Brexit Negotiations and No Deal Contingency Planning

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his reply and some of the constructive tone in it. On timing, both I and Michel Barnier repeated on Friday that we were aiming for the October Council but recognised that there would be some margin of leeway, as is often the case with negotiations.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has asked me at various points to comment on the newspaper commentary throughout the summer. Actually, I have been focused on the negotiation and getting the best deal for Britain.

On the negotiations themselves, may I just reassure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that progress is real on data sharing, criminal justice co-operation, passenger name record and Prüm data, and continuing fast-track extradition co-operation, which Michel Barnier and I talked about on Friday? Those are the areas one might think a former Director of Public Prosecutions would attach serious weight to, but there was not one mention of them at all.

On the outstanding separation issues, including data protection and cases going through administrative and judicial procedures when we leave, I would have thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman might at least have paused to welcome some of the progress in those areas.

That is what the Government have been doing over the summer: making progress towards a deal that is within our sights. As for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, well, last week he said that Labour’s position is that a second referendum is “on the table”. I have to say that it is rare that I agree with the shadow Trade Secretary, who said that a second referendum would be “damaging” to the foundations of this country, but I think, in democratic terms, he is right about that.

I am afraid that that shows how frankly useless the Labour party would be, if it were ever in charge of Government, in terms of standing up for the United Kingdom in these negotiations. Nothing could be calibrated to weaken the UK’s negotiating position more than dangling the prospect of a second referendum, which would only invite the very worst terms.

On the technical notices, we are doing the responsible thing that any responsible Government would need to do: striving for the very best deal but preparing for all outcomes. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has not actually asked me a single question of substance about any one of the 25 notices that we have published.

In relation to Northern Ireland, he clearly has not read the technical notices, because they were referred to at various points where they are applicable and relevant to the individual sectoral notices. Again, I am afraid that the Labour party is demonstrating that it is not fit to govern. We have the leader of the Labour party admitting in an interview on LBC that he would accept any deal, however bad its terms, and the shadow Chancellor explaining that he would not set aside any money to deal with the worst-case scenario of a no deal Brexit. Yet again, I am afraid that the Labour party has shown that it would roll over in Brussels and fail to stand up for this country.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the UK has absolutely no plans to impose new barriers and bureaucratic complications against German pharmaceuticals, French food and other such products in the event of us leaving and trading under World Trade Organisation terms?

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend will know from the technical notices that we would prioritise continuity and stability, to make sure that in some of those areas he has raised we could continue to receive those goods and supplies into the UK.

Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman is being far too kind, but I appreciate it. I have already met business leaders, from the Federation of Small Businesses to the CBI. The devil will of course be in the detail as we negotiate, but we have received a positive and constructive response. I will be meeting more business leaders on Friday, so perhaps next week I can fill him in further. I think it is widely understood that we have a principled but pragmatic and flexible approach that will preserve frictionless trade. The key advantage of the model we have is that it protects the UK-EU supply and value chains, and the businesses he refers to that rely on them. As well as supporting business, the approach would meet our shared commitments to Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that respects the autonomy of the EU without harming the UK’s constitutional and economic integrity.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a very large number of components and materials come into this country from non-EU sources every day and fuel just-in-time systems alongside things from within the EU, proving that there is not a border issue about running just-in-time without being within the EU ring fence?

[Dominic Raab]

I understand the point my right hon. Friend makes. What we are trying to do, and what I think this model does achieve, is to make sure that any potential disruption to businesses through the supply chains is minimised to the lowest degree. That is the aim, but I do understand the point he makes.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. It seems like the definition of an enemy of the people is not based on where they take the decisions but on whether the decision finds favour or disfavour with Her Majesty’s Government. That is not democracy, Mr Speaker. We are heading to dictatorship if someone’s integrity or patriotism is judged on whether or not they agree with the minority of people who sit on the Government Front Bench.

As I have said, and I shall come back to this later, I am not a fan of the House of Lords. I do not think that it is a democratic institution, but it is not the real threat to our democracy. The real threat to such democracy as we have in these islands does not come from people who disagree with what I say or with what the Government say but from those who use terms such as “traitor” or “enemy” to denounce anybody who holds or expresses a view that differs from their own.

This weekend, we will mark the second anniversary of the murder of one of our colleagues. Possibly the last words she heard in this life were “death to traitors”. Surely, in the name of God, we should know that, when we allow the language of hatred to become normalised, the actions of hatred will follow. Today, someone has pleaded guilty to planning to murder another of our colleagues. I say to colleagues on all sides that we can disagree passionately and fervently with each other, but please get the language of violence out of the vocabulary of this debate and of all debates, not just in the few days before we remember Jo’s sacrifice but every day thereafter, so that Jo and others did not die in vain.

As I have mentioned, the SNP are not fans of the House of Lords, but when the House of Lords has passed amendments to turn a bad Bill into a slightly less bad Bill, we will seek to retain those amendments. Let us be clear that, even with those amendments, this is still a bad thing. It will be damaging to all our interests, but if we can make it the least bad thing that we possibly can, we will have achieved something.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the SNP’s official position is that we should stop Brexit outright?

[Peter Grant]

I am not quite sure how to break this to the right hon. Gentleman, but nothing would please me more than to allow his country to implement the decision that its citizens have taken and for my country to be given the right to implement the decision that the people of my country took.

We support the removal from the Bill of a purely arbitrary and symbolic exit day; it does nothing to improve our chances of getting a less damaging deal and makes the prospect of a cliff-edge no deal more likely. It was agreed to only because the Prime Minister was too weak at the time to stand up to the hard-line minority in her own party, who are a vanishingly small minority across the House of Commons as a whole. Recently, the ubiquitous “sources close to the Prime Minister” have been working very hard to spin the line that she is now prepared to face down some of the extremists in her party. May I suggest that she would make a good start by facing them down by supporting the removal of an unnecessary exit day from the Bill and supporting that Lords amendment?

On the amendments to change “necessary” back to “what the Minister deems appropriate,” I am flummoxed by the idea that it needs to be put into legislation that a Minister only does things that they think are appropriate. Do the Government seriously think that their own Ministers will do things that they think are inappropriate? I know that they do things that I think are inappropriate all the time, but imagine having legally to prohibit them from doing things that they thought were stupid, rather than trying to stop them from doing things that everybody else thinks are stupid.

The Secretary of State, who obviously has much more important things to do than staying to listen to the defence of his legislation, told us twice that “necessary” is not a synonym for logical, sensible or proper. The trouble is that the entire Bill is written on the assumption that Her Majesty’s Government are a synonym for logical, sensible or proper, and, indeed, that the whim of a Minister is a synonym for logical, sensible or proper.

The Government do not have a monopoly on logic, good sense or propriety. A Government who lost their overall majority in this place at the demand of the people of these islands should surely have the humility to accept that sometimes, just sometimes, when the ermine-coated lords along the corridor disagree with them, they have got it right and the Government have got it wrong.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) that we should use the language of respect. I, for one—and many of my colleagues, I am sure—would never use words such as “traitor”. We all accept that there are very different views in this place, but this is not the EU negotiating Bill. It is not a Bill designed from its inception to give the Government guidance about what sort of deal we should have. I thought—this has been explained to us many times by the Government—that this Bill was simply to try to transform and transfer, in an orderly way, EU laws into our legal system. That was what I understood the Bill to be; it is not an EU negotiating Bill.

I said earlier that we should use the language of respect. I know that it is not in order to call any Member “disingenuous”, but I think that it is in order to call an argument disingenuous, and I do so now. I respect the House of Lords. I understand that it is not elected. I understand that it should try to improve legislation. I serve on the Procedure Committee, and when the Committee considered these matters, there was a detailed debate on the sifting committee and I could understand how the House of Lords can try to improve how we deal with legislation. That seems entirely sensible and credible, but many of us suspect that these amendments, particularly Lords amendment 19, are designed not to improve the legislation or to improve the sifting process by which we transfer these laws, but to frustrate the whole process.

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend will remember that we had many hours of debate and decisive votes before we sent the article 50 letter. That was the point when Parliament made up its mind to back the referendum. We cannot keep chopping and changing.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with that. As I was saying, although it is perfectly in order for the other place to try to improve legislation, when it seeks to frustrate it, I think that Members of the elected House should start to get worried. Lords amendment 19 is very clear in saying:

“Her Majesty’s Government may implement a withdrawal agreement only if Parliament has approved the withdrawal agreement and any transitional measures…Her Majesty’s Government must follow any direction in relation to the negotiations under Article 50”

and so on. What would be the result of that amendment? I say to colleagues that we are not just acting in a vacuum. What would be the result if we fail to overturn this amendment from the other place?

Government’s EU Exit Analysis

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I will give way to the hon. and learned Lady after I have given way to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire).

Yesterday, a number of Members of this House spoke eloquently about the challenges of modelling uncertain outcomes over an extended period. The analysis presented by many organisations prior to the referendum is a clear example of those challenges. To date, we have seen outcomes that are quite different from some of those that were set out.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I find this conspiracy theory so absurd. The Treasury published very clear and totally wrong short-term forecasts for the referendum debate, and it published very clear and, I think, equally wrong long-term forecasts before the referendum debate, so that the whole nation could engage with these wrong forecasts. The latest lot of leaks looks very much like the wrong long-term forecasts that the Treasury previously published. I look forward to the Minister getting some more common sense into the thing, because there is absolutely no reason at all to suppose that leaving the EU will cause any hit to the long-term growth rate of the UK.

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend makes his point well. I think that the point on which we would all agree is that there have to be caveats to any form of modelling. As Members will see when they look at the analysis, it sets out the caveats very clearly.

Leaving the EU: Implementation

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I agree with one thing that the hon. Gentleman said: there is a majority in this House that wants a sensible approach to Brexit. We saw that with the passage through this House of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, despite the votes of Labour Front Benchers, who voted against a stable and sensible approach with continuity and certainty as we take this process forward.

Of course we need to make sure that we deliver stability and continuity for our businesses, which was why the Government set out from the start, in the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech, the approach of having an implementation period. I am happy to update the House on the beginning of talks on that implementation period today, but we will take no lectures from the Opposition’s Front-Bench team, who have a different position on these issues every day of the week.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that the Government are making good progress on the failsafe option of leaving under World Trade Organisation terms, in case there is not a good agreement on offer? Does he also agree that we are more likely to get a better offer from the EU if it realises that we have the perfectly good option of just leaving?

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend is right to say that the Government have to prepare for all eventualities, and I am working closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) to ensure that we do just that. However, I am also very clear, as is the Government’s policy, that it is in the interests of the UK and the EU that we secure a partnership between us, and the implementation period is a bridge to that future.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The points I hoped to make in my speech are being put to me by others, which may have the welcome effect of shortening my contribution. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend has not given us many numbers so far, and the one he has given us is wrong. We have actually had eight days in Committee and two days on Report, and we had an extensive debate on Second Reading in which many of these larger issues were strongly reviewed. We had very detailed short-term forecasts from the Treasury of what would happen in the year or so immediately after the vote if we voted to leave. We now know they were comprehensively wrong in forecasting a recession, a big rise in unemployment and a big fall in house prices. Why were they so wrong, and what has he learned from that?

[Mr Clarke]

My defence is that I did not use any of those arguments in the campaigning I took part in during the referendum. The referendum campaign was somewhat taken over by the then Chancellor and the then Prime Minister, both friends of mine and people with whom I politically agree on Europe, and I would not have made the same choice of arguments. I thought at the time that they were spinning the short-term forecasts far too far and, with hindsight following the rather narrow result, they rather discredited the remain campaign. Surprisingly, I am rather in agreement with my right hon. Friend.

My right hon. Friend may not have been here in time to hear me begin by saying that all attempts to produce a precise forecast of any change in economic arrangements are fraught with peril. I would have preferred the referendum to have been fought on arguments about the benefits, in the opinion of those on my side, that membership of the EU has brought to this country in enabling us to develop a powerful political role in the world as one of the leading members of the EU, in helping the bloc to hold its own against America, China, India and the emerging powers and in the considerable economic success that we achieved for most of the 47 years of our membership. There is no doubt that the common market and then particularly the single market have made a considerable contribution to our prosperity.

That enables me to return to the point of my speech, which is the economic consequences and how the House might be enabled to hold the Government to account for the likely economic consequences—properly and cautiously anticipated—when they have a policy on the eventual outcome they are trying to negotiate and then, because it will inevitably change in the real world, when a deal is ultimately negotiated.

I would prefer us to continue in the single market and the customs union. The point has been made, including by me, so I will repeat it in only one sentence, but at no point in the referendum campaign did the leavers say that one of the advantages of leaving is that we will leave the single market and the customs union. Most of them never mentioned it, and the ones who were reported in the national media did not mention it. It was all about Turks coming here to take our jobs and about extra money for the health service. Both sides used equally foolish arguments, or at least the national media only chose to report the foolish arguments. The people I debated with in town halls did not use such nonsense.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

My hon. Friend takes the words out of my mouth. He has spotted that the famous paragraph 49 of the phase 1 agreement between the negotiators on the EU side and the negotiators on the UK side talks about maintaining regulatory alignment, which is a phrase that manages to span all sorts of different interpretations. The EU and Republic of Ireland side believes “full alignment” to mean full alignment and that we will essentially have the same arrangements as we have now. But when the Prime Minister returned to the House of Commons, she sort of said, “Oh, no, it is a very narrow meaning in the terms set out in particular paragraphs of the Belfast agreement.” It is amazing how words can mean one thing to one listener and another thing to an entirely different listener.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I agree that clarity is usually an admirable virtue, but if the thing the Government are trying to describe is not very clear in itself—perhaps because it is very complicated and impossible to make clear, or perhaps because it is deliberately obfuscating—what happens then? We cannot have a dishonest account of what a complex clause is doing.

[Mr Leslie]

We should not assume that those watching our proceedings, or reading them in Hansard, entirely trust the Government or Members of Parliament simply to know and understand what is happening. People outside have a right to know, and of course we expect businesses and members of the public to interpret the legislation we pass.

This is a signal moment, and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) rightly pointed out on, I think, day 2 in Committee that we are about to copy and paste a phenomenal body of legislation, which has accrued over decades, from the EU corpus of law into the British legal context. That requires us to pause for a moment to think about whether we are properly articulating to our constituents and others what exactly is happening in this process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

I think I might be a little kinder to my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench, because it seems to me that at the time the Bill came into being, the Government still thought that it was all that was required to take us out of the EU. I think that that is where its genesis and origin lie. In actual fact, one of the supreme ironies is that for all the heat that has been generated—we have carried out some proper scrutiny as well, but certainly, last Wednesday, there was a lot of heat—much of what we are doing here might well turn out in practice to be completely academic. In fairness to the Government, once they were landed with this immense problem, I am not sure that they were wrong to proceed in this way, but it just so happens that that is where we are going to end up. However, that is not a reason why we should not pay attention to the powers that the Government are seeking to take—we do have to pay attention to them.

[John Redwood]

rose—

[Mr Grieve]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend in just a second, because I do not wish to speak for very much longer.

For that reason, I do hope that a bit of focus can placed on schedule 5. I do not have any amendments tabled. I am not about to create difficulties for the Government or to divide the House on schedule 5, but I will, if I may, just ask a question as we approach Report, because I cannot believe that this will not be looked at in the House of Lords. It would be quite nice for the Christmas period to be used for quiet reflection on just how wide these powers are and whether, yet again, the Government might, on reflection, be able to circumscribe them a little bit, so that they appear to be slightly less stark in terms of the power grab that they imply. That is quite apart from the fact, to come back to my first point, that the exception in paragraph 2 giving Ministers the power not to print strikes me as very, very odd.

[John Redwood]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Henry VIII powers, as he calls them, in the Bill are much more modest than the Henry VIII powers in the European Communities Act 1972 that it replaces? This is about only transferring existing law into UK law. Where and when we wish to amend, improve or repeal, that will require a full parliamentary process, which it did not need when it came from Europe.

[Mr Grieve]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s point. Of course, I am mindful of it—it has been raised on numerous occasions during the passage of the Bill—but the system that we had to follow as a result of our EU membership implied that that law, having been agreed by the Council of Ministers and translated into directives, had direct effect in this country and was then applied, not usually through primary legislation but by means of secondary legislation, or indeed directly sometimes. I understand all that, but it does not provide a justification for taking unnecessary powers in trying to effect our departure.

As I said, there is something a bit odd about schedule 5. There must be legal certainty, so why are the Government taking for themselves a power to create legal uncertainty if they so wish? Let us be clear about this: if guidance is a matter of Executive discretion, it is a very unusual state of affairs indeed. There is guidance and guidance. There may be general guidance that Parliament might give as to how it intends retained EU law to be treated. I do not have difficulty with that. Indeed, I think that it may be something that we will have to do. As we have discussed—my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and I were in agreement about this—we think that Parliament might want to explain how it wishes this matter to be approached generally. That, if I may say, is a rather different thing from saying that Ministers can suddenly wake up one morning and decide, “I want the law to be interpreted in a different way on some specific matter, and I am going to lay a statutory instrument before Parliament that will enable me to do that.” It is a very unusual thing to do, and the Government must be in a position to justify it. It slightly troubles me that the law can be tinkered around with in this form. Obviously, Parliament can decide what it likes about changing law. Occasionally, we change laws by statutory instrument, through regulatory change, but it is not something that we should do lightly.

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[Mr Baker]

I did say that I would not answer the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot help saying that I do not remember him complimenting me when I have—occasionally—found myself in the other Lobby.

[John Redwood]

Will the Minister confirm that Parliament is going to have its way? We will have a vote on any agreement, and it will then need primary legislation—the most intense scrutiny of all—to put it through. That, surely, is a major win for those who wanted that approach. I am quite happy with that. That is what amendment 7 leaves us with. Will he confirm that there will be full parliamentary scrutiny, debate and legislation on an agreement?

[Mr Baker]

Yes, I will confirm that of course there will be full parliamentary scrutiny. One of the things that is bringing me great joy, particularly at Christmas, is the extent of parliamentary unity on this point of parliamentary sovereignty. One reason so many of us campaigned to leave the EU is that we wanted our voters to have a choice over who governed the UK in as many matters as conceivable.

I do not wish to revisit the arguments around amendment 7. I wish rather to conclude my consideration of the issue before us.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

I do not want to digress at this stage. I want to focus particularly on the powers that Ministers are taking in clause 7, if my hon. Friend will allow me to do so.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Leslie]

I cannot resist.

[John Redwood]

Ministers have assured us that if they want to change policy—if, for instance, they see a need for a new fishing policy, or a new customs and trade policy—there will be primary legislation and full parliamentary debates in both Houses. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that? We are dealing with a very narrow set of provisions, relating only to statutory instruments to deal with technical matters which, of course, the House can ultimately determine in any event.

[Mr Leslie]

It is touching that the right hon. Gentleman takes those assurances from Ministers at face value, but the Ministers may not be here for very much longer. Who knows? If we are going to make policy changes, that should be done in a Bill that comes before Parliament, or in a statutory instrument subject to affirmative resolution.

I now invite Members to pick up their copies of the Bill, because I want to deal with a couple of provisions in clause 7 which I think contradict the understanding of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) of the scope of the order-making powers that are being taken. It is, in fact, fairly wide. Clause 7(4) states:

“Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament.”

In other words, a provision in a statutory instrument could have the same effect as one in primary legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman is a doughty defender of his party interest and of the House of Commons. On this occasion, if such an assurance is given from the Dispatch Box and if the advice of the committee is not followed, people on both sides of the House will cause a sufficient fuss to ensure that the House does have the opportunity to debate instruments under the affirmative procedure.

[John Redwood]

Will my right hon. Friend clear up one other uncertainty created by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie)? Is it not the case that the powers that we are debating are strictly time limited to two years from the date of departure? This is not a long-term issue.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

One of the most striking moments of hyperbole was when the hon. Member for Nottingham East asserted that the situation would last for many years. He will of course know, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) points out, that the provisions are sunsetted.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. That is why strengthened scrutiny procedures for approving secondary legislation made under this Bill are so important, and it is also why long-standing conventions must be honoured, so that in the rare cases where the Committee might recommend an SI be subject to the negative procedure but the Opposition disagrees, there is a chance to bring the matter before Committee.

[John Redwood]

This debate is very important. As someone who wants this Parliament to take back control on behalf of the sovereign British people who voted in that way in the referendum, I can see that there is an irony in this debate. We hear that a number of Opposition Members are very worried that Ministers will have too much power as a result of this legislation, but by the very act of our having this debate, and in due course the votes, on how we should proceed, I think that we are demonstrating that, indeed, Parliament is taking back control. The purpose of these debates today and tomorrow and the subsequent votes will be for Parliament to set a very clear framework within which Ministers will have to operate.

We are, after all, debating how we translate a very large burden of existing European law into good United Kingdom law in order to ensure continuity and no change at the point when we exit the European Union. This is a task that unites people of all political persuasions, whether they were in favour of leave or remain, around the need for legal certainty. We all see the need to guarantee that all that good European law under which we currently live will still be there and effective after we have left.

We also agree something else: some of us do want to change some of those laws. I want to change the fishing law very substantially, because we could have a much better system for fishing in this country if we designed one for ourselves. We will probably need to amend our trade and customs laws, because as we become an advocate for and an architect of wider free trade agreements around the world, that is clearly going to necessitate changes, which we think will be positive. I think we all agree that where we want to change policy—to amend and improve—we should do so through primary legislation. As I understand it, Ministers have agreed with that. I am sure that this House is quite up to the task of guaranteeing that Ministers will indeed have to proceed in that way, so that we know that when they wish to change—amend, improve or even repeal—policy, they will need to come through the full process of asking for permission through primary legislation.

Today we are talking about the adjustments, many of which are technical, that need to be made to ensure the continuity of European law when it passes from European jurisdiction to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom Parliament and courts. Ministers will obviously play up the fact that they think most of these matters will be very technical, such as taking out the fact that the UK is a member of the European Union when we exit and rewriting the legislation to point out that we are no longer a member of the European Union, or decreasing the number of members states by one from the current number if they are referred to in the regulation. More difficult will be the substitution of a UK-based body for a European body to ensure proper enforcement. Many of us see that as largely technical, although there may be wider issues. This Parliament is now properly debating how much scrutiny that kind of thing would require.

We have three possible models to ensure parliamentary sovereignty over any of these processes. The weakest is the negative resolution procedure, whereby Ministers will have to make a proposal for technical changes to the law, and Parliament will have to object and force a vote if it wishes to. The middle model is the affirmative resolution statutory instrument, whereby Parliament will have a debate and a vote; Ministers would make a proposal and we would have a vote. In some cases, we might even conclude that we need primary legislation, as it appears we are deciding with the issue of animal welfare. In that case, we wish not only to transfer the European law but to ensure that it is better in British law, so that will need primary legislation.

Today we are debating how to determine which of those processes are appropriate for each of the different matters that arise. A lot of items will definitely be in the technical area of rather minor changes just to ensure that things work smoothly, which is what I thought the Government were trying to capture in clause 7. We have heard from Opposition Members who think that the clause goes too far and will allow the Government to elide matters from the category of technical changes to the category where there are more substantial changes going on, and still leave us with the negative resolution procedure. I am not as worried as some Opposition Members. The power under the clause is a two-year power only, so it is clearly related to the translation and transition period, which I find reassuring. There are also clear restrictions in clause 7(6) on Ministers changing taxes, inventing criminal offences and all those kinds of things, because they would obviously require primary legislation. We need to continue our debate on whether those two lists—the list of permissive powers and the list of restrictions—are the right lists.

[Chris Bryant]

I have been listening very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. He is resting on the word “technical”, which he has used repeatedly, but that is not what the Bill says. If the Government had come forward with something saying that they will only be able to use secondary legislation in technical changes, we might have been interested in looking at it. But that is not what it says; it is a widely drawn list. The right hon. Gentleman may well have perfect confidence in the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Chipping Wycombe. Sorry, he is the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker)—[Laughter.] Well, the constituency used to be Chipping Wycombe. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) might have confidence in this particular Minister, but it may one day be another Minister. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that the Leader of the Opposition is a Marxist revolutionary in a Venezuelan style. Well, he might yet be a Minister who will be making precisely these decisions, and that is why we should always legislate with caution.

[John Redwood]

I am intrigued to hear that characterisation of the hon. Gentleman’s leader; it is not a phrase that I have ever used in this House. I find that very interesting, but I do not want to take the conversation into that party political realm.

We are trying to explore the proper constraints and controls to put on Ministers through this primary legislation, which will drive our democratic processes for this transfer of law. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response because I want reassurances—of the kind I think he will be able to give me—that this power is well meant and is designed to prevent Parliament from being clogged up with literally hundreds of rather minor drafting changes. Such minor changes are simple consequences of going from being a member to being a non-member that we do not need to worry about too much, so we need somebody to do them for us. The Bill says that Ministers are going to do it for us. Various Members are a bit sceptical about that for some surprising and interesting reasons, such as that we have just heard. There is also a suggestion, which has a lot to recommend it, that there be a sifting mechanism so that Parliament is involved in the process and can say to Ministers, “We do think this matter is a bit more than technical, so we cannot have the negative resolution procedure. This has to be a proper debate and a proper vote in order to preserve parliamentary process.”

[Mary Creagh]

On that point, does the right hon. Gentleman think that the draft Animal Welfare (Sentencing and Recognition of Sentience) Bill, which was published today, is a technical measure or something that merits scrutiny on the Floor of the House—and, ditto, the new environmental body that has been proposed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?

[John Redwood]

As I understand it, that decision has been made for me. I have not yet had the advantage of reading the draft Bill, so I cannot give the hon. Lady my personal view, but the Government’s view is that it is primary legislation. They think that even though that Bill is reaffirming practices in European law, because the Government think that it is going a bit further than European law, they have quite properly said, “We must make this primary legislation.” The example makes my case rather well that the Government are being cautious because they are trying to reaffirm and go a bit further than European law, probably in a direction that most people in the House would be entirely comfortable with. But the House will have the benefit of going through the full processes of primary legislation. I hope that there will be other examples like that, where Ministers recognise that there could be changes of substance that will warrant either primary legislation or a statutory instrument.

I do not want to take up too much time because many people wish to speak, but I would like to pick up on something that the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), started to mention and which I found very interesting. He drew our attention to the way in which we handle statutory instruments in the House in general. There are occasions when it is a weakness of our procedures that we cannot amend a statutory instrument, and we need to think about this for the future. This issue does not arise just from the transfer of European law; it goes to the fundamental business of how we generally exercise control and ensure that legislation works.

I remember being on a statutory instrument Committee under the previous Labour Government for an SI to regularise a series of payments to councils because the Government had been a bit late in giving themselves the legislative permission to make the payments—there was a surprise. I realised as soon as I read it that somebody had put in the statutory instrument the full amounts of money involved, and someone else had come along and put, “£millions” across the top of the table, so we were actually invited to vote six extra noughts on every figure going to the councils.

I am a generous man, but I thought that that was a bit excessive because it meant that the sums were probably bigger than the GNP of the country. If not, they were certainly approaching the GNP of the country in a rather alarming way. I was regarded as a bit of a nuisance for pointing this out because there was absolutely no way of correcting the figures. The Committee just had to sit and enact the statutory instrument as it was, even though it was clearly laughable, giving far too much cover for payments and not acting as a proper control. That is a minor example, but it shows that there are occasions when Ministers make mistakes and when it would be quite helpful if there were some kind of correcting procedure.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point because he is exposing the very fact that, despite the fine occupant of the Front Bench today, one cannot be 100% certain of the quality of the procedure that is being carried out from the ministerial office. This House is fundamentally the custodian of the public purse and the taxpayers’ money, and we must be absolutely certain that no cheques are blank and signed and left on Government desks.

[John Redwood]

I am glad we agree about that. I am trying to make a helpful suggestion for the future on this issue and a wider issue to which we need to return at some point. We need a system that establishes parliamentary control—as I have explained, all the methods we are discussing today are parliamentary control of one form or another—but we may need to think about how we improve processes for the future when that control is a statutory instrument.

[Mr Grieve]

My right hon. Friend is making some important points. If I may say, I have signed up to the amendments tabled by the Procedure Committee because they are a reasonable compromise, but they are most deficient in the absence of a revision mechanism to ask a Minister to reconsider. My right hon. Friend may agree that, even at this stage, those on the Treasury Bench could go away, reconsider the issue and bring a further amendment forward on Report to deal with it.

[John Redwood]

That may be hanging a bit too much on this piece of legislation. I think this is a wider issue, which Parliament may need to consider, so I was not going that far in my recommendation. However, Ministers would be well advised, if by any chance they did make a mistake in a draft instrument, not to do what the previous Government did and just drive it through, but to accept that they needed to withdraw it and to come back with a corrected version, which would make for better order.

The Bill as drafted, with the amendments to provide a process to make the task of parliamentary scrutiny manageable, is a perfectly sensible package, and I look forward to hearing sensible promises from Ministers on the Front Bench, who I am sure will want to exercise these powers diligently and democratically.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to amendments 264, 222, 73, 234, 239, 240, 266, 269 and 272, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), and amendment 233, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray). I will also speak in general terms to amendments 206, 268, 271, 274, 216, 265, 207, 208, 205, 267, 270 and 273, in the names of my hon. Friends, which are grouped for debate today, but which will be voted on tomorrow. May I also say that I hope the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) will push his amendment 158? It was debated earlier in Committee, but it is very germane to this debate. [Interruption.] I read that list out because I could not possibly memorise it.

As I said on Second Reading, we are in a dilemma of our own making. We are discussing the possibility that all these powers should be given to Ministers simply because we have not adequately prepared for the process of leaving the European Union. It is three months now since Second Reading, and we do not appear to have gone one step forward in terms of knowing what the effects of that process will be on the body of legislation that already exists in the United Kingdom.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

With his customary eloquence, the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) has given a splendid speech about many things. I wish to divert slightly from his path by taking his new clause seriously as a legislative object, rather than engaging in the interesting questions he raised about the utility or otherwise of the whole of Brexit. The Committee is called upon to decide whether proposed amendments to the legislation are meritorious in terms of achieving the objects of the Bill, and that is what we have done in Committee on many other occasions as we have gone through the Bill.

It is obviously right that Parliament should control public expenditure. The withdrawal agreement will be an element of public expenditure, so one might think that new clause 17 was meritorious. However, it is clear that the payments that the new clause describes will, if they arise at all, be part of an agreement. The Government, rightly, have already said that Parliament will have a vote on the agreement. We cannot vote on an agreement without voting on the financing of an agreement, because the agreement will stipulate the financing. Therefore, new clause 17 is entirely otiose and there is no reason for the House to vote in favour of it. The House should reserve its voting for a later moment when the Government introduce the amendment to allow us to control the agreement, which I shall certainly support.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I think the Government have gone further. They have said that if there is an agreement, primary legislation would probably be needed to implement it, which means that the full procedures for statutory approval would be required in order for there to be the power to make any payments—as I understand it, there are no legal grounds for making additional payments to the EU, and if the Government wish to do so, they will need legal grounds—and then to cover the full implementation of the agreement.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

As so often, my right hon. Friend snatches the next words from my mouth. I was about to say that the House will, as he rightly observes, be called on to vote on primary legislation, as we understand it, which will of course require something called a money resolution, with which I know the hon. Member for Nottingham East is fully familiar because I have heard him make long speeches about them on several occasions. He is an expert at doing so, and no doubt he will enjoy doing so again when the relevant resolution comes before the House, but new clause 17 is not necessary to achieve the objective.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, That she will be graciously pleased to give directions that the list of sectors analysed under the instruction of Her Majesty’s Ministers, and referred to in the Answer of 26 June 2017 to Question 239, be laid before this House and that the impact assessments arising from those analyses be provided to the Committee on Exiting the European Union.

The motion is about transparency, accountability and ensuring that Parliament can do its job of scrutinising the Government properly. It is a shame that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union is not here, but, assuming that he is on negotiating duties, I will not make a cheap point about that. [Interruption.] In a private conversation with him, I said that I would make that point clear at the beginning of my speech if he was not here, so it was not a cheap point.

It goes without saying that there is huge anxiety and uncertainty in the country about the impact of the Government’s Brexit approach. That is felt by businesses across the country, communities large and small, and all sectors of the economy. That is perhaps inevitable, given the size of the task ahead. The Government say that they are planning for all eventualities, but if relevant information and evidence is not published in a responsible fashion, businesses and people up and down the country will be unable to do so.

On 14 December last year, the Secretary of State revealed to the Brexit Committee that the Government were working on sectoral impact analyses in 57 areas—one was added later, making it 58. Thus began this battle about transparency and accountability. First the Government said that they could not even publish the list of the sectors being analysed. When my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) sought that under freedom of information legislation on 30 August this year, she was rebuffed in a response on 29 September. Then, on Monday this week, the list was published.

Looking at the list, a copy of which I have here, two things are obvious. First, in many ways it is unremarkable, and so it could and should have been published months ago. Secondly, the wide range of sectors analysed demonstrates why it is so important for Members to see the impact assessments.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain why the Labour party, in the many months of Brexit discussions, has found not a single way to strengthen the UK’s bargaining position or expedite the Brexit that their voters voted for?

[Keir Starmer]

Over the summer, I set out the Opposition’s position in relation to Brexit with great clarity, and Government Members, if they are talking to businesses, will know how warmly that has been received. That has been documented in what businesses have said and done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

I was going to say that, not having seen the information, I am at a disadvantage compared with the Cabinet, but I am not convinced that I am, because I do not think most of them have seen it either. I am perfectly prepared to accept that some of it—perhaps quite a lot of it—cannot be made public, but I do not think a document exists that cannot be made public in some form. If the Government really want to give the public information, there are always ways in which details can be removed.

The comment has been made that we are talking about public information, paid for by the public and produced by a public organisation, which exists only for the benefit of the public. I always take the view that information should be disclosed where possible and withheld only where necessary. My view of freedom of information was eloquently expressed 250 years ago, and I am pleased that Madam Deputy Speaker is still here to hear this, although she is no longer in the Chair:

“Here’s freedom to them that wad read,

Here’s freedom to them that wad write,

There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,

But they whom the truth would indite.”

I appreciate that for some Members, that might be a difficult thing to think about just now.

I have always been convinced that far too many public bodies have hidden behind statutory exemptions in freedom of information legislation, not to protect the interests of the public but to protect the interests of those who withhold the information. That seems to have played a significant part in the Government’s thought processes in this instance. A member of the Government originally claimed that even to confirm that the analyses existed would somehow fatally undermine the UK’s negotiating position with the European Union. It is hard to see how anybody could make the UK’s negotiating position any more untenable than it already is, but let us look at how making any of the information available might weaken the UK’s position.

It seems to me that there are three possible scenarios. In scenario 1, the secret information shows that the UK’s position is a lot stronger than any of us suspected—I do not know; that might be possible—so instead of negotiating from a position of weakness, the UK is negotiating from a position of considerable strength. How does it weaken our negotiating position if those on the other side of the table think that we are strong, rather than weak? It does not, so in scenario 1, it is in the UK’s interests for the European Union to have the information.

In scenario 2, the analysis simply confirms what everybody knows and what analysis from everybody else under the sun has already indicated, which is that leaving the European Union is seriously bad for the UK economy, that it is seriously bad for us socially and culturally, and that it will weaken our reputation worldwide, emboldening other potential trade partners to push for ever more difficult and damaging trade deals and ensuring that we have to go cap in hand to look for them.

[John Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman think it is at all possible to have a worse fishing policy and to do more damage to the Scottish fishing industry outside the EU than in it? Why does he not speak up for Brexit, because it has lots of great features?

[Peter Grant]

I do not think that it is possible for any Government to sell out Scotland’s fishing industry in the way the UK Government did 50 years ago. That is a matter of public record, but it could not be made known to the fishing communities or anyone else for 30 years, because it was covered by the Official Secrets Act at the time. That is the reason why Governments withhold information for as long as possible—not in the interests of open government, but to protect themselves from proper public scrutiny.

I return to scenario 2. If it shows exactly what everybody already knows, how can producing more evidence to confirm what we already know possibly damage the UK’s position? It cannot, so scenario 2 cannot cause any damage.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I rise to support the Government. I am delighted that they do not want me to vote against the motion. I am happy to accept their guidance on that. I am someone who usually favours full disclosure and publication of interesting information, but I urge Ministers not to reveal anything that could damage our negotiating position in any way. It is cavalier to the point of irresponsibility that the Opposition wish to have everything published in the hope that they will find something damaging to the UK position, because all they ever do is run the UK down. All they ever do is say we are wrong to want Brexit. All they ever do is say to their voters, “You made the wrong decision. We are going to block it, dilute it, slow it down. We are going to try to prevent it.” I for one am heartily sick of the complete lack of sensible co-operation with the wishes of their voters.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the spirit of taking back control, if this Parliament insists that it wants to see documents, should it not be allowed to see them?

[John Redwood]

Of course it should see documents, as long as they do not harm the national interest, and it is Ministers who are charged with the duty of ensuring that the national interest is upheld. It is quite obvious that Labour Members have absolutely no wish to uphold the national interest, and whenever I debate with them they tell me that the EU is right, the EU is in a strong position and the EU will grind us down. They should be speaking up for their electors and the jobs in their constituencies, because Brexit is teeming with opportunity.

We are asked to talk about sectoral impact assessments, so let us hear it for the fishing industry. It is going to be a much stronger, better British industry when we can have our own territorial waters and our own policy. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am struggling to hear the right hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that everybody wants to listen to every word he has to tell the Chamber.

[John Redwood]

They do not like good news, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Let us consider the agricultural industry. Is it not a great tragedy that we have lost so much of our capacity to make our own food and to grow our own food where our temperate climate allows? Will not being outside the EU enable us to have an agricultural policy that allows us to be more self-sufficient, so that there are fewer food miles travelled and more jobs for British farmers? Would not that be great? Why do the Opposition not spend a bit of time thinking about how that policy might work, and what a big opportunity it will be for that sector if we develop in such a way?

Would not it be great for quite a number of the sectors in our country if we got that £12 billion a year back as soon as possible and started spending it in the UK? I thought the Opposition understood that if you spend more money in a country, you create more jobs and more economic activity. When it comes to the money we send to Brussels, all we ever hear from them is, “Let’s keep sending them the money. Let’s do it next year, the year after, the year after that. Can we find a way to send the money for another three years after we’ve left?” It is outrageous that they want to give our money away in this way.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is a former Secretary of State for Wales, and I think that he sent £120 million back from Cardiff to London. Will he now support calls from the Opposition to ensure that Wales does not lose out on the money it is currently receiving from Brussels?

[John Redwood]

Wales did not lose out, because I wanted tax cuts for Welsh voters as well as for English voters, and that was the whole point of what we were doing; and we had more than adequately funded the health service, where I increased the amount of money, which the Labour Government in Wales do not do. I think my record is rather better than theirs when it comes to providing proper provision for the health service in Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[John Redwood]

What we need to do is to have a proper debate on the sectoral impacts and look at the many positives, so that Opposition Members can debate in the way I am and talk about the opportunities for our country and the way our economy can be better, rather than continue in the depressingly negative way they always do, where they are desperate to find some bad information. They have come up with two things at the moment, which are clearly misleading, but they are constantly repeating them. First, they say that planes will not fly in April 2019, after we have left, without a special agreement and sending lots of money to the EU. I was very pleased the other day to see that Willie Walsh of British Airways made it very clear, in his professional view, that the planes will fly—and of course they will. There is no way Britain is going to stop German, French and Spanish planes coming into UK airports the day after we have left the EU, even without an agreement, and in turn they will not want to stop our planes going there, with our tourists and with the people who want to go and spend money in their country.

[Hannah Bardell]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[John Redwood]

Then there is another one that the Opposition are constantly telling us about, which is that there will be lorries queuing all the way back from Dover. I am not quite sure how that would work because it would mean that they were queuing in the sea. But of course, given modern, electronic frontiers, there is absolutely no reason why there should be huge queues.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[John Redwood]

We can have a system of authorised economic operators, developing the existing system, and it will be quite easy to speed the lorries through, and if we still have to impose tariffs because there is no agreement, we will be able to do that electronically, without there being a lorry jam.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the other side talk about queues at the port because they actually hope that Brexit will be a disaster for this country? They want to stop Brexit and they want the worst for this country. They should put Britain first.

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is always doom and gloom. It is always about what can go wrong.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Redwood]

One of my worries about these sectoral studies that Ministers are agonising about—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order. I call John Redwood.

[John Redwood]

I think that is a silly point, because there were tax cuts from the Government and it was very important that we had a sensible Budget after we had made full provision.

The Opposition are always running things down. My worry about these sectoral studies is that there is a tendency amongst some Government advisers and consultants to want to highlight every conceivable thing that could go wrong and lots of inconceivable things that could not conceivably go wrong, because that is how they make their money or that is what they think they are there to do. They do not risk-assess; there are very few genuine risks that need to be managed properly, and we still have 15 months to manage them. If necessary, we can manage them for ourselves without even needing the agreement of the EU.

I look forward to Ministers making a judicious response to this debate. I do not want them to share any information that undermines our position. I just live in hope that one day the Opposition will wake up to all those voters who wanted Brexit, and understand that they need to be positive and sympathetic to the British Government view, not to the EU view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I shall come on to that point at the end of my remarks.

Thirdly, it is hard to believe that all the material has the potential to undermine our negotiating position. I would be intrigued to know how reports on museums, galleries and libraries, and crafts or real estate, could contain information of such sensitivity that it would create difficulties for the Secretary of State when he next meets Mr Barnier.

[John Redwood]

On property, if there was an entirely bogus forecast of big job losses and a collapse in commercial property, it would be silly to publish that, as, first, it would be wrong and, secondly, it would be negative for our position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West]

I agree with my hon. Friend and thank her for all her excellent forensic questioning in this area. It is sad, however, that she has had to spend hours and hours asking those questions when it is really our basic right as parliamentarians to have the information we need for this important treaty making. It is probably the most important constitutional question that we in this Parliament will have to grapple with. My worry is that we could be heading for a crash course, which relates to my intervention on the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about there being an element of people not wanting to know the facts and figures. Those who have already made up their mind want to be positive, but perhaps they also want to ignore the facts. That is the opposite extreme, and opposites are unnecessary and probably bad in this regard.

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Hon. Members]

Just carry on.

[Catherine West]

Go on.

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady tell the House what she has done in the past 16 months to strengthen the British hand and to be positive about things?

[Catherine West]

I have redoubled the number of meetings that I am having, and I am polishing up my Mandarin Chinese so that I can improve our standing with one of our big trading partners. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] It is important that this does not end up like a Pentecostalist meeting where we close our ears and eyes and just sing for the positivity of Brexit. We should engage our minds as well our emotions when dealing with the taxing and difficult question of what the future will hold for our children and their children.

I want to make a quick point about the cliff-edge scenario. I am unsure whether we have really explored it. None of us wants it. The Prime Minister said in her Florence speech that she wants a transition deal just as much as those of us who are sensible and also want it. Let us imagine, in the worst of all possible worlds, that we are on a crash course leading towards the cliff edge. I am deeply concerned about inflation, flat wages, the more than £200 billion of household debt and the fact that interest rates are going up this week. These are deeply concerning and worrying times for our economy, with or without Brexit. I am worried about the combination of factors, which is why we need a proper analysis from the Treasury of the broad overall picture of non-Brexit-related issues.

There are other people whose opinions we must trust. For example, the former chief mandarin of the Foreign Office, Sir Simon Fraser, has said that the differences between us in our debates on Brexit mean that the UK has been “absent” from the formal negotiations, perhaps leading to this terrible cliff-edge scenario.

Crashing out could lead to real questions about the safety of our nuclear facilities, and other Members have mentioned the European Aviation Safety Agency. Air tickets can be purchased up to a year in advance, which brings us close to three or four months before March 2019. What will we do about the lack of alignment and regulation on other transport questions and on agriculture, financial services and banking?

I finish on the human question of the European citizens in our communities. Not a surgery goes by without a European citizen coming to explain that, despite living in the UK for 37 years, contributing to the economy and bringing up a family, they feel deeply alienated and angry. The rhetoric around xenophobic feelings and around whether they feel accepted or not seems to have been heightened. Some families even want to return to European countries after living in the UK for 37 years, which is a terrible shame, all because of the lack of certainty and the lack of a scientific approach to Brexit. The Home Office lacks a firm approach, and it is constantly moving the goalposts. Crashing out of the EU would be worst for EU nationals, who would be left completely in limbo. The impact in certain regions would be horrendous, and the health sector would probably be worst affected, as our NHS is so dependent.

Will the Government please stop their confusion, division and chaos? Please do not drag us back again and again on this point. Be firm and give us the information that our constituents expect.