European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Steve Baker and Yvette Cooper

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Sadly, this is the consequence of us being nine days away from Brexit day. That is not a situation that any of us wanted to be in—to have the clock run down this far—with no agreement in place. The Prime Minister did not put any withdrawal agreement to Parliament until January, and it has been put back several times since then, so we have not had a clear plan. That is the situation we are in.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

On a point of order, Sir Lindsay. It may help the House. I have just inquired in the Vote Office, and the correct amendment paper, the one that we should be looking at, is the one with 15 printed pages. There has been some confusion, which would explain the point of order from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash).

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Debate between Steve Baker and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Now that the decision has been taken, the vast majority of right-thinking people in the United Kingdom will expect it to be carried through with a good heart as a matter of choice. Time and again, we see a foot-dragging reluctance from the Labour party, which increasingly seems not to be respecting the choices of its own voters.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

It is reported that the analysis shows that the north, the midlands and Northern Ireland will be hardest hit in all the scenarios. Will the Minister confirm that that is because all the scenarios assume that Britain is outside the customs union? Will he confirm, too, that the Government appear to have undertaken no analysis of the different customs union options and of the impact on our economy? Given how significant the situation is for northern manufacturing and for Northern Ireland and given that the CBI has said this is irresponsible and is letting down northern manufacturing, will he commit to conducting and publishing analysis before the customs Bill completes its passage through Parliament?

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady because she has given me the opportunity to reassure her that there is economic growth under all the scenarios in the economic assessment. The only question is to what extent and how fast, but there is projected to be economic growth across a 15-year period in all the scenarios.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Steve Baker and Yvette Cooper

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I shall return to the clause 7 versus clause 9 argument a little later.

Amendments 3 and 4 were also tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend. The Government agree with his goal of ensuring that instruments under the Bill are accompanied by all the information that the House, the public and, indeed, the sifting committee need in order to understand what they can do and why. We also agree that more can be done to ensure that the House has the proper opportunities to scrutinise the instruments. As I have said, the Government have therefore accepted the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, and we will also table amendments to address long-standing concerns about information. The Government believe that the proposed committee represents an option that balances our concerns about the ability to plan and the limited time available before exit day with some Members’ well-stated and long-standing concerns about the efficacy of the scrutiny of negative SIs in this House. Those amendments will address the unique challenge posed by the secondary legislation under this Bill, ensuring that the Government’s reasoning on procedure is transparent to the House and that the House can recommend that any negative instrument should instead be an affirmative one.

Beyond all that, the Government have tabled amendment 391 which will require that explanatory memorandums are alongside each SI and include a number of specific statements aimed at ensuring the transparency of SIs that are to come, and act as an aid to this House, providing more effective scrutiny. These statements will explain, for instruments made under the main powers in this Bill, what any relevant EU law did before exit day, what is being changed, and why the Minister considers that this is no more than is appropriate. They will also contain information regarding the impact of the instrument on equalities legislation. The wording of our amendment and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne differs from that proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, but, as he has said, he has put his name to it and I am pleased that we are therefore able to move forward.

I turn now to the issue of what is necessary and amendments 49, 65, 205 to 208, 216 and new clause 24. Amendments 49 and 65 bring us to the important debate about whether the power in clause 7 should allow necessary corrections or appropriate corrections. “Necessary” is a very strict test, which we would expect to be interpreted by a court as logically essential. Where two or more choices as to how to correct EU law are available to Ministers, arguably neither would be logically essential because there would be an alternative. Ministers therefore need to choose the most appropriate course. If two UK agencies, such as the Bank of England or the Financial Conduct Authority, could arguably carry out a particular function, the Government must propose which would be the more appropriate choice. Also, if the UK and the EU do not agree to retain an existing reciprocal arrangement and the EU therefore ceases to fulfil its side of the obligations, the UK could decide it is not appropriate for the UK to provide one-sided entitlements to the EU27; it might not be legally necessary for the UK to stop upholding one side of the obligation, but it might not be appropriate for us to continue if the EU is not doing so.

[Yvette Cooper]

It is my understanding that the Minister is saying that courts that were told that Ministers had two options, both of which might be necessary solutions to a particular problem, would therefore say that neither passed the necessity test because Ministers had chosen between the two of them. That sounds utterly ludicrous as a way in which the courts would make a decision. Will the Minister elaborate by providing a case law example of a situation where the courts have been given such a necessity test and have decided to rip up all necessary options on the basis that there were too many necessary choices?

[Mr Baker]

I will see whether, before I sit down, my memory can be jogged on an example of case law, but I am only a humble aerospace and software engineer and I do not mind saying to the right hon. Lady that I have sometimes observed that we dance on the head of a pin over particular words. In order to protect the law and the public purse, I think the Law Officers would require me to take appropriate advice from lawyers on the nature of these words and to abide by it as we proceed through the legislation.