European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

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

What about the E111 health insurance scheme? Hon. Members will remember that the scheme is not just for tourists, because there is the E110 for hauliers and the E128 for students. What, then, is the plan? What will happen when our constituents go abroad?

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

Oh, the right hon. Gentleman knows what the plan is for the E111.

[John Redwood]

If the hon. Gentleman had read it, he would understand it perfectly as well as I do. The plan is very simple. All existing laws and requirements will be transferred into good British law. If we need a different adjudicator, that adjudicator can be selected and approved by Parliament. The great news for both of us is that nothing will change legally unless and until this Parliament debates it and wants to change it.

[Chris Leslie]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has actually left these shores and visited other countries: we do not control the sort of health insurance and health service schemes that happen in those other European countries, but we currently have a reciprocal health insurance arrangement that provides him, his family and his constituents with a certain degree of cover. That could well be ripped up because of the consequences of the legislation that we are potentially passing—without a word from the Government and with nothing in the White Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

As my colleagues are saying from a sedentary position, the right hon. Gentleman does not believe in expert opinion anyway. Perhaps he will agree—his mention of another independence referendum speaks to this fact—that the question that was posed to the people of Scotland in 2014 was about a United Kingdom different from the one that exists now. Of course, it is in the gift of the Government and Members from across the House to agree to our proposals. They offer a compromise position, if the right hon. Gentleman does not want another independence referendum. But if we do have one, the arguments will be put forward to the people of Scotland for them to make that decision. The proposals give the Government an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to respecting Scotland and the devolution process.

Quite simply, the UK is either a country that respects all its constituent parts or it is not—the question is as simple as that—and this Government need to decide today one way or another. We are waiting for our answer and, indeed, we are ready to respond, but if the UK Government decide to turn their back on the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, voters in Scotland will be left under no illusion about how this Government intend to deal with Scottish interests in future negotiations. If the Scottish people can no longer trust the UK Government to act in their interests, it will be for the people of Scotland to decide the best way to rectify this unsatisfactory situation of an increasingly disunited kingdom.

[John Redwood]

I support the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I thought he took the Committee patiently through a number of important amendments tabled by Opposition parties, and he explained why some of them are needless because the Government are perfectly well intentioned in relation to the other parts of the United Kingdom and wish to consult very widely, and how some of them would be positively damaging because they are designed as wrecking amendments to impede, delay or even prevent the implementation of the wishes of the people of the United Kingdom.

My disappointment about both the Labour and the Scottish National party amendments is that there is absolutely no mention of England in any of them. To have a happy Union—I am sure the Scottish nationalists can grasp this point—it is very important that the process and solution are fair to England as well as to Scotland. I of course understand why the Scottish nationalists, who want to break up the Union, would deliberately leave England out of their considerations of their model for consulting all parts of the United Kingdom. That is deliberate politics, as part of their cause to try to find another battering ram against the Union.

In the case of Labour, however, I find that extraordinarily insouciant and careless. The Labour party is now just an England and Wales party, with only one representative left in Scotland and none in Northern Ireland. Yet it seems to be ignoring the main source of its parliamentary power and authority because it does not say anything in its amendments that would give a special status to England alongside Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and provide proper consultation throughout all parts of the UK. The Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman)—she spoke very eloquently, and in a very friendly way—did not mention the word “England”, and she had no suggestion about how England should be properly represented and England’s views properly taken into account in the process that is about to unfold.

[Joanna Cherry]

May I assure the right hon. Gentleman that if he were minded to bring forward any amendments dealing with his concerns about England, we would give them serious consideration?

[John Redwood]

I have not done so, because I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean and Government Front Benchers that the Government will, of course, do a perfectly good job in consulting and making sure that all parts of the UK are represented, and I am quite sure that Ministers who represent English constituencies will want to guarantee that the view of England is properly considered.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

rose—

[John Redwood]

If we take the referendum as a national, UK-wide referendum, we will of course take into account the views of everybody because we are following the mandate of the United Kingdom referendum, in which a very large number of English votes are rather important—

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. The conventions are absolutely clear: the right hon. Gentleman will give way as and when he wishes, and hon. Members seeking to intervene should not remain standing.

[John Redwood]

I am very grateful to you, Sir Roger. I was trying to deal with the previous intervention. As a courtesy to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), I thought other Members should listen to my answer to her before I took another intervention. I am now happy to take another intervention.

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman has indicted the Labour party and the SNP for not, in this group of amendments, addressing questions in relation to England. Does he recognise that the grouping is headed, “Devolved administrations or legislatures”?

[John Redwood]

I am well aware of that, and I am well aware that we have different arrangements around the country, but it is still an injustice to England that under the model proposed by Opposition Members, the biggest part of the Union by far would not be consulted on the same basis as the rest of the United Kingdom. I quietly remind them that to have the happy Union that I want, that all Government Members want and that, I think, a lot of Labour Members want, when we change the arrangements and have special arrangements for some parts, we have to make sure that they are fair to England as well.

[Ian Blackford]

We must reflect on what we were told in 2014, and that is that we were asked to lead the Union. If we are to have respect for this place, which we do, this House has to respect that the people of Scotland have given a particular judgment. This is about the House reaching a compromise not with us as SNP MPs, but with the people of Scotland. I cannot see why the Government and Conservative Back Benchers see that as so difficult. Quite frankly, if they cannot reach that accommodation with the people of Scotland, the people of Scotland will make their own conclusion.

[John Redwood]

Some of the SNP Members do protest too much. I seem to remember that they actively fought two referendums in recent years and managed to lose both of them. For my part, I am very happy with the result of both referendums; I managed to find myself on the winning side in both cases. I believe in respecting the views of the Scottish people, who decided that they wished to remain part of the Union of the United Kingdom, and in respecting the views of voters in the United Kingdom, who said they did not wish to remain part of the European Union. That is a very clear set of messages.

This Union Parliament, in the interests of the special Scottish considerations, said that only Scottish voters would decide whether Scotland stayed in the Union or not. Although many of us had strong views and were pleased that they decided to stay, we deliberately decided that it was appropriate to let Scotland decide, because in a democracy, a country cannot be in a union that does not volunteer freely to belong to that union. The Scottish nationalists, by the same logic, must see that people like myself—the 52%—have exactly the same view on the European Union that they have on the Union of the United Kingdom. There has to be voluntary consent. When the point is reached where the majority of a country no longer wishes to belong to the European Union, it has to leave.

I would have been the first to have said, had the Scottish nationalists won the Scottish referendum, that I wanted the United Kingdom to make all due speed with a sensible solution so that Scotland could have her wishes. I think I would have wanted rather more independence for Scotland than the Scottish nationalists, because I think that if a country is going to be a properly independent—

[Patrick Grady]

On a point of order, Sir Roger. I keep hearing the right hon. Gentleman talking about the “Scottish nationalist party”. I do not know what party that is, but the Members on these Benches belong to the Scottish National party.

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that that is not a point of order for the Chair.

[John Redwood]

I am delighted that another advert has been given for the Scottish National party. We understand the point that its Members are making: they are not happy with the result of either referendum. However, in a democracy, when we have trusted the Scottish people to decide whether they wish to leave our Union and we have trusted United Kingdom voters to decide whether they wish to leave the European Union, it is my view and the view of practically all my right hon. and hon. Friends, and many Labour MPs, that we need to respect both results.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The memory of the right hon. Gentleman serving as the governor-general of Wales is treasured because of his memorable attempt to sing the Welsh national anthem, but he did that job without the legitimacy of a single Welsh vote. Does he not recall that this House can now act as an English Parliament under the EVEL rules? However, that is a path to the break-up of the United Kingdom.

[John Redwood]

Yes, the United Kingdom, through this Parliament, has decided that there will be differential arrangements for different parts of the United Kingdom. To Scotland we have given a Parliament; to Wales and Northern Ireland we have given an Assembly; and to England we have given absolutely nothing. That, so far, is our constitutional settlement. We have accepted exactly what the SNP spokeswoman was seeking: special treatment for Scotland through a more powerful Parliament.

One of the disappointments about this debate on devolution is that the myriad amendments do not, as I understand them, deliver more devolved powers to the Scottish Parliament or to the Welsh or Northern Ireland Assemblies, yet that opportunity will be there for the taking as we proceed with the process of leaving the European Union.

I despair at the pessimism of so many people about this very exciting process of recreating an independent, democratic country. The SNP should understand that an area such as agriculture, which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) wrongly told us was fully devolved —of course, it is not fully devolved but almost completely centralised in Brussels, which makes all the crucial decisions and budgetary dispositions, which we then have to execute—

[Chris Bryant]

It is now.

[John Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman says it is now, but we are still in the EU, and that is the position we are about to change. This gives us a huge opportunity to devolve that power from Brussels. Some of it might go to the Union Parliament, some to the Welsh Assembly and some to the Scottish Parliament. That is to be decided, but would it not be a good idea if the SNP joined in positively the discussion about the appropriate areas to take those powers?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Does my right hon. Friend believe, like me, that the SNP will join in the discussion if, on exiting the EU, more money becomes available to spend in the UK? If more is spent in England, it will want a dividend for Scotland as well, through Barnett.

[John Redwood]

I suspect that that is exactly right. I look forward to the day when the SNP accepts the verdict of the Union and the wisdom of the majority of Union voters, and sees that there is more power in it for devolved Parliaments and Assemblies—and potentially more money, once we no longer have to send the net contributions—and that we have a great opportunity to develop the devolved version of Scotland that the Scottish people voted for, if not always the one that the SNP would like.

[Ian Blackford]

Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore join me and my colleagues in demanding that powers that might come back to this Parliament, in respect of agriculture and fisheries, be handed over to Scotland and that we get the money that should be coming to us? As part of that process, why do the UK Government not start by handing over the convergence uplift money from the EU that is supposed to come to Scottish farmers and crofters but which the UK has kept its filthy hands on?

[John Redwood]

It is not my job as an English MP to make that case, but I am glad that at last the SNP is making the case for an opportunity that would present, were it to allow us to get on with Brexit and create exactly that opportunity of more money for Scottish farmers.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my puzzlement that the SNP is not welcoming back control over things such as fishing, or at least the possibility of getting it, but would prefer to leave it in Brussels? It would prefer to leave fisheries policy in Brussels, rather than grabbing the opportunity coming our way to sort out our own fishing resources.

[John Redwood]

Fishing is a prime example of a deeply damaging policy pursued over 45 years during our term in the EU. It has done a lot of damage to the Scottish industry, as well as to the English industry. Is there not a case for common cause here, to work on a Union-wide fishing policy, with appropriate devolution, so that we might all be better off and protect our fisheries better, ensure that more of the fish taken is landed and sold, ensure proper conservation, ensure a bigger Scottish, English and British component in the catch taken, and ensure proper and sensible national limits on our waters, which we have not been allowed to have in the EU?

[Alex Salmond]

The right hon. Gentleman will remember the famous civil service memo when Britain was negotiating entry into the Common Market that said that in the light of Britain’s wider European interests, “they”—the Scottish fishermen—were “expendable”. If that was the attitude on the way in, why will it not be the attitude of the British Government on the way out?

[John Redwood]

Because the British people have advised the British Government to be much more sensible on the way out than they were on the way in. As someone who opposed the way in and voted against it as a young man at the time, I am certainly not to blame for the enormous damage visited on the Scottish industry, which the right hon. Gentleman and his party have acquiesced in over many years by always saying that we should stay in the EU, which delivered that very bad policy for Scottish fisherman. I found, going around the country and making the case for our fishing industry, that this was an extremely potent issue, inland as well as in our coastal ports. It was a great sadness to me that so many stalwart defenders of the EU were prepared to sacrifice the Scottish and the British fishing industry.

[Michael Gove]

I speak as the son and grandson of fish merchants, and I should point out that it was the Scottish nationalist party—[Interruption]—that wanted to keep us in the EU and to maintain the common fisheries policy, which has destroyed jobs and industries, and which is why 54% of people in the parliamentary constituency of Banff and Buchan voted to leave. [Interruption.]

[John Redwood]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making a powerful point and for making the Committee even noisier than I was able to make it by my modest remarks.

My final point—I am conscious of the time and I have taken a lot of interventions—is that a big confusion about single markets underlies the SNP amendments. We have this strange contradiction in their logic whereby staying in the single market of the European Union is crucial to the health of the Scottish economy, whereas leaving the single market with England, Wales and Northern Ireland would be fine as part of the process of independence. Far more of Scotland’s business, of course, is done with the single market of the United Kingdom than is done with the single market of the EU. Some SNP Members try to justify it by saying, “Well, of course we would be allowed to stay fully in the single market with the rest of the UK, so we would want to do exactly the same thing with the EU.” That would be a matter for discussion and negotiation, if there were to be a second referendum and if SNP Members were ever to get to the point where they could win one—two things that look extremely unlikely today.

SNP Members need to look very carefully at their contradictory position. My view in both cases is that what matters is access to the market, not membership of the market, because membership comes with budget contributions, acceptance of law making, acceptance of court powers and all the rest of it, which is true of our single market in the UK just as it is of the single market as designed in the EU. Successful independent trading countries just need very good access to markets, which is what can be got under most favoured nation rules under the WTO and probably even better access through the negotiation of a special free trade agreement. It should be much easier to negotiate a free trade agreement where there is already one de facto, because it is not necessary to remove tariffs that are difficult to remove. They have already been removed; we are just trying to protect them.

I thus urge the Scottish nationalists to think again about this issue and to understand that we are all on the same side: we want maximum access for Scottish whisky as well as for English beef or whatever the product. There is every possibility that we can achieve a good deal, and we are much more likely to achieve it without the amendments tabled by SNP Members, and with a concerted view from this place that we are going to get on with implementing the wishes of the United Kingdom voters. Their message to us is, “Just do it.” That should be the message from this week’s debate in this Chamber.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 109, tabled in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I shall also speak to amendment 86 and new clause 150, tabled in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell), for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie). I will be brief, because I want to allow Members from Scotland, Wales and, of course, Northern Ireland to speak on these matters.

Before I come on to my substantive point about my new clause, I want to say that as a Member of Parliament representing an English constituency, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) gets a chance to speak to her new clause 168. In Merseyside and Greater Manchester, directly elected Mayors will be in place by the end of this May. My constituents in St Helens North, people in Greater Manchester, in the Liverpool city region and indeed people across the north-west of England will expect their views and those of their elected representatives to be taken into account as part of this process.

The Good Friday agreement is, for me, at the heart of progress made in Northern Ireland and with respect to relations between Britain and Ireland. The progress made over the last number of decades has been forged by and through our common membership of the European Union. In speaking to my new clause, I am of course cognisant of the fact that this debate is taking place in the context of the implications of the referendum held last May. I voted in this Parliament to hold a referendum; I took part in that campaign; and I lost. Those who argued for a remain vote lost. I respect that fact, and I voted accordingly last week. I want to be constructive about working with the Government to get the best possible Brexit that we can for my constituents and for the United Kingdom.

However, I am also cognisant of the need for respect to be shown to a different referendum, the one that took place in Northern Ireland in 1998 on support for the Good Friday agreement. On the same day, there was another referendum which resulted in Ireland’s withdrawal of its territorial claim over Northern Ireland. That goes to the heart of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends in the Social Democratic and Labour party. So the people of Northern Ireland, through a referendum, endorsed the Good Friday agreement. Subsequent agreements have been made between the Governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland, supported by the efforts of my hon. Friends in all the Northern Ireland parties—and I call them my hon. Friends deliberately.