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Business Before Questions
Oral Answers to Questions
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)
Reoffending costs society around £15 billion a year. We must support people’s rehabilitation through education and employment opportunities, both when serving their sentence and after. We launched the education and employment strategy in May, and our reforms will empower governors to commission bespoke, innovative education provision that meets the needs of their prisoners and links to employment opportunities on release. Our reforms will also engage and persuade employers to take on ex-prisoners via the New Futures Network. We have consulted governors and employers on proposals to increase the use of release on temporary licence to enhance employment opportunities.
Jeremy Quin
May I press the Secretary of State on the release on temporary licence scheme? What are the measures of success? How useful has it been in getting prisoners out of prison and into full-time employment on an ongoing basis?
Mr Gauke
It is useful, but I want us to do more of it. The education and employment strategy seeks to expand the use of workplace release on temporary licence— ROTL—to get prisoners who have earned it and who have been properly risk assessed out of their cells and into real workplaces. That will enable prisoners to build trust and prove themselves with an employer. If people do ROTL, they are more likely to be employed, and if they are employed, they are less likely to reoffend.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Secretary of State for his response. Of the 4,221 prisoners who reoffended in Northern Ireland, over two fifths, 43.6%, reoffended within the first three months. Will the Minister outline whether any initiatives are specifically aimed at providing guidance in those all-important first three months?
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Whether through the probation service, through charities or in prisons, we need to ensure that offenders get support when they are released. A lot of that work can be done within prison, which is why the education and employment strategy is so important. We want people to be geared up to go into employment when they are released, because if they are employed, they are less likely to offend.
Alex Chalk
I warmly welcome attempts to improve the employability of those in custody, but that will work only if the training relates to jobs that individuals want and for which there is a need in society. What steps are being taken to ensure that the resources are properly targeted at what will work best?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is right. Returning again to the education and employment strategy, our emphasis is on ensuring that training is focused on what will help people into work, and we are giving governors greater control and discretion to ensure that they are well placed to do that.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Mr Gauke
The female offender strategy, which I outlined a couple of weeks ago, has by and large had a positive response, and our focus on residential centres has been warmly welcomed. Of course, there are those who are calling for us to go further, and we will continue to listen and engage, but the direction in which we are going has widespread support and fully recognises the hon. Lady’s important point that we need to address complex needs.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Data has highlighted that two thirds of young offenders have speech, language and communication problems. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, with joint working across the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care and the justice system to bring forward programmes that will tackle the issue from birth, such as parental training, more health visitors and better advice, we could actually prevent many young people from ever getting into the criminal justice system?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend raises several important points, and I will try to address one or two of them. On the need for us to work across Government, many issues are not just for the Ministry of Justice, but for the likes of the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education. It is also the case that we want to work upstream, because if we can address the complex problems that exist, we can stop people committing crimes in the first place.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Effective employment via the Through the Gate programme depends on effective community rehabilitation companies, which the Select Committee on Justice recently described as “wholly inadequate.” What plans does the Secretary of State have to fix community rehabilitation companies in Through the Gate?
Mr Gauke
The right hon. Gentleman is correct to say that the Through the Gate service needs to improve, and we are engaging with CRCs on that issue. We recognise it does not meet the standards we require, and it is important that we engage. We have been clear with the CRCs that they need to improve their performance, and we are in commercial negotiation with providers to secure the quality of services, including Through the Gate services, that we need.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
Since the creation of our youth justice reform programme in 2017, reports by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons have highlighted improvements in the youth secure estate. It is encouraging to see that our reforms are starting to have an impact on the ground, but there is more to do, which is why we are continuing to invest in system-wide reform further to improve safety and outcomes, and why we are expanding frontline public sector staff capacity at young offender institutions. That is why this is a priority for me and for the Secretary of State.
Dr Johnson
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his promotion to a ministerial role. Many children and young people in custody have poor educational attainment. What is he doing to ensure that children in custody have access to good education?
Edward Argar
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. Her work with young people, on both their health and welfare, is well known.
Education should be at the heart of youth custody and must meet the needs of young people. It is there to prepare them for employment, an apprenticeship or continued education when they are resettled back into their communities. We are building more flexibility into the core day, which is designed to ensure that all children receive an individualised education programme tailored to their needs. We are working with each YOI on plans for improving delivery of education to those young people who are unwilling or unable to participate in the mainstream regime.
Maggie Throup
I also welcome my hon. Friend to his new role. Does he agree that, although these reforms are welcome, they form only part of the solution? Can he outline what work his Department is doing to support community-based projects, which can play a crucial part in preventing more young people from entering the youth justice system in the first place?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I agree that support in the community plays a vital role in our efforts to reduce the number of those entering youth custody. I am clear that custodial sentences should be handed down only when absolutely necessary, which is why we have provided £72 million to the Youth Justice Board for the youth offending teams that deliver youth justice services and for community-based interventions.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman highlights an extremely important point, because we know the evidence shows that first-time offenders, particularly youth offenders, often display a multitude of challenges in their background, including in their mental health. I have already had informal discussions with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). She and I have regular bilaterals scheduled to discuss exactly this sort of issue.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Howard League research shows that children aged 16 and 17 who are living in children’s homes are at least 15 times more likely than other children of the same age to be criminalised. What discussions have Ministers had with other Departments about reducing the number of care leavers in our justice system?
Edward Argar
I hope that the hon. Lady will allow me to point to my future intentions. Having been in post for just shy of three weeks, I have not yet had any formal discussions; I have had the informal discussions I mentioned. I intend that bilateral meetings with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will be part of my regular meetings programme.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I, too, warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. With nearly 80% of young offenders who are sentenced to a short term of imprisonment going on to reoffend, prison is not working. It is not working for them, or for the victims of crime, which means there are more victims of crime. Will he consider a presumption against short-term sentences and instead consider a rigorous community system with a focus on rehabilitation?
Edward Argar
Although it is right that sentencing decisions should always rest with the judiciary and a custodial sentence should always be an option where the nature of the offence absolutely merits it, given the persuasive evidence that short custodial sentences are not the most effective way to secure rehabilitation and reduce reoffending, we will be looking at what more we can do to provide alternatives and to highlight that short custodial sentences should be used only as a last resort.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the new Minister to his position. May I recommend to him the Lammy review? In it he will see that there is tremendous concern that the youth prison population now is 43% from a black or ethnic minority background. Will he look closely at its recommendations and can I meet him soon?
Edward Argar
First, I commend the right hon. Gentleman for his work on that review, which is well known to this House and beyond. It is an excellent review, with an excellent report, which was one of the first documents I read upon my appointment. I considered all its 35 recommendations carefully and I am absolutely delighted to agree to meet him.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The last inspection report on Oakhill said that there is no evidence that the 80 children held there are adequately cared for. Oakhill is managed by G4S. I have been asking parliamentary questions about whether G4S is meeting its contractual obligations there and the answers are revealing:
“The Contract for Oakhill STC is between the Secretary of State for Justice and STC Milton Keynes Ltd (the Contractor), of which G4S is their Operating Sub-Contractor. We therefore do not have information on the proportion of contractual obligations that G4S has met.”
Does the Minister agree that that is yet more proof that outsourcing and privatisation should be ended in our prison system?
Edward Argar
It is a pleasure to answer the shadow Secretary of State from the Dispatch Box. He highlights an extremely important issue. I believe there is a role for the public, private, and voluntary and philanthropic sectors in our justice system. He highlights the issues at Oakhill. Ofsted’s findings in the inspection report on Oakhill at the end of last year are unacceptable, and we took urgent action to address the concerns raised. We are robustly monitoring performance against the contract, and I am clear that all options remain on the table.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the staff of the MOJ on, and thank them for, all the important work they do across a number of spheres. The MOJ continues to pay the statutory national living wage or above to all its staff.
Catherine West
I thank the Minister for her answer, but will she explain why the same workers are paid the London living wage in the Department for International Development? Does she believe that a cleaner in DFID is worth more than a cleaner in her Department?
Lucy Frazer
Obviously, I cannot comment on DFID, but I can comment on the MOJ. We pay a significant number of our employees the real living wage. As at 1 December last year, only 1,791 of more than 22,000 employees within the MOJ and its agencies, excluding Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, were paid below the real living wage. In HMPPS, only 540 out of more than 47,000 direct employees were paid below the real living wage.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
No one has to be a public servant, and it is really important that prison officers get up in the morning and enjoy going to work. There were some worrying figures recently showing an increase in the number of prison officers leaving the profession. What more can we do on induction and supervision to keep our excellent prison officers in post, where they are desperately needed?
Lucy Frazer
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are of course recruiting more prison officers. Enjoying one’s work is not just about pay, and the reward strategy in prisons is about officers working closely with their prison governors to ensure that they have an opportunity to develop in work and get the most out of their work.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I regularly ask parliamentary questions about staffing levels and conditions at the private probation companies. The answers from the Department are shocking. None of the community rehabilitation company contracts specifies that CRCs must maintain staffing numbers at a particular level. When Ministers bailed out the private probation companies last year with another £342 million, they did not bother to make staffing levels a contractual obligation. Why not? Does the Department not care about accountability? Or is it because, in the Secretary of State’s privatised probation service, profits always come first?
Lucy Frazer
We believe it is important that systems work and that outcomes are effective. The contracts focus on ensuring that the right outcomes are achieved, not on the number of people who work under them.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
With the European Union (Withdrawal) Act having now received Royal Assent, we are ensuring that this country’s statute book will operate effectively after we leave the EU.
Mary Robinson
The application of new technology has the potential to make our justice system even fairer and more effective. Measures such as the adoption of the use of video technology in court by the Courts and Tribunals Service could aid speed and accessibility. Will the Minister tell me how the Government aim to encourage much-needed innovation in the justice and legal system?
Lucy Frazer
The Ministry of Justice is doing a number of things to improve innovation. In the courts themselves, we have a £1 billion programme that is digitalising our court services and bringing them up to date. We are also ensuring that our legal services sector continues to thrive and prosper globally. Only yesterday, we had the first meeting of the law tech panel, which is supported by Government but led by the industry to support innovation and technology for our legal services sector.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Last month, the Scottish Government produced the latest in their series of “Scotland’s Place in Europe” policy papers. The paper emphasises the importance of co-operation with the European Union on criminal justice and law enforcement for Scotland’s legal system, which is of course separate from the legal system for the rest of the UK. Will the Minister tell us what discussions she has had with her Scottish counterparts about that policy paper?
Lucy Frazer
The hon. and learned Lady makes an important point, because we have distinct legal systems in Scotland and in England and Wales, and we must recognise that. Last month, I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Clancy from the Law Society of Scotland to discuss a number of issues relating to Scotland. My officials meet regularly with their counterparts in Scotland.
Joanna Cherry
We know from the Chequers agreement that the Prime Minister is relaxing her red lines on the European Court of Justice. The Scottish Government stated in the paper that I mentioned that they would welcome ECJ jurisdiction on data protection matters to maintain data sharing for justice and law enforcement purposes. Just last week, the Exiting the European Union Committee recommended that the ECJ should continue to have jurisdiction over aspects of data protection after we exit the EU. Does the Minister agree with the Scottish Government and the Select Committee that that would be a good thing?
Lucy Frazer
The Prime Minister has made it clear that the ECJ will no longer have direct jurisdiction in this country. Where we continue to operate common rules, it will of course be appropriate that this country can look to the ECJ jurisprudence to decide the way forward.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)
The education and employment strategy will set each prisoner on a path to employment from the outset. Through work, people can turn their backs on crime. Good behaviour and hard work will be rewarded with opportunity. Since the strategy’s publication, more than 30 new organisations have registered an interest in working with offenders. Nine Government Departments are signed up to the Going Forward into Employment pilot to hire ex-offenders in the civil service, and the first cohort of offenders is already in post.
David T. C. Davies
I thank my right hon. Friend’s Department for the interest it has already shown in a project to enable serving prisoners to undertake the theoretical exams required for a career in the haulage industry, which is currently very short of workers. As a result of the meetings I have had with the Department, a pilot project is taking place in south Wales. I thank Ministers for that and ask that they continue to show interest in the project.
Mr Gauke
I thank my hon. Friend for his point. It is an example of where I hope that my Department and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service can work with employers to ensure that we help get more people into work, which is good for the individual offenders, good for the employers and society benefits as a whole because it contributes to reducing reoffending.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Justice Secretary will know that there is no women’s prison in Wales and I am not advocating that there should be one. However, that will mean that there are considerable issues of geography for some women who do commit offences, so can he set out how he is able to support women who do offend, who live in Wales and who wish to relocate there in order to find employment in communities that they know and in which they have often grown up?
Mr Gauke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I point him in the direction of the female offender strategy, which we published a couple of weeks ago. One point that we argue in that is that, in many cases, custodial sentences are not the right approach, particularly for female offenders who, disproportionately, are sentenced to short sentences that disrupt their lives and do little to help them rehabilitate. If we can do more about helping in the community and, for example, making use of residential centres, we can help ensure that more female offenders get into work.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Eighteen months ago, a constituent of mine who had left prison just before Christmas and been through perfunctory training and employment introductions found himself out of prison and living on the street within 36 hours. Before the new year came round, he had committed another offence and been given another 12 months in prison. Will the Secretary of State commit to making sure that packages that are aimed at getting prisoners into work after prison actually work and are not perfunctory and that, from the day a person enters the criminal justice system, they are trained to live a fruitful life once they leave it?
Mr Gauke
I agree entirely with the right hon. Gentleman’s point. He highlights an example—a sad example, but not, I accept, the only one—where people, too quickly, go out of prison and commit a crime and are then set in a cycle of offending and reoffending. The system is not working for them or for society. The purpose of the education and employment strategy, which is implicit in his question, is an important point, and we must ensure that we implement it successfully. The purpose of that is to address this very issue.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Some of the people who are disproportionately represented inside the prison system are ex-servicemen. What plans does the Secretary of State have to bring charities such as Care after Combat into the prisons to help to ensure that reoffending does not take place and that these people who are heroes one day are not villains the next?
Mr Gauke
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. It is important for all offenders that we address this issue, but there is a particular point about ex-service people. He is right to highlight the very strong charitable sector in this area. I am determined to ensure that we continue to engage with those charities to provide people with the support they need, making sure in particular, in the context of his question, that those who have served this country are not disadvantaged.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Reducing reoffending rates is crucial. What information are the Minister and the Government providing in wider society to point out the benefits of a reduction in reoffending rates not just for prisoners, but for the wider society?
Mr Gauke
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have just delivered a speech making that very point, so I am doing my little bit that way. That is a message that we need to be getting across. How do we reduce reoffending? We must rehabilitate and we must help people into employment.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Reducing the use of drones in prisons means four things: we must tackle the criminal gangs that organise the drones; we must tackle the people who fly them over the wall; we must ensure that we have electronic jamming equipment in place; and we need physical security in the forms of nets and grilles to prevent the prisoners from accessing those drones.
Johnny Mercer
I know that my hon. Friend likes nothing more than donning his budgie smugglers and sitting in the back garden on a Sunday afternoon. Drones can be a menace in that regard. Will he confirm exactly what he is doing in some of the measures that he is putting in place to combat drones in prison?
Rory Stewart
You are right, Mr Speaker; it does sound a pretty rum business. The serious point about drones is that, rather than flying over my back garden in Penrith and The Border, they are bringing illicit substances into prisons. Of the four methods I emphasised, the key way of dealing with that—the one that is the most important of all—is physical security. If we have the right nets and grilles, it is simply impossible for the prisoner to put their hand out of the window and take the drugs off the drones. Of the four methods, perimeter security is probably the most important.
Sir Henry Bellingham
I thank the Minister for taking the issue suitably seriously. Is he aware of a particular issue in a number of prisons, including Wayland prison in Norfolk, where the drone flyers have been acting with impunity and have become ever more brazen in their conduct? Will the Minister tell the House how far he has got in implementing the measures he has mentioned? Is there not now an argument for a specific new offence of flying drones in that way?
Rory Stewart
We have made a lot of progress on the issue. In prisons such as Liverpool, where the new grilles are coming in, and Chelmsford, where we have the new protective equipment in place, we can see that it is more and more difficult to get a drone into a prison. When the nets are working and the grilles are up, it is difficult to do. There are other things we can do, too. One central thing is intelligence operations to identify organised criminal gangs. We are introducing sentences—in a recent case someone who flew a drone into a prison received a seven-year sentence.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
It is estimated that more than 200 kg of drugs were smuggled into prisons in England and Wales in 2016. What proportion of that 200 kg does the Minister estimate was delivered by drones? What else is happening to stop the use of other methods of delivering drugs into prisons?
Rory Stewart
The payload of a drone is relatively limited. The amount of weight that it can carry tends to be 1 kg or 2 kg at the maximum. Therefore the majority of drugs that come into prison are almost certainly going over the wall by other means—thrown over or posted over impregnated in paper—or carried in by people coming into the prison. That is why we are investing much more now in different types of scanners to pick up any human bringing drugs into prison and are also ensuring that we have the perimeter security in place for the throwovers.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
It is central that we also tackle mobile telephones. The reason is that if we do not, crimes can be committed by people within prison reaching outside the prison walls, both bringing illicit substances into the prison and terrorising their victims outside.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) for the private Member’s Bill that she effectively took through on Friday. That is going to make it much more difficult for people to use mobile phones in prisons, by working with the mobile telephone companies.
Scott Mann
I was in the Chamber to see the progress of my hon. Friend’s Bill on Friday. It is an exceptionally well put together Bill. What discussions has the Minister had with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about the implementation? When are we likely to see some progress?
Rory Stewart
I have met the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and we have looked at two areas. We have looked at devices that can be used within the prison walls. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) pointed out in his speech on Friday, and in his question today, there is much more that we can now do by working with the mobile telephone companies to identify the exact frequencies and strengths of transmissions, to locate the mobile phones, prevent their use and analyse the traffic data.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Rory Stewart
This is a very serious point and a very serious challenge. I will be following up this allegation with the governor. The governor has generally done a very good job in Berwyn, and the report that the hon. Lady raises is very disturbing. We must be clear that we have to support our prison officers. We are doing that through supporting a private Member’s Bill to double the sentence for assaults, and investing in body-worn cameras and trials of PAVA spray. But unless we have decent safety regimes, it is almost impossible to do other forms of rehabilitation. We need to learn from the prisons that are doing best in reducing violence. I pay tribute, for example, to Wandsworth, which has made a lot of progress over the past 12 months.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
I am pleased that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set out, on 27 June we published our new strategy for female offenders. This set out our vision and plans to improve outcomes for women in the community and in custody, but, most importantly in doing so, to help reduce reoffending and see fewer victims of crime. A key theme of the strategy is the need for a joined-up approach to addressing the often complex needs of female offenders, including through new women’s residential centres, which give judges an alternative to short custodial sentences.
Helen Whately
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new role. East Sutton Park prison in my constituency has a fabulous reputation for preparing women offenders for life back in the real world. For instance, 90% of its inmates do not reoffend within two years, which, as he will know, is much better than the general national statistics. While I welcome the plans to reduce custodial sentences for women, may I ask for his support for this model prison in my constituency and invite him to come and see it for himself?
Edward Argar
As I highlighted in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), while a custodial sentence should always be an option, there is strong evidence that short custodial sentences do not achieve the best rehabilitation and reduction of reoffending outcomes. I recognise that women’s prisons, including East Sutton Park, of which my hon. Friend is a strong champion in this Chamber, are among our best. We will continue to work with it and I would be delighted to visit.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Given that Baroness Corston’s seminal 2007 review of women in prison set out a clear case for the benefit of women’s centres and said that they should be at the centre of a successful strategy on female offending, why are the Government insisting on piloting this when we already know that it works? Is it because of lack of funding?
Edward Argar
I pay tribute to the work of Baroness Corston in her ground-breaking 2007 report, and indeed to the work of the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), who took some of this forward in his time as a Minister. The landscape of the evidence base on reoffending has continued to evolve and change. We continue to work with that model. We believe that the steps we have set out for five residential women’s centres as a pilot is the right way to approach this, but it remains only a first step on a journey.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s new women’s strategy. May I encourage the Minister, who I welcome to his place, shortly to meet the all-party parliamentary group on women in the penal system, and to work with me and Baroness Corston to ensure that we can deliver these reforms at pace?
Edward Argar
I pay tribute to Baroness Corston for her work. My hon. Friend is far too modest to highlight her own significant contribution in this area and her significant work with Baroness Corston. I have already written to the APPG that she chairs and would be absolutely delighted to come and meet it.
Mr Speaker
Well, it runs in the family, because the hon. Lady’s dad, as many will remember, was a very modest man, with nothing to be modest about.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
New Hall, one of the largest women’s prisons, is close to my constituency. The message that I am getting from it recently is, first, about the evaluation of whether new prisoners are literate or numerate, and whether they have problems with autism. Secondly, it demands that all women prisoners should be safe and secure from sexual depredation when they are serving their sentence.
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that safety should be at the heart of everything we do in our custodial estate, be that for female prisoners, male prisoners or young offenders. That is safety for the prisoners, safety for their fellow prisoners and safety for the prison officers who are looking after them. It remains a priority for me.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
The Government’s Advisory Board for Female Offenders identified £50 million that had been earmarked for building women’s prisons. Can the Minister guarantee today that all of that £50 million will be reinvested in the female offender strategy, or is this just another example of the Government’s refusal to properly fund that strategy?
Edward Argar
First, I pay tribute to the work of that panel and those on it. Although I have not yet had the opportunity to formally chair a meeting of the panel, I met a number of panel members at an informal meeting. The Ministry and this Government have never put a figure on the prison building programme. That is not a figure that I recognise. We have been very clear that our priority is investing in the strategy that the Secretary of State launched. We have already set out £5 million for that and made it clear that it is only the first step.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
Offender health is a key part of delivering a secure and safe environment for those in our custody. I will appear before the Select Committee on Health this afternoon to address questions on exactly that topic, and we continue to see investment in progress in this area.
Sarah Jones
My constituent has multiple sclerosis. He went to prison nine months ago, newly diagnosed and relatively healthy. Now he has two hearing aids, is partially sighted and has to use a wheelchair. Despite that extreme deterioration, he was only taken to see a neurologist seven months after his arrival in prison. As a vulnerable inmate, is he not owed a duty of care by the prison? At the very least, should he not be moved to a category D prison closer to home?
Edward Argar
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. While it is not for me to talk about the categorisation of a particular prisoner, and I cannot go into the specific details of that case on the Floor of the House, I will say, as I said in answer to her initial question, that the care, health and wellbeing of prisoners is all of our concern. If she feels it would be helpful to discuss the specific case she mentions, I am happy to meet her.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
We have a series of challenges in relation to retention in Oxfordshire, some of which will be familiar to the hon. Lady. They are partly about the fact that people can get jobs in London, with London weighting, and they are partly to do with general problems around employment. We are, however, addressing them through a new recruitment campaign that is much more locally targeted, and I am pleased to say that we have managed to increase the number of applications from 500 to 5,000.
Layla Moran
I thank the Minister for his well-prepared answer, but the fact is that the probation service in Oxfordshire is at breaking point. That is also to do with sky-rocketing workloads, the high cost of living and paltry pay rises since 2009. One officer told me that they are being forced to cut corners and feel they
“can no longer actively reduce reoffending or keep the public safe.”
How can we guarantee that these measures will actually work? Is it not time to consider a housing allowance?
Rory Stewart
We have been in discussion with the Treasury, and we got clearance this week to begin discussions with the unions on the question of pay. Of course pay matters, but we have also learned real lessons about recruitment. As I say, ensuring that we are not simply doing national recruitment campaigns but are specifically targeting Oxford markets and working in the relevant universities is really beginning to get results. We are filling places much more rapidly, and by the spring of next year, we should be fully staffed.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) should worry not, because I am very much hoping to get to her question. She is not in isolation—she is the leader of a group—so I am not going to muck up the group by calling her now, but I am beavering away to get to Question 17.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
There is good evidence that sport and physical activity have considerable benefits for the physical, mental and social wellbeing and motivation of prisoners while they are in custody and can improve their prospects for successful resettlement in the community. To understand the fuller picture, Professor Rosie Meek of Royal Holloway, University of London was commissioned to undertake an independent review of the role of sport in youth justice. Her report will be published shortly, and we will respond to it.
Mark Pawsey
Programmes run by professional rugby clubs—such as the England-wide Hitz programme, which is run in my nearest premiership club, Wasps, and Saracens’ Get Onside in London—build up career aspirations for young offenders and those excluded from school. We have already heard that rates of reoffending are too high, but the Get Onside programme prevents 92% of the young offenders involved from returning to crime. Does the Minister recognise the benefit of these sports-based programmes?
Edward Argar
I am absolutely delighted to join my hon. Friend in highlighting the important and successful programmes of this sort that are run by clubs such as Saracens. They are already using sport and team sports such as rugby to improve outcomes in prison effectively, but also, importantly, to reduce reoffending on release. He is absolutely right to praise them.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
One of my constituents is concerned that her son has put on significant weight in prison. What are the Government doing to provide health education, sport and a better diet to help offenders?
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight that all three of those factors play a part in whether a prison is a safe place and whether it looks after the welfare of those in it. As I have highlighted, we continue to focus on sport, and we have commissioned a review, and we continue, as does Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons in holding us to account, to deliver a healthy regime in prisons.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Reducing violent behaviour in prison is absolutely vital, particularly for our prison officers, who are doing unbelievably difficult and challenging jobs and turning around people’s lives. We are addressing this through body-worn cameras and better use of CCTV, and we are ensuring—in supporting the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—that we are doubling the minimum sentences for assaults against prison officers.
Tom Pursglove
When the new prison in neighbouring Wellingborough is open, it may create many new jobs for my constituents in Corby and east Northamptonshire. To encourage more people to apply for and then stay in prison officer roles, what thought are the Government giving to further deterrents and sanctions for violent prisoners?
Rory Stewart
My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor laid out in a speech this morning the incentives and earned privileges schemes that he will be pushing for, which are exactly intended to incentivise good behaviour and make sure we turn around people’s lives. On the subject of my hon. Friend’s constituents, and indeed those of any Member, I want to re-emphasise that being a prison officer is one of the most honourable roles in public service and does an extraordinary amount for public safety. It is a challenging, fulfilling and tough job, and we would encourage more people to apply for that role.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
On non-road traffic accident-related personal injuries, the decision has been made to increase the small claims limit from £1,000, where it was set in 1991, to £2,000 in line with retail prices index inflation. This is in line with what happens in many other European countries—in Norway, for example—in taking lawyers out of the smallest claims.
Dan Carden
In the light of the Supreme Court ruling on the Unison employment tribunal case, will the Minister think again? Increasing the small claims limit would remove the ability of many people injured in the workplace to pursue claims against their employees. The Minister will know from the Justice Committee’s report that litigation is the main driver for maintaining health and safety in the workplace.
Rory Stewart
The important thing to understand about the small claims process is that the shift from £1,000 to £2,000 is simply to ensure that the original 1991 legislation keeps up with inflation—the RPI increase—in line with the Judicial College guidelines. This is not about people with catastrophic, life-changing injuries, but about people with injuries below the £2,000 level. We are making sure that the small claims process is fair, transparent and easy for the public to access without expensive lawyers.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
In its report on the small claims limit increases, the Justice Committee noted the
“compelling evidence of the obstacles that would be faced”,
and concluded that the changes would
“represent an unacceptable barrier to access to justice.”
Will the Minister listen and think again before pursuing another attack on workers?
Rory Stewart
I am always prepared to meet the hon. Lady and to listen. I emphasise again that this is simply a change in line with RPI. The small claims limit was set at £1,000 in 1991. The proposal is now to move it to £2,000, which is simply in line with the retail prices index, so that we have the same fair policy today that we had in 1991.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)
We are currently in commercial negotiations with community rehabilitation companies, with the aim of amending contracts and improving operational performance. Once we have concluded those negotiations, we will be in a position to provide further detail about the changes that we intend to make.
Marsha De Cordova
Last year, the Ministry of Justice bailed out privatised probation companies to the tune of £342 million, leaving the public to foot the bill for their inadequate work, which the chief inspector of probation found to make a negligible difference. Will the Minister commit today that there will be no more bail-outs for those privatised probation companies?
Mr Gauke
We should be clear about what happened. Last year, we amended contracts to ensure that payments made to community rehabilitation companies were more in line with the costs that they incur to deliver core services. We are paying CRCs less than we originally intended when the contracts were let: they are receiving less than their costs, a consequence of over-optimistic bidding on their part. When we talk about bail-outs, we should be clear that those companies are receiving income that is less than it costs them to provide the services.
John Spellar
Why will the Secretary of State not accept the conclusion of the Conservative-led Justice Committee that this is, in its words, “a mess” and may never work? Why does he not stop throwing good money after bad, cut his losses, blame his predecessor and be applauded for bringing this vital service back in-house?
Mr Gauke
As I said in my earlier answer, we are engaging with the CRCs, which do need to improve their service. The model that we have has opened up the delivery of probation services to a range of new providers. It has extended support and supervision to an additional 40,000 offenders leaving prison. First-generation contracts can be difficult to get right—I acknowledge that—but we are taking all necessary steps to get the performance that we require.
Kelvin Hopkins
Given the constant underperformance, high cost and deeply abject failure of private probation companies, is it not time to re-establish a professional, coherent and comprehensively public probation service?
Mr Gauke
I am not sure that the complaint about high cost holds together: the services are being delivered for less than we had expected, although we acknowledge that there are problems. The one thing we hear from the Opposition about justice is that the private sector should be kept out at all costs. I do not think that ideological approach is sensible. It is important that there should be a mixed market.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Last year, as we have heard, the privatised probation services got a £342 million bail-out despite underperforming. There are press rumours that the contract will be changed again. Will the Minister give a commitment today that the privatised probation services will not get a penny more until the Government have held a review into the botched privatisation of probation services?
Mr Gauke
I come back to my previous points. The CRCs have been receiving less income than it costs them to deliver the services. Because of the reforms undertaken a few years ago, 40,000 offenders get support who would have got nothing previously. The contracts can be challenging; it is right that we look at that and deliver good value for money for the taxpayer and good-quality services. That is what we are determined to deliver.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)
Today, I have announced an additional £30 million investment in our prison estate, including £16 million to improve facilities at 11 of our most pressed prisons. Some £6 million will enhance security and tackle those co-ordinating drug dealing from inside through scanners, better searching and phone-blocking technology. Since February, 12 such serious criminals have been targeted for disruption, with nine already having been transferred to other parts of the estate, including more secure prisons.
Mr Sharma
The Government are conducting a review of the impact of the swingeing cuts to legal aid since 2012, but they have so far refused to say whether more funding will be made available for legal aid. Will the Secretary of State confirm that additional funding will be made available if it is found to be required, or is the review simply an exercise in moving legal aid funding from one cause to another?
Mr Gauke
The purpose of the review is to assess what we need to do. That is the correct way to go about it. Obviously, we will need to engage with the Treasury in terms of future spending reviews, but we have a serious piece of work, with very substantial engagement with stakeholders, on which to make an assessment of how the legal aid system is working.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the important role of restorative justice. The Ministry of Justice supports the provision of victim-focused restorative justice as one of a range of measures to help victims to cope with and recover from crime. A recent evaluation showed that 85% of victims who participated in restorative justice said they were satisfied with the experience, which can, of course, bring benefits to the community as well.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
In my first two questions today, I focused on the widespread failings of privatisation in our justice system. I have written to the Secretary of State about the close relationship that his Department has with outsourcing giant Serco, a relationship that is ever closer given that his new Minister was once its spin doctor-in-chief. Will the Secretary of State confirm to the House today that he has reorganised responsibilities in his Department, so that his new Minister in charge of youth justice will not be involved in any way in any of the young offender institutions that Serco manages?
Mr Gauke
There has been no reorganisation of responsibilities. There is no conflict of interest here at all. The suggestion that because somebody has worked in the private sector for such a company, there is a conflict of interest is not accurate. The hon. Gentleman’s hostility to the private sector, in this sector and across the piece, is symptomatic of why the Labour party should be kept as far away from the Government Benches as possible.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is right to highlight this important issue, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for successfully piloting the 2017 Act on to the statute book. Department officials are currently drafting rules of court regulations and a code of practice, so that those drafts can be finalised and consulted on. I am keen that we make as rapid progress as possible.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady highlights an important issue. As she will be aware, the rules that govern how the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority operates are set by this House, but it operates entirely independently of Ministers in its awards and in its application of those rules. She highlights an important issue, which I know the Secretary of State will have heard very clearly.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his campaigning on this issue. As right hon. and hon. Members are aware, fentanyl is an incredibly dangerous drug, because even in minuscule quantities, it can do more damage than heroin and cocaine. We have had nearly 240 deaths in Britain and the United States has had up to 20,000 deaths in a year from fentanyl, so the recent actions from the Sentencing Council and the Crown Prosecution Service to clarify how noxious this substance is are welcomed, and I repeat my tribute to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
I would be very grateful if the right hon. Gentleman could write to us. We are in the middle of a £1 billion court programme, which includes a number of things, such as technology and improving other services such as family rooms, where people can spend time with their families. We are looking at a number of things that I am very happy to talk to him about.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Following the Chequers statement, will my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor lay before the House details of what active provisions his Department is making for a deal not being secured with the European Union?
Lucy Frazer
At the Ministry of Justice, we are very much working to ensure that we get the best, and the right, deal for our country, but like all competent Departments, we are also working to ensure that if there is no deal, we are ready for it. We have £17.3 million extra from the Treasury to look into this and ensure that we have the right Brexit scenario.
Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
First, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor announced this morning an additional £16 million to invest in decency—that is, bringing cells back into operation that have been taken out and making sure that the basic fabric is repaired. However, the most important thing is the building of 10,000 new prison places, beginning with Wellingborough and Glen Parva and moving on, to provide exactly the decent conditions that the hon. Lady raises in her question.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
On Friday, we had an important debate in this House about telephony in prisons. On the back of that debate, will the Minister set out what more we are doing to tackle drugs in prisons?
Rory Stewart
Tackling drugs in prisons involves dealing with how the drugs get into the prison—either over the wall or on a person—the demand in the prison and the way that we search people within the walls. All these things need to be done simultaneously—supply, demand and searching—and the key to this is training, training, training.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
Edward Argar
I entirely understand the concern of the hon. Lady, many hon. Members and many members of the public about this issue and their determination to see this delivered. I share that determination, but it is important that, while we work at pace, we ensure that the rules of court are correct. I am determined to make sure that we do everything we can to speed it up.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
What analysis has the Ministry of Justice done on how well the public sector is doing in taking on ex-offenders in employment? Does the Minister agree that we cannot just exhort the private sector to step up to the plate in this area if the public sector is not leading by example?
Mr Gauke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this point. Indeed, many parts of the public sector are stepping up and doing that—the Prison Service itself takes people on. We have a pilot programme in north-west England that is focused on this. My hon. Friend is tireless in campaigning for employers to take on ex-offenders, and I commend him on his activity.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the family drug and alcohol courts do great work. The fact that the Tavistock and Portman Trust is not going forward with the programme will not affect any of the existing courts. It is disappointing that the trust has chosen not to continue with the programme, and we will continue to look at the provision of this important service.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
On behalf of the Government, I stood at the Dispatch Box beside the Treasury Bench and promised the country that we would have a victims law. May I ask the Minister where that victims law is?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question, and I know that the House is grateful to him for his work and his tireless campaigning in this area. We have made it clear that we are committed to bringing forward a victim strategy this summer, which will look at both legislative and non-legislative options for delivering what he mentions. I would be delighted to meet him to discuss it further.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. We remain very committed to this. We have undertaken extensive consultation on extending the maximum sentences for causing death by dangerous driving, and we are looking at those for causing death by careless driving. We intend to introduce legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Several hon. Members rose—
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
In the light of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), when is the Secretary of State going to reply to my letter asking when longer sentences for causing death by dangerous driving will be introduced into legislation, as was promised in October last year?
Rory Stewart
I refer to my previous answer. This is a priority for the Government, but we need to find the right legislative instrument for doing it. Be in no doubt—it will happen.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
Pursuant to the Minister’s response about the issue, raising the small claims limit for employers’ liability will affect about 40% of claimants, many of whose employers claim that those individuals contributed to their own accidents through negligence. How are they supposed to stand up, unrepresented, to their employer and their insurance company?
Rory Stewart
The entire purpose of the small claims court is to make sure that minor injuries—in this case, the claims limit was set in 1991 at less than £1,000 and will rise to £2,000—are dealt with without lawyers. The same thing happens in most of our European partner countries. Norway is a very good example of a model in which exactly such cases are taken through without lawyers, up to a much higher value than would be the case here.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), wants to close the magistrates court in Cambridge. What assessment has she made of suggested ways to keep a magistrates court in Cambridge, and when will she make a decision?
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
According to the Public and Commercial Services Union, there are almost 1,200 staff at the Ministry of Justice on poverty pay. Will the Minister support the union’s 5% pay claim for all public sector workers?
Lucy Frazer
I have already set out the figures in relation to pay, and I think the hon. Lady will find that they are not at 5%.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Jerome Rogers from New Addington in Croydon committed suicide when he was 20 years old, after being hounded by bailiffs who broke regulation after regulation in their horrific handling of his initial—very small—traffic fines. Jerome’s family will be in Parliament next week for a meeting of the all-party group on debt and personal finance, and there is a programme about his life, “Killed By My Debt”, on BBC 1 next week. Will the Minister please meet Jerome’s family?
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Lady makes an important point, and she will be aware that we are looking at the question of the small number of bailiffs who are not acting appropriately. I would be very happy to meet her and the family.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State do something about the way in which we treat miscarriages of justice in this country, and will he meet the all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice to discuss it?
Points of Order
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I am saving up the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden). I call Mr Barry Sheerman.
Mr Sheerman
This is a very busy time for Parliament, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether you have been able to see the queues that are gathering around the Palace, especially now, when so many schoolchildren are taking their last opportunity to visit. Is it right that the queues are so long, that security is so slow, and that most of the entrances to this great royal Palace are filthy, with the smell of urine, with vomit and dirt, and—well, I do not want to go into the details of what you can see at those entrances. Is it not about time that someone did something about this royal Palace and the access to it?
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am concerned when from time to time there are lengthy queues that inhibit people from getting into the building. It is true that last night someone who was due to be present at—and eventually came to—the function taking place in Speaker’s House was delayed as a result of a queue. I think it important to be clear that sometimes it is perhaps our fault, and sometimes people perhaps do not allow sufficient time for the fact of the security process that they have necessarily to undergo.
As for the hon. Gentleman’s concern about what might be called malodorous matters, I am not unconscious of that phenomenon, although whether it is quite as pervasive as the hon. Gentleman suggests is, I think, a matter of some uncertainty. As the hon. Gentleman knows, however, I have always taken him immensely seriously, the more so now that he is in his 40th successive year as a Member of this House, and although I will probably regret saying this, I would exhort him, if he wishes to pursue the matter further, to write to me— although, as I say, I may very well regret tendering him that advice, for he normally requires no encouragement.
Mr Sheerman
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you are a very busy man, but may I invite you to join me on a walk around the Palace so that we can see it in person?
Mr Speaker
I can imagine few things in this life more pleasurable than undertaking a leisurely excursion anywhere, including the Palace of Westminster, with the hon. Gentleman. After all, I have visited the hon. Gentleman’s Huddersfield constituency, and I have visited and spoken at his local university, praising him to the skies in the process, so it seems only fitting that the other end of the equation should be met. I dare say we will have a little toddle round the Place of Westminster together when the hon. Gentleman has got in touch with my office to arrange it, which I fancy he will require no further encouragement to do.
Richard Burden
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I should be grateful if I could correct the record.
Last Wednesday, when I rose to ask the urgent question on Khan al-Ahmar that you had kindly granted me, I had just heard that bulldozers had arrived at the village, and that demolition had started. I reflected that in what I said.
Although demolition had indeed started at the nearby village of Abu Nuwar that morning, what I did not know was that the bulldozers had paused before commencing the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar. Whether that was because of the number of people who were there to protest—a number of whom were injured that day—or the presence of foreign diplomats, including those from the United Kingdom, I do not know. What I do know is that a court injunction has since been secured prohibiting the demolition until at least tomorrow. That makes the form of words that I used last week inaccurate, and I want to take this opportunity to correct the record.
In doing so, I thank Members in all parts of the House for raising their voices in opposition to the breach of international law at Khan al-Ahmar, which I am sure has helped to change the course of events in the past week. As the injunction is only temporary, however, pressure is still needed to keep the villagers of Khan al-Ahmar safe in the long term.
I am grateful for this opportunity to update the House, and to correct the record of last Wednesday’s exchanges.
Mr Speaker
I am moved to observe that the hon. Gentleman, who is a very dextrous and dedicated parliamentarian, stretched the elastic almost, but perhaps not quite, to snapping point in getting across a particular line of argument or set of observations that he wished to be recorded in the Official Report. However, I want to say two things in response to him. First, I thank him for his typical courtesy in giving me notice that he wished to raise this matter, and indeed for his promptness in correcting the record at the earliest opportunity. Secondly, of course I would accept his correction in any case, and I am sure that the House will, but I speak with some experience of the hon. Gentleman, because for nearly five years we served together on the Select Committee on International Development, and I know both the extent of his knowledge of the matters he has just raised and the absolutely undeniable sincerity with which he pursues what are not merely his concerns, but the concerns of a great many people. So I thank him.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure you are aware that many Members of this House, and just as importantly the staff of this House, use the underground car park at Members’ entrance. I reported to the Deputy Speaker over a month ago that the emergency exits from the underground car park had been sealed off because of water ingress. This is very dangerous and, as a former firefighter, I thought it important now that I address the fact that yet again when I parked in the car park yesterday morning the underground emergency car park exit was sealed off on all floors, yet the signs saying it was an emergency exit were still illuminated. People would go to that should there be an incident, and they would not be able to get out. That is fundamentally wrong and dangerous.
Mr Speaker
If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to write to the director general of the House of Commons, who has overall managerial responsibility for the parliamentary estate and services delivered thereon, it is open to him to do so. I take very seriously what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but I know he would not expect me to furnish him with a detailed reply now.
Mr Speaker
No further point of order is required. The matter will be looked into and the right hon. Gentleman will receive an answer. Whether it will satisfy his palate is another matter, but we will do our best.
Sir Mike Penning
When you are having a toddle around the Palace looking at entrances and other things, Mr Speaker, perhaps you could toddle down to the underground car park with me and see this for yourself?
Mr Speaker
I am not sure that we wish to conduct a procession on this matter, but I can certainly suggest to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) that, if it suits him and he has no violent objection to the idea, our little toddle will include a search of that area. The right hon. Gentleman will know that I myself do not now use that area as my vehicle is parked elsewhere, and therefore I do not have reason, I must readily acknowledge, to go there with any frequency at all, but it would do no harm to do so, and if also—this is a bold expression of hope—it would bring a smile to the face of the right hon. Gentleman to know that his request had been complied with, I require no further incentive.
Bathing Waters
Tuesday 10th July 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Bathing Waters Bill 2017-19 View all Bathing Waters Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give the Environment Agency additional powers to control and reduce discharge from combined sewer overflows; to make other provision about bathing water quality and clean beach initiatives; and for connected purposes.
I rise to present this Bill in my name and those of my hon. Friends. The environment is very important to my constituents. I spend a lot of time taking questions in primary and secondary schools in North Cornwall and one question always comes up: “What are you doing about the environment?” Bathing waters are one of the most important reasons why people visit North Cornwall. I have some of the most beautiful blue flag beaches in the whole of the UK, and some of the most spectacular surfing and waves around the country. However, we have a significant problem.
My constituency has an antiquated Victorian sewerage system, as do many areas around the UK. The system is completely incapable of dealing with the torrential rain events that we have seen in recent years. Furthermore, when Governments invest in infrastructure, they tend to like people to be able to see that investment, and to be frank, sewers are not really that sexy. However, they serve a valuable purpose in taking away our surface water, general waste water and sewage to process. Most of the country relies on the combined sewer network in which surface water and toilet water are combined and treated together. When we have these big downpours and rain events, the system simply cannot cope and water companies have to flush excess surface water and sewage into the sea. These incidents are described as combined sewer overflows, and they happen more regularly than many people think. When one of these events happens, my inbox is filled with surfers and swimmers asking me to do something. The purpose of the Bill is to do just that.
The Environment Agency publishes extensive data on individual bathing waters on its website, showing pressures on water quality on specific beaches and up-to-date sampling information. Real-time monitoring information websites are helpful to my constituents, but at present this is just information provided for the sake of it, and recent statistics from the World Wide Fund for Nature show that 77% of events do not result in a follow-up. I welcome and praise the work being done by South West Water in the west country and by other water companies around the UK, but we could and should go much further. Our environment deserves better than letting sewage spill into our oceans.
I know that many hon. Members feel that water companies have large payrolls and big corporate bonuses, and that more of their profits should be reinvested into the system. In fact the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recently challenged the water companies to improve their financial and corporate behaviours in order to restore public trust in the sector. It is true to say that some water companies’ financial and corporate behaviours have eroded the public’s trust in the sector, and they must improve their financial and corporate behaviours and practices, increase investment and offer fair prices to customers in order to restore that trust.
However, I think it would be unfair to ask the water companies to update the antiquated sewerage systems, so we have come up with a different way of approaching the issue. The reason that the system cannot cope is that the surface water run-off is too heavy during heavy rainfall events. The Bill will give the Environment Agency powers to fine water companies that allow sewage spills into the sea, and to reinvest that money in three different ways. First, it would provide farmers with funds to store water in attenuation ponds to slow down the water flow. Secondly, we should create more lakes and reservoirs—a proposal that is supported by the Angling Trust. Thirdly, in the areas with the most severe problems, the water companies should provide funding for free water butts and the fitting of those water butts in residential properties. Managing surface water would stop the sewage spills and allow the water companies to manage our waste water better.
The monitoring of the spills is also quite inadequate, and the Bill would ask the Environment Agency to monitor them all year round instead of doing so only in the summer months, as it does at the moment. There are many hardy souls who brave the waves in Cornwall in the middle of winter, and they want the same protections that are afforded the swimmers and surfers on the beaches in the summer months. I was able to glean the following information on the beaches in North Cornwall in preparation for today. The beaches that have had no spills in the past five years are Trevone, Harlyn bay, Trebarwith Strand, Crackington Haven and Crooklets in Bude. There is absolutely no information on Porthcothan, Treyarnon bay, Constantine bay, Mother Ivey’s bay, Daymer bay, Northcott Mouth and Sandymouth. Even Booby’s Bay had no information. So we can see that we need better monitoring of these processes. Polzeath had no spills last year but four the year before. Widemouth bay had three spills this year and five last year. Summerleaze in Bude in my constituency had four this year and 15 last year. Those are the figures just for North Cornwall, but I know that these issues affect many coastal areas and I would expect to see similar data from many other areas around the country.
I have received a number of endorsements for the Bill. I had a phone call from Surfers Against Sewage yesterday, and they are very supportive of it. The Angling Trust says that although sewage spills along the coastline regularly hit the headlines, 89% of combined sewage overflows actually discharge into the rivers. The trust is very supportive of the Bill and its contents. Locally, I have the support of the fabulous Bude Cleaner Seas project, which has campaigned for so long on environmental protection around our coast. I also have the support of the Polzeath Marine Conservation Group.
The European waters directives have been good for protecting our bathing waters, but I believe that we can go further. My list of supporters for the Bill extends past the 11 names that I am allowed to read out today, and I apologise to those who have given me their support but who I am unable to name at this time. I believe that the measures in the Bill will address a problem that has existed for a long time in North Cornwall and around the country, and I hope that elements of the Bill or indeed the Bill itself can make progress through the House so that all my constituents will be able to feel that we are leaving this environment in a better state than we found it in.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Scott Mann, Richard Benyon, Mr Ben Bradshaw, Robert Courts, Steve Double, James Heappey, Craig Mackinlay, Dame Cheryl Gillan, Mrs Sheryll Murray, Justine Greening, Tim Loughton and David Morris present the Bill.
Scott Mann accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 November, and to be printed (Bill 248).
Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill
Tuesday 10th July 2018
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Act 2018 View all Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dame Rosie. I should like to start by reiterating this Government’s commitment to supporting the sustainable growth of farming and horticultural businesses. We firmly believe that the agricultural exemption from business rates plays an important role in supporting this aim and boosting agricultural productivity. This measure will therefore help to drive our ambitions for a more dynamic and self-reliant agricultural industry. Until a Court of Appeal ruling in 2015, the long-standing practice of the Valuation Office Agency had been to apply the agricultural exemption to all plant nurseries. However, the ruling clarified that the exemption did not apply to plant nurseries in buildings that were not occupied together with agricultural land, and used solely in connection with agricultural operations on that or other agricultural land. This does not reflect Government policy, and neither does it reflect our commitment to growth in the rural economy. The Bill will therefore amend the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and enable the Valuation Office Agency to return to its former practice of exempting all plant nurseries solely consisting of buildings. It will also enable the VOA to exempt those plant nurseries that have been assessed since the ruling.
The Government have been consistently clear that they would take action on this matter. In March 2017, we set out our intention to legislate in a written ministerial statement. A further written ministerial statement was made in 2018, restating our intention to legislate and for the first time confirming that the measure would have retrospective effect in England from 1 April 2015. In Wales, the measure will have effect from 1 April 2017. The Bill delivers on that commitment and, once enacted, it will restore the previous practice and enable refunds to be provided to the handful of plant nurseries that have already been assessed for business rates as a consequence of the Court of Appeal ruling. While the Bill will restore the practice of exempting plant nurseries and buildings, it will not otherwise disturb the existing boundary of the agricultural exemption. The Bill amends schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which determines the extent to which certain hereditaments are exempt from business rates.
Turning specifically to clause 1, it amends paragraph 3 of schedule 5 to the 1988 Act, providing that a building that
“is or forms part of a nursery ground and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations at the nursery ground”
will, subject to the passage of this Bill, be exempt from business rates. Clause 1 also contains a provision that the measure will have effect from 1 April 2015 in England and from 1 April 2017 in Wales, as requested by the Welsh Government. That will ensure that the measure has the intended retrospective effect and that refunds can be provided as necessary.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Dame Rosie, you will be pleased to hear that the Bill is non-contentious. It simply fixes the position as it was before the 2015 Court of Appeal ruling and, on that basis, the Opposition are happy to allow the Government to go ahead without objection.
It was said both in the press and when the Local Government Finance Bill was in Committee before the election that the Government were pledging to right the wrong of the Court of Appeal’s hearing after listening to businesses’ concerns, but several other similar representations have been made. For example, in towns where the banks have closed and there is no post office, a convenience store might step in to install a cash machine, but it would straight away be taxed on the turnover of the cash machine, which could take the store over the threshold for small business rate relief. There have been calls for that issue to be examined, but we are yet to see any progress.
Another big issue affecting many high streets and town and city centres is the impact of business rates on the viability of retail. We see companies go under on an almost weekly basis because they cannot afford to meet the high running costs of operating in primary locations. Communities resent seeing their local high streets and town centres go downhill, and businesses and representatives of other organisations have made the same point, but the Government have offered nothing comprehensive in response, because there would be a big bill.
However, the truth is that if we want to save our town centres and high streets, we must be bold and fully examine how such premises are taxed if they are to have any future. This goes beyond business; this is about communities. When people talk about how well or badly their communities are doing, they will often point to their town centres and high streets as a barometer. When people see the roller shutters pulled down or boards over windows, that has a material effect on how they feel about their community, and the Government ought to take note of that.
When the Local Government Finance Bill was in Committee, the Opposition made the offer that where there were non-contentious issues on which local government was seeking progress, we were happy to sit down and go through a plan for the legislation that ought to be brought forward. That would be done away from partisan interests because it is the right thing to do for our communities, and I look forward to the Minister arranging such a meeting.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I am delighted to speak in support of a Bill that rights a wrong that was clearly never intended in the first place, and I have the honour of being the Member who first raised this issue when the Local Government Finance Bill was in Committee last year. Unfortunately, however, the Conservative party’s majority was not the only victim of last year’s general election, because that Bill fell at that point and the amendment that was likely to be made to it could not be passed, hence the need for this new Bill.
Plant nurseries play a vital role in this country’s food production supply chain. At a time when we want to increase domestic food supply and become less reliant on imported food, it is right to do all we can to support an important industry and ensure that we do not impose a further tax on producers that would see them struggle with the additional costs. Many of them would face the possibility of going out of business, with the loss of jobs that that would entail. The Bill sets out to put in place what the Local Government Finance Act 1988 always intended and to ensure that the exemption for nurseries continues. It will support our rural economy, ensuring that we support food production and that jobs are retained in the industry. I am therefore pleased to support the Bill to ensure that it becomes an Act as soon as possible.
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a crucial Bill, because it gives hope to so many businesses that underpin life in rural constituencies such as his and mine?
Steve Double
I agree that it is vital to support those important businesses in our rural communities. If the jobs that they provide were lost, it would be difficult to replace them.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is important for farmers wanting to intensify their businesses, because it will put it beyond doubt that any nursery operation will come under the scope of the exemption?
Steve Double
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that good point. We should do all that we can to support our farmers who want to diversify and expand their operations to include growing plants in greenhouses and so on, and they should be able to do so with confidence and in the knowledge that they will not suddenly incur a business rates bill. It is therefore correct that we introduce clarity and put right the wrong that the court case created. As I said, I do not believe that that wrong was ever the intention of Parliament or the Government, and we should provide the sector with confidence that horticultural buildings and nurseries will continue to attract the agricultural exemption that they should rightly have.
I acknowledge the role played by the National Farmers Union in bringing the matter to my attention and lobbying on this issue. It has spoken up for its members, ensuring that their voices have been heard. I thank the Minister and the former Local Government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), for listening carefully to the arguments, agreeing to take this measure and ensuring that the matter is corrected. I welcome the Bill and trust that it will pass unopposed with wholehearted support from across the House so that it can reach the statute book as quickly as possible to support this sector.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
I rise to support clause 1. As ever, it is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), although he has just reminded me of the Local Government Finance Bill and the many interesting and fun hours that we spent on it, particularly in Committee. Unfortunately, however, those hours were subsequently lost when the Bill fell, so it is good to see this measure coming to the House, as have several other provisions that were in the previous Bill.
The agricultural exemption for nursery grounds has been in place for a significant period, dating back to 1929. Indeed, this issue was raised during the passage of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, when Ministers gave a steer that there was a clear intention that nursery grounds should be subject to the same sort of exemption as other agricultural uses. The Court of Appeal case—the Tunnel Tech case—seems to have driven a coach and horses through the custom and practice since 1929 and the intimation given by the then Government during the passage of the 1988 Act that the status quo would prevail. To put it mildly, suddenly receiving a significant rates bill as the result of a Valuation Office Agency investigation and the subsequent Court of Appeal case has challenged a number of growers in the running of their businesses.
I am pleased in many ways to have played a small part in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay apprehended me in the Division Lobby one evening to explain the challenge he was seeing in his area as a result of this Court of Appeal ruling and the problems it was likely to cause growers. We subsequently had meetings with the National Farmers Union, which put a coherent and collegiate case for restoring the status quo.
I am glad that, when I approached the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the matter was put before Ministers—we do not always receive this type of response—the unanimous verdict was that the Court of Appeal decision was not the right thing for growers and other such businesses and was not consistent with the Government’s intention. I was delighted to publish a written ministerial statement confirming the Government’s intention to restore the position as it was before the Court of Appeal ruling and to allow the agricultural exemption in this regard, as was clearly intended.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentions the NFU’s contribution. Will he join me in showing appreciation for its work in representing our farming and agricultural industries, particularly when we are deciding on the future of those industries? Does he agree it is important that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in particular, continues working with the NFU to make sure we get the policy right?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important and pertinent point. The agricultural industry is very different from many other industries in this country. This country needs to be as self-sufficient as possible in food production, and we also need to consider that it is often difficult for producers in the industry to recover their costs. For example, there has been a perennial challenge for milk producers, which have not been able to realise even the cost of production. That is why organisations such as the NFU are extremely important in bringing such issues to the fore so that we maintain our food security.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Does my hon. Friend agree that, with Brexit, it will be ever more important that this type of horticultural industry is as competitive as possible? Countries such as Holland and Italy are increasingly competing with our industry, and it is much better to grow food here for phytosanitary, employment and all sorts of other reasons.
Mr Jones
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Again he is absolutely right that, wherever we can, we should be producing food in this country for those reasons.
Importantly, clause 1 is a retrospective measure. Such measures are often not retrospective, but it is important that the Bill is being implemented retrospectively, because a number of growers have already been caught by the provisions of the Court of Appeal decision and, as a consequence, have seen their business costs rise significantly. I have mentioned the challenges that agricultural producers often face, and those challenges are compounded when growers are retrospectively asked for an amount of money that they did not anticipate they would need to build into their business costs.
In this case, a number of growers will have already sold their produce and therefore will not have factored this into their price, if they were able to do so. The decision will put a significant strain on the businesses in question, so I am pleased the Bill is being applied retrospectively and that businesses that have already been caught by the Court of Appeal decision will be refunded any business rates they have paid.
Steve Double
Does my hon. Friend share my view that another reason why we need to keep costs down is to allow the industry to invest as much as possible in emerging new techniques and technologies for developing and growing food and increasing yield? An additional tax burden would reduce the amount of money the industry can invest for the future.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend is right. There is huge potential for such industries to grow—pardon the pun—but investment in technology is needed for them to do that. If the Government or, in this case, the Court of Appeal decide to levy an additional cost on such businesses, bearing in mind many of them are small and medium-sized businesses, the chances of their being able to continue investment will be diminished. The Bill will therefore help us to facilitate businesses in taking advantage of new technological advances. By being more likely to invest than they otherwise would have been, they will be able to further themselves, and hopefully not only will their prospects improve but they will add to UK GDP and add jobs in their local area.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister, who is now taking the Bill forward. The Bill is a positive step to put right a Court of Appeal decision that most rational people consider to be wrong. I am extremely glad that the Bill is being applied retrospectively. As colleagues have said today, not only will it enable growers to continue growing produce to sell on to other growers, who can then provide the produce we all buy in the shops and subsequently eat, but it will enable growers to invest for the future. The Bill will make sure this country continues to be a leading player in advancing how we grow our food and sustain our population.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
It is extraordinary that this House has spent so long talking about doing such a simple thing as undoing the errant court judgment, and I suspect we may even continue talking about it for a few minutes yet. However, that is only fitting, because, as has been said by a number of my hon. Friends, including the Minister, and by the Opposition, we are all here concerned about this issue as we understand the profound impact that a single court judgment could have had, not only on businesses up and down the country, but on the food chain and even on the communities and local economies that those businesses support.
I have talked in the previous debate on this matter about the individual constituency business that came to me to discuss the impact this court judgment would have had, not only on its business and bottom line, but, crucially, on the income to the local internal drainage board. This would have meant that in my constituency, which is the most at risk of flooding in the country, according to the Association of British Insurers, not only would businesses and livelihoods have been affected, as others have said, but, even worse, that huge swathes of the area would have been at greater risk of flooding. That would have posed a real threat to the broader economy, the food chain and huge numbers of people who live in areas at or sometimes below sea level and who rely on those internal drainage boards being able to function.
The Bill is therefore a hugely important tweak to the legislation that was inadvertently altered by the court judgment, and it is a fitting tribute to the change that the previous Minister and this Minister are initiating and seeing through respectively that we have devoted a reasonable amount of parliamentary time to it. However, it is worth pointing out that we would hope in future, in legislation generally, not just in this area, to avoid a single court judgment having the kind of ramifications that this one has had here. We would all like not to put our constituents through the genuine trauma of knowing that the business they work for might face real financial difficulties simply because of a single court judgment. Somewhat unusually, these people in my area may also face the risk of their homes and businesses being flooded, which is an additional factor.
Although it is good that the Government are fixing this and the Opposition parties have co-operated so readily in fixing it, we should also bear in mind that it would have been better not to have found ourselves in this situation in the first place. So my plea to the Minister is to see what he can do, working across the Government—I do not pretend that all the problems are in his Department, by any means—to avoid legislation where we have not thought through all the potential consequences of the precise wording. We spend a lot of time in Bill Committees and in Committee of the whole House going through pieces of legislation line by line, paying close and deep attention to every moment in those Committees, but sometimes such things lay themselves open to unintended consequences, so we would all welcome anything that can be done to try to avoid them.
Clearly, the Government have acted as quickly as they can, given the unfortunate situation with the previous Bill, to bring this piece of legislation back individually, notwithstanding the election interrupting the previous passage of the Local Government Finance Bill. Obviously, that Bill was going to do a number of things far wider than this one and it is clearly the right thing to have adjusted how the legislation has been formatted so that we can do this quickly. It is likely we would have ended up seeing businesses paying large sums and going through significant difficulty only then to be given that money back. Of course it is a good thing that this legislation has been moved on faster than it otherwise might, but I hope that we would all like to avoid this sort of situation in the first place.
I will close simply by saying that I hope the Minister will do all he can to avoid this sort of situation arising again, should he have the opportunity. I re-emphasise how good it is that we have been able to bring this matter to a relatively speedy conclusion and how heartening it is to see so many colleagues discussing a matter that otherwise would have passed with relatively little attention. This is a good example of the Government giving real attention to an important matter and acting quickly to correct a court judgment that was never intended by any previous Government. I welcome the actions that the Minister has taken and, as I said previously, that his predecessor has taken. Perhaps weirdly, I welcome, above all, the co-operation of the Opposition in getting on with this ever so quickly. I hope that the constituents who raised this issue with me see that this is an example of action being taken and are genuinely reassured.
Mr Simon Clarke
It was particularly moving to be in here as we heard the sound of the RAF fly-past a few moments ago to mark 100 years of the RAF. It was 100 years ago this month that my great, great uncle John Headlam was killed while serving in the RAF, so it is nice to be able to pay tribute to his service and sacrifice.
We are a nation of gardeners, and it is important to us all that our nursery sector thrives. It is a particular pleasure to see my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) on the Front Bench as the Minister today, because my constituency abuts his and it is home to some of the nurseries that I know very well—Cherry Hill and Strikes in Stokesley, which was subject to a recent devastating fire. I know that I speak on behalf of lots of people in my constituency when I say that I hope Strikes is back up and running in its normal place as quickly as possible.
The nursery industry is extremely significant for growing produce for our home market and for ensuring the sustainability of our rural economy. At a time when there is fierce competition from the supermarket and similar sectors, there is no doubt traditional nurseries need all the support they can get that Agricultural land has been exempt from business rates for almost 100 years.
Ben Bradley
I want to pick my hon. Friend up on the point about supporting nurseries and this kind of industry. Does he agree that it would be right for this place to make a plea to our constituents, not just in this area, but across our high streets and in all sorts of other areas, to support independent local businesses such as these nurseries to ensure that they can continue to exist in the future?
Mr Clarke
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and he is right in what he says. That is something people really care about, and people often regard these nurseries as a hub in the local community. They are not just another shop; they are often dearly loved, and this fits with the spirit of the time, when people increasingly want to buy local.
Until recently, the exemption that applied in this case had been assumed to be uncontroversial and would fit with the understanding of both rating valuers and practitioners. That was the situation until the 2015 court judgment in the Tunnel Tech case, which was a great mistake. I am delighted that the Government have taken steps to reverse it, as such judicial activism simply is not appropriate. The Bill will ensure that plant nurseries in buildings will once again benefit from the business rate exemption, which restores the law to the same state in which it existed before the Court of Appeal decision. I am pleased that the Bill will apply retrospectively, so that those nursery grounds in England that have been charged business rates will now be refunded.
The Government should be congratulated on acting so swiftly to rectify this wrong and on demonstrating common sense. This is so clearly the right course of action that there is no controversy anywhere in this House, and the Bill has received full support from the NFU. I pay tribute to the NFU, because I know full well the value of the work it does in supporting farmers in rural East Cleveland. Indeed, I had the pleasure of going on a farm visit with the NFU recently to see Capon Hall farm and Peter Humphrey. That is exactly the kind of work the NFU does day in, day out, and it should be saluted.
The legislation needs to be viewed in the broader context of the Government’s commitment and keenness to support our agricultural sector and small businesses, especially those in rural areas. Last week, I spoke out about my deep concerns regarding the future of business rates, but it is worth noting that as a result of measures taken by the Government, more than 600,000 small businesses—occupiers of a third of all properties—now pay no business rates at all. The Government doubled small business rate relief to 100% and raised the threshold from £6,000 to £12,000. At the same time, the Government doubled rural rate relief from 50% to 100% for eligible businesses. Such reliefs are hugely welcome for many small businesses in my constituency.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I am delighted to speak in support of the Bill. This is a most pertinent time to talk about measures that will aid our worthy horticultural industry—not least because it is the tennis season. In particular, it is the time of that most prestigious of world-class events, Wimbledon. What is even more important about Wimbledon than the tennis, Sir Lindsay? The strawberries. People were wondering how I could get tennis into the debate—
Rebecca Pow
I have written down in brackets “and cream”. During the tournament last year, more than 166,000 portions of strawberries were served, with cream. That is 33 tonnes of strawberries. Were I not speaking in this debate, I would be at Wimbledon. That is how important I think it is that we get our business through.
Many strawberry plants, like other plants in the horticultural chain, start life being propagated in nursery grounds, which are often the lifeblood of the horticultural industry. They are the hotbed of germination, propagation and cultivation, and we are discussing them because the Bill exempts from non-domestic rates buildings that are, or form part of, a nursery ground, as several hon. Friends have already said. It gives nursery grounds parity with their agricultural counterparts.
The south-west region, where I come from, is a rural region with a good climate for gardening, growing and horticulture, and it supports so many businesses in the sector, not least in Taunton Deane, which is one reason why I particularly wanted to speak in this debate. I also wanted to speak because in a previous life I worked for the National Farmers Union and got quite involved with the horticultural industry, and I was for many years a horticultural and gardening journalist and broadcaster, so this subject is close to my heart.
I certainly appreciate the hard graft—to use a horticultural term—involved in the industry and the very tight margins, especially for those at the start of the chain. It is difficult for them to pass on their costs: they cannot have huge add-ons because they do not deal with the general public. For this small sector of the industry to discover recently that it was to be penalised by having to pay business rates, when previously it had been exempted, like its agricultural counterparts, was a bitter blow.
Let me give some background. Nursery grounds were exempt from non-domestic rates from 1928 until recently when, through one particular court decision, about which we have heard from colleagues, it was found that the exemption was an incorrect application of the law. This was a bolt from the blue and, as can be imagined, caused a huge amount of angst in the nursery industry, which was already up against the tight margins that I mentioned. The Horticultural Trades Association reported that the change would be detrimental to the industry: if nurseries had to pay business rates that they had not paid previously, that would inevitably drive up costs that would be passed on to the consumers at the end of the chain. As Conservatives—we are the party of business—that did not sit easily with us. The HTA reported that some of its members could face bills to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds if the situation was not rectified.
I am delighted to say, though, that through the ripening of this small but perfectly formed Bill, the wrong has been righted. The fruitful outcome that we are witnessing today clarifies once and for all that the situation will again be aligned with the previous practice of exemptions. I am particularly pleased to hear that the funds will be backdated, as specified in the Bill. The Bill demonstrates that, in such an instance, where unfairness has so obviously been demonstrated, the Government, particularly the meticulous and attentive Minister, have listened—and they have not just listened but acted.
The Bill is fully in step with the Government’s commitment to a vision of a productive, competitive and sustainable UK agricultural sector, of which horticulture and the plant nursery sector are an important part. In fact, I believe there is great scope for the industry to grow and blossom, particularly as we exit the EU. With the right back-up, such as that demonstrated through this Bill, there is an opportunity to grow more of our plant material at home, to fuel our landscaping and ornamental plant industry, thereby avoiding the inherent plant disease and pest threats that are associated with importing plants for this trade. For example, we hear a great deal about the disease xylella, which is wiping out olive trees and many other herbaceous and woody commercial plants in Europe. We do not want that in the UK.
After the granting of Taunton’s new and most welcome garden town status, designated through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, I am working to see more trees included in our townscape. Would it not be wonderful if, at the same time as improving the environment and people’s health and wellbeing, along with all the other benefits that we get from trees, those trees were home-grown, so that the economy benefits at the same time?
Let me touch on the idea of growing the whole horticultural industry and why it is important to put in place measures such as the Bill to stimulate the industry. It is thought that there is great scope to grow the industry, perhaps by as much as an incredible £18 billion. In fact, tomorrow the all-party group on gardening and horticulture is holding an inquiry into how we can skill up the industry and what we need to do to make that happen. There is consensus from the Horticultural Trades Association that if the gross value added—that is, the goods and services that emanate from the diverse horticultural and gardening industry—was measured, which it currently is not, it would demonstrate exactly how valuable the sector is to the economy. It would then be easier to make a case for putting in the right measures, including research and development and so on, to grow the sector.
This small but perfectly formed Bill rights an injustice relating to the imposition of business rates on a special sector of the important horticultural industry, one of the very veins of the supply chain. In so doing, it benefits the industry by not saddling it with an unwelcome property tax and thus helps all those who work in the trade and the whole economy, by giving back to the industry one of the benefits that it needs to thrive. It will have particular resonance throughout the south-west, so I fully support the Bill.
Rishi Sunak
It is a pleasure to respond briefly to the various points raised. I thank my opposite number, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for the typically constructive way he has approached this type of legislation; of course, we do not agree on everything, but it is fantastic to be able to move these relatively technical matters through the House speedily.
The hon. Gentleman expressed, as he has before, a specific concern about whether the presence of an automated teller machine in a convenience store could take the rateable value of that small shop above the threshold for small business rate relief. Having looked into the matter, I am delighted to tell him that we do not believe that that should be the case. If an ATM is rateable, it would appear as a separate assessment on the ratings list and the ratepayer would typically be the financial institution that operates the ATM, not the shop itself. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing the specific issues with the Association of Convenience Stores to ensure that its concerns are investigated and addressed.
The hon. Gentleman turned to the important topic of high streets. I know that all of us in this House celebrate our local high streets; they are vital parts not just of our communities, but of our economies. I am very pleased to tell him that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) is the Minister for high streets and is fully focused on the issue at hand through the Future High Streets Forum. More excitingly, he has just launched the Great British High Street Awards 2018. I will do a plug and call on all Members to nominate their local high streets. Nominations are open until the end of August. The last iteration of the competition saw almost 1,000 entries from across the country and hundreds of thousands of votes from the public to choose the eventual winner. There is a considerable cash prize on offer for the winner and, indeed, a new rising star category. The winner will also receive expert advice from industry professionals. I hope that the hon. Gentleman knows that we take the issue of high streets very seriously indeed.
Let me touch briefly on some of the other contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) should take enormous pride in the role that he has played in ensuring that we are discussing this important issue today. Hopefully, this legislation will eventually receive Royal Assent and that will be in no small part owing to his efforts to put this issue on the agenda of Ministers, and he deserves enormous credit for that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who had this job before me, put in motion the Bill that we are discussing today and engaged with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay on this important topic, ensuring that when I arrived in the Department this agenda was ready to take forward, and he also deserves credit for that. It is always intimidating to have to respond to him in this Chamber, as I am always reminded that so well did he do this job before I inherited it that the job had to be split between two different people. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), sits beside me on the Bench. The two of us together do our best to replicate what he did before us and we are grateful that he left everything in such good shape for us to pick up.
My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has been a stalwart in speaking about business rate tweaks. I join him in hoping that there are far fewer of these to come in the immediate future, but thank him for his support of the Bill. He spoke eloquently about defending the rural interests in his constituency, which will benefit from this Bill, as he did when we enabled business rates relief for new fibre installations, a topic that is dear to his heart and which he pushed hard for. He should shortly be seeing the benefits of that policy in action across the country.
My constituency neighbour, my good hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), has, as I know at first hand, a very mixed constituency. As ever, he did an excellent and eloquent job in talking about the importance of small businesses across Teesside and the efforts that this Government have put in place to ensure that the tax burden on those small businesses is as low as possible. I welcome his support for the £10 billion-worth of measures to alleviate the burden of business rates on small enterprises across Teesside. I am glad that they are benefiting from that. In the rural part of his constituency in East Cleveland, the agricultural community will, I am sure, welcome his support and lobbying for this measure as it can ensure that its productivity remains high in the months and years to come.
What better place to end than with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow)? As ever, she gave us a brilliant defence and a brilliant celebration of our rural economy and everything that it contributes to our national life. We are, of course, grateful to her for gracing us with her presence today, when she could have been at Wimbledon enjoying the strawberries, the Pimms, the cream and everything else on offer. I must say that, when it comes to slipping requests, she clearly has a much better relationship with the Whips than I do, as my previous requests for various exemptions for cricket matches and tennis matches were firmly denied, so I have something to take up with the Whips in due course.
I am glad that we have had a very constructive discussion today and that there is widespread support for this particular clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
Bill reported, without amendment (Standing Order No. 83D(6)).
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. As indicated on the Order Paper, the Speaker has certified that the Bill relates exclusively to England and Wales on matters within devolved legislative competence. As the Bill has not been amended, there is no change to that certification. Copies of the certificate and the consent motion are available in the Vote Office. Under Standing Order No. 83M, a consent motion is required for the Bill to proceed. Does the Minister intend to move the consent motion?
Rishi Sunak
indicated assent.
The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England and Wales) (Standing Order No. 83M).
[Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I beg to move that the Legislative Grand Committee do sit in private.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
As we both know, you cannot move that motion at this stage.
David Linden
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Can you clarify that the reason that I cannot move that motion is because I am a Scottish MP and have been rendered a second-class Member of the House as a result of English votes for English laws?
The Chairman
Mr Linden, you may wish to judge yourself as a second-class Member, but let me reassure you that I will always treat you as a first-class Member. On that basis, you will still not get your way.
I remind the House that only Members representing constituencies in England and Wales may vote on the consent motion. I call the Minister to move the consent motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee consents to the Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill.—(Rishi Sunak.)
David Linden
It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Lindsay, and, indeed, it is a pleasure to serve on this esteemed Legislative Grand Committee of England and Wales. I look forward to making a few observations on the Bill, which has been certified by Mr Speaker as competent for EVEL. It is of course a real pity that, should the Bill divide the Legislative Grand Committee, I and my hon. Friends from Scotland will be excluded from having our vote counted. Indeed, Scottish colleagues have to endure the immense indignity of being ordered by Government Whips to traipse through the Lobby to have their vote discounted in person. It is all incredibly sad. My immense sadness in this regard is founded upon the view that, during the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and indeed after it, we the people of Scotland were told that Scotland is an equal partner of the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State for Scotland might have strayed off that line a couple of weeks ago, but I am sure that that was a mere oversight on his part.
Today, we have been relegated from legislators to narrators, and so can only speak in the Legislative Grand Committee—and speak I certainly will. Before I continue with my remarks, let me say that I am conscious that I must stick to the strict parameters of this fine Bill. I wish to offer, though, a few thoughts on the English votes for English laws mechanism and, in particular, Standing Order No. 83.
In essence, Scottish Members of this House have become second-class MPs in the House of Commons. EVEL basically excludes MPs from Scotland, and in some cases MPs from nations other than England, from voting on legislation that could have consequentials and affect other parts of the UK. There are also financial implications, as decisions taken for England only can lead to changes to Scotland’s budget from the UK Government.
I rather suspect that the days of the English votes for English laws are numbered, but, for so long as this legislative apartheid continues, I shall continue to be a diligent participant in the Legislative Grand Committee.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I just want to note the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is unable to be here, as he is in the Scottish Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, that brings my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) closer to beating his record of being the Member who has spoken the most often in the Legislative Grand Committee. The ironic thing is that Members from England and Wales never actually speak in the English Legislative Grand Committee.
David Linden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that powerful intervention. Perhaps today we might find that Members from English constituencies will rise to speak, but I would not necessarily hold my breath for that.
When I first looked at the Order Paper last week and saw that we were debating the Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill, I excitedly and somewhat naively thought that this was about nurseries in the sense of toddlers and early years. There was I planning to come to the Legislative Grand Committee to talk about the SNP Scottish Government’s childcare revolution.
I should declare an interest: my three-year-old son, Isaac, starts nursery next month and is thoroughly looking forward to starting Sgoil Araich Lyoncross. The incredibly good news about that childcare revolution is something that will be welcome from Shettleston to Shetland.
Of course, had the Bill been about nurseries in the early years sense, I could have regaled the House with some wonderful nursery rhymes, such as my favourite, “The Grand Old Duke of York.” It rather reminds me of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), with regard to Brexit, particularly the lines,
“He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.”
Alas, the House will have to wait for another day to hear me pontificate about nurseries and nursery rhymes. Instead today, we have the delight of discussing non-domestic rates for nurseries of a plant variety, and what a treat that is.
The Bill’s purpose is to reverse the effect on valuation practice for non-domestic rating of the 2015 case, Tunnel Tech v. Reeves. In brief—I shall try to be brief, because I know other Members want to get on to other business soon—the case established that, where a business operates a plant nursery or nursery ground where agricultural operations take place entirely indoors, it cannot benefit from the general business rates exemption for agricultural land and buildings. The Government made a policy commitment to legislate to establish that nursery grounds should be entitled to an agricultural exemption and to apply that exemption retrospectively, back to the 2015-16 financial year.
The Legislative Grand Committee will doubtless be aware that, on 9 July 2015, the Court of Appeal gave judgment in the case of Tunnel Tech v. Reeves. I am sure that all members of this esteemed Legislative Grand Committee will have read in full that judgment from the Court of Appeal. The case concerned the rateability of a property occupied by the company Tunnel Tech in Stockbridge, Hampshire. The property was used for growing mushrooms from spores. I myself absolutely abhor mushrooms and feel that they can really ruin a rather good lasagne, but I do not want to digress too much from the subject at hand.
A mixed material was fermented and then used to fertilise
“mushroom mycelium grown through sterilised wheat or rye grain produced in laboratory conditions”.
After 20 days, mushroom tendrils have grown within the material. It is very interesting that, at that point, Tunnel Tech removed the material and transferred it to specialist mushroom farms. I have never had the pleasure of visiting a mushroom farm myself, but I am only young. [Interruption.] I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) has visited a mushroom farm. Perhaps he might extend an invite to me to visit one in his constituency. I am still relatively young; there is plenty of time left to visit mushroom farms in my life.
The court found that the property in that case was liable for business rates because the mushrooms were produced in order to be sold on to complete the cultivation process elsewhere, not direct to consumers, and because of that, the property did not attract an agricultural exemption. In rating terms, it was a “nursery ground” and not a “market garden”. It is very important that the Legislative Grand Committee takes that seriously.
The Valuation Office Agency rating manual defines a nursery ground as
“land in, or on which, young or immature trees and/or young plants are reared (not necessarily being grown in the actual soil of the nursery) until fit for transplanting or sale: the emphasis on young plants should be noted. Even though plants are raised in containers on the land rather than by rootstock in the soil, such ‘grounds’ should be treated as exempt.”
The rating manual defines a market garden as
“a holding cultivated wholly or mainly for the production of vegetables, fruit and flowers for sale in the course of a trade or business.”
The definitions are used for internal guidance purposes by the VOA and do not have the force of law, but they are based in part on case law discussions of the definitions of those terms.
On Second Reading, the Minister—who I know is playing very close attention to my remarks today—said:
“A nursery ground is where small plants or trees are propagated or sown with a view to their being sold on to someone else for growing on to their mature state, for sale to or use by the end consumer, whereas a market garden”—
this is where there is a differentiation—
“is where fruit, vegetables, flowers or plants are produced to be sold directly or indirectly to members of the public for consumption.”—[Official Report, 5 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 259.]
Agricultural land has been exempt from business rates since 1929. I do not want to test the patience of the Committee too much by going back to 1929. The Committee will be relieved to know that I do not plan to do that. However, areas within an agricultural property that are used for farm diversification such as a farm shop or holiday accommodation on what was previously a farm are liable for business rates. The current legislative authority for that can be found in schedule 5 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. I am sure that all members of the Legislative Grand Committee have paid close attention to that. Before that, agricultural land had been subject to a 75% discount on rates from 1923, a 50% discount for poor law rates and a 75% discount for sanitary-related rates from 1896, known as partial derating.
I am really only clearing my throat at the moment, but I am conscious that scores of other right hon. and hon. Members, especially for English constituencies, will wish to contribute to the Legislative Grand Committee of England and Wales.
Patrick Grady
Before my hon. Friend comes to a conclusion, I want to reflect on his earlier point about “nurseries” and “nurseries”. It is a good opportunity to pay tribute to the Children’s Wood in my constituency, an outdoor play facility that hosts a nursery for young children but also has an allotment that in itself is a nursery for vegetables. It shows that the two things can be brought together and serve important educational purposes, and we should pay tribute to that kind of thing.
David Linden
I do not want my hon. Friend to think that I am coming to the end of my remarks too early. I am only a third of the way through. He is right to pay tribute to the organisations in his constituency, and while I have the floor, I pay tribute to Eddie Andrews of Connect Community Trust in the Wellhouse area of my constituency, who does a sterling job of looking after that allotment. There is a long-standing problem that allotments have not been given the focus that they require, especially in Glasgow. We now have an SNP Administration—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Perhaps I can help. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that he needs an Adjournment debate, he should apply for one on allotments, because obviously we will not be discussing that as part of today’s debate.
David Linden
I am grateful for your guidance, Sir Lindsay. That is much appreciated. I am conscious that scores of MPs from English constituencies will wish to take part in this important Legislative Grand Committee. Members fought for it for a long time; it was the English Parliament. I expect to see hundreds of MPs rush into the Chamber to get to their feet and make their voice heard. There is still time for that, but I shall return to my own remarks.
Tunnel Tech sought to argue that its use of the property constituted that of a market garden. The term “market garden” has no statutory definition, but using several examples of case law, it argued that a hereditament is a market garden if any part of a process of horticulture is carried on there with a view to ultimate consumption by the public, even though the produce of the hereditament is not itself, when it leaves the hereditament, an article capable of consumption by the public or indeed intended for consumption by the public. For the purposes of time, I will not read out the full 2015 judgment; the Chairman is indicating that he would prefer me not to read it out. The judgment found that Tunnel Tech’s use of the property meant that it constituted a plant nursery and not a market garden. The produce of a market garden is suitable for direct or indirect sale to consumers, whereas the produce of a plant nursery is not. I found that fascinating when I read the briefing note for this.
This distinction was important because Tunnel Tech’s operations took place entirely within the buildings. The provision for the exemption of agricultural buildings is found in paragraph 3 of schedule 5 to the 1988 Act. It says, and it is important that the Committee understands this:
“A building is an agricultural building if it is not a
dwelling and—
(a) it is occupied together with agricultural land and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations on the land”
or
(b) it is or forms part of a market garden and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations at the market garden.”
The 2015 judgment noted that paragraph (b) does not include plant nurseries in the definition of agricultural buildings. It is important that we make that distinction. Therefore, a plant nursery that is located entirely indoors does not constitute an agricultural building and is not exempt from business rates. I am a frequent visitor to garden centres and there is one in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). We in the SNP Whips Office have been there before to enjoy some tea and cake and I commend the garden centre to anyone visiting central Scotland.
It is worth noting that garden centres, including those calling themselves nurseries—I ran an election campaign from a nursery in 2016 in Barrhead in the constituency of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), but I will not go into that in great depth—are not considered to be agricultural land or agricultural buildings. They are subject to normal business rate liability and will continue to be so if and when the Bill receives Royal Assent.
I can see that some colleagues are getting a bit impatient at the length of my remarks—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) says, “Carry on!” I am tempted but I had better not. I know that countless hon. Members from English constituencies will be wishing to take part in this Legislative Grand Committee of England and Wales, so I shall conclude by thanking you for your forbearance, Sir Lindsay, and wishing this Bill a very speedy passage when it goes to their noble lordships.
Question put and agreed to.
The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decision of the Committee (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decision reported.
Third Reading
Rishi Sunak
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed at the various stages of the Bill in supporting the measures involved and highlighting the contribution that it makes towards furthering the Government’s ambitions to support agricultural and horticultural productivity. I am grateful to the Clerks of the House and for the work done by the officials both in DEFRA and in my own Department.
I thank the National Farmers Union for its strong support for the Bill. We have worked closely with the NFU to make sure that nurseries benefit from the exemption in the Bill. I am grateful for its invaluable insight and expertise, which has helped to bring these effective measures to the House.
This Bill is just a small part of how the Government are using the business rates system to create opportunity and drive growth across the country. It has wide support, restores a long-standing policy position, and will support a vibrant and sustainable rural economy. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Opposition Day
Leaving the EU: Negotiations
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 13 / Noes: 299 - Question accordingly negatived.
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the Government’s negotiations to leave the EU have not progressed to the satisfaction of the people of the UK, with polls indicating that 69 per cent of the people now believe the exit process is going badly; calls on the Government to engage in cross-party discussions with a view to establishing a government of national unity; and further believes that the people of the UK should have the final say on the UK’s relationship with the EU through a people’s vote on the deal.
It is a pleasure to be able to introduce this Liberal Democrat debate on the Government’s handling of the Brexit negotiations, the pleasure being greater because the opportunity is rather infrequent. I am aware that the House has had a pretty unremitting diet of Brexit, Brexit and more Brexit, but we judge that another helping is necessary because of the events that have taken place over the past few days. Yesterday we had an opportunity to question the Prime Minister on the Chequers agreement, but this debate gives Members an opportunity to develop their arguments in rather greater detail.
Of course, all this is being discussed in a Westminster bubble, and we will frequently be reminded that there is such a thing as the popular will. However, the popular will, as manifested in surveys of public opinion, suggests that at present about 70% of the public judge that the Government are handling the Brexit negotiations badly, and that figure has been on an increasing trend for pretty much the past year.
A lot of that disillusionment has to do with the way in which members of the Government have been conducting themselves. Over the past few days, we have had a treasure trove of quotations from senior members of the Government about what they really think about the Government’s negotiating position.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It would be seriously disrespectful and utterly counter productive to have another referendum. Talking about quotations, does the right hon. Gentleman agree with himself?
Sir Vince Cable
I am perfectly happy to respect the referendum that we have had, but it is utterly respectful, and quite common practice in many countries, to have a confirmatory referendum when a Government have produced a deal. That is good constitutional practice and good politics, and Liberal Democrat Members argue for it strongly.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
My right hon. Friend will of course remember that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) proposed exactly the same course of action whereby one could have an initial referendum and another that confirmed it later on. Does he agree with the right hon. Gentleman?
Sir Vince Cable
Yes. I think that most members of the Government, at various points, have subscribed to that perfectly correct constitutional position.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the announcement that there was to be a second referendum would influence the negotiating position of our counter-parties? Would it incline them to be more forthcoming with the negotiations?
Sir Vince Cable
Since we are being pedantic about numbers, we are actually talking about the third referendum on this subject. The impact on the European negotiators would, I am sure, be absolutely negligible. They are fully aware of the chaotic and disorganised position of the Government and defining their negotiating position on that basis.
I turn to what senior members of the Government felt about the policy that is now being put forward. A couple of days ago, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), as I suppose we should now learn to call him, spoke to The Mail on Sunday, which I know from experience to be a very reliable newspaper, describing the Government’s policy as being like “polishing a turd”. He was also reported to have met the former Prime Minister—his fellow old Etonian—to discuss the problem a few days ago: the two gentlemen who have probably done more than anything else to precipitate the chaos we now have. Between them, they agreed that the Government had produced
“the worst of all worlds”.
In the slightly more dignified language of his resignation letter, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip described Brexit as “dying” and Britain being reduced to the status of a “colony”—less than an overwhelming vote of support for the Prime Minister. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) expressed his argument in somewhat more measured terms, saying that we have reached a point where we will be exiting the European Union in name only. If that is indeed what is happening, why on earth is Brexit proceeding, and can we not find a way out of it?
The striking thing about the comments that resigning members of the Government have made is the way in which they are managing to poison their own well. It is extraordinary the extent to which the word “betrayal” is entering the narrative. We risk getting to a point in a few months’ time—if Brexit happens; I think it is an if rather than a when—where the many people who regard Brexit as a disastrous error will be pointing out the many problems that arise from it, while those who have devoted their lives to fighting for Brexit will be arguing that it is a disaster because it is a betrayal. If Brexit day ever happens, it will be a day of mourning, and it is very difficult to see where the positive story is going to come from to help the country to turn over a new leaf.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Talking of betrayal, the previous Member for Sheffield, Hallam campaigned for a “real referendum on Europe” before the 2010 general election. A 2008 leaflet stated:
“It’s been over thirty years since the British people last had a vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union…Whether you agree with Europe or not, it is vital that you and the British people have your say in a real EU referendum.”
We have had that referendum. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that the people have had their say and we have to abide by it.
Sir Vince Cable
My party has never had any problem with the idea of having referendums on the European question. We have always argued that on questions of major constitutional change—for example, entry into the monetary union or signing the Lisbon treaty, which has already happened—it is appropriate to have a referendum. It is common practice in many EU countries to proceed in that way, and we have no objection to it. We argue that there must be a proper process, which involves consulting the public on the general principle—that has happened, and there was a narrow majority one way—and then having a confirmatory referendum at the end to decide whether it is a satisfactory way to proceed.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I understand that the reason many people voted leave in the referendum was that they were fed up with the establishment telling them all the time that it knew better and that their voice and opinion did not matter. Does the right hon. Gentleman not understand that by making this proposition, the Liberal Democrats are just confirming to those people that they were absolutely right—the Lib Dems think they know better than the people—and that the people’s voice no longer matters to them?
Sir Vince Cable
If people do in fact feel that way, they will presumably vote the same way again. We take the risk that we lose. That is the democratic spirit.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Why did the right hon. Gentleman not take the opportunity to vote for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty?
Sir Vince Cable
We did press for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, as it happens. That was not the view of a majority in the House at the time, but we had no problem with the concept.
Let me try to be a bit more positive about what the Government are trying to do. The first remark I want to make is about the conduct of the Prime Minister. I was going around the radio and television studios yesterday following Conservative MPs and commentators, none of whom had a good word to say about her. It is important to put on the record that she has pursued her course of action, however misjudged it may be, with a grim determination that is rather heroic. I have some admiration for the way in which she is going about her job. She may be wrong, but she is pursuing it in a rather steadfast way.
The second point I will make is about the content of the Government’s announcement. It is clearly an advance on where they were before. There is a recognition now that the Irish border question has to be addressed and that there has to be frictionless trade for industrial and agricultural products. That is now understood. The Government appear to have heard the message from the Jaguar Land Rovers of this world, which have complex supply chains, that it is not possible to stay in the UK if there is interruption of trade, so industrial and agricultural products will have to flow freely.
There is also an implicit acknowledgment that the default position of crashing out of the European Union is less and less plausible, and the reason for that is the changing international environment created by our visitor on Friday. The idea that the UK can fall back on World Trade Organisation rules in the default position is made increasingly untenable by the fact that the WTO has progressively less authority. The United States is not willing to abide by its rulings or to staff its judicial panels. As an organisation, it is completely hollow. Were we to fall back on WTO rules, we would effectively be falling back on anarchy. There is at least some recognition in Government of the dangers of that approach.
Those are the positive things. There is one other positive achievement by default, which is that the Government have effectively scuppered any prospect of reaching a bilateral trade agreement with the United States.
Sir Vince Cable
Well, there are Members of the House—I am one, and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) is another—who have experience of dealing with the United States through negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Several things were very clear. First, although the United States is important, it is considerably less important than the European Union in terms of our trade—it is about 18% versus 43% of our exports. There are undoubtedly some benefits to be obtained through a completely free trading arrangement with the United States; for example, there are few high-tariff points. However, by far the largest obstacle is public procurement, which is decided in the United States at state level, not federal level. The potential benefits of opening the US market are actually very limited.
The key point is that the United States made it very clear then and is now making it even clearer that it is only interested in entering into a bilateral trade agreement if it opens the market to American agriculture. That is not compatible with the Government’s commitment to maintain the regulatory rulebook on food safety and agricultural products. It is to the Government’s credit that they have agreed to do that, but it almost certainly makes it impossible to reach a trade agreement. Indeed, Wilbur Ross, the Trump Administration appointee, has made it clear that the United States will not enter into serious negotiations if freer agriculture for foodstuffs through regulation is not permitted.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
On that basis, is not one of the challenges that the severe Brexiteers never mention the fact that the Americans use a great deal of chlorine in the preservation of food, and unless we have a proper regulatory framework, as we do currently, there is a real danger that those kinds of foodstuffs will come into the United Kingdom?
Sir Vince Cable
Yes. There is a whole series of well-known instances relating to beef hormones, genetically modified foods and chlorinated chickens. I do not know how well based the arguments are scientifically, but clearly that will demand a repudiation of those European standards. The Government’s stance—again, this is a positive—makes it clear that concessions cannot now be given on those items and that it will be impossible to reach a trade agreement with the Trump Administration in practice, if not in theory.
The negatives are even clearer than the positives. One of them is the sheer workability of the arrangements. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has said quite categorically that the arrangements he has been involved in designing for months are simply unworkable, and it is very clear why that is the case. If we have a differential tariff system, it is very cumbersome to enforce. There is an obvious temptation to smuggle. A company producing within the European Union but not in the UK will import through the UK at a lower tariff, and it would be necessary to have a sophisticated tracking system to identify where the product has gone. In complex supply chains with hundreds of widgets flying backwards and forwards, it is impossible to see how that could be done in practice. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden was well aware of that, and the European Commission is well aware of it, which is why it almost certainly will not pass to the next stage.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I sit on the Public Accounts Committee, and last February we went to Washington, where we had private briefings with State Department representatives about the trade deal. They were very clear that we must be absolutely clear about, for example, country of origin rules and that they do not want a part of a small trade deal—they will not “do skinny”, in their words. If that was their case last February, what does my right hon. Friend think they are making of the chaos of this Government now?
Sir Vince Cable
The European Union over many years has developed a sophisticated rules of origin system in order to develop an answer to precisely the problems presented by the complex nature of modern trade. They are quite right to say that in an environment of uncertainty, there is very little merit in pursuing an agreement.
The other major disadvantage of what the Government are proposing is, as several Members pointed out yesterday, the complete neglect of the services sector. It is not just 80% of the British economy, but includes extremely important industries—notably financial services, but also creative industries, the digital sector and entertainment, and of course much manufacturing happens through services exports. Rolls-Royce earns as much from its maintenance contracts as it does from selling its engines. When we send cars to the European Union, we sell them with a package attached to financial services. It is not at all clear how the Government propose to unscramble those very complicated relationships.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend remember that when I was junior Minister to him as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, we spent a long time arguing for more liberalisation of services, because it was in the UK’s interest to widen and deepen the services market in the EU? Is it not therefore ironic that a Conservative Government want to turn their back on service liberalisation and put up barriers? We could not get a more anti-business approach from the Conservative party.
Sir Vince Cable
It is a lot more than ironic, because this goes back a long way. There has been consensus among successive Governments, starting with Mrs Thatcher and Lord Cockburn through the Blair Government and the coalition Government, on accepting that services exports to the European Union were a major objective of British Government policy. I recall being sent to Berlin and elsewhere to denounce the Germans for their failure to open up their market for services trade and the mutual recognition of qualifications. For example, European countries currently decline to accept British ski instructors, as they do not have mutual recognition of qualifications. A great deal has, however, been achieved, and the Government are now inclined to turn their back on it.
The reasons the Prime Minister advanced for doing so yesterday are partly simply foolish and partly bogus. The folly lies in saying that any services transaction that involves people crossing the border, however valuable, is adding to our net immigration target and is therefore unacceptable, regardless of the economic merit. The bogus argument is to say that this is a problem within the European Union, but it is not going to be a problem if we have trade deals with other countries, because we will be able to proceed with services agreements with them.
However, we already know from the two failed attempts so far to negotiate an outline agreement with India that services trade, wherever it is—within the European Union or outside it—involves the free movement of people, and the Indians are insisting that if we are to have a bilateral trade agreement with them, part of the package will be importing Indian services in the form of IT consultants and much else. If we look around the other big emerging markets—Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria—we can see that what they have to export is people. This is going to be an enormous obstacle to the Government reaching any kind of agreement with any country outside the European Union.
Sir Edward Davey
My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way yet again. Does he remember that when he and I served on a Cabinet Committee looking at trade, we pushed just the arguments that he is now making, and the one person getting in the way of those arguments was the then Home Secretary—now the Prime Minister—who stopped a major trade deal that would be in this country’s interests?
Sir Vince Cable
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We could of course have had a trade deal with India already under the auspices of the European Union, as we do with South Korea, Canada and various other countries. The country that blocked the deal was the UK, because increased services trade would involve increasing numbers of people crossing over to the UK.
I was struck by the comment by one of the more strongly pro-Brexit Conservative MPs—the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—when he was being critical of the Government yesterday. If I am correct, he said that he had no objection to cherry-picking, but that the Government are picking “the wrong cherry”. Actually, services are fundamental to our trade, and the Government have put us in a very difficult position.
The question now is: what should be done? The first step is for those on both sides of the House who believe that we should maximise the closeness of the economic relationship through the customs union and the single market—there are people of a similar persuasion in all parties—to try to achieve that. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden says we have a customs union already, which is exaggerating, but we can certainly converge on having a common approach. Of course, the nearer we get, the more the question arises of why on earth Brexit is happening at all. That leads us back to the question we started with about the need for the public to have a say on the final deal.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The right hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case. I imagine that, like me, he gets a steady trickle of emails from Brexit supporters, all of whom say that the 17.4 million people who voted leave in June 2016 knew exactly what they were voting for, because the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) had spelled it out for them. Yet the former Foreign Secretary now only uses four-letter words to describe the proposed deal with the EU, and is so appalled by it that he has resigned from high office to spend more time with his photographer. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that no one knows how many of the 17.4 million now support the Prime Minister’s approach, and the only way to find out is precisely to have a people’s vote?
Sir Vince Cable
That is exactly right, and the current numbers suggest that a substantial majority believe that there should be a vote on the final deal.
If the Government were totally rational, they would see the arguments for doing so from their own point of view. The Prime Minister could say, “I’ve done the best I can to achieve a deal. It’s obviously difficult with the Conservative party in disarray, but I’ve done the best I can. I have negotiated hard with the European Union”—we would all believe that, because she is obviously conscientious—“and this is what I’ve got. Do you, the public, who voted for this originally, want to accept it, or would you rather stay where are and be in the European economic union?” That would be a perfectly honourable and sensible way for her to proceed politically, and it is constitutionally sensible. It reflects the fact that conditions have changed enormously since the original vote. I strongly recommend that approach to the House, and I look forward to hearing contributions from Members on both sides of the House in this debate on the Chequers statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The way in which we exit the EU has already been subject to a great deal of debate in this place and of course outside it, but the Government’s resolve is absolutely clear. We are respecting the result of the referendum, and we are delivering Brexit. There will be no second referendum. As the Prime Minister said yesterday:
“This House and this Parliament gave the British people the vote. The British people made their choice and they want their Government to deliver on that choice.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 721.]
I fear that today’s motion reflects an ongoing pattern of trying to talk down the achievements that have been made, despite evidence to the contrary. We were told that we would not reach a deal on sufficient progress last December—we did. We were told that we would not reach a deal on an implementation period in March—we did. I remind the House that the negotiations so far have settled virtually all of the withdrawal agreement, and the implementation period we have agreed will provide businesses and citizens with time to prepare for our future relationship with the EU.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Government promised the fishermen in my constituency that we would be out of the common fisheries policy completely at the end of next March. As a consequence of changing their mind on that, there will be a period of 21 months during which we will be subject to the common fisheries policy without having anyone at the table. Is that one of the achievements of which the Minister is so inordinately proud?
Chloe Smith
I respect the right hon. Gentleman enormously and to some extent I regard him as a friend, but I also recall that from time to time he indulges in pantomime in his constituency, and that may be the case today if he is arguing that we ought to be out of a policy that he in fact believes we should be in. I do not think that his is the consistent position.
Domestically, we have passed legislation preparing us for Brexit, such as the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 and, most recently, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill has also completed its passage through Parliament.
I am sure we will hear speeches claiming that a second referendum is the democratic thing to do, but that is not the case. The issue has been thoroughly democratically tested. Let me run through the ways. In the run-up to the 2015 general election, the Conservative party’s manifesto stated:
“We will...give you a say over whether we should stay in or leave the EU, with an in-out referendum”.
It quite clearly did not say there would be one referendum at the start of negotiations and another at the end. That manifesto commitment was given statutory footing through the European Union Referendum Act 2015, which specified there would be one referendum, not two. To recap so far, there was an election-winning manifesto and an Act was passed through this House, but perhaps that is not democratic enough for the Lib Dems.
As this House well knows, the referendum held on 23 June 2016 saw a majority of people voting to leave the EU. That was the biggest single democratic act in British history. Following that, the House of Commons voted, with a clear majority, to authorise the Prime Minister to trigger article 50, by passing the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. As hon. Members know very well, amendments were tabled requesting a referendum to ratify the deal negotiated with the EU. One such amendment, in the name of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), was defeated by a margin in excess of 10:1. That was democracy in action once again.
There is more in the democratic treasure trove. In last year’s general election, more than 80% of voters supported the Conservative and Labour parties. Both parties’ manifestos committed to respecting the result of the referendum. Let us not forget how many voters supported the position of the Liberal Democrats, whose manifesto called for that second referendum: 7.4% of them.
Most recently, of course, there has been the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, where amendments attempting to secure a second referendum surfaced once again. One, in the name of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), was defeated by a margin in excess of 13:1, yet he still has an appetite for this old democracy idea.
Caroline Lucas
What the Minister does not appear to appreciate is that the referendum was a vote about departure, not destination—it could not be about destination because the leaders of the Brexit campaign never set out what the destination would look like. It is as if people who had been offered a wonderful mansion had ended up with a hovel with faulty wiring and a leaking roof. Does she not agree that they have the right to another say—the first say, in fact, on the actual detail? There has been no detail in anything that the Government have put forward so far.
Chloe Smith
I will tell you what I think the British people have the right to, Mr Deputy Speaker: trust in their politicians. As the Prime Minister said herself, this is about more than the decision to leave the EU; it is about whether the public can trust their politicians to put in place the decision that they took.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The Minister mentioned trust, and that is very important. The simple fact is that all we have heard from the Liberal Democrats and the Green in the Chamber today is that they do not trust the people. Regardless of what they say, if we had a second referendum and they got the wrong result again, they would want a third, fourth or a fifth referendum—they would keep going until they got the result they wanted because they do not believe in democracy.
Chloe Smith
I respect my hon. Friend’s intervention. I fear that such an approach would not be one of principle, and he is right to highlight it. Rather than undermine the British people’s democratic decision to leave the EU, let us get on and make a success of it.
Graham Stringer
On this point at least, the Minister is making a great deal of sense. Does she agree that the Lib Dems are more interested in being good supporters of the EU than in being democrats? They are following the long tradition of the European Union, exemplified by referendums in Ireland. When the Irish people vote against various constitutional amendments, they keep having to vote until they get the right answer—the one that the EU wants. That is the policy that the Lib Dems are supporting now—“Keep voting until you agree with us.”
Chloe Smith
I agree. Such an approach would be deeply unprincipled. What Government Members and all those who believe in the referendum decision want is the right deal for Britain. That is what we seek to achieve and what the Prime Minister set out yesterday.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I want to understand something. The Minister says that the Government are going to deliver the will of the people on Brexit, yet the two leading proponents of Brexit have walked from the Cabinet because they do not support the Government’s position. How can the Minister argue that the Government are delivering what the people voted for in the referendum?
Chloe Smith
The Government is comprised of people in the Cabinet, and the Cabinet is delivering what the Prime Minister set out yesterday.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Not only did we have a referendum, but we had a general election in which more than 85% of the public voted for Brexit-supporting parties. Around 5% voted for the Liberal Democrats. What right do they have to tell us what the people are thinking? The people are certainly not agreeing with the Lib Dems.
Chloe Smith
What we should do is trust the people themselves. Is that not the fundamental point? Their decision in 2016 was not made quickly after just a few weeks; it was made in the context of years of debate on the subject. The idea that they were able to take that decision was what governed the ability to have a referendum. To suggest that some people were wrong or misinformed, or made a choice that has to be reversed, does people down, does trust in politics down, does our country down and does our democracy down terribly.
The referendum question was agreed by Parliament and presented to the people with no conditions or caveats, but with a promise from the Government that we would implement what they chose. We should be coming together and getting on with it.
Sir Edward Davey
I am grateful to the Minister for being generous in giving way. What is her estimate of when the Brexit deal will be done? What will be the date?
Chloe Smith
In case anybody in this place is still somehow, miraculously, unclear on the matter, we will be leaving European Union in March 2019—and so will the Liberal Democrats, whether they like it or not.
I turn to a few more points about Parliament. To try to undermine the result of the referendum by saying that it was somehow wrong does down Parliament, because it was Parliament that gave the decision to the people. We have always been committed to keeping Parliament fully involved in the process of leaving the EU and in determining the shape of the future relationship that we want to achieve. We have said consistently, and demonstrated through the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which has just gained Royal Assent, that Parliament will have a vote on the final deal reached with the EU before it is concluded. That is now legally established. Members will have the choice to accept or reject the final agreement. That, and not a second referendum, should be the decisive vote. Let us give Parliament its rightful role.
I turn to the motion, which deserves a little attention. As the Liberal Democrat leader noted in his opening remarks, Liberal Democrat motions do not come along too often, although they are always a pleasure when they do. I am a little perplexed about why the motion calls for a second referendum in light of the record of the Liberal Democrats. We have probably all seen the classic Liberal Democrat leaflets that say one thing to one street and something else to another, but people cannot do that in Parliament. All seven of the Lib Dem MPs then in the House of Commons voted to give the European Union Referendum Bill, which specified one referendum, not two, its Second Reading. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), the Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman, was among their number. Why does he think today that he should change position and say something else in this motion? Maybe that is explained by the behaviour of the Liberal Democrats when article 50 was triggered; let us follow slightly more recent history. I seem to recall that, at the time of that vote, the Liberal Democrats were, frankly, all over the shop—there is no other way to put it.
Let me in passing, however, pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has just left his place. His constituency is near mine and he is a good man. He was the one Liberal Democrat Member who recognised publicly that his party’s position on Brexit was toxic. He feared that the party was not listening to people and was treating them with disdain. I pay tribute to him for his insight and courage in saying so.
Steve Double
Does the Minister share my view that we should not talk only about Liberal Democrat Members of this House? Liberal Democrat councillors, particularly in places that voted heavily for leave, such as Cornwall, are distancing themselves from their party leadership’s position on a second referendum because they believe that it is so toxic.
Chloe Smith
My hon. Friend speaks with experience from Cornwall, in the west country, for which I am delighted to say there is now Conservative representation in Parliament. I hope that he and his colleagues will continue to serve the people of that part of our beautiful country for many years to come.
Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but it does stink a bit of pot and kettle for her to claim that every party but hers is all over the place on this issue. If we are honest, there are divisions in all parties, just as there are in the country. Frankly, I do not agree with her argument that democracy is static. It is a dynamic thing, and there is no reason why people should not change their views as facts change.
May I ask the Minister about one particular fact? I am surprised that no one has taken her up on it. Can she please tell us what the resolution is to the Irish border issue? She wrongly stated that it had been resolved at the December Council. It was not. What is the solution to avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland? The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who is sitting next to her, shakes his head. Maybe he can get up and tell us what the resolution is to this issue.
Chloe Smith
My hon. Friend and I were shaking our heads because I did not say what the hon. Gentleman says I did. The Prime Minister’s statement yesterday made it very clear that the deal she proposes to put forward to the EU does address the Irish border question. That is where he will find the answer to his question. Today’s debate, however, is about having a second referendum, and that is what I am responding to.
Chloe Smith
Before I give way to anyone else, I just want to take the opportunity, given that it has been rather handed to me on a plate, to remind the House that it is the Labour party that is all over the shop on the result of the EU referendum. Labour party politicians and supporters have suggested more than 60 times, I think, that the party is going to support a divisive second referendum. Whether that is or is not its party policy at this precise moment in time is anybody’s guess.
Let me move on to the final point I wanted to make about the Liberal Democrats before drawing my remarks to a close. I want to reflect on what I think is the right thing to say at this moment. It is this:
“The public have voted and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say ‘Sorry guys, you’ve got it wrong, we’re going to try again’.”
Chloe Smith
I entirely agree with that, and I wonder if the hon. Lady might do too, because we all know who said it: the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable). It is a great shame that he cannot stick to those words. Could the hon. Lady explain why?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I just remind Members that we cannot have both people standing at the same time. Please give way to each other. Minister, are you giving way to Christine Jardine again?
Christine Jardine
I wonder whether the hon. Lady can explain to me why, if it is so important to stick to one’s principles, the Scottish Conservatives, all of whom represent constituencies that voted remain, have now flipped and are voting for Brexit and paying no attention whatever to what the people of Scotland are asking for.
Chloe Smith
It would be preferable if those of us who are Unionists, and who feel very strongly that our United Kingdom has made a decision together and should be able to look forward to a good result of that decision together, could unite around that argument. It is really important that we secure a deal that works for the entire United Kingdom. I am very pleased that the motion refers to the “people of the UK”. The hon. Lady and her colleagues are right to put that phrase in the motion, because we are committed to securing a deal that works for the people of the UK.
Sir Edward Davey
On the subject of the deal, one thing that confused us in the Prime Minister’s comments on the Chequers statement was this: if the EU puts forward a new rule and Parliament gets a chance to vote on it—the Prime Minister is very proud of that—what happens if this House votes against it? That has not been made clear. Will the Minister make that clear now?
Chloe Smith
The Prime Minister took two hours of questions on the detail yesterday, and I really think there is very little I can add to the understanding of that. I am deeply sorry if the right hon. Gentleman does not yet understand the position, but the Prime Minister did go through it in detail.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
If I interpret correctly what the Minister has just said, I rather fancy that she is making a false correlation between those of us who are perceived as Unionists and support for Brexit. I very luckily won my seat just over a year ago as a self-proclaimed remainer—there was a swing to the Liberal Democrats. I suggest to the Minister, with all due respect, that that was more about a repudiation of any notion of a second independence referendum in Scotland and perhaps a comment on the Scottish Government.
Chloe Smith
I am very happy to hear that argument from the hon. Gentleman. He is correct. I was making a parallel point rather than a correlative point about the need to seek a deal that works for the entire United Kingdom. What I would say is that those who respect the result of one referendum also need to respect the result of another. If the hon. Gentleman thinks highly of the independence referendum result, he might think again about the EU referendum result. If we respect one, it is important to respect the other for the same basic reason, which is that we are all democrats.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
I do not know if other Members feel like this, but I feel like we have disappeared down the rabbit hole in “Alice in Wonderland” with the Liberal Democrats’ motion. They are calling for a second referendum, but the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) described those who voted leave in the first referendum as old people driven by nostalgia for a world of white faces. If he has so little regard for the majority of people who voted in referendum one, why on earth would we listen to him about having a second?
Chloe Smith
Those words were hugely to be regretted. They were a great shame. Perhaps we will be able to draw that point out a little more from Liberal Democrat Members in today’s debate.
Returning to the motion, it is a shame that its language is overblown to say the least. Apparently what we need at the moment is a Government of national unity. The last time we had one of those, if my memory serves me rightly, we were at war. We are, instead, in a constructive negotiation with the European Union. We are not at war with it, nor should we try to be.
Bob Stewart
As someone who commanded a checkpoint on the Northern Ireland border for two years during the hard border times, I point out that it is perfectly easy to have a border that does not require checkpoints. The Swiss border operates using pre-registration and technology, when one goes into Germany or France. Having done it, I can tell the House that that is perfectly possible using today’s technology and pre-registration. It can work.
Chloe Smith
I thank my hon. Friend for speaking from his experience. I will draw my remarks to a close, because many other Members wish to contribute to the debate—at least nine Liberal Democrats and perhaps one or two others.
The Government’s position is clear: we are determined to deliver on the decision of the British people. We are making progress on doing so, and there will not be a second referendum. Surely our focus should all be on making a success of Brexit and getting the best deal possible. It is the Government’s duty to do that. It is the Government’s duty to deliver the will of the people, as asked for in the referendum, and find the right deal for Britain.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Even by recent standards, this is a moment of extraordinary political chaos. Within the last 36 hours, the Prime Minister has lost her Brexit Secretary, her Foreign Secretary—although she probably welcomed that as much as the rest of the country did—and she has lost the support of her party. The Chequers proposals are clearly dead in the water, even before the White Paper is published and the EU has had a chance to respond. However, amid the turmoil and turbulence, it is comforting to see that there are still some certainties in politics.
Jenny Chapman
Give me a minute—let me at least get started, and then I promise I will give way. Today, before the House we have a Lib Dem motion calling for a coalition with a discredited Tory Government and a referendum on the EU. This is from a party that propped up the Cameron Government for five years.
Steve Double
Will the shadow Minister remind the House how many shadow Front Benchers the Leader of the Opposition has lost since he has been in post?
Jenny Chapman
We have had our moments, I do not deny it, but we sit here as a shadow Brexit team that is still entirely intact from the date of formation. I look over to the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who now casts a lonely figure on the Government Front Bench, as the sole survivor on his own team.
The Lib Dems have been calling for a referendum on membership of the EU since 2009—I could find it as far back as that, but it may well go further back than that. The Lib Dems, with their usual political foresight, argued back then that only a real referendum could settle the question of our relationship with the EU once and for all. A decade later, they still think that another referendum is the answer. I am certain that, in 2028, Lib Dem MPs will still be debating whether they should call for another referendum. This motion is a kind of greatest hits of Lib Dem policies over the last decade. I can only assume that an earlier draft had a promise not to raise tuition fees, but that must have been ruled out of scope.
There is no parliamentary majority for the Prime Minister’s cumbersome and costly facilitated custom arrangement and it would be a nightmare for business. It would mean the UK acting as the EU’s customs official and it relies on technology that does not currently exist to make it work. For perhaps the first time in history, I agreed with the now former Foreign Secretary when he described it in his resignation letter as an
“impractical and undeliverable customs arrangement unlike any other in existence”,
and these are the lengths that the Government have gone to in order to reject a comprehensive customs union.
Tom Brake
First, on the subject of foresight, I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that the Liberal Democrats had the foresight to oppose the Iraq war unanimously. As for propping up Governments, I think she needs to look carefully at what her Front Benchers are doing in relation to Brexit. Many people around the country think that she and her colleagues are propping up the Government. On the question of a national Government—a Government of unity—what we are calling for is the parties that want an exit from Brexit and a final say on the deal to get together and deliver it.
Jenny Chapman
Our Front Benchers’ position is clear: we do not want an exit from Brexit. We respect the outcome of the referendum. I know that the Liberal Democrats do not approve of that position, but that is what it is.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend and her whole team have done a sterling job for the Labour Front Bench. While she is clarifying Labour party policy, could she also clarify from the Dispatch Box that it is not Labour policy to support a second referendum?
Sir Desmond Swayne
The hon. Lady spoke of the enormous technical difficulties and the absurdity of us operating as the European Union’s customs official. That is what we do at the moment. We charge tariffs on goods coming from the rest of the world and not from the EU. What is the difference in principle or in technology?
Jenny Chapman
There is a very great difference between what is proposed in the Chequers deal and a comprehensive customs union. We will probably be debating this at great length when the White Paper comes out. I am interested to note the right hon. Gentleman’s support for the Chequers deal—let us see how long that lasts.
The problems with the Chequers proposals go a bit deeper. There are huge holes in wider parts of the proposals, particularly on services, where there is an extraordinary lack of detail, even though services account for 80% of our economy. It is also difficult to see how the proposals would prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland. As we have said time and again, the best way to do that is through a comprehensive customs union and shared institutions and regulations, but the Chequers plan is well short of that. There is also nothing in the proposals to prevent workplace rights, consumer rights and environmental protections lagging behind EU standards over time. Of course, the White Paper—if it gets published—may include more detail, but this is clearly not the credible plan that we need to protect jobs, the economy and rights.
This matters, because we all want a Brexit deal that works for Britain and ends the uncertainty that we have seen for two years. Businesses in the north-east and across the country are crying out for that. Whether people voted leave or remain, they are being let down by the chaotic way in which the Government are handling this process, but the two proposals in the motion to address this are not ones that we can support.
The first proposal is for
“cross-party discussions with a view to establishing a government of national unity”.
Of course, the Labour party is always open to working across the House to find consensus and to shape the Brexit process to protect jobs and the economy. That is precisely how we approached the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and the many amendments that we worked so hard on in both Houses. It is also how we are approaching the key votes on the customs and trade Bills next week.
Again, we have reached out to find common ground, particularly on the case for a new customs union and to keep us close to the single market. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) set out in The Guardian today, this is
“an impasse that cannot be resolved by further internal negotiation in the Conservative party…It is now time for the majority in parliament to be heard.”
We believe that this majority would support a close economic relationship with the EU, including a new customs union and the kind of strong single market deal that Labour is putting forward. We will put that to the House in amendments next week and as the process continues, but this motion calls instead for a “government of national unity”—in other words, a coalition. I know that that is the Lib Dems’ answer to any moment of political crisis, but we do not agree.
The proposal in the motion poses more questions than it answers. What would the negotiating mandate of that Government of national unity be? I assume that the Lib Dems would expect to serve in it and would reluctantly take up a ministerial salary and car, but on what basis would that Government operate, and with what mandate? What would the wider policies of that Government be to address the huge challenges that we have in our schools, our NHS and our communities?
Jenny Chapman
No. Or would this just be a Brexit Government? Brexit is the most pressing issue facing this country, but it is not the only one, and the public would not thank us for ignoring the many wider issues we need to urgently tackle. I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he would still like to intervene.
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I wish that she were able to adjust her speech as she was going along, because in an earlier intervention on her, I made it very clear what the purpose of that national unity Government would be. It would be very limited: simply to provide an exit from Brexit and a final say on the deal. That would be its remit—end of story.
Jenny Chapman
I think “end of story” pretty much sums it up actually.
Instead of another Lib Dem coalition, the Prime Minister should first allow votes in this House on her customs proposals, and ours, to see which one has the support of the House. Similarly, she should put her White Paper to a vote and see whether there is a majority for that, and if not, she must accept that her approach has failed. She needs to change the red lines, particularly on a customs union and a close single market deal, or better still, make way for a Government who can deliver the Brexit deal that we need. The sooner she does that and ends the chaos of the last day and a half, the better.
The second proposal in the motion concerns “a people’s vote” on the withdrawal deal. To be absolutely clear and to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), the Labour party is not calling for a second referendum, and we never have. Our manifesto was perfectly clear on this:
“Labour accepts the referendum result…We will prioritise jobs and living standards, build a close new relationship with the EU, protect workers’ rights and environmental standards, provide certainty to EU nationals and give a meaningful role to Parliament throughout negotiations.”
We have also said that, should the Prime Minister fail to get a withdrawal agreement through the Commons, or fail to get a deal at all, it would be a moment of real crisis. At that stage, all options should remain on the table, and Parliament should be able to say what happens next. That could take many courses, but it should be Parliament that decides.
Caroline Lucas
The hon. Lady says that the Labour party will support a Brexit that delivers jobs, and all those positive things, but she knows as well as we do that every single economic analysis demonstrates that we are going to be massively worse off as a country if we are not part of the single market and the customs union. Does she not think that those people—for the many, not the few—would actually do an awful lot better if Labour got off the fence and, at the very least, supported a less damaging Brexit than the one it is supporting right now?
Jenny Chapman
The hon. Lady does not respect the outcome of the referendum. I understand that. There is an honesty and a consistency to her approach, but that approach does not happen to be shared by the Labour party. We do accept the outcome of the referendum. Over the last year we have consistently fought to ensure that Parliament has a proper role in the process. Of course, we would have liked the outcome on that in the withdrawal Bill to be different. But by focusing on that and working with Members on all sides of this House and in the other place, we made real progress toward a meaningful vote, and we will look to return to it in other legislation.
We are not supporting calls for a second referendum or a people’s vote. Why is that? I know that some people are frustrated by our approach, but the reason is that we respect the outcome of the referendum. We have been entirely consistent about that. When we asked people to vote in the 2016 referendum, we said that their vote counted, and we meant it. The impact of now telling voters that we did not mean it, or that we did not like the answer that they gave, would be profound. Members do not need to take my word for it; they can take the words of the leader of the Lib Dems, who—freed from the trappings of coalition—said in 2016:
“The public have voted and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say ‘Sorry guys, you’ve got it wrong, we’re going to try again’.”
Spot on. It is a shame that that kind of insight does not survive becoming a Lib Dem MP.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
There is no such thing as a jobs-first Brexit. If the hon. Lady has seen any economic analysis that tells her otherwise, will she let us know about it?
Jenny Chapman
There are parties in this House—we are hearing a lot from them this afternoon—that do not accept the outcome of the referendum. The Labour party is not one of them. We accept the outcome of the referendum and all the challenges that it poses.
Sir Vince Cable
Does the hon. Lady not accept that there is a difference between accepting the referendum when it happened, and looking at the circumstances now, two years on, when the situation is utterly changed—not least because of the revelations, which were not available at the time, about large-scale cheating and criminal activity?
Jenny Chapman
If I believed for one minute that another referendum would be a well-informed discussion among the people of this country about customs, trade, tariffs and the economy, I might take a different view. Unfortunately, that is not what I expect to happen. Labour is not calling for a second referendum because we believe that doing so at this stage would make it harder to get the right deal for Brexit.
Peter Heaton-Jones
The hon. Lady is being generous with her time. Much as I am loth to take the focus away from the Liberal Democrats, there is still some confusion about the Labour position. Only five days ago, the shadow Brexit Secretary said:
“We’re not calling for it. We respect the result of the first referendum. But we’re not ruling out a second referendum.”
Jenny Chapman
I said that, too. I do not know the hon. Gentleman well, but I take him to be a man of high intellect and cleverness. I do not think it is too difficult a concept to grasp that we are not calling for something, but we do not feel that we can, from a position of opposition, rule things out and impose red lines in the way the Government have done. This whole process has been bedevilled by unnecessary red lines, which have later had to be rubbed out and faded to pale pink. We are not calling for a second referendum; I really cannot be any clearer about it.
Another reason for that is that we want to focus on the terms of the Brexit deal. Labour has engaged fully with the negotiations and the Brexit process. We have set out what a post-Brexit approach could be, and we have sought to shape it. Calling for a second referendum would make that much more difficult, and it would mean we had nothing to say about the negotiations or what our future outside the EU should look like. Again, who was it who warned in 2016 that backing a second referendum risked marginalising the UK in negotiations? None other than Vince from Twickenham, who said that he thought the Lib Dems should show
“more emphasis on what it is we want from these negotiations rather than arguing about the tactics”.
Again—spot on. There are also practical problems with how a second referendum would work. When would it be held, what would the question be and what would happen if there were another narrow result in either direction?
Finally, we also need to consider the impact a second referendum would have on an already divided country. The first referendum was incredibly divisive. It pitted family against family, and community against community. I know that many of my colleagues and many people in my constituency have no desire to repeat that. They fear that doing so would further inflame and divide our communities. That is not a trivial concern, and I urge Members to reflect carefully on it. For all those reasons, we will not be supporting the motion today.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Can I suggest that we do up to 10 minutes, to try to give everybody equal time?
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Like each and every one of the Liberal Democrats, I did not get the referendum result that I wanted in 2016. I campaigned and voted for the United Kingdom to remain part of the European Union. In the early hours of 24 June, I looked on in a state of disbelief as the results came in, and it took weeks, if not months, for the implications of the vote properly to sink in. In Scotland, the uncertainty and disbelief were compounded by the new calls from the SNP and the nationalists for a second referendum to break up the United Kingdom.
Neither my personal view ahead of the referendum nor my personal reaction to the vote really matters. What matters is that the voters made their decision, and our job as parliamentarians is to ensure that we respect that decision and implement it in the best way possible. I find it impossible to ignore the blatant hypocrisy and incoherence of the Liberal Democrats’ position on this matter—hypocrisy, because they want to re-run a once-in-a-generation vote across the United Kingdom, but claim to oppose a rerun of another once-in-a-generation vote north of the border in Scotland. Their party leader, Willie Rennie MSP, says,
“With the Scottish economy teetering on the edge of a recession…the last thing our country needs is another divisive and distracting independence debate.”
I agree with Willie Rennie.
Layla Moran
Will the hon. Gentleman explain how the first referendum held after all the facts have been presented to us would count as a rerun, given that there would be new facts? In my constituency, for example, BMW has now come out and said that businesses would be harmed, and that would mean that my constituents would lose their jobs. Why should they not have the right to change their minds?
John Lamont
The voters made their decision for a variety of reasons, as voters always do in every election. The fact that some people do not like the conclusion that they reached does not mean that we can simply reject that decision and say that we need to rerun the vote. My experience in my own constituency is that people who voted to leave in 2016 are just as committed to voting to leave again if the question were put again. Indeed, many voters in Scotland, such is their fear of a second referendum to break up the United Kingdom and their feeling that their remain vote has been used by the nationalists as a mandate for a second referendum on independence, may well vote to leave the European Union to try to shut down Nicola Sturgeon and those nationalist pursuits.
Referendums are divisive and distracting, and a rerun of the vote would simply pile on the economic uncertainty. Businesses in Scotland, already faced with the possibility of another vote to drag Scotland out of our biggest market, that of the United Kingdom, would then also be unsure about whether we would actually be leaving the European Union.
Why is the threat to Scottish business of a second independence referendum so great? Growth in Scotland is not expected to rise by more than 1% before 2023. In 2017, Scotland’s GDP grew at half the rate of GDP in the United Kingdom. Why is that? Why is Scotland lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom? Brexit creates uncertainty, but another independence referendum would simply add to that. If the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party get their way, Scottish business will see untold levels of uncertainty: uncertainty about another referendum on whether we remain part of the European Union, and uncertainty about another referendum on whether Scotland remains a key part of the United Kingdom. Why can the Scottish Liberal Democrats—led by Willie Rennie MSP—see how damaging and divisive a rerun of a referendum is, while their colleagues in this place cannot?
Christine Jardine
At the time of the independence referendum, the Scottish National party produced a full White Paper which laid out in great detail what the final deal would be. There was some debate about whether, if it had not done that, there might have had to be a second referendum in the event of a yes vote in Scotland. There is no inconsistency. The Scottish National party put forward a final deal, which was rejected. The Conservatives have yet to discover what the final deal might be, and agree among themselves. The people have no idea what it is they are facing.
John Lamont
I have greater faith in the people of this country to make an informed decision—and, as I said earlier, they are entitled to vote in any way and for whatever reason they choose. Our job as parliamentarians is to accept their ultimate decision.
John Lamont
I want to make just a little bit more progress.
I think that trying to unpick the result and the decision-making process of our electorate is a very dangerous thing to do.
Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, whether we are talking about the European Union referendum or the independence referendum, we are not in the business of playing “best of three”?
John Lamont
My hon. Friend has made an important point. Best of three, best of five, best of seven—how often do we need to keep rerunning votes until Opposition Members get the result that they want, and are happy to accept the democratic wishes of the people of this great country?
The Liberal Democrats’ position is also hypocritical, because they claim to be democrats and claim to be standing up for a people’s choice in one breath, and in the next breath they want to ignore the people’s vote the first time around. The reality is that the electorate made their choice knowing there would be no second referendum. The Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, repeatedly made that clear. Every voter received a leaflet from the Government stating that the vote was
“a once in a generation decision”,
and told voters that the UK Government
“will implement what you decide.”
The Liberal Democrats’ position is also incoherent, because they think that the electorate made the wrong decision the first time around, but believe that a second referendum would produce a different result. What would a second Liberal Democrat referendum actually achieve? A greater leave vote and the possibility of a harder Brexit; a remain vote followed by justified calls from Brexiteers for another referendum to decide the matter once and for all; or roughly the same result, and an even more frustrated electorate.
Tom Brake
May I return the hon. Gentleman briefly to the issue of business uncertainty, about which he is concerned and which he says that a second referendum, or a final say on the deal, would cause? Does he not accept that one thing that is certain from a business perspective is that, according to the Government’s own impact assessments, whichever model we end up with when we leave the European Union, all the businesses about which he professes to worry will be worse off?
John Lamont
I accept that any change will create uncertainty, but I see the positive future beyond that initial period of uncertainty, and I see the opportunities that our country will face once we leave the European Union. When Opposition Members try to add to that uncertainty by proposing yet another referendum, another campaign, another period of not knowing what the outcome will be, that does nothing to help business and our economic prosperity.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend not amazed that the stock market is doing so well, and that we have the lowest unemployment we have had for many years? Is that not a reflection of how well the economy is doing—costing in the fact that we are leaving the EU?
John Lamont
That is a good point. One of the great strengths of our businesses is their ability to adapt and respond to challenges. During our recent half-term break, I spent a week visiting businesses in my constituency. When I asked them what was the biggest challenge they faced—whether they were small businesses employing a handful of people, or big businesses employing 800 or so—not one of them said “Brexit”. I asked them, “Why on earth did you not say ‘Brexit’, given that all we read in the press is about Brexit and the difficulties you will face?” They said, “We are resilient. We adapt to whatever the challenge may be. The reason for our present strength and success is our ability to adapt to those challenges.”
John Lamont
I want to make a bit more progress, if I may. I will take more interventions later.
One thing is certain: another referendum—a Liberal Democrat referendum—on our membership of the EU would simply play into the hands of Nicola Sturgeon and the separatists who wish to destroy the United Kingdom by ripping Scotland out of the heart of it. I am no fan of referendums, and neither are many of the voters whom I speak to. Referendums cause huge uncertainty, put off businesses, and divide nations. Now that we have a sensible, pragmatic approach to Brexit agreed by the Government and a parliamentary vote, there is little to gain from another referendum and much to lose.
The motion refers to the lack of progress on Brexit. I want to say a little about one issue on which the UK Government have made significant progress, both in terms of their thinking and in terms of their negotiation with Brussels: the issue of fishing. I must admit that when the Government announced that we would remain part of the common fisheries policy during the transition period—a policy hated by fishermen and fishing communities throughout Scotland—I was disappointed, to say the least. But, since then, and since the publication of the fisheries White Paper last week, we have seen concrete action that will work for Scottish fishermen. Despite the delay, we will be leaving the CFP in December 2020, which means that by 1 January 2021, British waters will once again be just that: British. It will be up to us to decide who has access to them and we will be presented with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the way in which we operate in them. We will be able to ensure that stocks are fished sustainably, we will be able to negotiate with other countries, and we will have full control over our natural resources.
I was delighted that the White Paper also made it clear that the issue of access to British waters for European boats would not be conflated with access to European markets for British fish. That is crucial, and as the Government continue their negotiations with the EU, they must ensure that they do not allow Brussels to abuse the right of access to British waters.
Jamie Stone
A constituent of mine, Mr William Calder, has a fish processing business in Scrabster. If what happens in the future leads to the addition of half a day to his two-day delivery journey to France, he will be in serious trouble. We need to avoid anything like that happening at a border, whether it is at Dover or Calais.
John Lamont
I agree that we need to ensure that our fishermen have the best possible deal, but what our fishermen want is to be out of the common fisheries policy and to have control of our waters. What the Liberal Democrats are proposing is to go back into the CFP, which is absolutely not what the Scottish fishermen want.
I am conscious of time so I am going to conclude. The most obvious reason why the Liberal Democrats’ call for a second EU referendum should be rejected is that the voters simply do not want it. Only one of the last 10 opinion polls on this has shown public support for a second referendum. The Liberal Democrat Members need to be asking themselves why, if a second EU referendum was so popular, only 12 of them are sitting on the Opposition Benches. When the Liberal Democrats stood on a manifesto promising another vote only a dozen Lib Dem MPs were returned. In my constituency, which had been represented by Liberal Democrats including David Steel, Archy Kirkwood and Michael Moore for over 50 years, the party came fourth in last year’s general election and lost its deposit.
Liberal Democrats would do well to stop patronising voters. They should abandon their insistence that the electorate, just because they disagree with Lib Dem party policy, cannot possibly be right, and drop their call for a second referendum.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
I thank the Liberal Democrats for introducing this debate, which is exceptionally timeous, not least because the wheels have well and truly come off the Brexit bus. We have a Government who have fallen apart, the clock is ticking, and it is clear that, having triggered article 50 without having any clear plan, they have absolutely no idea what comes next. That should trouble us all.
Whether we like it or not—and some of us might not like it very much—this Government are responsible for the most complex, far-reaching and important negotiations since the war, and their decisions, or lack of decisions and lack of coherence, will have an impact on every one of us: on jobs, on the economy, on opportunities for young people in the future. I may not like that, but it is a fact that each and every one of us needs to consider.
We saw yesterday two resignations in 24 hours. I disagreed with Mr Davis, who is not in his place, wholeheartedly, but he always treated me and colleagues with courtesy and I wish him the very best for the future. And as the Prime Minister said yesterday of Mr Johnson, of course we respect his passion.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are not meant to use names.
Stephen Gethins
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Brexiteers have had their whole careers to prepare, and then the former Ministers whom I have just mentioned had two years in the highest offices of state, with every resource of the UK Government at their disposal, to build on their years and years of so-called preparation, yet we are left in this complete mess. I do not blame the Minister present entirely for it, and indeed I do not blame the Prime Minister entirely, but those Brexiteers who got us into this mess and have done absolutely nothing to get us out of it again have shown gross irresponsibility and negligence. They bear huge responsibility for the situation in which we have been left. This is serious stuff.
I was very disappointed by the contribution of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), whom I respect enormously. There is no such thing as a “jobs-first Brexit.” Every single scenario that has been set out shows jobs being lost. Even the compromise we have put forward of staying in the single market and customs union is the least worst—not the best—option. I am sorry to say that if only the Labour party would step up to the mark, we would not be in the mess we are in today. Therefore, I say with great respect to Labour Members that Labour needs to step up to the plate a little more, because the UK as a whole finds itself in the most extraordinarily difficult situation. [Interruption.] I will happily give way to the shadow Minister if she has a point to make about a jobs-first Brexit. [Interruption.] No, I did not think so.
To throw some light on this matter, Rabobank has said that this situation could cost the UK economy £400 billion. The Fraser of Allander Institute says it could cost 80,000 jobs in Scotland alone and cost Scotland’s economy £12.7 billion, and the head of that respected economic think-tank said that it had only done the work for Scotland but, looking elsewhere, it would be even worse for other parts of the UK. It is startling that the Scottish Government did economic analysis and published it and those of us who have seen it know that although the Scottish and UK Governments might not agree on much in this process, their economic analysis agrees entirely on the devastation that will be wrought by this Government if they see through their plans. This must be one of the first times in history when a Government are actively, and proactively, pursuing a policy that they know will cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
My hon. Friend will recall that the UK Government’s modelling showed a hit to GDP in the long term of minus 1.6% if we stayed in the European economic area. Does he agree that under the Chequers agreement, which takes services out of the mix, that hit will be considerably greater, particularly in terms of the jobs Labour is promising us from Brexit?
Stephen Gethins
My hon. and learned Friend makes an excellent point, and she is well aware from the work she has done representing financial services in her constituency of the difficulties and job losses from the Government’s plans.
I find it extraordinary that we have a Government who are proactively pursuing a policy that they know will cost jobs, and they know will hit our GDP and our public services, because if GDP is hit there will not be the tax-take to provide the support for public services in the future. That will be devastating. I know that the Minister tries his best and is a very honourable man, but it must be extremely hard for Ministers to be pursuing this policy, and I urge them to think again about the damage they are doing to the economy and elsewhere.
We have a need for EU nationals. They should have been given a huge amount of certainty. EU nationals contribute so much to our public services and our companies, and contribute to this place and beyond—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
indicated assent.
Stephen Gethins
I am glad that the Minister is nodding. To charge EU nationals £65 a pop just to remain at home is outrageous and shameful, and it should shame the rest of us.
We should also think about the fact that our universities rely on initiatives such as Horizon 2020 and that our farmers rely on seasonal workers. I benefited from the Erasmus programme, but young people might not do so in future. Winnie Ewing, a former SNP MEP, was key to the success of bringing in Erasmus, working with members of other parties, including in other parts of Europe. I wanted to mention that so I can wish Winnie Ewing a happy 89th birthday—she was also a Member of this place.
One of the saddest things is that those of us who are in this place now will leave fewer opportunities for young people than we enjoyed. They will have fewer opportunities than we had when we started off in politics. We should all have at least an aspiration to leave more, but that is not the state that we are in at the moment. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is not in her place at the moment, talked about trust in the Westminster Government. The recent social attitudes survey showed that, in Scotland, levels of trust in the Westminster Government are down at 20%. That means that only 20% of people in Scotland think that Westminster is working in their best interests, and is it any wonder that that trust is at such a low ebb? The figure for Holyrood sits at 61%, which is much higher than the figure for this Government.
For the future, there is a need to reach out to other parties and to the devolved Administrations. The Scottish Government set out a plan just after the referendum in a way that the UK Government have yet to do—we have been waiting years for any plans from the UK Government—to stay in the customs union and the single market. I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party for joining us in that aspiration and that work. In fairness, some Labour Back Benchers have also had the aspiration to work towards that goal.
The UK is hopelessly divided at the moment. Scotland did not vote to leave the European Union. The Scottish Parliament has acknowledged, and this place acknowledged only last week, that according to the claim of right, Scotland should remain sovereign and make its own decisions in the future. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that claim of right when he winds up the debate. We are in this mess because of a Conservative civil war, but bringing an end to it cannot be done merely by seeking solutions within the Conservative party. It can be done only by reaching out before it is too late.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken. Whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%, when the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you do not.”
Those are not my words but the words of the noble Lord Ashdown on the evening of the referendum. This motion calls for a second referendum, but I believe that a second referendum would be seriously disrespectful. It would be utterly counterproductive, and I will not be voting for it this evening.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
We are having a slight let-off from the hot weather, but it strikes me that we have become a bit of a cliché with our similarities to a Mediterranean country over the past few weeks. We have had incredible weather, we are good at football and we have chaotic politics. In the chaos of the past 48 hours, many things have been revealed, not least the fact that the now former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union spent a grand total of four hours this year negotiating the deal with Michel Barnier. I can inform the House that I have spent more time filling in my World Cup chart than the former Secretary of State spent doing his job.
I want to focus on our countryside and on the production of food. Cumbria and the Lake District won their own world title a year ago this week when the area became a world heritage site. We are very proud of that, and it was clear in the document that the world heritage site status that we were afforded by UNESCO was just as much down to the work of the farmers who maintain the landscape as it was down to the physical nature and the geology itself. It is massively important to recognise that it is not just the landscape that makes our countryside so beautiful, not only in the Lake District but in the dales and all the other beautiful parts of the United Kingdom; it is largely down to the work of our farmers.
The production of food is also of massive significance. I am sure all Members will share my concern that we have seen a massive rise in the amount of food that we import over the past 20 years. In 1990, we imported about 35% of the food that we consume. The figure is now about 45%. As the process of leaving the European Union trundles on, one thing that will undoubtedly have an impact on this country’s ability to feed itself will be the agriculture Bill that we are expecting to see, perhaps before the summer or perhaps shortly after.
It will also massively depend on what kind of deal we get. What situation will we face when it comes to tariffs or no tariffs on our imports and exports? That is why it is right, and respectful of the British people, to decide to engage fully in what kind of deal we get and to object if the Government present us with a shabby deal or if others in the Government wish to have a deal that is even shabbier than the one that the Government are presenting.
I am one of the 6% of Members of Parliament who bothered to go and look at the Brexit impact assessment documents in Whitehall when they were sort of semi-released earlier this year. Obviously I would not leak a single word of what I read—oh go on, since you’ve twisted my arm. One of the things that most struck me was the war-gaming that the Government had done for some rather terrifying prospects. For example, it is worth bearing in mind that, whether we like it or not, membership of the European Union has removed from this place and this country the imperative to debate whether it was right to subsidise food over the past 40 years, but by golly we have, and we will notice if we stop subsidising food.
Over the past 40 years, the average spend of a lower-middle-income household on food has gone down from 20% of the weekly wage packet to 10%. At the same time, housing costs have doubled. If we remove direct payments for farmers and/or if there are tariffs on imports into this country, the reality is that we will see a significant rise in the price of food on the shelves. The wealthiest people in this country spend 10% of their income on food, but the poorest spend 25%. I do not care how anyone voted two years ago or what they think about the Chequers deal, because they should care about impending food poverty on every street in this country. That is likely to be the most worrying aspect of what we get if we have a bad deal.
The Government are mindful of the problem, which is why they war-gamed what it would look like if the EU charged tariffs on UK exports into the single market, but the Government chose not to retaliate with import tariffs on EU goods. I can understand that the Government would do that to protect the interests of the poorest consumers in this country, but UK farming would be thrown under a bus. It would be decimated within a decade. That is why such issues matter. That is why the content of the deal matters. It is not anti-patriotic, anti-democratic or anything of the sort to question the nature of the deal, not based on esoterica about sovereignty or anything else, but based on the hard, visceral reality of whether people in this country can afford to feed their children.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Gentleman is correct about food poverty, but it is wrong to suggest that it is a construct of Brexit. Will he tell us what he did in government for five years to deal with food poverty? People in my constituency have been hungry for a long time, and that is not due to Brexit.
Tim Farron
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we did. Among other things, we forced the Tories to implement benefit rises of 5%, and we ensured that we raised the income tax threshold to lift more than a million people out of poverty. It is much easier to be on the Opposition Benches than the Government Benches, but I am rightly proud of the five years that the Liberal Democrats spent in government, preventing the Tories from doing their worst and ensuring that we did the best for our country. We know that the Government have war-gamed throwing farming under a bus, but they are also preparing to levy shocking increases in food prices on both the poorest and middle-income families.
The Chequers deal is interesting. It is worth saying that I think the Prime Minister is a decent person. We go back quite a long way, and I take her to be a decent person who is seeking a consensus where perhaps none is to be found, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Of course, the reality is that the Chequers deal is unimplementable, undeliverable and unacceptable to the European Union. It would mean effectively being in a single market for goods while not being in the single market, effectively being a member of the customs union while not being in the customs union, and effectively having freedom of movement while not having freedom of movement, and the European Union will say no to that.
My assumption over the weekend was that the most hard-line separatists within the Conservative party were accepting the Chequers deal, no matter how soft it looked, because they knew that the Prime Minister would present it to Brussels, Brussels would say, “Get knotted,” and it would then be Brussels’ fault that we did not get a decent deal.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
The motion calls for a Government of national unity. How many Cabinet jobs will the Liberal Democrats look for in this new coalition? This time round, how many red lines will they agree with the Tory Government?
Tim Farron
If the hon. Gentleman is going to read out questions from the Whips Office, he should at least read them out properly. We will come to what it might look like in a moment or two, but there are bigger things on the plate.
I am quite sure the Government’s assumption is that Friday’s Chequers deal will be unacceptable to Brussels, and they therefore proposed it because it makes it look like they have been listening to businesses, farmers and people of moderate intent—compromisers from both sides of the divide. The Government presented it, and the most hard-line separatists went along with it, because they thought, “Well, it’ll never be accepted. It will then be Brussels’ fault and not ours.” That seems a dishonourable approach, but it could be argued that it is a politically savvy one.
It was all going very well until vanity struck. In the early hours of Monday morning, or late on Sunday night, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) had an attack of vanity and, as we found out in the hours that followed, vanity is contagious. That is the problem we have.
The motion seriously offers the idea of having a Government of national unity because the Prime Minister is beholden to people who are not putting the country first. They are not even putting their party first; they are completely and utterly obsessed with their own career and their own vanity. There is nothing honourable about that situation. Whether or not people like the idea of our leaving the European Union, and whatever variety of leaving the European Union they favour, it is not right that this country should be beholden to such pressure in this marginal situation.
Last night, because there was no World cup on the television, I decided to seek entertainment by heading over to the 1922 committee. I hung around outside with some friends from the press and, at that historic moment, it was interesting to hear the comments made by the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), the Conservative party chairman, who said, “Chequers stays. Chequers is the right path. We’re going to stick to it.” On the other hand, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) came out and said, “Chequers is effectively a betrayal and we cannot vote for it.”
The problem our country has is that, with no parliamentary majority, the Prime Minister has to balance those two extremes. All of us in this House, no matter which party we support and no matter our record on the referendum vote two years ago, should care about the future of our country. Is it right that our children’s future and their children’s future—the next half century and the next century—should be dictated by a Prime Minister who is having to balance the interests of the venal and the vain? That is why we should work together to make sure we deliver a deal that works for everybody and that allows the people to have the final say.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I have the great honour of representing St Austell and Newquay in Cornwall, which was a new constituency in 2010. My home is in St Austell, so I previously lived in the Truro and St Austell constituency. I am the first Conservative Member of Parliament for that part of the country for 41 years. In fact, I was seven years old the last time we had a Conservative Member of Parliament. It was the constituency of the late, great David Penhaligon, and others since who may not have been quite so great.
I know what it is like to live under the representation of the Liberal Democrats, and one thing that has always puzzled me is why people in Cornwall, which has always been an incredibly Eurosceptic area, kept voting for the Liberal Democrats for all those years. One reason is that in Cornwall the Liberal Democrats were very shy about their European enthusiasm. They did not tend to talk about it very much, and they tried to shy away from it.
When I started to speak to people on the doorsteps, it came as a surprise to them when I advised that if they wanted to get out of Europe, the last thing they should do is vote for the Liberal Democrats. That is why I have respect for the Liberal Democrats’ position now, because from my point of view in Cornwall, at least they are at last being honest about it. They are being honest in saying they want to exit from Brexit and deny the result that the British people reached in the referendum. They think the British people got it wrong, having been ill-informed, having misunderstood or having been too thick to understand what it meant, so we should try to overturn the decision and try again.
I have a degree of respect for the Liberal Democrats’ honesty at the moment, but I have to say that the message I get from people time and time again is that the British people simply want us to get on with this. I speak to Conservative party members, as well as members of other parties, and I hear that the British people are tired of the debate on the process. They are tired of the Westminster bubble, where we endlessly debate and try to rerun the arguments from 2016. They simply think, “The British people made a decision. Let’s get on and deliver it. Let’s leave the EU and let’s deliver Brexit the best we possibly can.” I believe that is the attitude and view of the vast majority of the British people.
Sir Edward Davey
I met people in my constituency during the 2017 election who had that view—people who had voted to remain but said that now we should get on with it. However, I had local elections in my constituency in May, so I was knocking on a lot of doors, and I detect that opinion is shifting on the ground and in the polls. People are seeing the disarray of this botched Brexit, which is why they are changing their mind. May I ask the hon. Gentleman: has he ever changed his mind?
Steve Double
I have changed my mind, but I suspect that now is not the time to go into that. I have changed my mind on a number of things over the years, but I do not detect what the right hon. Gentleman says he is finding. I do not find it in my constituency from the people I speak to on the doorstep and meet around the place, or from the people who come to my surgeries. The clear message I get is, “We made a decision. Let’s get on with it.” A lot of people just cannot understand why we have not left already. They are frustrated because—[Interruption.] I would say it is because of Members on both sides of the House who have sought to delay the process—perhaps we will come on to discuss that.
I will not support the motion, and I wish to set out three reasons why it is a bad idea. First, I believe it would be bad for our democracy. We gave the decision to the British people. We are absolutely clear in the lead-up to the referendum two years ago that this decision was in the hands of the British people and that they would be making the decision. If we tried to rerun the referendum, in whatever form we want to put it, be it a second referendum or a referendum on the final deal, I do not think the British people would buy it. They would just see it as trying to change the decision. It would simply be saying to them, “Your view and your vote did not count.” As I said when I intervened earlier, I believe that one reason why many people voted leave was to give a clear message to the establishment saying, “We are fed up of being ignored. We want our voice heard. We want our opinion to count.”
It is a miracle that people voted leave, because the overwhelming movement of the establishment—of the Government, big business and so much of our society—was telling them “This is the wrong decision. This is a stupid decision to make. This is a detrimental decision to make.” The majority of people chose to ignore that and vote leave, and we should respect that.
Wera Hobhouse
This is a debate about democracy. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am confident that people make good decisions in the end. The decision made in June 2016 was a single decision that warranted another decision. He has just accepted that the people make interesting decisions, so why will he not allow them to make another decision on this issue, which is far more far-reaching now that we are going to face a deal on the decision?
Steve Double
The answer is simple: if that decision goes the other way, do we have a third and a fourth? Do we just keep going until we get the decision that some of us want? No. We made it clear to the British people. As has already been said, the former Prime Minister said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime decision and that there would be no opportunity for people to change their mind and go back. That was it, and we need to respect that.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Gentleman talked about people turning out to vote leave. Did he experience in his constituency what happened in my constituency, where not only did people turn out to vote leave, but the highest number of people in any election in the past 20 years turned out to vote? We simply cannot scoff at that.
Steve Double
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the turnout was very high. I observed that the more “Project Fear” turned up the heat and told people that they were wrong to think of voting to leave, the more people were driven to vote leave. It was very much a reaction against being told by the establishment, “We know best. You should do what we tell you.”
My second point is that to have a second referendum now would undermine our negotiating position. The point has been made many times, but it needs to be made again: if the EU knows that whatever deal is agreed will be put to a vote of the British people, it will make sure that it is the worst possible deal that it can provide, in the hope that we will reject it, reverse the decision to leave and remain in the EU. For that reason, we cannot allow a second referendum to take place.
My third point is that any second referendum would cause further delay and uncertainty. People want us to get on with it. Business wants certainty: it wants to know what the end state is going to be. Any second referendum would delay that and create even more uncertainty, because even when we had agreed a deal with the EU, we would not know whether the British people were going to support it. British business would not know whether it was going to be the final outcome. If it was rejected, that would create further delay and uncertainty. Right now, more than anything, business wants to know what the state of play is going to be when we leave. Business wants certainty and to know what the circumstances are going to be. Any second referendum would cause further delay and create even more uncertainty.
Steve Double
I am going to wind up now.
In the best interests of our country, we simply need to get on with it and deliver the best Brexit that we possibly can. We need to deliver what the British people gave us the instruction to do. They gave us that instruction and we need to respect it and deliver on it.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) because, despite being on opposite sides of politics, we share some commonality in respect of this issue, which is that we are both democrats, but thankfully not Liberal Democrats. We both understand that our constituencies voted leave for a number of reasons, none of which were necessarily those categorised by the overtures of the right-wing press, who make it out to be all about immigration and rather nasty things. People were shouting out against the establishment for considering them not worthy of having their say.
The huge turnout in Stoke-on-Trent Central—before I was its Member of Parliament, I hasten to add—demonstrated an engagement in a political process that has not been replicated since. There have been two opportunities to vote in an election in Stoke-on-Trent Central since the referendum: a by-election, in which I was elected to this place, and a subsequent general election. Fewer people voted in those subsequent elections than voted in the referendum, which shows that the issues on which they voted were diverse and complicated.
Let me pick up on the motion. The Liberal Democrats have, as always, quite adeptly tried to position themselves as one thing—in this case, the moral conscience of the remain-voting populace of this country—but at the same time tabled a motion that does not really address the issues. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay said, the motion is on a process issue; it is not on a policy issue or a substantive issue. It is about a unity Government.
We can make jokes about the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) having a ministerial car he can be driven around in, but the motion is about the Liberal Democrats inveigling their way back into government so that they can influence something on which the electorate have consistently rejected them. If they are so confident that their position can command the support of the electorate, they can all trigger by-elections in each of their seats and run purely on having a second referendum. If their confidence is correct, they will all be returned to this place with increased majorities and it will all be fine and dandy. I suspect, though, that they do not have the courage of their convictions to do that, because they know that what they are actually doing is attempting to subvert democratic processes merely for electoral gain further on down the road. That is that they are doing with this motion, so I shall not support it.
The Liberal Democrats have also failed to address the following: what is the question they actually want to put to the public? I find it quite odd that, on the one side, we have the Liberal Democrats and, on the other, members of the European Reform Group, who are all waiting in the wings, rubbing their hands in absolute glee at a no-deal scenario, because actually that is what they want. The Liberal Democrats, along with members of the European Reform Group on the Conservative Benches, and, sadly, a number of my colleagues, who normally would be here in vocal force, but who have not found their tongues today, are all rubbing their hands in glee at a no-deal scenario because they see a no-deal scenario as a path to something else. They are very different, diverging paths, but the best thing that they can hope for to facilitate their own political interests is a no deal.
The Liberal Democrats and some of my colleagues believe that a no-deal scenario would instantly lead to our staying in the European Union forever and a day—job done, democracy thwarted, never mind what the people thought, that is what it is, big shrugs, move on. Members of the European Reform Group, who again would normally be here in the Chamber—I presume that they have something more important on today; some letters need signing, no doubt—would normally see a no deal and think, “Great, we have thrown off the shackles of an imperialist Europe that tried to thwart Britannia in all of her mighty ways.” I find it absolutely mind-boggling that, in the 21st century in this place, we have, on the one side, the Liberal Democrats and, on the other, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and his motley gang all campaigning essentially for the same thing and they will not be honest about why they want that.
That is why I do agree in part with what is in the motion regarding a unity Government, although not because I seek to be part of it or because I think that it will work. What the Prime Minister should have done, almost 18 months ago now, when she did not have the majority of her own party before the general election, and when she did not have a majority for her party after the election, is look across this Chamber and its 650 Members, minus the abstentionists, and say, “How can I bring together a majority in this House for a Brexit deal that works—a Brexit deal that means that I can come back from the European Union with a deal that I know will command parliamentary majority support and that delivers on the customs arrangements that we all pretty much agree we need?” Actually, what we are arguing over is what we call it, not what it does. She should have said, “How can I bring together a majority in this House for a Brexit deal that allows us to have access to the single market and determines how much we trade off paying for that access against how much freedom of movement we are willing to accept and also delivers on the protections for workers’ rights, consumer rights and environmental rights?” We know those are important because we have all said that they are important but, again, we have not quite got there. Instead of doing that, the Prime Minister took a very narrow view and tried to satiate two warring parts of one political party, to the detriment of her negotiations.
I and a number of colleagues, along with, I suspect, many Labour Front-Bench Members—I cannot speak for them as I am a humble Back Bencher—would happily have a conversation about how we can make Brexit work. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay said, we have spent far too long talking about process, rather than talking about policy. We have spent too long talking about dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and not about the societal changes that we need that will help our country to come together and accept a Brexit deal that works.
This is where the second referendum, a people’s vote, or whatever you wish to call it and dress it up as, is a folly and a nonsense. Nothing has altered in my constituency in the past 18 months that would change the way my constituents would vote if they had the deal put to them for a vote. In their minds, they would simply see this as a re-run of the referendum—are we in, or are we out?
Bob Stewart
I recall vividly that, when we were debating the referendum in my constituency and looking at documents produced by the Government, it was made absolutely clear that, if we voted to leave the European Union, that implied explicitly that we would be out of the single market and the customs union. It was plainly put down.
Gareth Snell
I am sure that it was. Subsequent elections meant that there is no majority necessarily in the House for that matter. If we are democrats, we are also pragmatists. It is better that we have a pragmatic deal that commands the majority of this House and that is workable so that we can end the uncertainty that exists in communities and in business, rather than necessarily stick to one or two dogmatic points. I have known the hon. Gentleman for a year, and he is a wonderful speaker at a number of events that I attend, but where we are and where we have come from are very different. However, again, that does not mean that we should suddenly be having a second referendum as advocated by the Liberal Democrats. I say again: I do not know what has changed in my constituency that would make my constituents think that, somehow, a vote on the deal would not be an in or out matter.
Gareth Snell
Perhaps if I were to ask the right hon. Gentleman for his diary, it would show a weekly trip to Stoke-on-Trent, so he could tell me what my electors are thinking—but I am guessing it does not. I need no lessons on what my electors think, because I speak to them week in, week out. Most of them simply want to get on with the process. My constituents voted 70:30 to leave, for a whole array of reasons. Some will have been driven by the issue of efficiencies in the NHS. I would point to the fact that the reason why the NHS is on its knees is that the Liberal Democrats enabled five years of the Conservative Government who put through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, not just chronic underfunding by the Conservative Government.
What my constituents do not say is, “Oh, actually, I’ve thought about it, and I no longer think leaving is a good idea.” In the entire time I have been Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central, I have had one email from one constituent telling me that they would vote differently—one. I do not see the great swathe of changing public opinion that has been referred to here; nor do I see any appetite for a second vote. All that would do is lead to greater division in this country; it would put off talking about the policy and the radical platform for change that we need to make communities better; it would allow the European Union to sit back and watch as we squabbled among ourselves, failing to get a deal that worked. If there is a Division on this motion this afternoon, I shall not be supporting it.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I find myself in an odd position. I was elected last year. I overcame a Tory majority of more than 9,500 votes, and yet in the debate since my election people seem to have completely forgotten that that election ever happened. We speak frequently about the will of the people in the referendum. That is true, but there was then a further asking of the people what they wanted. The Tory version of Brexit—the version that the Tories have been trying to deliver, badly, up until this last weekend, and look at how that has unravelled—was rejected.
Oxford West and Abingdon voted 62% to remain and, although 62% does not perhaps sound a lot, it is worth saying that the remainers in my constituency are so strongly remain that they put EU flags proudly on their doors, and the leavers are more, “Oh, on balance I want to leave”. As new facts have come to light, they are changing their minds in their swathes. There are plenty of emails in my inbox and, I am sure, in many inboxes.
Just this morning, I met a young activist who used to be a Tory party member and voted to leave in 2016. When he realised that he was not going to get the Norway/Switzerland-style Brexit that had been spoken about by many front-and-centre Brexiteers, he decided to leave the Tories and to join the Lib Dems. I did not know that, but he has done so because our position is absolutely clear.
In 2017, the electorate did make a choice. In the referendum, the will of the people was the will of the 52%—48% have been completely ignored, however. There was a whole other way this could have gone. Rather than the Prime Minister standing up and saying, “We are going to go for the hardest possible Brexit; we are going to leave the customs union; we are going to leave the single market; we are not going to involve Parliament; we are not going to release impact assessments”, there is another version of the past. Every step along the way, as a new Member of Parliament, I have felt that this Government do not really care about our opinions; all they want to do is to hold themselves together. The other version would have been for a Prime Minister to stand up, reach out across the House and say, “I am going to go the middle way and deliver that Norway/Switzerland soft Brexit.” That was the compromise position. That is not what has happened and that is why we are in the position we are in now.
Bob Stewart
I respectfully point out to the hon. Lady that the Conservatives got 43% of the vote at the last general election. That is a huge number—a very large percentage of the people, and larger than normal. The Conservative party got endorsement from the people beyond the referendum for its mandate to carry out Brexit.
Layla Moran
It was 43% but it was not enough to deliver sufficient numbers of Members of Parliament. In my constituency, I was elected on an extremely clear mandate to stop a hard Brexit. The Green party stood down, and swathes of Labour voters came over to me. In fact, many remainer Conservatives—this is what my in-box is stuffed with—are saying that they will never vote Tory again because of what this Government are doing to all sorts of sectors, business being one of them.
Steve Double
I am listening to the hon. Lady with great interest. Is she aware that many findings after the last general election showed that for the majority of British people, Brexit was not a big issue that drove their vote? They were far more concerned about domestic policy issues. A lot of people thought that Brexit was done with in the last election, and there is clear evidence that actually it did not drive many people’s votes last year—they were far more concerned about other matters.
Layla Moran
Indeed. That is why it is so striking that people do not now want to ask them what they think of this new settlement. The point of this debate is to ask the people and to trust the people. The people of Oxford West and Abingdon put me here to make the case on how Brexit is going to affect them and their families.
Layla Moran
Real people’s voices have been missing from this debate, so I am going to introduce some after taking this intervention.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Lady says that she was sent here to stop a hard Brexit, but the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said that he was here to get an exit from Brexit. Is she opposed to a hard Brexit and therefore wanting a softer form of Brexit, or is she opposed to Brexit in its entirety?
Layla Moran
I personally feel that there is no deal better than the deal we already have. That is what we had in our manifesto and that is our clear mandate. As I said, I achieved an enormous swing, so I can only assume that my constituents understood that. The Conservatives were proposing a possible World Trade Organisation-style Brexit—much harder, I dare say, than what Labour is suggesting now. However, I would still categorise Labour’s position as also being for a hard Brexit, because at the time, soft Brexit was defined as staying in the single market and the customs union, and somehow the rhetoric has changed over time.
It would be interesting now to turn to Ross from Kidlington. I care about what people—my constituents—think rather than just what this House thinks. Ross said:
“We are beside ourselves with how this government is behaving: squabbling in its ranks, only interested in keeping their own nests feathered, telling outright lies to those who voted for Brexit…Why are MPs in the in the Labour party not following their own consciences and voting for what they really believe?”
I find fascinating the number of conversations we have outside this Chamber where MPs from across the House recognise how damaging Brexit is going to be. I do not understand how they can look their constituents in the eye knowing that their jobs may well go and knowing the effect on the economy. In Oxford West and Abingdon, we have one of the most buoyant economies in the country, but if we leave the single market, even we will face a medium-term depression. I cannot stand by and watch that happen.
I loved what Jonathan from Abingdon had to say:
“How, now two years post referendum, do the government have no plan to implement and it scares me more than anything else. Even though every expert opinion is that it will damage the country, including the governments own experts, they are still ploughing ahead with it seems the full support of the Labour party…Please continue to fight this crazy act of self-harm the government is proposing with everything you can.”
I intend to do that. These are my constituents and I am standing up for them today.
The point about a further referendum is that new facts have come to light. We are not just talking about the Northern Irish border, although that is one of the most alarming aspects.
Ryan, a Gibraltarian student at Keble College, said that Brexit
“poses an existential threat to my homeland…The fate of my country is out of the hands of Gibraltarians, and is being decided behind closed doors. I fear the Government may negotiate something of ours away without our consent.”
Then there are the universities—Oxford and Oxford Brookes—and Erasmus, Horizon 2020 and the science sectors. The first question I ever asked in this House was on Euratom. At the time, someone sidled up and said, “What’s that?” We did not entirely appreciate the full consequences of Brexit, and now we do. I am pleased to say that the House has taken that on very positively, but new facts have come to light, and business is what I am most concerned about.
It is not just about BMW, which is in Oxford. Fabulous Flowers wrote to me and said:
“We need to ensure a stable workforce with labour from other EU member states and all sectors of horticulture and flower growing, harvesting etc in the UK. We have to question the UK’s capability in terms of infrastructure and resources at points of entry to handle the level of import controls. A longer wait at the border could bring a disadvantage to flower imports in future as it could impact on quality or vase life. Flowers could end up more expensive.”
It is not just about big business; it is also about the little guys, and they matter too.
As a science teacher—that is what I did before I came to this place—I believe in evidence, and it is not just me. I know that because some of the kids I taught are now adults, and they believe in evidence too. It is only fair that if new evidence comes to light, people should be allowed to change their mind. If it is a deal that they did not vote for and is not what they expected, what could be any more democratic than going back to the people and making sure it was what they wanted in the first place?
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran).
I have listened with incredulity today to the claims from those on the Conservative Benches that they are delivering on Brexit. Every time I think this Brexit chaos cannot get any worse, I discover I am wrong—it can, and it does. The past few days have simply added chaos to uncertainty, built on complete mismanagement. Yesterday was perhaps the most unedifying spectacle yet. For me, it was a particularly surreal experience, and at the same time absolutely appropriate, because I was enjoying my daughter’s graduation ceremony at the University of Edinburgh when my phone buzzed with a message saying that the Foreign Secretary had resigned. That was followed by a flurry of other texts and newsflashes, which I mostly ignored.
While the Cabinet’s agreed stance on Brexit and the Cabinet itself were crumbling and what is left of our future relationship with Europe was being thrown under yet another Brexit bus, I was witnessing a particularly European experience. At the same time as I was getting all these texts, the founding father of the Erasmus scholarship programme stood up to accept his honorary doctorate and address the assembled graduates of Edinburgh University. He talked about the idea, inspiration and vision that has seen millions of EU students from this country and the others benefiting either directly or indirectly from meeting and sharing their experiences with Erasmus scholars from elsewhere. He also told us proudly about the 1 million Erasmus babies that there now are in Europe.
For Edinburgh University, like many other universities up and down the country, that scheme has been crucial. Edinburgh attracts the biggest share of Erasmus students of any Scottish university. Erasmus has also encouraged talented young people from across Europe to come and live and work in the UK. Two constituents visited me last week who are Spanish and have been here for a number of years, paying income tax at 40% and national insurance. They are now being asked to pay the fee to stay here that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) mentioned, but these are people who came here to contribute, encouraged by European co-operation.
When the founder of the Erasmus scholarship programme sat down, I looked around the hall and I saw in front of me a wonderfully diverse group of students from all ethnic and social backgrounds. I glanced at the list of those who were about to graduate, and it revealed names from across the continent. Here was Erasmus in operation and European co-operation in operation, and here was our future—the students’ and our country’s future. Meanwhile, the Government were indulging in self-inflicted chaos and mismanagement, and any semblance of a strategy for a future with Europe was crumbling.
Make no mistake: the students knew about this too, because their phones were buzzing with texts; I saw them glancing down at them every so often. The principal of the Edinburgh University then stood up and assured his students and the parents that the university would never turn its back on Europe, regardless of “the many obstacles that politicians might place in their way”. This is one politician who listened yesterday and who is determined to fight to remove such obstacles from the futures of those young people and other young people in this country who see their horizons narrowed and their opportunities limited by what is happening in this place on an almost daily basis. I heard what the students had to say and their positive reaction, because that statement by the principal of Edinburgh University received the loudest reaction of the day. I and my colleagues will not give up on defending that future.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
In her speech about Erasmus, will the hon. Lady note that one of the people who helped to found it was Winnie Ewing, and today is her 89th birthday?
Christine Jardine
As the hon. Gentleman says—his colleague the hon. Member for North East Fife mentioned it earlier—today is indeed Winnie Ewing’s 89th birthday. I have met the hon. Lady on more than one occasion, and I think she would be extremely upset to see what is happening to the programme that has done so much for students in this country and elsewhere.
I am in the Chamber today to demand that we listen to those young people, their parents, the academics and others in this country. We should listen to their demand that the Government stop this narrow infighting and internal self-interest, and think about how to achieve some sort of national unity in the way ahead. People need to have faith that what is on the table will work for them, but what I hear daily—from those in business who say, “But what will happen after Brexit?”, and from constituents who say, “What will happen to me, because I am a European citizen from elsewhere in the EU?”—is that they want something different. What the Government are offering does not cut it for them, and those of them who can vote want the opportunity to say so in a decision on the final deal.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Sometimes in politics, parties and individual politicians must ensure that they are standing up for the right thing, given the evidence before them. One of the reasons why I am proud to be a Liberal Democrat is that we have done that on a number of issues of significant importance in the life of the country in recent years. Let me give House three examples.
The first example is the Iraq war. When the Labour party was pushing for the Iraq war, it had the support of the Conservative party, bar the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and of the papers and the people, and it prosecuted that war. The Liberal Democrats were the sole voice, against public opinion, in warning that it courted disaster—for this country and for the middle east. We were right, and we were proven right.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) was warning against the financial crash—the banking crash—in 2007-08 three or four years before it happened. As a former very distinguished economist, he could see the signs, and as the Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, he warned that it was coming. People did not like his saying that—I remember Labour Treasury Ministers and Conservative spokespeople saying, “Oh, the voice of doom”—but my right hon. Friend was right. I wish more people had listened to him, as a lot of people’s lives and businesses would not have been wasted by an appalling economic recession.
So it is with Brexit. The evidence is clear that it is going to be a disaster for our country. Those of us who have the values of internationalists and believe that working with other countries is in our interests are not going to be silenced on this issue of huge importance. We are going to make the case. Just as on Iraq and the banking crisis, people’s views changed. I think that people’s views on Brexit and on a people’s vote are changing. I urge Members across the House to recognise that fact and get behind something that people will be joining.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2015, the right hon. Gentleman’s party manifesto said it wanted a referendum on whether we should stay in or get out of Europe. Was that a mistake or was it just that you were so out of touch with the people that you thought you would win that referendum? I can tell you that our party did not think that.
Sir Edward Davey
The hon. Gentleman, of course, is wrong. The manifesto was in 2005, when—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman really must not use the word “you”, and let us not carry on with this sort of exchange.
Sir Edward Davey
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know what was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. In 2005, like all parties, we argued for a referendum on the European constitution. In 2015, we said that if there was a big change affecting sovereignty and powers, we would have a referendum. What happened afterwards was completely different, and the hon. Gentleman ought to know that.
I was saying that I detect that the demand for a people’s vote—a final say on the deal—is growing louder and louder. There are many reasons why I think that; it is not just evidence from the polls and from people talking to me around the country. I think it is a reaction to the chaos of this Conservative Government. If I were a Conservative MP, I would be embarrassed by the Government; I do not think we have been so badly governed since the second world war—probably before.
The Government simply cannot make up their mind about how to deal with the biggest issue of the day. They are totally split. The chaos of the past 48 hours beggars belief. It is pretty clear that the Chequers statement will not stand the test of time. The European Research Group, the hard-line Brexiteers, and some Tory remainers reject it and Brussels is saying that it is unacceptable. It is pretty clear that, after two years of effort, this chaotic Government cannot manage it. That is why we tabled this motion.
As one of my colleagues said earlier, people are sick and tired of Conservative Ministers, and indeed MPs, putting their personal or party interests above the nation’s. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) said, when we talk to some colleagues outside the Chamber, they admit that Brexit is a disaster.
Gareth Snell
Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify a point I asked about in my speech? What question would the Liberal Democrats put on the ballot paper in a referendum? There are people who would not want to support a final deal but who would not countenance staying in the European Union.
Sir Edward Davey
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question as it enables me to explain that in detail. We are arguing for a people’s vote. People should have the final say when the deal is done, not before, so that they have the details of the question. One of the problems with the 2016 referendum was that no one knew what Brexit meant; in fact, we still do not. When we do eventually know—when there is a deal for people to look at, touch and feel—we suggest that the people should have the final say about whether that is what they want or whether they would prefer to stay in the European Union.
We need to look at what the Government have achieved so far. The process has been far longer than people were told. People were told it would be easy and that it would be quick, but after two years we still do not have a policy or a White Paper. We were told that Brexit would be very good value for money. We were not told that it would be so costly. No one said that Brexit would cost £41 billion—and that divorce bill is going to go even higher. It is costing far more than people were told, but it is also far more complex than people were promised. People were sold simple truths: it would be easy to extricate ourselves from our friends and neighbours who we have worked with for so long for over four decades. It is clear that that is not the case. There still is no deal. Frankly, given the performance and shocking chaos of the past 48 hours, that deal looks a long way away.
Sir Edward Davey
I will give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me when the deal will be done.
Steve Double
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has just said that we do not know what Brexit is going to be. I agree: we do not know what the final agreement is going to be. We do not know the detail, so how is he so sure that it will be disaster?
Sir Edward Davey
As my hon. Friends have already said, we have the best deal now. It is pretty clear that we were prospering over 40 years. We have moved from being the sick man of Europe and the dirty man of Europe to one that was leading on the environment and leading on the economy. That happened during our time as a member of the European Union. The deal we have at the moment is the best possible deal. Anything different is going to be far worse.
I want to take on an argument put forward by those on the Conservative Benches that somehow having a people’s vote would undermine our negotiating position. Madam Deputy Speaker, does anyone in this House seriously believe that what we have seen from the Government is strengthening our negotiating position? What a disaster! I wonder whether Conservative Members ever talk to anyone from France, Germany, Italy or any of the other 27 member countries. They see us as a laughing stock. Our stock as a country has fallen. We used to be highly regarded for our diplomatic skills, for our leadership and for our stability. In a short time, this discredited Conservative Government have made us the laughing stock not just of Europe but of the developed world.
As a Minister in the coalition Government, I attended five European Councils, first as a junior Business Minister and then as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Over five years, I was involved in a whole set of negotiations in Europe: on the economy delivering a growth package, which was very much written here in London; and on an energy and climate change package, which was very much written here in London. My experience was that we could always win for Britain, completely contrary to the nonsense we hear from so many Brexiteers. Moreover, people listened to us. When we engaged in proper negotiations and proper politics, we could always win the day. I have been disappointed, angered and distressed by the appalling inability of the Government to negotiate—with themselves, frankly, let alone the European Union. Their attempt to try to build those relationships, which are critical in a successful negotiation, has failed lamentably.
I want to end with one problem that I have with the Chequers statement. The Minister was unable to answer it and the Prime Minister was unable to answer it during her statement on Monday. It is important in relation to the negotiations with Europe and to what this Parliament eventually decides. If there is a new rule produced by our EU colleagues relating to the single market for goods, this House will have the freedom to vote on it. That sounds very enticing to a Brexiteer: we will have the freedom to do that, we have taken back control and so on. What has not been spelled out is what happens if this House votes to reject such a new rule. It is absolutely clear that were the House to do that, the whole agreement that we negotiate with Brussels will collapse. This is going to be one of the key questions during the negotiations and during deliberations in this House. I think it is one of the questions on which the Chequers statement will fail.
This country and this House need better leadership. We have not got it and I fear we are not going to get it. That is the reason why this House needs to give the people the final say.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I would gladly take up the challenge to stand up for a people’s vote in my constituency. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), my postbag in Bath is full of letters from constituents who are worried sick about Brexit. We speak endlessly in Bath about the most important issue facing our nation, and I think that is a good thing. That is democracy and I trust people. That is why I think that the people should take back control, but if we are having a debate, I wish it was much more along the lines of why the European Union is the best place for us.
The European Union is the greatest peace project in the modern era, with 28 countries working together, resolving differences peacefully. It is too little understood that countries with competing interests work together through a rules-based system—the rule of law and common regulations. Each country within the European Union passes its own laws, but those laws must be applicable as fairly to its own citizens as to the citizens of the other 27 countries. That is called solidarity. It delivers justice and greater opportunity. We help other countries and other countries help us. We all benefit.
Looking back to June 2016 and the debate we had leading up to that referendum, where were these arguments? There were arguments about pennies: “What is in it for us?” and “£350 million a week for the NHS” on one side, and “Economic meltdown the day after the referendum” on the other side. Then there was the “taking back control” argument. Sixty million Turks would arrive at our borders, swamping the country. It was a Conservative-on-Conservative referendum, and two years on, why are the Conservatives making such a mess of it? Because for them, every argument is still framed within British-only interests. There is never anything about 28 countries working together. It is only ever about a narrow self-interest.
Wera Hobhouse
I really cannot because we have very little time left. The Conservative Brexit vision is for a Britain and a Europe from before the European Union was formed. Their vision is for a continent of competing nation states, but the profound vision of the EU—we see this most clearly in the island of Ireland—is that people can have multiple identities. We can be British and Irish, British and French, and British and Polish. To be British and Irish is to have no border in Ireland, but it also means staying in the single market and in the customs union. People are now beginning to realise that it is also about staying in the European Union.
Gareth Snell
Many of my constituents would describe themselves as British-Pakistani. To suggest that somehow people can only retain that identity if we have some sort of open-border policy is somewhat ridiculous.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and absolutely—I passionately believe in multiple identities and I used to live in an area in the north of England where there were many people with Muslim and British identities. However, I think that, in this country, we simply fail to understand the idea of multiple identities, and in the Brexit debate, that is also a big failure.
Where do we go from here? In June 2016, the people voted narrowly to leave the European Union. Liberal Democrats believe that it was not a blank cheque to this Government, or indeed any Government, to do anything that they like. Democracy did not stop in June 2016, but it seems for this Government that it did. The will of the people on that date is their mandate for anything that they want to do now. The shocking thing is that the politicians who argue that they are enacting the will of the people are the same politicians who refuse to ask the people again now, after many things have changed—after we are not getting £350 million back for the NHS and after we know how complicated it is to extract ourselves from the customs union without creating a border in Northern Ireland.
Ask the people again. From Magna Carta onwards, democracy in this country had to be fought for. The people have woken up to this. This Government are acting in the name of the people without the people’s consent. Ask the people now. The people must finish what the people have started.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to sum up at the end of this debate, to which there have been many contributions by Members from throughout the House. I will start with the comments of the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is no longer in her place. She gave defending the Government’s position on Brexit her best shot; as a remainer, she knows that it will do and is doing us great harm. I give her credit for at least trying to present the Government’s policies in the best possible light.
The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who speaks for the main Opposition, said that the Labour party did not want an exit from Brexit or a final say on the deal. That will come as a surprise to the majority of her party members, who support a final say on the deal and an exit from Brexit. She went on to say, following an intervention—I think this was meant to be a clarification—that the Labour party was not calling for a final say on the deal but was leaving open the option of one. We can read into that whatever we want. I read into it that the Labour party is preparing a position that it might move to at some point in the near future. We hope that that will happen at the Labour autumn conference, and we welcome the flexibility that the hon. Lady outlined.
The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) said, perhaps rather surprisingly, that his views did not matter. I suppose that depends on whether he thinks we are delegates or representatives in this place. I think that the views of Members of Parliament matter, and that we are not here simply to deliver something that has been voted for by a majority of our constituents, particularly if we know that it will do us a huge amount of harm. The hon. Gentleman and other Members have held out the idea that fisheries, for instance, will benefit heavily. As I understand it, however, even when we are out of the common fisheries policy, the UN law of the sea will still apply, so the idea that no other country will be able to access our waters does not bear scrutiny.
I was pleased that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) spoke in support of the motion. He set out, in stark terms, the economic damage that the Government know Brexit will cause us, and in an intervention he rightly highlighted the fantasy jobs Brexit on offer from the Labour party. I am afraid that the Labour spokesperson could not provide any evidence at all to back up her suggestion that there was a jobs Brexit out there.
The only thing I will say for the speech of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) is that it was very short. However short it was, it was long enough for me to note that I disagreed with every single word in it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) rightly concentrated on food poverty, and he gave a concrete example of some of the potential consequences of Brexit. Thanks to an intervention, which I do not think was supposed to be helpful, he was able to list all the things we managed to do while we were in government, such as taking millions of people off tax, creating millions of extra jobs and introducing the pensions triple lock and the pupil premium. Those things were all achieved in a five-year period of strong and stable government, on which I am sure everyone in this country looks back nostalgically as they watch the Tory party tearing itself apart and shedding Ministers on a daily basis.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) said that business wanted certainty. As I said in an intervention on one of his colleagues, the only thing that is certain is that any model of Brexit that the Government adopt will damage business. If he wants certainty, that is the certainty that business can rely on.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who is clearly not a Liberal Democrat supporter, said that it was not clear what the Liberal Democrats wanted. I think it is quite clear: we want an exit from Brexit, and we would achieve that through a final say on the deal. We accept that the only way we could legitimately secure an exit from Brexit would be through a final say on the deal that everyone in the country could take part in.
Tom Brake
I will not give way now, but I may do so in a moment if I have a bit of time.
The hon. Gentleman also said that a policy debate was absent. Let me point out to him that we will not be having a policy debate in this place for the next four or five years, because this Government and any successor Government will have to focus on delivering Brexit. That will take three, four or five years, so the hon. Gentleman can put any policy debate that he wants on hold. We will also be financially worse off. I am sure that the Government will not want to challenge the Office for Budget Responsibility, which says that Brexit will cost £15 billion a year. We are calling for a Brexit dividend, which would mean abandoning Brexit and grabbing that £15 billion a year. No doubt the UK Statistics Authority would be happy to support that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) was right to point out that throughout the Brexit debate the Government have ignored the 48%. I have intervened on the Prime Minister and given her an opportunity to stand up for the 48%, but she has not done so; she has stood up for the 52% instead. I commend my hon. Friend for adopting the Leader of the Opposition’s tactic of bringing individuals into these issues, because we do need to hear from real people—real people with real issues to address, whether they are fishermen, residents of Northern Ireland or, indeed, business owners. It is better to hear from them than it is to hear from some of the ideologues on the Government Benches—and, indeed, a few on the Opposition Benches—whose ideology drives them to abandon their common sense so that they cannot see the consequences of what they are advocating.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) rightly focused on the contribution of EU citizens and European schemes such as Erasmus, and also on one of the things that makes me most angry—the obstacles that the Government are putting in the way of young people’s rights to live, work and study abroad.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) was asked, in another helpful intervention, what question we would ask in a referendum. His simple answer was, “Do people want to vote for the Government deal, or do they want to stay in the European Union?”
My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) rightly said that if we become involved in a campaign for a final say on the deal, we must sell the positives of the European Union, which was not done during the referendum a couple of years ago. There is public support for a final say on the deal, and, indeed, there is public support from members of Unite. As I am sure the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central will be pleased to hear, a net plus-23% of them support a vote on the final deal. So union members are calling for it, and I welcome that, but there is political support for it as well.
It is with great pleasure that I quote what the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said:
“If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.”
The right hon. Gentleman has, of course, been replaced as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab). What did the new Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union have to say on the matter a couple of years ago? He said:
“Tory MPs may push for second referendum after 2020 if Remain win”.
I am happy to pray in aid the support of both the outgoing Brexit Secretary of State and the incoming one for a final say on the deal and a chance for people to have an exit from Brexit.
Graham Stringer
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier in the debate, I asked the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) why, if he was so keen on referendums, the Liberal Democrats—and he in particular—had not voted for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty in 2008. He said that they had.
Since then I have had the opportunity to check the Official Report, and I can tell the House that on 5 March 2008—this is in column 1868—a small number of Liberal Democrats did vote for a referendum, but the right hon. Member for Twickenham did not. Nor did the then leader of the Liberal Democrats or the vast majority of the Liberal Democrats, because it was against their official policy. I should like your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the fact that the right hon. Gentleman misled the House of Commons.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
That is not a point of order, it is a matter of debate. The House has heard what the hon. Gentleman had to say, and perhaps there will be opportunities for Liberal Democrats to intervene on the Minister, but I do want to move on to the Minister’s summing up.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)
The British public had to wait 41 years from 1975 for another referendum on EU membership, and while we have heard today that some may hope another one comes along very shortly, they do not represent a majority either in this House or in the country.
We have heard some excellent speeches in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) pointed out the ludicrous position whereby Lib Dems in Scotland are so clearly opposing a second indyref while arguing that a second referendum on EU exit is vital. He also spoke very well about the sea of opportunity for Scottish fishermen as we leave the commons fisheries policy.
We heard a brilliant, short and direct speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), and I agreed with every word that he said. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) clearly set out why, by ignoring the views of the electorate, the Lib Dems lost the support of people in Cornwall, and how his constituents, like mine, want to see the Government getting on with the job. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) for a strong and typically humorous speech from the Opposition Front Bench, and to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who spoke against the motion.
The referendum question agreed by this Parliament and presented to the people was simply whether we should leave the EU or remain in it; it was as simple as that. Parliament attached no conditions or caveats to that vote. The people voted to leave, and that is what the Government are delivering. I would be the first to accept that we must do so in a way that brings people together whether they voted leave or remain and that secures the best interests of our economy, and that is exactly what this Conservative Government are seeking to do. We have heard a great deal of nostalgia from Lib Dem MPs for their time in government, but we do not need job applications from former Lib Dem Ministers in search of a ministerial car to enable us to deliver for the economy.
Mr Walker
I will give way in a moment.
Some Members have suggested today that the Government have not made progress in negotiations with the EU, but I would contest that. The vast majority of the withdrawal agreement is now agreed and we remain on track to finalise its terms, alongside agreeing the framework for our future relationship, by October. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for their work on that process. I noted the kind comments of the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) about the courtesy with which he was always treated by my right hon. Friend, and I will give way to the hon. Gentleman now.
Stephen Gethins
The Minister talks about reaching out. Can he tell the House one area this Government have changed because of an intervention from the Opposition Benches or from a devolved Administration that the Conservatives would not have taken on board otherwise?
Mr Walker
We have listened very carefully to views across the whole House. I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends speaking about Erasmus. As the Prime Minister set out in her Mansion House speech, we are seeking cultural and educational co-operation with the EU. That is an issue on which Members across the House can agree and, of course, there have been many other issues where we have listened. During the passage of the EU withdrawal Act, we listened to views across the House and engaged on those. I personally was very pleased that we were able to engage with the cross-party amendment in the Lords on the Good Friday agreement—the one supported by Labour’s Lord Murphy and my noble Friend Lord Patten.
In March we reached a significant milestone, reaching agreement on wide areas of the withdrawal agreement, locking down the full chapters on citizens’ rights and the financial settlement, and providing certainty to businesses and individuals, with both sides committing in principle to a time-limited implementation period. Last month, building on the progress made in March, the UK and EU negotiating teams made further significant progress towards finalising the withdrawal agreement, with the majority of text on other separation issues now agreed. These cover a range of areas, including arrangements for goods on the market, Euratom-related issues, and co-operation in civil and commercial matters. We have had constructive discussions with the EU on the few remaining issues in the text, including data, police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, and governance arrangements for the agreement, and we look forward to finalising all these areas soon.
Under the terms of article 50, we are also in the process of negotiating the framework for our future relationship with the EU. Last weekend at Chequers, the Cabinet agreed the collective position on the UK’s proposals for that future relationship. This will create a free trade area between the UK and the EU which establishes a common rulebook for industrial goods. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) spoke about the importance of that to food and agriculture. High standards will be maintained, but we will also ensure that no new changes take place without the approval of our Parliament. We will have a new business-friendly customs model, with freedom to strike new trade deals around the world. These proposals avoid frictions in trade, protect jobs and livelihoods and, crucially, meet the commitments made by both sides to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland. Even the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), in opening the debate, recognised that as an advance, but it represents the consistent position of this Government.
Tom Brake
The Minister is painting a glowing picture of the deal that the Government are putting together. He might not have been on Twitter this afternoon, but I understand that two Tory vice-chairs have just resigned. How come they do not see this in quite the same terms as he does?
Mr Walker
I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that individuals’ decisions are up to those individuals.
We are clear that we are presenting a constructive approach to these negotiations to secure the right deal between the UK and the European Union. On Thursday, we will publish a White Paper that will set out in more detail how we will be taking back control of our money, our laws and our borders. It will also set out the nature of the deep and special relationship that the UK seeks with the EU after Brexit. It will be one that includes some of the issues that Liberal Democrat Members have talked about as though they might disappear, such as Erasmus and Horizon 2020, where we are seeking a constructive approach to being able to work together in the future.
Bob Stewart
It would be extremely nice to have a constructive approach to the negotiations from the European Union. We keep talking about the deal that we are trying to put together, but I would really like to hear what the European Union’s suggestions are, because I have heard nothing on that.
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes his point powerfully, but we need to ensure that we allow ourselves to take the right approach and the constructive approach to the negotiations. Many Members on both sides of the House have identified the damage that would be done to the negotiating process by signalling to the European Union that, if it were to take a tough stance and allow the talks to break down, the British people would simply decide to pay in and still send vast sums of money. The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) confirmed that it was the position of the Liberal Democrats to ask the question at the end of the process: “Do you like the deal that is on offer, or do you simply want to stay in the European Union?” If we set out that question right now to ask at the end of the process, there would be no incentive for the European Union to engage constructively with the negotiations over the coming months. It is naive in the extreme to think that the EU would continue to negotiate in good faith on that basis.
Sir Edward Davey
Will the Minister answer a question that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), failed to answer? In the Chequers statement, the Prime Minister stated that a new rule for the EU rulebook would be considered by this House and that we would have a chance to vote on it. Will he explain what would happen if the House were to reject a proposed new rule to add to the EU rulebook?
Mr Walker
I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we want to bring to the House an agreement between the UK and the EU that the whole House will want to support. There will be more detail on the precise measures in the White Paper that we are bringing forward at the end of this week—
Mr Walker
I say to the right hon. Gentleman, and to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who spoke about the results of the 2017 election in her own constituency, that they should pay attention to the fact that more than 80% of the people who voted in that general election voted for parties that had made it clear that they would respect the result of the referendum. The 8% who voted for the Liberal Democrat party do not represent a majority in the country or a significant shift of opinion on this issue. We are at a critical point in our negotiations, and we simply could not afford the distraction of this debate about a second referendum. What we need to do now is to progress our negotiations with the European Union in order to achieve the right outcome. The approach agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers is a constructive way forward. We are seeking to get the best deal for the UK as a whole, and we intend to negotiate under the best possible conditions. To do otherwise would be irresponsible in the extreme.
Gareth Snell
Does the Minister share my assessment that by pushing for a second referendum the Liberal Democrat no-deal fanatics are actually making no deal more likely, because they are making getting a good deal more difficult?
Mr Walker
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I did not agree with some of his speech, but he just made a strong point. We must ensure that both sides understand the need to engage constructively in the negotiations over the months ahead to seek a new relationship between the UK and the EU.
I have great respect for the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who made a passionate speech singing the praises of the EU and its model of bringing countries together. I understand the case that she makes, but it was also made during the EU referendum, when the British people decided not to consent to continued participation in that political project. We must respect that crucial decision. The Government have been clear in all such debates that our position respecting the referendum has remained the same. We said ahead of and at the time of the 2016 referendum that we would respect the result, and that remains the case. It is interesting that those on the Opposition Benches who support the idea of a second referendum only discovered their desire after being on the losing side.
On the night of the referendum, as we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, Lord Ashdown, perhaps in anticipation of a different outcome, said:
“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken. Whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%, when the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you do not.”
What does it say about the faith in the judgment of the British people of those who support such sentiments if they simply wish to ask the same question again in the hope of getting a different answer? As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said, it is a case of “Keep voting until you agree with us.”
The British people voted to leave the European Union, and it is the duty of this Government and this Parliament to deliver on their instruction. We have done so by voting overwhelmingly to trigger article 50 and by passing essential legislation, such as the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Petitions brought to this House for debate have repeatedly failed to garner the support of the House. Our position on this issue is therefore clear, and we have repeatedly said that there will be no second referendum or, as the right hon. Member for Twickenham suggested earlier, a third one.
John Lamont
Does the Minister agree that opinion polls show that there is no support for a second referendum? The Liberal Democrats claim that there is support for a final say, but people push back strongly when they are told that that will involve a referendum.
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. From meetings with businesses in Scotland, I know the deep concern among the business community at the prospect, as held out by the SNP, of a second independence referendum. From speaking to my constituents, whether they voted leave or remain, the main sentiment that I pick up is the same as I have picked up from many Government Members, which is that they want us to get on with the process.
We are determined to make a success of Brexit and we are working hard and at pace to get the best deal possible: an agreement that is in the mutual interests of both the United Kingdom and the European Union that delivers on the British people’s decision on Brexit in a pragmatic way without re-running and re-fighting the referendum. Whether in Scotland, England or Northern Ireland, our constituents want us to get on with the process and get on with it we will. However, some things are worth re-running, including the wise words of the right hon. Member for Twickenham, who is no longer in his place—[Interruption.] My apologies; he has moved. He said that the
“public have voted, and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say, ‘Sorry guys, you got it wrong, try again’.”
I therefore urge the House to reject this motion.
Question put.
House of Commons Commission (External Members)
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I will speak to this motion, because I was on the interview panel. Dr Rima Makarem was recruited following a fair and transparent competition. I thank the other members of the panel: the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the Clerk of the House. I want to thank the staff for their assiduous work in setting up the shortlisting and interview process, which went very smoothly, and also in identifying candidates, using a search that went beyond the usual places to look for more diverse candidates.
Dr Makarem has had a distinguished career in the healthcare and the pharmaceutical industries. She joined the University College London Hospitals board as a non-executive director and holds a portfolio of non-executive positions and is a member of the audit committee at the Medical Research Council.
Dr Makarem has significant experience as an audit chair: she was previously audit chair at NHS London and NHS Haringey, and is currently audit chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. She brings a wealth of experience from the private sector. She was director of competitive excellence at a pharmaceutical company and prior to that she held roles at consulting firms. In the annex to the motion, the memorandum by the Clerk of the House, it sets out more of the background of her excellent CV.
As a member of the panel, I can say that in both her written work and interview she won the unanimous approval of the board. We the Opposition endorse the appointment of Dr Rima Makarem as a new external member of the House of Commons Commission. She will replace Dame Janet Gaymer, who has been outstanding in the role and whose term expires in September, and we thank her for all her work.
The Commission also agreed that the term limit for its external members should be for a period of three years, with the possibility of an extension for a further two years. Jane McCall was appointed to the Commission as an external member on 2 February 2016 for a period of three years, and the Opposition support the extension of her appointment for a further two years up to a term limit of 1 February 2021. I am sure that they will both serve this House well as a critical friend.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I shall be briefer than usual as I am in the aftermath of a cold.
I rise once again to speak on the way in which we undertake public appointments in this country and, indeed, in this House. It is not an objection to the individuals concerned. However, they do once again seem to come from the great and the good. They may well be good. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) has just assured me, and the House, that the individual candidates were excellent people and excellently well qualified candidates, but that is the argument made all the time by the bastions of privilege.
The people before us may well be excellent, but we do not know whether others who might have applied might have been incorporated had we actually had people from a much wider world. Indeed, what do we do? We employ headhunters. Who do headhunters look at? They go and look at people they already know; they look at people who are already part of the circle. These jobs are reasonably well remunerated: £20,000 for 25 days. Many of my constituents would say, “Very nice work if you can get it.” Indeed, I do not know whether this is the same as some other appointments that we made where people were paid half-a-day’s pay for reading the papers before the meeting, and indeed a half-day’s stipend for attending a dinner the night before to talk over the issues with their colleagues.
As my hon. Friend has said, the qualifications of the individuals are impressive. Rima Makarem is currently audit chair at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, chair of the National Travel Health Network and Centre, audit chair at University College London Hospitals, trustee of the UCLH Charity, independent council member of St George’s, University of London, and, as my hon. Friend rightly said, has held some other previous roles as well. Quite frankly, with the problems that the health service has, I would have thought she would be busy enough dealing with those roles in the health service, rather than taking on yet another quango role.
Jane McCall has previously undertaken several non-executive roles within the health, housing and procurement sectors, including at the Office of Legal Complaints— the board of the Legal Ombudsman—and deputy chair of University Hospital of South Manchester, which is the Wythenshawe hospital. She is a non-executive director at the Information Commissioner’s Office and chair of Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust. There is a whole range. This is what we always do with selections, and it has become worse over time. If one looks back, one can see that there were very often local councillors on local health boards—quite often, quite senior local councillors and leaders of our great cities and, I say to Conservative colleagues, leaders in the shires as well. They were people who had experience of running organisations but also knew about the conditions in the locality and the situation on the ground.
We had business people previously. I understand that one of the candidates had previously worked in a multinational. We had not just those who had worked in multinationals; there were those who ran medium-sized businesses in the localities. There were those who had created start-ups, had built up businesses and then wanted to give something back to the community, which is a long-standing tradition in our country. In my neighbouring borough, in Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain made his fortune in the nuts and bolts industry. His main factory lies in my constituency. Having made that fortune, he became a civic leader and transformed that great city, the second city of our country. Those sorts of people no longer appear on the lists that we are regularly presented with or on the endless lists of appointments. It is all from the revolving quangocracy.
I am told by Members from rural areas that farmers with knowledge of the rural economy no longer get a look in. Trade unionists, whether conveners or local officials who really know local circumstances, were regularly on local and national boards; a number used to be in the House of Lords. When the post-war Labour Government nationalised the electricity industry, they put Lord Walter Citrine in charge. He was former assistant general secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, my own union, and also the former famous and outstanding general secretary of the Trades Union Congress. He was one of those who founded the free trade union movement after the second world war, in opposition to the Communist International. Such people were substantial people and they were the people Governments used to put into these positions––but no longer.
Both of the nominees may well be excellent candidates, with a good record in the health service, but if we are to have people from the health service, why not a doctor or a nurse, a paramedic, a technician or a care assistant—people who are working on the frontline in the health service? Why are we not putting those people into these positions? It is because they are not part of the magic circle or part of the group that people always look up, now on the computer or previously on the rolodex. Employing headhunters exacerbates that situation, as well as needlessly and uselessly contributing to our costs.
That is the problem. There are all those ordinary people in all of those different groupings. Other Members may well think of other groups. If we were to look at transport, there are those who work in that industry and may know a bit about it. It is a similar situation with the regulation of ports, and right the way through the panoply of all these various quangos. But these people do not meet the mandarins at the dinner parties and the cocktail parties. They get on with their jobs and get on with their lives, but they are not part of that magic circle.
As I say, I do not object to this motion with any personal animus towards these two individuals, whom I know not. I object to the continuation in this House, but much more widely across the civil service, of the process of selecting from a very small group, and all the time widening the gap between those who are making the decisions in administering such bodies and ordinary people who are actually affected by those decisions.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
I thank Dame Janet Gaymer for the work that she has done on the Commission. I welcome the appointment of Dr Rima Makarem and the extension of the appointment of Jane McCall, who has given some excellent advice to the Commission over the years. I look forward to Dr Makarem, in particular, contributing in the same way that Dame Janet has, to great effect, on the Commission.
I take slight issue with the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). I agree with him in principle that it should not simply be the usual suspects who are appointed to the usual positions. I can say, however—unusually defending the establishment—that the Commission, when it is appointing and employing, is very conscious indeed of the need to look beyond the usual suspects. It makes sure that it looks specifically at gender balance, sexuality, and those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Indeed—we have had this discussion on a number of occasions—it looks at class, so that those who are being appointed and employed have different accents, educational backgrounds and life experiences.
Clearly, however, when we contract out a job like this, candidates are found and interviewed, and the best person is appointed. I hope that one day it might not be the usual suspects, as the right hon. Gentleman might have it, but for today, I believe that the Commission has appointed the right person.
John Spellar
The hon. Gentleman again falls into the trap of saying that the best person is appointed. If we determine the criteria as to what we are trying to achieve, we determine the outcome. That is what happens when we appoint headhunters and put in certain specifications such as a legal background, an accountancy background or experience in HR management. The outcome is prejudiced against all the groups that I described who are being excluded.
Stewart Hosie
I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. However, the criteria that had to be set were for independent commissioners to sit on the Commission to advise, from different experience, on dealing with the management of what is effectively a small town, with all the HR and technical requirements. Of course there have to be criteria. One would not appoint a bricklayer, a plumber or a sparky without specifying that they could lay bricks or put the electricity blocks in place correctly and safely, and the same applies to the appointment of the non-executive posts on the Commission.
I did not want to have a bunfight over this with the right hon. Gentleman, because I actually agree with him in principle. I simply wanted to thank Dame Janet for her work, welcome the extension of Jane’s appointment, and welcome Rima Makarem’s appointment to the Commission from October.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)
The House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978 requires that there should be two external members of the Commission. These external members are recommended by the Commission but agreed by a resolution of the House. The House of Commons Commission agreed the terms of this motion on 25 June, and the House now has an opportunity to approve the terms today. Dame Janet Gaymer has given exceptional service to the House of Commons Commission, and we should extend our sincere thanks to her.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jane McCall for her service to the House to date and to wish her success if the extension of her term is approved. I would finally like to thank the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) for her work on the selection panel. I know that Dr Rima Makarem comes highly recommended, and I wish her success if her appointment is approved. I commend this motion to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The Question is as on the Order Paper. As many as are of that opinion say Aye.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
You’re a voice crying in the wilderness, John.
Madam Deputy Speaker
For the record, I did note one voice calling “No”—not in the wilderness, but quite clearly—but very many voices calling “Aye”, so the Ayes have it.
Question put and agreed to.
Business without Debate
Delegated legislation
Madam Deputy Speaker
With the leave of the House, we will take motions 5 and 6 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Local Government
That the draft West of England Combined Authority (Business Rate Supplements Functions) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 4 June, be approved.
Electricity
That the draft Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018, which were laid before this House on 14 June, be approved.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
NHS Trusts: Accountability
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
It is a privilege to have so long for this Adjournment debate on such an important subject. I know that when other colleagues realise that the debate has started, they will scamper to the Chamber. When I put down the title for this debate, I did not intend it to be a general debate, but when I have raised this issue in the House, many colleagues and those on the Front Bench have acknowledged it, particularly when I have raised it with the Leader of the House at business questions.
The NHS is not owned by politicians. It is not owned by doctors and nurses, and it certainly is not run by the bureaucrats in charge of the NHS. It is owned by the people. The people’s NHS was founded 70 years ago, which we are celebrating today. I would never advocate that we go back to the time when politicians and Ministers ran the NHS, but we are in a situation now where the bureaucrats who run the NHS have very little accountability. Time and again, my constituents say to me, “Why are they not listening to us? Why are they not listening to you, my MP? At the end of the day, you represent us in the House of Commons—you are there to represent our money.” That is the principle of our democracy today and has been the founding principle ever since we first elected people to this House over 900 years ago.
I find it amazing when we question the clinical commissioning group or one of the numerous trusts in my constituency. I never understand why, in a small county like mine, we have so many NHS trusts, acute trusts, mental health trusts and community trusts. The people do not understand it. They just see an NHS. They do not realise or want to know how many chief executives, finance directors or directors of nursing there are. They just want to be looked after by the NHS, which was the promise when the NHS was founded.
There are a couple of examples from my constituency that might resonate with colleagues around the House, as it may have happened in their constituencies as well. A few years ago in my constituency, we lost the NHS trust’s chief executive. The chief executive had been involved in the downgrading and closure of the acute hospital in my part of the world, and once he had done that, he decided to go to pastures new at very short notice. The then regional health authority seconded a new chief executive on what we thought was a temporary basis, but we noticed some time down the line that the role of chief executive of the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust had not been advertised, and there did not appear to be anybody saying that we should have people applying for such a senior position in the trust.
The gentleman’s name was Jan Filochowski. I know Hansard will ask me to spell that name later, and I will attempt to help them as much as I can, but anybody in my part of the world will know who that gentleman is. I did not have any particular gripe with Jan. I completely disagreed with the running down that he continued to do, but I did have one specific gripe, as did the hospital action group in my part of the world. In particular, Mr Ron Glatter picked up the argument, and I fired off several really important questions to the NHS regional health authority: “Hold up a second, has this person got this job now? Has he been appointed, and if he has, when was it advertised, and when was he interviewed?”
Sometime down the line—hidden with lots of mirrors in lots of different parts of the NHS—it was revealed that the gentleman had got the job without it being advertised and without being interviewed for it. However, because he had been given a contract, it would have been too expensive to remove him and to start again from scratch. We eventually found out that his remuneration package was in excess of £300,000, which is well over twice what the Prime Minister of this country earns. I accept that someone does not become the Prime Minister to earn a lot of money—clearly, there are other reasons why someone becomes Prime Minister—but surely, within the NHS of all places, that sort of remuneration package is not only excessive, but actually sick. The money that person was earning! I am sure there are others who are earning close to that, perhaps more or perhaps slightly less.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Does it not get even worse, in that individuals who fail in such jobs are given pay-offs to get them out of the hospital, but in a fairly short space of time the magic circle again fits them up with an appointment in another hospital, where they again fail and again cost huge sums of money?
Sir Mike Penning
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The gentleman did not stay very long, but he caused carnage in our NHS trust and morale went through the floor. I am sure some of the books might have looked a bit better, but certainly acute care was really struggling. The gentleman left after two years, or something like that, and he went to Great Ormond Street Hospital as the chief executive. I am sure he went on a huge pay cut—no, I am being cynical: I doubt it. He has now retired.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s point, before that gentleman there was another chief executive involved in investing in our health, who went off under a cloud. I managed to get him summoned to the Health Committee, when I was a member of it, to find out the truth about what was happening with the closure programmes. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right because, a few years later, he appeared back in my constituency as the chief executive of the community trust. He then had the audacity to ask, “Can we put all that behind us, as this is a new job and a different project for me?” Yes, it goes full circle: just as the right hon. Gentleman said in the previous debate, it is jobs for the boys, and they come back round again.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, in which he is highlighting a very specific issue. Does he not agree that there is a duty of care on Government-funded bodies, which quite clearly pay people from Government funds, to ensure that employees at every level are accountable to trusts? More must be done to inspire confidence in the NHS—this is quite clearly a confidence issue—as well as to provide transparency and clear accountability.
Sir Mike Penning
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. We have discussed and debated this before, and this must be like “Groundhog Day” for the Minister. I should have thanked him earlier for bearing with me in what may be a much longer debate than he probably assumed when he saw it on the Order Paper.
It is important that there is proper due process when we employ people who work in the NHS, and in relation to salaries. I am sure that the Minister will now go away and check with the Treasury how this happened. My understanding was that such remuneration—and we are going back a couple of years—would not have been allowed even then. Trust in the NHS is vital. There are other examples, which I will produce, that will show that although the NHS is absolutely world renowned, there are errors in it that infuriate the people who it is supposed to be representing and looking after.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
This is a timely debate. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar): it seems to me that a game of musical chairs is going on. We see chief executives who leave under questionable circumstances get a job outside the NHS and then turn up at another trust somewhere else. There does not seem to be any accountability.
As politicians, we are often accused of being remote, but nobody is more remote than people at some of the trusts I have looked at. Someone trying to get information from them about their budgets and where the expenditure goes has a job on their hands. It is about time that how the Department is run is looked at; it gives directions to the rest of the chief executives in the country, even on appointments.
Sir Mike Penning
I agree almost completely; I would just say that sometimes these people do not even leave the NHS—they stay within the structure of the NHS, but just go to a different trust in a different part of the country. Then they just reappear again and again.
I have often wondered about something. A director of nursing should clearly have come up through the nursing ranks; I understand that. Clearly, also, clinicians have to be involved in the clinical side. But why does NHS management have to be completely incestuous in how it works? If someone started as a nurse or doctor, how on earth do they have the necessary qualifications to run a massive multi-million pound organisation? Yet that is how it seems to happen. It took a long time for Mr Ron Glatter to get the figures when he was challenged. When we eventually got them, it was like pulling teeth: was it a package or a salary? “This is personal information.” This is taxpayers’ money. One of the most difficult things is to find out exactly where the money is going.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentioned nurses, doctors and other clinicians taking on managerial roles. To what extent is that driven by a desire to reduce the number of managers in hospitals—to call them “nurse managers” and claim they are nurses when they are actually fulfilling a management role?
Sir Mike Penning
My hon. Friend brings great expertise to the debate, and I thank her for joining us. She is absolutely right. I declare an interest: my mother was a nurse in the days of “sister” and “matron”. Then there were nurse managers and other managers—all of a sudden, we went that way, but we seem to be coming back again. We can change the name on the Titanic, but it is still the Titanic: a manager is a manager, no matter what title we put on them.
It seems to me that we are not reducing the number of managers. I vividly remember that there were 11 primary care trusts in the Dacorum area of my constituency. Then the number reduced to two—one, actually, because there was only one director of finance. When we looked at the head count, the cost analysis, which should have massively reduced, it had actually gone up.
I want clinicians to be involved in the day-to-day care of my constituents, but I am not convinced that a GP should chair a clinical commissioning group, especially given that in most cases they do not seem to be full time in the role. What qualifications do they bring? I know that GP practices are much more business-orientated now than ever before, but they employ practice managers—the partners do not run things.
More recently, there has been an understandable concern in my constituency about the proposed closure of one of the facilities called Nascot Lawn; it is not in my constituency, but was playing a vital role in looking after the most vulnerable children in my community. Brilliantly, the families and loved ones came together to challenge the closure. They got the MPs on board and we were involved. I then scratched my head and said, “Hold on a second, I remember being told that Nascot Lawn was going to provide the respite care for my constituents when they closed a place called Woolmer Drive.” Woolmer Drive was a desperately needed respite centre where young people could go, and where their carers and loved ones could spend a bit of time. So not only did Woolmer Drive close, which meant that patients had to go to Nascot Lawn, but Nascot Lawn was closing. That was challenged, but there was very, very little consultation.
I will talk about consultations in quite a lot of depth. Frankly, most consultations are a sham. The decisions are made before they consult. They make the decision to close, put it in their budgetary regime and then consult. They then come out and say, “We’ve listened to the consultation and we are going to ignore you.” So what is the point of the consultation?
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
My right hon. Friend echoes our experience in Worcestershire. The Minister will know the deep concern my constituents have about Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Exactly the same thing happened before I came to this place. Services were taken away from the hospital and people were told, “You’re being consulted.” All that happened was that services were removed. It was part of a plan, I understand that, but the idea that it was a consultation is really for the birds.
Sir Mike Penning
It is a tick-box exercise. Most of the time trusts cannot even get that right. In this particular case—I will come on to another case in a moment—we challenged it. We judicially reviewed it not once, but twice. But why should members of the public have to come together to raise money to judicially review such decisions? There is currently no other process with proper discussion and involvement of patients, which challenges the decisions we hear day in, day out.
Mr Cunningham
The right hon. Gentleman is being very gracious in giving way. We had a case involving two consultants. With one in particular, the case actually ended up in the courts. We have never been able to find out the cost of the litigation, but it was anywhere between £2 million and £4 million. On the one hand, the public has got to raise the money if they want to challenge something, but within the NHS itself, where resources are very scarce, a lot of money is wasted on litigation. This consultant was taken to task because he was a whistleblower. On the one hand they encourage whistleblowers, but if they do not like what the whistleblowers have to say they suspend them and eventually try to get rid of them through litigation.
Sir Mike Penning
I was coming on to that point, but let me meet it head on now. I speak to nurses and other frontline staff who look after my local patients, including some doctors, and they are petrified of telling their own MP what is going on in case of retribution. Perhaps the Minister will help me to get to the bottom of the number of gagging orders out there at the moment in my trust, whereby things have been settled and people have been gagged. The types of threats in the gagging orders that are put on them are very severe.
There was a consultation panel in my constituency about the future of health, and the people allowed on the panel had been gagged. These are members of the general public who have been told categorically not to talk to me. They are not to tell me what is going on in the NHS in my own local community. They will be thrown off the panel if they do, and it is worse for the staff who have gagging orders against them. This is very serious.
We see the amount of money the NHS uses in litigation, whereas our patients have to raise money themselves. The NHS seems to settle very easily when there are threats against it relating to malpractice or when something has gone wrong at the trivial end of things, but when things are really serious and deaths have taken place, down come the shutters. Nationally, we have seen what happens—it has happened recently in Gosport and in Staffordshire when I was a shadow Minister—unless the staff have 100% confidence that they can go to their MP or their line management and tell them what has been going on. Sometimes it can be quite trivial, but often it is very serious, and there is clearly retribution against them should they do so. That is something we need to sort out.
Dr Caroline Johnson
It is extremely important that all health professionals in hospitals are able to report any concerns that they have. I understand that there is to be a whistleblowing champion for each trust. What does my right hon. Friend know of those, and does he think they will help?
Sir Mike Penning
It is all well and good saying that there should be, perhaps in legislation, but unless people have the confidence that their career is not going to be curtailed, or unless they are close to retirement and are not going to put their pension at risk, they are not going to blow the whistle. What really upsets me is that although I was sent to this House to represent people and for them to be able to tell me, in confidence, anything that they needed to, so that between the two of us we could discuss how to take it forward—often without using their name, but if necessary we can—that is not happening. That really worries me an awful lot.
To go back to Nascot Lawn, we went to a judicial review. We have done that before in our part of the world. The judge sided with the patients, but all that happened—it was about process, of course—was that it went back to the CCG, which turned around and said, “We will consult slightly differently. We will address what the court said, and by the way, we are going to go ahead and do it.” It is a sham, and we should be honest about that in the House.
When we tried to prevent our acute hospital from being closed—I pay tribute to my community for that—we did everything in the world. We got a coffin on a trolley, and thousands of us pushed it from my A&E that was going to close to the nearest one at Watford hospital, which it was proposed people should go to, in order to show just how much passion there was. We managed to get the money together to go to judicial review—a lot of money; in excess of £60,000—and the judge said, “You have a moral case. You have an ethical case. I agree with you, but you don’t have a case in law because all the powers are with the trust and the PCT”, as it was then. I ask the Minister: how can it be right that people must be so concerned, not just in my constituency but elsewhere?
Lastly on this part of my speech, let me talk again about what happened when we lost our A&E. I have raised this in the House before, so the Minister knows what I am talking about. To go back a bit further, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead and Watford are covered by West Herts, and at one time all three had A&Es. We are a massively growing population. The largest town in Hertfordshire is Hemel, which will have a projected 20,000 new homes in the next 20 years. St Albans is expanding, and so is Watford. There was a consultation, but the public were ignored. The A&E was closed and made into an elective surgery facility in St Albans. The public promises to the people of St Albans were that Hemel’s A&E would look after them. It is not a particularly long ride—it is clearly not in St Albans town centre, but that was going to be that. However, a few years on, those responsible said, “Let’s shut Hemel’s A&E and move it to Watford, because that can look after West Herts,” so the promises went out the window. The public went mad in St Albans and in our area. They were all on the streets, and what did we get? An urgent care centre, some out-patient services and a fracture clinic. Really and truly, that is all that is left in Hemel.
Rachel Maclean
My right hon. Friend is generous in giving way a second time. Again, the parallels with Redditch are interesting. Does he agree that the problem for the public comes when they see that their town is growing and they feel that trusts have not planned for the future? That is exactly what we have in Redditch as well, because it is a new town and it is growing, and people do not understand how the future demand will be catered for in the trust’s plans.
Sir Mike Penning
That is absolutely what I hear every day in my constituency. I also hear, “What are you going to do about it, Mr MP? Get off your backside and do something about it!” I am doing everything I possibly can—I am meeting Secretaries of State and trusts—but what happens? I get ignored, because I have no powers at all; it is all in the hands of bureaucrats.
Dr Caroline Johnson
We have a similar situation in Grantham A&E, which serves my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and I have been working to try to get Grantham A&E reopened around the clock since it was closed without consultation in August 2016.
Sir Mike Penning
If the A&E was closed without consultation, that is illegal. I think the Minister will confirm that it is illegal to make major changes to a community’s health provision without consultation.
Hemel Hempstead A&E closed after a bogus consultation, and everything moved to Watford. We were promised that it would all be okay, and that we would have a 24-hour urgent care centre manned by GPs. Let us go back to just before Christmas 2016. There had been chaos—and I mean chaos—at the acute admissions unit in Watford hospital, which has just recently come out of special measures. All the ambulances were getting held up in big bottlenecks at the A&E at Watford. The big, new, bright idea was that we would close the urgent care centre that had replaced the A&E in Hemel Hempstead, and that that would be okay.
I had a meeting with the chief executive of the trust, who told me, “Mike, we are only doing this on safety grounds, because we cannot get the GPs to cover the hours.” That was really surprising to me, because there is a GP drop-in centre in the next room—not across the other side of town or even in a different part of the complex, but in the next room. I was told, “That is a different contract. We can’t touch that, mate; it’s nothing to do with us.” The chief executive said to me, “Don’t worry, Mr Penning, we can’t close the 24-hour service, because we have not consulted. This is just a temporary, emergency measure.” She went on the local radio station—I did not ask her to do that—and reiterated exactly what she had told me. In fact, she went further and said that the centre would be closed for only a couple of months and that it would reopen, because it would be categorically illegal to change the hours without consultation.
Reducing the hours of an urgent care centre—which used to be an A&E—from 24 to 10 is a major thing. Eighteen months later, the trust consulted on a proposal to turn the 24-hour urgent care centre into an urgent treatment centre, which would shut at 10 pm. Perhaps the Minister can explain to the general public the real difference between an urgent care centre and an urgent treatment centre, because I struggled to do so. I know that there is a methodology within the Department, but all that Joe Bloggs, my constituents, saw was a downgrading.
By the time of the consultation, the centre had already been closed for 18 months, so what choice did we have? We could not rewind the clock 18 months. The trust misled us by saying that the measure was temporary. The chief executive promised me that to my face, and she repeated that promise on the local radio station. That commitment was not worth the paper it was written on—or rather the voice that spoke it. My constituents have suffered a massive loss of trust in brand NHS. Their trust has been decimated, because promise after promise has been broken.
Naturally, the vast majority of consultation responses —do not quote me on this, but I think it was about 80%—said that the centre had to be open 24 hours. Guess what, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is not. It has been renamed an urgent treatment centre, and it closes, allegedly, at 10 o’clock at night. Within the last few days, however, a very senior person in my constituency whom I trust implicitly saw someone collapse outside the centre at approximately 9.30 pm—half an hour before it was supposed to close—but the doors were locked. It was only because a member of the public opened them from the inside that the patient was seen. The doors were not opened by the NHS staff who were inside, even though they must have known that the patient was there. I hope and pray that she is okay.
I am now told that the doors are regularly locked at any time after 9 pm. That is disastrous for my constituents when they turn up there, but many of them simply do not trust the centre to be open at night. What is going on? Naturally enough, although sometimes inappropriately, they go to the A&E at Watford, which is causing it even more of a problem—but can we get anyone to listen? No, we cannot.
Watford General Hospital is in the middle of Watford, next to a football club about which a great many of my constituents are passionate, Watford FC. It used to be the home of Saracens, and I am passionate about them as well. The hospital was built in Victorian days, and the best way to describe it is “not fit for purpose”. The people of Watford will probably say, “Please do not run down the hospital, because it might be closed”, and I fully understand that, but the truth is that we all need a new hospital.
Although, as we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) about her area, the population is growing massively, we are now supposed to listen to the management telling us what they are likely to provide. I have attended meetings with the Secretary of State and NHS Improvement about the applications from my local acute trust and clinical commissioning group, and it petrifies me that yet again they are not going to listen—I do not mean to me, or to the Minister, who knows that he has no powers and will be treated with the disrespect that I often receive; they just ignore us—but to the people whom they are supposed to be serving, and who pay their wages out of their taxes.
I am not a clinician, although I was a paramedic in the armed forces and I know a little bit, but surgeons, GPs and frontline senior nursing staff have been speaking to me privately. It is fundamentally wrong and dangerous to keep saying that Watford can cope with the ever-growing population of west Hertfordshire.
I have met representatives of NHS Improvement with a delegation from my hospital action group, led by the brilliant Betty Harris, with Edie Glatter and her team, Jan Maddern and others, and we have joined forces with a separate campaign from St Albans. We were promised that the NHS management, as they looked at the applications for healthcare regeneration in my part of the world, would ensure that the CCG and the acute trust had more than one option on the table, rather than just ploughing more money into the Victorian hospital. I know that there have been conversations about a greenfield site, which is owned by us because it is Crown Estate land. It is by the M1, close to the M25, between St Albans and Hemel Hempstead. It is perfect for an acute facility—the infrastructure could not be bettered—but I think we are being ignored again. I cannot prove that, but it is my gut feeling, and it is certainly the feeling of the thousands of people in my constituency.
I am a loyal member of the Conservative party. I was a Minister for seven years in seven Departments, and I was on the Front Bench in opposition for four and a half years. I have to ask myself why I am supporting a Government who are allowing my constituents to be ignored. The Minister must not take this personally, but the present situation is crazy. The Department of Health and Social Care—I was not in that Department, but I have been in many others—actually has very little control over what is going on out there in our wonderful NHS. We have inspections, my local hospital goes into special measures and then comes out of them, it gets into debt and then comes out of it. However, the truth in my part of the world is that if NHS management are not accountable to Ministers or to me as their MP—and, much more importantly, are not accountable to the people whom they are supposed to be looking after—we have a serious problem. If my constituents cannot come to me and express their concern about what is going on in the NHS, there is a serious problem with our democracy, and that is something that I cannot live with.
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) for bringing the important matter of NHS accountability before the House. No one who heard his remarks can doubt for one minute his passion both for the NHS and for ensuring that the services it provides meet the needs of his constituents. He is right in this month, when we mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS, to emphasise that the NHS belongs to the people—not to any specific party or group, but to the constituents it serves.
My right hon. Friend made a number of specific allegations. Having been a Minister, he will appreciate that, having brought those issues before the House in the way he has, it is difficult for me to comment on some of the specific points, but I commit to follow up with him after the debate on some of those issues. In particular, he raised a very concerning allegation regarding a constituent who had collapsed before 10 pm outside the urgent treatment centre. He is right that that centre should be open until 10 pm, so clearly that is a specific issue that I will be keen to explore with him.
My right hon. Friend raised concerns as to whether his constituents who have whistleblown have in practice been gagged. As you are probably aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I spent a considerable amount of time and effort on that issue. In response to concerns raised by the PAC during that time, in 2013, the Government introduced guidance that banned gagging orders and a legal duty of candour. As this is the first time I have been at the Dispatch Box since the ministerial reshuffle, I am sure my right hon. Friend will join me in paying tribute to the outgoing Secretary of State, who is now Foreign Secretary, who made patient safety a central tenet of his time in the Department and, as part of that, spoke up for whistleblowers and for the value they offer to the NHS.
Sir Mike Penning
I must apologise to my colleague, the now Foreign Secretary, who was so generous with his time in seeing me. I hope that the new Health Secretary will not get so upset when I am banging on his door—perhaps as much as I was on the previous Health Secretary’s door.
Stephen Barclay
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for recognising that in the House. I think that is widely shared across the NHS.
It is right that the Government are bringing forward the draft Bill to place the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch on a legal footing. Indeed, trusts should disclose any pay settlements to NHS Improvement. Therefore, on the concern to which my right hon. Friend brought the House’s attention—whether whistleblowers have been gagged and, if so, whether that has been induced through financial payment—both those breach the Government’s guidelines and they would need to be reported to NHS Improvement. If he is able to share any specific allegations after this debate, I will be keen to explore them.
My right hon. Friend expressed concern that service changes are “all in the hands of bureaucrats” and I must take slight issue with that.
Stephen Barclay
Well, I must take issue with that point. First, my right hon. Friend is well aware that the Government have four tests that apply to service change that ensure the voice of patients is heard and in particular that service reconfigurations are clinically led and done at a local level. I draw attention to the work that Professor Tim Briggs and Professor Tim Evans are doing through the “Get it right first time” initiative, which is all about driving through change to service provision through the leadership of national clinicians working with local clinicians in order to get that service buy-in.
Sir Mike Penning
I do not want to take up too much more of the Minister’s time, but I am afraid that, in parts of the country, certainly in mine, the requirement to consult is simply being ignored. I have given the House a classic example in which an urgent care centre was closed at night with no consultation at all. It took 18 months for a bogus consultation to take place on whether it should close at night. The changes are there to be seen by everyone. I know that the Minister is telling me all this in good faith but, as he has heard from colleagues on both sides of the House, on the frontline, in the real world, people are ignoring the guidelines, which is surely illegal.
Stephen Barclay
I shall just unbundle two separate points from my right hon. Friend’s remarks. First, his point that these changes are all in the hands of the bureaucrats collides with the Government’s own position, which is that there are four tests. What he is drawing out is not whether the guidance is there as a protection but whether it is being implemented operationally, and that obviously needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Secondly, he and I debated this issue in some detail in an Adjournment debate in March, when this specific point was explored more fully. The urgent care centre in question saw an average of seven patients between midnight and 8 am, and an average of four between 10 pm and midnight. So in the period between 10 pm and the centre reopening at 8 am, an average of 11 patients were being seen. I suspect that that is why, at local level, the change was made. I appreciate that it was initially done on patient safety grounds, with the consultation following, as we explored previously.
Sir Mike Penning
This is a hugely emotive issue. Yes, the excuse was that the centre was closing at night on grounds of patient safety because it could not get a GP there, but it does not take 18 months to turn round and say, “Oh, by the way, the numbers weren’t there in the first place and that’s why we had to close the centre.” That was the excuse 18 months after it had been closed at night times. Whether the numbers are right or not—they are hugely contested by my constituents—it cannot be acceptable that no consultation took place for 18 months.
Stephen Barclay
As I have said, we did explore these issues in some detail in March, and I absolutely respect the conviction with which my right hon. Friend is championing the interests of his constituents.
In the spirit of balance, I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that a number of enhancements have also been made, including the introduction of a number of bookable appointments through NHS 111, which includes a clinical assessment service to ensure that patients’ needs are medically assessed; the addition of near patient testing for some conditions, reducing waiting times and reducing the need for patients to attend Watford Hospital; and an improved IT system meaning that medical staff will be able to access patient records if they give their consent. The clinical commissioning group also expects the service to expand to include a greater skill mix of other professionals such as pharmacists, emergency care practitioners and community nursing staff, and to provide access to mental health services. This is not a static situation. Some improvements have been made, but I absolutely take on board the concerns that my right hon. Friend has raised.
My right hon. Friend has raised concerns about the hiring of leadership positions, particularly two chief executive roles. He will be aware that this point was also raised by the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) in respect of the chair of Blackpool Victoria Hospital in an Adjournment debate only last week. I also note that the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) and the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) have raised similar issues. It is right that the views of constituency Members should be taken on board as part of any consultation, because Members of Parliament interact with a wide spectrum of their electorate and they are obviously well placed to feed into such consultations. As a Minister, that is something I take very seriously, and working on the cross-party basis, I am always keen to hear from colleagues when concerns arise.
That goes back to my right hon. Friend’s point about trust. Issues in terms of pay need to be balanced. On the one hand, we need to recognise the complexity of senior leadership roles. We are dealing with hospital trusts that often have budgets running into the hundreds of millions of pounds. These are senior, complex, challenging roles that need to attract talented individuals. At the same time, those salaries and that remuneration need to be balanced with the wider values of the NHS. There is a live discussion about what the right level of remuneration is to attract talent while not being out of step with the NHS values that both sides of the House recognise.
I turn now to my right hon. Friend’s point about the new hospital site and capital investment in the STP area. He will be aware that the same STP currently has a significant new build proposal at Harlow. My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) is assiduous in championing that proposal, and I met with the chief executive of that trust—
Sir Mike Penning
My constituents will not know what STPs are. At the end of the day, the new site is in Essex, on the east Hertfordshire border, which is nowhere near my constituency. There is no tangible benefit when the debate is about a new hospital in west Hertfordshire.
Stephen Barclay
I beg to differ from my right hon. Friend on that, because this gets to the crux of the issue. The NHS must evolve. It has to move with technology and with the skills mix. Alongside the significant funding injection that the Prime Minister announced at the Royal Free Hospital, the NHS must also deliver productivity. At the specialist level, such as oncology or neuroscience, we often have populations of 3 million that need to be treated. Look at the footprint of the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, for example.
If we look at the other end, we need to deliver more care in the home and not have acute trusts soaking up so much investment. We need dynamic reconfigurations without acute trusts being the sole focus of our attention. We need service changes but—this goes to the core of my right hon. Friend’s remarks—they must be taken forward with clinical leadership and in a way that delivers trust.
I am happy to continue to engage with my right hon. Friend’s specific allegations on a case-by-case basis.
Dr Caroline Johnson
The Minister talks about dealing with things on a case-by-case basis, so I wonder whether he will consider Grantham’s A&E, which has had to close overnight for nearly two years, to see what can be done to facilitate its reopening as soon as possible.
Stephen Barclay
Again, I am happy to consider that issue. I have been up to visit the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and have met the chief executive and the leadership team, so I am aware of the issues, which are partly due to geography. However, we are straying slightly away from Hemel Hempstead.
As I said, I am happy to engage with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead on his specific allegations. It is important that service changes are done at the local level with clinical leadership in a way that builds trust, and I will continue to engage with him in the weeks and months ahead.
Question put and agreed to.