Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I will now move on to the question of scrutiny itself.

The House already has plans to put in place the so-called Brexit Select Committee, which will take effect next month, and we will be appearing in front of it regularly. It would be surprising if we appeared in front of that Committee and did not talk about some of our plans. I expect to attend the Committee regularly, just as I will attend the Lords Committee—its equivalent, effectively. We do not shy away from scrutiny; we welcome it. Members will know that I have continually welcomed and championed the extension of Select Committee powers since the publication of the Wright Committee report in 2009. The public expect Ministers to engage with Parliament in this way, and we will continue to do so.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davis]

In a moment.

I also made a commitment in September that this Parliament will be at least as informed of progress in our negotiations as the European Parliament. The hon. and learned Gentleman did not appear to believe it when I told the Lords, but it was also made plain to the Foreign Affairs Committee. We are setting up administrative procedures to ensure that, when this becomes relevant in a month or two, these things happen and happen quickly, so that we do not have to go to an EU website to find what we want to know. That will be the minimum, but Members should understand that we will be going considerably beyond that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

In a moment—I have a lady over here who wants to make an intervention.

Similarly, if someone makes pre-emptive indications that they are willing to make a concession on something, they reduce the value of that concession. Therefore, in many, many ways, we cannot give details about how we will run the negotiation.

[Mrs Miller]

My right hon. Friend is right that negotiations are a fragile process. I welcome his support for scrutiny. My Select Committee—the Women and Equalities Committee—is looking closely at the impact of Brexit on equality protections, which I am sure is not high on his list at the moment. We want to do some of the work on that with him. Will he undertake today to work with us on that and to contribute to our Select Committee inquiry? At the moment, we are finding it difficult to secure that contribution from his Department.

[Mr Davis]

I see no reason not to help the Select Committee on that basis; that seems an eminently sensible use of time and of the Select Committee’s expertise, so of course we will do that. However, this will be an issue right across the board; pretty much every Select Committee in the House of Commons will have an interest, one way or another, in the progress of Brexit and in what the outcome will be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

This has been an impassioned debate, with a great deal of hyperbole at times on both sides, but we should not forget that the Opposition motion is about scrutiny—a principle that has been explicitly accepted by the Government in their amendment, and we should welcome that.

There is an arrogance creeping into the debate today that we should take great care about, because only one certainty is coming from the referendum decision in June: the vote to leave the EU—I put it on record that I was a remainer—and nothing else is certain at this point. Members on both sides have advocated membership of or freedom to trade in the single market, freedom of movement, or no freedom of movement. Our EU partners listening today may be forgiven for thinking that there is more than a touch of arrogance coming from the British Parliament, but the truth is that it is all up for grabs, and it is not for us to determine the outcome at this stage. We may well continue trading in the single market—I certainly hope so—but that is what this negotiation is all about.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said “Get real”, and I think that we should, but for slightly different reasons. Why should those who remain in the EU reward members who choose to leave? We do need to get real. We are leaving the biggest trading bloc in the world. The members of that trading bloc want to continue to sell their goods to us, and we want to sell ours to them, but that will come with some sort of price, or issues, attached. We can romanticise this all we want, but at the end of the day, it will come down to hard economic facts and the capability of the Ministers sitting on the Front Bench today. [Interruption.] I think we should get behind them and show a little bit more support; perhaps then we could show the united front that we should.

The Government’s challenge is to turn this theory and rhetoric into practice. The basic rule of negotiation, which the Government should acknowledge at this point, is that we are only as strong as our ability to walk away. The World Trade Organisation terms are, in practice, our starting point. I hope that is not where we end up, but we should be honest and say that if we do not acknowledge that, our starting point in these negotiations is fundamentally flawed.

There is no clarity about what Brexit means at this stage, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is absolutely right: the position is full of contradictions. Even now, when I speak to students and businesses in my constituency, which did vote marginally to leave the EU, there are contradictions. There is the control of migration on one hand and, on the other, students’ ability to study and work abroad. We want to ensure both flexibility on the one hand and protections on the other. It is for the Government to work these things out. These are complicated, difficult negotiations, and they deserve all our support.

In their amendment, the Government have demonstrated that they fully understand the need for full and transparent debate, and that is where Parliament comes into play. Labour Members should support the Government amendment, and I think that I read in the press that perhaps they do; I was not quite clear on that when the shadow Secretary of State spoke. I hope that he can make that clearer.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) said, “We can’t do it the same old way,” and he is absolutely right. There are scrutiny mechanisms and the Government should use them, but our constituents will not accept warring factions; the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) was right about that. Scoring points will not win this. Our strongest position is to be united.