Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateTuesday 29th October 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is now a week since Parliament voted to delay Brexit yet again. It is a week since this Parliament voted yet again to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1 billion a month. In the days since then, the Government have tried to be reasonable and to ascribe the best possible motives to our friends and colleagues around the House. [Interruption.] I have twice offered more time for debate. I offered more time last week and I made the same offer last night. I said that we were prepared to debate this Bill—[Interruption.] I said we were prepared to debate the withdrawal Bill around the clock to allow Parliament time to scrutinise it, to the point of intellectual exhaustion. We must bear in mind that not only has this House been considering this issue for three and a half years, but last week when this Bill was being debated there was not a single new idea and not a single new suggestion. All they wanted was more time, more weeks, more months, when they could not even provide the speakers to fill the time allotted.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Prime Minister for eventually giving way. [Interruption.] We can all go, “Ooh”, like children but we are actually trying to get something through. Let me go back to the comments he made when he opened his speech. Either this House voted for the Second Reading or it delayed it—he cannot have it both ways, which is what he seems to want. Would the Prime Minister like to go back over his first comments and address whether he thinks they were entirely correct, because almost everything he said seemed to me as though he might be misleading the House and the country?
The Prime Minister
I am astonished to hear that the hon. Lady thinks that she voted for the programme motion last week—that is the logic of what she said. As far as I understand it, she voted for delay. She voted to delay Brexit indefinitely. Let us be absolutely clear: the whole country can see what is really going on. Does she want to deliver Brexit? No, she doesn’t. She does not want to deliver Brexit. People can see that Opposition Members do not want to deliver Brexit. All they want to do is procrastinate. They do not want to deliver Brexit on 31 October, 31 November or even on 31 January.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister confirm that the only indicative vote that passed through this Parliament was to find alternative arrangements to the backstop and that he removed the backstop from the deal, but this remain Parliament will still not vote for it? Therefore, his call for an election is the right thing to do—let the public decide.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is entirely right and he speaks for his constituency; they want to deliver Brexit, he wants to deliver Brexit, but Opposition Members just want to spin it out forever, until the 12th of never. When the 12th of never eventually comes around, they will devise one of their complicated parliamentary procedures and move a motion for a further delay and a further extension. I have to say that this delay is becoming seriously damaging to the national interest, because families cannot plan and businesses cannot plan. Not only is the climate of uncertainty corroding trust in politics, but it is beginning to hold everybody back from making vital everyday decisions that are important for the health of our economy—decisions on buying new homes, hiring new staff and making new investments. The performance of the UK economy is, frankly, miraculous, given the stasis here in Parliament.
The Prime Minister
That is why I hope that so many of our colleagues will support this Bill today, including the Father of the House, for whom I have the highest respect.
Mr Clarke
My right hon. Friend was one of those who delayed Brexit in March by voting against departure then on the deal that had then been negotiated. He did get a majority of 30 for his deal in principle last week, and if the subsequent time of this House had been devoted to the Committee and Report stage of the House, following the ordinary principles of government, we would be well on our way to leaving in the middle of November. I respectfully say to my right hon. Friend: can he find a slightly better basis for fighting this election when we get to the campaign in due course?
The Prime Minister
I am afraid that my right hon. and learned Friend is in error; I voted for the withdrawal Bill. I hope that he will vote for this Bill today to get Brexit done.
The Prime Minister
I take his nod as assent to that proposition, because that is the way—
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)
Will the Prime Minister look at the amendment tabled in my name, which suggests that if we work seven days a week—like many of my constituents do—we could get the Brexit Bill through and meet his deadline? Is not a Brexit in the hand better than two Brexits in the bush?
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know wants to deliver Brexit. I am afraid that the idea he puts forward is one that we have tried twice. We tried it last week and we tried it last night. It would have been a good offer for the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) to take up. He refused to take it up, and we are left with no choice but to go to the country to break free from this impasse, and to allow us all to submit, as we must in all humility, to the judgment of the electorate—to allow us to make our case and, above all, to allow a new and revitalised Parliament, with a new mandate to deliver on the will of the people and get Brexit done.
That new Parliament, in just a few weeks’ time, will have before it a great new deal with the EU—a great new deal, which brings together Members from across the House, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) mentioned earlier. It will be the job of that new Parliament, in just a few weeks’ time, to ratify the withdrawal deal and put an end to this long period of parliamentary dither and delay.
I am glad to say that since I first put forward the idea of a general election as a way out of this impasse, the ice floes have begun to crack. The Lib Dems are now in favour, and the Scots Nats—the Scottish National party—is now in favour of it. There is only one blockage still standing in the way of democracy. There is only one party that refuses to trust the judgment of the people. There is only one party that is still running scared of an election and that is the main party of opposition, which is failing in its defining function—[Interruption.] Well, we have not heard anything to the contrary. Dogs bark, cows moo and Oppositions are meant to campaign for elections—except for this one.
I have no way of knowing what the right hon. Member for Islington North is going to say. He has called for an election 35 times in the last year alone. I have no idea why he has been so opposed to an election. Maybe it is because he has been following the precepts of his intellectual mentor, Fidel Castro, whose adoring crowds used to serenade him with the cry, “Revoluciones sí, elecciones no!” Maybe he is congenitally opposed. Maybe he has been listening to the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), or the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who I gather have been arguing against an election. He should beware of their motives in counselling him against a general election. It is not so much that they fear a general election, though they probably do; it is just that they do not want a general election with him as their leader.
I do not know what has been holding the right hon. Gentleman back from this obvious democratic exercise, but whatever it is, I hope that he will now stand up and say that he has mastered his doubts and that he is finally willing to submit to the electorate. He has mentioned that he is a great eater of porridge. All I can say is that when it comes to the offer of elections, he reminds me of Goldilocks in his fastidiousness—one offer is too hot and one is too cold. I hope he will be able to stand up this afternoon and say, “This time, this offer of an election is just right.”
If the right hon. Gentleman does that and I hope he does, we will then be able to put that choice to the people of this country. We can go his way, which is for an economic recipe that would mean the destruction of the UK’s wealth-creating system and over-taxation of a kind that is derived from revolutionary Venezuela, combined with the political nightmare agenda of not one, but two, referendums—one on the EU and one in Scotland—with all their potential for further rancour and recrimination. As I understand it, that is his policy. Or we can go forward with this Government: a Government who have secured a great deal that allows us to leave the EU as one whole United Kingdom—as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—able together to do free trade deals around the world, able to set our own path, to make our own laws, to take back control of our borders, our money and our regulations, able to deliver all the benefits and all the freedoms of Brexit, from new free ports to more humane treatment of animals, which the right hon. Gentleman would block, from tax breaks for new technology to cutting VAT on sanitary products.
It is a deal that the Opposition said was impossible three months ago. They said we could not change the withdrawal agreement. They said that we would never get rid of the backstop, and we did. The deal is there. It is ready to be approved by a new Parliament, with a Government yearning with every fibre of their being to be able to get on and deliver our one-nation Conservative agenda, with a vision for uniting this country and levelling up with record investments in health, like nothing else in a generation, with 20,000 more police officers and more funding for every primary and secondary school in the country—levelling up across this whole United Kingdom. It will be a Government able to commit to fantastic public services and infrastructure, precisely because we believe in free markets and enterprise. We believe in free markets and enterprise and the wealth-creating sector of the economy in a way that causes a shadow of Transylvanian horror to pass over the semi-communist faces of the Opposition Front Bench.
That is the argument I want to have with the Leader of the Opposition. That is the biggest and most important difference between us—between us one-nation Conservatives and the socialists on the Opposition Benches. There is only one way now to move this country forward and to have that debate, and that is to get Brexit done. There is only one way to get Brexit done, in the face of this unrelenting parliamentary obstructionism—this endless, wilful, fingers crossed, “Not me, guv!” refusal to deliver on the mandate of the people—and that is to refresh this Parliament and to give the people a choice.
I say to the whole House and to all those who may still be hesitating about whether to vote for the Bill that there is only one way to restore the esteem in which our democracy is held and to recover the respect in which Parliament should be held by the people of this country, and that is, finally, to offer ourselves to the judgment of the people of this country. I commend the Bill to the House.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Oliver Dowden)
I should like to begin by paying tribute to all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate and spoken with genuine sincerity and passion. There have been some excellent contributions, and a wide range of issues have been raised. Particularly, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson). All those contributions made the same point: people want to get Brexit done. They want to move on, and the only way we can do that is to ensure that we have a general election mandate to ensure that that happens. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)—sadly, he is not in his place—who gave a heartfelt and excellent speech paying tribute to this House.
I hope hon. Members appreciate that there will be further opportunities for discussion during the course of the Bill, particularly in the Committee stage that follows, so if they will forgive me, I will not go into detail on some of the points that I think will be addressed at that stage. What we really are facing today is the simplest possible Bill. It is a straightforward piece of legislation to allow a general election on 12 December so that we can elect a new Parliament, gets Brexit done and allow this country to finally move on. Let me be clear: the Government would rather be getting on with a smooth and orderly Brexit now.
Lady Hermon
I presume that as part of the Prime Minister’s general election campaign, he will make a grand tour of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, so could the Minister just explain what the Prime Minister will say to the Unionist community there and how he will reassure them that their future is safe in his hands? I can assure the Minister that, at the present time, there are many in the Unionist community who do not feel confident that their future is safe in the Prime Minister’s hands.
Oliver Dowden
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I do not know exactly where the Prime Minister will go on his election tour, but I am sure he will go to Northern Ireland. He will take the message to Northern Ireland that the deal that he has negotiated will allow the entire United Kingdom to leave the customs union as one and that that deal we based on a mechanism of consent.
The challenge that we have in getting such a deal through this House is that whenever Parliament has had the opportunity to get Brexit done, it has not taken it, even though 80% of us in this House stood on a mandate to honour the referendum result. Let us look at the record. Parliament voted to extend and delay in March, and to extend and delay in April. Through the Benn Act, Parliament forced the Prime Minister to extend beyond 31 October. Most recently, it voted against a timetable that would have allowed us to leave in an orderly manner, on time on 31 October, as we have promised. So I really fear that if Parliament has the choice of another delay or an extension beyond 31 January, it will surely once again take the opportunity to delay and to extend. The risk that we face is that, as we tick through to 2020, we once again find ourselves back in this Chamber discussing Brexit more and more, and that is completely contrary to what the public want. The public want us to get on with it and get Brexit done.
Jess Phillips
I wonder whether the Minister can tell me how we will stop the paralysis if what is returned to the House is exactly what we have now.
Oliver Dowden
I heard the hon. Lady make that point repeatedly throughout the debate. The very simple answer is that the people should vote Conservative and vote for a party that will get the deal through and ensure that we finally leave the European Union, as people want us to do.
Oliver Dowden
I think that I have dealt with the hon. Lady’s point.
Thanks to the Prime Minister’s efforts, we have a deal that we will be putting to the British people at the general election, and we will then seek to deliver the deal through the House on the back of a stable and sustainable parliamentary majority that will finally allow us to leave the European Union, as most of us have promised to achieve.
Jim McMahon
Now that the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has had its Second Reading, we should be using this time to take it to the next stage instead of calling an election.
Oliver Dowden
The problem with the argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman is that when we had the opportunity to get Brexit done and to get it done by 31 October, he and Opposition Members chose to vote against the programme motion that would have enabled that. The challenge facing us is that every time this House has had the opportunity to deliver on Brexit, it instead chooses further delay.
The deal that the Prime Minister has reached has confounded critics in this House and elsewhere. People said that we would never be able to reopen the withdrawal agreement, but we reopened it. He has nailed the naysayers who said that the EU would never let go of the Northern Ireland backstop by getting rid of the backstop. When people said that we could not ensure that the whole United Kingdom could leave as a single customs territory, he refused to accept it. This Government have made sure that the UK can leave the customs union as one entire United Kingdom that is free to chart its own course.
The Government’s position for some time has been that if Parliament cannot back the Prime Minister’s deal, we must surely have a general election. Up until today, however, that has not been the position of the Labour party. We have had the extraordinary spectacle of a Leader of the Opposition who spends every day castigating the Government’s failures—indeed, his party busily puts out leaflets demanding a general election—but when that golden moment arrives finally to have that general election, what happens? The Leader of the Opposition has repeatedly spurned it. I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition has finally faced up to the inevitable, ensuring that we will make some progress with this Bill. I am confident that we can make that progress, and that we can get on and have that general election.
When the general election happens, we will have two contrasting visions for 2020. The choice in front of the British people is clear. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has a deal that ensures that we deliver on the promises we made in the 2017 manifesto. We can finally deliver on Brexit and get the job done. Once we have got the job done, we can finally turn to the priorities that matter to the British people. The great one nation agenda being advanced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will allow us to deliver for our hospitals and for our schools.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Many excellent speeches species were curtailed at three minutes this evening. Why is this awful, repetitious performance being allowed to go on for so long?
Mr Speaker
The Minister has two and a half minutes in which to develop his peroration, but the hon. Gentleman has registered his disapproval.
Oliver Dowden
Thank you for that opportunity, Mr Speaker, but I think I will be able to do so in slightly shorter order, so I hope that I can bring pleasure to the hon. Gentleman.
In the election, we will deliver on a one nation agenda: delivering for our schools and our hospitals, safer communities, more police, massive investment in our infrastructure, keeping our streets safe and tackling the cost of living. The alternative will be the nightmare advanced by the Leader of the Opposition, who wants to make 2020 the year of two referendums: one on Brexit and another on Scottish independence—more energy-sapping, mind-numbing stagnation and more pointless delay, so I urge right hon. and hon. Members to back this Bill and back the general election. Let the Government get Brexit done and allow the country to move on.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).
Mr Speaker
Under the Order of the House of today, we shall now—for which I may have to substitute “shortly”—move to a Committee of the whole House.
I say this as much for the benefit of people outside the elected Chamber as for anybody else. I have collected the voices, as the Speaker is required to do, and it is clear that there is an overwhelming majority in support of Second Reading. From Second Reading, we proceed to Committee. When the House sits in Committee, the Speaker does not occupy the Chair. That responsibility is taken by A. N. Other, who will be wending his or her way to the Chamber as I speak. I say with some confidence that another Chair will arrive ere long to take up his or her important duties.