European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend leads me back to the serious core of this debate. It will be disastrous if we do not get it right on this important matter—the question how precisely the Bill sets out the timing of the departure that is going to take place.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will in a second. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am trying to be brief.

I made this point once in an intervention, but it is an extremely serious matter. When the Government produced this technical Bill to stop the legal hiatus, they saw no reason to put any reference in it to our departure date from the Union. They had reason: there was no reason to put it in. Article 50, supported—despite my vote against—by a large majority of the House of Commons, sets the date of 29 March 2019, and the whole Bill proceeded on that basis. But in the past few days, partly in response to the new clause of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), the Government have suddenly produced the most precise amendments, tying down our departure to the second.

With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, his new clause could easily have been defeated: the Labour party would have voted against it; I would have voted against it, for what it is worth; and the Scot nats and the Liberals would have voted against it. Even the Government trying to apply their Whips to get it carried—if they had been foolish enough to do so—would have had a job getting a majority for his new clause. So I do not think that it was fear of the right hon. Gentleman, despite his formidable oratory, that caused the Government to table their amendments. What has happened is that they tried to make a concession to the pro-Europeans—the more moderate Government Back Benchers—by conceding the obvious common sense that, when we get there, we will have to have a meaningful, lawful vote on whatever deal is produced and that we will have to have legislation to move to the final period. It is not a great concession.

With great respect, the Government have not quite got it right yet, as we discovered the other day. All these great processes could take place after we have already left, particularly if the Government’s amendments are passed, which increase that risk. But they made what might have been seen by some as a dreadful concession to—of all people—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). Shock! Horror! What kind of press would that produce; what kind of reaction from the fourth row below the Gangway behind me? So somebody was urged to bring something that could be thrown as a sop to the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary, and produced this ridiculous Government amendment. But it is not just ridiculous and unnecessary; it could be positively harmful to the national interest.

[Kevin Brennan]

Despite what the right hon. and learned Gentleman just said, is not it fortunate that the Government have time to rethink this? It has already been made clear that the Government and the Opposition will oppose the new clause of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). The Government amendment on the matter will not be considered until the eighth day in Committee. Therefore, is not there ample time for the Government—without losing face—to listen to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s good sense and withdraw their amendment before that time?

[Mr Clarke]

I will not try to emulate the hon. Gentleman’s eminently sensible advice. By the time the Government have to concede this point, which I trust they will, we will all have forgotten the slightly odd circumstances in which this amendment was produced. He sums up the situation.

It is quite unnecessary to close down our options as severely as we are with this amendment, when we do not know yet what will happen. It is perfectly possible, on all precedents, that there is a mutually beneficial European and British need to keep the negotiations going for a time longer to get them settled and not to fall into the problems this Bill was designed to address.