Article 50

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that reassurance. What I hope we will see, and what I think he has indicated we will see, is people on both sides of the argument coming together with that ambition for the future. It is important that we take all views into account as we develop that.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

In her letter and again in her statement today, the Prime Minister has made it clear that she believes it will be necessary to agree the terms of the divorce alongside the details of our future relationship with the European Union. If the other 27 come back in their reply and say that they want to agree the terms of the divorce first, including the issues of citizenship rights, our liabilities and borders, particularly with Northern Ireland, how will she respond?

[The Prime Minister]

We will go into a negotiation with the European Union about the best way to take these issues forward. I have been putting forward the case, as have other Ministers, that it makes sense from a pragmatic point of view to ensure that at the end of the two years, we have both of these decisions concluded, namely the withdrawal process and the future relationship. That is because I do not think it is in anybody’s interest for the UK to agree withdrawal, withdraw and go on to one set of arrangements, subsequently having to negotiate another set of arrangements that come into place at a later date. It makes much better sense—for individuals, for businesses and indeed for Governments—to conclude those two parts of the negotiation at the same time.

Informal European Council

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), the issue is whether that should be part of the formal negotiations. It has been made clear that there are those who believe it should be part of the negotiations, and therefore we will be able to consider this issue with our European colleagues once article 50 has been triggered.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

What did the Prime Minister say to her fellow European leaders about her assessment of the Trump-Putin relationship, and specifically about Russian interference in western democracies, including our own?

[The Prime Minister]

Concern has been expressed both at this Council meeting and at others about the role that Russia is playing, in a number of ways, with its interference.

European Council 2016

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We do consider what more we can do. My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary announced recently that we would undertake an extension of the training of Ukrainian forces, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is looking into whether there are other ways in which we can ensure that the Minsk agreement is implemented in full. However, I think it important for us also to work through the European Union, and to put the pressure of the EU behind the process.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Did the Prime Minister discuss with fellow leaders interference by Russia in the political processes of western democracies, including our own, through the use of propaganda and cyber? What action is she taking to investigate what may already have happened in this country, and what is she doing to prevent it from happening in future?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that everyone is aware of the way in which Russia is currently operating, and of the more aggressive stance that it is taking in a number of respects. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not expect me to go into detail about how we look at these matters, particularly cyber-related matters—which were mentioned earlier by the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson)—but I assure him that we take the issue of state-sponsored intervention and cyber attacks very seriously indeed.

Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond]

No, I am making progress.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) has been trying to intervene for ages.

[Alex Salmond]

No doubt, but I think I have been more generous in giving way to Labour Members than they have ever been to me in any Committee or debate that I can remember. I say this reasonably gently: when I first came to this House, the Scottish National party had three Members here and the Labour party in Scotland had 50. I was used to taking constant interventions, and that was entirely legitimate. It did not faze me at all when I was a young Member, and it certainly does not faze me now. So let us make some progress.

On the question of the imminent threat, Chilcot said after assessing all the evidence that the then Prime Minister was engaged in advocacy, not in presenting the facts. On the question of a prior commitment, the Chilcot report is full of expressions from the Prime Minister to the President of the United States of America that were not known to Members of this House or to the general public. That information gives a totally different view of the reasons for conflict that the Prime Minister was then presenting to this House. For example, back in December 2001, the then Prime Minister said in a letter to President Bush that

“at present international opinion would be reluctant, outside the US/UK”—

I do not know how he read opinion in that way—

“to support immediate military action though, for sure, people want to be rid of Saddam. So we need a strategy for regime change that builds over time.”

The Prime Minister said repeatedly and consistently in this House that regime change was not the objective of Government policy. He stated that the Government’s objective was to stop a clear and present danger to the United Kingdom. I have yet to see a more clear example of misleading people.

Lastly, and I think most pertinently, Chilcot identified the damage done to the authority of the United Nations. These were among the clearest and most resounding points in his report. In this troubled world, we have never needed an effective United Nations more than we do at this moment. That undermining of the UN was clear in the actions of the Prime Minister and in his presentation of why the second resolution was not to pass. Such a resolution would apparently have gone down by 11 votes to four. The Prime Minister repeatedly told the public that the only circumstances in which there would be a war without a second resolution were if one country expressed an unreasonable veto or stood out against international opinion and was not prepared to sanction action in Iraq. We now know beyond question from Chilcot that that was not the case.

We know that the then Prime Minister was misrepresenting the views of the Government of France and of President Chirac, for example. Even on the day of the debate, he continued to misrepresent the French position. The damage to the authority of the United Nations Security Council and to the consistency of international relations is inestimable. In a radio programme last year, as I recall, Sir Stephen Wall was asked specifically whether the Government had lied about the intentions of the French and withheld information on that matter. His answer was yes. The damage to international relations and the question of the unreasonable veto, as the then Prime Minister put it, are at the heart of this misrepresentation.

In recent weeks we have heard a great deal about checks and balances in political systems, particularly as people across the world are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best in the White House. We have been hoping that the institutions of office have a restraining effect and that the mad tweeter will become a sensible President.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts). I congratulate him most warmly on an excellent maiden speech. He talked with great descriptive beauty about his constituency. He used humour and he was serious. He talked about his own family’s political journey in having a Labour grandfather. My family has had a political journey in the opposite direction: of my two grandfathers, one was Liberal and one was Conservative. I noticed, however, that he did not talk about the political journey of his predecessor but one—an interesting journey that took place rather more recently than his grandfather’s. I thought that what he said about his predecessor was absolutely right, at a time when a lot of people are saying not very nice things about the previous Prime Minister. I am really pleased that the hon. Gentleman said what he did and put it on the record. I thank him for that.

Before addressing the motion itself, I would like to consider what we might be debating today instead. We could be debating the crisis in the national health service and social care. We could be debating the devastating impact on living standards of the Government’s autumn statement. We could be debating what the Scottish National party Government in Scotland might be doing with the powers they have, but resolutely refuse to use, to mitigate that. Or we could have used this precious debating time to put pressure on the Government to drop food and medicine to the people of Aleppo, who, as the French Government said today, are facing the worst massacre of civilians since the second world war.

But no, we are debating the motion before us—and why? SNP Members are furious, livid and incandescent with rage that Sir John Chilcot did not find that Tony Blair lied. After seven years and five independent inquiries, the lie that our former Prime Minister lied has finally been laid to rest, and SNP Members cannot stand it. The motion, of course, does not talk about lying. However, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who supports the motion, let the cat out of the bag when she told The Observer on Sunday

“The Chilcot report confirmed Tony Blair lied to the public, parliament and his own cabinet in order to drag us into the Iraq war.”

She has clearly not read the Chilcot report; it did no such thing.

Without going over the detail as we did in a very full debate on this back in the summer, let me remind the House briefly of what the Chilcot report did say. Volume 4, paragraph 876, says clearly that there was no falsification or improper use of intelligence. Volume 5, paragraph 953 says that there was no deception of Cabinet. Volume 1, paragraph 572 onwards, says that there was no secret commitment to war either at Crawford in April 2002 or anywhere else. Although outside the body of the report, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, Sir John Chilcot himself, in his appearance before the Liaison Committee, said:

“I absolve him”—

Tony Blair—

“from a personal and demonstrable decision to deceive parliament or the public—to state falsehoods, knowing them to be false.”

Some people just cannot give up. Some people do not seem able to accept the possibility that reasonable people can come to different views on a difficult subject but do so in good faith. Some people cannot accept—

[Alex Salmond]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bradshaw]

No, the right hon. Gentleman had half an hour and a lot of Members want to speak.

Some people cannot accept that however much one disagrees with a decision taken, it can still have been taken in good faith. So here we are debating a motion that seeks to distort and rewrite Chilcot and, in effect, put Tony Blair back in the dock. I am delighted that my own party is having none of this nonsense and that we will be voting against this mendacious opportunism in an hour and a half’s time.

I think there may be another reason why some people persist in trying to claim falsely that there was deliberate deceit in all this. They are more than a little nervous that as we look at what has happened in Syria, and is still happening in Syria today, where there was no intervention and we left a brutal dictator to continue to slaughter his own people, history will prove our former Prime Minister right.

Several hon. Members rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. I am going to suggest an informal limit of six minutes and see how we get on. It may be necessary to put a formal limit on, but we will start with six minutes.

European Council

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The decision taken to leave the EU is a decision of the United Kingdom. It will be the United Kingdom that negotiates that deal, and it will be the right deal for the United Kingdom.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Our national health service, universities and businesses are already losing talent because of the uncertainty about the status of EU citizens here in the event of Brexit. It is an uncertainty the Prime Minister could end now. Why won’t she?

[The Prime Minister]

I expect to be able to guarantee the status of EU citizens here in the United Kingdom. I intend and want to do that. The only circumstances in which that would not be possible would be if the status of British citizens in the European Union member states was not guaranteed. This is an issue that, as I have said previously, I hope to be able to discuss at an early stage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I join my hon. Friend in commending all those who have been involved in the bid at Gainsborough’s House. Many people will enjoy visiting Gainsborough’s House in the future as a result of the work that will be able to be done. I know the importance of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It supported the excellent Stanley Spencer gallery in my own constituency, so I have seen the impact it can have. He is absolutely right. The point about devolution deals is people coming together with that ambition for their local area to generate the transformative investment he talks about. Suffolk is looking at the sort of deal it might wish to have locally.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Q14. With Russian and Assad regime war planes bombing civilians in Aleppo at an unprecedented rate, will the Prime Minister join France in calling for those responsible for these war crimes to be referred to the International Criminal Court? Will she re-examine, with allies, the feasibility of a no-fly zone to protect the Syrian people before it is too late?

[The Prime Minister]

We are very clear that it is for the courts to decide where a war crime is being committed. We co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution in May 2014 to refer those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria, regardless of affiliation, to the International Criminal Court. Of course, that was vetoed by Russia and China. On the issue of a no-fly zone, this has been addressed. People have looked at this over a number of years. The scenes we see of the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians are absolutely appalling. We want to see an end to that, but there are many questions about a no-fly zone. Who is it there to protect? Would it lead to Assad bombing people in the expectation that they would then move to that zone? How would a safe area actually be enforced there? Who would do that enforcement? There are many questions that need to be looked at in those sorts of issues. What we all know is that the only real solution for peace and stability in Syria is political transition, and it is time Russia accepted that: that the future of Syria is a political transition to a stable Syria, free of Assad.

G20 Summit

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister accept that, like all developed economies with ageing populations, Britain needs to import labour to thrive? Would it therefore not be an act of extreme self-harm for us to give up our full and unfettered access to the single market out of a dogmatic and arbitrary desire to reduce immigration?

[The Prime Minister]

It is not an arbitrary and dogmatic desire. We recognise the impact that uncontrolled immigration can have on people, particularly those at the lower end of the income scale. The right hon. Gentleman needs to consider carefully the message that the British people gave in the vote on 23 June. I think that vote told us that they want to see the Government able to take control of the movement of people from the European Union into the United Kingdom, and that is what we will do.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on his second point. Prime Ministers do need to be able to deploy force or take action without parliamentary sanction if it is urgent and then to report to Parliament straight afterwards. Where there is a premeditated decision to take action, that convention has grown up, and I am happy to repeat it from the Dispatch Box.

As for the national security adviser, I think it is right to have an expert. It does not have to be someone who is currently a civil servant—an expert could be brought in from outside—but it does need to be an expert who is garnering together the military, civilians, the intelligence and all the different parts of Whitehall. It needs to be someone who is full time, rather than a politician who is also running a Department.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister put on the record that he believes all those who voted for the action against Saddam Hussein did so in good faith? On the very important lessons to be learned, does he acknowledge that just as there are consequences, sometimes terrible, of military intervention, so there are consequences of non-intervention, as we are seeing at huge cost today in Syria?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to make both those points. I am sure everyone, like me, came here, listened to the arguments, wrestled with the difficult decision and then took it. We can look back now and see how we feel about all the things that happened subsequently. I am sure that everyone made their decision in good faith. The consequences of non-intervention can been seen clearly in Syria, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). This is true, and it is worth mentioning other humanitarian issues, as I did in my statement with respect to Srebrenica and Rwanda.

EU Council

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good question, and one that I am quite keen to answer. The sense in the European Council was that it had bent over backwards to give to a country that already had a special status—out of the euro and out of the Schengen System—things that they found profoundly uncomfortable. Many of those countries really do believe in ever-closer political union however wrong we might think it is here in this country, and they hated saying to Britain, “Right, you are out of this.” That really pained them, but they did it. They particularly disliked having to agree to cut welfare benefits for their own citizens, because that is what they signed up to do. I believe, and will always believe, that it was a good negotiation. It did not solve all of Britain’s problems, and I never said that it did, but it certainly addressed some of the biggest concerns that the British people had. I would like to know whether there is more that could have been done, but the very strong sense that I get is that this issue of full access to the single market and reform of free movement is very, very difficult. We achieved some reforms of free movement, but the idea that there is an enormous change to free movement, particularly from outside the EU, is a very tough call and people have to think that through very carefully before we get into the negotiations.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

The referendum was about our membership of the European Union and not about our membership of the single market. Given the very grave damage that is already being done to our economy because of the uncertainty, will the Prime Minister call on all of those in this House who aspire to lead this country to commit themselves to keeping Britain in the single market with full access?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. This is one of the key arguments. When I examine why I have always believed that we are better off in, even though I have wanted to see reform, it has always come down to this: the single market exists, we are in it, and it will go on existing even if we leave it and it has a profound effect on our economic, business, political and national life. I certainly urge my colleagues to aim for the greatest possible access, but, obviously, they will have to think about what the benefits and disbenefits of that route are.

Voter Registration

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and she is right to say that there is no link between IER and last night’s registration difficulties on the website. I will study her recommendations with great interest, and I understand that she will soon meet the Minister responsible for constitutional affairs to discuss the matter.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

It would be an absolute scandal if people who tried to register before the deadline were deprived of a vote in what is the most important vote in any of our lifetimes. Will the Minister pull out all the stops until the last possible moment to ensure that people can vote? Will he also address the concern raised by my constituents who live and work abroad, and who have heard that there are problems with processing the huge numbers of postal and proxy votes that are coming back in at local level, and ensure that those votes are counted?

[Matthew Hancock]

There are very high numbers of registrations for postal votes, and indeed of registrations by post as opposed to through the website. We are dealing with all those issues. The right hon. Gentleman asks me to pull out all the stops; believe me, we are.