European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Gary Streeter and John Penrose

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I will endeavour not to try my hon. Friend’s patience too much; he is being very generous. I want to clarify one point. I think that his previous response on the difference between “necessary” and “appropriate” will have suggested to the plain non-lawyerly listener that he was accepting the principle that there should be no greater powers than are necessary to ensure that EU law is ported across correctly, and that the only argument he is making is that there might then be a legal interpretational problem when he has more than one choice. Will he at least confirm that he does not wish to bring in, for himself or for any other Ministers, powers that are higher than “necessary” as a basic principle, and that he will therefore try to find words that will give him that minimum level of—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Gary Streeter)]

Order. This is a rather long intervention, and the Minister has made it clear that he does not wish to take too many more interventions as he is seeking to make progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gary Streeter and John Penrose

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I will not trample on the purviews of the devolved Administrations and the Northern Ireland Office, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me with more details, I would be happy to respond.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

Are the Government looking seriously at how the understandable security challenges of online voting might be overcome so that future generations of young people can vote online in this country safely and securely, thereby increasing voter registration and participation?

[John Penrose]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that online activity is an increasing part of our everyday lives, whether it be shopping or anything else. As technology improves and online voting becomes steadily more secure, it is something that we will need to continue to revisit. At the moment, the prospect of potentially stealing the Government of a country is too grave to allow online voting to happen.