European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his view on this. He sort of expressed it in an amendment that he tabled late last night, so I only saw it this morning. I have not really had a lot of time—[Interruption.] Well, this is an interesting demonstration of the Labour party’s perception of how easy it is to make constitutional law on the fly. Its own voters will come to a view on that.

Let me say this with respect to my right hon. and learned Friend’s proposed amendment—as he knows, I am always open to have a conversation with him on this although he seems to have fallen foul of my telephone security system—I always want to keep three principles in mind. First, we must never do anything that undermines the Government’s negotiating position, or encourages delays in the negotiations. That is very, very important. Secondly, we cannot change the fundamental constitutional structure, which makes the Government responsible for international relations and international treaties.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend allow me?

[Mr Davis]

In a moment.

We cannot do that. This constitutional structure has stood for hundreds of years and many thousands of treaties. As I said earlier, nobody suggested for a moment that the House of Commons should negotiate the Maastricht treaty, the Lisbon treaty, or one or two other controversial treaties that came before the House. We cannot change that structure now, on this basis.

[Mr Davis]

Not for the moment.

Thirdly, we must—under all circumstances—respect the result of the referendum. That is what this House voted for when it voted on article 50. I am very happy to talk to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) again in the next day or two, and we can discuss how we can meet his concerns in that time, within those principles.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Is not the kernel of the problem that all the amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and others make no deal more likely, because they give every incentive to the European Commission not to agree to a deal? The amendments would bind the Government and we would end up with the worst possible result. Therefore, they should be resisted.

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend goes to the heart of the problem, which is that we have to consider that anything passed in this House and the other House will have a very serious effect on the negotiating strategy of the other side. I hope that this House will recognise that the Government have taken a fair and positive approach to the new clause, retaining those elements that are sensible and viable, while removing those elements that are practically and constitutionally untenable. These constitutional and practical concerns also apply to Lords amendment 20, on a mandate for negotiations on the future relationship. The Government cannot demonstrate the flexibility necessary for a successful negotiation if their hands are tied mid-way through that process. That will do nothing but guarantee a bad deal for Britain. It is for the Government to set the direction during the negotiation. That is the key point.

I do not need to remind the House about the importance of this legislation. The purpose of this Bill is to maintain a functioning and effective statute book when leaving the European Union—a statute book that people and business can rely on. That is what our approach will deliver.

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[Mr Clarke]

I will not, I am afraid, because had the suggestion been put to my hon. Friend during the Maastricht debates that if the Government got defeated on a resolution, they could take it over on their own and let Parliament know in due course what was going to happen, I do not think he would have welcomed it. I understand that we are in a different position.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

You’ve got to give way to him now; you’ve mentioned him.

[Mr Clarke]

I thought my hon. Friend and I had debated this quite long enough for everybody already, but I will give way to him.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind the House of what it knows, namely that the time available for this debate is very limited. I want to accommodate as many right hon. and hon. Members as possible, so we will begin with a limit on Back-Bench speeches of 10 minutes, although it is not obligatory to take the full allocation of time.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) that we should use the language of respect. I, for one—and many of my colleagues, I am sure—would never use words such as “traitor”. We all accept that there are very different views in this place, but this is not the EU negotiating Bill. It is not a Bill designed from its inception to give the Government guidance about what sort of deal we should have. I thought—this has been explained to us many times by the Government—that this Bill was simply to try to transform and transfer, in an orderly way, EU laws into our legal system. That was what I understood the Bill to be; it is not an EU negotiating Bill.

I said earlier that we should use the language of respect. I know that it is not in order to call any Member “disingenuous”, but I think that it is in order to call an argument disingenuous, and I do so now. I respect the House of Lords. I understand that it is not elected. I understand that it should try to improve legislation. I serve on the Procedure Committee, and when the Committee considered these matters, there was a detailed debate on the sifting committee and I could understand how the House of Lords can try to improve how we deal with legislation. That seems entirely sensible and credible, but many of us suspect that these amendments, particularly Lords amendment 19, are designed not to improve the legislation or to improve the sifting process by which we transfer these laws, but to frustrate the whole process.

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend will remember that we had many hours of debate and decisive votes before we sent the article 50 letter. That was the point when Parliament made up its mind to back the referendum. We cannot keep chopping and changing.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with that. As I was saying, although it is perfectly in order for the other place to try to improve legislation, when it seeks to frustrate it, I think that Members of the elected House should start to get worried. Lords amendment 19 is very clear in saying:

“Her Majesty’s Government may implement a withdrawal agreement only if Parliament has approved the withdrawal agreement and any transitional measures…Her Majesty’s Government must follow any direction in relation to the negotiations under Article 50”

and so on. What would be the result of that amendment? I say to colleagues that we are not just acting in a vacuum. What would be the result if we fail to overturn this amendment from the other place?

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend takes a very different point of view from me, so in all courtesy, I give way, but this must be the last time I do so.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) deals with the issues that he is raising?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, I do not agree. I talked to my right hon. Friend the Brexit Secretary earlier today. He simply said—he does understand these things—that all the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) would do would be to implement what the House of Lords wants to do in fewer words, so I do not accept that, I am afraid. We have to bite this bullet now. We have to support the Government and reject the amendment.

As I was asking, what would be the result—we do not operate in a vacuum—if the House of Lords had its way? Of course it would be a catastrophe for the Government. There would be banner headlines in every single newspaper tomorrow saying that the Government had been defeated and that the whole Brexit momentum was in danger. Much more important than that—this is why I think the argument is disingenuous—is the fact those who support the House of Lords are dressing up their arguments in terms of parliamentary sovereignty. It is in order, is it not, for Parliament to debate and amend a Bill, as the House of Lords can do? That is what we do all the time, but what the Lords really want to do is to create a situation in which the whole process is frustrated.

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[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

These arguments were put—almost as forcefully as my hon. Friend is putting them—when we had our debates before Christmas in Committee. This House then passed an amendment on a meaningful vote, defeating the Government. People had foreseen that that would undermine the Prime Minister, cause an election and represent a crisis, but the next morning, apart from the fact that there was now to be a meaningful vote, nothing stirred. The position of the Prime Minister was not weakened and negotiations have not been hindered. My hon. Friend is putting his arguments with his usual great eloquence, but, with great respect, they avoid what we are really talking about, which is the important process of parliamentary accountability.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am afraid that my right hon. and learned Friend was not listening to his own speech. Was I not listening—was I not two or three feet away from him—when he said that the amendment that we passed earlier was not going to make much difference to the whole process? It was like giving a statement, was it not? What we are talking about is completely different. This really is the ultimate wrecking amendment, and it is not the wrecking of parliamentary sovereignty; it is the wrecking of the will of the people and democracy. There are so many compromises that we all have to make. There are so many things that I do not understand about this negotiating process, and about how we have got stuck on the hook of Ireland, the backstop, “max fac” and all these other things, but the essential thing is this: the people want us to leave the EU. They want to regain control of their borders and they want us to be out of the European Court of Justice. All this Bill does—it is not the EU negotiating Bill—is simply to implement the will of the people. Parliament, do not stand against the people! Implement their will.

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

Many Members will today be speaking under pressure or while considering different interests. Some will be observing what the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) called the pure Churchillian principle of accountability and thinking clearly about our consciences and judgments, while others will be concerned about the will of the people as expressed by their own or other people’s constituents, or by parts of the UK such as Scotland that are distinct. Others will be thinking about their party and—dare I say it?—some may even consider the views of their party Whips. People will come to different conclusions and weigh these things differently, and the most vocal people will be those who are not necessarily balancing them with the greatest difficulty. We should respect those on both sides who are struggling to reconcile these different pressures.

We are weighing up a difficult constitutional matter, and two constitutional questions are wrapped up in Lords amendment 19. One is about how we reconcile the rights of a plebiscite with those of Parliament—we have debated that many times, and the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) was very unambiguous about where he stands—and the other is about how we balance the rights of the Executive with those of the legislature. We have debated that in different contexts. A few weeks ago, we were talking about exactly how to weigh war powers and accountability.

Lords amendment 19 takes us forward in one crucial respect with regard to the so-called meaningful vote. It gives additional clarity. It might be better had we taken the wording proposed by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), but the amendment does give clarity, and it would not have the exaggerated consequences that some have predicted, as was set out very sensibly by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke).

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

The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) has spoken with passion and clarity, and above all she has spoken about courage and about putting our country first. I should like to pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who has done exactly that today. This involved personal sacrifice—and who knows what the electorate might do in the future—but he is using his judgment and making an assessment about what is in the best interests of his constituents, and that is greatly to be respected.

I was fascinated to hear the exchange between the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and those on the Government Front Bench a moment ago. It seems to me that the obvious solution would be for the Government to signal that they will accept the amendment in lieu tabled by the right hon. and learned Gentleman—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Leslie]

No, I am not going to give way. There are lots of others who want to speak—[Interruption.] No, sit down.

If the Government were to accept the amendment, and if the House were to approve that—as it would, because this would be done by consensus—that issue would then go to the House of Lords. Through the discussions that would subsequently take place there, it might be amended or tweaked in some way, and there would then be an opportunity for the other place to send it back here for final confirmation. However, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman were simply to take the word of Ministers on this question—I understand that that sometimes happens—the leverage of this House could be lost if those discussions came to naught.

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[Sir William Cash]

I am somewhat troubled by what the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) just said, not least because he wants to kick the matter back to the House of Lords. I thought that the whole argument in respect of the amendment tabled by Viscount Hailsham was about the primacy of the House of Commons. Why would we go back to the other House and ask the Lords for an opinion when it is this House that voted 6:1 in favour of having a referendum? Furthermore, this House endorsed the decision taken by the people to leave the European Union. That is what is now being put under pressure, and it is complete nonsense—junk—to suggest that the amendment about the meaningful vote is not in fact an attempt to reverse the decision of the people.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It has been said that the amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) is a compromise, but people should read it. Proposed new subsection (5C) is absolutely clear. It states:

“If no political agreement has been reached”,

the Government must come back for

“a resolution in the House of Commons”.

That is exactly the same thing as in proposed new subsection (5) in Lords amendment 19. It is not a compromise; it is a wrecking amendment.

[Sir William Cash]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, because I have the texts of the two amendments in front of me and was just about to make the point that they are not that different. Both state that the Government

“must follow any direction in relation to the negotiations under Article 50(2)…which has been—

(a) approved by a resolution of the House of Commons”.

What on earth is that supposed to mean? There is no way in which this House of Commons—650 Members of Parliament—can arrive at a motion that would prescribe what the Government will do in the negotiations. It is not simply a question whether we are somehow or other departing from normal constitutional procedures; it is that the amendment is complete nonsense and makes no sense.

Furthermore, what would such a resolution say? I heard the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who chairs the Exiting the European Union Committee, talk about the customs union and the single market and so forth. However, the amendments talk about approving a resolution of the House of Commons. Who would devise it? What would it say? How on earth would we get 650 people to agree either on what the motion would say or on what the outcome would be?

I have listened to this debate with great interest, and I must say that this is just a cover for a reversal of the decision. That has to be said, and it has to be said clearly. I find it extraordinary that there should be some attempt to throw the matter to the House of Lords so that they can then tell us—we, the people who are elected by the people of this country, who themselves were given the right by the transfer specifically of the responsibility to make the decision on behalf of themselves, their families and future generations—what to do. This is what people fought and died for, which is who governs this country. I say—[Interruption.]