European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-12
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): I want to speak briefly in favour of amendments 15 and 49, 132, and 5 and 2, tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the Leader of the Opposition I know that many Members in all parts of the House have spent hours battling away on the Bill over the past few weeks, and I am full of admiration for them. I do not remotely pretend that I could compete with their expert knowledge of Europe or the constitution, and I will certainly spend as many hours as I can find poring over the Minister’s brief after tonight’s performance to see whether I can improve my understanding. Despite all this effort, however, all we have really seen are a few nudges and hints from Ministers to date; there has been no real tangible progress in terms of any substantial change to this Bill. That is the most worrying thing about the whole process. It appeared tonight that the Minister was sent out with a brief designed purely to bat away everything put in his way. That suggests to me that the Government are not interested in taking on board the views of Members of this House I am choosing to make a contribution at this stage in the debate because I believe that clause 7 is the nub of the Bill; it is certainly the area about which constituents have contacted me the most. That is because it is where we learn whether Parliament is going to be taking back control, or whether we are on the verge of leaving one big bureaucratic union to which many people in this country object—whatever our views, that is one of the reasons why people object—only to hand over unprecedented powers to Ministers in a Government who do not actually have a majority. More than anything, clause 7 is about parliamentary sovereignty and our rights as parliamentarians to represent the interests of the public, especially where they do not coincide with the interests of the Executive. That is what this is really about Amendment 15 addresses the fact that clause 7 attempts to define partially and envisage deficiencies that may arise. The right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield is right that it makes much more sense to leave this open and hence it is better to say: "A Minister of the Crown may by regulations make such provision as the Minister considers appropriate to prevent, remedy or mitigate…any failure of retained EU law to operate effectively", and simply leave it there. The attempt to go further with a partial list does not help us Amendment 49 deals with a similar concern, but is clearer about the fact that delegated powers should be used only when absolutely necessary. Why should we give increased delegated powers to the Executive when we are not convinced of the necessity for them? It is their job to convince us of their necessity. Our job today is to build protection against the risk of a Minister acting excessively Amendment 1 makes it clear that, whatever the arguments about taking back control, no one thought when that phrase was used in the referendum campaign that it meant handing excessive powers to Ministers without proper parliamentary scrutiny; and of course, turning to amendment 32, it would be absurd in parliamentary terms if the very delegated powers that the Minister is given in order to amend defects in his plans are then capable of being used to reconstruct the entire Act. The Minister claims that that will not happen, but I was not massively convinced; it was a long performance—there is no argument about that—but I was not convinced. I have recently read Tim Shipman’s book, and I am aware that the Minister has lots of skills and talents, which came to the fore in the lead-up to the referendum. However, I wish I had seen more evidence today of how he goes around convincing colleagues; I did not witness that happening at the Dispatch Box tonight. We have to ask whether we are on a slippery slope. Is this about dismantling parliamentary authority? Is this the start of law-making by Executive fiat and therefore the bypassing of this entire place? If that is the case, that is not what we came here for and it is not what this Bill should be about Amendment 5 returns to the fear that existing functions, and therefore rights, could be taken away from the British people in an exercise that is supposed to be about making EU law operable from exit day. That is not the debate that we have been having here, however, and it is not what the Government have been concentrating their energies on. I cannot see how anyone who genuinely believes in parliamentary democracy could be satisfied to see this Bill, and clause 7 in particular, go through unamended. That would be tantamount to our giving up our proper rights and responsibilities I know that we will not come to this until another day, but by the same token it would be a total dereliction of duty if we were to make a withdrawal agreement that was not subject to full and proper parliamentary scrutiny and a meaningful vote. Otherwise, what was the referendum for? If all we are going to achieve is a transfer of power from Europe to a bunch of Ministers in a Government without a majority, we will have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.