EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

Article 50 Extension Procedure

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

A very amusing interjection.

The Government have made clear, and the Prime Minister made clear a couple of weeks ago, that in the event of the meaningful vote not getting through, there would be a number of votes on consecutive days outlining what the process would be. [Interruption.] Members say that they have heard that before. That is because of the process that is unfolding. What we will do now is seek an extension of article 50. [Interruption.] That has been very clearly expressed.

As for the meaningful vote, Mr Speaker, you made your opinion clear in your statement, but I do not want to prejudge whether any meaningful vote will come to the House, or to prejudge its success or otherwise. We have made it very plain that if we are given the meaningful vote, we will seek a short extension, if we get that through the House, and if we do not, we will seek a longer extension. I am pleased to be able to inform the House exactly what the position is.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

May I urge the Government not to seek any extension in the event that their agreement is not successfully put through the House? The Government’s long-term, consistently stated policy has been that we will leave on 29 March 2019, and that is what those who voted for both main parties will expect following the clear statements that were made at the time of the 2017 election. Will the Minister persuade the Government to go to the important meeting with our European partners this week and to table a fully comprehensive free trade agreement? I think that they would be willing to discuss that if the alternative were leaving without such an agreement, and then we would not need to impose new barriers. What’s not to like? Will the Government get on with it?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am delighted, and not wholly unsurprised, by my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I have followed his speeches and declarations in the House with interest for many years.

The referendum happened, but we must also get legislation through Parliament. We live in a parliamentary democracy, and last week the House made very clear its view that we should take no deal off the table and seek an extension of article 50. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister outlined a series of measures whereby she and her Government would try to follow the directions of the House in respect of the extension and in respect of taking no deal off the table.

Leaving the European Union

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I agree entirely. Just the other day, I was calling on people when canvassing in Cambridge, and was struck by the number of people I was coming across who were raising personal experiences. Very senior engineers were telling me that they were applying for jobs in Switzerland because the research funding upon which they rely through the Europe Research Council will be going there. They have no desire to go and previously had no expectation that they would ever seek to leave such a wonderful place as Cambridge, but if that is where the research money is going, that is where scientists will go. It is a global set-up, and we risk doing huge harm to our industries and our universities.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the OECD forecasts show a general slowdown around the advanced world, particularly on the continent of Europe, and show that the UK will grow faster this year than either Germany or Italy? Will he also confirm that there has been a general hit to the car industry because of diesel, which has nothing to do with Brexit.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The OECD says all those things, but people in the motor industry are very clear that the uncertainty is an absolute killer when it comes to long-term investment. Of course, many of the decisions are not being made here, but in Japan. Those decisions are already being made, and are doing us huge harm. Of course there is a range of factors, but it is hard to imagine such instability not causing problems to our industries and universities.

The Government’s no-deal impact assessment, published two weeks ago, states that

“food prices are likely to increase”

and that customs checks could cost business £13 billion a year—an extraordinary sum of money. I have just come from an event that was about how our maintained nurseries are facing closure for want of a fraction of that amount. Why on earth are we doing it?

The Government’s report also said that the worst-hit areas economically in a no-deal scenario would be Wales, losing 8.1%, Scotland, losing 8%, Northern Ireland, losing 9.1%, and the north-east, losing 10.5%. It is no comfort to those of us in the west midlands and the east that it would be marginally better for us. Reportedly, even the most enthusiastic Brexiteers acknowledge that there could be problems in the short term. At least on that we can probably all agree.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The public who are listening to this and similar debates cannot believe that this Parliament so lacks confidence and courage that, two years and eight months on from the great people’s vote, it is still considering forgetting the impact of that vote and ditching Brexit altogether. The public are saying two things to us: “Get on with it!” and, from the majority who voted to leave, “What part of ‘leave’ did you not understand?”

Leave voters deeply resent how too many Members of Parliament and smart commentators look down on them and pretend that they did not understand what they were doing or know what they were voting for, or that they were in some way muddled about their aims. We have heard that again today from the Petitions Committee representative, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner): he says that we did not know what we were doing, that it was all fanciful and that we all had a mixed idea. We knew exactly what we were doing—voting to take back control. We voted to take back control of our laws, our money and our borders, and that is exactly what this Parliament has to get on and do.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but he cannot possibly say that two and a half years ago people knew precisely what they were voting for, when a few hours away from our vote, we do not know what we are voting on.

[John Redwood]

Well, I know exactly what I am voting on. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman has not prepared or read anything and does not understand what is going on, but I am voting to leave the European Union. The only way that we can now leave the European Union, because of the way in which the negotiations have been mishandled, is to leave on 29 March without signing the withdrawal agreement and to offer a comprehensive free trade agreement—which, if there were nothing else on the table, the EU would be well advised to accept.

[Ronnie Cowan]

rose—

[John Redwood]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to try again, he can try again.

[Ronnie Cowan]

Okay, what about haulage companies whose drivers need European Conference of Ministers of Transport permits? The UK can give out 984 permits, but there have been 11,300 applications. What does the right hon. Gentleman say to the 90% of hauliers who cannot get permits? Is that just a minor detail?

[John Redwood]

Well, the Government will make sure that haulage will work, and of course that is something that the Government can and will do. I have every confidence that roughly the same number of lorries will come through Calais and Dover on 30 March as on 28 March. I am sure it will work fine. I know of no reason why the Government would stop lorry drivers moving through Calais and Dover.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene at this unusually early stage; I know that he was just coming to the point that, back on 19 December, the Commission issued a no-deal notice to say that lorries can travel as they do now until December 2019, so there is no issue.

[John Redwood]

Exactly. That is another way of putting my reassurance that of course things are going to work, because it is in the interests of both sides.

I find it almost unbelievable that MPs elected to this place, who are meant to be serving the interests of their constituents, take delight in spreading false rumours about how everything will go wrong, like this nonsense about how drugs will not arrive in this country on 30 March. I know of no pharmaceutical companies on the continent that currently supply drugs to the NHS but have notified it that they no longer wish to do so. I have seen very clear documentation from the French side that it knows how it will handle the transit of trucks containing drugs, and there is very clear evidence that the UK Government wish all those drugs to carry on coming in with no new barriers. So what is the argument about drugs, other than a deliberate scare story to make the most vulnerable people in our country think that there is something wrong with Brexit? It is a disgrace, and we are fed up with it.

[Ronnie Cowan]

If there is no fear whatever, why are the Government telling people to stockpile? Why are pharmaceutical companies telling me, “There is one key ingredient in the entire process, and if we do not get it, we will run out of that product”?

[John Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman got the lorries thing wrong, and now he has got the drugs thing wrong. The Government are not asking people to stockpile drugs. People will buy their normal drugs in the normal way, or be offered them free on the NHS in the normal way. There is no need to panic, as I have just explained. The hon. Gentleman has not named a company or a drug that will be deliberately withheld from the British market; unless he can do so, I do not think that he has a case at all.

[Ronnie Cowan]

The pharmaceutical company Martindale tells me that it needs sugar to manufacture methadone, because it is a syrup. It has stockpiled three months’ worth, but then it will run out. If sugar does not come into this country, it will run out of methadone.

[John Redwood]

Why would somebody mount an economic blockade of Britain and not sell us their product? That is complete nonsense. This is a competitive world. When the scare stories were first put round that Calais would be blocked by deliberate action, I and others made inquiries and were told that Zeebrugge, Ostend, Antwerp and Rotterdam would love to have the business and were making very competitive offers against Calais, but Calais immediately said, “No, of course we don’t want to lose that business, and by the way we still have the shortest crossing, so it should still be the easiest way.”

Such malicious and unpleasant scare stories are why this Parliament is losing the trust of the public generally. The public expect us to be grown up and manage these things. If there are issues that need managing on our exit, it is our job to manage them, not to scaremonger or try to make them worse.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that the public are losing trust in this Parliament. I put it to him that the reason the public—and indeed the people of Scotland—are losing trust in this Parliament is that, even at this late hour before our meaningful vote tomorrow, we have a Prime Minister jetting off to Strasbourg and trying to get last-minute concessions. This place is in absolute chaos. Is not that the reason people are losing trust in this Parliament?

[John Redwood]

I think the main reason people are losing confidence and trust is that all Labour and Conservative MPs, as far as I am aware, were elected on manifestos—[Interruption.] The SNP MPs clearly were not, but Labour and Conservative Members dominate the numbers in this Parliament, and we were all elected on manifestos that made it very clear that our parties fully respected the decision of the British people. We knew it was a decision; that was what the Government leaflet to all homes said, and what Parliament accepted in the debates on the referendum legislation, so we must honour that pledge. Our Conservative manifesto went further and explicitly said that we would leave the European Union, the customs union and the single market. There was no doubt about that; we were not muddled; we did not have different views; we did not want Norway plus or a Swiss model; we would leave every aspect of the EU, as described.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

I find the situation bizarre, because it was this Parliament that gave the people the chance to have a referendum. It put the question that people voted on, but people did not vote in quite the way that it wanted. For possibly the first time, it is not that politicians have let the people down, but that people have let politicians down.

[John Redwood]

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend makes his point very well: Parliament gave people the decision and people took it.

The Conservative manifesto was very clear that we would leave on 29 March. It also said, clearly and correctly, that

“no deal is better than a bad deal”,

so that if it appeared that the deal on offer after the negotiations was a bad deal—as it clearly is at the moment—the preferred option should be no deal. It further said, very wisely, that negotiations on the future partnership should proceed in parallel with the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. I accept that the Government have made mistakes; their mistake of not keeping the two negotiations in parallel has led to a withdrawal agreement that most MPs could not possibly accept, because it is a surrender document and a disgrace—it is not Brexit as Brexiteers want it, and it is not something that remain voters want either.

The Labour manifesto was also crystal clear that the Labour party accepted the verdict as a decision. It did not offer a second referendum, nor did it think that the public had got it wrong. It set out a very imaginative and different United Kingdom independent trade policy at some length; I did not agree with all the detail, but I was delighted that the Labour party wanted a completely independent UK trade policy. Such a policy would be completely incompatible with staying in the customs union and/or the single market, because it would require all sorts of freedoms to negotiate higher standards and negotiate different deals with the rest of the world, which would not be compatible with staying in the EU’s version with lower standards and the customs union arrangements.

We are told that the petitioners think we should now revoke article 50 because we have not reached an agreement that Parliament can accept. That means no Brexit—turning down the views of the majority. The hon. Member for Cambridge tried to put the best possible spin on this by coming up with these specious numbers and saying that 50 million people did not vote for Brexit, therefore it cannot carry. That figure includes all the children in the country—I am interested to hear that, in his view, two and three-year-olds have a view and should have a right to a view. It is also assumes that everybody who did not vote in the referendum would, if they had bothered, have voted against Brexit, although there is absolutely no reason to presume that. On samples and polling, one would assume that the people who did not vote had exactly the same split of views as the people who did vote. There was nothing in the referendum to say, “If you want to remain, you might as well stay at home.” If people wanted to remain, there was every point in going to vote, just as there was clearly every point in voting if they wanted to leave.

[Steve Double]

If the view is to be taken that 50 million did not vote to leave, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is therefore also true that 51 million people did not vote to remain in the European Union?

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is also a question of understanding how representative democracy based on elections and referendums works. In all other cases, Members of different parties in the House accept two things. First, they accept that when we have had an election, it is the votes that were cast that determine who gets to govern. We do not say, “Oh well. Many millions of people didn’t vote, and they wanted a different Government.”

Secondly, we also accept that it was the voters’ decision. We do not say, “Oh deary me. I’m still in Government. You tried to throw me out of Government—I’m sorry, electorate, you’re too stupid to understand. I’m doing a wonderful job and I’m actually going to carry on in Government, because I don’t agree with you. I might give you another vote in two three years’ time if you still haven’t come round to my point of view, but we’re just going to ignore the vote.” No right hon. or hon. Member would dream of saying that—not even members of the SNP, who have bitter experiences of referendums. They say they love referendums, but every time they hold one, they lose it. Every time they lose one, they then say, “That one didn’t count. Can we have another one?”

[David Linden]

As usual, the right hon. Gentleman is speaking with complete consistency on these issues—it is normally tripe. On democratic mandates and referendums, I have listened to him talk about how the majority of people voted. He has not once made reference to the fact that 62% of people in Scotland voted remain. What does he have to say about that? What does he have to say about the people in Scotland who spoke with one voice and said that they wanted to remain? Sixty-two per cent. is a rather large number, yet he seems to be ignoring that.

[John Redwood]

It is a United Kingdom matter and it was a United Kingdom referendum. As someone who believes in the Union, but believes in the politics of consent above all, I am very proud that our country offered the people of Scotland the opportunity to leave our Union. I hoped they would stay, but I thought we were right to offer them the vote. Just look at the dreadful mess in Catalonia, where the Spanish state will not offer people a democratic choice.

We were right to say that only the people of Scotland should determine whether it stayed in the Union or left. We did not ask the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland; we let the people of Scotland determine their own future. They decided—I am very pleased and think they made a good decision—to stay in the Union. The next thing the Union did was have a referendum on whether the whole Union should stay in the EU. They had full opportunity to participate in that referendum and explain why more English people should have agreed with them, but they did not succeed. Under the rules of the Union, they have to live with the Union’s judgment.

[David Linden]

The right hon. Gentleman is genuinely being very generous in giving way, and he has hit the nail on the head with that point. He is right to say that in 2014 the people of Scotland voted to remain in the United Kingdom on a prospectus of leaflets that were put out by the Better Together campaign and stated:

“The only way to secure Scotland’s membership of the European Union is to remain in the United Kingdom.”

We did that: we voted to remain in the United Kingdom and now find ourselves being dragged out of Europe. Does the right hon. Gentleman even begin to see—even through his Unionist-tinted glasses—just how difficult it is to reconcile that with a Unionist argument in Scotland?

[John Redwood]

Not at all, because that was an entirely truthful statement at the time. Clearly, Scotland had no right to independent membership of the European Union, which was the issue. It was already clear in 2014 that my party would campaign for a referendum. I always thought that we would win both the general election and the referendum—I was about the only person who thought that we would win both, and I am very pleased that we did. It was an entirely democratic process. Scottish voters could see that might happen when they made their decision to stay in the Union. As very welcome full members of our Union, they then had every opportunity to make a decisive intervention in the debate we had together on whether we stayed in the European Union.

I want to finish on the economic issues, of which much has been made. It is a strange debate, because most leave voters voted on the issues of democracy, independence, sovereignty, making our own decisions and spending our own money. I am someone who thinks that we will be better off—not worse off—by leaving the European Union. I have consistently argued this before and after the referendum. The case is very easy to make. I would like us to have a Brexit bonus Budget as soon as we leave the European Union at the end of this month. Such a Budget should boost our economy by between 1% and 2% of GDP.

Let me take the more modest version—a 1% boost from a £20 billion stimulus, which would provide a mixture of increased money for much-loved public services. It would also include tax cuts. The kind of thing I have in mind is more money for our schools budgets and teachers. We need more money for our armed forces and security, and for our police and the work on gangs, knife crime and so forth. We need more money for our social care, where the shoe has been pinching. The Government have already found prospectively large sums for the health service, and the challenge is to ensure that—where we vote those sums through—we get good value for money and are buying something that really does provide a higher quality service, which is what the public expect.

There should also be a series of tax cuts, firstly on VAT—the tax that we are not allowed to cut or reduce in so many ways, because it is an EU tax. I would take all VAT off green products, because it is wrong that people have to pay rather large taxes on better boiler controls, insulation and various other green measures they can take in their homes to cut their fuel bills. I would like to get rid of VAT altogether on domestic fuel. The budgets of people on the lowest incomes have the highest proportion of expenditure on fuel—there is fuel poverty. Why do the Government contribute to it by adopting an EU tax on domestic fuel? It would be good to get rid of that.

I would like stamp duties to be put back to the same levels as before the big hikes. I would not put back stamp duties that have been cut, but those that have been increased—it has clearly done a lot of damage to the property market by stopping transactions and stopping mobility—so that people can afford to live in the right-size property that is appropriate for their stage in life.

I would also like quite a big reduction in business rates. There is definite unfairness for high street retailing by comparison with online retailing, and now would be a good opportunity to reduce business rates. It is eminently affordable. The Government have provided their estimate of £39 billion, which is largely to be spent in a couple of years over the period of further negotiation. I think it will be much more than that in the long term—there are no numbers in the withdrawal agreement. Quite a lot of that money falls in the first couple of years, and I would like us to spend it in the next couple of years in the way I have described, with a £20 billion increase in the first year to get things going. There is a running saving of £12 billion a year or more from the saving of the net contribution, leaving aside any special payments under the withdrawal agreement.

The Chancellor has already let it be known that there has been a big overshoot of his fiscal tightening: we are borrowing far less than he was expecting, so he has a bit of leeway. We might learn more about that later this week. Putting it all together, the package I suggest is very modest, but it would give a very welcome improvement to our public services and give quite a good economic boost through targeted tax cuts. Our GDP would go up in the first year after we left the European Union, rather than go down on what it would have been otherwise.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I am just curious how a national debt of £1.7 trillion can be serviced with all these tax cuts.

[John Redwood]

As I just explained, my measures would not increase the build-up of public debt, but would be financed out of the amounts that are already in the Budget to go to the European Union.

The public find it extremely odd that many Members of Parliament want to give any amount to the European Union without challenging or probing what bill it is sending to us and why, and yet begrudge us spending that money on our priorities at home. One of the winning themes of the vote leave campaign was that we want to control and spend our own money. There is absolutely no legal obligation to pay that money to the European Union after 29 March, when we have left. Indeed, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 repeals the European Communities Act 1972, so I do not think the Government will have any powers to send money to the European Union after 29 March, given the admirable legislation now on the statute book that means that we will leave.

Many people who are interested in these affairs want us to get on with it and leave the European Union. Many share my optimism that we will be better out, trading and developing free trade agreements with the rest of the world and cutting tariffs where that makes sense and does not damage our home industry. Above all, we will spend the money that we will spare because we are no longer making a huge tribute to the European Union through these very large sums of money. What’s not to like? How do MPs who got elected to implement Brexit think they will get away with telling the British people that they were wrong, and that they will delay or stop Brexit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that those who promoted leaving the Union clearly did not sell their positive message enough to get people to vote for it. In the European Union referendum, however, that clearly did happen.

[John Redwood]

In truth, the independence movement in Scotland did not want to be independent, because they would not say that they would have an independent currency or that they would leave the European Union. We really do want to be independent and that is why we won.

[Steve Double]

It is well documented that I have not been the biggest fan of our Prime Minister during this process. I believe that many mistakes have been made that have led us to where we are today, such as the lack of a clear starting position for negotiations, allowing the EU to dictate the timetable and nature of negotiations, and not preparing properly and early enough for a no-deal Brexit, to name a few. Clearly, we could have done so much better and, with better leadership, we could have been in a better position.

I am also very clear that not all the blame rests with the Prime Minister. Many Members of both Houses—and former Members of this House—have played a part in undermining her negotiating position almost every step of the way. Every one of them must share responsibility for our position. It is now quite clear that members of the Cabinet and other senior members of Government have publicly and vocally said that they support the Government’s position of “no deal is better than a bad deal”, while crossing their fingers behind their backs the whole way. When it appears that no deal might actually arise, they make it clear that they do not support that position and threaten to resign if it happens. To find out that those people, who supposedly supported a Government position, did not really mean it, is enough to undermine trust in our politics.

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[David Linden]

I am—unlike the hon. Gentleman, I was here when the right hon. Member for Wokingham spoke earlier. I am indeed aware of his expertise in finance and some of the advice he has given people, including recently when he advised them to take their money elsewhere.

[John Redwood]

That is completely untrue and I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw that false allegation.

[David Linden]

No, I will not. I will continue with my speech.

The equivalent of the entire working population of Dundee stands to lose their jobs. The economic effect on Scotland is expected to be even worse than that of the 2008 recession. Businesses, institutions and notable leaders are up in arms over this dereliction of duty. The CBI, the Scottish and Welsh Governments, the National Farmers Union of Scotland, car makers and manufacturers are all united in their opposition to a no-deal Brexit advocated by some speakers in this debate. On top of all that, we face the loss of the free movement of people, which has helped to grow and support our ageing population.

The SNP has been consistent—not a popular position in Parliament—in supporting calls for the extension of article 50 and a people’s vote. That is the only sensible course of action left. The UK Government cannot continue to attempt to strong-arm Parliament into accepting their deal by threatening a no-deal scenario. In his dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, George Orwell described “doublethink” as

“holding simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them”.

Instead of reading the book as a cautionary tale, the Prime Minister seems to have taken it as an instruction manual. She has expected the Scottish people to accept three conflicting opinions at the same time: first, we would leave the customs union—a promise made to appease the European Research Group. Secondly, there would be no hard border in Northern Ireland—a promise made to appease Dublin and adhere to the Good Friday agreement. Thirdly, there will be regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK—a promise made to the Democratic Unionist party. There is no world in which all three are simultaneously possible. The Prime Minister knows that, but instead of showing real leadership and working to reach a compromise, she hopes to placate different groups with promises she cannot deliver on, and scare them into voting for her deal by threatening us with no deal.

I will be absolutely clear: we must not crash out of the European Union with no deal. To allow that to happen would be a complete failure of governance and an abdication of responsibility. The Conservative party might be happy with that, but we in the SNP are committed to building a fairer and better future for the Scottish people. Our preferred option is for the whole of the UK to remain in the European Union, but, failing that, our compromise is that the UK should remain in the customs union and the single market. I believe there would be a majority for that in the House. It is clear that further negotiations are needed to find an outcome that works for everyone, so we support the extension of article 50 and a people’s vote.

The Prime Minister is content to lead the country down the garden path with no idea what waits at the end. That is utterly unacceptable. The Scottish people deserve a Government that have their best interests at heart, but Westminster has shown repeatedly throughout this Brexit mess that it does not have our interests at heart. It is for that reason that many Scots, including many of those who voted no in 2014, are rapidly concluding that the only way to have a Government with our interests at heart is to have an independent Government and to rejoin the family of nations.

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[David Linden]

That is absolutely on the record. The right hon. Gentleman’s declaration of financial interests shows that he does give advice for financial planning. Indeed, that was pointed out by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway). I said on the record what is already in the public domain about advice that has been given by the right hon. Member for Wokingham, and I stand by those comments.

[John Redwood]

Ms McDonagh, I think what was at issue was the accuracy of the statement. The hon. Gentleman said that I have urged people to take their money out of Britain because of Brexit. I have never said that, it is completely false, and I wish it to be withdrawn.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Does the hon. Member for Glasgow East wish to withdraw his comments? The right hon. Member for Wokingham has not, in his view, advised people to take their money out of Britain because of Brexit.

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[Jenny Chapman]

The hon. Gentleman is cheap. We are 18 days away from leaving the European Union. His party does not have a negotiated deal that could get through this Parliament. That is where he is; it is his party that has done that, not my party. Businesses ask me what a Labour Brexit would look like, and I can tell them. They say to me, “Yes, that is a future I can work in. That is an economic framework that I can keep my business thriving in.” They look at what is happening now, with the hon. Gentleman’s party in power, and they are horrified. I am horrified, and he should be horrified. It is nothing to be proud of. He can make cheap comments about my party leader if he likes—everyone knows my views about this—but it is his party leader who has misled and mismanaged this process, not mine.

We now have two options. My party leader, who the hon. Gentleman so derides, has written to the Prime Minister outlining a sensible deal that is negotiable. It has been well received by colleagues in the European Union, and is actually quite well received by Members on the hon. Gentleman’s Benches. The options set out in that letter ought to be put to the test of a vote in Parliament. Why is the Prime Minister too afraid to do that? It is because when we put a customs union to the vote in June, and the Prime Minister whipped against it as hard as she could, we lost by a grand total of six votes. I suggest that that is something that could find support in Parliament, and I would like to get it before the House of Commons so we can test it.

Such a deal would be supported by businesses, trade unions and the CBI, as well as in Northern Ireland—the Ulster farmers have been crying out for it. Everybody who has any real interest in this issue and has looked at it carefully has come out and supported that proposal. It is a real shame that the Prime Minister is so cowed by her own party that she will not put it before the House of Commons.

The Labour party wrote to the Prime Minister. We asked for a

“comprehensive UK-wide customs union…Close alignment with the Single Market…Dynamic alignment on rights and protections…Clear commitments on participation in EU agencies…Unambiguous agreements on the detail of future security arrangements”.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is never going to agree with that; it is not his vision for Brexit. I am not going to attempt to persuade him that it should be, because we would be here a long time. I accept that. He is entitled to vote for a different vision of Brexit, if that is what he feels is right. Surely, Members are entitled to vote for what we think would be the right outcome, if, as we believe, it is negotiable even at this late stage. If the deal does not get through tomorrow, it behoves the Minister and his colleagues to work out how it would work and what the process would be to enable us to have a vote on a different type of deal, which we could negotiate with Brussels.

Whatever happens, we cannot have a border in Northern Ireland; everybody accepts that. However, nobody has provided a credible means of achieving that. We have had suggestions about “alternative arrangements”—whatever they are—and there has been talk about technology. Our team visited the border between Norway and Sweden, which is the most technologically advanced in the world. There is infrastructure there to make checks, take payments and provide security, because it is a border between two different customs territories. There is nowhere on the planet where there is a border between two different customs territories and no infrastructure. Try as we might to find a different solution—and we did try—we have been unable to do so. It seems as if no one else has been able to find one either. It is impossible not to have border infrastructure if there is no customs union. It cannot be done. For that reason, as well as all the benefits to manufacturing that are important to me in north-east England, we have concluded that we need to be part of a customs union after we leave the European Union.

[Stewart Hosie in the Chair]

The other thing I hear all the time from businesses is that they do not want us to leave at all without a deal. It seems odd that the Government are persisting in keeping that option open. I note that a couple of weeks ago—the last time she was confronting heavy defeats—the Prime Minister said that, should her deal not succeed tomorrow, Parliament would have the opportunity to vote against leaving without a deal. I know the Minister does not have a crystal ball, but it would be helpful to colleagues if he could clarify exactly what we will be voting on tomorrow. Who knows? Will this be a straightforward vote on the Prime Minister’s deal, whether it be the same deal we voted on previously or an amended deal? When will we find out what we will be voting on? If it is a different deal, will we be given an opportunity to examine that deal prior to the debate tomorrow? When will that motion be laid before the House? Will there be opportunity for colleagues to amend it? That is something we have discussed at length previously, and it is only fair that Members are given that opportunity.

That is tomorrow. What about Wednesday? Assuming that the deal does not go through tomorrow, we were promised by the Prime Minister that there would be an opportunity to vote on leaving without a deal. Will that still be the case on Wednesday and, if it is, what position will the Government take? Will Wednesday be the day when, finally, the Government of this country say to businesses, the public, communities such as mine and their own colleagues that they do not intend to take the UK out of the EU without a deal? We need to know. Do the Government still intend on Thursday, as the Prime Minister promised, to have a vote on whether we need more time? If that promise is kept, how much more time does the Minister intend we should have, and what does he intend to do with it? What form will the motion on Thursday take? I am not asking him to foretell anything very far ahead; just the next three days will do. We need to know what MPs will be asked to decide on this week, on behalf of our constituents. These are probably the most important decisions that we shall ever be asked to make. We were promised by the Prime Minister that they would be taken this week, but we have not had confirmation of that or information about what the votes will look like.

The chaos we have seen, the way the negotiations have been mishandled, and the situation we are in, just days away from 29 March, make me embarrassed for Parliament. Unfortunately, the blame can only be laid at the door of the Prime Minister, because of the way she has led the process. The Minister is a decent person, and it falls to him—

[John Redwood]

The hon. Lady is asking good questions about what our business will be, but I fear our ministerial friend cannot answer tonight. We shall probably find out later from the Prime Minister, who will be controlling those things.

The hon. Lady said she thought a second referendum might be a good idea. Can she tell us what the question would be? If it is “Accept the withdrawal agreement or stay in,” there is no option for leave. If it is “Accept the withdrawal agreement or leave without a deal” there is no option for remain; so what would the question be?

[Jenny Chapman]

I do not think I have ever said that a second referendum would be a good idea. It is something I should be incredibly reluctant to support, but I have to recognise, if I do not want to leave without a deal, that the only thing that stands between leaving with a deal and leaving without one may be to put the issue back to the country. It is not something I want to happen, at all. Because I am not enthusiastic about it I have not thought through what the questions should be. That is one of the problems with the proposal for another referendum. Those who propose it have not made the matter clear. It is deeply problematic and risky. Who knows where it might lead, and what the experience might do to our country? I am not enthusiastic about it at all; I want to make that clear—but I have to accept, given that I do not want to leave without a deal, that it may be necessary.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

John Redwood Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The two previous motions, one in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and the other in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), are both incorporated in the Government motion.

With respect to the first motion, there has been no realistic suggestion for a credible replacement to the backstop since the motion was passed and the EU is still saying it will not renegotiate. There is no withdrawal agreement simply because it has not been signed. In that context, the Brady motion was meaningless. Furthermore, as I said to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, article 4 of the current draft withdrawal agreement undermines control over our own laws. That will create uncompetitive havoc for businesses, and for trade unionists and for workers, as the laws are passed by the other 27 member states, as they go through the Council of Ministers, and we will not even be there. The measure also contradicts the repeal of section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, were we to make the mistake of saying that we rule out leaving without signing the withdrawal agreement, we would take away the Government’s main bargaining card for getting improvements to the agreement?

[Sir William Cash]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.

On the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden, in reply to my question on Tuesday, which the Prime Minister agreed with, the Prime Minister said that Members from across the House voted to trigger article 50, which had a two-year timeline, ending on 29 March, and that every Conservative Member had voted for the withdrawal Act. She was right. However, the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden passed only because it was supported by Members from all parties who had already voted for the withdrawal Act, the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 and the European Union Referendum Act 2015, and were in effect, on the Prime Minister’s own analysis, undermining their previous votes. Furthermore, we were whipped against the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden.

There was no consultation prior to the tabling of the Government motion now before the House. In any case, the Government’s position that a so-called no deal remains on the table is clear, as the Secretary of State confirmed. The motion makes no sense, so why are we faced with it today? We are told that it is to keep traction with the EU, which has been, as I said to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, both undemocratic and totally intransigent. As I have said, the withdrawal agreement itself is inconsistent with the European Communities Act 1972. It is therefore also inconsistent with the referendum itself and our manifesto. The 2018 Act includes the repudiation in UK law of all EU laws and treaties, and article 4 of the withdrawal agreement is completely inconsistent with that. A vast number of voters see through this charade—they see through the smoke and mirrors—and in particular so too does the Conservative party membership—a recent “ConservativeHome” poll showed that 70% of them are against the withdrawal agreement.

The real problem goes back to what I said at the time of the first vote on the withdrawal agreement and my observations about the failure of public trust in respect of the Chequers deal and this withdrawal agreement. Those words stand as much today as they did when I spoke on 15 January. Today’s motion further undermines public trust. We are now truly entering the world of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. In his book “1984” Orwell wrote:

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

This double motion is doublethink in action, and I cannot possibly vote for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). While I agree with Wales in voting to leave the EU, I am afraid that I found little in his speech—though he put it powerfully and coherently—that I could agree with. I certainly cannot agree with a second referendum, or indeed, to taking no deal off the table.

I have always found that it is a good idea in the House to vote on what the motion says and not necessarily on what Ministers or other Members say in the House, so I thought I had better have a look at what it says today. It is very clear, actually:

“That this House…reiterates its support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29 January 2019”—

so I thought I had better look and see what the House had agreed to, and within the motion that it agreed to were the words

“rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement”.

In other words, the motion that we are voting on tonight takes no deal off the table. It does not matter what Ministers have said. It is what the motion says, so I would expect all Opposition Members who do not seem to want a no-deal option to support the Government’s motion tonight, which is exactly the reason I will not be supporting it. It is a badly worded motion—well, no, it is not a badly worded motion; it is deliberately worded that way. I think the Government thought that they could slide it through and that it would not matter. I know that, if I supported this tonight, the Whips would point out to me, “You have supported taking no deal off the table.” That is not what I can do.

I want to go back to when I was a co-founder of the Grassroots Out movement. I travelled the length and breadth of the United Kingdom during the referendum campaign discussing with people what they wanted if they were going to vote to leave. It came down, I think, to a few things. They wanted to end the free movement of people, to stop giving billions and billions of pounds each and every year to the EU and for us to make our own laws in our own country, judged by our own judges. I fear that the current withdrawal agreement proposed by the Government fails on all those tests. Maybe that is one of the reasons why it suffered the biggest defeat in Commons history. Anybody who had suffered the biggest defeat in Commons history might want to go away and think very carefully about what they put to the House, and not tinker around for a couple of weeks before coming back with more or less the same motion, because the same thing will happen. It will get rejected by this House.

Let us look at the tests. Does the withdrawal agreement end the free movement of people? It does not, because there is no future deal worked out, just some sort of political wish list—a political declaration—so it fails on that score. Does the agreement stop billions and billions of pounds being given to the EU each and every year? We know that £39 billion is going to be given whatever happens under the withdrawal agreement, and if the transition period is extended, even more money will be given. Clearly, our courts will not be able to be the final arbiters, because the European Court of Justice has a significant say over our future.

[John Redwood]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, because the agreement is not about the future partnership, it sentences this House and the whole nation to 21 to 45 more months of the rows, disagreements, uncertainties and problems that we have presided over for the last two years and seven months?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I will deal with that issue in a minute, but I want to finish the point that clearly the withdrawal agreement does not let us make our own laws in our own country, because we would still be tied to the European Union.

The one thing that people say—I hear it from leading remainers—is that they want certainty, but the one thing that the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration in particular give us is uncertainty, with months and months of squabbling and not delivering what the British people voted for in June 2016.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I pay heed to my hon. Friend, because he is one of the most serious thinkers in our party and I know he engages very seriously on these issues. Of course, the former permanent secretary to the Treasury is also someone we all listen to intently. The point is that there are a number of things that are different in this instance. First, on trade deals, a significant amount of time is often taken up by the first phase of understanding the regulatory positions of both sides. Well, after 45 years of being part of the European Union that regulatory understanding is already there. Secondly, there is a difference because often there are six-week time lags in trade rounds. If people are flying back from Canada or the US, the physical geographical issues can constitute a delay. Clearly, our geographical relationship with Europe will allow us to inject much more pace into those trade rounds and accelerate them. Thirdly, the fact is that we have a political declaration that sets a framework for those trade discussions to take place.

Fourthly, there is also the issue of the incentives that the UK offers—I was going to come on to this point—including the position on security, which is obviously of interest to many member states in Europe, and the fact that the backstop is uncomfortable for the EU. On day one of the backstop fishing rights are lost, which is why President Macron may not be keen on entering into the backstop. There is also the fact that the backstop breaks the four freedoms, which have always been safely guarded by the European Union. The backstop is not a desirable place for the Europeans to enter, which is why there is an incentive for them to get momentum into the trade agreements.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

rose—

[Stephen Barclay]

I will of course give way. May I also take this opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend on his recent honour?

[John Redwood]

I thank the Secretary of State. Will he now, as a matter of good contingency planning, urgently publish our schedule of tariffs for trading as an independent country? Can they please be lower tariffs than the EU schedule, and will there be zero tariffs for all imported manufactured components?

[Stephen Barclay]

My right hon. Friend will know, because he has often spoken in warm and glowing terms about trading on a no-deal WTO basis, that tariffs are just one aspect of our relationships, particularly given the UK economy’s interest in services. Issues such as data adequacy are actually much more significant to our economy. The political debate often focuses on tariffs, but as a service economy issues such as data are much more serious to us. The WTO, which my right hon. Friend often advocates, actually does not address such issues. That is one reason why the WTO is not the land of milk and honey that some pretend.

EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In calling the right hon. Member for Wokingham, I warmly congratulate Sir John Redwood.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Do the Government understand that opposition to the withdrawal agreement goes way beyond the unacceptable Irish backstop and includes paying huge sums of money with nothing nailed down over the future partnership? Worse still, it would plunge us into 21 to 45 more months of endless rows and disagreements, with all the uncertainty that would bring.

[Stephen Barclay]

May I join you, Mr Speaker, in congratulating my right hon. Friend on his well-deserved knighthood? As regards the interplay between the financial settlement and how a no-deal scenario would be managed, there is a contradiction in saying on the one hand that we can leave the EU with no financial contribution, and on the other that there would be sufficient good will on the EU side for them to move beyond anything more than contingency planning and offer some sort of managed deal, when, at the same time, we are not honouring the legal obligations we have.

Leaving the EU: No Deal

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I really think it is the duty of the Government and the Prime Minister to stand at the Dispatch Box and rule out no deal. That is the first thing, and that is the easiest way, because I think the vast majority of Members of the House would agree with it. If the Government will not do that, I am absolutely sure that this House will take the first opportunity to express its view. Whether by way of amendments to the motion in January, through other amendments, or by whatever means, the voice of this House and the majority who will not countenance no deal must be heard and will be heard. I have said it before, but I say it again: I think that deep down this Government and this Prime Minister know jolly well that no deal is not viable. That calls into question the expenditure that has been announced as additional expenditure, not the only expenditure.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that there is not a no deal, because if we leave without signing the withdrawal agreement, there will be various deals? Would he welcome the agreement on the common transit convention? Would he welcome the air services agreement? Would he welcome the facilitation of trade agreement? There are going to be plenty of agreements so that we can trade perfectly successfully—will he stop his scaremongering?

[Keir Starmer]

I shall come to that point in a minute, but simply listing all the things that need to happen between now and 29 March to get to a so-called managed no deal only makes the point: it is not going to happen in the three months available.

Leaving the EU: Meaningful Vote

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, as set out in the memorandum we sent to the Procedure Committee, which has been published, there will be a substantive and amendable motion. I do not think that any hon. Member, on either side of the House, would table a meaningless amendment, so I reject the premise of the question in that regard.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that no motion of this House can overturn the two Acts of Parliament on withdrawal or the article 50 letter, which all say we are leaving on 29 March next year, and that the Government are not minded to repeal those Acts?

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend is right on both counts. None the less, on the meaningful vote, the motion will be substantive and amendable, and it will be for you, Mr Speaker, to decide on the scope and acceptability of those amendments.

EU Exit Negotiations

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We have been very clear that the arrangement needs to be time-limited. We would not accept an arrangement that drew a customs border down the Irish sea. It needs to be limited so that we can bridge to the future relationship, which would give us all the advantages of free trade that we want to take advantage of, including export opportunities from Latin America to Asia, and the reduction of the cost of living here at home.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if we just leave without signing a penal and one-sided withdrawal agreement, we will have £39 billion to spend on our priorities, which would be a huge boost to our economy and public services—a true Brexit bonus? How can an agreement be better than that?

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend is certainly right to point to the countervailing opportunities that a no deal scenario would have, but it is only responsible to be very clear—as we have in our 77 technical notices and our wider planning—that the no deal outcome is sub-optimal because there are risks and short-term disruptions, including a buffeting to the UK economy and all those other things. I am confident that we could get through that, but it is by far and away a superior outcome to get a good deal with the EU that is good for the UK and for the EU, that preserves our trade and security co-operation, and that at the same time liberates us to trade more energetically with the growth markets of the world.

Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. When I say that we have reached agreement with the EU on those sections—citizens’ rights, implementation and the financial settlement—I am talking about the legal text of the withdrawal agreement, which is in the form of a draft international treaty. Members will be familiar with the screeds of text that have been shaded in green. Progress has been made since the March European Council, which indicates agreement on the legal text and substance between the EU and the UK.

It would not have been appropriate for the White Paper to attempt to cover the parts of the withdrawal agreement on which negotiations have yet to be concluded. We will seek to keep Parliament informed as we make further progress, but let me make it clear that the withdrawal agreement Bill will be the primary means by which we give effect to the agreement, including any backstop arrangements for Northern Ireland and Ireland.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that to help these very difficult negotiations with the EU, which does not like the Chequers proposals, it would be an extremely good idea, as a matter of urgency, to publish our tariff schedules for no deal, so that the EU can see what it would look like and so that those of us who want import substitution will know that they have a better opportunity?

[Suella Braverman]

I share my right hon. Friend’s passion for the prospect of our country’s leaving the EU and our prospects outside the EU, and he has considerable expertise on this issue. I hope that he will be heartened by the technical notices that have been published over the summer, which take a step forward in setting out how our preparations are evolving in relation to that aspect of a no deal outcome.

The Government are committed to working with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the Bill works for all parts of the UK. The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations has already discussed proposals for the Bill, and I look forward to continued engagement in the run-up to the Bill’s introduction and throughout its passage. Engagement has been constructive and positive, and we expect and intend that to continue.

We have also begun engagement with organisations and individuals on the Bill over the summer. I have held roundtables with academics, legal practitioners and civil society organisations, and I look forward to further engagement with a range of representative bodies this week. We will continue to work closely with all interested stakeholders to make sure that we get the legislation right, and I look forward to further hearing the views of Members tomorrow.

Let me now turn to the detail of the White Paper. Part 2 of the withdrawal agreement and chapter 2 of the White Paper set out the arrangements for EU citizens living in the UK and for UK nationals residing in the EU. A key step in the provision of a smooth and orderly exit from the EU is the provision of certainty for those individuals and their families. That is why reaching an agreement on citizens’ rights was the UK’s first priority in negotiating its withdrawal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. In fact, over recent weeks I have seen some of the most ardent Brexiteers—people who wanted to take back control of our borders, incidentally—saying that they would just leave the border completely open. They are not going to be the ones who erect infrastructure. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has made it clear that because we chose to leave, the onus is on the UK Government, as well as the EU27, to come up with a solution that avoids any hardening of the border.

The Chequers proposals were designed to move the negotiations on, but it is patently obvious that they cannot command a majority in this House and would not be acceptable to the EU without further significant modifications of the kind that the Prime Minister cannot deliver because of the bitter divisions in her own party. The negotiations on this issue are at an impasse. Despite a summer of talks, little progress has been made on agreeing a legally binding and operable backstop. It is imperative that progress on this issue is now made and made quickly. With the second week of October being the effective deadline for sign-off at the October EU summit, there are now only a matter of weeks before the issue must be resolved. Both sides have an obligation, based on the solemn commitments they have given, to defuse the tensions that have built up around this issue, and both sides must now redouble their efforts to deliver a solution. What would make a legally binding backstop easier to agree, because it would ensure that it would be less likely to be used in the future, is a very clear signal on what the future relationship is likely to look like. That point was made at the end of last month by the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs.

That brings me to the final issue I want to touch on before drawing my remarks to a close—the framework for the UK’s future relationship with the EU, or, more specifically, the political declaration that will accompany the divorce settlement if agreement is reached across all outstanding areas. Arguably, it is the contents of that political declaration, more than the details of the withdrawal agreement itself, that the House will focus on when it comes to pass judgment on the deal that we all hope—genuinely hope—the Government are able to conclude and put before us later this year.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you may have noticed that the notion of a so-called blind Brexit has received a great deal of attention over recent weeks, yet it has always been a distinct possibility. That is partly because there is every incentive for the Government, practically and politically, to bring back a withdrawal agreement that contains a political declaration that is highly ambiguous. To do so would be unacceptable. A vague political declaration on the future framework would not be a solution to the problems that we are grappling with; it would be tantamount to avoiding those problems altogether. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) said earlier—she is not in her place now—that would leave the UK in a far weaker position during the transition than we would otherwise be, and we on the Opposition Benches would not accept that.

[John Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely important and interesting point. What does the Labour party think are the minimum strong clear commitments that would be required to make the political declaration acceptable?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I hope that the Minister will agree with us on this. We want a political declaration that is extensive, precise and substantive. When this House votes on the final deal, it must have a very clear signal of what the future relationship will be like—not a vague statement that allows us to crawl over the line to 29 March next year without any sense of where our relationship will end up in future. As I have said, the Opposition would not accept such a vague document.

When the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration are put before us, we will faithfully apply the six tests that we set out in March of last year. Let me be very clear: those six tests cannot, in our eyes, be met simply by failing to address them altogether. The political declaration on the future relationship must be sufficiently detailed and clear that hon. and right hon. Members are able to arrive at an informed judgment about whether the final deal and the future relationship are good enough for the country and for their constituents.

I appreciate that the negotiations are ongoing and that the drafting of the declaration is not yet under way, but in his summing up, I hope that the Minister will provide greater clarity on this matter. In particular, will he provide the House with a greater sense of the type of political declaration that the Government will be pushing for at Salzburg, an idea of the level of detail the Government believe that it needs to contain, and confirm, or reaffirm, that the Government still require a document that is both precise and substantive?

In conclusion, as I said at the outset of my speech, the Opposition welcome the White Paper as well as the opportunity to debate in more detail the legislation that we all hope will be laid before us later this year, but we urgently need a change of approach and pace from the Government. When it comes to the forthcoming European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, we hope that we see less of the short-term political gimmickry that we have seen in the past and more serious consideration of what is the most effective way to legislate. To that end, we call on the Government to allow pre-legislative scrutiny of those sections of the forthcoming Bill that relate to aspects of the withdrawal agreement that have already been agreed.

When it comes to the crucial issue of the Irish border and the default backstop, we need the Government to do everything they can to defuse the tensions that have built up around the issue and play their part over the coming weeks in delivering a solution. Finally, when it comes to the political declaration on the future framework the Government need to press for a document of sufficient precision and detail to allow the House to make an informed judgment.

The clock is ticking. The Government must shift their focus away from the deep divisions in their own ranks and towards what is needed to secure a deal that will work for the country. Urgent progress is essential not only to secure a withdrawal agreement, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, to ensure that full and proper scrutiny of the legislation that will be required to enact it.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I have made the point today—I have made it in previous debates—that it would not be satisfactory at all to accept the Chequers proposals. I shall explain why in relation to the particular arrangements under the White Paper.

First, while the White Paper contemplates saving the European Communities Act 1972 only during the implementation period, there are some very specific instances in which EU law will continue beyond the implementation period. The Government have already conceded in principle that some specific European Court jurisdiction will continue after the end of the implementation period, and that, of course, includes citizens’ rights. The withdrawal agreement, however, also includes other areas for which that would be the case, such as in relation to pending cases in which the facts arose before the end of the implementation period. Furthermore, continuing participation in EU agencies could entail automatic acceptance of the European Court’s decisions.

The Government say that they are going to save the European Communities Act in part. That is all very well but, as I said in my presentation of the arguments last Wednesday during the European Scrutiny Committee’s proceedings with Mr Olly Robbins and the Secretary of State, the reality is that within a mere 14 days of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 receiving Royal Assent, a White Paper was introduced on saving parts of the 1972 Act even beyond the implementation period in circumstances that I find not just weird but thoroughly unacceptable.

[John Redwood]

Paragraph 89 in chapter 1 of the future partnership White Paper says:

“The UK will seek reciprocal arrangements on the future rules around some defined elements of social security coordination.”

Does my hon. Friend share my fear that that may also involve jurisdiction over our banking system?

[Sir William Cash]

That is part of the same problem. I am afraid that there are some really very difficult questions that Ministers and the Government have to answer. I put all this to the Prime Minister immediately after 6 July, when the Chequers proposals came through. I questioned whether we could in fact reconcile the Chequers proposals with the European Communities Act 1972, and the reality is that we cannot. We may then say that we have an agreed implementation period to give certainty to businesses. However, as I pointed out in an intervention, it does not create certainty for business on product standards, for example, because anyone who knows anything about the workings of the European scrutiny system knows that decisions are quite often taken by officials in such things as working groups and then are effectively rubberstamped by Ministers. Furthermore, under the existing arrangements, decisions are taken behind closed doors without any transcripts of the proceedings.

Businesses need to wake up to this. They are told that they will have greater certainty, but do they really know and understand anything about how the system functions in practice? In practice, decisions are taken by consensus, because everybody knows what the outcome will be before they even walk in the room, but we will not even be there in relation to the common rulebook, so how can the Government provide business with certainty when they do not know what changes might be made to that rulebook? Moreover, people in business will have absolutely no idea why changes are being imposed on them because there is no transcript of proceedings.

Furthermore, a problem exists in relation to the scrutiny that will take place, because the so-called provisions of the joint committee represent no more than consultation. There will be no right for us to refuse to do something—I will come to the parliamentary lock in a moment—as the reality is that consultation means no more than saying, “We will listen to what you say,” but it does not mean that anyone will act. Anyone who is foolish enough to believe the European Union, given its background, its bullying tactics and the way in which it has operated over the past months and even before, needs to realise that the decisions will be taken by the other member states and that we will effectively have no real control over them whatsoever. That is a really serious problem.

[John Redwood]

Is not it also the case that, far from ending business uncertainty, the Chequers proposals create another 21 months of perpetual renegotiation, thereby maximising uncertainty?

[Sir William Cash]

That is completely true. I am very concerned about the suggestion that the Chequers proposals somehow or other end up creating more certainty—it is just not the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The British people voted, by a large majority of over 1.25 million votes, to leave the European Union. We had all been told, by means of leaflets sent to our homes by the then Government, that this was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to vote on this—not a series of votes until people got the answer they liked—and that we, the people, would make the decision. It was a very clear issue. The leave voters I met, and I met a good number of leave voters, took it very seriously. They understood the arguments, they considered them and they meant their vote. I do find it most curious that some Members of Parliament are still saying that it was not clear that we voted to leave the single market and the customs union. One of the very few things that the two official campaigns agreed on was that point. Remain said that we would obviously have to leave the single market and customs union—remainers regarded it as a kind of threat—and leave said that we would want to leave the single market and customs union, as well as having to, because we saw it as an opportunity. So there was happy agreement and everybody voted accordingly.

I was a very strong supporter of this Government because they were elected, in the recent general election, on a ticket of getting on with implementing Brexit. That was pretty popular around the country. The Conservatives got a much higher percentage of the popular vote than in all the previous elections since Margaret Thatcher. We did not get as many seats as we would have liked because there were interesting surges in the popularity of the Labour party, which also fought the election on getting on with implementing Brexit. The bit of the Labour manifesto I most enjoyed was the rather long piece in it about how Labour wanted an independent trade policy. It was not in every respect the policy that I would have designed, but Labour made it crystal clear that it wanted a completely independent trade policy and that would of course be totally incompatible with staying in a single market and a customs union.

I was very happy with the Lancaster House speech, which I thought was beautifully crafted. It set out exactly the vision that most leave voters and many moderate remain voters who accepted the democratic verdict of the people could buy into.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The right hon. Gentleman said that he appreciated the Lancaster House speech and that everybody who voted to leave did, too, but how does he know that?

[John Redwood]

From conversations, watching opinion polls and listening to the national conversation. I do not know about the hon. Lady, but I take my politics seriously and I regard it as my job to listen, to read, to understand and to consult colleagues. I find that coming into the Chamber is quite a good way of judging the mood because sometimes Members of Parliament, even those on the Labour Benches, know the mood in their constituencies.

[Sir William Cash]

Will my right hon. Friend remind the hon. Lady and the House that a pamphlet was put out by the Government during the referendum campaign that explicitly said, “This decision will be yours”? There was no question of its being decided by Members of Parliament. We operate by a system of parliamentary government, not government by Parliament.

[John Redwood]

Indeed, but let us press on.

My worry is about the Chequers proposal—and it is only a proposal; it is not a deal or an agreement—which was set out in the future relationship White Paper, and the consequent White Paper about how such an agreement, were one to arise, would be handled and implemented by this Parliament. My worry, and I think it is the worry of many leave voters and some remain voters, is that, having voted to get rid of treaty law—to dismiss the European Union treaty because we had not enjoyed living under its tentacles—the Government now suggest we need another two European treaties to replace the one that we are getting rid of. We are mightily suspicious of treaty law. Why are we so suspicious of it? Because the original treaty, the treaty of Rome, masqueraded as a free trade agreement, which is how it was sold to the British people in the long-distant 1975 referendum, but by accretion and development, over which the British people had no control, it changed—through Nice, Amsterdam, Maastricht and Lisbon—into a massive panoply of laws and controls and completely changed our constitutional structure, without the people ever having a proper vote on that process until the most recent referendum.

We know from our experience here that this became what I call a puppet Parliament. In dozens and dozens of crucial areas where we might like to legislate, we had no power to legislate independently of the European Union whatsoever. In all those massive areas—not just trade and business, but the environment, social policy, employment policy and even foreign affairs—we had to legislate in the way the European Union laid down. Quite often, many Members of Parliament and many members of the public disagreed with that way. Quite often, it was an area where the Government had either lost a vote or did not bother to hold one because they knew they were going to lose as they were in disagreement with other member states. It was that above all else that the British public rejected in the historic vote in 2016. They said to Members of Parliament, “Collectively, you often make a mess, we don’t always approve of you and we are very critical of you, but you are our MPs” and the joy the public have is that they can fire us if we really annoy them or we get it wrong, whereas the European Union often strongly annoys them and gets it wrong and there is absolutely no one they can, directly or indirectly, have fired because it is a system that the UK cannot control and has to receive. We are, therefore, very suspicious of the idea of more treaty law.

One of the things that makes this debate very difficult for a neutral observer to come to a sensible view on is the abuse of language and the scare stories that seem to characterise most of what passes for debate on these important issues. I do not for one moment believe that there is a cliff edge and I do not for one moment believe that we would leave the European Union with no agreements. There will be lots of agreements. We have always had lots of agreements: there are lots of business-to-business agreements, business-to-individuals agreements, business-to-Government agreements and even Government-to-Government agreements. Once we have left the European Union properly, I am sure that there will be a lot of diplomacy, discussion and joint action, but we want it to be bilateral and based on the merits of the case as we proceed each time. We do not wish it to be multilateral through the EU, where the EU has special legal powers that mean that it has duress over us or can prevent us from having a weighted dialogue with the EU and reaching an agreement if we wish and not if we do not.

The structure of what the Government are now proposing is quite alarming. The EU withdrawal agreement would take the form of an international treaty, which would of course need full ratification by Parliament in the way that has been laid out. However, if it was agreed with the EU and then subsequently ratified by this Parliament, we would be back in the position where European law had more significance and for the whole of the transition period we would of course be completely back under the control of the European Union. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has pointed out, we would be even more vulnerable than we are today because the EU could legislate in our absence. At least we can see them annoying us at the moment around the same table, whereas we would be in the position where they could simply do it without consulting us or taking into account our views.

Therefore, that is not a good idea, but even worse is the proposed legal form of the so-called future partnership agreement. The UK Government call it a partnership agreement, but I think what the EU proposes, and would call it, is an EU association agreement. Such agreements are normally very comprehensive, and we can see exactly what they look like when we read the one for Turkey or for Ukraine. They have been designed by the EU to lock in countries that would like to become members but are not yet fully compliant with all its legal requirements, standards and so forth. They are used to drag those countries gradually into compliance—usually willingly, because they want to join.

We want something completely different. We want agreements on how to proceed in various areas, but we are going in the other direction. We do not want an agreement that drags us into closer compliance; we want the freedom and flexibility to have our own trade policy, our own fishing policy and our own business policy as time evolves. I am very worried that an association agreement model, rather than allowing that, would reintroduce the powers of the European Court, over which we will obviously have no control, and we would again be under strict control in a number of wide-ranging areas from which the British people wish us to liberate themselves.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

In the right hon. Gentleman’s vision of the future, how does he see the nature of the devolved Governments here? There was clearly a very different relationship before we went into the EU. What influence does he see them having on the trade deals that the Government seek?

[John Redwood]

In the model that I am describing, we would get much more power back and we would keep it, and that would then be shared with the devolved Administrations, so they too would be winners. That settlement will be sorted out in the usual democratic way in a unitary country that has recently had a very important democratic event. The Scottish people decided by a decent margin in a referendum that they wished to stay in the United Kingdom, so their way of influencing the trade deals will be through this Parliament. Had they chosen to leave the United Kingdom, they would be having their own trade deals—or more likely they would be having the EU’s trade deals, because the Scottish National party does not seem to want an independent Scotland; they want a Scotland that is dependent on the EU, rather than a very important partner in the United Kingdom enterprise.

My other worry about the two prospective treaties that the Government are mulling over is conditionality. The Government have told us that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and I fully approve of that. They also seem to understand that, unless they are prepared to say to the European Union, “We will leave without signing the withdrawal agreement,” they have no negotiating position. We now know that the Government are quickly preparing to be able to leave without signing a withdrawal agreement. I think that that would be a very attractive option for many leave voters because the withdrawal agreement itself is mainly about the United Kingdom paying an extremely large bill. The Government are saying, “Yes, but you need to look at the whole package. You need to see what is in the future partnership”—the association agreement treaty to come, because they think that might persuade Parliament and people to accept the rather unpalatable withdrawal proposal. The Government’s problem, as we have just heard from the Opposition, is that there will not be a majority in this House to put through the current kind of withdrawal proposals the Government have without a very clear, bold and good-looking association agreement/future partnership and we might be looking only at rather vague heads of terms. I suggest that the Government need to introduce rather stronger conditionality than they have done so far in their negotiations. They need to make it crystal clear that there is no £39 billion unless something really impressive is available.

I do not know about the Government—I sometimes worry about how they might go shopping—but when I go shopping I do not go into a shop, put £39 down on the counter and say, very politely, “By the way, I have £39 there for you, which I thought you might like. Do you have something that I might like so that I do not leave the shop as a loser?” It seems to me that that is what the Government did. They put down £39 billion—they have rather more money than I have, lucky them; some of it is money that they took from me, actually—on the counter and said, “By the way, EU, we have these dreadful Eurosceptics back home who want value for money, so it would be quite nice if you could offer us something that might be suitable for us.”

When I look at what the EU has in its shop, I am afraid, oh Government, that I do not see anything that I would pay £39 billion for. Yes, I would like a free trade deal, which I think would be a perfectly good answer in the current situation, but I do not remember Canada paying anything for its free trade deal. A Canada deal would be just fine, with a few extra knobs and whistles—we start from complete compliance with the EU, so it will be easy to have a few extra knobs and whistles—but I do not think that is the kind of thing I would pay £39 billion for. Indeed, the tariff saving would be a small fraction of £39 billion, so it would not make a lot of sense financially. The Government, therefore, have a bit of work to do to persuade friendly, reasonable people like me that the two treaties they have in mind represent a good deal for the British people.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the divorce payment. Is he making the case that Nigel Farage should be deprived of his pension pot?

[John Redwood]

I am not suggesting that at all. That gentleman’s pension pot is a liability of the European Union. They entered into it, so I think it is something that they need to sort out. I do not think that the European Union should be the kind of body that stops people getting their pensions. I do not remember when we joined the European Union being given a big pot of money to reflect all the liabilities we inherited, so it is a bit difficult to understand why the reverse has to happen when we leave and we have to pay for the others. We simply were not given a whole load of money at the beginning to reflect the fact that we were going to have to pick up some of the pensions of civil servants who had been working in the EU before we arrived.

[Peter Grant]

It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that we went into the European Union on the basis of a referendum in which people did not understand the question but we are not allowed to use that argument now. Is it not the case that when new members join the European Union, they become liable for liabilities that occur only after they join? In the same way, if any member is daft enough to leave, they are liable only for those liabilities that occurred before they left.

[John Redwood]

No, I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. I think that he will find that we were responsible for the existing pension liabilities jointly and severally with the other members. We cannot really complain about that; we were joining the club, so we had to help pay the club bills. When we leave the club, the remaining members pay the bills—it is a fairly straightforward operation.

[Dr Whitford]

I would have thought that when someone leaves the bar in the golf club, they pay their tab before they go. That is what the £39 billion is; it is not shopping for a trade deal. If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that no deal is better, so as not to pay the £39 billion, I would be interested to hear what he thinks will happen to the EU citizens who have settled here and to British citizens who have settled in Europe, because they are also part of the withdrawal agreement.

[John Redwood]

I have always said that someone should pay for the drinks they have just ordered in the bar while still a club member, and once they have ceased to be a club member they cannot order drinks anyway, so there is no problem. I do not think that the hon. Lady has really got that one. As for EU citizens, I am very keen that we reinforce the Prime Minister’s assurances. I have always thought that if we do the right thing by its citizens, it will end up doing the right thing by ours. It is very important that we do not forget that our citizens have rights and need support as well, but I do not believe that the EU is as nasty as some remain voters seem to believe. I do not believe that this group of democratic nations would start evicting people from their countries after they had settled there legally under its rules. I hope that the hon. Lady is not suggesting that. If she is, why does she wish to belong to the kind of organisation that throws people out when they are legally entitled to be there?

[Dr Whitford]

It was the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues sitting on the same Benches who talked about EU citizens as bargaining chips and playing cards. One of them stated in the newspapers only recently that EU citizens would not be allowed to stay—someone not very far away from him at all.

[John Redwood]

I suggest that the hon. Lady addresses those remarks to whoever she thinks said that, but I did not.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I was asked a different question, which was about the rights of EU migrants who come after we have left. I have always thought that those who are here before we leave should maintain full rights.

[John Redwood]

Indeed. I would not have expected anything else. I think that it is always better if people speak for themselves.

I am very worried by this drift. I am also worried by this whole so-called implementation period or transitional period. It is clearly not an implementation period, because there is nothing to implement as of today. Even if there is a moderately detailed political agreement, it will not be something we can go off and implement. I have become very nervous about the idea that we need another 21 months of uncertainty. I have heard a lot from remain about the dangers of uncertainty. I can see that going on for too long with arguments about our future is not terribly helpful. I think 33 months is probably quite long enough to have a good old argument and see whether we can get a decent set of agreements from the EU or not. I remain to be persuaded that there is something our talented Ministers can achieve in negotiations on 1 April next year, to pluck a date out of the air with no particular significance about it being April fools’ day. What is it that could be agreed on April fools’ day next year that could not be agreed now or in December? We still have seven negotiating months left. We have already had two years or more of negotiations. I would say that that was a fair enough test. I would also take the view that if there is not something at the end of 33 months that we like, then we should just say, “Fine, it is not to be. We will go off and do bilaterals on a regular basis on the things that are of mutual interest.” I suspect we would get along just fine.

That is, of course, how the 160 other countries around the world get on with the EU. They do not have a special trade arrangement. They are certainly not bound by EU treaties in most cases. There are those who are terribly worried about the fate of the trade deals the EU has with 60-odd countries. I can reassure them that I still have not heard a single one of those countries say they wish to lose that trade deal with the UK. Of course, in law it novates to both the UK and the rest of the EU, but it needs to be agreed with the other party to the agreement. I do not know of any country that does not want to allow us to novate. Of course, some say we could improve it and make it better—why not? It is a good idea to have a look at it, but until I am told of a country that has actually ruled out taking on one of these trade deals I think they are there for us to continue to enjoy.

What is more important is that if we got on and left, we could sign trade deals and implement them from April next year. There are a number of countries friendly to us who would like early trade deals. There are off-the-shelf trade deals that they might be interested in developing, which they have developed with others, that would get us off to a good start. I do not like the provision in the White Paper—I think perhaps the Minister did not quite grasp it—that says, as I understand it, for the 21 months they are proposing for transition we are not allowed to implement a trade deal with anybody else. I think we could discuss them and get them ready for signing—that kind of thing—but they could be brought into effect. I think it would be rather nice to get on with it and bring things into effect.

There are plenty of other things I would like to talk about, but there are many others who would like to join in. Let me sum up by saying that my worry about the EU withdrawal proposal is that I do not think Parliament will be very willing to put the legislation through without great clarity, as Labour has said, on the so-called partnership—the association agreement. For myself, I am going to need a lot of persuading, because I think the money is far too great and the transition delay, so-called, is far too long. I am also extremely concerned that we will give up one EU treaty only to sign up to another two, which look to me as if they will have many of the problems that we had from the original.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

No, that is not quite true. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant)—a great seat for which I once stood, in 1997, although not with enormous success—says that, but Scotland did not do that. Scotland became part of a greater whole, and how many Scottish Prime Ministers have we had who have led this country with great distinction? We became one, rather than simply farming out legislation to somebody else.

What is the Government’s best answer? It is that the EU is so slow—so slothful and sluggish—that in a period of 21 months, it could not institute any new laws and therefore we should not worry our little heads about it. This is a really unsatisfactory answer. It is not impossible for the EU to move swiftly, and it has done so the past. This is a golden opportunity for the EU to legislate in a way that we do not like, and we will have no say at all. I go back to the solution I have suggested for the courts: no new law without a vote in Parliament—and not a scrutiny vote. Although it is a very important Committee, the European Scrutiny Committee has never been able to stop any directive or regulation from coming in, and regulations have direct effect without any vote or scrutiny in Parliament anyway. There needs to be a vote as if for a statutory instrument. It is an abnegation of democracy to allow our law to be changed in this way, and this is a part of the White Paper that must be rejected.

[John Redwood]

Would it not be much easier if we did not have the so-called transition period and just got on with it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

That is very tempting—I would be delighted to talk about that proposition—but the title of our debate is “Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement”, so I feel I have to stick to those terms because otherwise Mr Deputy Speaker, who I understand has had a very nice holiday in France, showing our continental cousins that we still send them our finest and best—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

The right hon. Gentleman raised lots of questions, many of which have been answered previously. I refer him to the answer that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) gave when he said he could not envisage motions of the House that would not be amendable. Of course we will have parliamentary scrutiny and debate, but the House has repeatedly voted against the concept of a second referendum, which the right hon. Gentleman supports, and will, I suspect, continue to do so.

As has been pointed out, there have been some unusual agreements between the Opposition Front Bench and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), for instance, on some aspects of the debate. There has been wide-ranging discussion about the future partnership, the Chequers agreement and so forth, but the debate has focused on legislation for the withdrawal agreement and, indeed, on the White Paper.

I particularly enjoyed the powerful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), who—as her constituents, my near neighbours, often tell me—is always a breath of fresh air. We also heard some thoughtful comments from the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill), who gave some of the reasons why his constituents had voted Leave and why he did not believe that a second referendum was appropriate. I share the passion felt by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) about our precious Union, and his confidence in the success of this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) spoke a great deal of sense, as she always does.

The withdrawal agreement Bill is a vital step in the delivery of the outcome of the referendum. Its purpose is simple and straightforward: to give effect to the agreement that we will have reached with the EU, an agreement that we fully intend to reach in the coming weeks—and it is interesting to note that, during our debate, there have been confident predictions from Michel Barnier that an agreement can indeed be reached within that period.

The Bill will be introduced only once the vote on the final deal has been held. It will therefore be the means by which Parliament’s decision—and, more important, the decision of the British people to leave the EU—is delivered in our law. As we heard from the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), Royal Assent will have to take place before exit day if the withdrawal agreement is to have domestic legal effect. It is precisely because the window of passage is constrained that we published the White Paper in July.

I found it slightly extraordinary that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) simultaneously criticised us for publishing a White Paper on legislation that was not yet complete, and called for more pre-legislative scrutiny. The whole purpose of the White Paper—and, indeed, of the debate—is to ensure that Parliament can have its say. We wanted to maximise Parliament’s ability to express its views on the Bill, including before its introduction, and I welcome the wide range of passionately held views that we have heard today.

There are some key themes on which I want to reflect, and the first is that of parliamentary scrutiny. We recognise that parliamentary scrutiny has a vital role to play in the exit process. Having heard from the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone—sadly, he is no longer in the Chamber —and a number of other long-standing members of his Committee, I can say it is important that we are discussing a White Paper that Parliament has had time to consider before legislation is published. It follows more than 250 hours of parliamentary debate on the Bill that became the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, to which the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) referred, 110 ministerial statements to both Houses of Parliament, and more than 40 appearances before Select Committees by Ministers in my Department since July 2016.

Members on both sides of the House have rightly highlighted the importance of providing certainty for not only EU citizens in the UK, but UK nationals in the EU. The parts of the agreement that have already been agreed will safeguard the rights of those individuals and their families. The withdrawal agreement Bill will be the primary means by which the rights of EU citizens will be underpinned in the UK. It will give certainty to EU citizens living here on rights of residency, and on access to healthcare, pensions and other benefits. That means that EU citizens will continue to be able to lead their lives broadly as they do today. Let me reiterate our message, and the message that the Prime Minister has sent to EU citizens:

“we want you to stay; we value you; and we thank you for your contribution”

to our country. That was echoed by my hon. Friends the Members for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and for Redditch.

The Bill will ensure that EU citizens can rely on the rights set out in the withdrawal agreement, and can enforce them in UK courts. It will also establish an independent monitoring authority to oversee the UK’s implementation of the citizens’ rights deal, providing further reassurance for citizens that their rights will be protected.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) asked about the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. We have reached agreement on a number of areas. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that regarding the citizens’ rights agreement, articles paragraphs (1) and (2) of article 27 of the withdrawal agreement provide for ongoing administrative co-operation in respect of MRPQ. We will return to that issue in our ongoing conversations about the future relationship.

I also listened carefully to the points made—with appropriate passion, I think—by the hon. Members for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) and for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) on Northern Ireland. We have been clear from the start of this process that we will deliver on all our commitments in that regard—not only on the reciprocal rights of British and Irish citizens, the common travel area and the absence of a hard border, but those other areas of north-south co-operation to which the hon. Gentleman referred. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has confirmed in this House, we expect the withdrawal agreement Bill to implement our commitments on Northern Ireland, including the backstop. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) referred to, and quoted from, the joint report. We stand by all our commitments in that report. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, I echo the hon. Gentleman’s comments about and good will towards the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). All Members send her our good wishes and condolences.

The status of EU citizens in this country in the event of no deal was raised a number of times, although it is not really the topic of the debate. Providing certainty for citizens has been a priority for both parties to the negotiations. We do not want or expect a no-deal outcome, but should we be unable to reach a full agreement with the EU, the Secretary of State has made it clear that the prospect of us not moving swiftly to secure their legal position or having people removed from this country is far-fetched and fanciful—it simply would not happen. As we have heard, these individuals make valuable contributions to our communities and our economy, and we would not want to lose them. That sentiment was echoed by those of all viewpoints in the referendum debate.

I am pleased to observe a degree of support across the House, especially from my hon. Friends the Members for Gordon (Colin Clark), for Chelmsford and for Redditch, for the implementation period. Colleagues clearly recognise the need to provide citizens and businesses with certainty as we leave the EU. They should have to prepare for only one set of changes—I hear that day in, day out from businesses. It is notable that when the agreement on the implementation period was reached in March, the CBI said it would help to protect living standards, jobs and growth. The Federation of Small Businesses said it would help protect small businesses from a damaging cliff edge and the Scotch Whisky Association said it would provide welcome reassurance.

I want to provide clarity on several points about the implementation period. First, it is strictly time-limited. That is the case owing to necessity—if it were not time-limited, it would be not a transitional period, but a permanent relationship. That time-limited nature will be reflected in the Bill, with the relevant provisions sunsetted so that they expire at the end of December 2020. Some queries were raised about the domestic legal basis for the implementation period. Let me assure the House that the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, a vital piece of legislation, will continue to play the role that Parliament intended. The amendments made to that Act by the withdrawal agreement Bill will be technical. They will simply defer some parts of the Act, such as the domestication of EU law into retained EU law, so that they take effect at the end of the implementation period rather than on 29 March, when we leave the EU. That will ensure that the Act can operate in the correct context and that Parliament’s time in scrutinising legislation has been well spent.

This means that the European Communities Act will still be repealed in March 2019. However, it will be necessary to ensure that EU law continues to apply in the UK during the implementation period as it does now. That was what we agreed in the discussion on the implementation period. That will be achieved by way of a transitional provision whereby the Bill will amend the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 so that the effect of the European Communities Act is saved for a time-limited implementation period. Exit day as defined by that Act will remain as 29 March 2019. This approach will provide legal certainty to businesses.

I listened carefully to the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset about a different approach on legislation during the implementation period, but the agreed terms for that period require us to keep pace with changes to EU law, the majority of which will already have been initiated and subjected to scrutiny. That will be an essential component of maintaining terms of trade on the same basis.

I want to reassure the House that, as the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham, said, the UK will be able to strike new trade deals with partners around the world during this period. I look forward to seeing these opportunities unfold. We will be able to negotiate and sign such trade deals during that period, to come into force immediately afterwards.

We have had a lively debate on the financial settlement, with analogies made to shopping, to bars and to golf clubs. The negotiated financial settlement will clearly continue to be of great importance to Members, and they are absolutely right to raise it and to want to scrutinise it. I emphasise that the withdrawal agreement covers the UK’s financial commitments to the EU and the EU’s financial commitments to the UK. It provides certainty to current recipients of EU funding, including farmers, businesses and academics, with the UK continuing to receive payments due under the current EU budget plan. We are a country that honours our obligations, but let me be clear that if one side fails to live up to its commitments, there will be consequences for the deal as a whole, and that includes the financial settlement. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset pointed out, nothing is agreed in these negotiations until everything is agreed, and I can assure him that this country will always say no to wasting taxpayers’ money.

I emphasise that both sides are committed to agreeing the framework for the future relationship alongside the withdrawal agreement. It is our firm view that the withdrawal agreement itself must include a commitment requiring the framework for the future relationship to be translated into text as soon as possible. The Government will pay careful attention to the points that have been made during this debate on the scrutiny of the financial settlement.

A number of hon. Members mentioned devolution and the withdrawal agreement Bill. I want to reiterate, and to state firmly, that we are committed to working with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the Bill works for all parts of the UK. I am pleased with the engagement that has taken place with them to date—through, for instance, the ministerial forum. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said, such engagement has happened at ministerial and official level. It has been positive and constructive, and I know that at one of the most recent meetings of the forum, the devolved Administrations were able to welcome the fact that they had been given advance notice of the White Paper and that information had been shared with them.

[John Redwood]

Before the Minister finishes talking about the money, will he tell us a bit more about how conditionality will be defined and enforced?

[Mr Walker]

I have already touched on that point in my comments. Clearly we need the framework for the future relationship alongside the withdrawal agreement. When Parliament votes—both on the meaningful vote and on the withdrawal agreement Bill—it will want to see that we are getting value for money. That is something that our negotiating counterparts are clearly aware of, and I refer my right hon. Friend to the comments that I made earlier.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford noted, today is Gibraltar day, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in extending our warmest wishes to the people of Gibraltar. The Bill does not cover Gibraltar, because it is responsible for passing its own EU exit legislation, but the UK Government are committed to fully involving Gibraltar as we leave the EU together, to ensure that its priorities are understood. The primary forum is the Joint Ministerial Committee (GEN)—Gibraltar European Union negotiations—which I chair, and I want to reassure the people of Gibraltar that we will never enter into arrangements under which they would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes, or enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar was not content. As the Prime Minister has said, we joined the EU together and we are leaving together, and from next year we step forward into a new chapter of our history together.

I reiterate my thanks to all Members who have spoken in the debate. This legislation is vital to our smooth and orderly exit from the EU. It will protect the rights of EU citizens in this country, pay the negotiated financial settlement and give effect to the implementation period. The White Paper provides further clarity and certainty to people and businesses about how we will implement the final agreement we reach with the EU in UK law. I welcome the views that we have heard from both sides of the House and I look forward to continuing to work with Parliament in preparing for our withdrawal. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling put it so well when he said that people want to see us deliver a successful Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom, and that is what the White Paper and the Government are focused on delivering.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered legislating for the withdrawal agreement.