European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Of course we will need to do that, and businesses will have to comply with those standards. That is why we need to ensure that the EU and EU-derived rights we have are underpinned by an enhanced status. We will then need to move on to the conversation—which we will have to have—about how to stay in some form of regulatory alignment, if we want the type of deep and comprehensive deal that I think both sides envisage.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Does he accept that so many of these rights existed before we joined the EU and will still be there after we leave the EU? They are not, and need not be, dependent on the European Union. It is this place that will and can safeguard those rights.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman may have missed my point. I completely accept the fact that these rights will be brought into UK law, that they will not be underpinned by EU provisions and that many of them were there first and have been added to over the decades of our membership. What we are talking about here is ensuring that retained EU law cannot be chipped away at by secondary legislation—that it has an enhanced status and must be amended only by primary legislation debated in full in this Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

It was appropriate that we heard a typically helpful and important contribution from my right hon. and learned Friend, whose constituency bears the name of the great Tory Prime Minister who introduced many of the important social reforms of the 19th century. They helped to pave the way for both parties to bring forward important social reforms to protect, enhance and improve the rights of workers and others in industry and employment.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for giving way so early in his remarks. Will he also reflect on: the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802; the Factory and Workshop Act 1878, which was brought in by Disraeli; the 1901 Act brought in by Salisbury; and, if we wind forward to the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, rights, such as maternity and paternity rights, that far exceeded the EU’s minimum guarantees?

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend’s point is well made. We are talking about centuries of progress. To bring things right up to date, the Prime Minister made a pledge in her Lancaster House speech, which was underlined in our manifesto—I can underline this again today on behalf of the Government—that the Brexit process will in no way whatever be used to undermine or curtail the rights of workers that are enshrined both in domestic law and in law by virtue of the European Union.