European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Four and a half years since the referendum, here we are. I accept we have left the European Union, we are in the transition period and at 11 o’clock tomorrow the shutters will finally come down on that chapter of European-British relations, but we have more than a thousand pages in an agreement and a hastily drafted Bill that runs to 80 pages, but that has to be read alongside many other pieces of legislation to be fully understood. We have five hours of debate today and I have three minutes, of which I have already used up half a minute, to talk about how poorly the Government are using this place.

This is not parliamentary scrutiny; in keeping with the festive season, it is much more of a charade. It does not give us the chance to do properly the job that we should be doing. This place does not always make good legislation, and this is clearly rushed legislation.

I have many concerns about this Bill. I have big concerns about Northern Ireland. As someone married to a dual Irish-British citizen, I spend a lot of time on the island of Ireland, and I see the real challenges of what is being put in place, and I saw the lack of thought about that land border right from the get-go in the run-up to the 2016 vote.

The security matters concern me, including SIS II, the European arrest warrant, and Europol. Services are not included in this agreement, despite, as others have said repeatedly, their accounting for a trade surplus with the EU. Professional qualifications and issues affecting musicians and others in the creative industries affect my constituency particularly. As a constituency Member for the City fringe, I am very concerned we still have not bedded in arrangements for financial services.

It is security arrangements that concern me most. They have been massively weakened by this agreement. I spent three years in government negotiating over access to SIS II, Prüm, the European arrest warrant, Europol, Eurojust and mutual legal aid. Those were all things that I dealt with day in, day out with our European neighbours, and we have thrown that away. We have thrown away so much of what we have been fighting, even in the last decade, to get much more closely involved with. We are now attempting to patch together, with more bureaucracy, the same things as we are giving up with this Bill.

The lack of scrutiny and the impossibility of reading the Bill properly make me unable to support it today. I am not voting against it, because I recognise that the votes in 2016 and 2019 give this Government licence to take us out of Europe, but I cannot be complicit in what is a wrecking ball in the name of sovereignty. We now need to drop the “remainer” and “leaver” labels. We need to unite to fill the gaps in the creative and performing arts, in the financial sector, in the recognition of professional qualifications and, above all, in security. It is because of those security measures, in particular, that I cannot be complicit with the Government and will abstain today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We had hoped to go to North Shropshire to listen to Owen Paterson, but the line has gone down. We do hope, Owen, if you are watching and listening, to come to you before the wind-ups a bit later on. We will try our level best.