European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). As a founding MP of the Vote Leave campaign, she played a splendid role—as did the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)—in winning the referendum. It was a brave thing to do. I would also like to pay tribute to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who for decades has been traduced, reviled and mocked for his views. Notwithstanding, he has kept his ducks in a row and today must be a very proud day for him.

I remind those who intend to vote against the motion tomorrow that this has been the result of a very clearly marked out process. David Cameron made a clear commitment in his Bloomberg speech to have a referendum if the Conservatives won the election. It was a manifesto commitment. We did win the election. The House then passed the Referendum Bill, 544 votes to 53, with a massive majority of 491. Then we had the referendum.

There have been some unwise comments. I have the hugest admiration for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), but I think he is unwise to have said that the referendum was just an opinion poll. The famous document that cost taxpayers £9 million very clearly stated:

“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”

If that was not clear, the then Prime Minister David Cameron said on many occasions, including on the “Andrew Marr Show” one Sunday in early June:

“What the British public will be voting for is to leave the EU and leave the single market.”

That was helpfully endorsed by a predecessor of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), the noble Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, who said:

“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it is spoken, whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%.”

Well, it was a big vote: 17,410,742 people voted to leave—the most votes for any issue or party in our history, and the highest percentage turnout since the 1992 general election. I thought, therefore, that the comments of the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) were wise and thoughtful. He recognised that the establishment faced a conundrum. We have had referendums—in 1975, in Wales, in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, on the alternative vote—but every time the popular vote delivered what the establishment wanted. This is a unique moment in our history. We have had this massive vote, and the establishment does not want it.

I ask those who are going to vote against the Bill tomorrow night to think of the shattering, catastrophic damage to the integrity of the political establishment, the media establishment and, following the judgment last week, the judicial establishment, if this is not delivered. I am quite clear on this point, having travelled all over the country during the referendum campaign and having campaigned for withdrawal since my earliest days in Parliament. Incidentally, my European credentials are good: I was in business for 20 years, I have visited virtually every European country, I rose to become president of a European trade association. One does not need to stand and sing “Ode to Joy”—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Does my right hon. Friend speak French and German?

[Mr Paterson]

I chaired the meetings in French, and we translated for the Germans when they could not keep up.

I saw at the time the extraordinary growth of young economies elsewhere in the world, and I saw that we were being held back. It is tragic now to see how Europe is falling behind. Everyone bangs on about our sales to Europe and the single market. Our sales were 61% of our trade in 1999, they have now fallen to 43% and they will fall to 35%.

There are wonderful opportunities out there in the three main areas for which I have had ministerial responsibility. First, on Northern Ireland, I bitterly resent the comments about this damaging the peace process. We have, and will continue to have, the very best relations with the Republic of Ireland, and we will respect the common travel area and all that is good, but we need to revive the economy of Northern Ireland.

Secondly, it is hard to think of two areas of government activity more damaged by European government than the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy. We will now return responsibility for those areas to a person at that Dispatch Box whom we can hold responsible. As Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I would come here and lamely say, “I’m a democratically elected Minister, but I cannot change this because we were outvoted.” For now on, responsibility will lie with elected persons accountable to this Parliament.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he has heard the fishing industry complaining about the disadvantage it has faced under the CFP over the last 40 years?

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She invited me to Cornwall last summer. In a hotly fought contest, the CFP is the most dreadful, the most shatteringly bad act of misgovernment. It is a biological, environmental, economic and social disaster, and it cannot be reformed. Once we get power back to a Minister at that Dispatch Box, we can start holding them to account, and we can learn the lessons of the CFP, as I did in an Opposition green paper in 2005, after having travelled across the north Atlantic, to Norway, the Faroes, Iceland and Newfoundland, and then down to the Falklands. We can bring in modern technology and get away from the disgusting relic that is the quota system, which ensures that a quarter of fish are thrown back dead—no one really knows, but it can be 1 million tonnes and worth £1.6 billion annually.

Finally, there are also advantages for the environment. We are proud signatories to the Bern convention and the Ramsar convention, but those should be interpreted not at a European level, but specifically for our own environment. So we will gain in agriculture, in fisheries and on the environment, and I will be voting tomorrow for the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady knows my stance on torture down the years—better than most, I suspect. The British Government’s stance on torture is very plain: we do not condone it and we do not agree with it in any circumstances whatever.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

At a conference on Brexit in Berlin at the weekend, the uncertainty facing EU nationals who are resident in the UK was made very clear. The Prime Minister’s comments were immensely welcome. Would it be possible for this issue to be resolved as rapidly as possible in the negotiations?

[Mr Davis]

The Prime Minister has made it plain that she has already tried to get agreement among all the member states. Most of them agree, but one or two of them do not, and we have to keep pressing, as we will, to resolve this as quickly as possible. I hope that EU nationals who are currently here will take heart from what we are saying. Our intention is to give them the guarantees that will also apply to British citizens abroad.

Article 50

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s overall question is yes—we are standing by both those votes and we will continue to do so. But I reiterate again that the point is that they will not be the only votes; there will be a large number of other votes in between. Labour Members can ignore it till the cows come home, but the simple truth is that they are going to have many, many, many votes on many different policy areas after extensive debate on primary legislation. So the answer is that Parliament will have a great influence on this process, and it will have the final say. That is democracy in action.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Further to that last reply, my right hon. Friend has given us admirable clarity on article 50 and the timetable. Could he give us a little more information on his current thoughts about the timetable for the great repeal Bill?

[Mr Davis]

That Bill will be in the Queen’s Speech, it will be presented to the House very soon thereafter and I expect it to be debated extensively. I think that it will be the centrepiece and the start of a major debate about the nature of this country and the future, so it is important to get it in front of the House very early.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

The conundrum we are facing is that this is the first time in our history that the establishment and the Government of the day, having decided to have a referendum, have got a result that they disagree with. The Labour party’s 1975 referendum, and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish referendums, all delivered a result that was satisfactory to the establishment and the majority in this House. Today, we face the opposite.

Two weeks ago, I was at the annual general meeting of my local National Farmers Union office, and a lady said to me, “What is it about London—what don’t they get? We voted to leave. Leave means leave.” As a founder member of Vote Leave, I think that we were pretty clear right throughout the campaign about what we wanted—we wanted to take back control. The Government have been pretty clear that they are going to deliver on that.

We wanted to take back control of our money. On my first day at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my Secretary of State’s briefing said that we were handing back £642 million of real money because the Commission, under the ECJ, disliked the manner in which the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) had implemented the then CAP reform. So there was I, democratically elected and responsible to this democratic House, with nothing I could do about it. This House began from the principle of deciding what taxes were and who was responsible for them, controlling the monarch of the time, and it still has that fundamental role. The people will get back their role of kicking out politicians who raise taxes and spend them badly, because we do not have that at the moment.

We voted to take back control of our laws. I know about that in spades from my time at DEFRA. About 90% of DEFRA’s work is the implementation of European law. I tried manfully in negotiations to work with good allies, but we were outvoted on many occasions, and our farmers are struggling with the latest CAP reform. With many areas of activity competing strongly to be the worst, I would say that the EU’s governance of fishing wins, because it has been a catastrophe. Getting back our powers to control our fishing will restore our marine environments and fish stocks, and bring prosperity and wealth back to our most remote marine communities.

[Angela Smith]

I am listening to what the right hon. Gentleman says about the CAP, but does he believe that post-Brexit—in 2019 and 2020—the UK Government should continue to give support to farmers at the levels they are currently receiving? Does he believe that that money should still go to farmers or not?

[Mr Paterson]

Emphatically yes. If the hon. Lady had listened to my speeches during the referendum campaign, she would know that I said, “And, if appropriate, more.” What we will now be able to do is to embrace technology. The EU is becoming the museum of world farming because it is so extraordinarily hostile to technology—and that also applies to fishing.

The hon. Lady has also mentioned immigration—quite rightly. The most angry people I met when I was at DEFRA were the fruit farmers in Essex, Kent and Hereford who had been deprived by the then Home Secretary, now our Prime Minister, who had stopped the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which brought in 21,250 highly skilled Romanians and Bulgarians before their countries became full members. I worked hard with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and the then Home Secretary to see how we could work our way around this. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) is absolutely right—we need a supply of skilled labour to work in our horticultural, fruit-picking and vegetable industry, and also in food processing.

At the other end of the scale, I know an eye surgeon whose family—they are Sufi Muslims—came from the United Provinces of India. She gave me, unprovoked—I have clean hands; she started it—the most extraordinary lecture attacking current immigration policy whereby she has to take less qualified, less skilled, less safe and less experienced eye surgeons because they have European passports, and she cannot choose more skilled and safer ones from Bangalore, Hong Kong or San Diego. I would like us to have the choice of the world’s workers—whether fruit packers or eye surgeons—on a permit scheme. I wholly endorse the comments of my right hon. Friends the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) because it would send out a tremendous signal if we stated here and now that there are very large numbers of EU citizens working in our economy who make an enormous contribution. We should give them, up to a certain date, the right of abode, and from then on move to a permit system.

We said that we would take back control of our ability to trade around the world. SNP Members make a huge fuss about the single market and the customs union. We have to leave the single market if we want to come out from under the cosh of the European Court of Justice. The single market does not exist anyway. My noble Friend Lord Bamford recently gave a very good speech in another place saying that there are 10 standards for brake lights on tractors within the current so-called single market. It is a non-problem. People just punch in the information when they go on the production line.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am interested in what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. Can he tell me why the Conservative manifesto, on which his party fought the last election, stated:

“We say: yes to the Single Market”?

[Mr Paterson]

I am speaking for the Vote Leave campaign, which made it very clear that we would not be under the jurisdiction of the ECJ and that we would be able to make trade treaties around the world. Also—this was massively popular during the campaign—if we leave the customs union and get outside fortress Europe, the prices of everyday goods, food and clothing will come down. That will be of massive benefit to our consumers, and it is another example of why this is the establishment against the people.

The same thing is happening in Europe. We saw the results of the referendum in Italy this week, and there will soon be elections in Holland, France and Germany. Opposition Members should wake up to the phenomenon that we have allies in those countries who want what they would call an open Brexit. They want to trade with us, so we should be offering them zero for zero on tariffs.

Ilse Aigner is a senior member of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria with whom I worked extremely closely when she was the federal Agriculture Minister. Only last week, in her role as Economic Affairs Minister for Bavaria, she said to her federal counterpart, “Don’t mess up Brexit. We don’t want recession in Bavaria; we want to continue selling our products.” As well as the 17.4 million people here who voted for Brexit, we have significant interests in Europe on our side.

Quotes have been bandied about—including one that was, I think, a perversion of something that Helmuth von Moltke said—and I close with two. Napoleon, who knew a thing or two about winning battles, said:

“I never had a plan of operations”.

Carl von Clausewitz said:

“Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.”

Good luck to the Government; I will vote for the amendment tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. There are other questions on transitional arrangements that I will come to in detail later, as the Speaker will pull me up if I do not. The answer is yes; we want to see them both done in parallel inside the two years.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

As I know from talking to businesses up and down the country, whether they voted to leave or to remain, there is overwhelming consensus—they want get on with this. Uncertainty is the one threat, as opposed to the comically inaccurate forecasts, which have been proved completely wrong, by the remain side. Can the Secretary of State confirm that whichever way the appeal goes in the Supreme Court—the Government do have very good arguments—there will still be time to pass the necessary legislation, if required, and to stick to the timetable of triggering article 50 by the end of March?

[Mr Davis]

Yes, that is my belief.

Article 50

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

What happened in 2015 was that the Government Minister responsible, the Foreign Secretary, said to the House of Commons that this gives the decision to the British people—full stop, no ifs, no buts. The Government then published a number of documents saying the same thing over and over again. If we betray the people by not responding to that properly, I think it will be very difficult to ever make a referendum matter again.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I am delighted with the certainty my right hon. Friend has that we are sticking to the current timetable, but he will have noticed that those who voted to remain are putting out a false narrative that we now have a choice between soft Brexit or hard Brexit. Will he please confirm that the biggest majority in British history voted to take back control, and that means making our own laws in our own Parliament?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. We were given a national instruction, which we will interpret in the national interest, not in terms of any fictional soft or hard, or any other sort of, Brexit. We will get the outcome that suits this country best.

Next Steps in Leaving the European Union

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

That is an extraordinary assertion, even if it parodies Harold Wilson, one of the hon. Gentleman’s previous heroes.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State please clarify for the benefit of Opposition Front Benchers this incredibly simple point: independent countries can trade most successfully with the single market without being a member of the single market?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is right that more than 20 countries have had more success in growth terms when trading into the single market than we have had in the past 10 or 20 years. He is absolutely right that it is not necessary to be a member of the single market to trade incredibly successfully inside it.

Exiting the European Union

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Indeed, the suggestion from the Commission that it is somehow illegal for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade to go and talk to Ministers in India, Canada, Australia or wherever he is going next is somewhat ridiculous. The only thing the Commission can say in legal terms is that we cannot bring an agreement into force until after we leave, and that is perfectly fair and proper. That is what the laws of the European Union are. The hon. Gentleman can take it as read that we are looking to ensure the fastest possible transition to the opportunities I mentioned after Brexit concludes. Similarly, on the other front, there have been suggestions that we cannot talk about the trade arrangement with Europe until the article 50 process has concluded and we are outside the European Union. That, too, is nonsense. I have looked carefully at several different versions of article 50 in different languages, and they all refer to the parallel negotiations that will need to take place, so the hon. Gentleman can take it as read on both those counts that he is right and that we are pursuing the matter.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment and wish him well in his historic task. Many industries and everyday activities depend on European regulation, but there is some uncertainty being stirred up about the future of the law. Further to his reply to the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), can he confirm that the Government are going about establishing the entire corpus of European law and all the detail of the acquis communautaire, following the path set by countries such as India and Australia when they took on full independence and converted the whole of British law into their national law and then, in subsequent years, repealed, filleted or improved upon it?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. This is one of the reasons that the process is taking some time. The legal interactions of certain elements of the acquis communautaire and British law are not straightforward. My starting position was that we would put them all into the law and take it from there, but it does not quite work like that. That is why this is taking a little while, but my right hon. Friend can be sure that my legal section and the Whitehall lawyers are on that issue as we speak and will come up with conclusions as quickly as they can. When they do so, I will tell the House what their conclusion is.