Article 50 Extension Procedure

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and William Cash

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Thank you.

As I have said on numerous occasions in response to questions from the right hon. Lady and others, we have a choice: if we accept the deal, we can ask for a short extension to get through—[Interruption.] She perfectly accepts that; I thank the right hon. Lady. With regard to the longer extension, that is something we have not yet asked for, and when we do so, there will be a debate about the SI that will extend it for next week, and there will be—[Interruption.] I refuse to be patronised by the right hon. Lady and say there will be ample opportunity, as she well knows, to debate the extension of the SI next week.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

So far the Minister has not explained, to my satisfaction anyway, why we need an extension at all, certainly given the votes last week, and, secondly, why on earth would we want a long extension? What is the rationale behind that? Is the Minister also aware that Mr Guy Verhofstadt has just said that the UK could be refused an extension if the Prime Minister fails to get agreement in the Commons on the meaningful vote, and, secondly, does he know that Elmar Brok is saying that the Italians are almost certainly going to refuse an extension anyway?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend has asked a question. He is a great parliamentarian: he has ample experience over many years in the House of Commons, and he will have noticed that there was a vote on Thursday in which the House said we should extend the article 50 process. It is on the back of that that I have made this statement relating to extending the article 50 process, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has presented these two choices. I am not prejudging the meaningful vote. Many people in this House have condemned it already; I am not prejudging that, but that is why we are going to extend the period.

My hon. Friend may rely on other Governments vetoing the extension of article 50. That may well be the case; I cannot prejudge that. But what we do know is that many people in Europe have said they would accommodate the United Kingdom if it were the case that the Government should extend the article 50 period.

Northern Ireland Backstop: Conditional Interpretative Declaration

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and William Cash

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

I am deeply grateful to the hon. Lady because she expresses exactly my line of argument. I hope that it is understood that this is not a matter of being obstructive for its own sake. It is incredibly important that the House is not bounced, or confronted with smoke and mirrors or something Members do not completely understand, but then they all go off and vote and afterwards someone says, “Actually, that doesn’t stack up.” I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough entirely agrees with me on that, and I know the Minister does, too—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

indicated assent.

[Sir William Cash]

I see him nodding his head, for which I am grateful. It really is important. We are not talking about something like a free trade agreement, like the one with Canada—the CETA arrangements—at which my Committee has also been looking very closely. In fact, it is a matter of profound and fundamental constitutional significance, and I am deeply concerned that the EU has taken an intransigent position.

We know that Martin Selmayr is reputed to have said that the price the United Kingdom will have to pay for the way in which it has carried on—I am paraphrasing—is Northern Ireland. We know that there are powerful forces in the Republic who want a united Ireland, and there are also those who believe that the whole backstop argument has been engineered to lead to a border poll and ultimately a united Ireland. There are some very clever lawyers at work in all this. It is our job in the House, with such resources as are available to us, to try to penetrate the fog and make it crystal clear that no solution that would have the effect of undermining the constitutional status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom could possibly be put forward.

I do not think that I need to say much more. Mine is a profound concern, but I am sure that it will be understood in Downing Street and in the Attorney General’s own mind. Let me simply say that I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough for the way in which he has set out what I have understood him to be seeking to achieve. The danger would arise if we ended up taking a route that looked plausibly good and then turned out to be not merely a bear trap but a disaster.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I thank you very much for those tips, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was just making a rather flippant observation; I do not think I have ever seen entirely empty Opposition Benches.

Clearly the Government and the Prime Minister have set out three possible routes—three ways in which the backstop can be addressed. Members will know those three options, but for the sake of the record we should recapitulate. The first was whether the backstop could be replaced with alternative arrangements, and those arrangements are expressed exactly in the political declaration. They are arrangements that will avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and this process has been constructively led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and he has been engaging with MPs across the House on that issue.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has also discussed alternative arrangements with the ongoing alternative arrangements working group in Brussels and with Mr Barnier. The Commission has changed its language over the last few weeks and is beginning to engage seriously with the proposals we have suggested. Although the Commission has expressed some concern about the viability of alternative arrangements, I would suggest that it is more flexible and open to these alternative arrangements than has been the case hitherto.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the Minister also accept that, as he has made clear, the only basis on which this entire analysis and investigation and possible wording could be effective in the Government’s mind would be if it were legally binding? However, it is manifestly obvious that the political declaration is not legally binding and therefore to conduct the alternative arrangements on the basis of a political declaration which is not legally binding simply does not wash.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend with his customary acuity stresses and reinforces what I and the Government have already said: we are seeking legally binding changes to the backstop.

The Government have also looked at the issue of a time limit to the existing backstop, and this is where the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough plays its part. His suggestion is that conditional interpretative declarations could be employed as a mechanism for interpreting what exactly is meant by “temporary” in relation to the backstop and defining this in such a way that results in the fact that the UK would not be bound indefinitely to the backstop. It is an elegant solution on first reading, but an issue has arisen as to exactly how binding such a declaration would be. My guidance has been that any changes would still have to be jointly agreed by both parties, and that is a key aspect we must consider. My right hon. Friend has pointed the way on this: in the withdrawal agreement, which I have studied carefully, the Northern Ireland protocol, which is about 185 pages long, sets out in clear, some might even say stark, terms the role of the joint committee and the fact that any end of the backstop would have to be mutually agreed. It is unclear to me and a number of people who have looked at this in the interests of the Government whether such a conditional interpretative declaration would allow the UK unilaterally to impose an end date for the protocol. My right hon. Friend in his comprehensive and excellent speech also suggested that such a declaration could not contravene the withdrawal agreement itself.

[Sir William Cash]

The other point to throw into this equation is the question of whether the European Court of Justice would, at the end of this process, be able to adjudicate on the outcome, because it would be manifestly in the minds of the EU that this matter engaged European law.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As my hon. Friend will know, the status of the backstop will be subject, I suppose, to the scrutiny of the joint committee. He is suggesting that the joint committee will ultimately be somehow under the jurisdiction of the European Court. This is not actually—