Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 (Amendment)

David Nuttall Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I rise to oppose the motion, which was proposed so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay). I thank him for raising a matter of concern for millions of our fellow citizens. At the time of the events to which he referred, I am sure that I was not alone in receiving communications from constituents, asking that we stop this trade. He is responding to those calls for action, but I want to deal with the elephant in the room—in fact, the two elephants in the room, one of which he touched on briefly.

The first elephant in the room is to do with our proceedings. As we are in the last few sitting days of this Session, even if the motion is passed today there will be no time to consider the Bill further during this Session. Along with the dozens of others that are listed on the Order Paper, it will fall when Parliament prorogues in the next day or two. As the House will be aware, the Procedure Committee, of which I am a member, has put forward proposals to change our procedures to make them more readily understandable to those outside the House.

There is therefore an interesting contrast between the two elephants. It is within our power to do something about the first one. It is in our hands to improve matters, so we can remove the first elephant from the room. The second elephant is the effect on our law of European law, which was touched on briefly by my hon. Friend in moving the ten-minute rule motion. It means that no matter how much we would like to change the sad state of affairs in which we find ourselves, we are powerless to do anything about it.

In the time available today, it is not possible to deal with every single detail of the matter, but I hope that in trying to prove my case to the satisfaction of the House, it will suffice if I quote briefly from the judgment of Mr Justice Birss in the case that arose out of the facts set out by my hon. Friend, the short title of which was Barco de Vapor v. Thanet District Council. It is a comprehensive judgment that runs to 192 paragraphs. I will quote from just three of those paragraphs.

Paragraph 8 states:

“The claimants’ case in outline is that the ban amounted to a restriction on the exporting of goods within the European Union in breach of Article 35 TFEU and cannot be justified under Article 36 TFEU or otherwise. One reason it cannot be justified is because the relevant legislation is Regulation EC 1/2005. The claimants contend that the ban is contrary to the Regulation and that since the Regulation exhaustively harmonises the law in the relevant area, the ban cannot be justified under Art 36.”

I should explain for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the acronym TFEU that it refers to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which is one of the basic treaties of the European Union that we are subject to.

Let me jump to the very end of the judgment, where the judge delivers his final verdict on the case. At the end of the penultimate 191st paragraph, he says:

“In my judgment TDC are liable to pay damages to compensate the claimants for the losses caused by the breach of Art 35 TFEU.”

There is no mention of the Act that my hon. Friend seeks to amend today.

Finally, let me quote from the final paragraph. My hon. Friend referred briefly to one part of it, but did not read the whole paragraph, which is very instructive indeed. Paragraph 192 reads as follows:

“The animal export trade is not popular. It involves activities which are highly distasteful to many people. However the law does not exist only to protect the interests of the popular. I have found that Thanet District Council did not have the authority to impose the ban which prevented the claimants from using Ramsgate port to export livestock. The ban was an unjustifiable breach of Art 35 of the TFEU. It was a disproportionate decision reached in haste without separate legal advice and breached a fundamental element of the rules governing free trade in the EU. In my judgment the council is liable to pay damages to the claimants.”

There we have it: the final judgment was nothing to do with the 1847 Act—let’s not kid ourselves. It all came down to article 35.

Our constituents will often hear that one of the reasons why those of us who believe that the United Kingdom would be better off if we left the European Union is that our membership means a loss of sovereignty. Unsurprisingly, many people are not all that clear about what that actually means. Is it some sort of technical or theoretical issue that does not really matter? This case brings the whole issue of sovereignty to life. In short, the loss of sovereignty means the loss of power—the loss of power of this House to do anything about certain things. It means that the power of our constituents has been given away; the power that they have entrusted to us to enact legislation on their behalf has been lost.

I believe that we must be open and honest with the country about these matters. There is no point in continuing the pretence that this House has any power to stop these exports by merely amending domestic legislation. Unless we leave the European Union and regain our sovereignty—that is to say, regain the power to control our own affairs—we are simply wasting our time. We are giving the public the false impression that we are able to do something about this matter, when we cannot.

In view of the fact that there is no prospect of the Bill making further progress, I do not wish to divide the House, but I trust that by the time my hon. Friend brings the matter before the House again, voters across the country will have taken the opportunity afforded to them on 23 June to take back control over this matter.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Craig Mackinlay, Sir Roger Gale, Martin Vickers, Kelly Tolhurst, Mrs Flick Drummond, Caroline Lucas, Peter Aldous, Mr Steve Baker and Dr Tania Mathias present the Bill.

Craig Mackinlay accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed (Bill 176).