Brexit and Foreign Affairs

Debate between George Howarth and David Davis

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. The Secretary of State has indicated that he is not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman, and I think the hon. Gentleman needs to accept that.

[Mr Davis]

If the House wants a Brexit deal that drives prosperity and living standards and if it really wants a Brexit for jobs, it must put its faith in free trade and ensure that our exit means that we can embrace the opportunities to the full. Let us move beyond the platitudinous propaganda of hard and soft Brexits. Let us instead discuss how we shall fashion our new place in the world and start to act together truly in the national interest. I will give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. I know that that intervention was short by the standards of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), but by the standards of an intervention it was very long.

[Mr Davis]

Nevertheless, it was a crisp characterisation of an argument that my hon. Friend has been making for many years, Mr Deputy Speaker, and he is as right about it today as he was when he first made it.

An extensive legislative agenda is necessary to prepare the UK for its new place in the world. Working together in the national interest will be crucial as we go through the process in this House and the other place to put the necessary legislation in position to ensure that our laws work effectively on the day we leave the European Union. For my part, I am willing to work with anyone to that end. The sheer importance of this issue makes that essential. The eyes of the country will be on us all, and we will all be judged on our willingness to work pragmatically and effectively together to deliver the verdict of the people in last year’s referendum.

Nothing is more central to this than the so-called great repeal Bill. The principle is straightforward: it is to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and to transfer existing European Union law into UK law. To answer a question that my opposite number, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), has raised, these rights and freedoms will be brought into UK law without qualification, without limitation and without any sunset clauses. Any material changes will be dealt with by subsequent primary legislation.

I cannot stress enough to the House and to the nation the importance of this Bill in ensuring that we have a smooth and orderly exit from the European Union. Every part of the United Kingdom needs to prepare its statute book to ensure that it can function after we leave the European Union. The repeal Bill will give the devolved Administrations the power to do just that, to ensure a smooth and orderly exit for all. As we have also said repeatedly, we expect there to be a significant increase in the decision-making power of each devolved Administration once we exit the EU. That is why, given that the Bill will affect the powers of the devolved institutions and that it legislates in devolved areas, we will seek the consent of the devolved legislatures for the Bill. We would like everyone to come together in support of the legislation, which will be crucial to delivering the outcome of the referendum.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between George Howarth and David Davis

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and now the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) have all argued, from slightly different standpoints, that the ideal situation is to have some sort of judicial process. I do not think anybody could argue against that from a democratic and human rights perspective. In cases in which there is the possibility of a prosecution or other judicial process to bring about the type of outcome that we desire, that is clearly the preferred option.

As I see it, the choice is between the measures in the Bill—temporary exclusion orders with a managed return—or a form of judicial process that might be even worse than that. Perhaps the Home Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but in almost every case I can envisage that would be affected by this process, the information that will determine the trigger of a temporary exclusion order would be based on intelligence—she is not shaking her head in disagreement, so I will assume assent on that point. If that is the case, any form of judicial process to verify or authorise that process would inevitably involve wholly or partly closed proceedings. It would be impossible to give evidence from intelligence in open court for all the reasons that we have repeatedly debated. Although that is the ideal situation, given the presumption that in most, if not all, of these cases the evidence will be intelligence based, it will be difficult to rely solely on a court proceeding, no matter how it was constructed or held, other than on the basis that it would be either closed, or at very least semi-closed.

[Mr David Davis]

The right hon. Gentleman is a thoughtful and long-standing expert in this area, and he is right to say that it will be a Special Immigration Appeals Commission style process. In the past, however, SIAC-style processes with control orders and TPIMs have prevented quite egregious errors—he will remember the case of MI5 presenting the same passport two weeks running against two different suspects, and that being caught and stopped by the SIAC. My concern is not just about the increase in power; it is also the error rate and the fact that someone can be denied serious rights without a proper review. The right hon. Gentleman is right that a SIAC-style process would be necessary. He knows I am not fond of that, but it is better than nothing.

[Mr Howarth]

I think I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but none of that changes the fact that, regardless of the quality of the submission to the SIAC court, some intelligence material would be required. Even from a justice point of view that is not an ideal situation, and that is a problem.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Debate between George Howarth and David Davis

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth]

rose—

[Mr Davis]

Forgive me, but I am just coming to an end.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was persuasive in arguing that if there is to be some sort of opt-out on gisting if things are really serious, only the judge should decide that. I take that point, and it is a good argument. There should be proper, explicit judicial balance in the decision to go to a CMP that takes into account all the interests of justice, and not just national security. There should be the argument of strict necessity; that is what I mean by the hierarchy. On that basis, the House could come to a conclusion in which we effectively have the best of all worlds.

Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

Debate between George Howarth and David Davis

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), whose Committee—the Joint Committee on Human Rights—produced the best guide to the Government’s proposals and their weaknesses, and to the threats they pose to our current civil liberties.

In recent months, the Prime Minister rightly received plaudits for how he handled the apology for the Bloody Sunday massacre and the Finucane murder. He did so with great openness and sensitivity. Both inquiries exposed unlawful killing, either directly or indirectly, by agents of the state, and subsequent cover-ups. Thankfully, that sort of thing is extraordinarily rare in the UK. One reason why it is rare is that such things are exposed and deterred by an open and transparent system of justice—the whole system of justice, including the criminal judicial system, the inquest system and the civil courts system.

Measures in the Bill create the power to take parts of that civil judicial system not just out of the public domain —that already happens in some ways—but completely out of the normal judicial testing procedure. Under the Bill, evidence can be presented by the Government that the other side and their defence lawyers cannot see. That evidence cannot be tested, and therefore may be wholly wrong and misleading, which undermines the very thing that makes our system work.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

What role does the right hon. Gentleman imagine a defence lawyer would have in such proceedings?

[Mr Davis]

A defence lawyer has the role of challenging the evidence, but I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman’s point later.

The Bill is, in the words of Lord David Pannick, a leading barrister—indeed, he is the Government’s leading barrister of choice—“unnecessary, unfair and unbalanced”. He said it is unnecessary because we already have the public interest immunity system.