European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who represents the part of London in which I live when I am down here working in the House of Commons. We do not agree on this subject. During the debates on this Bill, she has voted with the Government almost as many times as I have voted against the Government. We are going neck and neck, which has been the position between us for the very many years we have both been in this House. We have diametrically different views I am afraid that I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s description of the European Union. In our 45 years of membership, it has helped us to become a more significant political force in the world in looking out for our interests, and it has been one of the fundamental bases of our giving ourselves a modern, successful economy, but this is not the time for a general debate I speak to new clause 54, which I tabled in co-operation with the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie). The new clause has been signed by a number of Members from both the major parties in this House. As I said in an earlier intervention, compared with the debates on other things, it should be quite easy to get this amendment passed because we drafted it to be entirely consistent with stated Government policy New clause 54 seeks to insert the policies set out in the Prime Minister’s Florence speech into the Bill, thereby including that part of what we have so far achieved by way of clear policy, so we can proceed further with the full approval of this House. I know perfectly well that the Minister who drew the short straw of answering today’s debates would immediately turn to some interesting, original and rather obscure arguments why this new clause should not be accepted, which has been the pattern throughout our eight days in Committee There have been hardly any concessions of principle. When issues of great moment have been debated, it has been unusual for a Minister to be allowed to engage with that principle. What happens is that a very long brief is delivered, some of it quite essential—this is not a criticism of either the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), or other Ministers, and I do not envy the role in which they find themselves of holding the line on this Bill—in which a Minister goes into tremendous legalistic, administrative and even constitutional niceties without actually debating the subject We have already talked about amendment 7, which was passed against the Government. The amendment was all about whether this House should have a meaningful vote on the agreement before the Government bind themselves to it. The Minister on that occasion, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), never joined the debate about a meaningful vote. Indeed, today’s Minister would not when he was drawn into going back into where we are on amendment 7. All kinds of bizarre arguments were produced on why it was not suitable to put this in the Bill, and the House had to assert that it is not going to allow this Government to commit themselves to things that will be of huge importance to future generations, probably affecting our political and trading position in the world for many decades to come, without their first getting approval from this House of Commons for whatever it is they want to sign up to. New clause 54 is an attempt to minimise the risk of that happening again.