European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and Dominic Grieve

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

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. We hear this fallacy that those of us who warn about a no-deal Brexit are somehow willing to sign up to any kind of bad deal—as if there is a bad deal that could possibly be worse than no deal.

I would like to hear an intervention from anyone on the Government or Opposition Benches who can explain how crashing out of the European Union over a cliff edge with no deal—meaning an immediate end to all existing contractual and legal obligations and to all the frameworks and protections, a hard border in Ireland, and the end of our trading agreements not only with the European Union, but through the European Union to countries across the world—could be worse than any kind of transitional deal. No deal would be the very worst deal, and it is astonishing that there are Government Members who not only entertain the possibility of no deal, but are enthusiastically encouraging it with the views that they put forward.

There have been many problems with the Prime Minister’s approach to Brexit, but in the Florence speech she tried to set out a practical and flexible framework through which we could now give certainty to business about the transition period and, crucially, through which there would be only one set of changes from our membership of the European Union to our future relationship with it once we leave.

This evening, the Government Front-Bench team have driven a coach and horses through the Florence speech. They cannot provide business with the clarity it needs on how the European Court of Justice will operate during transition. They ought to support our position, which is to remain in the single market and the customs union for the time-limited period of transition, because that would give business the certainty it desperately needs.

For Conservative Members to put their ideological vanity against the best interests of the British economy is selfish, reckless and irresponsible, and people should have no truck with it.

[Mr Grieve]

I will pick up two or three points that have been made in this important debate. There have some magnificent contributions, particularly from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). I will start with what he had to say because it is central to the debate.

I appreciate what the Government have been trying to do with clauses 5 and 6 on the way in which retained EU law should be interpreted. I agree with my right hon. Friend that the wording is opaque, although I think that I understand the Government’s intention on the role and supremacy of the Supreme Court in developing law, but that still does not get us away from the fundamental problem that EU law is different from our law. Its rules of interpretation are different and its purpose is different.

We will come back to that problem right through this Bill, whether on the charter of fundamental rights or the general principles of EU law. We cannot just take EU law and drop it into our law without leaving guidance on what the Government expect that law to be used for. I worry that the lack of explanation is most peculiar. It is not a question of wanting to keep EU law—I assume that it will all ultimately go away, anyway—but in the meantime there is a lack of clarity, and I can well understand why the judiciary, particularly the senior judiciary, are troubled by the lack of guidance. It is almost as though the Government have found it too embarrassing to want to grapple with it. They want to maintain continuity, but they do not want to maintain the implication of continuity because that is a difficult message to sell to some Conservative Members.

We will really have to look at this as we go through the Bill, and I am quite prepared to try to help the Government to find a way through. It is not that I want to keep its aura, and there are many Conservative Members who do not like it at all, but the simple fact is that we need to look at it.

The other issues that have been raised are absolutely right, but they are not relevant to this debate. We do not have the slightest clue what the transitional arrangements will be. We will have to have a completely separate piece of legislation to sort that out, and I suspect it will take a long time to go through this House. Ultimately, if we have a long-term agreement, there will be an interesting issue about whether we will be instructing our courts to mirror EU law so as to maintain comity with the Court of Justice of the European Union or risk constantly having to readjust our legal frameworks for the sake of that deep and special relationship.

I do not want to disappoint some of my right hon. and hon. Friends too much, but the harsh reality is that our geographical location and our desire to have a close trading relationship with the European Union will inevitably mean that decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union continue to have a major influence on our law here—I am afraid that was rather disregarded in last year’s referendum. I think that it is called globalisation, and we will have to return to that as we go along.