European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Philippa Whitford and John Redwood

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 2nd sitting
Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

My right hon. Friend puts it brilliantly; that is exactly the kind of limitation of our sovereign power, and of our freedom to make decisions that please our electors, that I have been talking about. It is quite important, given the history of this debate.

Turning to the Scottish nationalists, I agree with what the Scottish nationalist spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), said: we only want volunteers in our Union. We are democrats. We believe that the Union works, but that if a significant portion of the Union develops a feeling that it is not working for them, we need to test that. I was a strong supporter of accepting the Scottish National party idea, just a few years ago, that there should be a referendum. That referendum had the full support of the United Kingdom Parliament, which is the sovereign authority for these purposes on Union matters. I also fully agreed with the then SNP leadership when I talked to them about it—I think our formal exchanges were recorded in Hansard. They said that they agreed with me that whichever side lost should accept the result, and that it would be a “once in a generation” event, not a regular event that happened every five years until one side got the answer that it liked. I hope that the SNP will reflect on that. We are democrats and we want volunteers in our Union, but we cannot pull it up and examine it every two or three years through a referendum, which is very divisive, expensive and damaging to confidence and economic progress. We should live with the result.

[Dr Whitford]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that we did respect the result? We have been here for four and a half years. We would not have been if we did not respect it; we would have been independent, and we would not be being dragged over the EU cliff at the end of this month. He should accept that the claim of right that Scotland has had for 331 years did not disappear in 2014, and that his party has changed the entire fabric of the United Kingdom. It cannot continue to treat Scotland’s views with disrespect.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Philippa Whitford and John Redwood

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

Those of us who have had to study European Union affairs for all too long, because they affect our own country so much, have learned from bitter experience that deals nearly always happen at the last minute under artificial or genuine deadlines that the EU has often imposed on itself. All we are trying to do, in supporting a Government in doing this, is to say to the EU that there is a deadline on this negotiation: “If you, O EU, really want a free trade deal with us, as you have said you do in the partnership agreement, hurry now while stocks last.” It is not all about us; it is about the EU as well. It needs this free trade agreement, and we need to keep the pressure up. Let us tell it that there needs to be significant progress by the middle of this year so that it is realistic to finalise the text.

I do think it should be relatively straightforward, if there is good will on the EU side as well as on our own side, because we have been party to its international negotiations. If we take the best of the Japanese deal and the best of the Canadian deal—it is already there in text—it should be relatively easy to say that we can at least have that. The EU has already offered that to non-members of the European Union, and we should be able to add a bit more because by being a member we already have agreements to things that are in our mutual interest to continue.

I would be very optimistic about the negotiations, but I am quite conscious that if we negotiate as, unfortunately, the previous Government did before the change of leadership and the general election, we will end up making more concessions to get something that the EU has already promised in the political declaration. I do not want the fish at risk, and I do not want the money at risk. I do want to take full control of the money, the fish, the law making and the taxes from the beginning of next year, as we are promised by this Bill, and clause 33 is a very important part of trying to deliver that.

I wish the Government every success. I am optimistic on their behalf because of the promises the EU has made. My message to the EU is: “Do not underestimate the British people. You may have been right to believe that many of their political representatives in the last Parliament were on the EU’s side, not on the UK’s side, but the British people are altogether a more serious proposition, and the British people have spoken loud and clear.” The British people have had enough of the delay, enough of the dither, enough of the concessions and enough of the idea that Brexit is a problem. We believe in Brexit; we want the freedoms; and we want to choose our own taxes, our own laws and to spend our own money. Bring it on—the sooner, the better.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister and some members of the Conservative party call on everyone to “move on” from Brexit. It is as if he expects those of us who see the disadvantages of leaving the EU simply to put our brain in a box and forget about the impacts on our constituents and communities. He expects us not to speak up for the colleagues, friends and, in my case, loved ones who have come here from the EU, made their home here and improved our society. He expects us not to mourn our loss of EU citizenship and to be silent about the damage to healthcare, manufacturing, the food and drink industry, farming, and even fishing—yes, fishing, that oft-quoted supposed beneficiary of Brexit.

The trouble is that the Prime Minister thinks there is only one fishing industry, and one Scottish fishing industry, and he completely ignores inshore fishing, such as that in my constituency on the west coast of Scotland. Eighty-five per cent. of that catch goes to the EU, but with extra bureaucracy, delays and the threat of tariffs, the industry will struggle to compete with Northern Irish fishermen, who share the same waters but will land their catch directly into the single market. To save their boats, some fishermen have even mooted registering them in Northern Ireland, but that would destroy the viability of our fishing harbours, fish markets and onshore processing. It is certainly not a “sea of opportunity” for coastal communities.

Despite his hollow demand to “let the healing begin”, the Prime Minister has produced a worse deal than his predecessor. Like her, he made no attempt to seek common ground across the Chamber, or across the nations of the UK, and he ignored the Scottish Government’s compromise of enabling both Northern Ireland and Scotland to stay inside the single market and customs union, which would have respected the fact that both nations voted to remain in the EU. Even the supposed triumph of the Northern Ireland protocol is sketched on the back of a fag packet, with almost everything left for the Joint Committee to work out and enact through sweeping and unlimited delegated powers.

The changes made to the October version of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill set the tone for what we can expect from this Government in future. The deletion of clause 34 and schedule 4 removes the protection of workers’ rights from this legally binding treaty, while clause 37 abandons the commitment to family reunification for unaccompanied child refugees. Particularly concerning are the Government’s plans for a ridiculously short transition period of only 11 months—despite the former Prime Minister taking two and a half years just to get the withdrawal agreement. The Tory manifesto revealed the Government’s aim of changing the balance between Government, Parliament and the courts, and in this Bill we see that begin. There is little input for the devolved Governments, despite the impact that Brexit will have on their devolved policies. This debate has been limited to just three days in the House of Commons, as opposed to 30 days to debate the treaties of Rome or Maastricht.

We hear much about sovereignty as an argument for Brexit. The rather pointless clause 36 simply restates parliamentary sovereignty, yet clauses 5 and 6 give the withdrawal agreement supremacy over all domestic UK law. This Bill is not “getting Brexit done”; it is the beginning of the beginning. The former Prime Minister tried to have her cake and eat it, while painting herself into a corner with her own red lines. This Prime Minister clearly does not care if he only manages a few crumbs of a basic, bare-bones trade deal, and the loss of 50-plus EU free trade deals with other countries in the world. Such is the obsession with a short transition—there is certainly no more talk of frictionless trade!

The long wish list of aspirations in the political declaration is way beyond a trade deal; it is the future relationship with the EU. The political declaration makes it clear that the more the UK diverges, the less there will be on the table, and the outcome of that will affect the wellbeing of people in all our constituencies. By deleting clause 31, and by removing parliamentary oversight of negotiations on the future relationship, MPs are losing the ability to influence the terms of that relationship on behalf of our constituents and local industries. We are also losing the possibility of scrutinising the Government’s proposals and holding them to account on their progress. This is a blind Brexit. As others have said, we are expected to jump off a cliff at the end of this month, and we are meant just to trust that somehow the Government will knit a parachute on the way down.

Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement

Debate between Philippa Whitford and John Redwood

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

No, I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. I think that he will find that we were responsible for the existing pension liabilities jointly and severally with the other members. We cannot really complain about that; we were joining the club, so we had to help pay the club bills. When we leave the club, the remaining members pay the bills—it is a fairly straightforward operation.

[Dr Whitford]

I would have thought that when someone leaves the bar in the golf club, they pay their tab before they go. That is what the £39 billion is; it is not shopping for a trade deal. If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that no deal is better, so as not to pay the £39 billion, I would be interested to hear what he thinks will happen to the EU citizens who have settled here and to British citizens who have settled in Europe, because they are also part of the withdrawal agreement.

[John Redwood]

I have always said that someone should pay for the drinks they have just ordered in the bar while still a club member, and once they have ceased to be a club member they cannot order drinks anyway, so there is no problem. I do not think that the hon. Lady has really got that one. As for EU citizens, I am very keen that we reinforce the Prime Minister’s assurances. I have always thought that if we do the right thing by its citizens, it will end up doing the right thing by ours. It is very important that we do not forget that our citizens have rights and need support as well, but I do not believe that the EU is as nasty as some remain voters seem to believe. I do not believe that this group of democratic nations would start evicting people from their countries after they had settled there legally under its rules. I hope that the hon. Lady is not suggesting that. If she is, why does she wish to belong to the kind of organisation that throws people out when they are legally entitled to be there?

[Dr Whitford]

It was the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues sitting on the same Benches who talked about EU citizens as bargaining chips and playing cards. One of them stated in the newspapers only recently that EU citizens would not be allowed to stay—someone not very far away from him at all.

[John Redwood]

I suggest that the hon. Lady addresses those remarks to whoever she thinks said that, but I did not.