European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I am dealing with this intervention, if you don’t mind.

What is significant about what has just been said is that it covers the article 50 agreement and it covers any future relationship. That is the first time we have heard this. It is a very significant position by the Government, and I am grateful that it has been made. It is very important that it has been made, because, on both sides of the House, there has been real anxiety that it should cover both bases.

Whether it goes far enough for the fall-back position, I will reflect on. Ideally, of course, one would want that covered, but I do not want to underplay the significance of what has just been said about the two deals, because this is the first time that clarity has been given; it is the first time the point has been conceded. It is an argument I have been making for three months, and it is very important that it has now been conceded: it is important for my colleagues, and I am sure it is important for people across the House.

Equally important is the timing—that the vote should be before the deal is concluded. The great fear was that there would be a concluded deal, which would make any vote in this House meaningless.

What I hope can now happen on the back of that concession is what I anticipate will happen in the European Parliament: by regularly reporting, updating the House and setting out the direction of travel, there can be agreement about progress, and what happens at the end will not come as a surprise to any of us in this House. But what has been said by the Minister is a very significant statement of the position, which meets in large part everything I have been driving at in new clause 1.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I welcome, as my hon. and learned Friend does, the concession from the Government Benches, but does he agree that, as well as the timing, it is the scope of that vote that will be absolutely vital? As the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) says, if we are faced with a choice between a hard Brexit and World Trade Organisation rules, that is no choice—the Government will have to go back and renegotiate.

[Keir Starmer]

At the moment, I agree that we should have as big a say as possible on all of this, but I do not want to understate what has been conceded in the last 10 minutes. I do take the point, but where we have made significant progress on scrutiny and accountability, we should recognise where we have got to.

--- Later in debate ---

The new clause deals with the issue raised at the beginning of the debate by the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry): what to do in the absence of any agreement. Either the Prime Minister’s negotiations will succeed in reaching a satisfactory conclusion or they will not. New clause 99 provides for both scenarios— legislation in the second as well as the first instance—so that Parliament is in control and is able to decide the basis for leaving. The new clause does not block Brexit; it does not slow down the negotiations. I voted to give the Bill a Second Reading, and my constituents are leave voters. This is about Parliament having sovereign control over the process.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for tabling and speaking to this new clause, which I think is important in view of the concerns expressed on all sides of the Committee about the so-called concession offered earlier by the Government Front-Bench team. Will my hon. Friend confirm that she will press her new clause to a vote?

[Helen Goodman]

I may wish to test the will of the Committee on this new clause when we reach the end of the debate.

I think most rational people would say that the new relationship is more important than the terms of withdrawal.