European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

It is often said that there is nothing simple about Brexit, but the choice before the House today is perfectly simple: do we implement the treaty that has been agreed with the EU or do we not? That is the choice. If we choose not to, the outcome is clear: we leave the transition period without a deal—without a deal on security, trade or fisheries, without protection for our manufacturing sector, farming or countless British businesses, and without a foothold to build a future relationship with the EU. Anyone choosing that option today knows there is no time to renegotiate, no better deal coming in the next 24 hours, no extensions, no Humble Addresses and no SO 24s—Standing Order No. 24 debates—so choosing that option leads to one place: no deal.

Or we can take the only other option that is available and implement the treaty that has been negotiated. This is a thin deal. It has many flaws—I will come to that in a moment.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just a minute.

But a thin deal is better than no deal, and not implementing this deal would mean immediate tariffs and quotas with the EU, which will push up prices and drive businesses to the wall. It will mean huge gaps in security, a free-for-all on workers’ rights and environmental protections, and less stability for the Northern Ireland protocol. Leaving without a deal would also show that the UK is not capable of agreeing the legal basis for our future relationship with our EU friends and partners. That matters, because I want Britain to be an outward-looking, optimistic and rules-based country—one that does deals, signs treaties and abides by them.

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just one moment.

It matters that Britain has negotiated a treaty with the EU Commission and the 27 member states; and it matters, ultimately, that the UK has not gone down the blind alley of no deal. It means that our future relationship starts on the basis of agreement, not acrimony.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for setting out the position of the Labour party, but he used to have six tests for any Brexit deal that he would be willing to support. How many of those tests does he believe the agreement actually meets?

[Keir Starmer]

There is only one choice today, which is to vote for implementing this deal or to vote for no deal, and those who vote no are voting for no deal. I will give way again to the hon. Gentleman. If he is voting no, does he want no to succeed at 2.30 this afternoon when the House divides?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am afraid the leader of the Labour party has accepted the spin of the Government that this is a binary choice between deal and no deal. It says a lot about the way his position has changed over recent weeks.

[Keir Starmer]

This is the nub of it. Those voting no today want yes. They want others to save them from their own vote. Voting no, wanting yes. That is the truth of the situation, and that is why my party has taken a different path.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The House will know that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) is a more cheerful person than his speech suggested. He gave us a 25-minute lesson in humility, for which we are grateful, and talked about ignoring popular votes. In the 2019 election, the SNP received 1,200,000 votes, and in 2014 the vote against independence was 2 million. That is a gap of 800,000—two thirds of the vote that the right hon. Gentleman leads in this House. He should be cautious both in predicting the future and in interpreting the past.

As Father of the House, I ought to recognise that the only significant speech ever made by a Father of the House was in the Narvik-Norway debate in May 1940, when in about his 11th year as Father of the House, David Lloyd George probably gave people the confidence to withhold their votes from the Government. I do not argue that today. We need to say, as many have said—except for the leader of the SNP—that this debate and vote is about whether we go for this deal or for no deal. In that, I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. I give my vote, although in the referendum I argued that, on balance, it was better to stay in. We lost and, unlike the SNP, one has to accept the result of a referendum.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

No, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

When my father, who survived serious personal injury during the war, was involved in the first negotiations about joining the European Union, I asked him for his views on the economic impact. He said that, on balance, it did not make much difference. We joined in 1973— two years before I was elected to the House of Commons—but it did not make a big difference to our economy until after 1979, when the change in Britain resulted in us going from being the sick man of Europe to being people who were looked on with respect, with many asking, “How did you do it?” The answer was in part by chance and in part by freedom and a cautious approach to a free market economy, led by Margaret Thatcher, who also led the significant debates to stay in the European Union in 1975. That was one of the best speeches she ever made and it can be read via the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

I was nominated, or vouched for, as a candidate by Sir Robin Turton, a leading anti-marketeer. Margaret Thatcher and I—and, I argue, the country—won the June 1975 by-election after Neil Martin, a leading campaigner against staying in the European Common Market, asked Conservatives to vote for me, even though he and I disagreed, in the same way that Sir Robin Turton and I disagreed when he supported me.

We are often taken down paths we do not expect—the Prime Minister can probably vouch for that himself. I believe that we have to make a success of our present situation, and we have to make sure, as one of my friends kindly said, that we open a new chapter in a vibrant relationship with our continental cousins. We can, some of us, look with affection on the past, with admiration at what has been achieved in this past year, and with confidence to the future.

We ought to stop using this as an argument for Scottish independence. We ought to accept that the Labour party has, in many of its proud traditions, put the national interest before party interest. I say to the Prime Minister, as I said to him in reasonable privacy one day, that we want a leader we can trust and a cause that is just, so will he please lead us in the right direction in future?

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

It is a privilege to be able to speak in this debate and to follow the right hon. Gentleman, whom I consider a friend. I was going to start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but perhaps I should call him my right hon. Friend the Member for Athens, as our hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) described him as a modern Pericles.

The Prime Minister deserves the full plaudits for the delivery of this trade deal. He is entitled, I think, to a moment of satisfaction. Despite what all those doomsayers have said—perpetually during his process through this, they have said there was no chance he would achieve a deal, and therefore we would have to leave with no deal—he has defied that and he has shown us that consistency, determination and optimism are key drivers in any negotiation, and I thank him for that. I also thank the negotiators, Lord Frost and others of his team, who have delivered this in the face of quite a lot of difficulty.

For me, it brings to an end a 29-year period. Back at the time of the Maastricht treaty, I had just entered Parliament, and I was faced with the choice of whether to vote for what I saw as a huge extension of powers from what became the European Union. I made the mistake of entering the Smoking Room, where my hon. Friend the Member for Stone laid his arm upon my shoulder, and my career was ruined thereafter. I chose directly as a result of those blandishments to vote against Maastricht. I do not regret it, but I do say that from that moment onwards I was certain that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union, because it was getting more and more centralised, and it was not what we had joined. I voted to join. I am pleased that we have delivered on this deal, and it is my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister who has done that.

I say to those who are going to vote against the deal today that they cannot escape reality. To be fair to the Leader of the Opposition, he made it very clear that those who vote against the deal today are voting for no deal. We do not have to have that written on a piece of paper, because that would defy any of the logic that this place is about.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I do not believe that what the right hon. Gentleman says is the case. We are voting on the merit of the agreement, and the reality is that the agreement introduces a whole layer of extra bureaucracy for citizens and businesses in the UK. It is a charter for red tape.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I always love colleagues in this place trying to explain their actions, but it comes down to one simple point: we all know in this House that if we defeat an objective, we are left with what was there before. What is there before in this case is no deal, and I am sorry for the hon. Gentleman if he believes he is just voting against something that he thinks is wrong, because he is voting at the same time therefore for the status quo. The status quo is we leave the day after tomorrow with no deal, and there is no escaping that I am afraid, no matter what some wish for.

I welcome this deal. It is not perfect, and nobody here is going to say we can get a perfect deal, because there are two sides in this discussion, but it is a huge advance on where we might have been. We take back control of our sovereignty. We are a sovereign nation again, and with that power we can set our own direction in international as well as domestic relations. I simply say to those who do not see this: being able to regain that control is a huge step forward. Bringing back the power to this House and this Parliament is what the Prime Minister has achieved. Yes, there are things in this that will need to time to develop—I accept that fishing is one; we have a better deal now, but five years from now we will have the key opportunity to decide how those waters will be run, to our benefit, and I congratulate the Prime Minister on that. Importantly, we also have the power to reset the environmental running of those waters. For far too long, too many large trawlers have literally destroyed many of our fishing areas, and I urge my Government to start the process, literally tomorrow, of making sure we bring environmentalism and control of this back to our area.

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[Dr Fox]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and not only are they effective mechanisms, but they keep us in line with the best international practice that exists, which of course enables us to move forward with greater predictability. On that point, there are a number of specific elements to welcome. The first is the acceptance of the concept—

[Jonathan Edwards]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Dr Fox]

I will not, I am afraid.

The first element is the concept of non-regression as a means of ensuring minimum standards. We accept that the maintenance of those high standards has fixed costs in international commerce, which is why we will always need to compete at the high end of the quality market globally in goods and services. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, we cannot ever become a bargain basement economy because the fixed costs we have are simply too high and, quite rightly, the British people would not allow us to abandon the standards we have. It means that we will have to move forward with the natural innovation and creativity of the British people expanding our export culture, because the bottom line is that without more exports and without more actual trade, any trade agreement is simply a piece of paper. It is upon the natural innovation of the British people that our prosperity will be built in the future.

The second element, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) alluded, is the fact that the concept in dispute resolution of international arbitration is done without the European Court of Justice, which brings us in line with international trends and practices. That takes us to the third element: the mechanism of determining divergence. If there is no ability to determine to diverge, we are not sovereign. If there were not a price to be paid for divergence, the EU would never have reached the agreement with us. What would have been unacceptable is the concept of dynamic alignment—automatically taking EU rules over which we had no control into our law—but what is acceptable is penalties for divergence, which are clearly set out. They are proportionate, and there is a requirement to show harm, rather than their simply being put into law. The most important element of all in this is that it is we who will weigh up the costs and benefits of any potential disalignment. It is our choice—that is one of the key elements that we have in the future.

Today opens up a new chapter in our politics. It is the choice of maintaining and strengthening an independent United Kingdom; or of the new ranks of the rejoiners, who would have us thrust back into European accession politics all over again, consuming all our political time and energy, which is a future that I believe the British public will reject. There are things that we still have to sort out—the future of Gibraltar is one of the important ones, as is seeing further details on services, including financial services—but this is a historic day in our democracy. We have delivered on the referendum and our election promises. If, for the Opposition, those are not reasons to be cheerful, they are at least reasons of which we should all be proud.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Our country is gripped by two crises: Britain’s hospitals are overwhelmed and Britain’s economy is in the worst recession for 300 years. A responsible Government, faced with those crises for people’s health and jobs, would not pass this bad deal, for it will make British people poorer and British people less safe.

This is not really a trade deal at all; it is a loss of trade deal. It is the first trade deal in history to put up barriers to trade. Is that really the Government’s answer to British businesses fearing for their futures and British workers fearing for their jobs? We were told that leaving the EU would cut red tape, but the deal represents the biggest increase in red tape in British history, with 23 new committees to oversee this new trade bureaucracy, 50,000 new customs officials and 400 million new forms. Some analysts estimate the cost of this new red-tape burden for British business at over £20 billion every year. This is not the frictionless trade that the Prime Minister promised.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I fully agree with the points that the right hon. Member is making. Is he concerned at reports that the lack of equivalence for sanitary and phytosanitary measures means that Welsh farmers will face more red tape exporting to the EU than New Zealand farmers?

[Ed Davey]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman; he is absolutely right. The more businesses see this, the more they will be very disappointed. These reels of red tape will put more jobs at risk at a time when so many are already being lost to covid, and all these new trade barriers will raise prices in the shops at a time when so many families are already struggling to make ends meet. From the failure to agree a good deal for Britain’s services sector—80% of our economy—to the failure to agree a stable deal that investors will trust, this is a lousy deal for Britain’s economic future.

The Conservatives can no longer claim to be the party of business, and with this deal they can no longer claim to be the party of law and order, for our police will no longer have real-time, immediate access to critical European crime-fighting databases such as Schengen II. Such sources of key information about criminals and crimes are used every single day by our police; in one year alone, they are used over 600 million times, often in the heat of an investigation. Thanks to the Prime Minister’s deal, British police will lose that privileged access and criminals will escape.

There are so many things wrong with this deal, from its failings on the environment to the broken promises for our young people on Erasmus, yet the irony is that, for a deal that is supposed to restore parliamentary sovereignty, our Parliament has been given only hours to scrutinise it while the European Parliament has days. And business has just days to adjust to this deal. The Liberal Democrats called on the Prime Minister to negotiate a grace period to help businesses adjust, forgetting, of course, that this Government no longer care about business.

The Government leave us no choice but to vote against this deal today. Perhaps that will not surprise too many people—the Liberal Democrats are, after all, a proud pro-European party who fought hard against Brexit—but we have genuinely looked at this post-Brexit trade deal to assess whether it is a good basis for the future relationship between the UK and the EU, and it is not. To those who argue that a vote against this deal is a vote for no deal, I say this: the Liberal Democrats led the charge against no deal when this Prime Minister was selling the virtues of no deal.

Today, the question is simple: is this a good deal for the British people? It is a deal that costs jobs, increases red tape, hits our service-based economy, undermines our police and damages our young people’s future. It is a bad deal, and the Liberal Democrats will vote against it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. As he knows, I am a great admirer of him and of his colleague Alex Neil. One of the things about the approach that we are taking is that common frameworks work alongside the internal market Bill. Indeed, the House of Lords confirmed that approach just this week.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)]

The House will know that last week I made a statement confirming that vice-president Maroš Šefčovič of the European Commission and I had reached agreement in principle on the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol. As set out in my written statement issued yesterday, I am pleased to say that vice-president Šefčovič and I shall be meeting again later today in a formal session of the withdrawal agreement Joint Committee. I look forward to updating the House on the outcome of that meeting.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I was contacted late last night by a businessman in my constituency who is reliant on imports from the continent. He cannot find a haulage firm willing to carriage on his behalf, due to the current delays at the ports. He is very concerned; unless this issue is resolved, his business will not survive into the new year. What is the Minister’s advice to my constituent?

[Michael Gove]

I know what a diligent constituency Member the hon. Gentleman is. If he gets in touch with my office, I will be directly in touch with the business concerned.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

From 1 January onwards, if he was a business owner primarily exporting to the UK, would the right hon. Gentleman prefer to be located in Northern Ireland or Wales?

[Michael Gove]

That is the most difficult question I have ever faced in this House, because I love Northern Ireland and I love Wales as well, and there are all sorts of advantages to being located in either jurisdiction. I suspect that my choice would be made even more difficult if I had to choose between, say, Carmarthenshire and North Antrim—two uniquely beautiful parts of the United Kingdom. It is Sophie’s choice, in business terms, because wherever you are located in the United Kingdom, you benefit from having a strong Government determined to ensure that this country can take advantage of global opportunities.

Covid-19: Winter Plan

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are still hoping to reconnect with the Prime Minister at some point, but in the meantime we will continue with Jonathan Edwards.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Diolch, Mr Speaker. The news of the successful development of three vaccines is to be warmly welcomed because it offers light at the end of the tunnel. However, the Secretary of State will recognise that distribution will be a huge logistical challenge. What guarantee can he give that the Welsh Government will receive any additional resources they require to meet the task at hand?

[Matt Hancock]

The vaccines programme is a UK programme, and of course the costs of the roll-out incur Barnett consequentials and will therefore be available across the whole of the UK. We are working closely with the NHS in Wales to make sure that happens as smoothly as possible, but it will be the most almighty huge logistical effort for everyone involved.

Public Services

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an absolutely spot-on point. We will engage with the unions that serve so many public sector workers so well and, as well as engaging with Frances O’Grady and Len McCluskey, we are also grateful for the work of so many other trade union leaders. We will make sure that we work with them in order to ensure that there are safe workplaces for all.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC) [V]]

Global experience indicates that widespread community testing is vital in tackling coronavirus. The Welsh Government had secured a deal with Roche to do 5,000 tests a day, which would have put Wales on a similar level of testing per head of some of the best-performing countries in the world only for Wales to be seemingly gazumped by the British Government. The UK Government are building mega labs in England and Scotland. Will they also commit to building a mega lab in Wales?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point. Testing is something that needs to be done in a co-ordinated way across the United Kingdom. It is the case that the incidence of test take-up in some parts of the United Kingdom, particularly in Scotland, has been less than existing capacity. None the less, I am sure that Welsh scientists and Welsh medics will play a role in ensuring that we can test many more in the future.

Budget Resolutions

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we flex the rules to accommodate the circumstances. My point is that when we talk about headroom within our fiscal rules, we have to make sure that the number we are focused on is as accurate as possible. Given what is happening with coronavirus and the fact that the OBR struck its forecasts some time ago, the current forecasts are almost certainly already out of date.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Once again the OBR figures show a downgrade, so do today’s Budget announcements not mask a decade of failure of economic policy by the British Government?

[Mel Stride]

Quite the reverse. I began by pointing out that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. They certainly were not strong in 2010. We inherited something of a mess from the Labour party.

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[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Father of the House. I agree with his view that we are on the cusp of a very major change in the tax base, and it is important that we debate what the nature of that change should be.

We are living in very uncertain times. We are on our third Conservative Prime Minister in four years, and this Budget was presented by the fourth Conservative Chancellor in as many years—a Chancellor who has been in place for barely a month and who had to agree to play second fiddle to Dominic Cummings as the price of his sudden elevation.

No Budget was delivered last year, and the Office for Budget Responsibility last published an official forecast nearly a year ago. To make up for that, we are now told to expect that 2020 will be a year of two Budgets and a spending review, so what the Chancellor announced today may be only the first in a trilogy of fiscal events this year.

This Government of Brexit obsessives have deliberately chosen to inflict a high level of uncertainty and disruption on our future trade arrangements. There is still the prospect of an effective no-deal cliff edge at the end of 2020 should the talks with the EU go badly. The Bank of England’s own assessment points to an 8.25% hit to GDP by 2024 in the event of a sudden, unmanaged WTO outcome to the talks, yet the Chancellor barely, if at all, mentioned Brexit in his hour-long speech.

If that were not enough, the country is now facing an immediate and massive threat caused by the rapid advance of coronavirus across the globe. In his evidence to the Treasury Committee last week, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England said that coronavirus is likely to have a large but temporary effect on the global economy. Today, announcing an emergency interest rate cut of half a percentage point and an offer to banks of four years of cheap funding to ensure they continue to lend, the Bank of England noted a “marked deterioration” in the outcome of already weak economic growth in the coming months. With the persistence of historically low interest rates since 2008, the efficacy of monetary policy is now questionable. That makes the Chancellor’s fiscal adjustment and supply-side response in today’s Budget crucial in mitigating the coronavirus crisis.

Clearly, fiscal policy needed to be looser, temporarily at least, to protect otherwise viable businesses from being destroyed by the short-term abnormal supply and demand shock, so I welcome the Chancellor’s fiscal stimulus package, which he costs at £30 billion. We all hope he has done enough, and we all trust that he will return with more if the situation demands.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I echo the hon. Lady’s comments. The announcements on support for small businesses are welcome, but I have been contacted by many small businesses in my constituency that are worried about extra charges due to the new Financial Conduct Authority regime for overdrafts. The Treasury needs to look at this before the regime comes into force in May.

[Ms Eagle]

I certainly hope the banks will recognise the Government’s generosity to them on lending and buffers and will pass that on to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, as well as mine.

Climate change and the commitment to reach net zero carbon by 2050 also pose a major challenge, and the effect of being unprepared has been tragically evident in the flooding experienced this winter. This Budget offered an opportunity to address the need to introduce transformative policies to get us on the path to net zero before it is too late, but I do not see an awful lot of detail. I welcome the increase in expenditure on flood defences, which would have been even better had it not been preceded by major cuts in expenditure on flood defences. I look forward to the Treasury’s net zero review, which needs to outline the path forward to net zero, but I am puzzled about agriculture being excluded from the announcement on red diesel. Agriculture is the major sector that uses red diesel, so that needs more detailed scrutiny.

The UK economy remains weak in the face of these formidable challenges. The Office for National Statistics has just revealed that the UK economy did not grow at all in the last quarter of 2019, and annual growth of 1.4% last year is one of the weakest on record. The OBR’s forecast for this year was put together before the larger effects of coronavirus were taken into account. Its forecast for expenditure, excluding those effects, is an anaemic 1.1%.

The OECD recently said it expects coronavirus to cut global growth in half. If that is true, it puts us down to about 0.6% for the year, which is one of the worst performances we could expect to see. Monday showed that, even now, the markets are pricing in a recession, so there are vulnerabilities in growth.

There are also vulnerabilities in the UK labour market, in which 3.7 million people are in insecure jobs and have not seen real wages rise in 12 years. Inequality is rising, and one in five workers are earning less than the real living wage. Child poverty is soaring and is set to reach 5 million by 2024 due to the ongoing cuts to benefits and family support, of which there was no mention whatsoever in the entirety of the Chancellor’s speech.

Nearly 1 million workers are on zero-hours contracts, and 2 million are not earning enough to qualify for statutory sick pay. Those in the gig economy and the self-employed are similarly vulnerable to a loss of income so, as far as they go, I welcome the Chancellor’s announcements on statutory sick pay and support for those who self-isolate, but I am extremely sceptical about his announcement that those who work on zero-hours contracts will apparently be expected to apply for employment and support allowance in order to be compensated for doing the right thing. That is likely to be highly inadequate, and we need to return to that issue. I suspect the answer will be statutory sick pay for all from day one.

The lack of rights at work is a barrier in the fight against coronavirus, and it prevents a desperately needed transformation in productivity and investment in skills. The fight against in-work poverty barely features in this Government’s thinking. Recent analysis by the Resolution Foundation has shown that the poorest fifth of the population have experienced a 7% fall in their disposable household income in the past two years, as a direct result of choices this Government have made, which were not reversed by the Chancellor. A decade of swingeing cuts has decimated public services. Public sector workers have had to do more with less, and be rewarded by suffering a real-terms fall in pay and conditions. The NHS has 17,000 fewer beds. There are 43,000 nursing vacancies and 10,000 doctor vacancies in the NHS that we are expecting to deal with the coronavirus crisis. There is a £6.3 billion shortfall in the resources needed for social care. We can welcome the first new investment in a decade, but we have to be clear that it barely begins to restore what has been taken away.

We also have to remember that infrastructure spending, although welcome, does not deal with the current expenditure squeeze, which is ongoing. My local authority, Wirral Council, has £635 less per household to spend than it did in 2010. Merseyside police has seen £136 million of cuts since 2010, so the £28 million extra pledged in the spending review is welcome, but £5 million of it has to come from council tax increases and it will not restore what has been lost. We see the same in area after area: the Government trying to take credit, as though they were a new Government entirely, and distancing themselves from the Governments of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and her predecessor, who did all this cutting in the first place.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Today’s overspun announcements of a £600 billion investment programme are welcomed in the self-same Tory tabloids that denounced Labour’s manifesto plans to invest £500 billion as “ruinous Marxist nonsense.” Apparently, £100 billion extra is acceptable if it is the Tories doing it. Let’s face it: we have heard it all before. Let us wait to see what they deliver before we pat them on the back. We must never forget that the Government would not have to allocate £2.5 billion to fix 50 million potholes had they not neglected our roads system with their ruinous austerity policies in the first place.

The Conservative manifesto promised no increases to income tax, which was not mentioned today, national insurance or VAT, and the Chancellor’s fiscal rules, which he is apparently reviewing, give him only minimum headroom for any non-investment spending. His choice, therefore, is to find tax increases elsewhere or increase borrowing, which proves that the extreme cuts that have been inflicted on our society were not necessary in the first place and that the misery they have unleashed has been needlessly cruel. Starting to put right some of the damage they have done is welcome, but we will not forget the suffering and hardship they have caused, especially to the poorest in society. We will not forget the soaring levels of child poverty the Government have chosen to inflict, and the waste of potential and life opportunities that this indifference implies. We will not forget the attacks on the most vulnerable and the Government’s neglect of social care. We will continue to hold them to account for it at this and future Budgets.

European Union: Future Relationship

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am a restless seeker after consensus wherever it can be found, but, more important than that, I am a democrat. The British people made it clear in the referendum and again in the general election that they wanted us to leave the European Union, and the Prime Minister made it clear in the general election, as he did during the referendum campaign, that that meant leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. We will not move from those principles.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Regrettably, the British Government, through this statement, have decided to take a belligerent approach to the second phase of Brexit negotiations. Their opening move is to try to reopen the agreement reached after the first phase of Brexit, and to set further arbitrary deadlines for the infinitely more complicated second phase of Brexit dealing with trade. Rather than playing Russian roulette with people’s jobs and economic wellbeing, would it not be better for the Government to take a grown-up approach to these negotiations and remove any arbitrary deadlines for the conclusions of the negotiations?

[Michael Gove]

There are no arbitrary deadlines. The deadline of 31 December for agreement is in the political declaration. If we were to take that out, we would be altering the political declaration. However, we are honouring the political declaration, and far from being belligerent, all we are doing is simply setting a deadline. When I was an editor in the world of newspapers, setting a deadline for correspondents was not an exercise in belligerence; it was a way of making sure that we could serve the people.

Transport Infrastructure

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is entirely right. HS2’s investment will not just drive the construction sector—it will drive the economy across this country, including in higher education.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Last time I looked on a map, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds were all in England. So can the Prime Minister explain why Scotland and Northern Ireland get a 100% Barnett rating from HS2 while Wales gets nought per cent?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, as the hon. Gentleman knows very well from looking at the map, north Wales will benefit from the Crewe link. I might say to the representative from Wales that it is high time that the Welsh Labour Government got on and delivered the M4 bypass at the Brynglas tunnels. If they will not do it, we in this Government will.

Local Government Finance

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been a Member long enough to remember the last Labour Government introducing Total Place, under which all the responsible agencies—the police, the housing associations, the local authorities and the central Government Departments—worked together to tackle many of these issues in the round. One of the devastating impacts of austerity over the past decade has been the breaking away from that collaboration, that partnership approach, to a situation where each agency tends to cost-shunt. Those agencies are making cuts, so it becomes somebody else’s problem—they push it on to another part of the public sector.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some important points about the situation in England. He may be aware of the fiscal analysis by the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, which shows that there has been about a £1 billion cut to local government finance in Wales over the past 10 years. I know this is a block grant situation, and that the block grant has been reduced in real terms, but Labour Ministers in Wales have decided to swing the axe at local government.

[Andrew Gwynne]

As the hon. Gentleman states, the block grant is set by this place, so the Welsh Assembly Government have had to ensure that their spending meets the money granted by Westminster. I have been sent a budget briefing from the Welsh Government about their intentions not only to increase the adult social care budget in the year ahead, but to give a real-terms increase in local government spending. I welcome that overwhelmingly, because Welsh councils, like English councils, need good public services.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution
Friday 20th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I also beg that we come together, as a new Parliament, to break the deadlock and, finally, to get Brexit done. Now is the moment, as we leave the European Union, to reunite our country, and allow the warmth and natural affection we all share for our European neighbours to find renewed expression in one great new national project of building a deep, special and democratically accountable partnership with those nations we are proud to call our closest friends. Because this Bill, and this juncture in our national story, must not be seen as a victory for one party over another or one faction over another; this is the time when we move on and discard the old labels of “leave” and “remain”. In fact, the very words seem tired to me as I speak them—as defunct as “big-enders” and “little-enders” or as “Montagues” and “Capulets” at the end of the play. Now is the time to act together as one reinvigorated nation, one United Kingdom, filled with renewed confidence in our national destiny and determined, at last, to take advantage of the opportunities that now lie before us. The whole purpose of our withdrawal agreement is to set this in motion and avoid any further delay.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

In the hope that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to have any further delay, I give way to him.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The Bill contains provisions not to extend the transition phase—phase 2 of Brexit. Is there not a danger of that strengthening the hand of the European Union in those negotiations? Why has the Prime Minister boxed himself into a corner?

[The Prime Minister]

On the contrary, I think that most people would agree that this strengthens our negotiating position; if we have learnt anything from the experience of the last three years, it is that drift and dither means more acrimony and anguish. There would be nothing more dangerous for the new future that we want to build than allowing the permanent possibility of extending—