Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

I just want to make this point. The Secretary of State told my hon. Friend that this is like buying a house. It is not; it is a democratic process that will have a significant impact on our citizens, and it should be subject to the most intense scrutiny of this place and of the devolved Administrations.

[Sammy Wilson]

I know that the hon. Gentleman and his party are resisting the will of the people as expressed across the United Kingdom in this referendum, but what does he find difficult about the Secretary of State’s assurance that when it comes to trade—just to take the single market issue—the Government are seeking to ensure maximum exposure to the European market for British manufacturers and service industries, which is the aim of the negotiations? What is so difficult about that?

[Stephen Gethins]

Many of the hon. Gentleman’s own constituents—57% of the people of Northern Ireland, in fact—voted to remain part of the EU, for many reasons, one of which was an act of irresponsibility committed by the Secretary of State and others, who campaigned to leave the European Union based on a blank sheet of paper. I have said in this House before, and will say again, that when we campaigned for independence my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) had the decency to produce a 670-page White Paper. People knew what they were voting for, and it was not the kind of mess that we are seeing today.

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[Mr Grieve]

I can give the right hon. Gentleman an absolute, categorical assurance that, as far as I am concerned, my duty to my constituents transcends duty to party in this matter. I agree with him totally that as the effect of this change is so major, we each have to look at how we achieve the best result for our country.

[Sammy Wilson]

rose—

[Edward Miliband]

I am going to conclude, because I want others to be able to speak.

That is the point I will end on. This is about getting the right outcome for the country. This is about creating the national consensus that the Government say they want. I am certainly going to play my part in doing that and I urge other hon. and right hon. Members to do that too.

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[Mr Clegg]

Let me answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly. I personally take the unfashionable view that with a bit of fancy diplomatic footwork and some political intelligence, the Government could negotiate retention of our membership of the single market along with curtailment of freedom of movement. What the Government cannot do—and, funnily enough, the hon. Member for Stone was correct about this—is have membership of, or untrammelled access to, a marketplace of rules and not abide by those rules. That is what is impossible, but it was not a contradiction on the part of the British people; it is a contradiction on the part of the Government, and a self-inflicted one.

Let me now say something about precedent, for precedent is very important. Many people have talked about the history of this place, and the history of the relationship between the legislature and the Executive, but why has no one on the Government Benches cited what is, in my view, the very important precedent of John Major? When he was Prime Minister and was faced with a very tricky negotiation on the Maastricht treaty, he made the courageous decision—and it was not a risk-free decision—to come to the House and say, “This is what I want to negotiate on behalf of the United Kingdom; do you agree or not?” There was a debate, and then a vote, on 20 and 21 November 1991 That was a stance taken with courage and delivered with clarity. Where is the courage now? Where is the clarity? Where is the willingness of this Government to put country before party? It is truly a shame that the example set by John Major is not being adopted by the followers of the present Prime Minister.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

I shall make some progress, if I may. I want to cite one final precedent, which has not been mentioned in the debate so far but of which I have personal experience, and which I think has a direct bearing on the debate.

When I was Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition Government, a Secretary of State—I shall come to who it was in a minute—came to me and said, “Look, I have to negotiate, on behalf of the Government, a very tricky deal with the rest of the European Union.” It was all to do with the so-called JHA opt-out, on which I am sure the hon. Member for Stone could deliver a great treatise. As he will remember, under provisions negotiated by Tony Blair, the United Kingdom fell automatically out of a bunch of measures on crime-fighting—the so-called judicial and home affairs co-operation measures—and we had to decide, as a country, which ones we were going to opt back into.

There was a great tussle and argument between the two parties in the coalition. I wanted us to opt into more measures, and the Conservatives did not. However, I was told by the Secretary of State that the one absolutely indispensable requirement for that Secretary of State was, at the beginning of the negotiations, a full debate and vote on the mandate on which the coalition would then negotiate with the other member states, and at the end, another debate and vote. Those took place, and I can give the House the dates, which I have here on my scrawny little piece of paper. On 15 July 2013, the House debated and voted on that complex negotiation on the JHA opt-out, and the concluding vote on the final package—which we as a coalition Government were bringing back to the House—took place on 10 November 2014. The House might be interested to learn that the Secretary of State who was so adamant at that time that there should be a debate and a vote on those negotiations was none other than the Prime Minister of today.

That is significant, and my final question for the Ministers is this. If it was justifiable for the House of Commons to have not only a debate but a vote at the beginning and the conclusion of a negotiation on the significant but none the less comparatively narrow matter of the JHA opt-out, why on earth are the Government not coming here today and granting the House exactly the same rights and prerogatives for something that is immeasurably more significant and that will, as so many people have said, have a bearing on life in this country for generations to come?