European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lady Hermon]

Of course; I would be delighted.

[Mr Clarke]

I do not think that I am one of the senior members of my party whom she is criticising. Does she agree that the Prime Minister, 48 hours ago, reached an agreement with the Taoiseach that seemed to show that the Prime Minister shared the hon. Lady’s concerns? We cannot have an open border without having some regulatory and customs convergence on both sides. That all came to an end when the DUP vetoed it, which makes it extremely important—more than it was—that her new clause be put into the Bill to make sure that we are not back-sliding. Of course, the DUP could always rescue its reputation by confirming that its only objection was to not having regulatory and customs convergence across the whole United Kingdom, and by agreeing, as she and I do, that regulatory and customs convergence across the whole island of Ireland is in the interests of inhabitants on both sides of the border.

[Lady Hermon]

That was very interesting. Lots of points were raised there. The DUP will have to speak for itself, and I am sure that at some point this afternoon, its Members will want to contribute to the debate. I am hugely grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for confirming that he feels that the Government should accept my new clause; I thank him.

I felt deeply embarrassed for the Prime Minister on Monday. What was so interesting in her demeanour during Prime Minister’s questions today was her confidence at the Dispatch Box, and her response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who had a question on the Order Paper. It was a very interesting question, and the Prime Minister’s reply was significant. She seemed so calm, not that she does not normally seem calm—forget about the party conference; that was a very difficult experience for her, and we would not like that to happen to any of us. I suspect that she has spoken a lot to the leader of the DUP since Monday; that is what I hope, but I am not in that inner circle. I am not a member of the DUP, and its members do not come along to me and say, “Here’s the draft memorandum; have a look at it.” I hope that I am right in saying that there has been progress. If I am not, I am sure that a DUP Member will quickly get to their feet to contradict me, and they are not doing that.

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[Stephen Doughty]

Indeed. I might have taken some Ministers at their word in the past, but there are others who would love to take back powers or to act without reference either to this Chamber or to the Chambers of the devolved legislatures, as we have seen on a whole series of issues. Ultimately we would end up in the Supreme Court, wasting lots of taxpayers’ money and in dispute. That cannot be the way to keep stability in the constitutional settlement.

My amendments are in no way intended to wreck the Bill or to undermine the process that the Government have set out, but they are absolutely essential to maintaining a stable settlement with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The events of the past 36 hours have shown why the Government have simply not paid enough serious attention to the unintended consequences of their various grand rhetorical statements. I will therefore seek to press amendment 158 to a vote at the appropriate time.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

It seems to me that the Brexit negotiations have finally started to reach a serious stage over the past two or three days. It is rather unfortunate that it is now 18 months since we held the referendum and more than six months since we invoked article 50, but we are still at the stage, which the British Government agreed to, of discussing the three preliminary points, based on our withdrawal, before we can get to discuss our new trade arrangements.

In my opinion, the rights of EU citizens could have been settled in five minutes, with a mutual recognition allowing British people who have moved to the continent and EU citizens who have moved here to retain the rights they expected to have when they made that important move. The financial arrangements should have taken about half an hour, because it was perfectly obvious that there would be financial obligations. We would not have known what the obligations were until we had concluded the negotiations, but the heads of agreement—the basis upon which the mathematics could eventually be done—should not have taken very long. The difficulties were political, and they were here in British politics and in the Conservative party. That delayed progress for a long time.

It is the extremely important Irish question that has posed the first really big issue that has to be solved properly. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) made an extremely eloquent and moving speech—I will not attempt to rival it. Like her, I certainly remember the Irish troubles. I lived in Birmingham at the time when there were serious bomb attacks there. My first visit to Northern Ireland was with other Conservative MPs. We caused the security people a little consternation by entering a no-go area in Derry with John Hume, who I think had got us a laissez-passer from the IRA so that we could get in and see the conditions there. More seriously, several MPs were killed. I knew Airey Neave and the Rev. Robert Bradford, and Ian Gow was a good friend of mine.

The hon. Lady put it eloquently and movingly. I hope that nobody in this country still underestimates the huge achievement that the Good Friday agreement represents, or indeed the huge achievement it represents that Northern Irish politicians of all complexions have turned it into such a success, making Northern Ireland a more cohesive and peace-loving society, because nobody wants to return to anything resembling the troubles.

We agreed to address the Irish border problem as a preliminary issue, but nobody seemed to pay it any serious attention until about a week ago. Certainly, it was scarcely mentioned in our rather agitated British debate in this country. It was thought a rather odd feature that the Irish Government had somehow persuaded the other members to raise with us. But the effect on the Irish border of our leaving the European Union is of immense significance, for all the reasons we have now been stressing.

I thought that the Government’s policy on the border was slightly ludicrous. They keep saying that they are committed to an open border, and that is absolutely right and consistent with the Good Friday agreement. They then say that we are leaving the single market and the customs union. I have said many times in the House that those two outcomes are completely incompatible; the two together are an oxymoron—I think that is the correct phrase—because we cannot have one with the other.

I thought that at last the light had dawned and that the Prime Minister had moved in her discussions with the Taoiseach and reached an agreement. Despite the assertions she had been giving all the way through, but consistent with them—obviously she would say—she had agreed on behalf of the Government, and no doubt believed that she would get the approval of this House, to have regulatory convergence, in certain areas at least, across the border. I, like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), took that to mean the whole United Kingdom, because we cannot have separate arrangements in Ireland.

At last common sense was dawning, I thought, because, whatever we call it, we cannot have any trade agreement with any other country in modern times unless we have agreed to mutually binding arrangements for regulatory and customs convergence—either harmonisation or mutual recognition in set areas. We will not get a trade agreement with Samoa—I think the Secretary of State has just headed there to make exploratory noises—if we tell them that we are not going to agree to any binding regulations or rules that will be mutually acceptable in whatever goods and services we trade.

That satisfied me, but then came this bewildering veto.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has returned to the veto, because vetoes have been mentioned several times in the debate thus far. Does he agree that what has been thoroughly unhelpful in the past 10 days is the arrival of Donald Tusk in Dublin, in effect to hand the Irish Taoiseach a veto by saying, “We in Europe stand with you, and whatever you want, we will back you.”?

[Mr Clarke]

That is hardly surprising. I do not think that Donald Tusk would go to any of the other 27 member states without saying that he accepts that their consent is required, and in this case, in particular, the Government of the Republic of Ireland have to be party to any agreement.

That seemed to be addressed by the fact that our Prime Minister was able to reach an agreement with the Taoiseach on regulatory arrangements—the precise details would have to await the ultimate free trade deal—in order to obviate any necessity for a closed border. I hope that the reason the DUP vetoed it was not that it was tempted by the idea of going back to border posts and controls; I do not think that the DUP is any more in favour of that than any other Member who has spoken in this House. I hope that it was sheer incompetence that the DUP had not been shown the text or kept party to the negotiations.

I will go no further than this, but I find it absolutely astonishing, if we are moving on to this issue, that the closest possible relationship would not be maintained with the devolved Government in Belfast. Had I been a member of the Government in Belfast—a highly unlikely prospect—I would have been rather indignant at not being closely consulted, and I certainly would have wanted to know what the terms were likely to be rather well in advance. If that is the explanation—the expression of the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) gives the impression that might have quite a lot to do with it—I hope that the devolved Government will share with us all the importance of getting this right and maintaining the Belfast agreement and will therefore lift this veto, reach some understandings and let it proceed.

That brings me to the amendments. I think the negotiations are likely to succeed in the end. I take an optimistic view because, on both sides of the channel, an overwhelming number of politicians, diplomats and officials are perfectly sensible people. On the whole, the ones involved in the negotiations have a better understanding of what we are talking about than the average citizen. They all realise that the public interest in every one of the 28 countries is in reaching a sensible agreement that minimises the damage and maintains, as far as possible, the freedoms of trade and movement.

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[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My hon. Friend keeps reiterating, with ever greater passion, the Government’s 110% commitment to the Belfast agreement. The reason for not putting it into the Bill is, with great respect, an extremely obscure drafting point, which I have tried to follow but cannot quite, because the provision that he refers to is extremely narrow indeed. It applies to possibilities that may arise after withdrawal from Europe—minor consequences. If there is anything wrong with the drafting, the Government can correct that on Report and they will probably not meet any passionate resistance from anyone in the House. In view of what the Minister said, the Government should show their commitment by accepting the new clause, and all this other footnote stuff can be sorted out at a later stage.

[Mr Walker]

I have great respect for my right hon. and learned Friend. On the point that he makes, the Government have absolutely accepted their commitments to the Belfast agreement. It is already a matter of international law. We are committed to that agreement. It is annexed to the British-Irish treaty, and we will continue to respect it in the way in which we approach this whole issue. We will work across the House, as we always have, constructively to ensure that the approach that we take is absolutely in line with the Belfast agreement, and we have done that throughout this process.

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[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman says he has pointed out a legal reality, but the Labour party’s position on all of these matters is now no clearer than mud. Are we ultimately going to honour the will of the British people, enact this Bill, and withdraw from the EU? That is the bottom line. All these amendments are slowly but surely being exposed as having a different motivation. It was said earlier that there was a need to put the Brexit Members of Parliament on the spot and get them to vote for the consequences of Brexit. I will happily walk through the Division Lobby tonight to vote down new clause 17, for the very reason that I wish to put into practice and into law the will of the British people. They voted to leave, and we must bring it on and allow them to leave. Confusion has been allowed to reign as a result of the proposed amendments.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I have never heard anybody put this argument in quite this extreme way. The British public answered the simple question of whether they wished to leave the European Union, but that question carried within it hundreds of highly complicated sub-questions which now have to be addressed after the negotiations. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should not, for example, discuss the basis on which we make a contribution towards accrued pension liabilities during our membership of the European Union because our masters, the people, have decided that we must pay those accrued pension liabilities and are indifferent to how much that will cost? That is an absurd misuse of the one simple question about whether or not to stay in the EU.

[Ian Paisley]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Father of the House, has been a Member of Parliament for many years, and he will know that it is only very occasionally that the British people are asked their view by way of a referendum. Indeed, that has probably happened on only two occasions in his lifetime. On both of those occasions, the will of the British people was enacted by this place. Yes, of course there is debate. Who says that there should not be reasoned debate? [Hon. Members: “You.”] I do not say that, and I have not said that. Don’t be silly—[Interruption.] I am not saying it now. I am saying what the raison d’être behind the debate is, which is very different. Let us have the debate. I have actually used the words “bring it on”. If the Father of the House is suggesting that this occasion is just the same as every other occasion, I have to tell him, with due respect, that he is wrong. The will of the people has been expressed through a referendum. That is what makes this different.