European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between David Amess and Joanna Cherry

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Temporary Chair (Sir David Amess)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the Committee that the debate finishes at 18 minutes past midnight. Many Members are waiting to speak and I want to give the Minister plenty of time to respond to the debate. So unless colleagues keep the speeches to about 10 minutes, there will be any number of disappointed Members.

[Joanna Cherry]

I rise to support the amendments standing in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), and those that have been drafted by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, which have cross-party support from the SNP, the Labour party, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats.

I want to dispel a myth emanating from Conservative Members before I look at clause 11 in any detail: the idea that there is some sort of division between the position of my Scottish Government colleagues and the SNP. I can assure those Members that that is not the case and we regularly meet the Scottish Government Brexit Minister, Mike Russell. Let me tell Conservative Members what Mr Russell told a number of Sunday newspapers yesterday. He said that these cross-party devolution amendments are “non-negotiable” and that, if the UK Government want the SNP to recommend support for the Bill in the Scottish Parliament, they must be passed. He continued:

“I don’t want to leave anybody in any doubt, if the Bill cannot be amended—”

as per these amendments—

“there cannot be a legislative consent motion, there cannot be the progress that the government wants.”

So let there be no doubt of the SNP position on this, which is the position of the Scottish Government and of the Welsh Government, and which has the support of the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Labour party in this Chamber.

It is important to focus on clause 11. We have heard a lot of general rhetoric today, but what we are actually looking at is that clause. I am not going to use my own analysis of it. I am going to use the analysis of much more eminent lawyers than myself. Let me start by briefly declaring an interest, as I am going to quote the views of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland on the Bill and I am a member of the faculty, although I am no longer practising. It has pointed out that 111 areas were listed as potentially requiring a common policy framework and that the list is too long, its content is too broadly drawn and some of the 111 areas were so imprecise

“as to be incapable of meaningful understanding”.

It said that the proposed approach of this Government to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

“threatens to encroach on matters that are already devolved and legislated on by Holyrood under the current settlement.”

That is the view of the Scottish Bar, of which I am a member; I wish I could say they were all members of the SNP, but they are not, as they comprise people from all political persuasions and none.

The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) referred to the evidence given to the Brexit Select Committee by Laura Dunlop, QC, who is the faculty’s spokesperson and head of its law reform committee. The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has convened a group of experts to look at the Bill, under the chairmanship of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who was in his place earlier. It, too, has been extremely critical of clause 11:

“In a constitution where legislative power is divided between the national parliament and devolved parliaments, uncertainty about the division of legislative power undermines foreseeability and predictability about the overall legal framework and is therefore inimical to the Rule of Law.

Clause 11 of the Bill is such a law: it re-defines the scope of devolved legislative competence after Brexit.”

Those are the words of a group of expert lawyers convened by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. It is not an SNP partisan view, but the view of a cross-party group of lawyers.