European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you for guidance, Sir Roger. I will adhere to it and conclude my remarks by saying that I thoroughly support the Government. I support clause 33, which has to be in the Bill. It is an excellent Bill and I look forward to it passing tonight.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am mindful of your strictures with regard to time, Sir Roger. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said during his opening remarks that he did not intend to press new clause 4 to a Division. If it assists the Committee, I can indicate that it is not my intention to press new clause 36, which stands in my name and in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I do, however, wish to speak to those. Before I do so, I would like to pick up on the points made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) to the Secretary of State with regard to the powers given to the United Kingdom Government and to the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations.

I found the Secretary of State’s explanation to be a little less than clear and somewhat less than convincing. In proposed new paragraph 11B in clause 4, relating to the powers of the Scottish Parliament, he will see that the devolved Administrations have no power to legislate outside their devolved competences. It is of course in the nature of devolution that the Administrations have no power, so I suggest to the Secretary of State that the inclusion of that provision is at the very least somewhat otiose. He would have to come up with a better explanation than he did to the hon. and learned Lady as to why it is necessary to have, or not to have, a similar provision with regard to the powers of this House.

The Secretary of State talked in his opening remarks about the commitment in the Conservative party manifesto, in respect of which it now has a handsome majority in this House. He was quite right to put that before the Committee, and it is perfectly legitimate that the Government should do so. However, I would suggest that he took it one step further than was sensible when he suggested that clause 33 was necessary for the Government to meet their manifesto obligations. Whether or not a Government meet their manifesto obligations is essentially a matter of politics, not law, and for the Secretary of State to suggest it is necessary to have a clause of this sort to meet their manifesto obligations is something of an overstatement. It would be possible for them to meet their manifesto obligations without recourse to clause 33.

As other Members have pointed out, it is perfectly legitimate—we are entitled to do so—for those of us on the Opposition Benches, and I suspect a number of the better-informed Government Members, to point out that the previous implementation agreement reached by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), was for 21 months. At that point, we thought that was exceptionally ambitious, but now we find that it can all be done in 11 months. I have been a Member of this House for over 18 and a half years. You learn a thing or two in that time, Sir Roger. You know that, because you have been here even longer than me. One of the things we learn is to take assurances of that sort with a measure of some scepticism when we hear them from those on the Treasury Bench, whichever party is in government. That is why I think this is perfectly legitimate.

We have heard the assurances given by those on the Treasury Bench tonight. They may be right, in which case we will have an agreement concluded by the end of this year, but if they are not, those assurances will stand on the record, and the Minister and his colleagues will have to be accountable for them. I suspect that we now have a choice between close alignment, because that will be all that is possible in the 11-month negotiation period, and no deal. It will be interesting to see whether the unity that has been present behind the Secretary of State on the Government Benches today is maintained after that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I will keep my remarks mercifully brief, restricting them to new clause 4. This would be a detrimental amendment to the Bill, because it would completely undermine the negotiations that the Government have to undertake. I understand the concerns about a no-deal situation at the end of 2020—I am very concerned about that, too—but we must follow the golden rules in a negotiation. I have negotiated many things in my life, although clearly not something as large as leaving the European Union—but who has? However, there have been some things that would have had a much bigger direct impact on my life, certainly in terms of business negotiations. Some of those have been life-changing and, particularly in negotiations with our banks, pretty much life-threatening. The golden rule in any negotiation is that a person has to walk into them with confidence. That is absolutely how we have to undertake the negotiations. Of course, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, there are some downsides to these negotiations. It is therefore even more important to walk into them with confidence. We must believe that we can do this deal.

[Mr Carmichael]

The provision for an extension to be concluded by 1 July was in the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister negotiated. Did he do that because he lacked confidence?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We are in a different situation. I am still involved in my business; it has grown a lot over the last 26 or 27 years, and I have concerns about the impact on it of the wrong kind of exit from the European Union. However, I still think it is absolutely right to set the deadline of the end of 2020 to do this deal. In our manifesto and all the statements in the general election, it is true that we said that we would do this deal by the end of 2020 and that we would be out completely by then. It would be wrong and a breach of the trust that the people had in us in the general election for us now to say that there could be a further extension.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Like others have done, may I welcome you back to your restored position in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker? We very much look forward to your presence moderating our proceedings in the years to come.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) on her maiden speech, which was a very accomplished contribution. There are a number of conventions and courtesies that need to be observed, but, as well as managing to observe them, the hon. Lady had something of substance and significance to say. I am sure we look forward to hearing her future contributions in the House.

A number of contributors to this debate have spoken about the way in which the tone of the debate has changed in the past few days, and that is a fair point to make. Some of that change in tone relates to the inevitability of the fact that the Bill will gain its Third Reading tonight. Another quite remarkable aspect is that there has been, if anything, an even greater inflation of the claims made about what will be possible. On that, time will tell.

Listening to the speech from the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who was present until a minute or two ago, I was struck by what he said about the fishing industry and the opportunities that would be open to it outside the common fisheries policy. I have heard him make that speech many times over the years. It would, of course, have been a done deal had the Government led by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) done what they said they were going to do and put the UK’s removal from the common fisheries policy in the withdrawal agreement and not in the political declaration. Had that been the case, we would be looking at an exit from the common fisheries policy at the end of the month. Of course, they did not do that, despite their promise. They did not do it because, frankly, they did not have the political will to do it.

The removal of the United Kingdom from the common fisheries policy remains in the political declaration. It is not in the agreement that was negotiated by the Prime Minister either. Although we have never heard the reason why, I presume that there was not the political will to put it in the withdrawal agreement. As far as the claims made on behalf of Brexit regarding the future of the fishing industry are concerned, we shall have to wait and see. It will require the political will to deliver these promises, probably at the expense of commitments made to other communities and sectors.

[David Duguid]

The right hon. Gentleman and I obviously share a lot of interests in the fishing industry, as he has one of the largest ports in Scotland—but not the largest—in his constituency. Does he not agree that by virtue of leaving the EU, we have no option but to leave the CFP? We leave the EU, we leave the common fisheries policy—no ifs, no buts.

[Mr Carmichael]

That is absolutely the case, and I think the hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to know that he will never get me to defend the common fisheries policy. But what follows thereafter will be down to the political decisions made by this Government and others, and to whether they have the political will to deliver the things that they have promised. He will remember the damage that was done to his party by a previous generation of Conservative Ministers who, at the time of our accession to the EEC in 1975, regarded the fishing industry as expendable. That is why the promises become ever more extravagant, but the more extravagant they are, the greater the consequences will be if they are not kept.

The Liberal Democrats will vote against the Bill on Third Reading, because we believe that this is a bad deal that risks the future integrity of the United Kingdom as a single unitary state, principally and most immediately because it risks the possibility of leaving Northern Ireland subject to different regulatory arrangements from the rest of the United Kingdom. That was something against which the former Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), warned, along with Ruth Davidson, the then leader of the Scottish Conservatives. Those warnings were good and the former Prime Minister was wise to heed them, but the current Prime Minister has ignored them. If after 31 December we do find ourselves in the situation I have described, the future of the United Kingdom as a unitary state will be that much more bleak—and that is quite apart from the division and discord that we have heard mooted from the SNP Benches today.

I am also concerned that this deal very much leaves open the possibility of a no-deal Brexit at the end of 2020. In fact, the inclusion of clause 33 makes it that much more likely. My views on a no-deal Brexit are formed and reinforced by the businesses that come and talk to me. I think of one significant food-producing company in Orkney that directly employs 23 people, which may not sound like a great deal, but it is also an important part of the supply chain for farming in Orkney. Farming, of course, is the staple that keeps our economy in the Northern Isles stable and growing. That company tells me that for the past 20 years it has done everything that any Government would have asked it to. As a food producer, it has not gone for the low end of the market, but for the top—the niche market and the high-quality produce. Part of the reason that it went for that high-end product is that it was able to export. If its exports are now going to be put at a competitive disadvantage as a consequence of tariffs coming from a no-deal Brexit, the future of those 23 jobs and the farms around Orkney that supply the company will be bleak to say the very least.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a point that pertains to my community in Na h-Eileanan an Iar as well. I heard Conservative voices saying that today the anguish will end. The anguish might end for those in the Conservative party and their psychodrama, but with this Brexit coming—and there is no good Brexit—the anguish is just beginning for an awful lot of people outside this Chamber.

[Mr Carmichael]

I fear that the hon. Gentleman may well be right on that. As I said in relation to the fishing industry, time will eventually tell. I fear, as I say, that he is probably right. The worst of it is that I really hope he is not, because the people who will suffer are not the people sitting in here but those in the crofts, in the hill farms and in the fishing communities around his constituency and mine.

Another reason we consider this to be a bad Bill is that it is another step in the walk that the Government are taking away from commitments they have previously given on environmental protections, labour rights, food standards, and—worst of all, in a really quite mean-minded step—the protections that would be given to refugee children. If ever there were an illustration of the way in which we risk diminishing our standing on the world stage, that is most surely it.

As we have heard, the Secretary of State’s Department is due to be wound up after the end of the month, but there is no doubting that even after that—even after 31 December—Brexit will continue to be a political phenomenon that will have a dominant effect on our politics for years to come. I make this plea today to those on the Treasury Bench: even if there is not to be a Department for it to shadow, this House should continue to have a Select Committee to look at the nature of the impact that Brexit has on our economy and our society.

The mantra on which the Government won their majority was that they would “get Brexit done”. The Prime Minister told us that he had an “oven-ready” deal. I think that to describe it as oven-ready was actually untypically understated for the Prime Minister. Many of us on the Opposition Benches see it in fact as being more half-baked than merely oven-ready. Ultimately, however, it is a deal that is going to leave us poorer and more isolated on the world stage, and it will affect us all.

Like many in this House, I am the first generation of my family to have had the opportunity to come here and to serve my community in this way. I did that because I was given opportunities principally by access to higher education, which I and my sisters all had. As a result of those opportunities, I have been able to develop whatever talents I have had. It grieves me enormously that the opportunities that we will now pass on to my sons—the next generation of my family—will be lesser than those that we inherited. It is for that reason that we shall vote against this Bill on Third Reading.