Northern Ireland
Debate between Peter Bottomley and Chris Heaton-Harris(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
Yes, and I think the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) are making exactly the same point, and rightly so. They represent two communities that have governed by consent in the past and what we are doing here today is trying to get government by consent back up and running in Stormont in the future.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
As one who in living memory served as a Minister responsible for the environment and for agriculture in Northern Ireland because the Northern Ireland political process was not working, may I say that, as well as the exercise in syntax and the like in the writing of these instruments, the key point is that the Assembly should be effective and Ministers should come from Northern Ireland doing the jobs we do not want to have to do from Westminster?
Chris Heaton-Harris
Anyone who ever becomes Father of the House is obviously wise and well experienced and that was a particularly wise comment from a particularly well experienced hon. Member. My hon. Friend is completely right in everything he said.
Crucially, this legislation will also change the law so that new regulatory borders between Great Britain and Northern Ireland cannot emerge from future agreements with the European Union. That is an important new safeguard to future-proof Northern Ireland’s constitutional status. No Government in the future can agree to another protocol; neither can the UK internal market be salami-sliced by any future agreement with the European Union.
This legislation will also introduce safeguards so that Government Bills that affect trade between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK are properly assessed. Ministers in charge of such Bills will need to provide— my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) raised this point—a written ministerial statement to Parliament as to whether a Bill would have a significant adverse effect on trade between Northern Ireland and another part of the United Kingdom. If the legislation does carry that significant adverse effect, the House would expect the Minister to set out any steps to be taken in response to that assessment. Indeed, we have Select Committee Chairmen present, and they would expect to do high levels of scrutiny in that space. This is a very good transparency measure that we should all welcome.
European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]
Debate between Peter Bottomley and Chris Heaton-Harris(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
Yes, I suppose I should agree in general principle with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). This has been a legitimate exercise in parliamentary scrutiny of the spending, but I am disappointed with how we got to this point. I have been surprised by some of the points raised in the debate. On Second Reading, when the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) got the number of countries in the European Union badly wrong, she drew a few concerns that perhaps she did not know what she was talking about. Fortunately for us, she proved that exactly today in her speech, so that is all good.
The Minister said that we had a number of experts in Athens; I think the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee is there today. From my list of 1,000 organisations that received money from this budget in 2007, he will doubtless be visiting the Masters and Mates Union of Greek Merchant Marine organisation, which managed to receive €47,316. The problem is not necessarily with the organisations that bid for money, and what the Minister did not say when he responded to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland is that things do not have to be written in the regulations for each budget line. Pages 1, 2 and 3 of the European Union’s budget each year state at the front what is expected of organisations that receive money from the European Union. It will not surprise the Minister to know that those organisations are required to promote ever-closer Union, fly things such as the European flag, and there are other requirements. It is disappointing that so many organisations feel they have to bid for European money with so many strings attached.
In a way, this is a bit like the debate on tax credits that we entered when we took office in 2010. So many people had tax credits—someone with up to about £60,000 of household earnings could claim them. However, when we gradually took something away from people because we could not afford it, people were cross because the Government had spread their largesse around. That is what the European Union is doing. It is throwing its largesse around; it is throwing around our cash with its name all over it, and we had an opportunity to change that.
I understand what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset says about the Bill painting a picture. We have heard two great speeches—one from the Prime Minister last February, and one from the Chancellor only a couple of weeks ago—about what a new UK relationship with Europe should be, but the vote points us in completely the opposite direction and leaves me wondering whether we really mean what we say. I would like to think we do, but—heaven forbid—the politics behind today’s decision defeat me.
I am disappointed. We are paying for propaganda and politics, which we just do not do in this country. It is great shame that we have missed this opportunity to straighten those things out.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Third time.