European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Nick Boles Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I will give way one further time, and then I will move on.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Ind)]

My right hon. Friend does not want to answer the question from the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), so I will. If the Letwin amendment passes, and the Government bring forward the Bill at the start of next week and that Bill passes before 31 October, we will leave on 31 October without a delay. If the Letwin amendment fails, and the Government bring forward the Bill and some people in the ERG, such as the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), suddenly discover that they prefer the idea of a no-deal Brexit and the Bill fails, we will leave on 31 October with no deal.

[Stephen Barclay]

The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s argument is that it is at odds with the argument put forward by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who says that we need to pass this amendment to have more scrutiny and delay and to take much longer, yet the hon. Gentleman says that we need the amendment to be able to leave on —[Interruption.]

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Nick Boles Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Jane Dodds) on her maiden speech. I warn her that, although it may not look like it or feel like it, in normal parliamentary times I would still be in my first term, and there are a number of twists and turns that we have seen and that she should continue to expect.

As the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) has just illustrated so eloquently, there are very few positives to be taken from this process, but one of them has been the way in which those of us who disagree vociferously on many issues have been able to cross party lines and reach out. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his speech and for his service as well, and I thank other colleagues with whom I have had the privilege of being able to deal.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

I will give way once.

[Nick Boles]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene briefly. He has just paid tribute to the cross-party work to secure the Bill—hopefully—this evening. Does he agree that it is crucial—and I know that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), who is also part of our coalition, has made plain his view—for us not only to secure the Bill in law, but to secure its implementation before any election is called or held, and not to allow the possibility of a re-elected Johnson Government who would then reintroduce a no-deal Brexit on 31 October?

[Stephen Gethins]

Yes. As usual, the hon. Gentleman has been a good colleague, and has made an excellent point. In a Parliament of minorities, we must work together. We want a general election, but we will not have a general election on the terms of this Government, because we do not trust them. None of us can trust them, and we should be absolutely clear about that.

Over the past few years—and I say this personally—it has often been humbling to see people give up careers and livelihoods for what they think is right, and we have seen the best of that over the past few days. There are Members opposite, and Members on these Benches who may not have started on these Benches, who know that a no-deal Brexit will damage their constituents. I never thought that I would be here proposing a Bill with the likes of the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond). To be fair to them, I do not think they thought that they would be here proposing a Bill—which might be passed—with a member of the Scottish National party. However, that is the position in which we have been left.

The Bill does not go as far as I might have liked. My SNP colleagues and I do not want to see Scotland taken out of the European Union against its will, and we want to stop Brexit. However, I know that others who have signed the Bill and will vote for it want to deliver Brexit. We disagree on that, which is fine, but we agree fundamentally that a no-deal Brexit is unacceptable and must be stopped at all costs.

This legislation is important, and I am sorry that we have a Government who cannot be trusted and who have tried every trick in the book to avoid scrutiny and democracy. Can Members imagine how we can be in a position whereby, over the weekend, the Government could be asked a legitimate question about whether or not they respect the rule of law? I hope that Members will reflect on that during the coming days. Unfortunately, it goes to the heart of the Prime Minister’s approach. He is the least trustworthy resident of No. 10 Downing Street whom anyone can remember. We are in our present position because of a mess of his making. He had no plans before the referendum, and he has no plans now.

There is nothing new in the negotiations, and the Ministers have told us nothing new about them. Instead, we have a Government who are perfectly willing to let the rest of the population endure food price increases when too many people already depend on food banks, medical shortages that will hit the most needy and vulnerable, and damage to public services that have already been hit by a decade of austerity, depriving our young people of education and employment opportunities that my generation enjoyed and benefited from.

All of us in Parliament should be doing our utmost to support and protect those people. That is a basic tenet of our democracy. This slash-and-burn approach to politics will damage everyone across these islands and Europe for decades, but most of all it will damage people in the United Kingdom. We can stop it now, and we can do so with legislation. We owe that to the most vulnerable, and to those who will be worst affected.

Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Ind)]

Two groups of right hon. and hon. Members will be finding today’s vote especially difficult. Many friends on the Conservative Benches will feel torn between their loyalty to their party and their clear understanding of the national interest. I know as well as anyone the great strain that they may be feeling this afternoon. I, too, was an instinctive loyalist—someone who towed the party line, ambitious for high office. I did not see anything wrong in that, and on most questions, I still do not see anything wrong in it, and nor is there anything ignoble about the desire to stay on good terms with the members of one’s local party.

For each of us, however, there comes a moment and an issue that demands that we put such concerns to one side and do the uncomfortable thing, because we know that our constituents’ best interests demand it. I do not believe that any hon. Member with a concern for the welfare of sheep farmers or for people working in car factories will be able to look them in the eye after a no-deal Brexit has led to the decimation of Britain’s lamb exports and the destruction of thousands of highly skilled and well-paid manufacturing jobs. That is surely reason enough to support the motion today.

The other group for whom today’s vote is hard is Labour Members who represent constituencies that voted by a clear majority to leave the European Union. They feel that they are duty bound to ensure that the UK does leave the EU and are worried that a vote for today’s motion will be misrepresented as an attempt to block Brexit. My constituents voted the same way, and I feel the same obligation, but today’s motion does not block Brexit—not even close. Today’s motion would secure an opportunity to debate a Bill on 25 June, so that Parliament, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) said, can vote in September on the new Prime Minister’s plan for Brexit.

[Sir William Cash]

The hon. Gentleman refers to a Bill, but he does not know what it will contain, or perhaps he does. Will he enlighten us? Does it not really attempt to unwind the repeal of the 1972 Act, in so far as it deals with the question of deal or no deal? That is what the law says.

[Nick Boles]

The right hon. Member for West Dorset answered that question very adequately. The Bill simply provides Parliament with an opportunity in September to vote on the new Prime Minister’s plan for Brexit so that we do not leave with a no-deal Brexit on 31 October, as the law currently provides, without Parliament having had a chance to vote.

If my old friends on the Conservative Benches, the true champions of one nation, and my new friends on the Labour Benches, the representatives of thousands of decent leave voters in the midlands and the north, find a way to support today’s motion, much more than a day of the Order Paper will have been won: this House will have seized the chance to defend its rights and freedoms against an arrogant Executive hellbent on implementing an extreme policy; the British people will have been given the opportunity to slow their leaders’ lemming-like rush towards a no-deal Brexit; and the world will have been given reason to believe that the psychodrama of the Tory party’s leadership contest does not define us as a nation, that Britain has not taken leave of its senses and that the House of Commons is a place in which grown-ups come together to take responsibility for securing the future of our country.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) on managing to deliver a powerful speech despite a certain amount of distraction. He was responsible for my defeat in his constituency in 2005—not as the candidate but as the campaign manager—and I have always been slightly frightened of him since.

I find myself wondering whether it is a coincidence entirely that the people who normally sit around me on these Benches are not here, given that we all know that among them are counted noted naturists. It has long been a thoroughly British trait to be able to ignore pointless nakedness, and I trust that the House will now be able to return to the issue we are discussing.

In last Monday’s debate, my great friend and mentor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), urged the House to take to heart the words that are recited every day during Prayers by the Speaker’s Chaplain:

“never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind”.

In the nine years since I arrived in this House, there has never been a day, or a debate, in which this injunction is more relevant. If by doing this a clear majority of right hon. and hon. Members are able to support one of the Brexit compromises on the Order Paper today, the vast majority of the people we represent will breathe a deep sigh of relief. We are sent here to make the most difficult decisions on behalf of our constituents. If we vote for a compromise version of Brexit this evening, they will see that we are up to the job.

[Anna Soubry]

As my hon. Friend knows—and he is my friend—I have made the case and voted for the single market and the customs union for almost the past two years. My difficulty with his motion is that paragraph 1(i) says that it seeks to

“renegotiate the framework for the future relationship”.

I think that he would have won more support if, like motion (C), on the customs union, he had sought to change the withdrawal agreement as well as the future framework. The problem with his motion is that it is about only the future relationship, which any Government and any Prime Minister who succeeds the current one can change. In other words, it is non-binding.

[Nick Boles]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her point, but I do not agree with it. My motion specifically includes a provision that the political declaration, as renegotiated, should then be cemented into the withdrawal Act, as will come if this House votes for this, and therefore this will require a majority of this House to vote to amend statute if there is to be a change. So it will not simply be a matter of a future leader of the Conservative party being able to rip this up and renegotiate it. They will have to amend an Act of Parliament in this House, and currently there is no majority for amending it in the direction that she fears.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

I agree that the public would be relieved if we ever did come to a conclusion, but they would be angry if we came to the wrong conclusion. Does my hon. Friend accept that his common market 2.0 proposal would allow free movement of people, that it would cost us billions to access the single market, that we would be justiciable by the Court and so we would be law-takers, and that we would not be able to do free trade deals—and was that not the basic tenet of what we voted for in 2016?

[Nick Boles]

Unfortunately, my hon. Friend is right about only some of those things. It is true that in normal days we would be subject to free movement, because that is the price of single market membership, and that we would have to pay over some financial contributions, although they would be probably of the order of half of what we currently have to pay. He is not correct to say that we would be justiciable by the European Court of Justice. If we were within the European economic area, which is what common market 2.0 proposes, we would be subject to the European Free Trade Association court, and the key thing about the EFTA court is that there is no direct effect in its judgments; they all have to be implemented by sovereign Parliaments before they take hold. So this is a substantially different relationship, one in which we would have a great deal more control. Of course we would be outside all the areas other than the single market—all the political areas of the EU—and we would truly have taken back control.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Nick Boles]

I will not give way again.

Some commentators have criticised those of us who support common market 2.0 for adapting our proposal in response to suggestions from other colleagues or to statements by leading figures in the EU and the EFTA states. I make no apology for that; from the start we have wanted to bring forward a realistic and deliverable plan, and give as many people as possible reasons to support it. So since last Wednesday’s debate, in response to comments from Labour Members, we have added further detail to the definition of the comprehensive customs arrangement that would prevail at least until alternative arrangements underpinning frictionless trade have been agreed with the EU. We have also added a commitment to seek a protocol on agri-foods trade across the UK-EU border. I want to thank the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for educating me about this matter, and for the tireless work of Diane Dodds MEP on behalf of Northern Ireland’s farmers. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) felt able to sign the motion. I understand that the Scottish National party plans to vote for common market 2.0 tonight, which shows that it is the Brexit compromise that would be best for all parts of the UK.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to clarify one important point: if his proposal were to go through, would it require a long extension to article 50 or would we Brexit on 22 May?

[Nick Boles]

That is a good question and I am pleased the right hon. Gentleman has asked it. I truly believe that if this proposal were to achieve a majority tonight and if the Government were to accept it as Government policy tomorrow, which they should if this House has resolved on something by a majority, it would not be necessary to extend beyond 22 May. Last week, the EU said that it was ready to renegotiate the terms of the political declaration within hours, not weeks.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done on common market 2.0. Does he agree that it is not just a strong Brexit, but a unity Brexit, because many Eurosceptics in the past have supported the idea of Britain joining EFTA and current Eurosceptics such as my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) are supporting common market 2.0 membership of EFTA. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) not also agree that it provides important brakes on freedom of movement?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. He has been an important ally in this cause.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick Boles]

I am replying to another intervention, if the right hon. Lady would just give me one moment. My right hon. Friend is right; common market 2.0 has attracted the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), and no remainer is he. He has been one the most long-standing and principled Brexiteers, but he nevertheless sees the merits in a proposal that offers something to the 48% who voted remain as well as to the 52% who voted leave. My right hon. Friend is also right to say that, although free movement would apply in normal times, by joining the common market 2.0, we would secure a new legal right in exceptional circumstances—I stress the exceptional—to pull an emergency brake on free movement if there were major societal or economic impacts being felt by this country. That is significant. We do not have it as a member of the EU; it is a significant measure of additional control that we do not currently have.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

This is important, because we are all, or should be, compromising across this House. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge, on freedom of movement and immigration, that Scotland has a unique demographic situation and that we cannot compromise on freedom of movement because of its importance to the Scottish National party and to Scotland? Will he elaborate further on that point?

[Nick Boles]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. In truth, I have been educated not only by the right hon. Member for East Antrim but by the hon. Member for Dundee East and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), and I now understand better the importance of immigration not only to the Scottish economy but to Scottish society. There is an important detail about the emergency brake in articles 112 and 113 of the EEA agreement, which is that it talks about regional impacts and the potential for a regional application of the emergency brake that might suspend free movement. Therefore, were there significant societal or economic problems in, say, the south-east or east of England but not in Scotland, a Government could bring forward a brake that applied only to the affected areas and not to Scotland. That is entirely within the scope of the emergency brake framework.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Nick Boles]

Mr Speaker is glaring at me, so I am not going to take any more interventions until I am much closer to the end of my speech.

We all in this House would much prefer to avoid the activation of the Irish backstop. One of the great advantages of common market 2.0 is that it keeps all parts of the UK in the single market and in a customs arrangement, with a common external tariff, until alternative arrangements have been agreed with the EU. It should be possible to agree with the EU a legally binding joint interpretative statement, enshrining the commitment that the backstop protocol will be superseded in full once the UK is safely inside the EEA and a customs arrangement. Common market 2.0 is the only Brexit compromise that can make the Irish backstop fall away altogether.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case, and I am almost convinced—almost, but not quite. Will he confirm that he would replace the Northern Ireland backstop, with its potential “forever” arrangements and handcuffs on the United Kingdom, with something that we could at least depart from upon having served sufficient notice?

[Nick Boles]

I simply say that we have to have an agreement with the EU about alternative arrangements. Thanks to the hard work of the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and many others from across the House, we have secured in the agreement with the EU a commitment to develop those alternative arrangements. Although they may not exist now and may not exist in three years, I am absolutely confident that, with good will, we can secure arrangements. I do not believe that the EU wants any more than we do to keep us in a prehistoric situation when new technologies make the more sophisticated management of the border possible.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Hove, many in the House believe that there should be a referendum to secure the voters’ consent to any Brexit deal. I do not agree with them, but I have the greatest possible respect for the sincerity of their arguments, and I admire the passionate commitment of the supporters of their cause. I hope that, like the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), they will support common market 2.0. We have learned that were a referendum to happen, its result would be unpredictable; surely it would be better for the leave option to be one that retains membership of the single market and a customs arrangement that guarantees frictionless trade.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is to be commended because, unlike Government Front Benchers, we are now looking at compromises and working together in the interests of the people. Let me push him a little more on the idea of a referendum. We have already discussed no deal and the Prime Minister’s deal, and now potentially common market 2.0, and all of them are mutually exclusive and they cannot all represent all of the 52%. Does the hon. Gentleman not feel that in the interests of democracy and legitimacy, the only way to end this situation is to put his proposal, with all the benefits it brings with it, to the British people and allow them to choose either it or to remain?

[Nick Boles]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking the time to talk to me about the proposal and to understand it. We discovered much common ground. I am not persuaded of his argument, and in a sense I apologise that I am not able to be. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be aware that if the House votes for common market 2.0 tonight, it will then need to come forward in a withdrawal implementation Bill. There will be opportunities for people from all parties to seek to amend that Bill to add the confirmatory referendum that they seek. This is not the last stage in this conversation; if anything, it is just the beginning. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can support the leave option that would do the least damage to the British economy, while he continues to make his argument for a referendum.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Nick Boles]

I am going to make some progress.

Some of my hon. Friends supported the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), which also supported British membership of the EEA and EFTA. Although the journey proposed by the common market 2.0 motion might take a little longer, I hope that those colleagues will recognise that the destination is, to all intents and purposes, the same and that they will therefore join my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth in supporting our motion today.

The construction of a compromise is not easy—nor is the realisation that we may not get everything that we want, that other people’s views and interests matter and that it is better to get half a loaf than to get nothing at all. Our constituents do not send us here for an easy ride or to duck difficult choices. This evening, let us live up to the words of the parliamentary prayer and, setting aside our private interests and prejudices, lead our country out of the Brexit morass.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Briefly, may I thank you, Sir, and the House authorities for the way in which the disruption was handled? It was a distraction, but there was no disruption to our proceedings. May we, through you, thank everybody involved?

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Beckett]

I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend about that, but I hope it cuts both ways. I heard the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) say, “Of course, those who want a second referendum can come back to this some other time in legislation when all of this is done,” but it must be a two-way street.

[Nick Boles]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Margaret Beckett]

I am sorry, but I really must go on.

[Nick Boles]

She has referred to me.

[Margaret Beckett]

I did; all right.

[Nick Boles]

I will be brief. I just want to reassure the right hon. Lady of one thing. Last Wednesday I abstained on her motion, and I will abstain on it again tonight, as a gesture of good will towards it.

[Margaret Beckett]

I am duly grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

What is most often heard in these discussions is the argument that to hold a confirmatory vote would be not only wrong but undemocratic, which is the point that the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) was trying to address. That argument is advanced both by those who believe that the view of the people has not changed and that they will still vote to leave—and, according to Mr Farage, by a bigger margin—and by those who fear that their view might have changed and who resist holding such a vote for that very reason. It seems to me that there is something mutually contradictory in those arguments.

We have heard a great deal about the resentment that would be felt by those who voted to leave, but I again ask Members to carefully consider the position in which this House would place itself if it is the case—I do not know one way or the other—that the British people do not now wish to leave the European Union. We are being invited to vote to take the UK out of the European Union even if it is now against the wishes of the British people, and to do so while refusing to give them the opportunity even to express such wishes. I fear we may find such a refusal difficult to defend, especially if the basis of our decision ends up being the Prime Minister’s deal, which will itself have been presented to this Parliament for decision more than once.

There is another dangerous argument being advanced: that we should leave, and if we do not like it, we can always rejoin. This House knows that if we leave, we lose the special opt-outs on the euro and Schengen that successive Governments have negotiated. Rejoining would put us in a very different place from remaining with the concessions that we have now.

I accept that, in a variety of ways, the alternatives proposed on today’s Order Paper by the Father of the House and others offer advantages over the Prime Minister’s proposal. I could live with any of them apart from the option of no deal, but I repeat: none of them was before the British people three years ago, and for that reason, if for no other, they should be asked for their view on the reality that is before them, rather than the fantasies they were spun in 2016.

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Votes)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have given everything to an attempt to find a compromise that can take this country out of the European Union while maintaining our economic strength and our political cohesion. I accept that I have failed. I have failed chiefly because my party refuses to compromise. I regret, therefore, to announce that I can no longer sit for this party.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has told the House.

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) in proposing motion (D). I, too, want to make the case for compromise, not as something cowardly but as something courageous. In a divided country and a divided Parliament, finding and sustaining a compromise that most people can support is a noble endeavour. After years of paralysing conflict, we have a moral duty to open our minds this afternoon and reach for a compromise that will allow us to put the interminable Brexit row behind us.

The great strength of the common market 2.0 proposal, relative to all other Brexit compromises, is that it offers something important and valuable to everyone and every party in this House. For Labour Members, it offers the strong position in the single market that, as Frances O’Grady has affirmed, is vital for workers’ rights. For SNP Members, common market 2.0 preserves the principle of free movement of labour, which they tell me is essential to Scotland’s future economic prosperity and social cohesion. For those in other parts of the UK, worried about the possibility of another massive influx of European migrants such as the one we experienced after Poland and Hungary joined the EU in 2004, it offers an emergency brake, which could be deployed as a temporary safeguard in the regions affected.

For my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches, common market 2.0 offers the prospect of being able to benefit from the free trade agreements struck by the European Free Trade Association, or to do our own trade deals once alternative arrangements to maintain no hard border on the island of Ireland have been agreed with the EU.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

My rule today is to support only suggestions that are realistic and deliverable, and I think that what my hon. Friend is presenting, and what I have read about it, ticks both boxes. Will he confirm that common market 2.0 would not require Northern Ireland to accept different rules from the rest of the UK? That is the stumbling block that has held us in this purgatory for so long.

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend did a heroic thing earlier this week, for which I salute him, and I am grateful to him for literally leading me to my next point. For our allies in the DUP, common market 2.0 removes any threat to the Union, because it keeps every part of the United Kingdom inside the single market and a comprehensive customs arrangement that delivers frictionless trade.

For right hon. and hon. Friends representing Scottish constituencies and coastal communities around the UK, common market 2.0 guarantees our exit from the EU’s common fisheries policy and our rebirth as an independent coastal state.

[Chris Philp]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that common market 2.0 would entail continuing to follow single market rules with no say—the Bank of England has advised against that—and that unlimited free movement would continue, with only a limited and temporary possibility of restricting it, and that according to the House of Commons Library, financial contributions would continue at about half their current rate?

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to confirm some of what my hon. Friend says but not the first point about not having a say over the rules. Members of the European economic area follow an absolutely crucial process under the EEA Joint Committee, to which all new rules passed under single market legislation are referred, and they have a right of reservation, which means that the postal directive, for instance, has never been implemented by Norway, because it does not like it and just says no. That right would extend to us if we were to join.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that, even under World Trade Organisation rules, every single UK exporter to the EU will still have to comply with all EU rules and regulations? Once a country leaves the EU, there is no way it can somehow remain a rule maker within it.

[Nick Boles]

Of course that is right; my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is also the case that almost every single producer in this country is hardly going to have to follow one set of rules just for their UK sales and another set of rules for their European sales. They will have one standard set of rules and they will probably follow the European ones.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Nick Boles]

I give way first to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin).

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend is making a very good case in addition to that made by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who first spoke to the motion. Will my hon. Friend emphasise that more than two thirds of the entirety of directives that currently apply to us as EU members will cease to apply because we will only be in the single market and not the rest of the institutions?

[Nick Boles]

That is exactly right. Under common market 2.0, the EEA and EFTA, only single market legislation would be relevant to us; we would be free of all of the rest. It is very important to understand that, even by 2011, Norway and Iceland between them had not implemented 300 legislative acts under single market legislation. They simply said no to those acts of legislation.

I will now give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend has answered my question.

[Nick Boles]

That gives me more pleasure than you could believe possible.

For all of us in this House who care deeply about the security of our fellow citizens, but perhaps in particular for my good friend the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), common market 2.0 would offer unfettered access to the databases and information-sharing programmes of the EU. That is only available to countries that are members of the EU or of EFTA.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether, under common market 2.0, there would be a temporary or permanent customs union?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend, as ever, puts her finger on the nerve, shall we say. There are different views in the House about our commitment to a future customs arrangement. On the Conservative side, we would like to have a customs arrangement that guarantees frictionless trade until there are alternative arrangements, which the EU has approved, that might set us free to be able to strike our own trade deals. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) shouts “Unicorn” from her seat. Well, that is not exactly what the EU has said. It has just said that it is not ready yet and that it does not know when it will be ready. On the Opposition Benches, hon. Members want to have a permanent customs union. The beauty of our motion today is that it allows us all to vote for it, because the truth is that we do not need to make that choice now. Those alternative arrangements will not be ready for several years and at the next election the Opposition parties can argue for a permanent customs union and we can argue for free trade or the EFTA free trade agreement, and we can agree to pursue our different visions of the future.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Ind)]

rose—

[Nick Boles]

I will give way one last time.

[Dr Wollaston]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case for this being the least damaging form of Brexit. The trouble is that it will end up pleasing no one: neither the remainers who voted to remain, nor a very significant number of his colleagues who voted to leave. Would it not be best, if it does not have the consent of this House, at least to check that it has the consent of the people? Would he agree to link it to a public vote, so that we can check that it really is the will of the people?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful argument, as she has done consistently. The funny thing about this position is what happened in Norway. It was meant to be temporary for Norway. It went into this thing on its way into the EU. All the Norwegian elite—both sides of Parliament, all the business elite and everybody else—want to get into the EU, but the Norwegian people consistently say, “No, thank you very much, we are quite happy where we are.” Some 65% to 70% of the Norwegian people say, “Do you know what? This halfway house is absolutely perfect for us.” My prediction is that that is what the British people would conclude, too.

Each of us today is a leader. The Prime Minister has one vote, the Leader of the Opposition has one vote, and so does every other right hon. and hon. Member. In years to come, the question that our children and grandchildren will ask us is this: in that historic week when Parliament took charge of the nation’s destiny, what did you do? Did you stand up and lead? Did you step forward to help reunite our country, or did you hang back in your party trench waiting to be told what to do and where to go? I have already made my choice at the cost of my future career in this House. It is now time for others to choose. To all right hon. and hon. Members I say this: if you choose common market 2.0 this evening, the history books will record it as the moment that our country turned a corner and the part you played will be something of which you will be forever proud.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Barclay]

I will come to the hon. and learned Lady’s motion to revoke in due course. I will take the motions in the order that Mr Speaker selected them. Turning to motion (L) from the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, which deals with revoking article 50 after a vote on no deal on the penultimate sitting day before exit day, it has long been the Government’s policy not to revoke article 50, and that position remains the same.

Motion (D) comes from my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). He is a good friend, and I know that he tabled it in the spirit of trying to seek a solution for the House, but the fact that the labelling of his suggestion has been through so many different terms—Norway for now, Norway, Canada, EEA-plus, Norway-plus—draws attention to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), which is that there are several problems with the proposal. To take issue with two specific points, paragraph (1)(b) refers to

“continuing status as a party to the European Economic Area Agreement”,

but I gently say that that is factually incorrect. The United Kingdom is a member of the EEA only through its membership of the EU, and therefore—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford shakes his head, but that is the clear position of Her Majesty’s Government.

[Nick Boles]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Stephen Barclay]

Given that it is my hon. Friend, I will take one further intervention.

[Nick Boles]

I will be brief. My right hon. Friend is correct to say that this is a legally disputed point. There are lawyers who agree with him, but I can cite Sir Alan Dashwood, QC, the leading silk on EU law, and George Peretz, QC, the leading silk on EFTA law, who both disagree with him.

[Stephen Barclay]

As a former respected Minister, my hon. Friend will know that I am stating the clear position of the Government Law Officers. The same point also relates to the meat of motion (H), because line 5 states that we need to give notice to leave the EEA, which is not the case.

The second issue with motion (D) is that paragraph (1)(e) states that freedom of movement can be restricted to those “genuinely seeking work” or those with “sufficient resources”. Again, that is just incorrect. The existing position as a member of the EU28 is that controls can be put in place, but that has not happened because of how the UK operates. We do not have a registration or ID system or an insurance-based health system, so there are reasons why such controls are not used. With respect, the proposal is a fig leaf to disguise the fact that his solution requires the continuation of freedom of movement.

Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

She may have left the Chamber, but I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for her moving speech in support of her Access to Welfare (Terminal Illness Definition) Bill. I also listened to some of the debate on the Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill, on which unity broke out—in fact, there was a celebration of unity. I am not sure we can maintain that unity in this debate, but we can remain civil in our disagreements. In order to do that, apart from one reference, I had best avoid mentioning the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson).

The Prime Minister insists that her Brexit plan will deliver a “smooth and orderly” exit from the EU. Anyone looking in over these past few weeks will be bound to conclude that nothing could be further from the truth. The Chequers agreement took two years to reach and two days to unravel and, even in the past hour and a half, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has said that we should get behind it. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip called it the

“miserable permanent limbo of Chequers”

to great cheering from that part of the Chamber.

A White Paper that should have been published before article 50 was invoked arrived late for the statement last week and, after this week’s votes, lies in tatters. There have been daily resignations and knife-edge votes, and we see a Government clinging on literally vote by vote by using, as I understand from last night, threats of no-confidence votes and of a general election to achieve a result and, it seems, by breaking pairing arrangements with an MP on maternity leave. I listened carefully to what the Prime Minister said about that earlier, but I ask the Secretary of State to explain how the Tory party chairman, the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), accidentally voted on two crucial votes and yet managed, presumably deliberately, to abstain on the others as agreed.

Now the Secretary of State is trying to sell a White Paper that he had not seen until last week and in which, in many respects, it is hard to believe he really believes. It is already dead in the water. That is before he has even had the chance to meet Michel Barnier.

Although some Brexiteers predicted that the negotiations with the EU would be the easiest in history—that was the Secretary of State for International Trade—and that new trade agreements would be signed by March 2019 with countries totalling 10 times the geographical size of the EU, which was the corker from the former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, most of us recognised that, in honesty, the Brexit process would be very complicated and very difficult. I have always accepted that negotiating Brexit would be a challenge for any Government.

What we have seen in the past few weeks is not just a weak Government struggling with the inevitable complexities of Brexit; this is simply the latest battle of a political party at war with itself. A war once contained in the Conservative party now threatens to engulf the country. For 30 years or more the Conservative party has been engaged in a civil war over Europe, and the national interest has been the collateral.

The European question has brought down the Conservative party’s last three Prime Ministers, and it could well bring down this one. Margaret Thatcher was completely at odds with her Cabinet on the exchange rate mechanism, and it eventually led to her downfall. John Major grappled with his Maastricht rebels, and we know how he referred to them. Indeed, that accidental recording of John Major’s comments has resonance today:

“The real problem is one of a tiny majority…a party that is still harking back to a golden age that never was, and is now invented.”

Then we had David Cameron, the man who told his party to stop “banging on about Europe” before calling a referendum, losing it and then riding off into the sunset.

While the Tory party fights with itself over Europe, as we have seen in the past couple of days, inequality continues to grow, the housing crisis spirals out of control, our NHS and public services groan under the cuts to their budgets, and any principle to guide our foreign policy has fallen by the wayside.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just a moment.

Frankly, most people are sick and tired of this Tory war. Whether they voted to leave or remain, most people look on aghast at the mess the Government are making of Brexit; we have all had those comments made to us in the past few days.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. Anybody who has looked in on the past two days and seen the infighting on the Conservative Benches would question whether that process cannot start with the Tory party. I have laid out the history because this is a deep divide, which has been at the heart of the Conservative party for decades. It has been waiting to break out since the referendum result. It has been contained time and again, but now it has broken out. Now it more than risks the Conservative party; it risks the future of our country, and that is why it has got to stop.

[Nick Boles]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is a distinguished lawyer, so he would never say anything without appropriate evidence. He should therefore withdraw his comment that inequality is rising, because he will know as well as everyone else that the Office for National Statistics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have confirmed that inequality has not risen at any point in the past 10 years.

[Keir Starmer]

I simply disagree, on so many fronts, but that is a whole discussion in its own right. I invite the hon. Gentleman to walk around my constituency on any day of his choosing to see the obvious inequality there.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, I just hope that you did not reduce the time limit simply because you saw me standing up eagerly hoping to speak.

This is my first speech from the Back Benches since leaving the Government, and I rise to contribute to what has been a good and interesting debate. I am pleased that the Government’s amendment makes it clear that they have no intention or desire to stop the House of Commons discussing the nature of our future relationship with the European Union. It would be absurd for any Government to try to deny the House that opportunity, and it is clear that this Government have no intention of doing so. Indeed, I wonder whether the Secretary of State, who is not in his place, is ever going to have time to actually do any negotiating, given that he seems to spend so much time in this House and in the other place.

I wish to offer the House a particular perspective on this matter. I note that it is shared by 70% of the loyal Opposition. I campaigned energetically and with conviction for remain, but I represent a constituency that voted very heavily to leave the European Union. I say gently to others in my position that it is not good enough simply to say that they accept and respect the result. Do they understand the result? Have they sought to examine why their constituents were led to reject their advice? Why did my constituents reject my advice? Why did our constituents reject the advice of all the party leaders except the leader of the United Kingdom Independence party, who fortunately never managed to make it into this place? I am afraid it is not good enough to persist in expressing all the views that we previously held and to carry on with that same argument as though nothing had changed.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is in the same position as I am, rather appropriately cited the classic Burke line that we all like to use. I do not know the exact words, but he suggested that we owe the people not an automatic response but our judgment—he used the word “conscience”, but I think Burke used the word “judgment”—and that we would be doing our constituents a disservice if we did otherwise. That is right, of course, and we all like to hide behind that proposition. I think Burke is right when it comes to moral issues, but I am not sure if he is right when it comes to huge issues relating to our national strategic, economic and political arrangements. The fact that nearly 70% of my constituents voted to leave the European Union, despite a campaign that aired all the issues exhaustively and exhaustingly, means that I need to change my views about some of the arrangements that we enter into in order to secure our goals.

That leads me to my second point. When we start the process of scrutiny, please can we start by talking about ends, not means? I too want an immigration system that enables doctors to be recruited so that my A&E department in Grantham can be reopened 24 hours a day. I too want students to come and study in our universities. I too want the most talented people from all around the world to come and support British industry and help it compete. However, the single market and freedom of movement are not the only way of achieving those outcomes. We need to open our minds to different processes that can lead to the ends we all seek.