Hilary Benn rounds on David Davis for cutting short parliamentary Brexit grilling
4 min read
Brexit Secretary David Davis has been rapped after cutting short a grilling by MPs because of the “maximum pace” his department is working at.
The Cabinet minister told the Exiting the European Union Committee that he had to limit his latest round of scrutiny from the cross-party group of MPs because he had to get ready for a crunch meeting of Theresa May’s Brexit war cabinet later today.
He told the Committee: “Can I just make a point at the moment my department is normally under high time pressure - at the moment we're dealing with the high pace of negotiations, diplomacy, policy, the parliament fronts? So we're very tight.
"My office has told your clerk that I've got to limit this to an hour and a half. I mean no discourtesy by this but… my next meeting is very important to me."
Mr Davis’s push for a slimmed-down session earned him a rebuke from Committee chair Hillary Benn, who said it was part of the Brexit Secretary’s job description to face scrutiny from MPs.
“I speak, I think on behalf of the whole of the Committee," Mr Benn said. "I think that really won’t do, because part of your responsibilities is to appear before the select committee and be accountable to parliament."
The Labour MP added: “We've all got other meetings but the committee has got a lot of ground to cover. These sessions are very important to us enabling us to do our work and I don't think an hour and a half is satisfactory.”
Mr Davis said he would always “try and make myself available”, but blamed the fact he was working at “the maximum pace” possible with Brexit negotiations ongoing and the government's flagship Withdrawal Bill facing a rough ride in the House of Lords.
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The stormy exchanges with the Committee chair opened a session in which the Brexit Secretary conceded that the Article 50 deadline for leaving the European Union could be extended if MPs reject the government’s deal with Brussels.
Ministers have previously made clear that a vote against the government’s deal will be seen as a vote for 'no deal', but some MPs are pushing for the ability to send UK negotiators back to the table if Parliament votes down the agreement.
Under questioning from Labour MP Pat McFadden, Mr Davis said he intended to bring “the best possible negotiated conclusion” to the House, adding: “We don't normally lay out what we'll do if we lose in votes as far as I'm aware.”
But, asked whether there were “any circumstances in which you would go back to the EU on any points”, the Brexit Secretary acknowledged that the Article 50 process could be extended with the agreement of the 27 EU member states.
“It depends on whether anybody else wants to stop it,” he said.
“The other side of this argument, you remember, the Walloon Parliament held up a treaty with Canada for some time and the TTIP option pretty much died off the back of a few countries' objections. So it may well prove to be impossible. I can't tell you at this point."
The Brexit Secretary also downplayed reports that Brussels had already rejected the UK’s plans to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland as "unworkable", pointing out that the European Commission had “explicitly said that was not true” and saying the UK had had “no indication it was true”.
Meanwhile, he insisted that ministers were still pressing for a deal with the Scottish Government over the powers set to be divvied up between Whitehall and Edinburgh post-Brexit, after Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday rejected a compromise deal tabled by the UK government.
The UK government - which did manage to strike a deal yesterday with the Welsh administration - has until 5pm today to table Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill in a bid to placate their Scottish counterparts, and Davis said ministers were “still talking to the Scottish government” in a bid to resolve the dispute.
“I think we will be, certainly, up until 5pm this evening when the last possible time for laying the amendment is - and I hope we will find a mechanism to get agreement between us still."
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