European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Wayne David Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

This gets me back to the heart of my argument, which is that if one believes that the only authoritative evidence, the only view that matters, is that produced by the Government, one is turning one’s back on 400 years of Enlightenment thinking. There is not one single canonical view that is right in every respect. As was made clear earlier, there is a proliferation of views about what the impact of leaving the EU might be in different areas.

Further, if we were to have published the Government’s policy advice in every area, which is the inference behind the hon. Gentleman’s question, it would make the business of Government impossible. He might remember, as I certainly do, reading the words of the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in his autobiography, “A Journey”, in which he said that the Freedom of Information Act was his biggest mistake—I think there were some bigger. [Laughter.] That is one view that commands a consensus around the House. He thought he had handed a weapon to his enemies and made impossible the business of Government, which requires confidential advice to be prepared by civil servants and accepted by Ministers.

When I was a Minister, I received excellent advice—my mistakes were all my own, all the good ideas were civil servants’. Nevertheless, however good the civil service advice that a Minister receives, it is only one source of wisdom, and every Minister worth his or her salt will want to consult widely. Any Minister who sought to steer only by civil service advice would rightly be held by the House to be a timid mouse constrained by their brief, incapable of ranging more widely and of making a judgment in the national interest.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

On finance, does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Secretary of State for Brexit, who is prepared to consider our paying the EU for access to the single market?

[Michael Gove]

To be fair to both the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend, I think that that is a mischaracterisation of what he said. [Interruption.] It is. It is a mischaracterisation that was sedulously reported in some sections of the media. I make no criticism of the hon. Gentleman, but my interpretation was different, and in a way the fact that two such fair-minded—I hope—figures as he and I can, from the plain words in Hansard, reach two different conclusions rather proves my point, which is that we can ask for evidence but we cannot have a single definitive view. The argument, as made in the new clauses, that we cannot proceed until we have that so-called single, definitive, canonical view represents a profound misunderstanding.