European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Gove and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who made a characteristically authoritative and penetrating speech. I also congratulate him on his leadership of the Labour In campaign in London. The whole United Kingdom, of course, voted to leave, but some of the strongest resistance to the arguments was in London and I am sure that that was in no small part due to the hon. Gentleman’s eloquence and organisational ability.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned the whole of the United Kingdom. The UK is a union, so I hope he will acknowledge that not all the United Kingdom voted to leave. He will remember that we were told in 2014 that the constituent parts were equal partners in the United Kingdom. The whole may have voted leave, but not all of it did.

[Michael Gove]

I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is striking that the northernmost part of his constituency voted to leave—BBC research, I may say. We heard at length last night from the Scottish National party about how Scotland voted; all I would say is that a million people in Scotland voted to leave the European Union, and overall within the United Kingdom so many people voted to leave. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) admirably pointed out, people want that vote to be expedited. I am speaking tonight because I oppose every single one of the new clauses and amendments in front of us because they seek to frustrate the democratic will of the people.

The hon. Member for Streatham is right: people do want us to take back control of the money currently spent on our behalf by the European Union. But if we accept his amendment and the other amendments and new clauses before us, we will be seeking only to delay and, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, to procrastinate, to put off the day when we eventually leave the European Union and can then spend that additional money on our NHS or, indeed, any other priority. If any Member of this House wants to see taxpayers’ money that is currently controlled by the European Union spent on our NHS, on reducing VAT on fuel or, say, on improving infrastructure in the Western Isles, they have a duty to vote down these new clauses and amendments, which seek to frustrate the honouring of the sovereign will of the British people.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench, who was first.

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[Michael Gove]

I will make a little progress, then I will give way to the hon. Lady.

The reason I oppose all the new clauses and amendments is that, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, every single one of them, if implemented, would delay and potentially frustrate the legislation. They would require a huge list of impact assessments to be published and other work to be undertaken before we could trigger article 50.

I know that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) said that it was not the mission of the Labour party to delay, but he is rather in the position of what guerrilla organisations call a cleanskin—an innocent who has been put in the way of gunfire by other wilier figures, such as the shadow Chief Whip who is in his place. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is entirely sincere in his belief that the new clauses and amendments would not delay or complicate the legislation, nor frustrate the will of the British people, but I have to say that he is wrong. He is in the position of the Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator, “the delayer”: everything that he is doing—every single one of these new clauses and amendments—seeks to delay.

Let me draw attention briefly, for example, to new clause 48, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). Subsection (1), as clarified by subsection (2)(s), would require us to have an impact assessment on leaving the European Union Agency for Railways. It may have escaped her notice, but Britain is an island.

[Mr MacNeil]

The channel tunnel.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but the idea that we should spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to determine whether this country will suffer or benefit by being freed from the bureaucracy of that particular agency would seem to be a massive misdirection of effort. More than that—

[Michael Gove]

I will give way to the hon. Lady in just a second.

More than that, if we were to publish impact assessments on every single one of these areas, we would be falling prey to a fallacy that politicians and other officials often fall prey to, which is imagining that the diligent work of our excellent civil servants can somehow predict the future—a future in which there are so many branching histories, so many contingent events and so many unknowns. If we produce an impact assessment on leaving the European Union Agency for Railways, how do we know how leaving that agency might be impacted by the enlightened proposals being brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary for the more effective unification and cohesion of our transport network? We cannot know, unless we have that fact in play, but we do not yet know—quite rightly, because he is taking time to consult and deliberate—what that policy will be. What we would be doing is commissioning the policy equivalent of a pig in a poke. With that, I am very happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman saying he does not know, because I thought everything was known after the 23 June vote. I know he will tell us that the vote on 23 June meant leaving the single market. Does is it mean the WTO or does it mean a deal from Europe? He says he knows. Which will it be? Tell us.

[Michael Gove]

My argument throughout has been that in seeking to find the certainty the hon. Gentleman wants from the publication—

[Mr MacNeil]

Does the right hon. Gentleman know?

[Michael Gove]

I am a humble seeker after truth, but I recognise that in a world where there are contending versions—the Scottish nationalist version, the Green version, the independent Unionist version and the Labour party version—there is for all of us a responsibility to use reason in the face of so many attractive and contending versions of the truth.

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[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for the intervention from the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, who combines the roles of crofter and former investment banker with rare skill. He is right—the pound has indeed fallen—but one of the reasons why many people in our shared country of birth rejected the Scottish National party’s referendum promise in 2014 is that at least we know what currency we have in this country, the pound. If Scotland were to become independent, it would not have the pound and it could not have the euro, so we do not know what it would be left with. A hole in the air? The groat? There is no answer to that question.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Gove]

No.

Let me now deal with the substantive point made by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, because it is critical. He argues that the only way in which we as Back Benchers and Opposition spokesmen can effectively scrutinise the Government is through impact assessments. That is a grotesque misunderstanding of the opportunities that are available to us in the House through freedom of information requests, parliamentary questions—written or oral—and the diligent use of all the other tools that enable us to scrutinise the Executive. The idea that we are mute and blind until an impact assessment has been published, the idea that there is no relevant tool available to us and no relevant source of information that we can quarry other than an impact assessment—

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[Michael Gove]

I could not agree more, and my hon. Friend’s intervention gives me an opportunity to commend him for the work that he has done to draw attention to the way in which some lawyers have used some legislation to enrich themselves at the expense of those who wear the Queen’s uniform and defend our liberties every day. His work is commendable, and it is an example of what a Back Bencher can do. He did that work without any impact assessments having been published, and without waiting for the Ministry of Defence to act. He did it because he believed in holding the Executive to account, as we all do—and the one thing for which we all want to hold the Executive to account is the triggering of article 50. So if anyone wants to have the opportunity for perennial judicial review, they should vote for these amendments. If they want to earn the scorn of the public by putting pettifogging delay ahead of mandate—

[Mr MacNeil]

Pettifogging?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, it is one of my favourite polysyllabic synonyms for prevarication, procrastination or delay.