European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Ian Paisley

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

[Ian Paisley]

I recall the Minister asking the right hon. and learned Gentleman to list, after all his 47 years’ experience in this House, one occasion when he, a former Minister, would have put into the Bill what he is suggesting the Government should have put into the Bill. He could not claw anything back from his memory banks to that effect. Surely, what this Minister has said in the arguments he has put to the right hon. and learned Gentleman has completely dismantled new clause 54.

[Mr Clarke]

Parliament will have an opportunity to give its assent to the Government’s approach to the transition deal, which they are on the point of trying to negotiate over the next few weeks. I have never known a Government go into an international agreement and start negotiating something towards a conclusion without giving the House the opportunity to express its views and without subjecting themselves to the judgment of the House on the objectives they are declaring.

This transition deal—I think that this is agreed on all sides—is probably going to be agreed in the next month. We are about to go away for Christmas. Everybody is hoping we will have a clearer idea of the transition or implementation deal by the end of January. As things stand, I do not think this House has ever discussed this—it has never had a debate on the subject. No motion has been put before this House to approve what the Government are seeking to do. If the Government have their way, we are simply going to discover, when they come back from the next step in the negotiations, what exactly they have signed up to.

The reason it is important that we should put down this marker is that I want to stick with what was set out in Florence, which was a Government policy position. At this moment—over the course of this week—the Cabinet is having a discussion. There is an attempt to keep this secret, but, unfortunately, leaks are coming out in all directions, and I sympathise with the Prime Minister on that. The Cabinet is debating whether everyone is prepared to be bound by the Florence speech or whether some of its members want to reopen it and start modifying it. That is why this new clause is a chance to say that if that be the case, the overwhelming majority of Members confirm and approve what was set out in the Florence speech.

I hope that we will not see the extraordinary spectacle of the fear of right-wing Eurosceptics meaning that such lengths are gone to that the Government put a three-line whip on their Ministers and all their Back Benchers to cast a vote against the Florence speech, so that some room is left for them to be able to negotiate further with the Environment Secretary, the Foreign Secretary or whoever it is wanting to reopen it again. The Foreign Secretary made a speech before the Florence speech in which he tried to undermine the Prime Minister’s position going there. When she had made the Florence speech, he wrote an article a few days later—I think that I have this the right way round—putting out a starkly different interpretation of what she had said. This House of Commons has not so far had the opportunity to express an opinion, which is what new clause 54 is about.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Ian Paisley

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman says he has pointed out a legal reality, but the Labour party’s position on all of these matters is now no clearer than mud. Are we ultimately going to honour the will of the British people, enact this Bill, and withdraw from the EU? That is the bottom line. All these amendments are slowly but surely being exposed as having a different motivation. It was said earlier that there was a need to put the Brexit Members of Parliament on the spot and get them to vote for the consequences of Brexit. I will happily walk through the Division Lobby tonight to vote down new clause 17, for the very reason that I wish to put into practice and into law the will of the British people. They voted to leave, and we must bring it on and allow them to leave. Confusion has been allowed to reign as a result of the proposed amendments.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I have never heard anybody put this argument in quite this extreme way. The British public answered the simple question of whether they wished to leave the European Union, but that question carried within it hundreds of highly complicated sub-questions which now have to be addressed after the negotiations. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should not, for example, discuss the basis on which we make a contribution towards accrued pension liabilities during our membership of the European Union because our masters, the people, have decided that we must pay those accrued pension liabilities and are indifferent to how much that will cost? That is an absurd misuse of the one simple question about whether or not to stay in the EU.

[Ian Paisley]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Father of the House, has been a Member of Parliament for many years, and he will know that it is only very occasionally that the British people are asked their view by way of a referendum. Indeed, that has probably happened on only two occasions in his lifetime. On both of those occasions, the will of the British people was enacted by this place. Yes, of course there is debate. Who says that there should not be reasoned debate? [Hon. Members: “You.”] I do not say that, and I have not said that. Don’t be silly—[Interruption.] I am not saying it now. I am saying what the raison d’être behind the debate is, which is very different. Let us have the debate. I have actually used the words “bring it on”. If the Father of the House is suggesting that this occasion is just the same as every other occasion, I have to tell him, with due respect, that he is wrong. The will of the people has been expressed through a referendum. That is what makes this different.