Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for mentioning the release test which is the subject of Amendment 161 in my name. Before I speak to it, I offer a word of sympathy and support to my noble and learned friend the Minister. He probably feels a little under pressure today. I hope that it is not so, because we are all on the same side with this. We recognise the compassion, seriousness and commitment that he has brought to this subject during his time serving in His Majesty’s Government.

Amendment 161 is also supported by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. It also has the support of the Bar Council, the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody and others. Although the amendment is in my name, it is not actually my amendment. It was drafted by the late and much-lamented Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. As all of us recall, he burned with a passion on this topic and felt it very strongly. We miss him very much in these debates.

Briefly summarised, the effect of the amendment would be to change the burden of proof in the Parole Board’s release test specifically for IPP prisoners. The current test is as set out in Section 28 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, as amended. The board must not direct the release of the prisoner unless

“the Board is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined”.

In effect, the prisoner has to satisfy the Parole Board that he or she is no longer a threat to the public. This is a high test and a high bar. The amendment would change that to create an assumption that the prisoner will be released unless the Parole Board is satisfied

“that it remains necessary and proportionate for the protection of the public … that they should continue to be confined”.

This is a subtle shift.

In fact, one of the objections I have heard to this amendment from advocates for IPPs is that it is not going to change things enough and that, in practice, the Parole Board will continue to apply tests of practical judgment to the question. However, I think it will have an effect, even if it is a small effect—the noble Baroness used the word “nudge”—in nudging the Parole Board in a certain direction, by making it clear what the will of Parliament is in relation to these prisoners, in particular, in the special circumstances that obtain.

I will deal with the question that was also raised about the relevance of the word “proportionate”, which the late Lord Brown introduced into the amendment. What does “necessary and proportionate” mean? Does it not include an element of vagueness that might somehow dilute the effect of the amendment? I do not think so. I think the word “proportionate” is meant to convey to the Parole Board that it should look at means of ensuring the safety of the public other than confinement in prison when it comes to consider these cases. That might include enhanced supervision in the community by way of tags or other devices, quite commonly used, that help to ensure that a released prisoner on licence remains broadly safe and not a threat to the public.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My recollection is that there is a section in the original 2012 legislation that would shift the burden of proof in the way that he describes. I remember the difficulty I had in persuading my then Prime Minister to enable me to put the abolition of IPPs into the legislation at all: I had to settle with him that we would put this into the legislation but not, for the time being, enact the change in the burden of proof. Could what my noble friend is seeking to achieve be delivered now by the straightforward provision of bringing that long-dormant 2012 section into effect?

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am somewhat crushed by the fact that the noble Lord is able to bring before your Lordships’ House a point he recalls, after 14 years, simply from memory but which I had to spend a large part of this afternoon looking up so that I could get the wording correct, and which I was about to turn to imminently. Because I was about to say that this amendment is not in any sense radical: it simply builds on a power that the Secretary of State already has, and makes it a duty.

My noble friend is referring—I am sure he recalls this better than I do—to Section 128 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which was, indeed, his legislation. That section gives the Secretary of State the power, by statutory instrument, to amend the Parole Board’s release test for IPP prisoners, not excluding the manner in which this amendment would oblige the Secretary of State or the Government to change the current provisions.

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It seems that there is a pressing need in the last months of this Parliament to settle this issue now. My noble friend Lord Moylan was gracious enough to accept that he had had to spend all afternoon looking up what Lord Clarke already knew. I hesitate to confess that I did not know it, either—and I would probably have had to spend all week looking it up. But there is a mechanism there ready to be implemented, so what is stopping us? What is stopping the Government? It seems that there is also a political will in this House, and I suspect in the other place, to deal with IPPs along the lines of these amendments. It is a falsehood to imagine, as I suspect that my now noble friend Lord Cameron, the then Prime Minister, thought, that it would be electorally disadvantageous—

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My noble friend is of course talking to an audience in this Chamber which agrees with every word he is most eloquently saying, and it is obvious that the Government should press on. The one thing he has not spoken of is the reason that Prime Ministers and Governments will not, and what it was that drove liberal-minded, sensible people such as Tony Blair and David Cameron to defend this IPP system. It is, straightforwardly, fear of public opinion, fear of the media—in particular of the tabloid press, but the whole of the media. The one thing even the most liberal Prime Minister, and certainly those who surround him in 10 Downing Street, is convinced of is that they must never be seen to be “soft on crime”. The only pressure that ever comes from No. 10 in response to some highly publicised crime is for longer sentences to be imposed for whatever criminal offence has currently come into fashion. In an election year, that is even more likely to apply and to be our principal problem today.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. I will have to check tomorrow morning the Hansard report of where I had got to in my speech; I have a suspicion I was in the middle of a sentence in which I was just about to say exactly what my noble friend said—but I am grateful to him, because he was able to say it so much more eloquently than I would have done.

We are in the position with criminal justice and sentencing that we were in the first decade of the 20th century with Dreadnought building. If the Germans have five, we must have six. If we have six, they must have 10. If they have 10, we must have 15, and so on —and guess what? You get 1914.

Here, we are dealing with adult, mature politicians who take instructions from editors and proprietors. Yet, if they bothered to ask the public—and occasionally the press do ask the public—they would find that the public are not nearly as keen on longer sentences or on IPPs as they might think. Had they been braver and bolder—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, would have us be—perhaps we would not have arrived at where we are.

I regret that I have spoken for far too long in Committee, but over the last 25 years this issue has really annoyed me. I am so grateful to the Prison Reform Trust, of which I too am a trustee, for its assistance in trying to restrain my enthusiasm and, at times, my anger about this subject and for providing me with the information and the assistance which I hope have to some extent informed this debate. There is not a single amendment on the Order Paper this evening which does not deserve the gravest consideration of this Committee and the urgent action of this Government.

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[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, the Government agree entirely that our joint objective is to arrive at a package of measures that sufficiently protects the public while dealing with the problems of this existing sentencing regime. That is our overall objective.

My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier invited us to be bold. I suggest that the Government are already being bold in reducing the licence period to three years in circumstances where even the JSC recommended five years. We have already gone further than that very distinguished committee suggested. I do not think that anyone could accuse the present Lord Chancellor of a lack of determination or hard work. To continue the analogy used by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier of us plodding through treacle, we are really trying to find sensible answers to very difficult questions.

In addition, on the general point of hope and certainty and the very tragic case of Matthew, who committed suicide after he had been in the community for 10 years, as I said earlier these government amendments deal with that point. The “three plus two years” have an automatic determination that gives hope and certainty. That is a very large step forward. It is not a total answer to the problem, but I invite noble Lords to take account of the substantial progress that we are making.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend and his colleagues in the department, including the present Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, who I suspect would privately agree with everyone who has spoken so far on these amendments. As the Government are to be congratulated on the very bold and significant steps that they have taken, as the Minister quite rightly says, and as, to my amazement, we have not had any widespread public reaction to it or even any awareness of it, is there a chance that he could sneak one or two further changes through in the concluding stages of this Bill? I am sorry to talk in such Dog and Duck terms, but that is the political judgment that we all are seeking to make. Everybody wants to get rid of the worst evils of the old IPP sentence.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham for inviting us to foregather at the Dog and Duck and consider what more can be done. I venture to suggest—hint is too weak a word—that there are things that we can still do. We may not be able to go as far as some of the amendments; in a moment, I will explain why the Government do not yet feel able—to my great personal regret—to accept the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Moylan. I will come to that in a moment. Let us look at what we think might be done and might be achievable.

I will take first Amendments 154 and 168, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere. We have touched on the problem of recalls. We have noted that the Government are trying to reduce the delays in the Parole Board in dealing with recalls, which is one of the major problems. These amendments propose that the Secretary of State should have the power of executive re-release, which applies to fixed, determinate sentences. That is a power which in that context—forgive the jargon —is now referred to as a risk-assessed recall review, which is, in effect, a process for executive re-release. While the Secretary of State must have overriding regard to the need for public protection, the Government can see force in the amendments proposed by the noble Lord.

As I said earlier, those amendments might achieve by a different route the result of the amendments earlier proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, in order to deal with the problem of inappropriate or other circumstances in which it would be right to exercise an executive power to re-release. If I may say it between ourselves—all this feels within the family, as it were, but of course we are talking to the entire outside world—a particular problem that arises from time to time is where the offender in the community is arrested for a new offence; he is then recalled and the police do not prosecute. What happens then? That is a classic practical problem that the power of an executive re-release might address; I make no promises or commitments, but the Government wish to engage further on this aspect as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and supported by other noble Lords, and will give further consideration to it prior to Report. That is that.

Amendment 158, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in relation to prisoners imprisoned under the so-called “two strikes” legislation under the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, is a bit more complicated. As I understand it, although that legislation was abolished in 2005, similar legislation was reintroduced in 2012 and is now to be found in Section 283 of the Sentencing Act 2020, which provides for a life sentence for a second listed offence, the listed offences in question being set out in Schedule 15 to that Act. In terms of sentences of prisoners who are under some sort of two-strike legislation, we are dealing not just with the old 2005 cohort but with others as well. How we deal with those prisoners and in particular what would justify differential treatment of the various kinds of life prisoners we have seems to the Government an important and large question. The Government’s present view is that this problem is somewhat outside the scope of the Bill. That is not to say that we should not continue to consider it. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, should be congratulated on raising the issue and putting it further on the radar, and there would be no objection to continuing a dialogue on it, but in the context of the present Bill, it may be too far to go to deal with anything other than IPP. We will have to see, but, at the moment, the Government are not persuaded that that could come within the scope of the Bill.

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[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as I have tried to say, the whole purpose of the action plan is to create a framework in which this cohort, properly managed, could progress to safe release, with sentence plans, psychological support, support from psychology services and other support towards a safe release. That is a better route than tinkering with the release test. I will not say it is exactly a legal quibble, but it is a bit of a legalism to be fiddling with the release test.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

The problem is that the Parole Board is made up of real-life men and women with a very heavy responsibility. There is an underlying fear about the consequences of ever releasing somebody who then goes on to commit some terrible crime. The reality is that they contemplate the appalling reaction that they would get in the media, the public inquiry that would condemn them and the destruction of their reputation if they ever moved to let out somebody who did something terrible. Ministers share the same reserve when it comes to undoing this.

The proposal to alter the burden of proof was designed to give a little encouragement, a little more courage and a little help to people in getting over that fear of the recriminations if they ever made a mistake. It would be an explanation that the Parole Board could give if it had let somebody out. Then, it could detain only those where it was satisfied that it could see that there was a risk from the person being released. That would make a great change to the numbers being released. At this stage, in the interests of justice, the risk to the public is one that we should contemplate as not as severe as everybody fears.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I see the force of the points being made by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke. I respectfully suggest that the fear of the media is not the driving force in the case of this Lord Chancellor or, if I may say so, his Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State currently at the Dispatch Box. We are looking at the real question of public safety.

If I may ask it rhetorically, who speaks for Pauline Quinn? Admittedly, that was not an IPP case. Pauline Quinn was aged 73, was disabled and could not protect herself. She was brutally murdered by a convicted killer released on licence. I respectfully suggest that these risks are very difficult for any responsible Government to take, irrespective of what the media might say.

This raises another point. At the moment the Government are not convinced that this would make a significant difference, because the Parole Board, even under the revised test suggested by my noble friend Lord Moylan, would still have to be satisfied on the issue of the protection of the public. It is perfectly likely that one is simply raising false hopes. It does not change the process that the Parole Board has to go through to look at these very difficult individuals, who are very much at risk of harm and very difficult to manage in the community.

If you read the 2023 report from the Chief Inspector of Probation, you see how difficult it is to manage these individuals—those who have already been released, not the unreleased cohort. This is a very difficult area. At the moment the Government are not persuaded rightly or wrongly that it is a correct approach to make it easier to release dangerous people. That is the Government’s position, and I have explained it as best I can.

Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I do not assert that everything in the garden is rosy. This area is one of the acute—perhaps the most acute—dilemmas faced by the Ministry of Justice. Your Lordships will be aware that the subject of IPP prisoners is being addressed in Part 4 of the Victims and Prisoners Bill currently before Parliament, which we will shortly discuss in detail in Committee, and I am meeting noble Lords on Thursday to take that discussion further.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, this is not just a major problem in the system; it is a major disgrace to the British justice system that these thousands of people are being kept in this way. When I persuaded my then Cabinet colleagues to abolish the IPP system because it was working so badly, unfortunately I was unable to persuade them to change the application of the licensing system in the ordinary way to these prisoners. I am glad that the Government are now contemplating action. I look forward to the legislation, but it has taken years. Will they consider something drastic, such as that, when prisoners are released on licence, the licence period should be for a much shorter period than usual, because at the moment people are being returned for quite minor breaches of licence, to the disproportionate consequence of an indeterminate sentence that may keep them in prison for life? Why cannot they be released on licence for 12 months and thereafter be subject to the usual criminal law for the protection of the public? Will the Minister consider that, and every other suggestion flowing to him from the campaigners?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the House will be aware that the Victims and Prisoners Bill reduces the qualifying licence period from 10 years to three, with the presumption of termination at that point, and automatic termination two years thereafter if there is no recall in the meantime. A recent report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation found that in none of the cases examined was the recall inappropriate but that, in some cases, further additional support in the community might have avoided the need for recall. That has led to a number of recommendations, all of which the Government have accepted.

Prisoners: Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

In response to the noble and learned Lord, I can say that we started with 6,000 offenders in this category. We now have 1,400 who have never been released. That is because the Parole Board considers them to be a risk to public protection—they have been reviewed, in many cases several times, and that is why they are still there. A further 1,500 have been released, but they have been recalled for various reasons—but they are eligible now for re-release.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, it is well over 10 years now since I abolished indeterminate sentences with full cross-party support, including the vocal support of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the Home Secretary who introduced them, because we both agreed that they were being used on a scale, and in a way, that had never been intended or contemplated by Parliament. We never imagined that over 10 years later we would find that over 1,000 people were still serving these sentences, many of them way beyond any minimum sentence that the judge may have recommended when imposing it.

Following on from the last question, I made the mistake of assuming that the Parole Board would steadily release all such prisoners when the time was right, but I also made the mistake of putting the burden of proof on the prisoner to prove that there was no danger. That has failed and there is no point in still defending it. The Government have already rejected resentencing of all the offenders involved. Can the Minister assure me that the plan that is about to be produced will bring an end to the indeterminate, timeless detention of people for whatever crime, some of them quite minor, and replace it with a wholly new sentencing method if indeed some of these people would be a danger if released?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are well aware of the difficulties of the situation. Our approach to the present problem is that we cannot contemplate the automatic release of many of those prisoners that a resentencing exercise would involve. What we can do is better prepare them for release, especially with regard to mental health problems, and better look after them “in the community” when they are released, so that they are not available for recall. In that way, the Government hope that these figures will be substantially reduced.

Prison Capacity

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am not in a position to comment on the last 40 years, but, respectfully, I would not make any link between the Government’s policy on prisons and the other matters to which the noble Lord referred. On the second part of his question, as I said just now, sentencing policy is a matter for the courts and not the Government.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I think I am correct in saying that we have the second highest incarceration rate in the western world by far, after the United States of America. I have been around for the last 40 years and, in recent years, successive Governments—Labour and Conservative—have tended to introduce an annual criminal justice Bill increasing the maximum sentences for offences that have featured most in the popular press of the previous 12 months. As there is no evidence whatever that the length of sentence has any effect on the incidence of crime, and as the Minister also acknowledges the value of rehabilitation—it is the most valuable service prisons can give the public, because it saves them from future offences that might be committed, unless people go straight when they leave—does he agree that reversing the trend on sentencing and concentrating more on rehabilitation work, which he rightly praises, would be a valuable change in criminal justice policy if the new Government were to adopt it in the next two years?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Clarke for that question. The Government place the highest premium on rehabilitation and reducing the reoffending rate. The Government’s position is that this is not the moment to consider a change in sentencing policy.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. He put this with beautiful simplicity and total clarity. He underlined the fact that, at the end of the day, we are answerable for what we decide. I deplore bringing in important things at the late stage of a Bill, which is why I withheld my vote when we were voting and not debating last week, because it made a mockery of Parliament. This is not making a mockery of Parliament; it is underlining the humanity of Parliament. I believe we should follow the sage advice of my noble and learned friend.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise and feel rather guilty about the fact that I have neglected this Bill during its passage through the House because I was simply unable to attend and I decided not to participate. I came to listen to this debate to find out what was being put on the statute book, having followed it a little from a distance. This issue therefore took me completely by surprise. I have listened to the exchanges, but I thought I should add the voice of a third former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to the very eloquent case that has been made on both sides by the two others who share that position.

Personally, I do not approve very much of mandatory sentences, which have spread on to the statute book far too frequently in recent years in response to dramatic and publicised cases. I do accept the mandatory life sentence for murder; that is a very long-standing practice. We should deal with considerable care when we add new mandatory sentences in response to understandably emotional and dramatic cases that appear in the media but, unfortunately, responding to the media has become a feature of criminal justice Bills rather too frequently.

I rose simply to do what my noble friend Lord Cormack did: to add my voice, in so far as it helps at all, to those that have been put forward. This House would be letting itself down if it just let this go through by overstrict adherence to the normal procedures, which of course we should normally follow.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate that Third Reading is not the time for long and ponderous speeches, but I wanted to place on record—as someone who tabled amendments on Report and in Committee to deal with IPPs and the injustice that remains—that I wholeheartedly support the remarks of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Brown and Lord Judge, my noble friend Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt.

This is just the beginning and must be seen as something that will continue to be looked at, both by the Select Committee in the other place and the Ministry of Justice. I also place on record my personal thanks to my noble friend the Minister, who has dealt with this question with sensitivity and within the bounds of possibility that being a Minister in this House places on him. I thank him for what he has done and look forward to hearing more that will undo the injustice that the IPP regime is still visiting on a number of people.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I feel very guilty that I was unable to arrange my diary to take any part in the Bill as it went through because this is the part of the Bill in which I would otherwise have taken an active part. I have already apologised to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, outside this House for the fact that in the end I was not able to offer him any assistance.

I add only, as my noble and learned friend just has, my support and simply record that I was the Lord Chancellor who abolished indeterminate sentences in 2011 with the wholehearted support of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who was then in the House of Commons with me and defused any attempts to preserve this stain on the statute book, which he had accidentally introduced without any expectation that it would be used as it was and resolve into a problem.

If you had told me when we abolished this sentence that there would be thousands of people in the position that they are now, 11 years after abolition, because they were left over to be dealt with, I would not have believed it. What I proposed was simply a change to the burden of proof that the Parole Board had to apply when deciding whether it was safe to release somebody, but that was never implemented. The fact that all these years later we face these problems is something of a disgrace. I thank the Minister for making this modest move, but I certainly agree with what everybody has said about the modesty of it. It needs urgently to be addressed by the Select Committee in the other place.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I too would like to echo the thanks for the Minister. He has, in a sense, been a lobbyist within the Ministry of Justice to get this modest amendment over the line. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, summed up the position very well when he described it as the first crack in the wall. I was alarmed by the figures he quoted from his Written Question, where he seemed to indicate that there would be more prisoners in jail because of recalls, so the problem is likely to get worse and not better.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, referred to the Minister’s reference to Newton’s second law—that it is easier to move an object that is already in motion. My first degree was in physics, and I would phrase that slightly differently, in a way that is relevant to the politics: the rate of change of movement is proportional to the impressed force. We on this side are certainly interested in increasing the impressed force on this object which is currently under way.

Privatised Probation System

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

As you would anticipate, Mr Speaker, we do not feel that this is simply an ideological choice between the private and the public sector. There are things that we can learn from the private sector. There have been some significant improvements in the way that services are delivered and in IT. We must also remember that this is not just a question of the private sector. In certain areas, we are working with local authorities and the voluntary sector.

To address the specific challenges that the hon. Gentleman raised, he pointed out that the frequency rate of reoffending has gone up, but the binary rate of reoffending has in fact gone down through the course of these programmes. On the question of cost, it is true that more money has gone in, but it is still much less money than anticipated. Broadly speaking, we were anticipating that we would spend about £3 billion over the course of the contract. The companies committed to spend about £1.8 billion and the Government put in an additional £400 million. That still leaves us spending perhaps £700 million—something of that sort—less than we anticipated. So the public have spent less money than they expected to over the course of this programme.

The Kent, Surrey and Sussex Community Rehabilitation Company is a good provider and we are confident it can step in successfully, but we also have the national probation service working with it to ensure that it operates well in the Working Links areas.

On the broader issue that the hon. Gentleman raised about whether we have looked carefully at the lessons, we absolutely have. As I explained, we will make absolutely sure that we look very carefully at the consultation requirements and that anything we do in the future carefully learns those lessons, de-risks, focuses on quality, improves performance and protects the public.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

In the field of justice policy, as in the field of health policy, arguments are being reduced to a notion that if the public sector provides a service it is automatically better than if the private sector does so. That is completely irrelevant and just a lazy substitute for producing any real ideas on what can be done to improve rehabilitation. I am very attracted by the Department’s idea that we might replace prison sentences of six months and less, because prison tends to toughen up the inadequate and unpleasant people who get those short sentences and need to be punished. It is essential that we strengthen the effectiveness of our probation-based rehabilitation services alongside that. I welcome what the Minister has announced, but does he accept that we need more trials of what can be done in various parts of the country so that we can carry public confidence, if we change the sentencing system, that people can be punished, but punished in a way that might more effectively stop them committing more crimes against the public when they are released?

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. As my right hon. and learned Friend points out, if we are to reduce the number of people serving ineffective short prison sentences, we must improve the quality of community sentences. That means that we need better supervision of offenders, better sentence planning and more use of technology, including electronic monitoring. One of the key objectives of the reforms that we will be bringing into probation is to reassure not just the public but the sentencers that good community protection exists.

Privately Financed Prisons

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

The shadow Lord Chancellor asked a number of important questions. Let me go through the answer on the six prisons where the 10,000 places are. At the first prison, Wellingborough, the construction will be funded by public capital. The second prison, Glen Parva, will be funded through PFI. We are exploring a range of other funding arrangements, including private finance, for the remaining four prisons but we have yet to achieve a resolution on that.

On the question of who we would like to bid, of course we will be looking for legal, reliable bidders, but I wish to emphasise that the key here is about getting quality and diversity into the estate. We do not want to be overly ideological about this. We believe in a mixed estate. There are some excellent public sector prisons. I had the privilege of visiting Dartmoor prison recently, where prison officers within the public sector estate are delivering excellent services and getting very good inspection reports. At the same time, Serco is running a difficult, challenging prison at Thameside, which has 1,600 places, and is innovating. It is bringing in new technology, it is bringing computers into cells and it has had a real impact on violence and on drugs.

At Liverpool’s Altcourse prison, G4S is running a prison where there are fantastic employment facilities and workshops in operation. The inspectors have clarified that in Liverpool the private sector, drawing on the same population size, is outperforming the public sector. This is not a question of a binary choice between the private and the public sectors; it is a question of a diversity of suppliers, who can often learn a great deal from each other.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the question of whether a prison is publicly or privately financed and operated is an ideological irrelevance to the very many problems he faces? While accepting my congratulations on all the announcements he and the Secretary of State have made this morning, will he confirm that he will continue to give priority to reducing the numbers in prison, where possible, by removing those who are merely inadequate, those who are mentally ill and who could benefit from rehabilitation elsewhere? Will he also ensure that he gets rid of the older, slum, overcrowded prisons and that the new prisons can provide the quality of security and rehabilitation that the public deserve?

[Rory Stewart]

That question comes from someone who was of course a very distinguished Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. My right hon. and learned Friend makes a powerful point: we need to ensure that prison is there primarily for the purposes of punishment, the protection of the public and turning around lives in order to prevent reoffending. We have to be absolutely clear that people who ought to be in prison must be in prison and properly housed there, and we must work to turn their lives around. He has put his finger on the fact that we have inherited a very challenging estate. Almost a quarter of our prisons are buildings that stretch back to the Victorian era or, in some cases, to the late 18th century. That causes unbelievable problems of maintenance, and it contributes to problems of overcrowding and to issues of decency. All of that gets in the way of our ability to provide the conditions that allow us to turn around prisoners’ lives. Therefore, it unfortunately gets in the way of preventing reoffending, which, ultimately, is the best way of protecting the public.

Worboys Case and the Parole Board

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman regarding transparency. I am pleased that there is cross-party consensus on the need for increased transparency of Parole Board decisions. That should not undermine Parole Board independence, which is important. I hope to move swiftly to change systems in order to ensure that the reasons that the Parole Board has reached a decision become available to the victims. I hope that that will be in place shortly.

The hon. Gentleman touched on the licence conditions. In a way, this is not necessarily as much of an issue as it was. It had been determined that Worboys would be electronically tagged and excluded from London. That may or may not be an issue in the future, depending on future Parole Board decisions.

On the dossier that was provided by the National Probation Service—and, therefore, my Department—for the hearing that occurred on 8 November last year, it is the case that there may well have been information that should have been included in the dossier and that was not provided, but it is worth pointing out that it is the responsibility of the Parole Board to satisfy itself that an offender is no longer a risk to the public. The judgment of Sir Brian Leveson was that the Parole Board failed to probe that evidence sufficiently, as it should have done. I reiterate that the National Probation Service opposed the release of John Worboys.

I made no secret of the fact that I was considering whether to take a judicial review, and I set out in my earlier remarks the reasons why I did not bring that forward. The reality was that the victims were in a better position than me to bring a successful case. It is important that we ensure that when the Parole Board reaches a conclusion that meets certain criteria, there is an ability for it to look again and examine whether the relevant panel has performed its duties as it should have done. Sadly, that is not what happened in this particular case, and that is the issue that we need to fix for the future.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I welcome Sir Brian Leveson’s judgment. The victims have obviously got the justice that they were seeking. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it would have been absolutely scandalous if he, as Justice Secretary, had ignored the legal advice that he got, which sounds to have been perfectly sensible on the basis of facts available to him? It would be a very bad day if Ministers started intervening in criminal sentencing cases in response to campaigning, and did not judge them objectively according to the rule of law and the public interest.

While implementing these extremely welcome proposals, which are obviously needed in the light of all this, would my right hon. Friend make sure that the Parole Board and its panels are not undermined when they carry out properly their extremely difficult task? The Parole Board is often asked almost impossible questions, and we cannot have people making any judgments except on the basis of the best judgment that they can make in the public interest. Criminal sentencing must never be simply a question of campaigning and responding to popular pressure.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, who is also a distinguished predecessor in my post. He is absolutely right on both counts. In terms of whether I took action or not, I thought that it was very important to test the legal arguments. As I made clear on 19 January, I was not going to stand in the way of others and, indeed, others may have been better placed to bring that case. I looked carefully at the advice I had received and based my actions on that advice.

My right hon. and learned Friend’s second point is also important. There were failures in what the Parole Board did, including not probing sufficiently and not being sufficiently inquisitive. We must, however, accept that the Parole Board makes thousands of decisions every year that often involve difficult judgments, and it is not always necessarily going to get it right, but it is not the role of politicians to interfere and second-guess those decisions. We do, though, have a role in ensuring that we have a system in place with clear guidance, clear training and the right people. We clearly need to do some work on that, and I have set out some proposals today.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

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

[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.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I will give way in just a second, but let me finish this point.

That means that a meaningful vote cannot take place until a detailed agreement has been arrived at about certainly the precise nature of our trading and economic relationships with the single market of the European Union, and actually quite a lot else besides, because we still have to embark on the security discussions, the policing discussions and the discussions about which agencies we are going to remain in and which agency rules we are going to comply with. This is, we all agree, a huge and complex agreement, and it is going to determine this country’s relationships with the rest of the continent of Europe and the wider world for generations to come. Can that happen before March 2019?

We face the genuine difficulty that it is quite obvious that we will not be remotely near to reaching that agreement by March 2019, and we have to think through what that actually means. The negotiators have been very optimistic in saying that they will have first a transition deal and then a deal by 2019. I am sure that they will try, but they have not a chance. I think that what they are actually saying—certainly the continental negotiators—is that they might be able to have some heads of agreement on the eventual destination by March 2019, which we can all carefully consider. They will certainly have to agree a transition deal of at least two years within which the rest of the process will have to be completed.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that everybody wants things to be speedy, because one of things that this country is suffering from most at the moment is the appalling uncertainty caused by the fact that we have taken a ridiculous length of time to reach three obvious conclusions on the three preliminary points that had to be determined as the basis of our withdrawal. At the moment, however, we do not quite know what the British Government are going to be seeking as their end goal in the negotiations that are about to start, because the British Government, within the Cabinet, have not yet been able to agree exactly what they are seeking.

If I may say this to my desperately paranoid Eurosceptic friends, it is not as if I am somehow trying in some surreptitious remainer way to put a spoke in the wheels of the fast progress of the United Kingdom towards our destination. The Government do not know what leave means. Nobody discussed what leave meant when we were having the referendum. Our overriding duty is not just to our political allegiances and so on; it is to provide this country with a good, responsible Government who face up to the problems of the real world and, accountable to Parliament, can produce the best new order that they can for the benefit of future generations.

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is demonstrating why he is Father of the House, so I hesitate to interrupt him, but on his point about having a meaningful vote prior to the Prime Minister of the day making the deal, does he agree, with his wealth of experience, that if we are to keep the country together, it is important that that Prime Minister has in the back of her head when trying to pull off that agreement, “I have to get this through my Parliament”?

[Mr Clarke]

The right hon. Gentleman makes one of the points that I was going to make. The most important effect of passing either new clause 3 or amendment 7 —there is actually more to this than a meaningful vote, if we consider the various stages—and achieving proper parliamentary accountability is that that would affect the tenor of the negotiations. Like every other Head of Government in the European Union, our Prime Minister would need to have at the back of her mind, “Can I deliver to the House of Commons what I am thinking of conceding?” Every other political leader in Europe will do that, because they will have to sell what they sign up to to their own Parliaments. If we do not have a meaningful vote, we will be the only member state whose negotiators are not under a legally or constitutionally binding commitment to sell the deal, because they will be able to make the deal and then come back to the House of Commons and the House of Lords and say, “This is it. What do you think of it?”

[Chuka Umunna]

The Father of the House is absolutely right that the Bill essentially gives the Government a blank cheque. On timing, the only commitment I can see in today’s written ministerial statement from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union about what will happen before we leave the EU is that the proposed withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will be introduced before we leave. That is clearly unacceptable. Any piece of legislation seeking to do what that Bill has in mind must be passed before we leave the European Union, even if that means extending the process to maintain parliamentary sovereignty.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree entirely, and my next point is linked to that. The nature of the parliamentary approval cannot just be a motion; it must have statutory basis, which is the route that the Prime Minister has followed. There are various reasons for that, but the obvious one is the extremely uncertain status of resolutions of this House under current parliamentary practice. The Brexit Secretary is only the latest example of someone saying that anything that is not statutory is not legally enforceable, but just a “statement of intent”. The House of Commons keeps passing all kinds of motions with which I ferociously disagree, but they get carried by this House and make all kinds of criticisms of what the Government are doing. We have moved into a new era in which the Government are allowed to keep saying, “Parliament may pass motions, but they are worthless expressions of opinion. They are not part of our being accountable to the elected body of the House.”

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Of course the original plan was not to have a Bill, but to rely on statutory instruments under clause 9 to effect changes of constitutional significance. It was then made clear recently—I think on 17 November—that we will in fact have a Bill. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that to try to make such changes by secondary legislation just is not on? It is very unlikely that the courts would say that such constitutionally significant changes could be made under secondary legislation.

[Mr Clarke]

Again, I agree entirely, and that takes me back to something that has occurred all the way through this process. I am obviously standing here in disagreement with the Government, of whom I am critical in many respects, due to both the policy and how it has been conducted, but I have had some sympathy with them since the election, because they are trying to carry through this enormous, controversial and historic measure when they do not have a parliamentary majority, except when they can persuade the Democratic Unionist party to turn up and support them.

The process started with the extraordinary suggestion that the royal prerogative would be invoked, that treaty making was not going to involve Parliament at all, and that leaving did not require parliamentary consent. Rather astonishingly, that matter had to be taken to court, and it came to a fairly predictable conclusion. The next idea—I will not repeat what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) said—was that everything would be done by statutory instruments under broad powers. However, we are slowly getting to what I would have thought is the fundamental minimum that a real parliamentary democracy should be demanding: the country will not be able to enter into a binding treaty commitment until the details have received full parliamentary approval. How we get there is no doubt a matter of some difficulty, but it must be addressed.

[Mr Baron]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

I will give way in a second.

The debates on this Bill have typified this Government’s approach to parliamentary scrutiny. I understand their difficulties when they have no majority and their Members include people like me and those who are trying to interrupt me—we are allegedly on the same side of the House—who fundamentally disagree with each other.

I have attended every day of our debates on this Bill. We spent yesterday discussing parliamentary scrutiny, but our proceedings have not been a great advertisement for such scrutiny. The Government’s reaction to each and every proposal is to say how carefully they have listened, how important it is and how they will go away and think about it, but then to explain why the drafting of the Bill will not currently be amended. I am sure that I have done that myself when taking legislation through the House, and it is always a joy to find out that one can get away with it for quite a long time. After a bit, one gets used to the fact that one can get away with it as long as one is suitably polite and flattering to those who are proposing amendments. The actual reasons that have been given for rejecting proposals have been all about administrative convenience—that they are obscure drafting amendments. I congratulate the parliamentary draftsmen on creating arguments of such extraordinary minutiae to support the amazing aspirations of civil servants who see a mountain of work before them and hope that most of it can proceed with the minimum of political scrutiny.



What we have not heard, and I will have to hear it today, is the political argument against Parliament having a meaningful say. What is the constitutional argument that says Parliament should be denied a statute before the Government enter into all these commitments? I have not so far heard a word expressed to try to explain that to me. That should be the key, dominant thought in the Government’s mind as they negotiate. Of course they will have to think about what will satisfy the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary, and of course they will have to get something for which the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Sun will criticise them least, and so on, but I do not think Parliament is an afterthought to those vital considerations; I think it is the parliamentary process that matters. The rest is a problem for some press officer.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend said earlier that other Parliaments across Europe will have a say and we will not, but I posit that that is not true. This is about the withdrawal agreement, which will be agreed under qualified majority voting by the European Council, so it is not true that every Parliament across Europe will get a say on this subject.

[Mr Clarke]

Qualified majority voting is an excellent innovation achieved by the Thatcher Government when we were explaining to the other Europeans how they could have an effective free trade agreement. The number of times that British Governments have ever been outvoted under qualified majority voting is tiny. Qualified majority voting could be extremely important in these negotiations, because otherwise a Government of some small state—I will not name any, because they are all friendly—could suddenly decide they have some great lobby group at home that does not want to concede to the British something that the British Government have set out to achieve. The whole thing could then be held up.

The agreement will have to go to all the Parliaments. The Parliament of Wallonia will no doubt be allowed to have a say, which, if this Government have their way, this Parliament will not. The Parliament of Wallonia will be allowed to have a say, and I am not sure whether the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments will—that remains to be seen. European Governments will all have to take a view and defend that view to their own Parliament in each and every case.

[Mr Fysh]

On a point of order, Dame Rosie. I seek your guidance on whether this is misleading the Committee. It is simply untrue to say that each Parliament will have a vote.

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

It is disorderly to say that an hon. Member is misleading the Committee. I suggest that the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) settles down and allows the Father of the House to continue.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Qualified majority voting means that each Government cast a vote and, if we get a qualified majority, that is the effective decision. Each Minister who takes part in that vote is, of course, accountable to their own Parliament, to which they go home and defend their vote. If it is on a difficult, controversial subject, any sensible Minister—all those Ministers—will take the view of their Parliament before going to cast their vote on behalf of their country. It is utterly ludicrous to say that this Parliament should be denied a vote and not allowed a role because qualified majority voting somehow replaces it. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) says that what I say is untrue and, with great respect, I would say that his argument is an absurdity.

[Mr Baron]

I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s consistency on this issue. He is on public record as having once said that he looks forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament will be nothing more than a council chamber of the European Parliament.

When my right hon. and learned Friend says that leavers did not know what they were voting for, he risks sounding very condescending, because we knew exactly what we were voting for: to reclaim our laws and to reclaim our finances. Although one accepts his point that one cannot predict the future in any detail, that is as much true for the EU as it is for this country.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is not the sort who usually repeats the more scurrilous right-wing rubbish that fanatical Eurosceptics come up with about what I have and have not said in the past. I am not, and never have been, a federalist. I would not pursue a united states of Europe. It is social media stuff to start throwing in that kind of thing when we are in the middle of a serious parliamentary debate.

When the public were invited to vote in a referendum, they were invited to take back control, which was not defined. It was mainly about the borders and about the 70 million Turks and all the rest of it. They were told in the campaign that our trade with the European Union would not be affected in any way. Indeed, that is still being held out as a prospect by the Brexit Secretary and others, who seem to believe that they will get unfettered trade without any of the obligations.

The discussions we have had in Committee on previous days about the details of what “single market” and “customs union” mean, and so on, would have been a mystery to anybody whose knowledge of the subject is confined to the arguments reported in the national media on both sides. Those arguments are largely rubbish, and it is now for this House to turn to the real world and decide in detail what we will do.

[Anna Soubry]

The Father of the House is right that there will be a qualified majority vote on the withdrawal agreement. That agreement will not go to each individual Parliament in the same way that the actual trade agreement will. Does he share the concerns of many people, as that now dawns upon them? They had thought that this place would have some sort of say on the trade deal—the actual final relationship that we will have with the European Union—but, actually, we will have no such say because the deal will not be finalised until after we have left the European Union. Does he agree that that is now concerning many citizens across the length and breadth of this land who did indeed apparently vote to take back control?

[Mr Clarke]

I agree entirely. My right hon. Friend eloquently underlines the point that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford raised and that I am trying to make. We must have a meaningful vote before the final trade deal—indeed, the whole deal—is agreed by the Government.

Let me try to lower the temperature by going back, as I rarely do, to reminisce for a moment.

[Sir William Cash]

My right hon. and learned Friend and, I believe, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), both concede that amendment 7, at this crucial moment, is defective and would not work for a variety of reasons. I have indulged what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) has said about scrutiny and responsibility and the rest, but does he agree that it is not appropriate to press such an amendment to a vote when, in fact, it would make a nonsense of itself? It would be a meaningless vote about a meaningful vote.

[Mr Clarke]

No doubt my hon. Friend will catch your eye, Dame Rosie, when he will be able to explain why he thinks the amendment is technically defective, but this is the kind of argument we have had against every proposition that has been put forward throughout the passage of the Bill. I heard the Prime Minister personally promise us a meaningful vote and then go on to explain how the Bill would have to be used to make statutory instruments; so we are talking about the very wide powers in the Bill being used probably even before the end of the article 50 period—I think that is what she said. This amendment would prevent that; it would prevent those powers from being used until a statute has been passed by this House confirming its approval and also giving legal effect to whatever final agreement has been arrived at. I bow to my hon. Friend’s legal skill—he was indeed in parliamentary law when he practised—but I cannot for the life of me see why this is defective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, which I will come back to in a moment.

In turning to amendment 7, let me start by saying something on a personal level. I have been in the House for exactly the same length of time as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield—I think we entered it on the same day, as it happens—and I have served with him in a number of capacities both in opposition and in government, and I have the highest personal regard for him. I have invariably found that when he says something he means it, and I have never found him to be one of those who plays games. Moreover, although I profoundly disagree with him about his amendment, for reasons that I will put forward, I think his motives in producing it are totally honourable and straightforward, and deserve the respect of everyone in the House of whatever persuasion they may be.

There is a reason, however, why I think the amendment is a very bad one. I want to expose an extremely important point about it, which began to come out in the remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend and others. It would not have the effect that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central or the Opposition spokesman seek: it would not actually make it impossible to continue the article 50 process and leave without an agreement. There may be some Members on either side of the House who are tempted to vote for amendment 7 on the basis that it would have such an effect, but it plainly would not.

What amendment 7 would prevent is the issuing of orders under this Bill until another Bill that the Government intend to bring forward has been enacted. If it was agreed and we had not been able to pass the withdrawal and implementation Bill, it might in certain circumstances create the inconvenience of our not being able to issue orders to implement a withdrawal agreement to which the Government had signed up. However, not being able to implement the provisions of an agreement in domestic law does not prevent us from signing and ratifying the agreement and does not prevent us from leaving the European Union. Anybody on either side of the House who imagines that amendment 7 would have the effect of creating what the right hon. Member for Leeds Central called a meaningful vote is under a severe logical illusion. It would do no such thing. The Opposition have tabled, I think, a new clause that would have the effect of giving that power to Parliament, but amendment 7 would not do it.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My right hon. Friend perfectly clearly sets out that a serious constitutional impasse is possible if this House does not pass an agreement, because article 50, even if it is delayed a bit, will eventually lead to our leaving. That assumes—he does not do so, but some of the more hard-line Eurosceptics do—that there are people in the EU who want no deal. I have never met any such person, because actually they would suffer from having no agreements on flights, security, policing and all the rest of it. As has been said, we are inevitably dealing with hypotheses and nobody, whatever their views, really has the first idea where we will be in 18 months’ time, but his suggestion is a most unlikely consequence. If this House rejected a deal, the British Government would go back and say, “We’ve got to have a better one.” I personally would guess that the other 27 nation states would reconsider and see whether they did not have to give a better one in order to the get the deal that they had already tried to sign up to.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I think that is a very possible eventuality, which takes us back to our earlier discussion. I certainly agree that if, upon a resolution, the House refused to accept the withdrawal agreement suggested by the Government and agreed by the EU, it is very likely that the Government would go back and try to renegotiate it, and it is very possible that they would succeed in doing so. I do not deny any of that. My point is that amendment 7 would not force that result, because all it would do is, under certain circumstances, stop certain kinds of orders being issued under this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I can barely stand up again, because I am slightly overwhelmed by the outbreak of consensus.

I shall end this section of the speech with some unashamed flattery, as I look at the triumvirate of titans on the Treasury Front Bench: three Ministers for whom I have the utmost admiration, including my constituency neighbour, the Solicitor General, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland). They have heard this debate, and they are thoughtful and effective Ministers and I am sure they will have taken the mood at least from a certain part of this House about the brilliant opportunity for a solution to this Gordian knot.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

My cup runneth over.

[Mr Clarke]

Before my right hon. Friend tries to urge us all into withdrawing these amendments and waiting for the Government to bring forward their own amendments on Report, let me say that we have been trying to do that through 70 hours of Committee stage. It is no good regarding the Committee stage of this House as an interesting opportunity for Members of Parliament to talk to each other and for Ministers to get up and say they will think about it; we have two days for Report and Third Reading, and the plain aim of the Government is to just enjoy going through this slightly tumultuous and interesting debate and sail on to the House of Lords with the Bill largely intact as it stands. That has been their obvious tactic from a very early stage.

[Mr Vaizey]

I bow to my right hon. and learned Friend’s wisdom and experience on that point. I am a consensus merchant and simply thought there might be a way forward, but I totally understand that votes might have to be exercised tonight in order to stiffen the Government’s backbone to provide a solution. But nevertheless it has always been the case proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield that the Government will have an opportunity on Report potentially to alter his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

Thank you, Mrs Laing. Many of the amendments that have been tabled have focused on the exact nature of the regulations that will be made under the power in clause 9. The exact use of the power will, of course, depend on the content of the withdrawal agreement that we reach with the EU. That agreement will be debated and voted on by this Parliament. The Government have made a clear commitment on that, and it should not be prejudiced or pre-empted now. There has been a lot of talk about a meaningful vote in this House, and the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) has raised the matter again. I will come on to that, and to the key issue of timing. May I say to hon. Members gently, and with the greatest respect, that such a vote would be pretty meaningless in any event if we were not ready to implement on time the deal that we want to do with the EU?

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I thought a moment ago that the Minister was rejecting the idea of a meaningful vote, but I am delighted to hear that he is getting on to it. Does he accept that it is perfectly likely that as the negotiations come to an end, the Government will want to enter into a deal, but they will have given in to pressure from the right wing of the Cabinet and Back-Bench Members of the party and rejected various things on offer from other EU members? That is a far more likely scenario than no deal being the other EU members’ preferred option. In such a case, it would be absolutely essential that the first thing we had was a parliamentary decision on a meaningful vote. We could then legislate, once that particular British issue had been resolved where it should be resolved—in Parliament.

[Dominic Raab]

From my experience, I must say that I think that is a rather rose-tinted perspective on EU negotiations. I should also say that the same arguments were made about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister going into the phase 1 negotiations, yet we are on the cusp of formal ratification of the joint report dealing with the first phase issues. The Prime Minister has made some difficult compromises and shown flexibility precisely to get the deal that I think my right hon. and learned Friend welcomes—I also welcome it—even though we were on different sides during the referendum campaign.

I turn to new clauses 3 and 75, which attempt to remove clause 9 wholesale from the Bill. They would undermine one of the important strategic objectives of the Bill, which is to provide the legal means to implement the withdrawal agreement thoroughly in domestic law. I hope I have explained the important, albeit residual, role that clause 9 stands to play in light of the separate primary legislation covering the withdrawal agreement. To remove clause 9 would increase the legal uncertainty, and I hope that the new clauses will not be pressed.

I want to spend a little bit of time focusing on amendments 7, 47 and 355 and new clause 68, but particularly on amendment 7 in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. May I say at the outset that I do not think he has any ulterior motive in tabling the amendment? I have had a number of constructive conversations with him, and I look forward to more in the future. By dint of that, I hope he accepts that I have followed through on every assurance I have given him, and that I have not failed to live up to the undertakings I have given him. It is in that spirit that we on both sides of the debate need to proceed as the Bill goes through the House.

Amendments 7 and 355 call for a separate statute to be enacted approving the withdrawal agreement before the powers in clause 9 can be used. There are a number of problems with doing so. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) mentioned the constitutional issue, and I agree with him about that. From a practical point of view, however, the crucial problem is the effect that amendment 7 would have in significantly curtailing the timely advantage that we will gain from clause 9. One of the key benefits of the clause is the ability to start to use it reasonably swiftly after the withdrawal agreement has been reached.

To add an unnecessary Bill to the parliamentary agenda—in addition to Parliament’s meaningful vote, as set out in today’s written ministerial statement, and on top of the new withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill—would be restrictive enough. However, to make the first use of the powers in clause 9 wait until the additional legislation has fully passed through Parliament would unduly compress the time we will have to prepare the legislative groundwork, and would risk greater uncertainty. With the greatest respect in the world, I am afraid that is why the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is defective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

This debate started with an extremely eloquent and passionate contribution by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on the meaningful vote that this House has been promised, on the timing of that vote, and on how we can ensure that the Government do not proceed with the detail of the withdrawal agreement, and probably the ultimate trade agreement, without the consent of this House. My hon. Friend the Minister has spent an extremely valuable hour taking us through the foothills of the drafting of the Bill and the administrative procedures that might be necessary before we leave. I asked him for a political argument if he wants to resist the idea, put forward by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, that this House demands a meaningful vote before the Government actually start enacting the outcome of any agreement they have made, so does he have a little time to address that? Is there anything left in his notes that covers that?

[Dominic Raab]

I welcome the chance to reiterate what has already been said and what is already set out in the written ministerial statement: we will guarantee that there will be a meaningful vote in this House, and that none of statutory instruments introduced under clause 9 will enter into force until we have had that meaningful vote. That squarely addresses the substantive issue that my right hon. and learned Friend is getting at. He criticises me for dealing with all the other amendments, but it is only fair in the proper course of parliamentary proceedings to ensure that all amendments from all hon. Members are fairly addressed.

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[Mr Jenkin]

I will come back to the way Parliament interacts with the process, but it would be really rather foolish for this House and the Government to premise all their plans on the basis that that request would be acceded to, because it would require unanimity. I have not heard a single public statement from the EU or a European diplomat that suggested for a moment that they would countenance extending the deadline. Of course, why would they? The deadline written into article 50 is to their advantage. I expect that the hon. Gentleman would have voted for the Lisbon treaty, which contains article 50, but I did not vote for it. I have always thought that article 50 was a snare and a trap. It sets a deadline, against which we are now negotiating, and that is the only prudent way to negotiate.

I loathe secondary legislation that amends primary legislation expressed in Acts of Parliament. It is an odious practice that has entered the legislative process in this House—this is by no means the first Bill that contains so-called Henry VIII clauses—but I can justify such powers as a basis for reversing the effects of our membership of the EU. It may seem to be an irony, but it is by the process of secondary legislation that we have been gradually integrated into the EU.

We have seen order after order coming under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. More often than not, it was a “take it or take it” option: we did not even have a “take it or leave it” option once it was expressed in EU law. The advantages of allowing secondary legislation under this Bill are that, first, the legislation will ultimately be answerable to the House; secondly, the powers are temporary; thirdly, they can be subject to revision or annulment at any future time; and finally, they are underpinned by the democratic authority of a referendum.

On a “take it or leave it” vote, I do not remember debating a single new treaty that was offered to the House on the basis that we could amend the treaty by passing an Act of Parliament. Whether to accept the Lisbon treaty was a “take it or leave it” decision. We were told that if we did not accept the treaty, it would create such chaos that it would force us to leave the EU.

I do not doubt the bona fides of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and others on the Government Benches, but my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) exposed very ably the fact that there are people in the House who want to use amendment 7 as a means to extend the negotiation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe was absolutely explicit on that point. I appreciate that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), did his best to avoid answering the question, but he made it clear that he thinks the deadline will have to be extended.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I thought for a moment that my hon. Friend meant all that stuff about my challenging the result of the referendum.

[Mr Jenkin]

No, no, no.

[Mr Clarke]

I am sorry; I misheard my hon. Friend. I do not think for one moment that we will have completed any of these negotiations by March 2019, but I will wait to see. There are perfectly clear arrangements in article 50 for the time to be extended. I have met several other European politicians, including some of those involved in the negotiations, who rather expect that to happen.

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[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

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

Indeed. My right hon. Friend has stolen the punchline that I was building up to, because that is the one example that I thought would surely clinch the argument. Of all the people who really should value the charter of fundamental rights, surely it is the Secretary of State.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Given that the charter has been part of British law for some years now, the case for repealing it must be based on some harm that it has done. I have never heard anyone describe any harm that the charter is supposed to have done to any public interest in this country, so presumably the hon. Gentleman, like me, awaits some examples to justify the proposed change.

[Mr Leslie]

Absolutely. We might hear a different argument from Ministers, but traditionally the Government’s argument has been, “Don’t worry about the charter of fundamental rights; it doesn’t have any effect, it isn’t necessary and we can do without it because it is already there in British law.” It is rather like what the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) said in his intervention. Of course, if that is the case, why are the Government deliberately excising it from UK law, and why would they resist new clause 16? The new clause does not even require the charter to be retained—I happen to think that it should be retained—but simply states that Her Majesty’s Government should lay before Parliament within one month of Royal Assent a review of the implications of removing it.

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[Mr Grieve]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. As I have said on many previous occasions, whatever merits I may have as a lawyer, I am not a parliamentary draftsman. On top of that, I gently point out that, in an effort to get my amendments in early, they were, in the usual way, drafted with a wet towel around my head at about 30 minutes past midnight on the night before Second Reading. I am therefore quite sure that they are all capable of substantial improvement. Indeed, in my experience, it is very unusual for an amendment ever to be accepted just like that, apart from when it adds a comma, particularly in Committee.

Yes, of course there are different ways in which this can be approached. Indeed, my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, with whom I have had an opportunity for a bit of a chat—I shall look forward to talking to him further about this—has made it clear that he thinks I have been a bit too draconian in deleting paragraphs 1, 2 and 3. On the other hand, there are some other things in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 that I find rather concerning. However, I shall confine myself to paragraph 3 for the moment.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

On whether the drafting is entirely right, so far, as far as I am aware, the Government have had absolutely no answer to the extremely clear case that my right hon. and learned Friend has made about the proper way to protect these cases in future. The obvious thing is for the Government to accept these amendments today, because they can come back on Report and start correcting and redrafting amendments to which I am sure that he will be wholly receptive. What I would not welcome is some vague assurances from Front Benchers that they will think about it and then might come back with something on Report. The drafting can be corrected later; the points that he is making need to be confirmed today.

[Mr Grieve]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very good point. He highlights the difficulty faced by all Back Benchers, particularly Government Back Benchers, in presenting amendments—namely, the extent to which they should accept assurances from Front Benchers. That largely depends on how detailed the assurance is—whether it is woolly and vague or has some specificity to it. My judgment on whether I might press amendment 10 to the vote will depend on how specific Front Benchers can be in providing an assurance that they recognise that, even if there may be areas that remain to be debated, there is a core issue that must be addressed about the ability to bring a right of action in domestic law based on a failure to comply with a general principle of EU law when it concerns the operation of retained EU law.

Furthermore, because retained EU law has supremacy over domestic law, it must be possible that there might be instances in which our domestic law would have to be altered. The Government cannot then argue that that is an extraordinary thing to do, because they have themselves drafted this Bill in a way that allows for the possibility of UK domestic law being quashed. That will, I hope, be for a temporary period. Nevertheless, I am unable to understand how, during that temporary period, we can end up with a situation where the Government are perfectly happy to allow for the supremacy of EU law but remove the very principles that moderate it, ensure that it cannot be abused, and, in those areas that were within EU competence, provide a framework under which the Government are undertaking to operate unless or until they repeal the bits of retained EU legislation that they are bringing into our law.

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[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dominic Raab]

I will just make a little bit of progress and then I will give way to my right hon. and learned Friend.

I will address the detail of this by reference to the new clauses and amendments that have been tabled, because they usefully highlight and flag up the different concerns of hon. Members. As a matter of guiding principle, I hope all hon. Members can agree that we should not make changes that exacerbate the risk of legal uncertainty, which I think goes to the point my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) was making in his intervention. Our substantive law will remain the same on exit day, but it would be wrong in principle—indeed, I think we would find it counter- productive in practice—to seek to cling to all the procedural mechanisms that are inherent, intrinsic and inextricable institutional features of EU membership.

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[Dominic Raab]

The hon. and learned Lady makes a perfectly respectable and legitimate point, but I will address it in the context of amendment 8, tabled in the name of the my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, and amendment 46, tabled in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, both of which, in different ways, seek to retain the charter of fundamental rights in domestic law after exit by removing subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 5. I understand and appreciate the sentiments behind the amendments. Hon. Members are understandably concerned that as we leave the EU we do not see any diminution or reduction in the substantive rights we all enjoy. The Government are unequivocally committed to that objective. I remind the Committee again of the country’s record of pioneering, defending and protecting human rights standards since well before the EU existed and of our ability as a nation to withstand the darker moments in European history that have touched other less fortunate nations.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My hon. Friend reassures us that even without the charter of fundamental rights the House of Commons can be relied upon. That was the argument when the Lisbon treaty was being ratified. There was a widespread feeling that it was not clear whether it would add anything, but we now see that it has added quite a lot, particularly around privacy law, on which the House had never done anything, and now data protection. The lobbies brought to bear on the House if ever we look at privacy by sections of the media and so on are very considerable. Why are we getting rid of a convention that has done no harm and actually has run ahead of this House of Commons at various stages? What will be gained by not leaving open that opportunity for the future?

[Dominic Raab]

I will come shortly to my right hon. and learned Friend’s substantive generic point and also touch on the data protection issue he raised.

The Government reaffirm and renew our commitment to human rights law. It is reflected through UK national law, including, most recently, the Human Rights Act, as well as a range of domestic legislation that implements our specific obligations under UN and other international treaties, from the convention against torture to the convention on the rights of the child. Of course, the principal international treaty most relevant to the UK’s human rights laws is the European convention on human rights. I again make crystal clear the Government’s commitment to respecting and remaining a party to the ECHR. There will be no weakening of our human rights protections when we leave the EU.

In fact, we have an opportunity to reinforce and build on our proud tradition of liberty and the protection of rights. We are already in the process of paving the way to ratifying the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women, the Istanbul convention. We are leaving the EU, but our commitment to pan-European standards, human rights and the European co-operation in this area remains undimmed. Furthermore, as the my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is aware, we will introduce an amendment before Report stage, dealing explicitly with the Equality Act 2010 issues that hon. Members have raised, including by requiring Ministers to make a statement before the House on the consistency of any Brexit-related legislation with the Equality Act.

It is worth reinforcing the point that the charter is not the original source of the rights contained within it. It was only intended to catalogue rights that already existed in EU law. Indeed, I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) intervened, because he wisely noted, as recently as 2011, before a European Committee, that protocol 30 governing the application of the charter

“sets out the boundaries around the charter by confirming that it neither creates nor extends any rights to EU citizens outside those that had existed pre-Lisbon, and it emphasises that member states are required to comply only when giving effect to EU law.”—[Official Report, European Committee B, 14 March 2011; c. 5.]

These rights, codified by the charter, came from a wide variety of sources, including the treaties, EU legislation and, indeed, case law, that recognised fundamental rights as general principles. All those substantive law principles and rights, of which the charter is a reflection not the source, will already be converted into domestic law by the Bill.

It is not necessary, therefore, to retain the charter in order to retain such substantive rights. With that in mind, it is right—this deals with the issue that the hon. Member for Nottingham East raised at the outset—for me to reaffirm the Government’s commitment, which the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union made to the Select Committee, to publish a detailed memorandum setting out how each article of the charter will be reflected in UK law after we leave. I can confirm that we will publish that by 5 December. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, both of whom raised this point. Let me say to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield that I am very willing to continue my dialogue with him on these important matters.

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[Dominic Raab]

I will make a slight bit of progress, and then I will give way.

Seeking simply to transplant the charter into our domestic law as it stands, dislocated from EU membership —given all the other points that Members have made about the way in which it would apply in practice—would not be appropriate, and, indeed, could introduce needless complexities that all of us, on both sides of the House, should legitimately seek to avoid.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My hon. Friend has addressed my question, but, with great respect, he has failed to give an answer. It is true that the charter was originally proposed as a statement of European values to which all members of the European Union could adhere, but, as we have heard, it has developed. If it is doing no harm, why are the Government going to such lengths to get rid of it as the one specific change in the Bill? Presumably it is because it contains the words “European” and “rights”, and this was intended as a Daily Telegraph gesture to the hard right wing of my party.

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. and learned Friend’s intervention was not in quite the spirit in which we have conducted our proceedings so far, but I shall try to address his underlying concern, and I shall be happy to take another intervention from him shortly if he thinks that I have still not addressed it. He is a demanding customer, but I shall keep on trying.

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[The Solicitor General]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). Let me take this opportunity to assure him yet again that our commitment to rights and freedoms remains absolute. I spent nearly 20 years at the criminal Bar dealing with the liberty of the individual. Indeed, I think I was a human rights lawyer before we even coined the phrase, as were many other Members on both sides of the House.

The point has already been made that our rights and freedoms long pre-date modern developments, but modern developments have no doubt helped to sustain, improve and enhance the range of those freedoms. The fundamental question that we seek to ask about the charter is whether, in the final analysis—as we are no longer to be members of the European Union—it adds anything relevant or material to the sophisticated and developing body of law that has evolved over generations. I do not think so, and I have reached that conclusion after extremely careful thought.

It is tempting, after a long debate, to try and treat this as a Second Reading wind-up, but we are far from that. Other Members are anxious to take part, and I am mindful of the time. I will therefore be true to the principles of debate in Committee, and deal with schedule 1, which I hope will be agreed to. In doing so, however, I will address the various amendments that have been tabled on pages 8 to 12 of the amendment paper—which is still the same size although we are now on day three of the Committee stage, and I am pretty confident that that will remain the case.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Before my hon. and learned Friend moves on—very authoritatively, I am sure—to the details of the amendments, may I point out that he has just made an important statement? He said that he had thought about whether retaining the charter of fundamental rights after we had left would add anything to our legal rights in this country beyond what we already have. In the past half hour, we have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) describe what she calls the third category of rights, which do not appear anywhere else in our law, and we have just heard the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) list three or four rights in the charter that are not replicated anywhere else. Which of those rights would the Solicitor General be happy to see abandoned? What is going to happen to the third category of rights? He must explain why he does not think the charter adds anything, given that the main reason people are trying to get rid of it is that it has extended the scope of European-sponsored human rights law in this country.

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[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

We are making some progress, but I point out that I am the second name on the amendments tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and I shall inquire of the Chair between now and the end of the debate whether I have a right to call for a vote on those amendments, which I think I may have. I am extremely glad to hear the Solicitor General say that he will bring forward a Government amendment, because he has vigorously rejected just about every argument that my right hon. and learned Friend has used throughout the debate and has stuck rigidly to the interpretation of the Bill as it stands—with which we started. Will the Government’s amendment at least seek a compromise if it does not move completely towards my right hon. and learned Friend’s arguments? It is no good fobbing us off with more discussion if the amendment will not actually change the policy.

[The Solicitor General]

With respect to my right hon. and learned Friend, I have talked in detail about the various paragraphs of schedule 1, and I have been looking in particular at paragraph 3. In response to the clarifications sought by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), I made sure that all of paragraph 3 would be the subject of that clarification and the tabling of an amendment. Neither my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe nor I are fans of having our cake and eating it when it comes to EU withdrawal and, with respect, I am offering something substantial here that will certainly satisfy him this evening.