European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Leslie

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) for his speech. Notwithstanding my obvious support for the Lords amendment on EU nationals, I urge Government Members to think carefully about what they are being asked to do by Ministers today. The Lords have already inserted into the Bill the amendment to give Parliament a meaningful vote, and Ministers are asking hon. Members tonight to wrench that out of the Bill and delete it. As the Bill stands, it provides that parliamentary scrutiny and authority. Government Members should ask themselves whether they really want actively to go through the Lobby and delete that from the text of the Bill.

Ministers have asked hon. Members to do a number of things. They say, “Don’t tie the hands of the Prime Minister. Whatever you do, give her unfettered power to negotiate in whatever way she likes.” I say to those Ministers and to hon. Members that we should not be putting power entirely in the hands of one person—the Prime Minister—without any insurance policy whatever. With the greatest respect to Ministers, the Prime Minister decides who is on her Front Bench, and parliamentary democracy is the insurance policy that we need throughout the process. We should not be frightened or shy of that. We should welcome it because it is a strength and it is a part of the process.

The Government say, “Take back control.” Yet at the same time they are asking us to muzzle Parliament for the next two-year period by saying, “Well, whatever happens, Parliament may not have a say on that.” We could find ourselves in circumstances where the European Union offers a really good deal but the Prime Minister, singularly, on her own—or his own, of course, because it depends on who the Prime Minister is in two years’ time—could say, “Absolutely no deal.” This Parliament would have no choice but to accept that. We would have no say on the matter.

Ministers ask us to accept their verbal assurances. Well, Ministers are here today, but could be gone tomorrow. May I speculate that we could have a different Prime Minister by the time we get to spring 2019? Who knows? It is possible that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—the Foreign Secretary, no less—could be Prime Minister one day. He said at the weekend that it would be

“perfectly okay if we weren’t able to get an agreement.”

He could be Prime Minister—Government Members do not know—and that would be the situation we would have to face, with no votes and no rights for Parliament. Verbal assurances are not sufficient.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Under your instructions, Mr Speaker, I am going to be brief. I want to deal specifically with the first amendment—I thought the second amendment was well dealt with by my right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

We have heard a lot in this debate, and we heard a lot in the other place, about the emotional end of what it is to give EU citizens some kind of reassurance, and I myself am publicly on the record as saying I would like to have done that by this point. However, I remind people that we also have UK citizens. The ex-leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), rightly went on about his own family, but I have a sister who has lived and worked in Italy pretty much all her life, and she has retired there. It behoves this place not to dismiss the concerns and worries of such UK citizens quite as lightly as they were dismissed in the other place and have been dismissed here today. I actually heard it said from the Opposition Benches that the reason we should not be so concerned about those UK citizens is that many of them are older and, therefore, pensioners, so they are less important. That is wrong, and I encourage the Government to stick to their plans to deal with the two issues together.

However, the thing about the amendment is that it is not actually what all this emotional argument is about. For those who want to guarantee these rights, this is not the amendment for doing so—it actually does the exact opposite, and that is for two reasons. First, it does not reassure EU nationals over here. I have had conversations with various EU nationals, and they do not feel in the slightest bit reassured by the idea that we are going to call the Government back three months after we have triggered article 50 to ask them what they plan to do. That is no reassurance, and it does not give EU nationals their rights, so we are not voting to reassure them at all.

The second element is that the amendment actually damages the Government’s position in the negotiations. Let us imagine there has been no agreement about what to do with UK citizens. On the three-month mark, the European Commission knows full well that the Government will be dragged back to the House to explain publicly what their plans are, regardless of the negotiations. I can think of nothing worse than to bind their hands in the worst way possible and make sure that UK nationals do not get reciprocal arrangements.

My point tonight is that, whatever the realities of what people want, neither amendment satisfies the requirement to protect EU nationals or to give this Parliament a meaningful vote without damaging the prospects for the Government’s negotiations. I urge the House not to vote for the amendments, and I remind those on the Opposition Benches who talk endlessly about parliamentary sovereignty that, for the 25 years I have sat in this place, all the arguments about the EU have been dismissed on the basis that we were not allowed to amend a single European treaty.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Leslie

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

I will not give way because Conservative Members are not being reasonable and letting me make progress with my speech.

The impact of the work penalty in the tax credits system should have been set out at the election. A lone parent with two children working 16 hours a week on the minimum wage would gain just over £400 from the move to the new national living wage, as the Chancellor calls it, but would lose twice that—£860—from the change to tax credits next year. A couple on the minimum wage who work full time and have two children will gain £1,500 from the change to the minimum wage but lose over £2,200 next year from the changes to tax credits. As the Government were hitting the low-paid, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was punching the air. Working families did not vote for that, and they will not be fooled by the Chancellor’s hollow words.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

Is the Secretary of State going to punch the air? [Interruption.] There we go.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I just take the hon. Gentleman up on the case that he set out? I want to get the figures right. A lone parent with two children who works 16 hours on the minimum wage will, when we add in everything including childcare, actually be better off on the net figures after the Budget.

[Chris Leslie]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman again if he will confirm that the childcare promise, which was supposed to happen this summer, has been shelved until at least 2017. Is that correct? I will give way to him. This is a debate, so I will give way to him. He wanted to talk about the case studies. He thinks it is—[Interruption.]

[Chris Leslie]

The Secretary of State has shot himself in the foot. He should read the small print of the Chancellor’s announcement. Without much fanfare, he left that childcare—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

I have not finished. [Interruption.]

[Chris Leslie]

It is quite entertaining to see the Secretary of State struggle in this way.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Chris Leslie]

Wait for it. Can the Secretary of State confirm—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

I relish giving way to the Secretary of State, but he has to answer this question. We have given him a bit of time to think of an answer. He needs to explain the shelving of the childcare support. Will the support come in this summer—yes or no?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the figures I gave were for 2016-17 and they included the childcare.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The answer is that the incomes of 2.5 million people will increase, but it is not me who introduced that policy—I give all the credit to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. Let me also say to the right hon. Member for Nottingham East—

[Chris Leslie]

I am not “right honourable”.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I apologise. That is a matter for his leader but—what can I say? Labour has no leader at the moment.

The hon. Member for Nottingham East was talking about the minimum wage and the living wage, and I want to pick up on something he said a fortnight ago:

“Do not the Government need a serious strategy to address low pay and boost productivity? They should be providing incentives for a living wage and new opportunities for high-quality skills, as a more positive route out of poverty.”

Absolutely. He went on to speak about the Chancellor’s Budget before it had been delivered and said:

“Unless he is planning a rise of 25% in the minimum wage, that will not happen.”—[Official Report, 25 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 1038.]

Well, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor listened to that and initiated a rise of 38% to the minimum wage. The hon. Gentleman must be overjoyed, and will want to tell the House what a great man the Chancellor is and what a great Government we are.

[Chris Leslie]

Let me be clear: we are glad to see an increase in the minimum wage, but the problem emerges with the one-step-forward, two-steps-backward strategy. We cannot consider this question in the round by just brushing away the work penalty that has been introduced into the tax credit system. The Secretary of State must admit that people who depend on tax credits will lose out in the immediate period from April. Is that the case?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No, there is a clear question that needs to be answered. The hon. Gentleman has been asked it but he has not answered, and it would be helpful for us if he would: will he vote against the changes, and do the Opposition plan to reverse the changes on tax credits?

[Chris Leslie]

I cannot be much clearer in my opposition to the work penalty to the tax credit system. I do not think that it is right at this time to hurt those who are in work and in low pay. Of course we oppose the work penalty, but we support increases in the minimum wage. After all, it was our creation and something that Labour campaigned on in the election. We are delighted that Conservative Members now feel that they can adopt that policy when they campaigned so vociferously against it.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I notice that the hon. Gentleman said “at this time” when talking about tax credits. We can take note of that. It suggests to me—indeed, I am sure of it—that after the next couple of years Labour will have abandoned its opposition to the measure.

The measures that I set out in the Budget are vital to delivering the commitments that this Government have always made. We are committed to ensuring that a renewed economy goes hand in hand with a renewed social settlement, yet consider what we inherited in 2010: nearly one in five households with no—[Interruption.] Labour Members really do not like listening to this, but they have to hear it—[Interruption.] I will give way in a minute. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) will sit down. Let me remind her what Labour left behind when it left government: nearly one in five households had nobody working; 1.4 million people had been on benefits for most of the previous decade; the number of households where no one had ever worked had doubled; and close on half of all households in the social rented sector had no one in work. Surely that is a shameful record.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have to say to my hon. Friends that I really have to make some progress, because lots of Members want to speak. They will have a chance to speak later.

With universal credit, people will get up to 85% of their childcare costs paid, which is up from 70% under the previous system. In addition, there will be 15 hours of free childcare if someone has a two-year-old, or a three or four-year-old, and if they are working, while the 30 hours of free childcare a week will be worth £5,000 a year. By the way, the 30 hours of free childcare will start exactly when I said it would—it will be cutting in in the 2016-17 period.

[Chris Leslie]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is not delayed.

[Chris Leslie]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

No, it is not. I am telling the hon. Gentleman it is not, so he can sit down.

[Chris Leslie]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is important that the record is correct. I think the Secretary of State said that the childcare provisions were coming in in 2016 and that this was not a delay to the planned date of 2015. Am I right, Mr Deputy Speaker?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

Child Poverty

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Leslie

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will answer a question about the state of child poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The latest low-income statistics, based on the “Households Below Average Income” report, are published today, covering April 2013 to March 2014. They show that the percentage of individuals and children in relative low income is at its lowest since the 1980s. The latest figures also show that the proportion of people in both relative and absolute low income remained flat on the year for children, working-age adults and disabled people. For pensioners, there is a statistical change, but the proportion in relative and absolute low income has increased slightly.

The figures that I have quoted are measured against the retail prices index. As the House will know, the RPI has become a discredited measurement anyway, as the consumer prices index is used everywhere else in the world. Therefore, I have also taken the liberty of putting into the publication what the UK Statistics Authority has also produced: the effects when measured against CPI, which is much more widely used. Those figures are even more positive than the others we have seen today. Today’s figures demonstrate that if we deal with the root causes of poverty—as I believe this Government are doing—then even under a measure of poverty that I have consistently over the last few years described as flawed, we can still have an impact.

Let me remind the House of some of the important things that my Government have done to help families on low income through tackling root causes. In education, we have introduced the pupil premium and tackled failing schools with the free schools programme. There is our commitment to supporting families through the groundbreaking troubled families programme, which is turning really difficult families around in difficult communities. There is our investment in early-years support and childcare and our unprecedented back-to-work programmes that have helped support hundreds of thousands of people, once written off, back into work. We have also raised the tax threshold, which means that those on the lowest incomes often do not pay any tax, or if they do, they pay a lower rate of tax and keep more of their own income. Finally, there is our fundamental belief that the most powerful way to change lives is by creating a welfare system that makes work pay, writes no one off and supports people into work.

That is what we have been doing and what the left has failed to understand—particularly the Labour party. If you deal with the root causes of poverty, of which work is a critical component, many of the symptoms start to sort themselves out. Today’s figures show, I believe, how important it is to both balance the books and continue reforming welfare.

[Chris Leslie]

This morning’s statistics show a depressing slowdown in the progress that we should be making as a country towards the abolition of child poverty in the UK. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the numbers of children in absolute poverty have risen over his time in office? Will he confirm that last year, 19% of children were in absolute poverty, and that this year, 19% of children are still in absolute poverty? Will he also confirm that this year, 17% of children were in relative poverty, and that there are still 17% of children in relative poverty today?

Has the Secretary of State dropped the ambition to end child poverty by 2020? This is not a time for complacency. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has warned that there is now “no realistic hope” of that target being met. The Prime Minister says that he will be

“judged on how we tackle poverty”,

so what is the Government’s plan to catch up on the lost ground? Will the Secretary of State pause and reflect on the fact that nearly one in five children in this country is still growing up without some of the basics? We are talking about the lives of children up and down this country—about whether their parents can put money in the meter to keep their home warm in winter, and about whether they have something or very little for their tea.

The Child Poverty Act 2010, which Ministers opposite supported, placed one of the most important duties on the Government: to ensure that in the 21st century, children do not grow up suffering deprivation or lacking the necessities that most of us take for granted. Yet progress has now slowed to a snail’s pace. Would it not be shocking if the Government departed from the consensus that children should be free from such disadvantage by the end of this decade? I therefore ask the Secretary of State to give a straight answer to the House today: does he remain committed to the Child Poverty Act or not?

Do not the Government need a serious strategy to address low pay and boost productivity? They should be providing incentives for a living wage and new opportunities for high-quality skills, as a more positive route out of poverty. But what does this Secretary of State do when faced with an end to the progress in reducing child poverty? He threatens to cut £5 billion from the tax credits of children, which would mean 3.7 million working families losing, on average, £1,400 a year. That will not address child poverty; it will add to it.

Does the Secretary of State realise that it is parents who are already working who would be hit by such a decision? How does it help to make work pay to pull the rug from underneath them in that way? Why is he trying to kid people into thinking that such a hit to incomes can be easily replaced? Unless he is planning a rise of 25% in the minimum wage, that will not happen.

Labour lifted more than 1 million children out of relative poverty and more than 2 million children out of absolute poverty. On the Secretary of State’s watch, progress has stalled. Is it true that, instead of developing policies to tackle low pay, the Government, faced with statistics that show such poor progress, will try to erase the figure altogether, redefine the measure and pretend that the problem has gone away? Is he really going to propose that statistical redefinition? The Conservative party manifesto promised that they would

“work to eliminate child poverty and introduce better measures to drive real change”.

Nobody realised that meant that they would just change the measure. Instead of shifting the goalposts when things get uncomfortable, Ministers should take responsibility and tackle low pay, not attack the low-paid.