European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Mark Francois Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to that, and it simply reinforces the case we are making: that Tory Ministers simply cannot be trusted with powers of this nature.

We have also frequently heard the argument about the need for legal certainty, but the Bill as drafted does not provide that legal certainty. What guidance does it give to judges post-Brexit as to how they are supposed to interpret the law that originated from the European Union? Absolutely none. The idea of a preliminary reference to the European Court is of course no more, because of the red line on the ECJ. That is completely gone. The remedy that citizens once had to go to the European Court is also gone. So the idea that, post Brexit, the Bill will assist our constitutional arrangements and provide clarity is simply wrong.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

No, people will not be able to go to the ECJ—the hon. Gentleman is right about that—but they will be able to go to the British Supreme Court, just down the road from here, where decisions that affect them and their countrymen will be taken by British judges according to British law. What is wrong with that?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have nothing against British judges taking decisions. What I am talking about is the failure of this Bill to provide clarity about how the law now will be transposed into the law then. Let us talk about a judge down the road who is faced, for example, with a citizen demanding a remedy of holding the Government to account for failure to deal with pollution. They would previously have had a right to go to the European Court. What will be their right under the Bill? The Government have absolutely no idea. Let us have a Bill that gives that clarity post Brexit, which this Bill manifestly fails to do.

[Mr Francois]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

No, I am not giving way again; I have given way three times, and many Members want to speak in this debate.

Let me summarise by saying this: the Bill is shoddy, and undermines the parliamentary democracy that it was meant to enhance. It is not worthy of support, and I urge colleagues not to support it tonight.

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[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The last seven hours have demonstrated what this place does best. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) have made excellent contributions to the debate. They have demonstrated that this Chamber of this House of Commons is able to debate matters in a way that no other place can, and that is what makes the content of the Bill so offensive.

Listening to Government Members today, I have heard several variations of something that they will all know is called the politician’s fallacy: “Something must be done. This Bill is something. Therefore we must do it.” I heard no substance or content, simply an argument that this is what we have and therefore we must do it. Nobody on the Opposition Benches is arguing that the wholesale adoption of European law should not take place; the argument is that the way in which the Bill is written is an affront to the democratic values that we hold dear.

We have heard from the right hon. Members for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and the hon. Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), for Poole (Mr Syms) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) that the Bill is flawed. They have all said in their own words that the Bill is flawed, but they have hope, anticipation, expectation and trust in the Government. They have been assured that amendments will come forward to assuage their concerns. Rather than consider what might come, I ask them to look at how this Government have treated this House. The article 50 vote was delayed while the Prime Minister pursued a legal case to prevent her own Members from having a vote on it. There is a motion before the House tomorrow that will rig the Committee system to allow a minority Government to have a majority on Bill Committees, which is simply unacceptable.

[Mr Francois]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gareth Snell]

I will not.

Words such as “the Minister may make regulations” are littered throughout the Bill, and clauses 7, 8, 9 and 17 produce unprecedented levels of power for the Ministers on the Treasury Bench. We are to understand that they have been in listening mode today, but when asked either by Government Members or by Opposition Members to address some concern not once have they intervened to do so. They have sat quietly, passing notes—I can only presume to the Government Members who delivered their whipped speeches so wonderfully—instead of making a contribution to the argument.

[Mr Francois]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gareth Snell]

No, I will not give way.

We also have a programme motion that seeks to allow 64 hours of debate on what Government Members have described as one of the greatest constitutional changes in their lifetime. The money resolution seeks to allow any amount of money to be spent by Ministers if they deem it necessary.

[Mr Francois]

I will give you one last chance.

[Gareth Snell]

No, I am not going to take it.

The ways and means resolution allows for “any taxation”. I thought the Conservative party was opposed to general taxation, but its Members are voting this evening for taxation for the sake of paying for a Bill that they will not allow to be scrutinised in this House. We are elected by our constituents as equals to have a say on the future of our country once we leave the European Union. No seat delivered a greater leave vote than mine. My constituents made their voice clear and I respect that, but they sent me here to get the best deal for them. I will be denied that right if I vote for this Bill’s Second Reading this evening.

The leave campaign talked about taking back control, but this Bill takes control away from Parliament. We will be relegated to observers in something that we have been told is the greatest constitutional event of our lifetimes. I will be joining my colleagues in voting against the Bill’s Second Reading, because it is not what my constituents want, it is not what I came here to do, and I refuse, like my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East, to vote myself out of a role in the Brexit negotiations.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I begin by trying to find a bit of consensus and agreement across the House. We are all basically agreed that we need to improve the Bill in Committee. Everyone seems to suggest that lots of amendments are required to improve this legislation.

I may have inadvertently misled the House last Thursday when I broke the crushing news that only eight days will be available in Committee, because actually only seven days will be available. That is because we are going to lose four hours out of the eight in days five and eight. So we will have seven days to rewrite the whole of the law system of the United Kingdom, whereas 41 days were given to the Maastricht treaty, 29 were given to the Lisbon treaty and 21 were given to entering the Common Market. We will have only seven days for this great repeal Bill—what an absolute embarrassment for this Government. They had better come back with a proper programme motion to give this House sufficient time—

[Mr Francois]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I have not got time for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, so he should sit down. On this side of the House, we have been trying to outdo each other in describing this Bill. I would describe it as a “Hammer House of Horror” Bill: it gifts unprecedented power to this Executive, drives a coach and horses through the devolution settlement and presents a profound threat to our human rights. It is hard, if not impossible, to conceive of a Bill that more undermines this “taking back control” mantra of all those who parroted it ad nauseam when they were talking about leaving the European Union.

I would not vote for this Bill in a month of Sundays. The UK is engaged in an almost unprecedented exercise of national self-harm with this whole Brexit project. We are indulging in a grotesque episode of economic, political and cultural self-flagellation and, by God, we are determined to give ourselves a damn good thrashing! We are opting for the hardest of hard Brexits, reaching for the most painful implement in the box, and the scars and pain will be there for decades to come.

Turning to the negotiations, I will put my cards on the table when it comes to these tricky conversations. I will try to lay them down as delicately and sensitively as I can. Never before has an enterprise of such political significance been prosecuted with such delusional cluelessness, which is approaching a national embarrassment. It is hard to think of any major international negotiations being handled so ineptly and chaotically; it is almost as if we have put the clowns in charge of the Brexit circus and their huge clown footprints are all over all of this. We are becoming a national embarrassment with our negotiations, and this Government have to start to get real and drop their delusions. This repeal Bill is only throwing salt on the wounds.

What interests me more than anything else about this is what the Bill tells us about how Scotland is now perceived in this union of nations. Today, we celebrate 20 years of the vote that delivered the Scottish Parliament: 20 years of really taking back control—Members may wish to see it like that. This Bill presents the biggest challenge that our Parliament has ever had to confront, as it undermines the very foundation and ethos of the development of our national Parliament: if something is not listed in the reserved powers, it is devolved. That approach was designed elegantly by Donald Dewar as a means to determine and shape our national Parliament, and it has served us so well since then. This Bill drives a coach and horses through that. Indeed, it is worse than that, as the Law Society of Scotland tells us:

“The effect of the Bill would be to remove the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament in relation to any matter in retained EU law. This would be the case even if it related to areas of law not reserved to the UK under the Scotland Act, such as agriculture or fisheries.”

Then we must consider the Henry VIII power, an innovation so spectacular in its political audaciousness that one of Henry’s executioners would baulk at the whole experience. We have our own powers, which I refer to as the Robert the Bruce powers. We are actually compelled to exercise them as part of this Bill, even though we might have fundamental concerns in respect of democratic oversight. We are sailing towards the big Brexit iceberg, but Scotland has an opportunity. We can get down below decks, get on that lifeboat labelled “Scotland”, get out on to the ocean and row as quickly as we can to the shores of sanity.

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[Sammy Wilson]

Of course there are limits, and the ultimate limit is that we have heard speeches from Government Members today, and a considerable number of people, not just on the Opposition Benches, have made it quite clear that they perceive dangers in this Bill and would not give the Government a free hand. If Ministers tried to overstep the promises made on the Floor of the House and the limits on the face of the Bill, we can be sure of one thing: it will probably not be Opposition Members who stop Ministers doing that but Government Members. That is the ultimate brake on Ministers who try to abuse the powers that are being given to them.

[Mr Francois]

Reference was made earlier to the Lisbon treaty and, like me, as he was in the House at the time, the hon. Gentleman will remember debating it night after night. There is a fundamental difference between that and the Bill, in that the Bill can be amended in Committee or on Report, whereas we could not change a single dot or comma of the Lisbon treaty.

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course. That is the flaw in the argument of Opposition Members who have said that this Bill is flawed and therefore ought to be rejected tonight. If the Bill is flawed, the place to change it is here when it comes back for debate and amendment in Committee. That is the real test of whether people want an effective Bill, or no Bill because they do not want us to leave the EU in the first place.

Let us consider the impact of not having the powers in this Bill. First, we would now be gummed up for the next number of years in trying to get the legislation through. Secondly, there would be no certainty for businesses. I have heard people say here so many times, “We need certainty.” Well, the one way of having certainty is to transfer EU law into UK law so that there is a framework. Lastly, the Bill will enable Ministers, when they go out to negotiate our free trade deal with the rest of the EU, to ensure that we start from a basis of compliance and equivalence.