Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Lidl has become the first supermarket to roll out a deposit return scheme across the whole city of Glasgow. Will the Secretary of State commend Lidl on doing what he blocked the Scottish Government from rolling out across Scotland?

[Steve Barclay]

I always commend supermarkets that are being innovative, but part of the problem with the initiative in Scotland was the amount of push-back from industry. That is why the Scottish Government pulled it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

That is an extremely important point. Both the Minister for the Cabinet Office and I have chaired a number of Cabinet Sub-Committees looking at our wider domestic resilience and our response in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. It builds on the national cyber strategy launched before Christmas and the Government cyber strategy launched after Christmas. It is about working with relevant stakeholders to have a whole-of-society approach, whether that is in relation to the excellent communication from the Ministry of Defence in recent weeks in de-classifying key documentation around some of the Russian misinformation campaigns, or looking at the wider piece: getting in the right skills, the right training and the right product regulation so that we have that whole-of-society resilient approach, building on work through the situations centre and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Radisson RED, a hotel in my constituency, was promised full compensation by the UK Government for business disruption during COP26, but it has not received the full compensation it believes it was entitled to. It has been passed from pillar to post by the COP26 President, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), who committed in this House to meet me, but never did, and the Cabinet Office, which has been ignoring its emails. Can the Minister tell me how many other businesses in Glasgow have been similarly treated by the Cabinet Office? Will he meet me on this, because it has taken the shine off events that Glasgow was very proud to host?

[Steve Barclay]

I know that the COP26 President will have a strong commitment to addressing any issues. Rightly, Members across the House have recognised that the event in Glasgow was a great demonstration of the UK working together. It was an illustration of how we are better together. If there are some specific issues that Members of the House are rightly highlighting from a constituency perspective, I will ensure those are brought to the attention of the COP26 President and ask whether he will meet her as a matter of priority.

Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I listened very closely to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, because he is a very informed and knowledgeable commentator on these issues. He rightly pointed to paragraph 36, where we are being very clear about the role in terms of demographic and unit pressure. As he well knows, part of the discussion at a spending review is to look at local government pressures in the round. That is in the context that local authorities are getting an additional £2.2 billion of funding. I remind the House, in terms of the adult social care flexibility that was allowed for councils this year, that out of the 152 local authorities, less than two thirds actually used that flexibility. That is part of looking at these issues in context.

Let me come to the central point put forward by the Scottish National party, which was very well demolished by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). All parts of the United Kingdom need a long-term solution to fund health and social care. The Scottish Government’s independent review of adult social care recently noted—[Interruption.] I am quoting from their own review. I thought they would want to hear that. It stated that

“Scotland’s ageing demography means that more money will need to be spent on adult social care over the long term”—

and its recommendations to the Scottish Government are that this would

“require a long-term and substantial uplift in adult social care funding.”

In fact, in 2002, John Swinney said that a 1% increase was

“progressive taxation…required to invest in the health service in Scotland”.—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 18 April 2002; c. 8005.]

[Alison Thewliss]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that that was 18 years ago and that things have changed? Since that time, national insurance has not been reformed in any way to protect the poorest, as income tax has been.

[Steve Barclay]

Obviously, what SNP Members regard as progressive has changed. The point is that if they disagree with this, they can adjust their Barnett consequentials, spend that and reprioritise their spending accordingly. Indeed, likewise, the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards)—I hold him in great affection and he speaks very powerfully in the Chamber—said that these are “English priorities”. Clearing the covid backlog and addressing the challenges of social care are not English priorities. They are United Kingdom priorities, they are this Government’s priorities, and they are the people’s priorities.

This levy will enable the biggest catch-up initiative in the history of the NHS, a comprehensive long-term solution to the social care challenge and a significant long-term investment that will directly improve people’s lives.

Those are things that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) values, and I hope he will support them.

The Prime Minister said yesterday:

“You can’t fix the covid backlogs without giving the NHS the money it needs; you can’t fix the NHS without fixing social care; you can’t fix social care without removing the fear of losing everything to pay for social care”.—[Official Report, 7 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 155.]

This plan addresses those problems. I commend it to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Scottish hospitality and generosity is world-renowned, but could the Minister explain to us why he thinks that Scottish taxpayers should pay for England’s social care crisis?

[Steve Barclay]

It is a slightly odd question, because through the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom, it is Scottish jobs that have been protected through the furlough, it is Scottish businesses that have been supported through the self-employment income support scheme and it is the block grant that has provided additional funding to the Scottish Government. The oddity is that they are choosing not to use those uplifts in the Scottish grant to prioritise the things that they come down to Westminster and say they care about.

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just suggest to the Minister that it might be easier if he speaks through the Chair?

[Alison Thewliss]

It would be good if the Minister answered the question, as well. The Prime Minister’s hike in national insurance has been roundly panned, not least by his own Back Benchers and the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride). People in Scotland are already feeling the pain of a decade of Tory austerity cuts and the harms caused by Brexit, with the devastation of the £20 a week cut to universal credit still to come, none of which they voted for. Why should my constituents pay for the Prime Minister to break his manifesto pledge with a new poll tax on the poorest who can least afford it?

[Steve Barclay]

It may be helpful for me to remind the House of the uplift in funding that the Scottish Government have received as a result of the ability of the UK Government to act across the UK. Baseline funding of £28 billion last year with an additional £8.6 billion of funding—that is £36.6 billion in total—has increased to £40.9 billion this year, so the Scottish Government are getting additional funding. As a result of covid, they have received an additional £14.5 billion, but they are choosing not to prioritise that extra money or to use the additional powers they have on tax or welfare to target the issues they say they care about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the success of the film insurance scheme, which has protected over 45,000 jobs and £1.6 billion of spend. On the specific issue he raises, that is exactly why my right hon Friend the Chancellor announced the additional £300 million of support at the Budget. He anticipated the fact, in going long with that support, that there would be the risk of further delays to the covid row-back, so that was part of the announcement of an additional £300 million that he set out at the Budget.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

The live events sector continues to be hard hit by covid-19. UK Music and We Make Events have called for additional financial support, an extension of the VAT reduction and Government-backed covid-19 cancellation insurance. Just now, it is impossible for those running concerts and festivals to plan, and some, including Kendal Calling, have had to postpone again until 2022. Can the Minister tell me why the UK Government have left this sector and the many thousands who work in it without the additional support they are calling for?

[Steve Barclay]

I fear that the question came before my previous answer. I had just mentioned the £300 million of additional support, over and above the £1.57 billion of support that has been announced. Indeed, the hon. Member frequently raises the plight of those individuals who have been hit, and again that is something we very much recognise. Again, however, that is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has set out the wider package of support, such as the time to pay arrangements, loans, business grants and the universal credit uplift. This is about looking at the totality of support within the £352 billion that my right hon. Friend has set out.

Economy Update

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend draws attention to exactly why the attack from the Opposition is misplaced and why the furlough taper is justified—because there is demand for labour from businesses. He also knows that it is part of the wider package of support. As a former Secretary of State, he has done a huge amount to champion the need to support people looking for work. That is what the doubling of the number of work coaches is doing. We announced a further £2.6 billion of additional support for the Department for Work and Pensions in the spending review, alongside further specific measures such as the restart scheme, to tackle the situation of those who have been unemployed for over a year. Over 1 million unemployed people on universal credit will have access to that scheme.

This is about a combination of the furlough, which is providing much-needed support but needs to taper, and a wider plan for jobs, including the restart scheme, the kickstart scheme, the tripling of traineeships, and the increase in the apprenticeships incentive to £3,000—a whole package alongside the doubling of the number of work coaches.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

My thoughts are also with the family and friends of Jo Cox.

Over the past 15 months, companies in sectors such as tourism, travel, hospitality, events, the arts, the night-time economy and weddings—and their supply chains—have been building up debts and have not even gotten close yet to breaking even. It is shameful that not an extra penny of support is being announced for them today. The debt incurred by businesses could take a decade to pay back and will be a drag on recovery. The Treasury Committee was told last week by the British Retail Consortium and UKHospitality that their estimate of commercial rent arrears alone stands at over £5 billion. The Minister has extended the moratorium today and spoken of legislation, but what is his plan to deal with this debt? He asks businesses to start paying back, but with what?

Under the Treasury’s furlough scheme, businesses must pay an additional 10% of their employees’ wages on 1 July, rising to 20% in August, before the scheme is due to end in September. When this happened last year, businesses could not cope with the costs and people lost their jobs. Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality has called this situation unsustainable, and the Federation of Small Businesses has called for urgent additional support.

So will the Minister delay the furlough increase, and will he now extend furlough and the self-employment income support scheme for as long as they are required? Will he act to support those like the Blue Dog employees in Glasgow, whose employer’s behaviour has meant that they have not received the payments they were entitled to? Will he finally—finally—put things right for the millions unjustifiably excluded from UK Government support schemes, such as those on short-term pay-as-you-earn contracts? Many have faced absolute financial ruin through no fault of their own, and it is high time they got support, and an apology from the Minister. Will he make the VAT cut to 5% permanent to give hospitality, tourism and events a much-needed boost into next year, and extend it to the hair, beauty and personal services sector? Will he keep the universal credit uplift and make an increase to sick pay?

The UK currently has the lowest stimulus package of any G7 country despite suffering the worst economic slump. We now need to boost it like Biden with a major fiscal stimulus of at least £100 billion. There is so much more that Scotland would do with the economic levers if we had access to them—so if the Minister will not act, will he give Scotland the power to do so?

[Steve Barclay]

The Scottish Government are still not using all the powers available to them on tax and welfare, and I always feel that before they seek further powers it would be useful for them to use fully the ones they already have. I found it slightly odd that the hon. Lady said that not a penny of support had been announced, because the whole point of the package that was announced was the extensive support going on until the end of September. She seems to be ignoring that and suggesting that everything should start afresh from today.

The hon. Lady mentioned business rates, which I picked up on earlier. This financial year, over 90% of businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector that benefited from the 100% business rates holiday last year will receive a 75% cut in their business rates for the full year to March 2022. Let me just put that in context. In that last year, that tax cut cost £10 billion. This year, it is an additional £6 billion. The hon. Lady says that not a penny has been announced, but there is a further £6 billion of tax cuts on business relief this year in addition to last year. I think it is worth remembering the wider picture of the £352 billion of support.

The hon. Lady mentioned universal credit. We have been very clear from the start that it was a temporary uplift; my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set that out at the time. She also mentioned delaying furlough. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) mentioned earlier, there are good reasons why it is not in people’s interests to be on furlough for extended periods of time if their job has disappeared and is not going to come back and if there are other businesses that want to employ that labour. The furlough has achieved its main purpose in retaining the link between labour and business and allowed businesses to bounce back better as a result. So before asking for new powers, the Scottish Government should be focusing on the delivery of their response to covid and recognising the fact that we have been able to respond in this way because we have the strength of one United Kingdom. It is through this wider resilience that we have been able to put together a package of the size that the Chancellor has done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I join my hon. Friend in marking International Women’s Day yesterday, and he raises a very important issue. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the Budget last week committed a further £90 million of funding; that, of course, builds on the £125 million announced at the spending review and indeed the earlier £25 million that had also been provided, recognising the 65% increase in calls to the national domestic abuse hotline and the renewed focus within Government on this important issue.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

Charities across these islands have done amazing work through the pandemic, so with the Finance Bill coming up will the Treasury reward the efforts of these charities and encourage the public to donate by temporarily increasing the rate of gift aid from 20% to 25% and expanding the small donations scheme to make gift aid much easier to claim?

[Steve Barclay]

I join the hon. Lady in recognising the huge contribution that charities have made. In respect of specific tax measures, obviously they were dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget last week, but I remind the hon. Lady of the £750 million of dedicated funding that has been provided to date in recognition of that important work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point; there are household costs. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, through the package of measures, has supported the incomes of the poorest. The distributional analysis from the Treasury shows that the poorest working households have benefited most from the measures introduced by my right hon. Friend. The best way of supporting those families is through schemes that the UK, through its broad shoulders, is able to offer, such as the furlough scheme and the self-employed income support scheme, which have supported so many jobs across Scotland.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

The Chancellor’s chaotic stop-start approach to furlough last autumn undoubtedly cost jobs. Failing to continue the £20 universal credit uplift and extend it to legacy benefits is set to plunge struggling families into hardship, and now the Conservatives are signalling tax rises and a return to austerity. To what extent does the Minister believe that that approach has contributed to 20 consecutive polls in favour of Scottish independence?

[Steve Barclay]

There is a factual error in the hon. Lady’s question, in saying that there was a stop-start approach to furlough—

[Alison Thewliss]

There was!

[Steve Barclay]

It continued throughout; that is just a statement of fact. In terms of the wider package, I would refer the hon. Lady to the fact that the UK Government have provided £280 billion-worth of support and that bodies such as the International Monetary Fund have said that the UK’s economic response has been one of the best examples of co-ordinated action globally. We are able to do that because we are working as one United Kingdom acting together and using the broad shoulders of the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Yesterday, Scotland’s First Minister announced her intention to award a £500 thank you payment to Scottish health and social care staff in recognition of all they have done throughout the pandemic. Powers over tax allowances, exemptions and national insurance are reserved to the UK Government, so will the Chancellor do the right thing and ensure that this festive gift of good will is not clawed back by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs?

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)]

As the hon. Lady should know, the income tax on these payments is actually paid to Scotland, not to Westminster. The Scottish Government have the power and the funding to gross up the payment if they wish. The UK Government have provided over £8.2 billion extra funding for the Scottish Government this year to support people, businesses and public services.

Lockdown: Economic Support

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that some were not covered. In fact, that has been an area of much debate within the House. He will understand that there is a distinction to draw between employees who, because their details had not been notified to HMRC at the cut-off point last time, were excluded, and those who because of the furlough extension will be included moving forward, so some of that population cohort are covered.

In respect of the self-employed cohort, my right hon. Friend will be aware that we have so far offered over £30 billion of support to the self-employed, which is generous by international standards. He knows, however, that, within that, there are different cohorts. There is the cohort relating to company directors, where the issue remains the same: what is dividend income and what is not. He will know that another part of that group is those earning above £50,000, and we made a decision to target support below that threshold. He will know that some people are self-employed but that is not the majority of their income—less than 50% is through their being self-employed—and that we targeted funding at those for whom self-employment was their main provision. So there are different cohorts within the excluded population, but those who were employed will be covered by the furlough extension.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The UK Government continue to lurch around in absolute chaos, with a Prime Minister forced, due to the leak of his plans, to come on TV and, after hours of delay, squeezing in before “Strictly” to announce an English lockdown and the extension of furlough just before it was due to expire. We have been telling them for months that it would need to be extended. While I welcome the action, this late extension will be of absolutely no comfort to those who have already lost their jobs due to the Government’s incompetence, or to the businesses in my constituency who have done their utmost to support their staff and now have no idea where they stand. It is no comfort either to those who continue to be ignored. Those excluded from the initial support schemes face a bleak winter ahead. Will the Chief Secretary ensure that they do not lose out again? There are still many sectors of the economy that cannot go back to normal.

The overwhelming sense, for many of us, is that this is not a Union of equals. When Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and parts of the north-east of England asked for furlough to be extended this autumn, they were told that the Chancellor’s magic money tree had lost all its leaves. Yet, when the Prime Minister decided that England needed to go into urgent lockdown, it turned out that the magic money tree was in fact an evergreen.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister gamed his answers on furlough in the House in a pathetic and transparent attempt to make the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) look good, but he was contradicted on Sky News this morning by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government who said it would be up to the Chancellor to decide if furlough would be available to the devolved nations after 2 December. In an act of further disrespect, the Chancellor is not even here to answer this question. Will the Chief Secretary therefore be clear and honest about whether the Treasury will make furlough and SEISS available at 80% to any part of these islands that requires that after 2 December?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady started by saying that we were disrespecting parts of the United Kingdom. I was on a call yesterday with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the First Secretary of State and the Home Secretary and others, with the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales and the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland as part of our regular dialogue. That continues across the United Kingdom and, indeed, at official level. The chief medical officers liaise extremely closely together.

Secondly, the hon. Lady’s various grievances are somewhat both surprising and disappointing when the Government have listened and introduced, for the first time, an up-front Barnett guarantee that has provided the Scottish Government with £7.2 billion of funding at an earlier point than would traditionally be the case, recognising the volatility of the situation with covid. It would be good for her to recognise that that is unprecedented and different. Again, on the call yesterday, I signalled to the First Minister that this week we would update with a further uplift—following our unprecedented action—to give more clarity on the Barnett guarantee and the consequentials flowing from that.

Thirdly—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady keeps chuntering. Many of the schemes are UK-wide ones: we have extended the loans, the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employed income support scheme. Those can be delivered through the broad shoulders that the United Kingdom offers. It is true that, through that capacity to act as one United Kingdom, we have been able to protect up to 1 million jobs in Scotland. It is important that we work together. That is why we were engaging with the Scottish Government yesterday. More can be achieved if the Scottish Government and the UK Government work together. That is how, to date, we have protected up to 1 million jobs, and that is the best way forward.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The Chair of the Treasury Committee raises an extremely pertinent point, which I know my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has heard loud and clear. That is why we have seen repeatedly in the measures that the Chancellor has brought forward a targeting—particularly, as the Chair of the Select Committee says, in areas such as the hospitality sector, which have been acutely hit—with a package of measures, such as the cut in VAT and the package over the summer. For specific areas such as the independent cinema sector, there has been the £30 million of funding for the British Film Institute. That is an individual measure, but it does not address the much wider part of the cinema sector and the major chains. It is about looking at targeted measures of support in response to the issue that the Select Committee Chair raises.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Local lockdown is a reality, and there is a potential for a national lockdown of some kind as we go into the months ahead. Livelihoods have been disrupted once again and the viability of businesses is being threatened by these restrictions, which are necessary to protect public health.

Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality told the Treasury Committee this morning that sector-specific restrictions require sector-specific support. What sector-specific support is the Minister going to bring forward for sectors such as hospitality, events, tourism, funfairs, culture and the arts? The Chancellor earlier seemed to suggest that people should just go and get another job, which is deeply offensive to many in those sectors.

Failing to support and sustain businesses right now risks putting those businesses over the edge so that they will not be there for a recovery in the future. The Minister must speak to the Chancellor today, extend the furlough in the self-employment support scheme and fill the gaps for those who have not had a single penny from the Government since lockdown began. People are depending on this UK Government, with the economic levers that they have. The Government are failing in their duty to protect those jobs and livelihoods right now. They are letting millions of people down and accepting the harm of mass unemployment that will follow.

The Scottish Government are limited in how much they can spend and in how much they can borrow, which is very limited. They do not even have the certainty of a UK Budget to know how much they will receive in the months ahead. If Scotland needs to lock down on public health grounds, how much money will come in support?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady says that she seeks targeted measures, but then seems to ignore the £1.57 billion that the Chancellor announced for the arts—exactly the sort of targeted package that she was referring to. She then says that that is not enough, but it is unclear how long the SNP would want to extend schemes such as the furlough, how targeted that would be on specific sectors and what that would mean for the supply chains for those sectors. We think that it is right to be honest with the British public and ensure that we target support beyond the eight months of the furlough, in the way that the Chancellor set out, with the job support scheme and the extension of the self-employed income support scheme.

On certainty of funding for the Scottish Government, I have had regular discussions with the Scottish Finance Secretary. I would have welcomed the hon. Lady’s acknowledgement that we had done something unprecedented in guaranteeing the Barnett consequentials in order—as the Scottish Government had requested, and responding to their wishes—to give them confidence in the funding pipeline. That had not been done before. The Government did it to give the Scottish Government confidence on the Barnett consequentials. An acknowledgement by the hon. Lady of that point would have been welcome.

EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Barclay

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

The reason is quite straightforward—that, against a finite deadline for when we leave the European Union, we need to put in place contingency plans. We were hoping to have secured the deal, which would have meant that we would not have needed the no-deal contingency arrangements, but given the level of uncertainty those arrangements have been necessary. Preparing for all eventualities is the responsible thing for a Government to do.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My constituent Joanna Adams from Strathbungo emailed me yesterday deeply concerned about this whole situation, saying:

“I can’t believe with only a couple of months to go we still don’t know what’s happening. To have the options of the PM’s terrible deal or a no deal seems incomprehensible to me.”

It is incomprehensible to most of us, including 880 people who emailed me from the “Exit Brexit” website. The reality is that there are 81 days before we have to get out of the EU—we are running out of time. Is it not the case that running out of time is inevitable and extending article 50 is essential?

[Stephen Barclay]

I respect the 800-odd people who emailed the hon. Lady on this, but the reality is that 17.4 million voted in the referendum, and it is on their mandate that this Government are acting. Unlike some Members of the House, I do not think that no deal is a no-risk option and I am not supremely relaxed about it—I think there are risks to no deal. We are planning and preparing to mitigate those risks. The reality is that the best way to avoid the uncertainty and mitigate the risks of no deal is to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal.