European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and David Lammy

Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

Would it not be great if we were having a proper debate about retaining Francovich protections, albeit possibly making an amendment? The hon. Lady may well have a case for increasing or decreasing the level of the damage thresholds in place, but that is not what we are debating; we are debating simply the deletion of this Francovich protection—that right to redress—from our laws and protections. I would be happy to discuss with her where that level should be set, as there is a debate to be had about that, but we are talking about the principle, yes or no, and whether this should be retained within this legislation.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend rightly suspects that the Government will say that removing the charter from the UK will not affect the substantive rights that individuals already benefit from in this country. Does he agree that the problem is that the Government do not go on to say what those substantive rights are? If we simply leave it to the common law, a future Parliament—it may not be this one—could determine that it is right to erode those rights. That is why it is important we stick with the charter.

[Mr Leslie]

We need to make sure that if we are transposing legislation, it is a true copy and paste, but that is not what has been proposed. I am not in favour necessarily of cutting off our relationship with the single market or the customs union. There are a lot of debates on the Brexit choices we have before us, but here we are dealing with a set of separate discussions about the rights that our citizens—our constituents—could have in a post-Brexit scenario, and we need a better justification in order to be convinced than that we should just throw these overboard at this stage.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Leslie and David Lammy

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

These are the realities we face.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Is it not my hon. Friend’s point that we are now a service economy? The service sector accounts for 88% of London’s economy, and the service sector can move. Prior to our joining the EU, we had things in the ground and we were a great manufacturing nation, but that is not the case today.

[Chris Leslie]

That is another issue that deserves a massive amount of consideration, but we just do not have the time to go through it today.

I will move on, then, to new clause 22, on competition policy—another small area of policy! The White Paper says absolutely nothing about what the UK will do, upon our exit from the EU, in respect of competition policy. It is totally silent. Will we change our attitude towards state aid for industry? What will our state aid rules be? If we make a change, will our trading partners baulk at the idea that we might be subsidising products in a particular way? Will we be undercutting their production? Would we not wish to do that? Will we take on the WTO disciplines on subsidies? Will we join the EEA scheme on subsidies? What about state aid rules, competition policy and the European Free Trade Association? This a big deal. I think of subjects that have come up recently such as Hinkley Point, the British investment bank and British steel. These are all questions we have to consider and decide upon. All I am saying in new clause 22 is that the Government should publish a report in one month on their attitude to competition policy. It is a pretty simple measure.



I have tabled other amendments that would require Ministers to set out their aspirations, within one month of Royal Assent, on other questions that will arise as we extract ourselves from some of these European partnerships, alliances and agencies. On law enforcement, for example, what will we do about Europol? New clause 111 touches on the benefits we currently enjoy from cross-border co-operation on cybercrime, terrorism, combating trafficking and other important activities. We deserve to know the Government’s approach to cross-border crime, as we do with respect to the European Police College, Eurojust, our co-operation with prosecuting authorities, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the Agency for Fundamental Rights. The White Paper is totally silent on all those issues. We have no idea what the Government’s plan and negotiating stance will be, and yet we do not have the time to debate these matters properly.