United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). Another day, another Brexit vote, which is not quite the Brexit vote that we need and does not quite have the numbers that it needs to win. It does not quite give constituents, companies or our four countries the certainty that they require, yet here we are again.

The British state is beset with a Tory Westminster Government behaving like Olympian gods, as if our constituents, many of whom have livelihoods that depend on our relationship with Europe, and we were mere pawns in their chess game. They insist on bringing forward meaningful vote after vote after vote, knowing that they produce absolutely nothing, but pretend that they are doing something. This is nothing more than deceit, duplicity and deception from a Government acting in desperation. Then the Prime Minister has the audacity to go on national television and blame us, Members of this House, for her failure as Head of State to govern.

We are ensnared in a morass of procedural minutiae, with twists and turns of byzantine complexity—a six-volume Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the British Empire”—played out in painfully tedious slow-motion in what used to be held in respect as the mother of Parliaments. We cannot discuss the failure of this House without turning to the Benches on this side. We were helpfully reminded this week—everyone was reminded—that Labour is “not a remain party”, and don’t we know it. If the Labour party had done its sole job and opposed any of the disastrous moves by the Government, not simply closed its eyes and wished upon its negotiation-free Brexit, we would now have a clear way forward and we would not be clinging to the whims of the European Reform Group and the intransigence of the Democratic Unionist party. Alas, as long as we stick to this archaic, dysfunctional Westminster system, we are stuck with Her Majesty’s Opposition, complicit with Her Majesty’s Government.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady mentioned the ERG. If Her Majesty’s Government had followed the whims of the ERG we would be in a much better position today.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The ERG does what suits it best and, as we see, many of its members are allowed to change their opinion. If only the people of the nations of the United Kingdom were allowed as much.

I would say to Labour that if Wales leaves Europe because of Labour Members, Labour fiefdom in Wales is at an end. If Labour abandons the interests of Wales, Wales will abandon Labour. This House, at the behest of both the Brexiteering Unionist parties has so far failed to make any decisions about our future relationship with the European Union. The blame is at their door. We have suggested ways forward to marshal decision making, with my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) suggesting indicative votes using an alternative voting system to decide how we proceed. That was first raised weeks upon weeks ago, long before the Government lost their first meaningful vote. If the Prime Minister had pulled her fingers out of her ears and listened to anyone other than the privileged elite of the ERG and the DUP—the elite of the Brexiteers—we could have used the last two and a half months to make some progress, to decide what the House thinks is the best way forward and to simply get on with it.

It cannot be said often enough: how often is the Prime Minister going to game democracy for her own purposes? How many ERGers will switch their votes and their previous principles on the most spurious of thin reasons? Will they not open their eyes and see that representative parliamentary democracy in this place has stalled? If it is good enough for the Tories to have multiple shots, how do they have the nerve to argue that the people are somehow unworthy of a final-say referendum? Bring on a people’s vote—our salvation in public democracy.

To close, we are where we are because of this tin-eared, time-wasting and timorous British Government, who are hell bent on putting their own interests before the interests of farmers, factory workers and families across the UK. If this is the best the Commons can cobble together, we are in serious trouble. Britain is broken, and Westminster is simply not working. The people of Wales deserve better than this failed empire of a Union. The timbers of this ship of state are rotten, and we in Wales must look to Europe and to ourselves for salvation.

Northern Ireland Backstop

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend will have heard the answer that I gave some moments ago. I simply say that the backstop is not intended to be a bridge to anywhere. It is to be used only in extremis if we cannot achieve a future relationship. It cannot be a bridge; the bridge has to be with the withdrawal agreement and then our future relationship.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Solicitor General seeks to justify the problem that is Brexit by insisting that the backstop is the problem. I understand that he wants to sympathise with the manufacturing communities in Swindon, Wales and elsewhere that are waking up to job losses, but it is difficult because he is in the Government. Given the evidence, how can the Government, abetted by the Labour Front-Bench team, continue to defend their myopia, their self-interest, and their talent for procrastination? When will he admit their part in this problem?

[The Solicitor General]

I can agree with the hon. Lady to this extent: it is incumbent on politicians from all parts of the House, most importantly on those on the Opposition Front Bench, to work to achieve a solution, rather than to achieve nano-party-political ends. I entirely agree with her. I have seen precious little of the former, and far too much of the latter, but God loves a sinner who repenteth, and I look forward to the Opposition following that advice and helping us all to do our duty and get the deal through.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Before I start my speech, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Steffan Lewis, the Plaid Cymru Assembly Member, who very sadly passed away on Friday. At just 34, he still had so much to contribute. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the party’s best minds. His inspirational vision for lifting Wales’s status in the world reached across the political divide. His influence and legacy will endure beyond our political lifetimes. We miss you, Steff.

The Prime Minister and her inner circle have reached endgame. They have run out of road in the project of misinformation, arm twisting and semantic chicanery, of “my way or no way” and of partnership proffered as the gateway to the future of her precious Union. She says she is reaching out across party boundaries, but it is just too little, too late. The spirit of acknowledging another vision, a vision of the respect implicit in the sweet moderation of compromise—sadly, such politics are beyond her. Her gaze has a way of swivelling back to the Brexiteers, fossilised in the strata of her own party. The rest of us, and especially the voices of Wales, have been invisible and unheeded. Here is a concept of parliamentary democracy in the age of devolution reduced to the absurd.

The Prime Minister claims that no solutions other than hers have been proffered or are, indeed, possible. This tired political gambit now looks desperate. It has neither credibility nor veracity. When we plead with her to give the people a final say on the biggest question of our generation, as many of us have, she commands us to honour the result of the Brexit referendum, yet in 1997 she voted against legislation to establish the National Assembly for Wales, and in 2005 she stood on a manifesto calling for another referendum, with the option to overturn the previous result.

History has shown that the Prime Minister is very much prepared to go back to the people of Wales, so why not Europe?

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. No one enjoys the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s eloquence more than I, but let us share it with the whole House.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The British Government insist that they have the right to take privileged legal advice that remains private between lawyer and client. I recall the Labour Government using the exact same excuse during the Iraq war. In the light of the confessed damage that any Brexit deal will cause, I beg, who is the client? Should not the Attorney General learn from the mistakes of the past, discharge his solemn and constitutional duty as a humble servant of Parliament and of the public, and publish? If not now, when?

[The Attorney General]

First, I point out to the hon. Lady that the advice of Lord Goldsmith was published two years after the event. What the House is now asking is that the advice, if any, given by the Attorney General be published in the middle of the negotiations, where we may still need to deploy many of the arguments connected with the withdrawal agreement in the future. Secondly, the advice of Lord Goldsmith was on a question of the lawfulness of the Government’s action. This is not a question of whether the Government acted lawfully; this is simply a question of whether the Government are acting wisely, on which Members of the House can disagree. There is a fundamental distinction between the position when the advice of Lord Goldsmith was given in 2003 and the advice today.

The advice that the Attorney General and the Law Officers give on a matter such as this could be replicated by any lawyer of reasonable competence. Why, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) could pop down to his chambers and find half a dozen lawyers capable of giving the same advice that I might have given on these points—probably better. The truth of the matter—what is so important about my advice?

Leaving the EU: Scotland and Wales Continuity Bills

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is what we should be aspiring to: a workable situation where we can have a system of laws that works on the day after we leave. That is what we owe to all our constituents in whatever part of the United Kingdom they may live.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I rise to pay tribute to my Plaid Cymru colleague Steffan Lewis AM, who built cross-party consensus in our Assembly for our continuity Bill. I wish Steff well in recovery from serious illness.

Devolution means divergence. Devolution means difference. Why does the Attorney General seek to deny that, knowing as he does that he calls into question the very concept of devolution?

[The Attorney General]

Again, I do not call into question the concept of devolution—quite the reverse. I seek to assert the provisions of the devolution settlement that enable us to resolve such disputes when they occur. There is undoubtedly a dispute. I am surprised to hear Opposition Members even dispute that there is a dispute. It seems to me that that bit, at least, is pretty obvious.

On the hon. Lady’s point, I accept that there will be differences of approach to devolution. Where the devolution settlements allow for differences in approach, that is perfectly reasonable. What we are talking about, however, is the capacity for the Government to say not just to us in Parliament but to individuals and businesses around the country, that they can be sure what the arrangements will be on the day after we leave the European Union. There simply cannot be two competing versions of that in place at one time. That does not accord with legal certainty and it is that which we seek to address, aside from the very real questions about legal competence, which in the end, if necessary, the Supreme Court will have to decide.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I am pleased to speak in support of new clause 30, which is in my name and those of many other hon. Members, as well as new clause 60 and amendments 93 to 95. I am hopeful of finding support across the House for new clause 30, on animal sentience, because I do not think it should be controversial.

By way of background, in 1997—20 years ago—the UK Government, during their presidency of the EU, convinced the then 14 other member states that EU law should explicitly recognise that animals were sentient beings, and not simply agricultural goods like bags of potatoes that could be maltreated with impunity. In other words, it was a recognition that, like us, animals are aware of their surroundings; that they have the capacity to feel pain, hunger, heat and cold; and that they are aware of what is happening to them and of their interaction with other animals, including humans.

The resulting protocol, which came into force in 1999, changed how animals were regarded and ensured that future EU legislation was not implemented on the basis of the lowest standards of animal welfare, but that it took animal sentience into account. That understanding has since informed more than 20 pieces of EU law on animal welfare, including the ban on sealskin imports, the ban on conventional battery cages and the ban on cosmetics testing on animals.

In 2009, the original protocol was incorporated into the Lisbon treaty as article 13 of title II. The Government have rightly and commendably committed to transferring all existing EU law on animal welfare into UK law under the Bill, but because the text of the Lisbon treaty is not transferred by the Bill, the wording of article 13 on animal sentience will not explicitly be incorporated into UK law. As things stand, despite having one of the longest-standing animal welfare laws in the world—something of which we are rightly proud—the UK has no legal instrument other than article 13 of the Lisbon treaty to provide that animals are sentient beings.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

EU laws on animal sentience have allowed Wales to lead the way on animal welfare. When Plaid Cymru was in government, for instance, we banned the use of electric shock collars on cats and dogs. Does the hon. Lady agree that as well as explicitly incorporating the wording of article 13 on animal sentience into UK law, the UK Government should not hinder or stifle any future progress on animal welfare in Wales by dictating what it can and cannot do in areas of devolved competence?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I absolutely support what she says. Last night, I proudly went through the Lobby on amendment 79, which would have given the devolved Administrations more of a say on the Brexit process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend’s support for the Digital Economy Bill means that the universal service obligation to bring high-speed broadband to every premise in the UK is getting closer to reality. Not only that, but because of the take-up of superfast broadband, every person in Northamptonshire who takes it up also helps to get the roll-out to go further, because more money goes back into the system to provide more connection.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It is shameful that seven out of the 10 UK communities with the slowest broadband download speeds are in Wales. Abererch in Dwyfor is bottom of that league, with a speed of 2.7 megabits per second. Llanymawddwy in Meirionnydd was promised broadband by this spring, but BT backed out last month. Will the Minister join me in asking when the Labour Welsh Government will speed up their act on broadband?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course the delivery of the broadband contract in Wales is a matter for the Welsh Government, but they have made some progress on this recently and we have been working together. The geography of Wales means that the roll-out there is harder, but that does not mean we should not get to everybody with high-speed broadband by the end of the decade. I hope that the hon. Lady’s support for the Digital Economy Bill will help to make that happen.