EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight Debate
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John Redwood
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EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight
John Redwood Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
I want to clarify that there is no scope within the Joint Committee for some form of delegation or negotiating team. Its sole function is to ensure that the terms of the withdrawal agreement are complied with.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) so ably enunciated, all the workings of the Committee are to be found in annex VIII of the agreement. The annex is some 20 to 25 pages long and very carefully sets out how the Committee will work.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Why do the Government think it acceptable that any legal dispute about European law will be resolved by a decision of the European Court of Justice—a court for one of the two parties to the agreement—given that practically every legal dispute would be about a matter of European law, because both parties would still be under comprehensive European law?
Kwasi Kwarteng
There are two stages to the process. Clearly, there is the period after the end of the implementation period when the CJEU will decide matters of EU law. During the implementation period, as my right hon. Friend knows, it will be as if we were a member state—that is what the implementation period means. As my right hon. Friend suggested, within the implementation period, matters of EU law will be decided by the CJEU. After that, its powers are restricted only to matters of EU law, which we would be outside. That is the position as clearly set out in the withdrawal agreement.