Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robin Walker and Paul Blomfield(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Walker
This is certainly an issue which the Department keeps under review, and I should be happy to speak to the hon. Lady about it in more detail.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Debate between Robin Walker and Paul Blomfield(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Walker
I am happy to look into the specific issue that hon. and learned Lady raises, but if she looks at the text in Hansard she will see that I addressed the point that she made about amendment 44. I mentioned a Government amendment that had been introduced on separate issues, but I am certainly happy to take that point away for consideration.
In conclusion, the clauses are a necessary protection to deliver our promises on unfettered access and to deliver what the protocol acknowledges on Northern Ireland’s place in the internal market and customs territory of the United Kingdom, and to respect the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendments 52 to 60, which I tabled with my hon. and right hon. Friends. Together, these amendments seek to provide a solution to the mess that the Government have got themselves into by removing the provisions in the Bill that put our country in conflict with international law. We do so, because we want to maintain our reputation as a country that respects the rule of law; because we want to see a successful internal market for the whole UK when we leave the transitional arrangements on 31 December; and because we want the Prime Minister to deliver the “oven-ready” deal with the EU that he promised the British people last December—a deal that pledged tariff and barrier-free trade for services as well as goods, along with safeguarding workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection, and which offered a broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership underpinned by continued adherence and giving effect to the European convention on human rights.
The Bill makes that less likely. Our talks with the European Union have been damaged, our reputation in the world appears trashed, and it is a mess that was completely unnecessary and is not resolved by the amendment tabled by the Government. This so-called compromise may calm some Government Members, but it does not resolve the issue: the breach of international law that has led to the resignations of the head of the Government legal service, Jonathan Jones, and of the Advocate General, Lord Keen, who said in his letter to the Prime Minister that he could not reconcile his obligations as a Law Officer with the Bill, as he could find no
“respectable argument for the provisions at clauses 42 to 45”.
In an interview on Radio 4 last week, the Lord Chancellor was uneasy in his defence of the Bill, as he might well be, having sworn an oath when taking office to
“respect the rule of law”.
The situation could not be more serious, and we accept that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), which has been seized on by the Government, was introduced with good intention, arising from real, genuine concern among many Government Members, but it does not solve the problem.
In providing for a vote subsequently, the Government have offered a sticking plaster to salve consciences, but we would still be acting in contravention of international law—not when we enact the Bill’s provisions, but when it goes on to the statute book. The Government amendment does not change that fact. Let us look at the withdrawal agreement—as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) did in her intervention—which was negotiated by the Prime Minister, signed by him and commended to the electorate as the reason to vote for the Conservative party in December’s election. Now, apparently, it is so flawed that we have been asked to break the law.
I saw the argument advanced by the Attorney General that it is okay to breach international law if the decision is taken constitutionally. That clearly flies in the face of the Vienna convention, to which we are a signatory. Article 27 makes that clear:
“A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”