Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, indeed. I will come to the hon. Gentleman, but I want to save him up; I do not want to squander him at too early a stage in our proceedings, so we will keep him on ice and come first to the point of order from Jenny Chapman.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would be grateful for your advice. If we exit the EU without a deal, we can no longer export millions of lambs slaughtered in the UK for consumption in the EU. This represents a third of the industry, and in this event if a wasteful cull of millions of lambs and breeding flock is to be avoided, arrangements need to be made now to store the meat safely. We do not have anything like the cold storage capacity needed to do this at the moment. Knowing this, on 17 July, I tabled a number of written parliamentary questions to the Government to establish what the plan is. Although distinct and tabled with advice from the Table Office, they were inexplicably grouped by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and its answers tell me nothing other than that there are contingencies, but it will not answer my questions, which is what those contingencies might be. I would be grateful for your assistance, Mr Speaker, on how I can get the truth from the Government.

[Mr Speaker]

I am advised, although I do not know whether the hon. Lady is yet aware—a simple nod of the head would suffice—that she has secured an Adjournment debate on Tuesday 3 September on this matter.

[Jenny Chapman]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

The nod suggests that she has seen her emails and is aware of that, although it does not satisfy her now. Well, that debate will take place and she will have the opportunity to explore these matters. In the meantime, what can she do? First, she can before the rise of the House table further questions, and it may be possible for there to be named day questions; I cannot say for certain off the top of my head, but that is possible. Secondly, although it may be suboptimal so far as the hon. Lady is concerned in the absence of an appropriate departmental Minister, she can either raise these matters herself among the matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment—that is to say, for the benefit of those observing our proceedings, this afternoon in the debate almost immediately to start—or she can cajole, exhort or entice a right hon. or hon. Friend of hers to do so. That may be unsatisfactory, but it is better than nothing. She can also, of course, correspond with Ministers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope the hon. Member for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) will take it in the right spirit if I say that it was most solicitous and courteous of her to notify us that her family members work in the national health service, but for the avoidance of doubt, it is not necessary to declare an interest simply because one visits a doctor from time to time.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I was going to say that both my parents were nurses, as was the shadow Secretary of State’s mum, but I obviously do not need to. I remember being accused of negativity, as the Secretary of State has done repeatedly today, when we warned of the dangers of privatising the probation service, and look how that worked out. It is our job to challenge the Government. They might not like it, but that is one reason we are here. Public health is potentially at risk from Brexit. Chlorinated chicken is a public health risk.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Nick Smith. [Interruption.] I will give the fellow a chance in due course, but I think there may be some domestic difficulty if I do not call the Front Bench.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker.

Paul Flynn never told me that I have star quality, but he did say that I might have a fighting chance if I bought his book.

Is the Minister, like me, opposed to unnecessary testing on animals? If he is, will he make sure that, as we seek to replicate regulatory regimes on the chemical industry, not a single unnecessary duplicate test is conducted on animals in this country?

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

Universal Credit

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ooh, this is difficult. Blaenau Gwent or Darlington? I call Jenny Chapman.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The right choice, Mr Speaker.

The Minister’s tone this afternoon is very abrasive, and he does not seem to be listening to genuine concerns from Members on both sides of the House. We understand that the Government may want to save some announcements for the upcoming Budget, but I would have thought that the extent of concern about universal credit from across the country would have led him to make some solid announcements before then so that we can reassure our constituents.

Department for Exiting the European Union

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Today, Parliament is asked to consider an underspend by the Department for Exiting the European Union. We might as well, as it is far from clear what we have been getting for our money anyway. The Government wasted £1.4 million on fighting Parliament’s right to vote on the decision to trigger article 50. Around 75% of the cost derived from the Supreme Court appeal that Labour opposed at the time as a waste of money.

It gets worse. The Government decided that, for show, it would look good if Sir Tim Barrow could be photographed hand-delivering the article 50 letter from the Prime Minister to the European Council. The two business-premier class return tickets cost around £1,000. Apparently, it took two people to deliver the letter, which is surprising given how understaffed the Department is.

Will the Minister comment on the Department’s unusually large staff churn? The National Audit Office recently found that churn at the Department is running at 9% per quarter. The civil service average is 9% per year. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said in his, as ever, excellent speech, the Institute for Government thinks that that degree of churn in the Department at the forefront of co-ordinating the complicated task of leaving the EU should cause concern both within and outside the Department. It certainly causes me concerns.

Perhaps the Department is not so much at the centre of co-ordinating this complicated task after all. In December 2017, Oliver Robbins left his role as permanent secretary at the Department to focus on his role as the Prime Minister’s European adviser. Robbins was joined at the Cabinet Office by his own team and a unit of around 30 staff. An answer to a Labour written question revealed that Robbins’ new unit includes five deputy directors, on up to £118,000 each; six Cabinet Office band As, on up to £60,500 each; and seven Cabinet Office band Bs, on up to £38,500 each.

In December, we found out that one in four DExEU posts was unfilled, including 81 policy roles, and that 44% of DExEU staff plan to leave within the next year. Jill Rutter, programme director at the Institute for Government, put it like this:

“They’ve been losing people at a higher rate than any civil service department. It obviously makes your task harder of filling up that bucket, it’s like filling up a bucket with a bit of a leak”.

Can the Minister explain how much of the Department’s underspend is because of an inability to recruit and retain staff? Why is it that the Department struggles to find and keep hold of good staff? What is it about the Department that is so off-putting to talented civil servants? Perhaps it is because there is a Whitehall turf war over Brexit, leaving the Department effectively neutered and paralysed by the division in government.

With such excess resources available, how is it that the Department made such a pathetic job of pretending that it had conducted sectoral analyses of Brexit’s impact on the economy? When they were finally made available, they were an embarrassing copy-and-paste waste of paper. I will not go over the whole shoddy tale again, but it proved just how disorganised and under-powered the Government’s Brexit operation is. It is chaotic.

The worst part of all of this is that amid the chaos, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has turned his face away from one of the most important issues that his Government faces: the impact of Brexit on the border in Northern Ireland. I have visited Northern Ireland on three occasions in the past three months, because the impact of the reintroduction of a hard border would be a catastrophe for all communities in Northern Ireland. I agree with the Government’s assertion that Northern Ireland should be treated the same as the rest of the UK, but Labour will never support a Brexit deal that results in any customs infrastructure whatsoever on the Northern Ireland border.

The Secretary of State has not visited Northern Ireland once since September 2016, and I do not think he has ever visited the border. That is neglectful. He ought to go there so that he can correct the Tory former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), when he says that the Good Friday agreement has outlived its use. Such outrageous, casual ignorance is frightening. Will the Minister assure the House that there is no circumstance in which the Government would countenance establishing any infrastructure on the Northern Ireland border?

Can the Minister identify for the House a single example of an open border between two countries operating different customs regimes? Anywhere—Norway and Sweden, or the USA and Canada? It cannot be done. Therefore, because there are no credible alternatives that would safeguard the Good Friday agreement, and because of the need to support manufacturers throughout the UK, the Labour party has said that it would seek to negotiate a new customs union with the EU.

The Government are failing in so many of their responsibilities, and the excuse that is so often given is that they are focused on Brexit. Maybe if Brexit was going well, if the Department was not so unstable, if there was clarity of position or a sense of energy and purpose, or if the Prime Minister could articulate with any certainty where the country is heading, Ministers might be forgiven for their lack of progress on so many issues. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) and the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) spoke of metaphors, but sadly an apt metaphor for the entire Government can be found in the Department’s rapid decline into chaos, division, irrelevance and incompetence.

[Mr Speaker]

We are joined this evening by the Prime Minister of Kosovo, who is supported by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). We are most grateful to the Prime Minister for his attendance at the House of Commons and we wish him and his country all the best.

Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John Bercow

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We will soon come to the matter for which a good many Members are probably waiting—I rather imagine they are; if they are not, they should be. They could be awaiting the Adjournment debate with eager anticipation, bated breath and beads of sweat upon their brows, but quite a lot are probably waiting for the announcement of the results of the elections for Chairs of Select Committees. Before we come to those, I will take a point of order from Jenny Chapman.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House is aware that the repeal Bill is to be published tomorrow morning. Disconcertingly, the Labour party has received reports that the press is to be briefed on its contents this evening. Mr Speaker, have you received any notice from the Government that a Minister intends to come to this House at the earliest opportunity to make a statement as to the contents of the Bill? If not, could you please advise me on how we might be able to bring the contents of the Bill to the attention of the House before 21 July?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is that I have received no indication of any intention on the part of a Minister to make a statement on the matter tomorrow. However, it is perfectly open to the hon. Lady and her colleagues to ensure that they have a default position so that if no ministerial statement is proffered, they could at least give themselves the chance of an urgent question. I cannot offer any guarantee as to whether such a question would be selected, but it can be selected, by definition, only if it is submitted. In so far as the hon. Lady seeks my advice, that is my advice without prejudice.