European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Jamie Stone

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I think a bit of a reality check is happening in the House and in the country. There was realism from the Government yesterday and good progress in several areas, which I welcome. There must also be a reality check about what happens next.

The vote to leave the European Union was purely that: a vote to leave the political institutions. That is all that it said on the ballot paper. It said nothing else. I respect that mandate, but it is the right of Parliament, working with the Government, to have a say in how we deliver that and what our future relationship is. My test for that is twofold. First, in every circumstance, we must protect the integrity of the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As far as I am concerned, that is more important than anything, including referendum results. I believe that the Government have got that message, and the very important step that was taken yesterday meets that test. I support the Government on that, but we must make sure that it is delivered in practice, with no hard border.

Secondly, my other test is to make sure that we look after the economic wellbeing of my constituents and the public services on which they depend. I do not favour some kind of ideological Brexit. There is an attempt to hijack the referendum result in pursuit of a very narrow, ideological version. That is not the pragmatic version that I, as a Conservative, believe in. I am a Conservative because I am a pragmatist. I listen to voices of business and want to put business and jobs at the centre of Brexit.

The customs union is not perfect and I shall not support the EEA amendments tonight, because this is not the Bill for them—this Bill is about process and getting the statute book right—but I say to the Government that the time to have that debate is when we return to the Trade Bill, an amendment to which I have put my name to, along with other Members. If a practical outcome involves something that looks like a union—call it an arrangement; I do not mind—I want to give the Prime Minister the flexibility to achieve that. She is entitled to time to try to achieve that between now and June, so I shall support the Government in all tonight’s votes.

On the legal matters, I am persuaded. It was a great difficulty to have to choose between my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General. On balance, I am with Lord Judge, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Mackay of Clashfern. The Government have worked hard to improve the legal matters of retained EU law. I have had good and positive conversations with them and hope to continue to do so. The key thing about this is that, for the country’s sake, we have to be pragmatists now. I think that the Prime Minister gets that and I will support her for that reason, but the pragmatist takes nothing off the table, and that is how we should keep it, as of today.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Mr Speaker, I am going to help you by being brief and I am going to speak from first principles.

I really wish, Mr Speaker, that I could fly you and Members on both sides of the House north into Scotland, north over the unedifying scenes that we saw earlier today and north into the clear sky of Caithness. I would take you to Scrabster, the small harbour that serves Orkney and Shetland and sits beside Thurso. At Scrabster, I have a constituent, Mr Willie Calder. He and his son, William, run Scrabster Seafoods Ltd, a highly successful company that indirectly employs 100 people in an area where jobs do not grow on trees.

I met Mr Calder and his son a few days ago, and he put the situation to me very clearly. It takes him two days to get his fish products to the markets in the south of France. It takes him one day to get to his markets in the north of France. One day’s extra delay, or even half a day’s extra delay, at customs or a port would ruin him. It is as simple as that. The bottom line—this is where I am keeping it short, Mr Speaker—is this: Mr Calder’s business, Scrabster Seafoods Ltd, matters to me a very great deal. My story is based on first principles, but it explains precisely where I am coming from. I sincerely hope that Members on both sides of the House and both sides of the argument will see where I am coming from. I say to them: please work for the best interests of the people whom I represent. I would be letting them down and betraying them if I did not stand up here and say that.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Robert Neill and Jamie Stone

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I rather think that what I am proposing in my amendment is the use of the affirmative procedure. I never heard my right hon. Friend say that that was not part of the proper democratic process when he was a Minister and used it many years ago; nor have I heard him say that on other occasions when it has been used. It is a question of what is proportionate. I entirely accept that there has to be scrutiny and a democratic process. But, for the very reasons accepted in the discussion between the Solicitor General and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead—the volume of matters that we would have to deal with, even with the sensible triage arrangements that we have to put in place—I am not sure that we need to go down the time-consuming route of full legislation going through both Houses. I am trying to propose a compromise that would get us through a limited number of quite technical cases.

I will use some examples predominantly from the financial sphere, but the amendment would also apply should we need to maintain regulatory equivalency in things such as data protection, which is important for criminal justice and legal justice co-operation. There may be no such cases when we leave, but they are always possible. That is what we need to deal with, and the principle holds generally.

We may also need to deal with the difficulties that might arise in the context of EU legislation that is only partly implemented on exit day, or legislation that is enforced on exit day but whose effective operation depends on secondary measures that will be passed after exit day, which is not unknown even in our own domestic arrangements. In that situation, it would seem sensible to have the option to domesticate that EU legislation as it comes into force in the EU, so that it is enforced with us at the same time. We could do that through a vote on an affirmative resolution statutory instrument, rather than by having to pass new primary legislation each time. That is a practicality matter, and I suggest it is important.

[Jamie Stone]

Will the hon. Gentleman elaborate on that in the Scottish context? Further to what he has just said, we can imagine the discussions that would take place between Holyrood and Westminster. How would those be timetabled in terms of what he has just said?

[Robert Neill]

It would be for the Government to choose whether to bring such things forward. At the moment, it would be quite onerous to have primary legislation. Not all these issues will, of course, affect the Holyrood situation. Holyrood may well wish to adopt a procedure for devolved matters, and we could look at that constructively. If there is to be a package of further discussions, we could also consider that further. Scotland is important as a centre of financial services, as is the City of London, and we could try to develop these things as we go forward.