EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and Angela Smith

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I am afraid that I do not agree with Michel Barnier, if it was he who said that to the Committee. How can I put this? The ambitions of the Commission on this are lower than they should be. The simple truth is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and we need to have something that is pretty binding before we are going to sign off the withdrawal agreement.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

On that note, the Secretary of State made it clear in his statement that the implementation period and its details would be part of the legislation. Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is therefore absolutely clear that if the trade deal is not finalised by next October, there will be no guarantee whatsoever that such a Bill will come before Parliament until after March 2019 and until the trade deal is finalised with the EU?

[Mr Davis]

The Bill cannot be brought before Parliament before the withdrawal deal is struck, but I remind the hon. Lady that the Government have undertaken to provide a vote on the whole deal before we even come to that.

Article 50

Debate between David Davis and Angela Smith

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I am responsible for many things, but the Labour party’s stance is not one of them. Frankly, that is just as well, given that it had three of them—three different stances—over the weekend. As I understand it, the approach taken by my Labour opposite number is that conditions will be attached to the approval of triggering article 50. That does not reflect the will of the people at all—just the reverse.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State not accept that the judgment given by the Supreme Court could come as late as January? Does he not accept that, nevertheless, the debate about what the Government think Brexit should look like does not have to be constrained by the court judgment, and could start tomorrow if the Government had the political will? Does he not accept that the best way of doing that would be to table a White Paper as soon as possible?

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady has not listened to my responses to earlier questions. Yes, she is right in one respect: the judgment may come as late as early January. The expectation is that the case will be held in early December, and I suspect that it will take two to three weeks for the judgment to be written up. I think the proper role of the Government is to await and to respect the judgment from the Supreme Court—full stop.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Angela Smith

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

11. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on employment and workers’ rights deriving from EU legislation and rulings of the European Court of Justice being given domestic effect upon the UK leaving the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)]

A large component of the people who voted to leave the EU could be characterised as the British industrial working class. It is no part of my brief to undermine their rights—full stop. As a Government, we have been clear that we will do nothing to undermine workers’ rights. All law in this area at the time of exit will be brought under UK law as part of the great repeal Bill, ensuring continuity.

[Angela Smith]

The 2000 part-time workers regulations implemented the EU directive that guarantees that the rights of part-time workers are equal with those of their full-time colleagues. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that those rights will not be removed or diluted in any way when the UK leaves the EU?

[Mr Davis]

As I said, all law will be incorporated—no exceptions.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between David Davis and Angela Smith

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

That is why I start from my concern about the guillotine, because this is a Bill that in past decades—not past years, sadly—would have spent hours, days and weeks on the Floor of the House. It would have been preceded by a proper consultation, a cross-party agreement, a Green Paper and a White Paper—there was a White Paper, but as far as I could tell, it did not refer to part 2 at all. The Bill has not gone through what in my view would be a proper constitutional process and so will of course be subject to unintended consequences all over the place.

I accept that the Government will not have intended many of the consequences—I will come to some that they do intend in a minute. I accept that the deleterious consequences of the Bill were not intentional, but they arise directly from how the Government started the process. We had a brilliant report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, as chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which could have provided a basis. That Committee could have been the vehicle for the process. The hon. Gentleman is right: there will be deleterious consequences, most of them unintended, but most of them because of how we have addressed this Bill.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations has made it clear that it has similar concerns outstanding, despite the apparent movement by the Government on clause 26? It says in its brief:

“'We remain concerned that…voluntary organisations…may still be subject to ambiguous and damaging legislation. NCVO believes in a society where freedom of speech, the freedom to associate and the right to free and fair elections are all similarly inviolable.”

[Mr Davis]

Let me pick up that point and develop it a little—we are principally talking about clause 26, but it also relates to later clauses, which will be dealt with later in the day. It is in this context that the comments from the Electoral Commission—the primary executing agency of this Bill—come into play. It uses the words “significant regulatory uncertainty”, saying that parts of the Bill are “impossible to enforce” and pointing out “significant issues of workability”. What are we doing? We are transforming a bureaucratic organisation, with the powers to make rules on policy campaigning, as well as to relax those rules, tighten the rules, amend them retrospectively and then apply them retrospectively to freedom of speech—something that is, by definition, oppressive. By definition, that will chill freedom of speech. This Parliament has created a bureaucracy without the ability to alter, change or amend the rules before—it was known as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. What we are creating in this Bill is—if we want a precursor of how this will play out—an IPSA for elections.

Let me turn to new clause 4. When it comes to political campaigns—whether electoral campaigns or other campaigns—the world is changing. Twenty-five years ago, I think only 8% of the population did not feel an affinity to one or other party. That figure is now 25%. All the political parties are declining—there is no party point in this; we are all dying on the vine as organisations. It is the nature of society that people’s interest in something tends to be more piecemeal than it was 25 or 50 years ago. This Bill is trying to swim upstream. It is trying to defy the nature of modern politics and the fact that political decision making now is by web-based campaigners, web-based petitions or 38 Degrees.

I get as annoyed as everyone else when I get campaigners from 38 Degrees writing to me—they say that they sometimes get dusty replies—but as Voltaire would have put it, I may disagree with what they say, but I defend to the death their right to say it. What part 2 does—not intentionally, but by accident—is jeopardise that entire tradition of our country. This is the home of free speech and this Chamber is the original defender of free speech, so what are we doing making these changes by accident? That is why I am concerned.