European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 General Committees

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 (S.I., 2019, No. 859).

I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Sir Lindsay, for what—by any standards—is an important debate, which is about whether the United Kingdom left the European Union on 12 April. As you know, I would have preferred to have the debate on the Floor of the House.

I shall be voting against the regulations. Whichever way the Committee votes at the end of this debate, Sir Lindsay, you will report the regulations to the House and no other proceedings will follow automatically. However, I shall later press for a substantive vote on the Floor of the House.

I remind the Committee that, with his insulting arrogance, Donald Tusk described this unjustified extension of time—which the European Council imposed on the Prime Minister, although it was dressed up as an agreement and as a treaty, which it is not—with the words:

“Please do not waste this time.”

We certainly will not.

I and 82 other hon. Members have called this debate to annul the regulations, which purport to authorise the extension to 31 October of the exit day defined under section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. When the withdrawal Bill was going through Parliament, “exit day” was defined as

“such day as a Minister of the Crown may by regulations appoint”.

No parliamentary procedure was applied. The Bill was amended so that the Act specifically defined “exit day” as

“29 March 2019 at 11.00 p.m.”

Section 20(4) enabled a Minister of the Crown to

“amend the definition of ‘exit day’…to ensure that the day and time specified in the definition are the day and time that the Treaties are to cease to apply to the United Kingdom”,

if the day and time at which the treaties were to cease to apply to the United Kingdom under article 50(3) were different from 29 March at 11 pm. Schedule 7 of the Act laid down that a statutory instrument under section 20(4) could be made only by affirmative resolution approved by each House of Parliament.

The draft exit day regulations were approved following debates in both Houses on Wednesday 27 March 2019. The very next day, on 28 March, the exit day regulations came into force at once, moving exit day to 11 pm on Friday 12 April. The Government exploited the Cooper-Letwin Bill, which they said that they opposed, and used it to overturn the approval procedure and turn it into the annulment procedure that, disgracefully, we now face. Astonishingly, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), said that the Government were making that change because

“the Government have no choice but to improve the Bill and limit its most damaging effects.”

He said that the reason why the Government were seeking that change was

“simply to provide the speed that I think this House would want in the context of a deal having being agreed.”—[Official Report, 3 April 2019; Vol. 657, c. 1189-1190.]

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Is it not correct that the amendment was probably not available to Members when it was debated because the Clerks were having to produce the amendments on the same day? Therefore, no proper consideration was made of that amendment to primary legislation.

[Sir William Cash]

My hon. Friend is completely right. That is part of the disgraceful way in which all of this has been done. The speed was certainly breathtaking. The suggestion that the deal had been agreed is itself a breathtaking statement; really, it was imposed on us by abject surrender.

The regulations that moved exit day to 31 October were rammed through at 3.15 pm on Thursday 11 April by the Minister and laid before the House at 4.15 pm on the same day. Let us remember that section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is inextricably bound with exit day, with the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 in lockstep. The section, says, quite clearly and expressly:

“The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day.”

Repeal of the 1972 Act is axiomatic to carrying through the democratic referendum vote that took place on 23 June 2016, because that Act is the constitutional and domestic legislative means by which the voters of the United Kingdom were shackled to all treaties and laws imposed on them, without exception—including rulings of the Court of Justice. Those laws are invariably passed behind closed doors by qualified majority vote of the Council of Ministers of the other 27 member states of the European Union

It is about who governs this country and how they do so—general election manifestos and freely exercised democratic votes of the British electorate are the basis of our parliamentary Government, established over centuries—and whether the wishes of the British electorate prevail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I am slightly taken aback by that statement. My hon. Friend is someone whom I have long admired and looked up to—he has been in the House for more than 30 years and is well known for his constitutional expertise—but he makes a pretty serious allegation that the Government are putting through legislation that they are constitutionally not entitled to put through. I hope that, at some point, the Minister will address that, or that my hon. Friend will have the chance to expand on his point, but it surprises me. I compare the Government’s approach to that on article 50, as I said—because a treaty was involved, they believed that they had the power to extend article 50 without recourse to Parliament, and it took a court case to illustrate that invoking article 50 fundamentally changed legislation and so Parliament’s approval was required.

Given my hon. Friend’s intervention and that he has talked about Government through Parliament, not Parliament through Government, the other point that I find surprising is that he now appears to be saying that the Government are acting in bad faith. With his overview of the evolution of our unwritten and flexible constitution, is he coming to the conclusion, perhaps, that it is better to have parliamentary government, rather than Government through Parliament? On that basis, from his own arguments, surely he has now changed his mind on the Cooper-Letwin Bill, which came about partly because of the legislature’s mistrust of the motives of the Executive. The legislature was concerned that the Executive was not putting in place the procedures needed to stop no deal, which all of us in the room can at least agree would be absolutely catastrophic for the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] I am amazed that my banal remark has provoked an intervention, but I will give way.

[Mr Bone]

We cannot have an hon. Member misrepresenting the views of other Members. No deal is the best thing for this country—my hon. Friend knows it and we all know it. Take that back, sir!