European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Today is the last day of my 20s, and as I reflect back on the last decade, I have to wonder: how did I end up here, and how did the country end up in this almighty fankle? It seems that the root cause of a lot of our problems in this country is economic alienation caused by a crisis of neo-liberalism that has failed the poorest people in our society. The root cause of a lot of the problems that erupted with so many people voting to leave the European Union and—I look back as a veteran of two referendum campaigns—to leave the United Kingdom can only be the failure of established structures in this country to deliver prosperity and security for so many people.

When I look at my constituency, where only 51% of people participated in the EU referendum, it seems that many people have disengaged from the political process entirely. Members have to be cognisant of that if we are to repair the trust in our political system between those who vote for us as representatives and the body politic at large, who in many cases have disengaged from our political process. Simply talking about a deal or no deal will not heal that rift in our democracy. We must have a much greater and more thoughtful approach to how we heal the division in our society.

I do not think that the Prime Minister, who has just joined us in the Chamber, is equipped to do that. She has failed miserably in her efforts and through her partisan approach in delivering this deal. We must adapt and deliver for the young people of this country, including myself, who have to face the consequences of the actions of this House and this Prime Minister. She must rise to the occasion, and so far she has failed miserably to do so.

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

Yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No lawyer would be worth his salt or any use to his client if he allowed his personal or political views to affect his judgment on matters of law.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Attorney General has been vehement in his assertion that the release of this information would be detrimental to the public interest. Is it therefore not a matter of regret to him that his Government have not had the basic virtue of consistency in their approach to the Humble Address? Now that contempt proceedings have been initiated by submitting a letter against the Government, what is his legal advice to the Government going to be?

[The Attorney General]

I am afraid I cannot disclose the latter without committing the very sin that I am trying to prevent. Does the hon. Gentleman ask me whether I regret that? Let me be frank: yes, I do. We should have opposed the motion—of course we should have. We should have voted against it. All I can say is that if we had lost on a contested vote, we would be in exactly the same position as we are now in.

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I am here to answer questions on behalf of the Law Officers. Although I superintend the Crown Prosecution Service, it is an independent body, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the content of any advice that it may give.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that the Government have already ridden roughshod over the Sewel convention in respect of the devolution settlement, what faith can we have that they will uphold its integrity on this occasion?

[The Solicitor General]

I am tempted to get into a debate with the hon. Gentleman about the first part of his question, which I am afraid is just wrong, but we are not riding roughshod over anyone. I have already explained what we are going to do: on the next sitting day, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General will be here to answer questions.

Leaving the EU: Scotland and Wales Continuity Bills

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I agree with my hon. Friend, but of course there will not be a lack of a continuity Bill in Northern Ireland, because we have the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which will apply to the whole United Kingdom. The difficulty we are dealing with is that there seem to be competing versions of continuity, and we really can have only one.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The blame for this mess lies squarely with the UK Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland for rushing legislation through this place without proper amendment, as I and other Opposition colleagues warned. As the party that delivered devolution in Scotland and Wales, we are deeply concerned about this. If the UK Government’s appeal to the Supreme Court is successful and devolution is therefore not presumed, what actions will the UK Government take to ensure that the Scottish Parliament’s powers are protected and enhanced?

[The Attorney General]

It is important to be clear about the process. We are making a reference to the Supreme Court so that it can consider whether these particular Bills, one Welsh and one Scottish, are within the competence of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Government. It is not about deciding whether devolution is or is not going to stand. It is about whether, in accordance with the provisions of the devolution settlement, these particular Bills are inside or outside competence. That is what the Supreme Court will need to do. There is a way of avoiding all this, and we have discussed it at length. If these ongoing negotiations, which involve my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and other members of the Government, are fruitful, and I hope they will be, there will be no need for this process to be concluded. However, if there are competing versions of the way in which continuity is dealt with in legislation, in the end the system will require that to be sorted out.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Report stage: First Day: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kerr]

Let me come to that—I promise that almost my next sentence will be on that. I want to make sure that the Bill and Parliament deliver what my constituents expect.

I now turn to clause 11 and the amendments to it, particularly amendment 3. Let me be absolutely clear about the clause: we must have an agreement between the UK and Scottish Governments to allow for the passage of a legislative consent motion. I am not convinced that that is a legal necessity, but it is a convention that the Government are honouring and they should be commended for that. I am therefore intensely disappointed, dissatisfied and frustrated that a deal has not been struck between Scotland’s two Governments.

In the past few days, there has been a lot of talk in the media about the claim that there is an agreement in principle between the UK and Scottish Governments. The Scottish Government’s Brexit Minister, Mike Russell, claimed on television on Sunday that such an agreement existed. Will the Minister tell us the status of the negotiations between Scotland’s two Governments? Is there an agreement in principle? Is there an agreement on the frameworks that we all agree are essential for the operation of the UK marketplace, to allow the UK to honour its international obligations and to strike trade deals?

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the need to make amendments to improve clause 11, which is almost universally accepted as deficient, is not predicated on there first being an agreement on a legislative consent motion, or the agreement with the Scottish Government to which he refers? Amendments should be taken on their merits alone.

[Stephen Kerr]

That is brave talk, but the facts of the matter are that Conservative Members are seeking to co-operate with the devolved Administrations so that there can be a unanimous approach to the legislative consent motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

I completely agree. Although I could not disagree fundamentally with the wording of the amendment, it is not adequate for its purpose in terms of the withdrawal Bill and the importance of achieving the legislative consent motions that this Government have rightfully determined are the way to proceed with what is—I agree—a major constitutional rearrangement of the affairs of this country because of our exit from the European Union.

[Mr Sweeney]

We all accept that having those joint frameworks is a desirable and necessary thing, but we are talking about the sequence in which that should be carried out. It is not necessary for us to wait for that to happen before amending clause 11 and making it fit for purpose now. Why do we not crack on and do it today? What is stopping us?

[Stephen Kerr]

What is stopping us is the fact that there is no point creating an amendment which then itself has to be amended. No one is more disappointed and frustrated than I am that we do not have these amendments. I sat and listened to the Secretary of State for Scotland make the same commitment. I will come on to that as it is a serious matter for me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), and I can sense the torture he is putting himself through. The shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), who is sitting on the Bench beside me, described his trying to come up with a reason for not voting with the Opposition on amendment 3 as “dancing around handbags”. My only advice to him is that he can be as tortured as he likes and in as much turmoil as he clearly feels, but unless he votes accordingly, the Government will never take him seriously and his pleas will go unanswered, as they have so far. He has a good hour to reflect on that and to consider what he wants to do this evening, and I hope that he decides in the end to vote with us on amendment 3.

[Mr Sweeney]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the game-changing arithmetic is with the Scottish Conservative bloc of 13 MPs, and if they come together, show some gumption and stand up for the national interest, they can actually turn this around and improve clause 11 today? There is nothing stopping them: they could overturn the DUP bloc and change this if they brought forward their own amendments.

[Jenny Chapman]

That is exactly what I am saying to those Conservative Members. I do not want to make it more difficult by goading them too much—I will leave that to my SNP colleagues—because I understand how they must be feeling but this is an important moment this evening. If we agreed amendment 3, we would be sending a very clear signal to the Government and requiring them to come back with something in the Lords—with the support, without a doubt, of the votes of Labour peers—to amend the Bill as we ought to be amending it this evening.

I want to keep this very simple. I will speak to amendment 3 in my name and those of my Opposition colleagues. It was disappointing to have to table this amendment. It should not be necessary, because the Government, with the support of the devolved authorities, should have tabled their own amendment, but they have not done so, so here we are.

From the outset, it has been clear that one of the greatest problems with this deeply flawed Bill is that it threatens the devolution settlements that underpin our Union. The Scottish and Welsh First Ministers have described it as a naked power grab, and there is a clear danger that a major piece of constitutional legislation that amends devolution settlements will not receive the consent of the devolved Administrations, which would be a real failure for the Government.

What is the problem? As we argued in Committee, the presumption at the heart of clause 11 is that, as powers return from Brussels, they will be held in Westminster rather than being passed to the devolved Administrations. The Government say that will be temporary, but they have put no time limits on the hoarding of those powers, and there is no collaborative mechanism for the creation of UK-wide frameworks and the devolution of power. Instead, that is assumed to be in the gift of Ministers.

The problem has been recognised by Conservative Members. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) said in Committee:

“On Second Reading, I said that I would not allow legislation to pass that undermined the Union or the devolution settlement, and that remains my position today.”

He also said that

“clause 11, as drafted, is not fit for purpose and must be changed.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2017; Vol. 632, c. 729-31.]

He was not alone. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) said that

“changes will have to be made to clause 11 as it stands”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2017; Vol. 632, c. 796.]

The hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) said that the Bill must be amended and added:

“As the intergovernmental discussions progress and the Bill returns to this House, as it will, before it goes to the other place, it is very much my hope that there will be some greater detail in clause 11 to help all hon. Members to have a degree of confidence in its intent.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2017; Vol. 632, c. 803.]

Today, he said that he is deeply disappointed that that is not the case.

Conservatives in Scotland must have been pleased when it appeared that the Government had listened and promised to amend clause 11 on Report. The Secretary of State for Scotland told the House that the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire had clearly set out why clause 11 needed to be amended, and he went on to say that the Government would table amendments to clause 11 on Report. The promised amendments have not been forthcoming, and the Government now say that they will be tabled in the Lords. But as the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland has said, the lack of transparency is becoming a habit.

This is not good enough. Conservative Scottish and Welsh Members have been reasonable and given the Government a chance, but they have let them down. Now it is time to force the Government’s hand by voting for our amendment, because devolution settlements are more important than any party interest.