United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I am happy to look into the specific issue that hon. and learned Lady raises, but if she looks at the text in Hansard she will see that I addressed the point that she made about amendment 44. I mentioned a Government amendment that had been introduced on separate issues, but I am certainly happy to take that point away for consideration.

In conclusion, the clauses are a necessary protection to deliver our promises on unfettered access and to deliver what the protocol acknowledges on Northern Ireland’s place in the internal market and customs territory of the United Kingdom, and to respect the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to amendments 52 to 60, which I tabled with my hon. and right hon. Friends. Together, these amendments seek to provide a solution to the mess that the Government have got themselves into by removing the provisions in the Bill that put our country in conflict with international law. We do so, because we want to maintain our reputation as a country that respects the rule of law; because we want to see a successful internal market for the whole UK when we leave the transitional arrangements on 31 December; and because we want the Prime Minister to deliver the “oven-ready” deal with the EU that he promised the British people last December—a deal that pledged tariff and barrier-free trade for services as well as goods, along with safeguarding workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection, and which offered a broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership underpinned by continued adherence and giving effect to the European convention on human rights.

The Bill makes that less likely. Our talks with the European Union have been damaged, our reputation in the world appears trashed, and it is a mess that was completely unnecessary and is not resolved by the amendment tabled by the Government. This so-called compromise may calm some Government Members, but it does not resolve the issue: the breach of international law that has led to the resignations of the head of the Government legal service, Jonathan Jones, and of the Advocate General, Lord Keen, who said in his letter to the Prime Minister that he could not reconcile his obligations as a Law Officer with the Bill, as he could find no

“respectable argument for the provisions at clauses 42 to 45”.

In an interview on Radio 4 last week, the Lord Chancellor was uneasy in his defence of the Bill, as he might well be, having sworn an oath when taking office to

“respect the rule of law”.

The situation could not be more serious, and we accept that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), which has been seized on by the Government, was introduced with good intention, arising from real, genuine concern among many Government Members, but it does not solve the problem.

In providing for a vote subsequently, the Government have offered a sticking plaster to salve consciences, but we would still be acting in contravention of international law—not when we enact the Bill’s provisions, but when it goes on to the statute book. The Government amendment does not change that fact. Let us look at the withdrawal agreement—as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) did in her intervention—which was negotiated by the Prime Minister, signed by him and commended to the electorate as the reason to vote for the Conservative party in December’s election. Now, apparently, it is so flawed that we have been asked to break the law.



I saw the argument advanced by the Attorney General that it is okay to breach international law if the decision is taken constitutionally. That clearly flies in the face of the Vienna convention, to which we are a signatory. Article 27 makes that clear:

“A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making some absolutely crucial points, particularly about the Vienna convention. Does he accept that there is an issue here that goes well beyond the provisions in the Bill and the process we are discussing regarding the internal market? That is that it has damaged Britain’s reputation on the world stage when we have the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) talking about breaking the law, when we have an Attorney General who regularly attacks human rights, which the Minister has just told us the Government want to protect, and when we have a Lord Chancellor who talks about fudging the law. That is fundamentally damaging Britain on the world stage and our ability to influence and work with others.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He sums up well the seriousness of the decision before us today.

[John Redwood]

Why does the hon. Gentleman not see that this Bill has been brought about by the EU’s wish to break the agreement and what he would call international law by not respecting the sovereignty of the UK, which is fundamental in the agreement, and not going ahead with the free trade agreement, which was meant to be at the core of the future relationship?

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I would be interested to know his views on article 184 of the withdrawal agreement, which embraces the political declaration as the basis for securing our future relationship. On the intentions of both parties, I simply cite the Government’s response to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee’s report on unfettered access, in which they said:

“These talks began in March and continued throughout the summer in a spirit of good faith and mutual respect”.

On page 7, they state:

“The Government is extremely confident that the EU is working in good faith.”

That is the Government’s view.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am happy to give way again. I am interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman will pursue his point about the Sheffield steel industry, on which he is usually wrong.

[Sir William Cash]

I am actually going to look briefly at a simple point, which is that, apart from our own judges, the German federal constitutional court in December 2015 clearly stated that international law leaves it to each state to give precedence to national law. International law gives effect in that way. How does the hon. Gentleman answer that?

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I think the answer was provided by the Northern Ireland Secretary when he spoke to the House on the issue and he said that—let us all think on these words—

“yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way. We are taking the power to disapply the EU law concept of direct effect, required by article 4”.—[Official Report, 8 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 509.]

On that, he was right. Article 4 does require that the UK ensures compliance with paragraph 1 of the withdrawal agreement, including our courts, disapplying

“inconsistent or incompatible domestic provisions”.

Article 5 makes it absolutely clear that we have an obligation to

“refrain from any measures which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of this Agreement”,

which, as the Northern Ireland Secretary made clear, is the purpose of clauses 41 to 45. In adopting them, we are in breach of international law and unsettling the situation in Northern Ireland, to which the Minister rightly referred. Indeed, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan, who is a widely respected voice, said that the Government’s actions “may well undermine trust”.

[Joanna Cherry]

Does the answer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) about the German constitutional court not lie in what our own United Kingdom Supreme Court said at paragraph 55 in the case of Miller v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union? Our own Supreme Court said that

“treaties between sovereign states have effect in international law and are not governed by the domestic law of any state.”

Is that not the answer under the domestic law of the United Kingdom?

[Paul Blomfield]

That is certainly an additional answer.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says that this is about a collapse in trust. The collapse in trust in that description is one way; that is to say with the UK Government, because they are apparently breaching treaty law. However, if he were to go to the case Kadi v. Commission, he would see that the Advocate General at the time of the case made it very clear. I want to quote this, as it is quite important:

“first and foremost, to preserve the constitutional framework created by the Treaty…it would be wrong to conclude that, once the Community is bound by a rule of international law…The relationship between international law and the Community legal order”—

that is their constitution—

“is governed by the Community legal order itself, and international law can permeate that legal order only under the conditions set by the constitutional principles of the Community.”

So the EU itself has the principle that it will vet its obligations and not necessarily implement them, as it requires.

[Paul Blomfield]

The right hon. Gentleman came back at me on the quote I gave about trust. That quote was from the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, and it was about trust in relation to the Government’s actions. In terms of how we deal with the issues that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, I will come on to those subsequently.

The Government’s cavalier disregard for the rule of law has been condemned by the Law Society and by the Bar Council. It has shocked people across the country, and it has disturbed our friends and allies around the world. Part of the tragedy of the Government’s actions is that they never needed to do this. Instead of throwing their toys out of the pram, there was a grown-up solution there in the Northern Ireland protocol itself: the dispute resolution mechanisms agreed by the Prime Minister, to which the Minister has referred at length and which have been utilised already on other issues. However, in recognising those, the Minister failed to explain to the House satisfactorily why the Government have chosen not to exercise that route and have instead put this proposed legislation before the House. Article 16 provides for either the EU or the UK to take unilateral safeguard measures:

“If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”,

and annex 7, to which I think he alluded, sets out the process to which matters can be resolved through the Joint Committee set up to oversee the implementation of the withdrawal agreement.

Do not take my word for it. The former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), who I seem to recall was once celebrated in the Conservative party, made the case in The Times last week when he said:

“There are clear and lawful responses available to Her Majesty’s Government”,

which

“include triggering the agreed independent arbitration procedure set out in the withdrawal agreement and, in extremis, these might legitimately extend to taking temporary and proportionate measures, where they are urgently necessary to protect the fundamental interests of the UK”.

That was his conclusion. And the Prime Minister could not answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) at the Liaison Committee last week when he asked the simple question why he had not been prepared to use those measures, which he negotiated, to resolve any disagreements, rather than engage in lawbreaking.

So let me ask the Minister a simple question, which I hope he will come back to at the end of this very long debate, on the question of state aid. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), said it was a matter for the Joint Committee. Will the Minister be able to confirm in his winding up whether the Government have actually raised their concerns there for resolution?

Our amendments seek to put the Bill right. They reassert our commitment to the rule of law by removing the notwithstanding clauses, which have been the subject of so much attention, but also the other references to disapplying the protocol and disregarding the law.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

No. I have taken one intervention from the hon. Gentleman and, with respect for those wishing to speak, I will follow the injunction of the Chair and make progress.

The Government are sending a worrying message, too, about their attitude to accountability in Government amendments 64 and 65, limiting opportunities for judicial review. Our amendments 58 and 59 would put that right, protecting those rights for the scrutiny and challenge of Ministers. If the Government are, as they say, acting reasonably, they should not be afraid of scrutiny or of challenge. Overall, our amendments 52 to 60 would enable the Bill to achieve its aims, but to stick to the rule of law, the Human Rights Act 1998 and our international obligations. We hope that the Government will accept them, but if they do not, we will vote against clauses 42 to 45 standing part of the Bill.

Many Members on the Government Benches talk about their ambition for global Britain. We share the desire for strong trading partnerships after we leave the transition, but that will be undermined by flouting international law, and the Government know that. The Foreign Secretary was dispatched to Washington last week to calm fears. This visit seemed to make things worse. As he left the United States, the man that the polls indicate will be the country’s next President said:

“We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”

He was adding to the views expressed on both sides of the aisle in Congress that there will be no US trade deal if this Bill proceeds unamended. We should remember that the UK and the US are co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement. It is a responsibility that the future President of the United States seems to be taking more seriously than the Government.

This debate is about our place in the world. It is about our values. It is about the sort of country that we want to be. If we cannot comply with our treaty obligations, how can we ever demand that others do so? We are giving a green light to oppressive Governments, from China to Belarus, who flout the rule of law. This Bill has deeply damaged trust in our country and our place on the global stage. In our votes tonight and tomorrow, we have an opportunity to rebuild our reputation to make it clear that we are a country that can keep its word, a country that can make agreements and stick to them, and a country that believes in the rule of law. Let us not fail in that responsibility.

[Several hon. Members rose—]