Leaving the EU: Workers’ Rights
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(5 years ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To give some further cheery news, 80% of jobs created since 2010 are full-time jobs. The introduction of the national living wage delivered the fastest pay rise in at least 20 years for the lowest earners. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) might like to look at the facts rather than listen to the rhetoric coming from Opposition Members. If people want good work, good workers’ rights and decent wages, they should stick with the Conservatives.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Asking people to trust the Conservative party is a bit like asking them to trust Dracula with the blood bank. We know what its record is.
Will the right hon. Lady talk about enforcement? We can have all the rights we like on paper, but this Government and their predecessors have slashed enforcement to the bone, which has meant that an awful lot of the so-called rights that people have at work are theoretical and do not exist in practice.
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady knows that that is simply not the case. Since 2015 the Government have doubled the budget for enforcement on compliance with the minimum wage. The enforcement activity of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has meant that 200,000 workers could access nearly £25 million in national minimum wage arrears in 2018-19. The employment agency standards inspectorate has received a 50% increase in frontline inspectors. We are investing more than £1 billion in reforming the Courts and Tribunals Service. The hon. Lady is asserting non-facts; I am giving her the facts and she should listen to them.
Business of the House
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend is correct to say that a commencement order is required under section 25(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 in order to give effect to the repeal. The timing of that commencement order will depend on the date we leave the EU. We need to commence the repeal of the 1972 Act on the date of our departure, which is either 12 April as things stand if the deal is not approved, or 22 May if the deal is approved.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
May I join the Leader of the House in welcoming her resistance to what I must now call the anarcho-Brextremists on her own side who want to mess around by voting against the motion she has brought today to put UK law in line with the international treaty agreements that the Prime Minister has made? Will she clarify something she said in her statement? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said she was no longer going to bring the deal back for a third meaningful vote, but the Leader of the House has just said that that might happen this week. Can she clarify which is true?
Andrea Leadsom
The Prime Minister has said that she will continue to seek further support for the withdrawal agreement and political declaration. Should she succeed in that, we will seek to bring back the meaningful vote for this House to consider. To be clear again, it is only if this House approves the withdrawal agreement before 11 pm on 29 March that there is then an extension to 22 May.
Business of the House
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the House has just voted twice on the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) among others. That vote was on the same amendment.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It appears to me that the Leader of the House is merely organising meaningful vote No. 3 on exactly the same deal in complete contravention of the will of the House expressed in two defeats of the Government motion. Instead of attempting to play this ridiculous game of chicken with the future of our country, and attempting to tear up all the conventions of this House, showing nothing but contempt for how it has made its decisions, should she not facilitate the decisions of the House by moving an amendment—a statutory instrument—that will take the date of our leaving the European Union of 29 March 2019 out of the statute? Is that not her job?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady will be aware that tomorrow’s motion is amendable. It is for the House to decide whether it wants to put forward amendments and vote on them. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, if the House votes for an extension, she will seek to agree it with the EU and will bring forward the necessary legislation to change the exit date commensurate with that extension.
Business of the House
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
The Government will ensure that their commitments under section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the order of 4 December are met.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Leader of the House has chosen to give an emergency business statement merely about tomorrow’s business, when we know that there are sequential changes to Thursday’s business as well. She has not made it quite clear to the House—I hope she will be able to do so this evening—that should we vote to take no deal off the agenda in the vote on the motion tomorrow, there will be a change to the legislation, which is obviously not superseded by a motion passed by the House. We would have to change the legislation that contains the 29 March leaving date. Will she take this opportunity to reassure us all by getting to the Dispatch Box and telling us that if we vote to take no deal off the table tomorrow, she will immediately facilitate a change to legislation to ensure that that happens?
Andrea Leadsom
What I can say to the hon. Lady is that if the House declines to approve leaving without a deal on 29 March, the Government will, following that vote, bring forward a motion on Thursday on whether Parliament wants to seek an extension to article 50.
Business of the House
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend will recall that the Attorney General answered significant questions and wrote a large document setting out the whole legal position on the withdrawal agreement. Should there be significant changes, I think that the Attorney General would certainly set out the legal position on those changes but, in direct response to my hon. Friend, he will appreciate that the terms of the Humble Address he refers to were met with the production of the Attorney General’s advice.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Leader of the House was extremely coy in her answers to the questions from the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) about whether the amendment to the motion that we were discussing—before the Government decided to pull it today—which was passed ahead of the debate and which replaced the neutral and unamendable motion that the Government were planning to put to this House, would be replaced with one that was amendable. She has been asked twice now, and she has been very coy and not forthcoming in her responses. Will she now confirm—and not just read out the phrase she has read out twice already—that when we resume this debate, the Government’s motion will not be neutral and will be amendable, and that the Government will accept the spirit of the vote we had before we began the debate?
Andrea Leadsom
I repeat to the hon. Lady that any business of the House motion brought forward will be amendable.
Nomination of Members to Committees
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
Our working majority will allow us to carry out the legislative agenda as set out in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech. As all Members will be aware, a working majority can be achieved in three ways: first, through an overall numerical majority; secondly, through a coalition, like in 2010; and, thirdly, through a confidence and supply agreement, which is the current arrangement between the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist party. This gives the Government a working majority of 13, and it is what allowed the Gracious Speech to be passed by 323 to 309 votes. If the Government have a working majority to pass legislation on the Floor of the House, the Government should also be able to make progress with legislation in Committees.
On the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), I again say that the motion is simply to ensure that the Government’s working majority on the Floor of the House is reflected in Committees, which will allow legislation to be dealt with in an orderly fashion.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Leader of the House is saying “working majority” an awful lot in her speech so far, but her working majority—done through the deal with the DUP—does not entitle this Government, to make life easier for them, to gerrymander the Select and Standing Committees. This was the woman who said that Parliament had to be given back control, but the only control she seems to be interested in is the Government’s control of this House, which is a constitutional outrage.
Andrea Leadsom
Scrutiny by the House is of vital importance—the hon. Lady makes a very good point—and it has long been established that the Opposition must have time to scrutinise Government business, but it is also well understood that the Government of the day must have a realistic opportunity of making progress with getting their business through the House. The motion that the House is being asked to agree guarantees that the party with a working majority is able to do exactly that.
Business of the House
Debate between Angela Eagle and Andrea Leadsom(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I can well imagine what an irritation this is for my hon. Friend’s constituents. I would certainly not be happy with an acknowledgment and then the pledge of a proper reply within two weeks. Many public sector organisations respond very quickly to requests from Members of Parliament, and I hope that Highways England will have heard his remarks and will give him a very quick answer.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Last week, rumours circulated in Wallasey that Kingsway Academy, which is in Leasowe in my constituency, was going to close. We have now managed to establish that there are plans to close it, perhaps by the end of July. This will throw our whole education system in Wallasey into disarray, and there are 400 pupils whose future is currently completely obscure. We do not know where they are going to be, and parents of new pupils do not know whether they should buy uniforms for the school. The school is part of a multi-academy trust that has not communicated any of this at all. May we have a debate on public accountability among multi-academy trusts? If this had been a local authority school, there would have been a two-year consultation period instead of this chaos.
Andrea Leadsom
I am quite sure that the hon. Lady will have raised this very loudly in her own area, and it is absolutely right that she should. In order to bring forward the question very quickly, I suggest that she seeks an Adjournment debate.