European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Michael Gove Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Michael Gove)]

Yes.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Nick Macpherson, the former permanent secretary to the Treasury, disagrees with the Secretary of State. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not a fan of experts, but perhaps he will listen to this one for a moment. Mr Macpherson said:

“There is no way the UK will negotiate a trade deal with the EU by December 2020. Even 2022 is optimistic. Mid-2020s more likely.”

As a matter of law, as a shadow Law Officer, I ask myself whether there is anything to prevent the backstop from becoming permanent:

“As a matter of international law, no there is not—it would endure indefinitely, pending a future agreement being arranged”.—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 553.]

They are not my words, but those of the Attorney General in this House.

I have to state, clearly, for the House that, as the Opposition, the Labour party is committed to the Good Friday agreement—an agreement that my constituency predecessor, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, helped to negotiate when he chaired the peace talks. That was one of the greatest achievements of any Government since 1945. Labour Members are committed to the long-lasting peace that has been achieved since 1998 and care deeply about the livelihoods and communities of the people who live on the Northern Ireland-Ireland border.

Our position is that a permanent customs union, with a say in external trade deals, a strong single market relationship and guarantees on rights and protections, would have rendered a backstop unnecessary.

[Michael Gove]

Name me a single other country that is in a customs union with the EU that has a say over trade deals. Is not this an unprecedented legal and political novelty of the kind that is rightly called a unicorn?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Let me be clear that I would want our own arrangements. The Secretary of State asks me to give an example of that particular theoretical possibility. It is not one that I wish to emulate, but Turkey is one of them, if he actually looks at it. Secondly—[Interruption.] No, let me respond to the Secretary of State on this. He will vote this evening for a backstop that itself contains a bespoke customs arrangement—[Interruption.] It has a say, and that is the difference, as the Secretary of State should admit.

[Michael Gove]

You’re wrong.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

No, I am not.

Let me be clear: this backstop provides only a bare bones customs union, and that is why we cannot support it.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Michael Gove Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Well, we must leave it to Ministers to speak for themselves, but I have to say that the discussions that I and others had with the Secretary of State, who, as people have remarked in this debate, is of a very different cast of mind from some previous Secretaries of State, suggest to me that actually there will be an environmental protection Bill coming forward. I think that is—[Interruption.] Ah! Maestro! With perfect timing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State comes into the Chamber, at just the right moment for him to signify with a nod, if nothing more, that the possibility of proper environmental legislation in the form of a new statute is on his mind.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Michael Gove)]

indicated assent.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

And his mind is one that is capable of grasping these matters, if ever the mind of a Member of the House of Commons was. The first point, then, is that a proper statutory basis is superior to a specific amendment to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I will give way to both hon. Ladies shortly, but first I want to come to a further point that is an important part of the architecture.

I do not personally believe that even the combination of an environmental protection Bill and an NPS emerging from it and under it would be sufficient. This exactly answers the last point of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. I accept that it is difficult for campaigners and others to use the vehicle of judicial review, which is why I and some of my hon. Friends have advocated what we have proposed, and why we have agreed with the Secretary of State.

[Michael Gove]

indicated assent.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The Secretary of State is again nodding. That is why we have agreed that it is necessary under that same statute to create a body which is a prosecutorial authority, wholly independent of Government, along the lines of the Victims’ Commissioner, the Children’s Commissioner, the Office for Budget Responsibility, or the Equality and Human Rights Commission—we can choose which model—and which is an entity that is small and lean but, like the Committee on Climate Change, very serious. It would be established under statute, and charged with a duty under statute to ensure that the NPS is observed. I advocated the CCC when I was first working with Tony Juniper to get what became the Climate Change Act accepted in this House, and at an early stage I came to believe that the combination of clarity of objective and a body wholly independent and staffed by serious experts was a powerful mechanism, and so I think it has proved to be.