European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I slightly question the extent to which we have had clear evidence of that, although I know that there has been a reluctance on the part of the European Court of Justice to accept any higher authority, despite the intention of the parties that it should become subordinate, ultimately, to the ECHR. He is right that one reason why the charter came into being was to secure compliance. I think it is rather more of a hypothetical than an actual state of affairs, although such a problem might exist in future. In any event, I do not think we are dealing here just with matters covered by the ECHR, for the very reasons that were discussed earlier in relation to new clause 16, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham East. I simply say to my right hon. and hon. Friends that the issue has to be addressed.

As I said earlier, I recognise that my amendment is not as good as it might be, and could be improved on. If the Government can give me an assurance that is adequate and goes beyond vagueness, I will be content not to press amendment 10 a vote. The issue is not going to go away, however, and when one is in this sort of dialogue with the Government, one does not want to be soft-soaped off. If that happens, there will be a road crash when we come to Report, in which I will be unable to support the Government on a whole series of matters. I hope that those things can be resolved by consensus.

I have spoken for quite long enough, but I have explained why I think that, on the important issue that we are debating today, the best solution in the interim is to use something along the lines of amendment 10 to ensure that general principles of EU law can continue to be invoked. Of course, as the transition goes on, I assume that so much EU law may disappear, but I venture the suggestion that it will continue to be relevant for some time to come.

May I, finally, touch briefly on the three other amendments —297, 298 and 299—that I have tabled? They are very simple, and they concern the use in clause 5 of the words

“any enactment or rule of law”.

I simply say that nobody I have spoken to understands why the words “rule of law” appear in the Bill. Ultimately, a rule of law is a rule of the common law; and in so far as a rule of the common law is displaced by statute, that rule will be displaced, of itself, by the courts. It does not require to be spelled out in legislation. I draw some comfort, on that, from the fact that a very distinguished lawyer who previously worked in this building shares my view that the inclusion of those words is incomprehensible. I do not think that that is a matter that I would necessarily put to the vote, if I was required to do so, but I hope that the Government might be able to provide a positive response on it. I am grateful to the Committee for listening.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who made his case extremely well and very convincingly—it is supported by many hon. Members on both sides of Committee.

I rise to speak to amendment 46, which is designed to ensure that we keep the charter of fundamental rights in EU retained law; amendment 335, which would maintain the principles of the Francovich ruling after exit day for pre-Brexit cases; amendments 285, 286 and 287, which make provision for existing arrangements to continue during a transitional period; and, finally, amendment 336, which makes provision for retaining existing principles of EU law within domestic law until the end of the transitional arrangements.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

I think I could probably get a few more sentences into my stride before taking an intervention, but I certainly anticipate that I will take interventions from the hon. Gentleman.

The debate raises fundamental principles about the transposition of EU law and the important role of this House in holding the Government to account for their commitments. Last week, the focus of the debate was on the Government’s attempt to unravel the Prime Minister’s pledges on the transitional arrangements in her Florence speech, by the imposition of a defined exit day for all purposes. The Minister, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), made a good attempt to defend the indefensible and not commit to the application of the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union throughout the transitional period; that was not the Government’s line at the time. It would have been helpful if No. 10 had said a week ago what it said this morning, namely that the Court of Justice will have jurisdiction throughout the transitional period. If that had happened, the Minister would not have been left in such a mess.

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[Sir William Cash]

Is the hon. Gentleman about to move on to explain why Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith fought so hard to obtain protocol 36—I think it was that one—in the Lisbon treaty, which the Conservative party opposed? At the same time as advancing the charter of fundamental rights, will he explain why we cannot pass such legislation as we wish to in this place?

[Paul Blomfield]

I was not about to go on to that, but clearly I am now. The hon. Gentleman knows that the charter was not binding when it was first adopted in 2000. It was made legally binding by the Lisbon treaty of 2007, which entered into force in 2009. It has, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield pointed out, increased in significance, and the rights that it contains have become more visible and correspondingly more effective. Labour supported the charter then, and we support it now, because it has enhanced and improved European human rights protection, and by doing so it has significantly developed the quality of human rights protection in the UK. The wider point that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) makes is not relevant to the issue under discussion.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

The charter applies only when national authorities are implementing EU law. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that if it is retained, it risks creating a confusing inconsistency by giving citizens powerful rights to strike down some pieces of legislation, but not others? Is it not a case of doing either the whole thing, or nothing at all?

[Paul Blomfield]

I will come on to this point, but the charter is key to ensuring that retained law is treated properly and that the same rights of enforcement continue in the future. Without the charter, those rights are significantly diminished and access to them is diminished.

Let me proceed with the point I was making about how the charter goes wider than the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights, which I hope I am right in saying the Government accept. As other Members have already pointed out, it was the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union who relied on the charter in the case he brought before the High Court in 2015, against the then Home Secretary and now Prime Minister, when he was worried that the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 would impact on MPs’ ability to communicate with constituents confidentially. He cited the charter, and his lawyers argued that it went beyond the European convention on human rights and granted further protection. He relied on the charter precisely because it provided greater human rights protection than was provided for by UK law and even by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Despite this, the Government have not indicated which decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union under the charter they disagree with. Moreover, the explanatory notes to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill justify the decision to exclude the charter from retained EU law by saying:

“The Charter did not create new rights, but rather codified rights and principles which already existed in EU law. By converting the EU acquis into UK law, those underlying rights and principles will also be converted into UK law, as provided for in this Bill.”

If that were the case, it would be fine, but it is clearly not the case.

Drawing on existing rights, the charter set out a new framework for human rights protection under EU law. The rights contained in the charter may have existed in EU law for decades—the Government are relying on that point—but that is not enough. The whole point of the charter was that nobody could verify those rights or their sources, and as the lawyers among us will know, identifying the source of a right is imperative in securing effective recourse. In his speech, will the Minister therefore clarify whether the Government have succeeded, where others have not, in comprehensively identifying every single source of these rights? If not, how do they plan to uphold the same level of protections for these rights once we have left the European Union, because a right without effective recourse is rendered effectively meaningless?

By compiling and codifying these rights in a single document, the charter in effect created new rights and certainly created new protections. In short, the charter is the most effective key to unlocking vital rights, and to fail to transpose it and make it operable in UK law is to lock away those rights and deny UK citizens the key to accessing them.

On the data protection point on which the Secretary of State relied—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) raises it in his amendment 151, which we support—the right to data protection exists in various documents, such as directives and regulations, but it was only by virtue of the charter creating the expressed right to data protection in article 8 that we were given the right to be forgotten.

The rights extended by the charter are not only data protection rights. Such rights start in article 1, which includes the right to human dignity. This does not exist as an enforceable right in common law or statute law applicable to retained law post-Brexit. Will the Minister, when he responds, explain how this right will be enforced after exit day if the charter is not retained?

[Suella Fernandes]

Will not the hon. Gentleman’s proposals create more uncertainty and raise more questions than answers? For example, considerable reference has been made to the Union, to citizens and to the right to vote and stand in European elections, but is that not at odds with our being a non-member state on our leaving the European Union?

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[Paul Blomfield]

No. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield answered that point when it was raised by other Members. There are clearly provisions in the charter that would have to be amended to become operable—I made that point a few moments ago—but it includes fundamental rights, so the protections of our citizens will be reduced if the those rights are not carried forward. I will illuminate that point a little further.

[Suella Fernandes]

The hon. Gentleman proposes that part of the charter should be erased and that it should undergo some kind of surgery before it is applied through UK law. Is it not right that questions of principle and policy should not be debated in relation to this Bill, the purpose of which is to provide legal certainty and continuity, but left for wider parliamentary debate and scrutiny, and indeed the wider democratic process?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am genuinely puzzled by the hon. Lady’s point because she could make it in relation to all of the several thousands of laws that are being transposed. It could relate to every other part of the Bill. We will have to go through processes of adjustment to ensure their effective operability, but the question that needs to be answered—I hope it will be answered by the Minister when he rises at the Dispatch Box—is: why, uniquely, is the charter of fundamental rights being treated differently and being removed at this stage?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case, and my anticipation of the Minister’s speech increases minute by minute as the case is advanced. Does my hon. Friend share my puzzlement, first, that given that the Government’s stated objective for the Bill was to move everything across, the one thing they have decided to leave behind is the charter; and, secondly, that Conservative Members have argued that nothing will be lost by the disappearance of the charter, yet we have already heard powerful testimony in speeches to the contrary? That testimony includes the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), when he referred to the judgment in the tobacco case, in which the charter clearly had an important impact in enabling the Government to enforce their rights in relation to their desire to have plain packaging—never mind its being the reason why the Secretary of State, in a former life, decided to call on it in trying to sue the Government. Is there not an incompatibility between the two positions?

[Paul Blomfield]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Like him, I am looking forward to hearing the Minister attempting to square the circle on that one. It is one thing for the Government to argue that the charter needs to be removed, but it is another for others then to argue that it makes no difference. Let me illustrate a few other areas in which the charter does make a difference.

Let us take article 24—it was mentioned earlier—which gives effect to the UN convention on the rights of the child. While we are a signatory to the convention, that does not provide the same legal protection—simply as a convention signatory—as would be provided by the incorporation of the charter. Let us take the right to a fair hearing, which goes beyond article 6 of the European convention on human rights on the right to a fair trial, because it applies to civil rights and obligations, as well as to criminal charges. In the ZZ case, with which the Minister will be familiar, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the right to a fair trial in article 47 of the charter applied to immigration cases. Significant issues are therefore at stake.

Let us look at article 13, which requires that academic freedom shall be respected. With the possible exception of some Government Whips—the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household, the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), was keen to see the reading lists and curriculums of university lecturers to make sure they were teaching Brexit correctly—I am sure that Members on both sides of the House agree that academic freedom is an important principle, and it is not secured anywhere else. How do the Government anticipate that these rights will be enforced in the absence of the charter, and which aspects of the EU acquis or UK domestic law could be used to guarantee these rights? That is an important question.

It is not just that excluding the charter will diminish rights; the charter has transformed access to human rights protection. As the House of Commons Library briefing makes clear, it is not just that the charter contains more rights than the European convention on human rights and codifies existing rights in one place. When we compare the charter with the Human Rights Act, we see that it has a wider class of applicants who can use it. Anyone with a sufficient interest can apply for a judicial review based on the charter, and it can also be relied on in other types of case—for example, employment tribunal claims—that are within the scope of EU law. By contrast, claims under the Human Rights Act can only be made when an individual is a victim of a rights violation.

[John Redwood]

Our rights always used to be guaranteed, and will be guaranteed once we have left, through a combination of common law and statute law. I do not understand what threat the hon. Gentleman has in mind regarding these rights, because if any threat emerged it would be struck down either by the Supreme Court or by Parliament.

[Paul Blomfield]

I am puzzled by that point, because EU-retained law will effectively become statute law, and that will be carried forward by the application of the charter. It is not quite clear what the right hon. Gentleman is getting at.

[Mr Harper]

I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said about article 6 of the European convention. I think that he said it applied only in criminal cases, but having looked at the article it enforces civil rights as well. I remember from my own experience that we took it into account in immigration cases, other tribunal cases and, I think, in some applications of procedures of the House that may or may not be compatible with that right. The measure is much wider than he suggests, so I do not think he was exactly right about that.

[Paul Blomfield]

As I understand it, it does not apply in all civil cases—only civil rights and obligations under the convention, so it is effectively a narrowing if we lose it.

[John Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman said that he did not understand the point I was making. Our rights will be guaranteed once we have left by our Supreme Court, and by common law or the application of our statute law. I cannot think of a right that he and I value that will be destroyed because we have not incorporated the charter. I think that they will be guaranteed by those ancient and tested methods.

[Paul Blomfield]

We are talking about statute law, and about rights such as the one on which the right hon. Gentleman’s friend and colleague, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, relied. I think that that point is clear.

Returning to the comparison of the charter with the Human Rights Act, as well as the wider class of applicants for which it provides, it allows for stronger remedies. If any national court finds that any national law is incompatible with a directly effective provision of the charter, it must disapply contravening primary legislation or quash secondary legislation. We have exercised some of the arguments around that issue, but that is much stronger than a notification of incompatibility. We should be in no doubt that losing the charter means losing rights.

[Sir William Cash]

Has the hon. Gentleman considered the impact in relation to alleged and actual terrorists on the question of national security and case law? Many people who would like those individuals to be deported would find that extremely difficult under the principles of the charter because of the provisions relating to the protection of family life, which have been badly abused.

[Paul Blomfield]

In his keenness to tackle the argument, I think that the hon. Gentleman has missed the point. That has nothing to do with the charter.

Let me turn to a separate but related point on schedule 1, which states:

“There is no right of action in domestic law”

post exit

“based on a failure to comply”

with EU general principles. The schedule also prevents courts from ruling that a particular Act was “unlawful” or from quashing any action on the basis that it was not compatible with the general principles. Damages are not allowed, so general principles are rendered irrelevant, which also reduces rights. Our amendment 336 seeks to address that by retaining the existing principles of EU law regardless of whether they originated in case law, treaties, EU legislation or directives. The date on which that retention would end would be the end of a transitional period.

Let me turn to our amendment 335 to schedule 1 on the Francovich rule. I shall be brief because others have tabled similar amendments, which we support, and I want to give them a full opportunity to make their case without my anticipating what they are going to say.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

On a point of clarification, the hon. Gentleman said that the date on which the retention would end under the amendment would be the end of the transitional period. Did he mean that no new general principles of EU law formulated after that date would apply, or did he mean the retention would end at the end of the transitional period?

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[Paul Blomfield]

If the Prime Minister’s words are to be taken at face value—we continue to operate during the transition practically as if we were still part of the membership—new principles would apply during the transitional period, although not after it had ended.

[Mr Grieve]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on an important point. If we are going into a transitional period retaining the architecture of EU law, or the vast majority of it for that period, to try to leave at the end of the transition and go back to the status of retained EU law on the date on which we moved into transition would be utterly unrealistic. It would have to be from the date on which we moved from transition to final departure.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has made the point much more effectively than I did. That is absolutely right.

Briefly, Francovich raises some important issues of accountability. Surely there is oversight by Government, because I would expect them to accept that the right to damages should be available in cases where the breach of Community law took place before exit day, and indeed before the end of a transitional period, but discovery only took place afterwards. I am therefore seeking clarification from Ministers on that point, and I hope that they accept what hon. Members are seeking to do in amendments on Francovich.

We are pleased to support new clauses 16, 78 and 79, as well as amendments 297, 298, 299, 8,10,101,105 and 62 and the consequential amendments 126 ,127,129,140, 141, 302 and 9—just for clarity. In conclusion, I return to amendment 46, because we need some honesty from the Government. The House has not authorised the Government to use Brexit as a vehicle to deplete human rights in this country. If the Government want to reduce rights and protections, they should say so and we can debate it. What is not acceptable is to pretend that the Bill provides for the transfer of rights and protections when it clearly does not.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has made a number of statements about the fact that if Opposition parties can identify rights that will not be covered he is willing to look at them and legislate for them. We have discussed a third category of rights—not those protected by the Human Rights Act or those that will be irrelevant because they are in the charter and will no longer apply —so is the hon. Gentleman prepared to take that at face value and work with the Government to ensure that those rights that have been identified are protected?

[Paul Blomfield]

If the Government can identify the sources of rights covered by the charter and can explain exactly how any deficiencies or gaps left as a result of failure to transpose the charter will be identified, and if they outline what remedies they might make at a later stage, we would be happy to sit down with them and talk about that. It is absolutely clear to us that the Government should stick by their word and their claims in relation to the Bill on the need for the existing level of human rights protection to be preserved in UK law. As it stands, central to that consolidation is retaining the charter as part of the retained EU law. I hope the House will agree and I hope the House will support our amendments.

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[The Solicitor General]

I had better make some progress, but I certainly will give way to the hon. and learned Lady in a moment.

[Paul Blomfield]

Will the Solicitor General give way?

[The Solicitor General]

If the intervention relates to the point I was making, I will give way.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the Solicitor General for giving way. It is important that the House has clarity on the content of the memorandum he proposes to publish on 5 December. He has said that the memorandum will seek to identify the sources of each right contained within the charter. He has heard in today’s debate that there is concern on both sides of the House that he will not be able to identify the sources of every single one of those rights, and a number of instances have been cited. Will he also undertake that, where there are gaps, his review will outline what action the Government are preparing to take to fill those gaps so that, at the point of exit, we retain all the existing rights?