Leaving the EU: No Deal

Debate between Stella Creasy and Chris Heaton-Harris

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the debate in the French Assembly only last week, he would have heard a French Minister say that the package to UK citizens living in France would be the most generous possible—[Interruption.] No, Madame Loiseau has said that on the record. He would also have heard that the number of border checkpoints at Calais would increase from two to 10, that a border inspection post would be built and that technology would also be used, with the sole purpose of ensuring the flow of goods on the Calais side of the short strait.

It has always been our intention to accelerate no-deal preparations if needed as we neared Brexit day, although our hope has always been that we leave with a deal and that they will not be needed. Our communication with businesses and the wider public about a no-deal scenario will likewise increase as we approach our exit from the EU, until such time as we can be confident that planning for no deal is no longer needed. We now recommend that businesses also ensure they are prepared and enact their own no-deal plans as they judge necessary. In the coming weeks, and until the deal is secured and ratified by the House, we will also publish further advice on the steps that people, including UK nationals living in the EU and EU citizens living here in the UK, may need to take to prepare for our exit from the EU.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister says that no one wants no deal. I think that that is generally the considered view of the vast majority of the House, and it is not hard to see why. We see our constituents losing their jobs now. We see the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care spending money on fridges now. We see billions of pounds being spent on arguments about whether we are going to have the Army at the ports. We are in this position because of the way in which the Government have proceeded.

I know that this place is not given to introspection, but does the Minister accept any responsibility—do the Government accept any responsibility—for how it has come to this? Would the Minister care to say what he would have liked the Government to do differently, so that we could have avoided this? I promise him that if he just says that everybody should vote for his deal, people will laugh, but the public will be watching all of us and wondering what 2019 will bring, so will he please give a decent answer to our constituents?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I have to say that I think the decent answer is the one that the hon. Lady would expect from me. I hear what she is saying, I really do. I should love to have a moment of introspection—I should have loved to be in the negotiating room—but we now have on the table a very good deal for this country, and the best way to mitigate a no-deal scenario is to vote for that deal.