European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), but let me also say how much I agree with so many of the comments in Conservative Members’ speeches about the folly of the Opposition’s decision to oppose the Bill at this stage. Opposition Members will vote against it without seeing that it actually has to be done. They say it has to be done, and indeed, it does have to be done: we must transfer all the regulations, directives, laws and so on. There are, as we all agree, many faults in the Bill, but Opposition Members will be letting down many of the people in their own constituencies who voted leave, and who will see this for the playing politics that it undoubtedly is.

I fully endorse and totally adopt all the contents of the speeches of my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and for Newbury (Richard Benyon). I very much note the outbreak of unity on the Government Benches, and indeed across the House as well. There have been some excellent speeches, and some very good points have been made by right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches. Notably, I have also taken into account the wise words of my right hon. Friends the Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and for Clwyd West (Mr Jones).

There is growing concern about the Bill, and my biggest concern is the power grab, as I would put it, by Ministers—the transfer of powers to Ministers with very little, if any, influence for debate in the Chamber and decision making in this place.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Anna Soubry]

I will in a moment.

I want to thank my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, who have clearly already listened to the many concerns expressed by Government Members. I and others will be having a meeting with the Prime Minister, and I look forward to that. I also look forward, in due course, to some serious Government amendments being tabled, or perhaps the adoption of amendments that will no doubt be tabled by right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches.

As the House will know, I share the real concerns about clause 9. Frankly, I think it should simply be withdrawn. Clause 17 is certainly open, if not to withdrawal, at least to some serious, considerable and fundamental amendments. I am concerned about the delegated legislation for the reasons I have outlined in interventions and for those given in other Members’ excellent speeches. As I have said, I think we can find other mechanisms for delivering the delegated legislation while making sure that we scrutinise it properly. We have existing Committees that we can either strengthen or increase in size so that we can filter consideration out through so-called triaging. That is probably an appalling abuse of the word, but we all know what it means. It is a good idea, and it is gaining much support among Government Members as well as Opposition Members.

May I just say something that I think needs to be said? I say this to all the perfectly reasonable and sensible people, not just those in my constituency of Broxtowe, but the many millions throughout this country who voted leave on 23 June 2016. If anybody tells you that people like me are doing everything we can—in scrutinising legislation, tabling amendments and perhaps even voting for them—to thwart the will of the people, they are telling you lies. I am not going to put up with it any longer, because this needs to be said. We are leaving the EU. Even my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe accepts that we are leaving the EU. Some of us voted for doing that by triggering article 50, flying in the face of everything we have ever believed in, because we promised our electors that we would honour the result, and that is what we are going to do.

I would say to the millions who voted leave: you should not just question the motives of those who tell you that people like me want to thwart your decision, but look at the other things they promised you before 23 June 2016. They told you it would be this great opportunity to get rid of all the rules and regulations, the miles of red tape and all the things that were strangling British business and the economy, but we are going to take those very same things and place them lock, stock and barrel into substantive British law. They told you that you would get an extra £350 million for the NHS, and you will not. They told you that you would take back control, but if this Bill is not amended, you can forget that, because the people will not be taking back control in this place, but giving it to Ministers. That may not just be a Conservative Government; it could—God forbid—be a Labour Government led by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Finally, they told you it would all be so easy, and as you now know, it is not just challenging but a blooming nightmare. However, we will do our best to deliver it, and if it all goes wrong, do not forget that we will be here to clear up the mess, and do not forget who misled you and told you lies before 23 June 2016.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not used to being called so early in a debate.

Like many other Members, or perhaps all of them, I have received numerous emails and letters from constituents who have heard the comments and read the articles. They have heard that the Bill is about creating ministerial decree—fiat—as a result of Henry VIII clauses, and that it is an unnecessary power grab which jeopardises their rights and undermines their Parliament. I take those concerns seriously, as all of us should.

The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who made a superb speech today, highlighted the complexity of the Bill and some of the many questions that I should like to be addressed during its passage, but it needs to be given a Second Reading because, in my view and on the basis of what I have heard this afternoon, the principle is unquestionable. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) pointed out, the Bill itself is not so egregious or deficient that it does not provide a clear basis for its future stages—far from it.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The hon. Gentleman says that the principle of the Bill is good. What we have been discussing today is the principle of undermining parliamentary democracy. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that that is the principle that is at stake, and that is why we are against the Bill in its present form?

[Robert Jenrick]

I hope that the hon. Lady will be reassured by the comments that I shall go on to make.

Let us not get ahead of ourselves. Speaker Lenthall is not in the Chair, although we have a perfectly good successor in you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Charles I is not on his way with a warrant for the arrest of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), although some might like to see that. Statutory instruments are a parliamentary procedure. They are not fiat; they are not Orders in Council. They can be debated. We can go and speak about them, and we can vote on them. Parliament may treat them as a Cinderella whose job is to read emails or sign paperwork, but that is our choice. It reflects on the recent history of this place rather than on the procedure itself, or how it should be in the future.

The purpose of the Bill is explicitly to replicate what we have in European law, not to change it. I understand that at least 50% of the statutory instruments will make immaterial technical changes about which no Member in his or her right mind—I know that some Members may not be—would have any concern. There needs to be a mechanism to sift based on materiality, and that point has been made eloquently by many Members today. I hope that such a mechanism will be created in Committee. There will be some material issues—issues on which I have some expertise, or issues that my constituents care about—and I should like to speak about them and ensure that we make the right decisions, but they will not be the majority. I am sure that the whole House can and will find a sensible mechanism during the Committee stage.

Constituents have also emailed me to ask, “Is this necessary?” Of course it is necessary. This is an unprecedented challenge. As we heard from the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), it is byzantine. However much some of those who campaigned in favour of leave would like to hide the fact, it is undoubtedly the most complex challenge that has faced the country in my lifetime, if not before. We therefore need a step like this to move the vast majority of European law, if not all of it, on to the UK statute book before we leave.

Let us be honest: there is no easy way to do this. Although the shadow Secretary of State made an excellent speech, highlighting details, deficiencies and concerns, he did not really set out an alternative way of doing it. In fact, no one has done that today: no one has set out an alternative to the Bill that would require any of us to vote against it. The deficiencies and concerns that have been highlighted must and will be ironed out in Committee. That is the truth, and beyond that, I am afraid, it is all party political activity. The Bill, or something extremely similar to it, is necessary, so let us move forward together.

When I explain this Bill in principle to my businessmen constituents and others back in Newark, and appear before the Newark business club, as all of us have—well, many Members will have been to Newark, but not necessarily to visit the business club—they nod, because it is obvious that we need a Bill of this nature so that on the day we leave the EU they can have confidence that nothing substantial will have changed. That is why we need to proceed.

In closing, and perhaps as a rebuke to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), I say that we can love Parliament and want to jealously guard its rights and privileges created by our predecessors but still show pragmatism in the national interest when the times demand it, because that is politics. That is life; that is the job we are sent here to do. That is poetry and prose, romance and reality; that is what we are sent here to achieve. So every Member who wants a smooth transition and to give our constituents the certainty they are crying out for, and everyone who may have concerns about the deficiencies of this Bill but wants to work together in the national interest to iron them out in Committee and on Third Reading, should vote for this Bill on Second Reading.