European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

It is an absolute privilege to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). I welcome the applause from those on the Labour Benches. [Interruption.] Yes, some of them.

Over the weekend, we passed the halfway mark between the EU referendum and actually leaving the European Union. It is difficult to argue that over those 500-plus days we have spent that time well, that the Government have a clearer idea of where we are, or that the promises made by the Minister and his colleagues in Vote Leave have come to pass or are any closer to reality than they were when they made them. We are certainly no closer to the post-Brexit utopia that we have been promised.

Those looking back on these debates in years to come will, as well as admiring the speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe, do so with a sense of bewilderment. Not only is this Parliament set to approve a Bill, if it goes through, that most Members seem to think is a bad idea—most Members think that leaving the EU is a bad idea—but we are being asked to make significant changes with an extraordinary paucity of information. No other piece of legislation may have been forced through on the basis of such a small amount of information. It is astonishing that 500 days on the Government remain clueless about the impact of their plans. We have still not seen the impact assessments that this Parliament voted for and that we were promised. That would have been quite useful ahead of this debate, had this Government been listening to Parliament.

All this is coming from Conservative Members who wanted to bring back decision making, power and so-called sovereignty to the House of Commons. Clearly, after all this time, either the impact assessments are being hurriedly rushed together right now or the Government are too feart to share them—that means too scared to share them, for the benefit of those on the Front Bench. Last night’s botched efforts to try to win support illustrate the desperate situation in which the Government—and, frankly, this Parliament—find themselves. We have been given a choice between approving a really bad deal or a really, really bad deal. That is no choice at all and one that we should avoid at all costs.

The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe raised an important point about promises that were made. There is a point here about accountability. Good governance in any Parliament—any legislature—relies on being accountable. The whole idea of why those of us from Scotland travel down here while those from elsewhere have to make their way here every single week is to hold the Government to account. One of the principles laid out in the Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill brought forward in 1999 by the Secretary of State for Leaving the EU, who is not in his place at the moment, was that Government could not sideline this place. I wonder whether this Government would be in their current pickle had the Secretary of State’s Bill been passed in 1999. Accountability is sadly lacking. Parliamentary control should go deeper than even beyond June 2016. All of us here should be accountable for the commitments that we make ahead of any election or any referendum. All of us should do our best to implement the manifesto on which we were elected. Regardless of how much we may disagree with each other, we have a responsibility to our electorates and we are accountable to them.

I am left in a quandary. I will happily take an intervention from a Government Member if they can tell me this: if this place is accountable—if only!—who is accountable for providing £350 million a week to the NHS? The Government deny that they are. Who is accountable for giving Scotland lots of new powers, including powers over immigration? And who is accountable for the full access to the single market that many in Vote Leave promised? If only the EU had been successful in getting rid of double-decker buses, it would not have been so easy to splash promises across the sides of them. I would happily take an intervention about accountability for those things.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to add to his list the comments of those such as Dan Hannan, who argued for leave? He said, “Don’t worry, you can vote to leave because we will stay in the single market and the customs union.”

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent and principled intervention. To double down on that, I will quote the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. The problem is that I cannot quote her directly; I will have to paraphrase what she said, because if I read out the quote, I would be held to be out of order in this place. She called into question the veracity of claims on costs in terms of the EU, and the veracity of claims made by people who are in government about Turkey’s EU membership and an EU army. I am sorry that I cannot quote her directly, but I would find myself in a bit of bother if I did.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the work done by Economists for Free Trade, which states that the £350 million promised to the NHS is fundable? Is he aware of the agreement yesterday at the European Union on a European army? Both those things can easily be answered.

[Stephen Gethins]

If only the Government had seen the hon. Gentleman’s talents, he could have been in government implementing these changes. When it comes to increasing funding for the NHS, I look forward very much to the conversations that he and I will have as we pass through the same Lobby in an effort to get the health funding that was promised by people who are now in government.

[Stephen Doughty]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as we have seen today, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) has his supporters in the Cabinet? The Department for International Trade was gleefully retweeting—until it deleted the tweet—the speech that he made earlier, which called for a race-to-the-bottom, low-regulation Britain.

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, as he always does on these matters, even though he and I may not agree on much. Ruth Davidson and I do not often agree on much either, but she was right that we deserve the truth. This place deserves accountability over the promises that have been made. I wonder whether the Minister, who is in his place and who made those promises as part of Vote Leave, will address the question of what will happen about these promises. They were made to the people before they voted in a plebiscite, and he has some responsibility for that.

[Mr Baker]

rose—

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then to the Minister.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people voted to leave the EU because they wanted a better future? They did not vote for Brexit at any cost, including the cost of democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I will take an intervention from the Minister, since I mentioned him, and then I will make progress with my speech.

[Mr Baker]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will read the report published by the Treasury Committee during the referendum campaign. The report, which has my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) on it, calls into question the veracity of claims on both sides of the campaign.

[Stephen Gethins]

The Minister is trying to absolve himself of responsibility for spending on the health service. If only he had done that before the EU referendum. If only he had stopped people putting it on the side of a bus. It is extraordinary, because those Vote Leavers are Ministers now. They are in the posts that they wanted, and they need to take a bit of responsibility and deliver on their promises. If Labour get into government, Conservative Members will quite rightly expect them to deliver on their promises.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

I will not give way at the moment; I will make some progress, as I promised I would. This is the question: in any future referendum on any issue, are we all free to say whatever we like, because nobody will be held to account for what has been said?

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

Not at the moment, because I made a promise. Surely Members from all parts of the House must recognise the damage that has been done to politics as a whole by the empty promises that were made by Vote Leave. Frankly, that is one of the many reasons why this Bill deserves to fall.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) made a good point about compromise. In a Parliament of minorities, we need to have compromise. It is almost a year since the Scottish Government published their compromise, under which we would have remained part of the single market—the single market was mentioned by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). Leaving the European Union is not something I want or wanted, and it is not something for which my constituents or my nation voted, but the nature of compromise is one of give and take.

Remaining part of the single market is a compromise suggested not just by the SNP but by experts—on these Benches, we still listen to experts—and by members of other political parties, and it was pushed for by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives as well. I urge Members to look at that suggested deal. Under our amendment 69, instead of our crashing out of the European Union, we would retain membership of the EU until we can sort this out. We will also be backing amendment 79, from our Plaid Cymru colleagues, because it is important that democracy does not begin and end in this place, and the devolved Administrations should have a key role as we go through this process. We are now in the situation where no deal is becoming more and more of a reality, as I will mention in my concluding remarks.

[Mr Evans]

The hon. Gentleman will remember that the former Chancellor said during the referendum campaign that should we leave the European Union, we would be leaving the single market. That was made absolutely explicit. The hon. Gentleman has spoken about future referendums, and he wants a second referendum in Scotland. Should the Scottish people vote in such a referendum by 52% to 48% to leave the United Kingdom, will he, after much discussion, argue for a third referendum?

[Stephen Gethins]

This is extraordinary, isn’t it? Something the Scottish Government had the decency to do before the independence referendum was to produce a 670-page White Paper. There are Members in the Chamber—I am looking at the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine)—who did not agree with it. She campaigned for a no vote, and I respect her for doing so, but we had the courage of our convictions and laid out what we stood for. The mess we are in today is because the Conservatives did not have the courage of their convictions and did not lay out what voting to leave the European Union would mean.

A no deal would mean 80,000 jobs gone in Scotland. A city such as Aberdeen would lose £3.8 billion, and Edinburgh would lose £5.5 million, while there would also be an impact on rural areas. I welcome what the Prime Minister has said on security issues—that we should pull together—but with no deal we would lose access to EU security databases in combating cross-border crime, which would be grossly irresponsible.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

May I just say that from the perspective of Northern Ireland, no deal would be absolutely disastrous? It would inevitably mean a hard border. As one of those who grew up in Northern Ireland through 32 years of violence, killing and mayhem, I am not prepared to sit in this Chamber and allow the House to go down a no deal route, which would endanger people, UK border officials and Police Service of Northern Ireland officials along the border. It is imperative that we have a deal.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Hon. Members on both sides of the House would do well to listen carefully to her words. Northern Ireland has been vastly overlooked and it continues to be overlooked, and the hon. Lady makes an excellent point. One thing that concerns me and should concern Members on both sides of the House is that we have a no deal scenario, with Ministers playing Russian roulette with our futures—the futures of people in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom—as well as a slash-and-burn approach to politics that will profit absolutely nobody whatsoever.

I will conclude by saying that we may disagree on many issues, but we come to this place hoping—I respect Members as they do this—that we will leave our constituencies, our respective nations and the UK a little bit better off. By backing the Bill with such a lack of preparedness, we will be doing no such thing: we will not be leaving future generations better off. So weak are the arguments of those who back leaving the EU—I have heard this not so much from SNP Members, because Scotland voted to remain, but from Labour, Conservative and other colleagues—that they question why we are tabling amendments rather than challenge us on their substance. We will seek to amend this Bill as it goes through the House and to find common cause with colleagues from across the House. However, we know that what we are trying to achieve, even if we do get common ground, is to make this situation not better, but less bad. That is not a situation in which any Member should ever find themselves in this House.

I urge Members to reconsider and I urge the Government to press the reset button. There is far more at stake than the future of this Government or, indeed, that of any Member of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

This is important because no less a figure than Lord Neuberger, outgoing President of the Supreme Court, has expressed concern that judges will need clarity about how to treat decisions of the Court of Justice after Brexit. He has said that if the Government do not express clearly what the judges should do about Court of Justice decisions after Brexit, the judges will simply have to do their best, and if they are left just to do their best, it would be unfair to blame them for making law which Parliament has failed to make.

[Stephen Gethins]

I am loth to interrupt my hon. and learned Friend, who is making a powerful case for legal certainty, but does she agree that a wide range of industries and other organisations will need legal certainty, certainly around freedom of movement, such as our education sector and food and drink sector? Does she also share my concerns about the reports that have come from the Financial Times this evening that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union says that bankers and other professionals have been promised a special post-Brexit travel regime? If we are going to have freedom of movement and the benefits that brings, we should not just be protecting the bankers.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to the Floor of the House. I was made aware of it just before I got to my feet. If the Financial Times report is correct that the Government are going to give special deals for certain professions, that will come as a great shock to the other professions that will not get such a special deal, and a particular shock to cross-party colleagues in the Scottish Parliament who have asked for a separate deal on immigration in Scotland, as have Unison, the chambers of commerce in Scotland and the Institute of Directors. I look forward to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union coming to the House to explain what is going on here.

To returning to the issue of legal certainty, the Institute for Government looked carefully at different tests that might be put on this Bill to direct the courts, and expressed the view that if Parliament passes the buck on this question to the judges, it will leave the judges open to fierce political criticism. We have already seen the sort of fierce political criticism that the judges got earlier this year, and regardless of the different views we might have about the British constitution, all of us can probably accept that the independence of the judiciary is a fundamental part of any constitution that recognises the rule of law. We perhaps do not have to look too far from home in the EU at present to see a judiciary that is not independent, but I digress.

We need an independent judiciary in this country, and we have one, but it has to be protected from criticism because judges cannot go into print to defend themselves when criticised. We must provide the courts with a specific legal test on the face of the Bill governing the treatment of Court of Justice case law after Brexit, and that is what my amendment 137 seeks to achieve.