European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Liam Byrne Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes]

I want to make some progress. I referred to my nine amendments. Amendment 34 relates to the common foreign and security policy. The EU does not do enough on defence. It needs to do far more, particularly, as President Donald Tusk pointed out, given the dangers from outside the EU—from Daesh terrorism, Russia and its territorial grabs in eastern Europe, and the uncertainties surrounding the other Donald, President Donald Trump, and the future of NATO. We all need to recognise that Britain, with France, is the backbone of the European pillar of NATO. The co-operation on the common foreign, security and defence policy that we have established so far needs to be sustained, whether or not we are in the EU.

It would be very foolish if, on leaving the EU, we weaken defence co-operation arrangements that date back to the Saint-Malo agreement with France, or the co-operation with our EU partners, which is limited but nevertheless important, on common peacekeeping, security and policing missions; we make a big contribution there. Some people have said that that could be used as an asset in the bargaining process, but that is the wrong approach. Regardless of what happens to agriculture or on financial contributions, it is in our national defence and security interest to have excellent relations with our neighbours—our French, Dutch and German neighbours—on the defence and security of this country. If we do the opposite, we will cut off our nose to spite our face, and that is not very sensible.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that we should go further? Now that we are leaving the federal project, we have an opportunity to create a confederal project, in which we strengthen co-operation on defence, social rights, science, international development and climate change. The Prime Minister says that we might be leaving the EU, but we are not leaving Europe. In that case, let us see the plan for strengthening our relationships across a host of areas of work across the continent.

[Mike Gapes]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I hope that he gets a chance to enlarge on it when he makes his contribution.

I wish to highlight two of my other amendments. Amendment 29, to which the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) referred, and amendment 35 both relate to Gibraltar. Anybody who, like me, has seen the occasional attempts by the authorities in Madrid to cause trouble in Gibraltar will know that there might suddenly be hundreds of vehicles and dozens of people queueing at the border between Gibraltar and Spain, the special police sent down from Madrid at a moment’s notice having imposed a rigorous check on everyone going to Gibraltar. A few hours later, there will be no queue—and then it can come back again.

Between 10,000 and 14,000 people living in southern Spain, in Andalusia, travel across the border each day to work in Gibraltar. Gibraltar has a population of about 32,000 people, many of whom are children. There is an economic base there now that cannot be sustained simply by employing residents of Gibraltar. Also, there is not enough land to house the number of workers it needs, so it is dependent on 10,000 or more workers crossing daily to work in Gibraltar—about 40% of the total workforce in the Gibraltar economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Flint]

We have failed to raise that issue under successive Governments and influence how the change should happen, and I believe that discussions are happening across the other 27 member states about what freedom of movement has meant for them. Unfortunately, we have not attended to that issue for too long. As a result of not doing so, when David Cameron tried to negotiate a deal, he did not leave enough time to broaden the scope for some real reform, so we hurtled into a referendum of his choosing on the date that he set and the consequences are there for all to see.

[Liam Byrne]

Mr right hon. Friend is making a brilliant and honest speech. When I was the Immigration Minister in 2007, it was clear to me that there could have been a consensus throughout Europe on the reform of free movement. If only the Labour party had pursued it then, when we were in government—indeed, if only the Conservative party had pursued it with care and forensic detail when they came to office in 2010—the Government would not have been forced to offer a bargain-basement deal to the British people when the Prime Minister’s back was against the wall.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. I do not want to stifle interventions, but it occurs to me that some people who are intervening and are still hoping to speak will have nothing left to say by the time they get to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Heappey]

I absolutely agree that, from an energy perspective, the interconnection of the UK and the European mainland is hugely important, but my point is that that is not a part of the EU single market. The EU’s internal energy market is a separate entity. I invite the Government to clarify that they recognise that and that their commitment to leaving the European single market, which I fully understand, is distinct from a continued enthusiasm for the internal energy market, which is an entirely separate thing and hugely to our benefit.

The will of my constituents and our country is clear: we have been instructed to leave. It is not what I voted for, but it is what we will do now. The process starts with this binary decision of whether or not to trigger article 50. The Bill, without amendment, does exactly that. As we go forward, the role of this House and our responsibilities to our constituents are clear: we must engage fully in scrutinising all the legislation that comes forward as a result of the negotiations. Those who have suggested that to not amend the Bill now is somehow an abdication of our responsibility to our constituents are just wrong. Our responsibility as a House is to be bound by the result of the referendum to trigger article 50 and then to bring all of our expertise together in scrutinising the legislation that follows, as we do on all other legislation.

[Liam Byrne]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I want to speak to new clause 193, which is in my name and the names of my hon. and right hon. Friends. I tabled it in the hope that the Minister would take it on board. I want to give the Government a chance this afternoon to set out their pro-European credentials.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton) so eloquently put it, the Prime Minister has said that, yes, we may be leaving the European Union, but that we intend to be good European neighbours. New clause 193 is an opportunity for the Government to set out how we, in this country, will remain determined to stay a member of one of the most important European clubs, the European club that we helped to found—the Council of Europe, the European convention on human rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

We moved the new clause because one of the most significant consequences of this divorce from Europe is that we will leave the European Court of Justice. Indeed, an important part of the leave campaign’s argument was that we must escape from the tutelage of these terrible European judges and that only British judges are good enough for us—unless, of course, they happen to want to give this Parliament a chance to debate this Bill, in which case they instantly become enemies of the people.

This idea that foreign judges are anathema to this place is, of course, complete fiction. This very afternoon, the Government have solicited our support for CETA—the comprehensive economic trade agreement—replete with the new investor state dispute mechanism, a new court populated not with British judges but with foreign judges. The idea that foreign judges are about to be removed or extracted from the body politic in this country is nonsense, and that is why I think we must argue that one of the most important tribunals that oversees the law in this country should remain in place. That court is the European Court of Human Rights.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a fundamental point about our sympathy not only with our European partners but with our common European heritage, stemming straight out of Judeo-Christian theology through the Enlightenment and various schools at Paris and the Sorbonne, into the concept of rights that has emerged. Those rights were not simply created by the Council of Europe, as he seems to be claiming, but rather by British judges over several hundred years—admittedly taken from French and other traditions—and were re-imposed on Europe in the aftermath of the second world war. Although that heritage is important, as he rightly claims, would it not also be appropriate to recognise that some of those judges today are Moldovan and Russian and have been rather more prone to look for dictatorial abuse than to guarantee rights?

[Liam Byrne]

There is a reason why Russia has had its credentials suspended by the Council of Europe, and that is that it is not prepared to honour the great European Magna Carta that British civil servants helped to draw up under Churchill’s inspiration in the years after the second world war.

The Conservative manifesto—

[Mr David Jones]

rose—

[Liam Byrne]

I will give way in a moment, as I want to put a specific question to the Minister.

The Conservative manifesto is not well read on the Government Benches; we study it forensically and in detail. In 2010, the manifesto said that the Conservatives would introduce a British Bill of Rights, replace the Human Rights Act and ensure that the European Court of Human Rights was no longer binding over the UK Supreme Court, ensuring that the European Court of Human Rights could no longer change British laws. That position was repeated in the 2015 manifesto. I hope that the Minister can say that that plan is now in the bin.

[Mr Jones]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I have resisted intervening throughout the course of the debate, but I think I can help him to this extent: I do not know whether he was present during the wind-ups on Second Reading, but I informed the House that the Government have no plans to withdraw from the European convention on human rights.

[Liam Byrne]

The Minister is good to put that on the record, but the fact is that there are plans—plans were set out in the Conservative manifesto in 2010 and in 2015, and the draft British Bill of Rights that is circulating in the Ministry of Justice contains similar plans. That is why in August 2016 the Justice Secretary told the House that a British Bill of Rights would be introduced, and the House wants categorically to know whether that British Bill of Rights will have the implication and result of taking us out of the European Court of Human Rights. That is the point that I want the Minister to put beyond doubt by accepting new clause 193.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

May I give the right hon. Gentleman some reassurance on two points? First, having served as the Minister responsible for human rights, I can say that it was never in the Conservative plans for a Bill of Rights to pull out of the European convention on human rights. I made that clear monthly at Justice questions. Secondly, precisely because the Council of Europe is completely independent of the EU, this is an entirely meaningless amendment.

[Liam Byrne]

It is absolutely not. It is essential if the Prime Minister is to be good to her word that we will remain committed to the European club that we helped to create.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Let me help to set the right hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest. I am sure that I have heard the Prime Minister say publicly—I think, during her leadership campaign—that she was abandoning plans to leave the European convention on human rights because she accepted that she could not win a parliamentary majority for such a proposal.

[Liam Byrne]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that point, but I would like the question put beyond doubt by asking the Minister to accept new clause 193, which would give us a degree of assurance. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is perfectly prepared to vote against his own Whip in order to seek cast-iron reassurances, and I seek the same level of reassurance this afternoon.

It was back in September 1946 that Winston Churchill went to Zurich and proposed the Council of Europe as a first step towards recreating the European family whose breakdown led to the tragedy of the second world war. In the face of rising risks and threats, those old words are still wise words to guide us.