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European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Laing of Elderslie
Main Page: Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Laing of Elderslie's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberOn a point of order, Dame Eleanor. Is it in order for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), for whom I have great respect, to compare what we are talking about now with slavery, which, around the world, is a most terrible thing and—
Order. I appreciate the point the hon. Gentleman is making, and indeed his dedication to fighting that particular evil, but that is a debating point, not a point of order, and we do not have time this afternoon.
I am going to be brief, as I know many others want to get in, Dame Eleanor. I wish to compare a couple of these amendments and say a few words as to why this Bill is a very bad one. First, let me say to the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who is, sadly, no longer in his seat, that his is a genuine attempt to find a way forward. I have just been reading it, having just looked at it, and it is intriguing. He is specific in one of his amendments, saying that the purpose of the letter to extend would be to
“include provisions reflecting the outcome of inter-party talks as announced by the Prime Minister on 21 May 2019”.
As I say, this is a genuine attempt being made by those who really do think that this House stands in serious danger of being perceived by the public more and more as having taken the position that nothing will satisfy it and that the only thing that it wants at the end of it all is to defy the decision taken at the time of the referendum. That is very much the opinion growing out there, and I was intrigued when the hon. Gentleman made the point that we in this place are now being perceived as a Parliament opposed to the people, not a Parliament to represent them. The people voted to leave, whether we liked it or not, and now this Parliament seems set on a course to obfuscate and delay that, with a view to overturning it eventually.
There is no question in my mind about the hon. Gentleman’s legitimate observations—we get on very well and play football together, so I am slightly in favour of him anyway—but although he said the talks were good, the problem was that at no stage did his Front-Bench colleagues conduct them in a genuine sense. The truth was that they probably never intended to agree anything with my right hon. and hon. Friends who were in government at the time. I had a whispered exchange with the Father of the House, and he made the point that one reason for that was probably that they were under attack by the second-referendum crowd, who were absolutely opposed to any idea that the Opposition could strike any kind of agreement with the Government that would do away with the idea of a second referendum and therefore the opportunity to vote down the original referendum result. That lies at the heart of it. There is a deceit in all this. As I said earlier, I genuinely believe that the hon. Gentleman was genuine in his view, as were many of those aligned alongside him in that regard, but I do not believe that to have been true of the Labour party Front-Bench team—in fact, throughout all this they have played fast and loose.
When I come to the proposition with which the Bill is concerned, I come back to why I think it is a bad Bill. For all the talk about not wanting to have no deal and wanting to have a deal, although some of those who propose this measure voted for the previous Prime Minister’s deal, if every one of them really wanted any deal rather than no deal, they would have voted for that deal. Strangely, they found themselves voting against it at the time.
I noticed the laughter from the Scots Nats at what my right hon. Friend said. In view of the very good sense that he was speaking, I invite the House to consider this. Is it not the case that under the withdrawal agreement, during the transition period, decisions will be taken by the Council of Ministers to impose obligations and laws on the United Kingdom without our even being there, without any transcript, without any Hansard and almost invariably by consensus? Is not the whole thing a massive racket, the object of which is to put us in a state of subjugation—
Order. Sir William, thank you, but we are running out of time.
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, which goes to the heart of the crucial issue about our democracy that the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) raised from a sedentary position. One of the features that many of us found most objectionable about the withdrawal agreement was precisely that for a long and unspecified transition period that could have stretched on for many months—it was not clear what would end it—we would be under any new law that the European Union wished to impose on us, with no vote, voice or ability to influence that law.
At the moment, as a full member, we have some influence. We have a vote, and sometimes we manage to water down or delay something, but in the transition period we would have none of those rights. Any of the existing massive panoply of European law could be amended or changed by decisions of the European Court of Justice, and that would be binding on the United Kingdom. This is completely unacceptable for a democratic country—that, when a majority of people in a democratic referendum voted to take back control of their laws, their Parliament then says, “No; far too difficult a job for us. We don’t want to participate in this process. We don’t want to take control of your laws. We want to delegate most of them, in many fields, to the European Union and have a foreign court developing our law for us in ways that we might find completely objectionable.” None of the amendments that I have just been mentioning, in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and others, intending to find a compromise, tackles this fundamental obstacle to the withdrawal agreement and to the idea that we can somehow negotiate our way out of the European Union if it does not think we just intend to leave.
I am very grateful indeed to the right hon. Gentleman for taking an intervention. May I take him back to something that he said, because it is really very important? The right hon. Gentleman and many of his colleagues have claimed—in the referendum, subsequently and tonight—that they are going to take back control of the borders. May I just ask him how he intends to take back control of South Armagh, and would he like to come to Crossmaglen and explain why it is all right for us to go out without a deal?
Order. We are running out of time, and it would not be a proper debate if we did not hear from those on the Front Benches. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will understand that and bring his speech to a conclusion very quickly.
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has ever had the experience of having builders in and not having given them an end date. What happens? The building work goes on and on and on. Is it not time that we told the builders, “The end date is 31 October. You finish the job—no ifs, no buts, no compromise”?
We all know that it is great for emphasis to repeat things, but we are running out of time.
I will accept your guidance, Dame Eleanor.
In conclusion, these amendments do not fix the Bill. This Bill is extremely damaging to our democracy, undermines our negotiating position and would therefore achieve the opposite of what many of its proposers say they are trying to achieve.