European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Statutory Obligations on Ministers

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I believe I am standing here on behalf of a Prime Minister who is seeking to do the right thing for the country—to bring us together and to secure an agreement that is in our best interests and that this whole House can support.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has been absolutely crystal clear that there will be a meaningful debate and a meaningful vote. Does he share my concern that Opposition Members are more interested in driving damaging uncertainty than in supporting the Prime Minister, who is trying to deliver the best deal for this country?

[Mr Walker]

Frankly, I do share that concern. We see today this focus on process rather than outcomes. We should all be focused on getting the best outcome from this whole process.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

At a point in history when international co-operation has never been more important, I believe that as a nation we would benefit from being a member of a collaborative organisation like the EU, but the EU took a calculated gamble when Britain asked to renegotiate its terms of membership. The proposed reforms did not address the fundamental concerns of the British people, so voters made their voices heard; we have to accept that.

The priority now has to be to set aside our differences to get the best for our country, our constituents and, indeed, the thousands of businesses that make our country a great place to live. We are a great nation with great people and a Government who have a firm and optimistic view for our country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) is right that we have to use our judgment on whether the Bill is the right approach, and it is my judgment that, by amending their process and presenting this Bill, the Government have demonstrated that they understand the rule of law and the democratic process, and I support the Bill because of that.

The country has voted to leave the EU, and the Bill starts that process. I welcome the Government’s announcement that the Bill will be followed by a White Paper to be published shortly. Although it is vital that the Government have the mandate of this place for their approach—the mandate will come from the White Paper, from this Bill and from the great repeal Bill—this is not the forum to negotiate the specific terms of any agreement.

Of course we want to know the terms of engagement and the strategy that will be followed, but to bind the Government’s hands would be sheer folly. Negotiations are, by definition, a series of trade-offs, and we must not bind the Government’s hands, which would result in a much worse deal for our country. Frankly, accountability is baked into our system—it is called the 2020 general election. The Prime Minister has clearly set out a very positive vision for our future, putting at the centre of her approach control of our laws, control of immigration and clear rights for EU nationals in the UK and British nationals in the EU. I have spoken to EU nationals living in my constituency, and I think it would be right for the UK and the remaining EU states to resolve the matter of British and EU nationals as soon as possible because giving them certainty as quickly as possible is fundamental to who we are as a nation.

The Government have also been clear about the importance of fully protecting and maintaining workers’ rights by translating the body of European law into domestic regulations. The Government have also been clear about giving priority to protecting everybody’s rights and treating people equally and fairly, regardless of their gender, race, religion, disability, sexuality or age not because we are a member of the EU but because it is a fundamental part of who we are. Much of those protections is already enshrined in UK law but as a respected lawyer, the Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union, my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), who will respond to this debate, knows that the law itself is not sufficient. We need to disentangle 50 years of institutional collaboration on enforcing those laws—I believe that leaving the European Court of Justice behind is a must, although it will create new tensions—if we are not to see the erosion of the protections that we all hold dear. I hope he can indicate that he will be looking at that in the White Paper.

Time is short, but I reiterate that we are not leaving Europe, we are leaving the EU. We are not changing our values of fairness and decency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis]

The hon. Lady should be very wary about taking economic assumptions underpinning a forecast as a statement of what is going to happen. The outcome after the Brexit process is over will depend very much on the deal we strike. That will be a good deal and there will be an increase in the amount of world trade we take.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Major pharmaceutical investors, such as Eli Lilly in my constituency, use a common EU system for medicine regulation in clinical trials to help British patients to gain access to the best treatments in the world. What work is the Minister doing to ensure that the decades-long co-operation with the EU is maintained after Brexit not just for the benefit of companies but for the benefit of patients?

[Mr Robin Walker]

I assure my right hon. Friend that we will be looking very carefully at that. As I said earlier, no decisions have yet been made about the future location of the European Medicines Agency. Until we have left the EU, the UK remains a member with all the rights and obligations that membership entails. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency continues to play a full role in all procedures of the EU medical device regulatory framework.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

T8. Yesterday’s employment figures show that this Government’s successful policies are leading to more people being in employment than ever before. The NHS relies on thousands of EU nationals, not only highly skilled individuals, but cooks, consultants, cleaners and porters, so does the Secretary of State want to reassure the NHS that it will be able to continue to employ those EU nationals after Brexit?

[Mr Davis]

I reiterate that my Department’s task is to bring decisions back to the United Kingdom so that the British Government and the British Parliament can make them in the interests of the United Kingdom. My right hon. Friend can be absolutely sure that those interests will not be interpreted into somehow denying staff to the NHS—just the reverse.

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.