European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Stephen Timms Excerpts

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

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for setting out in the House today the consistent view that he has held throughout the referendum campaign and during the debates that have followed.

The Government have a fundamental problem. This is not about whether it is the will of the House that the ECJ should have jurisdiction during the transitional period. I think that most Members, whether they voted leave or remain, understand the central importance of giving business certainty right at this moment about what will happen when we leave the European Union. The Prime Minister understood that when she made her speech in Florence, in which she said that, during the transition period,

“the existing structure of EU rules and regulations”

would apply. She also said that we could agree

“to bring forward aspects of that future framework such as new dispute resolution mechanisms more quickly if this can be done smoothly.”

The implications are clear. It was the Prime Minister’s view in Florence that, to provide business with the certainty that it needs now about jobs and economic activity, we would remain in the single market and the customs union and, necessarily, under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice for a time-limited transition period.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as puzzled as I am that Ministers are unwilling to support the policy of the Prime Minister? The Prime Minister made her position very clear, when answering a question from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), that the writ of the European Court of Justice would run during the transitional period, or at least at the start of it.

[Wes Streeting]

I am just as bewildered as my right hon. Friend. Many Members may not have seen it, but the front page of The Daily Telegraph tomorrow carries a splash entitled “The Brexit mutineers”. On that front page, Members will find people such as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and other Conservative Members who have done nothing else during the course of this debate but try to get the Government to a position whereby we leave the European Union in a way that provides the most clarity, the most certainty and the most stability, which is in the interests of our economy.

Actually, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) mentioned, the real Brexit mutineers are not people such as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe because, ironically, the Members on that front page are upholding the principles of the Florence speech. The real Brexit mutineers are members of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, and they are in the Department for Exiting the European Union and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Those people are the real Brexit mutineers, and they should be explaining why they are not prepared to back the clear positon set out by their own Prime Minister.