European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

The Bill specifically does not include a date, but it enables the Prime Minister to go with a date that she has in effect inserted in the “[…]”, so it is within her control.

I will draw my remarks to a conclusion by saying that I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth—he is not here, so I would not want to cast aspersions—intended the amendment as a means perhaps of ending up with no deal. We know that seeking an extension until 30 June would not be well received by the EU, because it does not enable anything to happen in the time that is left. I hope that that was not his intention, but if this amendment is pushed to a vote today, I and the Liberal Democrats will oppose it on the basis that it would preclude a people’s vote. It is very clear around the country now that there is a very strong appetite for such a vote to take place.

[Sir William Cash]

They say that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first turn mad. I have to say, I have never seen a Bill that is more likely to drive everybody mad than this one, particularly if it is enacted and it then has to be construed by the courts. I really am astonished at what rubbish it is. Remember that we were told that no deal is better than a bad deal. Just to offer an alternative, no Bill is better than a bad Bill. This is a classic case of hubris—of overvaulting ambition in the hands of some amateur draftsmen, producing consequences of vast import to the people of this country. Having had an exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), I make the point that if he is right that the Bill could create an extension of five years, it would cost the British taxpayer not less than £90 billion. That is an awful lot of money for a private Member’s Bill, an awful lot of money for hubris, and an awful lot of madness that the gods will want to destroy.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his response. May I simply say that these are issues of immense constitutional importance? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) mentioned that yesterday and we have had debates on it in Committee, and I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s assurance.

[Tom Brake]

It is always a pleasure to be in the Chamber to hear the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). When I hear his rational, measured comments on the European Union, I wonder whether his memoirs will include a substantial chapter on how his party has been overtaken by the old guard ideologues on the fourth row and, indeed, the new, modern ideologues sitting on the Treasury Bench.

We heard from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who is no longer in his place, that we have had adequate debating time for this Bill. As a Member who has made speeches often of only three or four minutes’ duration during the course of these eight plus two days, I would say that, while I believe people should be able to put the content of what they want to say into a concise speech, it is actually rather difficult to do that in three or four minutes on a subject of this nature. I would therefore challenge anyone who says we have had adequate time to debate this issue.

I support several amendments in this group. I support new clause 18, which would lock in the Government’s intentions to respect the environmental principles and to set up an independent environmental regulator, and new clause 21, which would provide continuity on environment powers.

I support new clause 20, which would establish a citizens’ jury. I mentioned that in an earlier debate. A citizens’ jury has already been held on this subject; it had a balance of 52% people who were leavers to 48% who were remainers. It had some really in-depth discussions on issues such as freedom of movement. Interestingly, they came to the conclusion that they were in favour of freedom of movement, albeit arguing—the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe made this point—that the Government should apply the powers they already have to deal with the issue more effectively. Indeed, if the Government had sought to engage effectively with the other EU countries on the issue, I suspect they would have been able to achieve more than has been achieved.

I support new clause 2, which sets out what should be in the withdrawal agreement, and amendment 59. I thank the SNP for co-ordinating the Opposition parties—unfortunately, minus the official Opposition—in getting support for amendment 59. One of the positive things about the Bill, and there are not many of them, is that the Opposition parties and, on occasion, Conservative Members have worked quite constructively together to try to ensure that the Bill is better than it was at the outset.

I want briefly to mention new clause 11. Again, I welcome the cross-party support that the Liberal Democrats have received, with support from Labour Back Benchers, the SNP, Plaid and the Green party. What does new clause 11 seek to do? It seeks to achieve two things. I intervened earlier on the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe when he was talking about the impact assessments. New clause 11 tries to ensure that the Government have to produce an assessment of the impact on the UK economy and each nation, province and region before we have a so-called meaningful vote. I cannot see any circumstances in which this Parliament and its Members can have a meaningful vote on an agreement or on no deal if we do not have an assessment of the impact.

I must say that departmental responses to my parliamentary questions about this have hidden behind the fact that there is something called an “Impact Assessment” to refuse to make available to Parliament an assessment of the impact. I point out to Departments that, to be grammatically correct, if I had meant the “Impact Assessment”, I would have used a capital I and a capital A, and I would then have received the impact assessments that have been done on Government Bills. However, I did not do so, and in common parlance I was entitled to expect the Government to provide an assessment of the impact, rather than to hide behind the niceties of the ways in which parliamentary Bills are dealt with.

The first purpose of new clause 11 is to force the Government to publish an assessment of the impact. Like the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe, I have serious concerns about the reasons the Government would not want to make such information available. I cannot think of any other circumstances in which we, as a Government and as a Parliament, would be about to take a decision that will have the greatest impact on the economy, our security and our diplomatic profile and stature in the world without any impact assessment provided by the Government. I and other Members have been to see the so-called sectoral analyses—they were under lock and key for no reason whatsoever—and, frankly, there was nothing of any great substance in them that could not have been obtained from going online and googling the various sectors. We need to have this information.

I hope that the Minister who responds may for once be willing, when they respond, to explain why they do not want to make this information available to Members of Parliament. The Solicitor General has heard my comment. I am not sure whether he is going to respond, but I hope he will make a point—either by responding himself, or by getting the Box to provide him with an answer that can be put on the record—of explaining why the Government do not want to share with Members of Parliament an assessment of the impact that whatever deal they come up with, or indeed no deal, will have. We need that, and I would love to have it put on the record.

The second part of new clause 11 is about ensuring that, if Parliament does not agree to the deal or does not agree to no deal, either article 50 will be extended or—frankly, this is my preferred option—article 50 will be rescinded. Members who have looked at the new clause will see that, as I have said, it has two halves. First, there is the process of securing an assessment of the impact. If an agreement is reached, an assessment of the impact must be available. Equally, if no agreement is reached, such an assessment must be available.

Secondly, the Government would have to put a motion to the House that would allow Parliament to approve the intention to leave the EU without a deal. I guess the House could do that, although I hope we would not do so. If Parliament said no to that, however, other options would kick in requiring the Government to go back, in the very limited time still available, to try to secure a deal before March 2019; to go back to the European Council and request an extension of article 50; or to rescind the notice under article 50. It would clearly be very helpful to have the legal advice that the Government have received. I and many Members believe that the legal advice would have made it very clear that article 50 can be revoked, and the only reason why the Government do not want to make that information available is that it helps their case to pretend that it cannot be revoked.

I am aware, Mr Speaker, that several Members want to speak and there is very little time left. I hope I have put succinctly the reasons not only why I support several of the amendments—if they were pushed to a vote, I would be very happy to support them—but why I intend, subject to your agreement, to press new clause 11 to a vote.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will make a little more progress if that is all right.

Let me remind the House of the sentiments on the Government Benches when it comes to workers’ rights. Throughout the referendum, prominent leavers drew attention to what they claimed was the high cost of EU employment regulations, including those such as the working time directive and the temporary agency work directive. Prominent members of the Cabinet are on record as having called for workers’ rights to be removed. For example, the Foreign Secretary has written that we need

“to root out the nonsense of the social chapter—the working time directive and the atypical work directive and other job-destroying regulations.”

During the referendum, on 18 May 2016, the then Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), went so far as to call for the UK to

“halve the burdens of EU social and employment legislation”

in the event of Brexit. The newest member of the Brexit ministerial team—Lord Callanan—has openly called for the scrapping of the working time directive, the temporary agency work directive, the pregnant workers directive and

“all the other barriers to actually employing people.”

Just this week, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) made a speech in London calling for, among other things, deregulation. It was retweeted and then hastily deleted, as we heard yesterday, by the Department for International Trade.

Exiting the European Union and Global Trade

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I would like to quote what Angela Merkel has said quite recently, but first I would like to say that I entirely endorse every single word that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said—not to flatter him, but because it is practical. He has shown a command of the subject that completely belies the tittle-tattle that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) talked about. It has been my happy experience to notice that my right hon. Friend has a complete command of the subject.

What my right hon. Friend said is enormously important. That includes, in particular, the historical—but not nostalgic—background to his remarks. This country has, for the past 400 years, built up a policy of external, global trading, right the way through from the Elizabethan period—in fact, even earlier than that, in the late 15th century. He mentioned Robert Peel. I hope he will not mind my mentioning the fact that Peel was driven into the repeal of the corn laws by no less than Richard Cobden and John Bright during the massive battle over that issue. That liberalised the whole trading system. Indeed, the French commercial treaty of 1860—the first ever free-trade treaty in the world—was negotiated on the initiative of John Bright by Richard Cobden, with Michel Chevalier, who was the president of the French board of trade at the time. This is the basis on which our history has been developed. We have been right all the time that we have stuck with free trade.

I have been much encouraged by the attitude of other countries, including in my right hon. Friend’s meeting with Mr Ross in the United States only a few days ago. With regard to the United States, only one and a half hours ago I watched a live speech by Donald Trump from Poland. Among other things, he said that we must get rid of Government bureaucracy, deal with over-regulation and insist on sovereignty. He said that is the basis of freedom for sovereign nations. My right hon. Friend spoke about our ability to conclude our own trade agreements. That is why we have to unshackle ourselves, by virtue of leaving the customs union, from the fact that the European Commission determines our trade policies—there is no getting away from that.

The hon. Member for Brent North is in a bit of a pickle because, as he knows perfectly well, only last week the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) tabled an amendment on the single market, and it was defeated by the Opposition themselves—they were not prepared to go along with it. I have heard similar remarks made with regard to the noble Lord Adonis’s debate in the House of Lords. There is a kind of schizophrenia on these questions among Labour Members. They do not really know where they stand, and they are completely confused, but I think that a sense of realism is coming into it. I pay tribute to the extremely sensible Opposition Members who are beginning to realise that we cannot stay in the single market and the customs union and leave the European Union, because the two things are completely inconsistent. I know that the hon. Member for Brent North accepts that now.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir William Cash]

I will not give way just yet.

The speech by Mr Barnier today is extremely relevant, and I have the benefit of having the full text here. I will not go through every detail of it, I can assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I note that some of the things that he said are highly relevant to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State rightly pointed out in his speech. On the question of what happens if there is no deal, Mr Barnier said:

“Here also, I want to be very clear: in a classic negotiation, ‘no deal’ means a return to the status quo. In the case of Brexit, ‘no deal'”,

he claimed,

“would be a return to a distant past.”

He is wrong—that is not the case. I think the hon. Member for Brent North said that under the World Trade Organisation tariffs, there would be a 40% tariff on lamb, but even Mr Barnier says that custom duties would include

“an average of 12% on lamb and also fish”,

which is very different from what the hon. Gentleman asserted. I do not blame him—he was speaking from memory, so I am not criticising him—but I am just pointing out what Mr Barnier said.

Mr Barnier also made the extraordinary assumption:

“In practice, ‘no deal’ would worsen the ‘lose-lose’ situation which is bound to result from Brexit.”

Again, he is wrong. He went on to say:

“And I think, objectively, that the UK would have more to lose than its partners.”

That is just not so. He then went on to reveal what is really going on at the EU and with his negotiating position:

“I therefore want to be very clear: to my mind there is no reasonable justification for the ‘no deal’ scenario. There is no sense in making the consequences of Brexit even worse. That is why we want an agreement.”

They want an agreement because they know, just as Allister Heath, the distinguished editor of The Sunday Telegraph, pointed out in an article two weeks ago, that German car makers are getting really worried about the idea that there will not be an agreement, because that is not in their interests either.

On trading relationships, it is absolutely essential to remember that, while we will continue to have some 40% of our trade—although the figure is declining—with the internal market, or the framework of the remaining 27 member states, we run a monumental deficit of £71 billion a year with the EU, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) has said. That figure went up by £10 billion last year alone, and we do not even have this year’s figures, which will be even greater. The Office for National Statistics may have indicated to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State how much worse they will be by this time next year.

By the same token, our global trade surplus with the rest of the world, in goods and services, imports and exports—that is the golden thread and the parameter that international trade statistics rely on—is expanding at an enormous, accelerating rate. That is the basis of our future prosperity. I say with respect to Opposition Members that more effective trade with the rest of the world, including taxing companies, will result in greater profitability. Out of that enormously growing prosperity zone, we will be able to pay for the public services that the public want and we want. The national health service will actually have more money at its disposal as a result of our successful international trading relationship with the rest of the world.

Mr Barnier went on to make an interesting observation:

“To my British partners I say: a fair deal is far better than no deal.”

That may be how it looks, but the truth is that they have to be very careful that they do not put us in the position of having to accept the idea of no deal. If that happens, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, the advantages to us of trading on WTO terms are simply not unsatisfactory at all—quite the opposite. We all need to be realistic.

Interestingly, Mr Barnier then referred to the great port of Zeebrugge, which he said he will visit shortly,

“and for which the UK is the primary market with 17 million tonnes of roll-on roll-off traffic in 2016”.

He went on to say that he could not imagine, in the interests of the UK, Flanders and Belgium, that it would be a good idea to have

“an interruption of supply or a highly efficient organisation being called into question.”

We do not want a trade war over ports with the rest of the European Union. As I pointed out in an intervention, it was the EU that introduced the ports regulation. We had a massive row in the House of Commons, including in Committee, and I have been dealing with the issue as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee for the past two years. It is, however, going ahead, and the reason for that is that there is no way we can stop it. That is the response to the questions that have been asked. The reality is that until we get our sovereignty back and get the ability to run our own ports system on our own terms, we will be subjected to things like the ports regulation, which was put through by a majority vote behind closed doors. Nobody really knows who decided what. I tried to find out, but we could not make any serious progress in discovering who was making decisions. A lot of it, I think, was coming from Hamburg, because it has an enormous interest in preserving its own position.

The imposed rules were rejected by every single one of our 47 ports—not just the employers but the trade unions, which all piled in and said, “We can’t tolerate this new ports regulation.” Yet there it is, going through, if it has not gone through already while we were away for the general election. The bottom line is that our ports are the arteries for the lifeblood of our international trade, and they have been such for four centuries, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said.

Voter Registration

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

rose—

Referendums

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats will support this statutory instrument, which, as the Minister says, puts in place legislation for the referendum on 23 June. He will know that the coalition legislated so that any treaty change would trigger a referendum, but, as we know, his party won the election on the basis of a manifesto commitment to offer a referendum independent of any treaty change, and so we are where we are now.

[Sir William Cash]

Is the right hon. Gentleman thinking that the European Union Act 2011, which many of us opposed for all sorts of reasons, should be severely amended and/or repealed with regard to treaty change?

[Tom Brake]

We have a referendum ahead of us, and I suggest we get on with that before looking at whether to make any changes to that Act.

The Liberal Democrats support the referendum on 23 June. I have been in this House for some time now—longer than some Members but not as long as others—and it seems to me that, in this House and beyond, we have had a very full debate in recent general elections about the EU and whether we should or should not be members of it. As I said in an earlier intervention on the Minister, there is certainly no confusion in the minds of the electors in my constituency between the mayoral and Assembly elections taking place in May, and the EU referendum that will take place, presumably on 23 June. Clearly, it is more difficult for the political parties and the campaigners if one election follows on so relatively quickly after another.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I am confident that if we have a united front from the SNP campaigning positively on the matter, from the Labour party and from the Prime Minister—I am pleased to say that he has, after I requested it, come out forcefully behind the campaign in support of staying in—we will collectively win the campaign. I look forward to doing that.

As I said, we need to get on with the campaign, which is actually about the peace, prosperity, opportunity and security that we derive from being a member of the EU; it is not about “Project Fear” at all. The Conservative party, or those on the Benches immediately in front of me, may refer frequently to “Project Fear”, but I must say that quite a degree of whitewash or “Project Status Quo” is coming from those on the Government Benches.

[Sir William Cash]

I am so glad that the right hon. Gentleman has referred to “Project Status Quo”, because I am sure he will accept that almost nothing has changed, for example, on ever closer union, or in any word of any treaty or law in relation to the EU. Would he therefore be good enough simply to say that he agrees with us that proper, impartial information should be published, and that the current documents simply do not cut the mustard?

[Tom Brake]

What I will agree with the hon. Gentleman on is the fact that there is a “Project Status Quo”, but I think he has misunderstood the point I was making, which was that there are people on his side of the argument who would like us to come out of the EU and who claim repeatedly that the basis on which we would be able to trade with the EU would be unchanged. They say, “There is no change. It will be exactly the same. We will get exactly the same terms whether we are in or out.” That is why I referred to “Project Status Quo”.

Summer Adjournment

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Lady has put her clarification on record.

I heard Members behind me expressing surprise that Europe was not a big issue. I can only say that consistently, year after year, when I ask people what issue is most important to them, they reply that it is health, education or law and order. It is not Europe. I think we had better leave it at that.

As the hon. Lady will know, the European Union (Referendum) Bill is currently being debated, and will return to the House in September. I do not know whether she is a member of the Bill Committee, or indeed whether she would wish to be a member of it, given that its sittings seem to be finishing quite late and may continue to do so. She said that there was scope for reform of the European Union, and I accept that. I think there is agreement among Members on both sides of the House that the EU can and should be reformed. The justice and home affairs opt-outs, for instance, are part of the process. That reform may well deliver some changes which I think would be supported by Members in all parts of the House.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Let me point out to the Deputy Leader of the House—who represents a constituency where my family lived for the best part of 100 years—that his assertion that Europe is not much of a priority in the minds of the electorate is completely at odds with the findings of all the opinion polls over a number of years. He might like to look at the report of a Westminster Hall debate entitled “National Parliaments and the EU”, which was initiated by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) the day before yesterday, and in which I took part. I think that all the questions to which he ought to be referring now are contained in the speeches that she and I gave.

[Tom Brake]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend’s family were resident in my constituency 100 years ago, but things may have changed in the last 100 years. All that I can reflect today is the feedback that I receive regularly from my constituents—and I should add that I am the only one who has that information. No one else here has it.

On the European Union, let me finally say that one of the risks of being outside it—I think that this is Norway’s experience—is that a country will end up paying much more than it would pay if it were inside.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) made one of a number of suggestions that have been made today about holiday reading for Members. He recommended “You Can’t Hide the Sun”, by John McCarthy, and he spoke of what is happening to the Bedouins. He has tabled an early-day motion on the subject, and he is not alone: I believe that 21 Members signed it. There is clearly an acknowledgement in this place, at least, that it is a significant issue. I certainly agree with him that both the Israeli and US Governments have a significant responsibility for sorting out the situation there. I am pleased, therefore, that John Kerry has won Arab League support for his initiative to try to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and if they do restart I hope the Bedouin issue will come up. We need to see urgent steps to ensure that a two-state solution is introduced there. I am sure the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will look very carefully at my hon. Friend’s strong words on this subject when Hansard is published.

The right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) put on record his concerns about a failure to respond to his correspondence. I will ensure that is communicated to the Prime Minister’s office, and I hope a response to his letter is forthcoming. He talked about the NHS and alcohol, too. I hope he will acknowledge that the NHS budget is one of the budgets that has been safeguarded when many others have not. On alcohol, I think it is fair to say that a lot has been achieved through the public health responsibility deal, and it is worth pointing out that binge drinking is reducing, rather than increasing, which is also a positive trend.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) described a terrible experience a North Korean student working with her at present had in North Korea. He is subsequently leaving that country. Her contribution highlighted the fact that often the issues of asylum and immigration get mixed up and we lose sight of the fact that the UK has a very important role to play in providing asylum for genuine cases of the type she described.

My hon. Friend referred to Lord Alton’s book. I happen to have a book called “Escape from Camp 14” by my bedside at the moment. I understand it is also about Korea, and although it is not exactly light holiday reading I intend to read it over the summer break.

My hon. Friend also gave some useful concrete examples of how UK citizens can help directly in North Korea. She gave the soft examples of making a financial or business contribution as a way of trying to open up a society that is still very closed. Finally, what she said about the desire of North Koreans to have access to information reminded me of the meetings I had about 30 years ago when I was in Czechoslovakia—as it then was—and met up with Hungarians. The Czechs were too scared to talk to westerners, but the Hungarians were a bit braver, and one of the things they said was how important it was that they could get news that was real news. They did not want to get their news through a filter that filtered out what was genuinely happening. That is clearly what is happening in North Korea, and the UK remains extremely concerned about reports of widespread and continued systematic human rights violations there. My hon. Friend will be aware that the UN has commissioned an inquiry to investigate human rights abuses, and we encourage the North Korean Government to co-operate fully with it and to engage with that process. My hon. Friend referred to the launch of a campaign on 27 July that will be about raising the profile of the situation in North Korea and trying to achieve there what was achieved through the Burmese campaign.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) went into some detail about a constituent of his, Ms Chung, and he has put down a very detailed request that I am sure the Home Office will want to respond to. I welcome the fact that the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the right hon. Member for Leicester East, has also indicated that he will follow that matter up immediately, and I therefore hope my right hon. Friend will get a swift response on the issue of the passport, the fact that his correspondence has not been responded to and the request that the Home Office look at having a fast-track procedure. He will be aware that one of the reasons the changes were made to the UKBA was to ensure a separation between its role in processing the customer-focused part of the work it does from the enforcement part, to try to achieve what he was trying to achieve for business people.

The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East, focused on obesity and diabetes, as I mentioned earlier. He is a recognised campaigner on the issue in this House and referred to some of the statistics that highlight why we should take the matter seriously. As 10% of the NHS budget is spent on addressing the issue and 80% of cases are preventable, there is a clear win for the health service if we can focus on that. He referred to the responsibility deal and clearly felt that it was a mixed blessing—or at least that it was not delivering in the way he would like and that the substance behind it had not materialised. We all, as a Government, as Members of Parliament and as members of the wider public, need to do our bit to ensure that the 536 organisations that he referred to as having signed up to it are doing what they volunteered to do and to draw attention to them if they have not.

The right hon. Gentleman might like to know that I visited Greenshaw secondary school, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), which has recently changed the catering contract and appointed a new chef. The new chef is cooking everything fresh in the school and there has been a huge uptake in school meals as a result. I visited and the queues were phenomenal, as a lot of the children chose to stay in school to have their meals as opposed to taking packed lunches or leaving school. Things can be done in schools, even within the same budget, if they are willing to be imaginative. The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the matter in relation to diabetes in the House before, in the debate on 24 April 2013.

The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) mentioned the distressing case in Meltham involving a postman, Jason Lee, and we will all want to join the hon. Gentleman in wishing him a full recovery. The hon. Gentleman and all Members will know that the CWU has done a lot of work on the issue. It is not only postal workers—I suspect that we have all been out delivering leaflets fairly recently and have faced the same sort of risks trying to push our respective party literature through doors in our constituencies. It clearly is a real issue and we have probably all experienced individual cases similar to the one he described.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) intervened to suggest that the hon. Member for Colne Valley was trying to compete with the hon. Member for Southend West in listing constituents who had achieved notable things, but the hon. Member for Colne Valley praised volunteers, which is something we cannot do enough in this place. I want to take the opportunity to praise OGRES—the Onslow Gardens residents association—which I visited yesterday. It is a volunteer organisation like any other, and is campaigning against a large McDonald’s that it does not want to see built on Stafford road. The hon. Gentleman mentioned 4th Golcar Scouts and the effective work they have done in signing up lots of adult volunteers to help them expand the work they can do.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the Tour de France—which, it seems, might be slightly lost if it is going through his village, or to have gone slightly off-piste—and it will clearly be a fantastic event for Yorkshire and the UK. We will all cherish the occasion, particularly if we manage to win it again.

Of course, we had a debate yesterday about MPs and second jobs. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not just a second, but a third, fourth, fifth and sixth job, but they are all volunteer jobs, so if the motion had been agreed to, he would not have been banned from undertaking them.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the last speaker in the debate, mentioned the fatalities on the A35 and the discussions he has had with the Department for Transport and the Highways Agency about Hunter’s Lodge junction. He has used this opportunity, rightly, to raise the issue’s profile. He talked about health funding for primary care. It is an interesting fact that the age profile of residents of Axminster and Honiton is what we are expecting the national age profile to be by 2035, so we probably have quite a lot to learn from those towns’ experiences, in terms of types and costs of services. He made a request for a new school; I am sure that the Department for Education will have listened carefully to that request, and will respond to it. He also asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to consider carefully issues to do with environmental schemes and payments to farmers. I am sure that it has listened carefully to his contribution.

We have come to the end of this debate. I have had slightly more time to wrap up than I am used to, so I will take a few minutes to thank you, Mr Speaker, for keeping us on a fairly tight leash this Session; the staff of the House for helping us to ensure that this place runs smoothly; and the staff in the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons for supporting me and the Leader of the House in our roles. I hope that all Members enjoy the recess and come back full of energy in September for the full programme of activities that we will undertake then.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

Common European Sales Law

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I rise briefly to highlight some concerns with the proposals. The perspective of Which? and Consumer Focus is that the different contract laws do not stop consumers or businesses from cross-border trading to any significant degree. It is not clear that the proposal would lead to an expansion of such trade, and it could lead to greater complexity and therefore increase business transaction costs.

There is no legal certainty that the measure would be applied uniformly across the EU. It therefore has the potential to create legal uncertainty and confusion for customers, and it would not provide them with choice, because they would continue to be limited to accepting the contract offered to them by the supplier.

There are grave reservations in relation to the potential for the measure to lead to back-door harmonisation of contract law. I am sure that if my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) had been in a position to stay for the whole debate, he too would have made those points.

I understand the Government’s perspective of subsidiarity, but the measure is an optional change, not an imposed one. Can subsidiarity in all cases overrule something that is optional and not mandated? The Minister rightly said that the regulation would not be simple to use and that complexity is involved, but have the Government assessed whether the proposal is more complex than the current legislation? Do they recognise that the Federation of Small Businesses says that small businesses need to be able to afford to compete in different markets in the EU?

The proposal raises many more questions than it resolves, and therefore a detailed and extensive consultation is required.

[Mr Cash]

I rise simply to say that the City of London corporation has also provided a method of objection and to add it to the other representative organisations I mentioned.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Tom Brake and William Cash

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who has consistently held his views on this issue over many years. I have a lot of sympathy with what he has said. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), for whose views I also have much sympathy.

I want to comment on a point made by the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe). I know he is an honourable man, but he made an unfortunate comment which I suspect was down to an over-enthusiastic, wet-behind-the-ears political novice who is working in his office at present, who got a quote from the Labour agents’ handbook suggesting that the coalition Government’s proposal is some kind of political stitch-up for the benefit of the Deputy Prime Minister. That was an unfortunate comment, and it demeans the hon. Gentleman, because it has no credibility whatever. To suggest that the coalition Government would put the country’s security at risk is extremely regrettable, and I wish he had not made that remark.

I would prefer it if this debate did not have to take place, but I realise that we cannot allow control orders to lapse without anything in their place. I therefore welcome the fact that this is a temporary renewal, and that, as the Minister said, this will be the last occasion of its kind. We have a very clear milestone—31 December this year—by which the alternative arrangements need to be in place.

[Mr Cash]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in order to have effective and just alternative arrangements, they must be pivoted on habeas corpus, fair trial and due process, and any substitute within the framework of human rights legislation would simply not be workable?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which he has made a number of times over the past couple of days. I certainly agree with him that any process must be heavily based on a judicial process; indeed, that is central to this debate.

It also gives me some reassurance that, where the coalition was able to take immediate action, such as on the 14-day provision, such action was indeed taken. Since this debate last took place, I have met—a couple of months ago—someone who was the subject of a control order that had been quashed. That happened because, eventually, some of the evidence held against this controlee had to be released. One of the apparently most convincing pieces of evidence held against him was that, when he was on the top deck of a bus with his son, he had stood up and turned in such a way that the camera could not see him, and therefore he had clearly been given counter-surveillance training.

That person set out precisely what his experience had been. He was at home when, all of a sudden, a large number of police officers came through the door. He was told, “We are now going to relocate you. No, you can’t call a lawyer. We are going to relocate you to a part of the country you’ve not been to before. That doesn’t matter—that is where you are going.” He was then subject to conditions which meant that going out to work was not a possibility—doing that is not possible for someone who has to be back in their residence perhaps three hours after leaving it. If they live in a place that is already some distance from the town where they work, no sooner have they got there than they have to come back. They can therefore forget working, going to university and so on.

That experience led that person to have a breakdown and to abscond, because he could not take the pressure of the control order he was subjected to. As I said, it was eventually quashed, because when some of the evidence against him was produced, it was considered not terribly convincing.

There was one very regrettable aspect of the review process. The hon. Member for Islington North rightly talked about the other organisations that should be consulted as part of this process. It is very clear that one group of people who were not consulted as part of the process was controlees who subsequently had their control orders quashed. In order to get an appreciation of the effectiveness of this measure, what alternatives could be put in place and whether, psychologically speaking, this is a good way to move people away from terrorism—if that is what they are inclined to pursue—it would have been sensible as part of the review process to sit down and listen to some of these people’s stories. However, that has not happened. That omission needs to be addressed in any ongoing process of examining the new legislation, and I hope it will be.

Whatever the alternative measure is, it clearly has to be a qualitative improvement from a civil liberties perspective—and, indeed, from a security perspective—on what was there before. It has to put the onus on prosecution rather than containment. All too often, as is acknowledged, one of the purposes of control orders is to contain people for long enough for them to lose track of the people whom they had had contact with in the context of terrorist activity, so in many respects it is simply a containment process. People are kept for as long as it takes for them to lose track or lose interest—or, indeed, grow up—and therefore not pursue that line of action. Therefore, the focus was not on trying to prosecute people and that was a mistake. I hope that the proposed terrorism prevention and investigation measures—TPIMs—will ensure that prosecution is very much at the heart of what happens. Lord MacDonald has set out clearly how that process could work and how a limited process of a couple of years could be allowed for such a prosecution to take place, and the Government will need to examine that very carefully.

As has been mentioned, further clarification is needed on curfews. As we know, a curfew does not stop someone doing what they want to do—that is also the view of Lord MacDonald. To replace a curfew with a shorter curfew is not the right course of action. A curfew, be it for 12 or 10 hours, is still a curfew and we need to examine the alternatives. For example, we might need to consider carefully a system where someone nominates a place of residence where they will be and has to give advance notice if they are going to be somewhere else on a particular day or week. We must not simply replace a curfew with a shorter curfew.

As I have stated, the judicial process has to be at the heart of the arrangement. Liberty has produced a useful crib sheet listing what applied under control orders and what will apply under TPIMs. I suspect that Liberty welcomes half the changes, although perhaps feels that more clarification is needed on a quarter of them. For example, control orders are renewed annually, but we need to know whether there will be a renewal process for TPIMs, as opposed to a permanent arrangement. As we have heard, there are question marks over the future of special advocates—perhaps that process could be changed—and, as I have said, we also need more clarification about exactly what is proposed on curfews. On some areas, particularly the judicial nature of the process, Liberty has severe reservations, as do I. I will certainly welcome anything that we can do to move this process into a court-based environment, rather than an Executive one, as will other Members who have spoken in this debate.

Clearly this is a crucial piece of legislation. There is a no alternative for us tonight; we cannot do anything but renew it, and that is entirely the right course of action. We have until the end of the year to flesh out what the alternative will be and to address some of these fundamental civil liberties considerations that require further clarification. I hope that we will see some substantial improvements from a civil liberties perspective, if not tonight, certainly as the draft legislation is developed, so that we can get rid of control orders and replace them with something with which I and others who are concerned about civil liberties will feel comfortable.