New Partnership with the EU

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

There is always an arbitration clause in any trade deal, but who carries out the arbitration forms part of the deal. That is what we will agree, and I think it is incredibly unlikely that it will be the European Court of Justice.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

May I suggest to the Secretary of State that his Government’s threat to turn Britain into a corporate tax haven floating off the edge of Europe is not what people voted for on 23 June, and that people also did not vote to wreck our environmental protections? Will the Government therefore introduce a new environmental protection Bill, as advocated by the Environmental Audit Committee, so that vital safeguards for nature are neither quietly dropped through secondary legislation, nor bargained away in the rush to conclude new trade deals, for example with the US?

[Mr Davis]

The way in which we have—very clearly, I think—structured this with the great repeal Bill is so that all existing protections in law will be put into British law, and anything thereafter will be for this Parliament to decide, which has not been true for about 40 years.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that leaving the EU is the defining issue facing the UK; notes the resolution on parliamentary scrutiny of the UK leaving the EU agreed by the House on 12 October 2016; recognises that it is Parliament’s responsibility to properly scrutinise the Government while respecting the decision of the British people to leave the European Union; confirms that there should be no disclosure of material that could be reasonably judged to damage the UK in any negotiations to depart from the European Union after Article 50 has been triggered; and calls on the Prime Minister to commit to publishing the Government’s plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked.

For months, Labour has been pressing the Prime Minister and the Government to set out their plan for Brexit. For months, the Prime Minister and a succession of Ministers have refused to do so, either in writing or from the Dispatch Box. Facing defeat on today’s motion, the Government have now caved in—last-minute amendments tell their own story and everybody knows it. This is a victory for common sense. I thank those from various Opposition parties who backed putting pressure on the Government to disclose their plan, and I thank the Conservative Members who, rightly, want to see far more detail about the approach their Front Benchers are intending to take.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman acknowledge that, by accepting the Government’s amendment to his otherwise very good motion, he is falling into a Tory trap of binding his party to supporting the invoking of article 50 by March, which is an unrealistic and increasingly arbitrary date?

[Mr Speaker]

Before the hon. and learned Gentleman responds, may I politely say that the intervention is absolutely legitimate but this is a helpful guide: if Members who are hoping to speak intervene more than once, in accordance with very long-standing practice they will be relegated on the list? That is only fair if I am to try to secure equal opportunities for all Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I welcome the motion tabled by the official Opposition and I had been planning to vote to support it. However, their adoption of the Government amendment changes things in two key ways. I regret that the Labour leadership appears to be walking into the Tories’ trap: they are insisting that, in return for accepting Labour’s motion, it votes to invoke article 50 by March. Introducing such a tight timetable, based on an arbitrary deadline, undermines the principle that this is about getting the best possible deal for Britain. That is particularly pertinent given that serious negotiations will inevitably not start until autumn next year—after French and German elections. We will therefore effectively lose about six months if we stick to the timetable set out in the amendment.

To say the Labour strategy of pushing the Government to produce a plan worthy of the name by the end of January—in effect only four to six weeks away—is ambitious would be to take understatement to new levels. Any plan needs to be more than a summary of the banalities that the Government have been repeating until now about the so-called “best possible deal.” We should have been demanding a full-blown White Paper. That is why I cannot support the Government-amended motion, which threatens to throw Britain off the Brexit cliff edge, with a vague plan at best and within a timeframe that simply is not compatible with developing any sort of coherent strategy.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that some things we are voting on tonight totally disregard respect for the devolved Administrations?

[Caroline Lucas]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady’s point about the devolved Administrations. Her party has put it clearly on the record and I am grateful for that.

I want to tackle head on the accusation that voting against this amended motion, or even being prepared to vote against triggering article 50, equates to disregarding the will of the British people. This is not about challenging the result of the referendum, which of course I accept, but it is about saying that we need to know what kind of Brexit the Government are planning to negotiate. As many others have said, it is not about the issue of departure, but about destination. We are no clearer about that now than we were three or four hours earlier. That is why I believe it would be irresponsible to vote to throw the country into the potential nightmare of leaving the EU within two years without knowing what might be in the plan and what kind of plan it is. To do so without any solid proposals for an interim deal after two years of negotiation would be particularly reckless.

Turning to the content of the negotiating position, I wish specifically to argue for an outcome that maintains strong social and environmental regulation, and free movement and membership of the single market, because I believe that that is what is best for Britain and for my constituency in Brighton, where so many businesses and the two universities have been talking to me about the uncertainty they believe is being engendered by the current proposals. On the environment, the referendum was not a mandate to weaken our standards on air, water or wildlife. A poll in August found that 83% of the public think that laws protecting wildlife should remain as strong as they are now or be made tougher following our departure from the EU. The environment must not, in any way, be the price we pay for any deal struck with the EU over membership of the single market. In the Environmental Audit Committee last month, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggested that about a third of EU environment legislation will not be carried over. That is wholly unacceptable and indicates that the Government are not prepared to fight for the UK to remain part of EU-wide action on tackling climate change, on reducing the use of dangerous chemicals or on animal welfare standards. Any plan must set out how the Prime Minister intends to reflect the cross-border nature of the environmental challenges.

[Geraint Davies]

Is the hon. Lady concerned, as I am, that 40,000 people a year are dying of diesel pollution in Britain and we may get rid of the EU monitoring standards?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just point out to the hon. Gentleman that he has just spoken and he is going to prevent other people from speaking, which is discourteous?

[Caroline Lucas]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In broad terms, I agree with the point the hon. Gentleman is making about air pollution, because the EU is providing the best bulwark against the reduction of air pollution standards in this country.

Let me move on to talk about freedom of movement, as, sadly, few MPs seem prepared to defend it any longer. It is especially sad and worrying that the leadership of the official Opposition are in danger of ceding the terms of this debate to the right. I readily accept that it is easy to blame free movement when the benefits have been enjoyed so unevenly. There are people in my city of Brighton and Hove who have not visited Brighton seafront because they cannot afford to get there. For them, the idea of being able to live, work or study in another country is about as likely as travelling to the moon, but that reality does not justify denying them the right to free movement in the future. On the contrary, it should mean fighting tooth and nail for a Europe of equals, in which the hard-won rights enshrined in EU law do not just exist in the statute books as perks for the privileged, but are genuinely available to all EU citizens. We should have, and we deserve to have, successful policies to redistribute wealth fairly and to create real opportunities for all.

There is an enormous task ahead of us to reunite our country, and it will be made all the more difficult by further economic hardship of the kind that we will have with a hard Brexit which does not have us as part of the single market and does not have free movement. So we absolutely need to know what the plan is going to look like. The justifiable anger and mistrust felt by those who voted leave will only deepen if the many promises made turn out not even to be worth the red bus they were written on. We need to be honest about how people are feeling and why they feel the way they do. We do not need blindly to follow the damaging, blame-laden rhetoric that is being used to distract from the failure of neo-liberal economics to provide the basic needs of all members of our society. Immigration has been systematically and cynically scapegoated for everything, when in fact what is at the heart of this is decades of not investing in our public services. That is what—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Matt Warman is the next speaker. We have eight would-be contributors and I would like to accommodate them all, so the time limit will have to be reduced, with immediate effect, to three minutes. Colleagues are absolutely welcome to intervene on each other, but if they do, somebody will not get in.

Article 50

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I hear what my right hon. Friend says, and I have to say I am very tempted, but what I also have to say is that this whole issue is a matter of extreme importance, and we do have to complete the test in the courts that is necessary to establish the law.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

In 2010, responding to a House of Lords constitutional affairs report, the Government Minister asserted:

“Under the UK’s constitutional arrangements Parliament must be responsible for deciding whether or not to take action in response to a referendum result.”

Can the Secretary of State explain what has happened since 2010 to change the Government’s view on that?

[Mr Davis]

What happened in 2015 was that the Government Minister responsible, the Foreign Secretary, said to the House of Commons that this gives the decision to the British people—full stop, no ifs, no buts. The Government then published a number of documents saying the same thing over and over again. If we betray the people by not responding to that properly, I think it will be very difficult to ever make a referendum matter again.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that leaving the EU is the defining issue facing the UK; believes that there should be a full and transparent debate on the Government’s plan for leaving the EU; and calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that this House is able properly to scrutinise that plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked.

I will start with something I think we can all agree on. The decisions that will be taken by the Government over the next few months and years in relation to exiting the EU will have profound implications for the future of this country, its economy, its people and its place in the world. We have probably not seen a set of such significant decisions since the end of the second world war. Today’s debate is about the proper role of Parliament, and this House in particular, throughout that process. It is about scrutiny and accountability.

There was one question on the ballot paper on 23 June:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

The majority of those voting voted to leave. That result has to be accepted and respected, notwithstanding the fact that many of us, including myself, campaigned for remain. However, that is not the end of the matter. The next question, and one that is increasingly pressing, is: on what terms should we leave the EU? That question was not on the ballot paper. Nor was it addressed in the Conservative party’s 2015 manifesto—there was no plan B in the event of the referendum concluding with a leave vote. Nor did the Prime Minister set out her terms for Brexit before assuming office, because of the nature of the exercise by which she assumed that office. Nor do we have a White Paper setting out the proposed terms. Instead, hiding under the cloak of the prerogative, the Secretary of State has, until now, declined to give the House a meaningful role in scrutinising the Government’s opening terms for negotiations, and that matters.

I am glad to see that a Government amendment—amendment (b)—has been tabled. This implies that the Government are taking a step in the right direction towards scrutiny.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am sure that, like me, the hon. and learned Gentleman welcomes the half U-turn from the Government, allowing a debate before article 50 is invoked, but what about an actual vote? I am concerned that the amendment does not mention a vote in this House before article 50 is triggered, and that is crucial.

[Keir Starmer]

I will come on to the important question of a vote, but let us take one step at a time.

There is scrutiny and there is accountability. The first question is whether the Secretary of State is prepared to put the plans before the House so that Members can see them and debate them. The next question is what the House can do about them, and that is a matter of accountability. I hope that amendment (b) indicates that the Government will go further down the route of scrutiny than they have been prepared to do so far. If they are, I will not crow about it, because it is the right thing to do and it is in the national interest. We all have a duty to ensure that we get the right result for the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

I will make some progress and give way again in a moment.

I return to the Opposition’s motion. They say that there should be

“a full and transparent debate on the Government’s plan for leaving the EU”.

I agree. At the same time, I am sure that we can all agree that nothing should be done to compromise the national interest in the negotiation to come; I think the shadow Secretary of State said that in his opening speech.

I could list the 100 questions that we have answered, the oral statements, the appearances before Select Committees; the House knows all that. As a Department, we are not being backward in appearing in front of the House. The House may not be overwhelmed with the detail of the answers yet—that is hardly surprising: we are only a few weeks into the process and six months away from the end of it. The simple truth is that we are appearing regularly in front of the House and seeking to give as much as we can.

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. Gentleman said a moment ago that the great repeal Bill will give us some certainty, so may I ask him for certainty on environmental legislation in particular? Even when EU legislation has been enshrined in UK law, we need to know, first, the extent to which any future changes to environmental safeguards will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and vote; and, secondly, what kind of accountability mechanisms he imagines will be in place. Once we are out of the EU, we lose access to the European Court of Justice and the Commission. How will that environmental legislation become judiciable?

[Mr Davis]

The legislation is judiciable and subject to amendment in this House. It will be entirely subject to the will of the House. Any Government seeking to alter it will have to get the permission of the House through a vote in the House. That is very plain. It will also be under the jurisdiction of the British courts; that is the other aspect that the hon. Lady asked about.

EU Referendum Rules

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian Blackford]

It is fair to say that those on the Brexit side failed to put across exactly what Brexit means. The week after the Brexit result, the Chancellor—then the Foreign Secretary—said that the Government have no plan. That is the difficulty that the hon. Lady is referring to. When the Prime Minister says “Brexit means Brexit”, what does that mean? There has not been an explanation of exactly what it means.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

When we talk about a second referendum, it is important to be clear about whether we are talking about simply rerunning the old referendum, which I am sure no one is suggesting—that would absolutely undermine democracy—or about a referendum on the terms of any new deal. That is absolutely crucial. In that context, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should take into account the conclusions of the Electoral Reform Society, which has done a report on the myths, misinformation and downright lies in the previous referendum, and says that we have got to do things better next time?

[Ian Blackford]

I absolutely agree. The Electoral Reform Society talked about many of the good things in the referendum in Scotland in 2014—it is often described as a gold standard—such as the fact that we had a long referendum campaign and that people were able to make a judgment based on the facts. That is a reasonable point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) because he made some very powerful points.

The petition that we are discussing has more than 4 million signatures. To me at least, it is an understandable expression of pain and anger in response to a bitterly fought EU referendum campaign that has left this country, as the hon. Gentleman said, deeply divided. Pain and anger is certainly felt in my constituency of Brighton, Pavilion. It had one of the highest rates of people voting to remain—about 69%—and one of the highest numbers of people signing this petition: about 19,500 at the last count. But however much many of us might wish the outcome of the referendum had been different—I certainly do—and however much we might argue that the level of lies and misinformation during the campaign undermines the legitimacy of the outcome, I agree with those who have said clearly that trying to impose a retrospective threshold and in effect rerun the referendum is bad politics and worse democracy. Indeed, what better way would there be to reinforce the perception that the so-called metropolitan elites care nothing for those in more distant and perhaps disconnected communities than simply ignoring everything that they have said?

Instead, the anger and alienation felt by many who voted leave needs urgently to be addressed. For many, it was a howl of rage against exclusion and powerlessness. Their voices have to be heard, not just in the referendum but all year round. A crucial way to ensure that is to crack open the current political system, which encourages the main parties to listen almost exclusively to swing voters in marginal seats at general elections and ignore everybody else. If we are to set about healing the deep divisions in society that the referendum has laid bare, one task must be urgently to build a more representative, inclusive democracy, and that can be brought about only through electoral reform. If the Brexit campaigners were serious about giving people back control, a good place to start would be democratic control. A political system that delivers government on the basis of just 24% of the eligible vote clearly does not give us that.

Brexit means Brexit, so we are told. I believe that we need a second referendum on the terms of any Brexit deal because we have absolutely no idea what is on the other side of the door marked Brexit. We might have chosen to open that door, but even now, two months after the vote, we have no idea—not even the dimmest shape—of what on earth is on the other side.

The Government’s paper on alternatives to EU membership gave four options. The BBC lists five. The Centre for European Reform sets out seven. Which of those was voted for by those voting leave? None of them. How many will we end up with? Well, one of them. What parliamentary or, indeed, public scrutiny have we had of an actual plan to leave the EU? Absolutely none because there was not one and there is not one. That is why I strongly support not just maximum parliamentary scrutiny but calls for a further referendum on the terms of Brexit once they are clear, and on our future relationship with the EU, so that we can all assess what that looks like in the real world. During the campaign, when pressed on the alternative to EU membership, leave campaigners would squeal that they could not possibly be expected to answer those questions because they were not a Government in waiting, but rather they wanted the British people to be in control. What would fulfil that promise more thoroughly than ensuring that the public get the opportunity to cast a positive vote for what a potential Brexit looks like, in addition to their vote against remaining part of the EU?

Before a referendum on the terms of Brexit takes place, lessons must be learned and the Government need to take a long hard look at the Electoral Reform Society report called “Doing referendums differently”. Let me give just a few quotes from it. It says:

“There were glaring democratic deficiencies in the run-up to the vote, with previously unreleased polling showing that far too many people felt they were ill-informed about the issues…the top-down, personality-based nature of the debate failed to address major policies and subjects, leaving the public in the dark…misleading claims could be made with impunity.”

The Electoral Reform Society calls for

“a root and branch review of referendums, learning the lessons of the EU campaign to make sure the mistakes that were made in terms of regulation, tone and conduct are never repeated.”

I echo that call, because it is clear that there was so much misinformation; yes, it was on all sides, but I believe that on the leave side it was particularly egregious. We were told that we could end freedom of movement and keep full access to the single market. We were told that we could continue to benefit from being part of the single market, yet somehow take back control, make all our rules here in the UK and cease having to follow EU rules. Then there was the famous £350 million a week for the NHS; the truth is that we will not have any extra money, let alone an amount anywhere near the lie of all lies that disgraced the side of a perfectly innocent bus for months on end.

[Sir David Amess in the Chair]

[Mr Lilley]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the EU has free trade agreements with some 50 countries, only three of which have in return granted free movement of labour and made a contribution to the EU because their Governments were planning to enter the EU? The other 47 have free trade agreements with no free movement and no contribution. Why should we be different?

[Caroline Lucas]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a wealth of difference between free trade and being part of the single market? He has talked at length about tariff barriers. The big issue about membership of the WTO is non-tariff barriers. He really should keep up with where the debate is at. That is where it is at right now. All this focus on tariffs was a very clever red herring for people who do not know about trade agreements, but I have actually studied them, I have worked on them for years, and I can tell him that there is a wealth of difference between trade agreements and membership of the single market. That was yet another lie perpetrated during the referendum campaign.

We need people to be given a say and to have real control over the terms of any Brexit deal. We need maximum public engagement and parliamentary scrutiny. That means that the Government must set out their plan for what they want Brexit to look like. They need to present that to the people in an early general election to secure a mandate that currently they do not have, then they need to ensure full and proper parliamentary debate and scrutiny, and only then allow MPs to vote on whether to invoke article 50 and set in train the formal process of leaving, so that we know what direction that train is going in. In addition, we should argue for wider public engagement, giving opportunities for meaningful input throughout the process, as well as maximising input from civil society organisations, NGOs, charities, businesses, local authorities and other stakeholders. To claim that we want to take back control of the UK’s future, but refuse measures to maximise parliamentary and public scrutiny, is unforgiveable, contradictory and harmful.

The Greens argued during the referendum campaign that outside the EU there is a very real danger that the UK will seek to compete with other countries by weakening social and environmental protections and by becoming, in effect, a tax haven. That is still the case. In the debate running up to a second referendum on the terms of a Brexit, some of the key issues that we will want to keep in mind, in terms of how we might vote in that second referendum, are, for example, whether we can maintain freedom of movement and full rights of EU citizens in the UK, whether we can continue to have full access to single market and, crucially, whether we can have the important environmental protections that we currently enjoy thanks to our EU membership—whether on air, water, or wildlife. It is not just keeping what we have; we should improve that and absolutely lock it down in law. One big concern that people have right now is about what will happen to the habitats directive and the birds directive; those are the gold standards for environmental protection and we need them to be preserved in any new environmental settlement. Perhaps that needs to be in a new environmental Act, but whatever happens, there must not be a race to the bottom on standards. We need to retain EU-derived workers’ rights, social and consumer protections and human rights, again, as a bare minimum that we should seek to build on. We should be putting young people first.

Finally, we should ask the Government right now to give a guarantee to EU nationals who have made this country their home in good faith; the Government should say right now that they are welcome to stay and that they have an absolute right to stay. Anything less is simply using people’s lives cynically as chips in a bargaining negotiation, and that is neither right nor moral.