European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Yvette Cooper

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady knows I support the broad thrust of this Bill, but I am concerned that it does not say when the Prime Minister has to ask for an extension, and it also does not seem to provide for a situation where Parliament has asked her to go for an extension longer than 22 May but she does not want to do so. It does not seem to have enough teeth. Can the right hon. Lady address those points?

[Yvette Cooper]

It sets out that:

“On the day after the day on which this Act receives Royal Assent, the Prime Minister must move a motion in the House of Commons”.

It also provides for the Government to be mandated by what the House has voted for. This is a two-clause Bill and that is all it is; it is very simple. It requires the Prime Minister to put the motion to Parliament proposing an extension of article 50. It asks the Prime Minister to define in the motion the length of the extension. Parliament can debate the motion and can seek to amend it in the normal way, and the conclusion is binding on the Government. The Prime Minister has to take that to the EU. If the EU Council agrees, then that is resolved; if the EU Council proposes a different date, the Bill proposes for the Prime Minister to come back to the House with a new motion.

The Bill simply provides for a simple, practical and transparent process to underpin the Prime Minister’s plan. It ensures that the extension has the support of the House of Commons, but also that we keep the parliamentary safeguard in place. So whatever is agreed by any further talks or indicative processes, or by the Prime Minister’s approach, she herself has said nothing can be implemented by 12 April. She has recognised that she cannot implement anything in only nine days, which is why the extension is needed. This is a hugely important Bill.

Health, Social Care and Security

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

It is good to follow the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who always makes a thought-provoking speech. I join the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary in paying tribute to our police force and emergency services, who have dealt with so many difficult incidents in the past few weeks, and in expressing sympathy with the victims of both the terror attacks and the Grenfell fire.

The Queen’s Speech suggests that the Government are carrying on as if, in the words of the Prime Minister, “nothing has changed, nothing has changed.” In fact, very much has changed. The Prime Minister called the election wanting a landslide. Instead, she has a hung Parliament. That means that this hung Parliament has to work differently, and that the Queen’s Speech has to respond differently too. Many Members wish to speak in the debate today, so I will keep my remarks short and concentrate on two areas where the Government need to change course as a result of the hung Parliament delivered to us by the electorate: public services and the approach to the Brexit negotiations.

This week, the Government recognised the importance of investing more in public services in Northern Ireland. They have rightly supported additional investment in schools and hospitals in Belfast, but what about those in Birmingham, Bristol and many other parts of the country? I support the Democratic Unionist party’s request for more investment to stop school cuts in Portadown, but I want to stop the school cuts in Pontefract as well. The DUP is right to request more support for jobs in County Down but what about in Castleford and in other places across the rest of the country?

The Government cannot say to parents, patients and people who need the support of police officers right across the country that, as a result of this hung Parliament, they cannot have more support for their public services—that they will have to face further cuts to their public services, with teachers lost from our schools and services squeezed from our national health service—but those in Northern Ireland can have additional funding. They cannot say to Mark Rowley, Cressida Dick and the other police chiefs doing such a magnificent job in difficult circumstances despite being overstretched that the Government can somehow find £1 billion to support Northern Ireland and to support those in the Government keeping their own jobs, but they cannot provide the additional resources the police and emergency services need to support their jobs at this difficult time.

That is why the Government have to rethink. It would be easy to rethink the police cuts and to decide not to go ahead with the cuts to capital gains tax that the Chancellor has pledged. It would be easy to cancel those cuts and put the investment into additional police officers on our streets. It would be easy for the Government to recognise that if we care about recruitment and retention in our public services—in particular in our national health service, which in many parts of the country is struggling to recruit the nurses and doctors it needs—then continuing with the public sector pay cap will make it harder and harder for our NHS and all our public services to get the talented staff they need. In the end, that will cost all of us, including the Government, more in the long run.

The second area in which the Government need to change course is their approach to the Brexit negotiations. Britain voted for Brexit in the referendum and Parliament has voted to trigger article 50, but the Prime Minister did not win the free hand that she wanted for the Brexit negotiations. She asked for it, but voters said no. That means that the Government need to change their approach to the Brexit negotiations. If we are to get a deal that is not only the best for our country but is also sustainable—one that does not unravel in a year or two years’ time and does not end up undermined because there is so much disagreement, not just in this House but across the country—then there must be an effort to build a consensus around that deal as well, not just to get agreement in Europe but to build that consensus across Britain.

That is why I urge the Government not to keep pursuing the negotiations through a narrow cabal but instead to open up the process—to set up a cross-party commission to hold the Brexit negotiations or to find other ways to include more voices and more transparency, and to strengthen the powers of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, so that this House can properly have its say as well. I know that that means difficult ways of working and will be a challenge to those on both Front Benches, but they, and the whole House and the whole country, will benefit if we find a different way to do this.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful and persuasive speech as usual. I agree with what she has just said. Would she extend that to giving the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government a place and a say in the negotiations to leave the EU?

[Yvette Cooper]

I certainly think that the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, and Northern Ireland too, need to be involved in this commission and this process, because it has got to work for the whole of the United Kingdom. I think that is possible, but only if all parts of the House and those on both Front Benches behave in a different way and recognise the responsibility that has been placed on us by the hung Parliament that we have been given. That means, too, that the great repeal Bill that the Government want to put forward can no longer be a Bill that simply accrues powers to the Government through Henry VIII powers, because in a hung Parliament the legislature simply cannot hand over huge power to the Executive. The legislature itself must be involved in those decisions, step by step along the way.

The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex was right when he said that the course before us is more complex than anything he or I can remember at any time. With a hung Parliament we will have to work differently, but that has to start with the Government. I urge them to start today by changing course on public services and, as the amendment before us asks, on public sector pay and supporting our public sector workers, but also by changing course in the approach to Brexit, in a way that can build consensus, not division. That ought to be the spirit of what the Prime Minister has said.