European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Stuart C McDonald

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend has a great deal of experience in those matters, and I am sure that Ministers sitting on the Front Bench are looking at them very closely. They will be as aware as us that, as we leave the EU, the complexities, particularly regarding equalities, need careful attention. When Government Equalities Office Ministers came before the Women and Equalities Committee recently, I was pleased that they were prepared to discuss Brexit issues. I hope that in future Brexit Ministers will also come before the Committee to discuss the issues set out by my hon. Friend.

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for taking the issue very seriously indeed. I know that he has a lot on his plate, but he has taken the time to look at the issue in detail. He should be applauded for that. I look forward to seeing the fruits of his labour on Report.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I want to speak briefly in support of amendment 137, tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who spoke so persuasively about the need to strengthen and clarify clause 6, particularly subsection (2).

If, utterly regrettably from my point of view, the UK is to leave the EU, it is important not only that there is a functioning statute book on exit day, but that it is as accessible and comprehensible as possible. The ordinary citizen must be able to understand their rights and obligations; businesses need to have clarity about the rules under which they will be trading and competing; and our courts require clear guidance about Parliament’s intentions. The rule of law and our economic interest require that. As it stands, however, there is still much work to do to achieve those aims, and that includes rectifying the lack of clarity in clause 6.

My starting point is clause 6(3), about which I do not think there is any dispute. Clearly, unmodified retained EU law should be interpreted in accordance with retained case law and principles of EU law. That is necessary to ensure that the statute book applies in the same way after exit as it did before. Immediately after that, however, we get into sticky territory, namely the status of post-exit European case law.

In the first months and years after exit, few cases in the CJEU will concern new EU rules that have nothing to do with the UK. Most will continue to relate to rules that existed before exit and that will in fact have been incorporated into the UK statute book by this Bill. In essence, such decisions by the CJEU are about how the law always was and should have been applied, including immediately prior to exit.

With apologies for moving away from highbrow discussions about the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament, I want to talk about the hypothetical EU widget regulations. If the EU widget regulations come into effect prior to exit, and a decision of the CJEU shortly after exit clarifies that the regulations do indeed apply to a new and cutting-edge form of six-sided widget, that decision would actually tell us and clarify what retained EU law was on Brexit day—the point at which it was incorporated into our laws. Yet the Bill appears to fudge or dodge the issue of whether such a ruling should be followed or even whether it should be given any consideration at all. Parliament is in danger of passing the buck to judges on what is actually a political decision.

Unlike his German counterpart, the UK manufacturer of a six-sided widget is unclear about where he stands and, importantly, so are our judges. Given that the widget directive is part of retained law, there is a strong argument that this Parliament should say that if the CJEU confirms in its judgement—despite it being handed down after exit—that when we incorporated the regulations they did apply to a six-sided widget, that should also be part of retained law in the United Kingdom, unless there is good reason to the contrary. That would seem sensible and desirable from a legal theory point of view and, much more importantly, from a practical point of view. If we are to make trade and competition with the EU as simple as possible, surely it makes sense for exactly the same rule, one still found in an EU regulation and one incorporated by the Bill into domestic law, to be interpreted in the same way unless there are very good reasons to the contrary. However, all clause 6(1) says is that a court or a tribunal is not bound by post-Brexit CJEU decisions, and clause 6(2) merely says it can “have regard to” such case law

“if it considers it appropriate to do so.”

Lord Neuberger says that that is not very helpful guidance for judges. Neither is it helpful for the six-sided widget manufacturer, who needs to know whether he must comply with the widget regulations and is not sure if domestic courts will follow the CJEU in deciding whether it does. Indeed, we might even find that courts in different parts of the United Kingdom could come to different decisions about whether to follow the CJEU’s decision on the widget regulations. Parliament has to do much better.

Amendment 137 provides alternative options. If there are reasons why domestic courts should not want to follow a CJEU ruling, the court could quite simply have regard to and then decline to follow the Court’s judgment. There could be very good reasons for that to happen, for example if Parliament had already decided to put in place its own separate statutory regime for six-sided widgets. Ultimately, if Parliament decides after a particular judgment by the CJEU that it wants to change retained law to take a different course, it can of course do that. However, there are many more rules where it would surely be sensible for this Parliament to leave them in place as they are and to seek to ensure consistency of application between the United Kingdom and the European Union so far as that is possible.

Maternity Discrimination

Debate between Maria Miller and Stuart C McDonald

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered maternity discrimination.

I am pleased to introduce this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, and to have secured a debate on a subject that is vital for women and for everyone who is concerned with justice and equality.

I would like to thank constituents who have contacted me about this issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), who suggested its suitability for a debate. I thank Maternity Action for its invaluable help in preparing for today, and Parliament’s digital team, which you mentioned, Mr Bailey, for supporting our Twitter debate on this subject yesterday. Most importantly, I thank everyone who contributed their ideas and experiences; I will return to that later. Finally, I pay tribute to campaigners both inside and outside Parliament who have pursued this issue over many years, and I very much look forward to hearing the contributions of some of them this afternoon. I am pleased to have been able to lend my support by securing this debate.

This is the first time we have had the opportunity to debate properly the first set of findings from the research project being undertaken on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Further research findings are to be published in the near future, and that will further inform our understanding of the scale and nature of the issue and how Government choose to respond. However, we cannot do nothing in the meantime. Waiting is not an option and never was, and there are certain steps that can and should be implemented immediately as we set out to end maternity discrimination. This is an opportunity for Members to make that strength of feeling absolutely clear to Government.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern about the scale of the problem and about whether there is a true appreciation of that scale? I refer particularly to the EHRC report, which states that there could be as many as 54,000 mothers a year who are treated so poorly that they feel they have no option but to leave their jobs.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree absolutely with the right hon. Lady, and I will briefly turn to some of the report’s findings. The issue is not just the scale of the problem, but the fact that the numbers seem to have increased over the last decade.

It is important to put on record some of the report’s findings. On the basis of interviews with over 3,000 employers and over 3,000 women with young children, investigators were able to conclude, as the right hon. Lady said, that unlawful maternity and pregnancy discrimination is more common in Britain’s workplaces than ever, with an estimated 54,000 pregnant women and new mothers—that is one in nine—forced out of their job each year. They also found that one in five women—as many as 100,000 a year across the UK—reported having experienced harassment or negative comments either because of pregnancy or flexible working. Investigators found that one in 12 women were treated with less respect by their line manager, and one in eight felt that they were treated less favourably in some other way, as a result of their pregnancy. One in 10 women were discouraged from attending antenatal appointments, despite those being absolutely essential for protecting the health and wellbeing of mother and baby, as well as there being a legal right to paid time off for antenatal appointments.

Investigators also found that one in six of the women interviewed reported suffering a negative impact on their health or stress levels because of poor treatment at work. One in 12 women who had attended a job interview while pregnant reported being asked during that interview whether they were pregnant, and finally, two in five women said that they would have liked to work more flexibly upon return from maternity leave, but did not ask to do so as they were concerned that it would not be approved, or that it would result in negative consequences.