Leaving the EU
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I have just answered exactly that question in relation to a vote, and my view has not changed in the 30 seconds or so since I answered my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening).
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
The Malthouse compromise, if adopted, would deliver the requirement of the amendment put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and passed, which was to replace the backstop. The Prime Minister’s comments just now to my right hon. Friends the Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) were really encouraging. Will she commit to instructing civil servants both in Brussels and in Westminster to work these proposals up into legal text?
The Prime Minister
I believe that my right hon. Friend, along with some of my other right hon. Friends, previously indicated to me that he understood that work done by others outside this House had indeed contributed to a potential legal text. I know that meetings are continuing with officials to look at the issues that have been raised around the alternative arrangements. I have indicated what has happened in relation to that in Brussels, and we will continue to work on those alternative arrangements.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Damian Green
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is asking me to address hypothetical questions. Let us see where we are in two weeks’ time. Certainly, as I have said before, I will do whatever it takes to avoid a no-deal Brexit. The method chosen may not be exactly right, but he and others with immensely fertile brains may yet, I hope, have two weeks to think again or, even better, may not need to. I hope that the focusing of minds in this country is reflected by a focusing of minds in Brussels and, indeed, in Dublin.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that much the best way of guaranteeing that no deal does not happen is to keep no deal on the table so that we keep pressure on the European Union to talk in a serious manner?
Damian Green
My right hon. Friend may well be right. Certainly, throughout the negotiations, the Government have made the perfectly sensible point that anyone entering into a negotiation saying, “Whatever happens, I am going to take a deal at the end of it,” is unlikely to get a particularly brilliant result. To some extent, that is what happened to the British Government in the negotiations before the referendum. We all know that one of the things that might have changed the result would have been if David Cameron had come back with a better and more generous deal from Europe. I think there is a degree of validity in my right hon. Friend’s point, even though I think this may be the first time we have ever agreed on a European issue in our more than 20 years in this House.
Today is obviously important for the Government and for the negotiations, and it is also important for Parliament, because it gives Parliament a chance to be positive—not just to reject a deal, but to point a way forward. In a terrible time for democratic politics, this would be a glimmer of hope—a shaft of light—to show that this House can contribute to finding a solution to the most difficult political problem that this country has faced for decades. I hope that today and over the coming days the House and the Government can rise to the gravity of that problem.
Leaving the European Union
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We are continuing to work to see what deal would secure the support of the House such that we can leave the European Union with a deal. I also say to the hon. Lady that extending article 50 is not the great hope that she has—that somehow it solves everything. It defers the point at which the decision needs to be taken. There are limitations to what will be possible. This is not a decision for the United Kingdom alone and the EU would be highly unlikely to agree an extension to article 50 unless it had the prospect that an agreement, a deal, would be delivered. Talks to ensure that we can identify what deal can be delivered is what we are engaging in.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments on Northern Ireland. She knows that if we were to follow the route proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and did get to the point where we could trigger article 24 of the general agreement on tariffs and trade, we could continue for up to 10 years on zero tariffs and zero quotas. That would allay many of the fears of Opposition Members who are worried about high tariffs under so-called World Trade Organisation terms.
The Prime Minister
The question of GATT 24 is perhaps not quite as simple as some may have understood it to be. My right hon. Friend’s expectation that it is simply possible to leave with no deal and immediately go into that situation does not actually reflect accurately the situation that the United Kingdom would find ourselves in. I continue to believe that leaving with a deal is the best way forward for us in leaving the European Union, and that is what we will continue to work for.
Leaving the EU
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The Government are the servant of the people: we are ensuring that we are delivering what the people want in relation to Brexit. We have negotiated what I believe genuinely is a good deal for the United Kingdom, and that is why I will continue to encourage Members of this House to support it.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
It is absolutely clear: the British Government, the Irish Government and the European Union have always said that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and today’s border works perfectly satisfactorily with electronic means. It is extraordinary and exasperating that we are still stuck on the question of the backstop, when the Prime Minister has met technical experts who know that existing techniques and processes could deliver smooth delivery of that border. What meetings have been held since she met those experts prior to pulling the vote in December?
The Prime Minister
It is exactly those sorts of technological solutions that we are committed to pursuing. As I said to my right hon. Friend when he brought a proposal to me, the proposal he brought to me did not fully address all the issues in relation to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, but we are continuing to look—and will look actively and with the European Union—at the ways in which we could ensure that those alternative arrangements would deal with the issue that we are addressing.
May I also say to my right hon. Friend that it is not the case that the European Union has said that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland? The no-deal plans published by the European Commission in December make it clear that there will be no flexibility on border checks in no deal, so the Irish Government will be expected to apply EU checks in full.
Exiting the European Union
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think the fact that I have indicated that it is necessary to go back has sent a clear message to the European Union about the importance of engaging on this particular issue and ensuring that there is the level of assurance that is required by Members of this House that is sufficient for Members of this House to believe that they can have the confidence that the backstop is not indefinite. It is that indefinite—potentially indefinite—nature of the backstop, should it come into place, that has been raising concerns for all Members of this House, and I believe that it is that that we should be addressing particularly.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
On 7 March, President Tusk offered the UK a wide-ranging free trade agreement, which foundered on the issue of the Northern Ireland border. It is therefore exasperating, today, that the Prime Minister is still talking about the backstop as the only solution to this border. She has heard from the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds). This is a breach of the Belfast agreement principle of consent, and it is even a breach of the articles of the Act of Union in 1801. Since then, she has met international customs experts and she has met a Nobel prize winner, my right hon. Friend Lord Trimble. She knows that existing techniques and existing customs procedures can continue to deliver a seamless border. Will she please, at this late stage, put the backstop and all its horrors behind her, go back to the European Union and take up the offer made by President Tusk, using these modern, seamless customs techniques?
The Prime Minister
The offer that the European Union put to the United Kingdom was for a Canada-style free trade agreement for Great Britain, because to deal with the seamless border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, it wanted to separate Northern Ireland away from the customs territory of Great Britain and therefore not have a single UK customs territory. In relation to the technical issues—the technical solutions—that my right hon. Friend refers to, yes, indeed, and we continue to engage with those who put these forward. The question is not just about no physical infrastructure on the border; the question is about the extent to which people on both sides of the border are able to continue to lead their lives as they do today, with no increased barriers or encumbrances to their leading their lives in that way. That is what I believe delivers on the seamless border, which does indeed underpin the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), and I agreed with every word that he said.
Let us go back. David Cameron promised that if people voted Conservative in the 2015 election, there would be an in-or-out referendum; the people would decide—no ifs, no buts, no second choice, they would decide. To his horror, he won and had to deliver the referendum after a botched negotiation. What happened? We had a referendum—absolutely clear. All the processes in the House said, “You, the people, will be sovereign. We the MPs will give you the decision. You will decide.” We then had project fear mark 1. The people were bombarded with propaganda. Leaflets worth some £9 million were sent—crazy stuff from George Osborne’s Treasury—and the people voted to leave. A total of 17.4 million people voted to leave, the largest vote in British history on any single subject. We then had from those who lost: what does leave mean?
Mr Paterson
Like me, my right hon. Friend was elected on a particular platform at the general election, because the Prime Minister very helpfully said, “Leave means leave the single market, leave the customs union and leave the remit of the European Court of Justice. Every single Conservative member was elected on that platform and, helpfully, it was endorsed by the Labour party, so 85% of the votes in the general election endorsed the fact that leaving meant leaving those three things.
We then had the Lancaster House speech, which said that there would be no halfway house. What we have in this latest document does not deliver that. If this is passed, there will be the most appalling disillusion with our institutions. The people will have been thwarted and deprived by the establishment. We have seen it this evening: the political establishment hates Brexit; the commercial establishment—the CBI—hates Brexit; and the media establishment hates Brexit. None the less, the damage to our institutions will be grievous.
What we have in this document is worse than where we are at the moment. I was the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and represented the country in the common agricultural policy negotiations. We worked with our allies in Germany, Hungary and wherever. We stopped some of the more stupid proposals going through in the CAP reform, but we had to swallow an awful lot because we always got outvoted eventually in the qualified majority voting. We will not be there from now on. We will have law imposed on us. We will not be able to amend it or to repeal it in this House. The idea that we can sign trade deals is, sadly, nonsense. I was in Washington two weeks ago. Democrats, Republicans and senior members of the United States Trade Representative made it absolutely clear that countries cannot do trade deals with other countries that do not set their tariffs or their regulatory regimes. We will not set our tariffs and we will not set our regulatory regime.
Then there is the horror of the backstop, so eloquently described by the right hon. Member for Belfast North. This really is disgraceful, especially given the difficulties in getting the Belfast agreement signed. The absolute pillar of the agreement was the principle of consent that the status of Northern Ireland would never change without the majority of the people in Northern Ireland voting for that change. And what do we have? Something ghastly called UK(NI) has been created. Northern Ireland will be under a different regime. That is a breach of the Acts of Union 1800. It is extraordinary that this has been allowed through.
There are only two solutions to the Northern Ireland border. The first is that we stay in the customs union as a full member, as the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) said. The second is that we address the reality that customs has moved on. I have spent a lot of time on this issue. I wrote a paper with the European Research Group that we published in mid-September. I discussed that paper with the Government and sent a copy to Monsieur Barnier, resulting in a very fruitful meeting. The fact is that there is currently a border—a VAT border, an excise duty border and a currency border—and that it is all done with technology.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
There is also an Intrastat border, so companies already have to declare their exports under Intrastat. While I have the floor, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is extremely concerning that the political declaration includes reference to a single customs territory, and that this is just another name for a customs union, in clear breach of our manifesto promises?
Mr Paterson
My hon. Friend, having been a Minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, knows this subject in great detail and he is spot on. We cannot be in any customs territory like that because it is a breach of the promise to the people, and we will never do trade deals around the world. Sadly, the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) is not in his place; it is pathetic to say that we cannot do trade deals with India, America and China, when we are the great international country and these people want to buy from us. We will not be able to do this if we are in some sort of customs territory.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his remarks so far. Has he heard, as I have, various Government Ministers assuring Unionist MPs from Northern Ireland that we have nothing to worry about, even though they do not like the agreement themselves? In the Lobby this afternoon, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland told us that she did not like what was put forward. When we put it to her that this could only be annulled by the Republic of Ireland, the EU and the UK together, she had no answer. The fact of the matter is that this is what it means; the backstop will be there forever.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There is no way out of the backstop. As we heard from the Attorney General yesterday, whether we support this is ultimately a political decision because we do not get out unless the European Union agrees, and it is not going to let us go while we are stumping up the cash, nor while it has us trapped in an arrangement whereby it can impose law on us that is perfidious and can damage our economy but benefits the EU, which has a £100 billion surplus with us.
Before we get off the question of the economy, let me say that so many Members who have spoken this evening think that the EU is the most wondrous organisation and that the economy is booming in Europe. There is one continent in the world with a slower rate of growth: Antarctica. The European Commission says that 90% of world growth is going to be outside the EU, and that is where we want to be. But we have got hung up on the Northern Ireland border, where there is already a border that is handled with modern technology. The turnover—incredibly important locally—is tiny, at 4.9% of Northern Ireland’s sales. That is 0.2% of UK GDP and 1.6% of the Republic of Ireland’s exports north. This can all be done with modern techniques.
I have engaged with real-world experts at an organisation called CLECAT, which represents—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are laughing. I think that an organisation with a membership of 19,000 customs brokers and freight forwarders that handles 80% of customs transaction in Europe knows a lot more than the Labour Front Bench. CLECAT recommends very clearly that we should move on. We should recognise that borders are no longer inspection points, but tax points. Inspection happens before goods are shipped. Earlier, we heard about just-in-time delivery. One thousand trucks will turn up at the border tomorrow with car parts, and they have all been pre-cleared. Pre-clearance will carry on. The border inspection point in Rotterdam is 40 km from where the containers land. If that were the distance from Newry, we would be looking at somewhere well north of Lisburn, into the suburbs of Belfast. Looking at the most contentious products—food and agri-tech—landing in Rotterdam, there are 30,000 containers a year, and they are all inspected. They go to the border inspection post, some for less than a minute, and 97% or 98% of them whizz through. Of the remaining 2% or 3%, only 10% are physically opened up. People have this ludicrous idea of borders—that we have a man in a tricorn hat stopping the stagecoach with a ladle and testing the brandy. That does not happen. Goods are tested in advance. They are pre-cleared. We have modern systems like REX—the registered exporter system—on rules of origin. We have Transit, and records that are so accurate that I saw when I went to Larne that only two goats went through there in 2016. That is the sort of modern system that could work not just on the Northern Ireland border but at Dover-Calais.
We must vote against these ghastly proposals. This is absolutely appalling, and I am delighted that so many Members from across the House are going to vote against it. So what is the alternative? The answer is to go back to what President Tusk offered us on 7 March—a wide-ranging free trade deal that foundered on the issue of the Northern Ireland border. Using existing techniques and technologies within the existing customs code, we can resolve the problem of the border and go back and take up that offer. It was very clear at the meeting with Monsieur Barnier and his senior colleagues that that offer is still on the table.
The European Union will have to face the fact that if this proposal goes down, as I hope it will this time next week, we should go straight back and take up that offer. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State is here. He should go straight back and do that. We can solve the problem of our borders. We can immediately start negotiating for this wide-ranging free trade deal. Just to show that we are serious, he should also make it very clear that we are going to make preparations for what “Project Fear” calls no deal, which means World Trade Organisation terms. Those are the terms on which 164 countries conduct 98% of world trade. It is absolutely childish to describe this as “leaping off a cliff” and a “catastrophe”.
We should show that we are deadly serious because obviously we are not going to get the free trade deal done by March. If we have a short temporary period in which we have set up a genuine agreement with the European Union, then we can invoke article 24—which I am not sure many people have heard of—of the general agreement on tariffs and trade, which enables us to go on at the current rate of zero tariffs for a reasonable length of time, potentially up to 10 years, so we can carry on exactly as we are. Goods will carry on moving. We will prosper and grow at a tremendous rate, as has been proposed by various forecasters. That is the alternative and that is the way ahead.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Mercifully, there are no more UK Independence party Members of Parliament in this Chamber, but we have to remember that in the last European Union elections, they won the largest number of seats, and certainly, in our county of Shropshire, they won the most votes when those elections took place. In the debate today, we have not properly referenced the huge numbers of British people who voted for UKIP in the EU elections because of their frustration with the European Union. I consider UKIP to be a very malign, rabidly right-wing organisation and party. Some of their language on migration and immigrants was a real concern to me, particularly being the first ever Polish-born British Member of Parliament and very proud of the extraordinary contribution that 1 million Poles have made to this country.
I am pleased that UKIP is withering on the vine. Today, even Nigel Farage quit UKIP, but I am really concerned about the references that have been made during this debate, in many speeches, to the wish for a second referendum. I am absolutely convinced that if we have another referendum and try to overturn the decision that was taken, this will give wind to UKIP sails and it will be resurrected as a genuine political force.
Many Members of Parliament have spoken about how we will have to spend many years adapting ourselves to our new relationship with the European Union. They are clearly oblivious to the amount of constant work that we have had to do in this Chamber to adapt ourselves to its move towards a supra-national state. There are two issues that I want to address briefly: one is the single currency and the other is the EU army.
There are 19 eurozone countries, but the eight that do not have the euro are contractually obliged so to do. They have no alternative but to join the eurozone, yet the people in these countries do not wish to abandon their currencies. In the Czech Republic, 71% of the electorate do not want the euro. In Sweden, 72% do not, and in Poland, the country of my birth, 62% of the electorate do not want to give up the złoty, yet they are moving towards a single currency for the whole European Union. We have an opt-out—one of only two countries to have one—but it is not inconceivable that at some stage in the future, if we remained in the EU, say in 10 or 30 years, the EU might come back and say, “You know you thought you had an opt-out? Well, think again. We cannot have a system with 27 countries using the same currency and you being an exception.”
Secondly, there is the European army. I take my daughter, Alexis, to the Polish-Russian border every year for our summer holidays, and I say to her, “Darling, this is the most highly militarised part of Europe, and if the tit-for-tat missile deployments continue at the pace they have been over the last few years, it will be the equivalent of the North and South Korean border.” Despite that, the EU wants to create a single European army that, at best, will duplicate the services of NATO, an organisation that has kept the peace on our continent for 70 years, and, at worst, will usurp NATO as the supreme defence posture for the continent of Europe.
Let us not forget that, once we pull out of the EU, there will be six countries committed to the common defence of our continent that are not members of the EU and never will be: America and Britain, two permanent members of the UN Security Council; Canada and Iceland, protecting the Atlantic; Norway, in the extreme north; and Turkey, protecting our southern flank from ISIS and its extremely dangerous moves.
Mr Paterson
Will my hon. Friend confirm, as he knows public opinion in Poland well, that, although we have this idea that it is the EU that has kept the peace, people in Poland know, having escaped from the Soviet empire, that actually it is NATO that has kept the peace in Europe and brought freedom to those eastern countries?
Daniel Kawczynski
Absolutely. I could not agree more with my Shropshire neighbour. Of course, we are relatively safe here on our island. It is those frontline states such as Poland that will really face instability if anything is done to usurp the supremacy of NATO. The Russians understand that NATO is united and strong and that any deviation from that could put countries such as Poland and others at risk.
I have two issues with the withdrawal deal. The first—I look at our DUP colleagues as I say this—is the Northern Ireland backstop. The Attorney General yesterday did not give me sufficient guarantees that Northern Ireland would be protected in the event that the backstop has to be utilised. We owe a debt of honour to the people of Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) said that DUP Members did not represent the whole of Northern Ireland. Well, they are here and they are our interlocutors, and if they are telling us, as the representatives of the people of Northern Ireland, that they have genuine concerns about the backstop, it would be highly irresponsible of us as Unionists to ignore those concerns. The determination of the people of Northern Ireland to remain British in such extraordinary adversity is remarkable. I am very proud of their determination to remain within the United Kingdom. The Attorney General looked at the DUP last night and said, “You have to vote in the interests of the whole United Kingdom.” I have a message for the Attorney General: there is no United Kingdom without Northern Ireland.
I come to my second concern. I asked the Attorney General in a one-hour telephone conversation last week, “What is your legal advice? How much of the £39 billion do we really owe?” and he told me a figure in private over the telephone, but when he was asked that same question yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), he said the figure was too difficult to calculate. Again, I asked the Prime Minister this afternoon for assurances, but she did not give me a clear answer. What really concerns me is that, while we in Shropshire are facing shortages for our local schools and hospital, we are, under this agreement, likely to hand over another £39 billion of British taxpayers’ money to the EU in return for the possibility of a treaty further down the line. That is simply unacceptable.
This week Mr Macron has threatened to block a trade deal with Mercosur that has been discussed over the last eight years because the new Brazilian President, Mr Bolsonaro, has pledged to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. Members should think about what would happen to the Conservative party if we handed over £39 billion, and two, three or four years on, there was still no trade agreement. That would be devastating for our party, and devastating for our country. As things stand, I will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to support the withdrawal agreement.
Mr Paterson
Thinking about the previous intervention, does my hon. Friend agree that his constituents and mine were very sensible and completely ignored these ludicrous forecasts, which are all part of “Project Fear”? Our constituents have been bombarded with further utter nonsense forecasts this week, but they do not believe them; they see real opportunities for this country when we get our freedom back.
Ben Bradley
I totally agree. The more obscene these forecasts become, the less they are believed. My favourite was that we are all going to get super-gonorrhoea if we leave the European Union. This week, the story is that babies will die through milk shortage because of leaving the European Union. These are the stories that exist in the media, and people out there give them no credence or credibility. It was interesting to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) making many similar arguments earlier today. However, I would argue that the right conclusion is not a second referendum; it is to deliver on what we promised.
It is right that people are sick of this debate and want to get it done, but this proposal does not allow us to do that. Instead, the debate rolls on for another year or 18 months as we try to agree a future relationship. It offers little certainty to business and almost guarantees that we will be back here again in 2020, having an equally divisive and difficult debate. As it stands, the withdrawal agreement does not end the problem—far from it. The only way to truly get it done, put it in the rear-view mirror and get on with talking about a positive domestic agenda, which Opposition Members have mentioned, is to accept that we cannot agree on a specific deal. Then we can go back and talk to the European Union about how to agree on all the things that we can actually agree on, including issues such as citizens’ rights, security, travel and all the rest, and carefully manage a transition to World Trade Organisation terms.
The only way to have certainty at this point is to have a clean break. I would prefer us to seek a more positive free trade arrangement first and to be strong in that approach, because that is what we promised in our manifesto and at Lancaster House, but we should not fear leaving on the same terms that govern 98% of global trade. It may be true that better relationships can be agreed further down the line, with or without this withdrawal agreement, but our hand is most certainly strengthened by being true to the mantra laid out in the Lancaster House speech—no deal is better than a bad deal—rather than being held over a barrel throughout the coming year and being threatened with this backstop arrangement, as President Macron has already told us he will do.
After months of saying that it could not be done and it was impossible, the withdrawal agreement accepts in black and white that the Irish border situation can be resolved through technological solutions. It is a political problem, not a practical one, and again, we are better prepared for that debate if we leave and come at it from a position of strength.
The World Trade Organisation has been clear that its rules would not require a hard border, and HMRC on both sides has said the same. If the barrier to achieving this is a political one and the Prime Minister is right that there is no deal without the backstop, we have to take charge of that debate in the interests of the whole UK, put ourselves in the driving seat and say, “This is not acceptable, so how do we handle that no deal scenario, because we are not going to agree to something that is detrimental to the United Kingdom?” That is the only way to force the issue that currently dictates this entire arrangement, which has always been built around the problem, rather than around the positive outcomes that we all want to see. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who has great experience of this issue, said earlier, customs has moved on. We have to embrace that, as does the EU.
This is a divisive issue and reaction is of course mixed. I have had constituents ask me to support the deal and to support remaining, but as I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), the overwhelming majority of my constituents—collaring me in the street, answering me on social media or writing to me—want us to be stronger and to agree a looser arrangement with the European Union that gives us the freedom that they sought.
We have to start from the premise that we are a free and independent nation seeking a trade deal with Europe as we laid out at Lancaster House, not from the position of seeking continuity with our existing arrangements as this agreement does. If we do that, and if we truly take back control and deliver on the referendum result, we would restore the brittle faith in democracy that led to that outcome in the first place. It would prove to people in constituencies like mine that the Government do listen and act on their decisions, and that they do have a voice. Brexit presents a huge opportunity to give people who have felt forgotten for a long time a chance to believe in government and to believe in a country that is proud, independent and embracing new opportunities across the whole world, but I regret that this withdrawal agreement cannot deliver that outcome.
Leaving the EU
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I answered the question on the people’s vote earlier. I do listen to the public, and when I go knocking on doors and listening to what people say, the overwhelming view is that we should get on with it and do what the vote said.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
The Conservative manifesto at the last election promised to deliver the leave vote by leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and leaving the remit of the European Court of Justice. Many of us, endorsed by experienced lawyers, believe that this document does not deliver that. It is also a clear breach of the principle of consent of the Belfast agreement, and it is going to cost us £39 billion. Given that a majority across the House, including myself, intend to vote against this deal, will the Prime Minister acknowledge at this late stage that the obstacle to President Tusk’s offer of a free trade deal was the problem of the Northern Irish border? In her political declaration, she has acknowledged that current techniques and processes could sort that. Will she therefore please at this late stage look to a comprehensive free trade deal, with our solution to the Northern Ireland border?
The Prime Minister
At the heart of this political declaration and of our future economic partnership is a comprehensive free trade deal. It is just a better comprehensive free trade deal than Canada.
Progress on EU Negotiations
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
This political declaration asserts the sovereignty of both sides of the agreement—the United Kingdom and the European Union—because that is exactly what will persist. We will be a sovereign nation. We will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. There are circumstances where a point that is being looked at—for example, in arbitration—is considered to be a matter of the interpretation of European Union law. There is one body that interprets European Union law: that is the European Court of Justice. What we make clear is that, in those circumstances, the arbitration panel may ask the European Court of Justice for an opinion on the interpretation of European Union law; the arbitration panel will then consider its decision in the light of that opinion.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
I am grateful to the Prime Minister for her movement in paragraphs 26 and 27, taking on board our proposals to use on the Irish border modern techniques and processes used elsewhere, but—there is a big but in this—as long as the backstop exists in a legally binding document, there is a danger that, should talks fail, the backstop becomes accepted and we have the horror of being in the customs union, the horror of Northern Ireland being split off under a different regime. As I saw in Washington this week, if we cannot control our tariffs and our regulatory regime, we cannot do free trade deals with other countries. At this late stage, will she consider withdrawing the backstop from the legally binding draft document and replacing it with the draft trade facilitation chapter and border protocol that we gave her earlier in the week, and making that legally binding so it could become the new backstop?
The Prime Minister
As I have indicated, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) for the work they have been doing on this issue.
In the withdrawal agreement we negotiated a specific reference to alternative arrangements that enables us to work up those alternative arrangements such that they will be, as the name suggests, an alternative to the arrangements for the backstop, or would enable us to come out of the backstop if we had started down that route.
I continue to say to my hon. and right hon. Friends, and to Members of this House more widely, that it is the firm determination of this Government, and indeed it is the determination of the European Union, that we will work to ensure that we have the future relationship arranged and able to be in place by 1 January 2021. It is not the case that there is a sense in which the backstop is automatic. The backstop is not automatic. There are alternatives to the backstop, and the United Kingdom can choose those alternatives. There are pros and cons to those alternatives and, when the time comes, obviously the choice will measure those pros and cons, but what matters is that it will not be the case that the only way to deal with the interim period is through the backstop; it can be dealt with by alternative arrangements, or by an extension to the implementation period.
EU Exit Negotiations
Owen Paterson Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman will know full well that it is very clearly set out what the process would be—what the procedure would be—were it to be the case that this Government were to bring a proposal back to this House and the meaningful vote were not to support that particular proposal.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
What are the cross-border transactions between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland that so threaten the integrity of the European single market and customs union that they cannot be resolved by existing techniques or existing processes under existing law, none of which requires hard infrastructure on the border?
The Prime Minister
There are arrangements in relation to customs checks that would be put in place were it not the case that we had come to an agreement to have a customs arrangement that did not require those checks to take place. I have seen and have heard of a number of proposals for technical solutions to deal with those issues. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that some of those technical solutions effectively involve moving the border—and it would still be a border. Some involve equipment, which could come under attack, and some involve a degree of state surveillance that, frankly, I think would not be acceptable in Northern Ireland.
Leaving the EU
Owen Paterson Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
As I indicated in the statement that I made, the reason I do not think the EEA-plus option is right for the UK is that it does not deliver on the vote of the British people. That is our duty: it is our job as a Government to deliver the Brexit that the British people voted for.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
The announcement that the Government are preparing for a no deal—an inaccurate term for moving to WTO terms, on which we trade with the vast majority of countries in the world—is very welcome and sensible. Given the intransigence and churlishness with which the EU has welcomed the Prime Minister’s generous offers so far, what is the date by which she judges it will be a “drop dead” moment at which to state that the talks are not progressing and that we will definitely go on to WTO terms?
The Prime Minister
I am sure that my right hon. Friend has been in a sufficient number of negotiations to know that it is not sensible to try to put a date on these matters in the way that he said. We have so far received a positive reaction to the proposals that we have put forward. We will go into intense and pacey negotiations with the European Union. I am clear that when this House comes to look at the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, it needs to have sufficient detail about the future relationship to be able to make that proper judgment.