Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The ports directive was debated and debated, and opposed on both sides of the House, but it went through anyway. There was absolutely nothing we could do. This is why I challenge Opposition Members who say that this is not proper scrutiny. Why did they not object to the section 2(2) power? Why were they not joining my hon. Friend the Member for Stone on the European Scrutiny Committee to ask, week in and week out, why these laws were going through without anybody being able to gainsay them and why parliamentary sovereignty was not being upheld? We are restoring parliamentary sovereignty by ensuring that there is a parliamentary process, that Parliament will have its say and that we will have our own law for our own country.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to know that I agree with the core of his speech about returning supremacy to British law and getting rid of EU supremacy. The way in which statutory instruments and the negative procedure have been used in this House has not always been satisfactory. For instance, covid regulations, past the time they had been implemented, were brought into operation and were inappropriate in many cases. I could give many other examples. As somebody who campaigned to leave the EU and is glad to get back control of our laws, I am disappointed that the process will not see full transparency of debate, because our regulations and laws are better when they are transparent and when different people can bounce their ideas off each other. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We must not have such long interventions.

Proceedings during the Pandemic

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am not a prophet, so I would not dream of predicting those sorts of things.

I have taken lots of interventions. In some ways I think this is a beneficial; it partly illustrates my argument about why Parliament needs to get back, and I appreciate that in a short debate interventions are sometimes just as useful for Members to be able to get in as getting half a minute at the end. If there are interventions, I will, by the leave of the House, carry on taking them.

Every Division is important, and I would underline that. We should be confident that we are all individually doing the right thing and voting openly under the eyes of others; voting while enjoying a sunny walk or watching television does democracy an injustice. The solemn decisions we take together affect the lives of millions of people in this country. We ask Members to vote in person for a reason: because it is the heart of what Parliament is about.

It remains essential that our work in this House is carried out in line with Public Health England advice. The Palace of Westminster we have returned to today is greatly changed from early March. The House authorities have carried out a risk assessment of the parliamentary estate to ensure it is a covid-19 secure workplace, in line with PHE guidance. Both its staff and its leadership, including particularly Mr Speaker, should be thanked and congratulated for the rapid progress that has been made.

I understand the concerns of some hon. and right hon. Members about returning physically. Many Members have already passed on their views, but I want to make it clear to all those in the House, and those who are not here but are listening and maybe shielding at home, that I am always available to discuss and hear their concerns, and I will as far as possible—which is why I will be bringing forward the motion tomorrow—do what I can to help. It will be tabled today for approval tomorrow. Anyone who feels that they are required to shield because of age or medical circumstances should not feel under pressure to attend Parliament, and pairing and other mechanisms will be in place informally to facilitate this.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I agree with the Leader of the House about the nature of debate and response and making a decision at the end of that debate, but what argues against that is the practice of pairing, where the decision is taken before the debate. Many hon. Members want their constituents to know where they stand on issues. Why do we not put the pairing records on the record? [Interruption.]

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I hear mutterings around the Chamber saying that that is a good idea. Unfortunately, neither the Chief Whip from the hon. Gentleman’s side or from my side is in the Chamber at the moment, and I think it might be useful to consult them before I make an off-the-cuff suggestion, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman, who is a wise and experienced parliamentarian, that I will pass his views on to the Chief Whip. Perhaps he would be so kind as to do the same to his own Chief Whip, and perhaps there could be a meeting of minds in that area.

I have been working with the House authorities to see how MPs with underlying health conditions who have been told to shield or are receiving specific Government advice about their health may be able to continue to contribute to proceedings in this House. I mentioned this on 20 May and reconfirm that I will table a further motion later today on some virtual participation by hon. Members. As it happens, for this motion I have used some of the language in the amendment tabled by the shadow Leader of the House, to whom I give my thanks, and other Opposition Members to ensure that such participation is available for Members unable to attend Westminster for medical and public health reasons related to the pandemic.

Turning to the motion itself, it may help if I briefly set out the Government’s approach. Today’s motion is the necessary paving step that gives the House the opportunity to signal how it wishes to conduct proceedings in the coming weeks. In response, I hope the House authorities will be able to complete the work already undertaken over the Whitsun recess, and I hope that hon. and right hon. Members will also find the explanatory note published alongside the motion helpful.

The motion updates the House’s procedures relating to Divisions and attendance in the Chamber to ensure compliance with social distancing restrictions. These temporary changes to Standing Orders will be in force until 7 July 2020. The motion rescinds the resolution of 21 April, which provided an overarching framework for the temporary Standing Orders relating to hybrid proceedings. This resolution is no longer needed as the Standing Orders have now lapsed and we are returning to physical proceedings.

Paragraphs (1) to (3) of motion 2 set out an approach to Divisions. If agreed by the House, Division arrangements will be set out by the Speaker and will adhere to Public Health England guidance—and I wonder if I may, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, congratulate Mr Speaker on the work he has done to ensure and test a system for voting that meets the requirements of PHE; he has invested a lot of time in it to make sure that we have a system that will operate.

European Commission: National Parliaments

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am so sorry. I do indeed mean the Council. The Council has that thin thread to the Parliaments, which provides that democratic accountability.

We then look at what those Parliaments can do. They can have a limited amount of scrutiny but, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) said, that mainly comes after things have been decided; the European Scrutiny Committee gets to look at things that have already reached a far stage in the approval process within the whole European system. It is very hard to stop anything at that point, so we then move on to yellow cards.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Gentleman, as ever, is making an interesting and illuminating speech. Is not one of the travesties and caricatures of democracy in the European Union the fact that the only body that can propose new legislation is the European Commission, not even the Council?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is part of the control of the Commission and part of the anti-democratic set-up of the European Union, and I do not think that is accidental; were it genuinely democratic, it would never have evolved to its current state.

We get these sops, with this business of the yellow cards, of which only two have been accepted by the Commission, and one of those was immediately dismissed—it said that the one for the public prosecutor was not a matter of subsidiarity anyway and so it would push ahead regardless. We have a threshold that is very hard to reach, and as a result of which nothing need happen, and a two-month period that makes it incredibly difficult for national Parliaments to get their responses in within the limited time available. The red card would be little better.

What we actually need is for our constituents—the people of the United Kingdom—to take back control of their own Government. That might be possible through renegotiation if the Government are robust, but the problem is that at the moment the Government show no sign of being robust or willing to push back to the European Union. They come out with platitudes that support the continuing accretion of power to the EU. They come forward with the fine words I have mentioned but never push on the difficult decisions. Yesterday the Minister for Europe told us that Switzerland wants to pull out of one of the treaties and that it has to take it all or leave it all, but that is an outrageous position to take if we are in favour of renegotiating for ourselves.

I urge the Government to be robust, to support democracy and to make sure that, for once, what they say and what they do match.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) will find the word in the “Oxford English Dictionary” if he has a chance to look at it later.

The point is that the programme will absolutely destroy trust and we know that trust in politics is at a low. A recent survey showed that trust in the EU was at an all-time low since the survey was started in 2001. If politicians go around legislating in direct contradiction of what they have said, the British public will take them for untrustworthy.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Gentleman is almost invariably precise on this subject, and I usually agree with him, but he said that the money would be used to promote the ideal of the European Union. In fact, it will be used to promote myths about it, one of which is that the EU, not NATO, has delivered peace in Europe over the past 60 or 70 years.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I apologise for understating my opposition to this Bill. That is not an error I shall repeat.

The Bill is a desperate disappointment. When I was first elected, I was told by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills that Governments would promise things. They would give guarantees, undertakings and reassurances about how Eurosceptic they were, and I, as a young and naive new Member, would believe them and put trust in the leadership of the party to speak as it did, just as my hon. Friend found when he first came here. He said that as time went by I would find that those promises turned out to be as ashes and dust, and that although the Government were willing to say, to play, and to sing the Eurosceptic tune, they would actually be dancing the pro-European dance. In this Bill, that dance has been taken to a further degree. It would win “Strictly Come Dancing” for its skill in dancing to the pro-European tune. It is a great betrayal of trust.

This is not about the amount of money involved, which is small; it is the principle of proposing and advancing the citizenship of Europe—a citizenship that is odious to most subjects of Her Majesty. It is something we never asked for, never wanted, and that most of us would reject, and we object to our taxes being taken to pay for it.

“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

We know Her Majesty’s Government’s true pro-European colours from this particular fruit.

European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I was hoping to come to that when we discuss the point at which the Bill comes into force, and it may be best if I hold my fire until then, lest the Chair rule me out of order. I want to focus on the essence of European treaties: every European treaty, whether an accession treaty or the treaty of Lisbon, has exactly the same legal standing. Anything that is added to it has the proper force of an agreement across the European Union and validity in European law. We should never again lose the opportunity to renegotiate the repatriation of powers to this country when a treaty is going through the European Union. There are any number of powers that we wish to recapture—working time directives are a mere start—and we should do that because if Ireland can, so could we.

[Graham Stringer]

I often agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I do not today. These protocols are Euro-fudge and what the Irish Government received through the protocol was not really threatened. His argument seems to be that the European Union in its present shape can be reformed by treaty negotiation, which could be done with any treaty. I simply do not believe that is possible and I would be interested to hear his reflections on that.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says and I may be too optimistic about what can be done. There is, however, a disjuncture between what the protocols say and what it is said that they say. The Bill’s explanatory notes state:

“The Irish Protocol clarifies, but does not change”,

but if it does not change anything at all, why on earth was there need for a protocol? Was it a question of bullying Ireland to vote a second time? If it was, that is deeply disgraceful and shows something very rotten at the heart of a European Union that holds democracy in such contempt that when it gets a result it does not like it says, “Well, you must do this again and we will bully you until you give the answer that we, the panjandrums of the European Union, want.”

For once, I am being charitable to the European Union and assuming that when a protocol is agreed, it means something genuine and is a real protection in areas of competence-creep within the European Union. It might be strictly accurate to say that the things for which Ireland has been given its protocol are not currently covered by detailed regulations of the EU or by detailed parts of the Lisbon treaty. The protocol, however, gives Ireland further security. If judgments of the ECJ begin to expand the competences of the treaties, which they have done in the past—as we would understand it, the ECJ is an essentially political rather than legalistic court—Ireland can revert to the protocol.

The symbolic importance of the protocol is great. It shows that a country can push a little bit of a wedge underneath the collapsing portcullis of the EU—once a country is under it, it cannot get back out. The protocol has given Ireland a measure of release from, and clarification on, the Lisbon treaty. The UK could do more because we are a stronger player within Europe and contribute a substantial part of the budget, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). We ought to use our negotiating heft to try to get back powers that, as most hon. Members recognise, the British people want. We should begin a serious renegotiation and say to the EU, “Look, when the next treaty comes through, we want more than Ireland had. We want something that is powerful and strong, and that allows us—the British people—to make our laws for ourselves via Parliament rather than constantly doing so via Europe.” This is a great opportunity for the Government to build on that precedent to the advantage of our country.

European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I know it is implausible that the Irish could have been more adept than people living in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, but they did indeed manage to get something by virtue of having a proper democracy that required a referendum on the treaty of Lisbon, to which the Irish people had the sense in the first instance to say no, but then they were bullied by Europe into saying yes at a later stage, with some guarantees. If we had had a referendum, I think that the British Government might have been able to get some pretty serious guarantees.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) asked whether I really believe that the Government could have negotiated concessions for the United Kingdom. Yes, I absolutely do, because the European Union wants the Lisbon treaty to function fully; the Lisbon treaty only functions fully with the Irish agreement, because it had to be agreed by unanimity; the Irish agreement was conditional on the protocols given in the Croatian accession treaty; and therefore it follows that if the United Kingdom had insisted on concessions to us that would have let the Lisbon treaty carry on for everybody else, we would have been in a very strong negotiating position to achieve them. That is probably still the case.

I want to return to the general rejoicing at the socialists having become a new Eurosceptic party, as, of course, they were, rather less successfully, under Michael Foot not so many years ago. As a Eurosceptic party, they voted last week to stop spending more money in the European Union. It occurs to me that the Bill could be amended to say that it will come into effect only at the point at which our full rebate—which was given away by our Labour friends when they were last in government—is restored. Now that the Labour party is so committed to cutting expenditure in the European Union, it would almost certainly be willing to support such an amendment, so we can use this Bill on the Floor of the House to achieve the reduction in spending that so many Members of this House showed that they wanted last week. Indeed, I think it is the united will of the Conservative party that less money should go to Europe.

[Graham Stringer]

Is there not a deeper point to the Bill? Although expansion has genuine economic and political benefits, the United Kingdom’s influence is being diminished. Under qualified majority voting we will have less influence. Another country will also be a recipient of funds, as opposed to a donor, so our position is weakened.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He makes a crucial point, which we will discuss further in our second debate, in which we will see that eurozone votes, as a qualified majority, are able to outvote everybody else, which seriously diminishes the UK’s voting power, as does this Bill. By adding another member state, we will go from 17 to 18 recipient, mendicant countries and 10 that pay in. It also means that one more part of the qualified majority will be against us and for more spending and for the ratchet of Europe.

We need to be very cautious about what we do when we do not get anything in return—that is my main point. I am quite happy to welcome other nations to the European Union, if they really want to join. I understand that the Scottish nationalists might want to rejoin. I thought that the great argument for Scottish nationalism was that they would be free from Europe as well, but that is not the way they are going. We are not getting anything in return.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer]

I agree with my hon. Friend and I have similar experiences in Blackley and Broughton.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am puzzled that the hon. Gentleman agrees with the suggestion that a Member of Parliament who knows that 50% of those attending his surgeries are not registered does nothing about it. Why does he not point out to the people who attend his surgeries but fail to be on the register that they are breaking the law? If the issue is as simple as that, something can be done about it.