Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
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“That trust is still somewhat lacking in those relationships, and there may be one or two who want to foment distrust for their own political reasons. That makes getting this sorted out in an amicable way more challenging, but all the more necessary.”
“I accept that. Whatever compromise or proposals emerge in the other place, we can either debate them, vote on them and accept them, or we can debate them, vote on them, reject them and send back our own proposals to the other place at that point, so this House will have an opportunity to debate this very fully—just as fully as on Report. This is, ultimately, a question of trust. We need to build up trust. Whatever the future holds for our United—or disunited—Kingdom, there need to be relationships of trust between the four Parliaments of these islands, the four Administrations of these islands, to enable us to make our way in the world as effectively as possible after we have left the European Union.”
“My Committee is going to Cardiff at the beginning of February and then we will be making an official visit, following an unofficial visit late last year, to Edinburgh, to build up these relationships and these understandings between the different Parliaments and the different Administrations. I do hope that in the end we can arrive at the right destination.”
“We have come a long way since the Government first published the Bill in draft last summer, when there were very peremptory conversations with the devolved Administrations and they felt very unconsulted about the Bill that had been published. There has been quite a lot of trust building and discussion, and the meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee, which has discussed these matters and produced joint memorandums, shows that the trust is capable of building. I do think we have gone backwards a little bit in recent weeks, but I hope that the work that my Committee is doing will help.”
“Trust is about what is offered to the other party. In this case, the Government have been consistently misconstrued. Given the drafting, clause 11 can be read as though the Government intended to hold on to the 111 powers for all time, withholding them from the Scottish Government, but the Government have repeatedly said that that is not the case. My Committee has also consistently said that the Government’s intention is that the devolved Administrations and Parliaments should finish with substantially more powers as a result of leaving the EU than they had before.”
“We need to develop the same facility, so that after we leave the European Union and the powers have been devolved, the four parts of the United Kingdom work effectively and harmoniously together for the common good and the future of our country.”
“This is an important test for the relationship between Whitehall and its counterparts elsewhere in the United Kingdom—and, indeed, with this Parliament, because the relationship between the Parliaments is just as undeveloped, possibly even less so, than the relationship between the Governments. The Governments have to work together, and on the island of Great Britain we have a single civil service that naturally works together. But the idea of the Parliaments of the United Kingdom working together is a completely alien concept and has not yet come into our political idiom at all. Our Committee continues to work on the issue. I hope that we shall make some radical recommendations to help us learn from other, decentralised systems of government in other countries. This is in the DNA of their constitutions.”
“Why is there not some qualification to the powers that have been retained, to show that they are for a particular purpose rather than just a blanket withholding? As I said in Committee, it was instructive that even the work commissioned by the Scottish Parliament demonstrated that most of the powers being recovered from the EU—those with relevance to the UK single market, for example—are naturally reserved powers. We are dealing here with only a relatively small proportion, albeit on significant matters such as the environment, farming and fisheries.”
“It is very problematic. My Committee has repeatedly attempted to make an official visit to the Province, but that has not been regarded as expedient at this time. However, I sometimes run into the hon. Lady and I talk to other elected representatives of the Province; I hope that there is, at least within this House, trust and understanding between the democratically elected representatives on this matter. However, I invite the hon. Lady to a further conversation offline. We are continuing our inquiry and our work. I make it clear to my party’s Front Benchers that I expect amendments to be tabled to clause 11 to clarify how long the powers should exist. Why is there not a sunset provision at the end of clause 11, so that it is seen clearly as a temporary expedient and not a final destination?”
“I count 10 Ministers on the Treasury Bench, so it is a little churlish to say that the Government are somehow under-represented when I can see only four members of the Opposition Front-Bench team. I think that says it all. This Government are listening hard to what the hon. Gentleman is saying even though he is being rather tedious.”
“It would be helpful if the Government gave an assurance today that in the event that there is no agreement with the Scottish or Welsh Governments, they will still amend clause 11—unilaterally, if necessary—to ensure that its effect is ameliorated as reasonably as possible. If the Scottish and Welsh Governments refuse to agree to that, it will be a problem for them and not for this Parliament.”
“The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee oversees the public appointments process and we hold the public appointments commissioner accountable for the conduct of the code. This is a timely reminder that public appointments are to be held accountable. Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the panel had the due diligence they should have had when they made their appointment? What representations has he received from any member of the panel about the appointment since it was made?”
“I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this debate. There are some very serious issues to discuss and to bring into the public domain, but I think we need to keep a sense of proportion. I agree with the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) that Russia has not changed its character fundamentally since the days of the Tsar. It has always been somewhat paranoid about the outside world and aggressively defensive, and we see the same characteristics today. However, to describe, as he put it, “the kind of tweets put out by the Russian embassy” in the same terms as the threat we faced during the cold war is to get things a little out of proportion. There are serious issues to discuss, but we should do so responsibly. I want to explain what I mean.”
“I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but the fact is that today’s Russia is a shadow of the power that was the former Soviet Union.”
“I encourage them to ensure that that work is translated into an effective and co-ordinated response, and further to our report, I call again on the Government to commit to presenting annual reports to Parliament on these matters. We must avoid the temptation to overreact and start suggesting that massive changes to public opinion have been created by this relatively tiny amount of social media activity. Otherwise, we are playing exactly into what the Russians want—we are questioning the very processes that they want us to question, and asking the questions that they want to generate. We must avoid doing that because it is completely unnecessary.”
“Although we can be assured that our paper-based voting system is much more difficult to manipulate than an electronic one, we remain vulnerable to the broader attempt to use social media in elections as a platform for influence. Further consideration should be given to the Electoral Commission’s recommendation in 2014 that the law be changed to require online campaign advertising to have the equivalent of an imprint. The control of offshore operators, however, is extremely difficult. I encourage the Government to ensure that any efforts to assess the threat include an analysis of the motivations and approaches taken by key actors, and the level of threat that they represent.”
“The Government say they are taking the issue of cyber-security extremely seriously: the centre played an important role in monitoring key systems for unusual activity in the run-up to the 2017 general election, and the Cabinet Office convened a dedicated monitoring and response cell throughout the election period to ensure that any risks emerging in the immediate run-up to and during the election were co-ordinated effectively. In their response to PACAC’s report, the Government say they will continue to work closely with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators in assessing the threat to the UK’s democratic process and implementing further measures to mitigate the risks.”
“It is also important for them to be able to report this to their domestic audience as evidence, however incredible it may seem to us, of their power and influence in the world. This has clear implications for what we understand by a cyber-attack, the nature of such cyber-attacks and how we respond both physically and politically. I commend the Prime Minister for adopting a tough stance on this and for the establishment of the national cyber-security centre in 2016, but we need to use this work to gain a better understanding of the real motivations behind it. The Government published their response to PACAC’s report on the EU referendum in a Command Paper yesterday, and I very much welcome it.”
“They are less interested in the apparent intended effect of their activities—whether they alter the balance of the debate or affect peoples’ voting intentions is entirely secondary—but are much more interested in being seen to be able to do what they do. They want to be seen tweaking the nose of the west, flaunting their capability, acting illegally and proving what they can do, and to show that we cannot stop them doing so. These countries want us to react, and this creates something of a dilemma. They want us to hold debates such as this one. President Putin is manipulating this debate: he will be chortling in the Kremlin at the fact that we are discussing these matters and putting Russia centre stage, because this is exactly what he wants. They see our reacting to this activity as evidence of their ability to control and manipulate us.”
“I can attest that we were aware of a certain amount of odd cyber- activity, and we speculated that the crash of the online voter registration system was the result of a cyber-attack. This was and continues to be disputed by the Government, but whether or not it is true, the Government need to create more resilient systems. PACAC’s report highlighted the need not only to consider the potential for foreign interference in elections or referendums, but to examine the real nature of this potential interference. It found that, while the UK and the US understanding of “cyber” is predominantly technical, Russia and China use what is termed a “cognitive” approach, based on understanding mass psychology and how to exploit the fears of individuals.”
“I absolutely concur with what my hon. Friend says—I do not want to diminish it at all—but we need to keep cyber-warfare, particularly political interference, in perspective. The Committee I chair, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, produced a report on “Lessons learned from the EU Referendum” in March. It touched on this issue, and if I may say so, it in fact did so well in advance of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). PACAC will also, I hope, conduct an inquiry on the 2017 general election, and we will continue to investigate these issues. I should declare a tangential interest in that I was a director of Vote Leave at the time of the referendum.”
“I, too, question the criteria for success, because there is evidence of success in that it is provoking consternation at and the questioning of democratic results and policies in our country. Those are the criteria for success. We want to hear that GCHQ will aggressively target the generation of such material, do its best to block it and be much more proactive, but perhaps the Minister is coming to that point.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting and relevant point, although it is of course true that all this legislation came in via secondary legislation in the first place and Parliament will have considerably more control over the secondary legislation that amends it than we currently have over the method that created it. I would imagine, as I am sure he does and the Government do, that Acts of Parliament will become more important, particularly if we want to make sure that this is not challengeable in the courts, as secondary legislation is much more vulnerable to challenge through the courts than primary legislation.”
“Clause 13 is confined to the publication and rules of evidence. The schedule itself is about publishing what is retained direct EU legislation. Can my right hon. and learned Friend describe to me what latitude the Government would have that could do so much damage, or be so capricious, within the powers of the Bill, and can he give an example of what would be so damaging and outrageous?”
“There are right hon. and hon. Members who say they want to honour the result of the referendum, but who actually want the European Union to carry on controlling our laws. I call them Brexinos—people who want Brexit in name only. There may well be a majority of them in this House, but that would not be respecting the result of the referendum, would it?”
“I apologise to the Committee for having had to be in the Liaison Committee for the last couple of hours and for missing much of the debate. I thank my hon. Friend for accepting these compromise amendments. The Government are, in fact, accepting a very significant limitation on the powers they had in the original draft of the Bill. If we are interested in the sovereignty of Parliament, we are interested in limiting the room for Government to set arbitrary dates without any controls over them whatever. That is what existed in the Bill before. There is now proper control by Parliament of the date in the Bill.”
“I wish to pick up on the important point raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). For the avoidance of doubt, will the Minister clarify that it is not the Government’s intention to set up retained EU law in UK statute in a manner that would encourage a UK court to strike down another primary statute? If that is the intention, may I suggest it might be something the Government will have to look at?”
“The whole point of this Bill is that it is taking back power to this country and this Parliament, so that we can decide for ourselves what will happen. All the significant powers in the Bill are subject to the affirmative resolution and those that are not will now be subject to a sifting committee. We are recovering from a situation where, as members of the European Union, we had handed over all these decisions, lock, stock and barrel, to the European Union, so the Bill is a massive improvement, and to dress up this attempt to reverse Brexit as an argument in favour of parliamentary sovereignty is nothing but cant.”
“Can the right hon. Lady explain how the timing will work? If there is to be legislation to approve a withdrawal agreement before March 2019, what happens if the agreement is reached too late to allow that legislation to go through all its stages— [Interruption] —or is this a plan to delay the Brexit date?”
“I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but is it really that unreasonable that the Government might need to avail themselves of these powers in clause 9 while the withdrawal and implementation Bill is proceeding through the House of Commons? If the timetable is compressed, that Bill would not be on the statute book and the powers there would not be available. So clause 9 is necessary for that purpose. Of course the withdrawal and implementation Bill could circumscribe the powers in clause 9 and indeed close them off once that Bill is on the statute book.”
“I am listening very carefully, but clause 9 is not about implementing our leaving the European Union; it is about implementing a withdrawal agreement. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) did not vote for article 50, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) did. That is when he voted to leave the European Union and that is decided, so he is incorrect to say that clause 9 is deciding when or how we leave the European Union.”
“I have listened to this entire debate with close interest. I think that we are all agreed that we want an orderly process for leaving the EU, which means a sensible withdrawal agreement along with a clear and detailed commitment to an EU-UK trade agreement and a period of implementation, but I also think we all agree that if no satisfactory agreement arrives, we still all voted to leave the EU. Well, we nearly all voted to leave the EU: I respect my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), but he voted against the triggering of article 50, as did some others. Those of us who voted to trigger article 50 voted to leave on 29 March 2019.”
“and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and others on the Government Benches, but my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) exposed very ably the fact that there are people in the House who want to use amendment 7 as a means to extend the negotiation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe was absolutely explicit on that point. I appreciate that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), did his best to avoid answering the question, but he made it clear that he thinks the deadline will have to be extended.”
“The advantages of allowing secondary legislation under this Bill are that, first, the legislation will ultimately be answerable to the House; secondly, the powers are temporary; thirdly, they can be subject to revision or annulment at any future time; and finally, they are underpinned by the democratic authority of a referendum. On a “take it or leave it” vote, I do not remember debating a single new treaty that was offered to the House on the basis that we could amend the treaty by passing an Act of Parliament. Whether to accept the Lisbon treaty was a “take it or leave it” decision. We were told that if we did not accept the treaty, it would create such chaos that it would force us to leave the EU. I do not doubt the bona fides of my right hon.”
“I loathe secondary legislation that amends primary legislation expressed in Acts of Parliament. It is an odious practice that has entered the legislative process in this House—this is by no means the first Bill that contains so-called Henry VIII clauses—but I can justify such powers as a basis for reversing the effects of our membership of the EU. It may seem to be an irony, but it is by the process of secondary legislation that we have been gradually integrated into the EU. We have seen order after order coming under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. More often than not, it was a “take it or take it” option: we did not even have a “take it or leave it” option once it was expressed in EU law.”
“I will come back to the way Parliament interacts with the process, but it would be really rather foolish for this House and the Government to premise all their plans on the basis that that request would be acceded to, because it would require unanimity. I have not heard a single public statement from the EU or a European diplomat that suggested for a moment that they would countenance extending the deadline. Of course, why would they? The deadline written into article 50 is to their advantage. I expect that the hon. Gentleman would have voted for the Lisbon treaty, which contains article 50, but I did not vote for it. I have always thought that article 50 was a snare and a trap. It sets a deadline, against which we are now negotiating, and that is the only prudent way to negotiate.”
“and learned Friend is looking for and that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice has repeated already from the Dispatch Box.”
“As I say, it is not something that we can bank on. May I just deal with this question of what is a meaningful vote? I cannot find anything clearer than the ministerial statement that was issued this morning. It says that “the Government has committed to hold a vote on the final deal in Parliament as soon as possible after the negotiations have concluded.” It continues: “This vote will take the form of a resolution in both Houses of Parliament and will cover both the withdrawal agreement and the terms for our future relationship. The Government will not implement any parts of the withdrawal agreement—for example by using clause 9 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill—until after this vote has taken place.” That seems to provide the assurances that my right hon.”
“The right hon. Lady knows as well as I do that the intention is to try to conclude an agreement by October 2018, but, again, there is no guarantee of that fact, in which case the resolution will be tabled soon after 2018. May I just point out that amendment 7, proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, is trying to create a meaningful vote by turning this resolution of both Houses into a statute?”
“Yes, a statute has been promised, but not as a means of second-guessing the negotiations. At what stage in the passage of the statute does my right hon. and learned Friend expect the Government to use that moment and say, “Oh, well, they haven’t agreed with this bit of the agreement; we’ll have to go back.” Is it during the passage of the statute that the negotiations would have to continue? Making this decision a statute does not alter the discussion about a meaningful vote.”
“Actually, that option is not available, because article 50 has a deadline, and when that deadline runs out, we leave. There is no requirement for a withdrawal agreement or a statute for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.”
“and learned Friend wants to table a different amendment, as colleagues almost seem to be suggesting, that might be a way to resolve this. I beg my right hon. and hon. Friends on this point. There is a summit tomorrow. This is not the moment to try to defeat the Government— [ Interruption. ]”
“It is wishful thinking that the deadline will be extended. Where I disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is over the fact that, somehow, he thinks that the withdrawal agreement is necessary for us to leave the European Union and that the statute for the agreement is therefore necessary. Unfortunately, it is not. He voted for article 50, which triggered the process of leaving. Everything else is for our domestic legislation. Let us hope that there is a withdrawal agreement, but, actually, this Bill is what is necessary to provide legal continuity. Unfortunately, requiring another Act of Parliament before provisions of this Bill come into effect is just muddying the waters. As the Minister has already demonstrated very forcefully, this is not an effective amendment. If my right hon.”
“This is not the moment to try to defeat the Government, when there is another opportunity to amend the Bill at a later date, if a satisfactory discussion cannot be held. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has been very conciliatory.”
“I think that some people in this House might be trying to delay Brexit, some of whom may be supporting the amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, but I perfectly accept his bona fides and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage. I simply conclude that there is an opportunity for the discussions to continue. It is not necessary to bring this matter to a vote this evening.”
“I have some sympathy with the points that the hon. Gentleman is making, but why did he not raise these objections when his own party was passing legislation that could be self-amending in exactly the same way, without a sunset clause—for example, the Scotland Act 1998?”
“May I commend to my right hon. Friend the most recent report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which was published last week, on inter-institutional relations in the UK? Will he accept that there is a strong consensus that devolution arrangements are not finished and we need far stronger institutional underpinning of the relations between the four parts of the UK, and that this is an opportunity to achieve that?”
“Will my right hon. Friend confirm that she is aware of the very strong enthusiasm for free trade deals with the UK from countries like Canada, Japan, the United States and Australia, and even for UK participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership? But none of these opportunities will come our way if we remain shackled to EU regulation after we have left the EU.”
“May I point out to my right hon. Friend what I know he will agree with: the consensus that we must deliver is the consensus that was delivered in the referendum vote last year; and that was not for some half-in, half-out solution now being advocated by Her Majesty’s official Opposition?”
“We all accept that the Gina Miller case made it clear that the requirement for legislative consent motions in the devolved Parliaments would not effectively block the passage of the legislation in this House, but it has created some constitutional tension. My hon. Friend pointed out that the progress of the Bill is likely to be somewhat impeded by the absence of legislative consent motions from Holyrood and Cardiff, and from Northern Ireland if the Assembly is operating there. This is an important message. It demonstrates that the devolution that Labour said it was promoting when it gave us devolution has turned into a very different constitutional reality—”