European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. Let me clarify the position. There are two references to two different Acts. There is one reference in clause 1(2) to the 2019 Act that this Bill will become, and another reference in clause 2(1), to the Act passed last year.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Ind)]

In a way, I rise to speak to all the amendments, which are supposed to relate to the duties to be exercised under the Bill. However, one duty in particular has been omitted from both the Bill and all the selected amendments.

I know that the views that I shall express are supported by the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), and others. We argue that there should be attached to the intention of the Bill the purpose for which it is sought. The European Council has made it absolutely clear that the UK will not necessarily be granted an extension for a general purpose, and that we shall need to specify what we wish to have the extension for. On a number of occasions, senior officials of the various EU institutions have made it clear that they would grant an extension for the purpose of a people’s vote, but no such purpose is referred to in any of the amendments that have been selected, or in the Bill itself.

It is all well and good to argue against no deal—and that, we have been told, lies behind the Bill—but it is clear that if Members wish to be sure of securing the extension to stop no deal, particularly those who will not entertain revocation of article 50, there needs to be a duty not only to request an extension, but to request it for the purpose of what will lead to our being granted the extension that we require, namely a people’s vote.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Is this not even more serious given that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are cooking up some plan today that also does not refer to the people’s vote?

[Chuka Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. This is so important and we have been brought to this point because our democracy is deadlocked. We are faced with a perfect storm created by a clash of mandates: we are trying to work our way through dealing with a clash of mandates between views expressed by a majority of people who participated in a referendum in 2016 and views expressed in a general election which has led to a hung Parliament and the chaos in this House of Commons.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that we would have to produce a reason for wanting an extension, but does he agree that the reason that would command wide support here is so that we could clarify the political declaration and develop the ideas of some sort of customs arrangement and some sort of regulatory alignment mapping out our future relationship? Does he agree that most of the European nations would welcome that development, and probably a very long extension to the end of 2021 would be quite readily available?

[Chuka Umunna]

I do not disagree at all with the Father of the House. I think a long extension would be preferable. I do not think there is anything for us to fear in terms of European elections. After all that is called democracy and at least it means more of our constituents can get involved in this process. In terms of the different elements of this Bill and the duties we are seeking to impose on the Government, it has been said that to find a way forward through all of this requires compromise. As I have said, I believe there should be a duty in this Bill for the Government to seek an extension in order to provide for a people’s vote. Why do those of us who argue for a people’s vote want a people’s vote? We do so because we want to give the British people the ability to take a different course, and in so doing there is compromise. The easy thing to do if we wanted to stop Brexit from happening would be to simply ignore the 2016 result.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Obviously the scope of this debate is quite tight and I am going to allow some flexibility in the discussion, but we do not want to concentrate on something that is not even down on the Order Paper tonight. So by all means I will allow some freedom, but we should not open up the debate too far.

[Chuka Umunna]

I take your point, Sir Lindsay, but all this goes to the duties in the Bill, and there is a glaring omission from the Bill and the selected amendments.

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[The Chairman]

Order. I think in fairness that it is my judgment that we will take. Thank you for your advice, but actually it will be the opposite way, not the way the hon. Gentleman is trying to open up. I have said I will allow flexibility, but I am not going to allow discussion on matters that are not part of tonight’s debate.

[Chuka Umunna]

Thank you.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I wonder if the hon. Gentleman realises something about his amendment: I would be very happy to see it inserted because I think it would immediately mean a money resolution would be needed, so I give him good encouragement.

[Chuka Umunna]

I wish my amendment had been selected, but my point is that the purpose for which the extension is sought is not stated as being necessary in the duties of this Bill.

I apologise, Sir Lindsay, if you do not believe I am speaking strictly to the amendments. Part of the challenge raised is the way we are conducting this debate given the fact that we are trying to do justice to the Committee stage of this Bill having only discovered your selection shortly before.

[The Chairman]

I should say to the hon. Gentleman that, in fairness, I too only got it minutes before, so it is much harder for both of us to try to deal with this.

[Chuka Umunna]

Absolutely; I was just making an observation.

Ultimately, there is a need for compromise, and we are at that stage in the process where I think that that is what the public expects. Introducing a provision within the duties in the Bill for the Government to seek an extension for the purpose of a people’s vote is, I would argue, a compromise, in part because there are ways of carrying out a people’s vote that would take account of all the different views in this House. That would involve compromise. For example, we do not like the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement or the framework for the future relationship, but we would be prepared not to stand in the way of them if they were put to a confirmatory vote.

I shall finish by explaining why I was so keen to crowbar these points into the debate. If we do not address these points, and if, through a backroom deal, we ignore the fact that a people’s vote is not provided for in the duties of the Bill, what are we saying to the 1 million people who marched on the streets of this city? What are we saying to the 2 million young people who now have a say on this whole issue but did not have a say three years ago? What are we saying to the 6 million people who signed a parliamentary petition arguing for a revocation, in frustration that a people’s vote might not happen? And what are we saying to the majority of people in this country who certainly did not vote for this mess? That is why it is important, if we are going to seek an extension, that we make it clear that we want to do so primarily to give those people a voice so that they get a final say on whether we go ahead with this disaster or whether we seek to change our country in a different fashion.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I thank the House of Commons Clerks for the immense amount of work they have put in to ensure that we have these amendments in order and ready to be debated. This is clearly a rather unprecedented type of Bill to bring before Parliament. In common with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), I have been somewhat supportive of the attempts by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) to create space on the House’s agenda to discuss indicative votes. Indeed, I have tabled amendments of my own during the debates on those votes, and I abstained on a business of the House motion to enable those votes to take place. I did not do that today, however, because like my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, I believe that this is a very different reason for taking control of the House.

I rise to speak to my two amendments: amendments 20 and 21. Amendment 20 seeks to add to subsection (3) of clause 1 a maximum date of 30 June 2019 to that elected by the Government. Amendment 21 would delete altogether subsections (6) and (7) of clause 1, which make provision for how the House would deal with a situation in which the European Union had rejected an approach by the Government to seek an extension and had instead made a counter-offer. My reason for tabling both those amendments is that, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, this legislation is indeed rushed. We all have our views on the reason for that, and we are indeed at the eleventh hour of the process of leaving the European Union. That means that this is an unusual Bill, in that it seeks to bind the hands of the Government on a decision that would normally be a matter of prerogative power and a matter for the Executive to take to negotiations in international forums. Both amendments recognise the fact that the Bill has now had its Second Reading and is therefore in play, but they nevertheless seek to place a restriction on its scope and power.

While any date can be placed in a motion under clause 1(2), amendment 20 seeks a maximum of 30 June 2019, making it impossible for the Government, or someone else by amendment, to set a date beyond that. That is an important principle given the rushed nature of this legislation. It would enable both this House or the Government to seek a short extension, as the Prime Minister has already indicated she would, but it would prevent this House or the Government from electing for a long extension, which might effectively lead to the revocation of article 50.

Leaving the European Union

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and also a pleasure to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). I agree with every single word she said. I want to speak to e-petition 235138 on holding a people’s vote, but, most of all, I want to talk to e-petition 241584 on revoking article 50 and remaining in the EU, which, as has been said, has been signed by more than 6 million people, including more than 25,000 people in my constituency, which is just under a third of the registered electors in Streatham.

I do not want to speak for long, but I will make these points. There is clearly no mandate whatever for the chaos that we have seen unfold in this country since the vote in 2016. Whether people voted leave or remain, there is simply no majority in the country for the mess that has unfolded, despite the comments that we have heard in this debate. Given that there is not a mandate for this mess in this House, hopefully the indicative vote process will indicate what there is a majority for. I very much hope it will be for a people’s vote. However, if there was no resolution, and on either 11 April or 21 May we faced falling off the cliff, it is clear that no responsible Government would allow this country to leave the European Union without a deal. I want to explain why, with particular reference to the Government’s own documents on the implications of our leaving the European Union with no deal. I want to draw attention to four or five of the points made in the documents that the Government—I hope the Minister will speak to this—have published.

First, we are told:

“Despite communications from the Government, there is little evidence that businesses are preparing in earnest for a no deal scenario”,

and the evidence indicates that small and medium-sized businesses in particular are unprepared for such a possibility. Secondly,

“individual citizens are also not preparing for the effects”

of our leaving the European Union with no deal. According to the evidence that the Government have published—their own economic impact assessments—if we were to leave without a deal on an orderly basis, we would be looking at the economy being 6.3% to 9% smaller than it otherwise would have been, but one of the things missed in the commentary is that that is an assessment of an orderly departure. If we were to leave and crash out on 11 April or 21 May without a deal on WTO terms, the contraction in the economy is likely to be far bigger.

Look at the practicalities:

“Every consignment would require a customs declaration, and so around 240,000 UK businesses that currently only trade with the EU would need to interact with customs processes for the first time”.

I quote directly from the Government’s own briefing papers. If we read between the lines, we are looking at an increase in food prices, panic buying by consumers and tariffs in the region of

“70% on beef... 45% on lamb... and 10% on finished automotive vehicles.”

And that before we look at the non-tariff barriers and their impact on the majority of the economy, which is service based. Based on the things that I have quoted from the Government’s own document, I do not see how any responsible Government could say that they had a mandate to bring about the disaster that they have published in their own papers.

[Steve McCabe in the Chair]

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman raises important points from the paper. I am sure he saw the Treasury Monetary Policy Committee minutes last week that said 80% of businesses were ready for a no-deal scenario. He might have misread the number: it is 145,000 businesses that trade solely with the European Union and the Government have contacted them on three occasions so far. So, there has been some progress since the paper that he quotes from was published.

[Chuka Umunna]

I am just quoting from the Minister’s own document. Technically, he is—dare I say it?—the Minister for no deal. He is responsible for ensuring that we are prepared if we leave in those circumstances. Never mind no responsible Government allowing us to leave without a deal; I cannot see how any Member of this House who held the post that he does as the Minister responsible could stand in the way of article 50 being revoked were we on the cusp of the disaster that he is supposed to be preparing for.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Chuka Umunna]

I will finish on this point: above all, the people who will be most angered by us allowing the country to crash out with no deal are the younger generations. For all the impact that this will have on older generations, the younger generations are the ones who will have to live with the results of Brexit for far longer than the rest of us. To my increasing surprise, every time we debate these matters, those people are never discussed. I think I am the first to mention them today; I am sure that they have been in everyone else’s minds. They are the ones who, above all, will never forgive this generation of politicians if we allow this catastrophe to happen.

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[Martin Whitfield]

rose—

[Chuka Umunna]

rose—

[Dr Wollaston]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I give way to the hon. Member for Streatham.

[Chuka Umunna]

I thought the Minister might want to reply. The point he continues to ignore is the reason why he and his Government are in the mess they are in. Ultimately, the 2016 referendum gave a view on whether a majority of people participating in that referendum wanted to leave the European Union, but how to leave was reserved to Parliament. His Government put a very hard Brexit to the British people and lost their majority. The clash of those two mandates is why we are going through all this chaos right now, and yet again he is sticking his head in the sand and ignoring that fact. It is all very well asserting the result of the referendum, but it did not tell us how the country wanted to leave the European Union. That has been the essential problem in this process.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Forgive me for not answering the point made by the hon. Member for East Lothian. I was going to take all three interventions first, but let me do what the hon. Member for Streatham would want. Our manifesto was quite clear, and Labour’s manifesto was quite clear. My party wants to deliver on its manifesto commitment.

To respond to the hon. Member for Streatham, absolutely, things did move on between 2016 and 2017, and that is why his party—then—and my party made the commitments they did. People understood that we would be leaving the single market and the customs union.

[Chuka Umunna]

The Minister is also ignoring what his own Chief Whip will say on BBC 2 later this evening: the Government have refused to alter course and change their red lines in light of the fact that they lost their majority. They cannot get measures and propositions through the House of Commons. That is why they are in the mess they are in.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I tend to disagree. First, obviously I have not seen a programme that has yet to air.

[Chuka Umunna]

It is online!

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Forgive me—it is a tiny bit busy at this moment in time. Obviously I will watch and read every word that the Government Chief Whip might say and put that in the context in which it might have been said.

The hon. Member for Streatham might not have enjoyed reading his former party’s manifesto in 2017 at the general election, and I might not have enjoyed reading mine; but as well as spending a lot of time in my own seat, I canvassed across the country, from Bolsover to Coventry South, in Northampton and through swathes of south London, where people whose doors were knocked on rightly thought that Brexit was in the process of being delivered, because everybody agreed they were going to respect the result of the referendum. Yes, I do believe that there has been a bit of a democratic disconnect, but in a slightly different way from the way the hon. Gentleman believes it.

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Ind)]

I have five quick points, or thereabouts, to make in five minutes.

First, it is an absolute and utter disgrace that it has come to this—that the Back Benchers of this House are having to force the Government to follow a process to reach a decision. The Prime Minister should have been the one sponsoring and initiating this process—that is called leadership—but the reason why time and again she has failed to do so is that she always fails to face down the ideological zealots in her own party.

The Prime Minister has suggested that if what comes out of this process—and I hope we get a majority behind something—is at variance with what she has proposed she may simply ignore Parliament. But this is a parliamentary democracy, and the campaigns to leave the EU were fought in the name of parliamentary sovereignty. Is she seriously saying she can maintain any credibility or authority in her negotiations with the EU Council if she seeks to set her face against the will as expressed by the House through this process?

On the substance of the motions, I will be supporting the people’s vote motion tabled by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett)—motion (M)—and I commend her for her excellent speech, which explained far better than I could why we should all support the motion. However, I will explain why I personally support it. As a House, we had a duty in the last Parliament to try to square the circle between the promises that were made in the 2016 referendum and what was deliverable. That is why I voted—against my heart—to invoke article 50 two years ago. However, with every week that has passed, we have seen not only that the campaigns to leave the European Union lied but that they have broken their promises, and the Electoral Commission has confirmed that they cheated, too.

I listened carefully to the speeches of the hon. Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) about the importance of delivering on the result of the referendum, but the problem that this Parliament has been grappling with is that it is impossible to deliver on the mythical, fantastical promises that were made back then. In the face of this disaster, and of the catastrophe that we have seen unfolding throughout the negotiations, the last resort is always to invoke the will of the people, but the simple fact is that, ever since that referendum was held, all the signs are that proceeding with this flawed Brexit is far from what this country wants.

After the 2016 vote, you would have thought that support for what had been voted for would have gone up, but almost every poll shows that support for it has fallen. Let us not forget that that referendum was held three years ago, when 37% of registered electors voted to leave. The most recent poll of the British people was held in 2017, when the Conservative hard Brexit was put to the British people and the party of Government lost its majority. If that were not the case, we would not be having this protracted process right now. Above all, I say to those who talk about the will of the people that democracy is not static; it is a dynamic thing. We in this country did not chose to have a system in which we have one general election and a one-party state and in which we never go back to the people for their view on things as our country and the world change and adapt.

The younger generations of this country have not been mentioned in the debate so far. I listened to the contribution of my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Vauxhall, and I say to her that the younger people in our borough, which is one of the youngest in the country, will never forgive this Parliament if it seeks to impose this disaster on them. More than 2 million young people have become entitled to vote since that 2016 poll, and we know that an overwhelming majority of them want a say on this process and that an overwhelming majority of them want to keep the current deal and the privileges that the older generations in this country have enjoyed for years.

If in the end we are faced with a cliff edge, with all the catastrophes that have been spelled out in Cabinet documents and knowing what it will mean for people’s jobs and livelihoods, and if we do not have a people’s vote, of course we must do as motion (L) proposes and revoke article 50. No one in this House has a mandate to destroy people’s jobs and livelihoods, but we know that a no-deal exit would do that because the Cabinet has produced its own briefing papers telling us that that is a fact. This is what is at stake here; this is what we have to think about when we make this decision. This is not about us so much as about future generations, and it is important that we do right by them.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

As for the Prime Minister taking us out of the EU on 29 March this year without a deal—we’ll see about that. I do not think that the majority in this House will countenance that; I think the majority in this House will do everything they can to prevent it. Having worked with the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary and I was Director of Public Prosecutions, I know that she has a deep sense of duty. Deep down, I do not think that this Prime Minister will take us out of the EU without a deal on 29 March, and that is the basis on which we should be having this discussion.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right in what he says about business and the need for clarity, and it is clear for all to see that the Government will need to apply for an extension to article 50 to avoid no deal, or even if there is a deal. The reason they are not doing so, and the reason why the Brexit Secretary is not saying what he should to give certainty to business, is that the Conservative party will not face down the party within a party that is the European Research Group. Face those people down!

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention, and my right hon. Friend puts his finger on it.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My right hon. Friend will know, because he has often spoken in warm and glowing terms about trading on a no-deal WTO basis, that tariffs are just one aspect of our relationships, particularly given the UK economy’s interest in services. Issues such as data adequacy are actually much more significant to our economy. The political debate often focuses on tariffs, but as a service economy issues such as data are much more serious to us. The WTO, which my right hon. Friend often advocates, actually does not address such issues. That is one reason why the WTO is not the land of milk and honey that some pretend.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

The problems with the withdrawal agreement extend far beyond the backstop. The Secretary of State talks about services. The fact is that the withdrawal agreement will substantially not help services in this country, which make up approximately 80% of our economy. He talks about certainty. At the end of the day, can he not agree that this political declaration is a declaration of aspiration? We have absolutely no idea where we will be at the end of the trade negotiations, which EU officials will have told him will take at least three to four years.

[Stephen Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman has not been able to convince his own Front Benchers. Senior Opposition Front Benchers, such as the shadow Business Secretary, have spoken of the huge damage there would be to our democracy if we did what he advocates, which is to end the uncertainty by calling a second referendum. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] We hear the cheers from the Labour Benches. The policy in the manifesto on which Labour Members were elected was to honour the referendum, yet they cheer. It is on page 24 of the Labour manifesto on which the hon. Gentleman stood.

Brexit Negotiations and No Deal Contingency Planning

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend has read the technical notice and will see that we are keen to make sure that we can provide continuity for Erasmus. In some aspects of the technical notice, in order to avert some of the more significant disruptions we need some good will, collaboration and co-operation from the other side. We will work through that with the EU and will be encouraging it to make sure that in the worst-case scenario there is enough good will, notwithstanding the failure of the negotiations, to make sure that we do the right thing by UK citizens and EU citizens—and that includes our students.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Let us be clear: there is no majority in this House for crashing out of the European Union with no deal, given all the damage that will entail for communities in this country, but if no consensus can be reached in this House on how we leave the EU, how does the Secretary of State envisage resolving that issue if not by referring it back to the people? If he disagrees with me on that, does he at least accept that the Government may have to ask for an extension to the article 50 process so that a deal can be reached?

[Dominic Raab]

No, and I say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I hold in high regard and have debated this issue with during and since the referendum, that even bandying that around would almost invite the worst terms from our EU partners, which I know is not what he or I wish.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman who has campaigned long on this issue.

[Chuka Umunna]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. What the Lords amendment seeks to do is to reassert parliamentary sovereignty such that this House approves and gets to vote on every scenario that can be conceived of in terms of the way that we withdraw from the European Union. On the Secretary of State’s amendment, may I ask him a factual question? I am not asking him whether or not he thinks we will be in a situation where there is no deal. I am simply asking him this: is it not the case that his amendment to Lords amendment 19 gives his Government a passport to take this country out of the European Union with no deal, with this House having had no say on it whatsoever?

[Mr Davis]

I start by saying to the hon. Gentleman that I respect his point of view. He has the honesty to say that he would like us to stay in the European Union irrespective of the referendum result. Although I disagree with it, it is honest position to take. But what he describes as giving the Government the right to take us out of the European Union under, frankly, any circumstances was article 50, which was passed by this House and the other House by a very large majority, so I am afraid that he is not right in that respect.

--- Later in debate ---

Members have spoken with real passion and concern—and we will no doubt hear from others subsequently—about this means of ensuring that Parliament can have its say. I read in the newspapers over the weekend about people asking, “Is this really the right time to be voting not with the Government and in support of the Lords?” While we could argue that in relation to the big question of whether we should remain in a customs union or the single market, because other opportunities to address that will come before the House in the Trade Bill, that is not true of the question of a meaningful vote, as this is the one opportunity we have before the end of these negotiations in October—

[Chuka Umunna]

The only opportunity.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is correct: it is the only opportunity to make it clear to the Government that we intend to have our say when the negotiations have been concluded. This is the one chance that we have to exercise the sovereignty that we all believe properly rests with this House, whether we voted leave or remain in the referendum. I hope very much that the House, recognising that this is its one chance, will take that opportunity by voting later today for Lords amendment 19.

European Free Trade Association

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond]

As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend makes the point rather better than I can. It is absolutely clear that that is implicit and, based on the evidence we heard in the Treasury Committee, explicit in what the Government signed or agreed to at the end of phase 1 of the negotiations in December.

EFTA provides a great deal of flexibility, as we have explored in a number of interventions. It keeps open the option of joining the EEA agreement, which I think would be the right thing to do. However, it must be right that, as we leave the EU, we keep our options open. I say to the Minister in all sincerity that there is a lack of clarity over exactly what type of deal the Government want. We talked about CETA and beyond, and as I said a moment ago, CETA is the most advanced trade agreement that the EU has yet signed with a third country. I understand that the Government want to go beyond that, but the clock is ticking, and in trying to spend a huge amount of time carving out a middle ground between CETA and the EEA, the chances are that we may end up with nothing at all, or with something well below the Government’s ambitions.

It seems to me that an EFTA-style EEA relationship—the Norway option—could be achieved rapidly and will go much further than CETA goes at the moment. That is a route we could pursue for the UK’s best interest, and it must not be allowed to be dismissed without proper analysis and consideration.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. First, with regard to CETA, one reason why that kind of relationship would not be appropriate for the UK is that CETA substantially covers goods, whereas 80% of our economy is services. Secondly, as he may come on to, one of the objections raised to our being part of EFTA, and using that as a way of accessing and being part of the EEA, is that we would be a rule receiver as opposed to a rule maker. Does he agree that it is wrong to say that EEA and EFTA members have no influence on the rules that apply? Does he also agree that if we want to access the single market, we will have to comply with its rules, and that we are more likely to be able to frame those rules if we are part of the EEA, through EFTA, than if we are sitting outside and simply accessing the single market through a free trade agreement?

[Stephen Hammond]

I of course agree with the hon. Gentleman. I am about to make exactly those points, because it is important that they are made loud and clear. As he will know and will have observed, I have spent a lot of time in the Chamber over the last two years making the case for services, which is one of our biggest tax generators. The public services that we all enjoy will not be able to be funded in the same way if we do not protect those services. As he will have wanted to point out, the EFTA arrangement covers services in many cases, whereas CETA, for instance, does not. That is a clear issue that the Government will have to confront.

The EFTA-EEA framework is motivated purely by the economy and not the pursuit of a political objective such as ever closer union. It is crucial that people remember that. The EEA would give the UK the same access to the single market as it has now for most goods and services. It is an off-the-shelf, already tested model that would provide businesses and our citizens with the most certainty that we can give them as we leave the EU. Yes, we would be subject to EEA regulation, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) pointed out, it does not cover the controversial common agricultural and common fisheries policies or justice and home affairs. From the outset—to allay the concerns of some of my hon. Friends—we would have control of those policy areas.

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[Stephen Hammond]

They would.

[Chuka Umunna]

They would.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Well, they might be. I think there is a range of opinion out there about it; I have spoken to a number of different people with different views. The hon. Member for Wimbledon said that he had spoken to the ambassador and the professor himself. I note the comments of the Norwegian Prime Minister in August last year, when she said that the UK joining EFTA, even for a temporary period, would be a “challenging and costly” undertaking. Again, those concerns are not insurmountable, but we need to grapple with how realistic this option is and, in particular, with whether EFTA’s institutions—especially its court—could cope with the volume of cases that would land in them if the UK was to join EFTA.

All of that speaks to a wider point, which is that the four EFTA economies are very different from the UK economy. The size of the EFTA countries and the nature of their economies make UK membership of EFTA a challenging prospect.

All of that needs to be debated, and it cannot be debated in an hour and a half in Westminster Hall. The EFTA option should not be taken off the table, but there are real reasons why the Labour party believes that a bespoke deal following a transitional arrangement on basic terms should be what we are aiming for, and therefore EEA/EFTA would not be our first preference. However, as I say, the key point is that that option should not be taken off the table. In the end, it is up to Parliament to decide, which is why it is so important that we have a meaningful vote—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

No, I need to make a little progress because I have got quite a lot to try to cover.

Membership of EFTA alone does not automatically guarantee UK access to the EU single market, and EFTA states have the different trading relationships I have described. In this debate, most people have spoken about the EEA and EFTA. The EEA, which is sometimes referred to as the Norway model, would mean the UK having to adopt automatically and in their entirety new EU rules over which we would have little influence and no vote. As the Prime Minister has said, such a loss of democratic control could not work for the British people. It would also involve continuing to pay substantially into the EU budget.

[Chuka Umunna]

Does the Minister not accept that if we are to do the free trade agreement that he and his colleagues in government keep talking about, we are going to have to comply with European standards anyway? We have much more chance of having some influence—albeit, I accept, not a vote—if we do so through EFTA and EEA membership. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) has been clear he is arguing for that.

[Mr Walker]

The Government are ambitious about the extent of the trade agreement we can do with the EU. The EU has a number of trade agreements with other countries where there is mutual recognition and regulatory alignment, but not the absolute harmonisation of rules. I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s argument.

I will not be able to cover all the comments, so I want to focus a little more on international trade. Members have asked why we do not plan to rejoin EFTA as a way of continuing our trading relationships with its members and trading with the wider world through the adoption of its existing free trade agreements. As I have already stated, EFTA has a network of 27 free trade agreements as compared with the EU’s 40 FTAs. While many of those agreements significantly overlap, EFTA agreements still focus on traditional areas of market access and therefore tend to be less comprehensive and more goods-focused than those of the EU. It is also notable that some EFTA FTAs specifically exclude trade remedies that the UK may seek to have as part of our independent trade policy. The UK is in many ways different from those countries.

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

No, I am not able to name an accurate forecast. They are always wrong, and wrong for good reasons. [Interruption.] Members are chatting at me from a sedentary position. My long-standing views on the flaws in the epistemology of the social sciences and the consequences for econometrics are well set out in various forums, and I encourage Members to go and have a look at them. I am happy to recommend a reading list.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

The Government are not protecting the interests of the British people but withholding information from them. The Minister keeps invoking the referendum, but of course that did not give us any indication of the form of Brexit that the public wish us to follow. Will he confirm that what the analysis shows is that the least worst option—staying in the single market and customs union—has been voluntarily taken off the table by the Prime Minister with no mandate whatsoever?

[Mr Baker]

I encourage Members to google the hon. Gentleman’s name on The Sun website. They will find a wonderful picture of him, during the referendum, standing next to a poster proclaiming that the leave campaign wanted to leave the single market. He made the point at the time—[Interruption.] He certainly did, and anyone can go and find it on The Sun website. The point was made at the time, and the public chose.

It would not be possible to honour the decision of the British people if we allow the European Union to set the UK’s tariffs and if we become people in a political purgatory of perpetual rule taking from the European Union without any democratic say. It is the desire of this Government that our country should continue to be a democracy. For that reason, we will leave the European economic area and the customs union.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

With regard to the issue of transition or implementation, as the Government call it, does my hon. Friend agree that while it is of course necessary in particular to give time for our businesses to prepare, transition or implementation is no safe harbour if this Government are determined to pursue the extreme break from our relationship with the EU which have set out with their red lines? That is no safe harbour to jumping off a cliff; it just delays it, in fact.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree; and the unpicking of, or wheeling back from, some of the progress we felt had been made in the Florence speech is one of our concerns.

The Bill before us was drafted before the Florence speech, but rather than amend the Bill to reflect the evolution of Government policy outlined by the Prime Minister in that speech, the Government chose instead to fashion a legislative straitjacket for themselves in the form of enshrining “exit day” for all purposes in the Bill as 11 pm on 29 March 2019. Let us be clear: bringing forward amendments to stipulate that exit day for all purposes of the Bill had nothing to do with leaving the EU. The article 50 notification made our departure from the EU on 29 March 2019 a legal certainty, so, for the purposes of the Bill, exit day could be left in the hands of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful to him. I call Chuka Umunna.

[Chuka Umunna]

I will be as brief as I can. I rise to speak in support of new clause 6 on the legal standing of article 50. I voted in the last Parliament to invoke article 50 because I believed it was the duty of the House to seek to deliver Brexit in the form in which it was sold to the British people, but it was conditional on it being in that form. I said that if it turned out to be materially different at the end of the process, the people would be entitled to keep an open mind on what should then happen. By that I meant they were entitled to halt the process and revoke the article 50 notification given by the Prime Minister to the President of the European Council, if that was what the people decided to do.

The core purpose of new clause 6 is to clear up this matter. On the issue of revocability—halting the process or extending article 50—Ministers have sought deliberately to pull the wool over the eyes not just of this House but of the people. They have given the misleading impression that legally we are not free to keep an open mind and that we cannot revoke article 50 if we so wish. For example, on 9 October 2017, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) asked the Prime Minister if it was possible to halt the article 50 process, she implied that it was not and said:

“The position was made clear in a case that went through the Supreme Court in relation to article 50.”—[Official Report, 9 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 51.]

But it was not. The case she was referring to was brought by Gina Miller to stop this Government seeking to take back control for Ministers instead of for Parliament, as was intended.

The Prime Minster was pressed again on the same day by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) and each time gave a similar response. This gave a completely false impression of the reality, because what she said was not factually correct. The Supreme Court did not and has not opined on this issue in the Miller or any other case before it, though the author of article 50, the noble Lord Kerr, has made it clear that it may be revoked.

[Mr Grieve]

It is abundantly clear that the matter has not been determined by the Supreme Court. The Government chose in the Miller case—for understandable reasons—to put forward the proposition that it could not be revoked, and both sides asked the Court to proceed on that assumption. It did not opine on the matter.

[Chuka Umunna]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right.

The Brexit Minister in the House of Lords, Lord Callanan, repeated this false claim when asked by a Conservative colleague whether he could confirm that the judgement in the Miller case had in ruled in “precise terms” on the revocability of article 50. He replied, “I can confirm that” and went on to say that the European Commission had said that once invoked, article 50 was irrevocable. He was forced 10 days later to return to the other place to come clean on the reality of the legal position, which was of course that the Supreme Court had said no such thing. Indeed, the European Commission is clear that article 50 can legally be revoked, and politically no member state has indicated that it would object to this.

Last week, the Government received legal advice from three Queen’s counsels, Jessica Simor, Marie Demetriou and Tim Ward, all of whom are on the Attorney General’s A panel of counsel and represent the United Kingdom. They have provided the Government with a published legal opinion confirming that article 50 is revocable. On the political side, the President and vice-president of the European Commission and the President of the European Council have made it clear that if this country wishes to change its mind at the end of the process, it will be free to do so. The British people deserve to know that; our constituents deserve to know it. The Government should publish that legal opinion, which is why new clause 6 must be passed.