European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am happy that we have announced the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, which will follow in due course, to establish that legal basis, but for the moment I want to conclude this section of my remarks and move on to the amendments.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Baker]

Not just now. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!] I have given way quite a few times. I am now going to make some progress and get on to the amendments.

How we exercise this restored power in the future will be a choice for this place. The Government are clear that we want a smooth and orderly exit, achieved through continuity in the law at the point of exit, as we shall discuss at later stages. For now, I hope that all Members can agree that it is essential that clause 1 stand part of the Bill.

I now turn to today’s amendments. It is fitting that the first amendment debated in Committee is from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). He has got to the heart of the matter of when we leave the EU.

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[Mr Clarke]

No, let me finish my answer. We did try to tackle this criticism. What happened was that each of the 28 Ministers gave little speeches entirely designed for their national newspapers and television, and negotiations and discussion did not make much practical progress. When the public sessions were over, the Ministers went into private session to negotiate and reach agreement. I used to find that the best business at the European Council was usually done over lunch. I have attended more European Council meetings than most people have had hot dinners. The dinners and the lunches tended to be where reasonable understandings were made. There were very few votes, but Governments made it clear when they opposed anything. When the council was over, everyone gave a press conference. It was a slightly distressing habit, because some of the accounts of Ministers for the assembled national press did not bear a close resemblance to what they had been saying inside the Council. I regret to say that some British Ministers fell into that trap. British Ministers and Ministers of other nationalities who had fiercely advocated regulating inside the Council would hold a press conference describing their valiant efforts to block what had now come in, which confirms some of my hon. Friend’s criticisms.

The fact is that most British Governments made it clear what they opposed and what they did not. If a regulation was passed in their presence, they had to come back here to explain why they had gone along with it. Now, that is enough on the European Communities Act.

[Anna Soubry]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, notwithstanding what happened in the past, the reality is that we have had the referendum and 52% have voted to leave, so it is now imperative that we all come together as much as we can to get this right? We need to get the best deal and the best legislation to deliver that deal. Most importantly, we must return sovereignty to this Parliament, which should have its proper meaningful vote and say—deal or no deal.

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend leads me back to the serious core of this debate. It will be disastrous if we do not get it right on this important matter—the question how precisely the Bill sets out the timing of the departure that is going to take place.

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[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend, because this should be about the whole of Parliament, just as when we had the responsible debate on article 50. We know it is complex. It is our job and our responsibility in a democracy to deal with that complexity, and not just to abdicate our responsibility and hand it over to Ministers because, somehow, it is too difficult for us in Parliament to deal with. Of course it is not too difficult, and of course we are capable of dealing with the complex situation we face.

[Anna Soubry]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that we simply have not had the debates? That, of course, is not lost on the European Union, and it is also not lost on the people of this country. If we had those debates and if we had a real say on what Brexit will look like, we would begin to form a consensus and we would begin to bring people together across the United Kingdom in getting that good deal, reuniting so many divided communities, families and even friends.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the right hon. Lady. The truth is that the plans for our Brexit future have to be sustainable and have to command consent. The plans will have implications for many decades to come. They have to give us the chance to heal the Brexit divide across the country from the referendum, and they have to give Parliament the chance to debate the details and to have a proper, honest debate about what it will mean across the country.

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[Anna Soubry]

Oh move on, for God’s sake!

[Mr Jenkin]

I just put that forward as a problem. I believe as passionately in my case as my right hon. Friend does in hers. I sympathise and understand, but we have to accept that the country voted to leave. The one thing we know about how people voted—whether it was for this deal or that deal, whether they believed or disbelieved this or that piece of propaganda—is that they voted to leave the EU. That is the one thing it said on the ballot paper. I cannot understand how anyone can come to the House and say, “Well, there might be circumstances in which I will not respect that decision”, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) just did. That is what it amounts to.

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[Mr Jenkin]

My right hon. and learned Friend is a very able barrister, and he presents his case extremely well, but we really are into hypotheticals now. [Interruption.] It was my right hon. and learned Friend who used the word “hypothesis”.

The fact is that article 50 was passed by an Act of Parliament, the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, by 498 votes to 114 on Second Reading of the Bill that became that Act. All that these three amendments do is align this Bill with what the House voted for so overwhelmingly.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I will, but I have been told to take very little time.

[Anna Soubry]

I am very interested in my hon. Friend’s point about the fact that the date should have been in the Bill. It was an important point, so will he tell us why he did not table an amendment to insert the date?

[Mr Jenkin]

Would I be telling tales out of school if I said that I had thought about it, and discussed it? In fact, there was plenty of friendly discussion about it, but in the end the Government decided the matter for themselves, and I support the Government. I think that, given that we are in a slight minority in this Parliament and we have to deliver a very difficult Brexit and take part in difficult negotiations, it is incumbent on all Conservative Members to support the Government whenever we can.

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[Mr Jenkin]

I understand the words

“in accordance with any retained case law”

in clause 6(3)(a), but I do not understand the words

“any retained general principles of EU law”.

That suggests that the court must adopt a methodology which has been retained. What we want our courts to do is revert to what they used to do, which was interpreting statute without reference to the jurisprudential and teleological techniques adopted by the European Court.

[Anna Soubry]

No, no.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Notwithstanding the chuntering of my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—and she is a friend of mine, but she is quite wrong about these issues—I happen to agree with my hon. Friend. My point is, however, that it does not matter nearly so much which side of the argument we are on as that we should be clearly on one side or the other.

I feel sure that the reason clause 6(3)(a) says that the court should judge

“in accordance with…any retained general principles”

is exactly the reason that was cited by the former Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). As we see in clause 5(2), the purposive and teleological nature of the judgments, and the ability of those judgments to be used to quash even Acts of Parliament, should apply to the way in which our courts continue to interpret retained law. That, I think, is the intent of clause 6(3)(a).

This leaves us with the wide-open, yawning question of whether the Supreme Court should be making judgments when it is, we are told in clause 6(4)(a),

“not bound by any retained EU case law”,

but should nevertheless apply the general principles, and try to use the same purpose and teleological reasoning that the ECJ uses. We are not told, and the judges are not told. Far from creating legal certainty, clause 6 seems to me to create the largest possible degree of legal uncertainty. That is not a tolerable position. It is not one that the Government wish to achieve, and not one that the Opposition wish to achieve. I do not believe that anyone in the House of Commons wishes to achieve it. However, it is what the clause, as currently drafted, achieves.

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[Wes Streeting]

I am just as bewildered as my right hon. Friend. Many Members may not have seen it, but the front page of The Daily Telegraph tomorrow carries a splash entitled “The Brexit mutineers”. On that front page, Members will find people such as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and other Conservative Members who have done nothing else during the course of this debate but try to get the Government to a position whereby we leave the European Union in a way that provides the most clarity, the most certainty and the most stability, which is in the interests of our economy.

Actually, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) mentioned, the real Brexit mutineers are not people such as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe because, ironically, the Members on that front page are upholding the principles of the Florence speech. The real Brexit mutineers are members of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, and they are in the Department for Exiting the European Union and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Those people are the real Brexit mutineers, and they should be explaining why they are not prepared to back the clear positon set out by their own Prime Minister.

[Anna Soubry]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that what he describes is a blatant piece of bullying that goes to the very heart of democracy? None of the people who have been named—I take it as a badge of honour—want to delay or thwart Brexit; we just want a good Brexit that works for everybody in our country. That is not a lot to ask for in a democracy.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Lady. I know that she is not someone to be pushed around. In fact, when I looked at the front page of The Daily Telegraph, I saw a whole range of principled Conservative politicians with whom I have a number of disagreements, but I look to them as distinguished parliamentarians who always act in what they believe to be the best interests of their constituents and their country.

That brings me to the central challenge at this point in the Brexit negotiations. Manufacturing firms with supply chains in the European Union are having to make decisions now, before Christmas, about jobs and activity and about whether to renew contracts or sign new ones. The clear message from financial services and professional services, the concerns of which the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has attempted to address through his amendments, and from other leading sectors of our economy is that unless there is a clear sense of direction and some reassurance about the rules of the transition period and how it will operate, they will be forced to activate contingency plans as early as now and before Christmas, but certainly into the first quarter of 2018. The clock is ticking, and time is running out. In muddying the waters during the course of today’s debate, Ministers have done nothing at all to reassure businesses that are hovering over activating their contingency plans.