Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady knows my stance on torture down the years—better than most, I suspect. The British Government’s stance on torture is very plain: we do not condone it and we do not agree with it in any circumstances whatever.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

At a conference on Brexit in Berlin at the weekend, the uncertainty facing EU nationals who are resident in the UK was made very clear. The Prime Minister’s comments were immensely welcome. Would it be possible for this issue to be resolved as rapidly as possible in the negotiations?

[Mr Davis]

The Prime Minister has made it plain that she has already tried to get agreement among all the member states. Most of them agree, but one or two of them do not, and we have to keep pressing, as we will, to resolve this as quickly as possible. I hope that EU nationals who are currently here will take heart from what we are saying. Our intention is to give them the guarantees that will also apply to British citizens abroad.

Article 50

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s overall question is yes—we are standing by both those votes and we will continue to do so. But I reiterate again that the point is that they will not be the only votes; there will be a large number of other votes in between. Labour Members can ignore it till the cows come home, but the simple truth is that they are going to have many, many, many votes on many different policy areas after extensive debate on primary legislation. So the answer is that Parliament will have a great influence on this process, and it will have the final say. That is democracy in action.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Further to that last reply, my right hon. Friend has given us admirable clarity on article 50 and the timetable. Could he give us a little more information on his current thoughts about the timetable for the great repeal Bill?

[Mr Davis]

That Bill will be in the Queen’s Speech, it will be presented to the House very soon thereafter and I expect it to be debated extensively. I think that it will be the centrepiece and the start of a major debate about the nature of this country and the future, so it is important to get it in front of the House very early.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. There are other questions on transitional arrangements that I will come to in detail later, as the Speaker will pull me up if I do not. The answer is yes; we want to see them both done in parallel inside the two years.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

As I know from talking to businesses up and down the country, whether they voted to leave or to remain, there is overwhelming consensus—they want get on with this. Uncertainty is the one threat, as opposed to the comically inaccurate forecasts, which have been proved completely wrong, by the remain side. Can the Secretary of State confirm that whichever way the appeal goes in the Supreme Court—the Government do have very good arguments—there will still be time to pass the necessary legislation, if required, and to stick to the timetable of triggering article 50 by the end of March?

[Mr Davis]

Yes, that is my belief.

Article 50

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

What happened in 2015 was that the Government Minister responsible, the Foreign Secretary, said to the House of Commons that this gives the decision to the British people—full stop, no ifs, no buts. The Government then published a number of documents saying the same thing over and over again. If we betray the people by not responding to that properly, I think it will be very difficult to ever make a referendum matter again.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I am delighted with the certainty my right hon. Friend has that we are sticking to the current timetable, but he will have noticed that those who voted to remain are putting out a false narrative that we now have a choice between soft Brexit or hard Brexit. Will he please confirm that the biggest majority in British history voted to take back control, and that means making our own laws in our own Parliament?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. We were given a national instruction, which we will interpret in the national interest, not in terms of any fictional soft or hard, or any other sort of, Brexit. We will get the outcome that suits this country best.

Next Steps in Leaving the European Union

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

That is an extraordinary assertion, even if it parodies Harold Wilson, one of the hon. Gentleman’s previous heroes.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State please clarify for the benefit of Opposition Front Benchers this incredibly simple point: independent countries can trade most successfully with the single market without being a member of the single market?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is right that more than 20 countries have had more success in growth terms when trading into the single market than we have had in the past 10 or 20 years. He is absolutely right that it is not necessary to be a member of the single market to trade incredibly successfully inside it.

Exiting the European Union

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Indeed, the suggestion from the Commission that it is somehow illegal for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade to go and talk to Ministers in India, Canada, Australia or wherever he is going next is somewhat ridiculous. The only thing the Commission can say in legal terms is that we cannot bring an agreement into force until after we leave, and that is perfectly fair and proper. That is what the laws of the European Union are. The hon. Gentleman can take it as read that we are looking to ensure the fastest possible transition to the opportunities I mentioned after Brexit concludes. Similarly, on the other front, there have been suggestions that we cannot talk about the trade arrangement with Europe until the article 50 process has concluded and we are outside the European Union. That, too, is nonsense. I have looked carefully at several different versions of article 50 in different languages, and they all refer to the parallel negotiations that will need to take place, so the hon. Gentleman can take it as read on both those counts that he is right and that we are pursuing the matter.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment and wish him well in his historic task. Many industries and everyday activities depend on European regulation, but there is some uncertainty being stirred up about the future of the law. Further to his reply to the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), can he confirm that the Government are going about establishing the entire corpus of European law and all the detail of the acquis communautaire, following the path set by countries such as India and Australia when they took on full independence and converted the whole of British law into their national law and then, in subsequent years, repealed, filleted or improved upon it?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. This is one of the reasons that the process is taking some time. The legal interactions of certain elements of the acquis communautaire and British law are not straightforward. My starting position was that we would put them all into the law and take it from there, but it does not quite work like that. That is why this is taking a little while, but my right hon. Friend can be sure that my legal section and the Whitehall lawyers are on that issue as we speak and will come up with conclusions as quickly as they can. When they do so, I will tell the House what their conclusion is.

Council of Europe

Debate between David Davis and Owen Paterson

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is even more perverse than that, as for a couple of decades the Venice Commission has promoted the issue of Government neutrality in referendums.

Judges in the European Court of Human Rights are appointed for a seven-year term, which is non-renewable to protect their independence. How can members of PACE from the UK’s governing party express independent opinions in Strasbourg if there is a covert threat that their appointment will not be renewed if they step out of line with the Government’s wishes? Right at the heart of this issue is the question of the separation of powers; that is at the root of the whole debate. What could the Government possibly have to fear in trusting Conservative Back Benchers to elect Conservative representatives to the Parliamentary Assembly, as they do for departmental Select Committees?

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I was tempted to raise this as a point of order. My right hon. Friend does not have to go to Europe to get the guidelines on this; he can look at “Erskine May”. On page 265, under the heading “Improper influence”, it says:

“Conduct not amounting to a direct attempt improperly to influence Members in the discharge of their duties but having a tendency to impair their independence in the future performance of their duty may be treated as a contempt.”

In other words, what the Government have done to Members of the House would be treated as contempt of Parliament if it had been done by anybody else in the country.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his assiduous research. That is a most pertinent point. It is also particularly relevant when one considers the three characters in question, all of whom are established, respected, assiduous Members of this House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), if I may embarrass him first, has been on PACE for 10 years. He is the leader of the European Conservatives Group—a group with members from 17 countries. He sits on the Presidential Committee, which is made up of the President and the five group leaders. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) was Secretary of State for Wales, she guided a referendum so skilfully that none of us even noticed it. She is also Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who sits on the Council’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, has done splendid work highlighting the horrific persecution of centuries-old Christian communities in the middle east.