European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right in one respect: that is clear Government policy. That is, in fact, the decision that was taken by the British people last year. They wanted to leave the European Union, which means leaving the single market and leaving the customs union. That point is clear. I know it is confusing for Labour Members, because their deputy leader appears to have a different view from the rest of the party.

Let me make some further progress after that rather silly intervention. The Bill also contains a limited power to implement the withdrawal agreement by statutory instrument if that proves necessary.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davis]

In a moment.

The Government’s aspiration is to agree a new deep and special partnership with the European Union. Under the article 50 process, we are negotiating a withdrawal agreement with the European Union. Provisions of that agreement will need to be implemented in domestic law, and some of that will need to be done before exit day. Given the timetable set by article 50, it is prudent to take this power now so that we are ready, if necessary, to move quickly to implement aspects of an agreement in domestic law. That will be particularly important if the negotiations conclude late in the two-year period. This power will help to ensure that the UK Government and devolved Administrations can implement the outcome of the negotiations. The power is limited; it will be available only until exit day, at which point it will expire. It is aimed at making the legislative changes that absolutely need to be in place for day one of exit to enable an orderly withdrawal from the European Union.

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[Mr Davis]

Forgive me; I will make some progress. The exact use of the power will, of course, depend on the contents of the withdrawal agreement. For example, a power could, depending on what the withdrawal agreement says, be used to clarify the status of UK cases at the CJEU that started before exit but will not yet be concluded on exit day. It could also be used, for example, to enable regulatory approval for UK products that was pending at the point of exit. It will align with the proposals set out this summer in the UK’s position paper on continuity in the availability of goods in the EU and the UK. Those sorts of fairly technical but important issues need to be capable of being changed.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davis]

I will give way in one second to my right hon. Friend.

We have already committed to bringing forward a motion on the final agreement to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it is concluded. That vote is in addition to Parliament’s scrutiny of any statutory instruments that we propose under these powers. It is also in addition to the enormous amount of debate and scrutiny that will be applied to the primary legislation, which will cover each and every major policy change relating to our exit from the European Union. Parliament will therefore be fully involved in taking forward a withdrawal agreement.

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way.

“One of the most offensive kinds of provision that appear in our domestic legislation is the Henry VIII clause, as we call it.”—[Official Report, 16 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 179WH.]

Those are not my words, but the very wise ones of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) in 2013. Long-standing, real concerns about statutory instruments have been expressed for many years by Members on the Government Benches.

To allay those concerns, will the Secretary of State look at what is called the triaging of the proposed statutory instruments? Many thousands of them will be completely uncontroversial and could be dealt with very quickly and efficiently, but those that really must be considered fully in this Chamber—in this place—could be so considered if we had triaging. Will my right hon. Friend please agree to look at that principle? It will solve many of the difficulties with the Bill across all these Benches.

[Mr Davis]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her suggestion. There will not be many thousands of statutory instruments, but between 800 and 1,000. The estimate has come down from several thousand because we have taken out much of the most serious legislation to put into other primary legislation. I will happily talk to her about mechanisms for making sure this is a fully democratic and open process. I will talk to her about it, and let us come back to that.

[Anna Soubry]

In the Bill.

[Mr Davis]

Well, I will talk to her about it during the Bill process, and about possibly changing—

[Anna Soubry]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

No. If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I am trying to hold back from taking too many interventions. I will discuss that with her, and we will look at possible amendments.

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[Keir Starmer]

I will make this point and then give way.

Given that the clause is drawn so widely, one would expect an enhanced procedure or some other safeguards—surely not just ordinary old delegated legislation.

[Anna Soubry]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will make this point and then give way to several hon. Members.

What are the procedures? Are they enhanced? No. The opposite. Part 2 of schedule 7 deals with clause 9. It makes it clear that unless the delegated legislation creates a public authority, or the function of a public authority, affects a criminal offence or affects a power to make legislation, it is to be dealt with by—what? The negative procedure for statutory instruments, which means the least possible scrutiny: it means that the widest possible power, with no safeguards, will be channelled into the level of least scrutiny.

That is absolutely extraordinary. Let us be clear about what it means, because I am sure that the Secretary of State and others will say that notwithstanding the number of statutory instruments for which the schedule provides, they can be called up and annulled, and Parliament will have its say. I looked up the last time a negative-procedure statutory instrument had been annulled in the House, and it was 38 years ago. I do not know how many Members have been in the House for 38 years, but many of us will not have had that opportunity. So much for “taking back control”.

There is no point in the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister saying, “We would not use these powers: take our assurance.” If they would not use them, they are unnecessary, and if they are unnecessary they should not be put before the House for approval today.

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[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Anna Soubry]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way to both the Members who have been trying to intervene.

[Anna Soubry]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman believe that under clause 9, what is being called “the divorce bill”—the amount of money that we may have to pay to the European Union when we leave—could be agreed by a Minister, or by the Government, without this place having any say in the amount that was paid?

[Keir Starmer]

If it did not come under clause 9, it would certainly come under clause 17.

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[Anna Soubry]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the existing Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments could be that very body to do this exact work of triaging and sifting?

[Hilary Benn]

That would be one possibility. I hope that the Government will listen to all these suggestions and come forward with a proposal. I welcome what the Secretary of State said in response to my point about the relationship between Parliament voting on the withdrawal agreement and the exercise of the powers under clause 9. He was kind enough to say it was a logical point, so will he reflect on putting it in the Bill?

On how EU principles will be incorporated into our law and interpreted, I agree absolutely with the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) about the charter of fundamental rights: it needs to be brought across into our law not least because, as we have heard, the Secretary of State relied on it in the case that he brought. The same argument applies to the environmental principles that were set out in the Lisbon treaty. If Members look at the explanatory memorandum, they will see that it has an illustrative list of directly effective rights that derive from EU treaties that the Government say they intend to bring across under clause 4. However, it does not include the provisions of article 191 of the Lisbon treaty, which cover environmental principles and protection, and that will need to be remedied.

Finally, I want to turn to the state of the negotiations, which will have a huge impact on the way in which the Bill is used. The Secretary of State told Andrew Marr last Sunday that this is

“the most complex negotiation probably ever, but certainly in modern times.”

He is of course right, which raises the question: why do ministers, I am sorry to say, still pretend that a comprehensive relationship can now be negotiated in the 10 and a half months that now remain? Here we are, 15 months after the referendum and six months on from the triggering of article 50, and, as we know from the Secretary of State’s statement on Tuesday, the Government have not yet sorted out the money, citizens’ rights or Northern Ireland.

Michel Barnier has been absolutely clear that the negotiations must be completed in 10 and a bit months’ time, so that everyone involved can look at the deal. We have to take a view, as do other bodies such as the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The Government must now have realised that it was never going to be possible to negotiate a special bespoke deal that will cover all the issues that need to be addressed. Given that there will inevitably be many outstanding issues come the end of the talks in October 2018, and given that leaving without a deal would mean falling off a cliff edge, with all the disastrous consequences for the British economy, surely it is now plain that we must have transitional arrangements and that they will have to involve staying in the customs union and the single market for a period if we want to avoid the kind of disruption that businesses have repeatedly warned the Government about.

I realise that this self-evident truth will come as a shock and a bitter disappointment to some people. I do not know how Ministers will break it to them—presumably, gently bit by bit—but it will have to happen because only by doing this will we as a nation have the chance and the time to negotiate a comprehensive free trade and market access agreement that our businesses want and on which our economic future depends.

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[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the new hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) on an excellent and confident maiden speech. I was sorry to hear about the online abuse that she has already experienced but pleased to hear about the support she has received. She talked about unity and togetherness, and she might have found the House at a challenging time for such things, but we will hopefully find a way through these debates. Her predecessor was a doughty champion of the armed forces, about which he spoke often in this House.

So it starts—the real process for getting us out of the European Union. The Bill is needed. It is needed legally to disentangle us and to make many people really believe that we are actually going to leave the European Union, something that I have not had difficulty believing. Like many colleagues who share my views, I have been clear since 24 June 2016 that it was going to happen because, as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, we believe in democracy in this House of Commons. However, the Bill contains two major ironies. First, as was said earlier, it is not a repeal Bill but a reintroduction Bill, and those who wanted to get away from EU law now seek to bring it all over here. Secondly, those who wanted to take back control showed no concerns about the amount of Executive power that will be wielded as a result of the Bill until a number of the rest of us started to highlight such issues, and they now claim to be happy with the amendments that might be discussed in Committee.

In the limited time available, I want to draw attention to two parts of the Bill that have already been discussed. It is worth putting them on the record again so that Ministers are in no doubt about the parts of the Bill that they are going to have to discuss with colleagues throughout the House and agree amendments to if they want the Bill to pass. The first is the Henry VIII powers in clause 9, which could theoretically bite on the Bill itself and allow Ministers to amend the very legislation that the House is now debating and being asked to assent to. We might ask why we are going through the troublesome and time-consuming business of getting the Bill into shape when Ministers can use clause 9 to reverse the changes they dislike with speed, efficiency and a minimum of parliamentary oversight. The Secretary of State’s response to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Chairman of the Exiting the European Union Committee, about the fact that the withdrawal agreement should not be implemented until this House has had its say, is incredibly important.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my right hon. Friend advise ardent leavers, possibly those on the Government Benches, that there is a real danger that the amount of money that might be paid to the European Union by way of what we call this divorce bill could be decided by the Government without report or redress in this place by virtue of clause 9?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. She is absolutely right. As a former EU budget Minister, I can say that money will be paid to the European Union, and I disagree fundamentally with the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). As one of our MEPs, Dan Hannan, said, this country pays what it owes. We have made financial commitments to the European Union until 2020, and we should pay what we owe. As the Secretary of State has said previously, we may well even decide to pay more towards some elements in order to have access to them, in particular Horizon 2020 and so on.

The second issue is the power for the Ministers to specify the date of the exit day, which will be subject to no parliamentary scrutiny procedure whatsoever. Interestingly, the Secretary of State started his remarks by saying that the Bill does not take us out of the European Union. I did think about intervening, but it was very early in his remarks and I thought that he might clarify things. The difficulty with what he says is that clause 1 baldly states:

“The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day.”

If the 1972 Act is repealed, the UK leaves the European Union, so if this Bill is passed and its provisions are enacted, we will leave the European Union. Article 50 is a process for giving notice to start the discussions. I am afraid that the Secretary of State was not correct about that.

Why does scrutiny of statutory instruments matter so much? I suspect that Members have been having discussions with businesses and others who rely on EU law to go about what they do, and they are telling us very clearly that what will make their life easier and a transition possible is regulatory convergence, which means sticking to the regulations and rules we have been following for years, whether we are talking about pharmaceutical companies, financial services companies, food exporters, farmers, universities or many other different sectors.

To those who seek to say that we have been rule takers, not rule makers, I say that successive Ministers, including me, have sat at the European Council table and had those debates. The point is that if we want to have regulatory convergence after March 2019, which is what we are hearing, we will have to take the rules without having had any influence on them.

Finally, I am a proud parliamentarian, and the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Canterbury has just reminded me of how special it is to be elected to this place. Parliamentary scrutiny is not an affront to democracy; it is its very essence. The true saboteurs of Brexit are those who would sanction the exclusion of Parliament from this process. The debate on this Bill has only just started.

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[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), but let me also say how much I agree with so many of the comments in Conservative Members’ speeches about the folly of the Opposition’s decision to oppose the Bill at this stage. Opposition Members will vote against it without seeing that it actually has to be done. They say it has to be done, and indeed, it does have to be done: we must transfer all the regulations, directives, laws and so on. There are, as we all agree, many faults in the Bill, but Opposition Members will be letting down many of the people in their own constituencies who voted leave, and who will see this for the playing politics that it undoubtedly is.

I fully endorse and totally adopt all the contents of the speeches of my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and for Newbury (Richard Benyon). I very much note the outbreak of unity on the Government Benches, and indeed across the House as well. There have been some excellent speeches, and some very good points have been made by right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches. Notably, I have also taken into account the wise words of my right hon. Friends the Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and for Clwyd West (Mr Jones).

There is growing concern about the Bill, and my biggest concern is the power grab, as I would put it, by Ministers—the transfer of powers to Ministers with very little, if any, influence for debate in the Chamber and decision making in this place.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Anna Soubry]

I will in a moment.

I want to thank my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, who have clearly already listened to the many concerns expressed by Government Members. I and others will be having a meeting with the Prime Minister, and I look forward to that. I also look forward, in due course, to some serious Government amendments being tabled, or perhaps the adoption of amendments that will no doubt be tabled by right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches.

As the House will know, I share the real concerns about clause 9. Frankly, I think it should simply be withdrawn. Clause 17 is certainly open, if not to withdrawal, at least to some serious, considerable and fundamental amendments. I am concerned about the delegated legislation for the reasons I have outlined in interventions and for those given in other Members’ excellent speeches. As I have said, I think we can find other mechanisms for delivering the delegated legislation while making sure that we scrutinise it properly. We have existing Committees that we can either strengthen or increase in size so that we can filter consideration out through so-called triaging. That is probably an appalling abuse of the word, but we all know what it means. It is a good idea, and it is gaining much support among Government Members as well as Opposition Members.

May I just say something that I think needs to be said? I say this to all the perfectly reasonable and sensible people, not just those in my constituency of Broxtowe, but the many millions throughout this country who voted leave on 23 June 2016. If anybody tells you that people like me are doing everything we can—in scrutinising legislation, tabling amendments and perhaps even voting for them—to thwart the will of the people, they are telling you lies. I am not going to put up with it any longer, because this needs to be said. We are leaving the EU. Even my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe accepts that we are leaving the EU. Some of us voted for doing that by triggering article 50, flying in the face of everything we have ever believed in, because we promised our electors that we would honour the result, and that is what we are going to do.

I would say to the millions who voted leave: you should not just question the motives of those who tell you that people like me want to thwart your decision, but look at the other things they promised you before 23 June 2016. They told you it would be this great opportunity to get rid of all the rules and regulations, the miles of red tape and all the things that were strangling British business and the economy, but we are going to take those very same things and place them lock, stock and barrel into substantive British law. They told you that you would get an extra £350 million for the NHS, and you will not. They told you that you would take back control, but if this Bill is not amended, you can forget that, because the people will not be taking back control in this place, but giving it to Ministers. That may not just be a Conservative Government; it could—God forbid—be a Labour Government led by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Finally, they told you it would all be so easy, and as you now know, it is not just challenging but a blooming nightmare. However, we will do our best to deliver it, and if it all goes wrong, do not forget that we will be here to clear up the mess, and do not forget who misled you and told you lies before 23 June 2016.