European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Catherine West Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bill Wiggin]

I rather hope that the Brexit Secretary will concentrate on negotiating our departure rather than on sitting in darkened rooms, or perhaps that is what he is doing—who knows?

Returning to the main thrust of what is going on, we need a unified, sensible piece of legislation, and we must support the Government, get the legislation through and then sort out our differences. Support for the sake of it is wrong, but it is absolutely the right thing at this particular time and at this particular stage in the legislation. It is what our constituents want and expect.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes light of the rights of each of us, of our constituents and, indeed, of EU nationals when he says that we are dancing on the head of a pin if we do not allow the legislation to go through tonight.

[Bill Wiggin]

No, I do not think so. Delegated legislation is always difficult. There are so many statutory instruments to get through, but that has been true ever since I have been here. We have had countless pieces of rubber-stamping. However, I have taken great comfort from the Front-Bench team saying that there is a sunset clause and that the spirit of the law will not be changed. I appeal to the Labour voters in North Herefordshire. They were very few in the past, but their number has grown recently. They did not manage to mention the Leader of the Opposition at any stage during the election, but they are decent, patriotic people and they want to see our country winning, not bickering among ourselves. Please support this critical piece of legislation, but if hon. Members cannot support it, please abstain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

When a Conservative former Attorney General looks at a Bill and describes it as an “astonishing monstrosity”, it is clear that somewhere something has gone wrong. When a Conservative former Chancellor of the Exchequer says that we are facing the prospect of frittering away parliamentary democracy, something is not as it seems. When hundreds of thousands of people, whether it is June Barnes in Kilburn or Peter Singer in Hampstead, feel compelled to email their MP saying that they are in shock at the Government’s tactics, it is clear that the ministerial power grab at the heart of this Bill is unacceptable and brazen.

I am told that the Prime Minister campaigned to remain in the EU, and that has made her transformation into Brexiteer-in-chief even more difficult to stomach. The hard Brexiteers back-slapped and sneered their way through the referendum campaign saying that they would “take back control”, but the irony is that what the Government are asking for in this Bill actually takes control away. It proposes taking away control of the law from Parliament, taking away control of governance from all our regions, and taking away hard-won rights from those who live and work here. Not only will this Bill be dangerous to our country’s integrity; it also poses a serious challenge to hard-fought-for rights of my constituents and many across the country.

Let me be clear that my opposition to the Government’s intended mass deployment of secondary legislation is due not to a prosaic attachment to the purest form of primary legislation but to the very real consequences it could have for my constituents’ lives. The decision to withdraw from the EU charter of fundamental rights is, at best, problematic and, at worst, actively contemptuous of the rights that protect all aspects of citizens’ lives. The EU charter of fundamental rights covers a broad set of protections that guarantee individual freedoms and rights, from the prohibition of torture and the right to life to holiday entitlement and working conditions. Without it, for example, workers in London, whose air quality is already at an illegal level, would lose layers of protection.

I would like to know which rights in particular the Government object to; perhaps the Minister can tell me. Is it the right to life, or the prohibition of torture and degrading treatment and punishment? Perhaps the Government take issue with the charter’s codification of equality rights, or perhaps the Secretary of State has a new-found disregard for privacy laws. Paying lip service to human rights is no guarantee of human rights, and introducing legislation that cannot be properly scrutinised is no way to govern people’s lives. The explicit disregarding of the charter risks the rights of working people.

The Government may ask why the British people should not simply trust them to replicate any protections and rights in forthcoming legislation. Well, when certain Conservative Members believe that rape victims should not have access to abortion, I do not blame the public for being sceptical of the Government and their ability to rule.

The Bill not only poses challenges to parliamentary scrutiny and people’s rights, but sends a stark message about the trajectory of devolution in this country, if one examines clause 11. The Government could have used the Bill as a real opportunity to address the governance of our regions. If there was ever a time to empower the newly elected representatives, it is now. As with the rights of the EU charter, it seems as though the Government are asking devolved nations to take their promises in good faith, and asking individual nations and regions to accept Whitehall control again. Curbing the scope of devolution and the ability of devolved bodies to act, particularly at this time, sends out a troubling message.

I am a London MP, and there is no doubt that Brexit will have a disproportionate impact on London, with 1 million EU nationals living in the city and making up 15% of the employment force.

[Catherine West]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on the point about the London economy and EU nationals. Does she agree that an increasing number of EU nationals are very concerned, not just about the cost of their citizenship but about the constant changing of the goalposts by the increasingly incompetent Home Office?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s point. There are 17,000 EU nationals who live in my constituency, and they constantly come to my surgery because they are worried about the half-baked practice papers that are being put in front of them. In terms of the London economy, which my hon. Friend also mentioned, by 2020 a quarter of the GDP of the entire country will come from London alone. We have 800,000 private sector businesses. The Bill gives Ministers the power to modify retained EU law, and clause 11 stipulates that such powers should not be handed to the devolved authorities.

With the EU charter a thing of the past, London’s EU nationals will, as my hon. Friend suggests, have the right to question what their future holds and what rights will be guaranteed. An honest conversation is urgently needed on post-Brexit immigration arrangements and migrant protections for the huge population of non-EU citizens in London, and the Bill does not provide that. A lukewarm commitment to seek consent from devolved bodies will not do. Serious steps must be taken to mitigate the disproportionate impact that Brexit will have on the city where my constituency is based.

I will proudly vote against the Bill today with my Labour colleagues. The display put on by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) last Thursday revealed this Bill to be everything that campaigners warned it would be. It is a shoddy power grab that disrespects the democratic traditions of our country and throws hard-fought rights into total jeopardy, and the Government should be ashamed of themselves for introducing it.