Business of the House (Today)

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Many of us thought that we would have an opportunity today to debate the very weighty question of whether this country should opt back into 35 important measures relating to criminal justice, and put it under European Court of Justice and European Union control. We looked forward to a debate and a vote on that high principle, which includes the important and contentious European arrest warrant, but also a number of other measures that constitute the building blocks for a system in which our criminal justice would be conducted primarily under the central control of the European Union rather than that of the United Kingdom.

We welcome the Government’s wish to engage and to allow us a reasonable length of time in which to debate those matters, followed by a concluding vote at 10 pm, but you, Mr Speaker, have told us, very wisely and helpfully, that that is not what the business motion says, and, through you, I urge Ministers to consider amending it. As I understand the position, you would probably be sympathetic if they wished to do so. We could debate their regulations for 90 minutes, and during the remaining time, until 10 pm, we could debate the much wider issues of substance. We could discuss whether we wish to opt into all those measures and what we think of the European arrest warrant. Some believe it to be the biggest of all the measures, which is in itself debatable. I think that justice would then be seen to be done by the wider public.

I hope, Mr Speaker, that I am not taking liberties by suggesting to Ministers, through you, that a simple amendment to the business motion might provide a way out of this dilemma, and enable the House properly to consider the wider constitutional issues.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said. Let me simply say, for the convenience and awareness of the House, that the Home Secretary will wind up the debate on the business motion in order to clarify the Government’s position. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman regards that as helpful. In the spirit of fairness and propriety, the Opposition Front Bench will also have a wind-up speaker, who I believe will be the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson).

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a point that is, as always, worth listening to, but he is in error. This matter needs to be debated thoroughly, because it is my contention that this is not accidental. A letter was sent to the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), saying that we would have a vote. The Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury said to this House that there would be a vote. The Lord High Chancellor and the Home Secretary sent a letter to the European Scrutiny Committee promising us that there would be a vote on the European arrest warrant and all the other opt-ins and opt-outs. Now that we come to it, however, it is proposed that there will be a vote, after extra debating time, on a number of relatively obscure measures that require statutory instruments, and that that will be intended to determine the view of the House. That is not proper parliamentary procedure; it is an outrageous abuse of parliamentary procedure.

I often disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—and with others, including my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—on European matters, but this debate today is of a degree worse than our disagreements. Our disagreements are polite and they reflect our fiercely held views, which we discuss in an upright and, I hope, proper fashion. This approach and this motion are fundamentally underhand. That is why there is such anger, not only on the Conservative Benches and among Eurosceptics. The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), is shocked by this, as are the Scottish nationalists, who think that this is a poor way of behaving.

[Mr Redwood]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the irony that as we approach the 800th anniversary celebration of Magna Carta, habeas corpus and the rights we have taken from those previous generations should be at the heart of this debate but they are not going to be debated today?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my right hon. Friend; we should be having the time to debate the issues that really matter, not obscurities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to focus the Home Secretary’s mind, if I may. I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) when he says that every Member came here tonight expecting to be debating 35 measures; Members in all parts of this House believed that to be the case over the weekend. I also find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) when he says that this business is being done in an underhand way, because all Members of this House expected to come here this evening to debate this matter and the issue of the European arrest warrant.

Strangely, I also find myself in agreement with the Home Secretary, in that I am led to believe that she wants to debate and vote on the European arrest warrant. Let me let you into a secret, Mr Speaker: so do we. We would like to vote on the European arrest warrant and to give the Home Secretary our support, and I believe the Liberal Democrats would like to support her, too. We happen to take a view that murderers, child pornographers, bank robbers and fraudsters should be brought to justice in this House—[Laughter.] And perhaps elsewhere.

I disagree strongly with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), and the hon. Members for Stone (Sir William Cash), for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd), for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and, I suspect, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). They do not want to sign up to the European arrest warrant for reasons that we need to debate. I thought that today was about that debate. Over the weekend, I was expecting to have that debate today, as I am sure did all Members of this House. It now appears that that is not going to happen. Let me offer the Home Secretary a way out.

[Mr Redwood]

The right hon. Gentleman might wish to correct the record. I can assure him that we, like him, wish nasty people to be locked up after proper prosecution. The argument is over who has the ultimate control over our criminal justice system to do so.

[Mr Hanson]

Well, let us have that argument. First, let me offer the Home Secretary a way out. For the purposes of today’s debate, we will vote against the programme motion, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has said. I invite those Members who are dissatisfied with today’s proceedings and—dare I say it—the Liberal Democrats who do not hold Government positions, to join us in that.