Victoria Prentis
Main Page: Victoria Prentis (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Victoria Prentis's debates with the Ministry of Justice
Leaving the EU: Justice System
Victoria Prentis Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and to join with former and current colleagues from the Justice Committee in discussing these important matters. I will not detain hon. Members long, because I, like others, have more questions than answers.
I will focus my remarks on dispute resolution. We know that when we leave the European Union, the EU treaties will cease to apply in the UK. We also know that the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice will be strictly time-limited to end in December 2020. What is less clear is how dispute resolution will be dealt with throughout the withdrawal, implementation and post-implementation period. I know the Minister had to face questions on this once already this week, from the EU Justice Sub-Committee, so I apologise for raising it with her again, but many of the questions will be similar to those she has already answered, and we will continue to ask those questions over the next few years until we have greater clarity on the position going forward.
When the Justice Committee undertook the inquiry, we did not have the benefit of either the future partnership paper or the draft withdrawal agreement, which have since been published. We heard from expert witnesses who indicated that the area of dispute resolution was complex and had not yet received much attention. As a consequence, what the Committee had to say on dispute resolution was very limited, because we did not have the information on which to make specific recommendations on what we would like to see in a dispute resolution mechanism. I am sure that, like me, my Committee colleagues welcome the various papers that have since been published and are grateful for the work that continues to be done on what the UK hopes to achieve in this area.
Article 160 of the draft withdrawal agreement makes it clear:
“The Union and the United Kingdom shall...make every attempt through cooperation and consultations to arrive at a mutually satisfactory resolution of any matter that might affect its operation.”
It is very hard to argue with that. Article 162 suggests the formation of a joint committee made up of representatives from the EU and the UK. My understanding is that the committee will supervise the implementation of the agreement and seek appropriate means to resolve disputes, which will not be by judicial process, but by arbitration.
We know that a joint committee is a common approach to international agreements. The future partnership paper says:
“Committees comprised of representatives from both parties are frequently established as part of free trade agreements, such as in the EEA agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement”.
That is reassuring, in so far as there must therefore be working examples to look to and learn from. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether any work has yet been carried out to examine the success of those other joint committees.
It is also not clear to me what will happen after the implementation period finishes. I accept that we are taking this one step at a time, but I think the Committee would welcome at least some understanding of what the Government hope for beyond 2020.