United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

That may well be right. My hon. and learned Friend has much experience of these matters. I would simply say that if the House passes this Bill tonight, it really does not seem to care about law and treaties.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I feel like a Pez dispenser of clarification on the Good Friday agreement. In discussing sovereignty, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is not an ornament on the shelf? The Good Friday agreement, being endorsed by the people of Ireland north and south, is in fact sovereign as regards Northern Ireland. Does he further agree that this Bill not only does not protect the Good Friday agreement but offends each of its strands and its principles of democratic process, respect for differences and the rule of law?

[Ian Blackford]

Absolutely—I fundamentally agree with the hon. Lady. We all look on with alarm at what could happen if the Good Friday agreement is disrespected. We give every good wish to our friends on the island of Ireland that the peace is maintained, but there is no question that the Government are playing with fire.

Madam Deputy Speaker, time is short so I must now move on. It is pretty ironic that at the very same moment the Tories are robbing the Scottish people of their sovereign rights, those behind this power grab are using the very same arguments on sovereignty to impose their extreme Brexit agenda. In February, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) lectured us:

“the experience of history tells us that the countries with the maximum amount of control over their own destinies are the best equipped to succeed economically and, indeed, to secure a greater degree of equity for all their citizens.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2020; Vol. 672, c. 478.]

If the Minister holds that to be true, then it ought to be true for Scotland. Yet, through this very Bill, the UK Government are trying to rob those rights and those powers from Scotland’s democratically elected Parliament. The best that can be said for this UK Government is that they at least wear their hypocrisy on their sleeves. When it comes to sovereignty, I have been looking back at what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said over the years. He said on 14 October 2012, when talking about the EU:

“give us back our sovereignty or we will walk out”.

If he thinks this matter is so crucial, why is he leading his Government to attack the Scottish Parliament? Why is he disregarding our sovereignty in Scotland?

Madam Deputy Speaker, we will push our amendment tonight to defend democracy, to defend Scotland’s interests, to defend against this bare-faced attack on our Parliament’s powers. We know that the vast majority of Scotland’s MPs and the Scottish public will be with us. What of the six Scottish Tories, though? Will they stand up for Scotland? Will they stand up for our Parliament? Tonight is their chance to join with us, to reject this power grab, to reject Westminster’s trampling over the devolution settlement, to respect that the Scottish Parliament should determine spending on devolved matters. A failure to join with us will show that the so-called Scottish Tories have reverted to type and reverted to what they have traditionally been: hostile to devolution.

Let me conclude by putting this in context. Over the past number of years, Scotland’s people have watched on as Westminster ignored their views on Brexit, launched power grab after power grab, and undermined our democratic rights. This legislation is the last straw. It leaves us with only one option and only one choice. A growing and consistent majority of our people have now come to the same conclusion. They know that the only way to defend Scotland’s Parliament and powers is through independence.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the words of Charles Stewart Parnell, who used to sit on these Benches just two rows back, still ring true. Tonight, I direct these words to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I will do this with two lines in Gaelic and then give an English translation:

“Chan eil còir aig duine crìochan a chur air adhartas dùthcha. Chan eil còir aig duine innse do dhùthaich, ‘Gheibh sibh cho fada ri seo agus chan fhaigh na b’fhaide.’”

“No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country—thus far shalt thou go and no further.”

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

My 10-year-old son asked me what we were debating this evening. I confessed it was Brexit, to which he replied, “Not again! Haven’t you been doing that for a while?”. I tried to come up with an analogy to explain why we are still doing this, and I compared it with the Apollo programme, which had a commitment, an obvious mission—to land a man on the moon—a clear tactical goal with a strategic objective. Our 2016 referendum could not have been more different. Think back to the question that we were asked: “Should the UK remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”. In the case of the moon landing, the difference between success and failure was clear to absolutely everybody, but what “leave” meant was never formally articulated or agreed.

The world watched with trepidation as Apollo 11 completed its mission, targeting not just the moon, but a specific place on its surface. Years later, a global audience would witness another journey into the unknown. This time, it was Brexit that was given the green light to launch—but without our formally agreeing a specific destination. There was a vast spectrum to land in, and four years later, we continue to dissect the issue in detail. Now, with talks going down to the wire, we have to think the previously unthinkable and prepare for the possibility of no deal. To be clear, I absolutely respect the result of the referendum; I care, though, about where this project lands, and that is what we are discussing today.

If we step back from the details of the battle, we begin to appreciate the impact a no-deal Brexit will have on global Britain. The world order that we helped to create after 1945 and globalised after the fall of the Soviet Union is in decline. Threats are diversifying and becoming more complex at the very time that we are witnessing a decline in western resolve—in what we believe in, stand for, and are willing to defend. As the UK assumes the G7 presidency and hosts COP26, we will have the chance to stand tall with a new White House Administration, invigorated, and the chance to repair our frail world order and contest the rise of authoritarian state and non-state actors, which for too long have been given free rein to pursue their own agendas.

Yet here we are, seemingly willing to retreat from the world stage, potentially distancing ourselves from the continent and, indeed, the US by entertaining the prospect of no deal only a week after we cut our overseas aid budget. Our soft power, arguably the most influential in the world, has already been bruised by the UK’s willingness, however good our intentions, to flout international law by breaching the withdrawal agreement. Indeed, we are here today to put back the offending part 5, which was removed by the Lords because of the wider implication that the UK was willing to breach international law.

I am pleased that the Government intend to remove clauses 44, 45 and 47 in the event that a trade deal is confirmed, but it would be an abject failure of statecraft to leave the EU with no deal. If more time is required, so be it. We will live with the consequences for years—indeed, decades. We must summon the political courage to get this right. The west is about to regroup. Our voice, our experience and our leadership are needed on the global stage.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to follow that thoughtful speech from the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). I have a daughter who is younger than the Brexit negotiations, and I think she would probably concur with his son.

I have been around enough tortuous, protracted negotiations in Northern Ireland to know that when a U-turn is being executed, it is polite to let it be done, so I welcome the apparent acknowledgement that the clauses relating to the breach of the protocol will be removed, but it is fair to point out just how damaging their inclusion was in the first place. That proposal to breach international law has proven to be, as many of us said when we discussed this in September, cack-handed and a massive own goal. Threatening the operation of the protocol again through the Taxation (Post Transition Period) Bill would be equally wrong-headed, reckless and counterproductive, and I hope that that will be affirmed before legislation is taken forward. The Joint Committee is, as we all know, the place to resolve issues relating to the protocol. Far from showing that the UK is serious about a deal, as the Government tried to do with this Bill, they have shown that it is untrustworthy. That undermined the very UK negotiators who were trying, through the Joint Committee, to get resolution on some of these issues.

It is fair to say that nobody loves the protocol. It is not beloved in Northern Ireland, but it is a response to the challenges presented by Brexit—challenges that we and others have sounded the alarm on for years before and since 2016. It is a response to decisions made on the Government Benches. The irony is that that is the threat to the Union. I see that my colleagues from Northern Ireland are no longer here, but it is worth saying that those of us in the centre and nationalists in Northern Ireland were minding our own business in 2016 when this was thrust upon us. In fact, it is Brexit, laying out the imbalances in the United Kingdom, that is the threat to the Union. Those of us who got into politics not to bang on about constitutional change but to improve people’s lives can get on with doing that while others appear to make our case for us.

Neither the EU nor the UK is happy about what the protocol means, so we have to think about how it feels to those of us in Northern Ireland, but it is a necessary protection from Brexit. Businesses do not want it to be repudiated and trashed. They want it to be implemented. Moves such as those we have seen leave Northern Ireland more exposed. They leave us looking vulnerable to those who want to invest and are trying to develop their businesses. The point of the protocol was to take Northern Ireland and its complexities and fragilities off the table and try to manage those, rather than undermine them. It remains a fact—one that is always worth repeating—that if people really want to minimise the friction between Britain and Northern Ireland, the way to do that is a closer EU-UK relationship, but somehow that argument never gets made.

I turn to the amendments. We welcome the clear message that the Lords sought to send about good faith, the rule of law and devolution, including the need to enhance the duty to consult and co-operate with devolved Administrations. I will not repeat the points that I made when we discussed this legislation in September, but it is important to say that devolution—local decisions in local hands—is a fundamental part of the Good Friday agreement. The proposals in the Bill offend devolution, which is supported by people in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We agree with the Lords’ attempt to offer us protection against that direct overrule and trespass into that settlement.

All that is left to say is that it is time to get this done. I regret that in the biggest economic contraction in living memory, no deal is still somehow on the table, and I urge those who have this decision before them to make it and get this sorted.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) is a big act to follow. I rise to talk about the Lords amendments to part 5 of the Bill. Without this part of the Bill standing as it was originally intended, the United Kingdom risks being divided. We could get into a position where goods and services from Northern Ireland are treated differently from those in the rest of our Great Britain. That cannot happen. As Conservatives, we have a manifesto commitment, barely a year old, to give Northern Ireland unfettered access to Great Britain’s markets. Article 6 of the Northern Ireland protocol also states that. The Good Friday agreement states that Northern Ireland’s constitutional status cannot be changed without the consent of both communities. Even the Acts of Union 1800 stated it.

As an MP in the north-west of England, I know that the people of Northern Ireland are closely entwined with us, both geographically and culturally. It is a short ferry ride or a quick hop on a plane, and barely a street, let alone a community, does not have someone with an Irish accent. They are not separate; they are part of a wonderful whole, and for artificial lines to be drawn across our shared sea is unconscionable. For a business in Northern Ireland to have customs checks for its products, or to be treated differently, is not something I would propose, consider, or support.