European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill
Debate between Andrew Murrison and Kit MalthouseWednesday 8th February 2017
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 View all European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 8 February 2017 - (8 Feb 2017)
Kit Malthouse
I think that my right hon. Friend is being quite generous. As far as I can see, the huge number of new clauses and amendments is designed purely to waste time and to delay, and to send political signals rather than trying to achieve anything. The hon. Member for Ilford South complained about the programme motion. If the opponents of the Bill, or those who wish to amend it, had collaborated and focused on three or four critical changes that they wanted to see, rather than throwing a lot of flak in the air and causing all these problems, they might have made some progress.
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is making a number of extremely good points, but is not vagueness the virtue as far as the drafters of the new clauses and amendments are concerned? If passed, they would turn a simple one-page Bill into an absolute monster that would be subject to a lawyers’ beanfeast and would be judiciable at every turn, thus kicking the Bill into the long grass.
Kit Malthouse
I agree, although the word I would use is “simplicity”. With simplicity comes clarity, and we need clarity from the Prime Minister, as she enters the negotiations, about the motivations of the House and its support for her.
My other reason for objecting to new clause 2 is that it abrogates to the Prime Minister decisions that will rightly become the decisions of the House in the future. Paragraph (e) states that the Prime Minister should have regard to
“maintaining all existing social, economic, consumer and workers’ rights.”
Apart from anything else, I am not sure what my social or economic rights are. They are undefined in the Bill. But, in future, those decisions will presumably become decisions of the House. If there are to be any changes in those rights, undefined as they are, they will have to be the subject of primary legislation.