European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I welcome the constructive way in which the hon. Gentleman raises his concerns about security while recognising the general election mandate and how it plays into this clause and its reflection of the manifesto.

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to two things. First, the withdrawal agreement commits both sides, including the European Union, to using their best endeavours to reach agreement. Secondly, the political declaration commits to a timescale of the end of 2020. That is why we are confident that this can be done to the timescale, and it is a reflection of the commitments given by both the UK and the EU in the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that all things are possible when both parties to a negotiation are willing to proceed in good spirit? Indeed, in a briefing to EU politicians in November 2019, Michel Barnier said the timescale would normally be far too short but that Brussels would strive to have a deal in place by the end of 2020. It is clearly possible to do this deal for the end of 2020. Does my right hon. Friend agree that is the right approach to take?

[Steve Barclay]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, the Commission President will be meeting the Prime Minister tomorrow, and I will be meeting Michel Barnier, to act on that constructive spirit. Both sides have committed to the timescale.

I am conscious that the House is now in a different place, but many Members will recall that it was often said it was impossible to reach an agreement before, indeed, the agreement was reached.

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[Paul Blomfield]

I was quite involved in the debate during the referendum, and I listened carefully to what many of the Government Members who were advocating our departure were saying. They talked about a bonfire of regulations. The direction of travel for leaving the European Union was fairly clear: it is to free ourselves of those rights and protections that defend working people, protect the environment and protect consumers and to create a different sort of economic model. The hon. Member may not agree with my description, but I think that a “race to the bottom” summarises that pretty well.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member asks what the problem is with new clause 4, because if we have done a deal by the end of 2020, we will leave anyway. The point is that if we are not allowed to delay, the imperative on both sides of the negotiating table is to get this done by the end of 2020. If we allow it to be extended for another two years, the negotiations are bound to take longer. Why can he not approach these negotiations with confidence? The Government are confident that they can do it within the period. Michel Barnier, whom I quoted earlier, seems confident that it can be done. Why can his party not approach the negotiations in that spirit?

[Paul Blomfield]

If the Government were so confident, why did they build into the withdrawal agreement the provision to be able to extend? It was a cautious insurance policy. They were right to do so. We are trying to help them with the problems that they are creating for themselves now.

Many Government Members know that there is a potential for us not to have secured the sort of deal that this country needs by the end of December. If, unamended, this Bill forces the country into a no-deal crash-out—which was described, for example, by Make UK, the voice of the manufacturing sector, as “the height of economic lunacy”—the Government will regret not having taken the opportunity to make some provisions along the lines of new clause 4, which protects the UK from the entirely unnecessary threat of no deal. It simply builds on the mechanism for extending the transition period that is already baked into the Government’s own withdrawal agreement; it is oven ready, as the Prime Minister would like to say. For the same reasons, we do not accept the insertion of clause 33, which is grandstanding nonsense that prohibits Ministers from agreeing to an extension to the transition period.

Let me be absolutely clear again: we are not seeking to delay Brexit—the UK will have left the EU in three weeks’ time—nor do we want to stay in the transition period any longer than is necessary, but the flexibility that we are proposing provides the certainty that business needs. There is no point in replacing the previous cliff edge, about which the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) expressed real concern, with the new cliff edge if the flexibility that we are suggesting is not there.

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I do not intend to press new clause 36 to a Division. We have heard the bold and ambitious assertions from those on the Treasury Bench. Time will tell whether they are right, but if they are wrong, the Secretary of State’s words are on the record and, believe me, they will come back to haunt him.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I will keep my remarks mercifully brief, restricting them to new clause 4. This would be a detrimental amendment to the Bill, because it would completely undermine the negotiations that the Government have to undertake. I understand the concerns about a no-deal situation at the end of 2020—I am very concerned about that, too—but we must follow the golden rules in a negotiation. I have negotiated many things in my life, although clearly not something as large as leaving the European Union—but who has? However, there have been some things that would have had a much bigger direct impact on my life, certainly in terms of business negotiations. Some of those have been life-changing and, particularly in negotiations with our banks, pretty much life-threatening. The golden rule in any negotiation is that a person has to walk into them with confidence. That is absolutely how we have to undertake the negotiations. Of course, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, there are some downsides to these negotiations. It is therefore even more important to walk into them with confidence. We must believe that we can do this deal.

[Mr Carmichael]

The provision for an extension to be concluded by 1 July was in the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister negotiated. Did he do that because he lacked confidence?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We are in a different situation. I am still involved in my business; it has grown a lot over the last 26 or 27 years, and I have concerns about the impact on it of the wrong kind of exit from the European Union. However, I still think it is absolutely right to set the deadline of the end of 2020 to do this deal. In our manifesto and all the statements in the general election, it is true that we said that we would do this deal by the end of 2020 and that we would be out completely by then. It would be wrong and a breach of the trust that the people had in us in the general election for us now to say that there could be a further extension.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about confidence, but does he agree—he has alluded to this—that it is not just confidence, but a firm deadline that is required, rather than a flextension or the risk of a further extension or postponement? We saw that in the last two Parliaments. That fundamental error, which was made by previous Administrations, will not be made by this one.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The date is the imperative that makes sure that both sides will be looking towards that date to finalise negotiations. There are incentives and imperatives on both sides of the negotiating table. If there is the right spirit of negotiation between the two parties, and we undertake the negotiations in that frame of mind, we will absolutely be able to do this deal. However, if we provide the opportunity for an extension, we hand over the advantage in the negotiation to the other side. That is the absolute reality. We cannot do that, nor do we need to.

There are a number of reasons to think that we can do the deal within the timescale. We start from a position of total alignment, which is bound to help. This is different from a normal free trade agreement, in terms of the negotiations. Clearly, there have to be negotiations on what happens about divergence, but we start from a position of absolute alignment, which, to my mind, makes these negotiations totally possible in the next 12 months.

[Dr Whitford]

No one has ever negotiated a trade deal in just 11 months, so is it not likely that we will end up with something incredibly primitive? As for casting up that people voted for this in the election, what they voted for was the Government party saying, “We will achieve that by the end of the year.” They did not vote for it saying, “Well, never mind—we will crash out with no deal if we fail.”

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, and I do not want to do that either. However, if she reads the comments from Michel Barnier that I quoted earlier, from the Financial Times of 26 November 2019, she will see that he said that normally such a period would be far too short, but that Brussels would strive to have a deal in place. Clearly, he thinks that he is capable of doing that. He talks about how he would sequence negotiations. For some things, we would have to kick the can down the road a bit and put some contingencies in place to deal with those. Clearly, he thinks that it is possible that we can do that deal.

[Dr Whitford]

The political declaration has a huge wish list of aspirations. Are they going to be negotiated later, or does the hon. Gentleman really think that including the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and all the various things that are in the wish list will be achieved by the end of the year?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

There may be a staging process; we do not know how the negotiations are going to roll out yet. Michel Barnier said that Brussels could take contingency measures to deal with those kinds of issue, because he does not want economic disruption. There is an appetite on both sides. What the European Union has done far better than the UK Parliament is negotiate as a bloc, together. There has not ever been any difficulty from its side in terms of people wanting different things, whereas clearly the UK Parliament has not behaved like that. As a result, the biggest vulnerability within the European Union from a poor trade deal or no trade deal is with regard to the Republic of Ireland.

The Republic of Ireland’s GDP growth rate is around 5%. Most financial commentators say that if there was a no-deal Brexit, the Republic of Ireland would go into recession. The EU would not want that. It would not leave the Republic of Ireland behind. The UK has imperatives in striking a deal and so has the EU. To my mind, that means we can do a deal in the next 12 months. I urge the Opposition to have more confidence in their position. The remarks from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, betrayed a lack of confidence, appetite and enthusiasm for this whole thing.

We cannot deal with Brexit like this—and I voted to remain. We must walk forward with confidence not only about our new relationship with the European Union, but, crucially at this time, about our negotiations on the trade deal.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George.

It has been mentioned that I am the only Labour Back Bencher in the Chamber, which is a double privilege. First, I think I am the only Labour leaver from the last Parliament left in the House. Secondly, the hustings for the start of the Labour leadership election are going on upstairs, which is important. One of my party’s problems is that although many of our supporters voted to leave the EU—and are enthusiastic about leaving—they are very poorly represented in the Labour party itself.

There is an element of tilting at windmills in this debate. I do not believe the catastrophe theories about the next 11 months or so. The public want us to get out, and it is in the mutual interest of the EU and its member states and the UK to get as good a deal as possible, so I do not believe the catastrophic predictions. I voted against the previous Prime Minister’s deal three times, and against the current Prime Minister’s deal—in November, I think—but I did so because there were not simple majorities and I believed there was a better deal out there. Going through the Lobby, I was aware that some were voting against because they wanted a better deal—one we believed would better represent the decision in the 2016 referendum—but that others were voting to delay the process because they wanted, either by measures in this Chamber or by a second referendum, to overturn the 2016 decision itself.

I am pleased we are now to leave the EU on 31 January, but I am less pleased that, because of tactical mistakes made by my colleagues, we are in a minority against the Conservative Government and look like being so for some time. I take issue with both the philosophy and the detail of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) from the Front Bench. The debate about whether we should remain in or leave the EU was never simply about the economy. Much of the debate—certainly this is one of the things that has motivated me since the 1975 referendum, when I voted to leave—is about the democratic argument. I believe it is better for both the economy and our society if people in this country elect the people who make our laws rather than letting unelected and appointed people in other countries make them. That is a fundamental principle of democracy. Without it, we simply do not have a democracy. I also think that making our own regulations and laws for our own industries is likely to make us economically more efficient and proficient.

The other side of my hon. Friend’s argument is that the Conservatives want a race to the bottom. They might or might not. I am in the Labour party, not the Conservative party, because my philosophy differs from theirs on many issues, but it is better in a democracy if we argue those issues out in general elections such as the one we have just had. If the Conservatives, as they tend to, want a more free-market approach, they should argue for that, and if we want a more interventionist approach, we should argue for that, and whether we win or lose the argument is up to the electorate. At present, however, our ability to support our own industries depends not on whether we or the Conservatives win an election, but on rules for state intervention and support set down by the EU.