European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

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

[Mr Bone]

I entirely accept that point about the negative procedure. I want to move on to—

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bone]

I do not have time to take any more interventions. I must press on. There are so many—

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Mr Bone]

No!

Basically, this Bill is about the principle of ending EU control over this House and incorporating those laws. That is fine, and that is why every Member of the House should vote for it tonight. What they should then do is look in Committee, clause by clause, at how we are proposing to scrutinise, change and incorporate laws. I wholly accept that the negative SI procedure is probably not the best way of proceeding.

Another thing that has been mentioned—the right hon. Member for Derby South brought it up, and it is probably what I wanted to talk about most—is programme motions. As a principle, I am against programme motions. I accept entirely the answer she gave me, which is that it was a lot worse before. However, she did not go on to say that it is great now, and I do not think it has been. There have been a lot of problems with the Government deciding programming and the timing of scrutiny.

Now, this particular programme motion is one of the better ones, because the debate is eight days long, with eight hours’ protected time each day. I am fed up of sitting here waiting for a debate, only to find that there is statement after statement, which reduces the time we have for that debate. Thankfully, we are not doing that this time, and if there is a need for extra time, the Leader of the House would be well advised to grant it.

I was here at business questions on Thursday, and the shadow Leader of the House did not complain about the timetabling. [Interruption.] Well, I must have been deaf, because I was listening out for it. She moaned about a lot of things, but she did not complain about the length of time.

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[Richard Drax]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will come to that very point.

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Richard Drax]

I will not give way again, because many other Members wish to speak. However, I shall address that point later, because I served on the European Scrutiny Committee in the last Parliament.

From listening to the speeches, one would think that this country, Great Britain, was incapable of passing laws. What on earth is wrong with this great place, which we are selected to represent—our country? We are talking about one of the biggest honours: becoming an MP and representing our constituents. We used to make all the rules and regulations that our constituents lived under. Hon. Members may recall that we joined the EU for free trade, which everyone said was a jolly good idea—and it was. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats have taken over the running of that good idea, and if we can go back to that idea by leaving the EU, as I hope we can, I believe our constituents will be forever grateful.

This Bill is not a power grab, as the Opposition claim. The way they are going to vote is a smokescreen; it is a politically cynical move to destabilise this Government—that is all it is. It is an opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition, God forbid, to become Prime Minister of this country. What we are doing here is repatriating thousands of regulations into our jurisdiction, thousands of which have been imposed on us over the past 40 years. We can review them; that is our job—we review legislation. If we do not like it, we will get rid of it. If we have a majority, we will vote it out. If we like it, we will keep it. If we are not sure, we will amend it. What might be right for a European country—for the French or the Germans—might not be right for us.

Because of the sheer number of regulations, some will have to be delegated. Everyone is making a noise about delegated legislation, but both main parties have used delegated legislation for years—it is part of how this place works. Some Government Members have suggested some sort of triage process to assess what should be dealt with through delegated legislation and what should be taken on the Floor of the House. If I recall correctly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State listened to them and said that he would think about that. I am sure that those who want there to be a decision-making process for what should and should not be delegated will have a say in Committee.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) made a point about the silence that has reigned for so many years. I served on the European Scrutiny Committee under the excellent chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who is sitting just in front of me. For years—for many more years than me and probably most people in this House—he has scrutinised EU legislation. In the short time for which I served on the Committee, we tried to get important issues—not least the future of our ports—debated on the Floor of the House, so that we could all listen to the sense, or lack thereof, of EU legislation and decide whether what was appropriate for Europe was appropriate for us. Those debates never happened.

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[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, and it is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). He gave a thoughtful and considered speech, the tone and content of which were extremely consensual and helpful. If I may say so, it would be nice if more Conservative Members gave similar speeches.

I accept the referendum result, and I am happy to vote for the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition tonight because it accepts the result as well. A majority of my constituents voted for Brexit, but more people have contacted me to raise concerns about the Bill—in particular, about the timetable and the potential impact on environmental legislation—than to tell me that they are happy with it.

At the beginning of the year, the Procedure Committee embarked on an inquiry into what was then known as the great repeal Bill. The inquiry was halted by the general election, but in April we published evidence and interim findings, and I want to share some of them with colleagues tonight. The potential in the Bill for the excessive use of delegated legislation is alarming. The Bill is not what people were promised during the referendum campaign, which was greater parliamentary sovereignty. It is a power grab by Tory Ministers, who cannot be trusted, as they have repeatedly shown.

Relying on delegated legislation will not give Parliament proper opportunities for debate, scrutiny or control. Let me remind hon. Members of some of the processes. A statutory instrument introduced under the negative resolution process can become law without debate or a vote. It can even become law before it has been published and laid before the House. The Secretary of State for Justice is frowning, but that is the case. Paragraph 1(3) of schedule 7 sets out that most of the statutory instruments will be subject to negative resolution procedure unless—Ministers are nodding now—they are about transferring powers from European agencies. Last year, a fifth of statutory instruments were in force three weeks after publication. If Ministers were given such a power, there would be nothing to stop them signing laws one day and seeing those laws on the statute book the same day.

Scrutiny by the affirmative and super-affirmative processes is not much better. Such statutory instruments must be approved explicitly, but most go to Committees upstairs, and now the Government are trying to overturn the result of the general election by packing those Committees. Even when such statutory instruments are debated by the whole House, time is limited to 90 minutes, and they cannot be amended.

The drafting of clause 7 is wholly objectionable. It is too wide. Ministers may make regulations as they consider appropriate—not necessary, but appropriate—and regulations may repeal and replace primary legislation. That indicates that it is not the Government’s intention to limit such regulations to technical and non-controversial matters.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech, but is the challenge of the Bill not this: we used to talk in this country about an elected dictatorship, but what is now being proposed is a barely elected dictatorship? Has she ever seen a bigger gap between a Government’s mandate and the power that they seek?

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[Helen Goodman]

No, never. The fact that all the replacement of the functions of the 40 EU agencies is to be done by regulation means that vast swathes of legislation, covering matters from aviation security to medicine safety, will be implemented using these processes.

The Procedure Committee received evidence from academics, four other Select Committees and a large number of civil society organisations, from the TUC to the Archaeology Forum and a lot of environmental groups, who are rightly concerned because 80% of environmental legislation is derived from the EU. All our witnesses raised important issues. The risk is that delegated legislation will be used not just to transfer EU law, which is the Government’s stated intention, but to change its legal effect.

In clause 9 the Government seem to be seeking the flexibility to change the law to comply with the withdrawal agreement. How can the House be expected to agree to that, given that the Government have steadfastly refused to agree or even share their negotiating objectives with the House? The Government are still refusing to provide in primary legislation for a vote on the final deal, but we are supposed to pre-agree now any changes that flow from the withdrawal agreement. I know what my constituents want from Brexit. They want to control immigration, maintain the social chapter and continue with the EU arrest warrant. But I do not know what the Government want. We cannot pre-approve the final deal.

The Government claim that they want certainty, but their secrecy is preventing anyone from predicting where we will end up. It would be normal to share statutory instruments in draft, but the Government have not even told us in which areas of legislation they will use these procedures. Another major issue is who decides which procedures are used, and how Parliament, rather than the Executive, can do that. This cannot be dealt with solely through the Bill. Changes may be needed to Standing Orders. We may need to establish new Select Committees in the Commons and jointly with the Lords. The Leader of the House, who is not even in her place, has utterly failed to bring forward any plans to show what she will do in terms of resources, time or procedure. The Government have deliberately delayed establishing the Select Committees and have been secretive, nervous and unco-operative. Even today, Tory Members have had a letter from the Secretary of State, but the rest of us have not seen it. We cannot trust these Ministers, and so we cannot give them such vast powers.

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[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I will be joining my colleagues in the Lobby tonight to vote against this Bill, because of the unprecedented Henry VIII powers that will transfer power away from Parliament and give it to Ministers. In some ways, these powers will turn the Prime Minister into a female version of Louis XIV, the sun king, who, as he lay on his deathbed in the palace of Versailles, said, “L’état, c’est moi.” That is what she is doing with the Bill, but as representatives of the British people, sent here with a democratic mandate, we say, “L’état, c’est nous.” We are the legislative force in this country; no sun king or sun queen will be created on our watch, and we will not give up our parliamentary democracy without a fight.

It is perfectly possible to recognise and respect the result of the referendum without sacrificing hard-won economic, social and environmental rights and freedoms. As we have heard, at the general election the people declined to give the Prime Minister the majority she sought. Through the general election, the people have already rejected a hard Brexit, so the question before us tonight is: who governs Britain—this Parliament, or a Prime Minister reliant on some hard-liners in her party and on the Democratic Unionist party, which she is paying whatever it demands to get her laws through?

Clause 9 would allow Ministers to introduce regulations to make any provision that can be made by an Act of Parliament, including modifying this legislation, a huge power that will last right up to exit day. It is therefore the great power grab Bill, which will create an infinite legislative loop: the powers can be extended infinitely to amend laws, through delegated legislation, with no scrutiny. The fact that the power to amend this Act lies within it means that the Bill can eat itself; it is like a constantly regenerating loop in some science fiction nightmare, providing new powers ad infinitum at the whim of whichever Government are in place at any given moment.

We have seen this before, because the Government have form. They did not want to give this place a vote on article 50, or on the final deal. They fought at every turn to frustrate this House in overseeing what they are doing, and frustrate us in our duties and responsibilities to our electors. The powers in clause 9 will end on exit day, but the Bill allows exit day to be set by Ministers, so those powers could continue for many years—indeed, there could be several exit days. That is not how we make laws in this country. We also have money and Ways and Means motions before us tonight that mean that Ministers can spend any sum or raise any tax as a result of this Bill. As well as being a legislative blank cheque, the Bill is therefore a literal blank cheque for the Government. That is not how we make laws in this country.

All these new laws made by delegated legislation can be amended by delegated legislation. The Government say that there will be opportunities for scrutiny, but they want a majority of one on all Delegated Legislation Committees, so that they can rubber-stamp the delegated legislation, despite failing to win a majority at the general election. That is not how we make laws in this country. The Bill can create new criminal offences under the negative resolution procedure of things such as food adulteration or trading illegal chemicals. New criminal offences will be made with no parliamentary scrutiny. That is not how we make laws in this country.

This Bill should protect our hard-won social, environmental, political and economic rights. In fact, it guarantees nothing of the sort. Even if those rights are somehow replicated in the future, the Bill is silent about remedies, and it is the remedies, not the rights, that are the spur to action. The threat of EU fines led to us taxing waste that goes to landfill, which kick-started the recycling industry in this country. The threat of massive fines for filthy air pollution has led to the Government publishing not one, not two, but three clean air plans. The threat of fines under the water framework directive has led to UK water companies cleaning up our filthy beaches and rivers. Those environmental improvements and industries were created because the threat of financial penalties focused the minds of Ministers and civil servants. If there is no remedy for the citizen, the right that the law confers is toothless.

The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said on Second Reading that the Government would introduce proposals. Why are they not in the Bill? How many rights that we currently enjoy are threatened by the Bill? Francovich will not apply to the individual, so future rights will be removed from citizens. The acquis communautaire, which we have adopted, refers to the environment, but a third of it cannot be neatly cut and pasted into UK law.

[Helen Goodman]

Is my hon. Friend concerned that the replacement of the European Environment Agency by national bodies with massive powers would also be handled in that way?

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We will not simply be able to cut and paste chemicals measures. REACH is the big regulation on registering, evaluating and authorising chemicals. It protects the public and the environment from hazardous substances and it is vital to British jobs, growth and investment. Our chemical industry is the second largest exporter to the EU after cars, selling £15 billion of chemical exports to the EU every year. Leaving REACH could cause market freeze and supply chain disruption to the industry. The Environmental Audit Committee heard from techUK and the defence industries how incredibly concerned they were about that. One in five UK chemicals companies represented by the Chemical Business Association are not waiting for regulatory certainty from the Government, and are already investigating opportunities to set up shop in other EU countries, harming jobs, investment and growth in this country.

The Bill does not protect the citizen and it does not incorporate either the principle of EU law that the polluter pays or the precautionary principle. For those reasons, for the vast destruction of our environmental and social rights, I shall vote against the Bill.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), but I want to turn from sun kings and queens to what the Bill is about: giving the House the mechanism to begin the process of withdrawal from the European Union.

Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is about to leave the Chamber. I agree with some of the amendments she has suggested, but I would like to ask her why they have not been tabled. I will stand by the Bill.

[Helen Goodman]

The process is that amendments can be tabled after Second Reading tonight. We cannot table amendments until and unless the Bill completes Second Reading.

[Luke Graham]

To clarify, there is an amendment on the Order Paper, and I would suggest that some of those provisions should have been included in it.

As many hon. Members across the House have said, we would be open to some of the suggested amendments. The Government have committed to listening to the amendments and reacting to them as the parliamentary process progresses. There have not been many constructive measures from the Opposition, so, with other hon. Members, may I suggest that if they respect democracy, the Bill and the vote of the British people they should vote for the Bill? I say that as someone who voted remain, along with many of my constituents. However, as a democrat, I will support the Bill to make sure that we go through the process.

Clauses 7, 8 and 9 delegate considerable powers to Ministers. On Thursday, many Opposition Members said that the delegation of powers was unprecedented, but I draw their attention to section 32(4) of the Immigration Act 2016, which allows Ministers to

“make such provision amending, repealing or revoking any provision…as the Secretary of State considers appropriate in consequence of the regulations.”

Although provisions in the Bill are wider in scope, they are not entirely unprecedented; I wanted to draw that to the attention of the House. I understand even as a new Member that there is a lot of politics at play in our discussion of the Bill, but it is complicated enough. Our constituents do not want us to blur lines; they want us to clarify them. I would urge Ministers and other hon. Members to decouple myths from facts. There have been people in Henry VIII costume on the lawns outside the House trying to grab airtime, and “Westminster power grabs” creates headlines, but what our constituents really want is for us to honour the vote and get on with delivering the best possible Brexit.

May I suggest to Ministers an example of where that would be particularly helpful? The Human Rights Act 1998 appears to be protected under clause 7(6). Some Opposition Members are thinking about opposing the Bill because it does not transpose the EU charter of fundamental rights, but I am assured that all rights contained in the charter are in the Human Rights Act or other pieces of legislation. To help clarify that point, I urge Ministers to list the protections in current British law, so that we can compare and contrast them with those in the charter of fundamental rights and give assurances to Opposition Members that those rights are protected. We can then take those assurances back to our constituents, who care a lot about this.

The Bill represents the democratic vote of the United Kingdom. As I have said, I support it, but I hope that the Government act on their commitment to listen to learned colleagues in all parts of the House to ensure that substantive measures in the Bill receive the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny as the Bill proceeds through the House. If the Government establish a clear framework of strong parliamentary oversight, I hope that we can engage with the detail of the Bill, and finally introduce the substantive Bills that hon. Members and our constituents care about, including Bills on immigration and trade.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I thoroughly recommend the report of his Committee relating to that subject.

I think what has been established in this sequence of interventions is that clause 1 could scarcely be of greater constitutional significance. It will repeal the 1972 Act on exit day, removing the mechanism that allows EU law to flow automatically into UK law, and remove one of the widest-ranging powers ever placed on the statute book of the United Kingdom. The repeal makes it clear and unarguable that sovereignty lies here in this Parliament.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

If the 1972 Act is repealed before the end of what Ministers call the implementation period but what I prefer to think of as the transition period, what will be the legal basis for our relations with the EU and our free trade agreements with the 57 third countries?

[Mr Baker]

I am happy that we have announced the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, which will follow in due course, to establish that legal basis, but for the moment I want to conclude this section of my remarks and move on to the amendments.

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[Helen Goodman]

Does my hon. Friend share my astonishment at the answer to my question this afternoon about what the legal basis for the transition period would be? Does he agree that the Government have succeeded in minimising their room for negotiation by fixing the exit day and maximising legal uncertainty and that the one thing that business has been calling for is legal certainty before Christmas?

[Mr Leslie]

As my hon. Friend says, I am starting to wonder whether the Government will reverse ferret a little bit on the fixed date. We will wait and see—I think the vote will come up on day eight. It is obvious that it has not been as thought through as it should have been.

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. It is important that during this and future debates—we will have the opportunity to return to this issue in the debate on clause 5—my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government take due regard of this issue. The courts have already said that they are unclear and want clarity. It is not always usual for courts to come back and say that they want us to decide, but on this matter they really do. That is important, because there has to be a future point at which they understand that they do not have to have regard to any change in the European Court principles.

I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government to make that point very clear in the course of this process, and I look forward to their response. I think the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton, said that he would return to this issue in the discussions on clause 5, and I would certainly appreciate that.

I know that other Members wish to speak, so I shall conclude. I applaud and support the Government on this part of the Bill. For me, and I think for most of our colleagues, it is the most important element. We can debate money and all these other issues, but who ultimately decides on our laws is the most important element of the vote to leave. I made this point earlier, and I conclude by making it again: the single issue on which the British public voted most was to take back control of their laws. I want that to happen as we leave the European Union.

[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), because his remarks about a new arbitration system relate very much to the points I wish to address.

When I consider the Bill, my overriding concern is the impact on the economic wellbeing of my constituents. Members know that the north-east is a successful exporting region. Part of the reason why we have been so successful is that we have had a stable legal framework over the past 40 years. The Bill’s purpose is obviously to provide continuing legal certainty, but it seems to me that the combination of the Government’s proposal to set the exit date before the transition period is over, and their red line on the ECJ, will have the rather remarkable effect of minimising the flexibility for negotiation and maximising the legal uncertainty.

I very much support amendments 278 and 306, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) spoke, and new clause 14, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie).

Earlier, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker): if the 1972 Act is repealed before the end of the transition or implementation period, what will be the legal basis of our relations with the EU in that period and of the 57 free trade agreements that the EU negotiated with third countries? He said, “Don’t worry, it will all be set out in the next Bill, which will come in perhaps a year or 18 months.” I am sorry to say that I do not find that very reassuring. I am conscious that businesses want an element of legal certainty about the transition period as soon as possible. Waiting for another 12 months, or another 18 months, does not give them that legal certainty, which means that they can continue to close plants and divest. We are already beginning to see that. Frequently, it is not being flagged up as being about Brexit, but it is happening rather too often.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not find it extraordinary that so many Government Members, including those on the Treasury Bench and at the Dispatch Box, have deviated from the position set out so clearly by the Prime Minister in her Florence speech? She said that during the implementation period—transition in everyone else’s terms—the existing structure of EU rules and regulations would be in place to provide the certainty that she has described. That is not what we have been hearing this evening.

[Helen Goodman]

No, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem is this dissonance between the content of the rules and the enforceability of the rules.

I just want to stress this point about the impact on exporters. In the Minister’s description of how the transition period and the future might pan out, there seemed to be no acknowledgement that, in addition to some of these disputes and rights that citizens will be claiming, whether they are under competition law or in the single market, there will also be citizens in this country making claims in the other European countries, or the other 57 third-party countries. In order to export, these countries need to have more certainty about their data protection—we will come on to that another day—about professional recognition, particularly the services, about licensing and about passporting. If those rights are not enforceable, they will be losing that certainty.

At the moment, we have a situation in which half the exports of this country go to the European Union, and 30% go to the other 57 countries in which the EU has negotiated the legal framework. We are talking about 80% of this country’s trade and this Government are not able to tell us what the legally enforceable base will be during the transition period.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) said that it would be very nice if we could have a new arbitration system. Well, I am sorry, but that does not seem to be on offer. At the moment, there are three possibilities. One possibility is continuing with the ECJ, but the Government have set their face against that. Another possibility is to join the European economic area, but the Government have set their face against that. The third possibility is to crash out. The option of the bespoke arbitration system with the European Union will be extremely difficult to negotiate in the 15 months that we have left before the transition period begins.

[Seema Malhotra]

With so many organisations and bodies, such as the judiciary, businesses and the Law Society, talking about the uncertainty that comes from clause 6, does my hon. Friend not agree that it is very challenging to believe the Government that this will be all right on the night when an alternative dispute mechanism would need to be created, designed, drafted, legislated for and in place before we leave the European Union?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just one alternative system; it is 58. It is one with the EU and another 57 with everybody else. This is really not going to happen, and Ministers need to get their heads round the fact that they have some hard choices to make, and they need to be straight with their own Back Benchers and with the public about what those choices are.

The Government are being irresponsible in wanting to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, which is the basis of our membership, and in setting the date at the beginning of the transition period, before they can tell us how they are going to handle that period. It would be great if they could give us a proper explanation because we have not had one yet. Ministers say that the whole purpose of the Bill—the very thing that the Bill is driving at—is legal certainty, but they cannot tell us what the legal position will be in 18 months’ time. The Bill is flawed and I urge Ministers to look constructively at the amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench.

[Robert Neill]

I approach the Bill in exactly the same spirit as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) made clear earlier in the debate. However much I think we have harmed ourselves with the decision to leave the European Union, we have to ensure that we deliver it in an orderly fashion. That is critical in the legal area and in the business area.

The City of London is the financial hub of the whole of Europe, and we want it to stay that way, but it requires legal continuity and certainty to do so. Now, I accept that the Bill seeks to do this—I have no problem with the intentions behind the Bill—but it is worth stressing the importance of the sector and, therefore, the importance of the detail. Bear in mind that euro clearing involves transactions being processed every day through London to a value which exceeds our annual contribution to the European Union by a significant sum, and which significantly exceeds any likely divorce bill figure that has been bandied about.

The fact is that we are the basis for the euro bond market and we clear a great deal of euro business, and that generates and supports thousands of jobs. Some 36% of the population of my constituency are employed in financial and professional services. I am not going to do anything that puts their jobs at risk or reduces their standard of living. Those who voted to leave did not vote to make us poorer for the sake of a bit of ideology. We now have to find a practical means forward to ensure that we have, as the chair of the City of London’s policy and resources committee put it, an orderly Brexit as opposed to a disorderly one. Therefore, the test of the Bill’s contents is whether they achieve the Bill’s stated objective of trying to assist in that orderly Brexit and withdrawal. Well, it does up to a point, but my contention is that it only goes so far. There are number of areas where the Bill is lacking, which is why it needs improvement, and this set of amendments deals with precisely one of those areas.

The incorporation of the acquis into UK domestic law is accepted all round as being necessary, but the debate has highlighted a number of significant areas where there is still uncertainty and where the current wording may not achieve its objective. I want to see a deal on the basis of the Florence speech. I hope that all Government Members will stand behind the Florence speech and will not attempt to rewrite it, refine it, add to it or subtract from it. If we do that constructively, we can make good progress. I am sure that the Ministers on the Treasury Bench wish to achieve that too—well, almost all of them. But to do that we must ensure that we give the courts and contracting parties the certainty that they need.

My final example is that derivative contracts are generally written over a three to five-year period. Unless there is certainty as to the enforceability of those contracts, people will not contract with counterparties in the European Union. Crashing out without a deal would not give them that certainty any more than going on to WTO terms will give the financial services any certainty. It would not give the London legal services sector any certainty, doing nothing to address the establishment directive or the recognition of professional rights that currently enable British lawyers to gain and earn millions of pounds for this country annually in the work that they sell into the European Union.

All those things need to be done. I doubt whether we could get the detail done by the end of March 2019, and that is why a significant and proper transition, in which we can work out the details, is absolutely necessary. Let us make sure, then, that we enable the Bill to achieve that through some additions and changes to what is in it.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am going to make some progress.

It may be the case that pragmatism and electoral appeal trump ideology, but there is no guarantee, and that is the point. We should not take risks with rights, standards and protections that have been underpinned by EU law. Hard-won employment entitlements, along with entitlements relating to the environment, health and safety, equalities and consumer rights, should not be vulnerable to steady erosion by means of secondary legislation outside of the powers contained in this Bill. In future, Ministers should be able to change the workers’ rights and other rights that came from the EU only through primary legislation, with a full debate in Parliament. On that basis, I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support new clause 58.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Dame Rosie. Yesterday’s selection list meant that it was not possible to debate the amendments on the customs union or on the European agencies. I do not say this as a criticism of the Chair—obviously, a selection has to be made—but these are extremely important areas of European law, which, as the current schedule stands, we will not now have an opportunity to debate. However, the Government did say that they were prepared, if need be, for extra time to be given to the Committee stage in the House. How might we facilitate securing more time to debate these extremely important issues?

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means]

Obviously I would not comment on the order of selection on the Floor of the House, but the Leader of the House is here and I am sure that she will have heard the hon. Lady’s comments.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a good case. There is a further cost that he is not taking into account, which is the cost to the public finances. We know that the Red Book takes no account of the £40 billion or £50 billion in the divorce bill, which means that the Government’s forecast—or the OBR’s forecast—for the public finances will be shot to pieces. That means interest rates will go up faster than anticipated and the cost of Government borrowing will go up. This is a major economic event and we need an assessment of that as well from the Government. Does my hon. Friend agree with me?

[Mr Leslie]

Yes. All hon. Members, not just the Government—there are such hon. Members even on the Labour Benches—will want to commit public resources to all sorts of things, and they need to recognise that if the cost is £60 billion, that is not something to be sniffed at. In a couple of years’ time the deficit is projected to be about £30 billion a year, so we are talking about the equivalent of two years of deficit to be added, presumably, to the national debt at that point in time. That is all notwithstanding what happens to our wider economic circumstances. These things should not just be dismissed.

We should be putting the House of Commons at the centre of this process and not treating it as a peripheral part of the Brexit arrangements. That is why this new clause is so important. Brexit is a costly exercise and Parliament needs to have the chance to properly reflect on it. A potential divorce bill of £1,000 for every man, woman and child in this country certainly should not just be brushed aside. When we ask ourselves what we are getting for this arrangement, we see that we are getting the chance to rip up the finest free trade agreement—a frictionless, tariff-free agreement—of anywhere in the world, for the chance to have something inferior. The current path we are on is not about taking back control; this is about losing control. The idea that Parliament should simply step to one side and agree to have control taken away from it is not acceptable to me and to very many hon. Members. This new clause would at least drag Brexit back into the sunlight and let the public hold those responsible to account.

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[Jenny Chapman]

It is a real pleasure to be called to contribute. I wish to speak to new clause 80 and amendments 339 and 340 in my name and the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

New clause 80 would require a vote in the House on the financial settlement that the Government agree with the European Union. Further, it would require the House to be informed in its decision on that matter by reports from the Office for Budget Responsibility and the National Audit Office. Amendments 339 and 340 would prevent tax or fee-raising powers from being established via tertiary legislation and limit any fees that are levied by public bodies to the cost of the service that the fee is intended to cover.

I should start by referring Members to the third report of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee from September, which examined the Bill before us today. The report draws our intention to the fact that the delegated powers memorandum notes that those powers would enable

“the creation of tax-like charges, which go beyond recovering the direct cost of the provision of a service to a specific firm or individual, including to allow for potential cross-subsidisation or to cover the wider functions and running costs of a public body.”

The report alerts Parliament to the danger of allowing organisations full-cost recovery of their services without parliamentary scrutiny as it could allow them to gold-plate the services that they offer. As the report says:

“A tax-like charge means a tax.”

And it

“should not be allowed in subordinate legislation. They are matters for Parliament, a principle central to the Bill of Rights 1688. Regulations under clauses 7 and 9 cannot impose or increase taxation.33 But regulations under Schedule 4 may.”

The report goes on to make the point that that means that Ministers can tax. They can

“confer powers on public authorities to tax and they can do so in tertiary legislation that has no parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever.”

New clause 80 also addresses this issue of a lack of parliamentary oversight. As we all know, the Government are in the process of attempting to conclude the first phase of negotiations with the European Union. Part of that process is agreeing a financial settlement, which reflects the obligations that the United Kingdom has incurred as a result of its membership of the European Union. Labour has always been clear that Britain should meet its obligations. We cannot seriously hope to make new agreements on the international stage if we are seen to go back on what we have already agreed. Britain is a far better, fairer and more reliable ally than that.

As the Chancellor said when he attended the Treasury Committee today:

“I find it inconceivable that we as a nation would be walking away from an obligation that we recognised as an obligation.”

He continued:

“That is just not a credible scenario. That’s not the kind of country we are and frankly it would not make us a credible partner for future international agreements.”

On that, we are agreed. But we have also been clear that the deal must be fair to the taxpayer. Already the Government are attempting to bypass the scrutiny that should take place in this Chamber. This money belongs to the UK taxpayer and they have a right to know how much, and for what they are paying. It is true that the public interest in discovering more about the financial settlements that the Government intend to make with the EU is great, and that there will inevitably and rightly be extensive media coverage. The details, some certain and some speculative, will be pored over by commentators. Estimates will be made and objections proffered on the basis—sometimes, I venture to say—of inaccurate or incomplete information. That is not a satisfactory way to proceed. The House must get a grip of this process and demand the ability to scrutinise and take a view on the deals reached.

Our new clause argues that this House should have a vote, and also that the vote should be properly informed. Being properly informed means that independent analysis by the OBR and the NAO must be provided to assist this House in its consideration of the deal. We are going to need that, because the financial settlement will not be straightforward, and unvarnished truths will be hard to come by. Crudely speaking, the Government will try to make the amount look as reasonable as possible and the EU will try to show that it has everything that it thinks it is due.

The Government will want to highlight estimates that show how payments will be less than half the €100 billion liability, once UK projects have been taken into account. As Alex Barker in the Financial Times put it last week:

“Ministers are banking on Treasury budget wizards making the exit price look as small as possible.”

The two sides in the negotiation could look at the same agreement and come up with net estimates that are quite different.

[Helen Goodman]

I am just puzzling over how the Government think this will work. Has my hon. Friend thought about this: it is highly likely that we will make not one big payment, but a number of payments over a period of time, which means that the payment could be spread into another Parliament? Given that no Parliament can bind its successor, how does she think that the Government can make this agreement?

[Jenny Chapman]

That is a very interesting point. As a fellow member of the Select Committee on Procedure for several years, I am not surprised that my hon. Friend has spotted this. I would be fascinated to hear what the Minister has to say about that when he gets to his feet later this evening.

Parliament ought to have the ability to debate, scrutinise and reach its own conclusion on this matter. If we do not, we will be the only people not tussling with it. This Parliament wants to do as the people said we should: take back control. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in response to an urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) that to give Parliament details about the settlement

“would not be in our national interest”—[Official Report, 29 November 2017; Vol. 632, c. 327.]

That is not good enough. She said that she will “update the House” when there is more to say, but we do not want to be updated; we want the ability to decide.

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[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). I share her bemusement at where we have got to on the impact assessments, which we have now been told do not exist. Like her, I would have thought that that work would have been done—it certainly should be done. If it has not been done—we have been told that it has not been done—it urgently needs to be done so that the Government and the House can take an informed view about where we are heading.

I wish to speak briefly to my amendments 152 and 153 to schedule 4, which touch on the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman). She pointed out that while it was a good thing that Ministers could assure us that no new taxes would be introduced as a result of the sweeping powers that the Bill gives to Ministers—I am glad that new taxes are not going to be imposed on us through the use of these powers—nevertheless the Bill gives them the powers to impose charges. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make the point, which was also made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North, that there is frankly precious little difference between taxes and charges. There are wide powers in the Bill to impose new charges, so my amendments 152 and 153 are intended to constrain the power of Ministers to impose charges, which could be almost limitless in scope. I hope that the Minister, in winding up the debate, will be able to give assurances to the Committee that these powers will not be used in ways that none of us would want. I hope that by probing the Minister’s intentions through my amendments I will receive the assurances I seek.

Amendment 152 would amend line 35 of schedule 4, on page 32. The schedule is slightly alarmingly worded, and the amendment is to part 1, which deals with the power to provide for fees or charges. Paragraph 1(3) lists various things that Ministers can introduce regulations to do: to prescribe fees or charges; to provide for recovery of any sums payable; and to confer power on public authorities to do rather similar things. The sub-paragraph explicitly allows Ministers to introduce regulations on those three things, but its first line also reads:

“Regulations under this paragraph may (among other things)”.

Apart from the three specific things, which, frankly, sound rather alarming, it seems that there are some other, non-specified things that the schedule would empower Ministers to do. Amendment 152 simply proposes the deletion of the words “among other things”, so that at least Ministers can do only three things to demand money from taxpayers or charge payers.

[Helen Goodman]

I just want to make sure that I have understood what my right hon. Friend is saying. Surely what is being proposed here is that Ministers’ ability to use secondary legislation to impose taxes should be constrained, and they will be allowed to impose charges—not that if the Brexit bill is ginormous and the public finances are in a mess, Ministers will have stood at the Dispatch Box now and committed never to increase income tax. That is the correct understanding, is it not?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The amendment simply constrains Ministers’ ability to introduce new charges—she calls them taxes, and she has every right to do so—under the secondary legislation envisaged in schedule 4. What I hope the Minister will do is assure us that by “among other things” he is not envisaging some great long list of new money-raising powers.

[Helen Goodman]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on, is it not worth considering those EU agencies, such as the European Medicines Agency, that are financed by charges on the industry, not by the taxpayer? We should really be hearing from the Minister how the Government propose to fund such agencies in future.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We come directly to that point in amendment 153, in which we propose to add to schedule 4 the words set out on the amendment paper, which I shall read out. We propose to constrain Ministers’ powers by saying, first, that regulations

“may not be made for the purposes of…creating a fee or charge that does not replicate a fee or charge levied by an EU entity on exit day”.

That is exactly the point my hon. Friend has just raised. We of course recognise that a lot of charges are imposed at the moment by EU bodies of one sort or another—she mentioned a very important one—and that, in future, comparable fees or charges may well need to be levied by UK entities, but the aim of the first paragraph of amendment 153 is to make it clear that Ministers cannot impose new fees or charges for which there is not already a counterpart from the EU entity.

[Stephen Timms]

I had not considered that, and the right hon. Gentleman may well have a point. I would be interested to know whether that is indeed the case. That interesting point is certainly worth pursuing, and I would welcome it if he expanded on that later.

Secondly, amendment 153 states that Ministers cannot bring forward regulations for the purpose of

“increasing a fee or charge to an amount larger than an amount charged by an EU entity for the performance of the relevant function on exit day.”

Let me take the example my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) mentioned. The European Medicines Agency does very important work, and it charges the industry for that work. I am suggesting that the secondary legislation powers in schedule 4 should not be used to introduce a charge for the same function that is higher than the one currently charged by the European Medicines Agency. There may well be a loss of economies of scale in leaving the European Medicines Agency, and it may well be that undertaking that function purely for the UK will be a less efficient process than doing it EU-wide, as the European Medicines Agency does, but I do not think the secondary legislation powers in the schedule should be used to impose on industry or any charge payer a fee that is higher than the one currently charged by the EU entity.

I accept that there may well in due course need to be some higher fees or charges than those currently levied by EU entities, because the process may well be less efficient when carried out at a UK-only level, but I do not think the secondary legislation powers should be used for that purpose. If Ministers want to bring forward a proposal to impose a higher fee or charge, they should do so through the proper parliamentary process, with scrutiny by this House, not through secondary legislation powers.

[Helen Goodman]

One of the points made to me by those in the industry is that if these fees and charges shoot up, that will have an impact on their competitiveness, which is the last thing we want. Does that not reinforce my right hon. Friend’s point?

[Stephen Timms]

Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, my amendments arise specifically from the discussions I have had with those in the tech sector who are worried about the prospect of being hit by substantially larger fees and charges in the future, which is exactly what the powers in the schedule would allow Ministers to do.

I very much hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that these powers will not be used in that way, and that we will not find that industry and charge payers of other kinds are hit by fees or charges that are not being charged at the moment or are higher than those currently being charged. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Ian Paisley]

I will take your instruction, Mr Hanson, but I think that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) knows where I stand on that point.

I was hoping to hear some clarity from Labour’s Front Bench tonight, instead of more confusion. I was hoping to hear some key arguments about why the Opposition are putting forward some of these amendments to deal with the consequences of the divorce bill. I wanted to hear them deal with who should pay, with freedom of movement and with the single market. I wanted a hard and fast line, but I am afraid that we heard even more confusion.

We have had a diet of this confusion for some time. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said that we must leave the single market and respect the referendum result. The hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) said that we should stay in the single market and the customs union permanently. The hon. Members for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) and for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) said on another occasion that we have to leave the single market. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said that we should keep freedom of movement. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the Leader of the Opposition, and the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the shadow Brexit Secretary, have said that freedom of movement ends with Brexit.

We really need more clarity from the Labour party. If it is going to try to persuade us on these key issues, it needs a single position. At least the Government, for all the problems that have been pointed out, have a single position. I think that would be a good starting point.

[Helen Goodman]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to support new clause 17, moved with great elan by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), new clause 8, tabled by the Labour Front Benchers, and amendments 152 and 153, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).

It seems completely reasonable for the House to expect the Government to produce papers explaining the basis of the payments that we will have to make in order to secure a successful Brexit. We want to know from the Government in writing what legal obligations they accept, what they agree to in relation to our obligations under the current five-year EU budget, what they believe our long-term liabilities are—such things as pensions—and how our share of the EU’s assets are being taken into account in the calculation. For example, it would be extremely helpful to know the Government’s position on the European Investment Bank, because we still do not have clarity on that. That will obviously play some part in the divorce Bill. We need to know what the number is, but we also need to know whether it has been worked out in a reasonable way, because at the moment it is not at all clear how the assessment has been made. We are asking for a parliamentary opportunity to look at this.

We also want to know Ministers’ plan for how the payment will be made. What will be paid earlier and what will be paid over time? What account will Ministers take of fluctuations in the exchange rate? The pound has fallen by 12% since the referendum in the summer of 2016. That is not a huge amount, but it has a significant impact on these numbers. If the Government agree a figure of £50 billion, it would increase the bill by €6 billion or £5 billion. How will the Government manage such exchange rate risks?

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Lady agree that a good way for the Government to publicise precisely how much the bill will be is for them to put the figure on the side of a red bus and for senior members of the Government to drive around the country publicising the £45 billion down payment?

[Helen Goodman]

That is a good, eminently sensible idea. I will return to the public’s attitude when I wind up my remarks.

This is a significant sum. When we bailed out the banks 10 years ago, we spent £133 billion. Now we are talking about a figure of £50 billion, which will have a significant impact on the public finances. I am sympathetic to the remarks of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) on the inadequacies of the current estimates procedure. Given that this is an exceptionally large sum of money on an exceptionally important item, and given that this is exceptionally politically sensitive, we expect a much better way for Parliament to approve the sums of money. That is what new clauses 17 and 80 are driving at.

I am worried about the impact on the public finances. Not only is this a big number, but it seems to be a big number that the Chancellor did not take into account when putting together the Red Book, in which he included the current net payments to the EU of £9 billion a year up to 2019 and, thereafter, £12 billion a year of continued expenditure on items coming back to this country that are currently the responsibility of shared EU programmes, such as agricultural support, universities and R and D. He put in £3 billion for transitional costs, such as new computer systems at HMRC and the Rural Payments Agency, but he did not put anything in for the divorce bill. His forecast of the deficit coming down and of debt starting to fall towards the end of this Parliament is bound to be wrong unless the Government present the British people with a whopping great tax bill.

[Peter Kyle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, considering our current trajectory under this Government, the other big black hole in the Red Book is how much we will have to pay for access to the single market after we leave?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is right, but I am confining myself to the impact of new clauses 17 and 80.

We need to understand how Ministers will cope with this big bill when the deal is done. Will Ministers give everybody a massive tax bill—and it will be a massive tax bill, because we are talking about at least £800 per person, or £3,000 per household—or will they increase Government borrowing?

I return to the simple point about the promises that were made by, among others, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), during the referendum campaign—the £350 million a week for the NHS that we saw on the side of a bus. This is £16 billion a year. After the Brexit vote, I had a number of public meetings with my constituents and asked them what their expectation was when they voted to leave the EU. I will never forget this nice old lady saying, “Helen, it will be marvellous, because now there will enough money for the Government to reopen the A&E in Bishop hospital.” That is obviously not what the Government have in mind. It is incumbent on them to be open and clear with the British public, and that is what new clauses 17 and 80 are driving at.

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

We have all heard the famous phrase “a week is a long time in politics”. Well, it has now been almost 18 months since the public voted to leave the EU and in that time lots of new issues have come to light. From leaving the single market and customs union, to the renewed tensions over the Irish border, we know things now that voters could not have been expected to know all those months ago. We also know that the Brexit divorce bill is likely to cost the Treasury upwards of £50 billion. That is almost £2,000 per household that could have been put to more positive use but instead becomes the opportunity cost of Brexit. Some people will say, “That’s money that would have been paid to the EU anyway”, and to some extent they are right. The difference is, however, that the money we paid to the EU in the past bought us collective benefits and access to shared resources, such as Euratom and the European Medicines Agency, that are now at risk as a result of Brexit.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

I am not sure whether such a provision exists. Perhaps members of the Procedure Committee will have a view on that. I certainly think that that would be unfortunate.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

We will look at the composition when we look at the Standing Orders. It is not covered in the contents of the amendments today, but people will have an opportunity to debate that issue on another occasion.

[Mr Leslie]

That is true, but it deserves to be debated today as well. If we are creating a committee, it is perfectly legitimate to argue that we need to know whether it will have teeth and exercise bite, or whether it will be reluctant to do so. The question that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked about its composition is perfectly reasonable.

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[Sir Oliver Letwin]

That is indeed true. I suppose that Opposition Members would tend to argue that only the courts could enforce that, which is an oddity with the principle of comity, but I think we are dancing on the heads of pins here. I am confident that the Government do not intend to use that power to get rid of the constraints within the Bill. I am equally confident that the serious issue here is whether significant changes are proposed by the negative procedure and, I repeat, the Procedure Committee amendment seems to handle that serious issue, which is in contrast to the highly hypothetical considerations that have already been put before the Committee.

Amendments 62 and 63 were, in a different form, the subject of some serious discussions earlier in Committee. They relate to how we bring the important environmental principles in the treaty on the functioning of the European Union into English law at the time of withdrawal and to how we replace the useful role that the Commission has played in being an independent enforcement agency for environmental law that is governed by those principles in its procedures and substantive actions.

[Helen Goodman]

Is the right hon. Gentleman referring to new clauses 62 and 63 or amendments 62 and 63?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

New clauses 62 and 63. I do apologise. I am very bad at remembering the nomenclature, but I know which ones I am talking about. They are the ones that relate to the environment—their proponent, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), is sitting behind the hon. Lady—and we had a long discussion about them earlier in Committee. Since those discussions inside the House, many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), and I have had considerable conversations outside the House with various people, such as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, green non-governmental organisations and others. I am now confident that the Government will bring forward proper new primary legislation to create an independent body outside the House with prosecutorial powers that will replace the Commission as the independent arbiter to enforce environmental rules and to ensure that the Government are taken to task in court without the need for the expense of class action lawsuits.

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[Tommy Sheppard]

I do indeed, and I will come on to that in just one moment.

[Helen Goodman]

I just want to back up the hon. Gentleman’s request for more information from the Government. In our report, the Procedure Committee called on the Government to publish

“as soon as possible…an outline schedule for the laying of instruments before the House.”

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we still do not know what the Government have in mind.

[Tommy Sheppard]

If we had some more of that detail, we would be a little more reassured, and we would not be able to attribute anything other than good intentions to the Government in this process. However, that is not the situation we are in at the moment.

Words are extremely important in this process, because words and meaning have to be shared for us to move forward. If we look at what happened last Friday, we can see a clear example of how one set of words can mean two entirely different things to two different people. It looked as if the Prime Minister—I am sure she genuinely believed this—was signing an agreement on behalf of this country with the 27 other member states of the European Union. She described it as a series of commitments that were being made by this country at this interim stage in the process. Within 24 hours, however, we had the spectacle of one of her closest advisers turning round and taking to the public airwaves to say that these were not commitments at all, but merely a statement of intent. He was sternly reprimanded and corrected the following day, but that does show that, unless we are very careful and precise about the words we use, there is scope for ambiguity and, therefore, misunderstanding.

The first word we should be very careful about is “deficiency”, which appears throughout the Bill, and which is the subject of several of the amendments I am talking to. The word “deficiency”, as it appears in the Bill, need not necessarily mean the absence of something; the EU retained law being brought over could also be deficient if it contains something that prevents the Government of the day from doing what they want to do. I do not want to engage in hyperbole or to give dramatic, unreasonable examples, and I am sure that, for the vast bulk of things, we would all expect to have primary legislation to make policy change, but this issue does open up the scope for making significant policy changes without reference to this Parliament or to primary legislation.

We have already had mention of the working time directive—the 48-hour limit on weekly work. I am not suggesting that the Government would necessarily want to use these powers to overturn completely that and to substitute 48 with 72. However, a Minister in the future—in the period of transition—might well find that the 48 hours is overly prescriptive in a mandatory sense, and might choose to make it more of an advisory notion, rather than something that is absolute and that can be challenged. With the stroke of a pen—overnight—the rights at work of millions of people in this country could simply be eroded. If the Minister is saying that that is not the intention and that it will never happen, he should support amendment 75 in the Lobby tonight, which will make sure that will not happen, because it will exempt workers’ rights from the scope of the legislation.

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[Mr Baker]

The right hon. Gentleman enjoys a jest, but I hope that the Committee will understand that, as I set out at the beginning of my speech—I have now been on my feet for an hour and 20 minutes, compared with an indication that I would take an hour, so I needed to pare down my remarks—it is not the Government’s policy, as he knows, to remain in the single market and the customs union.

In the interests of allowing other hon. Members to contribute to the debate, I will conclude my remarks. We face an unprecedented legislative challenge, to which the power in clause 7 is the only practical solution. The power is only a temporary solution to achieving our key objective: a functioning statute book in time for exit day. The Government believe that we have made significant concessions on the issue, both with the sifting committee and by putting into statute the requirement to include certain information in the explanatory memorandums. I hope that those concessions have tackled the concerns expressed throughout our consideration of these amendments. I am conscious of the commitment I gave to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield in relation to the scope of the powers, and I look forward to working with him. I will finish by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne for all that he has done, with the unanimous support of the Procedure Committee, to ensure that the House has the proposal for a sifting committee.

[Helen Goodman]

It is a great pleasure to follow the Minister, who presented a rather unbending policy posture this afternoon, but with his usual great good humour. On Second Reading I spoke mainly about the problem of the Henry VIII powers and the excessive use of delegated legislation in the Bill, and I feel justified, given the criticism outside the House that this was a power grab by Ministers.

When looking at clause 7, there are two big issues that we need to address: the scope and content of the delegated legislation, and the institutional architecture. I was therefore pleased to be a member of the Procedure Committee when it agreed to a report that acknowledged the problem and said that the House has a unique and unprecedented requirement and that we need special mechanisms to suit the task ahead. When I first told the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) last January that we should be looking into the Henry VIII powers, I think he was rather underwhelmed, but I think that now, on reflection, he is pleased that we did so. Only he could have secured a consensus between, for example, the hon. Members for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), the Scottish National party and me, which is a great credit to him. Our report sought a committee of the House to oversee all the delegated legislation.

I am happy to support amendments 393, 395, 396 and 397, which will put in the Bill the requirement for a sifting committee. I am even more pleased that the Government have accepted those amendments—the first changes they have accepted since publishing the proposals last summer. They will give the House a key role in overseeing the delegated legislation. As the Minister said, it is extremely important that Ministers will be required to produce explanatory memorandums. Without those, the committee would have a next to impossible task.

I think that the approach whereby the committee will give advice to Ministers so that statutory instruments can be upgraded from the negative to the affirmative resolution procedure is absolutely essential, because it means that the committee will be able to say that on some issues there must be a debate and a vote of the whole House, or that Ministers must provide an adequate explanation. I also think that the timetable that we have set out, of 10 days, is reasonable. However, I have some doubts about amendments 394 and 398, which would allow Ministers to step outside the process when they believe that the matter under consideration is urgent, because, as we all know, that could be abused by being stretched in a way that undermines the process.

I know that hon. Members, particularly those on the Opposition Benches, are somewhat doubtful about the efficacy of the amendments, but I pray in aid the Hansard Society’s assessment—I think it is the most neutral and impartial assessment one could look for—which agrees that the procedure has been strengthened. There is now a requirement to lay accompanying documents. The House will have more power, and the committee will be able to refer statutory instruments to further debate and upgrade the level of scrutiny.

I regret that the amendments do not reflect fully the report that the Procedure Committee published in November, which said that there should be a scrutiny reserve. That is what the European Scrutiny Committee has and I think that that would be better. It would also be better if Ministers followed the Committee’s recommendation to publish now a full list of the delegated legislation they expect to bring forward.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who is on the Opposition Front Bench, would strengthen the process significantly by ensuring that Parliament was able to decide rather than just be consulted. He referred to the terrible saga of tuition fees, where the House was ignored by the Government. That is not reassuring and Ministers must know that. Indeed, one wonders at Ministers who did that knowing that this proposed legislation would be brought forward with a great package of statutory instruments under the negative procedure. That seems to be an extraordinary bit of behaviour. My hon. Friend also tabled amendments that would enable raising the scrutiny level to super-affirmative. Perhaps Ministers should still consider that.

Hon. Members interested in the sifting committee’s terms of reference, make-up and membership will have another opportunity to debate them when the Standing Orders come forward. The Leader of the House put forward some Standing Orders, but they are amendable. If hon. Members wish to change them, it is open for them to do so. I remind all hon. Members on both sides of the House that House business is not whipped business, so they do not need to fear—[Interruption.] I can see one Minister looking at me quizzically. House business is not whipped business, so Members can take a view in line with their conscience on what they think would make for the strongest sifting committee.

On the scope of clause 7 and the content and substance of the statutory instruments, Ministers are being very inflexible and I do not think that that will serve them well. My constituents have contacted me—I am sure other hon. Members have been contacted—with their concerns about environmental policy and animal sentience. I know Ministers have another route for dealing with the animal sentience issue. We also have very strong concerns about children’s rights. In September, we had a very good seminar on children’s rights led by Liverpool University’s law department, which brought together people with concerns about this issue from all parts of the United Kingdom, including Scotland and Northern Ireland. I really feel that the Minister’s response on new clause 53 and the position of child refugees is very disappointing, as is what he said about the UN convention on the rights of the child, which is covered by amendments 149 and 150. Now, that has not been debated today, but we will be voting on it later.

I want to point out to the Minister that he cannot rely on the Children Act 1989, which contains provisions on the best interests of the child, in the way he seems to think he can, because it applies only in certain classes of case referring to children. For example, it does not apply to housing decisions. It is simply not the case that the child’s best interest always has priority in English law, and if we wanted to do something about that we would incorporate the UN convention on the rights of the child into English law, as we did with the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act in 1998.

The Minister was very forthcoming in his debate with the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) on the question of looking again at the definition of deficiencies and the list of examples in the Bill. However, many hon. Members will have been extremely disappointed by his inflexibility and failure to shift on the question of whether the negative resolution process can be used where the Minister thinks it is appropriate and not necessary. This was covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) in amendment 68 and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in amendment 49. I have to say to the Minister that I do not think that he convinced many Opposition Members on that.

Similarly, on tertiary legislation, it is incredible to argue that the financial regulators are not making policy choices. They are. It may well be that they are in a better position given the length, complexity and technical nature of such matters to be the people responsible for those regulations. It may well be that they are in a better position to do that than Members of this House, but I do not think the Minister should claim that policy choices are not being made here, because they clearly are being made all the time.

[Mr Baker]

I will have to check the record—I was just flicking through my speaking notes—but I am sure that when I said that there were no policy decisions, that was about a 10,000 page document about how institutions were to comply with regulations. On the particular point about tertiary legislation and the financial regulation system, I feel sure that when the hon. Lady and I served together on the Treasury Committee she would have been as indefatigable a defender of the independence of the Bank of England as I would have been. Surely she does not want to undermine that.

[Helen Goodman]

I do not wish to undermine that. I just want the Minister to present what I believe to be a more accurate picture to the House about the content of tertiary legislation. That is the point that I am making.

It simply comes down to the fact that clause 7 gives Ministers too much scope. That brings into doubt whether the stated intention of the Bill, which is, simply, to translate the body of European law on to the UK statute book, is all that can happen once the Bill is passed. That is the problem with it.

The thing that will probably most concern our constituents is the proposal to abolish the functions of the EU agencies. That is extremely worrying and we do not get clear answers from Ministers on individual cases. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) spoke about this in relation to the European Environment Agency and the European Chemicals Agency. The Minister will have seen, as I did yesterday, on the front page of the Financial Times the pressure from the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries over chemicals and medicines safety regulations. When we ask Ministers in other Departments what will happen, we do not get any certainty. This is not at all reassuring. There are big risks for the economy if we do not handle this much better than the Government are handling it now. The issue of the regulations of the agencies is the thing that can have the most significant impact on the economy. Whatever else people voted for when they voted to leave the EU, they certainly did not vote to lose jobs and be poorer.

[Mr Charles Walker]

rose—

[Helen Goodman]

But before I sit down, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Walker]

I thank the right hon. Lady—I mean the hon. Lady—for her kind words. Why she is not right honourable escapes me! Perhaps that will be remedied soon. One of the important things to remember about the sifting committee, as she reminded me yesterday, is that if, as I suspect, there will be eight Government members and eight Opposition members, the chair, who will be appointed, will only cast a vote in the event of a tie. That is the very effective check and balance built into the committee. Yes, it might be—will be—a Government chair, but if all eight Opposition members vote and the seven non-chair Government members vote, the chair will not come into play. He or she will only come into play in the event of a tied vote.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is displaying his usual charm in trying to make hon. Members feel that the Standing Orders put forward by the Leader of the House are peerless. I suspect that hon. Members will want to come back and debate the make-up and terms of reference at the time. I would also be grateful if Ministers could relay to the Leader of the House that we are disappointed that neither she nor her deputy have been present at any point in this debate, when we have been discussing something that concerns the role of the House. We hope very much that they will also be flexible if, when we have that debate, there is a consensus for changing the draft Standing Orders just published.

[Robert Neill]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and to participate in this debate. This, of course, is what Parliament is about at the end of the day. The amendments, including the two that stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), which have been debated at length, are all about improving the Bill. I noticed in the world of Twitter and spin merchants this afternoon the suggestion that amendments to the Bill on key issues, if carried, might somehow weaken the Government’s position with our European counterparts and undermine the confidence of our European partners in our ability to deliver. Shall we just park that as the tosh and nonsense that it is? Anyone who spins that out, on whoever’s behalf, should be ashamed of themselves.

I know that the two Ministers certainly would not take that view. The spirit in which they have approached the debate is welcome. This is about improving the Bill to ensure the right outcomes at the end of the day. That is why the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) were so important and why I endorse every word he said. It is also why I warmly welcome the work of the Procedure Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) in finding a means to a better level of triaging, in effect, of these very significant statutory instruments and regulations.

The point has been well made by both my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend that the broader picture here is how we scrutinise secondary legislation in this place. I think that everybody concedes that it is woefully inadequate and does not bear comparison with many other Parliaments. It is an example of how being the mother of Parliaments does not necessarily mean we are the best. We need to improve our work, but I think we are taking a workmanlike and sensible approach, which I appreciate. There will, no doubt, come a point when we shall need to look at the way in which we deliver the deal—and I am delighted that we are now able to move on to phase 2. I look forward to the time when the House is given a proper vote on that, or, indeed, on the lack of any such deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to listen to the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie). It is like a vintage wine—it improves with age as one hears it on repeated occasions, with mild variations.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

A bit like yours.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Well actually, oddly enough, I intend, as previously in Committee, to attend to one of the amendments—in fact, two—rather than to the general question of whether it is a good idea to leave the EU. I want in particular to speak about amendment 400—a Government amendment now—and amendment 381, the original Government amendment to which it relates, in a sort of package.

There has been a certain amount of confusion in discussion of the amendments in public—although not, I hope, in the House—so I first want to make it quite clear what they do and can do and what they do not and cannot. The issue has often been reported as if it relates to the question of when we withdraw from the EU, which is very interesting but nothing to do with the amendments. Neither is it anything to do with the Bill, because withdrawal from the EU, as all hon. Members present know, is governed by the article 50 process, not by an Act of Parliament. If we could wave a wand and decide how we do these things through an Act of Parliament, how much easier that would be; but there is an article 50 process that is part of international law, to which we subscribe, and that is what will determine when we leave the EU.

What do the amendments do? They govern when clause 1 will become operative. Clause 1 repeals the European Communities Act 1972 and Government amendment 381 sets a date for that. That leads to a question. If the UK Government and the EU, according to the processes laid out by article 50 and by the remainder of the constitutional arrangements of the EU, come to some kind of agreement at a certain point, it would make sense to have a little more time than is allowed under the first clause of the article 50 process. Under the third clause of the article 50 process, we would have an odd situation, because there would be a slight delay in the timing of our withdrawal, where we would still, under amendment 381, be locked into abolishing the 1972 Act on a certain date, namely by 11 pm on 29 March 2019. There would therefore be an odd conflict of laws that obviously could not be allowed to persist.

Incidentally, there would then be perfectly obvious remedy: under Government amendment 400 there would be a need for emergency primary legislation to change the date. That is, of course, perfectly possible and I have no doubt the House and the other place would agree to such a measure, but it is a laborious process and it might jam up the works at just the moment when it is very important for the Government to have the flexibility to make an agreement of that sort. So, very modestly, all Government amendment 400 does is to provide for the ability of Parliament to adjust the date under those circumstances for the repeal of the European Communities Act to match the article 50 process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I will, but it will be for the last time, because I want to bring my remarks to a close. I do not want to detain the Committee for long.

[Helen Goodman]

We have heard many times from Conservative Members that the date of 29 March 2019 cannot be moved because we have triggered article 50 and the process has a two-year limit. Will the right hon. Gentleman set out for the Committee what he thinks would happen in practice if the powers under amendment 400 were used by the Government?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am surprised by the hon. Lady. I have known her a very long time and I know she is extremely assiduous and very intelligent, so she will have read article 50 and observed that it contains an express provision for agreement between the EU and in this case the UK to delay the date which would otherwise pertain. In fact, there are also rules for what is required on the EU side by way of unanimity to permit that to occur. There is no question, therefore, of the Government ever having asserted that they could not change the article 50 date; they have always said and known that it is possible to change it. The question, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said a moment ago, is how we make sure that UK law marches in step with whatever happens under the article 50 process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

That is right. My right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset have always actually maintained the same point, which is that we need to keep the two sets of law in sync with one another. That is the overriding purpose of the whole Bill: to ensure that UK law matches what is happening in the international law arena and that we then import the whole of EU law into UK law for the starting point of our future.

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am terribly sorry, but I am not going to take any further interventions. I am going to sit down in a second. I only want to say that I am profoundly grateful, not only to my right hon. and hon. Friends who have joined us in this amendment, but to the Government. This is exactly the way to deal with these things: find a sensible compromise that brings everyone on the Government Benches together and makes the Opposition entirely irrelevant to the discussion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baker]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but I am only just beginning to conclude my opening remarks—I am only eight minutes in. I will come to the new clause in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) a little later. I will not rush on this occasion.

I turn to amendments 399 to 405 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin); I am grateful to him for tabling them. I also pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and, if I may say so, my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who I understand has worked hard behind the scenes to create consensus for these amendments. These amendments are closely linked to amendments 6, 43, 44 and 45, which were discussed on the first day in Committee, and Government amendments 381 to 383.

The Prime Minister has made it clear that the United Kingdom will cease to be a member of the European Union on 29 March 2019 at the conclusion of the article 50 process. The Government have recognised the uncertainty that many people felt as to whether the exit day appointed by this Bill would correspond to the day that the UK leaves the EU at the end of the article 50 process, and that is why we brought forward our own amendments setting out when exit day will be. The purpose of our amendments is straightforward: we want to be clear when exit day is and, in the process, to provide as much certainty as we can to all. In the course of that, we want to align domestic legislation to the international position, as has been set out.

Amendments 399 to 405 build on and complement the Government amendments setting exit day. We have always said that we would listen to the concerns of the House, as we have done throughout the Bill’s passage. As part of that, the Government have had discussions with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, and we are grateful that he tabled his amendments. They provide the Government with the technical ability to amend the date, but only if the UK and the EU unanimously decide to change the date at which treaties cease to apply to the UK, as set out in article 50.

Only one exit day can be set for the purposes of the Bill, and any statutory instrument amending exit day will be subject to the affirmative procedure. As I said in an intervention, we will bring forward an amendment on Report to make this requirement clear on the face of the Bill.

[Helen Goodman]

Could the Minister set out for the whole Committee—not just the Conservative Members sitting behind him—what will happen if the legislation provided for in amendment 7, which we passed last week, is not passed? The Minister, using amendment 381—whether or not it is itself amended by amendment 400—will still have the power to set the exit date and withdraw, irrespective of what has gone on. Is that not right?

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Lady is trying to pre-empt some of my remarks. If she will bear with me, I will come to that.

A crucial point is that the Bill does not determine whether the UK leaves the EU; that is a matter of international law under the article 50 process. However, it is important that we have the same position in UK law that is reflected in European Union treaty law. That is why the Government have signed these amendments, and I was glad to do so.

I can assure the Committee we would use this power only in exceptional circumstances to extend the deadline for the shortest period possible, and that we cannot envisage the date being brought forward. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said many times, we and the EU are planning on the UK leaving the European Union at 11 pm on 29 March 2019.

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I would also like to say thank you to him for the role he has played in bridging the spectrum of opinion on this issue.

[Helen Goodman]

How can it be right to tell the House that the exit date is being set by the House, when the amendments give the power to the Executive to set the exit date?

[Mr Baker]

It is an interesting question that the hon. Lady asks, but how does she think that exit day would be set by the House? If it is not set on the face of the Bill and immovable other than by primary legislation, it must be set in secondary legislation. I would have thought that that was plain to the hon. Lady. We have done the right and pragmatic thing, which is to align UK law with the international treaty position. That enjoys wide support across a spectrum of opinion, and I am glad to support these amendments in the way I have set out.

Let me turn to the issue of the customs union, and I particularly noted what my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said about it. The issue has been widely aired, and I do not intend to be tempted into a broader debate on trade policy. We are confident that we will negotiate a deep and special partnership with the EU, spanning a new economic relationship and a new relationship on security. Businesses and public services should only have to plan for one set of changes in the relationship between the UK and the EU, so we are seeking a time-limited implementation period during which access to one another’s markets should continue on current terms. During this implementation period, EU nationals will continue to be able to come and live and work in the UK, but there will be a registration system. The details of the implementation period are of course a matter for negotiations, and we have been clear that we will bring forward the necessary implementing legislation in due course. However, it would not be right to sign up now to membership of the customs union and the single market pending the outcome of negotiations, as new clause 52 would have us do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I would like to speak first about new clause 13, because, for my constituency, the customs union is absolutely vital. I have a lot of constituents involved in manufacturing—pharmaceuticals and the automotive industry, for example. On pharmaceuticals, I think Glaxo told the Health Committee yesterday that the cost it has already faced in making plans for how to deal with Brexit is £70 million. We keep asking Ministers for certainty, and there is none.

For farmers, this issue is also absolutely crucial. There is a big risk with the free trade agreements Conservative Members are arguing for that we get floods of cheap lamb imports coming in. That will destroy the uplands. It will destroy not just farming livelihoods but the British countryside.

On the automotive industry, my hon. Friends have spoken about the importance of having shared regulation. How do Conservative Members think the European Union will agree with them to have no tariffs if it thinks that we are going to compete on different regulatory standards? It is not going to agree that. Conservative Members need to get into the real world.

Let us look also at the scope for these new great, fantastic free trade agreements, taking New Zealand as an example. Its economy is the same size as the Greek economy. This is not some great, fabulous opportunity. All that the New Zealanders and the Australians want to do—whatever sentimentality people have about the Commonwealth—is to sell their agricultural produce into the British market.

Conservative Members were enthusiastic about the idea that they could do these deals quickly. In fact, because other parts of the world also have regional trading blocs, that is highly unlikely. Latin American countries, for example, belong to a regional trading block called Mercosur. They are going to be going at the pace of the slowest, not the fastest.

The reason why I think there is a distinction to be drawn between the customs union and the single market is the Irish border. Membership of the customs union is vital for the maintenance of the soft border, in a way that membership of the single market is not. That is because of the nature of free movement. What does free movement mean? It does not mean being able to go somewhere on holiday. It does not mean Schengen—we are not in Schengen now. Free movement means being able to have a job and to take part in the social security system elsewhere.

The way to deal with the free movement problem, which is undoubtedly the immigration problem that has been raised by our constituents on the doorsteps over the last two years, is to change the rules about who can work and who can be eligible for social security in this country; it is to stop giving out national insurance numbers like confetti, as we do at the moment. I am therefore pleased that we have had this separate moment to look at the customs union, and I hope that hon. Members will reflect more carefully on the great significance of the customs union for achieving what we want in Ireland.

I must say that I am not yet reassured by what the Minister said at the Dispatch Box about amendments 381 and 400. When amendment 7 was passed last week, there was a shift in power from the Executive to Parliament. With amendment 381, whether or not it is amended by amendment 400, we are seeing the Executive yank back control to set the exit date. What Ministers have not been able to explain to us this afternoon is what happens if the legislation under amendment 7 is not passed. They can still set the exit date.

I was going to say that Opposition Members see the Tory party as extremely unstable. We are not convinced that this Government, in their current form, will last the course. However, I could not say that nearly as fluently or as lucidly as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said it. She laid out the problems and the divisions far more fully than I ever could. But even if we do not look into the future, we can all be alarmed by what the Prime Minister said to the Liaison Committee this afternoon. That is why we cannot be confident in what this Government are doing, and that is why amendments 381 and 400 fatally undermine amendment 7.

[Huw Merriman]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the last half hour of the 64 hours of the Committee stage of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. I am absolutely delighted to speak in support of amendment 400. I congratulate my hon. Friends on putting it forward. We now have a position akin to article 50, whereby we leave no later than two years from the trigger date. We know when that date will be, but we retain the flexibility should it be required. That shows a great compromise across the House, demonstrating to us and to the public at large that we are capable of finding a way through where we had some discord previously.

I listened intently to the points made by Opposition Members about requiring the Government to honour their commitment on amendment 7. The Government have done so. I therefore ask all those Members that the rest of the Bill that has not been amended be honoured on that basis as well. I very much hope that they have accepted that reciprocal commitment.

I have sat through eight hours in this Committee, and the key thing that strikes me is the lack of optimism and ambition that I have heard. That in no way reflects the country at large, this being the day when it has been announced that, for the very first time, the UK ranks first in the Forbes annual survey of the best countries for doing business. If Forbes had been tuning into this debate, it may well have been wondering if it had got the right country.

The reality is that the world is changing. We must of course look for trade with our European partners. The Prime Minister has set out quite clearly that we want to continue to trade with mainland Europe and to purchase the goods that we have always purchased from it, and we will continue to do so. However, let us take Africa, for example. Germany and Spain have declining populations. Africa has 1.2 billion people at present; by 2050, that will have doubled to 2.4 billion. There are trade opportunities for us to take advantage of. Remaining inside the customs union, as new clause 13 would have it, would not allow us to take advantage of those opportunities.