UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I have provisionally selected the following amendments in the following order: (a) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn); (i) in the name of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford); and (e) in the name of the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry).

I remind the House that, under the terms of the business motion just agreed to, the debate may continue until 5 pm, at which time the question shall be put on any amendments that may then be moved. To open the debate, I call the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

12:19

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Stephen Barclay)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the Prime Minister’s statement of 12 February 2019; reiterates its support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29 January 2019 and notes that discussions between the UK and the EU on the Northern Ireland backstop are ongoing.

On 29 January, a majority of right hon. and hon. Members told this House and our country that they would support a deal, but that this support was conditional. Members were prepared to compromise on issues, but not on the overriding issue of the backstop. The Government’s motion today references and confirms this House’s support for the motion passed on 29 January, as amended by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady). His amendment in effect gave this Government an instruction, which we have taken to our European partners.

This Parliament’s mandate must now be the given the opportunity to achieve its end, and the Prime Minister must be given the chance to ensure that. It is clear that the Government’s priority is to address the indefinite nature of the backstop, which, under article 50, is legally required to be temporary. Today I will address issues raised by a certain number of my hon. and right hon. Friends who are concerned about whether this motion gives credence to the idea that the Government are taking no deal off the table.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Given the debate and dispute about the meaning of the Government’s motion, will my right hon. Friend be clear with the House that if the European Union does not agree to a deal that is acceptable to this House and the Government, we will still be leaving on 29 March?

[Stephen Barclay]

I am very happy to give my right hon. Friend and predecessor in this role that assurance. The Cabinet’s position on no deal has been agreed; it was agreed in response to the Cabinet paper that I presented on 18 December. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has repeated her commitment to the timescale on numerous occasions, including again in her statement this week.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Secretary of State has set out why he is observing what the House said on alternative arrangements, so why is he not also observing and acting on what the House has said on the Government ruling out no deal?

[Stephen Barclay]

The short answer is that the House has said two different things. It passed by a big majority legislation on article 50, which many Members on both sides of the House voted for. It passed by a large margin legislation to say we are leaving the EU on 29 March, and put that date on the face of the withdrawal Bill. The House also voted by a large margin to give the people the decision through the referendum. Frankly, the legislation takes precedence over the motion to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. In essence, this issue was raised earlier in a point of order. I appreciate that he is making this point as an intervention, but it is the same point.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I encourage the Government to keep their nerve during these negotiations. I accept that the vast majority in this place would favour a good deal over no deal, but will the Government confirm for absolute clarity that if we are not able to secure a good deal—probably courtesy of intransigence by the EU—we will not only leave on 29 March, but will leave on no-deal/World Trade Organisation terms?

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend, as a former member of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, knows all about holding his nerve. He is correct that Parliament needs to hold its nerve. We need to send a clear signal to those in the European Union with whom we are discussing these issues, who share our desire to have a deal and to deliver on our shared values, and who respect the fact that we are trading partners, and wish to get on with the future economic partnership and work together.

[Mr Baron]

I think we all agree about the importance of keeping our nerve, and keeping no deal on the table actually makes a good deal more likely, but will the Secretary of State answer my specific question and confirm that if we do not achieve a good deal on 29 March, we will not just leave the EU, but will leave on no-deal terms?

[Stephen Barclay]

For the avoidance of doubt, I am happy to confirm that, because that is what the legislation says. The only way to avoid no deal—as the Prime Minister has repeatedly said, and as is backed up in legislation—is either to secure a deal on the terms that the Prime Minister has set out, with the mandate that the House gave her in response to the earlier motion, or to revoke article 50. The court case says that the only alternative would be to revoke, and revoking would be unconditional and unequivocal.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend was just moving on to an alternative, but it seems to me that he has just given the starkest expression of policy that I have heard the Government give so far on what will happen if the present negotiations fail; these are alarming possibilities. He says that we are bound by the legislation relating to article 50, which indeed we are, but when the House agreed to use article 50, it was on the assumption that a negotiated deal would be arrived at. [Interruption.] Well, of course it was. Indeed, at one point the Prime Minister presented to this House what she said was the ideal deal with which to go on to the full negotiations towards meeting the Government’s declared aim of having a proper, permanent relationship with the EU in due course. The idea of going for the catastrophe of no deal on the arbitrary date of 29 March, simply because the Prime Minister will probably fail to persuade the other member states to put a time limit on a permanent open border in Europe, is ridiculous. The Government could have a policy of coming back here to defer or revoke article 50 to put the situation in some order.

[Stephen Barclay]

Although I obviously respect the considerable experience of the Father of the House, I frankly do not accept that merely restating the legislative position is presenting issues in a stark way; nor do I accept that the Prime Minister will fail. The Prime Minister is working in the national interest, is seeking to bring our country together, and is seeking a deal for our country. A short extension of article 50 does not take no deal off the table. It simply prolongs that uncertainty; it leaves in place the risk of no deal in a few months’ time.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister met hon. Members in the Boothroyd Room before the first vote, which she lost by 230, and said that if her deal was not accepted, it was either no deal or no Brexit. An amendment could have been moved to revoke article 50 today, but should not the Government be moving towards that point? We should put it to the House: we either have the Brexit that is going to crash the economy, or, with one letter from the Prime Minister to the European Union, we forget this silly game and revoke this nonsense. It could be over in an afternoon. Get on with it.

[Stephen Barclay]

Given the propensity of the Scottish National party to have referendums and not respect the result, the one thing that we can always be sure of with the SNP is that it will not be over in an afternoon.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

I very much want to see a deal done. It is in the interests of the country, and it is definitely in the interests of industry. The European Union has a wide history of changing its mind and coming through with fresh negotiations, perhaps at the very last minute. Will my right hon. Friend tell me how his talks have been going, and does he think that we should allow the Government to do exactly what they are doing?

[Stephen Barclay]

As is so often the case, my right hon. Friend reflects a sentiment that one hears expressed in the country at large, which is the desire for a deal. As he says, that desire is shared by many people we have been speaking to in the European Union. They recognise that no deal is in the interest of neither side, and that it is disruptive. Later, I will come to what Chancellor Merkel said about seeking a constructive solution. The political situation in many European countries, and the coalition that is in place, again shows that this is in the interests of both sides.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Of course we want to get a deal with the European Union, but is not taking no deal off the table the surest way of ensuring that the other side dig in on their current position? That is just a fact of life. Those who call for no deal to be taken off the table are playing into the hands of the possibility of no deal. Will the Secretary of State update the House on his discussions with his Irish counterparts, given that they play a crucial role? They cannot hide behind Brussels; likewise, Brussels cannot hide behind Dublin on these issues.

[Stephen Barclay]

The right hon. Gentleman is right on both points. First, it is important that we have no deal on the table. Indeed, the only way to take it off the table is either to have a deal or to revoke Brexit entirely.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Stephen Barclay]

If I can make some progress, I will come on to the discussions the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, which include the discussion that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had with the Taoiseach last week, and also her visit to Northern Ireland, where there is a shared desire on this, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows. Indeed, in the House yesterday, in his evidence to the Exiting the European Union Committee, the highly respected former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, talked about the impact of no deal from an Irish perspective, and the common desire to seek agreement.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Stephen Barclay]

I will make some progress, and then will happily take further interventions. A number of interventions have sought to represent the position of the Prime Minister, so it is worth reminding the House of what the Prime Minister said:

“the Government’s position remains the same: the House voted to trigger article 50; that had a two-year timeline that ends on 29 March; we want to leave with a deal, and that is what we are working for.”—[Official Report, 13 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 881.]

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Stephen Barclay]

I am going to make a little progress, and then I will happily take further interventions.

This is also an important issue for European leaders’ positions on whether, if the EU were to make changes to the backstop, that would enable a deal to pass. That is why it is important to the negotiations that a clear message be sent from this House. Colleagues should be in no doubt that the EU will be watching our votes tonight carefully for any sign that our resolve is weakening. We shall not give it that excuse not to engage. Indeed, in the discussions we have been having with European leaders, there is recognition, as reflected by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), of the shared desire to secure a deal, because the impact of no deal is asymmetric within the EU27. Indeed, that is a part of the discussions that member states are having with the European Commission.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that the European Union is saying that it will not entertain any legal changes to the withdrawal agreement—I share the Secretary of State’s desire to get a deal and have made it very clear that if it came to it I would consider supporting the Government in a future vote—what I need to know from the Secretary of State is what compromise he is going to give to this House that better reflects the will of this House rather than simply putting a deal back to us that has already been comprehensively rejected.

[Stephen Barclay]

I am going to come on to that exact issue. The hon. Gentleman cited at the start of his intervention the premise that the European position, as stated, is that there will be no movement. Well, actually, the European Union has also stated that it wants to avoid no deal, which is hugely damaging. The European Union has also stated that it wants to be clear what the will of this House is and what is required in order to secure a deal. It is self-evident that there is a degree of ambiguity between those positions. Indeed—I will come on to this—the discussions we have been having with European leaders are absolutely on that issue. That is why we need some time, in terms of the vote this evening, to continue with those discussions.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Further to the Secretary of State’s answer to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), is he really saying that if the Government have no deal in place by the end of March—if they have run out of time—then they would go ahead with no deal on 29 March even when top police chiefs are saying that it will make the country less safe and NHS leaders are saying that there will be shortages of medicines? Is he 100% committed to no deal on 29 March in those circumstances, or are there any circumstances in which he would extend article 50?

[Stephen Barclay]

Again, what I set out was that we are 100% committed to the position set out and agreed by the Cabinet. That position was agreed on 18 December. I was drawing the House’s attention to the fact that the motion today does not change that position, and that position is that it is our priority to secure a deal. I have stated at the Dispatch Box previously that the best way to mitigate the risk of no deal is to secure a deal. I will come on to some of the issues in respect of the consequences of no deal. I have been quite clear with some of my colleagues on my own Benches that I do view no deal as disruptive—much more so than some of my hon. and right hon. Friends. Our priority is to secure a deal, but the principal operational focus if not is to prepare for what is the legal position.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

The reality is that the vote against no deal in this House was more convincingly passed, including with cross-party support, than the vote to have the Prime Minister go back and negotiate on alternative arrangements. The Government cannot simply just pick and choose which votes they will support. That is fundamentally wrong and anti-democratic, and it is the totally wrong way to handle such an important issue for this country as Brexit. Does the Secretary of State not see that? Can he not listen to the representatives of communities around this country who are deeply concerned about a no-deal exit and want this House’s will to be respected?

[Stephen Barclay]

Again, I very much respect the position of my right hon. Friend. I suspect that, on this, we will agree to disagree. I have set out, first, the position as agreed by the Cabinet; secondly, what is the legislative position; and thirdly, what is the interplay in terms of the motion before the House this evening. I absolutely respect her in terms of how she cast her vote in that Division, but the point is that it does not change the stated position of the Government, and that is what I was setting out.

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I support the Prime Minister’s deal. I want us to get a deal. But I am looking very closely at this motion, which includes the words:

“support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29 January”.

Two motions were carried that night, both of which I supported. I would like to hear from my right hon. Friend that he gives equal respect to the opinions expressed by the House, for if he fails to do that, it is contemptuous of this House.

[Stephen Barclay]

First, I absolutely respect votes of this House. Indeed, when we had, for example, the Humble Address on the Attorney General’s legal advice—

[Hon. Members]

We can’t hear you.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just appeal to the Secretary of State? He is, in my experience, a most courteous individual, and I understand the natural temptation to look in the direction of the person questioning him, but the House wants to be hearing what he says. Please face the House.

[Stephen Barclay]

I absolutely accept your direction on that point, Mr Speaker. I was seeking to engage with my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) on the point she is making about respecting the House. Of course we do. That also applied, for example, in votes such as that on the Attorney General’s legal advice, which was disclosed following a Humble Address, notwithstanding the precedent that creates for a future Government.

The point I was merely stating, which I thought was a point of fact, is that the legislative position as it currently stands is as set out following the vote to trigger article 50. That is the position.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Stephen Barclay]

I have taken quite a few interventions and I will make a bit of progress, not least because I am conscious that many others will wish to speak.

One part of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West was to explore whether technology offered a solution to the backstop. I am grateful to my hon. and right hon. Friends who have engaged with this work. Following the support of the House for the amendment, including that approach, the Prime Minister gave a commitment to engage seriously with the ideas put forward, and I have held a series of detailed meetings doing just that. The political declaration makes it explicit that both the EU and the UK agree to exploring alternative arrangements. I am happy to commit to my hon. and right hon. Friends that the Government will take that forward, including both investing civil service resource in exploring its viability and considering its acceptability to the community as a whole.

The possibility of alternative arrangements, as envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, has been reflected in the wording of the political declaration. The document notes that the UK and the EU

“envisage making use of all available facilitative arrangements and technologies”.

It goes further, noting that such technology should

“be considered in developing any alternative arrangements for ensuring the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland on a permanent footing.”

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that using techniques and technology that already exist at the border in Northern Ireland is a good foundation for the alternative arrangements?

[Stephen Barclay]

I agree. That is already agreed by the European Union and the United Kingdom in its reflection in the political declaration. I have been discussing that issue with hon. and right hon. Friends in the alternative arrangements working group. I also raised it in my discussions earlier in the week with Monsieur Barnier, as I committed to do. I must be frank with the House that he was sceptical about the timescale, but we are actively discussing it. I simply point out that that is already accepted in the political declaration, and following the working group, we are exploring what can be done in terms of the timescale of that work.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Is it now Government policy to take forward the Malthouse compromise that we have all read about? Will the Secretary of State take a fully worked-up proposal to the European Union as part of the negotiations?

[Stephen Barclay]

I can confirm that we have taken it forward to the European Union, in that I have raised it with Monsieur Barnier. I will be discussing it again with him. He has raised some initial concerns, but we are making that case and discussing it with him. It is already accepted by the European Union in terms of the political declaration and the workstream that will flow from that.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State just told the House that he has put proposals to Michel Barnier. Can he therefore explain why Donald Tusk said yesterday that the EU27 are

“still waiting for concrete, realistic proposals from London on how to break #Brexit impasse”?

[Stephen Barclay]

One should always be slightly cautious about what is said on Twitter, and that applies even to someone as esteemed as President Tusk. I was simply updating the House on the discussions I have had with Michel Barnier, my opposite number in the European Commission, to follow up on what this House agreed, which was that we should explore that. We have engaged seriously with colleagues on it and raised it with the European Commission.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The task that the Secretary of State has set out in terms of the alternatives is large, and the window to deliver it is getting smaller. I appreciate that we are not going to extend article 50 for no purpose, but in the interests of pragmatism, if all it requires is another three or four weeks’ work just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, surely to goodness we are not going to bite off our nose to spite our face.

[Stephen Barclay]

I respect my hon. Friend’s point, but what I hear from many, particularly in the business community, is that they do not want more uncertainty. They want to see this move forward, and they want to see a deal secured.

In terms of the next steps, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will meet President Juncker next week, and today she is holding conversations with other European leaders. In parallel, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General is pursuing other avenues for a possible legal challenge to the agreement. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made the wider Government position clear to many in the EU, as I have to the leader of the European People’s party, the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator and the EU’s chief negotiator. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and I have met a wide range of key European stakeholders.

While the EU’s public statements have said that there will be no reopening of the withdrawal agreement, it has also said, as I pointed out to the right hon. Member for Belfast North, that it wants to avoid no deal and wants to reach an agreement that will be supported by this House. Members will have seen the comments from leading European figures such as the German Chancellor, who spoke of her desire for a “constructive solution”. The House needs to give the Prime Minister time to explore that.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, although he may not be so grateful for this intervention. Will he confirm that the British Government have absolutely no intention of replacing the backstop, which is essential for maintaining peace on the island of Ireland—a hard-won peace that we value in Northern Ireland?

[Stephen Barclay]

I looked with interest at the hon. Lady’s reference in the Brexit Select Committee to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and in particular her point about mutual consent and bringing the community with her. That point is particularly well made, and it is at the forefront of the discussions that the Prime Minister is having with the Taoiseach and European leaders in the context of the backstop.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

The amendment that the House passed, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, clearly stated that the intention was to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border. We have had constructive meetings with the Secretary of State. Can he confirm that the Malthouse compromise is stated Government policy, has been put to Monsieur Barnier and now has the full force of the civil service to work it up into legally binding text?

[Stephen Barclay]

I have already confirmed to the House that this issue has been raised with Michel Barnier. I have given a commitment that it will be raised again in our next exchange. I have given a commitment that civil servants are engaging on this issue. I have also communicated the fact that the initial response from Michel Barnier was to raise concerns about the extent of concessions that would be required, but that is part of the discussion we are having.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Stephen Barclay]

I have taken a lot of interventions. I am conscious that many other Members wish to speak, including the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), so I will make some progress.

It is clear that a workable compromise with the EU on the backstop can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this House and give the Prime Minister a clear and irrefutable mandate to get her deal over the line. In supporting the Government’s motion today, this House can do exactly that. Getting to a compromise is a challenge, but it is not an insurmountable one. It requires the EU and the UK to come together and find a solution, and it calls for both sides of the House to continue to work hard to find and grow the common ground, which is in the interests of many watching these proceedings.

As we prepare to exit the European Union, this Government are focused on their most pressing task—to deliver a legally binding change to the backstop—and committed to delivering on that key demand. I am meeting European ambassadors tomorrow to continue making that case, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is speaking today with a series of European leaders. We are also engaging widely across the House, be that with the alternative arrangements working group, yesterday with the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras or in the 30 January meeting between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

We have a clear outcome: a programme of engagement with European leaders and engagement across this House. Tonight Members need to give the Government time to make good on this work and, as a House, to hold our nerve, to deliver a deal that addresses the twin risks of no deal or no Brexit and to respect the biggest vote in our democratic history and deliver what people voted for.

12:49

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I rise to support amendment (a) in my name and that of the Leader of the Opposition. The Secretary of State ended by saying that we have to “hold our nerve”, but he was all over the place this afternoon on all the important issues.

It is obvious—obvious—what the Prime Minister is up to. She is pretending to make progress while running down the clock: a non-update every other week to buy another two weeks of process, and inching ever closer to the 29 March deadline in 43 days’ time. We should not be fooled. Let us look at the history of recent months and set it against the exchanges today. The Prime Minister pulled the meaningful vote on 10 December, promising to seek further reassurances on the backstop. She feared a significant defeat, and it was obvious that the backstop was the problem way back then, as it had been through the autumn. That was 66 days ago, and there were then 109 days until 29 March.

[Mr Baron]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in a minute.

And the Prime Minister returned with nothing—warm words in the margins of the EU summit in December, and a letter, coupled with a statement about Northern Ireland, that simply repeated already existing commitments. That is what she came back with. The meaningful vote was then put on 15 January, and it was lost heavily. That evening, the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and promised to explore ideas with the European Union, following cross-party talks on how to proceed. That was 30 days ago, and there were then 75 days until 29 March.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just a minute.

Two weeks after that, on 29 January, the Prime Minister voted for the so-called Brady amendment.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way in just a minute.

The amendment called for the backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements. It was extraordinary: a Prime Minister voting to support her own deal only on condition that it is changed—conditional support for her own deal. Nobody prepared the business community for that, and nobody prepared Northern Ireland or EU leaders for that. Anybody who has spoken to businesses, been to Northern Ireland or spoken to political leaders in the EU in recent days knows that, by three-line whipping her own MPs to vote against the deal she negotiated, the Prime Minister has lost a good deal of trust in the process.

[James Cleverly]

Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman not understand the nonsense of his own argument? He suggests on the one hand that the Prime Minister is trying to run down the clock, and then he lists the various occasions when she has attempted to stop the clock, get a deal and exit the European Union.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention: I think the hon. Gentleman has missed the point. The Prime Minister has spent weeks—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wants an answer and then interrupts while I am trying to speak. The Prime Minister has spent weeks and weeks trying to negotiate changes to the backstop—it started way before the vote was pulled on 10 December, and it has gone on ever since—and she has got absolutely nowhere.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will just make the next point and then I will give way.

The idea that the vote on 29 January for the Brady amendment gave clarity is for the birds. The Government united around a proposition that they want an alternative to the backstop, but uniting around an alternative that means different things to different people does not get anybody anywhere, and that is the central problem.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just one minute.

On Tuesday, in another non-update from the Prime Minister, she said what she wanted on the backstop and listed three things: a time-limited backstop; an ability unilaterally to end the backstop; or alternative arrangements. That is how she put it. The first two of those have been repeatedly ruled out by the EU for months, and there is no sign of any movement. The Secretary of State, from his discussions in Brussels in recent days, knows that very well—there is no room for a move on those two fronts.

[Stephen Gethins]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just a second.

The third option—alternative arrangements—remains undefined, and when the Prime Minister is pressed, either here or in Brussels, about exactly what she means, she does not say. The Malthouse compromise and the answer the Secretary of State gave about it give the game away. If that was a serious proposition and the Government were engaging with it, they would adopt it as policy and put resource into it, but they are not doing so. What signal does that send to Brussels about what the Government really think about the Malthouse compromise?

[Mark Pritchard]

May I commend the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his courage and bravery in standing up for his own alternative arrangements, which of course include a second referendum? I just wonder how he is getting on with that in his own party. More importantly, does he believe a second referendum would increase or decrease investor and business confidence in the United Kingdom?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for the concern, and I am getting on fine, thanks very much. I will tell the hon. Gentleman and the House one thing on business certainty. I have been talking to hundreds of businesses across the country. Even in the last 10 days, I have been in Belfast, Cardiff, Birmingham and Dublin talking to businesses. What they are most concerned about is the uncertainty of the situation that we are in now, and all of them would welcome anything that prevents a no-deal Brexit.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Are not all these meetings and activity that my right hon. and learned Friend is outlining, when it comes to these alternative arrangements, really just a repetition of the Brexit unicorns on no hard border that we have heard time and again? The reality is that the Government’s strategy on this is the same as it has always been, which is the desperate hope that Chancellor Merkel will come to the rescue and the European Union will throw Ireland under the bus.

[Keir Starmer]

I completely agree with that intervention and that observation.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. and learned Friend has been talking to businesses, as I have. Does he agree that the issue of no deal is a matter not simply for 28 March, but for now? Exports can take six weeks and companies need to make decisions now about how they are planning to trade.

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree with that. One of the things that saddens me most from the discussions I have had in the last two or three weeks—the Secretary of State and others who have had such discussions know exactly what is being said—is that decisions are having to be made because of the fear of no deal. Such decisions are being triggered, but the chilling bit from the discussions I have had is that some of those steps are now irreversible. This is the first time we have come to that point.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I promised I would give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Is not the thing this House has to understand that the backstop is there in case the Malthouse compromise turns into the Malthouse fantasy—if all the technologies are technological fantasies —and that Europe cannot give up on the backstop just because of all the wishy-washy promises from the UK Government? The EU has to stick with it, and Conservative Members just do not understand that.

[Keir Starmer]

The EU has been very clear about the backstop. It is to be observed that there are hon. Members working on the Malthouse compromise, but it is equally to be observed that the Government have not adopted it as their policy position.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I will just make a bit of progress on this point.

So it goes on, and so it will go on. The simple and painful truth is this: if there had been a viable alternative to the backstop, there would never have been a backstop. The negotiating parties, as everybody knows, searched for months for that elusive alternative. If there had been an alternative, the Prime Minister would never have signed up to the backstop and neither would the EU. They searched and they searched, and they did not find it, and everybody who has observed the negotiations knows that. The chances of a breakthrough now, in 43 days, seem to me to be slim.

[Stephen Gethins]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a powerful point, as always, about the ineptitude of this Government. We know that there is not a whole lot of love, even on St Valentine’s Day, for the Government’s deal—we know that—and we know that we are in danger of crashing off the cliff edge, with the damage that that will cause, and he is right to highlight it. Will he back our amendment (i), which very simply asks for an extension of no less than three months to ensure that we can avoid such a no-deal Brexit?

[Keir Starmer]

I have sympathy with the point that we will need an extension to article 50 sooner or later, whether a deal goes through or not, and that the question is what is the right binding mechanism for doing that. We will support measures proposed by others on that issue in due course, and I will return to that point.

[Mr Baron]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is being generous with his time. In contrast to what he just claimed, the Secretary of State’s point was admirably clear. A good deal is preferable to no deal, but if there is no deal we will leave the EU on 29 March on those terms. Labour Members have an unfortunate habit of taking everything that the EU says as gospel, which is clearly not the case, and they ignore the fact that the EU could write the textbook on 11th-hour deals. Have some optimism in the ability to achieve a deal.

[Keir Starmer]

As for the Prime Minister taking us out of the EU on 29 March this year without a deal—we’ll see about that. I do not think that the majority in this House will countenance that; I think the majority in this House will do everything they can to prevent it. Having worked with the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary and I was Director of Public Prosecutions, I know that she has a deep sense of duty. Deep down, I do not think that this Prime Minister will take us out of the EU without a deal on 29 March, and that is the basis on which we should be having this discussion.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right in what he says about business and the need for clarity, and it is clear for all to see that the Government will need to apply for an extension to article 50 to avoid no deal, or even if there is a deal. The reason they are not doing so, and the reason why the Brexit Secretary is not saying what he should to give certainty to business, is that the Conservative party will not face down the party within a party that is the European Research Group. Face those people down!

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention, and my right hon. Friend puts his finger on it.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. and learned Friend as astonished as I am that we have a Prime Minister and Government who are willing to take this reckless gamble with the future prosperity of our country, just to keep their rotten party together?

[Keir Starmer]

It is a gamble—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I will make some progress. I have taken a lot of interventions, and I will take some more in a minute. My simple point, which I stand by, is that both sides have been searching for this alternative for most of the negotiations, and certainly since the phase 1 agreement in December a year ago. People have been searching for an alternative and they have not found it. If they had found it, we would not have a backstop. The likelihood of them finding that alternative in the next few weeks seems to me very slim, and even if they do, the chances of the deal getting through, with everything that has to follow by 29 March, are even slimmer. So many pieces of legislation and statutory instruments still need to be resolved.

That exposes what is really going on—this has come out in comments from across the House—which is a Prime Minister who is running down the clock and hoping to get to March, or even the end of March. The House should remember that the next EU summit is on 21 March, and if we get real changes to the deal, that is when they are likely to be signed off. At that late stage, the plan is essentially to send the same deal back to this House as a binary choice: my deal or no deal. There might be additional words that the Attorney General can say have real significance, but it will essentially be the same deal. That is not holding our nerve; that is playing recklessly, and we must say no.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is being extraordinarily generous in giving way. No self-respecting businessman or woman would walk into negotiations on a deal and take no deal off the table. The United Kingdom is negotiating the biggest business deal in its history. It therefore makes sense to keep no deal on the table, because we know from the history of the EU that it makes concessions at the last minute. We need to hold our nerve. If we do, then at the wire we will get a good deal in the interests of both the EU and the United Kingdom.

[Keir Starmer]

I do not know how to let the hon. Gentleman down gently, but let me try this: we are so patently unprepared for no deal that it is not credible. Let me give an example. There are very serious allegations against people in custody across the EU under the European arrest warrant, which goes between our country and the EU27, and vice versa. If we leave without a deal, no arrangements are in place to deal with that. The idea that we will leave in such a way is simply not credible.

I have heard the argument that if we face the truth and say that no deal is not credible, that somehow plays into the EU’s hands. We have heard that for the past two years. I stood here and said that the Government needed to publish a plan of their objectives—remember the days when they said that they could not even do that because it would give the game away and the negotiations would be over? Then they published a plan. I stood here and argued that we needed an impact assessment. What was the response? They said, “If we publish impact assessments, the show will be over. Nobody in a negotiation would do that.” I stood here and said that we needed legal advice, and we got the same argument: “If we do that, the show will be over. We will give into the EU.” Now we have the same thing with a no-deal scenario. It is not credible, and it is not going to work.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main).

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman so much for giving way—I was beginning to think I had an invisibility cloak on. Just over a week ago there was a debate on a petition about extending article 50, which was signed by more than 100,000 members of the public. I spoke in that debate, which was sparsely attended, but I did not hear from the shadow Front Bencher that Labour policy is to extend article 50. Indeed, some speakers made it sound as if Labour policy was to have a people’s vote. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm what Labour is arguing for?

[Keir Starmer]

I am sure the question of policy is important, but I am facing the practical reality. We are 43 days away from 29 March, and no credible alternative is in sight. Either we accept that or we do not. The Prime Minister keeps coming back and giving a non-update: “I’m meeting people”—she does not say she has agreed anything—“can I have another two weeks?” We have been going on like that for weeks, and it must stop.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I am going to make some progress. Labour’s amendment is intended to put a hard stop to running down the clock. It states that on 27 February the Government must put a deal to the House for its approval, or table an amendable motion so that the House can take control of what happens next. It is essential that we do so. Businesses are saying that they cannot wait any longer. They are putting off investment decisions, and they cannot tolerate the threat of no deal. They are making and implementing contingency plans, some of which are irreversible.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a strong point about the perils of no deal. Does he agree that the Government’s position on no deal is not just criminally reckless, it is also plain stupid? The EU knows as well as we do that a no-deal scenario would hurt us an awful lot more than it would hurt it. Threatening to put a gun to our own head is not a clever negotiating strategy.

[Keir Starmer]

I agree and I am grateful for that intervention. That is really the point. If it is not credible that we can leave on 29 March without a deal, and it is not, it is actually not a negotiating stance at all. It has never been seen in that way and it does not work. It is just farcical to suggest that we have to keep up the pretence that we are ready because then the EU will back down. It is ridiculous.

Let us put some detail on this. We have heard the warnings from Airbus and Nissan about future jobs and investment in the UK. Yesterday, Ford, another huge UK employer, said that no deal would be

“catastrophic for the UK auto industry and Ford’s manufacturing operations in the country”,

and that it will

“take whatever action is necessary to preserve the competitiveness of our European business.”

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to say that business wants certainty—he has made big play of that—but it was the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and GE Aviation in my constituency that said, “For goodness’ sake, back the Prime Minister’s deal.” He did not do that. He must understand that in failing to do so he and the Labour party become complicit in a crash-out.

[Keir Starmer]

Well, I am not going to take that lying down for this reason: on the Government Benches, did they vote for the deal on 29 January? [Interruption.] Hang on, hear me out. The answer to that is no. Anybody who voted for the Brady amendment was saying that it is conditional on change, so do not lecture anybody else about voting for the deal. Even the Prime Minister says, “On reflection, I’m not voting for my deal unless there are changes.” The hon. Gentleman really cannot throw the challenge across the House and say that the Opposition have to support the unchanged deal but the Prime Minister wants it changed.

Some on the Government Benches will casually dismiss the threat of job losses as “Project Fear.” It is not “Project Fear”—it is “Project Reality.” It is the jobs and livelihoods of those we represent that are at stake.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I am going to make some progress and then I will give way again.

Therefore, we need to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent a no-deal exit. Two weeks ago, this House voted to approve the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman). That was hugely welcome and it is just as binding on the Government as what else was passed that evening—you can’t choose one part and not the other. It showed what the Opposition have always said: there is no majority in this House for a no deal.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

I have listened carefully today. In defence of the Secretary of State, he has made it quite clear that the Government’s policy, if it comes to it and the deal does not pass in the week beginning 25 March, is to leave with no deal. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman clear in his mind what his party’s position will be in the same circumstances?

[Keir Starmer]

I am. Happily, we discussed that at our party conference and agreed unanimously—something I do not think happened at the hon. Gentleman’s party conference—[Interruption.] He knows very well what it is. It is to vote on the deal; if the deal does not go through, to call for a general election; and if that does not happen, there are two options: a close economic relationship and a public vote. We committed at our party conference to ensure we take whatever steps are necessary to avoid a no-deal exit and we will do so.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Excuse me, I have a bit of a head cold. The amount of white flags being thrown would give anyone a head cold. Can the shadow Brexit Secretary confirm that the Labour party’s position is that there must be legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement on the backstop? That is the same position as that of DUP Members.

[Keir Starmer]

The position of the Labour party is that we have concerns about the backstop. [Interruption.] This is a very serious point and I intend to answer it. I have not yet met anybody who does not have concerns about the backstop, both here and in Brussels, but we also recognise that, at this stage, with the article 50 window all but closed, we need a backstop, and it is inevitable that we need a backstop. That is our position.

[Lady Hermon]

I thank the shadow Brexit Secretary for allowing me to intervene on that very important point. He is very knowledgeable about Northern Ireland and is a great friend to Northern Ireland. He will recognise the importance of the backstop to the people of Northern Ireland and indeed across the United Kingdom. There seems to be some confusion about what the leader of the Labour party says about the backstop and what he, the shadow Brexit Secretary, says. I think the people of Northern Ireland—indeed, this House—are entitled to clarification from the right hon. and learned Gentleman about what exactly the position of the Labour party is on the backstop.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. As the hon. Lady knows, I worked in Northern Ireland for five years with the Northern Ireland Policing Board. I know how deeply this is felt in Northern Ireland across all communities. I was there for two days last week. I made the point there that, although we have concerns about the backstop, we do accept that there must be a backstop, it is inevitable and that, therefore, notwithstanding those concerns, we support a backstop. That is very important.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way because I actually find that I agree with a great deal of what he is saying. He is saying that leaving with no deal would bring huge consequences for our economy and we should not countenance it. He is also saying that within the withdrawal agreement he sees the need for a backstop. I have listened closely to what he said before: that he also agrees on the elements about needing a transition period and certainty on citizens’ rights. Given that he now appears to agree with everything that is in the withdrawal agreement, why will he not vote for it and what more does he need?

[Keir Starmer]

I am not sure the hon. Lady carefully read the proposition we were voting for on the meaningful vote. It was the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration taken together. The statute requires them to be taken together, because we cannot read the withdrawal agreement without reference to the political declaration and vice versa. What I have said about the backstop is important and it is important I say it for the whole of the United Kingdom, but particularly for people in Northern Ireland, and I stand by it.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman able to clarify in plain English at what point the Leader of the Opposition will unequivocally back a people’s vote?

[Keir Starmer]

The policy we have adopted is clear about what the options are. What we are trying to do today is to put a hard stop to the running down of the clock. That will enable options to be considered in due course. I hope that will happen. When they are considered, we will take our position and we will see where the majority is in the House.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

The backstop is taking up a lot of the discussion today because it is incredibly important. May I remind my right hon. and learned Friend that, in the debates leading up to the meaningful vote, concerns about trade were mentioned three times more than the backstop? Can I encourage him to move on now from the backstop and talk about all the other problems that Members across the House have with the deal?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. One of the central problems in all this is that the political declaration is 26 pages long, it is vague in the extreme and simply talks about a “spectrum” of outcomes. The main theme of the political declaration is that the extent of any checks at borders will depend on the degree of alignment; therefore, there is a spectrum of outcomes. I think that we all understood that within hours of the referendum. That is why there is all this pressure on the backstop—because the political declaration is so ill-defined.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Following my right hon. and learned Friend’s replies to the hon. Members for Bracknell (Dr Lee) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), does he agree that the Government have clearly rejected Labour’s offer of a less damaging Brexit, and that to wait until the end of March to activate our unanimously agreed conference policy in favour of a public vote would be far, far too late?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that point. What I will say is this—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

What is it?

[Keir Starmer]

Just as I am about to give the answer I am asked from a sedentary position what the answer is. Perhaps those on the Government Front Bench should just listen. The position is this. As the House knows, we set out the Labour party’s position in a letter to the Prime Minister. We set out in clear terms what a close economic relationship would look like. What was written in that letter has been well received, not only in the United Kingdom, by businesses and trade unions, but by the EU and EU leaders. It is a credible proposition.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I just want to complete this point, because it is important. The Prime Minister has replied in non-committal terms—one could say that that was inevitable—and we are having discussions, as the Secretary of State says. I am not going to disclose at this stage what those discussions are about because they are, by their nature, confidential. They are ongoing, I think the Secretary of State would want them to be kept confidential—that is the only way in which they can properly be held—and there are plans for further meetings. To go back to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), there must come a point at which the options are clarified, reduced and voted on—I agree with that proposition—and it needs to be done before the end of March.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making some important and good points about the Prime Minister’s running down the clock, but he took that round of applause—that standing ovation—at the Labour party conference when he talked about a people’s vote with a remain option, so I have been waiting patiently for the section of his remarks in which he will perhaps dissociate himself from the remarks of the general secretary of Unite, who said yesterday that it would not be in the country’s interests to have remain on the ballot paper in a public vote. We are aware that sections in letters and remarks sometimes have a habit of being redacted by others, perhaps further up the pay chain. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that at the next available opportunity we will be voting in favour of a people’s vote?

[Keir Starmer]

I do not think I need to associate with or dissociate from anybody on what my views are. I think they are pretty clear. As for the timetable, I have set out the order of events.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I am going to make some progress and then I will take more interventions. I have taken a lot of interventions and I am conscious that a lot of people want to speak in this debate.

Let me go back to the amendment that was passed in respect of no deal, because it was passed by a majority in this House and is just as important as the other amendment that was passed. Let us make no mistake, though: on its own it is not enough. If Parliament wants to prevent no deal, it has to take further action. We cannot be bystanders; we have to act. The simple truth of it is that we cannot declare that we are against no deal and then do nothing. The Government are failing to act, so we must act. Hence, the next step is to ensure that there is a hard stop to running down the clock.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

Not at the moment.

The hard stop would ensure that on 27 February the Prime Minister must either put her deal to a vote or allow Parliament to decide what happens next. Let us be clear, though: other steps need to be taken, beyond today’s amendment. They will include the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), which would provide a further safeguard against no deal and allow the House to decide whether the Government should seek an extension of article 50 if no deal has been agreed by 13 March. I hope that anyone who genuinely opposes no deal would see that by that date, 13 March, an extension would be unavoidable.

[Gareth Snell]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend clarify something for me? I am sympathetic to and almost supportive of the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and her Bill, which was introduced with good sincerity. What is the Labour party Front-Bench position, though? Were we to have an extension that went further than the three months, would my right hon. and learned Friend intend that we would participate in European Union parliamentary elections? Those of us going on the knocker this weekend ought to know.

[Keir Starmer]

As I have said from this Dispatch Box, so far as the extension is concerned, it obviously depends on the period and the period the EU has indicated might be available is the period till 1 July, because that would avoid involvement in the parliamentary elections. It is not our policy to participate in the parliamentary elections——[Interruption.] For obvious reasons, we will not be—[Interruption.] This is a really serious point. There is this casualness about no deal—that we can somehow, in a macho way, march off the cliff and it will all be fine; it will be so good for the country. The point is that if, by 13 March—just over two weeks before the potential for no deal—there is no deal, we have to take action if we are serious about avoiding the calamity and catastrophe of no deal. I do not mind standing up here and saying that I will take whatever steps are necessary to avoid no deal, because I will never be persuaded—never—that it is a good negotiating tactic or could possibly be good for our country.

The House will then need to debate and vote on credible options to prevent no deal. We have been clear that those options are either the close economic relationship that includes a customs union and close alignment to the single market that we set out in the letter to the Prime Minister, or a public vote on a deal or proposition that can command the support of the House. There are no other credible options remaining, and those options are miles away from the approach that the Government are currently taking. First, though, we need to stop the Government further running down the clock, put in a hard stop and allow this House to take control of the process. That is what today is about and I urge all Members to support our amendment.

13:19

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

We have moved to yet another of these almost weekly engagements, at which we are told that historic decisions are about to be taken, a meaningful vote is on the verge of emerging and all is going to be clear. Every time we do that, one immediately encounters an appalling shambles—that is the only way to describe the position of the Government and of this Parliament, and I am sure that is the way it is seen by an overwhelming majority of the citizens of this country, regardless of what side of the argument they are on. So far, the debate today is following precisely that pattern.

I have not been lucky enough to have my amendment (c) selected, which is also in the name of, and was tabled at the behest of, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). An amendment has been selected—the one in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—that addresses the same problem, which is that, so far as I can see, in these debates we have not yet identified, and certainly not demonstrated, a clear majority for any particular course. We are not being given many opportunities to do so, and we keep retreating when we get given them. We have to decide—cross-party, obviously, given the divisions—how a majority will be established to pass motions, which in my opinion, under our constitution, will bind a Government, so that we can move policy towards something that resolves this situation satisfactorily.

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I agree with everything that my right hon. and learned Friend has said. Does he agree that a very important discussion that preceded this business—and, indeed, questions and answers during the Secretary of State’s speech—indicated that the only way that what he and I seek to achieve, namely consensus across the House if the Prime Minister’s deal does not succeed, will be implementable is if we legislate for it, and thereby legally bind the Government? The Government have made it perfectly clear—I think the Speaker has ruled in this direction—that they will not be bound by anything short of legislation. That means that we have a rather elaborate process ahead of us as we come to a conclusion over the next few months.

[Mr Clarke]

I think I agree with that; I cannot give an off-the-cuff response to my right hon. Friend’s detailed procedural point. Eventually, yes, we will have to legislate, first to gain time, and secondly, to get the necessary resolution of these problems in the long-term interests of this country.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend referred to legislation. Of course, he voted for the Third Reading of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which expressly states that the European Communities Act 1972 will be repealed on exit day. Is that not sufficient proof of the need for the kind of legislation to which he referred? We do not need to have all these mysterious differences, because the anchor to the referendum is the repeal of that Act. Does my right hon. and learned Friend not agree? He voted for it.

[Mr Clarke]

Government and Parliament can at any time produce legislation to reform previous legislation because the circumstances have changed. The idea put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the Government are now bound by what they passed on article 50 and by the withdrawal Act, and cannot possibly contemplate amending that Act or asking us to vote again on article 50, is, with great respect to him, one of the most preposterous propositions that I have ever heard anybody put before this House. The Government have every possible power in their hands to decide to avoid the calamity of leaving on 29 March with no deal whatever—leaving not with any long-term prospect of pursuing the national interest, but simply because nobody here is able to agree in sufficient numbers on what on earth they want to do. All we are doing is vetoing each other’s propositions on what should go forward.

This all started when the Government’s policy went completely off the rails after they were defeated by a record-breaking majority on an agreement that they had taken two years negotiating in pursuit of what was a clear strategy. It is obvious that we need a preliminary agreement—a withdrawal agreement—on three issues before we leave politically, if we are going to, on 29 March. On leaving, we will spend years negotiating long-term arrangements, not only on trade and investment, but in the many, many areas of activity in which we have based all our arrangements with the outside world on EU membership for almost half a century. It will take a very long time to sort out sensible arrangements.

We all know that the Government’s agreement was rejected. I voted for it; I am in favour of the Government’s withdrawal agreement. Nobody in this House wishes more than I do to see us remain in the united European Union; that would be in this Government’s interests. However, in this House, the majority for leaving is overwhelming. Let us come face to face with reality: there is nothing wrong with the withdrawal agreement; it is perfectly harmless. It gets us into a transition period; then we can negotiate. I will not go on about my views; I have given them before. There is nothing wrong with the Irish backstop at all. To say otherwise is complete invention for the sake of finding things wrong with the deal.

That put us in a dilemma. The agreement was defeated by a variety of people with totally conflicting objectives. The biggest vote against it was from the Labour party, officially. As interventions have shown, it is rather puzzling to say quite what the Labour party had against the withdrawal agreement. I have just heard the Irish backstop accepted by its Front-Bench spokesman—quite rightly; it is necessary, unfortunately. The money has been settled, and nobody is arguing about EU citizens’ rights. Labour voted against the agreement because it was a divided party, and it decided that the only thing on which it could keep itself together was on all voting against the Government. That was all.

Both the big parties are shattered now; there were large rebellions on both sides. The biggest group of people who joined in the defeat were ardent remainers who, unlike me, are firm believers in the people’s vote. They are still facing difficulties, because they do not want us to leave on any terms, so they are going to keep—

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend—my best friend among all these arch-remainers, who are otherwise my political allies in the House, day in, day out, though they all voted against the agreement. They are still threatening to do so, because they do not want to leave. They think there should be a people’s vote.

Then there was a faction of people who were not content to vote for the political agreement, because it will take years to negotiate and is rather general, and who wished to be reassured on the record, before we started negotiations, that we would establish basic and sensible points, such as our staying in a customs union and having some regulatory alignment. If that was established, all the arguments about the Irish border would go completely out of the window, because we would have an open border in Ireland and an open border in England. I would like to see that. I would vote for that—and I have, several times; I voted with the official Opposition once or twice on a customs union—but it is not necessary, because everything is up for grabs after we leave. There will be wide-ranging negotiation. I think the pressure from business interests, economies and people of common sense on both sides of the channel will drive us towards something like that in some years.

Meanwhile—this is where we are now—the Government have pursued one of the factions on the Conservative side of the House. We have a kind of breakaway party within a party—a bit like Momentum, really—with a leader and a chief whip. They are ardent right wingers. The Government have set off in pursuit of these bizarre—as some Government members say—negotiating tactics; some of them, though, seem positively to want to leave with no deal, because any agreement with foreigners from the continent is a threat to our sovereignty.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I will not give way any more. I have great respect for my hon. Friend, so I hope that I will not be too disparaging of his views—he and I fundamentally disagree—but lots of people want to speak, and I cannot give way as if I were a Front-Bench spokesman. That is not possible.

That is the wrong group to pursue. The Brady amendment, which I voted against, is meaningless; it rejects the agreement that the Prime Minister has spent two years getting and has commended in warm terms to the House. We can see from interventions that a lot of the people in the European Research Group will reject anything she comes back with, because they want—some of them—to leave with no deal. That is where we and the House must start from, and we have very little time within which to do something.

We must get past these procedural obstacles that the Government keep putting in place about what we can and cannot do, and get some binding policy that the Government have to follow. In the end, some of us—even remainers, divided over referendums—will have to back down once a sensible majority is established, and will have to compromise. That was the aim of the amendment that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland and I tabled. I hope that method will still be considered—a single transferrable vote, a ballot—because we will get nowhere until we have some idea of what can command a majority here.

I think there is a majority in favour of a customs union. I do not know whether there is a majority in favour of a referendum—there might be, I do not know. I am certain that there is an overwhelming majority flatly against allowing us to leave with no deal. My guess is that there are about 20 or 30 Members of this House who actually want to leave with no deal, and they should be rejected; I very much hope that they will be.

We will need more time to do this. I am quite happy to revoke article 50, and then invoke it again, if the House wants, when we have some idea of where we want to go. If we do get through this immediate crisis without a calamity, there will be four or five years of negotiations, on any sensible estimate, on what kind of arrangements we will have. That will be based on the political declaration. We cannot allow this kind of calamitous debate and constant crisis to continue throughout those five years.

Before we even start those negotiations—this is why I would revoke or extend article 50—we need a British consensus, a clear parliamentary majority, a path established that the British Government can go to Brussels with, knowing that it commands a majority. Our partners must see that we can command a majority for it. We must get through these daft days and eventually have a debate that produces a majority for something sensible.

At the moment, I think Brussels has given up on us. It does not think that the British Government even agree with themselves on what they are trying to pursue, and they have no idea what the British Government are asking now. It requires great faith on Brussels’ part to believe that the British Government can get a majority for anything that they will produce in the next two or three weeks, if they get some form of words amending what we have. It is time that this House found some method—I have advocated some approaches that we might take—of taking command of the situation. That would have the support of the vast majority of members of the Government; it would make their position easier. The vast majority of Members, I suspect on both sides of House, are looking for such an eventuality to emerge very soon indeed.

13:40

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to our amendment (i), standing in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and other right hon. and hon. Members—I am grateful for the support that we have received from the Liberal Democrats today. It is a much shorter and simpler amendment than the one we tabled two weeks ago, because above all else we need to get the House, as I hope the whole House will agree, to halt, at least temporarily, the headlong rush towards the cliff edge of no deal. Indeed, I find the degree of consensus developing between the Secretary of State and the no-deal brigade on his own Back Benches to be extremely alarming. I hope that is not an indication of where the Government’s thinking is leading.

Our amendment asks the Prime Minister to seek an extension of at least three months. That is important, because it takes us past the European Parliament elections, which could otherwise cause a significant difficulty, certainly for the European Union.

[Gareth Snell]

I want to ask the hon. Gentleman a similar question to the one I put to those on our Front Bench. If the SNP amendment is adopted today, is the intention for the United Kingdom to participate in the European elections at the end of May?

[Peter Grant]

I think that option has to be open, but it will be very difficult, because the Europeans have already carved up our democratic representation in Europe. I keep an open mind. I want us to continue to be part of the European Parliament and other European institutions. It looks as if, at least in the short term, Scotland will lose that benefit, but I look forward to us getting back in as quickly as possible.

The other amendments that have been selected have a lot of merit to them. I do not think there is anything in them that I would oppose or that is incompatible with our amendment. I would ask the supporters of those amendments to look at our amendment, because extending article 50 has become an urgent prerequisite for anything else. We do not have time to spend tabling motions, having debates or developing substantial legislation, whether on a customs union, a people’s vote or anything else, unless we stop the clock. Contrary to what the Secretary of State said, the Prime Minister has not been trying to stop the clock. She has been trying to let it keep ticking down, while nothing but nothing was happening to prepare us for Brexit.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Speaker has ruled that all these motions are advisory, including the motion rejecting no deal, and that the referendum itself was also advisory? Why are we hurtling over the cliff on an advisory referendum and not accepting the will of this House that it would be calamitous?

[Peter Grant]

I do not accept the argument that says, “Because the vote was close,” or, “Because the legislation did not say it was binding.” I think we have to accept the results of the referendum in each of the four nations of the United Kingdom. That is why, although I sympathise with where my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) is coming from, I have some difficulty with his amendment, because I do not think we can permanently revoke article 50 unless we have a revised decision in another referendum.

When I say that we have to respect the result of the referendum, we have to respect the results in the four nations. It would be unacceptable for us to permanently revoke article 50 for England and Wales without asking the people of those nations what they thought. It is equally unacceptable and unconstitutional to ignore the express will of the people of Scotland or indeed Northern Ireland. We have the ridiculous situation where Northern Ireland cannot be made to stay in the United Kingdom against the will of its people and cannot be taken out of the United Kingdom against the will of its people, but can be taken out of the European Union against the will of its people. How does that work?

I cannot see any prospect of the Prime Minister’s deal being accepted by Parliament either before or after 29 March. I cannot see any prospect of the European Union agreeing any significant changes in the next month to a deal that it has spent two years with the Government agreeing to, so we are not going to leave with a deal on 29 March. As the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the Father of the House, has said, there are barely 25 people in this place who would countenance leaving with no deal on 29 March, so surely the only credible, tenable and defensible solution is not to leave on 29 March, but to put back the leaving day until we can sort things out and at least engage in some kind of damage limitation.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

rose—

[Peter Grant]

I could not give a speech without giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Stephen Kerr]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is quite right that the vast majority of people in this House want a deal that we can leave the European Union with in an orderly way. On that basis, and given the urgency of the situation, why did the First Minister of Scotland, our country, refuse to turn up for a high-level meeting involving the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Home Secretary and the First Minister of Wales to avoid a no-deal Brexit?

[Peter Grant]

It really is a bit cheeky to criticise the First Minister of Scotland for missing one meeting when she has been available to meet every day since the Brexit referendum. She and other Ministers of the devolved nations have attended meeting after meeting. They have been invited to express their views and then been told that their views counted for nothing.

Any Prime Minister who was putting the best interests of the people before the narrow, short-term interests of herself and her party would have asked for an extension by now. I want Parliament to say to the Prime Minister, bindingly or non-bindingly, “Ask for an extension.” I also want Parliament to be respected when it said, “Get no deal off the table.”

I do not know whether Members will recognise these words:

“We must reject the ideological templates provided by the socialist left and the libertarian right”.

Those words are from the Conservative party manifesto of 2017. Those were the promises on which every single Conservative Member of Parliament stood and was elected. If no-deal Brexit is not an ideological template provided by the libertarian right, I do not know what is. Those Members have been elected on a promise not to go with the disaster of no deal, so if the Government cannot prevent a no deal, they will have to go, because they will be in flagrant breach of one of the most fundamental promises of the Conservative manifesto.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such a powerful case. Colleagues on the Government Benches have made the point about not wanting a no-deal Brexit. Regardless of what anybody wants—I would like a people’s vote and for us to remain in the EU; others take a different view—all that our amendment does is give us an extension, so that we are not rushing this when time is fast running out. I therefore look forward to welcoming the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) in the Lobby with us later.

[Peter Grant]

I never give up on the possibility of anybody in this House or elsewhere finally seeing sense and recognising what is best for the people, so I, too, look forward to welcoming the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) in the Lobby later.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman has reminded me of the party manifesto, on which I apparently stood at the last election, and which is binding on me, I have never seen this document. It was produced some time during the campaign, rather obscurely, and I read about it in the newspapers. No copy was ever sent to me and I have never met a constituent who bothered to get a copy or read it. It had one rather startling policy in it, which was abandoned within about a day and played no further role. There is another myth growing: a new constitutional convention that says that anyone who stands for a party and gets elected here is bound by some rubbishy document that somebody unknown in central office, not the Cabinet, has produced and that is meant to bind them for the next Parliament.

[Peter Grant]

That is certainly an interesting proposal. Let me say that each and every time I have stood for election I have read, and often contributed to, the manifesto on which I have stood, and I will always honour my manifesto commitments to the best of my ability. I would expect my party colleagues in the Scottish Government to honour the manifesto on which they were elected as well.

The backstop is not the problem for me; in fact, I do not think it is really the problem for more than a tiny minority here. The reason I reject the deal—and the reason it is rejected by the Scottish National party and the overwhelming majority of Scotland’s parliamentarians, both here and at Holyrood—is that it is a rotten deal for Scotland, and changing the backstop will not fix that. It will seriously damage our economy, it will place unsustainable strain on the public services that are so dear to our hearts, and it will cause wholly unacceptable pain to tens of thousands of citizens who have chosen to give Scotland the benefit of their talents.

Let me give just one example of what this means to real people. In November last year I had the privilege of visiting Glenrothes’s twin town, Boeblingen in southern Germany. The occasion was the town’s award of its highest civic honour to my good friend John Vaughan—a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) across the border—in recognition of the decades of voluntary service that John and his wife Karen had given, and their contribution to the bonds of friendship between our two towns. I later submitted an early-day motion to mark John’s achievement, and I am grateful to all who signed it.

On Tuesday, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife told the House that Karen Vaughan had been told that she must travel to Edinburgh and ask permission to register as a foreigner in her own country. Karen has lived in the United Kingdom for longer than the vast majority of people whom I can see in the Chamber. She has been here for 74 years. Someone whose contribution to these nations cannot be measured—someone who came here as a babe in arms three quarters of a century ago, after the defeat of Nazism in Europe—is now being told by this Parliament that she must make a round trip of nearly 100 miles to ask permission to be registered as a foreigner in the only land that she has ever known, and probably the only land that she will ever know. What have we become, Mr Speaker? And, much more frighteningly, if this is what we have become before Brexit, where in the name of God will we be heading after it if we have a Government who see that as an acceptable way to treat any human being?

Of course, the Government will do as they always do, and say that it is just an isolated case. Everything about Brexit involves “isolated cases”, such as Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Ford and Airbus. But those are not isolated cases. The heavy engineering manufacturing industry is not an isolated industry. There have been warnings for years from every sector of the economy and every area of our public and civic life that Brexit would not work, and every one of them has been ignored for years.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Given the hon. Gentleman’s comments about Jaguar Land Rover, will he join me in welcoming its decision to invest additional funds in the new petrol engine plant in Wolverhampton?

[Peter Grant]

I welcome any investment, but unfortunately employees in other parts of the Jaguar Land Rover network, and their families, do not have so much to celebrate.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Peter Grant]

I really must make progress, because other Members want to speak. [Interruption.] I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stirling for pointing out, from a sedentary position, that all those people have said that they will support the Prime Minister’s deal. In fact, they were all approached by the Prime Minister and told, “It is my deal or no deal: ask your MPs to support my deal.”

I was contacted by a number of businesses in my constituency, and I also went to see a number of businesses and civic organisations that were brought over at the request of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Yes, they all wanted us to avoid no deal, but when they were asked what they really wanted, none of them said, “The Prime Minister’s deal, as I read it in Hansard.” All of them—with one minor exception—said that if they could have what they wanted, we would not be leaving the European Union. If the Government were listening to the concerns of business, we would not be leaving the EU, and if we had to leave the EU, we would not be leaving the customs union and we would not be leaving the single market.

Let me make it clear, incidentally, that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has explained to me why he has to leave. I accept that, and I take no offence from the fact that he is not able to stay until the end of my speech.

I want to refer briefly to the backstop, but only briefly. The backstop is there because the Government have not yet fulfilled the obligation to which they willingly signed up in December 2017 to come up with a solution to the border question that would honour the Belfast agreement while also meeting their own unilateral red lines. It is no surprise that the Government have not yet come up with that solution, because it does not exist. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), admitted that from the Dispatch Box just over two weeks ago.

What everyone is calling the backstop would be better described, as it was yesterday by the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, as a safety net. It is there to make sure that whatever else gets dropped in the chaos of Brexit, the Belfast agreement will not, in any circumstances, be allowed to fall and smash on the floor. It is not a backstop; it is a peace process guarantee. I defy anyone to say that they want the peace process guarantee to be time-limited, or to suggest that any party to the peace process would ever want to walk away from it unilaterally.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman has cited the Belfast agreement, and has talked of its falling and smashing on the floor. Will he at least do us the courtesy of reading it? There is no suggestion that, deal or no deal, the institutions contained in that agreement will be broken. There is no suggestion that the ability of Northern Ireland citizens also to have Irish citizenship will be taken away from them. If the hon. Gentleman is going to make claims, he should at least get them right.

[Peter Grant]

Yes, I have read the Belfast agreement, and with all due respect, if it comes to any arguments about interpretation I would sooner take the interpretation of the former Taoiseach who helped to write it than that of someone who fought tooth and nail for it to be rejected.

I asked Mr Ahern a question that was designed to show the idiocy of some of the suggestions from Conservative Members about how Ireland should be responsible for sorting out Britain’s mess. Many people in Ireland seemed to think I was being serious, which I think is an indication that our friends in Ireland, and even people in the United Kingdom, are so flummoxed by this shambles that they cannot tell the difference between the truth—the reality—and complete parody. It is no wonder, because the reality is that we have had a Brexit Secretary who did not know that lots of boats were going in and out of Dover, a Northern Ireland Secretary who did not know that people in Northern Ireland vote along traditional Unionist/Nationalist lines, a Trade Secretary who cannot name a single country that will give us a better trade deal outside the EU than we have inside it, a Transport Secretary who could not organise a traffic jam, and a Prime Minister who— well, where do we begin? We could begin with “a Prime Minister who ran away from Parliament on 10 December, and then came back and told us that we must hold our nerve.” Mr Speaker, Scotland is holding its nerve.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Peter Grant]

I really must wind up my speech.

We are nowhere near ready to leave on 29 March without a deal, and we are nowhere near ready to get a deal before 29 March. The deal that is on offer does not give certainty; it gives another 18 months of fudge and uncertainty, and during that time we shall need to sort out all the hard bits that we have not even started to talk about. The withdrawal agreement was the easy bit; the future relationship is the difficult bit that we must still look forward to.

I welcome the fact that, two years too late, the Prime Minister and her colleagues have started talking to Opposition parties, although the Secretary of State has still not replied to the request that I sent, just after his appointment, to meet me in my capacity as Brexit spokesperson for the third party in the House. He has written to all the members of the Select Committee asking to meet us, but he has not replied to my specific request.

So the Government have started talking to other people, but they must start listening as well. Their disruptive and unworkable red lines must be taken off the table, because they are getting in the way of any kind of workable deal. We need to ask the European Union for more time so that everyone in this Parliament and the devolved Parliaments and Governments, with their collective skills and talents, can get around the table, without preconditions—and that means no preconditions for the Prime Minister either—to work out a solution and get us out of this mess before it is too late.

13:49

[Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant).

I believe that the Prime Minister and the Government deserve the time and the space in which to meet the assurances that they gave the House on 29 January to deliver a legally binding change to the backstop, and to press the Malthouse compromise as an alternative in Brussels. I want the Prime Minister to be able to deliver Brexit, and I want the Government to be able to deliver and make a success of Brexit. I also want it to be crystal clear that the only way we will leave on WTO terms is by the choice of the EU through the intransigence of its approach.

I turn first to today’s amendments. It is telling that all of them are process amendments. None of them stipulates a specific alternative strategic objective of their supporters; none say anything at all about the substance, notwithstanding their criticism of the Government. As a result none offers a credible alternative to the path set out by the Prime Minister, which of course is both written in UK law and reflects international law under the Lisbon treaty, namely that we will leave the EU on 29 March either with a deal, as is being negotiated and as I believe is still possible, or on WTO terms.

We need to make sure we leave the EU on 29 March. We need it for the certainty and clarity businesses require, and we need it for the finality that the public want: an end to the tortuous haggle with Brussels, an end to the distraction and the displacement of all the other activity in this place and in government at large that has inevitably followed Brexit. It seems to me that extending article 50 cannot make any of the problems or challenges that we face easier; it can only make them worse. It is also clear that the EU will not agree unless there is a clear alternative model on the table that is reasonably deliverable within a finite period of time. Of course, some of the objections that have been made—it requires legislation, or it requires the Norway model, or some other whizzy idea that is no doubt being conjured up by thoughtful minds on the Opposition side of the House, and indeed on mine—would require time both to legislate and negotiate. We do not have that time, and the EU would not accept it.

[Alan Brown]

The right hon. Gentleman says that a deal can still be negotiated. Given that one of the reasons for the backstop is the admission that at the moment there is no off-the-shelf technological solution that can provide a working mechanism to have no border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, how is a solution going to be found over the next 40-odd days that would allow the backstop to be removed? It is impossible, is it not?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman raises a perfectly respectable point, but the head of HMRC has said there would not need to be any extra infrastructure at the border under any circumstances, and on the hon. Gentleman’s point about time, while I do not accept his point about the absence of technological solutions, we will have the implementation period to work closely with our partners in Dublin and the EU to make sure they can be put in place.

Of all the question-begging amendments, the one in the name of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) is the most devoid of credibility for three reasons. On the one hand the leader of the Labour party wants to be a member of a customs union—the customs union—but at the same time he boasts of his plans to nationalise half the country, which would immediately and directly conflict with those rules. On the one hand he personally is widely regarded, although he does not say so explicitly, as being a proponent of Brexit—he wants to leave the EU, along with many on his side and on his Benches, and of course it is a requirement of the 2017 Labour manifesto—but on the other hand he is willing to trade free movement to allow open access to our borders in order to get a deal, again despite the pledges to exit the single market made in the Labour party manifesto. Finally, while he pledged in his 2017 election manifesto to leave the EU and the single market, he is flirting with a second referendum, yet without any indication of what the question might be or indeed which side he would be on. His Members in this House, the members and supporters in the various Labour party associations and indeed the public at large are entitled to question that and come to the conclusion that it is nothing but a fraud or a con; it is not a serious position.

That was affirmed by the shadow Brexit Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer): he talked of the hundreds of businesses he has met that have raised uncertainty as the No. 1 issue. I can imagine that as we have all heard businesses talk about uncertainty, and the public want some finality too, but that is why, if he and his party were genuinely serious, they would rule out extending article 50 and holding a second referendum. But the shadow Brexit Secretary did neither; he said he was sympathetic to the extension of article 50. So he and the Labour party are fuelling precisely the uncertainty they then criticise. I am afraid it is the usual forked-tongue, flip-flopping nonsense from the Labour party, impossible to square with the clear promises it made in its manifesto.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dominic Raab]

No, as I have undertaken to proceed swiftly to the end so that other Members can speak.

I will support the Government on all this evening’s amendments, but I have some concerns about the motion because it adopts as Government policy the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) and passed on 29 January, which risks implying that we cannot leave on WTO terms on 29 March. That would be the wrong message as a matter of policy to send to the EU at this crunch moment in the talks, not least given some of the unfortunate remarks reported by ITV by the leader of the civil service delegation in Brussels. It also begs the question of how that marries with the position under UK law, which is our default position: that we would leave on 29 March, which I had understood was specifically Government policy. I listened very carefully to the Secretary of State’s assurances, but they in turn seem to conflict with the motion itself, which I am afraid is the problem we still need some clarity on.

The Government motion also makes no mention of the so-called Malthouse compromise proposal, and we have heard nothing about whether it has been formally tabled with our EU friends and partners. I understand that it has been raised and discussed with Michel Barnier, but has a written version of it actually been shared? We are seven weeks on from 29 January. This was the basis on which the Brady amendment was adopted, and it is a legitimate question to ask.

On that basis I will vote against the amendments, but I am, at the moment at least, struggling with the idea of voting for the principal motion. However, I will listen very carefully to the further assurances Ministers will give in winding up, because I would rather be in the position of supporting the Government, as I think the Government need the time and space to go in to bat in Brussels and to deliver the best deal for this country. We have a reasonable, modest set of demands to get a deal over the line and we want the Government to go in with the strongest hand possible.

14:06

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

My fear is that we are just drifting—that we are stuck in limbo on something that is going to have consequences for our country for generations. We know not what the alternative arrangements are going to be, and we know not when the Government are going to bring anything back and what it will be, and there are only six weeks to go. Businesses have no idea what to do about their April orders, because they do not know what the terms of trade will be. It is not just that they do not know whether there will be a deal or no deal; they do not even know, if there is no deal, what the basic arrangements are going to be. The British Chambers of Commerce has put questions to the Government and still not had any answers about what tariffs would apply and in which circumstances, and when rules of origin checks need to be done. The police do not know whether European arrest warrants that they have out at the moment on wanted criminals are going to just be ripped up overnight. The NHS does not know what its supplies of medicines are going to be in just six weeks’ time.

A local manufacturing business that exports about 80% of its products contacted me today saying that European suppliers are refusing to agree terms for continued supply; they are now establishing alternative suppliers. That is happening already, because there are only six weeks to go. The business says:

“We are rapidly becoming the laughing stock of the world.”

The Secretary of State, faced with what is effectively this growing chaos, responded today by hardening his position, I thought, in response to the question from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I assume that that was an arranged response as a result of the threats from the European Research Group again today. The position used to be that the Government were embracing the prospect of no deal if the Prime Minister’s deal is not passed. I have heard people, including in this House, advocate no deal, and I would just say that they are not the people who are going to be overstretched if the prices of their food go up because of WTO tariffs and shortages at the border. They are not the people who will be hit if manufacturing jobs are lost, as so many manufacturers across the country have warned. But all of us will be affected if our border security is undermined because the Border Force cannot do basic criminal records checks on people coming into this country to see whether they are wanted criminals, having lost overnight the basic information from databases that they rely on.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady might recall that in November, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee warned that Brexit could actually cause a huge amount of cheap food imports to flood into the UK. Which particular scare story does she side with: the one that says there will be cheap food imports or the one that says that we are going to run out of fruit and veg?

[Yvette Cooper]

We should take very seriously the warnings about a reduction of up to 80% in the volume of goods passing through the border and the preparations that Border Force is making for that, as well as the warnings from major supermarkets including Lidl, Asda and Tesco about the potential restrictions on the food that they will be able to get into the shops and the warnings from the Environment Secretary—a strong leave campaigner himself—about tariffs on beef and lamb.

[Tom Brake]

Did the right hon. Lady hear a couple of days ago that the food industry is saying that it can no longer take part in Government consultations because no less than a third of its staff are now working on Brexit-related matters?

[Yvette Cooper]

That is really troubling, and it is now happening right across industry and across every sector. We heard this week from manufacturers in the car industry that they are putting tens of millions of pounds into preparations for no deal. It shows the scale of their concern about no deal that they are actually hoping that that money is going to be wasted. They hope that it will not be needed, but they are having to put that money in in the first place.

Some people have said that having no deal on the table is really important as part of a negotiating ploy, but that is just nonsense. The fact that no deal would hit us more than it would hit the other 27 means that this is not like negotiating a business deal, as one hon. Member has suggested. I am afraid that this is much more like negotiating a divorce. You do not just walk out and say goodbye to the home and all the assets without any clue of where you going to sleep that night, while at the same time thinking that this is going to persuade your ex to give you half their pension. It just does not work like that, yet we are taking all these risks.

I would like to believe that the Prime Minister is heading for a workable deal and that she can build a consensus. I have called many times for cross-party consensus and for a cross-party commission to oversee negotiations. I have called many times for a customs union to support Yorkshire manufacturing, for a security backstop—not just for Northern Ireland—and for clarity about the future arrangements. My biggest concern is that we are facing a blindfold Brexit with no idea of what kind of arrangements we face. I would like to see indicative votes on the kinds of approach that hon. Members have suggested.

[Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the Prime Minister’s red lines, including not meeting our proposals on the customs union, that are holding us back and keeping us in this position?

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Prime Minister has to change her red lines, particularly around the customs union but in other areas as well, because they are preventing any change and any proper debate on the way forward. Instead, she appears to be trying to create a sense of crisis and chaos in the final two weeks, during which Parliament and the EU will be locked in a game of chicken in which we will be forced to choose between the huge damage of no deal and a deal that has already been strongly rejected by this Parliament. That is not a responsible way to make decisions. It is not a responsible way for any Parliament to operate, and it is certainly not a responsible way for this Government to operate. They have a responsibility to keep us safe, to make sure that the sick can get their medicines and to make sure that the poorest people in this country can afford the price of food. The Government have a responsibility to do things in an effective way, not to create chaos because they cannot get a bad deal through.

We have put forward a revised Bill. Under the proposals, if we get to the middle of March and we still have no deal in place, the Prime Minister will have to choose whether she wants the default to be no deal or an extension of article 50 to give her more time to sort this out. That would have to be put to Parliament, giving Parliament the opportunity to avert no deal on 29 March and the chance to say that the Government’s approach is just not working. It will not have worked if we reach that date without a deal in place. The problem is that if we do not do something sensible like this, we will be living in a fantasy world in which people talk about alternative arrangements and say that everything will be fine and someone will come along and sort it all out, even though none of that will happen.

[Mrs Main]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Yvette Cooper]

I will not; I need to conclude my remarks.

It is as though we are all just standing around admiring the finery of the emperor’s new clothes when actually the emperor is running around stark naked, and everyone is laughing at us—or at least they would be if it were not so sad. So I really hope that the Government will show some responsibility and that they will end up supporting this Bill. Frankly, I hope that they will sort this out before we get to that point–before it is too late.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. An eight minute limit on each Back-Bench speech now applies.

14:16

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I rise to support the amendment in my name and those of many hon. and right hon. Members from all parties across the House. In simple terms, it calls for the publishing of papers that I know have been placed before the Cabinet, that the Cabinet has looked at and debated, and that in stark terms identify the very real dangers to our economy, to trade and to business of a no-deal Brexit.

I had the great honour to serve in Cabinet and to attend Cabinet. You may call me old-fashioned, Mr Speaker, but I am firmly of the view that there are times when the advice given to Ministers by their officials should remain confidential and should not be shared beyond the confines of that particular discussion. There are very good reasons for that, in my view. As a Minister, I made decisions not to share things. I take the firm view that advice given by, for example, the Attorney General to the Government should be subject to legal privilege. In those circumstances, it must be right that civil servants should be able to give advice without any fear that it might be made public. They should have no fear about giving such advice robustly and honestly.

The difference in this instance is that these papers that the Cabinet has debated contain important information that I believe my constituents and those of all other Members should have. It is also the view of a number of Cabinet members that those papers should be published. The fact—which nobody has denied—that members of the Cabinet take the view that those papers should be made public is the reason that I have tabled my amendment today and seek to persuade hon. and right hon. Members to support it.

These are not papers in the normal sense; they are papers of national importance. I am told that they make it very clear what the effects of a no-deal Brexit would be. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has said that a no-deal Brexit would be “ruinous”, and he has no doubt come to that conclusion not only because he speaks to business, as he undoubtedly does, but because he has had sight of those papers and formed that sound opinion based on their contents.

[Mrs Main]

My right hon. Friend is being very informative. Is she prepared to tell us whether she has seen the papers or who is giving her this information? She is talking with great authority, so are we supposed to take her at her word that she is in the know?

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. I hope that she will take me at my word. Although the things I say in this place are often not agreed with, I do not make things up. I have asked both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the papers, and it has never been denied that they exist, that they have been debated in Cabinet or that some Cabinet members believe that they should be published.

I gently suggest to my hon. Friend that the papers might assist her. I believe that she asked a question of a Minister about the need for us to get on with Brexit—I do not demur from her point on that—and get on with the trade deals so that businesses in her constituency can get on and trade with other countries. Perhaps if she saw the papers, she might know that businesses the length and breadth of our country already trade across the world. Businesses do not need a trade deal to do business and to trade. A deal enables us to do that business and that trade all the better. Perhaps it really is a very good idea that this place sees these papers, so that those hon. Members who are actually saying, as members of the Conservative party—the party of business—that it would be the right and responsible thing for this country to leave the European Union without a deal might be better informed as to the consequences.

[Mark Pritchard]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Anna Soubry]

I will take one short intervention.

[Mark Pritchard]

My right hon. Friend is being generous with her time. I do not agree with her, although I do respect her opinion, but does she accept that she may be asking for another precedent to be set? She sat in Cabinet and will know that documents can be sensitive, official, secret or top secret. Might this amendment not open the Pandora’s box for every Cabinet paper marked from sensitive to top secret to be leaked or let out?

[Anna Soubry]

I would not disagree with my hon. Friend at all. I have indeed seen those very same papers myself. When I was a Health Minister, I saw the risk assessment documents that took the firm view that it would not be in the public interest at all for some documents to be disclosed, for the very reasons that I have outlined. These papers are different, however, because members of the Cabinet who have seen them have unsuccessfully made arguments in Cabinet that they should be made public. That is the profound distinction in this case.

It really would be to the eternal shame of the Conservative party if it were to continue to support a no-deal Brexit. As ever, I make my views with perhaps too much robustness and sometimes with some passion, but I am one of the founding members of the people’s vote movement—I am very proud of that—and I believe that the only way through this impasse and mess is for this matter to go back to the country. However, I have now taken the view that the bigger national interest—I say this without any fear—is that I am no longer prepared not to vote in the interests of my country and my constituents and in accordance with my conscience. I am now of the view that ensuring that we do not crash out without a deal is my absolute priority and that is why I tabled amendment (e). I make that clear to my right hon. and very dear learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). We disagree on the people’s vote, but on this we are absolutely—probably as ever—as one.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Anna Soubry]

I will not, just because I am running out of time and I want to make several important points.

The Conservative party is the party of business. This party is the party of competence when it comes to the economy—[Interruption.] Oh yes, and history shows that a Conservative Government always leave office with the economy in a better state than when they inherited it, because we always have to clear up the mess made by a Labour Government. That is the simple fact and reality of history. However, will this great party be so reckless and go against all that we value in our principles by actually suggesting that we should leave without a deal in the face of overwhelming evidence? How many more car manufacturers—Ford, Toyota, Nissan—have to make it clear that if we leave without a deal, that will seriously impact the way that they do business? In the real world, that means our constituents will risk losing their jobs. Over 800,000 people work in just the automotive sector, never mind all the other millions who work in our manufacturing sector. Everybody with a scintilla of knowledge of the real world and of business and trade knows that the worst thing that could happen to our country is to leave without a deal. That is the view of the majority of Members of this place.

I gently say to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, who is a thoroughly good and decent man, that his speech chilled me to the bone. He is a Conservative, yet he stood at that Dispatch Box ignoring the amendment that was passed that was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman)—a former chairman of the Conservative Party—and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) for which 318 Members voted. The other amendment that was passed, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), was passed with 317 votes in favour. It is therefore shameful that the Secretary of State spent almost the entirety of his speech addressing the latter, not the former, even though the former had won cross-party support and the support of more hon. Members.

However, my party is in hock to the party within the party: the ERG. As others have said, it is funded by the taxpayer and others, with its own leader and its own Whip. The Secretary of State stood up and tossed out red meat to keep the ERG on board, instead of doing what each and every one of us must do, which is to do what is right for our country. The right thing for our country is to be as one in rejecting no deal and standing by, as this party once did, the people of this country, their jobs, their futures and the prosperity of business and trade.

14:26

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

What a mess. What a complete and utter mess our country is in. There are just 43 days to go before we leave the European Union and, as we currently do not have an agreement, we are staring down the barrel of leaving with no agreement at all. I urge the House to lift up its eyes from the Order Paper, the amendments, the whispered conversations, the scurrying of the Whips, and the scripted exchanges that we saw earlier, which I have to say reminded me at times of a badly written play in which some of the actors did not seem to know their lines, and actually look around at what we can see. We know that companies that export to Europe and companies that provide services to Europe are in a state of despair. Some of them are spending millions of pounds on preparing for the worst, including moving their operations across the channel. Official figures from the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency showed this week that 42 companies relocated to the Netherlands last year citing Brexit as the reason.

Other firms have no idea what to prepare for. Last week, I was on a train and the man opposite me leaned over and said, “Can I ask you a question?” I said, “Of course.” He runs a small firm that makes products, and he sends his fitters out across Europe to fit them for their suppliers. He told me that his largest customer had rung him up and said, “Can you promise me that if there is a no-deal Brexit, you will be able to continue to fulfil my orders?” He looked at me and said, “What am I meant to say to him, because I don’t know the answer?” I had to look at him and say, “Well, I don’t know the answer either.” I wonder whether the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), will be able to tell him what the answer is, because that man’s fear—we heard this from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—is that his big customers will say, “We’re not taking the risk anymore. We’re taking our business somewhere else.”

Look at the companies that manufacture in Britain. We have heard about Airbus, Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover and, most recently, Ford. Look at those that export from Britain. We have spent much of this week debating the fact that the trade deals we were promised would be rolled over by now are not all going to be rolled over. The truth is that we are not ready and we are not prepared. Most Members know that no deal cannot possibly be allowed to happen, yet it remains—we heard it again from the Dispatch Box today—the official policy of Her Majesty’s Government that they will allow it to happen.

I was genuinely puzzled when the Secretary of State said that he respects the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) two weeks ago, and which was passed, but that his hands are tied by legislation. Well, I have a message for him: untie your hands and change that legislation.

It is no wonder that the rest of the world looks at this country with utter astonishment and amazement at what we are doing to our economy, our country and our future, and it should not need to be said in this House that our economy, the investment that goes into it and the jobs we hope our children will get depend entirely on the decisions that thousands of businesses make about their future. What are we offering them? The Prime Minister said this week, “Hold your nerve.” I am entitled to ask, hold our nerve for what?

It is now more than two weeks since the Brady amendment was passed, more than two weeks since the Malthouse compromise was seized upon like a thirsty man grabs at a drink in the desert, yet I fear it is a mirage. We all know that the search for alternative arrangements to keep an open border in Northern Ireland did not start two weeks ago; it has been going on for about two years. The best minds, the best negotiators and the best brains have searched, but they have not found. Those arrangements do not currently exist, a point made forcefully by the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in his evidence to the Exiting the European Union Committee yesterday, and it is why Donald Tusk said yesterday that he is still waiting for proposals from the Government.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Further to the point my right hon. Friend is making, last year there was all this discussion of the so-called “max fac” option and the European Union rejected that option, which was based on technology that is now being put forward again.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is, of course, entirely right. Nothing I heard from the Prime Minister on Tuesday and nothing I heard from the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box today persuades me, or anyone else, that those alternative arrangements will miraculously appear in the 43 days that remain.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Just a slight nuance on the earlier debate. The European Union is not so rude as to say that it has rejected this, but it is saying, “If your fantasies don’t come through, let us have the security policy of a backstop. We don’t say your fantasies are wrong, but we are taking our insurance policy just in case.”

[Hilary Benn]

The backstop is, indeed, an insurance policy, and we cannot put a time limit on it, because it would not be an insurance policy if it is not there when it is needed. We cannot allow one side to withdraw unilaterally. The tragedy that the backstop illustrates is that we are spending all this time on something that is necessary because the Prime Minister created the problem in the first place when she casually announced that we are leaving the single market and the customs union, probably not thinking through the consequences that have brought her to this point.

We have these debates every two weeks, but we are spending barely any time focusing on the real problem. As the Father of the House pointed out in his wonderfully eloquent speech, we have no idea what Brexit actually, finally, means, because the Government have refused to make the choices that confront them and have failed genuinely to reach out across the House.

Nothing illustrates that more clearly than the example of a customs union. In her heart, the Prime Minister knows that, if we want to keep an open border in Northern Ireland and if we want to keep friction-free trade, we will have to remain in a customs union with the European Union, yet she cannot bring herself to confirm that fact, not because it would be economically damaging—it would be quite the opposite—but because it would be politically damaging to the party she leads.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I suspect the Prime Minister knows that the advice from the Law Officers is that to create a hard border, which follows axiomatically from the policy wanted by my colleagues in the ERG, would be a breach of our international legal obligations under the Good Friday agreement. As we are a rule of law state, we do not do that sort of thing, which is why it is a complete fantasy to try to pursue it.

[Hilary Benn]

I can only bow in admiration to the clarity with which the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes that point.

We know that is where we will have to end up, and humouring those who refuse to recognise it is where we will end up, while the national interest is being threatened, is not what I regard as the leadership that we have a right to expect from any Government in this country.

If the Prime Minister were genuinely to reach out, even at this late stage, I would welcome it, but we are careering towards a cliff. She is at the wheel and the Cabinet are sitting on the back seat. At some point, they will have to decide to lean over and take the steering wheel off her. If that does not happen, a no-deal Brexit might come to pass.

We know that today is not the day when we will take that decision, but in two weeks’ time we will. Two weeks’ time will be decision day on whether Parliament is going to take for itself the means to prevent a no-deal exit from the European Union, so long as the Government continue to stand at the Dispatch Box and refuse to give the House the assurance it is entitled to receive, especially given the amendment passed two weeks ago.

I am one of the proud sponsors of the Bill, in its new and improved form, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I will enthusiastically support it in the Division Lobby if the amendment is chosen. Whatever our different views about where we should go afterwards, I hope the one thing that will unite the House is that almost everyone—not everyone, but almost everyone—agrees that we cannot leave with no deal.

In most of my previous speeches I talked about where I would like to go, but the fundamental problem is that we have not debated what we want Brexit to look like. Future generations will look in puzzlement at the way in which the negotiations have been structured. One day I will see the Prime Minister stand at the Dispatch Box and say, “I am applying for an extension to article 50,” and at that moment the stranglehold of 29 March will be broken, the Members who have been humoured will discover that they were led a merry dance in their belief that we would, in fact, leave with no deal on 29 March and the question will then be asked: what do we use the extension for? At that moment, we will no longer be able to hide from the choices that need to be made, and I, for one, look forward to that happening.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A six-minute limit now applies.

14:29

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

It is traditional in this House to say it is a pleasure to follow the previous speaker; it really is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), with whose speech I thoroughly agree. I did not think that today’s event, unlike the one two weeks from now, would be of any real interest. I was wrong, but in a very bad way.

There was a fascinating, and rather horrifying, series of exchanges before this debate began and during its opening, and those exchanges have driven me, finally, to the conclusion that I admit I have gradually been forming over the last few weeks and months.

First, when the chips are down, this Government—my Government—and this Prime Minister, for whom I, unlike many colleagues, voted when she came for re-election, would prefer to do what some of my esteemed colleagues would prefer to do: head for the exit door without a deal. The Secretary of State informed us that that is the policy of Her Majesty’s Government if the Prime Minister’s deal does not succeed. That is a terrifying fact.

Secondly, I fear I have been driven to the final conclusion that it is only by legislation that we will resolve this problem, because it is only by legislation that the Government will feel compelled to act. They do not accept any motion in this House as binding on them—but they do accept orders that order you, Mr Speaker, to take certain actions, or that order the House to follow certain procedures, the Standing Orders having been changed, as happened successfully in the past weeks and months. When it comes to governmental action, it is abundantly clear that only legislation will compel.

The third conclusion I am driven to is that the Bill that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and I, and others, have put forward, which is a successor Bill to the previous Bill, is a necessary instrument. It commands the Prime Minister to take a series of actions that will enable her to find out what delay the House commands and what delay the EU is willing to accept, and then to follow that course if she has not achieved a deal by 13 March. Beyond that, I am driven to the conclusion—this came out in the brief conversation I had with the Father of the House—that we will then have to do what the Opposition shadow Secretary of State and many other hon. Members have suggested: find a consensus across this House for a positive alternative, also, alas, by legislation.

This is a remarkable condition for Parliament, the Government and this country to find themselves in. The structure of our affairs, almost throughout our history, since this House first established its rights over and against the Crown, has been that the Government—Her Majesty’s Ministers—put forward policy and carry it out, subject only to the ability to maintain the confidence of the House, and to legislate in it. To my knowledge, it has never previously been the practice for this House to have to take control and direct Government policy by legislation. That is an astonishing turn of events.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman like to reiterate that in a fortnight’s time, it really will be high noon, and there will be no further opportunity to intervene to ensure that Parliament takes control of the process?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

The right hon. Gentleman, who was a colleague of mine in the coalition Government, and to whom I pay tribute for his part in taking forward this Bill and other measures in which we are jointly engaged, is absolutely right about that. On 27 February, there is no place to hide. On that date, this House will make a decision that will lead either to this country leaving the EU without a deal, or to delaying the UK’s exit, thereby giving us a chance, if many other things follow, to find an alternative deal that can be agreed by this House, that can be legislated through, that can be mandated for the Government, and that can give this country a secure and prosperous future outside the EU. It is on 27 February that we will have to make that decision.

My final point is that in these circumstances, being an ordinary Member of Parliament, as opposed to a member of the Cabinet—many of us have been in previous Cabinets—is no longer the kind of task that many of us have always assumed it would be. Mostly, our country has operated on the principle that its great work is done by Governments, and that we in this House have the extraordinary privilege of observing, informing, scrutinising and checking, but do not have to take the ultimate responsibility for those crucial decisions that those of us who have served in Cabinets and in National Security Councils have, from time to time, had to take about what this country does. On 27 and 28 February, if we come to debate that Bill, and in succeeding weeks and months, as we have to legislate for the policy of this country in relation to the EU, all of us in this House will suddenly have to take the awesome responsibility of playing our part in trying to find a way through that enables our fellow citizens to have a secure and prosperous future.

[Anna Soubry]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is giving a passionate and brilliant speech and statement of the situation we are in. I wonder whether he could help us in one respect: does he believe that the papers I mentioned in my amendment (e) should be published? Would that assist?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I most fervently believe that they should be published; much more information on the no-deal exit should be available. I would vote for my right hon. Friend’s amendment, were it not for the infelicity of the fact that it would knock out the Government’s motion, which I am committed to voting for, having consistently maintained the position in this House that I will always back the Government in their endeavour to get their deal through until that is no longer possible. Perhaps I am a romantic, but I have always thought that my task was to try to assist a Conservative Government in coming to a solution. Although many of my hon. Friends do not find themselves able to do that, I will continue to do it. It is only for that reason that I shall not back her amendment; I shall abstain on the matter.

My right hon. Friend is of course right in substance: those papers should be out, because when this House comes to legislate, as I hope it will and fear it must, it will be, so to speak, a Cabinet. We will be making real-life decisions about what happens to our fellow countrymen—not just legislating in the hope that many years later, subject to further jots and tittles, the law, as administered by the system of justice, will work better. We will be making a decision about the future of this country. How can we possibly make those decisions unless we are properly informed? The process of which we are now at the start will require the fundamental realignment of the relationship between the civil service, Government and Parliament. There is no way we can continue to act as though we were merely a body to which the Government were accountable; for a period, for this purpose, we will have to take on the government of our country.

14:46

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I applaud the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) for seeking leadership and decisiveness at this moment. It makes me ask: who should be held responsible for the groundhog day moment we find ourselves in? It is no secret that I regard Brexit as an unmitigated disaster, particularly for the most vulnerable and least well-off of my constituents, whose jobs and livelihoods are threatened. I also hold the Prime Minister responsible for the conduct of the negotiations, accepting as she did this ridiculous arrangement whereby the divorce arrangements are separated from the future relationship. That should never have been allowed to happen. She then negotiated a deal that nobody really wanted, but which she is absolutely determined to prosecute at almost any cost. We are now in this ridiculous situation of the Prime Minister saying, “Back me or we all hold hands and jump off the cliff together.”

Brexit is not just a disaster; it is also a tragedy because of the economic consequences. We have been talking about the trade deals that we were promised would all be ready one second after midnight on 29 March. We discovered this week that only four or five of the 40 free trade agreements will be ready.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

We have got the Faroe Islands.

[Mr Leslie]

We do have the Faroe Islands, but the deals with Turkey, Japan, South Korea and Canada will not be ready. As well as the breach with our largest trading partner, the European Union, we must add a breach and fracture in our trade arrangements with all those other countries.

Brexit is not just an economic tragedy, because there are other tragedies. My heart breaks when I think about the history of our country leading up to this moment: working in alliances with our European allies; those citizens’ rights that have accrued; and the ability not just of generations of people to come, work, live and study here, but of our children to do the same reciprocally.

We talk about the backstop as though that nomenclature somehow describes what we are talking about. Let us be plain about what we are hearing. Some hon. Members do not want a time limit to the backstop. Essentially, they are arguing for a time limit on open borders between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland—a time limit on the Good Friday agreement. When we put it in those terms, it is preposterous that we should be in this situation at all.

I hold the Government responsible for getting us into this run-the-clock-down strategy, but we should be completely honest about why we are in this situation. I wanted action today. Earlier this week, I said that we needed to snap out of this delusion now, because I worry about the time that we have in which to legislate on these things. I will have to cling to the hope of 27 February, but why are we waiting until then? It is because, in order to get the votes for a majority, we have to work cross-party. The truth is that an increasing number of Labour Members—even some on the Front Bench—are abstaining on votes, so we have to wait for Members on the payroll, Government Ministers, to do the brave thing and resign to counteract the loss of numbers on the Labour Benches. We should have a solid Labour move against this outrageous situation. The idea that the Labour party is not together in arguing against this tragedy—this disaster—is, for me, entirely heartbreaking.

In the amendment tabled by the Labour Front-Bench team, I no longer see the words, “option of a public vote”, which were in the Labour Front-Bench amendment of 29 January. I ask myself why are we regressing when it comes to our party’s policy, as passed at the September conference. Other Members have tabled amendments; I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and other hon. Members, who have tried to put this matter of Labour party policy on the Order Paper today.

We have this new euphemism of “options on the table.” How long is this table, and when will we ever get to those options? It is absolutely not acceptable. On this particular issue, we are being played for fools by the leadership of the Labour party. By now, we should have reached the stage of a public vote on the option of remaining in the European Union. Nobody can explain to me seriously, without being lawyered, why we are not at that stage right now.

The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) was correct when he talked about the underlying reasons for this mess. Why are we at this groundhog day right now? The truth is that our party political system is shattered. It is broken, and it is letting this country down at a crucial time. This is the moment when we need leadership, but tragically, party political calculations and advantage are being put ahead of the national interest.

14:51

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I have been sounding the alarm for the car industry for some time. Of course, its challenges are not just about Brexit, but Brexit has made things worse. Many of my constituents have lost their jobs. The claimant count has shot up on my council estate, and, given the lag in statistics, I fear that things will only get worse. Unemployment is now at 7.4% compared with the national average of 2.3%.

As 29 March approaches, it is paramount that we leave the EU with a deal—I have voted for the Prime Minister’s deal. Leaving without a deal would be catastrophic. This is not project fear; this is reality. These are real people’s lives that I am talking about. On Tuesday evening, I co-chaired a meeting with my friend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) of a wide range of organisations: Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Airbus, Siemens, the CBI, the EEF, the NFU, the British Ceramic Confederation, the Association of British Insurers and so on. The damage of continued uncertainty and the lingering prospect of no deal was made perfectly clear. A total of 80% of CBI members have stopped investing in their businesses. The political uncertainty has damaged the UK’s credibility as a safe place for investment. One of the large US investors now describes the UK as the “problem child” of Europe. Against that backdrop, companies of all sizes are finding it increasingly difficult to justify doing business here.

When I was growing up, this country was often described as the “sick man of Europe”, and I really do not want us to become that again. Manufacturers are now spending tens of millions on no-deal preparations, as we heard earlier. It is extraordinary to think that they hope that that money will be wasted.

The manufacturing industry is not in decline. It accounts for 10% of the UK’s economic output. The UK is the ninth biggest manufacturer in the world, and manufacturing is not an industry that this country can afford to lose; it employs thousands of people and it pays well. However, for this success to continue, companies need to be certain that the UK is a reliable place to invest in and commit to. Unfortunately, as indicated by Ford’s recent announcements, this is now in doubt.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) have done quite a remarkable job in getting all the various organisations together. Like her, I am concerned because, as she knows, Jaguar Land Rover and a number of other companies are based in Coventry, and the local CBI has contacted me voicing concerns about the direction we are heading in with these negotiations. I hope that the right hon. Lady agrees with me.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

West midlands MPs from across the political divide have sounded the alarm together for the jobs that are being put at risk.

Let me turn to a fresh example of what is at stake. We often speak about the economic cost, but there is a huge human cost. As Second Church Estates Commissioner, I was approached by the Bishop of Europe—yes, the Church of England has a diocese of Europe—on this subject. There are approximately 1 million European citizens living in the UK, many of whom are pensioners, and 250,000 are estimated to be receiving ongoing healthcare treatment. In addition, there are 50 million visitors from the UK annually to the continent, and they are covered by the European health insurance card. Indeed, 27 million UK citizens are registered as having one—maybe some of us do—but that provision is at stake in a no-deal Brexit. Permanent employees and residents are covered by an S1 certificate, which enables healthcare treatments to be reimbursed in the European economic area and Switzerland, but that too is at stake under a no-deal Brexit.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that this uncertainty is causing huge problems for the British community and businesses. I voted against the Government’s deal, but does the right hon. Lady agree that many businesses actually welcome the withdrawal agreement and say that it is indecision, rather than Brexit per se, that is stalling them now, and that we need to agree a deal without further delay?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I could not agree more. We need to heed businesses that say that the deal may not be perfect, but it is good enough. It is the jobs that are at stake as the uncertainty continues. But we are straying into economics again, and I want to return to the human cases.

Consider the 91-year-old man in an Italian nursing home. His son, who lives here, has just had a letter from the Italian authorities to say that they will no longer pay for his father’s care from 30 March if there is no deal. Imagine the younger man, worried sick that he cannot afford those nursing home fees and that moving his father could be fatal.

Then consider the young man living and working in France who has HIV. He has just received a letter to say that he will have to pay for his own antiretroviral treatment on 30 March. And listen to the voices of two pensioners living in Spain, who said:

“I will have to return to Britain as without the healthcare paid for, I can’t afford to live here. I wasn’t allowed to vote in the referendum. If we don’t get that healthcare lots of us will have to come home”.

The Government tell them that they are negotiating reciprocal rights. London and Madrid have already signed a deal ensuring voting rights and working rights for respective migrants, but healthcare is not part of this agreement. I wrote to the Health Secretary last week and have not yet had a reply. I stopped him in the Lobby to ask about this issue and he pointed out that the reciprocal healthcare Bill is being debated in the Lords, but will it have passed both Houses by 30 March?

[Dr Wollaston]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I will not give way again.

More importantly, will other countries hosting UK citizens have legislated in their Parliaments to protect them? These are real people and real lives. Sick and vulnerable people have become caught up in the Brexit turmoil, and they need answers.

Until I heard the interpretation of the Prime Minister’s motion today, I was going to welcome it, because it supported the amendments that were passed by a majority in this House. I am not entirely happy with the apparent demotion of my own amendment. I have consistently supported the Prime Minister’s deal and I will continue to support her to get a deal agreed in this House. Businesses need to know what position they will be in after 29 March.

Our country had barely recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. Politicians in this place did not have a choice of avoiding that global slump. We are on the brink of a similar shock to our economy in the form of no deal, but this time it is in our power to avoid doing such damage. We must leave the EU to honour the result of the referendum, but we must ensure that we do it in a way that will not decimate the livelihoods of thousands across the nation.

I will be voting for the Prime Minister’s motion tonight. I implore colleagues to get behind the deal and secure the jobs and livelihoods that are so precious to those we represent.

14:59

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister’s own personal approach to Brexit has created what 40 former ambassadors have today rightly called a “national crisis” that she is presiding over. In their serious and important speeches, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), my right hon. Friends the Members for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and the right hon. Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) have risen to the occasion of the crisis that is now facing us. I only wish that the Secretary of State could have risen to it as well.

The fact is that the Prime Minister, from the beginning, has chosen to put the interests of keeping the Conservative party together over the national interest. She chose, because she had decided to kow-tow to the Brextremists in her own party, a hard Brexit to get through her own party conference, without even discussing it with her own Cabinet. She set the hard red lines—out of the single market; out of the customs union—that created the problems with the Irish backstop. From the beginning, she made no attempt to forge a consensus across party lines or, indeed, across the country to define what Brexit would be so that it could be delivered in a consensual way rather than a way that has exacerbated disunity and further divided this nation. She has decided that she has to deliver Brexit with Conservative and DUP votes, and nothing else, to keep her party together and avoid a split.

This has pushed her to a harder and more damaging conclusion than she might have reached if she had reached out, and it will do our country more damage. By her choices, the Prime Minister has further divided the country. She has not sought unity, and we are all paying the price. Unity does not consist merely of being forced to agree with her dubious, partisan choices and her definition of what Brexit should be, which are reckless in the extreme.

[Anna Soubry]

Does the hon. Lady also take the view that given the result of the general election, which resulted in a hung Parliament and the Conservative party actually losing its majority, there is no argument that there is any mandate for a hard Brexit, and in fact, if there is any mandate, it is against a hard Brexit and against no deal?

[Ms Eagle]

Not to my surprise, I find myself agreeing with the observations of the right hon. Lady. The only national poll that the Prime Minister talks about these days is the referendum. Somehow she never refers to the 2017 election in which her party lost its mandate for a hard Brexit.

The Prime Minister’s response to the result of that vote in 2017 and the loss of her majority surely ought to have been to go for a softer, more consensual Brexit that would have kept us in the customs union and avoided all these problems. But instead we have a Prime Minister who characterises disagreement with her own particular partisan choices on Brexit as if it is a betrayal of democracy. She has used those words, and that has further exacerbated the anger that we have in this country. In my view, it is actually beginning to bring democracy itself into disrepute. She flirts with authoritarianism and division, and invites the betrayal narratives that increase anger even more, so she is being reckless with our political stability.

The Prime Minister has ignored Parliament in the way in which she has gone about delivering Brexit. She allowed her attack dogs to attack judges who pointed out that in fact Parliament needed to have a say about the triggering of article 50 in the first place. Indeed, the Prime Minister has allowed her Government to be found in contempt of Parliament. Today’s motion only exists because she was defeated in an attempt to shut down Parliament’s say in Brexit, and yet the Government are fulfilling the terms of that vote by holding this debate according to the letter, not the spirit, of the defeat they suffered. They routinely ignore votes in Parliament. Opposition days have simply disappeared, and they do not deign to vote in Divisions that the Opposition secure anyway, much less take any notice of the result. We are seeing the phrase “non-binding on the Government” increasingly applied, which is why I made the point of order before the debate.

This development would have been unthinkable when I came into the House. The unwritten rules about our constitution are beginning to be ignored. Political gravity, which was always thought to be something that everybody respected, is being ignored. It is the letter, not the spirit, of our constitution and our law that is now apparently more important. We will rue the day we went down this dangerous path.

All agreements are intra-Conservative ones. The Chequers agreement was with the Cabinet, and that did not last the weekend. The ludicrously named Malthouse compromise has already been ruled out by the EU. The alternative arrangements working group, funded by civil service support, is all about trying to get the rabble of the ERG to agree with the rest of the Conservative party, so that the Prime Minister can move forward. It is all to kick the can down the road and let her stay in office another week.

The Prime Minister is deeply reckless, and she has made a deeply reckless decision to play a hugely damaging game of brinkmanship with her own party by threatening the entire country with no deal. We have heard in the powerful speeches so far the real damage that that is doing to our country, trashing our international reputation abroad and doing irreparable damage to our standing in the world.

Going to the brink in pursuit of this tactic is reckless with our economic prosperity and reckless with our political stability. Jobs are being lost now. Investment opportunities are being lost now. Growth is being sacrificed now. The Prime Minister has allowed the Tory Eurosceptic virus to infect the entire body politic. We are all ill with it; we are being weakened with it. Her and her party will never be forgiven for the damage that she is causing.

12:48

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this important EU withdrawal debate, particularly after so many impassioned speeches from those on the Front and Back Benches.

Almost exactly three years ago, it was confirmed that the EU membership referendum would take place in June 2016, and it is now more than two and a half years since the referendum took place. In my constituency, the vote to leave the European Union was 58%, and across the country it was 52%. Since then, as the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) said, there has been a general election in 2017, when 589 now elected Members of this House stood on a manifesto commitment to deliver the result of the referendum.

The message I get is as follows. Just the other day, I was walking down Tilgate shopping parade in my constituency, and as is typically the case, someone came up to me and wanted to know about the current Brexit debate in Parliament. They said, “Why aren’t we getting on with the decision we made two and a half years ago?” That is a compelling argument.

We have heard this afternoon calls for a so-called people’s vote. I would argue that we had a people’s vote in 2016. We have also heard calls for an extension of article 50, to delay our departure from the European Union. We have heard from those Members concern about the uncertainty of Brexit. The one thing that will maintain uncertainty is questioning the democratic decision that was taken by holding a second referendum. That would certainly do a lot to damage our democracy and prolong uncertainty, as would a delay to article 50, and that is before we even get into the issues of whether the remaining 27 members of the EU would allow article 50 to be extended and, if article 50 were to be extended beyond July, of EU elections.

Mention has been made of how we should be taking no deal off the table. I have never known a negotiation where one party goes in and says that they are not willing to walk away from that negotiation. [Interruption.] I hear some jeering from Opposition Members, many of whom are sponsored by trade unions. I cannot imagine a trade union going into a negotiation with an employer and saying in those negotiations that it would not be willing to strike.

[Mr McFadden]

The problem with this “walk away” analogy is that in any other negotiation when someone walks away, the status quo applies. That is not the case here: when we walk away from this, a whole new and terribly damaging set of new things comes into force. That is why this analogy with a business deal is so fatuous, ridiculous and wrong.

[Henry Smith]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for mentioning the status quo, because I do not think the status quo of remaining inside the European Union is good for this country. The European Union is increasingly a protectionist bloc. The European Union is not outward and global in its approach. This country, with its unique global links, can use them to have a much more positive future, instead of locking itself into the ever closer union that is producing a democratic deficit at the heart of the EU, not to mention things such as a European army.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

My hon. Friend very clearly makes the point that we did not vote for the status quo. It is quite clear: 17.4 million people voted to leave. Does he agree with me that the inevitable outcome, if we do not have a deal, is no deal? That is not the status quo.

[Henry Smith]

I think people in this country have rejected the status quo, and I see Brexit as an opportunity for wider constitutional reform in relation to devolving power, fundamentally changing the way the other place works fundamentally and many other aspects. People wanted change. Actually, I think throughout Europe—throughout many EU member states—there is a real desire for change. If we do not respect the democratic decision, then some of the civil unrest we have seen on the streets of Paris, Lyon and Marseille, some of the economic contraction we see in Germany and the crisis in countries such as Italy will be visited on this country.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is making a typically powerful speech. Can he think of anything more craven than for Members of this House to vote one day to trigger article 50 and then to say two years later, “Oh, we didn’t mean to do that. We need to carry on”? Is that not just craven and, frankly, pathetic?

[Henry Smith]

We have seen significant majorities both in favour of leaving the European Union, in that about 80% of Members of Parliament elected at the last general election said they would follow through on it—

[Anna Soubry]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Henry Smith]

I do not have any time; I do apologise.

[Anna Soubry]

Oh!

[Henry Smith]

Actually, yes, I will give way very briefly.

[Anna Soubry]

Can my hon. Friend remind us of the promises made by the leave campaign, which he supported? It repeatedly said that we would not leave the European Union until a trade deal securing our future trading relationship with the EU had been secured. Does he remember such broken promises?

[Henry Smith]

I never made that promise when I supported leaving the European Union. I believe that a deal is the best way forward, but let us not forget that the vast majority of right hon. and hon. Members voted in favour of the legislation to leave the European Union on 29 March, and if no deal is the result, that is the default position.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. Friend for reminding us of what was said in the past. The Conservative party manifesto that I stood on in 2017 stated clearly that we would seek a deep and special partnership with the EU, including a new free trade agreement and a customs agreement. Does my hon. Friend still stand by that promise?

[Henry Smith]

Yes, we absolutely should be seeking and honouring a deep and close relationship with our neighbours and allies in Europe, but the trouble with a customs union, which Labour Members advocate, is that it would prevent us from doing the global free trade deals that, in a world that is getting smaller, are key to our prosperity. The key to this country’s future prosperity is our unique global links, and being a conduit for that thanks to our proximity to Europe. We must be robust in the ongoing negotiations, and I support the Prime Minister in continuing them. I have never known an EU negotiation that did not go down to the last moment, and I therefore remain optimistic about our future. For goodness’ sake, we should be more optimistic as a House and country, because our best years are ahead.

15:16

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

In just 43 days we are set to crash out with no deal, yet the Prime Minister and those on the Government Front Bench insist on running down the clock and presenting the completely false choice of no deal versus the Prime Minister’s bad deal. The motion under discussion today is non-binding, so why are we here to discuss the chaos that the Government have got us into? We are just days from the biggest disaster that we as a country have faced in a generation. Both before and after the votes two weeks ago, the House knew that the EU was not prepared to move on amending the withdrawal agreement, yet the Prime Minister still insists on going back to Brussels to ask again and again. She is running down the clock.

This House has been consistently clear that the majority of Members do not want the Prime Minister’s deal, and neither do they want a no-deal scenario. Why are those the options? Why are we facing no deal, just 43 days before we are set to crash out of the European Union? Why are we being blackmailed by the Prime Minister into voting for her deal to avoid a no-deal scenario? The Prime Minister is pursuing her policy of brinkmanship and trying to scare MPs into voting for her deal. Let me tell you, Mr Speaker, that will not work. We will not be blackmailed. This issue should not be about the Tory party—not then, not now, and not ever. The referendum was called by the then Prime Minister to prevent a split in his party and settle things once and for all. Well that went well, didn’t it?

This country is now an embarrassment. The Prime Minister is a laughing stock. All over the world we are being watched, and I am afraid that what people see is chaos. They see a weak Prime Minister who is unable to control her party, and a Government who are about to commit an act of such self-harm that it will take years, if not generations, for us to recover economically and socially in our communities and businesses. Far from being an outward-looking, confident and strong country, by leaving the European Union we are pursuing a policy of isolationism.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, have we not, as a member of the European Union, been at the forefront of combating climate change through the UN process? Leaving the EU will set us back. Should we not be looking at a Marshall plan for the environment across Europe, not just looking at the issue by ourselves?

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. The Government, in tearing apart all the brilliant policies we have in partnership with the European Union, are tearing apart the fabric of this country bit by bit.

Dismissing the rights of people who have lived here for years and years is damaging our businesses, damaging our communities and damaging our public services. I was not elected to this place to make my constituents poorer or less safe. That is what we are set to do by voting for the Prime Minister’s deal, any deal, or, even worse, crashing out with no deal. We are lacking the leadership, courage and commitment needed from our political leaders to demonstrate that they are putting the people of this country first, standing up for what is right and not risking security and peace in Northern Ireland. The backstop is essential to ensure peace in that part of the world. There is no such thing as “alternative arrangements”. We all know that, and our EU friends are absolutely right to stay firm on that. Only an irresponsible Government would seek changes and run down the clock.

It is our communities, our constituencies and our constituents who will suffer. It is their jobs and their livelihoods that will suffer—hard-working families, small and large businesses. Many of those I speak to in Cardiff North are so worried about their future. I was in a deli in my constituency just last week that is run by Italians. They have been there for years. They are very worried not only about trade but about their own futures. A florist around the corner from my office is worried about her future and her family’s future. Why are we doing this to the people of this country?

The Secretary of State tells us to “hold our nerve”. For what? This is a sham of a negotiation. We are in this situation because of this Government. My constituents do not want this. Jobs are under threat. Ford and Airbus are threatening to leave, and small businesses are worried about their future. My constituents are worried about their future and the future for their children. What is more, they are deeply, deeply saddened by the state of this country. They are saddened by the future that the Government are giving their children: a fantasy future based on nothing but lies and deception from the leave campaign.

I am saddened too, but more than that I am deeply, deeply worried. I am worried that the Prime Minister is playing recklessly with this country’s future. We must take action urgently to reject and prevent no deal. We must immediately extend article 50 and put the deal, whatever deal it is, back to the people for a final say. That is the only proper, democratic solution. If the Prime Minister is so sure of her deal, then that is what she will do: put it back to the people for a final say.

15:20

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The two previous motions, one in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and the other in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), are both incorporated in the Government motion.

With respect to the first motion, there has been no realistic suggestion for a credible replacement to the backstop since the motion was passed and the EU is still saying it will not renegotiate. There is no withdrawal agreement simply because it has not been signed. In that context, the Brady motion was meaningless. Furthermore, as I said to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, article 4 of the current draft withdrawal agreement undermines control over our own laws. That will create uncompetitive havoc for businesses, and for trade unionists and for workers, as the laws are passed by the other 27 member states, as they go through the Council of Ministers, and we will not even be there. The measure also contradicts the repeal of section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, were we to make the mistake of saying that we rule out leaving without signing the withdrawal agreement, we would take away the Government’s main bargaining card for getting improvements to the agreement?

[Sir William Cash]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.

On the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden, in reply to my question on Tuesday, which the Prime Minister agreed with, the Prime Minister said that Members from across the House voted to trigger article 50, which had a two-year timeline, ending on 29 March, and that every Conservative Member had voted for the withdrawal Act. She was right. However, the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden passed only because it was supported by Members from all parties who had already voted for the withdrawal Act, the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 and the European Union Referendum Act 2015, and were in effect, on the Prime Minister’s own analysis, undermining their previous votes. Furthermore, we were whipped against the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden.

There was no consultation prior to the tabling of the Government motion now before the House. In any case, the Government’s position that a so-called no deal remains on the table is clear, as the Secretary of State confirmed. The motion makes no sense, so why are we faced with it today? We are told that it is to keep traction with the EU, which has been, as I said to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, both undemocratic and totally intransigent. As I have said, the withdrawal agreement itself is inconsistent with the European Communities Act 1972. It is therefore also inconsistent with the referendum itself and our manifesto. The 2018 Act includes the repudiation in UK law of all EU laws and treaties, and article 4 of the withdrawal agreement is completely inconsistent with that. A vast number of voters see through this charade—they see through the smoke and mirrors—and in particular so too does the Conservative party membership—a recent “ConservativeHome” poll showed that 70% of them are against the withdrawal agreement.

The real problem goes back to what I said at the time of the first vote on the withdrawal agreement and my observations about the failure of public trust in respect of the Chequers deal and this withdrawal agreement. Those words stand as much today as they did when I spoke on 15 January. Today’s motion further undermines public trust. We are now truly entering the world of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. In his book “1984” Orwell wrote:

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

This double motion is doublethink in action, and I cannot possibly vote for it.

15:27

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The Prime Minister asks us to hold our nerve and give her time. One has to ask: more time for what? The answer is unclear, other than the obvious one, which is that it is to run down the clock towards early March. Despite the furious denials, that seems increasingly clear, as we have heard this afternoon. It seems that the Prime Minister cannot move an inch without enraging one faction or other of her own party. Brexit is problematic, but currently the problem is not the Irish, it is certainly not the Scots, or, for that matter, the supine Welsh Government, and it is not the backstop; the problem is clearly in the Conservative party. It is unsupportable that we are being led to this disaster for that very reason.

We are encouraged to keep our nerve while the wrangling proceeds and while the obfuscation for party advantage proceeds—to keep our nerve to keep our seats, while outside the bubble people are losing their jobs. We keep our nerve, they lose their jobs. Let me give a practical example. A small castings company in my constituency is an exporting company with products of the very highest quality. It is committed to the community in which it was established and which it serves, and from which it gets its workforce. Last time I talked to it, it said it was now looking at establishing a distribution centre in the Netherlands because it cannot face the confusion that now oppresses it. Only four jobs are affected, but for that community and that company, four jobs is a huge loss. Four jobs repeated endlessly across all the countries of these islands is a huge, huge burden that we could avoid.

After many years of representing Caernarfon, then the Arfon constituency, I have come to recognise the signs of a Government in desperate straits. We now have some more signs to add to the list—major Government defeats, crucial votes delayed without reason and a recess cancelled for no more than a few statutory instruments and general debates. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said yesterday, this is a broken Britain, with its democracy stumbling, its economy unbalanced towards the south-east of England and inequality continuously amplified.

From the outside, the bickering and jostling for position seems to be entirely unreasonable and irrelevant to people’s everyday lives. It ignores a basic point that drives me and my party: any form of Brexit would leave Wales and the whole of the rest of the UK worse off economically. I concede that most well-to-do people who occupy the Benches in Parliament will probably be fine under Brexit, but my constituents—working people, factory workers, students, retired people, families and children—will not.

I want to confirm that my party will vote for the amendments and against the Government’s motion. Forgive me for finishing on a familiar note by repeating what my party has said over and again as Brexit day looms, but the reasonable solution for the Prime Minister is to reject no deal emphatically and then to put a vote on her deal, in whatever form that is, to the people to have a final say.

15:31

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). While I agree with Wales in voting to leave the EU, I am afraid that I found little in his speech—though he put it powerfully and coherently—that I could agree with. I certainly cannot agree with a second referendum, or indeed, to taking no deal off the table.

I have always found that it is a good idea in the House to vote on what the motion says and not necessarily on what Ministers or other Members say in the House, so I thought I had better have a look at what it says today. It is very clear, actually:

“That this House…reiterates its support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29 January 2019”—

so I thought I had better look and see what the House had agreed to, and within the motion that it agreed to were the words

“rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement”.

In other words, the motion that we are voting on tonight takes no deal off the table. It does not matter what Ministers have said. It is what the motion says, so I would expect all Opposition Members who do not seem to want a no-deal option to support the Government’s motion tonight, which is exactly the reason I will not be supporting it. It is a badly worded motion—well, no, it is not a badly worded motion; it is deliberately worded that way. I think the Government thought that they could slide it through and that it would not matter. I know that, if I supported this tonight, the Whips would point out to me, “You have supported taking no deal off the table.” That is not what I can do.

I want to go back to when I was a co-founder of the Grassroots Out movement. I travelled the length and breadth of the United Kingdom during the referendum campaign discussing with people what they wanted if they were going to vote to leave. It came down, I think, to a few things. They wanted to end the free movement of people, to stop giving billions and billions of pounds each and every year to the EU and for us to make our own laws in our own country, judged by our own judges. I fear that the current withdrawal agreement proposed by the Government fails on all those tests. Maybe that is one of the reasons why it suffered the biggest defeat in Commons history. Anybody who had suffered the biggest defeat in Commons history might want to go away and think very carefully about what they put to the House, and not tinker around for a couple of weeks before coming back with more or less the same motion, because the same thing will happen. It will get rejected by this House.

Let us look at the tests. Does the withdrawal agreement end the free movement of people? It does not, because there is no future deal worked out, just some sort of political wish list—a political declaration—so it fails on that score. Does the agreement stop billions and billions of pounds being given to the EU each and every year? We know that £39 billion is going to be given whatever happens under the withdrawal agreement, and if the transition period is extended, even more money will be given. Clearly, our courts will not be able to be the final arbiters, because the European Court of Justice has a significant say over our future.

[John Redwood]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, because the agreement is not about the future partnership, it sentences this House and the whole nation to 21 to 45 more months of the rows, disagreements, uncertainties and problems that we have presided over for the last two years and seven months?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I will deal with that issue in a minute, but I want to finish the point that clearly the withdrawal agreement does not let us make our own laws in our own country, because we would still be tied to the European Union.

The one thing that people say—I hear it from leading remainers—is that they want certainty, but the one thing that the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration in particular give us is uncertainty, with months and months of squabbling and not delivering what the British people voted for in June 2016.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be most useful before the conclusion of tonight’s debate if we heard from the Government Front Bench whether the textual, legal changes that are binding have been drafted and whether they have been put to Europe?

[Mr Bone]

I am very grateful for that intervention from the very sound colleagues on the DUP Benches. Of course, it would help enormously to hear that.

Everyone talks about no-deal cliff edge and disaster, or says that people did not vote to make themselves poorer, but that is complete and utter nonsense.

[Anna McMorrin]

Rubbish.

[Mr Bone]

No, it is not rubbish, it is nonsense. But the hon. Lady can use the word “rubbish” as well—whichever one she likes: rubbish or nonsense. [Interruption.] Oh, she is saying that I am talking nonsense? I listened to hon. Lady, who made a powerful remain speech that was absolute—let us use one of those words—nonsense. The truth of the matter is that the British people had the Cameron-Osborne “Project Fear” thrown at them. They were told that it would be the end of the world if they voted leave. They would be poorer, house prices would go up or down, interest rates would go through the roof and there would be mass unemployment—even bubonic plague—and they still voted for it, so I am afraid that people in this remain Parliament are ignoring the wishes of the British people. With the exception of very few Members, none of the Members who has spoken mentioned the British people. They all mentioned themselves and what they wanted—[Interruption.] Sorry, did the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) say, “Shut up”? If the hon. Lady suggests that, I am going to shut up very shortly, and I am sure we will hear from her, but I will say this—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let me say in the most affectionate possible terms to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is an extremely cerebral Member of the House, that at this moment he is behaving like an incorrigible delinquent. I urge him to desist from this disorderly behaviour. He is fundamentally a very good man—some would even say a great man—but something has seized him today, and he is behaving in a mildly eccentric manner.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

He is very irritating.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman says that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is “very irritating”. Well, this is a subjective matter. Some people might find the hon. Gentleman irritating, or even find the Chair irritating—but who cares?

[Mr Bone]

I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that I am not a snowflake, so I will not take offence from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

The truth is that a no-deal Brexit—which is, of course, a deal that means leaving on the basis of WTO rules—is the answer. It gives clarity to business, and it delivers what the British people voted for in June 2016.

15:40

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Poverty drove my parents to emigrate from rural Ireland to this country. This country gave them everything. I never thought when I was a snotty kid in Kilburn that I would ever end up as a Member of Parliament. I am proud of our country—it is truly Great Britain—and it grieves me to see it facing the biggest crisis since 1945 as a consequence of a self-inflicted wound as we drift towards an abyss. If we plunge into that abyss without a deal to protect the British national interest, our country will be the poorer for a generation to come.

On 29 January, the House spoke. The truly honourable right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), whom I praise in the warmest possible terms for her outstanding integrity, and I tabled an amendment that said “No to no deal”. The House spoke, and that led to the commencement of constructive all-party negotiations. Today we heard not one word from the Secretary of State about progress in those negotiations as he pandered unashamedly to the European Research Group, whose members are oblivious to the consequences of their actions.

When it was put to the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that there would be difficulties for the automotive industry—including the Jaguar plant in my constituency—in relation to frictionless trade in particular, he said, “Frictionless trade? Fake news.” So he knows more about how to make cars than those who make cars. Conservative Members pretend that they know more about how to build ships and planes than those who build ships and planes, and that they somehow know more than the head of counter-terrorism, who warned of potentially serious consequences for the safety and security of our citizens if we crash out with no deal.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he remember the words of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)? He said, “Eff business”. Is that not the attitude that seems to be pervading this place when it comes to what will happen on the other side of Brexit? It is almost a “don’t care” attitude, but it will seriously damage our communities.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Jaguar Land Rover—the Jaguar plant in my constituency and the Land Rover plant in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Meriden—has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of workers locally, and the riposte from the ERG is “Eff business.” It is absolutely disgraceful.

We are determined to press on regardless with positive talks, with a view to trying to reach agreement. Why? Not least because of what we were told on Tuesday night at a meeting that we organised here with representatives of the five biggest manufacturing companies, and others with interests in food, finance and farming. All spoke with one voice: “We cannot crash out without a deal, and we want a good deal to protect the British national interest.” We were told that

“the effects of No Deal are happening now”,

and that American investors in manufacturing companies now see us as the “problem child of Europe”.

An investment that would have created 1,000 jobs in Northern Ireland has been shelved, and 80% of CBI members have stopped investing while the uncertainty continues. Inward investment in the automotive sector has halved. Automotive companies are planning shutdowns after 29 March. Businesses are being told by their contractors to build up three months’-worth of stock after that date, which is costing them a small fortune and using up valuable storage space. As the National Farmers Union has said, 90% of animal vaccines are imported, and in a no-deal scenario it cannot guarantee that necessary vaccines will be readily available.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman reads out those statistics about the problems, but the fact is that we have the lowest unemployment on record in the history of the state of Northern Ireland, and the highest numbers in Northern Ireland’s history for inward and direct investment. The joint total of our export sales to the rest of the United Kingdom and the rest of the world is more than 73% of everything we produce; the fact is that that is where we make our money.

[Jack Dromey]

Come to Erdington, where we still have one in 10 out of work, with unemployment rising. When we turned around the Jaguar plant from closure in 2010, it doubled in size from 1,400 workers to 3,300, but it has lost 1,000 jobs in the last 12 months, and growing uncertainty is seeing more and more job losses. These are good, secure, well-paid jobs, now being put at risk by Brexit. It is nothing short of extraordinary that there continue to be too many Members in this House who are just oblivious to the consequences of their actions.

The week commencing 25 March will be crunch time for the Government, our country and businesses up and down the country. Notwithstanding some of the things said by Conservative Members, that “no to no deal” amendment that won on 29 January, on which parties from across this House united, stands; it is morally binding. It would be utterly contemptuous of the Government if they were to give two fingers to that clearly expressed wish of the House of Commons.

The extraordinary contributions we have heard today tell us that a safeguard is necessary at the next stages. We will engage positively, both formally and informally, with the negotiations under way, with a view to reaching agreement, because we believe we have a duty to put the British national interest first, but what we have heard today reinforces our view that we have to support that Cooper-Letwin amendment. It is an utterly essential measure that the right hon. Member for Meriden and I have signed and strongly support. It underpins things; it is a safeguard that prevents us from falling off a cliff on 29 March without a deal.

We have a sacred duty in this House to put the national interest first. When I get out of bed every morning, what drives me forward is those I represent, and the lives transformed because of successful companies, and I grieve at the thought of what is unfolding. We must come together across this House in the best interests and traditions of Britain to agree a deal that will protect it at the next stages. It would be utterly outrageous if we were to betray the trust of the British people, and we for one just will not do it.

15:48

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey); I agreed entirely with the sentiments that he expressed about the depth of this crisis.

We still need to reflect a little to understand how we got here. After the referendum, I spent at least the first 12 months trying to persuade myself that there was some silver lining to the cloud, and that some of the arguments about us eventually finding a better destiny outside the EU, without so much interference, so much anger, and so much debate about our participation, might somehow prove right. Whereas a small minority in this House are absolutely fixated, and are persuaded that we can part company with our nearest neighbours entirely, the truth, not always uttered in this Chamber, but certainly spoken in the Tea Room, is that an overwhelming majority of Members of Parliament believe that Brexit, whatever form it takes, will be damaging to this country. Norway, the palliative that Norway plus may be seen as representing, a Canada-style agreement, or indeed the agreement negotiated in good faith by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—all are inferior to participation.

The result is that we are tying ourselves up in knots, and that is why we are paralysed. We end up with people like my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) trying to have their cake and eat it; or—I say this gently—with those on the Labour Front Bench buying a plastic cake and pretending it is edible, rather than coming to the correct conclusion that we will have to go back to the public with the options and, pointing out the limitations of what happened in 2016, ask them whether some of the options can, in fact, be delivered—otherwise, we should not be doing it. That is where we will have to end up, but meanwhile, the crisis deepens.

We are in the extraordinary position of being told that we have to continue negotiating and threatening to leave, when frankly, threatening to leave is the behaviour of a three-year-old who says that they are going to hold their breath if they do not get the toy that they want. That is where we are, and we will have to do something about it ourselves if we are to get ourselves out of this mess. I agree so much with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) that we cannot allow this to happen. That is why I have signed the Bill that he has presented, will work with him to get it through Parliament, and believe it is the only way out of the current crisis.

I will sit down in a moment, Mr Speaker, because I want to conclude quickly, but I will just say this. What troubles me is that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench should be doing this themselves, in their own motion. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister talks about her sacred duty over Brexit. I do not think Brexit is a sacred duty at all; I think it is a pretty profane matter, and if it is going to plunge us into a national crisis, we have a sacred duty to prevent it. I am really alarmed that she does not appear to understand that. I have to say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that if that is the policy with which they will persist, we will obviously try to change it by implementing the necessary legislation, but that calls into question whether the Government—whom I do my best to support, despite the problems—are in fact acting in the national interest at all. I simply say to them that if they continue to behave in this absolutely crazy fashion, there will come a time when my ability to support this Government will run out completely. The national interest calls on us to face up to our responsibilities; that is what we have to do.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. After the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the time limit will have to be reduced with immediate effect to four minutes, because I want to get in as many colleagues as possible.

16:43

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is truly an honour to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I was in Belfast and Bangor last week, where I met many people who felt that they had been forgotten by this House—not by their own Members of Parliament, but by the House at large. I want to say to them that they have not been, and will not be, forgotten. Members of the Irish community in Liverpool said similar things to me over the weekend, and I say to them that we will not forget the Good Friday agreement. We will do everything to protect it. That said, I agreed, perhaps surprisingly, with the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) when he said that he was against the deal because it offered absolutely no certainty for the future, and would simply continue this charade for years to come. He was absolutely correct.

I want to make some brief comments about the politics and the economics of the situation that we are facing. First, the politics. The behaviour of the European Research Group in the past 24 hours has been an absolute disgrace. It is interested only in its own power; it does not want a deal of any kind. It wants to lead the Government and our country on a dance, and until we all realise that, we will be kept going round and round this roundabout. The dealmakers in this House are over here on the Opposition Benches. It is unsurprising that people from the Labour movement know how to negotiate and do a deal. The Government should always have looked to us, but we have been ignored. We are simply pawns in a game in which the players are fighting not for our country but over the soul of the Tory party.

I have some sympathy with Labour Members who do want to find a deal, but that takes us back to the problem that was pointed out by the hon. Member for Wellingborough. Anything in the political declaration about the future framework is, frankly, pie in the sky, because it answers no questions. What is more, it is difficult to take the Prime Minister at her word, as she has demonstrated. It is incredibly difficult to trust the Tories.

That said, on the economics, the problems are even more profound. Economists talk about sunk costs—things that we spend money on that seem like a good idea but turn out to be a bad idea. In that sense, Brexit is now a sunk cost. We have been spending money hand over fist on no-deal preparations that we hope to never need. However, in economic terms, no deal is already happening. Disinvestment is already happening. Currency shifts are already costing us in terms of inflation, and growth is losing pace.

Things are worse than that, however. Some people will rightly tell me, “Well, the overall growth figure doesn’t really matter, because my constituents are poor enough already,” but the fact is that people in areas in the north of England that voted for Brexit will be hit worst by it. North-south inequalities will not be helped by Brexit; they will simply be made worse. That is why Brexit is a sunk cost. Sticking with a plan simply because we have already spent money on it is irrational. That is why we must ask ourselves the hardest of questions. Should we really keep going along with Brexit just because we said we would—despite the costs and whatever happens—because we have spent money on it, even if it turns out to be a really bad idea?

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. We are now in “Project Reality”, not “Project Fear”. As she says, we are beginning to see some of the indicators of what is happening in our economy. Consumer confidence is at its lowest since 2012, and business confidence is also low, with four consecutive quarters of disinvestment. That is what is really eating away at the economy, and we should be tackling it.

[Alison McGovern]

I simply listen to the words of the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). I find it hard to listen to them talk about the unemployment rates in their constituencies and to think that Brexit has anything to offer them. It will be a hindrance, not a help.

Some people who voted for Brexit who are not from the poorest parts of the country will say that, to be honest, they are not bothered about the cost. They want all the other things that people talk about, such as this notion of sovereignty, even though we have shared sovereignty as a nation for many years. They will say, “It doesn’t matter what it costs; I just want it.” Brexit is worth it to them. That is fine for those people. It is fine for someone to take an irrational decision for themselves. If that is what they really want, fine. However, the question for us is whether it is okay to take an irrational decision on the behalf of other people. Do not we owe our country something a bit better than that?

15:58

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Over the past three years, those of us who voted for Brexit have been treated with scorn and contempt. We have been derided as a bunch of uneducated, bigoted tabloid readers living outside the M25. In an attempt to try to get us to change our minds, Members on both sides of the House—in and out—various banks and businesses and all sorts of remain-supporting groups have adopted a sort of “Project Fear” on steroids. We seem to get a more ludicrous scare story each week. We get told that there will be mass unemployment as a result of Brexit, but the next minute we are told that there will be a huge shortage of workers to fill all the jobs available.

We are told one minute that we will run out of food, and the next we are told that farmers will be ruined by all the cheap food imports. I was on the radio a few weeks ago with an academic, who said that 12,000 people will die due to a lack of fresh fruit and veg. Needless to say he is from London, because I could have shown him a few orchards in Monmouth where we grow plenty of fruit and vegetables.

These stories just get more and more silly. Last June the papers were saying that one of Britain’s top private general practitioners had reported a huge increase in adultery and venereal disease due to Brexit. There was a headline in the paper the following month saying that we would have super-gonorrhoea raging out of control due to Brexit. It almost came as a relief in September when another newspaper, it might even have been The Daily Telegraph, reported that there will be a shortage of Viagra as a result of Brexit. In the space of just three or four months, Britain had been turned from Sodom and Gomorrah into Eden before the fall as a result of Brexit. Those stories are frankly ludicrous, and they are not fooling anyone. They certainly do not fool me.

Two weeks ago, I went with members of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs.to talk to some real experts at the port of Holyhead, one of the major crossing points to the Republic of Ireland.

[Peter Grant]

I assure the hon. Gentleman from direct personal knowledge that the story I told earlier, of Karen Vaughan being ordered to apply for permission to become a foreigner in her own country, is 100% true. Does he accept it is true, and does he think it is an acceptable consequence of his Brexit?

[David T. C. Davies]

I do not know the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, but my wife is an EU national, although she would not call herself one. She is Hungarian, and no doubt she will have to apply, as will everyone else. That is perfectly fair, and it will all be done on a straightforward application. It will not cost any money. Why is it so unreasonable for the Government to want to make a few checks on those who have chosen to come and live in this country and take back control of our immigration process? I fully support the Government in doing that, and I believe they have gone about it in a perfectly reasonable fashion.

The real experts at the port of Holyhead told us very clearly that they are perfectly well prepared for a no-deal Brexit. They made it clear that it would cause some inconvenience and a bit of extra work, but they know what paperwork is required. They told our cross-party delegation that they want a message to go back to Members of Parliament to dampen down the fears of Armageddon, which simply is not going to happen. The real experts are prepared.

The 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit in the original and genuine people’s vote did so because they know that this economy is the fifth biggest in the world and that Great Britain can stand on its own two feet, with or without a deal. I will vote for a deal, with its imperfections, because I believe in compromise. I can accept a bit of a compromise, which is why I back the Prime Minister. It is for Opposition Members, and some Conservative Members, also to accept that we all have to compromise if we want to sort this out. If they truly believed their own scare stories, they would be queuing up to back the Prime Minister’s deal.

We should leave at the end of March. We can leave with a deal, but we should not be the least bit afraid to leave without a deal. The 17.4 million people who are confident and optimistic about this country’s future expect Members of Parliament, their political leaders, to show that same optimism and confidence.

16:03

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The theme of my remarks is that we need to build consensus, although I must confess that the speech of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) has not made that any easier.

Delay and uncertainty are now really damaging our economy. This is not simply a question of politicians holding their nerve while a macho arm-wrestling game is played either in Parliament or with Brussels, because this is having a real effect on the real economy, on our reputation and on the jobs of real people.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend may have seen that today’s Evening Standard is reporting that Westfield’s £1.4 billion investment in Croydon is going to be reviewed, in part due to Brexit and the structural changes on the high street. This is happening right now. The people of Croydon need Westfield, so we need to rule out no deal.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has given yet another example. During February, the Financial Times has had headlines that read “Nissan reverses investment pledge”, “Trade deal with Japan won’t be completed”, “No deal will lead to two more years of austerity”, “The economy shrank in December”, and “Businesses are moving to Holland and Ireland”. In my constituency, as in hers, this is playing out badly: sheep farmers are terrified of a 45% tariff on exports; the pharmaceutical industry is spending millions on stockpiling medicines; and brick makers are worrying about unfair competition from China. I talked to a foreign-owned manufacturer about the prospect of no deal and was told, “No, it won’t be catastrophic for our business, but we will have to sack several hundred of your constituents.” Well, that will be a catastrophe for those people who lose their jobs, which is why I will be supporting amendments (a) and (e), and, if it is necessary, the Bill from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin).

We also need to look beyond the short term and what we are going to do to prevent our crashing out, and on to how we come to a decision on where we go next. We need to acknowledge that not everyone is going to get their first choice; there will have to be compromise in this House, and we need institutional arrangements to facilitate this. Amendment (c), tabled by the Father of the House, is designed to do this. It has not been selected today, but I hope hon. Members will look at it seriously and consider whether we might need to come back to something like it in a fortnight’s time.

Thomas Cromwell invented the current Divisions system in 1529 in order to expose and intimidate those opposed to the King’s will. Binary choices are all right for some things, but the minute we have a complex problem with multiple options they do not serve well for good decision making. It has been and continues to be easy to make coalitions against propositions, but extremely difficult to build coalitions for anything. We saw that in respect not only of Brexit, but the House of Lords, where we all wanted reform but we could not get it, because in 2003 every option was voted down and in 2007 four options were voted through but no clear steer was given. House of Lords reform is not the biggest and most important issue in the world, but Brexit is really important. We cannot make the same mistake again. We must use a different approach, and we have suggested using one that we use for choosing our Select Committee Chairs.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The hon. Lady is arguing articulately for the scheme she put forward and persuaded me to join her in recommending. Does she agree that one thing causing the chaos today is that the remain element in this House are not all pursuing the same end, because they all have their own preferred route, and the leave people in the House, on both sides, are divided in the same way? The system she has put together and is commending in this speech would bring them to coalesce on the most popular route, and it is highly likely that the remain side and the leave side would each come together, and would demonstrate that the remain side is in the majority.

[Helen Goodman]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely correct, because a lot of gamesmanship is going on at the moment in this House. As he says, these games are being played by Members on all sides, with everybody hoping to be the last man standing. That tactic would not be possible if we had paper ballots where every option was put simultaneously and we found out what the shared view and consensus was. We are not proposing anything in secret and we are not suggesting a hiding place for Members of Parliament; we are suggesting full transparency. Nor are we doing anything to undermine the Whips, because full transparency means they could whip this exactly as they do with deferred Divisions, which we use every week, with our pink sheets.

We want to urge hon. Members to look beyond this to where we want to be in a month’s time. If we really want the country to be less divided we need to show the way. Parliamentarians are constantly urging on their fellow citizens the need to be flexible and to embrace change. Well, perhaps, for once, we should lead by example.

16:09

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). While listening to this debate, it struck me that it is Valentine’s Day today—you would not know it the way that this place carries on, with everyone going at each other hammer and tongs. Perhaps we should go back a little bit and remember why we are in this situation. We are in this situation because people voted to leave the European Union. I backed remain, but I had a strong mandate from my constituency: two thirds said that they wanted to leave. I regard it as my job to make sure that we execute those instructions and leave the European Union.

It is important to remember why people voted in the way that they did: they believed in building a land of opportunity; they believed in building an independent sovereign nation; and they believed in taking back control of our borders, our trade policy, our money and our prospects across the world. Many Members of this House reject that view to this day, but that is what people wanted to do, and they are not wrong to have wanted that. They are not wrong because, in recent decades, Europe has been in relative decline. A few decades ago, it had a third of global GDP; today it has just 15%. Some 90% of future world growth is coming from outside, not inside, the European Union.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I just want to pull up the hon. Gentleman on that point. He said that Europe was in relative decline and produced a statistic. Europe is not in decline. It is just that other places in the world are coming up, which is great to see. It is great to see that other people outside Europe are becoming richer, but Europe is not in decline.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. The fact is that Europe is becoming relatively less important in the world and the rest of the world is becoming relatively more important. Is our national destiny best served by more involvement in Europe or more involvement in the world and more globalisation? [Interruption.] I shall not take any lectures from a Member of Parliament who represents a party that wants to tear Scotland away from its biggest market. That is just crass, irresponsible and, frankly, reckless.

We need to bear it in mind that people want the kind of future that they can build, and we need to make that happen. The people whom I represent in Dover and Deal say to me, “What is going on? Why don’t you just get on with it? Why are you still talking about it? Why is Parliament not just getting on with it?” Those are the right questions. We need to get on with it, end the uncertainty, leave the European Union and make the best of it.

[Peter Grant]

Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what his constituents think we should be getting on with? As things stand, we have no idea what our relationship with Europe will be like in two years’ time. What exactly is it that people are telling him to get on with?

[Charlie Elphicke]

They are telling me very clearly that we should leave the European Union. Personally, I think that the Government should fully embrace the Malthouse compromise, which offers us a positive way forward, to make sure that we can have open and seamless trade without being stuck within the European orbit as a form of satellite state. That is why I take issue with Labour Members. They say that they are in favour of leaving Europe, but they want to remain in the customs union, and they want to continue to have freedom of movement. Then they say, “Well, it’s all terribly complicated. Perhaps we should extend article 50 as a bridge.” Anyone looking at extending article 50 as a bridge for three or nine months knows that that is a bridge to nowhere, but the Labour party does not want to build a bridge to nowhere; it wants to build a bridge back into the European Union. It is a bridge to remain. That is the wrong thing to do. We should all come together to make sure that we leave the European Union successfully by reworking the backstop, and by taking the strong and clear position to the European Union that we are prepared to leave, deal or no deal.

Everyone in this House knows that European Union business is really done at 5 minutes to midnight. That being the case, we should press the point strongly and have the courage to see through the demands, hopes and aspirations of our constituents to make sure that we successfully leave the European Union, move on, end these debates and chart our future onwards. We should be spending more time talking about the kind of Brexit Britain we can build after we leave Europe, rather than banging on endlessly with debates in which people are constantly trying to countermand the instructions of the British people because they really want to remain.

[Mr Speaker]

Interventions are of course part and parcel of debate, but I simply say for the purposes of advice to the House that, given the constraints on time, interventions now should be undertaken in the knowledge that Members are preventing others from speaking.

16:14

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It has now been 67 days since the Prime Minister delayed the meaningful vote in December—67 utterly wasted days for our country. As the clock ticks down to 11pm on 29 March, the Prime Minister continues the pretence that she is seeking concessions from the EU, but she knows that she is not going to get them. We all know her reckless game: keep that clock ticking down and keep bullying MPs into backing her deal or get no deal. But we all know that this is a false choice, as our country is simply not prepared for a no-deal scenario.

The Government’s failure to reach out and build cross-party consensus has left us in deadlock, so how do we unlock this logjam? Well, the answer has been hiding in plain sight and it is called common market 2.0. Common market 2.0 would mean joining Norway outside of the EU but inside the European Free Trade Association and the EEA; establishing a form of customs union with the EU; and maintaining a close economic relationship with the EU, but leaving the more political aspects of European integration. Common market 2.0 would involve leaving the withdrawal agreement precisely as it is while radically recasting the political declaration on the future relationship—something that the EU has repeatedly said it is open to doing. The Leader of the Opposition’s letter to the Prime Minister on 7 February was certainly a step in the right direction, but it is vital that we put more flesh on the bones by making an explicit commitment to joining the EEA via the EFTA pillar.

The Prime Minister’s political declaration is a bridge to nowhere. Common market 2.0 would transform the political declaration into a bridge to a clear, stable and exciting future for our country. It would mean safe- guarding jobs; guaranteeing workers’ rights; providing new controls over freedom of movement; allowing more money for public services, as our contributions to the budget would be significantly lower; taking the UK out of the common fisheries policy, the common agricultural policy and the jurisdiction of the ECJ; and eliminating the need for the Irish backstop. That last point is crucial given that it is dominating the debate, so let me explain why our proposals would remove the need ever to activate the backstop.

The fact is that a customs union alone will not solve the Irish border question because only 20% of the issues surrounding the border are customs issues. The remaining 80% are single market regulatory alignment issues. That is why we need both full participation in the single market and a strong customs union arrangement in place, at least until alternative arrangements can be agreed. But, as Brexiteers understandably ask, why would a form of comprehensive customs union be so infinitely preferable to the backstop? They say that it would not solve the problems around sovereignty and conducting trade deals. Well, here is what they are missing: article 127 of the EEA agreement means that we can leave the EEA unilaterally with a one-year notice period. Given that 80% of the Irish border issues are single market issues, common market 2.0 would completely change the dynamics of our relationship with the EU and give us far more leverage in the negotiations.

We desperately need a Brexit that begins to reunite our deeply divided country. Common market 2.0 is a strong compromise, and I believe that Parliament is ready to support this sensible, pragmatic, bridge-building approach. Brexit is a monster that is eating our politics, and it is time for us all to rediscover the lost art of compromise. It is time for common market 2.0.

16:18

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

One thing that has struck me during this debate is the almost complete absence of taking into consideration how we got here today. In Dudley and Sandwell, part of which I represent, people voted in very, very large numbers for us to leave the European Union. It is incumbent on us, whatever the situation we now find ourselves in, to find a way through to delivering on Brexit for the British people, and doing it in a way that delivers on their aspirations.

There are two things that will not help in our endeavour to deliver on Brexit for the British people. The first is to countenance a second referendum. A second referendum would be highly divisive. It would not resolve the issues that we currently face; it may in fact make the situation a lot, lot worse. The second thing that would not help in delivering for the British people and for the people I represent is any idea that we are going to extend or revoke article 50. That just kicks things further along the road. It does not, in any way, get to the point of resolving the issues we face today.

I recognise some of the words, although they are often expressed in very strong language, about some of the threats of no deal. I have spoken to Jaguar Land Rover in the west midlands. But the reality is that the way to avoid no deal is for us to establish a deal with the European Union. I supported the deal because I thought it was the most practical way for us to get to exit day with an arrangement that would deliver on the aspirations of the British people as well as finding continuity for business, but I recognised that there were issues with the backstop. I believed that we should give the Prime Minister the room to respond to the vote that was held in this House two weeks ago and get changes to the backstop so that we could get a deal that everybody in this House can support and thereby get to 29 March in a condition where we can move forward.

You may think, Mr Speaker, that I am a very reasonable and calm individual, but in my previous life as a businessman I have been involved in some very robust business negotiations. I would appeal to the European Union, and to some Members of this House, to reduce the temperature of the rhetoric that is being used about these negotiations, and to leave robust exchanges in the negotiating room. When I was negotiating in business, we had a lot of passionate debate, and there were often strong disagreements with the people I was negotiating with, but we never went out of the room to brief the press and put things on Twitter and Facebook to undermine the other side, because it is in the interests of both parties to get a deal.

I would urge us to get back to the discipline of negotiating a resolution to this issue so that we do not face in this country something that I fear, which is a major democratic crisis because we have been proven unable to deliver a good negotiated exit deal and unable to deliver on the aspirations of the British people that were clearly articulated in the referendum. We must redouble our efforts to do that.

16:22

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Well, 43 days to go and here we are—still pretty clueless in the House of Commons. When people ask what is going to happen, nobody really knows. I did hope to bring this to an end with my amendment (d). I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), and my hon. Friends the Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for supporting it. I think it is going to gain some currency over time. In the end, we are going to come down between taking the crazy Brexit route wanted only by the militant tendency of the Tory party or else revoking article 50.

Brexit is bad. Even Brexiteers do not want Brexit on 29 March. There are no Brexiteers: it is only the utterly deluded who want Brexit on 29 March. The International Trade Secretary says that it is damaging to the economy. We have heard other Brexiteers describe Brexit on 29 March as “a catastrophe” and as “a disaster”—not something they wrote on the side of a bus when they were going round calling for Brexit. They were making all sorts of promises about Brexit. If people were convinced to vote for Christmas every week, or free chocolate on Thursdays, or slices of cheese from the moon on Fridays, we would have to tell them, “This is as undeliverable as the ERG militant tendency Tory Brexit.” It is impossible without damaging the economy, and those on the Government Front Bench should be straight about that. That is what is about to happen.

The Netherlands is preparing for damage to its small businesses, and Ireland is giving its small businesses advice about Brexit, but that is not happening in the UK. What are the Government doing to bridge the gap for small businesses in the UK when the damage of Brexit comes? If any Conservatives can sit there comfortably—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) wants to intervene and tell us that no businesses will go to the wall because of Brexit on 29 March, I will give him the floor. Does he want to take that opportunity?

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point—he is giving strong reasons why we should have a deal. The way we get a deal is by supporting the Prime Minister’s deal, which creates an orderly Brexit.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman should know that we have a deal at the moment with the European Union. It is a good deal, and any other deals we have with the European Union that involve us leaving the customs union and the single market will damage the economy. He should be straight about that. I notice that he will not give small businesses a guarantee—no Conservatives will, but none of them will go to the wall because of their political adventures. They should be aware, and the rest of the country should be aware, of what they are doing.

The chemical industry is very worried about exactly what regulation it will have. It describes itself as the “industry of industries”, underpinning pharmaceuticals and automotive in the UK, and aerospace. If it is outside the REACH regulation and cannot license chemicals, some chemicals might not be available in the United Kingdom.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Can he guarantee that all chemicals will be available after Brexit?

[Bill Grant]

I am concerned at the view that businesses in Scotland will go to the wall. Having spoken to businesses in Scotland, I know that they want to work within a deal. Can the hon. Gentleman explain why he will not support a deal for his businesses?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

They have been working within a deal, which is why I want us to revoke article 50. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to say that.

I want to say a word or two about the trade continuity agreements. This nails a big lie of Brexit—that we can trade on WTO terms. The reason we want to roll over trade agreements instead of trading on WTO terms is that trading on WTO terms is an expensive way of conducting businesses. It involves tariffs, taxes and—[Interruption.] I hear laughter on the Government Benches. Clearly Tories do not know that that is the case. Other Governments will get in the way and tax business transactions. That is why we want to roll over these trade agreements. Without them, we will trade on WTO terms, which is an expensive way to conduct commerce, and businesses will go to the wall.

The Tories march blithely on, happy to rip up agreements and deals with our biggest customer—the 27-member trade bloc of the European Union. When I spoke recently to Alan Wolff, deputy director general of the WTO, he described the area between trading on WTO terms and within trade deals as the “Brexit gap”. There is an inevitable loss for the United Kingdom from following this crazy way.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Faroe Islands, I am delighted to see that Poul Michelsen was down last week to sign their deal, which ensures a big slice of trade for them. But these trade deals with the Faroes, Chile and everywhere else are merely standing on the shoulders of what the European Union has already achieved—the European Union that Brexiteers decry so much, but whose trade deals they want to follow.

The Government find themselves in a very funny place indeed. They wanted at one stage to resist having any meaningful votes in Parliament, but they have ended up having so many that they have rendered them all meaningless. A number of people in business have told me that there is a danger in extending article 50 because it extends uncertainty and further postpones investment. It does, however, allow them to move assets more readily to the United Kingdom when nothing seems to be appearing down the line.

The UK is heading for an existential choice: it is either going to revoke article 50 or head for a no-deal catastrophe. We have to get our heads around that fairly quickly, because those will be the choices. The Brexit promises have been reduced by the Prime Minister to jam tomorrow—in fact, it is not even jam tomorrow; it is jam tomorrow if you scrape the mould off the top. It is a shame that that was not on the side of a bus.

16:24

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

Let me concentrate, in the minutes I have, on some of the essential points. When I regretfully voted against the withdrawal agreement and political declaration in January, it was primarily because of the Northern Ireland backstop, which was the reason for many of my colleagues as well. When we voted in favour of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) two weeks ago and the House specifically argued that we should replace the backstop, we demonstrated that if the Prime Minister can secure movement on the backstop, she can get her withdrawal agreement and political declaration through the House. I want the Prime Minister to have the opportunity to do that.

However, we have to face some facts. In negotiations, the other side often does not move until the end point. I listened carefully to what the shadow Brexit Secretary said. I think he chose 13 March as his line in the sand, but if there is going to be any movement on a deal, it will have to be signed off by the European leaders at a Council. There are only two opportunities in the diary: there is an informal summit of the EU and the Arab League at the end of February in Sharm el-Sheikh; and then there is the European Council on 21 and 22 March. I am afraid it is my judgment, particularly now that we have another set of debates in this House on 26 and 27 February—

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I am not going to give way to my right hon. Friend because I think you are very keen, Mr Speaker, to get everybody in, or some more people in, before the wind-ups.

We are going to have to go to the European Council on 21 and 22 March. Because we have the debate on 27 February, I do not see any prospect of the EU now moving before that Council meeting. I know that is uncomfortable and difficult, but that is how negotiations work. We may wish that they worked differently, but that is how they work. Our job as Members of Parliament is to get the best possible agreement that we can get—not for ourselves, but for our constituents—so that we can leave the European Union in an orderly way. That is my preference, so I think we are going to have to give the Prime Minister a chance to do it. If we in this House choose to frustrate that, she is not going to come back with a meaningful change to that deal and we are not going to get it through this House. Then we are going to have to face a choice—a choice I do not want to face—between leaving without an agreement and not leaving at all. I think we should be honest about all this stuff about delay. Many people who back delay really mean not leaving ever, and some other people think we can avoid the choice. I do not think we can but I would prefer to have an agreement.

It is also worth saying in the debate about deal or no deal that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet’s withdrawal agreement and political declaration is not really a deal in the normal sense of the word. All it does is give us a couple of years during which, admittedly, things stay the same. That might be welcome for business, but it gives business no certainty at all about what comes afterwards. What is to be recommended in the Malthouse compromise is that, if we can replace the backstop with a free trade agreement—a backstop that would be acceptable, even if it were a permanent solution—that would give business certainty from this spring about a baseline. They would know that in future, whatever happened, they would have a free trade agreement. I think that that would give business certainty to invest, create jobs and be successful in our country. That is what I urge the Prime Minister to do, and I urge my colleagues to give her the opportunity to do so and to reject all the amendments on the Order Paper today.

16:32

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

May I welcome the assurances that the Secretary of State gave in a very clear way from the Dispatch Box at the beginning of this debate? The first is that the Government will stick to the 29 March date for leaving the EU. It is important to do that from the point of view of giving the Prime Minister the leverage that she needs in the negotiations. I know many Members have pooh-poohed this today, but many ordinary people outside wonder what kind of idiots we are here in this House if we think that it is wise to send someone in to negotiate and, at the same time, say to them, “And by the way, you’re not allowed to walk away from those negotiations”. Ordinary people on the street understand the importance of that, and to give the Prime Minister the best chance, we have to stick to that particular date. That also removes the element of uncertainty. If we leave this open-ended, businesses will not get the certainty they require because they do not know what the future will be. Indeed, the shadow spokesman, when he talked about extending article 50, spoke about going to the beginning of July. That is another date. We either decide we have a date, or we do not.

I was also pleased that the Secretary of State said that the Government are seeking an alternative, especially an alternative to the backstop. I know that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said that the backstop is of no consequence, but it is of great consequence. As the EU confirmed this week, the backstop would lead to Northern Ireland having to be regulatory aligned with the rest of the EU and part of the customs union. It has spelt out the consequences of that. It would mean systematic checks on trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain at ports and airports. For me, that rips up the Union, it hurts the Northern Ireland economy and it is certainly of consequence.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

That could all be solved if the whole UK stayed in the customs union and had the same regulatory alignment. Why does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that?

[Sammy Wilson]

The whole point is that Northern Ireland would be treated separately from the rest of the United Kingdom. That damages the Union.

The withdrawal agreement limits our ability to have a future trade arrangement that suits us because, as the EU has made clear, that agreement will become the basis of the future trade arrangement and that includes keeping us within a customs union and the single market. I do not believe that that is good for the United Kingdom.

People ask, “What is the alternative?” and they say that the EU will not move because there is no alternative. First, saying that the other side are not going to move so we have to give in to them, is the wrong way to approach negotiations. Secondly, there are alternatives; there are alternatives in place. We collect taxes every day across the Irish border. Michel Barnier has promised us and the Irish Government that, in the event of no deal, he has alternatives. He has a study group working on it. He will have paperless checks and decentralised monitoring of trade—the very thing we have said is possible. Also, on the political declaration, the EU has said that there are particular alternatives along the Irish border that will be included in those discussions. My answer to the EU is that, if you have something in place at present, if there is something you will put in place in the event of no deal, and if there is something you have promised to discuss in future, put it in the deal now and then we can move on.

There is an alternative—a good alternative that will benefit everyone. It is the Malthouse compromise: a future trade arrangement that is tariff and quota free, which will suit business; a protocol that will guarantee there are no checks on the Irish border, which will suit the Irish Government; and trade facilitation measures, which are already in place and which the EU has already said it will consider and put in place. Regulatory equivalents for meat products and so on are already in current trade agreements and there are guarantees for citizens who are living in this country from the EU. All those good things should be included.

16:37

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

The clock is ticking down, both in this debate and towards 29 March, and it is imperative for the House to focus on delivering a successful Brexit, which is successful for jobs, trade and the economy. Despite what we might hear from the other side of the House, I believe that we must deliver a successful Brexit for Scotland. Despite all that we may hear, many organisations in Scotland support the Prime Minister’s deal, including the Federation of Small Businesses, the Scotch Whisky Association, the National Farmers Union, Scotland, and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, and that is because they, like business, want certainty.

I supported the meaningful vote and the Prime Minister’s deal. In my speech, I made it clear that I had reservations, particularly about the backstop; I would like an end date. In any business negotiation, if there is no end date on a suspensive condition, it is never dealt with: you always put that to one side and then deal with the things that are more important. I feel that an end date to the backstop is important, but as a Unionist and someone who does not want a second referendum, I could support the Prime Minister’s deal. I add further that in business negotiations, one does not take things off the table. For that reason, although I do not want no deal, I equally understand that we must not weaken our hand.

In the spirit of being equal, I say to the purists in our party that the referendum result was close. It was 52% to 48%. There is a mood in this House which is against no deal and I implore them to proceed with caution. As has been said before, in trying to win the match seven-nil, they may well lose it four-three. As a nation, we need the debate to move on. No longer should it be about “Should we stay or should we go?” It is now about “How do we embrace the opportunities that freedom from the EU will give us?”

I say to all sides of the leave-remain argument that, for the good of the economy, which is the driver for all we hold dear in terms of public services, please let us move forward. The Prime Minister said that we must hold our nerve. I say to my fellow leavers: if they definitely want to leave on 29 March, they have to not only hold their nerve, but hold their nose and vote for her deal.

16:40

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I came into the Chamber earlier today during business questions and the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) was referring to robot day. I thought that was a reference to the Prime Minister and her Ministers on the subject of Brexit repeating the same mantra again and again. In fact, it is an event in Coventry on 9 March, which I of course welcome.

There are two things we need to do today. One is to rule out no deal. Many Members have given a large number of examples of why we should rule out no deal. I will add just one example. All of us, I suspect, have an EHIC card—the European health insurance card. People need to be aware that, if we crash out of the European Union on 29 March, the UK has to negotiate 27 bilateral agreements with each and every single EU country to ensure that our European healthcare continues. Members will probably not be surprised to know that the UK has so far not managed to negotiate a single one of those bilateral deals. If you have booked your holiday in the European Union after 29 March and we are in a no-deal scenario, you need to think very carefully about taking out travel insurance. The bad news is that, when we contacted seven of the largest travel insurance companies, only two were able to guarantee that their policies were valid in a no-deal scenario.

That is just one example of why we should not be pursuing no deal, but there are many, many others. Many Government Ministers have described, in the most colourful means possible, the impact of no deal, reinforcing the point. If any other evidence is needed, yesterday I met the CEO of one of the largest UK construction companies, who said that it has lifts and specialist cladding coming into the UK but that it has absolutely no idea what will happen to the tariff that applies to those goods at the point they get to the UK.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

I will not give way.

The second thing we need to do today is come out very strongly in favour of a people’s vote. I am going to throw down the gauntlet to all parties and individual MPs to finally demonstrate their courage and commitment to a people’s vote, and back the amendment we will table on 27 February so we can finally press this matter to a vote. I am very pleased that today, although our amendment was not selected, we secured support from both the SNP and Plaid. I welcome that but, if we are going to be doing this again on 27 February, I hope there will be a much, much greater level of support.

I am very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition arrived in his place in time for me to make that point, because on 27 February the overwhelming majority of his party members, the overwhelming majority of young people, the overwhelming majority of his supporters and I will want him to support that amendment, too. I very much look forward to that.

16:44

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow on from such excellent contributions; among the finest speeches were those from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), my hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman).

I encourage every Member present to heed the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey. She warned of the degradation of our national political debate. When loose talk of treachery and betrayal leads directly to threats against Members of this House, we must do better, and today I think we have. We do, though, need to be honest with ourselves: we are no closer to breaking an impasse that simply must be broken. We are about to vote on a Government motion that is divorced from reality and oblivious to the gravity of the situation that we find ourselves in.

There are just 43 days to go until 29 March, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said, British exporters and importers do not know what tariffs and regulatory checks they will face in just 44 days’ time. Those living on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic have no idea whether that border will be maintained in 44 days’ time without the symbol of division that is physical infrastructure. Businesses, local authorities and vital public services do not know whether, in 44 days’ time, the disruption at ports will be so severe that it will become difficult for them to access the goods that we all rely on. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the shadow Secretary of State, said, it is already affecting business behaviour and investment—sometimes irreversibly.

Some say that if no deal came to pass, it would create a state of national emergency, and that is true enough, but the reality is that there is already so much uncertainty, creating so much anxiety, that we are close to national crisis now. It is a crisis of the Tory party’s making. How is Parliament asked to respond to this crisis? We are asked to note

“that discussions between the UK and the EU on the Northern Ireland backstop are ongoing.”

It might also be worth noting that those discussions have so far consisted of the EU stating that it is not prepared to reopen the backstop—a backstop that the Prime Minister had already agreed to, and which she told the House was an inevitable part of any withdrawal agreement. She told us that before she voted against it on 29 January to placate the extremists on her Back Benches.

That brings me to the next absurdity in the motion. We are asked to reiterate our support for the Brady amendment. Well, we on the Opposition Benches will never support a strategy that so clearly puts short-term Tory party unity over and above the national interest. The Secretary of State was once again unable to tell us what “alternative arrangements” the Government are actually seeking, and we understand that no legal proposals for alternative arrangements have even been put to the EU, so let us be clear what the Prime Minister’s real strategy is: she is running down the clock, playing for time and drifting towards no deal. She is hoping, in the face of all the evidence, that the passage of time and a few more reassurances will be enough to overturn a defeat of 230. That would be an irresponsible strategy even if it had any chance of working, relying as it does on creating a national crisis to strong-arm MPs, but what makes it worse is that it plainly will not work.

The extremists in the Prime Minister’s party want the backstop replaced—that, indeed, is what the Brady amendment calls for—or at the very least gutted of any force and effect through a short time limit or an easily used unilateral exit mechanism. The Prime Minister knows full well that neither of those things are going to happen. I will make a prediction: the extremists on the Government Back Benches will go against whatever she brings back. They will not be scared of no deal. They always have been and always will be prepared to plunge this country into chaos. We have a Prime Minister who prizes Conservative party unity above all else. She is putting party before country. Because she does not have a strategy that can work, this House will have to step in and prevent no deal.

Two weeks ago, the House approved a motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington and the right hon. Member for Meriden, and that was welcome. It showed that there is no majority in this House for no deal, but that is not enough on its own. If the House wants to prevent no deal, it has to take further action. The next step is to ensure that there is a hard stop to the Government’s “run down the clock and hope” approach, and to say that on 27 February, we must be able to debate further options to prevent no deal.

Other steps beyond today’s amendment will be needed. Those will include supporting the Bill tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. [Interruption.] Anyone who genuinely opposes no deal can see that if no deal is in place, an extension by mid-March is in order. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Quite a lot of noisy men are wittering away to each other and are not listening to the hon. Lady, who is replying to the debate. Be quiet; remember your manners.

[Jenny Chapman]

Mr Speaker, I am grateful. An extension might buy more time, but ultimately this House needs to be able to debate and vote on the credible options to prevent no deal. We are clear what those options are: either a close economic relationship that includes a customs union and close alignment to the single market—this option was set out in the letter written by the Leader of the Opposition to the Prime Minister and welcomed by European leaders as a serious and credible way out of the impasse—or, if the Prime Minister digs her heels in and continues to pursue a failing and undeliverable strategy, a public vote.

I will finish with a reference to the right hon. Member for West Dorset. He said that if the Prime Minister and Government continued to fail to lead, this House would step in, fill the void and lead in their place.

16:52

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I thank the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), for her comments about people’s speeches. She mainly chose people on her own side, but there were some excellent contributions from Government Members as well. A notable one was from the Father of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who pointed out the logic of the position of so many of the Labour Members who spoke. Based on the shadow Brexit Secretary’s argument today, they should all be supporting the Prime Minister’s deal. If the Father of the House will forgive me, I am very glad that his amendment was not selected, because it was one of the most lengthy amendments I have ever seen on an Order Paper, and it would have taken some doing to get through it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) correctly pointed out that those who asked for an extension of article 50 are just reinforcing uncertainty for businesses and people alike. I both understand and respect the position of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman). She knows, and pointed out, that the best way to stop our country leaving the European Union without a deal is to do as she has always done, and work with and support the deal that the Prime Minister is trying to achieve for this country.

I was not quite sure about the story from my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) about a shortage of Viagra in a no-deal scenario. I am not sure that stands up at all. [Laughter.] We have had this debate a number of times; you have to try to liven it up. Hard Brexit, soft Brexit—who knows?

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said when talking about her amendment, there is a long-standing convention of not publishing advice given by civil servants, quite properly and candidly, to members of the Cabinet. The Government, through the Chancellor the Duchy of Lancaster, are very happy to meet her to identify the information that she wants published, and then to commit to publishing that information. In the light of that offer, I kindly ask her to consider not pressing her amendment.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful for the Minister’s comments, and congratulate him on what I think is his first speech at the Dispatch Box. In any event, this seems like a very sensible resolution, because if those papers, which I believe must be published, as others do, are not forthcoming, I reserve the right to move an amendment on 27 February, or into the 28th, and I will do that unless we get those papers. However, I am confident that we will identify them in that meeting, that they will be published, and that people will then realise what a danger no deal is.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that clarification.

This afternoon continued the tradition of robust discussion on this subject, with a degree of deliberation that is only appropriate for an issue of such national significance. As you would expect, Mr Speaker, the Government are following the direction delivered by the House on 29 January to return to the European Union to seek legally binding changes to the backstop. This House has instructed the Government on how to proceed, and we are delivering on that instruction. As the Prime Minister set out on Tuesday, there are three ways in which that could be achieved. First, the backstop could be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Secondly, the backstop could have a legally binding time limit. Thirdly, there could be a unilateral exit clause.

[Ian Paisley]

Will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm that the Government have started to draft textual, legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement on that point?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, we have three options to deliver on the will of this House. Initial discussions with the European Union covered all these proposals. At this stage, there is not a specific legal text on the table. Notwithstanding that, we are firm that any change must be legally binding, but as has been said, it would not be prudent to start providing a running commentary on the detail. I hope that clarifies slightly for my hon. Friend where we are going.

On no deal, as the Minister with responsibility for co-ordinating our contingency planning, I see the day-to-day work that Whitehall is doing to prepare us for that scenario and I remain confident that we are en route to being ready for that eventuality.

[Neil Gray]

rose—

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Sorry, I am afraid I do not have time.

However, this Government do not want to have to utilise that work.

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am afraid I am not going to give way.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has consistently made clear, the only way to avoid no deal is to support a deal, and unless this House votes for a deal, the legal default in both UK and EU law is that we leave without a deal.

Let me assure the House that our programme of wider readiness is moving forward in a way that means that there is no need to extend article 50; there is absolutely no desire to do so, either. Four-hundred and thirty EU exit statutory instruments have been laid before the House to date, which is over 60% of the SIs that we anticipate will be required by exit day. Over 210 have been made, and five pieces of primary legislation have already been passed in preparation for our exit from the European Union.

We have spent a long time discussing the backstop, and this House’s concerns about it have been made clear, but it is important to note that there are wider benefits offered by the withdrawal agreement. It provides citizens with the certainty they need about their rights going forward. It signals the end of sending vast payments to the European Union, meaning more money for our NHS and other key priorities at home, while honouring the obligations we signed up to while in the EU, and it delivers the time-limited implementation period that is so vital for business.

Today is not the end of the process, but a way point directing us to the finishing line. It is a mark in the road towards the end destination—one that this country overwhelmingly voted to see. As I am sure Members understand, now is not the time to add any new conditions or create any unnecessary processes. Now is the time to allow our Prime Minister to finish the job that she is so diligently doing, and get this deal over the line. I ask all Members to support the Government in that tonight.

15:44

The Speaker put the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Order, this day).

Amendment proposed: (a), in line 1, leave out from “House” to end and add

“requires by 27 February 2019 a Minister of the Crown either (a) to move another motion under Section 13(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 or (b) to make a written statement declaring that there is no longer an agreement in principle in the negotiations with the European Union and to move no later than that date an amendable motion on how the Government proposes to proceed.”.—(Jeremy Corbyn.)

17:00

Division 331

Ayes: 306

---

Labour: 250
Scottish National Party: 35
Liberal Democrat: 11
Plaid Cymru: 4
Independent: 4
Green Party: 1

Noes: 322

---

Conservative: 311
Democratic Unionist Party: 10
Independent: 1

Amendment proposed: (i), in line 1, leave out from “House” to end and add

“requires that a Minister of the Crown immediately begin negotiations with the European Council to extend the period specified under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union by no fewer than three months from 29 March 2019, and bring forward an appropriate amendment to section 20 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to facilitate this change.”.—(Ian Blackford.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

17:15

Division 332

Ayes: 93

---

Labour: 41
Scottish National Party: 33
Liberal Democrat: 11
Plaid Cymru: 4
Conservative: 2
Green Party: 1

Noes: 315

---

Conservative: 303
Democratic Unionist Party: 10
Independent: 1
Labour: 1

[Mr Speaker]

I understood from the exchange the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) had with the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), that she was not minded, on this occasion, to move her amendment (e). Is my understanding correct?

[Anna Soubry]

It is, Mr Speaker, on this occasion; I am sure we can sort it all out.

Main Question put.

17:29

Division 333

Ayes: 258

---

Conservative: 243
Democratic Unionist Party: 10
Labour: 4
Independent: 2

Noes: 303

---

Labour: 244
Scottish National Party: 35
Liberal Democrat: 11
Conservative: 5
Plaid Cymru: 4
Independent: 2
Green Party: 1

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Tonight’s vote shows that there is no majority for the Prime Minister’s course of action in dealing with Brexit. Yet again, her Government have been defeated. The Government cannot keep on ignoring Parliament or ploughing on towards 29 March without a coherent plan. She cannot keep on just running down the clock and hoping that something will turn up that will save the day and save her face.

It is surprising that the Prime Minister is not even here to hear the result of this vote. I was going to ask her to come to the Dispatch Box now to admit that her strategy has failed and bring forward to the House a coherent plan that can deal with the stresses and anxieties that so many people all over this country are feeling, so that we can make some progress together, bring people together and prevent the catastrophe of a no-deal exit on 29 March. It is surprising that the Prime Minister is not here. Is there some way by which you could encourage her to return to the Dispatch Box and tell us what her plan is?

[Mr Speaker]

It is not obligatory for the Prime Minister to be present on this occasion. Other representatives of the Treasury Bench are here, and if the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union wants to take to the Dispatch Box, it is open to him to do so, but he is not obliged to do so.

[Stephen Barclay]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

Or if the Government Chief Whip, who is chuntering from a sedentary position for no obvious benefit or purpose, wants to beetle along to the Box, he is welcome to do so, but he has declined to do so. [Interruption.] No, it is not incumbent upon them. They have been invited, but they are not obliged to do so. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has made his own point in his own way with force and alacrity, and it is on the record for others to study.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a significant defeat for the Government. This is a bourach, and at the end of the day, the Prime Minister should be here to accept her responsibilities on the back of this Government defeat. Where is she? Given the significance of this defeat, what powers are open to us to force the Government to bring forward their meaningful vote to next week? People in the United Kingdom want certainty. Finally, I thank those Members—Members of all parties—who had the courage to vote with us tonight to extend article 50, but where was the Front Bench of the Labour party on extending article 50?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. In responding to him, I am seeking to be helpful to people interested in our proceedings who are not Members of the House, and therefore I will, as I hope he would expect, treat of the factual inquiry that the leader of the Scottish National party in this House put to me—what can be done to bring forward or expedite the meaningful vote? The short answer is that it is not within the gift of the Chair to do so, and it is not for Members of this House who are not part of the Executive branch to do so. The meaningful vote is brought about as a result of and in accordance with statute, and the statute decrees that it be done by a Minister. It will happen when a Minister is ready to bring forward that vote. However, the right hon. Gentleman knows that there are at various times other opportunities for debates and votes, and he is not an innocent in these matters. He is well versed in parliamentary procedure, and he will know the opportunities open to him, and other Members in other parts of the House will similarly be so conscious.

[Tom Brake]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I suspect that if the Secretary of State, in opening the debate, had said that he was going to honour what Parliament voted for on 29 January—ruling out no deal—the Government may well have won the vote this evening, but he did not. In what way can we, as Members of Parliament who have already voted to rule out no deal, ensure that the Government listen to that and respond appropriately? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

A Member from Ealing who will be well known to colleagues—the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)—has just chuntered in the background that that is beyond even the Speaker’s power. Well, it is certainly beyond the Speaker’s power.

What the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has raised is an extremely important matter, but it is a matter of politics. The politics will play out—I use that term in a non-pejorative and neutral sense—in the days and weeks ahead, and we shall have to see where we get to. I think the right hon. Gentleman was mainly concerned, if I understand him correctly, to put his point on the record. I do not think there was really a question mark there, but if there was, I am not able to provide a definitive answer now. However, we will return to these matters ere long.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. What we do know tonight is that there is a majority in this House for replacing the backstop with alternative arrangements and that that majority rests on what is known as the Malthouse compromise. Is there any way to put on the record that the Government should adopt that compromise and enjoy a majority for it?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is a county colleague of mine, but that is a truly monstrous abuse of the point of order procedure, as the puckish grin on the face of the hon. Gentleman demonstrates he is perfectly well aware. He has made his own point and he has found his own salvation. The point was also made by colleagues of like mind to him in the course of the debate, but he has now given it a prominence with which I rather suspect he is satisfied. We will leave it there for now.

I hope there are no further points of order because there is an Arsenal match on television very soon—[Interruption.] But the Chair will always attend to his duties. Hon. Members need be in no doubt on that score.