Leaseholders and Cladding

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The question he puts is a fair one, and the way in which he puts the issues he raised was entirely reasonable and fair. We will bring forward proposals as quickly as we can, to ensure that costs to leaseholders are mitigated. He will understand that this is a complicated issue that tracks back over political generations. To unpick that challenge, and to ensure that remediation is done effectively, that liability falls where it should, that the taxpayer is not subjected to unfunded commitment and that leaseholders have the right thing done by them is a challenge, but one that we are rising to and one for which we will bring forward proposals as quickly as we can.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Minister may well have seen on Sunday on the television my constituent Ritu Saha talking not for the first time about the agony that she and her neighbours in Northpoint in Bromley are going through, for all the reasons that have just been set out by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and many others.

Of course there are complications in sorting out liability and dealing with some of the technical issues of remediation. I entirely accept that, and the work being done, but will the Minister recognise that the moral point is not complicated? At the end of the day, leaseholders who have done nothing to create this situation and who relied in good faith on a regulation that ultimately Government—of whatever description—own should not be out of pocket for whatever reason. If that takes more money, will he at least give the commitment that where it is a failure of regulation and no fault of the leaseholder, they will not ultimately have to pick up the tab?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have heard the testimony of Ritu Saha and others in his constituency. I understand the point that he makes. I hope that in answering him quickly, he will not in any way think that I am diminishing that point, because it has also been made by colleagues across the House. We will work at pace to ensure that leaseholders who through no fault of their own find themselves in this terrible situation are not subjected to unfair costs. Costs ought to fall in the first instance to the developers and owners—and their warranty providers—who built the properties. The Government have set aside funds in this financial year to support those buildings that require immediate remediation and where there is no other means of so doing. We will continue to keep the situation under review, but we will work with the sector to ensure that remediation is done by those where responsibility lies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady. The noble Lord Greenhalgh, the building safety Minister, and I have been meeting lenders and UK Finance to discuss the EWS1 form and to urge them to take a more proportionate, risk-based approach. The EWS1 form was, as we heard earlier, designed for those buildings over 18 metres with external wall systems. It is now being used for buildings below 18 metres and buildings without any cladding at all. That is causing misery to thousands of people across the country, and it needs to change.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con) [V]]

  I was glad to hear the Secretary of State recognise the continuing issues with the EWS1 forms, and perhaps we can speak further about that. I also welcome the Housing Minister’s acceptance that leaseholders should not bear the costs of remediating cladding for which they have no responsibility. Does the Secretary of State accept that by the same logic, and out of common decency, neither should leaseholders be expected to bear the costs of items such as a waking watch, which arise directly from the cladding itself having been unsafe, because of regulatory failure? This has cost constituents of mine in Northpoint in excess of half a million pounds.

[Mr Speaker]

I think we have got the message.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

What I am doing is announcing the inquiry; one of the big reasons I did not want it to be a statutory inquiry, although I can understand the impetus, is that statutory inquiries can last for decades sometimes and cause even more expense. In this way, we can get the answers within a year, I hope, so that we can put this issue to bed and get the answers that people want.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Minister is aware of the Justice Committee’s report on this matter. He will know that any wrongful conviction potentially undermines the whole of the justice system. Rather than waiting a year for the outcome of this review, will he meet urgently with the Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), to discuss the specific recommendations that the Committee makes in its report to ensure that safeguards are applied? Through that, we can ensure that the standards applied by those who have the power to bring private prosecutions are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) said, never less than those applied by the Crown Prosecution Service. Being judge, jury, investigator and victim potentially creates very great conflicts of interest.

[Paul Scully]

I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Justice Committee for all the work he has done and for the report the Committee published last week. I am always happy to speak to the Attorney General, and I will definitely take consideration in due course of that report.

Town and Country Planning

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I start by endorsing what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers). We both represent London suburban seats. I give the Ministers credit for having moved to meet some of our concerns in a number of areas, but I have to say that they have not gone far enough. There is a real problem here and a broad-brush approach does not meet the needs of the particular pressures faced by many London suburbs. I welcome, for example, that we are limiting this to post-1948. That is some protection for the between-the-wars semis and terraces, which are a great feature of much of suburban London and many other cities, but there are still many streets with good-quality post-war developments that could be damaged, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said, so we still have further to go. That is why, although I will not oppose these measures, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet, I cannot join the Government in the Lobby tonight to support them either, because we have concerns.

The big rub will be that we cannot go down the route of linking these measures to the wholly unacceptable growth in the housing requirement, be it through an algorithm or a formula. Bromley is already building to its current requirement and simply cannot take the wholly unrealistic numbers that are proposed. My concern is that diminishing local control will not assist in that. I was glad to see the reference to Harold Macmillan. I am a great Macmillan fan—after all, he was MP for Bromley for the second half of his career—and he got it right in building 300,000 houses. I gently say to the Secretary of State that Harold did that while respecting the local rights that were provided for in the Housing Act 1949. He did not do it by relaxing development controls; he did it through other means and determination, so this is not the route we have to go down. That is why I think that the extension of permitted development is a false route for us to be taking. It has its place, but it needs careful constraints, and I do not think we have quite achieved that.

I also endorse what my hon. Friend Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) said about the serious failure—from my point of view, perhaps the most serious—of these SIs, which offer no protection for leaseholders in flats. Constituents of mine in Northpoint, which I have raised in the House on a number of occasions, suffer from having the freehold owned by an offshoot of the Tchenguiz property empire, whose behaviour towards those people has been disgraceful. The idea of enriching them is, I am afraid, simply not something that I can countenance. I cannot support a set of orders that do not yet give adequate protection to leaseholders.

What we really need in Bromley is affordable family housing. That is where the pressure is. People want to move to the London suburbs—they will endure the commute in and out—because they want space for their kids, gardens, and easy accessibility to parks and so forth. The trouble is that these SIs are making it easier to build yet more flatted units, which is not what we need to maintain the proper social mix in outer London suburbs such as ours.

I welcome the fact that the Minister has moved on space standards. I give credit for that, but again there is still a real concern about whether the prior approval regime will be sufficient to maintain high standards, because in both Bromley and Beckenham town centres we have seen too many instances of low-quality development. I have a real problem with the idea of taking a semi-detached house and putting two storeys on top, as a separate, self-contained dwelling. That is creating a separate house effectively, turning it into flats in all but name, which should not be done through a waiver of the permitted development process. There should be a proper planning application for that.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

We have been quite clear in the approach that we have taken in terms of the human rights impact, so I am confident that the Secretary of State has talked about that.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

May I press the Minister a little further in relation to amendment 13 and so on? I accept “preserving a remedy”, but it is a remedy by way of a declaration of incompatibility, as opposed to removing any offensive regulation in domestic law. It is a much harder burden or obstacle for a litigant—for every person—to go through to get a declaration of incompatibility. What is the compelling reason for adopting this unusual approach?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

One of the most salutary but, in retrospect, useful put-downs I ever had when I was a young barrister came when I perhaps overindulged in hyperbole in advancing arguments to the Court of Appeal and Lord Justice Cumming-Bruce said to me, “There’s no jury here, Mr Neill, you can cut out the hyperbole and stick to the arguments.” He was right and perhaps it is not a bad thing to try to do in the Committee on the Bill, as there has been a deal of hyperbole surrounding its passage, coming from those in all parts of the House. We might be better off cutting it out a little and getting back to the nuts and bolts of what we are discussing, because a lot of the Bill is perfectly reasonable and necessary. It is not a necessity I particularly like, because I wish we were not leaving some of the arrangements we currently share, but it has to happen as we exit the transition period. The real difficulty comes from the issues in part 5, which we have discussed on a number of occasions, so let me just return to them.

I listened with care to the Minister, and I do not doubt his sincerity and good intentions in this regard. He must have thought it a pretty rum do when, as a trade Minister, he found himself in the middle of a lawyers’ argument, but that has never stopped the lawyers making that case. I recognise that the Government have endeavoured to shift to try to make clear some of their intentions in relation to the difficult and sensitive matters that part 5 threw up. I will not pretend that we should have started from here; it might have been better to have contemplated the idea of some emergency legislation should we be confronted by what, I am glad to say, the Minister says is an unlikely eventuality, as this is what we all want to avoid if at all possible. I can see arguments the other way as well, so I welcome the constructive approach the Government have adopted towards myself and a number of my hon. Friends who had significant reservations with the Bill, as tabled, to try to make it clear that it is not the Government’s intention to act in a way that would undermine our reputation as a nation and jurisdiction that supports and upholds our obligations in international as well as domestic law.

[Sir William Cash]

I am glad my hon. Friend is referring to a constructive role. I gather from what he said the other day that he was talking very much in terms of last resort, and I want to be constructive, too. As he knows, I have already made the point that the Labour party has been passing Acts of Parliament that clearly and unequivocally override international law and that this has also happened in relation to other legislation in the UK, as I pointed out to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). So will my hon. Friend bear that in mind when he is considering the question of last resort, the threshold he referred to the other day and the fact that this is more common and happens more frequently than he may appreciate and that sovereignty, above all else, is the keystone upon which the whole of Brexit depends?

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am not sure whether or not that is an argument for Brexit; on that basis, the Don Pacifico affair was a great statement of national sovereignty, but I do not think it was a great triumph of intellect, integrity or national interest. Leaving that to one side, I accept that there will be a number of occasions when Governments may have departed from their international obligations, but that does not make any of them desirable and it does not mean that we should not seek to limit the circumstances in which that might occur to the barest necessities. So I think we have some common ground there, or at least I hope that we have. That is why I welcome the statements the Government have made to flesh out their intentions on the way in which part 5 would be used.

I say to Opposition Members that I accept that there are certain circumstances in which we might find ourselves in difficulty because of the attitude of our counterparties in the EU. I hope that that will not come to pass and that we are seeing just a matter of the rhetoric of negotiation. There is, however, a respectable legal argument, which has not been ventilated before, although it is held by a number of senior lawyers I have spoken to, to say that, as we all know, the withdrawal agreement is binding on the UK as a matter of international law—that must be right—but that that is based upon the true construction of the withdrawal agreement.

The withdrawal agreement is clearly subject to the provisions that stipulate that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. There is an obligation on the parties in good faith to negotiate a free trade arrangement between the UK and the EU such as would render the need for checks on goods passing between the UK and Northern Ireland largely, if not completely, unnecessary. Provided that is done, I do not think any of us get into any difficulties. I accept that in negotiations there has been some language—I hope it is no more than the language of negotiation at this stage, a posture—that might suggest that the EU could argue for a substantial array of checks that might go beyond that which is compatible with the true construction of the agreement in so far as it must respect the role of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Robert Neill]

Can I just finish my point, and I will happily give way to the hon. and learned Lady?

Were it to get to the stage that the level of checks being insisted on were to threaten the integrity of the UK, it would, arguably—perfectly respectably arguably—be threatening the integrity of the agreement itself upon its true construction. That, I think, would be an arguable point for saying in international law that the UK would have a case for saying it was entitled to take measures to protect the underlying purpose of the agreement.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think that he is describing a situation in which the European Union might be in bad faith, but last week when Professor Catherine Barnard, the very well-respected professor of European law at Cambridge University, gave evidence to the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union, she said that there is no evidence whatever at present that the EU is negotiating in bad faith but that there is a strong argument that the existence of the Bill and clause 45 breaches the United Kingdom’s duty of good faith in article 5 of the withdrawal agreement. As Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that that is a widely held view by lawyers. Does he recognise, as she said, that there is a strong argument that, merely by bringing the Bill to the Floor of the House, the United Kingdom is already in breach of its article 5 duty of good faith under the withdrawal agreement?

[Sir Robert Neill]

I recognise that that is a widely held argument.

[Sir William Cash]

Total tosh.

[Sir Robert Neill]

With respect to my hon. Friend, I do not regard it as total tosh. I happen not to agree with it in totality, but I do not think that we should ever dismiss serious legal argument from serious practitioners on either side of the question as being out of consideration. It is a matter that we ought to weigh carefully. I do think that there is an answer. Part of that answer is the one I have just been formulating, which suggests to me that there can be certain circumstances in which the breach of the true meaning of the agreement is such that the UK itself will be entitled to use its international law right.

[Sir William Cash]

I just wonder whether my hon. Friend would consider that bringing in a Bill was a matter of privilege for the House.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am sure that it is a matter of privilege for the House, but I just come back to the point: I do not think that that engages with the issue we are concerned with here. Of course, it is perfectly within the rights of the House to bring forward any legislation it likes. I know my hon. Friend played a role in having section 38 inserted into the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, but, with respect, that simply restates that which we already knew and probably picked up in the first week of the law course; that, essentially, Parliament is sovereign and of course it can legislate in the way that it wishes. It can legislate in a way that is incompatible with international law. That does not make it a desirable course to go down. I think that is the point that needs to be said. Of course, it may be possible and I do not think privilege is engaged. The point I am seeking to make is that the UK should be very wary about doing anything that breaches its international obligations. I do not think it has yet and there are reasons why we may be able to avoid that, but that is why I think we need to keep the debate a little more calm in terms of what the rights are.

[Joanna Cherry]

Is not the problem that some Government Back Benchers are falling into the distinction between domestic law and international law? It is true as a matter of domestic law that this House can pass any Bill it likes, but as a matter of international law, as stated by the Supreme Court in paragraph 55 of its judgment in Miller 1, it does not impinge on international law. If we sign treaties, we are bound in the eyes of international law. There is a distinction here between domestic law, which means that this House can do what it wants—God forbid—and international law, which means that sometimes when this House does what it wants, it could be in breach of international law.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I think that is clearly established law. It is perfectly possible to act within one’s domestic law and still breach one’s international obligations; however, I do not think that that means that the Bill itself, at this stage, is a breach of our international obligations, particularly now that it has been reinforced by comments made by Ministers on the Floor of the House, which I am sure the Government therefore regard as binding as a matter of good faith in itself, that the provisions would be used only in circumstances where the EU had behaved in such a way that it had breached its duty of good faith under the agreement.

The Government have also importantly committed not to use the provisions of part 5 to undermine the pre-existing provisions in relation to both article 16— the safeguarding arrangements of the protocol—and articles 167 onwards, on the arbitral arrangements. Given those circumstances, I reach a different conclusion from that of the hon. and learned Lady and the professor. I do not dismiss the arguments, but I make the case for why I think, as a matter of law and fact, it is possible to distinguish them.

[John Redwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we have these complications with this agreement because it was only half an agreement? The original idea was that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed, which would include the future relationship. A lot of that had to be shunted into the political declaration. The danger of what was signed up to is that part of the agreement on so-called withdrawal matters could pre-empt the future agreement in a disobliging way to the United Kingdom. That is why we are in this difficulty and why I think that there is nothing illegal at all in the UK seeking to sort this out in the negotiations and not be at a disadvantage in them. Does he agree with that?

[Sir Robert Neill]

I think that we are in agreement to the extent that I do not believe that the UK has yet trespassed over its international legal obligations, and I agree that we want to get this sorted out in the negotiations. I do not think that I can go further than that at this stage, but I understand that we all want this to be dealt with in the negotiations if possible. I voted for the withdrawal agreement, and I voted for the previous Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement. It might have saved us a lot of trouble if Members on both sides had voted for that withdrawal agreement in retrospect, but we are making the best of the situation that we have inherited, if I might respectfully say so.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Member is being generous in giving way. Does he accept that damage has already been done to the UK’s international reputation? He rightly wants to deal in facts and the reality of what is going on. I know from conversations that I have had with, for example, officials in UN institutions in Geneva, that the UK has been publicly questioned by other countries, in elections to bodies and negotiations on other matters beyond this matter, because of the very statements that the Government have made and the very clauses in the Bill. That, potentially, seriously undermines our abilities on the international stage on a series of issues: security, trade, climate change and well beyond.

[Sir Robert Neill]

It is certainly fair to say that it would have been better to have had the caveats that the Government have now put into the Bill to begin with, and I am grateful to Ministers for having worked in the way in which they have to achieve that. It would be absurd to pretend that there has not been real concern expressed by people whom we respect and ought to be able to deal with as allies and counterparties going forward. There is a way to ensure that that concern is alleviated and lasting harm is not done, and I am sure that the Government are committed to trying to do that.

Superficially, new clause 1 is attractive, but I am inclined to give the Government the benefit of the doubt that it is not necessary for the reasons that they have set out. I was going to press the Minister, but he has anticipated much of what I have to say. I am sure that he will confirm again, in winding up, that we are committed to ensuring that part 5 is not used to undermine the legally binding commitments and until such time as it is necessary to act to protect a significant national interest of the UK in relation to the integrity of the Union, as a result of bad faith by the EU counterparty —which, please God, I hope never arises—and that we will do so without seeking to oust the legal obligations that we entered into in relation to the safeguarding provisions and the arbitral arrangements under article 167.

Given that, we can make a good case for saying that new clause 1 is not necessary and that the Government’s own intention will deal with that, but I urge the Government, as a friend, to ensure that they reinforce those points very strongly as we go forward, because to persuade the Upper House will be an important task. Continuing evidence of good faith and a willingness perhaps to look at some of the wording would be helpful to the Government.

I have sympathy for new clause 8. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I were reminiscing that we were the two youngest members of the Conservative group of the Greater London Council. We were actually abolished by Mrs Thatcher, by Act of Parliament, but that does not seem to have entirely destroyed our careers or done us lasting harm. I very much take on board my right hon. Friend’s points about the value of the Vienna convention. He and I served on the Council of Europe together, and that convention—again, the UK contributed significantly to it over the years—may benefit us a good deal going forward. Even if it is not necessary to take the wording of new clause 8 into the Bill, the sentiment behind it is useful, and I hope the Government will bear in mind the arguments my right hon. Friend will advance later in the debate, because they may well be useful elsewhere.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

I assure the hon. and learned Lady that I am not giving way. I am very happy to do so normally, but not today.

Furthermore, a Conservative Government, in the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988, provided clauses that were notwithstanding anything contrary to the arrangements of the Act. It goes on. It is a substantial list.

I will go further. Those who are interested can look at my previous contributions to other debates, where I extensively describe the myriad occasions when the EU itself has broken international law and, furthermore, when EU member states have egregiously broken international law and admitted it in their own Parliaments. For example, Helmut Schmidt, in the Bundestag, could not have been clearer, going through every single treaty that Germany deliberately broke in defence of its own vital national interest, because that is itself a reason why national law can have a degree of predominance over international law.

National and constitutional law, in certain circumstances —where it affects sovereignty, as in this case in the United Kingdom—can prevail against international law. I am extremely grateful to my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who I know recognises this. It has taken a bit of time for us all to come to terms with that, because it is a bit complex, but the reality is that it is well established in international law itself. The German federal court confirmed this as recently as 2015. I quoted the court in a previous debate, so it is already on the record that it is well within the framework of international law for a country—a democratic country, I hasten to add—to actually override international law in its own vital national interest, and most specifically, as in this case, on questions of sovereignty.

I will therefore just touch on my exchange with the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). With regard to Miller 1, the Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that, under the dualist approach, treaty obligations only become binding in the UK system to the extent that they are carried out in domestic legislation, and that whether to enact or repeal legislation, and the content of that legislation, is for Parliament alone.

This principle was approved unanimously by the Supreme Court in Miller 1.

[Sir Robert Neill]

indicated assent.

[Sir William Cash]

My hon. Friend is nodding his head because he knows this is the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman spoke, as always, with great energy and passion. I sometimes regret that his successor as leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), did not show half as much energy and passion in making the case during the referendum; if he had, we would not need to be debating this Bill at all, but there it is.

The reality is that we must make sure that, as we leave the transition period, we have a working internal market, and I therefore support the Bill in principle. I am delighted to see the Business Secretary. I hope he takes on board a point that I know his junior Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) has noted: as we build a working internal market, I hope we can find ways in which to expand it to other close parts of the British family that are aligned with and have great synergy with us. For example, the Crown dependencies—the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands—which are linked closely already to financial services and many other parts of our economy.

In particular—I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar—we should make sure that the overseas territory of Gibraltar has clear, free and unfettered access to the UK internal market. They stood with Britain, despite the fact that, like me, they did not want to be in this situation. We owe it to them to make sure that they are not allowed to become collateral damage, economically or in other respects, as a result of the decision that we took. I hope the Business Secretary is actively engaged with the Government of Gibraltar to find ways in which we can make sure that they are able to participate fully in that market and benefit from it.

It is well enough known that the provisions relating to Northern Ireland cause me and many others great concern in their original form. I am grateful for the approach that the Government have adopted, and for the clarifications of their approach and on the changes that they have been willing to make. I will not pretend that we have solved every problem there. I will not rerun the discussion we had on Report, but I gently say this: sovereignty power and reserved powers are generally best used sparingly, lightly and with great deliberation. I hope that, having taken certain powers, we will make sure through our negotiations: first, that we never have need to use them, because the damage would be real were we to do so; and, secondly, that we exercise them with restraint. Like it or not, and whether necessary or not, even accepting the Secretary of State’s proposition that we need a “break glass in emergency” provision, we do have to reflect that this legislation has, for whatever reason, created concern among many of our closest allies and neighbours—people with whom we need to engage.

I want to be in a position where we can, for example, advance the excellent Judge Joanna Korner’s candidature for the International Criminal Court with a clear hand, and say that we are genuinely committed to the rule of international law. I want us genuinely to be able to say in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and other places that we remain committed to the rule of law internationally.

[Bill Esterson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Robert Neill]

I normally try to give way, but time is short; I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

I hope that we will be able to say, as a number of hon. Friends of mine have been able to do in the Council of Europe, that we are—despite, for example, the difference over prisoner voting rights—committed to the rule of law. We must make sure that we do not allow anything to undermine that, because reputations take time to build. Ours is an excellent one in international legal circles, and we do not want that to be lost.

The Secretary of State made a fair point about the desire for business continuity and for the UK to remain a beacon for inward investment. As well as benign tax and regulatory regimes, the other—perhaps the most important—reason that people invest here is the fact that we are regarded as a safe jurisdiction in legal terms and a safe polity in which to invest, because we do not behave in an arbitrary manner. I therefore hope that we will be very clear that we will stick rigidly to the clarifications and caveats that we gave in relation to the use of any emergency powers, and that such powers will be used carefully, proportionately and without ousting the other obligations that we entered into through the withdrawal agreement and the protocol.

Let me turn to the other matter relating to business continuity. It is important that we rebuild and strengthen our international links for the practical reason that was mentioned by an Opposition Member on Report, and that is the need to go forward. Once we have left the provisions of the EU arrangements at the end of the transition period, businesses will need and want to have a ready, efficient and swift means of enforcing contracts and judgments upon contracts across the EU and with our neighbours. To do that, at the very least we have to join, as a matter of urgency, the Lugano convention. To achieve membership of the Lugano convention, we must have the consent of the European Union members of that convention. At the moment, the Commission is recommending withholding that consent. The European Free Trade Association members have consented.

It would be profoundly dangerous and damaging for British business were we not able to access Lugano, because of all the difficulties for any international contract that I have pointed out. It would be a huge disadvantage and would affect individuals: the woman seeking to get maintenance payments from the absent father, who is now in an EU country; or the person seeking to pursue a personal injury claim, where the driver of the vehicle that went into them is in a different jurisdiction. Rebuilding the bridges to ensure that we can get back into Lugano may sound prosaic, but it is actually profoundly important for the good operation of our legal system once we have left. Sometimes a little less of the poetry—and a bit more of the prosaic—is required in government. I hope that we can now move forward into that stage.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford]

I hate to rehash the arguments, but the United Kingdom did vote to leave the European Union. I am sure that Mrs Miggins at 34 Acacia Avenue in my constituency did not vote to leave the European Union either, but we are still part of the same family and we are leaving. We cannot balkanise our country. We cannot split up this family. That is the fundamental difference between Government Members and Opposition Members. We see this as a family—a family of nations; a family of people that we love. We want to keep us together, and we will not parcel off our great country. I will not be ashamed of promoting what this country voted for.

I turn to Government new clause 12, which enables the Secretary of State to issue guidance relating to part 1 of the Bill explaining how the UK internal market principles operate, in order to support traders, regulatory authorities and the public. That guidance will help us all to understand and benefit from the Bill, which will increase the internal market. Again, I emphasise that this Bill is about the market, not politics. It is not an independence Bill or a Brexit Bill; it is a business Bill—a Bill to get businesses going and to recover our economy.

The House must pass this Bill, which protects our domestic markets, rejects separatism and division, eliminates chaos and confusion, ensures transparency and impartiality, and strengthens our world-beating standards. I believe that in doing that, the Bill, with the Government amendments, will create a better business environment for all.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I hope that my hon. Friends will forgive me if I do not go down exactly the same route as some of the conversations we have had recently. I had a good deal to say yesterday on the previous part of the Bill, and I will not repeat that, because I see my good friend the Minister in his place, no doubt ready to ensure that amendment 66 is moved at the end of the day. He knows—as do you, Ms McDonagh—that since that is the case, my amendment 4 will not need to be moved. Having made sure that he will remember to move amendment 66, I can now move on to the stand part debate.

I am a little prejudiced here; a name like Robert James MacGillivray Neill is probably indicative that my heritage comes from various parts of the United Kingdom, and I am very proud of my Scots background. I might add that the weekend after the European Union referendum, in which everybody knows I campaigned vigorously to remain in the EU, I happened to come across my call certificate to the Irish Bar via King’s Inns in Dublin. Who knows, it might come in handy one day, but it reminded me that there are huge and deep-rooted linkages between the countries of the United Kingdom. We can talk about what are the right governance arrangements between them, but there are personal interdependencies and economic interdependencies that benefit us all. I hope that later this evening we are going to be able to deal with a number of those concerns. No doubt there is more to discuss, but, having banked that progress, I want to say that the rest of the Bill is desirable.

That is why the thrust of the Bill is desirable and, as I said yesterday, I have no trouble supporting it all, apart from my concerns about part 5.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

rose—

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am sure the hon. Lady would be disappointed if she did not get every speaker to give way to her at some point, so I will add myself to her set.

[Anne McLaughlin]

If the hon. Gentleman is perfectly happy for our separate legal systems to mean that someone has to be qualified in the given jurisdiction, is he not uncomfortable with the idea that teachers who learn to teach, or who do not get a teaching qualification, in one country can move to another country and teach there? If he is perfectly happy with that, may I talk about—and will he go to the Home Secretary on this—all the teachers I know who have come to this country from other countries across the world, are not allowed to transfer their qualifications and are therefore not allowed to work? If he is happy to provide support on that, I will perhaps think about what he has to say.

[Sir Robert Neill]

The first point is that there have to be professional qualifications in order to recognise the people qualified. The Bill does not seem to cause any difficulty about that. I was also making the point that the carve-out on legal qualifications accepts that there are legitimate areas of difference, but there are many other areas where it is entirely legitimate for us to try to work together as a single UK market. I would have therefore thought that the Bill was balanced and proportionate in that regard. I cited services and the importance of the financial services sector, both north and south of the border, as a key example of that. I hope that after the transition period we will also continue our good links with the financial services sector in Dublin, where a number of English legal and professional firms have bases because of those links. The Bill is not malign in any of those regards.

Although the Bill does not and need not cover this, I hope as we go forward that we will see what can be done to help other parts of the broader British family that would desire access to our new internal market—for example, the Crown dependencies, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Many of their financial sectors— their trust arrangements and their banking fund arrangements—are importantly and closely linked to the City of London and the UK. The Justice Committee has oversight of the Ministry of Justice’s work on the relationships with the Crown dependencies, and I think there is a great desire to see how we can strengthen the access between them and the UK. The aspiration for the Crown dependencies to have free and unfettered access to the UK market is something we should look to explore with them on a reciprocal basis.

That particularly and specifically applies to our British territory of Gibraltar—as you know, Ms McDonagh, I have the honour to be the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar. It is a well expressed intention of the Gibraltar Government, supported by all parties in Gibraltar’s Parliament, to have access to, in effect, a free trade area with the United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will take that back to his colleagues in the Government, because it ought to be a no-brainer as we go forward. It causes the United Kingdom no difficulty, and it would be of considerable reassurance to the people of Gibraltar, who despite having voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, none the less trumped even that and asserted their membership of the British family and the desire to remain with the United Kingdom and not to be coerced, sometimes, by their neighbours. Supporting them by making sure they have full access to the internal market ought to be a high priority, both practically and morally, for the United Kingdom Government.

Finally, there is one area that we can perhaps simplify. I am not generally in favour of simplifying or lowering food standards, and I am certainly not in favour of lowering environmental or food standards as we leave the EU or in any future free trade deal, but there is one area, ironically, where leaving the EU may give us something we can turn to our advantage, and that relates to public procurement and, in particular, local authority procurement.

As a number of hon. Members know, I served in local government for many years before I came into this House, and I was local government Minister for the first half of the coalition. One of the genuine complaints I had from councils of all political complexions was about the complexity of going through the OJEU—Official Journal of the European Union—process, where contracts over a fairly basic level had to be advertised through a pretty bureaucratic process. That had the no doubt laudable objective of ensuring that firms across the single market could access those contracts, although, in practice, doing a contract in Bromley, Merton or wherever was not likely to be attractive to a small-sized firm of builders in Poland or the Czech Republic.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill]

I will certainly give way to my hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about this.

[David Simmonds]

Does my hon. Friend note, as I do, that the OJEU process in the United Kingdom resulted in less than 1% of procurement exercises yielding a bid from outside the United Kingdom?

[Sir Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend, whose experience in local government is huge and much more recent than mine, is absolutely right. That is the irony—what was a theoretical process none the less caused considerable delay and cost for local authorities seeking to carry out a range of capital works. I hope the Government will say, “Let’s seize the advantage and simplify the public procurement process.”

For a raft of reasons that have been well rehearsed and that I need not repeat, local authorities are hard pressed for cash, and we could certainly make their lives easier by enabling them to save money in the way they do their procurement. We can make it easier for them to adopt a policy of sourcing contractors locally, as they already try to do, so that they can be drivers of support for businesses in their area, without needing to parcel up contracts artificially, as was historically the case to avoid the need to go through the OJEU process. That is one area where I hope the Minister, whose own experience in local government is considerable, will talk urgently and swiftly to his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government so that we can sit down with the local government sector and get rapid reform of local government procurement rules.

So without more ado, I commend the Bill, now that the little obstacle that might potentially have been in its way has, I hope, been resolved. We can now get on with the serious business of making the best of what is, to be frank, a bad job. This is not where I wanted to be, but it is in the interests of the country that we have a proper working set of rules to enhance the internal market in the United Kingdom.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in favour of the amendments tabled by the Labour Front-Bench team, and to put on the record my opposition to the Bill which, as has been pointed out by many, risks undermining devolution by driving a wedge between our Government and the devolved Administrations and infringing on the devolution settlement. The Trades Union Congress is particularly concerned that, unless specifically exempted, restrictions may be placed on the ability of devolved authorities to adopt new or revised regulations to support progressive public policy objectives, which may have a direct or indirect discriminatory impact.

Fundamentally, this legislation shamefully undermines the basis of the Good Friday agreement, a solemnly agreed international treaty that laid the basis for peace in Ireland. Ministers should not need reminding that the withdrawal agreement is part of a binding international treaty, and that breaching a treaty breaches international law. However, we should not be surprised, because the Conservative party has repeatedly shown contempt for international law and collaboration. There are now real problems with Britain’s approach to international law, particularly with regard to the protection of human rights in the UK.

In many areas, particularly in the spheres of immigration control, national security, counter-terrorism, freedom of association and speech and the treatment of persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups, UK law has frequently been the subject of criticism from experts such as the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Council of Europe. Recently, we also learned that the UK is to resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns that they could be used against civilians in Yemen, in complete violation of international humanitarian law. Today, the Government are increasing the healthcare charge for migrants, widely thought to impinge on fundamental human rights. It is therefore clear from the Bill and many contributions from Government Members that there is little or no respect for democracy, devolution or international diplomacy on the Government Benches.

My contribution is brief, but I conclude by saying that, while some of the Government’s amendments aim to correct the Government’s approach, they do little fundamentally to resolve the vast array of problems with the Bill as a whole.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) on securing the debate. I agree with the thrust of what he said.

The residents of Northpoint in Bromley find themselves caught in a similar position. They have ACM—aluminium composite material—cladding but, like many blocks, a combination of cladding is used in the system, so they have HPL—high pressure laminate—cladding as well. They need clarity that all the remediation and removal costs will be met.

Whatever the Government’s intentions, which I accept were good, the process is continues to prove costly and bureaucratic. There are still delays. It has been many months since the residents were told that they had the problem, but they have still not been able to access the funds. They are having to fork out for surveys, even though their flats are effectively valueless anyway. They cannot raise any further equity against them, because there is no equity any more; they cannot remortgage or raise any other kind of loan against them.

At the same time, the residents of the block of flats have been obliged to fork out for the costs of a waking watch. So far, by requirement of the fire brigade, they have had to fork out nearly £120,000 between them for the waking watch and fire alarm system, and they have had to find that from sources other than the equity of their properties. That is putting people under massive strain.

In consequence, people’s health is being affected, because they are paying £11,000 a month. There is no sign of that ending, because it is taking so long to get any clarity as to whether they qualify—I hope to God that they will. On the face of it, stone bonk, they should, but it is taking so long and every month is another £11,000. We need to speed up the process and make sure that the inevitable costs of the waking watch and alarms are met, because they flow directly from the unsafeness of the cladding. They would not have them otherwise.

It is essential for all systems that involve dangerous cladding, whether ACM or HPL, to be clearly and manifestly brought within the scope of scheme. I hope that the position around insurance will also be considered, because the residents’ premiums have increased massively. The solution must surely be a grant; a loan does not seem appropriate. In many cases, the freeholders would have a legal entitlement in their freehold agreements with the leaseholders to recover costs from the leaseholders, so we have to get the grant to the freeholders to be sure that they are not out of pocket. They are the innocent victims.

I know that the Minister understands the complexity of the issue and that the Government want to do the right thing. Previous Secretaries of State were clear, but there is a real risk that the good intentions that were set out at the beginning are getting lost in a mire of bureaucracy. I hope that the Minister can reassure me on those specific points and on how we could cut through and speed up the process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

That is a very well made point. In January, the Secretary of State said that we are currently considering options with the Treasury on the support that can go to leaseholders. Those are obviously ongoing conversations and negotiations, and I can go no further than that today.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I understand that, but the Minister will understand that people at Northpoint are forking out £11,000 for every month that the conversations go on. They have to be brought to an end, and something must happen soon.

[Esther McVey]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. As I said, MPs from both side of the House are raising these issues. The fire risk of tall buildings with cladding was brought to everybody’s attention after the terrible tragedy of Grenfell Tower. It had not been brought to people’s attention before.

Criminal Law

Robert Neill Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), who both made important points about the need to safeguard the interests of victims. In relation to the measure itself, I think most of us recognise that the objective is an entirely laudable and proper one. It is right that there is confidence in the sentencing process for the general public, and it is right that those who commit the most serious offences should receive condign and appropriate punishment, so I do not have a problem with supporting this measure.

There is no great magic in two thirds, as opposed to a half. What this measure does is to take the situation back to where it was when I started in practice at the Bar before 2003, and that was certainly the feeling among professionals at the time, when it was changed from two thirds to a half. That was largely done as a matter of presentation, because it enabled the then Labour Government to suggest that they were reducing the number of prisoners. What we have failed to do for many decades is to actually invest in prisons, so I hope that, at the same time as we make sure that we have proper levels of sentencing for those who commit serious offences, we will invest in our prison estate, which—as the Justice Committee has pointed out in several reports—suffers from grave overcrowding and, in many cases, from a serious degradation in the physical fabric of the buildings, and for that reason is often not able to deliver the rehabilitative work that we all wish to see. As Lord Garnier said in the other House when this was debated, it is not the magic of two thirds as opposed to a half that is important; it is what we do with people when they are in prison.

The other thing that we need to tackle—and I know the Government are determined to do this—is to ensure we get down our stubbornly high rates of reoffending. Our rates of reoffending are markedly worse than many of our near neighbours’ rates. I do not think that is because the British population are inherently more inclined to commit crime than those of the Netherlands or Scandinavia; it is because we have not historically made enough, perhaps nuanced, use of imprisonment to turn lives around.

I recognise that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), when he was Lord Chancellor, started an ambitious scheme to make sure that purposeful activity, rehabilitation, re-education and changing lives around were key parts of our prison strategy. I know that the current Lord Chancellor shares that view, and I hope that we will see the rest of the package of justice measures advance that side of the equation too, so that we get that balance right, which includes tough sentences where they are warranted and which the public has confidence in; good, positive, constructive work with prisoners while they are inside to make them less likely to offend when they are released; and robust alternatives to custody for those who do not perhaps present a physical threat, but have often got into criminality because of drug addiction, mental health issues and a raft of other matters that are better tackled much earlier, by early intervention.

I hope that we will not lose the opportunity to have greater transparency and simplicity in sentencing, which has become complicated even for judges, as I know from experience. Of course there is a Law Commission enabling measure in the other place, under the special Law Commission procedure, to lay the ground for a codification of sentencing. That will be a welcome step and something that the Justice Committee has urged the Government to do. I hope the Minister will be able to take that on board too.

Building Safety

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Again, I appeal for extreme brevity on the part of colleagues; if they do not provide it, they will have to be cut off, I am afraid.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I wrote to the Secretary of State on Monday about the position of my constituents in Northpoint in Bromley. I welcome his announcement. Will he confirm that the establishment of the protection board ought to and must be used so that people such as my constituents—who have had to do this—may avoid the rigmarole of commissioning a building survey to prove eligibility for the fund and then applying for funding from the pre-application fund, the portal for which was not live at the beginning of the week? We need to cut through that immediately.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend and I have corresponded and spoken about the issue in his constituency. As I said in my correspondence to him, I encourage the building owners in his constituency to apply to the fund. It will be open on 12 September and we will be handling the applications on a rolling basis. In fact, it will also be possible to get a refund retrospectively, so they could get on with the work immediately and seek the funding at a later date.

My hon. Friend asked me previously about buildings that may have a mix of ACM cladding and other forms of cladding. Public money will obviously be spent for the remediation of the dangerous ACM cladding, but if it is proven that it is impossible to remediate the ACM cladding without taking off the other forms of cladding, it may well be possible to use public money to fund that as well. I hope my hon. Friend’s constituents will put in an application as soon as possible and that we can move forward at pace in his constituency.

Buildings with ACM Cladding

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for our announcement. It is right that the Government have acted, but I underline the fact that the primary responsibility rests and rested with the building owners and with those responsible. We have now stepped in because of the failures we have seen in the private sector, although we acknowledge and recognise the many building owners and developers who have done the right thing by stepping up and agreeing to provide or maintain funding to address the need for remediation.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about urgency and timing. We did act with urgency in terms of the advice given. Indeed, I indicated in my statement the challenges in identifying some of the blocks affected and the work that was done at pace with local authorities. In some cases, local authorities had to take enforcement action to enable us to survey and identify those buildings, working with the relevant fire authorities, to which I pay tribute for their analysis and advice, and with the expert panel that was set up to advise Ministers.

The right hon. Gentleman asked several questions about the nature and manner of my announcement. One question was about non-ACM cladding systems. He will know that a testing programme is under way to assess non-ACM systems. That work is already happening. Advice was provided by the expert panel in December 2017 and updated in December 2018. That has been the focus, but clearly we will act on information and evidence provided as a consequence of the further testing programme. However, I urge the right hon. Gentleman to be careful not to prejudge the outcome or the results that we expect in the weeks ahead.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about funding. We intend to manage funding for the policy through our existing significant programme budgets. To put that in context, if the full amount were used, it would represent something like 3% of this year’s financial programming. We will keep the House updated through the supplementary estimate. The size of the new fund is informed by the public sector fund’s utilisation and drawdown, by the financial support that has been provided by some of the developers and builders, and by the insurance that has been activated for a number of the buildings.

With respect to the follow-through, clearly we want action to be taken to continue with liability claims. That process will be managed as we work with each of the building owners. As I indicated, we intend to start the process by the end of next week, by writing to the owners of the buildings that have been identified based on the information that we have.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked about legislation. We have supported local authorities in their enforcement activity through the joint inspection team. We remain ready, willing and able to support local authorities in the enforcement activity that they may determine to be necessary, and we are clarifying rules, regulations and guidance to assist them in that regard.



Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman, however, that I am very clear about the fact that the current regulatory regime needs further significant change. That is why the Hackitt review was undertaken in the first place. In her report, Dame Judith Hackitt presented a very stark picture of the need for responsibility, for tougher sanctions and, indeed, for different regulatory arrangements. I propose to update the House on next steps in the coming weeks, because I hear that message very clearly, and I intend to act.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and thank both him and the Minister of State. I know that achieving this result has required significant legal complexities to be overcome, and I appreciate the fact that the Government have listened. This will come as a great relief to the residents of Northpoint, in my constituency, who, along with many others, have suffered stress as well as financial loss.

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the fund will cover all cladding systems which include ACM cladding? As he knows, some cladding systems consist of a mixture of ACM and other forms of cladding, and it is obviously right for all systems to be subject to this protection.

[James Brokenshire]

I commend my hon. Friend for his strenuous efforts on behalf of his constituents in relation to Northpoint. I understand the issue that he has highlighted. The fund is intended to provide capital support for the removal of ACM cladding systems, including insulation, as well as the removal and disposal of existing cladding, replacement materials and labour. As part of the process of writing to building owners and of the subsequent work, we will specify that in greater detail to give reassurance.