European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Henry Smith Excerpts

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

[Mr Jenkin]

My right hon. and learned Friend sets out the common ground we should all be on. However, the debate was not assisted by Tony Blair, who was on the television yesterday speaking about how to deal with this issue. He said:

“Paradoxically, we have to respect the referendum vote to change it.”

There is an understandable suspicion among Conservative Members that some people have not really accepted that we are leaving the European Union. The fact that the official Opposition have chosen to vote against the whole Bill underlines that they are rather reluctant to accept the decision the British people have made.

Before I move on, I should re-emphasise that the Hansard Society proposals have a lot to them, and we should be able to discuss them. I hope that, behind the scenes, colleagues will talk across parties on these matters, as one or two of us have already suggested we should.

However, let me put this in the much wider context, because we are getting rather lost in the detail of the Bill. We are forgetting what the Bill is for and the context it is being discussed in: we are leaving on 28 March—or whichever date it actually is—next year. It might be helpful to have the exit date on the face of the Bill at the outset, to provide additional clarity that negotiations are in progress, or should be.

I think everyone is getting a bit disappointed that there has not been more substantive discussion about the issues that really matter. The European Union’s position is beginning to look more and more unreasonable as it refuses to discuss the end state of the relationship that we all want to see, insisting on an up-front payment, or promise of payment, before it will discuss those matters. I have absolutely no doubt that the EU is playing for time for some reason, possibly because of the German elections, and is likely to crumble on that, and to start to talk seriously about the issues that we need to discuss.

We can talk too much and too glibly about cliff edges; I notice that even the Government have put the term “cliff edge” into their documents. Let us face it—the United Kingdom does not want a cliff edge. We are offering the rest of the European Union seamless trade, as far as possible, no tariff barriers and mutual recognition for products and services.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend sets out the very essence of the Bill. This is not about a sudden change, but about transposing EU law into British law and evolving as we move forward as a sovereign nation.

[Mr Jenkin]

Absolutely right. The point is that we want that smooth transition; the only reason there is a possibility that there will not be one is the intransigence so far of the European Union. The paradox is that there are people who were very much in favour of Britain’s membership of the European Union who clearly think that the European Union will inflict the most ghastly cliff edge on our country. I think better of the EU. There are sensible people in the European Union who will not want tariffs, or tariff barriers, or new and unnecessary restrictions on trade between our two countries. They will not want to de-recognise so many of the mutual recognitions we already have. They will want to secure the jobs of their people and their countries just as much as we want to secure ours.

Even if we leave without an agreement, I think the biggest challenge is being ready in time. My biggest concern is that there are still parts of Government that do not seem to be preparing quickly enough. On the question of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the customs arrangements, are those at HMRC spending money on what we need in place in case there is no deal? I keep hearing that they are waiting for instructions, as though there will be something much clearer for them to work against, but we have to face the fact that we might well leave without a comprehensive settlement of some kind, and that our customs arrangements and all the other arrangements will have to be ready in time. This Bill enables us to do that.

I will end my speech a little early by emphasising that a vote against this Bill would be a terrible disappointment, and I would not take such a vote at face value, as I do not think that the vast majority of hon. Members in this House want to create a chaotic Brexit. They will be voting for a tactical defeat, because they know that they cannot succeed in this debate.

We should concentrate on the fact that we have far more in common with our European partners than divides us. That will be the same after we have left the European Union as it is now. I look across the Chamber at the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin); we stood together in one of the glorious Suffolk churches of East Anglia last night and sang Beethoven’s ninth symphony and the words of Schiller’s great poem, the “Ode to Joy”. Incidentally, it was composed more than 100 years before the European Union was invented and has absolutely nothing to do with political and monetary union under the European Union. We are leaving the European Union; we are not leaving Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is an honour and a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who gave an extraordinarily compelling and principled speech.

This is a critical Bill. We cannot logically leave the EU if we continue to subject ourselves to EU law, courts and regulators. It is for exactly that reason, however, that some Members will use the Bill as an opportunity to scupper the process and prevent us from leaving the EU. And that worries me. In perhaps the most important—certainly the biggest—democratic exercise the country has ever seen, people voted to leave. I believe that 80% of electors in the general election voted for parties that pledged to honour the result of the referendum. If that promise was broken, the resulting anger would give rise to extreme political movements right across the UK that would change our politics forever. We can improve the Bill in Committee and on Report, but to stop it on principle is to play with fire.

I want to comment briefly on one area impacted by our leaving the EU: the natural environment. The opportunity to do great things here is almost incalculable. We have a chance not only to right some wrongs, but to make historic progress. Under the common agricultural policy, for example, vast amounts of public money are handed to wealthy landowners simply because they own land. The policy supports perverse incentives to harm the environment and shuts off the UK market to developing countries through higher tariffs. For years, environmentalists, farmers’ organisations and a whole succession of farming Ministers have dreamt of changing and profoundly reforming the CAP. Well, we now can—and we must. We will be able to ensure that the subsidies regime that replaces the CAP supports food production and improves and protects the natural environment, with a system whereby public money is genuinely a return for public good. We have an opportunity to raise standards and boost our rural economy at the same time, and that opportunity extends beyond the CAP. As a country, we have led the way on animal welfare, but we have been limited in what we can do due to our membership of the EU.

[Henry Smith]

One animal welfare benefit is that on leaving the EU, we could ban the live export of animals from our ports, which causes such great suffering.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which is one that I was just about to make. CAP funds have even been used to subsidise bullfighting in Spain.