Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Suella Braverman)
Since the referendum, and contrary to the predictions at the time of the referendum, we are seeing an increase in exports outpacing imports, an increase in manufacturing, and an increase in sales in particular sectors, such as the car industry. We must build on those successes. Leaving the customs union will enable us to develop an independent trade policy beyond the EU and with other countries, and leaving the single market will give us power and control over our rules and regulations.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kate Hoey
No, I will not.
The people of this country will see that Lords amendment 19 is really about trying to go back on Brexit. Their lordships can say what they want, but that amendment is actually about reversing Brexit. We want to take back control, but taking back control was about the people of this country taking back control and our complying with our constitutional duties as a parliamentary democracy.
The European Commission has tried to be as negative and difficult as possible, and I find it absolutely amazing that anyone would think that if, at the end of the day, we did not negotiate a good deal and we said no, we would send that back for renegotiation. Do hon. Members really think that the European Commission would give us a better deal if it knew that the more obstructive it was, the more likely it would be that any deal would be sent back for renegotiation? The reality is that the European Commission does not want us to leave. It does not want to give us a good deal; it wants to punish us.
Kate Hoey
No, I will not.
If Lords amendment 19 is agreed to, it will be a recipe for the EU to try to get no deal so that we will have to go back from this Parliament, cap in hand, and ask for changes. What it really wants is for those changes to be staying in the single market, staying in the customs union, still having the European Court of Justice looking over us, still paying our money—more and more money—and reversing the decision. Whatever is said today, this is really about whether we believe in giving people the right to have their say. We said in the letter that went to everyone, which cost a huge amount of money:
“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”
Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Green
I do to some extent, but we have a healthy democracy and the debate carries on. E-petitions are an important part of that, and many other forms of democratic debate up and down the country are entirely legitimate.
Chris Green
For example, if the Liberal Democrats had won the 2017 general election with an overwhelming landslide, endorsing their view of staying in the EU, I would have taken that as a serious statement from the British people.
Wera Hobhouse
Given that we have introduced referendums into our parliamentary system, is it not the whole point that we have asked the people once, and the debate has moved on, so it is now imperative that we ask them again, because we want to have a healthy democracy? We need further clarification on the decisions that are being made about moving on.
Chris Green
The hon. Lady makes an important point about clarity and what people were voting for. We could debate every single general and local election, and the Scottish and the alternative vote referendums, in those terms, saying that the people did not understand and that we must try again until they get it right. I do not agree with that. When we take the question to the people, it is for both sides, and even for people in the middle who are undecided, to make their case and their argument.
Perhaps there were flaws in the timing of the referendum, but that was not down to anyone on the leave side. It was a remainer—the then Prime Minister, David Cameron—who decided the campaign’s timing. If there are any doubts or uncertainties about people not having enough information, or enough time to gather that information, accountability has to sit with the lead remainer, who was responsible for the timetable?
We must regain control over our laws, borders and money, and we must have the right to negotiate trade deals with countries around the world. The petition has 113,613 supporters, which is a substantial number, but it falls far short of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the European Union, as has been highlighted.
In her opening remarks, the hon. Member for Blaydon described the e-petition as suggesting a choice between two evils, or of the lesser of two evils, but that is disappointing language from the remain campaign. To describe the decision of leave voters in terms of being between one evil and another suggests that leave voters voted for evil.
In my mind, there is no doubt about the feelings of the British people and the direction of travel they want us to take. Increasingly, whether people were undecided, voted leave or even voted remain, they just want politicians to get on with it, to deliver the result and to deliver a good no deal option or—my favoured option—a good deal with the European Union.
We, the British people, want a fantastic relationship with the European Union and our friends in Europe. We want a far better deal than World Trade Organisation most favoured nation status. That is in our power and the European Union’s power. I urge the Minister to talk to all her friends and colleagues in the Department, to win that argument and win that deal.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I thank the petitioners for bringing this debate to the House. It is a good debate to have. I have already made it clear that it is important to extend the argument about who should make the decision. Does it lie with Parliament or, in the end, with the people, whatever question we ask? That is the point I want to make.
The Liberal Democrats have long and consistently campaigned to let the people have the final say on the deal. That includes the question of remaining in the EU, for this reason:
“We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards. For referendums to be fair and compatible with our parliamentary process, we need the electors to be as well informed as possible and to know exactly what they are voting for.”—[Official Report, 26 November 2002; Vol. 395, c. 202.]
Those words were spoken by the now Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. I agree with him, and I wonder whether he agrees with himself.
Chris Green
Does the hon. Lady think that everyone who voted in the alternative vote referendum fully understood the alternative vote?
Wera Hobhouse
When a referendum result is so close, as was the case with the Brexit vote, and so crucial for the future of this country, it is important to provide clarification.
We are two years on from the 2016 referendum, and the Government’s legitimacy for their version of Brexit is lessening. The “will of the people” is the last remaining argument as to why we have made the right decision and why the Government are going forward in this way. Although the discussion and information about what the UK can and cannot achieve when or if we leave the EU moves on all the time, we are repeatedly told that the referendum decision is fixed once and for all and that there can be no change, no update, no clarification, no confirmation and no review—we are stuck.
Chris Green
After the last referendum, we waited more than 40 years for the 2016 referendum. How frequent should referendums be in the future?
Wera Hobhouse
The hon. Gentleman addresses an important debate: what is the lifetime of a referendum? When can we say that a referendum decision has been respected? If he looks at referendums in other countries, he will see that the people of Greece made a decision that was not compatible, but they were asked several times, and that was brave. I think this Government should be brave enough to go for that.
Wera Hobhouse
I hope the hon. Gentleman will let me make a little progress.
We are stuck with a decision that was made in 2016. Why is that? Are the Government too afraid to find out what the people think now? Indeed, the last to be asked now are the people. That is why I continue to say that if we want to be truly democratic and if we truly believe in the will of the people, what is the problem with asking them again?
Colin Clark
The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, but referendums hold a very strange place in the British constitution, because there is not really a constitutional position for them. Today’s debate is about the legitimacy of a referendum. The Liberal Democrats are Unionists, so does she agree with the Scottish National party that there should be another independence referendum in Scotland because people’s minds may or may not have changed?
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I do not believe that a discussion on the Brexit referendum should be swapped with one on the Scottish referendum.
Britain is a parliamentary democracy—the hon. Gentleman has pointed that out— and we have now introduced this strange element of a direct democracy and of asking the people directly. However, the Government are now not allowing any mechanism for confirming or updating that referendum, or allowing any say in the final deal. It is that deal that matters most now; it will affect the lives of British citizens for generations.
It is obvious that 650 MPs cannot update, confirm or review a decision by 33 million people, but the people themselves can and should be allowed to see through the decision-making process that they started. As the MP for Bath, I am fortunate enough to have a clear mandate from my constituents that reflects my own beliefs. However, many of my colleagues are torn either between their conscience and the majority vote in their constituency, or between their conscience and their party Whip.
In addition—I have said this before—the closeness and the fierce divide of the referendum vote have made it virtually impossible for many MPs to represent their constituents fairly. Ministers have on countless occasions changed their minds on Brexit. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union himself said on 24 January, concerning his previous support for remaining in the customs union: “New facts, new opinions”.
Much has changed since 2016; we know far more now than we did then. I will hold my hand up and say, “So do I. I didn’t know everything.” Members of the public were told by the leave campaign that we could leave the European Union in an afternoon, but now even the hardest of hard Brexiteers will admit that it is far more complicated and will take much longer than many expected. We were told that £350 million a week would go to the NHS; that has been quietly dropped. The potential conflict of leaving the customs union and keeping an open border on the island of Ireland was never mentioned once by the leave campaign, never mind fully understood; it is not fully understood even now.
Wera Hobhouse
I would like to make some progress.
Who in 2016 mentioned Euratom, REACH—the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—or Galileo? Information changes, and politicians move on and tweak, change and update, but they absolutely forbid the people to do so. They hide behind the false pretence that they respect the will of the people and democracy, but that is cynical and insincere. If the Government were truly interested in respecting the will of the people, they would ask them the question now, and again on the deal—although we do not even know whether there will be a deal—including the option to stay in the European Union.
I believe that the real answer is to give the people the final say on the deal. The people must finish what the people have started.
Paul Blomfield
I am not surprised, frankly. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Strasbourg talking to colleagues from different parties and countries, and they are shocked by Britain at the moment. Whatever their differences have been with us in the past, they always respected Britain as having an effective Government with a well-oiled diplomatic machine and being clear on their objectives and how to achieve them. They cannot believe the Government’s shambles, creating the uncertainty that my hon. Friend spoke about.
We still have no solution to the Irish border and to fulfilling the obligation made by the Government. We are no further forward on plans to protect what was originally described as frictionless trade—the Government are now backtracking on that and talking about a more limited ambition. We certainly have no clarity on how they will achieve the exact same benefits that we now enjoy in the single market and the customs union—a negotiating aim that they set for themselves and that the Prime Minister has repeated.
[Geraint Davies in the Chair]
The open warfare is incredible. Only last week the Foreign Secretary unfavourably compared the Prime Minister’s negotiating approach with that of Donald Trump. Is that what we have come to? The holder of one of the key offices of state is undermining his own Prime Minister and, indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said a little while ago on national television that he was being openly undermined and briefed against by other members of the Cabinet. This is a shocking position to be in.
With the Government paralysed by their own divisions, it looks increasingly as if Parliament will need—to coin a phrase—to take back control. It is ironic that some of the most vocal supporters of leaving the European Union, who made grand demands about parliamentary sovereignty central to their campaign, are so reluctant to concede that parliamentary sovereignty at this vital time. Those who cried foul about being a vassal state during the transition period seem to want a vassal Parliament in these vital negotiations. At this critical juncture, they say yes, they want parliamentary sovereignty—but not just yet, and not if it undermines their desire for the most extreme Brexit.
Wera Hobhouse
Does that not demonstrate that the hard Brexiteers want Brexit at any cost, including the cost of democracy?
Paul Blomfield
That is a point that I have made on the Floor of the House: there are those within the governing party—though clearly a minority—who want Brexit at any cost to the political stability of our continent and to the economy of this country. They are driven by Brexit above everything, and the Labour party and I do not believe that that is in the interests of this country.
Since First Reading, having a meaningful vote for Parliament on the final deal has been one of the Labour party’s key tests for the withdrawal Bill. We have been clear that a binary “take it or leave it” vote, in a zero-sum game tactic from the Government, will in no way constitute a meaningful vote. Crucially, that view unites Members across parties, and that is why the House voted last December for the amendment moved by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), to give Parliament a meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement—to the consternation of the Government.
The Government immediately looked for wriggle room to avoid meeting that ambition of Parliament. The Lords therefore added greater clarity about what constitutes a meaningful vote, by accepting the amendment moved by the Conservative peer, Viscount Hailsham, which provides for a motion and an Act and, in the event of the motion not passing, for any decision on the next steps to be firmly in Parliament’s hands. With two defeats under their belt on the issue, the Government have now moved their own amendment—but they have not moved far enough.
Paul Blomfield
I appreciate the Liberal Democrats’ love of referendums, but I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, as far back as 2010, it was the Liberal Democrats who called for a referendum on our membership of the European Union—at the time, the Labour party opposed it—for that to be a decisive vote and for Parliament to accept the outcome. They are in a bit of a difficult position as they argue their point.
Wera Hobhouse
I do not think the hon. Gentleman answered my right hon. Friend’s question, so it would be nice to hear his answer. Precisely because we believe in debate and in the sensible arguments coming forward in the end, there is no contradiction in our saying, “Let’s discuss it to the end and take it to the people in the end.” That is the most democratic way forward.
Paul Blomfield
Let me return to the right hon. Gentleman’s question: it is not possible for us at this stage to predict how Parliament should exercise its response to the final deal. We need all the options to be available. I was simply pointing out that when the Liberal Democrats called for the 2016 referendum, they said that the results should be binding. It is a little ironic that, just as they jumped on that bandwagon, they are jumping on this one.
Mr Austin—sorry, Mr Davies—
Suella Braverman
To me and to the millions of people who listened to any of the debate in the run-up to that important vote—as I said, there was a record turnout in many constituencies—it is clear that it was said time and again that leaving the European Union would mean leaving the customs union and the single market. Someone would have had to be pretty isolated and switched off to ignore that central feature of the debate.
That is the biggest democratic mandate for a course of action achieved by any Government in the United Kingdom. After the referendum, the House voted by a clear majority to authorise the Prime Minister to trigger article 50, which provided the legal basis for our withdrawal and commenced the leaving process. In the recent general election, more than 80% of people voted for parties committed to respecting the result of the referendum. That is why I must say at this point that the amendments recently tabled by Labour, and the move in its policy, confirm our worst suspicions. Labour’s policy is now for us to remain in the single market and the customs union, and it seems likely to accept free movement of people. That looks like remain, it sounds like remain—yes, it is a policy in favour of remaining in the EU.
The instruction from the referendum cannot be ignored. The Government are clear that the British people voted to leave the EU, so that is what we must do. As the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU noted,
“the electorate voted for a Government to give them a referendum. Parliament voted to hold the referendum, the people voted in that referendum, and we are now honouring the result of that referendum, as we said we would.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 818.]
The Prime Minister said in October:
“This is about more than the decision to leave the EU; it is about whether the public can trust their politicians to put in place the decision they took.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2017; Vol. 630, c. 45.]
The UK can trust this Government to honour the referendum result. We recognise that to do otherwise would be to undermine the decision of the British people, which would have worrying implications for our democracy.
Right hon. and hon. Members may regret the chain of events I have described, and they may regret that there was not a caveat that the result of the referendum could be overturned by Parliament if it did not like the result of the negotiations, but the time to add that caveat was when the European Union Referendum Act 2015 was passed. I note that many Members in the Chamber—the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, and the shadow Minister, for instance—voted in favour of passing that Act. That Act did not say that the referendum result would be the best of three, it did not say that, if we did not like the first result, we could go away and rerun the referendum to get the result we wanted, and it did not say that there had to be a certain result. That was the time to make these suggestions—not now, after the public has voted.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the Minister not agree that it is in the best interests of the whole country that we come together behind a decision that most people see as a good way forward that will lead to a good future? Does not her insistence on the result of this one Brexit referendum hide all our difficulties as a country? Is not the best way forward for us all to go to the people again and to clarify and confirm the matter so that we can all move forward together? I absolutely believe that we should get that clarification, in the interests of everyone—including the Government.
Suella Braverman
The hon. Lady’s point is inherently contradictory. On the one hand, she says, “Isn’t it important that we all come together and unite and put our divisions behind us?” I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. I urge every Member present to get behind the referendum result and support the Government’s agenda.
On the other hand, however, the hon. Lady says, “Let’s have another vote”—a divisive vote on a contentious question again. I do not see how that sits easily. We have had a vote and the argument, the people have instructed the Government and we will deliver what they have told us to do.
Suella Braverman
I do not recognise any of the terms used by the right hon. Gentleman. I do not believe in a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, a hardest possible Brexit or a softest possible Brexit. I believe in Brexit. We are either in the European Union or out of the European Union. We are either in the customs union or out of the customs union, and either in the single market or out of the single market, with either free movement of people or no free movement of people.
Suella Braverman
I will not, because I need to get on with my speech and I have given way many times. Those are the objectives of the Government and of the Prime Minister.
As I have said, the Government recognise the strength of feeling on this issue. That is why we know that it is incumbent on us to secure a deal that works for all of the United Kingdom and one that Parliament will want to support. As the Prime Minister has said, our decision to leave the EU does not mark an ending; it marks a new beginning for our relationship with our European allies. This is where I diverge from right hon. and hon. Members and their pessimistic view of negotiations so far: we have made significant progress on the negotiations. We have agreed the terms of a time-limited implementation period.
European Union Citizenship
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend makes a terrific point that we should pause to reflect on during this discussion, and it is not just about the ability of young people to interact in that way. I have often said that I aspire to be an older person and that I am making good progress—I have used that line before and will do so again. It is not just about young people; European citizenship is key to everyone’s ability to broaden their horizons.
Just today—ironically—there was an announcement about the introduction of free inter-rail travel across Europe. Young people face losing out on that; they face losing out on the end to roaming charges and consequently a loss of connectivity; and, as mentioned earlier, they face losing the European health protection that has enabled them to reduce the cost of living and studying.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is describing very eloquently the opportunities that his sons have had travelling through the EU. Is this not precisely a question of education and the opportunities our young people have to travel, and was not the Brexit vote particularly strong where educational opportunities were not very high? Rather than leaving the EU and restricting young people’s ability to go to the EU, is it not important that we extend educational opportunities to all young people in this country?
Drew Hendry
On the life chances that young people will have as they grow into adults and move through their careers, it is critical that every opportunity they get to broaden their horizons be embraced, and we should do everything possible to avoid anything that removes their ability to broaden their horizons, such as losing their EU citizenship.
I want to quote a couple of paragraphs from Jolyon Maugham QC:
“The idea of European citizenship has its roots in the aftermath of the second world war, when Winston Churchill”—
my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) quoted him earlier—
“spoke of a ‘common citizenship’ that would unite Europe together ‘in the sharing of its common inheritance’”.
He went on to say:
“European citizenship confers a number of privileges: the right to live in and move freely between member states”,
and all the other things that I mentioned earlier.
“The shared assumption of the European Union and the UK government is that Brexit will mean British citizens will automatically forfeit these rights. But this is being tested in a case brought by a group of UK nationals living in Amsterdam, which I funded with the help of Dutch law firm Bureau Brandeis, which agreed to act for a modest fee.”
He ended by saying, as one who was born in London,
“I am a Londoner, I am British, and I am European. They’re not mutually exclusive”.
The same applies to Scotland. Citizenship of Europe is very important to us. Scotland is not foreign to Europe, and Europe is not foreign to Scotland. We are Europeans.
I am grateful to the Merriam-Webster thesaurus for its definition of “foreigner” as
“a person who is not native to or known to a community.”
EU citizenship has made that an antonym. Those people are our buddies, our chums, our comrades, our confidants, our cronies, our friends, our pals, our mates, our partners and our peers. We are European. We should retain the rights and benefits of European citizenship, and I hope that the Government will ensure that that happens.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Of course it is a question of political decisions on both sides and respect for one another’s legal orders. The prospect of maintaining EU citizenship for UK nationals is not something that has been suggested to us to date in the negotiations, either by the European Commission or by any individual member state. Throughout the negotiations we have, however, put citizens at the heart of our approach.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the Minister not agree that the Prime Minister is proposing, in many ways, that we are going to see very new shores—for example, with the border without a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland? If we are really looking for new opportunities, this would be exactly such an opportunity, where we are doing something that has not been done before.
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. Of course, in our joint report we made specific commitments on the Irish border that we absolutely stand by.
It has been the Government’s policy from the very beginning to provide certainty and stability for UK citizens who have made their lives in the EU and for EU citizens here in the UK. As the Prime Minister set out at Mansion House last week, EU citizens are an integral part of the economic, cultural and social fabric of our county, which is why we made it a priority to secure in the first phase of the negotiations a fair deal on citizens’ rights that will allow for UK and EU citizens to continue their lives broadly as they do now.
As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration detailed earlier in the debate—
Government’s EU Exit Analysis
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Anna Soubry
The hon. and learned Lady is right—she, too, could become my Friend for the day. In all seriousness, she is absolutely right. I am sure that it was a pure coincidence that, the day after certain members of the all-party parliamentary group on EU relations went over to Brussels, Tusk and Juncker—I am not sure whether it was Juncker, but, anyway, Members know who I mean—tweeted in the way that they did. They made it very clear that if the people—and it has to come from the people—want to change their mind, we can stay in the European Union, and if the people want to retain membership of the single market and the customs union, that option, too, will be open to us in October.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
We are starting to have that very important discussion about the fact that, as I put it, the people must finish what the people have started. That is by no means a disrespectful way of looking at the first decision; the two decisions are separate, and we are talking about a review and an update or a confirmation. This is by no means about talking down to people who voted one way or the other; it is about being very mature about the fact that we have all learned a great deal in the last 18 months.
Anna Soubry
I agree with most of what the hon. Lady says. The point in all of this is that this has to come from the people. Arguably, we—as politicians and Members of Parliament—are one of the reasons why the 52% who voted to leave voted in the way they did, because they feel so disconnected from us and feel that we do not represent them. Actually, they always think their own MP is rather good; it is just that all the others are not, which is always interesting. It does not quite make sense, does it?
It is really, really important that we get this right. This has to come from the people. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, they started this. We gave them the power, and we must let them still have that power and exercise it. However, as I say, my real message today is to my Government and my Prime Minister: get a grip, and let us start leading on this. They should see off those people who do not run this country and who do not represent Conservative voters or the people of this country. They should park them to one side and build a consensus, never forgetting that, if there was a free vote in this House tomorrow or next week, I believe that the majority of hon. and right hon. Members would vote certainly for EFTA, and also for the customs union. So let us now be big and brave and do the right thing by the people of this country and the generations to come.
Rachel Maclean
I agree that there are various areas where uncertainty can exist, but there is legal uncertainty when a business enters any new market or develops any new product. That always exists and businesses need to take that into account. The debate today seems to be about the need to provide certainty for businesses. It would be very desirable to provide certainty, but it cannot ever be done in quite the way suggested by forecasts and economic analysis.
Wera Hobhouse
I think it is agreed across the Chamber that we cannot create absolute certainty for absolutely every situation. This is why we have modelling, where uncertainties are already built in, and that is what we are talking about: different scenarios with different built-in possibilities and uncertainties. But that at least needs to be done, with the work published.
Rachel Maclean
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I think the Government and the Minister have agreed to publish this, so businesses can look at it and form their own view. However, I am certain that every single business I know—small growing businesses—will look at that but not take it as being handed down on tablets of stone. They will seek a range of outcomes and make their plans based on that.
We clearly have a difficult task in these negotiations. It is a negotiation—it depends on both sides. There are calls in this House for the Government to set out exactly what is going to be achieved. Again, that cannot be done because so much depends on what the other side will do. It is a negotiation that involves two parties—two sides.
I started by saying that there is no label that comfortably sits on me. I am not driven by ideology. What I am driven by is, genuinely, the wisdom of our voters and constituents—the wisdom of crowds and the wisdom of democracy. We might not like it. It might make it very difficult for our Prime Minister and Government. They definitely have a difficult and extremely challenging task to deliver in the best interests of this country. My personal view is that I would like to back them to get on with it and deliver in the best interests of our constituents.
Charlie Elphicke
Again, my hon. Friend makes a forceful point, and these people are not just in the Treasury.
The shadow Secretary of State—a knight of the realm, I should add—was kind enough to come down from St Pancras to see us in Dover recently. Grandly, he came down to tell the people of Dover that we ought to retain the benefits of the single market and the customs union. Everyone understood what he meant. He meant that we should stay in the single market and the customs union, that we should continue to have a trade policy made in Brussels rather than in Britain, and that we should continue to have uncontrolled EU immigration into this country with completely open borders. My constituents are very clear on one thing: they do not want uncontrolled immigration into this country. It has not helped them or their families, and they do not feel that it is helped their prosperity. They do not want trade policy to be made in Brussels. They want it to be made in Britain. That is why this Government are right to be leaving the single market and the customs union.
This is not a question of forecasting; it is a question of a mandate. That mandate was handed to us by our electors when they voted to leave the European Union. I understand that there are those on the other side who wanted to remain and who still want that. I respect that. I do not really respect their constantly re-fighting the referendum, but I respect the fact that they feel passionately that we should be back in Europe. However, that is not my mandate from my constituents, and it is not the mandate given to a lot of Opposition Members who represent constituencies in Wales and in the north of this country, who ought to spend a bit more time talking to their electors on the doorstep and a bit less time at grand dinner parties enjoying elite establishment-type conversation about how terrible it is all going to be.
Let me move on from Hampstead to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean). She was absolutely right that we cannot predict the future, so why is it that the EU-funded CBI so passionately wants Britain to stay within the single market and within the customs union and says that businesses do, too? The answer is that it loves the regulation produced by Brussels, which helps to keep things in their place, but we need to become more competitive as a country. If we become more competitive, we will grow more quickly.
Charlie Elphicke
I will not give way as I have given way twice already.
The Treasury analysis was wrong in the first place. The Treasury did not predict containerisation or innovations such as the internet. We are about to have an automation revolution, with cars driving themselves, and a revolution in solar power, which will reduce our unit energy bills, and this country is well placed to become much more competitive than any Treasury forecast would predict, but we can all see that that kind of future is coming down the road. To make sure that we embrace that future, this country needs maximum freedom, maximum discretion and the maximum ability to diverge from the policies and laws of the European Union and to embrace the wider world.
In the future, 90% of global economic growth will not come from the European Union, but from the world outside the EU. Over the past 40 years, it is an historical fact that the EU’s share of global GDP has fallen from 30% to just 15%. That is relative decline. We do not need to see relative decline. The future for this nation is global.
Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Baker
I must exercise some caution, Mr Speaker, because as you will know, Wycombe District, which is substantially larger than the constituency of Wycombe, did express the other view. However, what I think we need to do is come together to unite around the result as a country, and to choose for ourselves not to leave the EU because we must or because we ought, but to leave the EU successfully because we choose to abide by the democratic decision of the United Kingdom as a whole.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
How can we unite together when the Government are withholding information from the rest of the House?
Mr Baker
It is very difficult to answer the question of how we can unite together when certain Members of this House, including, I am sorry to say, the hon. Lady, keep provoking as much division as possible. She represents a party claiming to be liberal and democratic, and which once offered a real referendum on Europe, but we have had a real referendum on Europe and it is time for her to get behind the result.
Leaving the EU: Implementation
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend, who is an expert on trade issues, raises a very important point about our existing trade agreements. Of course we want to ensure that we roll those over, so that we maintain the best market access with those third countries and other territories and so that the UK can take up wider opportunities in global trade, so as we enter this implementation period, we will seek to secure both of those points.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Is not the decision about the deal and implementation period separate from that of the original referendum? Is it therefore not appropriate always to refer back to the “will of the people” when we are talking about decisions on the implementation and the deal?
Mr Walker
I am a little confused by the hon. Lady’s point. I would have thought that her party might support an implementation period, but she appears to be saying that we need another referendum to have one. I do not agree with that argument. It is important that we go ahead with respecting the referendum—a unique democratic exercise in British history, in which millions of people voted—and delivering on it. Part of that can be a successful negotiation on the implementation period.
Leaving the European Union
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon.
During the 2016 referendum, I campaigned to leave the European Union, and I voted to leave. Despite our campaign having to battle the beast of the Scottish political establishment, we managed to achieve more than 1 million leave votes. To my frustration, far too often those leave voters are airbrushed out of the picture and Scotland is presented as Europhile, Eurocentric and keen on further integration with Europe. That just is not the case. To my disappointment, the Scottish Government’s Minister for leaving the European Union told an event in Brussels that 5 million Scots voted to remain. That just is not the case. The picture is different from how it is often portrayed.
Ross Thomson
No, I would like to make some progress first.
Scottish attitudes are actually similar to those in the rest of the United Kingdom. We just have to look at the Scottish attitudes survey, published merely a couple of weeks ago, to see that, when it comes to leaving the single market, Scots are in line with the rest of the UK: they want to leave. We also want immigration to remain at UK level; we do not want divergence.
Ross Thomson
The hon. Lady is absolutely right: every Opposition should hold the Government to account and hold their feet to the fire, but there is a difference between accepting the result and holding the Government to account, and simply trying to frustrate and overturn the result by arguing for another referendum.
Ross Thomson
No, I would like to make some progress on addressing the point of the petition. It asks us: “Why wait?” Well, we have been able to do some waiting since the petition was created in September. It is worth considering what has transpired since then, because that helps to answer the question.
Take last month’s phase 1 agreement, which was a great success for the Government and testified to the fact that the EU wants a good deal, too, and is willing to make concessions to achieve it. After the referendum, a strange doom-monger alliance of ultra-remainers and Nigel Farage ran around insisting that we would have to pay a punitive “Brexit bill” of more than £50 billion—that was before anyone had included the implementation period until December 2020—yet last month the overall settlement, including the implementation period, turned out to be much lower. We were told that the EU would insist that its courts had jurisdiction over the enforcement of EU citizens’ rights here, yet last month we got a time-limited option for our courts voluntarily to refer unclear cases to the European Court of Justice. On the Irish border, we were told that Northern Ireland would have to have a separate deal and, in effect, remain part of the EU for customs purposes.
Wera Hobhouse
I am a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee, and when we took evidence it was clear: the experts told us that the can has been kicked down the road. The joint statement may have made a no Brexit scenario less likely, but it has also made a hard Brexit scenario very much less likely. Basically, nothing has been resolved.
Ross Thomson
That proves the point: we have seen nothing constructive from the Opposition. Actually, in the same way as they were confounded by the phase 1 agreement in their argument, we can bet that they will be confounded in their argument again at the end of phase 2. All we have had from the Opposition on leaving the European Union is perpetual pessimism and talking Britain down. I am talking Britain up, because we can achieve so much more when we leave the European Union. We have a bright future ahead of us.
Peter Grant
Perhaps I have misunderstood what a buccaneering maritime trading nation is or what period in history it refers to. If so, I am happy to apologise, but the days of the buccaneers were those of international pirates and terrorists sponsored by businesses in one country in effect to terrorise the interests of other countries.
The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) made a powerful, well-put-together contribution. Importantly, she did not talk just about trade. Because trade is such a vital part of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union, it is easy to forget all the other benefits that come from EU membership, such as open skies. There was recently an interesting suggestion that MPs should be allowed to know which of their constituents sign petitions as well as how many of them do so. I would like to go back to the 107 of my constituents who signed the petition—that is 0.12% of the electorate—and say, “Have you heard of open skies? Did you know that it existed when you voted to leave the European Union, or when you signed the petition saying we should leave without a deal? Did you really understand that, without a deal, British-owned and operated airlines will not have automatic authority to land their aircraft or even cross over European airspace after take-off? The only way they will be allowed to do that is through getting a deal.”
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the accusations about “Project Fear” are way off? We should talk about “Project Realism.”
Peter Grant
To be honest, some of the claims made by those who claimed to be on the remain side before the referendum were nonsensical. In the past couple of weeks I think I have heard five Members on the Conservative Benches say, “You can’t believe what the Treasury tell you during a referendum campaign.” We know that, and perhaps some in other parts of the House need to remember that.
At the time of the referendum, and I suspect even now, an awful lot of people in the United Kingdom did not understand—and they still do not fully understand—how complex our relationship with the European Union is. It is not just about being able to buy bananas with as much or little bend in them as we like or being able to prevent these so-and-so foreigners from coming over and taking our jobs or claiming our benefits—which they do not do. It is much more detailed and complicated than that, and to extricate ourselves from that relationship in a way that does not harm the interests of the people of these islands is a difficult and perhaps impossible task. Time alone will tell.
Peter Grant
No, I do not agree at all. I remember when one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in the main Chamber turned talking about people not being well informed into a claim that they were stupid—and, of course, the Daily Express, as is its wont, put me on the front page saying that people who voted to leave were stupid.
I would never question anyone’s sincerity or intelligence when they cast a vote in a referendum or election, but the fact is that many people, at the time they voted, did not fully understand the implications of what they voted for. People will sometimes do that in an election, too. They vote for the party they usually vote for, and do not really look into the issues in any great depth. If someone does not like the outcome of a general election, they get another chance in a few years. Calling the referendum as the Government did, so quickly, and having it deliberately in the middle of important council and parliamentary elections in almost every nation of the United Kingdom, so that the referendum campaign ran at the same time, prevented debate of the length and detail that was needed.
Wera Hobhouse
Is it not time that we all admitted that there were things we did not know about the European Union? When I listen to what is said in the Exiting the European Union Committee, I hear so much information about the European Union that we did not know. It is not necessarily a question of a mistake or fault, but if even we did not know all the details and all the ins and outs of the European Union that are emerging in the debate now, it is time we said so. That would make both remain and leave voters comfortable about saying that they did not know about some aspects of the EU, but that they know them now, which is why it is healthy to have a debate.
Peter Grant
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. However, I want to make it clear that I respect the wish of the people of England and Wales, as expressed in the referendum. I insist—I demand, as do my constituents—that the wish of 62% of people in Scotland, as well as the wish of the majority vote in Northern Ireland, should be respected too. That does not have to mean that some should be in the EU and some out, but it must mean seeking—not necessarily reaching—a solution and deal that, as far as possible, recognise the diverse views in these islands. We keep being told that we are a partnership of equals. It would not be acceptable for the express wishes of 62% of voters in England to be cast aside in contempt, as is happening to the express wishes of 62% of voters in Scotland.
I was pleased that some speakers in the debate discussed the absolute need for a deal on Northern Ireland, so that we know what the status of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will be. Most people in the United Kingdom did not think that that would be an issue during the referendum; it was hardly raised in any debate. It was a major issue in the debate in Northern Ireland, but in most of the rest of the United Kingdom, if it appeared anywhere, it would be at the bottom of page 22 of someone’s submission. Incidentally, I include myself in those comments: I did not appreciate how fundamentally damaging a hard border and a no-deal Brexit could be to the Northern Ireland peace process. That does not mean that people in mainland Great Britain voted stupidly; it simply means they did not have the information at their disposal. Would that knowledge have made a difference to their votes? We do not know. It is too late: that horse has gone.
It is not too late to make sure that there is a deal that protects the promises that the Government of these islands made to the international community and the Government of the Republic of Ireland at the time of the Good Friday peace agreement. There is a guarantee that there will be no border controls on the Irish border. That is what everyone whom the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee spoke to in Northern Ireland desperately wants. The Committee spoke to senior police officers who are still leading the fight against terrorism, representatives of community organisations, and politicians—any elected politician who came to see us, including a number from Sinn Fein.
It was perhaps surprising how much unanimity there was across the spectrum about the fact that we cannot afford a return to the days of armed border checkpoints across the island of Ireland. Many of the people we spoke to—and not only on the nationalist-leaning side—believe that if we leave the European Union without a deal it will be almost impossible to prevent border posts from returning, and to prevent the return of other things from the sad history of that island.
There were several contributions by Scottish Conservatives, every one of whom, completely unprovoked, tried to reopen another referendum argument, which is not on the agenda just now. The Scottish Conservatives want a public debate involving the whole population of Scotland, about its future place in the world. I am ready for that, but it is interesting that no matter the subject being discussed they always manage to talk about that.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.
We have had a good debate. Much of it has been very familiar in subject and theme, but the petition has succeeded in achieving something that I never thought I would see, which is that everybody who has spoken has been in agreement on the undesirability of accepting the instruction contained in it. I have been in so many Brexit debates during the past year and a half and that has never happened before, so we should at least acknowledge it. We have managed to find many things to disagree about, none the less.
It will not surprise anybody to know that I fundamentally disagree with the petition. The very first line says that we should
“walk away from the Article 50 negotiations and leave the EU immediately with no deal.”
We have agreed to take part in negotiations, as we accepted we would when we triggered article 50. It is suggested that we should walk away and not complete that task. I do not think, and clearly nobody here believes, that that would be the right thing for the United Kingdom to do.
I speak as somebody who campaigned for remain. We all seem to have to tell our little Brexit biography when we make these speeches. I campaigned for remain; my constituency voted 56% to leave. To be completely honest, that caused me to reflect, to think and to listen incredibly hard to what my constituents were telling me through that vote and what they expected me to do about it. Having promised throughout the campaign that I would honour, respect and abide by the outcome of the referendum, that is what I intend to do and what I have done through the triggering of article 50 and the process subsequently. But the listening is two-way. I have had to explain to my constituents that this is a process and it will take far longer and use up far more energy than I think any of us would really like, but it needs that energy, focus and attention from Parliament and the Government in order to result in a good deal.
I have days when I pretty much think, “Oh my goodness, why are we doing this?” You want it to stop. I think the public are bored with much of this, if I am honest. There was a time when Brexit was the first thing that people spoke about, it was the topic of heated conversation down the pub, but I think that for many people that is declining now. Since the general election, the debate has been moving on and there is growing acceptance that Brexit is going to happen, but that makes the responsibility all the more keenly felt by us that we must deliver a deal that is worthy of our country.
Whenever we discuss these things, we inevitably talk a great deal about trade and about WTO tariffs and crashing out. I heard the admonishment from the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) about the term “crashing out”, but his colleagues used it, so I am using it as well; we all know what we mean. We talk about what a disaster that could be for this country, and particularly for certain sectors. It is true that some businesses and sectors and possibly some parts of the country could withstand it, but I do not believe that my region, the north-east, could do so. The National Farmers Union has been clear that farmers would have a lot to say about 30% or 40% tariffs on exports to the EU. The automotive sector would have an awful lot to say. I think that the customs checks that would need to be implemented overnight, for which we are not prepared, would have a disastrous effect on our ports and airports. The port of Dover estimates that even a two-minute delay in the time taken to process each lorry would result in 17 miles of tailbacks. The people of Kent would not thank us for that.
We also talk very often about the impact on financial services and the immediate loss of passporting, which enables banks to do business across the EU without setting up subsidiaries or relocating. The Financial Conduct Authority says that 5,467 firms rely on passporting rights. The immediate loss of that would be a catastrophe for that sector. The UK has a trade surplus of £11 billion in services, and the loss of passporting would be disruptive, expensive and incredibly time consuming.
We really do not know what the impact would be in the wider economy. We suspect that it would probably not be good. It would be good, responsible and transparent government if some impact assessments were conducted and published. I do not intend to go round that whole debate again this evening, but it has not helped confidence in the Government’s handling of this process to have had the row about impact assessments. I am thinking of the misleading statements that were made about whether or not there are impact assessments and what they consist of, and the embarrassment that must surely have been felt by the Department about that whole saga.
Another thing that is said is, “You have voted now. You have triggered article 50. What about the withdrawal Bill?” The reason we are undertaking the whole process of the withdrawal Bill is so that we can align our rules with those of the EU once the Bill has passed. It has not passed yet, so were we to leave before that Bill has passed, we would have massive holes in our book of rules—how we run the country. Even when it has passed, one could say that not much would change in terms of regulation and red tape. The Government have done that, although we think they are doing this process incredibly badly. One could say that the Government are doing it deliberately in this way so that a deal can be made more easily once the withdrawal Bill has passed and we reach the end of negotiations.
All the Bill does is enshrine EU regulations in law, but it does not provide on its own for reciprocal recognition; that would need to be part of a future relationship agreement. It is not properly understood that the withdrawal agreement the Government are negotiating and the future relationship agreement or deal, which is probably of the most interest to our constituents, are separate things. There is a good chance that we will not know the future relationship—the future trade deal or whatever form it happens to take—by March 2019, so it would be very dangerous indeed to leave the European Union now, before that process is complete.
Wera Hobhouse
The hon. Lady has admitted that we had a good and constructive debate about how we all need to have a good deal. Is there not a danger that we end up with a good deal that we all agree with, but it will look very much like being a member of the European Union? In the end, everyone who voted, for leave or remain, will look at it all and say, “What was all this about and why did we go through all this pain when the end is similar—just a little bit worse—to what we had as members of the European Union?”
Jenny Chapman
I do not know what deal the Government are going to make. I hope that they are capable of making something better than no deal. If the phrase “No deal is better than a bad deal” ever meant anything, it is losing whatever credence it had. I do not know how little confidence they have in their own negotiators that they would come back with something that bad. It is important that the deal we reach protects jobs and the economy. I think that is what the hon. Lady wants, but the Labour party recognises that it is also important that the deal recognises the outcome of the referendum. That is a difficult thing to achieve and a difficult thing to encapsulate in a single sentence. That is where the negotiations will succeed or fail, because the deal that is reached must settle the relationship we have with the European Union for 20 or 30 years, perhaps longer. We cannot have a perpetual state of negotiation and renegotiation, and referendum after referendum.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Wera Hobhouse ExcerptsWednesday 20th December 2017
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 View all European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 20 December 2017 - (20 Dec 2017)
Mr Grieve
The examples could be endless—[Interruption.] Well, if there is an established rule by which, for example, EU law is currently being applied, a Minister could say that, in future, that should be disapplied because notice should not be taken of its previous application.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is not correct to compare the direct application of EU law with Henry VIII powers? When EU law is made, we all sit around the table. EU law is not other people’s law but our law. We sit at the table when EU law is being made, so it is an incorrect comparison.
Mr Grieve
I do actually agree with the hon. Lady and, I am afraid, disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin). Of course, membership of the EU implies a pooling of sovereignty, but the decision-making process by which law has been created in the EU is one that is done not by faceless bureaucrats, but by the Council of Ministers. There is absolutely no doubt about that at all—
Wera Hobhouse
Are we not in a discussion about who interprets what? Is it not therefore time that we asked the people: what did they mean?
Paul Blomfield
We will come to that point in the second half of our debate today, and I will take the opportunity to comment on it then. However, to answer the right hon. Gentleman, the point I was making was that he sought to interpret the leave vote in a way that, on the basis of the research he cited, was flawed.
Analysis he might look at of nearly 3,000 British people, which was conducted by the NatCen Social Research, found that concerns about immigration were the driving factor for 75% of leave voters, which should not surprise him, because that was something he put very much at the centre of his arguments during the leave campaign.
If we know what the vote was not, let us remind ourselves what it was: it was simply a vote to leave the European Union. The campaign was hugely divisive. I spoke at dozens of meetings during the campaign, and the very last question of the very last meeting, in a local church, was, “How are you going to put our divided country back together again after all this?” Sadly, that question is as relevant now as it was then, as some of the abuse faced by Conservative Members after the vote last week demonstrated.
Meeting that challenge is a responsibility for us all, and it starts with us recognising that the majority in this House speaks for the country in wanting a sensible approach to Brexit. Instead of fuelling division, the Government should reach out and seek to build on that consensus for the next phase of the negotiations, in a way that will bring people together.
Last week’s drama should have been unnecessary. We should have been able to readily agree on the sovereignty of Parliament and on a meaningful final vote for this place. Labour amendments 348 and 349—when we come to it—which seek the publication of any impact assessment conducted by the Government, should be as uncontroversial as the idea that Parliament should have a say.
Clearly, events have moved on since these amendments were tabled, but real issues do remain. We obviously brought a motion on the issue to the House on 1 November, asking that impact assessments should be passed to the Exiting the European Union Committee. We did that for the same reason that the House voted last week: we want proper transparency and accountability in this process, but that is not what we got.
The Government neither amended nor opposed our motion, but they hoped to sidestep it. When Mr Speaker confirmed it was binding—
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am extremely grateful for the humility being shown by my distinguished right hon. and learned Friend, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who admits that some of the Bills brought forward by his own former Department are incomprehensible to the lay reader. It is a broader problem of legislation, but it has been a particular problem of European legislation. That is why I have some sympathy for the new clause. As EU law is brought into UK law, which is widely accepted as the right starting point for when we leave the European Union, the Government ought to seek to do it in a form that is intelligible and easy to understand. This is one of the areas where I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, who said that that is one of the principles of the rule of law. As we do this, we should of course be sticking to principles of basic constitutional fairness.
It is glorious that the second argument of the Eurosceptics has been accepted in this new clause. The first argument is the basic one of taking back control, but the second is that the fundamental nature of the way in which the EU created law, and the whole body of the acquis communautaire, was not comprehensible to most people, was not subject to satisfactory democratic control, and was a bureaucratic monster that rolled on and on regardless.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Of course I give way to the hon. Lady, whose constituency I encircle.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for giving way. Has he ever tried to put any legislation in front of an ordinary person and ask him or her whether it is comprehensible? Our discussion demonstrates our difficulty, as parliamentarians, in making comprehensible to the people who elect us what we are actually about.
Mr Rees-Mogg
In North East Somerset, we do not have ordinary people. We have only exceptional, brilliant and talented individuals of the highest and finest calibre. I have a serious point to make in that: we, as politicians, should never use the term “ordinary people”, implying that we are some priestly caste who understand the mysteries of legislation, whereas ordinary people do not.
Wera Hobhouse
I apologise for the use of the term “ordinary people”. I accept that it is possibly not a very good way of describing the people who elect us.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for that. I think the point is important, and we should try to remember it.
A lot of the legislation that we pass can be explained to everybody—even to ourselves—in an understandable way. If we look at the Treasury Bench, we see some of the finest brains in Britain. They get up at the Dispatch Box and explain to us what is going to be passed into law, in terms that even Members of Parliament—including those of us who are not learned Members—can understand. I think that laws can be explained simply, and that is a worthy ambition.
New clause 21 makes the important point that during our period of membership, the EU increasingly turned out law that people did not understand. We have a golden opportunity to improve the quality of the legislation that we pass, improve people’s general understanding of it and improve our own understanding of it. Clarity is just and fair. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we want to apply this to our own work as well. There is no point in complaining about the European Union in that regard, but making our own laws incomprehensible. As an aside to what he said, one of the reasons why there is so much tax avoidance is that tax law is written in so complicated a manner.
Amendment 348 is important, and as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) rightly said, it touches on the subject of the Humble Address that was brought forward on 1 November. The Government have dealt with the matter, and it is important to look at what they have done in response to the Humble Address. Many Conservative Members have opposed the European Union on the grounds of parliamentary sovereignty and an understanding of the nature of our constitution. We must recognise that a Humble Address motion is unquestionably binding. That has always been the tradition of this place. It is quite clear from “Erskine May” that there is a profound duty on the Government to fulfil the terms of any Humble Address. It will be interesting to see how often the Opposition use that procedure over the next few years to try to get information from the Government.
It is worth noting why the Humble Address procedure fell out of practice. I think the real reason was that Governments tended to command sufficient majorities in the House that a Humble Address motion they opposed would not get through. In the situation of a very slim overall majority, with the help of our friends from the Democratic Unionist party—
Mr Rees-Mogg
I did go to see the documents, as a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee. I was lucky; I was not told that I had to hand over my mobile telephone, my secret spyglasses or whatever other kit I might have borrowed from James Bond and brought with me so that I could try to take these secret bits of information out to the wider world. I did not have to suffer the great indignity that some other hon. Gentlemen have suffered. I was allowed to sit down and plough through the documents.
I must confess that on that afternoon, I would have been happier reading a P.G. Wodehouse or a similarly entertaining document. I also confess that there was not a great deal in the bit that I read that could not have been found out by somebody with an able researcher or competence in the use of Google. None the less, the information had all been brought together in a usable fashion in one place, and it was an analysis of the sectors covered. It may not have been exciting, it may not have been the read of the century and it may not have won the Booker prize. None the less, it was a detailed sectoral analysis and it more than met the requirements laid down by the Humble Address, which asked for something that did not exist.
Wera Hobhouse
The hon. Gentleman is extremely generous to give way again to me. I asked the Secretary of State in the Select Committee where and when he thought the misunderstanding had arisen, but I do not think I got a very satisfactory answer. He had plenty of opportunities in the House to correct us and say, “These are not impact assessments; they are sectoral analyses.” He never chose to do that, and I am still waiting for the answer. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the Secretary of State did not have the opportunity to clear up that misunderstanding?
Wera Hobhouse
The Brexit Select Committee actually visited Dover and we then met a representative of the port of Calais. Although this country is prepared to build a lorry park, the French side will not build a lorry park because it has a migrant crisis. The port of Calais will just close under these circumstances, so where will we export to and import from?
Mr Leslie
The hon. Gentleman will know that there are concerns. He said Norway was a “vassal state”—I think that was his phrase. I do not think the Norwegians would see it that way, but they have had to simply take instructions, in many ways, in terms of the European Union arrangements on a lot of these questions. With many of our products, particularly in the manufacturing sector, the customs union has given us great opportunity to thrive, and we have done particularly well in recent years on the back of that.
Wera Hobhouse
On that point, the Norwegian border is very interesting. Norway is in Schengen, so it does border checks on goods, but it does not need to do border checks on people. The main problem, of course, is that we are not in either. We need, at some point, to address the issue of how we check that lorries are not bringing into this country people we do not want to be here. I know that taking back control of our borders is a very important point, but there will be important discussions to be had about how we make that possible. Container ports will be okay, because we can seal the loads, but it will be a lot more difficult with lorries, because they take separate loads from separate consignments, and they need to be opened several times. So the issue of people smuggling is becoming quite potent.
Mr Leslie
The hon. Lady deals with the point incredibly well.
If we end frictionless trade or introduce barriers, with potentially the return of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, very significant problems will arise. The Government are either deluding themselves by saying, “There’s some miraculous blue-skies technological solution to all these things”, or deluding others because of the fudging and obfuscation that is going on, when, in moving from the phase 1 to the phase 2 process, they put in a form of words that seems to be interpreted in almost as many different ways as there are people reading them. They have kicked the issue into the long grass for now, but we are not going to be able to get to a decent deal without this unravelling.
Stephen Gethins
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Huge efforts have gone into covering up these assessments and the fact that this is a flimsy job indeed. The point I was making again highlights why we need to protect our place in the single market. That is the primary concern for businesses that benefit from it, and it was not on the ballot. Vote Leave did make a number of promises, one of them being that Scotland would get power over immigration. That would help towards ensuring that Scotland could remain part of the single market. What Scottish National party Members have said is that we are still open to compromise. We have tabled new clause 45 and are clear that the Act must in no way give the UK Government a green light to drag the UK out of the single market—that was never on the ballot, and we have to be clear on that. We were promised powers over immigration and that would go a long way, if the UK does not want to take our compromise as a whole, to Scotland remaining part of the single market. We also support new clause 9, which would have the same effect.
We are about to spend £40 billion for a worse deal with the European Union, at a time when a Tory Government are cutting public services across the UK. Let me touch briefly on a second referendum. We think that people should have a right to look at the outcome of the negotiation. I have a great deal of sympathy for the Liberal Democrat calls for another referendum. However, I say to our Liberal Democrat colleagues in the spirit of friendship that the immediate challenge must be for us to work together and help the UK stay in the single market and customs union. That is the compromise we have suggested. It is not my preferred option—my preferred option would be for Scotland to remain part of the EU—but that is the nature of compromise; we all have a little bit of give and take in this process.
It should be said, however, that a referendum on the terms of the Brexit deal will be difficult to resist if the uncertainty around negotiations persists. Any second referendum must not replicate the 2016 campaign, and it is essential that Scotland’s constitutional place is protected in a second referendum. We do not want to be in circumstances where we are dragged out against our will for a second time.
Wera Hobhouse
Of course this is not going to be a second referendum. I want to clarify once and for all that it is the language of the other side to say that we want a second referendum; we want a referendum on the deal—on what is going to be negotiated. It will be a confirmation—an update—of what the people have said, because only the people can end what they have started. That can be dealt with only through a referendum.
Stephen Gethins
I have enormous sympathy for the hon. Lady’s position and what she says, but the people of Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the EU and we are concerned that there would be no recognition of Scotland’s place in any subsequent deal, and we want to leave open, even at this late stage, the possibility of seeking a compromise. We all have a responsibility in this House to do that.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the Minister for giving way. He is generous. As a new MP, I must say that I am very surprised about how little constructive dialogue there has been. In fact, the comment that those on the Government Benches could deal with all of this without having to deal with the Opposition was alarming. We are all here to make constructive comments, to improve the Bill and to make compromises. The comments that they could deal with it all without having to listen to the Opposition or to have constructive dialogue were both alarming and disappointing.
Mr Baker
The hon. Lady reminds me of how much I miss the days of coalition on some occasions.
The clauses and schedules that we are debating in this final group contain a number of detailed, necessary and technical provisions. In many cases, they are standard provisions that one would expect to see in any Bill.
Clause 14 is a technical and standard provision that sets out important definitions of many key terms that appear throughout the Bill, such as “EU tertiary legislation” and “EU entity”, and clarifies how other references in the Bill are to be read. Clause 15 complements clause 14, setting out in one place where the key terms used throughout the Bill are defined and noting where amendments to the Interpretation Act 1978 are made under schedule 8. Together, clauses 14 and 15 will aid comprehension of the Bill.
Clause 18 provides that the Bill will apply to the whole UK. In addition, because the European Communities Act 1972 currently extends to the Crown dependencies and Gibraltar in a limited way, the repeal of that Act must similarly extend to those jurisdictions to the extent that it applies to them. The Bill also repeals three Acts that extend to Gibraltar, all of which relate to European parliamentary elections. The powers in clauses 7 and 17 can be used to make provision for Gibraltar as a consequence of these repeals. The approach in clause 18 has been agreed with the Governments of Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar in line with usual practice.
Ian Murray
This of course brings us to the crux of the Government’s ideology, and no Government Members can ever stand up again and confidently pronounce that the Conservative party is pro-business.
The Government’s strategy and the red lines they have drawn in relation to the Bill are destroying business and are anti-business. Every sector that gives evidence to the Health Committee, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee or the International Trade Committee—and on and on—tells us that the only way to resolve these problems is by staying in the single market and the customs union. If such sectors—the people who create the jobs, employ the people and create the wealth in this country—are telling us that, we should listen to them, rather than to those on the extreme right wing of the Conservative party. They claim to be free traders, but they want to throw out 57 trade deals for some aspirational trade deals—no one can yet tell us whether anyone is even in the queue or wanting to speak to us about them—which is surely anti-trade and anti-business, and is destroying the fabric of the economy of this country.
Wera Hobhouse
Is there not a deep misunderstanding among those who say they want free trade agreements but to be outside the customs union? Creating a customs border is independent of how much we actually raise tariffs, because there will still be a border and there will still be checks. However freely or not freely we trade, creating a customs border will lead to delays, checks, regulations and so on and so forth. People say that we will have a great free trade deal, but we will still have a border, and that is what will be damaging.
Ian Murray
That intervention—I will finish on this point—gets to the crux of new clause 13, because we will have to have a border.
I will keep making in this House the same argument that the Minister and his colleagues in this House made when they stood on the same platform as me during the Scottish independence referendum. They consistently said that if the UK was split up and Scotland came out of the UK single market, there would have to be a border at Berwick. Why? Because there would be different arrangements for customs, regulatory matters, the free movement of people and goods.
How can Ministers now stand at the Dispatch Box with a straight face and say that none of this now applies either to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or indeed to Gibraltar? There is no answer to that question because, again, the Government’s red lines and their narrative do not fit with where they want to go on the final negotiations. We cannot have frictionless free trade while having differential arrangements on customs or regulatory alignment: it just does not work. If the Minister wants to intervene on me to tell me how it will work, rather than just using narrative and rhetoric—and anybody can understand how it will actually work—I would be happy to agree with him.
Wera Hobhouse
I rise to speak to amendment 120. Since I arrived in this place in June and started taking part in the Brexit debate, one thing has intrigued me: have the Prime Minister and many other remain MPs changed their minds? We all know that the Prime Minister supported remaining in June 2016. Has she changed her mind since? This is important because she and her Government use one big argument for pressing on with Brexit: it is the will of the people. Is it? For the Government and the hard Brexiteers, the referendum result is fixed forever. The people cannot change their minds. The Prime Minister and other MPs can change their minds, but the people cannot.
As the months go by and the Government’s legitimacy for implementing their version of Brexit becomes less and less legitimate, obeying the will of the people becomes the last remaining legitimacy, but nobody bothers to find out what the will of the people is now. Indeed, the last to be asked are the people themselves. Hon. Members are right to say that Britain is a parliamentary democracy, but now we have had a referendum, there is no obvious mechanism for updating, confirming or reviewing the referendum result. The 2017 general election provided no mandate for overturning the referendum result. It is obvious that 650 MPs cannot update, confirm or review the decision taken by 33 million people, but the people themselves can, and the people themselves should be allowed to change their minds, in either direction.
There are people now who voted remain who feel that the decision has been taken and the Government should get on with it. There are others who voted leave who fear that they will be let down by politicians who have used them for their own ends. The will of the people is a mixed bag. The Government are legislating for a Brexit in the name of the people. Their problem is that they might find themselves pressing ahead without the people’s consent. Last week, Parliament voted to give itself a vote on the deal. This was a welcome step forward, but what started with the people must end with the people. The people must sign off or reject the deal. Only the people can finish what the people have started.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I rise to speak to new clause 61. CF Fertilisers owns Britain’s only two complexes still making fertilisers in this country. Its comments are simple enough. David Hopkins writes:
“Right across the country, the chemical industry has made a huge investment into REACH compliance. It is not perfect – far from it. It is however becoming an international standard, and our compliance with – and involvement in – such a regulation is essential in enabling us to continue trading effectively across border, both from an import point of view but much more significantly from an export perspective.”
Neil Hollis of BASF says:
“BASF does not take a rigid view on whether REACH is the best possible regulation for current and new chemicals, but it is established, tested and most importantly, a requirement for selling chemicals within the EU. Regardless of what model of Brexit any of us prefer, that isn’t going to change…Our supply chains, operating between ten UK manufacturing plants, and many more across Europe, require clarity that materials can be legally processed and sold, in transition, and after the UK has left the EU.”
Philip Bailey, general manager of Lucite International, reminds me of the investment that takes place in my constituency. He says:
“We have many concerns about the implications of Brexit on our ability to trade effectively and competitively within the EU, where we export 60-70% of our products.”
The Chemical Industries Association reminds us that UK companies hold 6,364 registrations covering 2,563 substances. In that respect, the UK is second only to Germany. The association says:
“The UK Government’s decision to leave the single market will have significant implications.”
On Monday I raised the issue directly with the Prime Minister after her EU summit speech. I asked whether she could offer some reassurance to the chemical companies that the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals regulation would apply after we left the EU and beyond the implementation phase. Sadly, she had no such reassurance to give, dismissing my concerns and those of the industry as just another area for negotiators to talk about. This is about so much more than that. The very future of our chemical industry is at stake. I fear that if we do not retain a system that enables our chemical companies to remain within REACH, some of the forward planning that we hear about will not be for the UK; it will be for elsewhere, and we will pay for that in terms of investment and jobs.
For Teesside, which leads the world in so many ways in chemicals, the outcome could be particularly bad. We need Ministers to spell out very specifically how the UK will ensure that our chemical companies have the business environment and associated regulations that will guarantee their future trade.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
The sectoral analysis has already been made available to the Select Committees, as per the motion of the House, and to all Members of this House through the reading room. The documents contain a range of information, including sector views, some of which would certainly be of great interest to the other side in these negotiations.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)