Richard Shepherd: I greatly appreciate the speech that we have just heard. It reflects many views that I have held for a very long time. The fear that I express about the current provisions of the Bill is not a criticism of the Ministers who introduced them, but it echoes some of the comments that have just been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). When we undergo the whole...
Richard Shepherd: I want to bring the House’s attention back to the excellent speech from the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). He touched on the central issue—the most difficult issue for me—which is the mutual recognition of other legal systems. I am puzzled why the Opposition should be so devoted to sweeping aside any consideration of something so important for our liberty and...
Richard Shepherd: The Minister will remember the visit of Mrs Merkel to the House of Lords, where she said she was absolutely convinced that what had held Europe peaceful was the EU, whereas I think most people in Westminster Hall today would think that it was, in fact, NATO that did that. Is it not NATO that is really the basis of the security of Europe?
Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me a brief intervention. In the 1980s the mantra of Conservative Governments and Ministers was “No essential loss of sovereignty.” That was haunted right through and dragged across the nation as if there was a truth in it. Any time anyone suggested that sovereignty is a perfect construction in itself, they immediately wanted to tell us why...
Richard Shepherd: If I remember correctly, Maine’s “Ancient law” makes the observation that justice lies in the interstices of procedure. That rubric has survived through our history since it was set and there is a truth in it. Today we are confronted with a motion that is incomprehensible, and with an understanding that seems sly and that is actually a means of trying to incline the public to believe...
Richard Shepherd: Words such as “crooked” and “corrupt” have been used across the Floor of the House in response to the issues before us, yet the police have no reason for action. I just do not understand how one can reconcile corruption as laid out in the forms that my right hon. Friend has pointed out and there being no criminal implications whatsoever. What can be the answer?
Richard Shepherd: I have been in this House for seven Parliaments. Each has seemed to have a different character, but there has been one consistent thread across all that time: the integration within European processes. That has had support on high days, on holidays and in opposition. I see it as a fundamental task of the House of Commons to challenge perceived wisdoms and reflect the responsibilities and...
Richard Shepherd: I will not trade remarks on this matter. I was also born in Scotland, and I am deprived of a vote on something that affects my cousins and my relatives. This has been a Union for 300 years, and we have been united by the sentiments of those people. Not so very long ago—70 years—the Scots, the English, the Welsh and those from Northern Ireland stood together against the greatest danger of...
Richard Shepherd: I am greatly concerned about this measure, and I will just make some observations. The Minister referred to the power that the Home Secretary used to have in relation to something being not conducive to the public good. Its removal created a real difficulty for Governments, but my concern is not the difficulty for Governments; my concern is for the British common law system. This is not about...
Richard Shepherd: rose—
Richard Shepherd: rose—
Richard Shepherd: Is the Minister saying, then, that the person deprived of their citizenship will not know the reasons for that, and that the only course of court action will be through SIAC, which is a secret court? We will therefore never know whether the deprivation was justified.
Richard Shepherd: I am very grateful to the Minister. This proposal is predicated on the fact that the Home Secretary will act rationally and reasonably, but—[Laughter.] No, I do not see that as funny at all. I want to know how the people of Britain will know that the action has been taken in a rational and reasonable way, when it is obscured from public view and is therefore challengeable.
Richard Shepherd: I just want to add a few words to this conversation. I commend the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on setting out so well the anxieties many of us will feel. It is not very long ago in our history that we were enormously proud of both our constitution and our legal system. It is, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, a common law system that covers Northern Ireland, England and...
Richard Shepherd: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who mentioned our colleague the hon. Member for Esher and Walton. But our course has been different historically. In the Somerset case in the second half of the 18th century, a slave had escaped and arrived in London and with the help of, I think, the Quakers, made an appearance in front of the courts. It was held that within our jurisdiction in this...
Richard Shepherd: It pretends to be a state. It has all the trappings that we fund it to have to be that absurd construction—and it is an absurd construction if we believe in democracy. There is no relationship between that construction and democracy.
Richard Shepherd: I hear some squawking on the Opposition Benches, but I think what the hon. Lady says is true for most British people. How does one reconcile the collapse of the Department of entertainments into acquiescence? That is the worry.
Richard Shepherd: I will give way, of course, to my right hon. Friend the Minister.
Richard Shepherd: Of course I acknowledge that. It is what I expect a British Government to do. That the Minister holds that out as if it is some sort of triumph is amazing.
Richard Shepherd: No. We have a long way to go, as the Minister well knows. [Interruption.] I do not want to have a chit-chat with him outside the rules of the Committee. I am trying to give the Ministry backbone. I cannot see how the measure is compatible with what the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) has said. We are in the beginnings of a negotiation. The Foreign Office is supposedly trawling to find...