Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

I commend the Secretary of State for ignoring some of the more over-excitable demands from parts of the Brexit press and some of his Back Benchers, and for confirming, as he has done today, that he will incorporate into British law some of the jewels in the crown of the EU—the habitats directive, the working time directive and the green renewable energy directive—that we can all agree on. He will know, however, that there will be a fork in the road: the Government will either have to keep those provisions in domestic legislation, in which case Conservative Members will reasonably say, “What on earth was the point of leaving the EU in the first place?”; or he will remove those provisions, in which case the EU will need exacting safeguards to ensure that we do not undercut EU standards.

Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is impossible to do what the Prime Minister said yesterday about participating fully in crime-fighting and anti-terrorism EU measures without access to the Schengen information system and other databases—I remember from my time in government that such databases are devastating crime-fighting tools—and without abiding by EU data protection directives overseen by the European Court of Justice?

[Mr Davis]

After a commendation like the one with which the right hon. Gentleman started, I think my career is over.

The right hon. Gentleman is half right and half wrong. What the Prime Minister was referring to yesterday was, of course, the importance of either maintaining something very similar to, or putting in place a replacement for, the justice and home affairs strand of the European treaties. He is right in one respect: if we are to exchange data with not just the EU but other countries, such as the United States, we will undoubtedly need data protection, such as data laws and privacy protection, that meets their standards. The Bill will ensure that we get to that point on the day we leave the European Union and can therefore continue to exchange data. There is no doubt that there will be continuing discussions thereafter about how we maintain all our standards at the same level. However, that will be with not just the European Union, but all our allies, whether America, Canada, the “Five Eyes” —everybody.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I want to close by saying this, Mr Speaker. The idea that, by doing the right thing and allowing us to have a vote and a say in the event of no deal, we would somehow be weakening the Prime Minister’s negotiating hand is absolutely perverse. It is as though all these deliberations and all the divisions that still exist in our country are not being reported throughout the whole of Europe. It is as though all this is taking place in some kind of silence. Everyone in Europe knows how divided our nation is. They know about the deliberations in this place and in the other place. They also know that, of those who voted, only 52% voted for us to leave the European Union. I urge the Government, for the sake of bringing unity not only to our party but to the country at large, to allow Parliament’s sovereignty to reign and, in the event of no deal, to allow us to have a vote and a say.

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

I must declare an interest, because the political is personal for me on the issue of EU citizens in the United Kingdom, as I suspect it is for many other Members in this House. The two most important women in my life—my mother, who is Dutch, and my wife, who is Spanish—are directly affected by this. While they are of course special to me, I none the less think that their fate, and the uncertainty that they have endured, is typical of the constituents of many across the House. My mother has lived here for more than 50 years. She has raised four children. She has worked as a teacher. She has paid her taxes. My wife loves this country—most of the time. She does not love the weather, but she loves this country. She is raising children, paying taxes, and working as a lawyer. It simply beggars belief that people like them and millions of others have had a question mark placed over their status, their piece of mind, and their wellbeing in our great country because of the action, or rather the shameful inaction, of this Government.

[John Redwood]

The question mark has been placed there by the EU, not by this Government. If the EU said today that our citizens abroad are safe, all EU citizens here would be safe.

[Mr Clegg]

The right hon. Gentleman would start blaming bad traffic on the EU if he could. It is absurd. We picked the fight, not the EU. His party picked the fight; the EU did not.

I have one observation that I want to press the Secretary of State on. Even if he gets the deal on the issue of EU citizens here and UK citizens there, which I sincerely believe he wishes to seek, and even if that goes as smoothly and quickly as he has suggested today, there is no earthly way that this Government can separate the 3 million EU citizens who are already here from the millions who may, after a certain cut-off date, want to live, study, and work here without creating a mountainous volume of red tape.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Clegg]

Remind me, was freeing ourselves from red tape not one of the principal reasons why the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and so many others told us that we should leave the European Union? Yet this Government are going to create a tsunami of red tape, which EU citizens, including my mum and my wife, will rightly resent just as much as this Government have always resented red tape in Brussels. The particular irony is that the Secretary of State and I worked closely together in this Chamber as Opposition party spokespeople 12 years against the then Government’s attempts to impose ID cards, yet I predict that he and his Government will have to introduce something not identical but strikingly similar to the paper trail behind ID cards.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Clegg]

I must make progress; there is very little time.

Turning to the other, perhaps more meaningful amendment, the double standards that we have just heard about red tape are duplicated several times over by the double standards of Brexiteers saying, “We should free ourselves”—at any cost—“from the lack of democratic accountability in Brussels,” when the first thing they do is undermine and weaken the principle of democratic accountability in this House. I have listened closely to the Government’s case for rejecting that amendment, including today, and there is no first principle argument against it, because they concede to the principle of a vote; they just do not like us having the freedom to decide what that vote should be on.

The Government have come up with laughable arguments, which we have heard repeated here today, including that if we have just the bog-standard, plain vanilla accountability exerted by the House of Commons and the other place on any announcement made by the Prime Minister in two years, that will serve as an incentive for the EU to give us a bad deal. By that logic, the only Governments who can successfully negotiate good international agreements are dictatorships. They are not; they are democracies. Democracy can co-exist with good international agreements.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason the Government are digging their heels in as stubbornly as they are is that they somehow think that they will strut their stuff and impress our soon-to-be EU negotiating partners by indulging in parliamentary and procedural machismo here. Who do they think they are kidding? Do they think that Angela Merkel has put everything aside to look at this debate this afternoon? Do they think that she has said, “Oh, look at the way that No. 10 unceremoniously evicted Lord Heseltine and other venerable parliamentarians from their jobs. We had better give them a good deal”?

Does the Secretary of State think that Michel Barnier, whom I know well and know the Secretary of State knows well—a hardened EU negotiator if ever there was one—is saying, “Oh well, we’d better lower the price tag because they are being so tough with their own people”? It is a ludicrous assertion. So I simply say to Government Members, at this last, 59th second of the eleventh hour of this debate on these amendments: stubbornness can be a sign of suspicion and weakness, not strength; rejecting the rightful, conventional role of the House of Commons and the other place to apply democratic accountability to the actions and decisions of the Executive can be a sign of weakness, not strength; and this specious argument that condemns the lack of democratic accountability in Brussels while undermining it here, in the mother of all Parliaments, is a sleight of hand that should not be lightly forgotten.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), as he and I spent a number of years working together in coalition government. I know that was not enormously fruitful for all those on my side, but I thank him for his remarks.

Let me deal with one opening point and then refer to the amendments, rather than making a general speech. One observation to make, which comes back to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about process, is that we sent to the House of Lords a short, well drafted and tightly focused Bill. Usually, the House of Lords argument and its criticism of this House is that we send it long, badly drafted and ill thought through legislation, which the House of Lords then has to improve. In this case, we sent the other place a short, tightly focused, well drafted Bill that does one very specific thing; it then made the Bill longer and reduced the quality of the drafting. We should help their lordships out this afternoon by getting rid of their poorly drafted amendments and sending the Bill back to them in the same expertly drafted form in which it started.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Nick Clegg Excerpts

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

[Mr Jones]

I had hoped to speak at the end of the debate, but it may be of assistance to the Committee if I deal with some of the matters that the shadow Secretary of State touched on. However, I do not want to go into the details of the various amendments that other hon. Members will no doubt wish to speak to. With your consent, Ms Engel, I will address them briefly at the end of the debate.

May I first repeat what I said to the shadow Secretary of State when I intervened on him a few moments ago? The Government have repeatedly committed from the Dispatch Box to a vote in both Houses on the final deal before it comes into force. That, I repeat and confirm, will cover not only the withdrawal agreement but the future arrangement that we propose with the European Union. I confirm again that the Government will bring forward a motion on the final agreement—

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will just finish the sentence, because it is rather important. The Government will bring forward a motion on the final agreement to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it is concluded, and we expect and intend that that will happen before the European Parliament debates and votes on the final agreement.

[Mr Clegg]

Will the Minister stress to the Committee again that that applies to both the withdrawal agreement and a final agreement on the future relationship between the UK and the EU? It is my view, which is shared by many others, that the former is feasible within two years but the latter is highly unlikely. What will happen if a withdrawal agreement is reached but not a new agreement between the UK and the EU?

[Mr Jones]

I must preface what I am about to say by saying that we do not expect that we will not achieve such an agreement, but my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already made it clear that if we cannot come to an agreement, we will have to fall back on other arrangements. The Government have consistently been clear about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I support the Government offering this House a vote. They cannot deny the House a vote—if the House wants to vote, the House will vote—but it is very important that those who want to go further and press the Government even more should understand that this approach could be deeply damaging to the United Kingdom’s negotiating position. It is based on a completely unreal view of how multinational negotiations go when a country is leaving the European Union. I find it very disappointing that passionate advocates of the European Union in this House, who have many fine contacts and networks across our continent, as well as access to the counsel and the wisdom of our European partners, give no explanation in these debates of the attitudes of the other member states, the weaknesses of their negotiating position and what their aims might be. If they did so, they could better inform the Government’s position, meaning that we could do better for them and for us.

[Mr Clegg]

The right hon. Gentleman is, as ever, making an articulate case from his point of view about the dangers of a vote at the end of the process. Can he explain why, on 20 November 2012, in a very interesting blogpost entitled, “The double referendum on the EU”, he advocated a second referendum with the following question:

“Do you want to accept the new negotiated relationship with the EU or not?”?

How on earth and why on earth has he changed his mind since then?

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

As this is the formal beginning of a process that will most likely lead to the end of Britain’s leading role in the heart of Europe and the European Union—a cause I have espoused and defended all my political life both in opposition and in government—I have to confess that of course I feel sad that we have come to this point, much as I was surprised and saddened, as many people were, by the outcome of the referendum last summer.

That sadness is increasingly mixed with a growing sense of anger at what I consider to be the Government’s deliberate distortion of the mandate they received from the British people in a way that I think is divisive, damaging and self-serving.

Let us be clear: the British people gave the Government a mandate to pull the United Kingdom out of the European Union. The British people did not give this Government a mandate to threaten to turn our country into some tawdry, low-regulation, low-tax, cowboy economy. The British people did not vote to make themselves poorer by pulling out of the greatest free-trading single market the world has ever seen—incidentally, that is one of the many reasons why the Liberal Democrats believe that the British people should be given a say at the end of the process, much as they were given a say at the beginning. And the British people most certainly did not give a mandate to the Government to indulge in the ludicrous, sycophantic farce that we have seen in recent days in which this Government, having burned every bridge left with our friends in Europe, rushed across the Atlantic to sidle up to a US President without seeming to be aware that his nativism, isolationism and protectionism are diametrically opposed to the long-term strategic interests of the United Kingdom.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why my constituents, the majority of whom voted to leave, reject his party’s call to hold a second referendum? I really believe it is an insult to the integrity of my constituents to promote that.

[Mr Clegg]

The insult was that the Brexit campaigners deliberately withheld from the British people what they meant by Brexit. It was a deliberate, effective but highly cynical tactic. We never received a manifesto with the views of Nigel Farage, the Foreign Secretary or the former Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), explaining what Brexit means. Therefore, when we finally know what Brexit really means in substance, rather than in utopian promise, of course the British people should have their say.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

No, I wish to make some progress. That is why I believe that this House has not a choice but a duty to withhold from the Government the right to proceed with Brexit in the way they have planned. That would not stop Brexit but would simply urge the Government to go back to the drawing board and to come back to this House with a more sensible and moderate approach to Brexit.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

I really wish to make some progress. I have only four minutes.

Some people say that there is no alternative, that we must leave the single market and that there is no remote chance that we could find an accommodation with our European partners. Nonsense. For instance, I confirm to the House that I have recently heard it on very good authority that senior German decision makers, shortly after the Prime Minister, no doubt to her surprise, found herself as Prime Minister without a shot—or indeed a vote—being fired, were keen to explore ways to deliver her an emergency brake. In return, they hoped for an undisruptive economic Brexit.

But what did this Government choose to do? They decided to spurn all friendship links with Europe. They decided to disregard the needs of Scotland, Northern Ireland and, indeed, our great capital London. They decided to placate parts of the Conservative party rather than serve the long-term strategic interests of this country. They decided to pander to the eye-popping vitriol and bile that we see every day from people like Mr Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, and other members of the moneyed elite who run the Brexit right-wing press in this country—and this Government have become too slavishly preoccupied with their opinions. But, above all, this Government have decided to disregard the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of 16.1 million of our fellow citizens, which is more than have ever voted for a winning party in a general election— 242 Westminster constituencies voted to remain.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

No, I have only two minutes.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

You will get an extra minute.

[Mr Clegg]

All right.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have a very simple question to ask and the right hon. Gentleman will get the rest of his minute. Does he recall that, during the referendum campaign, the then Prime Minister and many others on the remain side said that if the British people voted to leave the European Union, it would absolutely mean that we leave the single market? Did he agree with that at the time?

[Mr Clegg]

It is a novel concept that the winning side in a competition invokes the arguments of the losing side to make a case that it did not make itself. That is ludicrous. The Brexit campaign deliberately did not spell out to the British people what Brexit means, which is why it is right that, when we finally do know what Brexit means, the British people have another say.

My final point is that the British Government have taken the mandate of 23 June 2016 and not only disregarded the 16.1 million people and the 242 constituencies that voted to remain but have very deliberately decided to ignore the pleas, the dreams, the aspirations and the plans of the people who should actually count most. It is our children and our grandchildren, the youth of Britain, who will have to live with the fateful consequences more than anybody in this House or anybody on the Government Front Bench, and—guess what?—conventional wisdom says that the youth of today are politically indifferent and do not participate but 64% of 18 to 24-year-old voters voted. They mobilised in huge, unprecedented numbers, and 73% of them voted for a different future.

I know that the vote of a 19-year-old does not weigh any differently in the ballot box from the vote of a 90-year-old but, when we search our consciences, as we have just been asked to do, we should search our consciences most especially about what country we think we are handing on to the next generation. Call me old-fashioned, but when a country decides to go on a radical, uncompromising departure to a new and as yet entirely unpredictable future, and does so against the explicit, stated wishes of those who have to inhabit that future, it is a country embarking on a perilous path, and I hope that our consciences will not pay for it.

I have a great sense of foreboding. Notwithstanding my personal admiration for the Secretary of State for Brexit, who will try to conduct his negotiations in good humour, the negotiations are going to get nasty and acrimonious. Just think what will happen in the British tabloid press when the Government first start arguing about money in the next few months. The Government’s position is asking for the impossible and the undeliverable. Most especially, it is not possible to say that we will not abide by the rulings of a marketplace and then somehow claim that we will get unfettered access to that marketplace. That is not going to happen.

European leaders, many of whom I have spoken to, look at us with increasing dismay and disbelief at the incoherence and the confrontational manner in which this Government are proceeding with Brexit.

My final plea is that Members look to the long-term interests of our country and their constituents when voting, not to the short-term interests of this Government.

Article 50

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is inviting me to comment on the case in detail. I will not do that, but I will agree with him in one respect: prerogative power has been used for the past 40 years to increase the burden of European legislation but it seems not to be to reduce it.

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that the Governments of the day, of different political persuasions, published White Papers on their negotiating priorities ahead of the Amsterdam treaty, the Nice treaty, the constitutional treaty and the Lisbon treaty, and that Maastricht treaty negotiations were preceded by two whole days of debate under John Major’s Government and a vote in this House? Can the Secretary of State explain to the House why an approach involving Parliament’s prerogatives of scrutiny is appropriate for amendments to EU treaties but not appropriate to the much larger endeavour of pulling the UK out of the EU altogether?

[Mr Davis]

What the right hon. Gentleman forgets of course is that we have announced already, right at the beginning of this process, that we will introduce the great repeal Bill, which will lead to an enormous length of debate in this House on exactly what powers will be kept and what powers will remain—most will remain. After that, there will be other Bills, I should think, that will also deal with the individual elements of the negotiation, which will inform the House, with the House having the right to both amend and vote on them. So I do not see what he is complaining about.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

Having heard the remarks made by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I am reminded how many fixed points in British politics have changed, and changed utterly, over the last few months. When I used to stand at the Government Dispatch Box, I could always rely on the hon. Gentleman and many other fervent Brexiteers to marry their loathing of the European Union to their passion for the traditions and prerogatives of this House. That was their raison d'être: they hated Brussels as much as they loved the House of Commons. They still hate Brussels, but they now appear to be completely tongue-tied, mute, silent, when they have an opportunity to speak up for the traditional prerogatives of the House.

A few minutes ago, my old friend and foe the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—it is a pity that he is not in the Chamber now—was reduced, poor man, to presenting an obsequious, feather-duster question to the Secretary of State, rather than taking the opportunity to say that this place, in keeping with the greatest traditions of the mother of all Parliaments, should hold the Government to account for what they are now going to do, because the Government do not have a mandate on how to exit the European Union following the referendum on 23 June, and that is at the heart of today’s debate.

Who would have thought it of a Government of the Conservative party, the party of tradition and the venerable principles of parliamentary representative democracy? As they tiptoe away from the great traditions that they once espoused, they are doing two things: they are reinventing history, and they are wilfully ignoring precedent. I want to say a few words about both, but I shall begin with the reinvention of history.

We heard it today, and we heard it from the Secretary of State on Monday: apparently, the referendum on 23 June produced an overwhelming vote in favour of Brexit. Apparently, everyone—except, of course, for a few misguided members of the liberal elite—voted for Brexit. It was overwhelming. There was no contest. It seems to me, however, that the dictionary definition of “overwhelming” does not conform to a very narrow vote in which one side received 17.4 million votes and the other side 16.1 million. That, in my view, is not an overwhelming mandate.

But the reinvention of history continues. Now, it seems, the Government—unique in this land—have a telepathic ability to tell us all the reasons why those 17.4 million people voted for Brexit. That is extraordinary. It is particularly extraordinary given that they have never deigned to tell a single member of our wonderful country what they think Brexit means, because they could not agree among themselves then, and they still cannot agree. Nevertheless, with astonishing, telepathic hindsight, they can tell us why everyone voted as they did—and apparently everyone voted, en masse, for exactly the same thing.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Will the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the one thing that Brexit means is that we are leaving the European Union, and will he not say on the Floor of the House that he will not try to contravene or subvert that?

[Mr Clegg]

As the Secretary of State said earlier, being outside the European Union, like Turkey, Switzerland and Norway, means a multitude of different things. That is now the challenge for the Government. That is what the Brexiteers cynically withheld from the British people in the run-up to 23 June because they could not agree among themselves, and that is why the House of Commons now needs to hold the Government to account.

But, not happy just with reinventing history in terms of the so-called overwhelming vote, which was actually very close—not content just to have, apparently, this telepathic wisdom, with hindsight, about why everyone voted—the Government have cast aspersions on 16.1 million of our fellow citizens who did not agree with them. I find it quite extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country, with no mandate of her own, had the gall to get up in front of her own party conference and basically imply that if you believe, as I believe, that we have a natural affinity not just with one another here, not just with our constituents and not just with the communities that we inhabit in this country, but with people living in other countries, other time zones and other hemispheres—if, that is, you feel that there is something called British internationalism, which I believe to be a proud, liberal, British tradition—you are a citizen of nowhere. I do not think that any Government who insult more than 16 million of their fellow citizens are capable of uniting a country that was so starkly divided on 23 June.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

There seems to be a developing theme that the people who voted to leave were not clear about exactly what they were voting for. Does the right hon. Gentleman not recall the very clear warnings given by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and the then Prime Minister that voting to leave meant leaving the single market? Does he not accept that leaving the European Union cannot mean the continuation of free movement and the application of European law that membership of the free market would require?

[Mr Clegg]

Let me answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly. I personally take the unfashionable view that with a bit of fancy diplomatic footwork and some political intelligence, the Government could negotiate retention of our membership of the single market along with curtailment of freedom of movement. What the Government cannot do—and, funnily enough, the hon. Member for Stone was correct about this—is have membership of, or untrammelled access to, a marketplace of rules and not abide by those rules. That is what is impossible, but it was not a contradiction on the part of the British people; it is a contradiction on the part of the Government, and a self-inflicted one.

Let me now say something about precedent, for precedent is very important. Many people have talked about the history of this place, and the history of the relationship between the legislature and the Executive, but why has no one on the Government Benches cited what is, in my view, the very important precedent of John Major? When he was Prime Minister and was faced with a very tricky negotiation on the Maastricht treaty, he made the courageous decision—and it was not a risk-free decision—to come to the House and say, “This is what I want to negotiate on behalf of the United Kingdom; do you agree or not?” There was a debate, and then a vote, on 20 and 21 November 1991 That was a stance taken with courage and delivered with clarity. Where is the courage now? Where is the clarity? Where is the willingness of this Government to put country before party? It is truly a shame that the example set by John Major is not being adopted by the followers of the present Prime Minister.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

I shall make some progress, if I may. I want to cite one final precedent, which has not been mentioned in the debate so far but of which I have personal experience, and which I think has a direct bearing on the debate.

When I was Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition Government, a Secretary of State—I shall come to who it was in a minute—came to me and said, “Look, I have to negotiate, on behalf of the Government, a very tricky deal with the rest of the European Union.” It was all to do with the so-called JHA opt-out, on which I am sure the hon. Member for Stone could deliver a great treatise. As he will remember, under provisions negotiated by Tony Blair, the United Kingdom fell automatically out of a bunch of measures on crime-fighting—the so-called judicial and home affairs co-operation measures—and we had to decide, as a country, which ones we were going to opt back into.

There was a great tussle and argument between the two parties in the coalition. I wanted us to opt into more measures, and the Conservatives did not. However, I was told by the Secretary of State that the one absolutely indispensable requirement for that Secretary of State was, at the beginning of the negotiations, a full debate and vote on the mandate on which the coalition would then negotiate with the other member states, and at the end, another debate and vote. Those took place, and I can give the House the dates, which I have here on my scrawny little piece of paper. On 15 July 2013, the House debated and voted on that complex negotiation on the JHA opt-out, and the concluding vote on the final package—which we as a coalition Government were bringing back to the House—took place on 10 November 2014. The House might be interested to learn that the Secretary of State who was so adamant at that time that there should be a debate and a vote on those negotiations was none other than the Prime Minister of today.

That is significant, and my final question for the Ministers is this. If it was justifiable for the House of Commons to have not only a debate but a vote at the beginning and the conclusion of a negotiation on the significant but none the less comparatively narrow matter of the JHA opt-out, why on earth are the Government not coming here today and granting the House exactly the same rights and prerogatives for something that is immeasurably more significant and that will, as so many people have said, have a bearing on life in this country for generations to come?

Next Steps in Leaving the European Union

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend was, if I remember correctly, at the Conservative party conference, and she may have heard what I said there. There were two things that relate to this. One is that the single market is one description of the way the European Union operates, but there are plenty of people who have access to the single market, some of them tariff-free, who make a great success of that access, and it is that success that we are aiming for.

The other point I made was that the global competition for talent is something that we must engage in. If we are going to win the global competition in economic terms, we must engage in the global competition for talent. We are entirely determined to do that, but that does not mean, and it is not the same as, having no control of immigration. They are very different issues. We will be going for global talent and we will be going for the best market access we can obtain.

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

I have always been a great admirer of the Secretary of State for his staunch defence of civil liberties and his staunch defence of the prerogatives of this House. I was a great admirer when he brought forward the Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill in 1999 and stirringly told us that

“Executive decisions by the Government should be subject to the scrutiny and approval of Parliament”.—[Official Report, 22 June 1999; Vol. 352, c. 931.]

Can he tell us on the basis of what constitutional principle he believes the Prime Minister can now arrogate to herself the exclusive right to interpret what Brexit means and impose it upon the country, rather than protect the rightful role of scrutiny and approval of this House?

[Mr Davis]

Here we go again. The right hon. Gentleman cannot tell the difference between accountability and micromanagement—it really is as simple as that. The simple truth is that there will be debates galore in this House, starting on Wednesday and thereafter, about what the Government’s strategy will be. We will tell the House as much as we can, but not enough to compromise the negotiation. At every turn, right through to the end, we will obey the conventions and laws that apply to the creation, removal and reform of treaties: every single one. This Government believe in the rule of law and that is how we will behave.