On a point of order, Sir Lindsay. We are about to debate in Committee, under your chairmanship, amendments that are not available to Members. I have just been to the Vote Office to try to find the amendments. [Interruption.] They have become available now, but they were not available five minutes ago. How can we possibly debate such an important issue without the amendments being released earlier?
The amendments have not yet been selected for voting. They were allowed to be tabled until 5 o’clock, so there had to be time for that. If you were to go now, they should be listed, but the amendments to be voted on have not been chosen yet. During the next two hours, I am sure that a man as competent as yourself will keep up with what changes may come.
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out subsections (1) to (3) and insert—
‘(1A) After this Act has been passed, but no later than 21 October 2019, the Prime Minister of State must make arrangements for—
(a) motion to the effect that the House of Commons has approved an agreement with the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, to be moved in the House of Commons by a Minister of the Crown; and
(b) a motion for the House of Lords to take note of the agreement, to be moved in the House of Lords by a Minister of the Crown.
(1B) If the House of Commons decides to approve the motion in paragraph (a), subsection (4) must be complied with.’
The intention of this Amendment is to ensure that debate takes place after the European Council meeting on 17/18 October 2019 on either the existing withdrawal agreement or any new withdrawal agreement that may have been agreed.
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 8, page 1, line 16, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment 9, page 2, line 8, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
‘(3) If the condition in subsection (1) is not satisfied, subsection (4) shall apply.’
Amendment 10, page 2, line 10, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) The Prime Minister shall seek to discuss with the European Council a further short extension of the period under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union ending at 11.00 pm on 31 October 2019 by sending to the President of the European Council a letter in the form set out in Schedule [Form of letter from the Prime Minister to the President of the European Council (No. 2)].’
Amendment 20, page 2, line 12, leave out from “2019” to end of line 17.
The intention of this Amendment is to ensure that if the House of Commons approves a withdrawal agreement, the Prime Minister must seek an extension of the period under Article 50(3) TEU.
Amendment 6, page 2, line 14, at end, insert
‘in order to debate and pass a Bill to implement the agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, including provisions reflecting the outcome of inter-party talks as announced by the Prime Minister on 21 May 2019, and in particular the need for the United Kingdom to secure changes to the political declaration to reflect the outcome of those inter-party talks.’
This amendment would set out as the purpose of seeking an extension under Article 50(3) TEU the passage of a Withdrawal Agreement Bill based on the outcome of the inter-party talks which concluded in May 2019 – see NC1 for contents of the Bill and Amendment XX for text of the request letter to the European Council.
I rise to seek colleagues’ patience in proposing something that I believe is a compromise that many Members in this House have long sought and many people have expressed support for. The compromise goes like this. There are many of us on both sides of this House who do not want no deal and yet, as has been pointed out by many Members, including the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), many colleagues have not supported a deal. My simple amendment to the Bill would require the Government to have a vote on Monday 21 October—the first sitting day after the EU Council—on a deal, whether it be a new deal or the previous deal. Should that vote be successful and approved by Members of this House, the Government would be required, if they needed more time, to ask for an extension from the European Union, purely in order to get the legislation through Parliament.
Whereas other amendments that will be debated today require the Government to ask for an extension and then set about trying to find the deal, mine does the opposite. It gives us all the chance to vote for either the existing deal previously negotiated by the last Government or whatever new deal is successfully negotiated by the new Government. That means that everyone in this House who wishes to prevent no deal would have the chance to do so by voting for that deal. I hope that many colleagues around this House who have been able to prevent making a decision between a deal and no deal would realise that that was the last chance to do that—merely a week before no deal became the default on 31 October.
I know there are some colleagues for whom the business of asking for an extension is part of the circuit of trying to prevent Brexit from happening at all, and I understand that. However, I believe there may be a majority in this House who have accepted the will of the people in the referendum, and who have said and told their constituents that they respect the referendum result, and a lot of us were elected on a manifesto pledge to do so. This would be the moment when we could put that to the test and vote for a deal.
The hon. Gentleman’s amendment mentions our having a motion of the House. The last time we had a withdrawal agreement motion, we had five days of debate. Is there sufficient time to have five days of debate before 31 October, if we pass his amendment?
The short answer to that is almost certainly no. However, we have had not just five days of debate, but weeks and months and years of debate on these issues. The previous deal, which I regarded as a good deal, was debated ad infinitum in this House. I do not believe that we would need five more days of debate to be able to reach a decision about whether we wanted a deal or no deal.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman says that he regarded that deal as a good deal. However, a very large number of Members in this House do not regard it as a good deal. His amendment, proposed in the way it is, seems to suggest that this is a binary choice. It is not a binary choice. We want a deal that actually satisfies the reasons why we think we need to get the best out of a Brexit deal or remain, and this does not enable us to do that.
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point of view. There are 650 Members of this House, all of whom, if we designed the perfect deal ourselves individually, would have differences from each other. However, we are at the stage where I believe the vast majority of people in this country want this issue resolved. Therefore, if we are to decide whether we want to accept a default position of no deal because we cannot reach agreement on a deal, this would be the moment for all of us to ask ourselves what we really want: do we really want a deal at all, or are we prepared to go straight to a no deal?
My amendment does not call for the Government to have a vote on no deal. It accepts that, if the vote for a deal were lost, this Parliament would have had myriad opportunities to support a deal and would, in that situation, have failed. I believe this amendment is fair to almost every point of view in this House. It gives us all one last chance to vote for a deal if we do not want no deal.
The hon. Gentleman’s amendment is of course predicated on the Prime Minister actually negotiating a new deal. What evidence does he have, because I cannot see any, of there even being a negotiating team in place, as the 30 days evaporate like snow off a dyke? Can he show us that there is any evidence of a new deal coming back from this Prime Minister?
In fact, the hon. Gentleman misreads part of the point of my amendment, which is not to prejudge whether or not the Prime Minister and this Government come back with a deal. I believe the Government are genuinely trying to get a deal, but it is perfectly possible either that they do not succeed, or—this would be the hon. Gentleman’s view—that they are not really trying that hard. In either of those events, my amendment would allow this House to vote on the deal that was put before this House previously. It would give everybody one more chance—the hon. Gentleman’s party says it is against no deal—a chance to vote for a deal. If, in that situation, the House were to say, “We don’t like this deal: it’s not good enough for us”, there could be no hiding from anyone in this country about why we had gone for no deal. It would be because this House failed the final opportunity to prevent that. I believe, in that situation, this is fair to everyone.
Surely, the withdrawal agreement was rejected on the three times that it came to the House, and the backstop was a clear issue on each of those three times. If that continues to be the case, would the hon. Gentleman still insist on pushing for a withdrawal agreement that insists on the backstop? Clearly, for us, the backstop has to be removed, and that is the opinion of the Prime Minister, and, I understand, this Government.
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Amendment 11, page 2, line 15, leave out subsection (5).
Clause stand part.
Clause 2 stand part.
Amendment 22, in clause 3, page 2, line 43, leave out subsections (1) to (3).
The intention of this Amendment is to remove the requirement to accept whatever extension is decided on by the European Council while preserving the flexibility in subsection (4) to agree an extension otherwise than under this Act.
Amendment 25, page 3, line 3, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment 23, page 3, line 19, leave out “section” and insert “Act”.
The Amendment is consequential on Amendment 22 leaving out subsections 3(1) to 3(3).
Clauses 3 and 4 stand part.
Amendment 15, in clause 5, page 3, line 31, leave out subsection (3).
Amendment 16, page 3, line 35, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
‘(5) This section comes into force on the day on which this Act is passed.
(5A) The remaining provisions of this Act come into force on such day or days as the Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument appoint.
(5B) No regulations may be made under subsection (5A) unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.’
Amendment 17, page 3, line 35, leave out from “force” to end and insert “on 22 October 2019.”
Clause 5 stand part.
New clause 1—Publication of Withdrawal Agreement Bill—
‘(1) The Prime Minister must within the period of five days, not including any Saturday, Sunday or bank holiday, beginning with the day on which this Act is passed publish a copy of a draft Bill to implement the Withdrawal Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union.
(2) The draft Bill must include provisions reflecting the outcome of inter-party talks as announced by the Prime Minister on 21 May 2019, and in particular—
(a) provision for the Government to seek to conclude alternative arrangements to replace the backstop by December 2020;
(b) a commitment that, should the backstop come into force, the Government will ensure that Great Britain will stay aligned with Northern Ireland and to incorporate in United Kingdom law paragraph 50 of the 2017 joint report from the negotiators of the European Union and the United Kingdom Government on progress during phase 1 of negotiations under Article 50 TEU on the United Kingdom’s orderly withdrawal from the European Union (TF50 (2017) 19);
(c) provision for the negotiating objectives and final treaties for the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the European Union to be approved by the House of Commons;
(d) legislation on workers’ rights to guarantee workers’ rights in the future in the United Kingdom will be no less favourable than comparable workers’ rights in the European Union;
(e) provisions ensuring that there will be no change in the level of environmental protection applicable in the United Kingdom after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, and to establish an independent office of environmental protection, able to uphold standards and enforce compliance;
(f) a requirement for the United Kingdom to seek as close to frictionless trade in goods with the European Union as possible, while outside the single market and ending free movement;
(g) a requirement for the United Kingdom to keep up to date with European Union rules for goods and agri-food products that are relevant to checks at the border in order to protect employment that depends on just-in-time supply chains;
(h) a customs compromise for the House of Commons to decide upon;
(i) an opportunity for a decision to be made by the House of Commons whether the implementation of the withdrawal agreement should be subject to a referendum; and
(j) a duty for Ministers of the Crown to secure changes to the political declaration to reflect the provisions in this subsection.’
This New Clause would require the publication of a Withdrawal Agreement Bill incorporating the ten headline points from the inter-party talks which concluded in May 2019.
Amendment 7, schedule, page 4, line 10, at end insert
‘I wish to make clear to European Council colleagues that the purpose of this proposed extension is for the UK Parliament to debate and pass a Bill to implement the agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, including provisions reflecting the outcome of inter-party talks as announced by the Prime Minister on 21 May 2019, and in particular the need for the United Kingdom to secure changes to the political declaration to reflect the outcome of those inter-party talks.’
This amendment would require the Prime Minister to set out in the letter to the President of the European Council seeking an extension under Article 50(3) TEU that the reason for seeking an extension is to pass a Withdrawal Agreement Bill based on the outcome of the inter-party talks which concluded in May 2019 — see NC1 for contents of the Bill.
That the schedule be the schedule to the Bill.
New schedule 2—Form of letter from the Prime Minister to the President of the European Council—
‘Dear Mr President
The UK Parliament has passed the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. Its provisions now require Her Majesty’s Government to seek to discuss an extension of the period provided under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union, including as applied by Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty, currently due to expire at 11.00pm GMT on 31 October 2019.
I am writing therefore to inform the European Council that the United Kingdom wishes to discuss a further short extension to the period provided under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union, including as applied by Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty.
Yours sincerely,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.’