Northern Ireland
Debate between David Jones and Chris Heaton-Harris(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
I would say to the hon. Gentleman that I think I am right.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
When my right hon. Friend appeared before the European Scrutiny Committee yesterday, he promised to deliver the list of the 3% of EU laws he says will remain as a consequence of this process. Can he please tell us where that list is?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I gave the majority of that list in the course of those proceedings, and I said that I would write to my right hon. Friend, which I will do.
The old protocol had some measures that were aimed at giving it democratic legitimacy. The UK had a vote over any new laws that the EU wanted to add to the protocol, but that veto did not extend to amendments of laws that were already there, and crucially, there was no role for the Northern Ireland Assembly in deciding whether and when to use that veto. Of course, it contained the democratic consent mechanism, an important means of giving the Assembly the right to end the application of articles 5 to 10 of the old protocol. Those measures were important, and the Windsor framework maintains them, but they were not, in themselves, enough to address the democratic deficit.
No-deal EU Exit Preparations
Debate between David Jones and Chris Heaton-Harris(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
As a matter of fact, the best way to prevent that from happening is to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
My hon. Friend has acknowledged that the default position is that this country will leave the European Union on 29 March without a deal. Can he tell us in what circumstances the Government will conclude that a deal is impossible, and does he not accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) that the public are entitled to reassurance in that regard?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I should like to think that we are giving some reassurance through the vast array of publicly available information on how we are preparing for no deal, and, indeed, through the ongoing advertising campaign that I described in my statement. In my personal view, leaving without a deal is—I know that some Members do not like this word—suboptimal. The optimal way of leaving is with a deal that takes no deal off the table completely. However, we are as ready as we can be at this point, and the huge amount of information that is in the public domain should give his constituents and mine the reassurance that they deserve. [Interruption.]