Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman understands very well that being a member of the single market was not an option for the UK given the clear views expressed by the electorate in the referendum, but having comprehensive access to the single market will deliver the great majority of the benefits that he seeks from single market membership.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Some 100,000 UK businesses have already registered companies in the Republic of Ireland to hedge their bets given the policy and regulatory uncertainty caused by the vote to leave the European Union. Will the Chancellor urge his Cabinet colleagues, when they are negotiating around the table, to give policy and regulatory certainty to industries such as the chemical industry, which are not waiting to see what the Government are doing, but are simply haemorrhaging jobs and investment out of this country?

[Mr Hammond]

I agree with the hon. Lady that certainty as soon as possible is important, as are understanding of what implementation arrangements will look like and over what timescale. However, I urge her not to be hysterical about these things. [Interruption.] Many companies are making contingency plans, including setting up and incorporating subsidiaries in other European Union countries. It is another step altogether to be moving jobs and enterprises abroad. Most of the companies that we talk to have made it clear that there is more time yet for them to be reassured during this process before we see irrevocable moves.

[Mary Creagh]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Point of Order

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

In response to my recent Treasury question, the Chancellor of the Exchequer accused me of being hysterical. May we have a ruling from you in the Chair, Mr Speaker, about that sort of sexist language, which is used to diminish women who make a perfectly reasonable point? That sort of language would not have been used had I been a man. My question on the registration of companies in Ireland had nothing to do with the condition of my womb travelling to my head, as in the traditional rhetoric about hysterics. I expect that sort of language from the sketch writers of the Daily Mail, not from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not accuse the hon. Lady of being hysterical; I urged her not to be hysterical. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that Russian air strikes have killed 400 civilians, 97 of whom were children. When the Foreign Secretary meets Foreign Minister Lavrov in a couple of weeks will he urge him to refocus those air strikes away from the opposition armies that are fighting Assad’s reign of terror towards the terrorists who brought down that Russian airliner?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

That is absolutely right. That is exactly what we have urged the Russians to do. If they want to fight ISIL we are happy to work with them, but at the moment a significant proportion—the majority, in fact—of their airstrikes are directed at the moderate opposition fighting Assad. In fairness, I should say that since the Russians acknowledged that it almost certainly was terrorist action that brought down that airliner they have directed a larger proportion of their strikes against ISIL-held territory.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. This is exactly the Prime Minister’s point: many of the people we see on our television screens walking down railway lines are fit young men coming to Europe to look for work—and that’s fine—but there are also many extraordinarily vulnerable individuals in displaced persons camps who are simply not able to try to make that difficult and dangerous crossing into Europe, and we will take those people, asking the UN to prioritise the most vulnerable.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Some of those fit young men are fleeing the conscription of Assad’s regime because they do not want to kill their own people. Turkey and Lebanon cannot continue indefinitely to absorb the millions of refugees from Syria’s crisis. What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do to respond with compassion and competence in the European Union? Will he reconsider his decision not to participate in the resettlement from within the EU, as Ireland and Denmark have done?