European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

We are debating the issue at considerable length now. I have, on behalf of the Government, made what I believe is a serious commitment and it should be accepted as such. Frankly, in those circumstances, I see no need for a further amendment.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Is not the problem that the Government and the House have the fact that we do not know at what stage the negotiations will be concluded? They could be concluded, with months to go, within the two-year timeframe. In those circumstances, I would expect the House to be able to consider the agreement—even, perhaps, before it was provisionally agreed with the Commission, because there would be no time pressure.

Equally, however, we could end up in a situation where the agreement is made at one minute to midnight at the end of the two-year period. If the Government do not then conclude an agreement to bring it to the House after that, but before it goes to the European Parliament, we could end up with no deal at all. The Minister may agree that the Government have a real dilemma. It is important that the House should understand those limitations, because they go fundamentally to the question of whether an amendment can be reasonably crafted to meet that situation.

[Mr Jones]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very fair point. As we proceed, we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are where we are because the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. What we are seeking to achieve is a departure from the European Union on the best possible terms. I strongly believe that what the Government are proposing is as much as possible in terms of a meaningful vote at the end of the process.

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[John Redwood]

I am very grateful. Perhaps I can clarify the matter by saying that the Attorney General was very clear in his submission to the Supreme Court, as was the lawyer on the other side of the case, that article 50 is irrevocable, and the judgment was based on that proposition. Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore agree that it is irrevocable?

[Mr Grieve]

rose—

[Alex Salmond]

I give way to the former Attorney General.

[Mr Grieve]

The concession of the Government in the Supreme Court was merely for the purpose of those proceedings. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) that we can derive nothing from that as to whether article 50 is revocable or not. Indeed, there is powerful legal argument that it is capable of being revoked.

[Alex Salmond]

The two Members should talk among themselves before they come to the House with an agreed position. However, both those amazingly talented people are on the Back Benches, so it does not really matter if they have an informed and learned debate after proceeding to agreement. What matters is the confusion on the Front Bench. Whatever they think, the Brexit Secretary did not know whether it was revocable or not.

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[Chris Leslie]

I would like to move on because other hon. Members want to get into this discussion.

The wording of new clause 110 is very deliberate in talking about the new relationship as well as a new treaty. It is important that we take the opportunity that the Supreme Court has given us. Not only that, but we should listen to the entreaties of the Prime Minister herself in her own White Paper, where the 12th of her 12 points said that we would not aspire to a cliff edge—that we would try to get a deal. This new clause simply seeks to facilitate, in many ways, the role that Parliament could have in achieving the very thing that the Prime Minister has said that she wants.

I am afraid to say to the Minister that Hobson’s choice, take-it-or-leave-it style votes are not acceptable and not good enough for Parliament. We must have a continued say in this. I urge members of the Committee, across the parties, to consider the role that new clause 110 could play in making the vote meaningful.

[Mr Grieve]

It is a pleasure to participate in the debate. I agree with one comment that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) made when he spoke to new clause 110: the problem that bedevils this debate is that we are in a grey and murky environment when it comes to ascertaining how the process will or should unfold. As somebody who campaigned to remain, that was one of the things that worried me at the time, but I have to accept that the electorate have spoken. For me, the key issue is how I can help the Government to navigate some of the reefs that seem to be present so that we can achieve a satisfactory outcome and try to give effect to the expressed will of the electorate.

Our problem is that we cannot predict what the situation will be in two years’ time. We have no idea what the political landscape will be in this country. We do not know what the economic conditions will be, and we do not know whether we will be doing very well in the run-up to Brexit or very badly. We cannot predict the political landscape on the European continent or the state of the European Union, and how that might affect the negotiations. Nor can we predict the wider security situation on our continent.

That is why the idea that the House in some way forgoes its responsibility to safeguard the electorate’s interests because a referendum has taken place is simply not a view to which I am prepared to subscribe. In such circumstances, we need to have regard to the situation and to the difficulties that the Government face because of its unpredictability, but we must rule nothing out.

To pick up a point that has been made—I repeat it, because it is my position and I shall hold to it until the end—public opinion on this matter may change radically, and the House would be entitled to take that into account. Equally, I accept that at the moment there is no such evidence, and it is our duty to get on with the business of trying to operate Brexit.

How do we introduce safeguards into the process? Of course there is an ultimate safeguard, as the House has the power to stop the Government in their tracks, but that tends to be a rather chaotic process that leads, usually, to Governments falling from office. It is an option that one can never entirely rule out in one’s career in politics, but it is not one that I particularly want to visit on my Front-Bench colleagues. However, this is an important matter, and one of the risks that they undoubtedly run in this process is that it could happen to them. We cannot exclude that possibility.

It is very much better that we should have some process by which Parliament can provide input and influence the matter in such a way as to facilitate debate and enable us collectively to reach outcomes that we can, at least, accept and that may be in the national interest.

[Alex Chalk]

On a point of clarification, will my right hon. and learned Friend indicate whether he perceives new clause 110 to be a potential vehicle for blocking Brexit and keeping us in the European Union? At the moment, that is not clear to me.

[Mr Grieve]

New clause 110 is certainly very well meaning, but I happen to think that there are some problems with it, and I will explain what they are in a moment.

One point that should be made is that it is usual for Government to bring important treaties to the House for approval before signing them. That is a common phenomenon; it is not unusual. There is a long history of doing that with important treaties, so we cannot simply say, “Normally, we ratify them after they are signed.” The obvious course of action, sequentially, is for the Government to publish the White Paper—I am delighted that we succeeded in securing one, because it sets out a plan—and then to get on with the treaty negotiations. In an ideal world, I would like the Government to come back before anything is concluded to ask the House for its approval and to indicate what they have succeeded in achieving. The House will have to make judgments at that time in relation to the overall situation.

[Mr McFadden]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way while he is taking us through this sequence. The Minister indicated at the beginning of the debate that the Government were bringing forward a concession that would make the process more meaningful. I do not expect him to comment, but it appears that No. 10 is now briefing that it is exactly the same as what the Prime Minister offered in her Lancaster House speech, meaning that nothing has changed.

[Mr Grieve]

I do not think I agree with that. I do not know what No. 10 may or may not be doing, but I had a role in trying to secure the concession read out by the Minister. It is by no means a perfect concession as far as I am concerned, and in a moment I shall come to some of the difficulties that I think the House has.

[Angela Smith]

The Daily Mirror is reporting that No. 10 has said that all the concession does is give clarity around the timing of the vote and nothing else.

[Mr Grieve]

It is absolutely right that the Government have indicated on a number of previous occasions that they would allow the House to have a say. Looking at the matter logically, I have to say that depriving us of a say would be a “light blue touchpaper and retire” moment, frankly. If a Government do not wish to bring themselves down, denying Parliament a say on a really important issue is just not feasible.

I had a role in trying to see how the Government could provide some assurance about the process. It is not perfect—the Minister has read out what he has—but I say to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) that, as the shadow Secretary of State said, it is a very significant step forward from what had been said previously. To my mind, it has provided helpful clarification.

[Angela Smith]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is being generous. No.10 is briefing that there is no real change and that the concession is not a concession. That is No.10 itself.

[Mr Grieve]

I can read what is on the paper. I take the view that this is a significant step forward, but I will say no more about it at this time.

[Alex Salmond]

The House will have its say; the question is about the circumstances in which it has that say and the default position if it does not agree. May we adjudicate between the Daily Mirror, No.10, the Minister and the interpretation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman by having something on paper in the Bill? In that way, all our interpretations can be crystallised around an essential truth.

[Mr Grieve]

With characteristic sagacity, the right hon. Gentleman goes to the heart and nub of the problem. Is it readily possible to put into the Bill the intention read out at the Dispatch Box by the Minister? In fairness to the Minister and the Government, there are, I am afraid, some really good reasons why that presents difficulties.

The most obvious difficulty is the finite nature of the negotiating period under article 50. One of the things I was interested in was whether we could secure from the Government an undertaking that we would have a vote at the end of the process—before, in fact, the signing of the deal with the Commission. Contrary to what is set out in new clause 110, the Council of Ministers and the Commission are not two separate processes. The Commission will sign the initial agreement when the Council of Ministers gives it the authority to do so, and it then goes to the European Parliament for ratification or approval—call it what you will. Those are not two separate things.

Our problem is that if the negotiation follows the pattern that we have often come across in the course of EU negotiations—running to the 11th hour, 59th minute and 59th second—and we are about to drop off the edge, I confess that I do not particularly wish to fetter the Government’s discretion by insisting that at that precise moment they have to say, “We’re terribly sorry, but we can’t give you a decision until 48 hours after we have dropped off because we have to go back and get approval from both Houses of Parliament.” That is a real problem inherent in what to my point of view is the ghastly labyrinth into which, I am afraid, we have been plunged. We have to try to work our way through it with common sense.

[Yvette Cooper]

Was it the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s understanding that the Minister said that the deal would be presented to Parliament after it had been agreed by the Commission and the Council, but before it had been agreed by the European Parliament? If so, that sounds like a really late stage in the process. Does he think it is a problem if the European Parliament can send the deal back for negotiation, but the UK Parliament cannot?

[Mr Grieve]

There are bound to be difficulties because the whole process of negotiations under article 50, as the right hon. Lady will be aware, is rather one-sided. That is an inherent difficulty. Let us suppose for a moment that the negotiations are concluded in 18 months. I would rather hope in those circumstances that the Minister would say, “Thank you very much, but we will not even make the first agreement. We want to go back to the both Houses of Parliament even before we agree with the Commission because we have time to do so.” However, if it is the 11th hour, 59th minute and 59th second, I accept that the Government have a problem that is not taken into account by new clause 110.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My right hon. and learned Friend’s preference is obviously for Parliament to be asked its opinion before any agreement has been signed with the Commission, on the authority of the Council. Does he accept that the 11th hour problem can easily be got around? In the tortuous process of European negotiations, stopping the clock is hardly unknown. If all the member states agreed that the British Government had to be given time to get the approval of Parliament, they would allow two or three weeks to elapse.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend also agree that we need something on paper to clarify these highly important points? Does he join me in inviting the Minister to table an amendment in the House of Lords to give precise effect to whatever the concession is meant to mean? If we pass either new clause 99 or new clause 110, it could be replaced by that Government amendment, if Ministers were to come up with a better clarification. What we cannot do is leave the debate to continue for the next two years on what the Minister did or did not mean when he made his statement to the Committee today.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr George Howarth)]

I say for the benefit of other Members that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has had a very long career—so long, in fact, that he is capable of recognising the difference between an intervention and a speech.

[Mr Grieve]

I am delighted to hear from my right hon. and learned Friend. I do not think it would necessarily be unhelpful—in fact, it would be very helpful—if the Government were in a position to amplify the Minister’s brief statement. However, I acknowledge—I think my right hon. and learned Friend knows this—that doing that by means of an amendment would be rather difficult. I know that Government draftsmen have extreme ingenuity and, indeed, that this issue might be taken up in the other place, but there are difficulties because there is a whole series of conditionalities. I certainly do not wish to fetter the Government in their ability to carry out the negotiation. It has always seemed to me that it would be a great error to do that, because we might undermine the ultimate outcome, to our own detriment. That has worried me throughout the process.

I do not want to take up more of the Committee’s time. Although I have had great difficulty over this matter today and in the days leading up to this debate, my inclination, for the reasons I have given, is to accept the assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Minister, which seems to me to be a constructive step forward. However, he has to face up to the fact that this issue will not go away. Even when we have enacted this Bill and triggered article 50, this will be a recurrent theme throughout the negotiating process that will come back much, much harder as we get closer to the outcome and as it becomes clearer, from all the leaks that will come from Brussels, what sort of deal or non-deal we will have, so the Government had better have a strategy. If their strategy is to avoid this House, I have to say to the Minister that they will fail miserably. I do not want that to happen. I want to guide this process as best I can, as a former Law Officer, towards a satisfactory conclusion.

[Alistair Burt]

My right hon. and learned Friend has played a considerable part in this process. Does he agree that the remarks of the Minister put the onus on the Government to ensure that the reporting process for the negotiations is meaningful? We cannot have a vote at the end of the process after 18 months of radio silence. The reporting process must be sensible and relevant. It must give the House a feel of what will happen because, if that is not the case, the vote at the end will mean very little.

[Mr Grieve]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. I hope that the Government will listen because, as I say, this issue will not go away. It will keep coming back to dominate our politics until we have resolved it satisfactorily. That said, I would be being curmudgeonly towards the Minister if I did not thank him for having listened on this issue, for which I am grateful.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My right hon. and learned Friend has thanked the Minister, but I think that the Committee ought to thank my right hon. and learned Friend. He has set out the responsible version, which we did not hear from Opposition Members, of how to deal with this issue.

[Mr Grieve]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He made some of the points that I might have made in his speech. He and I approach the issue from a similar angle.

[Geraint Davies]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s whole speech seems to be predicated on the idea that the Government can go to and fro, and somehow finesse and negotiate something that Parliament might be happy with. Is it not the case, however, that it will be the EU27 that decide what we get? They will say, “You’ve triggered article 50, so here’s what you’re getting,” so is not this whole discussion cloud cuckoo land?

[Mr Grieve]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not know. I actually think that none of us knows. We can make some broad assumptions that there appears to be some goodwill to try to reach a sensible agreement, and we can see how that could be easily derailed by political pressures and considerations within other EU states. We can also see that the United Kingdom is at a disadvantage in the negotiations for reasons that are plainly obvious. Having embarked on this course, however, we have to try collectively to apply common sense. I regret to say that I often do not hear common sense on this issue. Frequently, I do not hear it from some Conservative Members who seem fixated on ideological considerations that will reduce this country to beggary if we continue with them. We have to be rational in trying to respond to the clearly stated wishes of the electorate until such time as they show—they might, just as they showed between 1975 and last year—that they have changed their mind on the subject. Even then, the view might be of a completely different future and not a return to the past.

I will do my best to support the Government and I welcome the Minister’s comments. In the circumstances, having looked at the amendments, those comments are the best solution we have this evening. However, that does not mean that the Government will not have to continue thinking about how they involve the House. Otherwise, this House will simply involve itself.

[Owen Smith]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the excellent and characteristically shrewd speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I agree wholeheartedly with one point he made towards the beginning of his speech: we cannot allow the fact that there has been a referendum to absolve this House of its duty to scrutinise the Government’s progress in the negotiations, and to act in the national interest. I wholeheartedly agree with him on that. That view is conditioning my entire approach to this debate.

I disagreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, however, on the substantive point he made in respect of the concession made by the Brexit Minister. I disagree that the Government have made a substantive concession today. I confess that I am far less sanguine than some of my right hon. and hon. Friends about that. It does not feel to me that we have moved much beyond where we were in the Lancaster House speech. What is being offered to the House is a debate right at the end of the process, at a point—we do not know when exactly—seemingly in the dog days of the process. A choice at that point will be between the deal on offer, which in my view is likely to be a bad deal—one predicated on our leaving the single market and the customs union; the rock hard Brexit we all feared—and no deal. If there is no deal, the Minister confirmed today that the country will face exiting the European Union on WTO terms. What does that mean for the country? According to the director general of the WTO, it would mean a reduction in trade of around £9 billion per annum to the UK. Before the referendum, the Treasury thought it would mean an annual reduction in receipts of £45 billion per year. That was the reduction in GDP it foresaw. It is an eye-watering sum, equivalent to putting 10p on the basic rate of income tax. That is why, above all else, we have to consider where we are going incredibly carefully. If we end up there, it will be a disaster for Britain.

I said earlier that I wanted to speak in favour of amendment 43, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), but I would have liked to speak to my new clause 52, or even new clause 131, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, which would both have gone further and insisted on there being a second referendum. Apparently we cannot consider those amendments, however, because they would require a money commitment that the Bill does not have. That is ironic, given that the potential cost of falling out of the EU is £45 billion. Spending £100 million to make sure we do not do that seems like a pretty good deal.

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[Yvette Cooper]

I actually do agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We do want tariff-free trade, but he and I will probably differ on the customs union, for example. There would be huge advantages in staying in the customs union, but that does not affect the decisions that we might make on free movement or other aspects of the single market. I know that he would like us to be outside the customs union, but that may be a crunch question for the deal. The Executive might reject alternative options or better deals on matters such as the customs union on their own rather than give Parliament the opportunity to have its say.

Some of this comes down to timing. I accept that there is an article 50 timescale of two years and that it will be for the EU to decide what happens at the end if no deal is in place, but that also matters for the timing of the vote. At the moment, based on what the Minister said earlier, the vote will come at the very end of the process and could end up being at the end of the two years. The strength of new clause 110 is that it would require the vote to be held before the deal went to the European Commission, the European Council or the European Parliament. The advantage of that is that we would have a parliamentary debate and a vote earlier in the process, and that if there were no agreement, there would still be the opportunity for further negotiations and debates before we reached the article 50 cliff edge.

[Mr Grieve]

I hesitate to say this, but the House sometimes fails to realise its own powers. If it becomes clear during the course of the two years of negotiations that the Government are rejecting a negotiating opportunity that the House thinks is better than the one they are pursuing, there is nothing to prevent the House from asserting its authority in order to make the Government change direction; it is a question of whether we have the will to do it. The problem with the right hon. Lady’s point is that if we were right up against the wire, it could tip the Government into losing an agreement and there would be nothing to replace it.

[Yvette Cooper]

Were that the case, it would be Parliament’s responsibility to behave with the common sense that the right hon. and learned Gentleman advocated earlier. I would trust Parliament to have common sense and not push Britain towards an unnecessary cliff edge in those circumstances. That is not what Parliament wants to do. It has already shown that it wants to respect the decision that was made in the referendum, which is important, but it also wants to get the best deal for Britain and will be pragmatic about the options at that time.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests that there might be an alternative way for Parliament to exercise its sovereignty, but what might that be in practice? We could have a Backbench Business Committee motion or an Opposition day motion that the Government could then ignore. We could have a no confidence motion, but that would not be the appropriate response when we should be considering the alternatives in order to get a better deal out of the negotiations.

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman were to come up with an alternative way for Parliament to exercise its sovereignty that I have not thought of, there might be an alternative to a vote today. If we want legislation that ensures that there is recourse to Parliament on these important issues, which will affect us for so many years to come, the right thing to do is to get something in the Bill.

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[Mr McFadden]

There are two issues at the heart of today’s debate, which is about the role of Parliament in judging the final deal. The first issue is the timing of any such vote, and the second is how to make that vote meaningful. I want to speak to new clause 137, which is in my name and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends.

A significant part of the argument for leaving the European Union was about restoring parliamentary sovereignty so that this House could take decisions about the country’s future, yet attempts to assert that sovereignty have been constantly dismissed as undermining the Government, if not the country. The cry over and over again has been, “Blank cheque, blank cheque, blank cheque.” We should not give a blank cheque; there is a legitimate role for us.

The new clause seeks to do two things: first, to enshrine in the legislation the Prime Minister’s promise of a parliamentary vote on a final deal; and, secondly, to assert what can happen if Parliament declines to approve the final deal.

The Government have set out their aims in the White Paper and in other statements. The White Paper defines the Government’s aim as

“the freest possible trade in goods and services between the UK and the EU.”

The Secretary of State for Brexit said that this would be

“a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement that will deliver the exact same benefits as we have”.—[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 169.]

That is the test the Government have set themselves. I wish them well in ensuring that we do get the exact same benefits as we have.

This new clause does not seek to tie the Government’s hands in the negotiations. It does not seek to influence the content; it focuses on what happens if Parliament declines to approve the final deal. The choice that we do not want to be presented with, I am afraid, is the one that the Minister set out at the beginning, which is defining as success whatever the Government negotiate or falling back on the WTO. I do not want to go through the WTO rules in detail, but let me give just one example: a 10% tariff on car exports. Take the Nissan Qashqai, proudly made in the north-east of England. That tariff would mean a surcharge of over £2,000 on each car made in the north-east, compared with a competitor vehicle made in a plant in the European Union, or even another Nissan model made in the EU. On food and drink, the tariffs are 20%, and on some agricultural products they are even higher. That is before one even gets to the weakness of enforcement mechanisms within the WTO, where businesses cannot even take enforcement cases and only Governments can do so.

The Government themselves say that they do not want this option. They set out 12 points in their White Paper, the 12th of which says that they want

“a smooth, mutually beneficial exit”.

Paragraph 12.2 says:

“It is…in no one’s interests for there to be a cliff-edge for business or a threat to stability…Instead, we want to have reached an agreement about our future partnership by the time the two year Article 50 process has concluded.”

This new clause empowers Parliament to avoid the very outcome that the Government themselves say in the White Paper that they want to avoid. For that reason, it is not, as too many Members have asserted, some attempt to undermine the Government. We should be using the power of Parliament to influence these negotiations.

Let me deal with the “five minutes to midnight” point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). It is hardly unknown for the European Union to schedule another round of talks—it happens very frequently. In these circumstances, we would be entirely within our rights to strengthen our Government’s hand by saying, “Go back and renegotiate on this point or that point.”

[Mr Grieve]

I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, but I want to emphasise this point. All sorts of things are possible—the Commission and the Council may decide to extend the period of negotiation—but we have to look at the legal implications of what we pass into law by amendments. If the new clause is prescriptive in a way that could allow the problem to occur that has been identified—dropping off because one has lost time and cannot come back to this House—we cannot just ignore that. We have to find a way round it or accept the assurances that the Government give.

[Mr McFadden]

The new clause is very simple on this point. It asks that in those circumstances the Government will seek to negotiate an alternative agreement. That is perfectly reasonable.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I said before, and I will say it again: I take statements at this Dispatch Box as binding.

The important point here is that the idea that Parliament could force the Government to accept a bad deal will only incentivise those on the other side of the negotiating table to deliver just such a deal. As the Lords European Union Select Committee—hardly a Tory front organisation —said:

“The Government will conduct the negotiations on behalf of the United Kingdom, and, like any negotiator, it will need room to manoeuvre if it is to secure a good outcome.”

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

No one in this House, as far as I am aware, wishes to fetter the Government’s hands in negotiations, or indeed the Government’s right to walk away from the negotiations; the issue in subsection (4) is whether the Government come back to this House to explain their plan and policy in the event of that happening. I would expect that to be inevitable, and yet, curiously, when we have sought an assurance from the Government—no more than that; not this amendment—that they would do that, which seems to me to be blindingly obvious, we keep being told that they will not give that assurance. I do find that, I have to say to my right hon. Friend, a bit odd, and I wonder whether he could clarify that.

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. and learned—and old—Friend makes a good point. The simple truth here, however, as I have said before, is that nothing can constrain this House’s right to debate and vote on anything it sees fit, and that meets this.

What I am dealing with here is subsection (4), and there are even bigger problems with it. During the debate on this issue in the other House, the author of the amendment, Lord Pannick, himself admitted he did not know what would happen if Parliament voted against leaving the EU without a deal. This uncertainty is itself a strong argument against putting this amendment into statute.

However, a significant number of Lords supported this amendment—that may not be true in this House—such as Lord Wigley and Baroness Kennedy, and they made their intentions clear: if Parliament were to vote against leaving without a deal, the UK should seek to remain in the EU and reverse the result of the referendum. I should say to my hon. and right hon. Friends that the European Union member states and the European Union institutions read the proceedings of this House very closely; they will have read that, and it will have raised their interest, because that is precisely what they would like to happen. So while this has been badged as a meaningful vote, the reality is that there are some who would seek to use it to overturn the result of the referendum. [Interruption.] “Good idea” comes from across the Floor. That is exactly, I am afraid, what concerns us.

The Government and the Prime Minister have been crystal clear. The people of the United Kingdom have decided to leave the European Union. The Government will seek to implement this decision in the way that is most beneficial to both the United Kingdom and the European Union. What we will not do, however, is accept anything that will put the intention to leave the European Union in doubt.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. A three-minute limit on each Back-Bench speech will now apply.

[Mr Grieve]

I want to support the Government in carrying out an efficient and effective Brexit but, after listening to some of the contributions this afternoon, I think I am living in wonderland.

I will focus solely on Lords amendment 2, particularly subsection (4). The first thing to understand is that, as matters stand, there will be a need not for resolutions of this House, but for primary legislation to complete the process. In fact, there will be a need for primary legislation even if we have no deal at all. I do not know when the Government want to deal with that. They could conceivably try to do it during the course of the great repeal Bill, but they have not suggested that that is what the great repeal Bill—which is, in fact, an entrenchment Bill—is all about. So it seems that if there is no deal at the end of the process, there will have to be primary legislation passed by this House, if that has not already been done.

Interestingly, far from the Lords trying to lead to great litigation, their view—if the Government bother to read Lord Hope’s speech—was that litigation could be avoided by tabling the amendment and providing for a resolution mechanism at the end. I can promise my hon. and right hon. Friends who think that there is some whizzo way of getting around the litigation that, if they do not follow proper constitutional process, there will be litigation, and that litigation will hold matters up.

Now, I am not so concerned about amendment 2. I am concerned about getting an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union that, if there is no deal at the end of the process, which will be a very significant moment in this country’s history, Parliament has an opportunity to debate and vote on that. Far from that being an obstruction of the process, I would expect it to be part of the normal constitutional process and the Government to seek the endorsement of the House for that very significant act. I worry that my right hon. Friend—who, I think, personally may well agree with me—has been prevented from saying that at the Dispatch Box. I am afraid that I am not prepared to follow processes that appear to be, frankly, deranged.

There is a clear way of doing things. If we follow them, we will come up with the right decisions at each point; if we do not, we will mire ourselves in chaos. I want to support the Government, but I have to say, most reluctantly, that if we persist with this, I cannot support the Government this evening when it comes to amendment 2. I am very sorry about that. I would like to be able to support the Government because the critique of the Lords amendment has some force, but someone has to put down a marker that we have to follow a proper process in the way in which we carry out Brexit.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) for his speech. Notwithstanding my obvious support for the Lords amendment on EU nationals, I urge Government Members to think carefully about what they are being asked to do by Ministers today. The Lords have already inserted into the Bill the amendment to give Parliament a meaningful vote, and Ministers are asking hon. Members tonight to wrench that out of the Bill and delete it. As the Bill stands, it provides that parliamentary scrutiny and authority. Government Members should ask themselves whether they really want actively to go through the Lobby and delete that from the text of the Bill.

Ministers have asked hon. Members to do a number of things. They say, “Don’t tie the hands of the Prime Minister. Whatever you do, give her unfettered power to negotiate in whatever way she likes.” I say to those Ministers and to hon. Members that we should not be putting power entirely in the hands of one person—the Prime Minister—without any insurance policy whatever. With the greatest respect to Ministers, the Prime Minister decides who is on her Front Bench, and parliamentary democracy is the insurance policy that we need throughout the process. We should not be frightened or shy of that. We should welcome it because it is a strength and it is a part of the process.

The Government say, “Take back control.” Yet at the same time they are asking us to muzzle Parliament for the next two-year period by saying, “Well, whatever happens, Parliament may not have a say on that.” We could find ourselves in circumstances where the European Union offers a really good deal but the Prime Minister, singularly, on her own—or his own, of course, because it depends on who the Prime Minister is in two years’ time—could say, “Absolutely no deal.” This Parliament would have no choice but to accept that. We would have no say on the matter.

Ministers ask us to accept their verbal assurances. Well, Ministers are here today, but could be gone tomorrow. May I speculate that we could have a different Prime Minister by the time we get to spring 2019? Who knows? It is possible that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—the Foreign Secretary, no less—could be Prime Minister one day. He said at the weekend that it would be

“perfectly okay if we weren’t able to get an agreement.”

He could be Prime Minister—Government Members do not know—and that would be the situation we would have to face, with no votes and no rights for Parliament. Verbal assurances are not sufficient.

[Helen Goodman]

I wish to speak particularly to amendment 2, which is very similar to new clauses 99 and 110, which we debated about a month ago.

Conservative Members have complained about Lord Pannick’s drafting. When Ministers make that complaint, I feel it is slightly disingenuous, because they had the opportunity to amend the amendment. If they really felt the other place should not be involved, they could have changed the drafting to say not “both Houses of Parliament” but only “the House of Commons”, or they could have taken out subsection (4), which provides for what we do if there is no agreement with the EU. They have not done that, so they are making the bar higher for their colleagues behind them. In any case, either it is a problem that the House of Lords has a veto, because it is an unelected Chamber, or it is not a problem. It seems the Prime Minister made a promise that the vote would come to both Houses, so she does not seem to think it is a problem, and I do not know why it is being put up as a problem now.

The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) took us on a long perambulation about what might or might not happen. That was completely unnecessary: if we had the amendment on the face of the Bill, we would, in effect, make it part of the constitutional arrangement, which, under article 50, has to be respected by the EU counter-parties in the negotiation.

[Mr Grieve]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, because in the last debate we had, we discussed the possibility of being up against the wire. However, it seems to me on reflection that, in actual fact, if our own constitutional processes are not finished, we could not simply fall off the edge of the cliff until we had finished them, and I believe that to be the view of the lawyers in the European Commission as well.