European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Kevin Brennan

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Sir David, thank you for calling me at this stage of the debate.

To be fair to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), I think she was chafing against the Act of Union, which, as she correctly described, established a unitary market. The Act of Union banned tariffs between Scotland and England and established the free movement of goods.

I commend the use of the word “trust” by the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), which he used regularly, but I question whether he is in fact doing much to promote trust, as this debate needs to do. He talked about heading into a constitutional crisis, but I think he did so to create a sense of distrust.

I was also disappointed when the hon. Gentleman questioned the motives of my hon. Friends who represent Scottish constituencies. One could suggest that people in glass houses should not throw stones. I do not know which part of the Labour party he represents, but they come in diverse characters these days. Is he in that part of the party that supports its leadership, or the part that is trying to get rid of it? Is he part of Momentum or against it? I do not know whether he is living in fear of deselection. The one thing we do know about him, however, is that he is subject to the Labour Whip. It is not unusual for members of a governing party to be subject to a single Whip, but I think he undervalued the highly significant speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton).

My hon. Friend made it clear that his support for the Government on this issue “should not and must not be taken as an acceptance of clause 11 as it stands.” That demonstrates the fact that, while my hon. Friends representing Scottish constituencies take the Conservative Whip, they demonstrate an independence of mind and work with their colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, whom I met recently on a visit to the Scottish Parliament, along with Scottish Conservative and Scottish National party Members, to discuss clause 11. My hon. Friend also made it clear that the legislative consent motions might not be granted for clause 11 as it stands.

We all accept that the Gina Miller case made it clear that the requirement for legislative consent motions in the devolved Parliaments would not effectively block the passage of the legislation in this House, but it has created some constitutional tension. My hon. Friend pointed out that the progress of the Bill is likely to be somewhat impeded by the absence of legislative consent motions from Holyrood and Cardiff, and from Northern Ireland if the Assembly is operating there. This is an important message. It demonstrates that the devolution that Labour said it was promoting when it gave us devolution has turned into a very different constitutional reality—

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

There was a referendum. It was the will of the people.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am sorry, I did not realise that I was saying anything particularly provocative—[Interruption.] Yes, there was a referendum, but the constitutional reality has turned into something much more federal in character than the proponents of the original legislation told us it would be.

I do not want to detain the Committee for long. I have chosen to speak in the debate because I am the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is looking at the relationships between the four Governments and Parliaments of the United Kingdom. We issued a report on inter-institutional relations earlier this year, in the previous Parliament, and we issued an interim report just last week on clause 11. That followed meetings that we held in Edinburgh, which will be followed by further meetings in Cardiff and Edinburgh, and if we can get to Northern Ireland, we will. What was striking about the meetings in Cardiff and Holyrood was how little this kind of interchange takes place, how slenderly we know other individuals in other Parliaments throughout the United Kingdom, and how there are no formal mechanisms for proper exchange between the four Parliaments of the United Kingdom. What a shortage that is!

This debate is less about leaving the European Union and more about devolution. It is about reconciling competing narratives of what devolution in the United Kingdom has come to mean, and about dealing with the lack of trust we have inherited from the present devolution settlement. The debate about clause 11 reflects that.

Usually, when devolved powers are going to be legislated for in this House, there is a great deal of discussion, large numbers of papers are produced in all parts of the United Kingdom and eventually, a piece of legislation emerges with a degree of consensus around it. This Bill emerged in much shorter order. We are told that there was very little discussion about the contents of clause 11. This underlines how, under strain, the reflex of our constitutional habits is not to consult. We in the United Kingdom Parliament, and those of us who support United Kingdom Governments, in the plural, have to recognise that there is a serious gap in our capability to discuss, explore, befriend and understand each other throughout the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

I hear the hon. Lady’s impatience, but we need to be more patient. We are not completing the consideration of this Bill this evening, and I am encouraged by the work done by the First Secretary of State, who chaired the last meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee and seemed to be drawing people together around some agreed principles for how joint frameworks might be approached. We all want to see that, so let us hope that that work will continue.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman was mildly critical of the Welsh First Minister for using rhetoric, but the rhetoric in that relationship came from Prime Minister David Cameron, who said that he wanted to follow a respect agenda but then failed even to have a meeting with the First Minister. May I also correct the hon. Gentleman on something? Ministers actually know each other very well at the moment and met extremely frequently prior to the introduction of this Bill. The problem is that UK Ministers ignored the advice that they were getting from both Scottish and Welsh Ministers, which was that something like clause 11 would be utterly unacceptable.

[Mr Jenkin]

The better we know each other, the more we will forgive each other for the rhetoric. That is what I found when my Committee went to Edinburgh on a semi-formal visit. The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) and I, as Chairman, had some open and frank discussions about some difficult issues with people I had never even met before, but we of course found that there was lots of common ground.

My next point is that there are no inter-parliamentary arrangements. We had to scrabble around for a bit of budget to do the trip. We found it in the end, but there needs to be a habit of people in this Parliament interacting much more openly and frequently with our counterparts in the other Parliaments. For example, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee have competences that are shared by Committees in different Parliaments. Those Committees should be meeting regularly together. Another suggestion worthy of consideration is that there should be some formal inter-parliamentary council in the United Kingdom to allow representatives of all four Parliaments to meet on a regular basis on some kind of neutral ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I must press on, but I will give way once more.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is an inter-parliamentary council? The British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which obviously includes the Government of the Republic of Ireland, provides an opportunity for parliamentarians to get to know each other. Perhaps it would be useful if, as the Chair of the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, he were to be a member of that Assembly. On today’s issues, does it not show that we have a Prime Minister who is in office but not in power and a DUP that is in power but not in office?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am endeavouring to raise the tone of this debate, and obviously I am not succeeding with certain Opposition Members.

My final suggestion goes to the heart of what clause 11 is about. I mentioned that, in previous discussions about devolution, there has always been a Silk commission or a Calman commission. There has always been a body that has deliberated, drawn out the more controversial politics and tried to make the discussion more objective. I wonder whether there is a case for the Government convening some kind of standing commission, under the scrutiny of a joint group of parliamentarians, to dispassionately look through the powers returning from the EU that intersect with the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies in order to determine what powers should lie where, both immediately as we leave the European Union and in the longer term.

At the moment, I am afraid my criticism of clause 11, as it stands, is that it does not give any assurance about process or much assurance about consultation, time limits or sun-setting. It just sets out this static proposal.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Kevin Brennan

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Thank you for the early warning, Mr Deputy Speaker.

It is my privilege to follow the Father of the House, who, in his now customary fashion, stilled this House with his wisdom. I think we should listen carefully to what he said and take on board the points he made. The only response I would make is this: he said that before this measure we were all equal, but I am afraid that that is not the case. The West Lothian question was originally coined in the 1970s, but it has been with us since the moment the devolution settlements were enacted in Wales and Scotland. The fact that it has been ignored, ignored and ignored, and amplified by further and further devolution to Scotland and Wales, and now to Northern Ireland, is the reason we are now having this debate: we have this one unresolved issue before us.

The principle of English votes for English laws is clearly right. As I hear the objections of those who supported the settlements in Scotland and Wales that they are now going to be excluded from the consideration of matters in England that affect their constituents, I recall that that is exactly the same argument that we made against the establishment of Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, because those things are now decided in those jurisdictions whether or not they have any effect on my constituents. We have an unequal House already, and the question is how to address that.

This debate follows the Prime Minister’s statement following the referendum. Since then, we have learned that doing this in this way is fantastically complicated. I draw the House’s attention to proposed Standing Order 83J(8)(b), which says that the Speaker

“shall disregard any provision inserted by the House of Lords which, in the Speaker’s opinion, has the sole objective of ensuring that Standing Order”—

blah, blah, blah. In other words, the Speaker is meant to adjudicate on what he thinks was behind the intention of an amendment passed by the House of Lords. We are in danger of putting the Speaker in an impossible position. I do not dismiss the risks of judicial review in these circumstances because we are inviting such controversy through these arrangements. However, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that this is a massive constitutional change and then read out a whole lot of statistics and say it will make no difference at all. He is in rather a difficult position.

We need to move on from this kind of debate to a different kind of discussion. We need far more dialogue and discussion, both in this Chamber and outside it, involving all the parties, Unionist and nationalist. We need it in public and in private, we need it in all parts of the United Kingdom, and we need to involve all four Parliaments and Assemblies. We need to choose language that seeks to build common ground, avoids divisive terms, does not prejudge outcomes, and makes each part of the United Kingdom feel valued, feel heard and feel understood. I fear that this debate is not going to do that.

The Constitutional Committee is launching an inquiry into the future of the United Kingdom.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Finances of the House of Commons

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Kevin Brennan

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

Privilege

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

I am not quite sure how the hon. Lady disagrees with me, to be perfectly honest. As I pointed out earlier, there is an Act of Parliament in place, the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871, which means that oaths can be taken before Select Committees, and any false evidence given under those oaths would be subject to prosecution under the Perjury Act 1911. If she would prefer to substitute a criminal offence of contempt of Parliament for that, I would be perfectly happy, but my point is that I feel uneasy that the only option available to us, because in the case before us an oath was not taken, is referral to the Committee on Standards and Privileges and the possibility of Parliament having to consider using that rarely used power of imprisonment.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will, because the hon. Gentleman is the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, but I will not take any further interventions.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I regret the fact that I have been in the Chamber for only part of the debate, but I heard the opening remarks. I feel it is appropriate for me to inform the House that the Liaison Committee has charged me with working with colleagues to investigate the whole question—it is very germane to this debate—of how Select Committee powers should be exercised.

Listening to these exchanges, I hear many matters that we have discussed and considered carefully, and I hope that the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee will have regard to the findings that I hope we will produce in short order, which should provide not only some guidance on how the Committee should conduct its investigation into the matter, but some guidance to the House on what the consequences of contempt should be and, in future, on whether we will need to avail ourselves of the courts or of our own procedures. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for emphasising that we are a House with a penal jurisdiction. That was a very important thing to put on the record.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee for that intervention. He knows that I was a member of the Committee for many years, briefly under his chairmanship and in previous years under the chairmanship of Tony Wright, when we also considered a number of these issues.

I have appeared, as the hon. Gentleman may and others will, both as a member of a Committee and as a witness, giving evidence to a Committee, and I have never understood why an oath, although it is implicit for a Member of Parliament, is not administered while giving evidence to a parliamentary Committee. I shall say nothing further, other than that I support the motion before the House.