EU Exit Negotiations
Debate between David Davis and Andrew Bridgen(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
We have heard a lot of complaint from Opposition Members about the Government’s generous offer of a meaningful vote on whatever deal the Secretary of State can achieve. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that is exactly the basis on which the European Parliament will vote, and will he tell the House whether UK Members of the European Parliament will vote on the deal?
Next Steps in Leaving the European Union
Debate between David Davis and Andrew Bridgen(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Davis
I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is just wrong. We have already invested a lot of resource in this issue. Indeed, the quotes from the Northern Ireland Secretary on the front page of The Guardian this morning are accurate. We are talking to the Irish Government to determine, as well as we can, a technical mechanism to ensure that we will maintain an open border and underpin the agreement.
Andrew Bridgen
I am disappointed that so many Members of this House—I might politely call them the “unreconcilables”—seem intent on using every ploy of parliamentary procedure to undermine the will of the British people, claiming that it is the democratic right of this House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important principles of democracy is that everyone’s vote counts the same, and that on 23 June, everyone in the country, including Members of this House, had a vote and the result was clear?
Trade Union Bill
Debate between David Davis and Andrew Bridgen(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Bridgen
My hon. Friend makes a point that has been made often. I think we also saw the influence of the union movement in the recent Labour leadership elections and the selection of Front Benchers.
Other sensible measures in the Bill are clauses 7 and 8, which set an expiry date on industrial action ballot mandates and extend the notice period that unions must give employers from seven to 14 days. The latter will give more time to reach settlements, which can only be a good thing for all parties concerned, while giving those adversely affected, such as commuters and parents, time to make other arrangements, whereas the former is a common-sense measure given the present situation of having effectively rolling mandates that can last for years and might be ongoing long after the members who originally voted for them have left employment.
Clause 9, on picketing, has engendered a number of comments and I understand that there are concerns about the level of police involvement. There is, however, an issue of intimidation in the trade union movement. One needs only to think back to the incident with Unite officials at the Grangemouth oil refinery in 2013, in which a mob was sent to protest outside a family home with banners, flags and a giant inflatable rat, which led to a country pub and even a charity fun run being disrupted.
Mr David Davis
My hon. Friend makes a good point, but my simple question is: why not deal with that through a general anti-intimidation law rather than a specific union law?
Andrew Bridgen
My right hon. Friend has made that point and it is worthy of consideration. I am sure that he will bring his knowledge of the subject to our discussions of the Bill as we proceed.
That incident was linked to a Labour party candidate selection row and was perpetrated by union officials. That serves only to highlight how intimidation tactics have recently been employed by a limited number of trade union activists, and those tactics have no place in this country, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) agrees.
Voting by Prisoners
Debate between David Davis and Andrew Bridgen(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Davis
I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend, who is a very close friend as well, checked the travail préparatoire in which one of his predecessors—Dowson, I think—said in terms that we had general suffrage but it could not be described as universal suffrage. That is what I was resting the point on.
Since about 1978, the European Court has adopted the view that the convention was what it termed “a living instrument”. That meant that the Court could arrogate to itself the right to decide what its remit was. It did that without any mandate from this House or any other house of representatives of the member states of the Council of Europe. This has been picked up, not by some Tory or right-wing Eurosceptic, but by Lord Justice Hoffmann, an eminent judge with enormous civil liberties credentials, who said that the Strasbourg Court has
“been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on member states”.
Even the Court itself understands this. In the minority report, Judge Costa, the President of the Court, a man who believes in extending the powers of his own court, said that he
“accepted that the States have a wide margin of appreciation to decide on the aims of any restriction, limitation or even outright ban on the vote”
and pointed out that the judges were not legislators and should not overrule the legislatures of the Council of Europe.
I want the European Court to succeed at its main business, which is why I differed from my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). However, I do not want it to try to interfere in the business of legislatures around the European continent.
