Euratom Membership Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Richard Graham
Main Page: Richard Graham (Conservative - Gloucester)Department Debates - View all Richard Graham's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is my next point.
Unless the Government seek clarity—there is a dispute among lawyers about the matter—the likelihood is that an interested party may itself seek to litigate and it would be much better if the Government seized the initiative and said that politically they wanted to stay in and would do whatever is necessary legally to achieve that objective. That would be altogether better. If they cannot achieve that, certainly an association agreement would be the next best thing and I suggest it should be the Swiss model because the small amount of jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice is a minor price to pay for the benefits. I cannot believe that anyone would object to the very modest movement of skilled nuclear scientists who only benefit this country. Otherwise, we would be cutting off our economic and scientific nose to spite our political face and we should not do such a thing. That would be a good compromise, but we should stay in until such time as that is in place because we cannot have any risks in the interim.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
If the Minister is unable today to give the legal certainty of being able to stay in Euratom, which is what my hon. Friend is looking for, does he agree that we need a commitment today from the Minister that the Government will pursue a solution that replicates the benefits of Euratom membership as closely as possible?
Robert Neill
We must certainly do that and we must be flexible about the means by which we achieve it. There may be ways forward and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) made a constructive point about a tribunal being one way forward. I take that in the spirit intended. Equally, the jurisprudence of the ECJ on Euratom matters is so discrete and so technical that it should give no offence to anyone, unless they are a complete purist about maintaining that jurisdiction.