The Government's Plan for Brexit

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Such has been the excess of interventions and excited speeches this afternoon that I am afraid I have to reduce the time limit to four minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

She said—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. A point of order has been raised by Mr Kwarteng.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I have just realised, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my intended point of order has been attended to by the Clerks. It involved the clock.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you. The clock was stuck, and it is now working again.

[Mark Durkan]

The then Secretary of State said:

“Their activities are against the democratically expressed wishes of the people in Northern Ireland. They continue to seek relevance and inflict harm on a society that overwhelmingly rejects them”—

she could have been talking about the Northern Ireland Conservatives. She continued:

“Their support is very limited. Northern Ireland’s future will only be determined by democracy and consent.”—[Official Report, 30 June 2016; Vol. 612, c. 13WS.]

Where is the democracy and consent for the people of Northern Ireland when it comes to Brexit? Many of us are free to come here and vote against article 50 as and when the relevant provisions are tabled. When we do so, that will be consistent with our principled support for the Good Friday agreement and consistent with our pledges to our constituents honourably to represent them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has now twice implied that the Government are making, or that private companies operating in this country are taking, under-the-table cash payments in contravention of all the corporate regulations and anti-corruption legislation. Could you invite him to reconsider and perhaps recast his argument?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) knows, the content of an hon. Member’s speech is not a matter for me. However, it would be a matter for me if the hon. Member for Swansea West said something in the course of his speech that implied wrongdoing on the part of any other Member or member of the Government. I am sure that he will confirm, as I call him to recommence his speech, that he did not mean to say anything of the kind.

[Geraint Davies]

There was certainly no wrongdoing. What I was suggesting is that huge amounts of public money are being pushed towards foreign companies to get them to stay here and that the Government have pointedly refused to tell the Office for Budget Responsibility, when asked, how much money was involved so that the OBR could factor it into its forecasts. The Government have refused to give those figures. These are enormous amounts of money; we are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds, which would affect our economic forecasts. The Government refuse to give the figures now, but they will come out after everything has been decided and article 50 has been triggered in March, when there is no room for reversal. The British public deserve and want either a good deal or no deal, and the right to decide that question. This should not be decided behind closed doors. We need to delay article 50 until November to allow the people to decide their own future.