European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

We need to acknowledge that, although trading on most favoured nation terms is not as good as continuing free trade, it is the second best option and better than continuing with our previous arrangement. If Europe applies the common external tariff to us, most favoured nation tariffs would average 4%. The net contribution that we make to the EU annually is equivalent to 7% of the value of our exports. We are currently paying 7% to avoid a charge of 4%.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

How much do we get back?

[Mr Lilley]

The 7% is after taking account of everything we get back. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know, he should look up table 4.27 on page 159 of the Office for Budget Responsibility report, which spells out how much we will get back net when we leave, which is £13 billion—£250 million a week.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I will not give way as I have very little time.

New clause 137 would require the Government to seek to negotiate a new agreement with the EU if Parliament rejects a deal. Again, I reject the measure. Although we are confident that we will achieve a deal acceptable to Parliament, if Parliament were to reject that deal, it would be a sure sign of weakness, as I have said, to return to the EU and ask for other terms. We would be likely to achieve only a worse deal. Furthermore, there is no obligation on the EU to continue negotiating with us beyond the two-year period specified in article 50.

New clause 175 would effectively require the Government to request that we remain a member of the EU if the terms were not approved by Parliament. Frankly, to do so would be to betray the outcome of the referendum, and the Government are not prepared to accept that. I must make it absolutely clear that the Government want Parliament to be engaged throughout this process.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s position is to diminish the status of this House compared with that of the European Parliament in respect of having oversight of this process?

[Mr Jones]

That is absolutely ludicrous. The European Parliament’s role comes at the end of the process; it has oversight to the extent that it rubber-stamps the agreement or not.

New clauses 18 and 19 would require any new treaties agreed with the EU to be subject to the ratification of Parliament. We have always said that we will observe the constitutional and legal obligations that apply to the final deal, and that remains the case. As we have confirmed, the final agreement will be subject to a vote of this House before it is concluded.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

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

[Mr Harper]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Once we put things into primary legislation and set out the nature and terms of the report, it will, as we have seen, be justiciable, and it will allow people to go to court and argue—they might be successful, they might not—that what the Government have brought forward is not adequate, and we will then have a continuation of the legal arguments that we have seen.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Should not any Member of this House want as a minimum requirement access to information and opportunities at least equal to those of any Member of the European Parliament—surely no Member of this House can justify arguing for anything less?

[Mr Harper]

The point I was making—and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) was agreeing—is that there are already well-established mechanisms in this House for ensuring that information is brought before Members. Indeed, if I simply judge my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union by what they have done so far, it seems to me that they have been in this House frequently talking about Brexit. I fear that, by the end of this process, certainly the general public will be willing it to end as might hon. Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who was in the Chamber a short time ago, made an important point about new clause 3. When imposing legal requirements and duties on anybody—let alone the Prime Minister—one has be sure that those requirements are capable of being realised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and other hon. Members have dealt comprehensively with the difficulties that arise from the part of the new clause that mentions laying

“periodic reports…on the progress of the negotiations”.

I think that case has been made.

Let me move on to the next part. The real problem is subsection (c), which would

“make arrangements for Parliamentary scrutiny of confidential documents.”

As Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, I have had an enormous amount of trouble, over and over again, about documents that are marked as “LIMITÉ”. Although such documents are distributed, Parliaments other than the European Parliament are not allowed to refer to them because they are of a confidential nature. I have made it quite clear that I think some of this is overdone. However, to try to impose a legal duty on the Prime Minister to undertake to break the rules relating to limité documents is stretching a point to absurdity.

[Clive Efford]

I ask the hon. Gentleman the same question that I asked the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) earlier: should he not be arguing, as somebody who has spent a great deal of his time in Parliament scrutinising the European Union, for Members of this House to have rights of scrutiny that are at least equal to those held by Members of the European Parliament?

[Sir William Cash]

I have enormous sympathy with that. In point of fact, the Secretary of State for Brexit gave evidence in the House of Lords, where, as I understand it, he made it abundantly clear that any document that would be made available to the European Parliament and its committees would, indeed, be made available to this House. To that extent, I agree with the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), but I believe such a measure to be unnecessary because an undertaking has already been given by the Secretary of State.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I do not know why the hon. Gentleman does not understand; I am not taking his intervention.

In particular, we are wholly committed to the Belfast agreement and its successors. We will work with the Irish Government to maintain the common travel area on the island of Ireland and not return to the borders of the past. We have received, and we are grateful for, the submissions from the Scottish and Welsh Governments, which are being considered.

That said, the Supreme Court was clear in its judgment that triggering article 50 is a reserved matter for this Parliament, and that the devolved legislatures do not have a veto. But we have been clear that we will work very carefully to ensure that as powers are repatriated from Brussels back to Britain, the right powers are returned to Westminster and the right powers are passed to the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Many hon. Members raised the question of the status of EU citizens living and working in the United Kingdom. Let us be clear: this Government value and appreciate the role that they play in our economy and in our communities, and we are determined to provide as much certainty as we can, as soon as we can. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been clear that guaranteeing UK citizens’ rights in the EU, and EU citizens’ rights in the UK, is one of our immediate objectives in the upcoming negotiations. Indeed, we stand ready to reach such a deal right now if the other countries of the European Union agree. To the EU citizens who are living, studying and working in the UK I say, “You will still be welcome in this country, as we trust our citizens will continue to be welcome in yours.”

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope it is a point of order, rather than a point of frustration.

[Clive Efford]

What is the point in the Minister coming here, reading out a pre-written statement to the House and not listening to interventions from hon. Members who have legitimate questions to ask of the Government?

[Mr Speaker]

These debates will run for a long time to come, but that is not a matter for the Chair.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I find myself in the invidious position of agreeing with virtually everything that was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and with virtually everything that has been said by my hon. Friends who intend to vote against the Bill’s Second Reading tomorrow evening. I differ from them in one respect only: I do not think it is possible for me, as a democratically elected Member of Parliament who entered into the referendum process having accepted that we were going to have a referendum, then to tell the public that somehow I know better, and that I am not going to honour the outcome of that referendum.

I will vote in favour of triggering article 50 for that reason, but also because I do not want the Conservatives, every time I challenge them over the process and every time I challenge them to come back to the House to be held accountable for what they are negotiating on behalf of this country, to turn around and say that I am seeking to second-guess the outcome of the referendum. They must be accountable to the House for what they are doing.

There are some questions to be asked about whether members of the Government are acting in our best interests. We had the spat with the Italian Economic Development Minister over whether Italy would be hurt by selling less prosecco to the UK, where he turned around and said, “We may sell a little less prosecco, but that’ll be happening in one country, while you’ll be selling less to 27 countries.” We had the comments of the Foreign Secretary over freedom of movement as a founding principle of the European Union, where he used a very unfortunate word in an interview with a Czech newspaper and said it is a “total myth” and “nonsense” to say it is a “founding principle”. He may well believe that that is true, but that is not the way to go about negotiating with people who are going to have an important say over future trade agreements for this country. Then, when it came to the meeting about the outcome of the American presidential election, he spoke down to the people attending a meeting specially convened to discuss that, and said:

“I would respectfully say to my beloved European friends and colleagues”.

What sort of language is that to use—talking down to the very people we want to co-operate with us in future negotiations? He also went on to describe Donald Trump as

“a liberal guy from New York”.

He may well be rethinking that one.

The Government have clearly shown that they are not to be trusted with these negotiations without having oversight from this House of Commons. We must have a say in this process. I will be voting to trigger article 50, and I have heard speeches from the Government Benches where Members have said that they also want to have a say over the process here in Parliament. I hope that we will see them voting on amendments to ensure that that actually takes place in the three days of debates we will have next week.

I have heard all the talk about a brave new world that is going to open up for us under the World Trade Organisation, but people do not seem to be respecting the fact that there are rules, regulations and tariffs to be negotiated with the World Trade Organisation. In fact, it is highly likely that our easiest way into the World Trade Organisation is to take as a package all the agreements that we have under the EU and adopt them under the WTO; that is the easiest way possible to avoid all sorts of challenges to the UK.

Incidentally, we do not have the teams of lawyers, accountants and officials who are used to dealing with these sorts of negotiations to act on our behalf. We are opening up all these negotiations without having the expertise in place. The Government have repeatedly been asked questions about building up these Departments and the expertise: where are the experts who are used to negotiating on behalf of the UK? They are all in Europe; they have been doing it at a European level, and they are not here. We are going to have to do that at several levels—over article 50, over future trade agreements and over trade agreements through the WTO.

What is going to happen with those countries who have vested interests, like Spain, who might want to use this vulnerability of the UK to open up negotiations about Gibraltar? If we go into the World Trade Organisation, would Argentina start to challenge agreements with the UK to open up negotiations about the future of the Falklands Islands?

This is the reality of international trade agreements; this is the real world that we are going to be moving into. The idea that we can just fall out of Europe and fall into the World Trade Organisation with absolutely no consequences is folly. That is why this House of Commons has got to have a say over the process and scrutinise in detail what this Government are doing on behalf of this country. We as Members of Parliament have a duty to do that, and the Government should not stand in the way of democratic accountability in this House under the guise of saying, “You’re trying to renegotiate the outcome of the referendum.” That is not true, but that does not mean they cannot avoid accountability. I hope the Government will accept an amendment on that basis so that we do bring sovereignty back here to this House of Commons.