European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman’s interest in this subject, like that of most others in the House, is exceedingly well founded, but I do not want to confuse the Dublin scheme with other schemes, about which we have had debates in this country.

This approach is aimed at—Government policy is also, quite rightly, aimed at—trying to keep children who have lost their parents or become separated from them in places of safety. Where possible, such places should be close to their places of origin, from where they may, if possible, be repatriated to countries such as Syria. They can be housed in communities who speak the same language and have similar cultures, which will provide some degree of continuity in their otherwise traumatic, ruptured existence. When that is not possible and there are family members in other European countries, the children can be given stability with them.

I do not want to get into the schemes, such as those set up in the past by other countries, that I am afraid have acted as a magnet for children who, at the hands of people traffickers and others, have taken to boats in very dangerous circumstances. The policy of this Government has been the absolutely right one of trying to keep such children out of the hands of those who want to profit from human misery and take advantage of their desperate circumstances.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It may disturb the hon. Gentleman to know that I have signed his new clause, and I agree very much with him and the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on this issue. This weekend, I was in Calais, where a 10-year-old is sleeping rough because we do not have the systems in place under the legislation to be able to assess his right to be in the UK. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what is so important about the amendments to protect the Dublin process is not just its principles, but its practice and what happens if and when we leave the European Union?

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[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend makes his case with particular force. I am sorry to have to tell him that I am not in a position to accept his new clause on that basis. I ask him to work with members of the Government on the immigration Bill that will contain the measures that he and the rest of us wish to see to ensure that we meet our humanitarian obligations.

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

[Mr Baker]

I will give way to the hon. Lady once.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister’s colleagues gave a statement on 1 November 2016 that made the commitment to take children from Europe, and it is those children whose rights under the Dublin regulation would be taken away. Can he understand the concern about the fact that he has just announced that the requirement to work with 31 other countries would supersede that? Will he give a cast-iron guarantee that the commitment made in that statement on 1 November 2016 to take children from Europe and to do our fair share for refugee children will be honoured in full?

[Mr Baker]

These are matters for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Bills for which her Department is responsible. I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me and understand that it is with the Home Office that these matters need to be taken forward. This Bill is about how we leave the European Union with certainty, continuity and control in our statute book.

Amendments 15 and 16 are on the power to deal with deficiency—

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Hanson, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. Speeches on both sides of the Chamber have been technical, detailed and passionate, including the response from the Minister, and I hope to be able to add a few of my thoughts to this measured debate.

Leaving the European Union was never going to be easy. It was inevitable, after 40 years of the EU creeping into every crevice of our daily lives, that Brussels’ overarching bureaucracy would touch every piece of domestic legislation imaginable. Ultimately, the whole point of the Bill is to ensure a clean, smooth Brexit that allows for an orderly transition from inside the EU to out. Transferring EU law to UK law is a mammoth task that requires an enormous amount of bureaucracy to complete. It is simply unfeasible for this Parliament to go through every piece of legislation affected by the EU line by line to approve its transfer into domestic law. I read recently that an individual vote on each of the 20,319 EU laws would take more than 200 days of parliamentary time, and that a debate on every page of those laws would take a similar amount of time. That simply is not feasible. The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill does a bulk copy and paste, ensuring that when we leave the EU in March 2019, our domestic legislation is not caught short. Understandably, deficiencies will arise. Those deficiencies are clearly laid out in clause 7(2), and if we are to ensure an orderly Brexit, they need cleaning up. No Member of this House believes that enough parliamentary time exists to fix all these faults, and that is why clause 7 is so important.

Clause 7 is not, as we often read in the papers, some kind of Tudoresque power grab; nor does it ride roughshod over Parliament. It provides delegated powers to a Minister to fix obscure but consequential deficiencies in legislation for a short period of time. Those delegated powers will never be used to make drastic policy changes. Such changes have always required, and always will require, a Queen’s Speech or primary legislation. It is public and transparent, and it requires a majority vote. The sole purpose and scope of the delegated powers is to ensure that EU law is still operable after the UK leaves the EU. That is what our constituents want: consistency and security. Even those who want us to stay in the EU appreciate why this is so important, as we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, and from those who voted to remain as well as those who voted to leave. The Procedure Committee amendments that were accepted yesterday will create a sifting committee, confirming even more rigidly that Parliament will always have an input.

We are leaving the EU to bring back control to our courts and our Parliament, and clause 7 bolsters this. Ultimately, once we are out, this Parliament, elected by the British people, will be able to go through what we like and what we do not like, in our own time. For those still concerned that clause 7 is some sort of Tory plot designed to wipe away all workers’ rights, subsection 7 makes it clear that, two years after exit day, these powers will no longer exist. There is a sunset clause. Not only that, but Ministers in the devolved Administrations will be able to use the same powers to amend legislation that falls into their catchment. This is further evidence that the Government are committed to a Brexit that works for the entire UK. It will be up to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont to choose how to use their increased decision-making powers.

It is vital that the Bill is passed as cleanly as possible, because it is a key component in ensuring that our departure from the EU is orderly. Clause 7 will play a big part in a smooth Brexit. It is not a power grab, and it is not the beginning of the kind of dictatorship that some would argue was taking place when we were inside the EU. We have a responsibility to our public to deliver on Brexit, and we should not delay or protract the process any further. The act of leaving the European Union represents a powerful decision to restore democracy to this Parliament, and I am pleased to support the Bill and to support the public who voted for this in the largest numbers in our country’s history. I hope that my speech was short enough for you, Mr Hanson.

[Stella Creasy]

I have now been in the Chamber for seven hours, apart from a brief sojourn to serve on a statutory instrument Committee related to fish taxes in Scotland, which feels completely apposite given today’s debate. No one is suggesting that there will not be points at which we may want to have a way to amend legislation, but I have concerns about clause 7. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) because I have a completely different opinion on what clause 7 offers. This is about so much more than taxes on fish.

It is important that our constituents understand that we are discussing a clause that gives Ministers the ability to introduce legislation when they consider it appropriate. I consider pudding always to be appropriate, but it is not necessarily necessary. This is one of those matters where the wording is crucial. The deficiencies that the Bill identifies are not limited as long as something can be called a deficiency, which is a huge loophole into which Ministers can reach.

The SIs that Ministers can bring in will have the effect of primary legislation—the same as any Act of Parliament—and the legislation can abolish functions of the European Union covering a whole range of issues. It would be a brave, bold, disciplined Minister who is not tempted by those powers. That is what we are discussing tonight. The hon. Member for Wealden suggested that the provisions do not look like a power grab, but they do not give power to the courts; they put power in Downing Street. That is the Opposition’s concern, which my Front-Bench colleagues have so ably set out.

In the time available, I want to explain my particular concerns about the Henry VIII powers and amendment 332, which relates to a good example of what could go wrong. It is clear that the Henry VIII powers are not about taking rights away; they are about sweeping them away. As the House of Lords Constitution Committee said, the use of such powers

“remains a departure from constitutional principle”.

We know from recent years just how often Ministers have been tempted: cuts to tax credits, student maintenance grants, fracking, fox hunting, winter fuel payments, the electoral register and individual voter registration, and legal aid entitlements. Whether or not someone agrees with those policies, they are not fish taxes. They are not minor amendments to existing legislation. They represent major policy changes that the Government pushed through, or tried to push through, using SIs.

Since 1950, over 170,000 statutory instruments have been laid by Departments—2,500 a year. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, is not in his place, but he was talking about 1,000 SIs resulting from this legislation alone, which is half a year’s worth of work and represents an awful lot of sifting. Only 17 of those 170,000 SIs were rejected. Indeed, the last time that the Commons rejected a statutory instrument was in 1979. The House of Lords has been more robust, having rejected six such instruments, and it has been rewarded with the Strathclyde review.

Amendment 49 is important because it is clear that when Governments have the ability to use SIs in this way, they do so. It is also clear that this House has not been able to exercise a comparable power of check and balance. Even when such SIs are lawful, the Supreme Court has said that they should be challenged in court. As the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) said, this Bill is almost a lawyer’s charter.

I want to give the hon. Member for Wealden the example from amendment 332, which covers the elephant in the room during our debates on this Bill and relates to the rights of the British public and of future British citizens around freedom of movement. Freedom of movement has been bandied about as the reason why many people voted for us to leave the European Union. It is a key pillar of the single market—I will be supporting amendment 124 this evening because the single market represents the best deal for all our constituents—but we must address the question what we mean by freedom of movement.

We know that freedom of movement is a right worth fighting for. It means that kids in our communities can work for companies that have bases in Berlin or Rome, and they can be sent there without any hesitation. It means that if someone falls in love with their French exchange partner, they can move to Paris with them or the exchange can come and live here. It means that someone can be one of 4 million students every year who spend a year in another European country benefiting from that kind of education. These are freedoms that our communities are likely to need more options to access in the future, not less. It also means that people have come to our country and helped our NHS. They have brought jobs and investment, and, yes, British citizens have fallen in love with them. Their kids have gone to school with our kids. They are our neighbours, our friends and our family.

All that is now at risk. Whether we voted leave or remain, whether we think the referendum was about freedom of movement or leaving the single market, we should support the idea that Parliament, not Ministers, should make or rewrite decisions if Ministers do not like the outcome of our discussions. It is clear that the failure of the previous Prime Minister to reform freedom of movement does not mean that we should give up these rights without asking about those changes, and that is what amendment 332 would give us as a Parliament the power to do. It would stop clause 7 being used to make that a decision made by means of a statutory instrument.