EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) for his great work in making today’s proceedings possible. I rise to speak in support of motion (D) in my name and those of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and other hon. Members.

This really is five minutes to midnight—for this Parliament, for this Government and for our country—and we desperately need to find a way out of this mess. Our country has spent two years tied up in knots by the Prime Minister’s incompatible red lines, which offered such a narrow interpretation of the referendum result. A 52% to 48% vote was certainly not an instruction for a disastrous no deal or for a hard, Canada-style, job-destroying Brexit. It was an instruction to move house, but to stay in the same neighbourhood.

The European Free Trade Association/European economic area model offers just such a possibility. It respects the referendum result without wrecking the British economy. Not convinced? Well, it is worth remembering what Nigel Farage told a “Question Time” audience in 2016:

“I hear people say ‘Wouldn’t it be terrible if we were like Norway and Switzerland?’ Really? They are rich, they’re happy and they’re self-governing countries.”

The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), a passionate Brexiteer, told us in 2015 that

“only a madman would leave the market”,

and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has also been supportive of the single market in the past. The point I am making is that, in 2016, Euroscepticism meant something that it apparently no longer means today.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way, as he did name me?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am sorry, but Mr Speaker has said that we do not have time for interventions.

[Mr Paterson]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman named me and I think it is a convention that the named Member can answer back. He used a quote from a television programme—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman cannot make his point via a point of order. What he describes is customary, but not obligatory. It is not for me to say that people can or cannot intervene and I am not seeking to do so. I am just reminding the House of the time constraints under which we operate.

Article 50 Extension

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

No, I am going to make some progress. I will give way in a moment.

We are now acting in the absence of a deal, with the express will of this House to prevent no deal. One of my biggest concerns is that the Prime Minister’s actions make no deal far more likely, not less—and that is the very issue that we were trying to deal with last week. If agreed by the EU, a short extension for the purposes of forcing through this deal would simply push the cliff edge back to 30 June, and we would start down the same track. The Prime Minister is repeating the same flawed strategy that she has been pursuing for two years in order to recreate the binary choice between her deal and no deal that this House rejected last week.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I am just going to make some progress before I take any more interventions.

After voting as we did in last week’s debate, we recognise that an extension to article 50 is now needed, and it is the failure of the Prime Minister’s approach that has caused the requirement for an extension. Of course, any extension should be as short as possible, but it has to allow a solution to the mess that the Prime Minister has got the country into—to provide a route to prevent no deal, not to make it more likely. It also has to provide a way for this House to prevent the Prime Minister from forcing the same deal on us over and over again. That is why we believe that the focus in the coming days and weeks should be on finding a majority for a new direction—to allow the House to consider options that can resolve the current crisis.

For Labour, that centres on two basic propositions: a close economic relationship with permanent customs union and single market alignment; and a public vote with credible leave options and a remain option. Those propositions, and possibly others, need to be discussed and tested, and we need to come to a consensus to see whether we can move forward. That is what extension should be about, not about the narrow interests of the Conservative party and trying to keep the Prime Minister in post.

Thank you again, Mr Speaker, for allowing this debate today. I look forward to hearing the Secretary of State explain the Government’s approach and how they plan to prevent Parliament from going back to the same place in three months’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I will be brief. I have listened carefully to the debate, at the beginning of which I had no intention of speaking. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who touched on several points with which I entirely agreed, but I have reached a totally different conclusion.

Three international events are important. First, President Tusk said that we need to vote on the withdrawal agreement again. Given your stricture, Mr Speaker, which I support, that we cannot vote on the same text again, does that count as changed circumstances? I am very interested in your thoughts on that. You might like to address the matter in answer to a point of order later. Secondly, the Le Point magazine website put out a report at 1.6 pm that President Macron had stated that unless there is “a clear project”—that was the translation—France intends to veto any extension. Thirdly, there have been interesting reports from a respected BBC journalist that the letter from the Prime Minister has gone out too late for some Prime Ministers to consult their legislatures so they may not have the chance to make a decision this week. That is yet another muddle in this saga.

The hon. Member for Wirral South made a point about populism. I have said the following goodness knows how many times inside and outside the Chamber. The conundrum we face is that the House had three democratic mandates around the referendum. David Cameron said, “If you vote Conservative in 2015, I will give you an in/out referendum. It will not be advisory—it will be decisive. If I have a majority, the House of Commons will deliver what the people want.”

[Peter Grant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Paterson]

Time is short and I would like to press on. Other people want to speak.

David Cameron won the election and then, probably to his horror, he had to deliver the referendum. The then Foreign Secretary made it clear when the referendum Bill was going through the House that MPs were handing back their sovereignty to the people and that the House would honour the people’s decision, whatever it was. The referendum was not advisory, but decisive. It was the biggest vote in British history and 17.4 million people voted for the broad slogan of “take back control”. The immediate question was, “What does that actually mean?” The Conservative party interpreted it as meaning that we would honour leave if people voted for a Conservative Government in the 2017 election. It would mean leaving the single market, the customs union and the remit of the European Court of Justice. The Labour party broadly supported that. So 85% of the votes in 2017 went to the two main parties, which supported that proposition. That means that more than 60% of the seats in this Parliament represent that proposal.

To pick up on the comments made by the hon. Member for Wirral South, I am genuinely worried. This was a huge step by the British people. It was the first time, following a succession of referendums, that they had gone against the wishes of the establishment—the political establishment, the commercial establishment, the media establishment. We had had the 1975 referendum, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland referendums and the alternative vote referendum. Each time, the people had gone along with what the establishment wanted. What we are now wrestling with this afternoon—the hon. Lady raises the question of populism—is how we deliver that.

My contention—I really mean it—is that I am seriously worried about the long-term damage to the integrity of our institutions. People are writing to me and sending emails. I have been mocked for making one particular comment. A guy came up to me on the tube and gave me his visiting card—the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) picked me up on this; she can come to my office and I will give her the visiting card of this guy if she wants to see it—saying, “Please stick to your guns, because we depend on you to see it delivered.” I appeal to Members of both main parties. The position of the Liberal Democrats and the SNP is totally honourable. They have been consistently against leaving the EU and voted against it. Of course, the Liberal Democrats got crushed in the general election as a result, but the two main parties did really well in the general election. The Prime Minister got the second-largest number of votes in history.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Paterson]

Time is really short. I am just going to finish now.

The two main parties need to think about this. If there is any sort of extension beyond next week, it will be disastrous for candidates in the Conservative cause and, I think, disastrous for candidates in the Labour cause. The first 100 seats the Labour party has to win are 78 for leave, 73 strongly for leave.

This is an issue where the integrity of the idea of voting is absolutely at stake. Given that the Labour party is not going to vote for the withdrawal agreement and people like me are not going to vote for it—handing over the power to make law to 27 countries, a position where there is no manner in which a sovereign independent UK could leave, and a proposal that breaks up the United Kingdom and creates something appalling called UK(NI) is not acceptable to me—the only solution is to leave with no deal, which is the law of the land. As Mr Barnier said in his statement last night, the vote has not changed that.

I know this is not a popular view, looking around the Chamber at those who are present today, but talk from Opposition Members about crashing out is, bluntly, lazy. Ask why. I have been to Dover twice in the past three weeks. We have had discussions with those in Calais, including Mr Puissesseau, and they all say that they are prepared. The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), answering an urgent question earlier, gave some very confident answers. Numerous statutory instruments, many of which I have sat on, have gone through. We have Mr Barnier saying that there are only two more issues, one of which is the budget which is really not going to touch on Brexit, that have to be sorted. So I appeal to Members that hiding behind the mantra of “crashing out” is lazy.

There may be hiccups. There was a lot of preparation for the millennium bug. We had exactly the same thing: virtually every business was prepared; they just thought that other businesses had not prepared. That may well be the case on this occasion. The damage from a bit of disruption is far less than the huge damage and the risk of populism should we thwart the wishes of the 17.4 million people.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

No-deal EU Exit Preparations

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU and that a huge number of them, including in Scotland, will find his comments very disappointing. As I have pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and other hon. Members, the legal default is that the UK will leave the EU without a deal unless an alternative is agreed.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

May I pursue the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)? In a statement issued yesterday, Mr Barnier said, quite correctly, that

“voting against ‘no deal’ does not prevent it from happening.”

He also said:

“Everyone should now finalise all preparations for a ‘no deal’ scenario.

On the EU side, we are prepared…and are working on the two last measures that still need to be adopted, namely on short-term visas and the EU budget for 2019.”

Will those two issues be resolved in 11 days’ time, and how many issues does the Minister think the UK Government still have outstanding?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Unfortunately, although I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years, I cannot honestly comment on how long it would take the European Union to complete its final two measures, although budget rounds are very interesting debates in the European Parliament. There are a number of matters that we are still finishing off in our no-deal preparations, but the vast majority are in a good state.

EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As I have said to the House, there will be ample scope for debate and consultation. The Government fully understand that the House has to have an active role in shaping and deciding what our position as a country will be. I stress once again that paragraph 3 of article 166 says that no recommendations or decisions can be made without mutual consent. The mutual consent is between the UK and the EU, but as far as the Government are concerned, part of that mutual consent means engaging fully and transparently with the House.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) on applying for this urgent question and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it.

Ever since the very first Parliaments in Shropshire, the primary function of this House has been to control the manner in which money is levied from taxpayers and the way in which it is spent. I was astounded when I turned up on day one in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where I had the honour of being Secretary of State, to discover the level of disallowance—that is an EU expression for “fine”. For example, Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General, said of the 2016 accounts that

“the total value of cumulative disallowance penalties incurred under CAP 2007-13 is £661 million”,

which amounts to more than £90 million a year. I therefore view with some horror article 171, which states:

“The Joint Committee shall, no later than by the end of the transition period, establish…an arbitration panel.”

Article 178 states that the arbitration panel

“may impose a lump sum or penalty payment to be paid to the complainant.”

What are the limits on the size of those payments? If the House of Commons objects, what can it do?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am afraid that my right hon. Friend has too little faith in the UK Government. We have repeatedly said—and he knows this as well as anyone—that such payments or penalties would be imposed only by mutual consent. That is the key element. There is no way that the Joint Committee can unilaterally impose fines on us that we have not agreed to.

EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman should await developments later today and see what the Government put forward tomorrow. I have been very clear that we absolutely stand by the Prime Minister’s commitments on the meaningful vote and on what follows.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the Dispatch Box and congratulate him and his colleagues on getting the European Union to agree to set up a taskforce or workstream to work up the Malthouse compromise proposals. Will he commit to getting those into the legally binding text, so that there will be an implementation date that is fixed for the future?

[Mr Walker]

I know that my right hon. Friend speaks with considerable experience in these issues. The alternative arrangements have been a crucial part of this conversation, and they will continue to play an important part in our negotiations. We are seeking legally binding changes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I respect the way in which the hon. Gentleman has framed his question, because I know, as he does, that his constituency voted leave and that many of his constituents will be keen, as mine are, to ensure that we get this deal over the line. Clearly, the withdrawal agreement Bill is a significant piece of legislation and we will need to get it through the House, but the key issue is getting the deal through, because once we have done that, we will have the basis for the necessary consensus in the House to approach that legislation.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the Secretary of State that extending article 50 is a very unsubtle way of thwarting the will of the 17.4 million people who want to leave. Does he agree that one way of avoiding having to extend article 50 would be to ensure, in the negotiations, that the Malthouse proposals—which he has asked a taskforce to work up into detail—should be put into the legal text of the treaty with a definitive implementation date?

[Stephen Barclay]

I pay tribute, as the Prime Minister did, to the work that my right hon. Friend and a number of colleagues have done on taking forward the alternative arrangements work. He will be aware of the time pressure relating to the derogations required as part of that, and that is why this is seen as a phase 2 issue by the European Union. He can be reassured, however, that, as the Prime Minister has set out, there is a commitment to £20 million of funding to take that work forward, together with civil service resource. That shows the goodwill and intent of the Government in relation to progressing the alternative arrangements.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I looked with interest at the hon. Lady’s reference in the Brexit Select Committee to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and in particular her point about mutual consent and bringing the community with her. That point is particularly well made, and it is at the forefront of the discussions that the Prime Minister is having with the Taoiseach and European leaders in the context of the backstop.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

The amendment that the House passed, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, clearly stated that the intention was to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border. We have had constructive meetings with the Secretary of State. Can he confirm that the Malthouse compromise is stated Government policy, has been put to Monsieur Barnier and now has the full force of the civil service to work it up into legally binding text?

[Stephen Barclay]

I have already confirmed to the House that this issue has been raised with Michel Barnier. I have given a commitment that it will be raised again in our next exchange. I have given a commitment that civil servants are engaging on this issue. I have also communicated the fact that the initial response from Michel Barnier was to raise concerns about the extent of concessions that would be required, but that is part of the discussion we are having.

EU Exit Negotiations

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am not sure that I am going to allow or let the Opposition set conditions on the UK’s policy—[Interruption]—no, when it has been clearly set out in our White Paper. We want to pursue the frictionless trade with the EU that we have right now, and that is what our proposal will deliver, but it requires the EU to meet us halfway to match the ambition and pragmatism that we have shown.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

If the backstop comes into operation, the UK will effectively be within the rules of the single market and the customs union and ultimately the European Court of Justice. Three times, the Secretary of State has said that that arrangement will be temporary, but it will be open-ended. What will be the exact legal process by which we will end this, and what will be the incentives for the EU to end this arrangement, as it is happily taking large sums of public money from the British taxpayer?

[Dominic Raab]

We have made it clear that it would be temporary and finite. The reassurance that I can give my right hon. Friend in advance of the publication of our proposals is that it is very difficult for the EU. From its perspective, there is a difference in the way in which customs union is described, because, for it, it would normally include free movement and the rules on that, which in the case of the backstop would not apply. There will be a lot of pressure on the EU, both legally and as a matter of policy, to end the backstop, and we will not agree to anything that does not include a clear process and steps to exit. [Interruption.] No, I am afraid that the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) does not.

Brexit Negotiations and No Deal Contingency Planning

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions and remarks. The Government have made it clear that we are leaving the single market. That is the only way we can faithfully give effect to the referendum in terms of taking back control of our laws, immigration policy and money.

In relation to my statement, the hon. Gentleman said that nothing had changed. I hope that tomorrow he will refer to Hansard and look at the areas of progress that I have described, because they are significant. They were described by me and Michel Barnier in Friday’s press conference and include the outstanding separation issues, some of which I accept are technical, such as the data protection regime and the administrative and judicial procedures, but we have made significant progress in those areas and we are making significant progress every week. If Members look at Michel Barnier’s comments —forget my own—in relation to data sharing, PNR, Prüm and Galileo, they will see that we have made progress in all those areas. I do not think it is quite right for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that nothing has changed. We make progress every week and a deal is within our sights.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

There is currently a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: a currency border, a tax border, an excise border and, very importantly, a security border. That all works very satisfactorily with good co-operation and modern technology. Could the Secretary of State explain which areas of cross-border activity cannot be solved by a further extension of modern technologies?

[Dominic Raab]

I share my right hon. Friend’s conviction that we need to avoid any return to the hard border. All sorts of technical work is going on. We have seen the EU’s proposals and made it very clear that they are unacceptable because they would involve a customs border down the Irish sea. We continue to work through these issues, mindful of the commitment that we have made together to give effect to the joint report that was made in December.

EU: Future Relationship White Paper

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Paragraph 7 of chapter 1 of the White Paper states that the UK’s proposal is to

“maintain a common rulebook for goods, including agri-food”.

Lobbyists estimate that there are currently 170,000 pages of the acquis communautaire. How many of those pages will have to be re-legislated back into UK law and, once they are there, will they ever be amendable?

[Dominic Raab]

I hope that I can reassure my right hon. Friend, because we want the common rulebook to ensure that manufacturers can continue to produce one product for both markets, preventing dual production, but the common rulebook will apply only to the extent that it is necessary to avoid friction at the border.