United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Ruth Jones and Tim Loughton

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship tonight, Dame Eleanor.

Let me start by being crystal clear that Opposition Members firmly believe in the need for a strong internal market so that businesses can trade freely across the UK’s four nations. That trade is vital for our economy and our shared prosperity, but, as we have heard in recent days as the House debates this Bill in Committee, it must be an internal market based on a genuinely four-nation approach; it must not be a top-down framework imposed by Tory Ministers.

By proposing mutual recognition without legally underpinning minimum standards, Ministers are ensuring that the lowest standard on food, the environment, air quality and animal welfare that is chosen by one legislative House must automatically become the minimum standard across all four nations. As Member of Parliament for Newport West, I have received many lengthy and passionate representations from residents across my constituency. It is clear that they want the highest possible standards, protected by our progressive Welsh Labour Government, a demand that stands in stark contrast to the shameless race to the bottom proposed by those on the Treasury Bench.

There are a number of important amendments to this Bill, and I pay tribute to those tabled by my Front Bench and others across the House. The Minister needs to be clear in winding up that amending this Bill and stopping the shameless power grab will be a key focus of this Government.

As today’s debate focuses largely on Northern Ireland, I urge the Minister to be mindful of the fragile peace holding that part of the country together. Last week, the hon. Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) spoke movingly about what peace has meant for Northern Ireland. Their words must be heard loud and clear by Ministers.

When thinking about the Northern Ireland protocol I was reminded of the wonderful work of our friend Lady Hermon, the former Member for North Down. In September 2019 she said in this Chamber:

“I think the Prime Minister owes the people of Northern Ireland some explanation of why he and his Government have treated the Good Friday agreement…in such a careless and cavalier manner.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 46.]

She was right then, and, sadly, she is still right today.

I do not always agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), but I want to thank her for her brave speech today, as she focused on the issues the Bill throws up and how it will affect our standing in the rest of the world.

The current Prime Minister has called himself the Minister for the Union; I have to say that these days he looks like the Minister for disarray, and frequently appears to be missing in action. A Government who were truly committed to the Union of the United Kingdom would not propose this divisive legislation. They would respect the devolved Administrations and the people who live, learn and work in our devolved nations, and propose legislation with the informed consent of the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies.

The Tory shadow Counsel General in Wales said this Bill risks seriously damaging the Union and resigned from the Front Bench in the Senedd, and he was right to do so. If the Prime Minister will not take the same dignified and objective stand as David Melding MS and resign, he must immediately stop trashing our international reputation, and must use however long he has left in office to start providing the good government my constituents deserve.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is always a joy to come in on the fag end of a debate, when so many people have said everything that needs to be said and we have had a surfeit of lawyers on what is a very legalistic Bill—I am not one, thank goodness.

There is much good in this Bill. It is about the continuity of trade and the integrity of the United Kingdom, the principle of mutual recognition and the principle of non-discrimination of goods within the UK, and there is much practical stuff that, in the absence of an early agreement with the EU, we need to do. However, I have serious reservations about the inclusion of clauses 41 to 45 because of the implications well beyond this Bill, or indeed, well beyond our withdrawal process from the EU. They raise serious question marks about the intent and good name of the United Kingdom in being party to other international agreements.

When a Government Minister at the Dispatch Box states that the UK will be able to break the law, albeit in a “specific and limited way”, parliamentarians should prick up their ears and ask why and how, and demand proper justification from the Government and the Ministers to whom this part of the Bill gives considerable and ongoing powers. When the Government published this Bill in a hurry, that justification, I feel, was just not forthcoming from the Government, and on Second Reading, I therefore could not support the Bill. I would like to support the Government. I would like to support the Bill, but I need more assurances.

Amendment 4, which was put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and which forced the hand of the Government with Government amendment 66, certainly helps, although it just gives an additional check without removing the powers reserved to the Government fundamentally. I say this as a concerned Brexiteer, but this is not a question of leave or remain. It has no impact on the UK leaving the EU fully after the end of the transition period on 31 December, but it does have an impact, potentially, on how we carry on our business in the world beyond the EU after 31 December.

I think the EU has behaved disgracefully throughout the negotiation period. It has exploited shamelessly the unique position of Northern Ireland as our land border with the EU but subordinate to the very important status conferred on it by the Good Friday agreement. It has used all sorts of underhand tactics to promote its pet causes, to keep the UK under the control of EU laws and regulations, be that British fisheries or state aid considerations and preventing us from being able to compete fairly, which is all we ask. “Unless you give us what we want, we will impose checks and tariffs between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and there is nothing you can do to stop it”—runs the subtext of the negotiations.

It has now become clear that the EU is trying to reinterpret the terms of the withdrawal agreement to impose control over internal markets within the UK that no other country would tolerate and none has been required to agree to as part of any other EU trade deal. Of course, as we heard from many hon. Members, the EU is no stranger to breaking international agreements when that suits it, especially as regards the WTO. Has the EU really been negotiating an agreement in good faith, especially when a precedent has already been set of what was possible with a Canada-type deal?

Despite all this, it does not, and should not, mean that we, the United Kingdom, have to follow suit and act badly as well. The United Kingdom has a reputation for upholding the rule of law. The Conservative party has always had as one of its most cherished doctrines the importance of upholding the rule of law, so I share, for once, the concern of many lawyers who are worried that these clauses represent a significant risk of violation of the UK’s international law obligations, including the principle of good faith and sincere co-operation; that the Northern Ireland protocol and associated case law would have a subordinate role dependent on ministerial interpretation; and that this would have potentially a serious impact on the reputation of the UK as a centre for international legal practice and dispute resolution. This would not go down well, given the professed ambition of UK, quite rightly, to be a leader in global trade and a trailblazer for free trade in particular. As the former Attorney General put it, assenting to these proposals

“would amount to nothing more or less than the unilateral abrogation of the treaty obligations to which we pledged our word less than 12 months ago, and which this parliament ratified in February.”

If we do not like what we signed, there is an arbitration process, so finally, I am genuinely bemused about why these clauses have been brought forward now and what they were intended to achieve. There is nothing in the Bill or in the Government amendments about them only being used in extremis, after all those other routes have been exhausted, and that includes the formal arbitration process. If we are going to pre-empt that arbitration process by saying that we will not go to arbitration, why include an arbitration process, and if we do believe in an arbitration process but we will not follow the result if it goes against us, that arbitration process is worthless and pointless.

Why now? Why not when negotiations have not come to a conclusion, if that is the case, despite the severe strain that this move has put on them? Why not nearer 31 December, if it has become clear that a deal has not been reached and the EU is determined to enact our worst-feared scenario? If this is a bargaining tactic, it does not seem to have gone down very well. It has not made negotiations any easier. It has not made a US trade deal any easier. It has not made any other trade deals any easier.

If this really is a bargaining tactic, it is necessary to be able to deliver on it, and there are doubts about whether the Bill can get through the other place. I am afraid that I just do not understand it. I hope that before we vote, Ministers will make everything magically clearer. I may give the Government the benefit of the doubt, but if it comes back for the vote of the Commons—not the Lords, notably—and those questions remain unanswered, I will not be able to support a Bill that retains these clauses unqualified. I hope that the Minister will prove me wrong.