European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and John Redwood

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

This debate is very important. As someone who wants this Parliament to take back control on behalf of the sovereign British people who voted in that way in the referendum, I can see that there is an irony in this debate. We hear that a number of Opposition Members are very worried that Ministers will have too much power as a result of this legislation, but by the very act of our having this debate, and in due course the votes, on how we should proceed, I think that we are demonstrating that, indeed, Parliament is taking back control. The purpose of these debates today and tomorrow and the subsequent votes will be for Parliament to set a very clear framework within which Ministers will have to operate.

We are, after all, debating how we translate a very large burden of existing European law into good United Kingdom law in order to ensure continuity and no change at the point when we exit the European Union. This is a task that unites people of all political persuasions, whether they were in favour of leave or remain, around the need for legal certainty. We all see the need to guarantee that all that good European law under which we currently live will still be there and effective after we have left.

We also agree something else: some of us do want to change some of those laws. I want to change the fishing law very substantially, because we could have a much better system for fishing in this country if we designed one for ourselves. We will probably need to amend our trade and customs laws, because as we become an advocate for and an architect of wider free trade agreements around the world, that is clearly going to necessitate changes, which we think will be positive. I think we all agree that where we want to change policy—to amend and improve—we should do so through primary legislation. As I understand it, Ministers have agreed with that. I am sure that this House is quite up to the task of guaranteeing that Ministers will indeed have to proceed in that way, so that we know that when they wish to change—amend, improve or even repeal—policy, they will need to come through the full process of asking for permission through primary legislation.

Today we are talking about the adjustments, many of which are technical, that need to be made to ensure the continuity of European law when it passes from European jurisdiction to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom Parliament and courts. Ministers will obviously play up the fact that they think most of these matters will be very technical, such as taking out the fact that the UK is a member of the European Union when we exit and rewriting the legislation to point out that we are no longer a member of the European Union, or decreasing the number of members states by one from the current number if they are referred to in the regulation. More difficult will be the substitution of a UK-based body for a European body to ensure proper enforcement. Many of us see that as largely technical, although there may be wider issues. This Parliament is now properly debating how much scrutiny that kind of thing would require.

We have three possible models to ensure parliamentary sovereignty over any of these processes. The weakest is the negative resolution procedure, whereby Ministers will have to make a proposal for technical changes to the law, and Parliament will have to object and force a vote if it wishes to. The middle model is the affirmative resolution statutory instrument, whereby Parliament will have a debate and a vote; Ministers would make a proposal and we would have a vote. In some cases, we might even conclude that we need primary legislation, as it appears we are deciding with the issue of animal welfare. In that case, we wish not only to transfer the European law but to ensure that it is better in British law, so that will need primary legislation.

Today we are debating how to determine which of those processes are appropriate for each of the different matters that arise. A lot of items will definitely be in the technical area of rather minor changes just to ensure that things work smoothly, which is what I thought the Government were trying to capture in clause 7. We have heard from Opposition Members who think that the clause goes too far and will allow the Government to elide matters from the category of technical changes to the category where there are more substantial changes going on, and still leave us with the negative resolution procedure. I am not as worried as some Opposition Members. The power under the clause is a two-year power only, so it is clearly related to the translation and transition period, which I find reassuring. There are also clear restrictions in clause 7(6) on Ministers changing taxes, inventing criminal offences and all those kinds of things, because they would obviously require primary legislation. We need to continue our debate on whether those two lists—the list of permissive powers and the list of restrictions—are the right lists.

[Chris Bryant]

I have been listening very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. He is resting on the word “technical”, which he has used repeatedly, but that is not what the Bill says. If the Government had come forward with something saying that they will only be able to use secondary legislation in technical changes, we might have been interested in looking at it. But that is not what it says; it is a widely drawn list. The right hon. Gentleman may well have perfect confidence in the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Chipping Wycombe. Sorry, he is the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker)—[Laughter.] Well, the constituency used to be Chipping Wycombe. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) might have confidence in this particular Minister, but it may one day be another Minister. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that the Leader of the Opposition is a Marxist revolutionary in a Venezuelan style. Well, he might yet be a Minister who will be making precisely these decisions, and that is why we should always legislate with caution.

[John Redwood]

I am intrigued to hear that characterisation of the hon. Gentleman’s leader; it is not a phrase that I have ever used in this House. I find that very interesting, but I do not want to take the conversation into that party political realm.

We are trying to explore the proper constraints and controls to put on Ministers through this primary legislation, which will drive our democratic processes for this transfer of law. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response because I want reassurances—of the kind I think he will be able to give me—that this power is well meant and is designed to prevent Parliament from being clogged up with literally hundreds of rather minor drafting changes. Such minor changes are simple consequences of going from being a member to being a non-member that we do not need to worry about too much, so we need somebody to do them for us. The Bill says that Ministers are going to do it for us. Various Members are a bit sceptical about that for some surprising and interesting reasons, such as that we have just heard. There is also a suggestion, which has a lot to recommend it, that there be a sifting mechanism so that Parliament is involved in the process and can say to Ministers, “We do think this matter is a bit more than technical, so we cannot have the negative resolution procedure. This has to be a proper debate and a proper vote in order to preserve parliamentary process.”

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Chris Bryant and John Redwood

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[John Redwood]

What we need to do is to have a proper debate on the sectoral impacts and look at the many positives, so that Opposition Members can debate in the way I am and talk about the opportunities for our country and the way our economy can be better, rather than continue in the depressingly negative way they always do, where they are desperate to find some bad information. They have come up with two things at the moment, which are clearly misleading, but they are constantly repeating them. First, they say that planes will not fly in April 2019, after we have left, without a special agreement and sending lots of money to the EU. I was very pleased the other day to see that Willie Walsh of British Airways made it very clear, in his professional view, that the planes will fly—and of course they will. There is no way Britain is going to stop German, French and Spanish planes coming into UK airports the day after we have left the EU, even without an agreement, and in turn they will not want to stop our planes going there, with our tourists and with the people who want to go and spend money in their country.

[Hannah Bardell]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[John Redwood]

Then there is another one that the Opposition are constantly telling us about, which is that there will be lorries queuing all the way back from Dover. I am not quite sure how that would work because it would mean that they were queuing in the sea. But of course, given modern, electronic frontiers, there is absolutely no reason why there should be huge queues.