The Government's Plan for Brexit

Debate between Andy Burnham and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman used the phrase “the enemy” and he needs to clarify what he meant by that. I do not think it helped to raise the tone of this debate.

The Government’s politically inept approach of saying that they can keep the public in the dark has, first, bred suspicion among remain and leave voters alike, making them think a fix is going on. Secondly, it has cast the negotiation in an unnecessarily aggressive light and has fuelled even more bad feeling towards Britain among its EU partners, in turn meaning that it will now be more difficult to get a favourable deal once article 50 has been triggered. At the moment, we are not getting a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, but a botched Brexit. For all our sakes, the Government need to get their act together, which is why I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) on forcing their hand.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will make some progress. Today needs to mark the beginning of a new phase in the Brexit debate. It is time to move beyond the re-running of the referendum arguments and accept what people voted for. The 700,000 people in Greater Manchester who voted to leave, many of them lifelong Labour voters, voted for change on immigration. I am clear about that, and it has to be our starting point in this debate. The status quo—full free movement—was defeated at the ballot box, so it is not an option. What is to be debated is the precise nature of the changes that replace it, so that we get the balance right between responding properly to the public’s legitimate concerns and minimising the impact on our economy.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Andy Burnham and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The challenge is to capture the benefits and then have rules that make immigration work for everybody. Let me give him two practical suggestions that I have put forward. First, I believe that we need changes to the EU free movement rules, as part of the renegotiation talks, to stop the undercutting of wages and protect the going rate for skilled workers. Secondly, I believe that unspent EU structural funds, which this Government are not drawing down, should be made available through a rapid migration fund to areas, such as his and mine, that face the biggest pressures on public services, for example to employ extra primary school teachers and GPs. At the moment those areas get no help in dealing with those pressures, so no wonder they feel neglected.

[Mr MacNeil]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman saw yesterday’s edition of the Financial Times, which mentioned refugees—we know how some people react to refugees. It stated:

“By streaming into Germany, but not into other eurozone countries, the refugees”

will contribute to

“an improvement in Germany’s relative competitive position”

over the next 10 to 20 years. Refugees and migrants benefit the economy, the country and all of us.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Overall, refugees tend to be younger and not to have dependants. Consequently, the figures I gave at the beginning, which show that they net contribute, rather than take out of the public purse, must be borne in mind when we engage in a debate of this kind.