Brexit Readiness: Operation Yellowhammer

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady raises an important point, but I stressed earlier that some prices will rise and others will fall, not just in the event of a no-deal Brexit but in the event of global economic circumstances. If prices fall for consumers, that is good for them and good for business.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State envisage using powers available to him under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, and if so, what might he use them for? In those circumstances, can he guarantee that Parliament will remain open to ensure that there is scrutiny of those powers?

[Michael Gove]

I am tempted to say don’t tempt me, but actually I have no plans to use those powers.

Prorogation of Parliament

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for this very important debate, Ms Ryan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for her excellent contribution: she spoke a great deal of sense. We probably disagree about some of the eventual outcomes, but her defence of democracy was first class, and I wholeheartedly support it.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) talked about a lot of issues, but something I regretted hearing from him was that we should not be here contemplating our navels. That is certainly not something that I do when I am here, and no hon. Member I am aware of spends their time here doing that. They are here representing their constituents and doing their very best for them. It would be wrong to suggest to the public at large that our time here is not important: it is normally well spent.

Many of my constituents signed the petition to block Prorogation. More than 10 times as many added their names to the petition against Prorogation as signed the one to support its implementation. I suspect that the number who are concerned about events will continue to rise. Many constituents have contacted me through social media and email. I agree with them that for the Prime Minister to shut down Parliament at such an important time in our country’s history, in the end stages of the Brexit process with by far the largest negotiations this country has undertaken in at least half a century, is nothing short of an outrage.

The Prime Minister is not content with ignoring Parliament: we know that he ignores his Cabinet colleagues, too. The number of people who were consulted about this decision before it was made was small. It is no wonder that most Cabinet members were not consulted, given that many of them spoke strongly against Prorogation during the Tory leadership campaign. For example, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) said:

“You don’t deliver on democracy by trashing democracy.”

The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) said that the idea was an “archaic manoeuvre”. The right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said:

“I think it would be wrong for many reasons. I think it would not be true to the best traditions of British democracy.”

I agree with what they said, even if they do not agree with themselves any more.

[Paul Scully]

Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that all three of those quotes were in response to the idea of proroguing Parliament and bridging 31 October—in other words, taking Prorogation beyond the date when we are supposed to leave the European Union?

[Justin Madders]

I do not know the precise context of those comments. What is clear is that Prorogation is designed to have the same effect—to shut down debate and stop Parliament analysing properly the effects of our exiting the EU by way of a deal or not. I am afraid that it amounts to the same thing—an absolute outrage for democracy.

That is where we are. Parliament will be suspended later today because the Prime Minister desires to avoid scrutiny and force us into a no-deal Brexit, despite the Government’s own analysis showing that a no-deal Brexit would mean food shortages, medicine shortages and chaos at our ports, and despite Parliament legislating to take no deal off the table.

The Government have no mandate from the British people to leave the EU without a deal, but what else would we expect from this Prime Minister? It was reported last week that his chief of staff described negotiations as a scam and an attempt to run down the clock. Even the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) has decided that she can no longer take part in this charade. She resigned from the Cabinet this weekend because the Government had not undertaken serious formal negotiations with the EU. That exposes the truth of what the Government are about.

Let us be absolutely frank: the Government are about hiding from scrutiny and running away from the reality and the consequences of their decisions. It is a desperate attempt to cut and run before the truth catches up with them. A string of local companies came to see me over the summer with genuine concerns about the impact of a no-deal Brexit. Between them, they employ thousands of people. The Government’s decisions have the potential to wreak havoc on the local economy.

This is about not just the consequences of leaving without a deal, but Government decisions relating to that that could be changed. There are industry-wide issues, and that will almost certainly mean that jobs in other parts of the country will be affected. We are denied the opportunity to hold the Government to account on these matters, because we know that the truth is that they cannot justify their decisions. We are in the middle of the biggest constitutional crisis that this country has ever seen. We are on the cusp of enacting the biggest changes that this country has made for a generation, yet the Government are acting as if there is nothing to talk about. What an outrage!

If we leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal, we will be woefully underprepared. It is simply inconceivable that all the legislation needed for an orderly exit is place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) said. To my knowledge, there are at least six Bills that have not been passed and would need to be enacted for that to happen. If we crash out on the 31st without a deal—let us not forget that, despite what the Prime Minister said, that is still an option if he can persuade Parliament that it is the right thing to do—there is still an enormous amount of contingency planning needed in transport, medicines and food, to name but a few areas. Members of Parliament should be scrutinising the Government and holding them to account for what they intend to do.

I read a very alarming report the other day that suggested that the plans for a no-deal Brexit involve relocating thousands of council staff from around the country down to Whitehall to deal with no-deal fallout. Bizarrely, the council staff will be replaced with members of the armed forces. I have no idea whether that is true—I hope it is not—but surely we deserve to know what is going on. Surely our role as parliamentarians is to scrutinise Government policies, particularly when the effect might be as dramatic as that. We should sit every day until 31 October to sort this out, which is what we were elected to do. The Prime Minister should not be going around the country electioneering at a time of national crisis. That is snollygostering of the highest order.

The Prime Minister’s game—that is what it is to him—has been clear for some time: make a load of spending announcements quickly, shut down any scrutiny of them, and hope that the traditional honeymoon period that all Prime Ministers experience lasts until mid-October. Well, we will not play that game. I have been on to him since his second day in office, when he announced a £3.6 billion fund for towns. When I heard about that, I thought, “That sounds pretty promising and is certainly something that Ellesmere Port and Neston could benefit from.” I was keen to see whether my constituency would be on the list, but as Parliament was not sitting, I submitted a freedom of information request to the Cabinet Office, which said in its response that it had no information at all.

Here we have a Prime Minister announcing a multibillion-pound expenditure, while his office does not have even one scrap of paper to set out how the money will be spent. What a complete charlatan. I want accountability, answers and a Minister at the Dispatch Box to explain where that money is going, how it is being spent and who made those decisions. Anything less than that and it looks like a political fix—a cheap stunt unworthy of a serious party of government.

That is not the only issue on which I want answers. A major employer in my constituency is talking about shutting down in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Two secondary schools are up in arms about the way that they have been treated. There are major concerns about the way that a company contracted by the NHS suddenly went bust over the summer, and about the future of the fire service. There are major problems with access to mental health services. There is rising unemployment and a chronic lack of affordable housing. We should be tackling all of those matters here and now, in Parliament.

In truth, however, we will not be able to talk about those things because the Prime Minister does not want scrutiny as what he says does not stand up to it. He tells us that he cannot negotiate with the EU if no deal is taken off the table, but given his claim that the primary change that he wants to make is on the Irish backstop—a very specific issue—I see no connection between the changes that he says he wants and the need to keep no deal on the table. He also tells us that the first thing that the EU will ask in respect of any proposals made by the Government is whether they have the support of Parliament. How can Parliament say that it supports the proposals if it does not even know what they are and it is not sitting to find out? That does not stack up; it is a nonsense that has unravelled in a matter of days since Parliament’s return.

No wonder the Prime Minister does not want Parliament to sit. The more exposure he gets, the more even his own party walks away from the circus. The clown routine is an insult to the office of Prime Minister, to Parliament and to the people of this country, who he thinks will be duped by Eton’s answer to Arthur Daley—we will not fall for it. One cannot claim, as the Conservative party has, to believe on one hand in parliamentary sovereignty, and on the other in shutting Parliament down.

I put on the record that I do not support the Prorogation of Parliament and believe it to be an unprecedented, antidemocratic and unconstitutional attack on our democracy. Taking back control means Parliament taking back control and standing up to the bully boys who want to shut us down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

I always have great respect for my hon. Friend, but the Government have set out the period of Prorogation and the reason for it, which is the Queen’s Speech. I can reassure people that we will still be sitting for three weeks before the scheduled exit date and, as we have seen over recent days, it does not take long, if the House is minded, to pass a particular piece of legislation. There will still be ample and adequate time to debate Brexit and, as many would reflect on, we have certainly not been short of opportunities to do so over the past year.

[Justin Madders]

Can Minister indicate how many days the Government intend to schedule for debate of the withdrawal agreement Bill, assuming that we have one?

UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

As we know, the central aim of the shared prosperity fund is to reduce inequality and enable all our communities to share in the country’s economic growth. It could not be any more needed than it is now, because regional inequality has grown since 2010.

My constituency is in the north-west, and it is no surprise to me that earlier in the year the Institute for Public Policy Research North published a report finding that the north has borne the brunt of the Government’s austerity drive. We have had a £3.6 billion cut in public spending, while the south has had a £5.1 billion rise in real terms. We have seen public sector employment fall by 2.8%, compared with 1.2% in London, and spending on transport rose by more than twice as much in London as in the rest of the country. We have seen weekly pay increase by only 2.4%, compared with 3.5% nationally, and the number of jobs that pay less than the living wage has risen by nearly 11%.

Of course, these cuts have had and continue to have a negative impact on our communities. There are now more than 200,000 extra children living in poverty in the north than there were five years ago, meaning that 800,000 children are now living in poor households. That is nothing short of a scandal. The economy has been growing consistently—very slowly, but consistently—throughout the last five years, so having such an extra number of children growing up in poverty during that period shows that the economy is not working for many in the north. The points that have been made about maintaining, at the very minimum, existing levels of expenditure are absolutely right. The budget for the UK shared prosperity fund must match, in real terms, what the EU has been paying, but we need to go much further. I am worried about the lack of transparency from the Government about how they are going to adopt this fund, because I believe we have good grounds to be worried.

Let us take the future high streets fund. It is potentially a good initiative, but one that I fear has already been hijacked for party political ends. Ellesmere Port put forward what I considered to be a good bid. Indeed, the Government seemed to think it was, because when it was rejected in the first round, the Department wrote back a very nice letter to say that it was impressed with the bid and that it was well placed for the second round that would be decided some time next year. However, somehow—out of the blue—another round of funding for successful bids was announced only last week. Sadly, Ellesmere Port missed out again, but when I saw that the majority of the lucky towns were in Conservative constituencies, I was overcome by a flush of cynicism. Could it be that the announcement was entirely connected to secret plans to hold a snap general election? I think that subsequent events have borne out my concerns in that area, which is why we cannot trust this Government to allocate these funds in a non-partisan manner.

Towns such as Ellesmere Port and Neston in my constituency have been struggling for a long time. The rise of the internet and changes in shopping habits are leading to shops closing on a weekly basis. The sums we need for a truly transformative approach will not come from one pot alone. If the shared prosperity pot is operated in tandem with other funding pots, as the Local Government Association suggests, there would be an opportunity for an integrated and creative approach that could lead to a better outcome for all. Although we must ensure that this does not reduce the scope for matching funds in relation to any other projects, it is vital that we can access as many funds as possible to ensure that the communities we represent are properly resourced, that the imbalances are shared out and that the inequalities across the country are actually eradicated altogether.

For too long, people have felt left behind and held back by a system that does not work for them. We do not want more platitudes from London. We need a new approach—one that really empowers our local communities by giving them the responsibility, power and resources to shape their own futures, in line with local priorities and local need, because decisions that impact on local communities are best made by those communities themselves. It does not make sense that, in 2019, London still controls all the resources and holds all the levers. It is time we realised that business as usual is not going to cut it and that further Westminster handouts on Westminster terms are not what our communities want. We need this new prosperity fund to be really owned by local people so that it actually delivers for their priorities.

Priorities for Government

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Had the hon. Gentleman been paying the slightest attention, he would have heard that I have pledged to restore the money to Scottish farming, and it is thanks to the Scottish Conservatives that we have done so.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

In his statement the Prime Minister said that he wanted to close the opportunity gap, but two thirds of his Cabinet were privately educated, which is more than double the composition of his predecessor’s first Cabinet. He is not leading by example, is he?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that what the people of this country want to know is what is the Government’s programme for taking this country forward. I think that the contrast is between a Conservative party, which is the party of the people, and which wants to improve healthcare and invest in public services, and the Labour party, which would destroy the UK economy and ruin the livelihoods of everybody.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

As my hon. Friend knows, small businesses are the backbone of our economy and we are determined to level the playing field so that they can win Government contracts. That is why, for example, we have introduced tough new prompt payment requirements and simplified the procurement process, and through our digital marketplace we have spent £2.5 billion, with £1.28 in every £3 going to SMEs.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

T3. According to the recent Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission report on elitist Britain, there has been a 4% increase in privately educated permanent secretaries. With the civil service already massively unrepresentative of society, does the Minister agree that that figure should be going down rather than up?

[Mr Lidington]

I think the most important thing is that we encourage as many people as possible from the most diverse backgrounds as possible to enter the civil service and that we mentor them through, but at the end of the day it should be ability to do the job that wins out. Frankly, that matters more to the public interest than which school somebody’s parents sent them to.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that it is imperative for this House to deliver on the vote of the British people in 2016. I have said that on many occasions, standing at this Dispatch Box and elsewhere. I think it is important that we do that. We could already have done that—I am sorry, but I am going to return to this theme. We could already have done that, had this House supported the deal. It will be up to my successor to find a way through this to get a majority in this Parliament, but I agree that it is important that we do deliver trust in politics by saying to people, “We gave you the choice, you told us your decision, and we will now deliver on it.”

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Q5. Vauxhall Motors in my constituency has a future if we can avoid crashing out of the EU without a deal, but my constituents are very concerned to hear in recent weeks the Prime Minister’s potential successors talk up the prospects of a no-deal Brexit. Will she tell them both in no uncertain terms that if they pursue that option, they will consign thousands of jobs in my constituency and beyond to history?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman could have voted to save jobs in his constituency—[Interruption.] It is no good Labour MPs trying to deny this. They had the opportunity three times to vote to leave with a deal, and three times they rejected it.

Proportional Representation: House of Commons

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I start from the point of view that our electoral system is not one that I could, hand on heart, say is democratic perfection. It is clear that our winner-takes-all format means that millions of people feel that their vote does not count, and of course there is the unquantifiable number of people who vote for something other than their first choice because they see the vote in their area as a choice between the lesser of two evils, rather than as a positive vote for the party that they want to support. Proclaiming that I have won an election because I am the lesser of two evils has not yet made it into any of my acceptance speeches, but I have been called a lot worse, particularly recently.

As politics in this country is in crisis, it is not surprising that the news that a comedian has won the Ukrainian elections has been met by comments in this country that we had beaten them to it. Such is the contempt that people feel for us all now that it would not surprise me to see, if we had an election soon, more than a few of us being replaced by unlikely candidates: having no previous political experience is definitely a selling point right now. What I am talking about is not just a new name for old faces, but a new type of politician, an anti-politics politician, the likes of whom we have seen springing up all over the world in recent years.

It is evident at every election that millions of votes end up counting for nothing and some votes, depending on where they are, can literally be worth their weight in gold, so I want reform of the current system. However, I am sceptical about constitutional changes coming forward from the existing set of politicians, because there is almost always going to be some element of political calculation with such proposals.

Let us take the 2011 AV referendum. I voted in that referendum to change the system, but I was under no illusions: the only reason why it came forward was that it was politically expedient for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats at the time to hold a referendum to keep the coalition agreement going. I appreciate that AV is not the purest form of PR and that it is possible that in landslide years it can exaggerate the winning party’s dominance even more, but at least in that set-up everyone should be able to vote for their preferred choice, at least in the first instance.

However, the real attraction of AV for me is the retention of the constituency link. I believe that the best element of our current system is that each Member has to answer to his or her constituents at every election and that there is no hiding place for the decisions that they take. PR systems and lists remove that vital link and can lead to a lack of direct accountability between voters and those who represent them.

I wonder whether the 2016 referendum result would have been different if MEPs had individual constituencies to represent. Obviously, the factors behind that vote were many, and it would probably be stretching things too far to say that the outcome would have been different, but it is clear that one reason why leave won was that people did not think that the European Parliament was representing their interests. The lack of an identifiable local representative was part of that.

[Mr Sweeney]

My hon. Friend is making a really important point about the constituency link. That is a critical thing that ought to be protected. Since the Scottish Parliament was created, the number of constituencies in Scotland represented from Westminster has been reduced, so the size of the constituencies has increased. My constituency takes in two Scottish Parliament constituencies, so there are two MSPs. Having to cover the same ground as the MSPs often means that it is very difficult to maintain the same degree of link with the geography. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a flaw in the system that needs to be looked at if we are proposing to move to a more proportional system?

[Justin Madders]

Yes, I do agree. Of course, one weakness in the Government’s proposals to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is that that would create very large constituencies that in some cases were unmanageable and did not have geographical communities of interests.

On the subject of MEPs, although we have some excellent hard-working Labour MEPs in the north-west, the track record of people sent by this country to represent us in the European Parliament is not a great advert for PR. Of the 73 MEPs elected in 2014, 25 are no longer in the party that they were in when first elected.

We have had a few defections in this place, but on nothing like the scale that we have seen in Europe. More than one third of all the UK MEPs no longer represent the party that they were elected to represent. Let us be clear: if one third of Members in this place swapped parties, that could easily lead to a change of Government. Any system that allows so many politicians to denude the voters of their voice needs to be seriously challenged. Of course, politicians can change party under first past the post—we have heard today from some Members who have done that—but at least they have to face their constituents when they do it. Under PR, those people who ride under one banner of convenience can easily find themselves on the list for their new party at the next election with no apparent consequences for their actions. That does not sound like a democratic system to me.

Whatever system we have, we also need to look at whether this place is truly representative of the people whom we wish to represent. According to the Sutton Trust, 29% of MPs were privately educated, compared with just 7% of the general population. That is an improvement on the 32% from the 2015 election, but there is still a long way to go.

In conclusion, we need a massive overhaul in how politics is conducted in this country. How our economy and society works has massively changed in the last decade. Any item that we desire can be ordered from the comfort of our own home and be on our doorstep the next day, but our political system, both in the way elections are held and in the way Parliament operates, is stuck in a time warp.

One of the most commonly used arguments in favour of first past the post is that it enables there to be “stable” majority government. In recent times, that theory has been tested to destruction. Every day that we spend here without making any progress on the big issues of the day is another day closer to a far more radical change to the way we do politics, which will come from outside, not from in here.

What will happen with all the excellent arguments that we are hearing in favour of different systems today? I will tell you, Mr Evans: nothing will happen. Nothing will change. Nothing is changing. Parliament seems incapable of changing anything, incapable of tackling the big issues that we face in this country. That is why we all need to wake up and fundamentally challenge the way our democracy works—not just how we vote but, more importantly, what we actually do once we are elected.

European Council

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to identify the uncertainties that businesses face and the actions they have taken in the face of those uncertainties. I hope businesses will see that by reaching out to the Opposition, the Government are genuinely trying to find a way through this, and to do so within a timescale that gives businesses that certainty as soon as possible.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Given that the Government’s motion on the EU last Tuesday could attract the support of only about 40% of her party’s MPs, if the Prime Minister were to reach an agreement with the Leader of the Opposition, what guarantees do we have that any deal will be supported by her own party?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman will see that support for the withdrawal agreement has been growing on this side of the House. As he knows, we are looking at whether we can find a point of agreement with the Opposition that will truly command a majority in this House, and enable us to get the necessary legislation through.

European Council

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The House was very clear after the first meaningful vote that it wanted to see change in a certain area, and the one thing the House positively voted for was to leave with a deal, with some changes to the withdrawal agreement. We negotiated changes to the withdrawal agreement—we negotiated legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement. The House has not accepted those changes. I continue to talk to colleagues, because I continue to believe that it is better for this country to leave the European Union with a good deal.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has often said that she considers the withdrawal agreement to be in the national interest. If she concluded that the only way she could get support for her deal in this House was to offer her resignation, would she do so in the national interest?

[The Prime Minister]

This is about making sure that we leave the European Union and do it in the way that is best for this country, and that is what the deal is about.

European Council

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Businesses have been clear that they want to see us leaving with a deal. They have welcomed the deal that we have negotiated and it is therefore in Members’ hands to recognise that when they come to vote.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Just so that I am clear, is the Prime Minister saying, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in all circumstances, that when her deal is voted down, she will not bring forward any option other than leaving without a deal?

[The Prime Minister]

I have been clear about the decision that Members will have to take. If the deal is voted down, it is very clear: we have the process set out in legislation that the Government will follow.

Exiting the European Union

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let me gently say to Members that in some cases it may be done for emphasis, in which case it is an abuse, and in some cases it may be inadvertent, but there is a dangerous tendency developing on both sides of the House, which we have witnessed today, for Members to use the word “you”. Debate goes through the Chair and “you” refers to the Chair, so Members should not use it. I have been trying to educate the extraordinarily diligent and amiable hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for several years not to say, “Minister, will you do this, that or the other?”, and I do not want the infection to spread, if I can put it that way.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Many constituents have contacted me about the withdrawal agreement. I had hoped to speak in the debate later to put forward their views, as well as my own. The Prime Minister said earlier that she wanted to take Members’ concerns back to the EU. How can she do that if she shuts down the debate tonight—or do my constituents’ views not count?

[The Prime Minister]

I set out the position the Government are taking in the statement I gave earlier.