Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Bernard Jenkin

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

I am going to make some progress, if I may.

I suggest that we have to be the party of the rule of law, or we are nothing. It is sad that we have to be reminded of that. This a power grab, with all these Henry VIII clauses. If we were being asked to pass powers to Ministers so we could polish an already superlative protocol, we might have some faith, but they have admitted that the results of what they negotiated have caught them by surprise—that they did not understand the import of what they were signing up to, or they did not quite understand the terms or the meaning of the words. We are told that they were surprised that the other side would expect us and them to fulfil the obligations we had negotiated.

Given our deep understanding of the complexities and difficulties of the politics of Northern Ireland— I have little or no doubt that we can all unite on that—I suggest that to enter into something so lightly without understanding precisely all the details, and then to say, “We’re having to do this because we didn’t expect the other side to do it in the way that they want us to do it,” is for the birds. It is totally bonkers. The Government told us that, having reached a difficult compromise on the final text of the protocol, they expected the EU to do something else. With all the history, all we relied on was expectation.

These Henry VIII clauses really will not stick. Seventeen of the clauses give unspecified powers to Ministers. Was taking back control about this Parliament handing powers to the Executive to use for unspecified purposes? Even worse, one clause tells us that powers will be used to change powers that might have been changed in the Bill if those changes are subsequently thought to have been wrong or ill-advised. That is not only someone marking their own homework, but someone copying somebody else’s homework and then claiming all the credit themselves.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I find it astonishing that my hon. Friend has got eight minutes into his speech and he has still not mentioned the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend was obviously not listening, because I made it very clear at the start that the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom is not touched by the protocol. The constitutional integrity of Northern Ireland within our United Kingdom is contained within the clauses of the Good Friday agreement—that is the only way. Anybody who tries to position this protocol—

EU Exit Day Amendment

Debate between Simon Hoare and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) gave the game away when, amid all her hyperbole and rhetoric, she betrayed her desire for a “much longer delay”. That is what the remain majority in this House really want. I was rather shocked to hear the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) say that this measure should be entirely uncontroversial. He might not have been listening, but millions of our voters certainly have been listening and they were expecting to leave the EU on 29 March. For them, this debate comes as a very great disappointment, because this order cancels exit day on 29 March. The way in which the Council decision was agreed illustrates exactly why people voted to leave the EU, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) set out.

History will mark this day as the moment when this House decided to start to turn against the decision to leave the EU and against the mandate upon which most MPs in this House were elected—[Interruption.] Oh yes, there are exceptions, but I am talking about the 85% of votes that were cast for pro-Brexit parties. So far, the EU’s withdrawal agreement has been rejected for good reasons, not least because it is so far from taking back control over our laws, borders and trade. That is one point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). In fact, if this statutory instrument goes through, the next time the Minister brings an order to this House to implement an EU directive, decision or regulation, there will probably have been no UK Minister sitting at the table in Brussels to agree that decision, or even to be there to be outvoted. That decision will just have been handed down through the withdrawal agreement.

I have never considered myself a populist or a man of the people, but it is only those like me, who will vote against this decision to cancel leaving the EU on 29 March, who are truly representing what the British people decided in the referendum. We are the real majority in this House, but we are sorely under-represented by its Members.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

rose—

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

That is a good question. We all expect that, before long, there will be agreement among Ministers that some will not be toeing the Government line on this question. It is too big a question for it to be otherwise. The reason that we have referendums is that the questions split parties. We could not have a general election on a question that split the parties on both sides of the House. It would be impossible to decide on the issue in that way.

It would be absurd to have a referendum and then try to corral all the Ministers into one point of view. The precedent in 1975 was that collective responsibility was abandoned, although that does not mean there is not still a Government view—there is a Government view and a dissenting view. That is how it will work in this case, assuming that a vast number of Ministers do not leave the Government’s view too isolated to be any longer credible as being that of a Government.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the country at large still has trust in “the Government”—in the governance of this country— whether or not we think it is right to hold that view? Our electorate would therefore find it strange if, during a referendum campaign, they could not point to what the Government’s view was. The Government of the day would continue after the referendum, and people will want to know what the Government, whether collective or otherwise, think about the issue.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have already said that the first publication is perfectly justified, as the Government are entitled to explain what they have negotiated and to give their opinion on that. If he would like to do so, he might explain how they are going to give

“information about rights, and obligations, that arise under European Union law as a result of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union”

in a concise and simple fashion which is not loaded. Perhaps he could tell us which countries should be used as

“examples of countries that do not have membership of the European Union”

in order to explain the consequences of leaving the European Union. We are talking about very subjective judgments, and of course that is what the debate between the yes and the no campaigns will be about.

My hon. Friend is right to say that people trust what the Government say, which is exactly why what they say should be curtailed and limited: it has a disproportionate effect on the voters. There is absolutely no doubt about that. If a leader of a party says something, that has less of an effect than if the Prime Minister says something. That is why we have a purdah period, and the House has forced the Government to accept that there will be a proper purdah period. Otherwise, if we have what we had in 1975, whereby the Government can carry on regardless, being the Government and yet expressing partisan views on one side of the argument and not the other, an unfair referendum would be created. That is why all referendums throughout the world have systems to try to contain what Governments do during the final phases of the referendum, in order to try to create some fairness.