European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Harman and William Cash

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harman]

We simply cannot trade one off against the other like that. This is not an economic trade negotiation.

The new clause is quite simple. It would provide that the rights of residence of EU citizens who were lawfully resident here before the referendum decision on 23 June remain unchanged. We need the clause in the Bill because the Government have been sending out mixed messages, and the Prime Minister did so again in her statement today. On the one hand, she says that anyone who is lawfully here has nothing to worry about. On the other hand, she says that she cannot commit to giving them residency rights because their future must be part of the negotiations.

It is in no way right to use the lives of 3 million people and their families as a bargaining chip. They and their families are not pawns in a game of poker with the EU. They cannot be used as a human shield as we battle it out in Europe for our UK citizens in other countries. We must decide what is fair and right for EU citizens here, and then do it. I thought we were supposed to be taking back control. If the Government reject the new clause, EU citizens will be right to draw the conclusion that their rights to continue to live here could be snatched away if our Government do not get what they want for our UK citizens living in each of the other countries in the European Union.

The new clause is not only the right thing to do as a matter of principle; it is legally necessary. The Government cannot bargain away people’s human rights. The right to family life is guaranteed by article 8 of the European convention on human rights. If the Government bargained them away, EU citizens living here would be able to go to our courts and seek to establish their rights to remain under article 8. If even 10% of those here did that, there would be 300,000 court challenges. There is no way that our court system could begin to cope with that. I hope that the Government accept the new clause. If not, I urge hon. Members of all parties to support it in the Lobby.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who was in the Chamber a short time ago, made an important point about new clause 3. When imposing legal requirements and duties on anybody—let alone the Prime Minister—one has be sure that those requirements are capable of being realised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and other hon. Members have dealt comprehensively with the difficulties that arise from the part of the new clause that mentions laying

“periodic reports…on the progress of the negotiations”.

I think that case has been made.

Let me move on to the next part. The real problem is subsection (c), which would

“make arrangements for Parliamentary scrutiny of confidential documents.”

As Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, I have had an enormous amount of trouble, over and over again, about documents that are marked as “LIMITÉ”. Although such documents are distributed, Parliaments other than the European Parliament are not allowed to refer to them because they are of a confidential nature. I have made it quite clear that I think some of this is overdone. However, to try to impose a legal duty on the Prime Minister to undertake to break the rules relating to limité documents is stretching a point to absurdity.