European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Debate between William Cash and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 20th May 2019 General Committees

[Sir William Cash]

Short of a Lazarus touch I would say the answer is yes, but I take nothing for granted in this place any more. I referred to a constitutional revolution and I fear that there are those who by one means or another will take almost any steps to overturn our established, centuries-old traditions of parliamentary government. As I have said many times in the House in the past year, we have a system of parliamentary government, and not government by Parliament.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Just so I understand the import, if my hon. Friend succeeds in his annulment, would the United Kingdom leave the European Union immediately or would we, as a matter of international law, still be bound in to the European Union until Halloween, when this nightmare can end, so that on All Saints day we would then be free?

[Sir William Cash]

That is a wonderful thought. We have to take one step at a time. One step is to use the procedures of this House to seek an annulment, which we are entitled to seek, and to press for it. Then there is the question whether the courts would adjudicate on a case brought before them. That is yet to be decided or pursued. At the same time there is the question whether we have a vote on the Floor of the House. Although we will have a vote in this Committee, as I explained earlier, I have been advised that I am entitled to call for a vote on the Floor of the House. There may not be a debate but there can be a vote.

It will also be noticed that the end of paragraph 6.6 of the explanatory memorandum, which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary signed off—or rammed through—at 4.15 pm on the fateful day, states that

“this legislation would come into force and take effect by reference to the current definition of ‘exit day’”—

wait for it, Sir Lindsay—namely

“11.00 p.m. on 12 April 2019.”

According to the Government’s explanatory memorandum, provisions come into effect on 12 April 2019—they are not on the fundamental issues that we are discussing today. I find that extraordinary. I should have thought that that in itself that was worthy of special attention.

The combined effect of these provisions, in my view, comes within the Standing Orders of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, particularly in relation to assessing the technical qualities of the statutory instrument, and matters to which the special attention of each House would need to be drawn. Those are, first, that the statutory instrument imposes or sets the amount of a charge on the public revenue of as much as £7 billion, by reason of the extension from 29 March and/or 12 April, which would not otherwise have been borne by the United Kingdom taxpayer. There is serious and grave doubt as to whether there is power to make the statutory instrument in the form in which it has been made. Undoubtedly an unusual or unexpected use is being made of the power to make that statutory instrument. We have never seen its like before.

In all the circumstances, and bearing in mind that my early-day motion 2294 is a prayer in the form of an humble address praying that the statutory instrument be annulled, and has been signed by 83 Members of Parliament, I appeal to members of the Committee. Looking round, I see a range of people, some of whom are not members of the Committee, but who are all good, stalwart Members of Parliament. There are others who for a variety of reasons have already voted for the exit day prescribed, on 29 March, for the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, for the referendum and, during a general election, on a manifesto that made it clear we were going to leave the European Union. I believe that there is every reason for this Committee to vote for this statutory instrument to be annulled.

Running parallel to this, several legal actions are pending on the question of vires and the question of whether the statutory instrument is lawful or unlawful. The courts may rule that these regulations are unlawful, or Parliament may decide that it does not want to carry on with them because it would be completely inconceivable that they go through in the circumstances I have described, given it has converted the parliamentary procedure from affirmative to annulment procedure, exploiting the Cooper-Letwin Bill—actually, that was not the case. It was done in Committee, in circumstances that I would describe as discreet to say the least—people did not catch on to the fact that it was happening. It was a very unfortunate and, I believe, retrograde step to convert this statutory instrument procedure from affirmative to annulment procedure.

My argument, in a nutshell, is simply this. My personal belief, and I believe that of the other 82 Members who signed my motion, is that this statutory instrument should be annulled. On that basis, we would have left the European Union on 12 April 2019, and a great cheer would go up in the country.

European Union Bill

Debate between William Cash and Charlie Elphicke

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I do not decry the role of the House of Lords, the excellence of their lordships, the work that they do, their courage or the passion with which they advance their cases. Indeed, it is often said that the debates held in their lordships’ House are far more informed, considered, interesting and informative than our debates in this House. Having been in this place and not that place, I cannot compare the two. Nevertheless, it is a dangerous principle to say, “Let’s include a provision in the Parliament Act to say that the House of Lords should be not only the guardian of five-year Parliaments but the guardian of this Bill, to protect it from being altered.”

I would have much more faith in the proposal if reform of the House of Lords had been completed—something that I hope will come to pass. One of the problems that I have with the House of Lords is not the people in it or their mental ability—many of them are excellent people and their mental ability is far superior to mine—but my concern that they do not hold a democratic mandate. It is an important principle that where we have representatives in our legislature, they should have a mandate from the people. I guess it is because I am a Lincolnian politician—I believe in government for the people, by the people, of the people—that I believe that the sunshine of democracy should permeate our entire legislature, and not just this House. I admit to some radicalism in my thinking on such matters, but I believe it is important that all our politicians should be elected and have a democratic mandate.

[Mr Cash]

Will my hon. Friend turn his mind to this radical thought? If the House of Lords were to become an elected Chamber, it would not make the slightest bit of difference in respect of the argument that he is presenting, because the Parliament Act would remain on the statute book. The argument that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has put forward would also apply to an elected House. The question, in a nutshell, is one of judicial supremacy, which is why I strongly support what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has been saying.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I take the view that this will be an important Act. It will introduce a referendum lock to ensure that we do not get dragged further into the European Union without consulting the British people. Inevitably, because Parliament is sovereign, it would be able to unravel the Act, to repeal it and to take away the people’s right to have a say in a referendum. That is the right of Parliament, but I do not agree with the argument for entrenching it to the same extent as the Parliament Act, as is suggested in the new clause. The Parliament Act is an entrenchment of our basic right not to have our democracy stolen from us. I would not place this legislation on that same lofty plane. It is important that Acts of Parliament should be able to be changed or repealed by a sovereign Parliament. The political issue is that any person or party that repeals an Act such as this will reap the whirlwind from the electorate. I am happy that we are able to pass and repeal Acts, and that the electorate should have the final say at an election, at which point they can condemn any such behaviour. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley).

European Union Bill

Debate between William Cash and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

I am grateful for that, Mr Evans, because otherwise the hon. Lady might have tempted me yet again. She knows my soft point, and she knows very well that it would not take me long to get going on that issue, either. But, she is right.

I have tabled a number of amendments, but I do not intend to press them to a vote, because we have had a thoroughly good debate, and I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere, think that further consultation between the Minister, his officials, the European Scrutiny Committee and our Clerks might help to ensure that we get the maximum out of the provisions, even if they do not really measure up.

In any case, we know what happens in our votes; we have watched them now for about a week. On one occasion, we reached 45 genuine—as I call them— abstentions. By the way, Mr Evans, your name appeared on one list, but I said, “No, he’s Chairman of Ways and Means; this is not somebody you can count in.” Anyway, on parliamentary sovereignty we had between 45 and 50 such abstentions, which is quite a lot, but it is not anything like as many as the number of Members who rather agree with us in the broadest sense. I shall not go down that route, but what happens in votes is not very edifying. We do not win votes, because people are being told to vote in a way that is inconsistent with what they think, and that is another democratic problem.

Amendments 99 and 98 are mischievous, simply because they were tabled only to demonstrate my concern, which I have just raised, that opt-ins should not be allowed under any circumstances. On amendment 47, however, regarding the harmonisation of criminal offences and sanctions, my hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton, for Hertsmere and for Daventry are right. I am reluctant to adopt a default position, but for the purposes of debate I want to get out into the open something that concerns me, because the harmonisation of criminal offences and sanctions, on which I dare say books could be written, ought to be as restricted as possible.

Article 83(2) of TFEU, as I state in amendment 47,

“permits the establishment by directive of minimum rules with regard to the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in an area subject to harmonisation measures by the same ordinary or special legislative procedure as was followed for the adoption of the harmonisation measures in question.”

In a nutshell, I should like that to be one of those measures—from the written statement to which the Minister has referred—that ought to be discussed properly.

Let us think about what the harmonisation of criminal offences and sanctions affects and what its consequences are for the people whom we are elected to represent. If I cannot win the vote on my desire to throw out the whole measure, my minimum default position, however cynical and unhappy I am about opt-ins anyway, is to attempt to include it in the arrangements that the Government have provided.

Those are my thoughts on this group of amendments and on my amendments. If I sound a little concerned about them, I hope that Members will understand. As my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton said, I see the provision under discussion as an enormous step. I am not sure that it is beneficial, because it assumes that there will be opt-ins. There are 30 or 40 of them, and there have already been eight in the past few months. The trend exists, and I do not see anything holding back the tsunami. Indeed, I see the tsunami being built up, and that is not in the interests of the democratic principles by which this House is elected.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is much concerned about Members from all parts of the House being under the control of the Whips. For my part, I would like to say how much I agree with—

European Union Bill

Debate between William Cash and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

Amendments 1 and 3 stand in my name. My comments boil down to what I said in my interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and were somewhat anticipated by the Minister earlier. In a nutshell, I see no reason why clause 2 should refer to an exemption condition or subsection (3) should state:

“The exemption condition is that the Act providing for the approval of the treaty states that the treaty does not fall within section 4.”

Without any further let or hindrance, clause 4(4) would exclude from those arrangements that would result in a proposal for a referendum

“the codification of practice under”

the treaties already established

“in relation to the previous exercise of an existing competence”,

and

“the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom”.

That is, I think, an incredibly important point. Also, as we have debated already, it would remove

“in the case of a treaty, the accession of a new member State”,

which in this case would include Turkey. In the context of what the Government clearly want to exclude—in other words, their positive policy decision not to allow the British people a referendum on certain treaties of immense importance—they are disavowing the very intentions and principles that underpin the Bill.

I have made that point before over the question of sovereignty, where there is a massive contradiction between what is on the tin and what is in the Bill. I say again that those of us who spoke in favour of the sovereignty of Parliament won the argument, but that was not on the tin and it was not what the Whips—or, indeed, the Prime Minister—wanted, so it was voted down. That does not reflect particularly well—if I may say so—on our democratic system. We are faced with exactly the same point here. We are told on the tin that we will have a referendum on important matters—that is the general idea as explained in the Foreign Secretary’s article in The Sunday Telegraph only a week ago—but on examination in Committee, it becomes perfectly obvious that certain kinds of treaty will be excluded. I have mentioned the example of Turkey, but I want to give another specific example of the kind of treaty that would be excluded.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Cash]

I think that my hon. Friend can wait, if he does not mind.

I want to give an example that deals explicitly with a matter of immense importance that is coming up in the lift. In fact, it is not merely in the lift; the lift has come up and the doors are opening. Monsieur Fillon, the French Prime Minister, came over to see the Prime Minister specifically about this issue, and I have here the exclusive interview in The Times with Monsieur Fillon. I also had the opportunity to meet the French Minister for Europe and discuss the matter with him personally and privately.

There is no doubt about what they want or what they intend, which is effectively a twin-track treaty, which is a treaty entered into by us and the rest of the European Union—that is, with all 27 member states, in order to legitimise it within the framework of the treaty arrangements—so that they get their treaty and, within that treaty, an arrangement specifically designed to exclude the United Kingdom, even though we would be gravely affected by it. It would apply only to those other member states.

Clause 4(4) refers to

“the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom”.

They look like innocuous words, but what do they actually mean? That exemption condition—in other words, no referendum, to put it bluntly and simply—means that there would be no opportunity for a referendum if the other member states agreed to go down that route. They may well do that, despite all the protestations to the contrary, some of which were rather subtly indicated by the Prime Minister in his press conference, albeit without excluding the idea of any such treaty; rather, it was merely on the supposition that that might not affect us as much as we believe, or as I believe the British people would believe if they saw it in black and white. What do those provisions include? In particular, they include arrangements of that kind relating to fiscal, political, social and employment measures, not to mention other matters that would affect the relationship between us and the rest of the European Union. A massive juggernaut would be created, through a form of extremely enhanced co-operation between those member states, that would have an enormous impact on the United Kingdom.

I have been looking at the balance of payments between us and the other member states. The figures, which I got from the Library, only bring us up to 2009, before the catastrophe that hit Europe occurred, and they are alarming. The imbalance in the balance of payments between us and the other member states has been moving critically in the wrong direction. I could give the precise figures—I may do so later—but we only have to consider the following example, which was on the “Today” programme this morning. If one had listened to the programme, one would have heard about Belgium, which is in massive crisis, with protests and people on the streets, and no Government for 22 months. Greece is in absolute chaos, with protests and implosion, while Ireland, with its political crisis, is totally imploding. Spain has 4 million unemployed, with 40% youth unemployment and people on the streets on a massive scale today. Similar problems are also occurring in Italy, and there have been riots and serious unrest in France, too.

The bottom line is that Europe is not working according to the economic governance that has been prescribed. Yet under what is proposed, the opportunity to address the very kind of treaty that would enhance the ability to confront us with a massive juggernaut of policies that have been going wrong—policies that would undermine the opportunity to grow from our 45% to 50% investment in Europe—would be severely depleted. That would be the most damaging kind of treaty that could be entered into. Indeed, as I said in The Times on the day that the French Prime Minister came over, it would be the kind of treaty that I would expect our Prime Minister to veto on behalf of the British people. However, we cannot have confidence that that would happen, because of the argument being presented. This Bill was introduced on 11 November, when we know that treaties of the kind that I have just described were already being anticipated, however damaging and disastrous they would be for the very people of this country who, if they knew the facts, would say, “I insist on a referendum on any treaty relating to arrangements of this kind.”

It would be an abomination for us to be confronted with the kind of arrangements that are being put into place—arrangements that would be so damaging to our growth and our relations with the European Union. That is why I say that this exemption provision has to be taken out of the Bill, for precisely the reasons that I have given. I do not need to enlarge on that point, but I absolutely insist that these provisions should be taken out. I look to the Minister, if he thinks that I am wrong, to give me a reasoned answer as to why.

European Union Bill

Debate between William Cash and Charlie Elphicke

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

If I may continue, Lord Justice Laws went on:

“It cannot stipulate as to the manner and form of any subsequent legislation.”

In other words, one Parliament cannot bind another. He continued:

“It cannot stipulate against implied repeal any more than it can stipulate against express repeal.”

That is a simple and clear principle.

It is not terribly helpful to have a codification—I am concerned about that—but we do not need to say “is sovereign”, because that poses the question of what “sovereign” means, as the Foreign Office pointed out. I do not think that that is a particularly helpful or constructive debate.

The real issue in the Bill is referendums and holding them on whether we should go any further into the EU. I pray in aid some of the submissions that were made to the European Scrutiny Committee. Paul Craig saw clause 18 as “sovereignty as dualism”. He said:

“It says nothing about sovereignty as primacy, and it doesn’t purport to reiterate, or iterate, the parent idea of sovereignty. There is no harm in having clause 18 if you wish it as a symbolic reaffirmation of the common law principle”—

I agree that it does no harm, but I am not sure whether “common law principle” is right; I think that it is a constitutional principle, so I slightly disagree with him—

“that a statute has no impact in the United Kingdom unless or until it is embodied in an Act of Parliament.”

I think that Professor Hartley also made a submission to the European Scrutiny Committee—doubtless, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) will correct me if I am wrong. He said:

“I think that the clause has value, because it emphasises that this is the law and this is the constitutional position. In my opinion, even without clause 18, courts would do what it says, but it would encourage and sort of strengthen them. I think that it has value even though, strictly speaking, it does not change anything.”

Although I have personal doubts as a slightly picky lawyer about the sense of including clause 18, I believe that it does no harm and it also underlines the principle that the UK Parliament has decided on and voted for membership of the European Union.

[Mr Cash]

I am afraid that I have to inform my hon. Friend that Professor Hartley did not address the question of the common law principle in his evidence. My amendments address that problem. The intrusion by judicial assertion to undermine parliamentary sovereignty is the problem, not the fact that the “status of EU law” says neither one thing nor another and is inherently unnecessary.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, with whom I agree on so many matters about the European Union. However, I regret to say that we must part company on the subject that we are discussing.

My hon. Friend prayed in aid Professor Tomkins, who gave written evidence, which stated:

“The doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament is better understood as having its legal source in judicial recognition of political fact rather in the common law.”

I am not sure whether that is right. I do not see it as “political fact”, rather as an important constitutional principle, which underpins—and has underpinned—all our dealings since at least the time of the Bill of Rights. Professor Dicey certainly gave voice to it.

Professor Tomkins continued:

“Neither clause 18 nor any other provision in the Bill safeguards the United Kingdom from the further development of EU law by the European Court of Justice.”

That is true. The European Court of Justice is a highly judicially activist court, but it does not have authority in the UK directly through our membership of the EU. Its judgments have effect in the UK in interpreting European law because we have, as a Parliament, voted to pass that European law.

That takes us back to whether we need to state that the UK Parliament is sovereign, and to whether the codification of a constitutional principle, which is well understood and to which the courts have adhered time and again, is necessary. I think not. However, I think that we should be more honest, realistic and straightforward about what really concerns us: the fact that we have too many laws from Europe. There are too many interventions in relation to the Human Rights Act, which causes too many problems and too often gives the sense to many of my constituents that the innocent are punished and the guilty go free. That is shocking. Time and again, constituents approach us to express those concerns.