European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Robert Buckland and Darren Jones

Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend.

For the reasons I have outlined, I would, with the greatest of respect, and in the spirit of comradeship almost, urge hon. and right hon. Members not to press their amendments.

In summation, we have listened and we will continue to reflect carefully on all the arguments that have been made today. The Government believe that the approach we are taking is the right one as we carefully separate our legal system from that of the EU and restore democratic control to this Parliament. I commend schedule 1 to the Committee.

[Darren Jones]

I rise to speak in support of amendments 8, 46 and 79, the excellent amendments 101 and 105 from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), amendment 151 and, given the list rattled off by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), a whole lot more as well.

While I have enjoyed the opportunity today to intervene on the legal debates the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) pointed to, it is also important, as we come towards the end of today’s debate, to think about general principles—to take a step back and to think about the politics of what we are debating today, as opposed to just the legal issues, which I may touch on briefly.

The EU charter of fundamental rights is exactly what it says on the tin: it is a statement of fundamental principles—an anchor—with which European legislation must comply. It protects the grounding of what we deem to be acceptable in our democracy. Legislative details are, of course, for debate, but we must anchor them to those fundamental rights because, as we have heard today, failure to do that can lead to actions in the courts and the awarding of damages.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, who is not in his place, said from the Dispatch Box earlier that the EU charter has no standing and therefore means nothing, but I respectfully disagree. When my constituents have the right to bring actions in the courts, and in certain circumstances to receive damages, that has value—that means something to citizens. Those are fundamental, enforceable rights, which we should be proud of.

It is right to say, of course, that the UK need only respect these rights when implementing EU law, but, as we know too well, and as we will learn over the coming weeks and months, the tsunami of EU law that we seek to copy and paste into UK law comes with principles we must protect.

My earlier intervention provides one example of why the Government’s policy is nonsensical. The fact that we are bringing ECJ case law into UK Supreme Court case law under the Bill means that the case law around the charter of fundamental rights will be in the case law of this country, yet we are not willing to bring the charter with it. That cannot make sense unless the Government are saying that they wish to pick the cases out of ECJ jurisprudence when they give them UK Supreme Court status.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) raised very powerfully the issue of adequacy and equivalence in relation to the Data Protection Bill. The Government may find it politically uncomfortable to recognise the obvious fact that on financial services, data protection and other issues where we seek to maintain equivalence in the European market, we must track and embed EU jurisprudence in order to do so. In the context of the general data protection regulation and the Data Protection Bill, that means respecting the fundamental right that one’s data is protected under the EU charter.

In the absence of those on the Treasury Bench saying to me and to the Committee which of these rights they so vehemently disagree with, I am left to draw the conclusion, in common with the Father of the House, that the only thing the Government seem to be unhappy with about the charter of fundamental rights is that is preceded by the letters E and U. Yet my constituents will suffer losses in rights and losses in their ability to enforce those rights. This is not a question of ideological Brexit party politics but of fundamental rights that are enforceable by my constituents and the citizens of this country. We cannot play politics with these issues. If we fail to keep the charter of fundamental rights, we fail to ensure that the laws brought in under this Bill are anchored to the fundamental principles on which they are drafted. As we have heard, that leaves judges to interpret the rights of citizens in the direction of the winds of the day without the statutory anchor that holds them true to their underlying principles.

Having touched on legal issues, I will move on to the general principles. If we lift our heads out of the bucket of sand that is Brexit and look around us, we must ask what repealing the charter of fundamental rights says about the type of country we are and wish to be. One of the outcomes of this Brexit process is that with the removal of the charter we have failed to set out a vision of an acceptable basis for a developed, modern democracy like Britain. That is why I support the amendments. I sense that we have lost our way, because removing these fundamental rights says something about who we are and how we should conduct business as a country. The pride that all of us share in what it means to be British and our influence in the world is based on the standards that we set at home and abroad. The purpose of having the EU charter of fundamental rights is to make a statement of the standards that we should be proud of as a developed, modern democracy. I, for one, want to continue to be proud of my country.

Speaking as a desperate remoaner, and a proud one, I have to say loud and clear that the direction of travel that we are seeing through this mess of a negotiation on Brexit, and the fact that we are debating something as nonsensical as removing the EU charter when it causes us no problems and we are bringing ECJ case law into the case law of the UK anyway, shows that we do not know what type of country we want to deliver for our citizens. In the context of losing thousands of jobs from agencies relocating and, for the first time ever, losing our seat on the UN International Court of Justice, I am filled with desperation about what type of country we are seeking to deliver.

I do not see from this Government a vision of what Britain looks like in future, and removing these fundamental rights goes to the heart of that. I want my constituents and the citizens of this country, and citizens around the world, to look to Britain to see that we protect and recognise these fundamental rights—rights that we should be proud of. I think that as Brexit continues to unfold and my constituents, and others, continue to see the losses they are suffering as a consequence of the referendum —the loss of access to the single market, the loss of access to the customs union, and today the loss of rights that are currently protected in law—they deserve the right to change their mind.

I say once again to Government Members on the Treasury Bench, who are no doubt listening intently to my comments—[Laughter.] Thank you. I say to them that this is clearly a question of politics, rather than of law, as we have heard today. I plead with them to put the ideological Brexit party politics to one side, bring sense to the Dispatch Box and protect the enforceable rights of my constituents and the citizens of this country, as proudly set out in the EU charter of fundamental rights.