European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Angela Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

A lot of work has already been done—including by Members of this House, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh)—to point out how we can have a frictionless border and avoid checks at the border, so that we can move out of the backstop and into a new trade agreement with the European Union.

Today the focus of this debate is principally, although not exclusively, on the environment and on workers’ protection. It is important to put on record the work that has been done across this House while we have been in the European Union to protect our environment and ensure that workers have a brighter future. However, it is also important to stress that this country has had ambitions higher than those required by our membership of the European Union—ambitions that have been fulfilled in a number of areas.

The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), when he was Secretary of State in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, introduced climate change legislation that was significantly more progressive and ambitious than what was required by our membership of the European Union. On plastic and waste, this Government are going further than we are required to do by the European Union, to ensure that we pay our debts to this planet. Look at workers’ rights, holiday rights, maternity leave, maternity pay and the national living wage. In every single one of those areas, our ambitions have been higher than required by the European Union.

It is not the case that membership of the European Union is necessary to safeguard our environment or to guarantee high-quality rights for workers. This agreement makes it clear that we will apply a non-regression principle when it comes to workers’ rights, to health and safety and to employment rights. That principle, which will be very similar to the one that occurs in many other trade deals, will ensure that there is no race to the bottom. The Government will also—this is in the withdrawal agreement—create an office of environmental protection to ensure that our environment is safeguarded and that appropriate principles that were developed during our time in the European Union, such as the precautionary principle, are applied in an appropriate way.

However, there is a critical distinction between what the withdrawal agreement allows us to do and what the EU insists that we do. The withdrawal agreement allows us to take back control. The office of environmental protection will scrutinise this Government’s or a future Government’s application of environmental principles, but the House will decide how those principles are interpreted. For example, if we want to put the emphasis on innovation in certain areas in a different way from the European Union but still strive towards high environmental goals, we can. We can have both higher levels of protection and, critically—this was the message of the referendum—democratic accountability, with power flowing back to this place and all its Members.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State confirm that the forthcoming environment Bill will establish a legal right for citizens of this country to take the Government to court if they fail on environmental standards?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, absolutely. It is important that citizens have the right to access not just the courts but other means to ensure that environmental rights are protected. The creation of that new watchdog, which of course will be democratically accountable, will ensure that citizens do not have to go to court, but the Government and other public bodies will be held to account for their actions in safeguarding the environment.

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[Michael Gove]

I quite understand, and I have enormous respect not only for the hon. Gentleman, but for the sincerity and clarity with which he and his parliamentary colleagues have put their views. I hope that over the next few days we can help to ensure that all the interests of Northern Ireland are safeguarded more effectively than ever within the United Kingdom. As I have pointed out, the backstop is uncomfortable for many of us, but it is also uniquely uncomfortable for the European Union, which is one of the many reasons why I think we will conclude a deal before that.

[Angela Smith]

I thank the Secretary of State for being so generous in giving way. He talked about the sovereignty of British waters and about taking back control, but will he guarantee that in any negotiation for a trade deal with the European Union there will be no retaliation, and that the interests of the processing side of the fishing industry will not be sacrificed in return for sovereignty over British waters? The processing side is much bigger than the catching side, and it must not be sacrificed.

[Michael Gove]

That is a very fair point. Mr Scatterty, who represents seafood producers in Scotland, has been very clear about some of the opportunities presented by Brexit, but also about some of the other important points to be borne in mind.

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[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I rise to speak as someone who voted remain in the 2016 referendum and I am astonished to find today’s debate has been dominated by the use of the word “compromise”, not because I do not agree with compromise but because for two and a half years we have had no sign of compromise, particularly from the Prime Minister—no attempt to reach out across the House, no attempt even to reach out across the Benches of her own party. So I am astonished suddenly to find, two and a half years later, that the deal on the table—the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration—is being presented to us and we are suddenly being told that we have to compromise. It seems to me that compromise has any meaning to the Prime Minister only when it relates to her deal and is on her terms.

I stand as somebody who did not vote for the article 50 Bill. As a result, I was accused in the media and by hard-line Brexiteers of being a traitor, but actually the reason I did not vote for the Bill was that I did not think that enough time had been given to building the necessary consensus across the House to make the process work. I believe that those of us who took that line have been proved correct.

I have repeatedly voted for amendments to legislation that want to deliver a deal that keeps the United Kingdom in the single market and the customs union. I am one of perhaps only 100 MPs who have done that repeatedly as legislation on Brexit has gone through the House. On every occasion, we were told that we were traitors to the cause of Brexit and denying the will of the people, but those votes were an attempt to compromise and to arrive at consensus on the best way forward, in the national interest and in line with the vote that was delivered in 2016.

Now, my colleagues and I on the remain side who do not like this deal are suddenly being told that we are on the extremes of the debate. There is nothing extreme about wanting to stay part of the largest trading bloc in the world, and there is nothing wrong or extreme about voting against a deal because it promises to make the country poorer.

The Prime Minister drew Brexiteer red lines around her negotiations, and because of that the deal before us includes a political declaration that gives no clear indication of the way forward for the long-term trading relationship. That means that if we get a new Prime Minister or another Brexit Minister in six months’ time, there will be no guarantee that we will not end up with a hard Brexit of the kind that could take about 7.6% off GDP. This is a blind Brexit, and it is impossible to listen to the language of compromise and to go along with it on the basis of a political declaration that gives us no clear shape for the way forward.

The problem is that the Prime Minister’s approach to the negotiations has effectively boxed the Government into a corner, with nowhere else to go. Parliament must not be intimidated or threatened. MPs who genuinely believe—not because of their ideology but because of a genuine belief—that the closest possible relationship with the European Union is the right way to go must be given the right to vote against this deal without threats or intimidation. That is really important.

If Parliament decides next week not to support the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration, it is the responsibility of the Government, not Parliament, to present their plan B. In that context, it will be incumbent on the Government to start talking seriously to Members of Parliament on both sides of the House to establish the way forward.

My feeling, however, is that there will be no consensus, because of the Prime Minister’s approach, which has driven the Government into a corner, and because of her Brexiteer red lines. We are going to be in an impasse, and on that basis, the only way forward is to go back to the people for a people’s vote. Colleagues say that that denies the will of the people, but we now know what leave looks like. Two years ago, at the time of the referendum, we did not know that. We were presented with fantasy promises about what leave would look like, none of which has been delivered. The people therefore have the right to have the final say and to give their informed consent on whether this agreement should form the basis of our future relationship with Europe.

I say to those on the Government Front Bench that I will be voting against the agreement next week, but if, before the vote next Tuesday, the Prime Minister were to offer a people’s vote in the form of a final-say referendum, I would seriously consider voting for the motion on the basis of an amendment that would give us the referendum we are looking for. I do not think that the Government will do that, but it will be on the Prime Minister’s and the Government’s heads if they refuse to listen to the views of people in this House and refuse to understand that the people of this country want a final say. The polls are telling us that, and it is for this Parliament to listen to the people and go back to the people.

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[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). He and I disagree on answers to Brexit, but no one can doubt his passion for his community and the causes that he champions. I wish to make a brief contribution in that spirit of conciliatory debate.

I wish mainly to speak to amendment (p), which I have tabled along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). We hope that our amendment is the start of a conversation: a process to understand that there are various things wrong with the Prime Minister’s deal that mean that we are unlikely to be able to support it next Tuesday—things that will probably not be resolved by next Tuesday. But whatever the result on Tuesday, it is the start and not the end of a process.

We as a Parliament have to be honest and up front with ourselves about where we go after Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, we are not suddenly going to have a magic answer coming from the rejection of the deal. We will see people who ardently advocate leaving on WTO terms with no deal going into the same Lobby as those who ardently want a second referendum with a remain option, and to campaign for remain. I am sorry to burst their bubbles, but one half of that unlikely coalition will be very disappointed in whatever we get out of Brexit as a result of our votes in this place.

The grown-up response is to look at the cross-party group—it exists, unfortunately, mainly on the Back Benches, not the Front Benches—who want to find a way of getting through this that does the least economic damage to our country but respects and understands that those who voted leave did so not because they were duped by words on the side of a bus, or because they were not clever enough to understand the Facebook ads put towards them, but because they had deep-seated anxieties about the inequalities that exist in this country. The amendment would, I hope, start that conversation.

For me, as a Labour and Co-operative party member, and someone who has worked in the trade union movement, how we protect and enshrine workers’ rights in future is fundamental to the sort of country we want to be. A number of those rights have been derived from Europe, but we must be honest about the fact that a number of rights that Europe now holds up as a bastion of its good practice came from work done by the United Kingdom in the first place, by driving those changes through Europe and providing the bar that everybody else needs to reach.

We must protect those rights and ensure that we do not regress or water them down once we leave the European Union. Any new changes from Europe must be considered by this place, and once we have brought back sovereignty, we will choose whether to adopt them. My argument will be that we should adopt all such measures and continue in step with Europe, because in my opinion any change or improvement to environmental standards, consumer protections or workers’ rights is a good thing.

[Angela Smith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gareth Snell]

I am afraid I will not. Everyone else has had their time, so I will carry on.

It is important to find a mechanism that protects those rights, and does not kick the can down the road with another referendum, or simply add procedure and stop talking about the people. Too much of this debate—we saw this yesterday on both sides of the House with tedious and continual points of order—has been about a point of process that does not progress the debate further, or resolve the fundamental issues that are important to my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent, and those of hon. Members across the House.

At some point in this Parliament we must decide what we are for—not what we are against, or what we wish to rehash or reargue, but what we are for. I wish that the conversations I was privileged to have this week with Government and Opposition Front-Bench speakers had taken place two years ago. I wish that the Government and those on the Labour Front-Bench had got together after the general election to try to hash out some sort of plan. Such a plan would not have pleased everybody or given them what they wanted, but we need a pragmatic approach to find a way of healing the country, bringing forward the things we know are important, and delivering a Brexit referendum outcome that does not do economic damage to our country. We must ensure that people who voted leave, and those who voted remain, feel that they have a stake in the future of our country.

My frustration with this process is, and continues to be, that we appear to be moving away from a pragmatic middle and towards two extremes. Those who do not support a second referendum are labelled as hard Brexiteers who wish to sell their country down the river, and those—like many of my colleagues—who hold the principled position that we should have a second referendum are an affront to democracy. Neither of those things is true, but at some point we must face facts and understand that the country voted to leave—albeit marginally—and our job as parliamentarians is to work out how we take that forward and bring everybody together. The amendment that I have tabled is one way of achieving that unity. It by no means solves everything, and it will not remove a number of the concerns that I still have about the vote on Tuesday, but if we can use it as a starting point after that vote, I hope we will have achieved something better.