Domestic Abuse Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow my fellow Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). When the Domestic Abuse Bill was first proposed, none of us could have imagined debating it in circumstances such as this: when there is evidence that the number of women and children killed as a result of domestic abuse in a few short weeks has increased sharply and at its highest level for over a decade; when the calls to helplines are up by 50% and visits to some support websites are up sevenfold; and when some victims are feeling more trapped than ever because perpetrators of abuse are exploiting the coronavirus crisis to increase control and to commit crimes. Those perpetrators are taking advantage of the fact that it is harder for their victims to seek help: the social worker is not dropping by, the bruises will not be visible at the school gate the next morning; and the GP will not be asking questions at the next appointment. This is not just about lockdowns; the period afterwards may be much higher risk for victims, too. In the face of this deadly virus, we know that staying home to save lives is important, but that it is also why we have a responsibility to help those for whom home is not a safe place to be.

All those reasons show why this Bill is so important, but also why it is not enough. I welcome the Bill, the new powers and the new statutory duty of support for victims, which the Home Affairs Committee called for, although I would want it to go wider. I welcome the creation of the domestic abuse commissioner, which I first raised with the then Home Secretary seven years ago, but I press the Government to go further, including on a stalking and serial abuse register and on making stronger reference to children.

There are things in the Bill that we should be doing better and faster now, as we set out in our Home Affairs Committee report yesterday. First, if we believe in a statutory duty of support, let us start delivering it now. In many areas, refuges are full yet at the same time their funding has dropped, so the Government should ring-fence the new charity funds now and get them urgently to refuges and domestic abuse support groups. They should talk to the national hotel and hostel chains to provide supplementary housing and get a national guarantee of safe housing in straightaway.

Secondly, the Bill is about using the criminal justice system to protect victims and prosecute criminals, but the system faces new challenges. We recommended extending the time limit for domestic abuse-related summary offences, and we should do that now in this Bill.

Thirdly, if we believe in having a domestic abuse commissioner, let us listen to what she says now, because Nicole Jacobs has been appointed already, even if her powers are not fully in place. She told our Committee that a lot of things are in the way of getting people support in a crisis. She raised issues around housing, support services and perpetrator programmes and called for a cross-governmental working group and an action plan to sort things out. The Victims’ Commissioner told us that we should adopt a French programme that would provide emergency contacts in pharmacies and supermarkets. I heard from a police officer in the north-west trying to do that, but they need national intervention with the supermarkets to make it work. The Children’s Commissioner warned us about vulnerable children whom no one is visiting and no one has seen since the crisis began and the need for face-to-face contact. We need national action to make that possible.

Some of those important things are not happening because, bluntly, we need more leadership and drive from the centre, and that is why the Committee has called for an urgent action plan to be drawn up by the Home Secretary with the domestic abuse commissioner and others as part of the Cobra planning process.

This Bill is important, but if we are serious about the sentiments behind it that we are all expressing, we should see it as a chance to do more. If we do not, we will be dealing with the consequences of the surge in domestic abuse that we are seeing now for very many years to come.

Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I should like to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) on his thoughtful and beautiful speech. To give his maiden speech in that spirit shows the way in which he will work hard for his constituents to tell the stories not just of the two towns he represents but of the people within the towns, and also of the search for meaning and the search for purpose in politics. I really must congratulate him on making such a poignant and powerful maiden speech.

I rise to support this legislation. The purpose behind the Bill is the right one. It is to ensure that those convicted of terrorist offences are not released early without a Parole Board assessment of whether they still pose a danger to the public. In the past few months, we have seen two awful terror attacks—one on London Bridge and one in Streatham—and our hearts go out to those who were killed or hurt, and also to their families and to those who were there and witnessed the awful events. We owe our thanks and tributes to brave members of the public as well as to the police, the security services and the emergency services, and to those such as Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, who worked so hard on the rehabilitation of offenders in the community, and who worked every day to help keep others safe. They tragically lost their lives in the London Bridge attack.

I agree with the Lord Chancellor and with my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) that we should come together on this, because terrorists seek to undermine our way of life and to divide us, and we cannot let them so do. We have faced terrorist and extremist attacks for many years in this country. We have seen an increase in Islamist extremism and, more recently, an increase in far right extremism. The changing patterns of those threats include an increase in lone attacks by those who have been radicalised, either online or in prison. In those attacks, by extremists on all sides in pursuit of poisonous ideologies, people are hoping not just to hurt and harm us but to provoke fear and reactions that they can further feed upon. So it is a sign of our strength and resilience as a country that most people have always been determined to come together in the face of such extremism and attacks and not to let them divide us.

The Streatham attack highlights a problem. The police, the courts, the security services, the prisons, the rehabilitation and prevention services and the affected communities all need our support and also Government support to keep communities safe. That is why this Bill is justified and needed. When someone has been convicted of terrorism and they are still dangerous to the public, they should not be released early from prison. That means that, before they are released, they must be subjected to a proper Parole Board assessment of whether they still pose a threat. The seriousness of terror events and the dangers of radicalisation mean that the police often rightly intervene before an appalling attack takes place and charge people with preparatory offences, but in some of those cases the police, the security services, the courts, and the prison and probation service are all aware that they are dealing with people who are capable of something even more serious.

People have raised concerns about applying these new rules to those currently serving their sentences, and I accept the Government’s legal advice on the fact that the proposal does not change the length of sentences. We have always had administrative rules about the way in which sentences are served. For example, people are out on licence for the bit of the sentence that is served in the community. However, if licence terms are breached, people can be returned to prison to continue their sentence in custody, so that concept of risk is built into the criminal justice system, the system of custody and the system of sentencing. That is why it is right that the Parole Board should be able to assess the risk in such cases, just as they do in many other cases. It is sensible and proportionate.

I have already said to Ministers that it is important that this legislation is drawn up in a way that is robust against legal challenge, particularly to ensure that Parole Board assessments can take place. I agree with both the Lord Chancellor and my hon. Friend the shadow Minister that we must ensure that we keep our communities safe and do what is right while defending the British values of the rule of law and supporting the European convention on human rights—all the very things that terrorists try to undermine and threaten.

I also accept the need for emergency legislation and accept the Government’s warnings that they, the police and security services are concerned about other individuals who might otherwise be released without parole assessment and who they believe are a danger to the public and should not be released early without any kind of assessment. However, it is right to raise a concern that it is not ideal to be making this kind of legislation in a day. It is right that we do so in these circumstances, but the Government must recognise that it is not ideal to rush through legislation breathlessly.

To be honest, there have been many warnings that such an issue was coming down the track, because the Government have known about the problem for some time. The Home Affairs Committee took evidence from Neil Basu in October 2018 during the course of its consideration of what became the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, and he told us:

“The point that some of our radicalisers are getting short sentences, coming out early, and being able to continue is a problem, as is not having sufficient resources in place to use desistence or disengagement programmes.”

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I support the legislation, but I agree with my right hon. Friend that it feels a bit like a sticking plaster. The unanswered questions are the danger here. What happens to the people who we keep in prison longer unless there is effective intervention? What confidence can we have that MAPPA levels 2 and 3 are stringently managed and enforced? That is always the issue that must be addressed when such people come out of prison.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There is a danger that we are simply reacting to this situation in a hand-to-mouth way, rather than in a more strategic way that recognises some of the underlying issues that need to be dealt with over a long time. We may need further legislation, but that should be done in a thoughtful way, with proper scrutiny, not left until the last minute and, as a result, done in a breathless rush.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

The MAPPA review provides exactly that opportunity. We need this emergency legislation to go through, but it is by reviewing the MAPPA process that we will see results. One of the most crucial changes that I would like to the MAPPA process is to include Prevent co-ordinators in MAPPA meetings, because Prevent co-ordinators can understand that someone newly released has come to their community and say, “That individual is still a threat for the following reasons. I can map this individual against the communities and groups that they might be a risk to.” This emergency legislation is important because, for example, if we had had it in place, Anjem Choudary would still be in prison, but the crucial change will be to MAPPA so that Prevent co-ordinators can know where Anjem Choudary has gone and can therefore provide a relevant analysis of what he will do.

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree. Having a link between Prevent programmes and the MAPPA process is extremely important. There is a question here for the Government about how the MAPPA review and the Prevent review are going to link together. The problem is that we do not have a chair in place for the Prevent review, and I am unsure of the Government’s plans for the timetable for the two different reviews. It might be helpful, in fact, if the Minister were able to say something in his winding-up speech about how the two reviews will interact and how the Prevent review will be put back on track with somebody in place.

What happens before a terrorist incident happens and what happens afterwards—whether that be in prison or probation or in assessment—need to be properly integrated, and the expertise in different parts of the system needs to be pulled together and effectively co-ordinated. We have known for some time that Sudesh Amman was due to be released this January, for example, so we need a more effective system to anticipate the challenges, because there have been previous opportunities to change the legislation.

We also need to address what happens at the end of the sentence, because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) is right to describe this legislation as a sticking plaster if we do not look more widely. When the Parole Board decides that somebody still poses a serious risk, that person will still, however, have served their time after, say, another couple of years. If they still pose a threat to the public at that point, we still will not have addressed the heart of the problem. The former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Anderson, pointed out that if they are sufficiently dangerous to end up serving their whole sentence in custody, they will not have any further licensing conditions attached at the end of their sentence, nor will they be subject to further supervision.

In the past, we had control orders and imprisonment for public protection sentences to address such circumstances. The Minister will know that I opposed the removal of control orders, and we have had debates about the decision to end rather than just to reform IPPs. However, in their absence, the question for the Government is whether the existing arrangements with TPIMs, for example, are sufficient to address the circumstances for individuals coming out at the end of their sentence, having served the full sentence in custody, with no licence conditions attached. Do the Government have plans to address those individuals should they still prove to be a danger?

There is also a massive problem with what is happening in our prisons. The Chair of the Justice Committee has already raised this, but we do not yet have effective enough de-radicalisation programmes in prison. Former public prosecutors have warned that they have been underfunded. Academics point out that some prisoners who are willing to go on de-radicalisation programmes wait so long to get on them that they are released before they are able to do so. There are, of course, concerns about the effectiveness of the assessment of de-radicalisation programmes, the interaction between programmes that may work in the community but not in prison, and the best way to do this.

Nobody should ever pretend that this is easy or that there is a magical response to solve the problems. However, there are real worries that we are not doing everything we could in prisons. The concerns raised by Ian Acheson, who conducted an independent review of Islamist extremism in the prison and probation service, are really serious. He said that frontline prison staff were ill-equipped to handle the situation, prison imams did not possess the tools or the will to tackle extreme ideology, the intelligence gathering system was not working, and there were serious problems of lack of leadership and management and a lack of end-to-end systems. He concluded by saying that, frankly, the prisons are struggling to cope.

I heard what the Lord Chancellor said about things having moved on, but there is a problem in that we cannot judge whether that is right because the Government have refused to publish the entire Acheson report. I understand that there are sensitivities around radicalisation, but even Ian Acheson is not able to say, “Yes, all the problems are being addressed.”

There are continual reports of people being further radicalised in prison. These are cases not where de-radicalisation fails but where, in fact, there is greater radicalisation. Non-radicalised people who go into prison end up being converted not just to Islam but to extreme perversions of the religion that are, in fact, an ideology, not a religion.

A Wigan man was convicted of far-right extremism, but the judge concluded that this person would be vulnerable to further radicalisation and chose not to give him a prison sentence on that basis. We are in a very uneasy situation if our courts are reluctant to give prison sentences because they fear greater radicalisation. The prison system, which is supposed to be keeping us and our communities safe from extremism and terrorist threats, may instead be contributing to the problem and, in some cases, making matters worse.

I do not doubt the huge commitment and hard work of many people across our prison system to try to tackle radicalisation and extremism. However, the evidence we have seen from the outside is that the system simply is not working. It is not enough for the Lord Chancellor simply to give us his word that things have improved if there is no proper system of oversight or checks and balances to ensure that progress is being made. I urge the Lord Chancellor and the Minister to talk to the Justice Committee about what more can be done to ensure proper oversight so that we can be sure we are making progress on what is happening both inside and outside prisons.

We all have a shared interest in ensuring that extremists and terrorists are not able to threaten our way of life, to put people’s lives at risk or to threaten our communities and our democracy. There has often been cross-party consensus on the need to take a sensible approach to ensuring we protect both people’s safety and the values that terrorists challenge—the values of the rule of law and our democratic institutions. We need to challenge their ideology and work ever harder to make sure the systems that are supposed to address this can properly do so.

It is therefore not a surprise that we have cross-party consensus in support of the Bill today. This is a sensible and proportionate response to keep people safe and to address a genuine problem to which the criminal system has to adjust and adapt. It is also imperative on all of us to work further across parties to address some of the deeper, longer-term problems, on which the Government need to do more. I hope we will be able to work across parties on addressing those longer-term challenges so that we can do a better job of keeping us safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I am conscious of time. I would be happy to give way in Committee to debate this at greater length. I very much look forward to hearing my hon. Friend’s further views on this and I would be happy to take an intervention in Committee, but I must wrap up in a minute or so.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) asked about the MAPPA review and the Prevent review. The MAPPA review is under way and is being led by Jonathan Hall, QC. The Prevent review has a statutory deadline of August 2020, which we intend to abide by. We will make further announcements about its progress—this will include appointing a new reviewer—as soon as possible.

[Yvette Cooper]

Is it actually doing any work?

[Chris Philp]

It is a Home Office matter, but I do not think work has stopped simply because of the issue with the reviewer.

In conclusion—

Streatham Incident

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My right hon. Friend served with distinction as the Security Minister. Indeed, I remember sitting with him in the Bill Committee on the TPIMs legislation some years ago. He and I understand that a distinction is to be drawn between the sentencing process and that particular mechanism, but there is no doubt that there is merit in what he says about the way in which we need to make sure that those who pose a continuing risk are adequately monitored. I will consider his remarks very carefully indeed.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I join the Lord Chancellor in his tribute to the Security Service and the police, who work so hard on this issue. He is right to address the concerns relating to sentencing and parole, to ensure that dangerous terrorists and extremists who continue to pose a risk to the public are not released early, but he will know that the problem is not solved if it is just deferred to the end of the sentence. He will know that there have been considerable warnings about these risks, and that Ian Acheson has expressed considerable concern that the recommendations in his review have not been fully implemented. What is the Lord Chancellor’s assessment of the 69 recommendations that Ian Acheson made, and how many of them have been implemented?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, for her question. The Acheson recommendations were, with his agreement, consolidated into 11 particular measures, of which eight were accepted by the Government, and three were disagreed with. Having paid tribute to Ian Acheson and to the work that he did, and indeed to his continuing input into this important area, I think it is right to say that, since 2016, a lot has developed with regard to how we manage offenders. Indeed, the particular separation units that were recommended have been set up. The criteria for the use of those units obviously have to be carefully monitored so that we are not using them in an arbitrary way. At the same time, I am proud of the facilities at Belmarsh and Whitemoor, which I saw when I visited them myself. I know about the particular criteria that are applied in separation units and the intensive work that goes on. She and I know that this is a very difficult cohort: there are some who superficially comply and yet harbour their hatreds even beyond release; and there are others who are capable of rehabilitation. What we are talking about is more than just punishment. The watchword has to be public protection. Are we doing everything that we can to keep our streets safe? If we are not, then we need to do more. Hence today’s statement.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

rose—

[Robert Buckland]

I give way to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Yvette Cooper]

I urge the Secretary of State to reconsider this point. We have a Bill before us and the opportunity to address the issue of stalking. There is considerable overlap: many cases that may begin as domestic abuse become terrible cases of stalking when the relationship splits up. There are serial perpetrators of violence and abuse who in some cases are involved in domestic abuse and in others in stalking.

[Robert Buckland]

Of course, and the right hon. Lady makes an important point. She will know that my decision to extend the unduly lenient sentence scheme to cover stalking offences reinforces my personal commitment and my deep understanding of the link between stalking and obsessional behaviour and the commission of sexual offences, offences of violence or homicide. I absolutely get that, but it is right that we tease out those issues in Committee and look at them again on Report. If it is the will of the House, we will of course do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I too want to begin by paying a huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for her bravery in speaking out, because that is a message not just to those across the country who experience coercive control or abuse but to everybody else, including those of us across the Chamber who think she is wonderful but who did not know all she was going through and who want to support her and other people who experience abuse, control or violence across the country.

It is also really important, at a time when this Parliament and the country can feel hugely divided and angry, that we have seen so many people from both sides of the House come together on an area that is so important and in which radical reforms are needed. I pay tribute to all on the Opposition side of the House, and also to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for the work that she and her Committee have done on this legislation. This comes at a time when the number of people dying from domestic violence is increasing, and we should not ignore the fact that in some areas the problem is getting worse; it is not an area in which improvements are happening and we just need to go further.

I welcome the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. I raised that issue with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) in 2013, so it is good to see this happening now, but I do think that the role has to be more independent. We have seen from the experience with the anti-slavery commissioner and the immigration inspectorate that there is a need for greater independence. Many of these issues were also raised by the Home Affairs Committee in our report last October, and I welcome some of the measures for stronger powers, including prevention powers, and the inclusion of economic abuse in the statutory definition.

I want to raise four areas where I think more action is needed. First, the creation of a commissioner is not an alternative to having a proper action plan from the Home Office and the Government. The number of domestic abuse cases reported to the police has gone up by 40% in the last two years. However, over the past four years the number of cases referred to the Crown Prosecution Service has gone down by 20%. The number of prosecutions for domestic abuse has gone down by 20%. A huge systems failure is going on, and we cannot just tell ourselves it is about changing attitudes, crucial though that is. Action is needed to make the system work and to address the fact that so many cases now involve online abuse, stalking and control, making them more complex.

Our police and social services are often also badly overstretched. I have seen cases in my constituency in which obvious things were not done for victims of domestic abuse: the police were too overstretched and did not gather crucial evidence from A&E departments, for example, or individual police officers—although well intentioned—did not know about the coercive control legislation introduced in 2015. It is not enough just to change the law; we need a proper action plan to deal with the reduction in prosecutions.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is so right about why we are here today to discuss the Bill. I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who spoke so eloquently and emotively. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one reason why we cannot get to grips with this issue is that the resources and support for the support network—the wonderful women’s charities and domestic abuse charities—have dwindled and been taken away? If we do not support them, they cannot support the women who need their support.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Refuge, for example, has faced funding cuts of some 80% of its services over recent years—that was the evidence given to the Joint Committee. We also heard that 60% of referrals to refuges were unsuccessful because of a lack of bed spaces. I hope that in Committee we can look more closely at the recommendation from the Home Affairs Committee to have a statutory duty on local authorities to provide refuge places with sustainable funding supported by Government.

I want to raise the point about what happens to serial perpetrators, including serial stalkers. We recommended in our report that the Government should introduce a national register of serial stalkers and domestic violence perpetrators. We know from the ONS evidence that around a third of victims of domestic abuse suffer from more than one type of abuse, with partner abuse and stalking being the most common combination. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust told us that 55% of callers to the national stalking helpline were being stalked by an ex-partner. We need more co-ordination between police and social services to address that.

In a case in my constituency, a man has just been sentenced to 11 years for violent assault. He tied a noose around his partner’s neck and lifted her off the ground. It was part of a series of sustained attacks. At the time, he was on bail for other attacks, including punching his previous partner in the face, trying to suffocate her and wrapping a phone cord around her neck. He also threatened to tie a rope round her child’s neck and drag him behind his van. Laura Richards of Paladin, the anti-stalking charity, warned that this particular man had abused at least four women before, including some years ago grabbing a 17-year-old by the hair and kneeing her in the face, and the following year grabbing another woman by the throat and headbutting her in the mouth. Yet this man was able to go on and commit the abuse for which he has now been sentenced. There are so many other cases that involve serial abuse, yet the onus is still on potential victims of domestic abuse or stalking to raise their concerns with the police, rather than agencies having a responsibility to manage the risk, identify those who are committing serial violence and make sure that action is taken before it is too late.

Let me briefly raise the other concerns we had. As well as seeing the commissioner be more independent, I hope the Government will also take further account of the gendered nature of abuse. Of course men and women can both be victims of domestic abuse, but the Minister will know that women are more likely to be the victims of abuse and of the most serious abuse. That is part of a wider context of violence against women and girls. We owe it to those who experience terrible coercive control, and to their children, who can bear the greatest scars, to ensure we use this Bill to make the maximum possible change in people’s lives.

Worboys Case and the Parole Board

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. Where there is reconsideration, the second panel should be led by someone with legal, and indeed judicial, experience. One of the things that we are clearly going to have to look at is the degree to which proper legal experience is involved in this process. I agree that it is important that where the Secretary of State has a representative at one of these matters, they are well placed to make a strong case.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the Court’s decision. Many of us were shocked and appalled by the original Parole Board decision, given the number of vile sexual assaults and rapes in this case. The Secretary of State is right to put forward reforms and to say that there are serious questions for the Parole Board. I hope that he will make it clear that he recognises that there are also serious questions for the Ministry of Justice, which had to put forward the evidence in this case. It is not a good look simply to say that this is about the responsibility of the Parole Board, if we are to get to the reforms that we actually need. Does he recognise that one of the big failings in this case was about support for, and proper information for, victims throughout the process? Will he make that an urgent priority in the reforms that are put forward?

[Mr Gauke]

The point about victims is very important. The right hon. Lady will be aware that Dame Glenys Stacey undertook an immediate review of the facts in this case. There is clearly a lot to learn about how victims are treated. In this particular case, the fact that victims were receiving information from the media rather than being contacted directly is not something that we want to see repeated. She is absolutely right to raise that point.

On the MOJ’s position, as I set out in my statement, there is much more that we can do to ensure that information on things like sentencing remarks should be provided as part of the dossier consistently and as a matter of course. Clearly, there were failures in this regard. That is partly why my position in bringing a judicial review was weaker than that of the victims, because they were able to make these arguments in a way that was not open to me. We need to find ways in which we can make improvements across the system. I stress that the national probation service was clear that it did not think that Worboys should be released.

Parole Board and Victim Support

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I also welcome the Lord Chancellor to his post. He will note that some of the victims have still heard nothing from victim liaison officers and still do not know what the Parole Board terms are and whether this man may end up living near them. Given that Worboys had their addresses, will the Lord Chancellor urgently ensure that all the victims are contacted by victim liaison officers before this man is released? Given that some of them had no opportunity to put statements to the Parole Board, is he confident that due process has been followed in making this decision? Further to the Justice Committee’s point about greater transparency in Parole Board decisions, will the Lord Chancellor introduce changes to the statutory rules that would allow the board to make open the decision in this case, not just in future cases, so that people can see what the reasons were?

[Mr Gauke]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point. There is clearly the potential to change the rules for forthcoming cases, but she particularly asks whether such a change could apply to cases that occurred before the change in the rules. I do not want to make any guarantees to the House at this point, because there are clearly complex legal implications and one would want to look at them, but if I may take that as a representation of what she thinks should happen, I very much take that on board.

On notification of victims, as I said, there will be cases where people do not want to be informed; there will be cases where people will want to receive a great deal of detail. We need a system that is sensitive to what victims want. The right hon. Lady raises the point about where Worboys will be and whether victims could be close by. The conditions of the licence are for the Parole Board, but I suspect I speak for the House as a whole when I say that we would expect the Parole Board to be sensitive to the concerns that victims might have about their safety, and indeed to the trauma of perhaps finding themselves accidentally in the presence of someone who has committed such terrible crimes.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 4—Arrangements for withdrawing from the EU—

“Notwithstanding any powers granted under this Act, no Minister of the Crown may agree to the arrangements for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union referred to in Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union until Royal Assent is granted to an Act of Parliament—

(a) authorising the Minister to agree to an exit day to be specified in the Act,

(b) authorising the Minister to agree to those arrangements that will apply after exit day, the arrangements to be specified in the Act.”

This new clause would ensure that a separate Act of Parliament would be required for Ministers to determine exit day and to set out the arrangements that will apply after exit day.

New clause 19—Publication of the Withdrawal Agreement—

“The powers for Ministers set out in section 9 shall not come into force unless and until a final withdrawal agreement made between the United Kingdom and the European Union has been published and copies placed in the Libraries of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.”

This new clause would ensure that the wide-ranging powers for Ministers to implement the withdrawal agreement set out in Clause 9 of the Bill cannot come into force until the withdrawal agreement has been published.

New clause 38—Status of Irish citizens in the United Kingdom—

“Before making any regulations under section 9, the Minister shall commit to making available to Irish citizens lawfully resident in the United Kingdom after exit day any status, rights and entitlements available to Irish citizens before exit day, inclusive of and in addition to their status, rights and entitlements as EU citizens.”

New clause 66—Parliamentary approval for the outcome of negotiations with the European Union—

“No exit day may be appointed under this Act until the terms of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, including leaving the EU without an agreement, have been approved by both Houses of Parliament.”

This new clause is intended to establish that Parliament has a meaningful vote on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

New clause 68—Terms of withdrawal: approval by Parliament—

“(1) The Government shall not conclude any agreement on terms of withdrawal from the European Union, or on the UK’s future relationship with the European Union, until those terms have been approved by resolution in both Houses of Parliament.

(2) Approval by resolution of both Houses of Parliament must be sought no later than three months before exit day.”

This new clause would require the Government to seek Parliamentary approval for its exit agreement with the EU at least three months before exit day.

New clause 69—United Kingdom withdrawal from the EU—

“(1) Subsection (2) applies if either of the conditions in subsection (3) or (4) is met.

(2) The Prime Minister must seek an agreement with the EU on one or more of the following—

(a) extending the negotiations beyond the two-year period specified in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union; or

(b) agreeing that negotiations over the final terms of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU may take place during a negotiated transitional arrangement which broadly reflect current arrangements and which begins immediately after the Article 50 notice period expires and the EU treaties cease to apply to the UK; or

(c) any other course of action in relation to the negotiations (with the EU over the withdrawal of the United Kingdom) which has been approved in accordance with this section by a resolution of the House of Commons.

(3) The condition in this subsection is that no Article 50 withdrawal agreement has been reached between the United Kingdom and the EU by 31 October 2018.

(4) The condition in this subsection is that an Article 50 withdrawal agreement has been reached between the United Kingdom and the EU but the proposed terms of withdrawal have not been approved by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament by 28 February 2019.

(5) Nothing in this section may be amended by regulations made under any provision of this Act.”

The intention of this new clause, which could be amended only by primary legislation, is to specify the actions that should be taken if the Government does not secure a withdrawal agreement by 31 Oct 2018 or that Parliament does not approve a withdrawal agreement by 28 February 2019.

New clause 75—Implementing the withdrawal agreement (No. 2)—

“(1) No powers to make regulations under this Act may be used for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement.

(2) The Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament detailing how implementing the withdrawal agreement will be achieved through primary legislation.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1) and (2), “implementing the withdrawal agreement” may include any necessary provision for a transitional period after the exit day appointed for section 1 of this Act.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (1) and (2), “implementing the withdrawal agreement” must include any necessary provision to ensure that any citizens of any EU Member State who are lawfully resident in the UK on any day before exit day can continue to be lawfully resident after exit day on terms no less favorable than they currently enjoy.”

This new clause is intended to ensure that primary legislation is used to implement the withdrawal agreement, including maintaining EU citizens’ rights.

Amendment 7, in clause 9, page 6, line 45, at end insert

“, subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”

To require the final deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by Parliament.

Amendment 355, page 6, line 45, at end insert “, subject to—

(a) the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament, and

(b) an affirmative resolution passed by the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”

This amendment would require the final deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by both Parliament and by the devolved administrations.

Amendment 361, page 7, line 2, at end insert—

“( ) Regulations under this section may, notwithstanding sections 1 and 5(1), make provision to replicate, for such an implementation period as is provided for in the withdrawal agreement, any aspect of the operation of EU law in the United Kingdom.”

The amendment would make clear that aspects of EU membership, such as the automatic effect of EU law and enforcement and adjudication mechanisms, can be maintained for an implementation period if the Government agrees to do so as part of the withdrawal agreement.

Amendment 142, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(e) remove, reduce or otherwise amend the rights of any citizen of an EU Member State who was lawfully resident in the UK on any day before 30 March 2019.”

This amendment seeks to protect the existing rights of EU citizens living in the UK.

Amendment 47, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section unless the terms of the withdrawal agreement have been approved by both Houses of Parliament.”

Amendment 196, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a member of the European Union’s Political and Security Committee after exit day.”

Amendment 197, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a signatory to all agreements signed through the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.”

Amendment 198, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a member of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council.”

Amendment 199, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until a Minister of the Crown has submitted a formal request to the President of the European Council that the UK should continue to be a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.”

Amendment 227, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the impact of the UK leaving the EU single market on the forecast to the UK’s public finances.”

This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom exiting the EU single market on the UK public finances, before any regulations are made under section 9.

Amendment 228, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the impact of exiting the EU single market on levels of GDP growth.

(3B) Any assessment under subsection (3A) shall set out an assessment of the impact of exiting the EU single market on levels of GDP growth in—

(a) Scotland,

(b) Northern Ireland,

(c) England, and

(d) Wales.”

This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom exiting the EU single market on the levels of GDP growth in the UK and in each part of the UK, before any regulations are made under section 9.

Amendment 229, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the impact of ending freedom of movement on the UK’s public finances.”

This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the impact of the United Kingdom ending freedom of movement on the UK’s public finances, before any regulations are made under section 9.

Amendment 230, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before Parliament an assessment of the broadened responsibilities of the UK Treasury following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require publication of a Government assessment of the broadened responsibilities of the UK Treasury following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, before any regulations are made under section 9.

Amendment 300, page 7, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) No regulations may be made under this section until—

(a) the Government has laid before Parliament a strategy for maintaining those protections, safeguards, programmes for participation in nuclear research and development, and trading or other arrangements which will lapse as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from membership of, and participation in, the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and

(b) the strategy has been approved by both Houses of Parliament.”

This amendment would prevent the Government using any delegated powers under Clause 9 until it had secured Parliamentary approval for its proposals to replace any provisions that cease to apply as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from membership of Euratom.

Amendment 55, page 7, line 9, at end insert

“or until the withdrawal agreement has been published and legislation proposed in the 2017 Gracious Speech in relation to customs, trade, immigration, fisheries, agriculture, nuclear safeguards and international sanctions has been published.”

This amendment would ensure that powers to Ministers to make regulations implementing the withdrawal agreement cannot be exercised until such time as the withdrawal agreement has been published along with the publication of associated legislative proposals on customs, trade, immigration, fisheries, agriculture, nuclear safeguards and international sanctions.

Amendment 19, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) Regulations under this section will lapse two years after exit day.”

Although the power conferred by this clause lapses on exit day, there is no sunset clause for the statutory instruments provided under it. This would make all such statutory instruments lapse two years after exit day and require the Government to introduce primary legislation if it wanted to keep them in force.

Amendment 74, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has signed an agreement with the EU guaranteeing that the UK will remain a permanent member of the EU Single Market.”

Amendment 75, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has signed an agreement with the EU guaranteeing that the UK will remain a permanent member of the EU Customs Union.”

Amendment 116, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until such time as the terms of the withdrawal agreement have been approved by a Ratification Referendum, giving voters the options of supporting the terms of the withdrawal agreement, or remaining in the EU.”

This amendment seeks to ensure that Ministers cannot make and use secondary legislation for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement until such time as that agreement has been approved by a Ratification Referendum.

Amendment 143, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until such time as the Government has signed an agreement with the EU that maintains and guarantees the existing rights of EU citizens living in the UK, and UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU, as of 29 March 2019.”

This amendment seeks to protect the existing rights of both EU citizens living in the UK, and UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU.

Amendment 156, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section unless the requirement in section [Status of Irish citizens in the United Kingdom] has been satisfied.”

Amendment 224, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for the UK to retain access to the EU’s Emissions Trading System markets after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy to retain access to the EU’s Emissions Trading System markets after withdrawal.

Amendment 225, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for the UK’s continued participation in the North Seas Countries’ Offshore Grid Initiative after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for the UK to continue participation in the North Seas Countries’ Offshore Grid Initiative after withdrawal from the EU.”

Amendment 231, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has published a statement setting out a strategy for retaining access to the European Investment Bank.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for retaining access to the European Investment Bank.

Amendment 232, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has published a statement setting out a strategy for retaining membership of the European Investment Fund.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for retaining access to the European Investment Fund.

Amendment 238, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking the maintenance of UK membership of the European Food Safety Authority on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Food Safety Authority.

Amendment 241, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking the preservation of reciprocal healthcare agreements on existing terms as under social security coordination regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009 after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

(6) Any changes to regulations in subsection (5) shall only be made after—

(a) the House of Commons has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5),

(b) the Scottish Parliament has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5),

(c) the National Assembly of Wales has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5), and

(d) the Northern Ireland Assembly has passed a resolution approving changes to regulations mentioned in subsection (5).”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for seeking to ensure that reciprocal healthcare arrangements continue after the UK leaves the EU.

Amendment 242, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Medicines Agency on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Medicines Agency.

Amendment 243, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.

Amendment 244, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Chemicals Agency after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Chemicals Agency.

Amendment 245, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Single Sky Agreement on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Government to publish a strategy for continuing to be a member of the European Single Sky Agreement.

Amendment 246, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain UK membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Government to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continues to be a member of the European Aviation Safety Agency after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 247, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to retain UK membership of the European Maritime Safety Agency on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continues to be a member of the European Maritime Safety Agency after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 248, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to retain UK membership of ERASMUS on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continued to be a member of the ERASMUS scheme after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 249, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to maintain access for the UK to reciprocal roaming charge agreements on existing terms as under Regulation 2017/920, after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would seek to ensure that roaming charges do not come into effect after exit day for UK citizens in the EU and vice versa.

Amendment 250, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for seeking to retain UK membership of Creative Europe on existing terms after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continued to be a member of Creative Europe after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 251, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has made a formal request to President of the European Council that the UK continues membership of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the UK to make a request to the President of the European Council for continued UK membership of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 252, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has published a strategy for reaching an agreement with the EU to enable the UK to have continued access to Passenger Name Records after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for seeking to ensure that the UK continued to have access to Passenger Name Records after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 253, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Schengen Information System after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Schengen Information System after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 254, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have continued access to the European Arrest Warrant.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the European Arrest Warrant after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 255, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROPOL.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROPOL after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 256, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROJUST.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have membership of EUROJUST after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 257, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the European Criminal Records Information system with the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the European Criminal Records Information system with the EU after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 258, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Prüm Council decisions relating to fingerprint and DNA exchange with the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the Prüm Council decisions relating to fingerprint and DNA exchange with the EU, after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 259, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the False and Authentic Documents Online (“FADO”) internet-based image archiving system.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the False and Authentic Documents Online (“FADO”) internet-based image archiving system after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 260, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to participate in the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Cooperation between Customs Administrations of 1997 (“Naples II Convention”).”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to participate in the Convention on Mutual Assistance and Cooperation between Customs Administrations of 1997 (“Naples II Convention”), after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 261, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable the UK to continue to have access to the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 262, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out a strategy for ensuring that lawyers registered to practise in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland shall not lose their right of audience at the European Court after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to enable British-registered lawyers to continue to appear before the Court of Justice of the European Union, after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 263, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out a strategy for ensuring that lawyers from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland shall not lose their status of legal profession privilege concerning communications with regard to proceedings before the European Court, after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for reaching agreement with the EU to ensure that communications from British-registered lawyers with regard to proceedings before the European Court continue to be covered by legal profession privilege, after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 275, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before both Houses of Parliament an agreement with the Scottish Government for the freedom of movement of EU citizens in Scotland to continue after exit day.”

This amendment would facilitate the continuance of free movement in and out of Scotland after exit day.

Amendment 276, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out a strategy for continued participation by the United Kingdom in the common European Asylum System.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for continued participation by the United Kingdom in the common European Asylum System, after withdrawal from the EU.

Amendment 343, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a strategy for a food standards framework after withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out a strategy for a food standards framework after withdrawal from the EU, before making any regulations implementing the withdrawal agreement.

Amendment 351, page 7, line 9, at end insert—

“(5) No regulations may be made under this section until the Secretary of State has laid a report before Parliament setting out plans that seek to secure continued clinical trials agreements as under EU Regulation 536/2014 after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”

This amendment would ensure harmonisation of clinical trials across the EU Member States will continue in the UK after the UK leaves the EU.

Clause 9 stand part.

New clause 7—Consultation—

“The Government shall follow the principles set out in the Cabinet Office Code of Practice in respect of public consultation in advance of regulations being made under powers granted by this Act.”

This new clause would commit Ministers to abiding by the existing Cabinet Office code of practice on consultations in respect of regulations to be made under the Bill.

New clause 12—Social, employment and environmental protection—

“Any rights, protections, liabilities, obligations, powers, remedies and procedures which exist immediately before exit day in the fields of—

(a) social and employment law, and

(b) environmental law

will not be amended through any regulations made to deal with deficiencies or withdrawal unless approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament or by Act of Parliament”

This new Clause would ensure that social, employment and environmental laws cannot be changed by the order-making powers delegated to Ministers without a vote in Parliament.

New clause 57—Citizens’ Jury on Brexit Negotiations—

“(1) A citizens’ jury shall be established to enable UK citizens to be consulted on the progress of negotiations between the UK and the EU on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, and the approach outlined in UK Government White Papers.

(2) The citizens’ jury shall in total be composed of exactly 1501 persons.

(3) Members of the citizens’ jury shall be randomly selected by means of eligibility from UK citizens on the current electoral register as registered on the date of this Act receiving Royal Assent, with allocation across the nine UK Government Regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland weighted by population, and a stratification plan, with the aim of securing a group of people who are broadly representative demographically of the UK electorate across characteristics including whether they voted Leave or Remain.

(4) The jury will be broken down into individual sittings for each of the nine UK Government Regions in England, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

(5) The sittings will be for no more than 72 hours at a time, facilitated by independent facilitators, and if required, by electing fore-people from within their number.

(6) Membership of the jury will be subject to the same regulations and exceptions as a regular jury, but membership can be declined without penalty.

(7) The citizens’ jury will be able to require Ministerial and official representatives of the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations to give testimony to them to inform their work, and to have the power to invite other witnesses to give evidence as required.

(8) The citizens’ jury shall publish reports setting out their conclusions on the negotiations and UK Government White Papers.

(9) The first report from the citizens’ jury shall be published within two months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, and subsequent reports shall be published at intervals of no more than two months.

(10) Costs incurred by the citizens’ jury shall be met by the Exchequer.”

Clause 16 stand part.

Amendment 226, in schedule 7, page 39, line 29, at end insert—

“(g) makes changes to the application of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive in the UK.”

This amendment would make any changes to the application of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive in the UK subject to approval by resolution of each House of Parliament.

Amendment 235, page 39, line 29, at end insert—

“(g) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning the rights of workers in the UK.”

This amendment would require that the rights of workers currently afforded by EU law that are being transposed into UK law can be changed only through affirmative procedure.

Amendment 236, page 39, line 29, at end insert—

“(g) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning rights for disabled people in the UK.”

This amendment would require that the rights of disabled people currently afforded by EU law that are being transposed into UK law can be changed only through affirmative procedure.

Amendment 237, page 39, line 29, at end insert—

“(g) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning annual leave rights,

(h) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning agency worker rights,

(i) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning part-time worker rights,

(j) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning fixed-term worker rights,

(k) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning work-based health and safety obligations,

(l) makes changes to EU-derived legislation concerning state-guaranteed payments upon an employer’s insolvency,

(m) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning collective redundancy rights,

(n) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning terms and conditions of employment rights,

(o) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning posted worker rights,

(p) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning paternity, maternity and parental leave rights,

(q) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning protection of employment upon the transfer of a business, or

(r) makes changes to EU-derived domestic legislation concerning anti-discrimination.”

This amendment would list areas regarding workers’ rights where changes to EU-derived law could be made only through affirmative procedure.

Amendment 293, page 39, line 33, at end insert—

“(3A) Regulations appointing any exit day may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”

This amendment would require regulations appointing an exit day to be subject to the affirmative procedure.

Amendment 328, page 39, line 42, leave out sub-paragraphs (6) and (7).

This amendment, and Amendments 329 and 331, would remove provisions in the Bill that prescribe scrutiny procedures for the National Assembly for Wales. These amendments, coupled with Amendment 330, would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.

Amendment 329, page 41, line 15, leave out sub-paragraphs (10) and (11).

This amendment, and Amendments 328 and 331, would remove provisions in the Bill that prescribe scrutiny procedures for the National Assembly for Wales. These amendments, coupled with Amendment 330, would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.

Amendment 155, page 42, line 17, at end insert—

“(3A) A Minister cannot make a declaration under sub-paragraph (2) unless they have satisfied themselves that they have sufficiently consulted—

(a) relevant public authorities,

(b) businesses,

(c) people, and

(d) other organisations

   who are likely to be affected by the instrument.”

This amendment would require that, when using the urgent cases provision in the Bill, the Minister must first consult with businesses and other relevant organisations.

Amendment 154, page 42, line 31, at end insert—

“(7) For the purposes of this paragraph “urgent” has the same meaning as “emergency” in Section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.”

This amendment would limit the circumstances in which Ministers can use procedures for urgent cases to circumstances in which there is a serious threat of damage to human welfare, the environment or the security of the United Kingdom.

Amendment 51, page 43, line 26, leave out paragraph 6

This amendment is linked to New Clause 3 to require the Government to implement the withdrawal agreement through separate primary and secondary legislation rather than through this Bill.

Amendment 294, page 44, line 37, after “section 17(5)” insert “, other than regulations to appoint an exit day,”

Consequential to amendment 293.

Amendment 295, page 45, line 5, after “section 17(5)” insert “, other than regulations to appoint an exit day,”

Consequential to amendment 293.

Amendment 344, page 45, line 11, at end insert—

The intention of this amendment is that tertiary legislation under the Act should be subject to the same parliamentary control and time-limits as are applicable to secondary legislation.

Amendment 58, page 45, line 23, leave out “urgency” and insert “emergency”

This amendment would remove the wider latitude currently allowing Ministers to make regulations without Parliamentary approval “by reason of urgency” and instead only allow such executive action “by reason of emergency”. An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to human health, life, property, or environment.

Amendment 330, page 45, line 40, at end insert—

“Scrutiny of regulations made by Welsh Ministers

11A (1) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this Act of the Welsh Ministers must be made in accordance with the procedures from time to time set out in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly for Wales for the scrutiny of regulations under this Act.

(2) Sub-paragraph (1) applies to statutory instruments made by the Welsh Ministers acting alone and to statutory instruments made by the Welsh Ministers acting jointly with a Minister of the Crown.

(3) The Standing Orders of the National Assembly for Wales may set out different procedures for the making of different statutory instruments or for different categories of statutory instruments under this Act and, for the avoidance of doubt, may empower the Assembly or a committee of the Assembly to decide which of those procedures is to apply to an instrument or category of instruments.

(4) For the purposes of section 11A of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, and any other provisions of that Act referred to in that section, the provisions set out from time to time in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly for Wales for the scrutiny of regulations under this Act shall be deemed to be provisions of an Act.”

This amendment would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.

Amendment 301, page 46, line 18, at end insert—

“12A Any power to make regulations under this Act may not be exercised by a Minister of the Crown until 14 days after the Minister has circulated a draft of the regulations to the citizens’ jury appointed under section [Citizens’ jury on Brexit negotiations].”

The intention of this amendment is to provide for a citizens’ jury to be consulted before regulations are made under this Act.

Amendment 223, page 46, line 29, at end insert—

“14A Any power to make regulations in this Act relating to the oil and gas sector may not be made without—

(a) consultation, and

(b) an impact assessment, a copy of which must be laid before Parliament.”

This amendment would require consultation and an impact assessment before legislation affecting the relating to the oil and gas sector is changed by regulations made under the Act.

Amendment 331, page 48, line 14, leave out sub-paragraph (4).

This amendment, and Amendments 328 and 329, would remove provisions in the Bill that prescribe scrutiny procedures for the National Assembly for Wales. These amendments, coupled with Amendment 330, would allow the National Assembly for Wales to set the scrutiny procedures it considers appropriate for the control of powers proposed for the Welsh Ministers under the Bill.

That schedule 7 be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.

Amendment 29, in clause 17, page 13, line 34, leave out subsections (1) to (3)

This amendment would remove a widely drawn delegated power, which covers anything that happens as a consequence of the Act.

Amendment 99, page 14, line 13, at end insert—

“(8) Regulations under this section may not limit the scope or weaken standards of environmental protection.”

This amendment ensures that the power to make regulations in Clause 17 may not be exercised to reduce environmental protection.

Amendment 100, page 14, line 13, at end insert—

“(8) No regulations may be made under this section after the end of the period of two years beginning with exit day.”

This amendment imposes the same restriction on the regulation making powers under Clause 17 as applies to other regulation powers in the Bill.

Amendment 296, page 14, line 13, at end insert—

“(8) No regulations may be made under this section after the end of the period of two years beginning with exit day.

(9) Regulations made under this section may not amend or repeal retained EU law.”

This amendment would place restrictions on the power to make consequential and transitional provision.

Clause 17 stand part.

[Yvette Cooper]

I rise to speak to new clause 3, which has cross-party support, but also amendment 7, which does something similar to my new clause, albeit, I confess, in a rather more elegant way. I defer to the drafting powers of the former Attorney General in drafting his amendment.

This, on day seven in Committee, is really where we get to the crunch on this Bill. There are two big anxieties about the content of the Bill that finally come clashing together in clause 9. The first is the sweeping use of secondary legislation through Henry VIII powers, which, regardless of one’s views on the overall legislation, have caused some unease in all parts of the House because of the way in which they concentrate power in the hands of the Executive and cut deep into our historic role in Parliament to hold the Executive to account. The second anxiety is about getting the final Brexit deal right and about making sure that Parliament has a real, meaningful say on the deal, which will define our country for generations, and that we decide together what “taking back control” should mean.

Clause 9 is where those two anxieties come crashing together, because it allows a huge concentration of power in the hands of the Executive, and it does so over the final withdrawal agreement on the outcome of Brexit. Notwithstanding the commitments that the Prime Minister has made today and the written statement that we have seen, the reality is that clause 9 would allow Ministers to start to implement a withdrawal agreement entirely through secondary legislation and to do so even before Parliament has endorsed the withdrawal agreement.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Many of us hear what the right hon. Lady says about the Henry VIII clauses and the power grab, but does she not accept that the quid pro quo of that is that, while many in this House were quite happy for the EU to conduct a power grab, they seem less trusting of their own Government when it comes to these clauses?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about parliamentary sovereignty, which was indeed a key issue that was debated in the referendum. In fact, many people argued in the referendum that what they were doing was bringing sovereignty back here, from having shared sovereignty with the EU. I do not think we are arguing that sovereignty should be handed over in a concentrated way to a small group of Ministers instead. That is the responsibility on us. We know that of course there are times when Parliament needs to give Ministers power on our behalf to use through secondary legislation, but we should do so cautiously and sensibly and make sure that the right safeguards are in place. That is the problem with the Henry VIII powers in this Bill, and not just in clause 9 but in clause 7. The challenge, too, is that we are being asked to do that on an issue that will define our country for generations. Each and every one of us will be judged on what we did in this place to get that Brexit deal right.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is most welcome that, since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) tabled his amendment 7, it has been agreed that there does need to be an Act of Parliament? Is not the weakness of clause 9 that there is still no trigger requiring the consent of Parliament to the withdrawal agreement before the regulations can be laid and used?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is exactly right, and that is why we have a cross-party interest in these issues. Not only is there no trigger on the face of the Bill—clause 9 will still allow Ministers this huge concentrated power to go ahead and implement the withdrawal agreement without Parliament’s agreement—but there is also a second difference, certainly for me in what Ministers have set out so far, about how a meaningful vote should take place. I want to come on to that as well.

New clause 3 says that Parliament will not yet give the Government permission to use secondary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, and that instead the Government must set out their plans for primary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement. If secondary legislation is needed at that time, as part of the implementation process, those powers should be taken in the withdrawal agreement Bill—the second Bill—so that Parliament is not just handing over a blank cheque, but is deciding what powers are needed and making sure that the proper scrutiny and checks and balances are in place at that time.

I do not think this is really a controversial proposal. It is basically saying that Parliament should hand over no more power to the Executive than it needs to and should not hand over power to the Executive until it needs to and until it knows what is going on. New clause 3 also has the effect of requiring a meaningful vote in primary legislation on the withdrawal agreement before it can be implemented. That is not really a controversial proposal either. It simply says that we should have a proper vote on the most important thing to pass through Parliament in a generation—and a meaningful vote in primary legislation, as is fitting for something so important—and that we should do so before and not after we give Government the powers to start implementing it.

Amendment 7, which was tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), has broadly the same effect. Rather than removing the powers from clause 9, it simply says that they cannot be used until a statute or primary legislation has been passed supporting the withdrawal agreement. Again, that means that Parliament does not blindly hand over powers to the Executive in a trusting way without knowing what the consequences will be or what the agreement looks like.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The whole point of this Bill is that it is taking back power to this country and this Parliament, so that we can decide for ourselves what will happen. All the significant powers in the Bill are subject to the affirmative resolution and those that are not will now be subject to a sifting committee. We are recovering from a situation where, as members of the European Union, we had handed over all these decisions, lock, stock and barrel, to the European Union, so the Bill is a massive improvement, and to dress up this attempt to reverse Brexit as an argument in favour of parliamentary sovereignty is nothing but cant.

[Yvette Cooper]

Oh my, what Stalinism is this?—that any attempt to disagree with the way in which this Bill is drawn up is somehow a betrayal of Brexit! What rubbish! How insecure are Members who object to any changes in the Bill, if they cannot see that it is Parliament’s job—a job that they argued for when they stood up and tried to defend parliamentary sovereignty—to take some responsibility by scrutinising legislation and proposing amendments to it? That is all we are doing now. We are putting forward an amendment to the way in which the Brexit process—the withdrawal process—should take place. The idea that this somehow undermines the referendum decision is just a load of rubbish and the hon. Gentleman well knows it, and if he had any better arguments, he would put them, rather than using something that is so ridiculous.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

The argument that we have heard from the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is really quite ludicrous. They opposed what they described as a power grab by Brussels—by the European Union—while we were members of the European Union. They now seem to be advocating a power grab by the Executive, although they said that they wanted to take back control for the legislature of this country. If taking back control does not mean taking back control for the legislature, why on earth did we have the referendum in the first place?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Let me say to the Conservative Members who seem to be suddenly so keen to give away powers from Parliament to the Executive, that part of our historic tradition has always been our objection to concentrations of power, and indeed our relationship with the EU was a sharing of power rather than a concentration of power. I realise that people objected to that, and this debate is not a rerun of the referendum; it is about how we implement the referendum result. However, it is also—or should be—about Parliament having the confidence to say, “We do not believe in concentrations of power, and we think that each and every one of us has a responsibility to do what we, as elected parliamentarians, think is right, and get the best Brexit deal for the country.”

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The power that the Executive will have in making regulations under the clause will be subject to Parliament, because secondary legislation comes to Parliament. These regulations are of a different order of magnitude from regulations made by the European Union, which can be made by qualified majority vote against the will of the British Government and are automatically British law. So this is, in fact, restoring parliamentary oversight to the making of laws.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman has himself been a strong advocate of the responsibilities and powers of Parliament, but it does not take long for him to become completely lost down a sidetrack and start talking about what our relationship with the EU has been for very many years. The point is that this process is about how that relationship will change. We know that it is due to change as a result of the referendum and the article 50 negotiations, but the responsibility for all of us is to determine how it should change. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do, and as well as every other Member in the House, that the giving of powers in secondary legislation concentrates powers in the hands of Ministers, and does not receive the same scrutiny. Furthermore, this is not just about the concentration of power through clause 9; it is also about the process through which the Government want to make the decisions on the withdrawal agreement in order to trigger clause 9.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will, but then I want to make some more progress.

[Anna Soubry]

I assume that the right hon. Lady has read clause 9. Does she share my concern about the fact that some people seem not to have done so? Am I right to conclude that the clause means that the Government negotiate a withdrawal agreement—arguably one of the most important things that have happened for decades—which will not come to us here, but will be implemented by Ministers? As the Bill stands, that is it: apparently there will be no further involvement of this sovereign Parliament.

[Yvette Cooper]

I do agree, and I think that goes to the heart of our concern.

It ought to be possible for the Government to agree to my new clause 3, or to amendment 7. Let us think about the points that they have already made. First, they have recognised that there is a problem if too much power is concentrated in the hands of the Executive. They said so yesterday during the debate on clause 7, and I think that they recognise the importance of safeguards on the use of Executive powers. Secondly, they have said that there will be a meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement. I welcome that, but I think there is still a difference between us on what counts as a meaningful vote. Thirdly, they have said that there will now be primary legislation on the withdrawal agreement, and I welcome that as well. If we put all those three things together in the right way—the commitment to primary legislation, the commitment to a proper vote and say for Parliament, and concern about the concentration of powers—we get amendment 7 or new clause 3. It is the same thing.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Following the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), may I ask whether the right hon. Lady agrees that the statutory instruments that we are discussing relate to matters of constitutional significance—matters of the sort that we normally only debate on the Floor of the House? It would be wrong for those matters to be dealt with in Committee when the House has not necessarily even agreed to the withdrawal agreement.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. This is not the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, which was all about minor and detailed changes and consolidating legislation through secondary legislation—or that, at least, was its intention. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, this is about hugely constitutionally significant legislation and changes that will affect the course of events in this country for generations.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady mentioned the different definitions of a “meaningful vote”. Does she agree that a vote that took place at a point at which, for instance, Parliament could not say to the Government, “What you have negotiated is not acceptable” would not constitute a meaningful vote?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. The timing of the vote matters, but so does its constitutional status. That is why I think it immensely important for this to be a statutory vote.

Let me explain why the Government’s words and the Prime Minister’s words—in the written ministerial statement, in various letters and so on—are not enough, and why we need to vote on either amendment 7 or my new clause 3. First, the Government’s unwillingness to put their promises on the face of the Bill is a problem. Parliament needs commitments in legislation before we can give the Executive such strong powers—such constitutional powers—and we need that commitment on the face of the Bill before and not after we do so. Secondly, there is still a difference between us on what counts as a meaningful vote. Without either new clause 3 or amendment 7, it would still be possible for Ministers to offer only a vote on a motion on the withdrawal agreement, and that indeed is the Prime Minister’s intention. The written ministerial statement published this morning says:

“This vote will take the form of a resolution in both Houses of Parliament and will cover both the Withdrawal Agreement and the terms for our future relationship.”

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady share my concern about the fact that the vote on the motion of both Houses will come after the ratification of the treaty, and the fact that this House has no power or ability to change treaty terms under the ratification, which renders any vote on the motion meaningless?

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I think the hon. Lady is right. The Minister will be able to clarify this later, but I think it is a key point that the vote on the primary legislation— on the implementation of the Bill—will not happen until after the treaty has been ratified. I think that there is still some confusion about whether the vote on a motion, or a resolution, will happen before or after the ratification of the treaty, but the main point I want to make about the weakness of trying to do this simply through a resolution is that it is the primary legislation that counts, and it is clear from what the Minister has said, and what has been said in the written ministerial statement, that the primary legislation vote, the statutory vote, will not happen until after the ratification and the whole legal process have been completed.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Dominic Raab)]

The written ministerial statement makes it very clear that the meaningful vote will come after the negotiations have been concluded, but before ratification. That is precisely why it was published today.

[Yvette Cooper]

I think that there is a big difference between us on the word “meaningful”. I shall be happy to give way to the Minister again, but I think that he should clarify the position, and confirm that the only vote that we will have before the ratification of the treaty is a vote on a motion.

We are talking about a “take it or leave it” deal, and about a “take it or leave it” vote on the completed deal. That is the only thing that is there, even in the written ministerial statement; and there is no guarantee in the legislation, by the way. The Minister is not proposing to put that on the face of the Bill. Even if we take the written ministerial statement in good faith, and even if we rip up our commitment to putting things on the face of the Bill, all that the Minister has given us is the possibility of a vote on a motion, not a vote on primary legislation before the ratification of the treaty.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I would not take any consolation from what the Minister has said. The formal process of ratification of a treaty, under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, is that the treaty is laid before the House by a Minister, and if the House has not annulled it within 21 days, it goes ahead. However, we can only have a vote on annulment if the Government allow it, and in recent years they have regularly chosen not to do so. It is perfectly possible, consistent with what the Minister has just said, that the only vote we would have—and this may be what he means by a meaningful vote—is the vote on annulment, which is a “take it or leave it”, completely meaningless vote.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that goes to the heart of this: in the end, the power is still concentrated in the Executive’s hands, whether it is the power to give us a vote on the treaty at all or the power over the timing of any of these votes. That is all still in the Government’s hands, with no reassurances in the Bill, and then there is still only this proposal simply to have a vote on a motion, not a vote on statute with all the scrutiny that brings.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Yvette Cooper]

I am conscious of time; I will give way again, but many Members want to speak in this important debate.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Has my right hon. Friend given any thought to the consequences of the possibility, under the Government’s proposed procedure, of this House voting in favour but the other place voting against the motion?

[Yvette Cooper]

That is clearly a possibility, but I think we should trust in the maturity of Parliament. It is possible for people to vote in different ways, but we have long-standing processes between our two Houses for resolving differences and debating them. My problem is that we are not actually being given the opportunity to have those proper meaningful votes through legislation, and instead we just have these motions, which have no constitutional status.

[Anna Soubry]

Can the right hon. Lady confirm that it is Government policy that this place will be given, to use their expression, a meaningful vote? For example, as the talks progress, some hon. Members might say, “Well, hang on a moment; my pharmaceutical industry is being excluded from this arrangement on trade under this particular head of agreement.” That is an example of doing something “meaningful”—the ability of those of us in this place, acting on behalf of our constituents, to change some of the drift of the negotiations, to get a deal that suits everybody in our country.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree: it is hugely important that this vote has the proper status in Parliament, as well as our being able to debate the detail.

[Chris Bryant]

The point about a potential difference between the House of Lords and the House of Commons again makes me concerned that the Government are toying with only allowing a vote on an annulment motion, presumably tabled by the Opposition rather than the Government, on the original treaty, because then they would have sanction under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which determines what happens if there is a difference between the Lords and the Commons. So, again, I spy a rat.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, and that again shows the importance of having these commitments in the Bill, so that there can be no doubt and no possibility of the Government using clause 9 to start implementing an agreement on which there has been no meaningful vote.

[Mr Jenkin]

Can the right hon. Lady explain how the timing will work? If there is to be legislation to approve a withdrawal agreement before March 2019, what happens if the agreement is reached too late to allow that legislation to go through all its stages—[Interruption]—or is this a plan to delay the Brexit date?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thought part of the way through the hon. Gentleman’s intervention that he was finally coming up with a sensible point. I have no control over the timing of the Government’s negotiations; I hope that they and the EU will get on with this quickly, because in particular we need the transitional agreement pinned down as early as possible, as businesses need certainty—and they need that as much in my constituency as in the hon. Gentleman’s. So I hugely hope there will be plenty of time for all these debates to take place. In the event that, against the Government’s will—they have said they do not want this—it ends up being a late deal, Parliament should have the opportunity to ask the Government to extend article 50 for a couple of months, to be able to implement it properly. In fact, the Government will have to do that anyway, because they will not be able to bring clause 9 powers through fast enough not to have to do so.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Is it not far more likely that the Government will have to do that long before then, because everyone, including the Brexit Secretary, recognises that it is simply not possible to get everything agreed within the next year, plus a few months?

[Yvette Cooper]

That may be the case. It is clearly not what the Government want, and many of us want the certainty early on. Either way, in the end, however, the timing of the article 50 process will be determined by the Government and the EU states together, but Parliament should be able to put its view to the Government, and Parliament so far in this process will be given no choice in that and no opportunity to have its say.

There is another problem with doing this through a resolution. It is not a fit and proper way to decide something so constitutional to simply do it through a resolution or motion of this House, especially when the Government have shown, in their attitude to Opposition day motions and to resolutions they have lost, that they do not give those sorts of motions and resolutions much status and significance at all, and they do not have constitutional or legal status.

It is only fitting, therefore, for us in this Parliament to say that we should do this through statute, but that is also the most important way to make sure the vote is meaningful. As several Members have said, a motion being put to Parliament that, as the Brexit Secretary has suggested, basically says, “Vote for this deal, whatever it is, or leave with no deal at all,” in the end is not a meaningful vote for Parliament. If Parliament is being given the choice of endorsing the deal the Government have come up with, whatever it is, or alternatively saying in effect that we want no transitional agreement, no security co-operation—nothing at all—and we want to just go straight off the edge of a cliff, that in the end is not proper scrutiny and not a proper meaningful vote. It also provides no incentive for Ministers to have to make sure that what they negotiate can get support in Parliament.

At present, the Government have more incentive to come up with a deal that will get the support of the European Parliament than the support of this place. That is not on; that is not acceptable. It is unacceptable that they have more incentive to focus on the interests of the European Parliament than they have to focus on the interests of, and the potential to build consensus in, this Parliament. That is why we need a vote on statute; that is why we need a statutory vote; and that is why we need either amendment 7 or new clause 3, to have a meaningful vote before, not after, the treaty is ratified.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady talked about a delay of perhaps a couple of months, but if the treaty is not right in the eyes of this Parliament, a couple of months could turn into a couple years, and, indeed, some people would like it to be a couple of decades. Therefore, she talks about a meaningful vote, but what about the meaningful vote of the people of this country, who voted last June to leave the European Union? We need to get this done as quickly as possible, to deliver what the British people voted for.

[Yvette Cooper]

We had a referendum on whether or not Britain should leave the EU. That referendum has taken place; that decision has taken place; and Parliament has respected that decision. Despite how individual Members might have voted in that referendum, or on which side we might have campaigned, as a whole Parliament has respected that referendum result. The referendum did not decide how we leave the EU, however, or what the Brexit deal or transitional agreement should be. That is the responsibility now for the Government in negotiations, but also for this Parliament.

I point out to Members who claim that somehow we cannot have a parliamentary debate on this because it is an internationally negotiated deal—because, somehow, it is a done deal—that Parliament must be able to have a say in this process and we should trust Parliament to be mature and responsible. A lot of Conservative Members said that if we let Parliament vote on article 50, the sky would fall in because it would somehow stop the Brexit process, rip up the referendum result and get in the way of democracy. But actually, the Members of this Parliament know that we have a responsibility towards democracy. We have a mature responsibility to our constituents to defend the very principles of democracy. That is exactly why many of us, including me, voted for article 50, to respect the referendum result, but we do not believe that we should then concentrate powers in the hands of Ministers to enable them do whatever they like. We have a responsibility to defend democracy and those democratic principles. It is our responsibility as Members of Parliament to have our say and to ensure that we get the best deal for the country, rather than just give our power to Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady might agree with me that what causes more consternation overseas among those observing what is going on are the signs that we as a Parliament and as a Government seem from time to time to completely lose our marbles and get involved in polemical arguments that are far removed from the actual matters that we are supposed to be discussing.

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is exactly right, and I will defer to him to set out his amendment and describe its impact. The idea that we should make a confidence issue out of every single adjustment to the Brexit process or to the withdrawal Bill is just nonsense.

If we have a Bill before Parliament, it has to be possible for Members of Parliament to table amendments to it and to vote on them. In a hung Parliament, that is even more the case. The Prime Minister asked for a mandate to do all this her own way, but she did not get it. She got a hung Parliament. That puts even more responsibility on us all to work together to find something that will build consensus across Parliament and across the country. In a hung Parliament, the Government sometimes lose votes because Parliament has to do its job to build the right kind of consensus and to get the right kind of outcome.

In the end, this is all about Parliament and democracy. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to our constituents not to hand over, share or give up our authority and our sovereignty, but to exercise our responsibility to get the very best deal. For centuries, Members of Parliament have fought tooth and nail to defend democracy and the powers of Parliament against Executive power. We cannot be the generation that just rips that up and hands over all the power to the Executive. We have a responsibility—now more than ever, given the gravity of the decisions before us—to use that power responsibly and to try to build consensus. To be honest, if the Government cannot build a broader consensus in Parliament, there is no chance of their building a broader consensus in the country, and if they cannot do that, we will end up with everybody rowing over the Brexit deal for a generation to come. For the sake of all of us who want to get back to discussing our schools, our hospitals and all the other issues that face our Parliament, I urge Ministers to accept either amendment 7 or new clause 3, and to start trying to build a consensus that can get us a sustainable Brexit deal.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I rise to support new clause 3 and amendment 7. As mine is the second name attached to amendment 7, which was tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who is mainly responsible for it, I also incline to the view that it is slightly the better drafted, but I will support either proposal if one or both are put to the vote.

I might well succeed in being reasonably brief, because I agreed with every word of the speech made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and I will not repeat what she said. A welcome note of cross-party consensus exists across a large part of the House, and it represents the cross-party consensus that is in favour of what is lazily called a soft Brexit and of having the best possible close relationship with the European Union after we leave.

The main issue in this debate seems to turn on what we mean by a “meaningful vote”, which relates to our discussion on the role of parliamentary sovereignty in a situation of this kind. I accept that today the Prime Minister—not for the first time—promised us a meaningful vote, but she later went on to qualify that slightly by talking about the need for statutory instruments to be brought forward during the period of the Bill, within the extraordinary powers that the Bill gives Ministers to enact, by regulation, even changes to British statute law. We have to be clear what a meaningful vote is, and the key is the timing. It is quite obvious that if the British Government are to be responsible to the British Parliament, the vote must take place before the Government have committed themselves to the terms of the treaty-like agreement that is entered into with the other member states. Any other vote will not be meaningful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Please, allow me to continue. It is also perfectly possible, as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central knows, because he is a fine logician, for the other side in the EU negotiations to reject such alternative terms. We therefore hit the question that he cannot evade: under those circumstances, is he or is he not hoping—the Opposition spokesman made what he was hoping for perfectly clear—that Parliament will have the right to tell the Government that they cannot leave on terms that Parliament does not accept? I really think that that is important, if we are to be honest about this, because that is what the right hon. Gentleman and the Opposition spokesman are suggesting.

[Yvette Cooper]

rose—

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I have no doubt that it is also what the right hon. Lady who is now seeking to catch my eye wishes to suggest. I will let her do so, and then I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford).

[Yvette Cooper]

The logic of the right hon. Gentleman’s position is that he wants to rule out any possibility for Parliament even to ask the Government to go back to the negotiating table. Of course he is right that, in the end, this is about a negotiation, and the 27 other European countries will have a view and such a negotiation will take place. The logic of his position, however, is that he wants to rule out any say for Parliament at all, or any attempt by Parliament to ask the Government to try to get a different or better deal, or to change the terms, and that makes absolutely no sense at all for anybody who believes in the role of Parliament.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

First, the right hon. Lady has said nothing to contradict my point about what she and other Labour Members are arguing, and secondly, as a matter of fact, that is not a correct characterisation of my position. I am perfectly happy that Parliament should ask the Government, if there is time, to go back and reconsider the terms they are negotiating. I have no problem with that at all. The question is what happens if they cannot succeed in negotiating those terms and, in the end, we reach that crunch point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dominic Raab]

No, I am going to make some progress.

Nor is there any getting around the long tail of technical, regulatory secondary legislation that we will need to get through if we want to provide the legal certainty that will make for a smooth Brexit.

[Dominic Raab]

I am going to make a little progress.

[Yvette Cooper]

Will the Minister give way? I did give way to him.

[Dominic Raab]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady later, and I am coming on to talk about her amendment.

I just want to address the point made by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich about illustrations of what this power will be used for, because I hope that that will serve to assuage some of the concerns. The power could also be used to legislate, for example, for the status of goods that have been placed on the UK market at the time of our withdrawal, subject, of course, to what we agree with the EU on that. That could include a whole range of very technical, detailed measures to ensure that EU products continue to be made available in the UK, with no additional requirements on relabelling; to define what is meant by “placed on the market” for those products that benefit from the measures agreed; or to establish measures to facilitate continued oversight of those products. Again, these examples are illustrative, not exhaustive. However, I hope that I have at least addressed the kinds of cases that we are talking about, and also given an idea of the scale and volume of the technical separation issues that will need to be legislated for in time for exit day. Clause 9 will make an important contribution to a smooth Brexit in precisely those areas.

[Yvette Cooper]

Timing is the crucial issue. Given that there are many examples of an accelerated process being used to get primary legislation through this place on many different matters, including in a single day when that has been necessary, why would it not be possible, if time was starting to run out, to have a very simple one or two-clause Bill that would do the bits of things on which the Minister needs to get agreement and to put the secondary powers in place, and therefore at least have a vote on primary legislation? Why is it not possible to do that very quickly to deal with the concerns that have been expressed?

[Dominic Raab]

It is just not practicable. I will come on to address the timeframe for how we are going to approach the agreement, the meaningful vote on a resolution, and then the withdrawal agreement Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the Minister. I am going to take a moment to reflect.

[Yvette Cooper]

This has been a thoughtful debate that has shown the strength of this House, but the thoughtfulness and strength of this House are exactly why the House needs to have a meaningful statutory vote on the withdrawal agreement before the extremely extensive powers in clause 9 are used. The Minister had an hour on his feet; we have had six hours of debate today and many months of debate beforehand, and he still has not come up with a manuscript amendment to clarify what he will do, nor have we had a commitment yet from the Government that the vote will in fact be a statutory one. The only reason that the Minister could give as to why there should not be a statutory vote on the withdrawal agreement was the timing, and yet there are so many examples of when this Parliament has used expedited procedures to get a statute in place just as fast as any resolution.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My understanding is that the Minister has just said that the Government will use clause 9, and will start legislating statutory instruments, long before the due day; it is just, having been legislated, they will not come into force until the due day. That is some kind of concession, but does the right hon. Lady agree that something better might be arrived at in the later stages of this Bill?

[Yvette Cooper]

I certainly think that something much better is needed, because the powers in clause 9 are unprecedented, and Parliament should not hand over such unprecedented powers to the Executive blindfold, without our knowing what the withdrawal agreement will be. There have been so many examples, whether it is the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013, the Police (Detention and Bail) Act 2011, the Loans to Ireland Act 2010, the Mental Health (Approval Functions) Act 2012, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 or the Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Act 2017, Act after Act that has been through an expedited process—they can be done within a week. We can do this if we need to. Timeliness is not a problem.

That is why we need a vote, and that is why Ministers should just stop arguing. They should either ditch clause 9 and agree to new clause 3, or agree to amendment 7.

In order to support the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9

Implementing the Withdrawal Agreement

Amendment proposed: 7, page 6, line 45, at end insert “, subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”—(Mr Grieve.)

To require the final deal with the EU to be approved by statute passed by Parliament.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

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

[Sir William Cash]

I shall conclude my remarks on this point. The European Court is seriously deficient in a whole range of matters. On the question put by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), the idea has been put forward by Martin Howe QC, and I have put it forward myself in the House, of a system of jurisdiction that would be more in the nature of an arbitration, where there might be, for example, retired European Court judges or whoever, who would adjudicate—but on a bilateral basis, not on the basis of a decision taken by the European Court. It is possible to come up with a solution, therefore, but I do recognise the problem.

We are now embarked upon a massive restoration of self-government in this country. This Bill is essential to achieve that, and should be passed without any of the obstacles and frustrating tactics being put in its way.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to amendment 386, which has cross-party support and which I tabled late last night. The Minister said that it was somehow introducing “chaos” into this process. With the greatest respect, after a fortnight in which we have seen the Foreign Secretary, the International Development Secretary, the former Defence Secretary, the current Defence Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary all subsumed in controversies, I think the Government are doing quite well on the chaos front without any help from me. Also, the idea that taking the exit date out and putting it into a different Bill would create chaos when, just five days ago, Ministers did not want it in any Bill at all, makes the Government’s argument look rather silly.

The amendment would require Parliament to vote on the terms of withdrawal through primary legislation before Brexit day. That would mean that exit day would be set in UK law not in this Bill but in a future Bill, either in the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill that the Government announced yesterday or, if there is no deal at all, through an alternative Bill setting out the terms of departure and presumably whatever implementation plan would be needed in those circumstances.

The purpose of the amendment is not to dispute the Government’s intentions about the timing of exit day; it is simply to ensure that there is a proper parliamentary and democratic process before we get to that date. The central focus is not the date itself but a requirement on the Government to do as they have promised and set out a meaningful vote for Parliament in advance of that date. The amendment would also ensure that Parliament could properly respond, whatever the outcome of the Government’s negotiations, rather than being inadvertently timed out if things were to go badly wrong.

Yesterday, we learned from the Government that there would be a second Bill to implement the withdrawal agreement, and that is welcome. That was the subject of other amendments that the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and I had tabled because we were concerned that Parliament should not give the Executive a blank cheque through this Bill on the implementation of a withdrawal Bill that had not yet happened. Rather less welcome was the Government’s admission that the legislation might not actually happen before Brexit day. Even less welcome was the Brexit Secretary’s admission that the vote on the withdrawal agreement would simply be a take-it-or-leave-it vote, and that therefore if the Government negotiate a bad deal, if they have no implementation plan in place or if other things go wrong along the way, Parliament would simply have to accept that or choose to have no deal at all.

Under the Government’s proposals, Brexit day would be embedded in primary legislation through this Bill, and it would therefore become legally and constitutionally possible for Ministers simply to let us drift towards exit day without Parliament being able to insist on any kind of implementation preparations or any kind of plan at all. Such a concentration of power in the hands of the Executive would be unacceptable. No legislature should ever accept that: certainly not this legislature right now when we were given a hung Parliament by the electorate less than six months ago; and certainly not our Parliament, whose sovereignty has been such a key issue throughout the debates on the referendum.

The amendment would strengthen the democratic process around Brexit and ensure that Parliament could vote on the terms of withdrawal, whether there was a deal or not, before exit day. It would implement the Government’s commitment to a meaningful parliamentary vote. If everything goes according to the Government’s plans and promises, if they get the timetable they want for the transition agreements being agreed in the early part of next year and the withdrawal plans agreed by the autumn, and if we get the kind of deal that the Government have promised, with all the benefits that it will bring, all that the amendment would do would hold the Government to that by implementing their intentions and their timetable. It would hold the Government to what the Brexit Secretary said yesterday was his primary plan for the timetable. It would hold Ministers to that plan on the face of the Bill. It would also prevent the Government from delaying the withdrawal agreement legislation beyond the withdrawal date. It links the timing of exit to the terms of exit in the parliamentary process. It would prevent Parliament from being timed out because it would give Parliament the final say. If the Government’s plans go wrong—I hope they will not—it also gives Parliament a say in how the country should respond. For example, if we end up with no deal at all, if we run out of time—I hope that will not happen—or if the whole thing goes belly up, it gives Parliament a role. It allows for a debate on whether the Government should go back to the negotiating table or just walk away. It allows for a debate about the timing of Brexit day. It allows Parliament to debate and decide, rather than just throwing up our hands and leaving it to Ministers—rather than just drifting along.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. This morning, she and I both heard the Mayor of London clearly set out the implications of not having a security treaty for the safety of London, let alone the rest of the country, so I wholeheartedly agree with her points.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. That was the evidence we heard. Parliament has a responsibility to have a contingency plan. Whatever it is that we hope might happen over the course of the next 12 months, we have a duty to ensure that we have plans in place for every eventuality and that Parliament itself can take some responsibility.

Right now, with the Government’s amendments made and without my amendment, it would theoretically be possible for us to just drift towards exit day without any substantive opportunity for Parliament to step in perhaps to amend the withdrawal terms in the Bill or maybe to require the Government to change their plan or to go back and negotiate some more. That would be up to us in Parliament to decide, but we will not get the chance to decide under the Government’s current plans.

[Robert Neill]

Has the right hon. Lady noted the sensible comments of the chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London corporation? While an orderly Brexit might not be the desired outcome for the right hon. Lady and I, an orderly Brexit with a proper transition and with this House having a proper say is manageable for our financial services sector. However, a disorderly Brexit that was the result of our inability to extend negotiations for a short period if need be, for example, would be a disaster for this country and is regarded by some firms as being on the same level as the threat to cyber-security. On that basis, is it not foolish for the Government or the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) to try to put a leaving date on the face of the Bill?

[Yvette Cooper]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. As Select Committee Chairs, he and I have both heard evidence about security and wider issues, and I also share with him my personal views about the importance of having a transition period and a smooth process. To be honest, whatever people’s views on whether there should be a transition and on how we should respond to different negotiating outcomes, it should still be for Parliament to debate and to decide before exit day, not after. That is what Parliament should be for. Frankly, the Government would be irresponsible not to give Parliament the opportunity to debate and take a view on the terms and on the timing once they have been agreed.

There is a con in what the Minister said earlier, because the Government actually do recognise that there may be circumstances in which exit day has to be changed. The Minister said that clause 17 will not apply and that somehow it will not allow the Government to change the exit day through regulations after it has been agreed in the Bill, but that is not the advice I have had—it is not the advice the House of Commons Library gave me this afternoon, for example. In fact, the combination of clause 9 and amendment 383 will still allow Ministers to change exit day, if they so choose and if they think it appropriate. That is the impact of the Henry VIII powers throughout the Bill.

We understand why Ministers might want a provision to be able to come back and say that exit day needs to change because we have reached the 11th hour, because the negotiations need to be extended by an extra month or because the process needs to be changed. Ministers have kept that power in the Bill for themselves, but why should the power be reserved just for Ministers? Why cannot Parliament have that power, too? That is the flaw at the heart of the Bill. If in unforeseen or difficult circumstances Ministers need to change the timetable, they can, but Parliament will have no choice, no say and no ability to do so.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that, if Parliament did have that opportunity, it would be taking back control and sovereignty would be returned not to the Executive but to this House?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Lady is right. We had all those debates about taking back control and parliamentary sovereignty, yet somehow the Minister seems to want to rip it all up. The Government are trying to concentrate huge amounts of power in the hands of Ministers, rather than giving the whole of Parliament a say.

Ministers have to stop infantilising Parliament and treating Parliament as if it is the enemy. The truth is that the sky did not fall in because Parliament had a vote on article 50. The Government told us that it would, and they told us that the whole process would be stopped, but it was not stopped because each and every one of us understands that we have obligations and responsibilities towards the referendum result, just as we have obligations and responsibilities towards the negotiation process that the Government have to conduct on our behalf, and that we cannot directly conduct for them. We know that we have those different responsibilities, and we know that we have to take mature and responsible decisions given the complexity of the situation that faces every single one of us. We just do not think that those decisions should be entirely in the hands of Ministers; we think that the whole of Parliament should have a say on something so important.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech and argument. Does she agree that having the vote and support of Parliament behind the Government and the action they take would strengthen the Government’s hand in the negotiations with the European Union?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend, because this should be about the whole of Parliament, just as when we had the responsible debate on article 50. We know it is complex. It is our job and our responsibility in a democracy to deal with that complexity, and not just to abdicate our responsibility and hand it over to Ministers because, somehow, it is too difficult for us in Parliament to deal with. Of course it is not too difficult, and of course we are capable of dealing with the complex situation we face.

[Anna Soubry]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that we simply have not had the debates? That, of course, is not lost on the European Union, and it is also not lost on the people of this country. If we had those debates and if we had a real say on what Brexit will look like, we would begin to form a consensus and we would begin to bring people together across the United Kingdom in getting that good deal, reuniting so many divided communities, families and even friends.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the right hon. Lady. The truth is that the plans for our Brexit future have to be sustainable and have to command consent. The plans will have implications for many decades to come. They have to give us the chance to heal the Brexit divide across the country from the referendum, and they have to give Parliament the chance to debate the details and to have a proper, honest debate about what it will mean across the country.

[Catherine West]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that had things gone differently in last week’s debate and had the information been laid before the House, emotions might not be running so high?

[Yvette Cooper]

Clearly, we need more transparency.

I want to draw my remarks to a close. My amendment gives Parliament the opportunity to indeed take back control. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) said he wants us to debate in this House how we are governed. Well, then he should vote for my amendment, rather than concentrate power in the hands of Ministers. At a time when we have seen democratic values and democratic institutions undermined and under threat right across the world, we have an even greater responsibility to ensure that there is a proper democratic process and that we follow our obligations that come with the parliamentary Oath we took. So much of the debate we had during the referendum was about parliamentary sovereignty. What my amendment does is make that real.

[Mr Grieve]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in this debate, particularly as the matters on which I wish to touch very much concern her amendment and some of the others we have had.

I hope that the House will forgive me if I start by dealing briefly with the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). I am sorry he is not in his place, but I hope that he will forgive me if I say that the words he articulated were ones that I could fully understand and appreciate—heaven knows I have heard them often enough from constituents and from right-thinking people who want the best for our country—but that contained simplicities. Those simplicities simply do not match the problems this House faces in disentangling us from our relationship with the European Union. This issue has bedevilled the entire debate on Brexit and remain, and it is one reason why we find ourselves where we are today.

I happen to believe that what we did last year was a great and historic error. I cannot help it, and nothing that has happened since is going to alter my view. I recognise my responsibility as a Member of Parliament to try to give effect to what the public asked for in their response to that referendum. But in doing so, I am certainly not willing to suspend my own judgment, particularly when I have to witness what I see as an extraordinarily painful process of national self-mutilation, which I am required to facilitate. I cannot escape that; that is what I feel, and I am not going to abandon it because I am ordered to do so by anybody else.

With that in mind, I have to say what the right hon. Gentleman is asking for is the desire perhaps of many people in this country, which is to go to bed at night and wake up to find that the whole thing is over and done with. Unfortunately, it is not going to be over and done with for a very long time. The problem we have in this Bill, and on which we have to focus, is how we try to take this risky, dangerous—for our economy, our national security and our national wellbeing—and difficult process to a reasonable outcome. That is the challenge we have got. In doing that, Parliament cannot simply abdicate its responsibility to the Executive. Of course the Executive have to get on with the business of the complex negotiations, but Parliament is entitled to take a check on this at every conceivable stage.

I have to say to my colleagues on the Treasury Bench that the problem is that as the difficulties have piled up—in my view, they were inevitable, predictable and predicted—the tendency has been for everybody to get more and more brittle, more and more unwilling to listen, and more and more persuaded that every suggestion that is being made is in some way a form of treason. I have to say, with the deepest regret, that this culminated last Friday with a mad amendment, which I shall come back to in a moment. It was tabled, I believe, without any collective decision making in government at all and it was accompanied by bloodcurdling threats that anybody who might stand in its way was in some way betraying the country’s destiny and mission. I am afraid that I am just not prepared to go along with that.

Undercover Policing

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will have heard the considerable concern in the House and the impact on our democracy of these serious allegations. Given that this Parliament is about to dissolve and that some of the affected Members are standing down, will you use your influence to urge the Home Secretary to come to the House and contact MPs directly to give them clear answers about the two key issues that are unanswered—the scope of the inquiry, to ensure that it can get to the truth about these allegations, and about the transparency and access to individual files for Members? I apologise for making this point of order, but given the gravity and timing of this matter, with Parliament about to dissolve, I think we need far more answers directly from the Home Secretary today.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Ensuring that employers and employees stay in touch during the period of maternity leave can ease the return to work and make the process work better for everybody involved. The “keeping in touch days” that were introduced fairly recently—within the last few years—as part of maternity leave have helped in that. We are of course considering how that successful initiative can be extended further through the shared parental leave that we are introducing.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I know that the Minister will have every reason to agree with me about the importance of supporting maternity leave for working women. We wish her well. However, she will also be appalled by the figures that one in seven women on maternity leave lose their job and half return to jobs that are worse than those they left. Discrimination against someone just because they are on maternity leave is obviously illegal, but the Government have now decided that new mothers who want to take their case to an employment tribunal will have to pay £1,200 to do so. That is the equivalent of nine weeks’ maternity pay. Does she think that will make it easier or harder for new mothers budgeting for a young family to challenge maternity discrimination?