Parliamentary Partnership Assembly

Debate between Peter Bone and Oliver Heald

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I will just take my mask off, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I say how I delighted I am that we have reached this point and that it is possible to have this motion before the House tonight? As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said, the treaty—the trade and co-operation agreement—is permissive. We do not have to set up a parliamentary assembly, but I very much hope that we will.

As for my interest in this, I was asked by the powers that be, including the Leader of the House, to lead on discussions with the House of Lords and our counterparts in the European Parliament on taking the proposals forward. I place on the record my thanks to the noble Lord Kinnoull, who has been leading for the Lords on this matter, for all his help in the discussions. I am glad that we managed to reach agreement so easily across the two Houses about the overall composition of the delegation in terms of the party balance and numbers, including between the Houses, so that this is a parliamentary delegation—albeit with a Commons majority, as this place would expect.

I started work on this project some time ago with an expectation that we might even be able to hold an inaugural meeting of the assembly before the summer recess. Unfortunately, however, sitting patterns in the European Parliament and our own, and internal processes that have to be gone through with so many groups in the European Parliament and parties here, meant that it was only in October that the European Parliament decided that it would establish a delegation and published the names. This is still awaiting ratification, so passing this motion tonight, followed by the motion in the Lords, will allow us to move forward so that we are ready once the European Parliament has completed its processes, which I believe is likely to happen on 12 December.

In some ways, it is disappointing that this has taken us such a long time, but that has enabled me and Lord Kinnoull to have useful discussions with Select Committee Chairs, in particular—I have appeared at the European Scrutiny Committee and the Liaison Committee to discuss how we might take this forward. The good work done by those Committees can feed into the work of the UK delegation and the UK delegation can feed back to the House and Committees on proceedings in the PPA. I look forward to seeing that develop further.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) is in his place, I make it clear that neither the PPA nor the delegation to it will duplicate the work of any existing Committee of the House or existing delegations—for example, that to the Council of Europe. That is very much the view of the European Parliament’s Committees, too.

The role of the assembly is to exchange views on the partnership between the EU and the UK. It has powers to request information and to make recommendations to the partnership council, but it will meet probably twice a year, which is what happens with other similar bodies that the European Parliament has with other countries. It cannot be expected to do anything like the detailed scrutiny done by our specialised Committees here in Parliament.

I hope that Select Committee members will use the assembly as a platform to share their expertise more widely. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone that the European Scrutiny Committee has a lot of expertise to offer, although of course the exact composition of the delegation will be a matter for the usual channels.

[Mr Bone]

I am sorry to spring out of my seat once more, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I thought that this assembly was a parliamentary delegation, not one whose membership the Government Whips would decide. Surely that is not the way forward.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

As my hon. Friend may know, there are a number of assemblies—the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE and so on—that follow a similar pattern whereby a written ministerial statement appoints the membership. However, I believe that the usual channels are very keen that the assembly should have geographical range and should take account of balance, equalities and so on. Personally, I think that if we wanted to go for something different, we would have to change the whole system that we operate in this Parliament for assemblies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

My right hon. Friend makes a vital point, but I would take things down a slightly different path. I would re-establish the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union, which was a Committee of this House and could scrutinise our relationship with the European Union. It would have no MEPs on it and would be a Committee of this House. I think Lord Frost is doing a tremendous job, but it is right that a Committee in this House should scrutinise that job, not a committee made up with Members of the European Parliament.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Of course, the European Parliament has set up a number of bilateral organisations with other countries. Some of them have arrangements whereby both delegations have to agree before a resolution can be passed. There is a vote of the whole body, but equally the support of both delegations is required; would my hon. Friend perhaps find that a helpful mitigation?

[Mr Bone]

That would be a most helpful mitigation but, of course, if we do not have the assembly in the first place, we do not have to worry about that sort of thing.

Let me move away slightly from the principle and go back to the motion—