European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-07
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): That is politics, as the right hon. Gentleman knows only too well, because he has a similar experience in his position with regard to Scotland The bottom line is that we are faced with a simple decision, which is going to be decided in a vote later today, I imagine—it might be in part tomorrow as well, and then there will be Third Reading. I hope that all these attempts to, in my judgment, produce different versions of delay will effectively be overridden by the vote taken by the House as a whole, in line with the decision taken by the British people. That is the right way to proceed I would like to add one further point, with respect to the Bill itself. I am in no way criticising the selection of amendments, because I think it is entirely right that we should have an opportunity to look at a variety of permutations before the main vote is cast. But I have to remind the Committee that the Bill, which was passed by 498 to 114, simply says that it will "confer power on the Prime Minister to notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention", as expressed by the referendum itself, "to withdraw from the EU." Clause 1 simply says this, and no more: "The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU." I am glad to see that it goes on to say—just to put this matter to bed, in case anybody tries to argue that, somehow or other, this could be overridden by some other European Union gambit— that "This section", which we have already passed in principle, "has effect despite any provision made by or under the European Communities Act 1972 or any other enactment." In other words, nothing that emanates from the European Union is to stand in its way. That is a very simple proposition. The Bill is short because it should be short I would just like to make one last point, looking back at what the Supreme Court said. The Supreme Court made a judgment on one simple question: should we express the intention to withdraw and notify under article 50 by prerogative or by Bill? There was a big battle, and many people took differing views. We respect the Supreme Court decision, and that is why we have this Bill. The fact is that that is final In paragraphs 2 and 3 of the judgment, the court itself made it clear what the judgment was meant to be about, which was whether this should be done by Bill or prerogative. The court said it should be done by Bill. It added—these are my last words on the subject for the moment—that it was about one particular issue, which was the one I have mentioned. The court then said the judgment had nothing to do with the terms of withdrawal, nothing to do with the method, nothing to do with the timing and nothing to do with the relationship between ourselves and the European Union. Yet new clause 1 spends its entire verbiage going into the very questions that the Supreme Court said the decision was not about. So that new clause and the others are all inconsistent both with the Supreme Court decision and with the decisions taken on Second Reading.