Exiting the European Union

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I do not complain for not having had advance notice of the Minister’s statement. I am not sure that he has got advance notice of it. [Laughter.]

What an absurd situation the Prime Minister has got herself into. Having lost the meaningful vote on 15 January by an historic majority, on 29 January the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and told this House that she would seek legally binding changes to the backstop. Her precise words, standing at the Dispatch Box, were this:

“What I am talking about is not a further exchange of letters but a significant and legally binding change to the withdrawal agreement.”

Let us see what document is put on the Table tomorrow. I did not hear the words from the Dispatch Box that the withdrawal agreement is being changed. She said:

“It will involve reopening the withdrawal agreement…I can secure such a change in advance of our departure from the EU.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 678-9.]

She then voted for an amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), which called for the backstop

“to be replaced with alternative arrangements”.

It sounds as if none of that has happened, nor is likely to happen.

Turning the joint letter from President Tusk and President Juncker of 14 January into an interpretation tool—a legal interpretation tool it may be—adds nothing. The statement that there is no duty to replicate what is in the backstop is here in the letter of 14 January. That is not new. That is not today; that was in the letter. If all that is happening is to turn this letter into an interpretation tool for legal purposes, I remind the House what the Prime Minister said on 14 January about the letter. She said that she had been advised that this letter would have “legal force in international law”. To stand here today and say that this is a significant change, when she is repeating what she said on 14 January, is not going to take anyone very far.

We will look at the detail. We will look at whether the withdrawal agreement has been changed. [Interruption.] I am looking forward to the reaction tomorrow when the withdrawal agreement, unchanged, will be on the Table. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I appeal to Members on both sides of the House to calm down. I say to very senior Members who, from a sedentary position, are chuntering really very inanely, do try to grow up.

[Keir Starmer]

I will wait to see the detail, but as I understand it the withdrawal agreement is being placed on the Table tonight for a vote tomorrow—this agreement unchanged. If I am wrong about that and the document has been changed, I am sure I will be corrected in just a minute.

That cannot be described as legally binding changes to the backstop. Nor could the steps outlined—we will have to see what they are in full—allow the Attorney General to change his opinion that under international law the backstop would endure indefinitely until a superseding agreement took its place in whole or in part. Members of the House will recall that in the Attorney General’s advice last time, he focused on the fact that the only remedy under the withdrawal agreement for breach of the good faith or best endeavours obligations is a temporary suspension of obligations unless and until the parties return to the negotiating table in good faith. That was announced just now as part of the breakthrough new agreement. It is there in article 178(5) on page 292, and has been since the document was signed off on 25 November. So that is not new either.

It sounds again as if nothing has changed, and if that is right, the Prime Minister is left with a pile of broken promises. It is as much a matter of trust as of substance. I am sure that many tomorrow on the Government Benches will be disappointed when they look at the detail. They should be disappointed, but not surprised. We have repeatedly raised questions about the Prime Minister raising expectations that she could not meet. The whole approach has been misguided and the fault lies squarely at the Prime Minister’s door, so can the Minister now please confirm: does the whole Cabinet support the position as it now is? When will the House receive the Attorney General’s updated legal advice? And I ask for a straightforward answer to the question: is a single word of the withdrawal agreement different now from the document that was agreed on 25 November?

This has been a wholly unsatisfactory 24 hours, but symptomatic of the last two years. Tomorrow, the House will express its view. These Benches will reject it. We expect the House to reject it and then we can move on and break the impasse.

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[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)]

I am a little concerned, because I have to say that I agree with the concerns of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). It may be a first, but I think we would all agree that he made an important point.

Mr Speaker, this may be a question more for your good self than for the Minister, who as ever does a good job in difficult circumstances. A press conference is about to be held by the Prime Minister and Mr Juncker, and the BBC’s Brussels reporter says that the EU is adamant that there has been no change at all to the backstop position. Most importantly, we will need the advice of the Attorney General—[Hon. Members: “Question!”] There will be a question. This is meant—[Hon. Members: “Get on with it.”] The more you interrupt, the more I will continue.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Lady has rather a good point. I suggest that people show some patience and some manners. The right hon. Lady will be heard, and if there are people who have not the basic tolerance to hear her, perhaps they can repair somewhere else.

[Anna Soubry]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—I cannot think why I left. In any event, the point is that tomorrow is in effect a short day, and there is a lot to be considered and debated, so can the Minister for the Cabinet Office assist us? When will we get the motion, when will we get the Attorney General’s advice, and what opportunities will we have to question the Attorney General and then move to having a proper debate on the matter—the most important since our decision to enter the second world war?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

As my hon. Friend said, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is in her place this evening, as she is on many occasions during this House’s proceedings. As I undertook earlier, I shall also make sure that the Attorney General is aware of the comments of my hon. Friend and others.

[Mr Speaker]

May I say to the hon. Gentleman, pursuant to earlier points of order this afternoon, that I entirely understand what motivates him—the matter has been raised with me by other Members, and I listened with courtesy to what the Minister just said—but the resolution of the matter is really quite straightforward: there can either be an oral statement tomorrow or in lieu of that, or in fear of there being no such, an urgent question can be submitted. It is really very simple.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has come among our number. [Interruption.] Somebody sneezed. I think it is in excited anticipation of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

This is an exciting moment. My right hon. Friend gave an answer to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) that if the deal is not voted through tomorrow, we will vote on no deal on Wednesday and an extension of article 50 on Thursday, in accordance with the Prime Minister’s statement last week. Will the converse apply? If we vote for the deal tomorrow, will there be sufficient time before 29 March to get the necessary legislation through the House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, very well. I have some remarks to make in a moment that I hope will be helpful to the House, but pending that, let us hear the hon. Gentleman.

[Sir William Cash]

We understand that the media have been in possession of these documents for some time. We have not had the same opportunity, but, as far as I understand, they are in the Table Office now. Could we be assured that they will be put on the internet so that the public at large can be guaranteed an opportunity to see these documents in full?

[Mr Speaker]

They are Government documents, so really it is for the Government to make that arrangement, but I see the Minister for the Cabinet Office champing at the bit, so let us hear from the fella.

[Mr Lidington]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. My understanding is that all the documents are in the Table Office now—[Hon. Members: “The Vote Office!”] In the Vote Office, Mr Speaker. The motion has been tabled and I can give a clear assurance that, when I came to the Chamber and for a fair part of my statement and response to questions, the talks between the Prime Minister and President Juncker were continuing in Strasbourg. As far as I am aware, the Government have not given any prior copies to the media, and in fact could not have done so because talks were still taking place. I do not know what was happening at the Strasbourg end, because of course there was a negotiation going on when texts were being circulated between the two sides.

[Mr Lidington]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. If they are not already there, they will be published on gov.uk as rapidly as possible.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that confirmation. I have also been advised by the senior Clerk at the Table—aided, abetted and reinforced by another distinguished ornament of Chamber and Committee Services sitting immediately to his left—that the documents are on the website of the Department for Exiting the European Union. That is characteristically up to speed and helpful of the Clerks, and I thank them for that service, as I am sure the House does.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, yes. The hon. Gentleman is not hailing a taxi, but nevertheless I am happy to hear his point of order.

[Mike Gapes]

While the Minister was speaking, the journalist Paul Waugh had on his website some of the documents. I went to ask in the Vote Office whether the documents were available. I was told no. They had been received electronically, but they had to be printed by the Journal Office. I seek your clarification, Mr Speaker, as to when in this House copies of those documents were available, given that journalists clearly had been given them and that they were in printed form and put out by Mr Paul Waugh on Twitter.

[Mr Speaker]

My understanding—there was some earlier huddled consultation about this matter between me and the Clerks at the Table—is that the documents were laid at 10.58 pm. I say that for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman and the House. I would not want, particularly when engaging with someone of his seniority and distinction, to be imprecise, and I certainly would not want to say 10.57 pm or 10.59 pm, subsequently to be corrected by the hon. Gentleman, who is a stickler for precision at all times. I gather they were laid at 10.58 pm and then distributed more widely thereafter. I hope that that is helpful in a factual sense. It may not be as satisfactory as he would like—that is qualitatively a different point—but it is the factual answer.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not want to over-egg the point, but it is important for what Ministers say to the Chamber from the Dispatch Box to be accurate, and for there to be a procedure whereby, if there is a change, they can inform the House about that change and the reasons for it. Earlier today, we were given assurances about the timing of the legal advice from the Attorney General in a ministerial statement, and as far as I am aware, no statement was given to the House altering the information that was presented to Members. What is the procedure that Ministers should follow in such circumstances?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is that if someone inadvertently gives incorrect information to the House, it is a matter of honour for that Member to take the opportunity to correct the record at the earliest possible opportunity. I do not know whether that will prove to be so in this case, for it is as yet uncertain when the legal advice will be published. To be fair to the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), I think that, in responding to questions, he gave the House his honest assessment, at the point at which he gave it, of when he thought that the material would be provided. I know that the hon. Gentleman is every bit as honourable as his late and distinguished father, and I think that if he were subsequently to discover that he had given incorrect information to the House, he would literally be rushing—“rushing” is not too strong a word—to the Dispatch Box to correct the record.

I trust that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) will be in his place tomorrow to discover what the situation is. I think that there is a premium on early discovery of this advice, but we have already been through the question of how the views of the Attorney General can be established and how he can be probed before the debate if Members are so inclined. [Interruption.] Somebody is muttering something about codpieces from a sedentary position—and not just somebody: no less a figure than the Solicitor General. I am sure that the chuntering is eloquent, of a fashion.

Let me say, before we proceed, that I hope it will be helpful to the House if I indicate an advisory cut-off time of 10.30 on Tuesday morning for manuscript amendments to tomorrow’s motion. Amendments that reach the Table Office before the rise of the House tonight will appear on the Order Paper in the usual way. The Table Office will arrange publication and distribution of a consolidated amendment list as soon as possible after 10.30 am on Tuesday, including all the manuscript amendments. I will announce my selection of amendments in the usual way at the beginning of the debate. I hope that that is helpful to colleagues.

If there are no more points of order, we will proceed with the motions on the Order Paper. [Interruption.] That is very helpful, and I am genuinely grateful, but I was proposing in any case—partly for the reason hinted at by the adviser at the Chair—to take the motions separately.