on the parts of the Bill that deal with the transposing of EU laws and regulations as they concern environmental protection.

I have every faith in the Government’s determination to transpose the full suite of regulations that have been successful in protecting many aspects of our environment and in Ministers’ frequently stated wish that we will leave the environment in a better state than we found it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for DEFRA has made a superb start, and what he says about the environment warms the cockles of my heart. However, what we are talking about here is for ever—certainly for the foreseeable future decades ahead, and it can be amended by future Governments. Who knows what forces will be pulling on Governments of the future that could result in much-valued environmental protections being dumped?

We therefore need to implement measures that are backed by a new architecture of governance. I find myself attracted to some of the remarks being made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). That is probably to the consternation of some of my colleagues, but I think her sentiments are right. We might disagree on what that architecture is, but she is right to raise the matter. We want to prevent future Governments from playing fast and loose with protections that have cleaned up our beaches and our rivers, started to clean our air, and could and should be extended to our soils, our seas and other fundamentals of our very existence and the future of our economy.

One measure that is, on the face of it, impossible to replicate in the Bill is the process of infraction—fines with lots of noughts on the end that are imposed on a member state’s Government for failure to comply with a directive. I can assure hon. Members that this is something that keeps Ministers awake at night. For example, the potential failure of the UK to comply with the urban waste water treatment directive has resulted in a £4 billion-plus scheme to build a new sewer a few yards from where we sit to clean up one of the greatest rivers in the world running through one of the greatest cities in the world. When I was a Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2010, infraction hung over me and the Government. It ensured that every action the Department took was compliant with the directives of the EU. If it was not, we would face the risk of a huge fine.

While I am glad that the Government intend to transpose all EU law into UK law, as set out in clause 2, the question then emerges of how we can properly enforce those changes. The water framework directive is the only show in town in terms of cleaning up our rivers. Only one fifth of the chalk streams in this country are fully functioning eco-systems—a national disgrace, to my mind. But we are on a glide path to correcting that through the clear and unequivocal measures set out in that directive. A supra-national body like the EU is obviously able to fine a member state for failure to comply, but it is hard to imagine circumstances where a Government could, or would, fine themselves. It concerns me that judicial review seems to be seen in the Bill as sufficient on its own. In fact, to ensure that the environment is protected, a proper body with the ability to audit the Government, working with non-governmental organisations, needs to be put in place.

As I have said, I have great faith in people like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and others to protect the directives, but I fear that future Governments may not be so rigorous. Our constituents need to have the reassurance that we are protecting the protections. We need assurances that we can fill the gap that the loss of measures such as infraction would create. I have no silver bullet to solve that, but I am looking to achieve it through the progress of the Bill and possibly future pieces of primary legislation.

I believe that it is our absolute duty to scrutinise the Bill. I utterly reject some bizarre comments I have seen in the press saying that scrutiny somehow undermines the will of the people. I intend to vote for the Bill on Second Reading. I believe it can be improved in Committee. It is absolutely vital that we assist the Government in trying to make something that is workable not just now but for the very long term.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

As it stands, the Government intend it to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As the hon. Member for Stone has proved, however, we sometimes have to fight for two generations for the thing that we believe in. If we have the courage of our convictions, we keep going.

I want to quote the Brexit Secretary directly. I do not want to paraphrase him or risk misquoting him in any way. Describing the strategy of having two referendums—a mandate referendum and a decision referendum—he said:

“The aim of this strategy is to give the British people the final say, but it is also to massively reinforce the legitimacy and negotiating power of the British negotiating team.”

I shall not say this often during this process, but I completely and utterly agree with the Brexit Secretary on that. As we have learned, his words were endorsed the following day by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) on his blog, although we have now discovered that he did not really mean it; he was just saying that as a ruse.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman and I were on the same side in the referendum, but I want to tell him why he is completely wrong on this matter. If we were to place a second referendum in the Bill at this stage, it would tie the hands of our negotiators. We could only be offered a bad deal, and it would be in the hands of the people we were negotiating with to drive the British people to reject it. It would be a failed policy from the start.

[Tim Farron]

If we follow the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, the Minister should not have made his offer for the House to have a say at the end of the deal. If someone is about to go over a cliff, not giving themselves the opportunity to do otherwise is the ultimate negotiating weakness, as the Brexit Secretary rightly pointed out four and a bit years ago.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Benyon Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I am not one to brag, but I humbly suggest that I know something about how to negotiate in Europe. My personal best was what the civil service calls “a three-shirter”—three days and two nights of continuous negotiation. I wish my right hon. and hon. Friends well as they enter this process, and I ask them to ignore all those who suggest that they might like to share with us and the world every single red line and every single negotiating nuance, because nothing would be likely to secure a worse deal for this House and this country.

I have to break it gently to some Members and some of the people deluging our in-boxes that most people out there are not absolutely fascinated by the politics of Brexit, but are rooted in the realities of it. This is about the small family farming business in the Berkshire downs concerned about what Brexit means for them; the life sciences company in Newbury that wants to sell its world-beating products to health services in Europe; and companies that will be part of consortia or supply chains, some of which will be in, some of which will be outside, the European Union, and how it will work for them. It is about people who want to study abroad and people who are concerned about the future of our environment.

The experience of the referendum campaign was, for me, a miserable one. It was a new low in the political discourse of the nation, and I put the blame for that on both sides. As the dust settles, I, like many in the House, have a choice—whether to play the role of some sort of parliamentary insurgent, finding devious mechanisms with which to do down the view taken by the public in an open and fair referendum; or whether to represent the views of our constituents, the vast majority of them, who want us to act in their best interests and who understand that the Government face a heavy burden as they seek to achieve an orderly exit.

One notable voice is absent from our debates in these historic proceedings—that of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). He wrote an article, difficult though it must have been for him in the middle of his treatment for cancer, that was full of intelligence and common sense. It had an understanding of what it is to be a liberal Conservative at a time like this. He reminded us that we need to look forward to a world in which we can have a decent, open and generous relationship with our European partners. That is what we believe, not just because it is in our nature, but because free trade and a belief in markets are important to us. The article is also a reminder of why we want our hon. Friend back here in good health in the near future. He reminded us that we need to co-operate on issues such as climate change, science, countering terrorism and all the other things that matter to us; and that we should show generosity and decency to our partners and reject the kind of insular, backward-looking and small Britain that has infected this debate for too long.

I, as a remainer who thinks that the country has taken a wrong turn, will passionately support this Bill tonight. I give those on the Treasury Bench full notice that I shall at every available opportunity hold them to account to ensure that we reach the best deal for our constituents and all the people of our country—and do that in a constructive way.