Leaving the European Union

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me give my hon. Friend some reassurance. I have indicated on a number of occasions in the House that as we look to that next stage of the negotiations—which will indeed cover the trade relationship that we will have with the EU in the long term, but also other issues such as our security arrangements, and some underpinning issues such as the exchange of data—we will be seeking more involvement from Parliament, and my right hon. Friends the Brexit Secretary and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are considering what form that interaction with Parliament should take in the future.

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

European leaders have made it pretty clear that they would only agree to an extension of article 50 for a good reason, not just to enable the Prime Minister to faff and dither and delay and do some more can-kicking down the road. That extension must be for a purpose. Will the Prime Minister therefore make another U-turn and support the proposal for a confirmatory public vote, which is now gaining support on both sides of the House?

[The Prime Minister]

I have made my views on this issue clear on a number of occasions in this Chamber. There are those who are talking about a confirmatory vote on the deal, and including on that ballot paper the option of remaining in the European Union.

[Caroline Lucas]

Yes.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady says yes to that. I have to say to her that it would not be respecting the result of the referendum, and that 80% of the votes cast in the last general election were for parties that said they would respect it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Our dedicated NHS staff, day in and day out, are delivering an unwavering commitment in caring for us all, and obviously it is necessary that we ensure their mental health is looked after. We are setting up a dedicated mental health support service, which will offer NHS staff confidential advice and support 24 hours a day. It will be staffed by qualified professionals who have had training in situations that are unique to the NHS and will ensure that mental health referrals for NHS employees, from either a general practitioner or an occupational health clinician, are fast-tracked. It is right that mental and physical wellbeing is at the forefront of our health service, and it is right that we are taking this action to support our dedicated NHS staff.

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

Q10. The Local Government Association has identified a potential £1.6 billion deficit for special needs education, but the Government responded with a paltry £350 million. As a result, headteachers in my Brighton constituency are literally having sleepless nights. Vital reading programmes for children with special educational needs are being cut and crucial support staff are being lost. Instead of repeating her usual line on schools funding, will the Prime Minister agree to meet a delegation of headteachers from Brighton so she can hear direct from them about the real pain that is being caused?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure the hon. Lady will look forward to working well with the largest group on Brighton and Hove City Council, which is now the Conservative group. She raises the issue of education funding, and she refers to answers I have given in the past. We have been putting more funding into education, and we have been doing it in a number of ways. We have announced extra support, as she says, for children with complex special educational needs, and that is building on the £6 billion in place for it this year—the highest level on record. She says it is not enough, but it is the highest level on record. We are also putting money into new school places and better facilities for children with special educational needs.

Leaving the EU

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise hon. Members’ concerns regarding the legally binding nature of any changes that are achieved. Of course, the Attorney General will make information available to the House to enable the House to take its decision.

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

While the Prime Minister is happy to kick the can down the road for yet another two weeks, over 3 million EU nationals are living in appalling uncertainty. As it stands, the Home Office’s EU settlement scheme could leave hundreds of thousands of EU nationals undocumented and at risk from the hostile environment, so will the Prime Minister accept that only a declaratory system, under which those resident in the UK before 29 March are automatically granted leave to remain, would protect all citizens’ rights, as she claims she wants to do?

[The Prime Minister]

We have put forward a sensible and reasonable scheme. We have said that we will guarantee rights for EU citizens here in the UK, even in the event of no deal, so this would not only pertain in the event of a deal. As the hon. Lady will know, no fee will be required on the full roll-out of the settlement scheme, and we will reimburse any fees that have been paid in the pilots. However, we retain the right to ensure that it is possible for this country to determine that individuals who perhaps have a particular criminal record are not in this country, and that is a right that we will look at across the board. The sort of situation that the hon. Lady suggests is therefore not right. We have a good scheme that is easy to use and for which there will be no charge.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are looking at ways in which we can give that assurance in relation to workers’ rights. As I said, we are looking at when legislation would be appropriate and where it would be necessary. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to go through that issue.

I want to complete what I was saying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). We will indeed engage seriously and positively with the proposals that she has put forward, which were also referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. The crucial concept that we see within this amendment is the concept of alternative arrangements. As I have already said in this speech, that has already been accepted by the EU as a way out of the backstop. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends for their willingness to find a solution and I look forward to working with them over the coming days. A number of other colleagues have also suggested ways to achieve that aim, such as securing a time limit to the backstop, or a unilateral exit clause, which we will of course study closely as well. While there are obviously details that need to be worked through, the fact that leading figures from different sides of the argument are coming together to develop proposals shows how much progress has been made over the past few weeks.

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

Does the Prime Minister recognise that there is no solution in chasing fantasies? The EU has ruled this kind of option out many times. We cannot have an insurance policy based on a technology that does not exist. Will she not recognise that what she is chasing here are heated-up fantasies that have already been rejected by the EU and depend on technologies that do not exist?

[The Prime Minister]

Members across the House have put forward a number of proposals on how this issue can be addressed. They are not indulging in fantasies—they are coming forward with serious proposals, on which this Government will work with them.

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[Ian Blackford]

My hon. Friend is quite correct. We have integrated supply chains on the basis of the single market, which has been in place since the 1990s. There are very real threats to food supply on the basis of no deal. It is the height of irresponsibility for the Government not to rule it out.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he is making a really powerful case about what no deal could really look like. He says there could be food shortages and, crucially, that food prices could go up. Does he share my anger at the voices behind me that he perhaps did not hear? When he was talking about food prices going up and the fact that there could be food shortages, Members behind me were saying, “Well, let them go to the chippy instead.” Does he share my anger about the way in which our constituencies would be affected by no deal?

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

I rise to speak in favour of amendment (g) and to make the case that the amendment is vital in enabling Parliament to take control, frankly, from a Government who are in denial and in disarray. I must say that I find any opposition to amendment (g) from Conservative Members quite perplexing, given that so many of them were in the forefront of saying that Brexit was all about restoring parliamentary sovereignty. Now it seems as though they regard parliamentary sovereignty as a bit of an inconvenient obstacle to getting their own way.

The amendment is vital to allowing us to avoid the catastrophe of no deal. Let me make it very clear that for my constituents in Brighton no deal would be a catastrophe—a catastrophe for our tourism industry, for businesses, for our universities and research and for families and communities who are built on free movement and will fight to the end to stop free movement ending. The amendment does not bind the House to any particular outcome; it simply gives Parliament the time and space to make an honest assessment of the available options.

I want to say a few words about amendment (n)—the so-called Brady amendment. It takes fantasy to a new art form. I do not know how many times the EU has to say that it is just not possible to re-open negotiation on the withdrawal Bill. The amendment is perhaps an extraordinary way of trying to get the Conservative party to hold together, but it will not stand up to any kind of contact with external reality. Right now, EU officials tell us that they are preparing a statement that says that it would not be possible to open up an agreement that was negotiated over the past 20 months. Sabine Weyand, the deputy chief negotiator, said yesterday:

“There’s no negotiation between the UK and EU—that’s finished.”

Crossing one’s fingers, screwing up one’s eyes and just wishing it was otherwise is not a good negotiating strategy.

I appeal to Conservative colleagues to focus on what is in front of us—on practical ways to avoid the catastrophe of no deal, which will hurt the poorest hardest and for which the Prime Minister has absolutely no mandate. To those Conservative Members who seem to think that threatening no deal is effective with our European counterparts, I point out that it is tantamount to someone standing with a pistol to their head and saying, “I’ll fire it if they don’t do what I want.” It is not a very sensible negotiating strategy.

In my last few words, I want to say how much I support amendment (h) on having a citizens’ assembly. If I had more time, I would say more about it.

[Mr Speaker]

We rue the absence of that further time.

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Last night’s defeat was an extraordinary humiliation for the Prime Minister. If ever there were a situation to be described as chickens coming home to roost, it was that, for it is a national calamity of the Prime Minister’s own making. It was the Prime Minister who failed to reach out across the House to find consensus on a way forward from the narrow win for leave in the 2016 referendum. It was the Prime Minister who painted herself into a corner with a series of bright red lines, designed only to appease the most extreme Brexiteers in her party. It was the Prime Minister who triggered article 50 far too prematurely. Crucially, it was also the Prime Minister who resolutely failed to tackle any of the underlying injustices that drove the 2016 referendum result.

Many people voted leave because they believed that the status quo in this country is intolerable, and they are right—it is. We are a country of grotesque inequalities, not just between classes but geographically between regions, especially between north and south, and between thriving cities and failing towns within the same region. Last year, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission identified the 30 worst places for social mobility. Every single one of them voted to leave. I do not think that is a coincidence. The Prime Minister’s mantra about bringing the country back together rings very hollow in the light of the evidence.

Welfare cuts since 2010 have cost lone parent households an average of more than £5,000, increasing child poverty rates in those households from 37% to 62%. The NHS has endured the longest period of austerity in its history. The evidence goes on. Today has to be the day we start to change the conversation about Brexit and the future of Britain. We have to do that not by slavishly repeating that Brexit is the will of the people, but by genuinely hearing the voices of those who have been economically and politically excluded for decades. The millions of people who rightly chose to give the establishment an almighty kicking in June 2016 deserve to have their concerns addressed and properly resolved.

A people’s vote, if it learns the lessons from the failed remain campaign of 2016, can be the vehicle we need to have that honest debate in this country. It would be the chance to move on from the divisive and dangerous place we are in by committing to “Project Hope”, rather than “Project Fear”. Whoever is in No. 10 must be someone who can put the issue back to the people, because a general election fought by the two biggest parties, which both have a commitment to Brexit, does not take us forward. While I of course want to get rid of this toxic Government, I also want to ensure that we resolve this most pressing issue and get the question back to the people. Parliament has shown itself to be incapable of resolving it; the question needs to go back to the people.

Leaving the EU

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend and I have discussed this before. The European Union does not see the situation that would exist if the trade negotiations were continuing for some considerable time, and if the backstop had come into existence, as a good place for the EU. Tariff-free access to EU markets without paying any money, with no free movement of people and with no access for EU boats to our fishing waters, is not a good place for the European Union to be in.

As I explained, the reason why the EU is concerned about the idea of a unilateral exit mechanism is that it does not want to see circumstances in which the UK pulled out of the backstop and left the creation of a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. I suspect that my hon. Friend does not trust the European Union not to try to keep us in the backstop. The EU’s concern is about whether it can trust us not to effectively leave a situation in which there was a hard border. What we have been working at is finding a compromise between the two in which we can all have confidence.

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

The Prime Minister claims that the possibility of no Brexit would be a subversion of democracy. Is it not true that the real subversion of democracy is a Prime Minister who has consistently sought to shut Parliament out of this process from the very beginning, and who now refuses to go to the people to see whether they are still satisfied with a deal that bears no resemblance to the one that they were promised two and a half years ago? Why will she not go to the people? Why is she so afraid to put her deal to the people? If they still like it, they will vote for it, but if they do not, they should have the right to remain.

[The Prime Minister]

When people voted in the referendum in 2016 they wanted—in the words used at the time and that I have used since—control of our borders, our money and our laws; this deal delivers on that. They wanted us to be able to have an independent trade policy; this deal delivers on that. They wanted us to be out of the CAP and CFP; this deal delivers on that. I think we should be delivering what people voted for in 2016.

European Council

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that my right hon. Friend has taken a particular view in relation to this issue, but I continue to believe that what we should be doing is delivering on the vote. As I said when I gave the figures in my statement, it was the overwhelming view of this Parliament that the people should have a vote in the referendum, and it was the overwhelming view of this Parliament that article 50 should be triggered. Article 50 leads to our leaving the European Union, and it is now our duty to deliver that.

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

How does the Prime Minister have the gall to accuse those of us who want more democracy of breaking faith with the public, when she herself has turned faith breaking into a new art form? She promised no general election last year, and then granted one. She promised a meaningful vote last week, and then cancelled it. But one cannot break faith with the British public by asking for their views. Why can the Prime Minister not understand that a people’s vote would be the first opportunity for people to vote on the facts, not on the fantasy and the fabrication?

[The Prime Minister]

Many people up and down the country—17.4 million people, I think—would say that, if the vote that took place in 2016 were not honoured by this Parliament, that would be breaking faith.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me agree with my hon. Friend; we do owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all those who are on the frontline, putting themselves potentially at risk for us—not only police officers, but prison officers and probation officers, whom he referenced. I assure him that, as he has, I have been looking, with the Home Secretary, at the 2019-20 police funding settlement.

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

The plotters behind her know that any replacement Prime Minister would face exactly the same party arithmetic and exactly the same deadlock on Brexit. This deadlock can be changed only by going back to the people. Today, The Times also said that is her only chance of saving her job and saving her deal. So can she tell the House: what exactly is she afraid of?

[The Prime Minister]

The issue is that this House overwhelmingly voted to give the choice to the British people as to whether or not to leave the European Union. The British people chose to leave the European Union and I strongly believe it is the duty of Members of this House to deliver on that vote.

Exiting the European Union

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The issue of the length of time for which the backstop could or should be in place, if it is ever used—once again, it is the intention of neither side that it be used—is a matter that is already addressed in the withdrawal agreement. People here are concerned about the extent to which they can trust those assurances within the withdrawal agreement, which is why it is important to go back and get further reassurances.

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

The Prime Minister has changed her mind about the vote and about whether the backstop can be amended. If she can change her mind, why will she not just check whether the British people have changed their minds since they voted two years ago?

[The Prime Minister]

Does the hon. Lady honestly think that if we were to have a further referendum and it came out with a different result, people would not then say that we should have a third referendum to find out exactly what the result was? And if we had a second referendum with the same result, I also wonder whether the hon. Lady would still be asking for a third referendum. This Parliament gave people the choice and the people decided. They voted; we should deliver on it.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I imagine that the hon. Gentleman supports the Prime Minister’s deal because he is incredibly loyal to his party, with a blindness about the dangers of this deal for the rest of the country and the jobs that go with it.

The lack of clarity around these proposals also means that there is no guarantee of a strong deal with the single market, to ensure continued access to European markets in services. There is merely a vague commitment to go beyond the baseline of the World Trade Organisation.

As both the Attorney General and the Environment Secretary made clear in recent days, the commitments to workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer safeguards are very far from secure. The social Europe that many people supported and continue to support was not part of why people voted to leave. All of that is at risk from this deal. This deal fails to give so many economic sectors and public services clarity about our future relationship with several European Union agencies and programmes.

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Prime Minister’s deal seriously undermines environmental protection in this country, because it does not replace the European Court of Justice with anything like the strength of an enforcement body? Instead of the promised watchdog, we have little more than just a lapdog.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. The environmental protections that we have are essential. We cannot protect the environment inside national borders; it has to be done across national borders. We have to have the toughest possible environmental protection regulations, and the suspicion many of us have is that there is an appetite on the Government Benches to remove many of those protections as time goes on.

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

This debate goes to the very essence of what we want to be as a country—confident, compassionate and outward-facing, or fearful, inward-looking and isolated. All the major challenges that we face today—the climate crisis, terrorism, the refugee crisis, cyber-crime—are trans-boundary, and so all of them would be far harder to address if we leave the EU. I therefore stand by my decision to campaign to remain in 2016, and still believe that the future will be brighter, fairer and greener inside the European Union.

I also stand by my vote against the Prime Minister’s foolish decision to trigger article 50 before she and her Cabinet had even worked out what “Brexit means Brexit” actually does mean. At a stroke, that recklessness surrendered all leverage to the EU27, and it has resulted in the miserable, blindfold package that we have before us today, with its 26-page, 8,000-word wish list guaranteeing absolutely nothing about our future relationship with the EU. The Prime Minister urges us to “get on with it”, as if accepting her plan would be the end of it, but let us be very clear: in reality, it is the starting gun for years of more negotiations and more political infighting, with uncertainty hard-wired into it.

Over the past two years, I have not seen any evidence that the Government understand or appreciate the importance of many of the amendments that many of us tried to make to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, whether to do with upholding basic legal rights, trying to safeguard jobs, protecting freedom of movement and the Good Friday agreement, or enhancing the protection of our precious environment. Indeed, all the evidence I have seen, including the Government’s own impact assessments, has simply confirmed to me that Brexit would make my poorest constituents, and the nation’s poorest communities, poorer still. It would lead to a smaller Britain with less influence: borders closed, horizons narrowed. It would betray the hopes and dreams of young people, who overwhelmingly voted to remain. It is an unforgivable act of inter-generational betrayal. It puts our contribution to vital cross-border work on climate change and nature in jeopardy. It sees us abandoning what is frankly little short of a miracle that few would have dreamed possible when the bombs were raining down on British towns and cities in the middle of the last century. It helped us to emerge from the rubble and the destruction of the second world war into a nation that has been at peace with its neighbours ever since. With a supreme irony, the Prime Minister’s package would also result in people having considerably less control over the decisions that affect their lives, not more.

In recent days, the Prime Minister has been admonishing MPs to think of our constituents when we vote on this deal. Well, I can assure her that I have been doing— and we have been doing—exactly that. I think of my Brighton constituents when I consider that every single economic impact analysis shows them being worse off as a result of any kind of Brexit. I think of them when I learn of a study by the local UK Trade Policy Observatory that concludes that her deal would cost at least 960 of them their jobs. I think of them when the leisure sector in the city reports how seriously it would be affected by the end of free movement. I think of them when the universities tell me how worried they are about the future of European research, their research grants, and the Horizon Europe programme. How does the Prime Minister have the gall to suggest that MPs are not thinking of our constituents in this debate? How dare she call on our constituents to unite behind her deal when she knows how much damage that deal will do to them and to their families?

For more than two years now, I have consistently said that the 2016 referendum was, and could only be, the start, not the end, of the democratic process. In 2016, voters could not, and did not, express any opinion on the terms on which the UK should leave the EU, because at that time the terms were completely unknown. That is why I believe the outcome of the negotiations must now be put before the public in a people’s vote. That people’s vote must give the option of remaining inside the EU, which every recent poll shows to be what a clear majority of voters now want. This is not about subverting democracy or seeking to overturn the referendum result; it is simply giving voters a proper say on important issues that were not put before them in 2016.

If it is still the will of the people to leave the EU in the light of what they know now, then that is what they will vote for in the people’s vote. But if they decide that it would be better to stay in the EU, and reject the Prime Minister’s deal, then the UK could continue as a member of the EU on the same terms as now, as the opinion from the Scottish courts has underlined today. I would put it to the Prime Minister that the will of the people is not fixed in stone. As she learnt to her cost last June, it can change and it does change. There were 25 months between the general elections of 2015 and 2017. Those 25 months were enough time for the Prime Minister to lose her majority, her mandate and her credibility. A longer time has elapsed—29 months—between the referendum of June 2016 and today. Every recent opinion poll shows that the will of the people has changed since then as well.

Brexit and the lies, false promises and cheating of the leave campaign in 2016 have unleashed forces that should worry us all, so I take seriously the charge that a people’s vote could risk yet more division. But I have thought about this clearly, and I believe that nothing would be more divisive than the people of this country discovering the hard way that the Prime Minister’s blindfold Brexit does not deliver the sunlit uplands that they were promised.

I want to say clearly that a people’s vote is not about putting the clock back to 22 June 2016 or pretending that the last two years somehow never happened. Those Brexit voters who voted to leave because they believed the status quo is intolerable were right—it is. We are a country of grotesque inequalities. Far too many people are living in communities with proud histories that have been hollowed out by years of deindustrialisation and decades of neglect, compounded since 2010 by an ideologically driven assault on national and local public services under the name of austerity. Economic vitality has been drained from their neighbourhoods, and many feel hopeless and trapped

Last year’s Social Mobility Commission report identified the 30 worst coldspots for social mobility, and it is no coincidence that every single one of those 30 places voted to leave. The lie at the heart of the leave campaign was that this downward spiral can be reversed by leaving the EU. The truth is that Brexit would make things much harder to fix, and we know that the real answer lies in far-reaching reform at home. We need a new social contract—better jobs, high-quality public services and investment in the green economy, with people of all backgrounds and communities treated with respect and given the opportunity and power to thrive. We need to ensure that the net economic benefit that people from the EU bring to this country is spent in those areas that experience the largest changes, on projects collectively decided by local people.

Those of us campaigning for a people’s vote need to make clear our commitment to addressing the grievances aired during and since the 2016 referendum, to campaigning for far greater public investment in those regions that need it most and to working towards a Britain where people have a real say in the decisions that affect them.

In my last few words, I simply want to say that I reject the false choice presented by the Prime Minister between a catastrophic no deal and her miserable blindfold deal. That is no choice at all, and that is why we need a people’s vote.