European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree; and the unpicking of, or wheeling back from, some of the progress we felt had been made in the Florence speech is one of our concerns.

The Bill before us was drafted before the Florence speech, but rather than amend the Bill to reflect the evolution of Government policy outlined by the Prime Minister in that speech, the Government chose instead to fashion a legislative straitjacket for themselves in the form of enshrining “exit day” for all purposes in the Bill as 11 pm on 29 March 2019. Let us be clear: bringing forward amendments to stipulate that exit day for all purposes of the Bill had nothing to do with leaving the EU. The article 50 notification made our departure from the EU on 29 March 2019 a legal certainty, so, for the purposes of the Bill, exit day could be left in the hands of Parliament.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman just used the phrase “legal certainty” in referring to our departure from the EU on 29 March 2019. Does that mean that he has seen legal advice that article 50 cannot be revoked? Is the Labour Front-Bench position that it is impossible, as opposed to politically inexpedient, to consider revoking article 50?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me down an avenue that has nothing to do with the point I am making, which is that it remains unclear why the Government tabled three exit day amendments to their own Bill which have sown further confusion. We do not know why they did that—whether it was driven by Tory party management considerations or some other reason. The effect of those Government amendments would have been to end the jurisdiction of the ECJ on 29 March 2019, thereby preventing agreement on a transitional period on current terms.

The Government clearly soon realised their mistake and to save face enlisted the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who is not in his place, to table amendments to loosen the legislative straitjacket they themselves had created. But his amendments, which the Government have accepted, only provide a limited form of flexibility. Ministers may now amend the definition of exit day in clause 14 for the purposes of the Bill if the date when the treaties cease to apply to the UK is different from 29 March 2019. However, there is good reason to argue that that power might not be sufficient to facilitate transitional arrangements after 29 March 2019 on the same basic terms as now. If it is not—this might end up being the most bizarre aspect of the Bill’s curious parliamentary process—the Government will find themselves in the ludicrous position of having to amend this Bill when they bring forward the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill later this year.

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[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) in his place behind me, where I always welcome him. When I arrived, I inquired whether he had had a cup of coffee before today’s long proceedings, and I undertake to try to have no soporific effects on those Members who have survived to the eighth day of this Committee and Report stage.

I do not intend to follow entirely the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), although I listened to many of the points he made with considerable sympathy; I am quite sure that clause 7 will require more work when it gets to another place, and I also have considerable sympathy with what he said about the confusion now surrounding exit day and the ability to proceed to what I am sure is the obvious transition arrangement we are going to have to have for quite a long time, which will be on precisely the same terms that we have at the moment, so far as access to the market is concerned.

I will turn my attention, however, to the Bill’s impact on the economy, following from new clause 17, which is in this selection and strikes me as excellent, and several more of the same kind. In our eight days, the House has not had anything like adequate opportunities to consider this absolutely vital policy implication of what we are embarked upon as we seek to leave the EU. I do not share the view that the Bill needs to be treated in this House or the other place as a mere technical or necessary Bill of legal transition; we have the opportunity to put into the Bill some of the essential aspects of our future economic relationship and to allow the House to express a view and put into statute things that we wish, and instruct in line with our constitution, the Government of the day to follow.

There is undoubtedly going to be some economic cost to this country, regardless of the means by which we eventually leave the European Union. If we have a complete break with no deal, the implications could be very serious indeed. I am one of those who think it rather foolish to try to put precise figures on this. The Scottish National party earlier tried to make precise estimates of what would happen because a think-tank had put out a range of consequences, depending on which options were followed. It was rather reminiscent of the arguments put forward by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer when he tried to help the remain side during the referendum campaign. They were really rather fanciful figures.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

As I have mentioned the SNP, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Peter Grant]

Clearly, any forecast or projection is going to be approximate, and I do not think that anyone is claiming that the Scottish Government’s figures are precise. But would the right hon. and learned Gentleman prefer to defend a position that was backed up by approximations and forecasts that may or may not be accurate, or would he prefer to be in the Government’s position of defending a position backed up by no impact analysis whatever?

[Mr Clarke]

I shall turn to that in a moment, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman entirely. I was not making a criticism of the think-tank, which has done its best, but we all know from experience that all economic forecasting should be taken with a slight grain of salt. It is utterly beyond the capacity of either the Treasury or the most expert outside groups to predict with absolute confidence what the precise consequences will be.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. A considerable number of Members are seeking to catch my eye, and colleagues will be conscious that these proceedings must conclude at 4.30 and that it is reasonable to allow the Minister some considerable time to respond to the points made. Therefore, a certain self-denying ordinance is required if I am to enable everybody to contribute. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) speaks for his party from the Front Bench and, of course, must be afforded a decent opportunity, but I know that he will want to tailor his contribution to take account of the interests of others.

[Peter Grant]

With the consent of the House, I rise to speak to amendment 59 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and other right hon. and hon. Members, and to amendments 9 and 56 and new schedule 1.

Before I speak in more detail about amendment 59, may I commend the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) for the amendments that he submitted? What he has done is to remind us of what a complete sham this entire process has been. Almost 90% to 95% of the way through these eight hours of debate, the Government who had promised, day after day after day, to listen to the debate and to take appropriate effective action still have not corrected some of the glaring deficiencies in their own Bill, the most serious of which, perhaps, is the fact that we still do not have any statutory guarantee that the Northern Ireland peace process, the Belfast agreement and all that that implies, will be protected in law. If the Government cannot be trusted to bring forward amendments to correct such a desperate deficiency in their own legislation, how can they expect this House to trust them with the draconian and unprecedented powers to use ministerial directive to correct deficiencies in domestic legislation after we have left?

Amendment 59 seeks to ensure that the withdrawal agreement can only be implemented when we also have an agreement to remain in the EU single market and customs union. Let us be honest: everybody knows that, on a free vote of this House, there would be a substantial majority in favour of remaining in the single market and the customs union. My plea this evening will be for all of those who know that that is in the best interests of their constituents to set aside the demands of the party Whips and to go through the Lobby in support of this amendment. We can win this vote this evening if all those who know that it deserves to win are able to set aside the demands of the Whips and vote for it. We can take a decision tonight that will keep us away from the cliff edge, not just for two years but for very much longer.

I am very grateful to colleagues from the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party who have signed this amendment. Although there have been no signatures from Labour Members, either from the Front Bench or the Back Benches, I appeal to all of them to support this amendment today.

Let me first deal with the question of the constitutional or democratic legitimacy of the amendment. One of the very disturbing aspects of the referendum debate, which has continued all the way through the process since then, has been the degree of hostility and open hatred that has been created against anyone who speaks, or even thinks, against the wisdom of the Government, the newspaper editor, the blogger or whoever. I have a good bad example: just a day or two ago, a group of MPs who had the temerity to go over to Europe to meet Michel Barnier were denounced as traitors—treachery with a smiling face—by one well known bloggist. Apart from the fact that such inflammatory and violent language has no place in any supposedly respectful debate, I want to remind the House of some facts of our membership of the single market—facts that I appreciate will be very uncomfortable to some Members, but that are still utterly incontrovertible.

It is a matter of fact that the people of the United Kingdom have never voted in a referendum about membership of the single market or the customs union. This House had the opportunity when the European Union Referendum Bill was on its way through Parliament. We could have decided to ask questions about the customs union and the single market, but the House and the Government chose not to. Having chosen not to ask the question, none of us—including me—has any right to decide that we know what the answer would have been.

It is a matter of fact that it is possible to be in the single market and the customs union without being a member of the European Union. Hon. Members will have different views as to whether it would be wise, appropriate or in our best interests to do so, and they have every right to debate the benefits of membership of the single market and the customs union. But anyone who insists that it cannot happen is not engaging in debate; they are engaging in fiction. We have had far too much fiction in this debate already—from both sides, it has to be said—as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) mentioned earlier. The decision to leave the single market was a unilateral political decision taken by the Prime Minister without any prior consultation with the people or with Parliament. It cannot, under any circumstances, be described as an inevitable consequence of the vote to leave the European Union.

Finally, it is a matter of fact that when the Conservative party fought on a manifesto that said it wanted to stay in the single market, it won an overall majority of seats in this place—the only time in the last 25 years that it has managed such an achievement. It is also a fact that the Conservatives lost that overall majority two years later, when they stood on a manifesto saying that they wanted to take us out of the single market. Nobody can claim that that is clear evidence of a popular democratic mandate to stay in the single market, but it certainly blows to smithereens any nonsense that there is any mandate for us to leave.

I am conscious of the need for brevity from me as well as from others, so I will not go into the full and detailed argument for staying in the single market, as that would take us from now to Brexit day, if not beyond. However, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe referred to the latest analysis produced by the Scottish Government, entitled “Scotland’s Place in Europe: People, Jobs and Investment”. I certainly accept his caveats that we cannot be sure that the forecasts and projections in it are accurate. They are certainly not intended to be precise or definitive.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I have found some media chat saying that the Scottish Government’s analysis of staying in the single market was alarmist, giving the figure of a 2.5% loss in growth. That is actually less than the figure put out by the UK Treasury for the loss of growth of just being in the single market, with no deal and the Canadian-style option far worse still.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I should put it on the record that I do not use Her Majesty’s Treasury figures as the touchstone for reliability or honesty; that is just a personal gripe of mine.

“Scotland’s Place in Europe: People, Jobs and Investment” is available in summary form and in all its 58-page glory. As a bonus, the back page contains the full text of the United Kingdom’s impact assessment of leaving the European Union. The one that I have is actually the Chinese version for those who understand Chinese.

Among the likely—perhaps very likely—consequences, the Fraser of Allander Institute has forecast that GDP in Scotland could fall by £8 billion over a 10-year period; that the real value of wages in the pockets of the people of Scotland could fall by 7%, including those who cannot afford to live on the wages they have just now, never mind on 7% less; and that 80,000 jobs in Scotland could be at risk. The updated document published this week indicates that the cost of leaving without a deal would be of the order of £2,300 for every citizen in Scotland. Our economic output could fall by 8.5%. That has to be the recession to end all recessions.

Exports from Scotland to the European Union currently run at £12.3 billion a year. If we add other exports that we can only carry out because we have free trade agreements as part of our EU membership, that figure increases to a fraction under £16 billion. Some 56% of Scotland’s current international exports are either to the European Union or to countries with which we already have a free trade agreement, and that could increase to somewhere close to 90% by the time we actually leave the single market and the customs union. How much of that is absolutely, unconditionally guaranteed still to be available after we leave? Right now, the answer is nil or very close to nil. That is the economic cost that we could well be subjected to if we leave the single market and the customs union.

I have not even mentioned the horrific social cost. We saw another heart-rending story today of a lady from Spain who has given 15 years’ service to the NHS, but who has given up and gone back to Spain. Somebody actually queried, “Why is that newsworthy?” Well, given the current recruitment crisis in the NHS, if even just one more well-trained professional leaves, I think it is a bit more newsworthy than somebody leaving a jungle because 250,000 people phoned Channel 4 and asked for them to be thrown out.

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[Peter Grant]

For the avoidance of doubt, I will repeat what I have said in this place before: I think we have to accept the views of the people of England and Wales who have expressed a wish to leave the European Union. Unless the people of those nations give a contrary view at some future point, that view has to be respected.

Some 62% of my people voted to stay in the EU. I want to hear just a single word from this Government that indicates they are prepared to change anything in their chaotic Brexit plan to recognise the sovereign will of the people of Scotland and, indeed, the majority of people in Northern Ireland who also voted to remain. Half the member states of this Union voted to remain in the EU, and there has been no recognition whatever of that fact from the UK Government so far. They have even shown their contempt: having promised to table amendments to correct yet another deficiency in the Bill on the impact on the devolved nations, they then changed their minds and are going to leave it to the other place, where nobody is elected or has any democratic mandate to do anything.

The Government’s woeful handling of Brexit from day one demonstrates that they are so incompetent that they do not even trust themselves to know what is a state secret and what is very common knowledge. It would be wrong for this House to hand over to a competent, cohesive Government the draconian powers contained in the Bill. It would be criminally negligent to hand them over to a Government so disorganised that they could not even appoint their own party chairman without announcing the appointment of the wrong person.

While the SNP’s main purpose has been to scrutinise and seek to improve the proposal from the Government, it has to be said—it hurts me greatly to do so—that the performance of Her Majesty’s official Opposition to date has left a great deal to be desired. We are seeing signs of improvement, which I warmly welcome, on membership of the single market and the customs union. The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has very helpfully tweeted recently reminders of the six red lines that his party had set out last year. The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) referred to them earlier.

The second of those red lines is whether the deal delivers the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the single market and customs union. The only way that that red line can be satisfied is if we remain in the single market and the customs union. I hope that in the intervening period since he sent that tweet, the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues have managed to persuade the Leader of the Opposition that it is time to get down off the fence and to stop doing the Tories’ work for them and time for every Labour MP in this House to go through the Lobby to vote for this amendment to keep our place in the single market.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend talks about the principal Opposition party—by number, that is. Is he aware that in the past year, for five months they supported the single market, for five months they were against the single market, for two months they were uncertain, and sadly there were only two months—July and August—where they had a consistent policy without alternating every other month?

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[Peter Grant]

As I said, I have been disappointed in the performance of the official Opposition up until now. I think we are seeing some signs of cohesion, and quite a number of speakers have been very firm in favouring the single market, as indeed we have heard across the House.

I do not want to point out mistakes that have been made in the past or score political points. There is a time and a place for that. The situation that we will face within the next couple of hours is so important and could have such devastating consequences for all our constituents that how about, just for a couple of hours, we forget the mistakes that each other has made and look at the catastrophic mistake that we may be about to make if we allow the Bill to go through without amendment 59 or something similar being passed? This may be the last chance we have to keep ourselves away from the cliff edge. I say to all those in this House, regardless of their party allegiance, who know that the single market and the customs union is where we have to be, please come through the Lobby with us tonight to vote to make sure that that happens.

[Sir William Cash]

The European Scrutiny Committee, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, has been holding inquiries into the fundamental constitutional implications of the Bill, including clause 5. As is now shown on its website, I have had correspondence with the Prime Minister on its behalf since December. The provisions I refer to would empower the courts, for the first time in our Westminster-based legislative history, to disapply Acts of Parliament. This is no theoretical matter. Indeed, we are advised that such disapplication is likely to apply to a whole range of enactments, including those relating to equality, terrorism, data protection and many other matters.

I raised this massive constitutional issue, as I regard it, in Committee on 14 and 21 November, including by reference to the authoritative statements made by the late Lord Chief Justice Bingham in chapter 12 of his book on the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament. Let us bear in mind that he is one of the most authoritative judges in recent generations. He says:

“We live in a society dedicated to the rule of law; in which Parliament has power, subject to limited, self-imposed restraints, to legislate as it wishes; in which Parliament may therefore legislate in a way which infringes the rule of law;”—

I repeat, “infringes the rule of law”—

“and in which the judges, consistently with their constitutional duty to administer justice according to the laws and usages of the realm, cannot fail”—

I repeat, “cannot fail”—

“to give effect to such legislation if it is clearly and unambiguously expressed.”

In that book, he publicly criticised the attitude of Baroness Hale, who is now President of the Supreme Court, and Lord Hope of Craighead for suggesting that the courts have constitutional authority as against an Act of Parliament.

Lord Bingham also specifically approved the analysis of what he described as the “magisterial” authority of Professor Goldsworthy, whom he quoted as follows:

“the principle of parliamentary sovereignty has been recognised as fundamental in this country not because the judges invented it but because it has for centuries been accepted as such by judges and others officially concerned in the operation of our constitutional system. The judges did not by themselves establish the principle and they cannot, by themselves, change it… What is at stake is the location of ultimate decision-making authority… If the judges were to repudiate the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, by refusing to allow Parliament to infringe on unwritten rights, they would be claiming that ultimate authority for themselves.”

He went on to state that they—the judges—would then be transferring the rights of Parliament to themselves as judges. He says:

“It would be a transfer of power initiated by the judges, to protect rights chosen by them, rather than one brought about democratically by parliamentary enactment or popular referendum.”

That is the basic principle.

Members of this House and the House of Lords, including former Law Lords and members of the Supreme Court, are themselves deeply concerned about—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Grant Excerpts

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

[Richard Graham]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has spoken so well today, and indeed throughout these debates. This is the first time that I have risen to speak on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and I do so because I wish to add a little to what has already been said about amendment 348. I do not intend to revisit the arguments put forward in the previous Humble Address, or the decisions taken by our Select Committee. That issue has been dealt with, but since the shadow Minister hinted that the Opposition would come back to it, I want to focus on the substance of the amendment and on why I disagree with it so strongly.

It is my belief that what amendment 348 seeks to achieve is without precedent in the history of negotiations by our country. It would require the Government to publish their economic impact assessments of the policy options for withdrawal from the EU. However, the missing words at the end are “during our negotiations on withdrawal from the EU”. Those missing words matter, because this is a particularly important negotiation for our nation—nobody is any doubt about that—and because this is a particularly delicate time. The Government start negotiations on the implementation period and on our future relationship with the EU soon after the new year. On the other side of the negotiating table, the EU has made it absolutely clear that it will not be publishing all its research. We will therefore certainly not see any published analysis, let alone any impact assessments relating to, for example, what no deal would mean for specific ports in northern Europe, or to any potential drop in GDP for the town of Calais.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Graham]

Let me just develop my argument first, if I may.

It is therefore a curious affair that we should expect our own negotiating side to lay out in great detail what our own negotiating position should be. I tried to find precedents in our negotiating history, and I did some analysis of negotiations in which I was involved in the later stages. Those were the negotiations leading to the joint declaration on the future of Hong Kong in the early 1980s. Some Members will remember that there was considerable concern at the time about the economic future of Hong Kong under the sovereignty of communist China, and therefore about confidence—above all, economic confidence—in the territory. Were any economic analyses of the different scenarios published? No; not least because, had they been published, all of them would surely, at that time, have made the assumption that any change in the existing arrangements would have been negative to the economy of Hong Kong, and therefore probably to the UK as well.

In fact, today—20 years after the handover—whatever our concerns might be about the commitment to some of the freedoms guaranteed under the joint declaration, Hong Kong has surely made significant economic progress. My point is that any analysis at that time would have been done on the consensus assumptions of the early 1980s, which would have been substantially wrong and, if published, would almost certainly have been an impediment to the sensible, pragmatic, diplomatic negotiating compromise that was then achieved to everybody’s benefit. In the same way today, the range of assumptions behind trying to calculate which future road in the negotiations will be most economically beneficial makes that almost impossible to calculate, so let me give a few examples of the sort of questions that would have to be considered.

The latest statistics show that our current trade is 43% with the EU and 57% with the rest of the world. If our relationship with the EU did not change—if we were not leaving the EU—what would those figures be in five or 10 years’ time? The figure for EU trade has declined, but would that continue or reverse? Would the strong predictions for growth in Asia prove optimistic and accurate or would they underestimate what will happen? Right now, we are exporting more goods than services, which was unimaginable five years ago, but will that continue? How would different trends in goods and services affect our future trade across the world? Which countries would we benefit more from trading with if our goods were doing better than our services or vice versa? When we leave the EU, with whom will we reach free trade agreements? FTAs are just one of the tools available to us, so what other trading arrangements will we set up? How long will each of those agreements take, and what will their economic impact be?

Looking at south-east Asia—the area where I work for the Prime Minister—if we want to, will we be able to move on individual free trade agreements faster than the current progress of the EU? What about the US—the biggest of them all? We know that the US executes 25% of its trade with the European Union with the UK alone and that 50% of its financial services trade is with the UK. Its interest in having a separate FTA with us will largely depend on the degree to which we offer something different or the degree to which we converge, have equivalence or have mutual recognition of the regulations and laws in the EU. Given what I have just outlined, how can we possibly know the economic impacts of various aspects of future potential scenarios with the EU?

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He seems to be arguing not for or against the publication of information, but against the whole idea of any kind of economic impact assessment at all, which makes me wonder what the Chancellor’s last Budget statement was about. If he is being consistent, does he also think that none of the 16 economic impact analyses published by the Government in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum were worth the paper they were written on? They were also based on surmise and speculation.

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[Peter Grant]

I have no doubt that the people and Government of Gibraltar will be grateful for the Minister’s assurances, but the wording of this amendment intends to make sure with 100% certainty that, even inadvertently, nothing in the Bill can damage the interests of the people of Gibraltar. Can the Minister tell us with absolute certainty that if this amendment is not added to the Bill, there is nothing in the Bill that will cause that damage? Assurances, objectives and promises are good, but can he say with absolute certainty that nothing in the Bill will ever damage or prejudice the interests of the people of Gibraltar?

[Mr Baker]

What I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that this Bill extends to Gibraltar only in the way I have set out: the Government’s policy is as I have indicated to him, and we remain steadfastly committed to the interests of Gibraltar.

I turn now to the REACH regulation, new clause 61. We will use the powers in this Bill to convert current EU chemicals law, including REACH, into domestic law. That will mean that the standards established by REACH will continue to apply in the UK. I believe that that renders new clause 61 unnecessary.

On custodial sentences and amendment 349, the scope to create criminal offences in the Bill is restricted so the powers cannot be used to create an offence punishable by a sentence of imprisonment for more than two years. It might, however, be necessary to create criminal offences in certain circumstances, for example offences related to functions that are to be transferred from EU bodies to UK bodies which would be lost without the ability to recreate offences relating to functions then held at a UK level. To lose the offence, and therefore the threat of a sanction, would remove what could be seen as important protections in our law, and for that reason we are not able to support the amendment.

I turn now to amendment 362 on the issue of ambulatory references. I hope the Committee will bear with me on the final, technical section of this speech. The amendment concerns paragraph 1 of schedule 8, which deals with the ambulatory references in our domestic law, as well as EU instruments and other documents in EU legislation that will be retained under clause 3. At present, the ambulatory cross-references update automatically when the EU instrument referred to is amended. After exit day, the Bill provides that such references will instead be read as references to the retained EU law version of the instrument, which, unless the contrary intention appears, will update when the retained instrument is modified by domestic law. This is necessary in order to prevent post-exit changes to EU law from flowing automatically into UK law. It would not be appropriate for the reference to continue to point to the EU version of the instrument after we have left the EU.

The approach set out in the Bill will be applied in relation to ambulatory references within any enactment, retained direct EU legislation, and any document relating to them. I understand that this last provision—the reference to documents and whether or not that includes contracts—has concerned my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. The Government are alive to concerns that we should not unduly disturb the operation of private contracts, or prevent parties to a contract from being able to give effect to their intentions. We are happy to explore this issue further with my hon. Friend and interested parties, to ensure that we achieve the appropriate balance between clarity and flexibility.

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[Huw Merriman]

I will not give way because of the lack of time.

This also misses the point that we trade as part of the EU under WTO rules with a number of countries, such as the US, China, Hong Kong, Australia, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. To say that we cannot continue to trade with those countries under WTO rules when we already do so as part of the European Union misses the point.

I now come to the real point that I wish to make. During the referendum campaign, unlike many Members in this place I did not take a view. I chaired debates but I did not take any view. Instead, I listened to the arguments going on from both sides. I dare say that right hon. and hon. Members who took a view were not listening to both sides because they were so passionate about their own. I cannot remember any individual who wanted to leave the European Union arguing, “I fancy a bit of what Norway has got. I would like to leave the European Union and remain within the single market.” The customs union has also been mentioned in that context, but of course Norway is not part of the customs union. It is quite clear to most members of the public—it was certainly made clear by those on both sides of the argument—that the EU is effectively a brand. The substance of the EU is the single market and the customs union. If more people voted to leave the European Union than to remain, which was indeed the case, there is a very fair chance that those people knew what they were voting for, and certainly did not want to leave and then return through the back door, as many hon. Members have suggested.

This is the key part for me. I really believe—I put this respectfully—that many in this Chamber are seeking to re-engineer the arguments to get them on their side because they do not want to leave. Even though most of them voted to trigger article 50, so they have chosen to leave, they now want to redesign the terms. They are seeking to have the public on their side by asking, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) mentioned, that the public are asked what they think—as if we have a spreadsheet big enough for that. The reality is that the majority of the public have voted to leave. They now look to the Executive to lead the negotiations, and they look to Parliament to support the negotiations and provide scrutiny, as it is doing. Ultimately, they want us to get on with the job and to be optimistic and ambitious about the future of this country, rather than sitting on our hands.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for the chance to contribute to tonight’s debate. First, I will deal with new clause 56, which is in my name and those of many other hon. and right hon. Members from across the House. I am grateful to everybody who supported the new clause, which is designed to give legislative certainty to the people and businesses of Gibraltar. Having heard the Minister’s comments—a long, long time ago now—my understanding is that the Government of Gibraltar are happy that the assurances they have been given provide the certainty they are looking for. On that basis, I do not intend to press the new clause to a vote, but I want to reserve the ability to bring it back at a later stage should the position of the Government of Gibraltar change.

We have heard a lot this afternoon and tonight about the wonderful opportunities for trade that await the United Kingdom if we leave the customs union and the single market. I welcome the fact that although the Minister repeatedly said that we would be leaving the customs union and the single market, he did not say—I listened very carefully—that we had to do so. He did not say that it was impossible to remain in either or both when we leave the European Union, even though a lot of people on the Brexit side have said that. That is simply not true; it is perfectly possible to leave the European Union without leaving those two trading agreements. The Government’s decision to leave them is purely political and it was not part of the referendum, despite what some people say. It is not yet too late for the Government to accept that that is a catastrophically bad political decision and that it should be reversed, even if doing so would come at a high political cost for some.

Earlier, we heard the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) justifying the need to leave the single market because the losing side in the referendum said that we had to. I am quite happy to go through some of the things that were in the losing Conservative manifesto in Scotland about what would happen if people voted SNP. If we are going to be bound by the promises that the losing side made, the SNP is in for a bit of a field day.

I still find it astonishing that there are Labour Members looking for a complete exit from the European Union. Only today, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a massive victory to Uber drivers and workers by ruling that Uber is a taxi business—surprise, surprise; that is what it is. The ruling has given Uber drivers massively better employment protection than they would have had without it. I cannot believe that any Labour Member would argue to remove those drivers from the protection of the European Court and leave their employment rights at the mercy of a Conservative Government, but that is what at least one Labour Member, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), argued for just now. I know that she is very much in the minority in her party, but I am astonished that a Labour Member can express such views.

The same hon. Member commented on how much of the UK’s trade is done outside the European Union. She forgot to mention that if we include the trade that relies on trade deals that the European Union has already made with big trading nations, more than 60% of the UK’s trade effectively depends on the European Union. When we build in the trade deals that the European Union is in the process of finalising, the figure increases to 88%. In other words, in a couple of years’ time, 12% of the United Kingdom’s overseas trade will not depend on our membership of the European Union. Twelve per cent. of our trade will probably be guaranteed, but the other 88% is up for grabs. Believe me, a lot of other trading nations will be very keen to nibble away at that 88%.

I want to comment on the confusion of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). His stamina also seems to have deserted him, although I cannot say that I blame him. He said tonight, as he has said on several occasions, that he cannot understand the contradiction between the Government’s statement that we can have free, open and easy trade across international borders, and their insistence in the run-up to the independence referendum in Scotland—where, by his own admission, he shared a platform with some people who are now on the Conservative Benches—that that would not be possible.

I can put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery. There is no inconsistency. What the Government are saying now is correct, and what they and he said in 2014 was complete and utter rubbish. There is absolutely no need, in today’s modern world, for an international border to be anything more than a line that demarcates the jurisdictions of different Parliaments, Governments and courts. That is how international borders are seen all over western Europe, and that is the kind of international border we should be seeking. It will be difficult if not impossible to maintain open borders, even the open border we want to maintain across the island of Ireland. It will be difficult to deliver what the people of Northern Ireland so desperately want to maintain if we leave the customs union and the single market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Two very brief inquiries. I call Peter Grant.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Yesterday, in response to a question from the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) querying the Government’s failure to conduct these impact assessments, the Prime Minister said:

“No, it is not the case that no work has been done in looking at that”.—[Official Report, 13 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 397.]

How does the Minister reconcile that statement with others previously made by the Secretary of State, as it directly contradicts them?

[Mr Walker]

I do not think it does that in any way at all. We have always been very clear that there is a wide mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis, and we draw on a range of work across government. We have released the sectoral analysis that has been done by our Department to the Select Committee, but of course what we will not do is release information that is market sensitive or that would be prejudicial to our negotiating position.

[Peter Grant]

May I gently remind the Minister, Mr Speaker, that your ruling is that the Department must provide to the Select Committee any impact assessments that have been done? The question from the right hon. Member for East Ham was not about sectoral analysis; he explicitly used the phrase:

“Assessing the impact of leaving the European Union”.—[Official Report, 13 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 397.]

Are the Government now telling us that “assessing the impact” is different from “an impact assessment”? If so, will the Minister explain the difference?

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made this very clear in his evidence to the Select Committee. The information that has been shared with the Select Committee and is available to all Members of this House in the reading room includes assessments of the impact on the regulatory matters and of the importance of EU trade to different sectors.

Brexit Deal: Referendum

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes his point well.

Let me return to that recent risk study by the Bank of England. In its stress test for British banks, the Bank modelled a 4.7% fall in output, a 27% devaluation of the pound against the dollar, and a devaluation of a third in house prices. Indeed, what if—to quote the Brexit Secretary—some of our key decision makers have just “slightly misspoke”? One minute the first part of a deal seems to have been done, and the next we are told that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Then, in the midst of it all, it seems that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has had a moment of epiphany—we all like those moments. Recognising that there may be trouble ahead, he reassures us:

“If the British people dislike the arrangement we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”

But would it not be much cleaner, quicker and simpler just to put the final deal to the British public?

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making a passionate and carefully thought out argument. Is it not also the case that after we have left the EU the Environment Secretary, or anyone else, will be unable to offer the United Kingdom the chance to come back in, because as soon as the United Kingdom is out we would fail the fundamental test of democracy? We would not be allowed back in because too many of the legislators in Parliament are not elected.

[Susan Elan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers]

The right hon. Gentleman might think that it is not in doubt but other opinions I have read and heard differ. Whatever the situation, Parliament would undermine the clear will of the British people if it attempted in any way to reverse that position.

Suppose the Prime Minister had stood up this afternoon and, instead of saying that there will be no second referendum, as she did at 4.21 pm, said, “Well yes, okay, let’s think about it. Maybe we’ll have a second referendum.” That would have undermined the British Government’s negotiating position. Clearly, the EU could then have said, “We’ll give them the worst possible deal and they will of course accept it.” Why would we want continued membership on worse terms than we have now? As I said, the Prime Minister has made that absolutely clear.

Another reason for not having a second referendum is that it would cause further political paralysis in this country and yet more time would be devoted to this matter. People have said to me repeatedly, “We’ve made our decision—just get on with it and let’s get over it.” The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) spoke of multiple options. What could be worse than multiple options? Suppose 20% of people agreed with option A, 20% agreed with option B and 19% agreed with option C. That would be a recipe for complete and utter chaos.

[Peter Grant]

I certainly accept that, if the voting system is wrong, multi-option referendums can be worse than useless, but does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, with hindsight, it might have been handy for the question on the ballot paper to refer to membership of the single market and the customs union? As things stand, we have no idea how many of the 17 million people who voted to leave wanted to remain in the single market and the customs union.

[Martin Vickers]

It was made very clear by speakers on both sides of the argument—there was a little package illustrating this on “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday—that a decision to leave would mean us leaving the single market and the customs union.

I was in Brussels last month to take advantage of the opportunity to speak to MEPs, officials and so on to test the water. There is no doubt that there is some sadness among our European neighbours that we are leaving. There is sadness for different reasons. Those who, like us, are net contributors to the system—Germany, for example—are sad because either they will have to pay more or the EU budget will be drastically reduced. If the budget is drastically reduced, countries that are net gainers—those that joined fairly recently, such as Romania and Bulgaria, which are very happy at the moment and benefit from the largesse of the EU—would quite rightly say, “Hang on, folks. We joined this little club knowing that we were going to get these benefits. Now you’re actually taking them away.” There is clear unhappiness over there.

There is no significant support in my constituency for another referendum. Indeed, I suggest that in Cleethorpes, as in most northern towns and perhaps even in Southend, Sir David, where it has to be said there are many Labour voters—I am talking in some cases about constituencies with significant Labour majorities—the Labour party does not represent the people it purports to represent. There is obviously a state of confusion. I recall that only a few months ago, the leader of the Labour party sacked Front Benchers for voting in favour of our remaining in the single market. Now we are told that that is on the table and we ought to be leaving. There is clear confusion.

As I said, the reality is that this issue has been a running sore through the body politic for half a century or more. All parties have been split on it, which is perhaps a true representation of the British people. That said, we have taken the decision and it is now the Government’s duty to deliver on it. I am confident that that will be to the benefit of the whole country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Thank you for calling me, Sir David. I am grateful for the chance to begin the summing up. I am not yet persuaded, but I am certainly open to persuasion. I do not agree that we can look for a second referendum just because we do not like the result of the first, any more than I like the idea that every defendant should be allowed to appeal over and over just because they did not like the verdict; it must be demonstrated that there was something wrong with the process.

In this case, there was something badly wrong with the process. Some of the flaws in the referendum legislation and process have already been highlighted, although it must be said that if some of the people raising those concerns had voted against the referendum Bill on Second or Third Reading, or voted against triggering article 50 instead of following their Whips through the Lobby, it might have been a different story, although I know that some Members who were here earlier did in fact rebel on some of those votes.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

I am just about to refer to the hon. Gentleman, so I might be about to cover his point. He commented on the clash of dates in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which had vital national elections just a few weeks before the EU referendum. It was not realistic to expect all in those elections not to campaign on issues for which the individual Parliaments were responsible and concentrate on the EU referendum.

The franchise has been mentioned; 16 and 17-year-olds, who statistically had more to gain or lose from the referendum result, were the one group excluded. EU nationals were not allowed to vote. Who anywhere in the UK has been more affected than EU nationals? The rules that usually control funding in elections in Great Britain did not properly apply, so a £500,000 donation was able to be channelled into the leave campaign—from who knows where—via the accounts of a political party in Northern Ireland, where, for understandable reasons, there have been more moves to retain the confidentiality of those who fund political parties.

As has been said on numerous occasions, there was no process whatsoever to hold anybody to account for telling the biggest pack of lies ever told during the referendum campaign. The £350 million on the side of a bus was certainly the biggest in terms of the size of the letters, but it was not the only or the biggest lie that was told.

[Martin Vickers]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and then come back to the hon. Gentleman.

[Geraint Davies]

The hon. Gentleman likened the situation to a court making a decision, and mentioned the process. Surely the other issue is fresh evidence, and an abundance of evidence is emerging every day that people will pay more and more jobs will be lost. Now that people are realising what the evidence is, they are changing their minds.

[Peter Grant]

I will come back in due course to the wider question of whether the circumstances have changed significantly or whether people simply understand the circumstances better now.

[Martin Vickers]

Since the referendum, we have heard repeatedly about the myth of the £350 million. “Where is the money?” is the question repeatedly asked. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the £350 million will become available only after we leave?

[Peter Grant]

Well, it might become available after we leave, but I have not seen any hint of it in the Chancellor’s forward spending projections, or any indication that the NHS will suddenly become adequately funded, after not having been for a long time. The simple fact is that that was a good example of taking one isolated piece of information about the European Union and interpreting it to say whatever was wanted. In a previous Westminster Hall debate, I remember a number of hon. Members on the leave side claiming that nobody paid any attention to that big red bus anyway, which makes me wonder why they spent so much money driving it the length and breadth of these islands.

On the change of circumstances, I would always say that if it cannot be demonstrated that there has been some change of circumstances, it is difficult to argue for a rerun of any kind of process, whether an election, a referendum or anything else. In this case, it is difficult to be sure whether the facts have changed or whether people are more in possession of the facts than before. Certainly, some people have switched from vote leave to vote remain because they simply did not understand how complicated and fundamental a change this could be—the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) gave some exceptional examples of that.

With permission, Sir David, I will quote at greater length than I would normally from a document that was published shortly before the referendum, to give an indication of how people’s interpretation of the facts can sometimes change. It says:

“Voting to leave the EU would create years of uncertainty and potential economic disruption. This would reduce investment and cost jobs…it could result in 10 years or more of uncertainty as the UK unpicks our relationship with the EU and renegotiates new arrangements with the EU and over 50 other countries… Some argue that we could strike a good deal quickly with the EU because they want to keep access to our market. But…it would be much harder than that… No other country has managed to secure significant access to the Single Market, without having to: follow EU rules over which they have no real say; pay into the EU; accept EU citizens living and working in their country”.

A number of hon. Members will be familiar with that information, which comes from the document about the referendum published by the UK Government in April 2016. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) spoke glowingly about what a good-quality publication it was.

We might look back to those Government announcements from April 2016 and say that they got it right, but unfortunately they are now telling us that they got it wrong. They are telling us that the negotiations will be very quick and there will be no loss of investment, no loss of jobs and all the rest of it. The Government have changed their mind; they have obviously decided that there has been a significant change of circumstances. The Prime Minister has gone from a remainer to a leaver; the Foreign Secretary had written an article for a newspaper saying why we should remain, and changed his mind; and of course, the Environment Secretary went from the best friend and strongest supporter of the Foreign Secretary’s leadership campaign to somebody who chose to stand against him. Even at the highest levels of government in these islands, Cabinet Ministers can change their minds very quickly. I understand the argument that if the people change their mind at some point in the future, they should be given the opportunity to express that at the ballot box.

Generally speaking, however, I take the view that the way for a party to change a referendum result is to get elected at the ballot box with an explicit manifesto commitment to a referendum. The Liberal Democrats had that manifesto commitment at the last election, but they did not come close to winning. I do not think we can say that everybody who voted Liberal Democrat wanted another referendum. We certainly cannot say that everybody who voted for another party did not want another referendum. If somebody wants to put the public through a process such as a referendum, they have to have some kind of clear public mandate for that. Only in exceptional circumstances could Parliament decide on a referendum that was not in the manifesto of the Government or the Opposition. I am not saying that it could never happen, but I think it would be very unusual indeed.

Having said that, we have to accept the simple fact that we have never had a referendum on leaving the single market or the customs union. Some people might claim that we did because somebody on the vote leave side and somebody on the vote remain side said that we would have to leave the single market and the customs union if the result was to leave. I caution hon. Members to be careful before they start asking the House to accept that the losers’ views are the ones that have to be put into place after the votes have been counted. I could give examples of where that logic would lead to conclusions that Conservative and Labour Members would be unhappy about.

The Government’s response to the question of the single market and the customs union has been to conflate what is necessary with what they have unilaterally decided. We now have Conservative Back Benchers who believe in good faith that it is not possible to leave the European Union without leaving the single market and the customs union. Quite clearly, that is possible. It is not what the Government have decided, but they have decided that because they decided it; it was nothing to do with the referendum.

The Government have refused point blank to tell us whether they have taken legal advice on whether article 50 can be withdrawn or revoked at any time for any reason. They are simply saying that their decision is that they will not revoke it—end of story. I wonder why they are being so coy about what legal advice they have had. Not that long ago, in the lead-up to other referendums, the Government were quite happy to publish legal advice when it seemed to support the political position they wanted to adopt. There is a degree of inconsistency there: sometimes the Government will publish legal advice and sometimes they will not. As long as the Government will not publish the advice they have had on whether article 50 can be revoked, people will wonder why.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the most likely reason that the Government want to withhold that advice is because they do not want to give people the certainty that article 50 is revocable? I think that is what the advice says.

[Peter Grant]

The right hon. Gentleman may well say that; I could not possibly comment. I remind him, however, that like his colleague the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), I am a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee and we have had a lot of interesting discussions about why the Government might or might not want to disclose stuff, to decline to say whether it has been done, and then eventually to say that they cannot disclose it because it does not exist.

I understand why the result of the June 2016 referendum came as a massive shock for a lot of people—people who voted to leave, as well as some who voted to remain. It is correct that most people, however they voted, had no idea what a massive decision they were taking. I have been accused—in the Daily Express, no less—of saying that people were stupid. I do not think that they were stupid on 23 June; I think that they were badly informed—sometimes they were ill-informed and certainly they were misinformed a lot of the time.

The social implications of leaving the European Union have still not been properly discussed. I travel to other parts of Europe on parliamentary business, and I went to Northern Ireland with the Exiting the European Union Committee just a few days ago. The social impact of a possible change in the relationship between Northern Ireland and its neighbour to the south is really frightening people. I do not use that word lightly; people are frightened about what will happen to their communities and to their social and family links.

In Donegal, if someone needs radiotherapy, they go to a foreign country—they cross the border into Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland help to pay for that hospital. On both sides of the border, people are used to the fact that they go to hospital or to school or to visit their granny in a different country. It is not just about whether people will be allowed to stay there and continue to make those journeys every day of their lives, but about the fact that a decision has been taken—not by the people of Northern Ireland, incidentally; as in Scotland, they voted to remain in the European Union—by somebody else that will fundamentally change the psychology of the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The psychological and social impact of Brexit in Northern Ireland has not been touched on in most of our debates over here.

Comments have been made today about the size of the majority in the referendum. I am not convinced that that is a strong argument because we could wait a long time before we got any more than a 10% majority either way on the question of leaving the European Union. People have sincerely held views in opposite directions, so if we set a limit that there has to be a majority of more than so-and-so per cent., we could be going over it again and again. I do not think that would help.

If the Government want to continue to insist that Parliament simply has to vote for whatever deal they come back with at the end of this process—remembering that the only choice we have just now as far as they are concerned is to accept their deal or have no deal at all—it is important that they are a lot more inclusive about who contributes to those negotiations. They have to be prepared to listen much sooner in the process, not only to the Opposition, but to their own Back Benchers. If they had had the humility to do that during the first round of negotiations, we would have got to the stage we reached on Friday a lot sooner and with much less pain and grief.

The time may yet come when I will be prepared to say that there has to be a second referendum on EU membership. I do not rule that out; indeed, I suspect that I am coming closer to that view as each day passes. However, although I fully understand the grief that people are suffering as a result of the vote, I think that when we give people the right to take a decision, we must give them the responsibility to live by its results. I suspect that if we had a second referendum, either during this Parliament or at some other time, we would have a much more constructive and better informed debate than we did last time. I certainly know the result I would hope for if that happened, but—as always— I will accept any result that shows the will of the people.

EU Exit Negotiations

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend, who has a long history of wisdom in this subject—[Interruption.] Wisdom—he saw it before most Opposition Members did. He has a long history with this subject, and he explains better than I could why we said that no divergence is a bad option.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On reflection, I think I prefer the phrase “the rubber has hit the road” to the one that I was going to use to describe yesterday’s fiasco.

It is no surprise that leadership contenders are now circling the Prime Minister. I can reveal that there is a vacancy coming up, because the Prime Minister is today being interviewed for the job of Scotland football manager, where her fantastic ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory could be put to very good use.

A Government who said they would bring sovereignty back to Parliament are now being controlled by someone who is not even a Member of this Parliament. A Government who refuse to give Parliament any say in the development of our negotiating position are now allowing that negotiating position to be dictated by the leader of a minority Parliament in the smallest of the four nations of this Union. I could not put it better than the shadow Minister: what a shambles; what a complete mess.

Will the Secretary of State now go back to “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, the document published by the Scottish Government that his Government rejected out of hand a year ago, and use that as a basis to produce a solution to an otherwise intractable problem? The fact is that the Government’s red lines are not compatible with each other, as the Brexit Committee concluded only last week. We were therefore unable to see how it is possible to reconcile leaving the customs union with avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Will the Secretary of State go back to that paper and use it as a basis for reopening negotiations?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman has concluded his remarks. [Interruption.] The problem is that he has taken one and half minutes plus, and there is huge pressure on time, so I think we must now proceed.

Leaving the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I share my right hon. and learned Friend’s commitment to ensuring that the House can scrutinise valuable information in this respect, but the problem with the motion that was passed is that it referred to sectoral impact analyses. We were clear from the start that the documents it referred to did not exist in the form that was required. We have therefore pulled together sectoral analysis for the scrutiny of the Select Committee. I think that that will prove valuable to the Committee.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On a day in June 2016, the people of the United Kingdom were asked one question on one day. As a result of the answer they gave to that one question, there is no going back on Brexit. On 1 November, Parliament was asked one question, but for the intervening 27 days the Government have done everything possible to deny and defy the instruction—it was not a request—that they were given by this Parliament, to which, we are told, sovereignty is being restored by the Brexit process.

I remind the Minister that the question of what the Government will provide to the Select Committee is not for the Government or, indeed, for the Select Committee to decide. This Parliament has decided, and there is no discussion, debate or negotiation as to the extent to which that decision will be complied with. It must be complied with in full; otherwise, as the letter published recently by the Chair of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union makes clear, the Select Committee will have to consider whether to table a motion on contempt. How is that going to look to our European partners? What will it do to the credibility of the Government, and particularly of the Brexit team, if they end up being held in contempt by the Parliament to which they claim to be returning sovereignty?

Will the Minister confirm that the resolution of the House was about not what was made public but what was provided to the Select Committee? In those circumstances, does he not accept that what must be made available to the Select Committee is everything—absolutely everything? If the Government are not prepared to comply with that instruction, they should not be in government. Will he tell us categorically whether he accepts that a decision on what to publish, within the bounds of parliamentary privilege, is for the Select Committee alone, and will he confirm that he and his Government are prepared to trust the judgment of that Committee to exercise on behalf of the House responsible judgment about what the public are entitled to know?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman asks a number of important questions. I would hope to hear some welcome from him for the fact that we have shared the information in these reports with the devolved Administrations. When I gave evidence to Select Committees recently in Scotland, we were pressed on whether we would do that. We do respect the fact that the Select Committee has the complete choice and discretion over what gets published of the information that is shared with it. That is why the Government have published the information to the Select Committee in the way that they have.

EU Exit Negotiations

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that question. First, yes, we will have a meaningful vote, as has been said from this Dispatch Box any number of times. What I have been saying today is that we are going to add to that, over and above the meaningful vote on the outcome—on the deal—legislation which puts it into effect. In other words, the House will be able to go through it line by line and agree it line by line.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. First, does he not appreciate that it is becoming increasingly clear that the only sensible solution in Northern Ireland is for Northern Ireland to remain in the customs union, and if that means the rest of us remain in the customs union as well, that must be what we do? He has already said that there cannot be a border between the two parts of Ireland, between Northern Ireland and the mainland UK, and between the Republic of Ireland and the European Union, so there cannot be a customs border anywhere between the UK and the European mainland without breaching important international treaties.

On citizens’ rights, I welcome the Secretary of State’s update on progress, but does he not accept that we are now well past the time when our constituents are entitled to absolute legal guarantees and that progress reports are not enough? People are still leaving our businesses, our health service and our social care services because they do not have confidence that there will be a deal in time for them to make their future here.

On the update on the financial settlement, would it be cynical to suggest that things will become a lot simpler when the Chancellor has got his Budget out of the way? Will the Secretary of State tell us what discussions he has had with the Chancellor about what measures might need to be in next week’s Budget to pave the way for a financial settlement in the weeks to come? Or is it the case that there will be no financial settlement in the Budget because the Government know that they could not get a Budget past their own Back Benchers if there was an admission that it included any contribution to the European Union?

Finally, on the announcement of new legislation, the withdrawal agreement Bill, I give credit where it is due: the Secretary of State has done the right thing by announcing this to the House. Some of his Cabinet colleagues could well learn from his example. Will he give us more clarity as to what the Bill will be about? I know that he cannot give us the detail, but when can we expect it to be published? Will it still simply be a question of take it or leave it—their deal or no deal? Will the House be given the opportunity to amend the Bill, as it must have the opportunity to amend any Bill, and thereby have the opportunity to attempt to amend the agreement?

Given that the Prime Minister is now only eight disgruntled Conservative MPs away from facing a vote of no confidence, why should anyone else have confidence in this Government to extricate us from the mess they have created when they are rapidly losing the confidence of their own Back Benchers?

[Mr Davis]

On the question about Northern Ireland, what I have said in terms, which is what I have said here in the House, is that there will be no internal border within the United Kingdom. That is an absolute fundamental because, apart from anything else, the Good Friday agreement—the Belfast agreement—requires the Government of Northern Ireland to operate on behalf of all communities, and at least one community in Northern Ireland would not accept a border in the Irish sea.

As for the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, everybody has accepted that there must be no return to a hard border. Some of that is dealt with by the continuation of the common travel area, which has been around since 1923—in that respect, it is not new. In terms of the customs border, there is of course already a difference between levy and tax rates and excise rates north and south of the border, and we manage without a hard border. That is what we will continue to do.

With respect to the Budget, the hon. Gentleman is optimistic if thinks the Chancellor gives any of us more than a week of advance warning of his Budget. Of course, I have discussed with him the financial aspects of our relationship with the European Union at many meetings.

As for the new legislation, I do not think it is in the gift of the Government to put before the House primary legislation that is incapable of amendment. The nature of primary legislation is that it is always capable of amendment. Of course, we will have the practical limitations of having signed a deal and there may be implications because of that, but the whole thing will be put in front of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is of course exactly right. I remember that the last time he asked a question on this subject he reminded the House that it was the Conservative party that introduced the first employment protection legislation, way before the Labour party was created, and it will still be doing that way after the Labour party is gone.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am sure we all take great comfort from the Secretary of State’s assurances about the Prime Minister’s change of mind. What he now attributes to the Prime Minister is very different from what she said about workers’ rights as Home Secretary. Given that there is no intention whatsoever to reduce workers’ rights as a result of our leaving the European Union, will the Secretary of State undertake to table a Government amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, so that the unprecedented powers given to Ministers in that Bill cannot by statute be used to reduce workers’ rights?

[Mr Davis]

The point I have made time and again about the powers in that Bill is that they are not intended to remove or reduce any law; they are intended to make all the laws practical, and that is what they will do. If we have not got it quite right, we will talk to everybody involved, in Committee and on Report, and ensure that we do get it right.

[Peter Grant]

As well as the potential threat to workers’ rights, there is a much wider threat in the Bill with the removal of the EU charter of fundamental rights from domestic legislation. Last week, the junior Minister was unable to give the Select Committee an example of anyone whose interests would be damaged by retaining that charter in domestic legislation. Will the Secretary of State tell us whose interests will be damaged if we just leave that charter in place?

[Mr Davis]

I have made this point over and over again. The charter of fundamental rights is essentially a list of existing rights and does not, as far as we can see, generate any new ones. I have said that if the shadow Secretary of State can identify a right that will be lost, we will put it back.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I welcome the chance to contribute to this debate. I hope that we can concentrate on the fundamentally important matter at hand. This debate is not about which party’s position on Brexit has been more chaotic; it is about the importance of making sure that Parliament and the public have information to which they are entitled to hold us all to account. A few minutes ago, I was reminded of what a pity it is that these analyses were not available before 23 June 2016.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government and those in the leave campaign had a moral and an ethical duty to do this work and to give a proper timescale, as we called for at the time of the Brexit debate? Does he think that the assessments were not published because the Government are scared of the truth or because they would not fit on the side of a bus?

[Peter Grant]

I suspect that it may have been all the above and more reasons besides.

Is it not ironic that yet again, in response to a decision that was supposed to restore sovereignty to Parliament, for those who believe in such an idea, it now appears that even the Parliament that exercises sovereignty on behalf of Her Majesty does not have the right to instruct the Government to make representations to Her Majesty on our behalf? We can ask, and the Government can simply ignore—well, they cannot ignore, but they can say, “No, we’re no’ doing it,” which apparently is not the same as ignoring. What an utter shambles of a way to run a sweetie shop, never mind a country.

I have been a very long-standing supporter of open government and freedom of information. I remember as an opposition SNP councillor being in the strange position of enthusiastically supporting legislation proposed by the then Labour-Lib Dem coalition in the Scottish Parliament against complaints from Labour councillors that it would somehow undermine the working of the council. I believe that improved public availability of information always leads to better government. Occasions when information needs to be restricted, or some information needs to be redacted, should be seen very much as the exception rather than the rule.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that there is a legal case pending, which my colleague in the European Parliament, Molly Scott Cato, is leading. Does he agree that rather than going through all the extra work, time and taxpayers’ money involved in fighting a legal case, the Government should just show us what it is in the public interest to show us now?

[Peter Grant]

I was going to say that, not having seen the information, I am at a disadvantage compared with the Cabinet, but I am not convinced that I am, because I do not think most of them have seen it either. I am perfectly prepared to accept that some of it—perhaps quite a lot of it—cannot be made public, but I do not think a document exists that cannot be made public in some form. If the Government really want to give the public information, there are always ways in which details can be removed.

The comment has been made that we are talking about public information, paid for by the public and produced by a public organisation, which exists only for the benefit of the public. I always take the view that information should be disclosed where possible and withheld only where necessary. My view of freedom of information was eloquently expressed 250 years ago, and I am pleased that Madam Deputy Speaker is still here to hear this, although she is no longer in the Chair:

“Here’s freedom to them that wad read,

Here’s freedom to them that wad write,

There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,

But they whom the truth would indite.”

I appreciate that for some Members, that might be a difficult thing to think about just now.

I have always been convinced that far too many public bodies have hidden behind statutory exemptions in freedom of information legislation, not to protect the interests of the public but to protect the interests of those who withhold the information. That seems to have played a significant part in the Government’s thought processes in this instance. A member of the Government originally claimed that even to confirm that the analyses existed would somehow fatally undermine the UK’s negotiating position with the European Union. It is hard to see how anybody could make the UK’s negotiating position any more untenable than it already is, but let us look at how making any of the information available might weaken the UK’s position.

It seems to me that there are three possible scenarios. In scenario 1, the secret information shows that the UK’s position is a lot stronger than any of us suspected—I do not know; that might be possible—so instead of negotiating from a position of weakness, the UK is negotiating from a position of considerable strength. How does it weaken our negotiating position if those on the other side of the table think that we are strong, rather than weak? It does not, so in scenario 1, it is in the UK’s interests for the European Union to have the information.

In scenario 2, the analysis simply confirms what everybody knows and what analysis from everybody else under the sun has already indicated, which is that leaving the European Union is seriously bad for the UK economy, that it is seriously bad for us socially and culturally, and that it will weaken our reputation worldwide, emboldening other potential trade partners to push for ever more difficult and damaging trade deals and ensuring that we have to go cap in hand to look for them.

[John Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman think it is at all possible to have a worse fishing policy and to do more damage to the Scottish fishing industry outside the EU than in it? Why does he not speak up for Brexit, because it has lots of great features?

[Peter Grant]

I do not think that it is possible for any Government to sell out Scotland’s fishing industry in the way the UK Government did 50 years ago. That is a matter of public record, but it could not be made known to the fishing communities or anyone else for 30 years, because it was covered by the Official Secrets Act at the time. That is the reason why Governments withhold information for as long as possible—not in the interests of open government, but to protect themselves from proper public scrutiny.

I return to scenario 2. If it shows exactly what everybody already knows, how can producing more evidence to confirm what we already know possibly damage the UK’s position? It cannot, so scenario 2 cannot cause any damage.

[Ian Paisley]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you are able to rule on this matter before any more confusion is added to the debate. Is it your understanding that the motion as presented, if carried, leaves open to Her Majesty’s Government the timing of when they choose to lay these matters before Parliament and that, if that is the case, the Government could lay these matters before Parliament after the negotiations?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The answer is that it is for the Government, not for me, to respond on that point. There has been a question about whether this is binding. What is binding is the need to carry forward the debate. Let us have no more ado.

[Peter Grant]

The third scenario—many of us are increasingly convinced that this is what has happened—is that the detailed analysis indicates that the damage caused by Brexit will be even worse than any of us previously feared. Yes, that would weaken and fatally undermine the UK’s negotiating position. It may well be that the analysis shows that Brexit is such a catastrophic decision that we should not do it at all. What kind of Government in possession of that information would choose to hide it, rather than to act on it? It seems to me that the only scenario in which releasing any of the information can possibly undermine the UK’s position is if that information shows that the damage caused by Brexit is worse than any previous analysis has indicated.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Is there not an unattributed briefing from a Minister who has said, “We either destroy the Conservative party, or we destroy the country”—that was their choice of words—and in this case are they not choosing, by hiding these documents, to destroy the country rather than to destroy the Conservative party?

[Peter Grant]

I could not comment on that quote, but throughout the Brexit shambles there have been plenty of instances when it has been very clear that the Government are acting in the interests of the unity of the Conservative party, rather than in the interests of the United Kingdom—not that the attempt to retain unity in the Conservative party has been too successful.

Last week, the Secretary of State for Brexit got into a real muddle when he was asked whether the Government intended to make any of this information available to the devolved Governments and in particular, under questioning by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), whether the assessment of the impact on Scotland would be shared with the Scottish Government. At first, he seemed to cast doubt on whether such an assessment existed at all, and then he admitted that it probably existed, but he was not sure it would ever be shared with anybody. Then he assumed it had already been shared with the Scottish Government—it still has not been shared, by the way—and, finally, he acknowledged that it had not been shared yet but eventually would be.

By a process of elimination—or, perhaps, by accident—the Secretary of State therefore managed to say the same as his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland said to the Scottish Affairs Committee 24 hours earlier. It is concerning, but not surprising, that the Minister appears to have departed from that today. It seems that as soon as two Ministers agree on something, a third has got to disagree with it almost on principle. The fact is that, even a week later, the information has still not been shared—none of it. The relevant Minister in the Scottish Government, Mike Russell, has had to write to the Secretary of State to remind him of the undertaking that was given and to ask for that information to be shared so that, for example, discussions in the JMC can be more meaningful than they have been until now.

Another possible reason for the Secretary of State’s reluctance to share any of the information comes from an answer he gave later in the same evidence session last week:

“I am not a great fan of mathematical models. They are almost always wrong.”

He referred to a revelation from Norman Lamont who, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, was told by the Treasury that he would become the most unpopular man in Britain and that that was the only thing Treasury staff ever told him that turned out to be correct. The Secretary of State went on to say that, sadly, the Norman Lamont story was true:

“I am afraid it is the truth. These models are never right.”

The models produced by the Government at the public expense are never right. That will make for an interesting Budget in a couple of weeks’ time. What kind of a defence is it to tell a parliamentary Committee, “The reason why we will not give you access to information that has been produced at great public cost is that we do not believe it any more than you do”?

The Government have previously refused a formal freedom of information request, as was mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). They refused even to confirm whether some of these analyses existed, because they were concerned that even to confirm that such documents existed or that such analysis had taken place might lead some to take precipitate action as a result. This comes from a Government who were excessively precipitate in holding a referendum before people really knew what they were voting on. They were precipitate in triggering article 50 before they knew what it would mean, and they were precipitate in calling a general election, which did not turn out particularly well. It is therefore a bit rich for them to be concerned about anyone else acting in a precipitate manner.

I am not a scholar of Latin, but I remember as a student teacher, over 30 years ago, hearing a very experienced chemistry teacher asking a class of pupils doing experiments involving chemical elements being precipitated in a test tube whether any of them knew about precipitates in the Bible. He explained to them, because he was of a generation that could recite the Bible in English and Latin, and probably in Greek as well, that the word “precipitate” came from the Latin word “praecipitare”, and “se praecipitare” was a verb used in the Bible to describe the actions of the Gadarene swine as they launched themselves off a cliff edge.

I will never ceased to be amazed at just how many prophecies in the good book come true sooner or later. The Government have been precipitate throughout this entire sorry affair. They have artificially, unilaterally and quite arbitrarily put immense time pressure on themselves, this Parliament and the overworked staff at the Department for Exiting the European Union and elsewhere.

It is no defence against that chaos or against the repeated display of incompetence we have had from the Government for them now to say that we cannot trust the public with information that exposes the full damage that the Government’s incompetence will cause. The electorate were sophisticated enough to understand after the vote in the referendum that when the Government said we could still be in the single market if we were out of the EU, they did not mean it. The electors in east London were sophisticated enough to know that when a Minister told them, “If we leave the EU, we will stop immigration from the EU and those of you who have family in Bangladesh, India or Pakistan will be able to bring them over to replace those people,” that was rubbish. The electorate were sophisticated enough to know that when someone who is now a Minister promised £357 million more for the health service, that was Boris being Boris. They were sophisticated enough to know that we never believe anything the Foreign Secretary says. Well, we do not need to be too sophisticated to realise that, I suppose.

So the electorate are sophisticated enough to known that all the promises that were made before the referendum really did not mean anything, yet they are not sophisticated enough, or educated or intelligent enough, to look at an impact assessment, or a summary of an impact assessment, and make their own decisions about the competence and the re-electability of a Government who got us into this mess in the first place.

Without even having seen this information, I believe it is not being made widely available because it demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that leaving the EU is the wrong way to go. Leaving the single market would be catastrophic for these islands and the Government should change course before they follow the Gadarene swine over that cliff edge.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am always delighted to be faced by the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that privilege should be enjoyed by the House as a whole.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

We have a withdrawal Bill that has not only been delayed, but just has not come to the House in any of the three or four weeks in which we expected it to, and we do not know when it will. We have the former UK ambassador to the European Union telling us that the Prime Minister’s approach to the negotiations is in danger of leaving the UK “screwed”. The negotiations are being led by somebody who thinks that Czechoslovakia is one of the countries with which we are negotiating, although unlike the Cabinet, Czechoslovakia is split into only two parts and they are still on amicable speaking terms. The Government refuse to publish the truth about the impact of Brexit, saying it is confidential, despite the fact that between 2013 and 2014 they published 16 different analyses of the potential impact of a yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum. The Prime Minister is having to make emergency trips to Europe to try to bail out her failing Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

Will the Secretary of State confirm that, for any vote to be meaningful, we must be in possession of the full facts? Will he therefore agree that Parliament will have sight of the Government’s recently produced analysis before a vote takes place, and will he confirm that the Administrations of the three devolved nations will be treated as equals, as the Government have promised, and that they will also have a timeous and meaningful vote before we leave the EU?

[Mr Davis]

Before I answer the hon. Gentleman’s substantive question, may I just correct him? He talked about Czechoslovakia. The Minister involved was correcting somebody else; he was not asserting a belief that that was who we were negotiating with. I would prefer that to be on the record.

Yes, with the full facts, absolutely; that is why the vote has to take place once the draft deal is concluded. At that point, we will know precisely what the withdrawal deal amounts to and what the framework for the future arrangement is.