Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s kind remarks. He is absolutely right to focus on hill farmers. As he will know, one of the aspects of the Agriculture Bill is the ability to target measures—for example, on the environment—at specific areas of agriculture. Key among those are hill farmers, whom I know he has always championed.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Farmers made it clear in Oxford this week that they simply do not trust the Government’s assurances. Will the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs give assurances that they will accept the equivalent of my former new clause 1 to the Agriculture Bill, when it comes back? That would ensure no lowering of standards. Will they also agree to the National Farmers Union’s request for a trading standards commission to scrutinise any future trade deals and make sure that farmers are protected?

[Steve Barclay]

If farmers did not trust the assurances, I am not sure whether another assurance would suddenly become trustworthy.

On the substance of the hon. Lady’s question, I refer her, for example, to the commitment to set up the office for environmental protection, which will be the single enforcement body. Above all, however, I refer her to this House: part of taking back control will be the House’s ability to scrutinise issues, such as the legitimate one that she raises, and to ensure that the Government meet the assurances that they have given.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have made a lot of progress on trying to replace a lot of the EU’s funds and the regional way in which they allocate money. We have the UK shared prosperity fund, details of which will be introduced next year.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In the recent Tory leadership debate, the Foreign Secretary challenged his rival over no deal, saying:

“Let me ask Boris a question: what would you say to a sheep farmer in Shropshire that I met whose business would be destroyed by 40% tariffs?”

What would the Minister say to that sheep farmer?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have already made a commitment in this House to support our agricultural industries and our farmers under any circumstances, whether that is a deal or no deal. We have an Agriculture Bill that will allow the Secretary of State to provide the support that our people need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We do not allow two bites of the cherry at substantive questions, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to chance his arm at topicals, he might be successful. We look forward to that with eager anticipation.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

There is a real danger in looking at farming policy dissociated from what happens further along the food chain. This week, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee took evidence from the National Farmers Union and the Food and Drink Federation. Those organisations are obviously concerned about things like tariffs if we exit without a deal, but they are also really concerned about packaging, machine parts and so on—everything that is involved in food production.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Of course, the modern economy means that all these issues are integrated. As we said, the Agriculture Bill offers the possibility of a more bespoke policy. That is what Brexit can potentially deliver. So we are completely aware that a lot of these industries are integrated, and have a wide range of problems to solve. That is something that we are fully prepared to deal with.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am not quite sure of the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to raise, but I gently suggest to him that life has moved on a little bit since the 1970s, although some on the Labour Front Bench are a bit slow in catching up. We had a referendum in 2016. The British people voted to leave and we are going to get the best deal for them.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This morning, a family-owned business in my constituency, FreestyleXtreme, announced that it is moving some of its jobs to Bucharest because of uncertainty about Brexit, and particularly the fact that it might be hit by tariffs after exit day. It warned me several months ago that that move would have to be on the cards. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give to small companies? I can see further businesses taking the same option if they do not get more clarity.

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady is right to point to the uncertainty at this moment in time. The best way of alleviating that is for us to get a good deal. The economy is doing well. Youth unemployment is half the level it was in 2010. Wages are rising at the highest level since the financial crash. In terms of businesses voting with confidence in the UK economy, Rolls-Royce, Unilever and Amazon recently announced fresh investment in this country, and that is the reason we should go into these negotiations with economic self-confidence.

Vote Leave Campaign: Electoral Law

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I want to pay tribute to my long-standing friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), for a sterling introduction to the debate on the petition. I am sure my colleagues will be pleased to know that my contribution will be brief: he said a lot of what I would have said. I also want to thank my 555 constituents in east Bristol who put their names to the petition.

I was one of the 122 MPs, 57 of them Labour, who voted against triggering article 50 in February last year. Every day that goes by vindicates in my mind that I was right to do so. The Government had no plan for Brexit then and have no realistic Brexit plan now. Triggering article 50 began the countdown to the biggest changes our country has faced in peacetime. It was an incredibly serious decision that should not have been taken lightly. Once the Prime Minister’s letter reached President Tusk’s desk in Brussels, it strictly limited the time for negotiations to two years.

The clock is ticking down, and it feels as though it is ticking down ever faster. Even with a coherent Brexit plan in place, it would be a challenging deadline to meet, but the Government were totally and utterly unprepared. They simply had not done their homework, which was painfully obvious when Ministers came before Select Committees such as the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit.

We conducted an inquiry into chemicals regulation post-Brexit. When the Minister came in front of us, it became clear that the Government were only just starting to ask the chemicals industry what Brexit would mean for it. This was after article 50 had been triggered. The conversations that needed to be had with industry, with important sectors and with the much derided experts had barely started, so triggering article 50 was reckless in the extreme. The Prime Minister was not doing it because Brussels insisted we move to a trigger, or in an attempt to unite our divided country after the difficult referendum campaign. She was doing it in a futile attempt to keep her warring Cabinet together. We can all see now how well that has been going.

There is little serious doubt that article 50 is revocable, although I know that was not envisaged when it was drafted. The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, reiterated last year that no Brexit is still an option for the UK Government, and the author of article 50, Lord Kerr, has said that the UK can still opt to stay in the EU. He said:

“At any stage we can change our minds if we want to, and if we did we know that our partners would actually be very pleased indeed.”

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Lady agree that if the Government want to be transparent and open, they should clearly state whether in their view article 50 is or is not revocable? As far as I am aware, the position they have adopted so far is, “The question is not being posed, so we are not going to answer it.” However, they should, and they should put it on the record.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I absolutely agree. We are discussing all the options available to us at the moment—from no deal to the option that some of us advocate: that we ought to think better and do all we can to try to stay in the EU. Clearly, looking at the legalities around article 50 is in everyone’s interest so that we know which options are still on the table and which are not.

Today’s debate is not really about the rights and wrongs of triggering article 50, although that is something that the petitioners put forward as part of their call. It is about Vote Leave’s illegal activities during the referendum. Although Vote Leave has been held to account, a fine of £60,000 is pitiful and no deterrent at all when we consider that so much was at stake during the referendum campaign and when the people involved are so wealthy and can easily access the funds needed to pay the fine.

I support the Electoral Commission’s call for greater fines to be levied on those who break the law in such a way and the call for a judge-led inquiry into the conduct of the referendum that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) called for. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) has led the way in investigating the Russian connections of Arron Banks’s Leave.EU campaign. I was glad to be a signatory to a letter he organised to the Metropolitan police and the National Crime Agency urging them to investigate the links between Vote Leave and Leave.EU.

It has been reported that Arron Banks met Russian officials multiple times—on one occasion it was reported that he had met them 11 times before the Brexit vote. There are reports now of an investigation by the National Crime Agency. We are seeing the destruction of our democracy by foreign funding, by fake news and by very wealthy individuals prepared to play fast and loose with our electoral law and get away with it with impunity.

I do not believe that such law breaking alone is reason to rescind article 50, if the intention in calling for article 50 to be revoked is to rerun the 2016 referendum campaign. Nor are the arguments put forward about a lack of information, or indeed the deluge of misleading information when voters made their choice in 2016, a valid reason to call for a rematch. Democracy is never perfect. We can never really second-guess why people voted the way they did. I would prefer not to turn the clock back and talk about rerunning the 2016 referendum, but I very much support the need to properly scrutinise any deal that the Government put forward, possibly with a people’s vote if the Government do not put forward a deal acceptable to Parliament.

Some of us spent the campaign warning that the Brexit process was much more complicated than some would have it. We have gone from being told that Brexit would be

“the easiest deal in human history”,

to the Prime Minister saying,

“it wouldn’t be the end of the world”

if we left with no deal. The promises have evaporated. As I said, I would rather not turn the clock back and look to scrap article 50, but we certainly need to hold to account the people responsible for illegal actions during the referendum campaign. They should not be allowed to get away with it with impunity, but the important thing now is to look at the deal—if it is possible to scrutinise it, given what an absolute mess it is at the moment. It is important to focus on the here and now and make sure that we either get the absolute best deal—a soft Brexit for this country—or we think again, extend or rescind article 50 and go back to the drawing board.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She has a wealth of experience and expertise in all these different areas, and I have listened carefully to the strong contributions she has made in this House every step of the way. She will have seen the White Paper. I believe that, not just in the letter, but in the spirit, it will deliver the kind of Brexit she wants to see: one that is good for this country and good for our European friends, and one that will allow Britain to go from strength to strength.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. Last week, I visited a family-run company in my constituency that sells extreme sports goods to more than 80 countries. People there told me that reverting to World Trade Organisation rules would cost the company more than £1.6 million in tariffs alone. They also told me they had had overtures made to them by the International Trade Secretary and by the Secretary of State’s predecessor, on condition that when they met they did not talk about Brexit. When is the Secretary of State going to start listening to such family-run companies and hear about the impact that a no deal would have?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. She has always been powerful in her contributions, both on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and right throughout on Brexit. As she will know from the White Paper, we have a detailed set of proposals that are not only principled, but flexible, to make sure that we not only sustain the strong trade we want with our EU friends but take advantage of the global opportunities to trade more energetically. This will be good for exporters and for cutting the costs of living in this country by reducing prices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s description. The automotive sector is one of our great success stories and the Government will continue to support it. Just this April, Vauxhall announced an investment of more than £100 million in its UK plant, to build the next generation of Vivaro vans. We are seeing more and more success in the sector. We have to support that, and that will be an ambition of our future trade agreement with the EU.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As well as the motor sector, the food sector has expressed concern that rules of origin in the supply chain could have a real impact post-Brexit if we are not part of a customs union. What is the Department’s approach? Is it considering a broader definition of “local origin”? How else will it help those sectors deal with rules of origin post-Brexit?

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the issue of rules of origin with regard to the sector. We want to ensure as limited friction as possible, with a tariff-free arrangement for goods, so that we have the integrated supply chains that are vital to the success of the sector.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

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

[Ian Murray]

Nobody voted to leave the single market and customs union. As the Chancellor has said, nobody voted in the European Union referendum to make themselves poorer. If the shadow Chancellor wants to walk through the Lobby with the Conservatives to take us out of the customs union and the single market, I certainly do not agree with him on that. I have been elected to represent a constituency that voted 78% remain and that is dependent on financial services, small businesses and the very healthy Scotch whisky industry. It is incumbent on me to defend my constituents’ interests from a Government who would be quite happy to throw sectors under the bus to get a trade deal from any country anywhere in the world, even though we already have 57 free trade deals that benefit all the sectors that I represent.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend meant to say that his constituents are dependent on Scotch whisky, but I take his point. At the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee this morning, I asked the Environment Secretary about the Canada-plus-plus-plus model. He said that he wanted agri-food to be part of the plus deal, and he referred to the trade agreement with Japan as something that covered agri-food. Is it not the case that, as Michel Barnier says, we will simply not be allowed to cherry-pick and insist on having a Canada-style deal that includes agri-food?

[Ian Murray]

That is exactly what Michel Barnier said. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union wants a Canada-plus-plus-plus deal with a special arrangement for banks, and the chief negotiator has said that that is impossible for two reasons. It is against the red lines that the Government have already drawn for themselves, so they are arguing against their own policy. Indeed, we already have special arrangements in place for free and unfettered access for all our sectors; they are called the single market and the customs union. When we have debated the matter in this Chamber on other days, I have made the point that the question of whether or not we agree with the single market and customs union is essentially irrelevant to the Bill. The Government’s negotiating position should, at the very least, keep those options on the table so that the Government can look at them and ask whether they are the way forward.

Why might we remain members of the customs union and the single market for the transition period? We would do that to allow businesses the certainty, security and stability that they require to make the changes that they need to make. When we come out of that transition period—it will not be in two years, according to Michel Barnier; it may be much sooner—we will have to have a system that is, no doubt, worse than that which we had during the transition period.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for raising Canada-plus-plus-plus, because that is impossible to achieve with the red lines that have been drawn. Perhaps the Minister will come to the Dispatch Box—he can intervene on me, if he likes, or on any other hon. Member—and tell us which red lines the Government are willing to drop to achieve the Government’s aspiration of Canada-plus-plus-plus with a special deal for financial services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We always hear criticism of our level of openness, but we never hear criticism of the EU’s. To help us to understand that, I shall quote from the EU’s own factsheet on transparency in trade negotiations:

“A certain level of confidentiality is necessary to protect EU interests and to keep chances for a satisfactory outcome high. When entering into a game, no-one starts by revealing his entire strategy to his counterpart from the outset: this is also the case for the EU.”

That is the approach that the EU is taking, so it is right that we take a similar approach.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

We saw with the debacle of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that people were very unhappy with the lack of transparency around such negotiations. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need a much more transparent and democratic process not only for approving trade deals, but for scrutinising the negotiations as they are going on?

[Mr Davis]

I do in principle agree, which is why, when we made the sectoral analyses available to both Select Committees, in the Commons and the Lords, we also set up an arrangement for Members of Parliament—a confidential reading room—so that they could read those briefings. Generally speaking, that is our approach. I report back to this House—if the Prime Minister does not—after every round of negotiations, and that is much more than the European Parliament gets.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

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

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for whom I have a great amount of time. I shall not continue the debate about the environment on this occasion, but I welcome her consideration of points of scrutiny. I have, however, come to a slightly different conclusion, as I will outline in a moment.

It is a pleasure to speak to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), which are also in my name and those of other Members. In particular, I am delighted that the Government have accepted amendments 393 and 397. I believe that this demonstrates consensus, and I want to focus on consensus this evening. These amendments have been tabled by Procedure Committee members from both sides of the House and, indeed, from both sides of the Brexit debate. They genuinely benefit from a consensus of support precisely because they do not seek to replay the many arguments of the referendum or undo the will of the British people as expressed in it. We recognise that the UK has voted to leave, and the amendments come up with a way of helping to make that happen.

One reason why that is important, particularly in the context of scrutiny, is that the referendum day poll of about 12,000 voters, commissioned by the noble Lord Ashcroft, showed that the biggest single reason for voting leave—it was given by over half of leave voters—was to take back control of, among other things, the laws and decisions of the United Kingdom. The amendments tabled by the Chairman of the Procedure Committee do just that: they focus on sovereignty, give Parliament control and ensure scrutiny of our laws.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said, it is important to recognise that amendments, whether these or others, are not necessarily seeking to reopen the Brexit debate. These amendments certainly do not do so; otherwise, I would not be supporting them. Instead, it is important to consider how to provide scrutiny of the laws that will be in place once we leave the European Union, which is what people have voted for.

In this instance and in that context, I am content with the Government’s proposed usage of the so-called Henry VIII powers in the Bill. The Leader of the House and the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), were very frank and reassuring when they appeared before the Procedure Committee, as did the shadow Leader of the House, in what I thought was a good-spirited discussion of the substantive issues at stake.

I will come on to the scale of the challenge ahead in a moment, but I just want to say that, for a number of reasons, I am not particularly worried—strangely, some Labour Members have said they would be—about what would happen if the Labour party were ever in government again. The first is that the powers are mostly limited in nature. I do not want Labour Members to come back into government, for reasons that will be obvious, but I am not worried because the Government have clearly set out what the secondary legislation is and is not intended to do.

The Bill enables Ministers to create the necessary correcting instruments to prevent, remedy or mitigate any failure of or deficiency in retained EU law, but, as the excellent and independent House of Commons Library briefing sets out, “express legal limitations” are imposed on the secondary legislation. The secondary legislation cannot be created to impose or increase taxation, to create new criminal offences or, as the Minister said earlier, to amend human rights legislation. This is a well controlled piece of legislation designed to deal with the challenge of leaving the European Union in a way that allows parliamentary scrutiny while ensuring that the Government can get a smooth and orderly Brexit through this place.

Primary legislation will be needed on a number of key issues over which Parliament will become sovereign when we leave the European Union, such as a customs Bill, a trade Bill, an immigration Bill, a fisheries Bill, an agriculture Bill, a nuclear safeguards Bill, an international sanctions Bill—I am sure there are many more in the minds of Ministers—but there is only a short space of time. Given the sheer volume of retained EU law, there is no alternative to the Henry VIII powers for dealing with any deficiencies. The delegated powers under clause 7 are essential in that light.

The alternative would be legal chaos. With over 20,000 EU laws, having an individual parliamentary vote on each would take over 200 days of parliamentary time—sitting 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To be rid of that chaos, which I hope Opposition Members seek to rid our country of, and to provide the certainty that I am sure businesses in their constituencies and mine want to see, and indeed as witnesses to the Procedure Committee have pointed out, with this volume of delegated legislation being made in such a short space of time, any additional scrutiny by Parliament will provide further legal certainty to the courts and confirm that any law is the will of a sovereign Parliament, but it must be done in a way that allows the Government to get on and do it.

That brings me to a potential concern, which I hope Members agree has been satisfactorily addressed. As the Government have been at pains to make clear many times, the main purpose of the Bill is twofold: first, to respect the referendum result; and secondly, to ensure that our country has a functioning statute book on leaving the European Union. I was therefore pleased to see the inclusion of condition 3 in amendments 393 and 397, which makes it clear that if no recommendation as to whether regulations should be subject to the negative or affirmative procedure has been made by a committee of the House, then after 10 sitting days they can proceed by the negative procedure.

I hope that no committee would seek to play such games on this issue, such is the significance of leaving the European Union, but this critical condition will prevent any committee that was so minded from frustrating the progress of a statutory instrument in order, by extension, to frustrate the will of the British people to leave the European Union positively and constructively. It will stop that happening, enabling scrutiny without sabotage.

Let me affirm again that I am very pleased that these amendments have secured consensus across the parties. While the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union—that is not up for debate—this, I believe, will help to ensure that there is parliamentary scrutiny of the laws that need to be in place once we leave, but without stepping on the Government’s legislative toes or tying their hands in the negotiations with the European Union. That is ever more important as we progress to the stage 2 negotiations on trade and other matters. That relates to amendment 124.

I firmly believe that trade is our kingdom’s path to prosperity, and our generation’s chance to widen consumer choice, reduce the cost of living, improve quality of life and give those with the tightest purse strings a hand up. This we seek to do while maintaining the greatest possible access to, but not membership of, the single market. Leaving the European Union is not just about economics and markets, though; it is about the political and constitutional view of the British people. It was a vote to take back control of our laws as well as our borders, trade policy and money. These amendments enshrine that control.

I understand that the Government have accepted these amendments, and I hope that they will have continued support across the House, and indeed that the committee, once it is set up, will have the support of Members across the Brexit divide, ensuring that it can conduct its work in an effective and well respected manner.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hanson.

I rise to speak to support new clause 24 and amendment 96, in my name, as well as amendment 104, also in my name, which relates to new clause 27 and others on institutional arrangements. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) intends to return to the Chamber to press new clause 27 to a Division, but it is an important clause about governance arrangements and I hope she does.

It is welcome that the Government have accepted the Procedure Committee’s amendments. There was much concern about the sweeping powers set out in clauses 7, 8 and 9, which, as many Members have said, would give Ministers excessively wide powers to make secondary legislation. There has been near universal recognition that we need to strengthen sifting and scrutiny powers, and there is huge scepticism about the process under schedule 7 for sifting through the 800-plus statutory instruments. There is a suspicion—I believe it to be justified—that it was to avoid much needed parliamentary scrutiny and that it could be used to weaken EU laws in the process of transposition.

I understand what the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) said, which is that there simply is not the time to work through them one by one, but that is why some of us voted against triggering article 50 when the Government chose to rush into it. We knew that this was an incredibly complex procedure and that it would not be easy in the way that some Conservative Members said it would be. We needed the time to do this properly. The reason we cannot do it properly is because we triggered article 50 too early.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that the European Union was very clear that until we triggered article 50 we could not begin any of the discussions to allow us to consider any of these matters?

[Kerry McCarthy]

In the previous Parliament, I was a member of two Select Committees. I was on the recent chemicals inquiry. It is not just that Ministers have not got their heads around it and do not know where they want to go in terms of chemicals regulation, it is that they have not even had discussions with stakeholders. They have not even explored the issues. They are coming to it almost with a blank sheet of paper way after the referendum vote was held. A lot of these discussions should have taken place before we even had the referendum, so we could know what we were letting people in for.

I welcome the Procedure Committee’s amendments, but they do not provide for enhanced scrutiny as such. They simply provide a mechanism for a committee to recommend that statutory instruments introduced under the Bill should be treated under the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure. The committee sits, but it does not scrutinise. Members may request a debate and a vote, but they cannot require a vote to take place. The White Paper said that MPs could require a debate, but that is simply not correct. The Hansard Society described that inaccuracy in the White Paper as ignorance at best, deception at worst. Members who have been in the House for some time will know that for an affirmative resolution to be objected to and end up in a proper debate is very rare. The tactic is used very infrequently. I believe we need a model that allows for enhanced scrutiny. It should include options such as: requiring a Minister to provide further evidence and explanation for the statutory instrument; requiring a debate and vote on the Floor of the House; allowing a committee to be able to recommend amendments to a statutory instrument, which many Members have mentioned; and public consultation. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) talked about alerting Members to what is being brought forward before the House as a statutory instrument, because it is all too true that so many of them just pass unnoticed and we do not know what we are legislating on.

Enhanced scrutiny alone is not enough. The power to make corrections in clause 7 is still too broad, too general and too vague. It needs to be improved and clarified. The Bill must also put stronger substantive limitations on the powers in the Bill itself, including a general limit, as in new clause 24, and specific limits to safeguard environmental standards, such as in amendment 96. It is only by carefully restricting the Government’s powers and effectively scrutinising their use can we prevent powers in the Bill from being used in ways that weaken environmental protections or threaten to roll back 40 years of environmental gains. The hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) said that Greener UK praised the earlier debate on the environment. I think it was praise for the amendments tabled and the discussion rather than the end result, because the Government did not accept any of the amendments, but we will continue to push on those issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think Hansard did record that the Environment Secretary nodded his assent, but I am not entirely sure that he knew what he was nodding his assent to.

[James Heappey]

For those of us with an environmental mindset, there is a temptation—and I may say more about this later—to think that it is almost too good to be true that the Environment Secretary should sit there and, quite unequivocally, nod to all those requests. People are not quite willing to accept that it is true, but I am not sure that the things that my right hon. Friend has been saying about environmental matters in recent weeks should do anything to discourage us from believing that it is. He really has been setting the pace.

The non-governmental organisations have raised a number of matters. I agree with what they are saying, but I also believe that what we are already doing in the Bill and—much more importantly—our commitments beyond it will meet their expectations. Their concern about the governance gap is entirely justified. There needs to be a new body to reinforce the regulatory standards that we establish.

Significant powers relating to our environment are being vacated by the EU, and we must, as a matter of urgency, ensure that those powers are allocated to either existing or new regulatory bodies. Those bodies must be independent, they must be accountable, they must be accessible to the public who are seeking redress, their processes must be transparent, and they must have teeth so that they can hold Governments and others to account. We all agree on that, and nothing that I have heard from the Environment Secretary suggests that his ambition for legislation on the environment post-Brexit will not deliver those requirements.