European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Dominic Grieve

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

[Robert Neill]

There have been a number of powerful speeches from Members on both sides of the Committee on this important issue. I shall be as brief as I can, but I want to begin by picking up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). This is what we are supposed to be doing in this House. This is about proper parliamentary scrutiny. I do not care about the views of writers of newspaper headlines. If any one of us stands up and seeks to scrutinise the Bill to improve it, we are doing our duty by our constituents. Anyone who thinks that doing so is somehow opposing either the Bill or the wishes of the electorate has precious little knowledge of—or, even worse, no respect for—our parliamentary processes.

In an endeavour to seek to improve the Bill and assist the Government, I supported a number of amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and others, and I stand by that. I hope—I get the impression from the spirit of what has been said—that the Government recognise those issues and will find a means to take them forward constructively. That is in everyone’s good interests, but I want to reinforce as swiftly as possible the significance of that. The Government’s position in relation to the protection of human rights has been grossly mischaracterised by some Opposition Members. That does the debate no good. I do not believe for a second that it is the Government’s intention to diminish rights protection. Equally, it is important that we get right the way in which that is protected. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General will reflect on that.

I particularly want to refer to Francovich litigation, because this is a classic case of making sure that we do not inadvertently do injustice to people as we take necessary measures in the Bill to incorporate existing European law into our own. No one has a problem with that, but it is not right to deny people the ability to seek effective remedy for a course of action that arises under retained law. The whole point of having sensible limitation Acts is to prevent people from being denied a remedy with the passage of time when they have done nothing to deserve that. We need a bit more clarity—for example, if there is a pre-existing right to a course of action that is available until the moment we leave the European Union, it ought to be possible for someone, once they have become aware of that course of action, to pursue it through our courts.

[Mr Grieve]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. While the Government have made an argument that there is a problem because of the international law aspect in such a piece of litigation going all the way to the European Court of Justice, there can be no argument that the same rules that applied when we were in the EU should apply to any such piece of litigation, even if the end-stop is our own Supreme Court. It is perfectly easy to do, and the Bill has to be altered to allow that to happen.

[Robert Neill]

The case that my right hon. and learned Friend makes is completely unarguable. There is no answer to that thus far from the Government, and the only answer is to change and improve the Bill. To fail to tie up that clear, apparent and recognised loose end in the Bill could have the effect, almost by negligence or a measure of inadvertence, of denying UK citizens rights they might otherwise have. That would seem to me to be almost verging on the disreputable. I do not believe that the Ministers on the Treasury Bench wish to do that for one second and I know they will want to put it right. I hope that they will make it clear that it is the Government’s intention to make sure that that lacuna is resolved.