European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady is entirely correct because Austria is an anti-nuclear state, and there is some suspicion that some difficulties may emerge if the matter is not wrapped up before the Austrian presidency.

The amendment’s purpose is to provide parliamentary scrutiny of the important process of replicating the effect of a treaty that nobody wanted to leave. My challenge to Ministers is to engage with the amendment, and I look forward to hearing from the Dispatch Box whether the amendment is acceptable or whether they have an alternative way of providing the House with a strategy. On that note, after 14 minutes, I will sit down.

[Chris Bryant]

Sir David—for you are indeed beknighted—it is good to take part in this debate immediately after the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). However, I am slightly saddened that he was so disparaging of all the Opposition Members who have signed his amendment. If we are just cast aside with such casual, reckless, gay abandon, we are never going to do that again, are we?

The British way in parliamentary matters has always been that we govern by consent, not by Government fiat, so Parliament should never be conceived of by a Government as an inconvenience that has to be avoided if possible. Parliament should be seen as an essential part of how we carry the whole nation with us. The Government should have more strength in Parliament than they do if they try to circumvent Parliament.

Getting the process right, as several hon. Members have already said, is absolutely essential. We are going to be deciding what many assume will be a long-term settlement for this country for generations to come. We cannot simply try to go ahead with a railroaded version of that settlement that only carries 52% of the country, or perhaps even less by then—who knows?—because we will in the end undermine the very institutions that people have been trying to say should be sovereign. I say to the Government that no amount of jiggery-pokery will sort things out. At the end of the day, parliamentary shenanigans will do far more harm to this country’s political institutions than we should countenance.

The Government already have phenomenal power and—I have used this figure before, but it is true—this is the first time in our history that more than half of Government Members are now either Ministers, trade envoys or Parliamentary Private Secretaries and are beholden unto the Government in some way or other. We have more Ministers than Italy, France and Germany put together, so the Government’s hold on Parliament in our system is already phenomenal, yet they have introduced clause 9, which is truly exceptional. I have tabled several amendments, which I will not address because I do not think there is any great point. The honest truth is that I would prefer to see the whole clause out of the Bill.

The moment I saw clause 9, I thought, “If there is a real reason for this, surely by now the Government would have argued why they have to have these powers.” Now the Government say a Bill will be introduced on the agreement and its implementation. If there really is a need for those powers, clause 9 should be in that Bill and not in this Bill at all.

I love all four of the Ministers sitting on the Government Front Bench to death, and obviously the safest thing to do today is for one of them to stand up—they could stand up one after another, as in “Spartacus”—and say, “We will not support this. We will not urge the Committee to consider taking on this clause as part of the Bill, because we know we do not really need it.”

People might ask, “If the Government do not really need clause 9, why does it matter if the clause is in the Bill at all?” The problem is that every single Government in the history of the world have always used every power they have to the umpteenth degree. It is a temptation, and we should take temptation out of the Government’s hands if they are not prepared to take it out of their own hands. Let us bear in mind that the Bill will allow the Government to change the Parliament Acts and the Representation of the People Acts. [Interruption.] The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice is standing up! Oh, he’s not.

Admittedly, changes to the Parliament Acts and the Representation of the People Acts by secondary legislation would have to be made via the affirmative process and there would be a vote in both Houses.