Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Catherine West and Seema Malhotra

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Knowing the facts and figures behind the Government’s thinking in various sectors is even more important in the regions, where there can be an over-dependence on one industry.

Parliament should be hugged, not pushed away. The Government should be hugging us, because they need us. In some ways, the Government’s Front-Bench team needs us more than we need them. I would welcome another election; let us have one tomorrow. We have to work together on this, but we can work together only if Members do not feel frustrated and left in the dark.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the impact on industries in our local areas. Does she agree that the medical services and social care sector is incredibly important in all our constituencies? A leaked Department of Health report from earlier this year suggested that there could be a shortfall of 40,000 nurses if there is a hard Brexit—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) answers that intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker has just made it clear, and I reiterate it, that if people make long interventions at this point in the debate, they are depriving someone else who has been sitting here all afternoon of the opportunity to speak at all.