Written explanations of vote - 8th parliamentary term Julia REID

I abstained on this legislative report. Whilst I fully support – and want – visa-free access to the EU for UK nationals after we withdraw from the EU, alterations to the text by the European Council made this report impossible to support. The reason is that, without a mandate from Parliament, the Council added text to state that Gibraltar is a ʻcolonyʼ of the British Crown. This is not only factually incorrect, as Gibraltar is designated as a British Overseas Territory, but also highly insulting to its people, who have, in two referendums, overwhelmingly voted to remain British. I also strongly objected to the procedures employed by the institutions to instigate this change, which included unjustly removing a British rapporteur from the report and refusing to allow a full debate or amendments to be tabled. For these reasons, and whilst I would have liked to support the report, I abstained.

. ‒ I voted against this legislation. Employment policies should be left entirely to the Member States. There is no need for EU involvement and this is a gross violation of the internal policies of the Member States.

. ‒ We oppose this legislation because it funds the destructive EU common fisheries policy into the next decade.

. ‒ We oppose this legislation because it carries forward the damaging, destructive EU common fisheries policy.

. ‒ I voted against this legislative report. Whilst I support in principle the idea of strengthening the security of identity documents to protect them from counterfeiting, I oppose the EU’s harmonisation of these documents. Furthermore, I also believe that Member States should have the right to choose both whether to include a person’s gender on these documents and how this appears on the document. For these reasons, I voted against.

I voted against this legislation. Balance of work and family life, especially the division of time of work to raise children, is a decision to be made primarily by the family themselves. The EU should not attempt to influence or interfere in either the private affairs of families or the internal policies of the Member States. Any legislation made in this area should be done so by the democratically elected governments and should be light-touch.

I voted against this legislative report closing the first reading. The report itself is an attempt to give the unelected Commission powers to cut EU funding to EU Member States it politically disagrees with. The rules within the legislation make any such measures be on the basis of a Council decision following a proposal from the Commission. The decision shall be automatically approved, unless the Council decides by QMV to reject the Commission proposal within one month of its adoption by the Commission. This is clearly the EU looking to further punish countries that it deems have broken their ‘rule of law’ principles, such as Poland and Hungary.

I voted against this legislation. The European Social Fund Plus brings together various different funds that are ineffective and a waste of taxpayers’ money. There is no reason to believe this will change under the new legislation.

We oppose this legislation as, once again, the EU is acting like a state when it is no such thing.

I have voted in favour of this first reading of the legislative report. I believe that reducing pre-financing will reduce bureaucracy and increase transparency. Due to this reasoning, I have also voted against the rejection amendment.

I have voted against this closure of the legislative report. Whilst the proposal from the Commission on this issue was fair and reasonable, the report was drastically altered and weakened by the Parliament. I therefore voted against the closure of first reading to allow for further amendments to be tabled to this report.

I have voted to abstain on this non-legislative resolution. Whilst I fully support protecting women against all forms of violence, I oppose the EU’s accession to any Convention as it overrides national sovereignty. Moreover, this resolution seeks an opinion from a European Court that I do not recognise or support. On balance overall an abstention was deemed most appropriate.

. ‒ This is a legislative, first reading report concerning removing obstacles at borders. Whilst it is admirable to want to boost border regions that are not doing as well as other areas, I voted against this, as I do not agree with EU projects or legislation that further their implementation, as this could lead to an increase in spending.

I have voted against this technically non-legislative report that established a cooperation agreement between Eurojust and Georgia. I oppose any expansion of the mandate of Eurojust and principally oppose the EU concluding agreements with third countries. Cooperation on police and judicial matters should conducted at a bilateral level.

I abstained on this legislative report on health technology assessment, as I believe the content of the report involves very important issues that should be thoughtfully regulated by national authorities.

The UK delegation decided to vote to abstain on this report. The wider perspective of this legislation is that technology that is available in this report could be used to prevent the issue between Northern and Southern Ireland over the backstop. This would help with the stalemate and allow the UK to leave the EU with an agreement that both sides can agree with.

Whilst ostensibly this proposed legislation may make it easier for consumers to convert the EU’s non-euro currencies into euros, it will do so by making those non-euro currencies dependent on the Eurozone payment systems – and thereby extend the control and influence of the ECB. Accordingly we voted against.

The UK delegation voted against this piece of legislation because the EU is looking at harmonising the internal structure of the coach and bus service market. This is interference not only into state-run services, but also private companies.

I have voted to abstain on this non-legislative resolution. I fully support the rights of citizens to protest peacefully and I fully support police operations that help to facilitate this right. It is, however, the sole right of a Member State to be responsible for national security. For this reason, I voted to abstain.

I have voted to abstain on this non-legislative resolution. While I fully support improving the rights of intersex people, I believe that this should be enacted at a Member State level and not via EU action or funding.