European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) wants to intervene.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am confused by my right hon. Friend’s suggestion that all Labour voters supported his position, because the majority of them did not. The majority of Labour Members do not support his position either. That is an important point, so will he correct the record?

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[Paul Blomfield]

No, I will make some progress.

There is therefore no question about whether the UK will leave the EU at the end of that period in accordance with the article 50 notification. So what is the purpose of the Government’s three amendments? Is it simply to appease extreme elements within the Conservative party, not thinking of the consequences for the country, or is it a deliberate decision to unpick the Florence speech, demonstrating that the freelancers in the Prime Minister’s Cabinet are actually in charge of policy?

[Stephen Doughty]

I suspect that it may be the latter. Given the chaos that the negotiations are in, the public will be wondering about the lack of progress. When the Government suddenly want to impose a guillotine, rather than use the article 50 process, the public may have good reason to be suspicious.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The public have reason to be suspicious and worried.

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[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reckless ideological red line on the ECJ has got us into many problems—not only on this, but on the membership of Euratom and in many other ways.

If the Government cannot withdraw their amendments and engage in that process with us we cannot support them, because of the impact on the economy, jobs and livelihoods, as we would plunge over the cliff edge. I should also say that we cannot support amendment 79. We believe the Bill should operate on the presumption of devolution. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) will set out our position in greater detail in subsequent days.

The Government have had months to repair this deeply flawed Bill. They could have come forward with amendments on workers’ rights, environmental protection, the charter of fundamental rights and limiting the scope of delegated powers, but instead they have chosen to come to this House with a gimmick on the departure date. This gimmick is about the Prime Minister negotiating with her own party, rather than trying to get a Brexit deal that prioritises jobs, the economy and the livelihoods of our people. The Government’s amendments are a product of the divisions at the heart of this Government on their approach to Brexit—divisions that are causing chaos, and this chaos is threatening our economy. We have a Prime Minister so weak that she is trying to tie her own hands behind her back to appease the extremists within her party.

[Stephen Doughty]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

No, I will not.

Rather, I should say that the Prime Minister is letting the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary tie her hands for her. She is putting internal party management before the national interest. This country deserves better, and we are offering it.

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[Stephen Gethins]

If only the Government had seen the hon. Gentleman’s talents, he could have been in government implementing these changes. When it comes to increasing funding for the NHS, I look forward very much to the conversations that he and I will have as we pass through the same Lobby in an effort to get the health funding that was promised by people who are now in government.

[Stephen Doughty]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as we have seen today, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) has his supporters in the Cabinet? The Department for International Trade was gleefully retweeting—until it deleted the tweet—the speech that he made earlier, which called for a race-to-the-bottom, low-regulation Britain.

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, as he always does on these matters, even though he and I may not agree on much. Ruth Davidson and I do not often agree on much either, but she was right that we deserve the truth. This place deserves accountability over the promises that have been made. I wonder whether the Minister, who is in his place and who made those promises as part of Vote Leave, will address the question of what will happen about these promises. They were made to the people before they voted in a plebiscite, and he has some responsibility for that.

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What if we get some kind of deal that does not include a security deal? Is Parliament really going to bind its hands now and let the UK crash out on 29 March 2019 without any kind of arrangements for security co-operation, meaning that people would literally have to be released from police custody because we could not use the arrest warrant? Would we leave without an aviation deal, meaning that planes would be stuck on the ground? I do not expect that to happen, but I also know that it is not impossible. If it does happen, as Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs I want to be able to argue for urgent action to ensure that we have a contingency plan, to protect our security and to keep our country safe.

[Stephen Doughty]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. This morning, she and I both heard the Mayor of London clearly set out the implications of not having a security treaty for the safety of London, let alone the rest of the country, so I wholeheartedly agree with her points.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. That was the evidence we heard. Parliament has a responsibility to have a contingency plan. Whatever it is that we hope might happen over the course of the next 12 months, we have a duty to ensure that we have plans in place for every eventuality and that Parliament itself can take some responsibility.

Right now, with the Government’s amendments made and without my amendment, it would theoretically be possible for us to just drift towards exit day without any substantive opportunity for Parliament to step in perhaps to amend the withdrawal terms in the Bill or maybe to require the Government to change their plan or to go back and negotiate some more. That would be up to us in Parliament to decide, but we will not get the chance to decide under the Government’s current plans.

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[Hywel Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I was obviously about to come on to that matter.

The Government might wish to use the Joint Ministerial Committee as a cover for proceeding with this matter, but so far that Committee has not proved itself to be a substitute for proper agreement obtained directly with the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. The JMC—as obscure to many Members in this place as it is to the press and the population at large—met in February and did not meet again until October, during which period the most important and momentous events were taking place and fundamental decisions being taken. Following the October meeting, the Government sought to gloss over the real concerns of the Scottish and Welsh Governments, but as I said earlier, these have now been made clear.

In the Brexit Committee on 25 October, I asked the Brexit Secretary what the formal relationship was between himself and the First Secretary of State, who is handling the JMC. I asked:

“What is the formal relationship between your Department and his on this specific issue?”

He replied,

“there is none at all. He is one of my oldest friends”,

to which I replied:

“He is a very fine man, I am sure.”

I have been in this place for long enough—though not in government—to know the ways of Whitehall working. There are two conditions: where there is a formal relationship between Departments and there is accountability, and where there is no formal relationship and there is no accountability. In the case of the JMC, there is no formal reporting back but perhaps a chat between old friends. I have a large number of old friends—fine people whom I respect—but I certainly would not base my decision about the future of my children and my grandchildren on an informal fireside chat.

[Stephen Doughty]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the crucial issue is not the one he deals with in amendment 79, but whether the Government respond to the cross-party amendments about the Scotland and Wales Acts and other important matters, in line with what the Scottish and Welsh Governments have said? Responding to those amendments in a positive way would show true respect for the constitutional settlement, which the Government have yet to show.

[Hywel Williams]

I am arguing in favour of my own amendment, but I accept the force of the hon. Gentleman’s words. As he knows, we have supported several Labour amendments.

Plaid Cymru has warned of the problems for quite some time. We wrote to the Welsh Secretary over the summer outlining our opposition to the withdrawal Bill and asking for answers about what would happen if the Welsh Assembly withheld consent. The response that we received in September was an aspiration, and it was wholly inadequate. It merely replayed the mantra: “We want all parts of the UK to back the Bill.” It was no response at all.

We raised the matter during a general debate on Brexit and foreign affairs on 26 June, during Brexit ministerial drop-in sessions on 19 July, during the debate on the Queen’s Speech on 26 July, in Welsh questions on 6 September, on Second Reading of this Bill on 11 September and during oral evidence sessions in the Brexit Committee on 17 October. Not once has a Minister told us how the Government plan to proceed if the devolved legislatures do not support the Bill. The only conclusion that we can draw, therefore, is that the Government will press ahead regardless. It is, after all, their legal right to do so, for the time being.

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[Mr Leslie]

I suspect that that is because the Government are struggling to get such a transition. They have admitted that one is necessary, which is a good step. In her Florence speech, the Prime Minister made that concession. In fact, it is probably the biggest single negotiating input that we have seen from the Government since the triggering of article 50.

I have been talking to businesses and I know many hon. Members have done so, and we are hearing that if they do not have some clarity by January or February, they will have no choice but to put in place contingency plans for a no deal and the fabled cliff edge that we would reach at the end of March 2019. This goes beyond the financial services issues, because it applies to a number of sectors of the economy. We need to make sure that we have some certainty. That is why so much is on the shoulders of the Prime Minister in the December European Council meeting, when we are told that we might get some movement from the European Union on this issue.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the transition. A whole series of amendments have been tabled on this issue, and I wholeheartedly support his new clause. Are the businesses he has spoken to not already having to make very difficult and costly hedging decisions because of the uncertainty caused by the Government and, indeed, the siren call from the small number who want us to go off the cliff into a catastrophic, no deal Brexit?

[Mr Leslie]

There is a sort of sadism or masochism— I do not know which it is—on the part of a small number of hon. Members who relish the idea of a no deal scenario, saying, “The WTO has a fantastic set of rules —let’s just dive straight in.” However, I think there is consensus in the House that a transition is necessary, and if that is the case, we must work together across the parties to make sure we put in place the right legislative framework to deliver and facilitate such a transition.

The Prime Minister pointed out after her Florence speech that the European Court of Justice will

“still govern the rules we are part of”

during a transition. The Prime Minister is right. The European Union has said in terms that the entirety of the acquis communautaire needs to apply during a transitional period and that it is the equivalent of the single market, the customs union and the four pillars—the freedoms—within them. That has to include the European Court of Justice, if we are going to sign up to that set of arrangements. That is also the Labour Front Benchers’ policy for the transitional period. Indeed, they will want to speak to their own amendments detailing how they envisage the transition needs to take place.

It is worth reminding ourselves why it is that, during a transition, we will still need a resolution mechanism through the European Court of Justice. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) mentioned in an earlier intervention that the UK took the European Central Bank to the European Court when there was a question whether the euro clearing arrangements might not be feasible in the City of London. From time to time, therefore, we have benefited from that dispute resolution arrangement.

What would happen if other circumstances arose during a transition? For instance, if UK citizens living abroad wanted to get their pension payments but there was an obstacle to them doing so, they would need to be able to seek redress, and that could be provided by the European Court. If a breach of competition rules adversely affected a UK firm, it might seek to get redress through the European Court of Justice. If the European Union started passing rules in conflict with the transition agreement, we would want the Court to resolve the situation in our favour. If UK firms were denied market access in the European Union, we would need resolution arrangements during a transition period. The application of the European Court of Justice is integral to such issues—the Prime Minister was right to accept that—but the Bill presents a problem.

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[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Lady. I know that she is not someone to be pushed around. In fact, when I looked at the front page of The Daily Telegraph, I saw a whole range of principled Conservative politicians with whom I have a number of disagreements, but I look to them as distinguished parliamentarians who always act in what they believe to be the best interests of their constituents and their country.

That brings me to the central challenge at this point in the Brexit negotiations. Manufacturing firms with supply chains in the European Union are having to make decisions now, before Christmas, about jobs and activity and about whether to renew contracts or sign new ones. The clear message from financial services and professional services, the concerns of which the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has attempted to address through his amendments, and from other leading sectors of our economy is that unless there is a clear sense of direction and some reassurance about the rules of the transition period and how it will operate, they will be forced to activate contingency plans as early as now and before Christmas, but certainly into the first quarter of 2018. The clock is ticking, and time is running out. In muddying the waters during the course of today’s debate, Ministers have done nothing at all to reassure businesses that are hovering over activating their contingency plans.

[Stephen Doughty]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of certainty, and I support what he says about the transition. Does he agree that what is crucial for certainty is ruling out a no-deal, catastrophic Brexit, about which so many people are worried? Many businesses in my constituency are now hedging against it, because they are fearful of the consequences.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. We hear this fallacy that those of us who warn about a no-deal Brexit are somehow willing to sign up to any kind of bad deal—as if there is a bad deal that could possibly be worse than no deal.

I would like to hear an intervention from anyone on the Government or Opposition Benches who can explain how crashing out of the European Union over a cliff edge with no deal—meaning an immediate end to all existing contractual and legal obligations and to all the frameworks and protections, a hard border in Ireland, and the end of our trading agreements not only with the European Union, but through the European Union to countries across the world—could be worse than any kind of transitional deal. No deal would be the very worst deal, and it is astonishing that there are Government Members who not only entertain the possibility of no deal, but are enthusiastically encouraging it with the views that they put forward.

There have been many problems with the Prime Minister’s approach to Brexit, but in the Florence speech she tried to set out a practical and flexible framework through which we could now give certainty to business about the transition period and, crucially, through which there would be only one set of changes from our membership of the European Union to our future relationship with it once we leave.

This evening, the Government Front-Bench team have driven a coach and horses through the Florence speech. They cannot provide business with the clarity it needs on how the European Court of Justice will operate during transition. They ought to support our position, which is to remain in the single market and the customs union for the time-limited period of transition, because that would give business the certainty it desperately needs.

For Conservative Members to put their ideological vanity against the best interests of the British economy is selfish, reckless and irresponsible, and people should have no truck with it.