European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Geraint Davies Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

I will not.

That is why a core responsibility of this Parliament and this Government is to ensure that those key EU regulations—the habitats directive, the birds directive and the sewage sludge directive—have absolute, meaningful, proper, full protection in British law. We have had that commitment, but I should like to hear it a few more times from Ministers during this debate.

There are legitimate concerns about this process that need to be addressed in the Minister’s wind-up.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I will not, because I am running out of time.

First, when a state fails to implement EU law today, there are penalties, but that will no longer be the case—for obvious and appropriate reasons. However, an alternative system does need to be introduced. If the present or a future Government fail, for example, to stay within air pollution limits, it must be possible for sanctions to be applied and for that Government to be held to account—that is a core ingredient in any healthy democracy.

Secondly, it is not clear that important principles, such as the “polluter pays” principle or the precautionary principle, will be fully and meaningfully absorbed into UK law. If the individual regulations are to have meaning, those principles must be embedded in UK law. Finally, the Bill enables the Government to transfer regulatory functions from the EU to domestic bodies, but it does not make that obligatory, which seems to me to be an obvious weakness. I hope that the Minister will respond to my concerns, as well as the other issues that are raised today, and provide reassurances that they will be addressed either during the Bill’s later stages, or in subsequent environmental legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), who knows that people who voted for Brexit did so for a number of reasons. Some of them wanted, and expected, more money, which they were promised—£350 million a week—but now they face a debt of something like £50 billion. Some of them voted leave because they thought that they would still have a job, as we would have access to the single market, but now we know that we will not have unfettered access. Some of them voted for Brexit fundamentally because they thought that we would take back control with enhanced parliamentary democracy and with enhancement and supremacy of our courts.

The Bill does the opposite of what people expected for parliamentary democracy and the enhancement of our courts. What have been referred to as Henry VIII powers—new powers given to Ministers to change legislation as they deem appropriate, without consultation or reference to Parliament—mean that there will be fundamental changes without MPs having a look-in. Moreover, the legislation is drafted so broadly that it does not allow the courts effectively to use the right of judicial appeal to limit and constrain Government. There are no mechanisms to enforce the rights and protections we currently enjoy from Europe.

In practice, this may influence workers’ rights. The workers’ agency directive, which was pooh-poohed by the Government and the Beecroft report, is likely to be ruled out. On the environment, where 80% of the law is decided at EU level, the Government are currently in court under EU legislation in relation to the air quality directive and face fines if they do not fulfil their obligations. Under clause 17 of the Bill, a Minister can simply say, “Well, those EU regulations are inappropriate so we’ll get rid of them.” As for human rights, the fundamental charter is not assured. Any of our rights can be just crossed out by Ministers. On consumer rights, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) mentioned REACH. The directive requires all chemical companies to prove that a chemical is safe before they market it. A Minister could cross that out and introduce the American system, which instead requires an agency to prove a chemical is hazardous. That is why asbestos is still legal in the United States and it might become so here. Far from enhancing Parliament, we are open to having our rights and protections stripped away.

The Bill’s aim was supposed to be to cut and paste, or transfer, rights, protections and laws. Nobody is arguing that that should not happen. The question is: can it occur without a massive power grab and so-called Henry VIII powers? I suggest that it can, but it needs four changes. I hope the Minister is listening. Several changes are need to be able to achieve the transfer without the use of those draconian powers. The changes are: first, to ensure that the Bill enshrines the continuation of rights and protections in EU law; secondly, to have enforcement mechanisms in place for those rights which will be taken away when the EU institutions are taken away; and thirdly, to state in the Bill that the measure is not intended to impact on human rights and to ensure that, in any case where our rights and protections are challenged, they are referred to a Select Committee process. Most measures will be technical, but when there is a challenge to basic rights and protections we need something akin to a turbo-charged European Scrutiny Committee. I hope the Secretary of State is listening. That Committee can currently refer for debate any new EU legislation. That right should be enhanced, so that measures can be referred, amended and voted on here.

Fundamentally, we are talking about British values. The Prime Minister talks about British values and there are no more fundamental British values than parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. They are both unnecessarily under threat. If the Bill goes through as currently drafted, it will be a Trojan horse for well-armed Brexiters to get rid of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law as we know it. That is why they need to be disarmed.

There is no justification for the way the Bill is currently drafted. It should be taken back in its entirety. It can be brought back in October to cut and paste the particular safeguards. My own view, as hon. Members will know, is that as people voted for Brexit in good faith for a number of reasons that have not now materialised, they should have the right to have the final say on the exit package, to judge whether it stacks up against their reasonable expectations. That is what democracy is about. The Bill is about the destruction of democracy and I will vote against it wholeheartedly tonight.