Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Irish Government published on 8 June their legislative outline, entitled “The General Scheme of the Legacy of the Troubles Bill 2026”. That is intended to fulfil the commitment that the Irish Government gave in the joint framework to co-operate to the fullest extent possible with the commission.”
“Northern Ireland is a society, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than most, that has been undergoing profound change since the signing of the Good Friday agreement 28 years ago. As the famous lines go, we have a shared history, but not necessarily a shared memory.”
“The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, and I am grateful to him for his question. We all have a responsibility—political leaders have a responsibility to call out what was witnessed for what it is and not mince our words, and as I have already indicated, social media companies have a responsibility to ensure that such m…”
“I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that the common travel area, which is more than a century old, is of great benefit to the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland live their lives across that border every single day.”
“I do agree with my hon. Friend. The attack on Mr Ogilvie was truly shocking, and there was no justification whatsoever for the racist thuggery we witnessed on the streets of Belfast in the days following.”
“That was, of course, an awful feature of what we saw. One of the things I learned in my discussions was that those from the far right had taken a list of houses in multiple occupation in Belfast—a list that, in the interests of openness, was properly available on the Belfast city council website; the council has now taken it down—and used…”
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“It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), and I echo what she said to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on behalf of all of us in the Chamber about seeing you back in your place. We feel for you enormously. Such is the interest in our debate today that we have been joined by a robin— [ Interruption. ] Not that Robin—I was thinking of the other one, which has been hopping around the Gallery. Well, well, well, this is all rather familiar. However, as well as the despair expressed by the right hon. Lady, I feel a growing sense of puzzlement. Let me give Members just a little history. We were led to believe in the first instance that the Government had been carrying out assessments of the impact of Brexit on different sectors of the economy. Then we were assured by the Secretary of State that they had not.”
“I agree absolutely. Indeed, I made the point yesterday about the importance of transparency and about a lack of transparency not being in the national interest. I gently say to Ministers that trying to have a go at people who are asking questions about what analysis has been done and what it shows, and attempting to suggest that all of them are trying to undo the referendum result, is an unwise approach. I think it reveals a great defensiveness and a lack of confidence on the part of Ministers about the position that they have put the Government in.”
“I say on behalf of the Exiting the European Union Committee—because we are buying some more lever arch files—that we will handle the material when it is given to us in the same, I hope, professional way that we handled the last lot of information, in line with the commitments I gave to the Secretary of State. This shambles—I use the word deliberately—is a symptom of a fundamental problem that the country faces. First, the Government took decisions early on, such as leaving the customs union, leaving the single market, having nothing to do with the European Court of Justice and no free movement, without having made any assessment of what impact that would have on the British economy—none. The decisions were taken for ideological reasons, without looking at any evidence.”
“Therefore, they cannot model it. Apart from anything else, the Government said that they really hoped with the Florence speech last October to get the European Council to move on to phase 2 of the negotiations, but we clearly were not ready then, because we now know that they had not done the modelling, and we are still not ready now, in view of what we have been told. As any teacher would understand, there are only so many times that the family dog’s eating habits can be offered as an excuse for not producing homework. Being told graciously, as we all were yesterday, “We will give it to you eventually, when the deal has been done,” was not on. I very much welcome—I say this to the Minister in all sincerity—the fact that overnight Ministers have had a rethink and will accept the resolution.”
“Indeed, that is the case. Ministers have made those arguments and, of course, when the growth is better than that in any other countries, they would. However, what the analysis appears to show cannot be avoided: in all the options that it looked at, the country would be less well off than we would otherwise be. We are told that the analysis is preliminary. Nineteen months after the referendum, how on earth can it still be preliminary—really? We are told that the people who are meant to be in charge had not seen it until two nights ago, when it is about to be shown in a locked room to members of the Cabinet. We are told, as has been said, that it does not include modelling of the Government’s preferred option. Why on earth not? The answer is a simple one: the Government do not know what their preferred option consists of.”
“Ministers should not rely—I say this with all the force I can offer—on the House of Commons just accepting whatever they come up with, on the grounds that the alternative is no deal at all; it is not the only alternative, and if Ministers do not start exploring those alternatives pretty quickly and doing the analysis to support what the implications of those alternatives will be, they may well find that Parliament ultimately decides it will have to do it for them.”
“Member for Broxtowe was right—what will be on offer by the time we get to the end of the article 50 negotiations. I conclude with the issue that the House is going to have to confront—and we had better start thinking now about how we are going to deal with it, because the House is going to have the final say: we are going to vote on the draft agreement. Before it does so, however, the House needs to make it clear that we will expect to know what our future relationship, when it comes to trade in goods and services, is going to be. The vague offer, come October, of a possible post-dated cheque for an unspecified agreement simply will not do.”
“The Government also continue to insist—I hope at some point they will stop, because it does not add to their credibility—that between now and the end of October this year, we can negotiate and reach agreement on all these things: trade in goods and services; security and foreign policy co-operation; policing; information sharing to fight terrorism; the regulation of medicines, aircraft and food safety; the transfer of data; the mutual recognition of qualifications; and our future role in the 30 trade agreements that the EU has negotiated on our behalf—and everything else—the Minister sitting there knows better anyone what a long list it is—and that we are going to get a final agreement by October, and by the way, even if things go well, the negotiations will not even start until March! That is why we do not know—the right hon.”
“Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) absolutely hit the nail on the head when she said that if there was any evidence to the contrary, boy, would we have read about it already. The Government need to face up to the consequences of their own red lines for the border in Northern Ireland. I reinforce the point that has been made, including by my hon. Friend, because the Select Committee was in Dublin last week, and we went to look at the border in December. It is not just a fudge. We could describe it as an attempt at alchemy, because the Government are hoping that they can turn the base metal of full alignment into the gold of an open border, when nobody knows how that extraordinary achievement can be brought about, given the utter contradiction between the two positions that they have set out.”
“As a result, neither this House nor the 27 other member states are any the wiser about what we or they will be asked to consider when the Government finally reaches a decision. What is the task now? The Government need to tell us what they will be seeking. Much more importantly, they need to indicate what trade-offs they are prepared to make to achieve the things they say they want, because the choices have consequences that cannot be avoided. It is clear that the Government face, apparently with equanimity, the prospect of going into a negotiation from which, whatever they achieve, we will come away with less than we currently enjoy. My hon.”
“In retrospect, there is force in the right hon. Lady’s argument, but since the Government chose the date on which to trigger it, we would have expected them to plan how they would be in a position to be able to negotiate what was required. The second thing that the Government have done is to demonstrate their complete inability thus far to set out what they would like in phase 2 negotiations—that deep and special partnership. Why? It is an open secret that the Cabinet is in disagreement about the right way forward—that is not just among 35 Government Back Benchers, but inside the Cabinet. Every day we open the newspapers to find the symptoms of that inability to reach agreement spread all over the pages. Heaven knows what the people we are supposed to be negotiating with make of all this.”
“A lack of transparency is not in the national interest. On 6 December, I asked the Brexit Secretary, “have the Government undertaken any impact assessments on the implications of leaving the EU for different sectors of the economy?” He replied, “Not in sectors.” Now we learn that that work has been done, and it is reported that chemicals, clothing, manufacturing, food and drink, cars and retail will be the hardest hit sectors. Will the Minister offer the House an explanation for the discrepancy between what the Exiting the European Union Committee was told and what we now know?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that on the question of services, never mind goods, this is probably going to be the first negotiation in human history in which a Government have gone into the process knowing that they will come out with a worse deal than the one currently enjoyed? The reason for that is the red lines that the Government have set for themselves. Does not that demonstrate what a profound error this has been, especially when we now know that the decisions on those red lines were taken without any assessment at all of their economic impact?”
“The truth is that they are probably the first Government in history to go into negotiations knowing that they will almost certainly end up with a worse deal than we currently have because of the red lines that they have chosen to put in place, and knowing that it will not therefore be possible to honour the promise that has been made to the people of Northern Ireland and indeed of the Republic about an open border. Therefore, if I have one plea, as we see this Bill depart for now, it is that the Government will, very quickly, do their job and set out for this House and for the British people what it is that they are seeking, because when we come to that meaningful vote, believe you me, this House will ensure that it is meaningful when it comes to decisions about our future.”
“At the moment, we have no idea what is going to go into the withdrawal agreement, partly because it has not yet been negotiated, but mainly because the Cabinet is yet to decide what it wishes to ask for, and the House should be really rather anxious about the position that we find ourselves in. The referendum result was 19 months ago, but there are only nine months to go until the negotiations are meant to end, and the discussions on our future trading arrangements may not begin until March. The House will be very concerned about that position. The truth is that the Government cannot reach agreement.”
“This Bill is necessary but, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) so eloquently pointed out, deeply flawed. Despite the changes that have been made, it remains deeply flawed, and their lordships will have a lot of work to do as it passes down the corridor. I welcome the Government’s move to accept the need for primary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, but the task now for the House as we watch the Bill depart is to think about the future. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) talked about a vision, but let us tell each other the truth.”
“Will the Chancellor clarify whether the terms of the public sector private finance initiative contracts with Carillion allow for those contracts to be sold on to other private companies in the event of liquidation?”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. In addition to the points he has just made, the Exiting the European Union Committee heard evidence from witnesses who said that something would be lost if the charter was not transferred. Given that the whole purpose of the Bill is to take the law as it is now and make sure it is still there the day after, does he agree that the Government have thus far failed to persuade the House that the one thing that should be left out is the charter of fundamental rights?”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm that all annual fee payments made thus far by public authorities to Carillion in respect of private finance initiative contracts will now cease and that the liquidator will not be allowed to sell any of those contracts on to anyone else, so that there will not be a reward in the hands of others for the failures of this company?”
“Given that this is the third occasion in just over a decade that a private contractor has announced that it wishes to hand back the keys to the east coast franchise, was it not a fundamental mistake for the Government not to allow East Coast, which successfully ran the franchise for more than five and a half years and paid back £1 billion to the Treasury, to continue its good work? Instead, the Government ideologically said that anyone could bid to run the franchise except the state-owned company that had run it so successfully.”
“This is a major opportunity to break the stranglehold of centralisation and to liberate Yorkshire to fulfil its potential, because while these arguments go back and forth we are missing out on getting the means that we require to make the most of the potential of the more than 5 million people of Yorkshire. We have heard about the inequality in transport investment. We are not making the most of our economic potential. At a time of Brexit, it is absolutely vital that we do so. We must invest in infrastructure and skills, attract people and provide homes for them, but we lack the means to fulfil that potential at the moment. I welcome the progress that has been made, but I hope that Ministers will hear that we are making a simple plea: if they give Yorkshire the tools, we will do the job.”
“This Bill is a consequence of the Government’s decision to leave the customs union. Will the Secretary of State explain why, as we learned from his colleague the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the decision was taken without any economic assessment of the consequences of leaving the customs union? Will he now set out why he thinks the gains will outweigh any potential losses?”
“Otherwise, people can find themselves in a home that they cannot actually sell.”
“I join my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) in congratulating the hon. Gentleman on the work he has done on this and on securing the debate. While the legislation the Government have announced to ban the practice in the future is, of course, very welcome, many people have already been caught by the scam, including constituents of mine who purchased leasehold homes from Miller Homes in my constituency, in Hunslet. They have found that the company that the freehold has been sold on to is now asking for unreasonable charges in order to buy out the freehold, which they cannot afford. Does he agree that, as well as the original housebuilders being asked to set up compensation schemes, as the Government propose, they should be required to do so?”
“Bearing in mind what has happened to developers’ profits —Miller Homes, which I mentioned earlier, announced earlier this year a 44% increase in their pre-tax profits—they can afford it, and they have a moral responsibility to compensate people they have put in an untenable position.”
“My right hon. Friend is most kind. Listening to the powerful testimony on all sides of this Chamber, peeling the layers of an onion to see the full nature of this scandal, does he agree that it is impossible to reach any other conclusion than that the developers are responsible for this? They must have known what they were doing and what they hoped to gain by selling the freehold on to others who then engaged in the sharp practice that we have heard about. They bear the responsibility. The law will stop them from doing it anymore, but they also need to compensate people.”
“On 10 December, the Brexit Secretary described the phase 1 joint agreement as “more a statement of intent than it was a legally enforceable thing.” However, last Friday’s European Council guidelines state: “negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible.” Can the Prime Minister therefore confirm that all the commitments she made in the phase 1 joint agreement, including in respect of the border in Northern Ireland, will be written into UK law?”
“The Secretary of State told the Select Committee that it was the Government’s intention to conclude a free trade agreement with the EU by March 2019. Last Friday, however, the Environment Secretary told the “Today” programme that ironing out the details of a free trade agreement and moving towards a new relationship would take place during the transition period. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that that is the Government’s new position?”
“We have 11 months to go to deal with a very long list of issues that we have not even started to broach. The agreement that was reached last week, which we welcome, is the easy bit of this negotiation—the really difficult bit is about to begin. Those who had thought that leaving the European Union would be about keeping all the things they liked and getting rid of all the things they did not like are now in for a rude awakening as they come to realise that choices have consequences and trade-offs will need to be made.”
“Of course, we had the famous evidence from the Secretary of State in which he suggested that the negotiations might go to the 59th minute of the 11th hour, although since then there has been a certain amount of rowing back, because that would not be consistent with the pledge that we have been given. That was why the Committee said that it would not be acceptable for Parliament to be asked to vote after we had actually left the European Union. The timing of all this is absolutely fundamental to making the vote meaningful. A vote may be meaningless unless at some point in the procedure the timing ensures that it is meaningful. We have to get the order right. Michel Barnier said at the start of the process that he wanted to bring the negotiations to an end next October.”
“The Government amendment to implement that proposal would cause all sorts of trouble, not least because of the way that this Bill was originally drafted, as the Select Committee heard in evidence from Ministers, who confirmed that they would be able to set different exit days for different purposes. The Committee thought that that seemed to provide a great deal of flexibility, but the amendment would bring that possibility to an end, and in the process bind the Government’s hands to an hour of the clock on a day at the very moment when they may well need maximum flexibility so that they can bring the negotiations successfully to an end. The amendment really makes no sense. As the Committee said in its report, the proposal would cause “significant difficulties” if the negotiations went down to the wire.”
“Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who spoke so ably from the Front Bench, drew attention to the statement by the Secretary of State on 13 November in which he said, in announcing that Bill: “This confirms that the major policies set out in the withdrawal agreement will be directly implemented into UK law by primary legislation”. —[ Official Report , 13 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 37.] That is very interesting. I must confess that I did not understand the full significance at the time, so will Ministers also enlighten us on this? What are the major policies and what are the minor policies, and in which Bill, and by what means, will those minor policies be implemented? The next issue of timing is the idea that exit day should be set as 11 o’clock in the evening of 29 March 2019.”
“The written ministerial statement says something interesting, and rather puzzling: “The Bill will implement the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement in UK law…Similarly, we expect any steps taken through secondary legislation to implement any part of the Withdrawal Agreement will only be operational from the moment of exit, though preparatory provisions may be necessary in certain cases.” My simple question for Ministers is this: secondary legislation where, and arising from what? Does this refer to clause 9, which a lot of Members think should no longer be in the Bill, or is it advance notification that there will be provision for secondary legislation under the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill that we have been promised? We need some clarification. My hon.”
“The question has been asked—I want to ask it, too, because it has exercised the Select Committee—“What is clause 9 now for?” It is a very simple question indeed. Timing and the order in which these things are done are absolutely crucial in this debate, and that point was made forensically and forcefully by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield. May I suggest a new principle? We often heard it said during reports back from the negotiations that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, so I suggest that we agree that nothing should be implemented until everything is agreed.”
“When I asked him to give us a very simple assurance that clause 9 will not be used to implement the withdrawal agreement until Parliament has had the opportunity to vote on it, he replied: “It seems to me to be logical”. —[ Official Report , 7 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 354.] What has been set out in today’s written ministerial statement appears to give that undertaking, but if that is what Ministers are prepared to do, why not put that into the Bill? I similarly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that there will be separate legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, but if Ministers are prepared to give that commitment, we want to see that in the Bill, too, which is why I shall vote for amendment 7.”
“I rise to speak to amendment 47, which stands in my name. It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who has shown great resolution, fortitude and reason in the face of unreasonable criticism. We admire him for it. We are debating the single most important question in the Bill: how the House can exercise its view on the withdrawal agreement in a way that gives us control. “Control”—there is a word we have heard before. It resonated throughout the referendum campaign, but when Members start to argue that Parliament should have some control over this process, it seems to send shivers down Ministers’ spines. Amendment 47 arises from an exchange that I had with the Secretary of State on Second Reading.”
“The House might want to tell the Government to go back in and say, “On reflection, we would like to suggest that we do the following.” There must be sufficient time for that to take place if we are going to get a reasonable deal. Another point I want to make—I am conscious, Sir David, of what you said about the time—is that Ministers need to understand why they are having such difficulty with this fundamental debate on the Bill. It has to do with the history of the Government’s handling of the whole process. At every single stage, this House has had to demand our role and our voice. I remember the answer when people first asked what the Government’s negotiating objectives were: “Brexit means Brexit.” When a follow-up question was asked, we were told—”
“The hon. Gentleman anticipates precisely the point that I was going to make— [ Interruption. ] I was. As we have already heard, all the Ministers and Prime Ministers who negotiate in this process will say at some point, either in the main forum or in other discussions, “I’ll never get this through my Parliament.” That is the accountability we are talking about. It is called democracy, and it is really important that Ministers, Prime Ministers and negotiators have that thought in their minds when they are negotiating on behalf of the country and the House. In such circumstances, I think the House would first want to ask why we were facing no deal, and it might well wish to give the Government fresh negotiating instructions.”
“It is up to us to make sure that that happens.”
“We’ll just do it all by statutory instrument.” That was until amendment 7 appeared on the horizon, at which point the Government changed their mind. If the Committee insists, as I hope it will, on amendment 7 later today, that will be because of our experience of the Government’s handling of the Bill so far. They have not acted in the spirit of seeking consensus, even though the Prime Minister said earlier that that was what she wanted to achieve. The final point I want to make is simply this. Parliament has no intention of being a bystander in this process. We intend to be a participant, as I have said on a number of occasions, because this decision affects every part of the country, every business and every family. Today’s debate and vote are all about control, which must ultimately rest not in Ministers’ hands but in our hands.”
“I am still wrestling with the concept of a red, white and blue Brexit, and I did not find it very enlightening. The second answer was, “No running commentary,” but that eventually had to give way to the Lancaster House speech and a White Paper. Then we asked, “Will Parliament get a vote?” Almost exactly a year ago, when the Prime Minister last appeared before the Liaison Committee, I asked her that question. She was unwilling to give me a commitment on that occasion, but we all pressed, and in the end the Government conceded that there would be a vote. We argued that there would need to be separate primary legislation to implement the withdrawal agreement, but what did the Government do? They produced this Bill, which says, “No, no.”
“I set out—very clearly I thought—in my speech what the other possibility is. For the avoidance of any doubt on the right hon. Gentleman’s part, I have said repeatedly in this House that we are leaving the European Union at the end of March 2019—and, indeed, I voted for the article 50 legislation. I was discussing today the terms on which we will leave. It is perfectly possible for Parliament to look at the terms and say, “We do not like them; we would like different ones,” and to give the Government different instructions, provided that there is time. That was my point.”
“It is not just a question of assurances given from the Dispatch Box. In clause 9, Ministers are proposing to take a power that would enable them, after the event, to get rid of what they have described as safeguards in the Bill if they feel like it, by means of the mechanisms provided in that clause. Does that not undermine the confidence that the House can have in those safeguards, given that they may no longer be in the text of the Bill when it becomes an Act?”
“The most important part of this agreement is paragraph 49, which I welcome. It says clearly that “the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.” Given that those words are prefaced by the words: “In the absence of agreed solutions,” can the Prime Minister please confirm to the House today that this crystal-clear commitment will apply in all circumstances, including if no trade deal is reached with the European Union?”
“We all hope that the Government find a form of words that enables the negotiations to move on to phase 2, but do they not have to realise that the reason why there is this problem is because of their decision to leave the customs union and the single market? Given that the leader of the Scottish Conservatives and the Mayor of London have both suggested that whether it is convergence or no divergence, it should be applied to the whole of the United Kingdom, is it not time for the Government finally to recognise that they need to make a different decision if they are to avoid the imposition of a hard border in Northern Ireland?”
“On the point about conflict that was raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), it seems to be the way in which the Bill has been structured that creates the conflict. The Government could have done this differently. They could have said, “You can have all the powers back and we will hold a veto.” The question is about getting agreement on the frameworks when they are necessary. The two new clauses to which my hon. Friend is speaking seem to me—and, I am sure, to many people—to set out a really practical way of bringing the two sides together to get those agreements. That is the route by which we will find a way through this problem.”
“I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, and I join him, as I am sure the whole House does, in offering our thanks to the humanitarian workers. Does he agree that although the roots of this terrible war are deep and complex, there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for repeated blockades of the ports and the airports? The blockades are denying the long-suffering people of Yemen the food and medicine that they require, and as a result they are suffering grievously. There is a threat of famine, and people are dying of diseases, including cholera.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to me again, On the question of arms sales, given that the final report of the United Nations panel of experts on Yemen found that the coalition had conducted airstrikes in violation of international humanitarian law, and given the consolidated criteria—the rules governing arms sales from the United Kingdom—is there not a bit of a problem if the UK Government do not pause their sales, which is what I called for, along with the Leader of the Opposition, when I was shadow Foreign Secretary, since we have an obligation to see those claims investigated? Otherwise, is there not a risk that the sales will be in breach of our own law?”
“I am grateful to the Minister. Since the House understands the Government’s position to be that they do not feel there have been breaches of international humanitarian law, because they would otherwise have had to invoke the arms control criteria, and given that the UN panel of experts that I quoted earlier was of the view that breaches of international humanitarian law had taken place, will the Minister tell the House what other sources of information the Government have drawn upon in reaching their conclusion? Do they include the views of the military officers who are offering the advice that he has just described to the House?”
“The United Kingdom is currently a member of a large number of EU agencies, from that dealing with aviation safety to the European Medicines Agency. Have the Government made an assessment of the likely cost to the Exchequer of having to replicate all those functions and activities, if they eventually decide that we have to leave all of them because of their stated principled objection to the European Court of Justice having any jurisdiction over the United Kingdom?”