Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
First, I commend my hon. Friend and the all-party parliamentary group for the work that they are doing in this area. He has obviously raised a very important issue. I will ask the Department of Health and Social Care for an appropriate Minister to respond to him, and possibly meet and talk to him about this issue.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Prime Minister has a very selective view of the decisions that this country has made. She mentions the referendum, but she never mentions the general election that denied her the authority for a hard Brexit. She has mentioned the things that this House has voted against, but failed to mention that her deal has been defeated by large amounts now twice. She seems determined to plough on as if nothing has happened to her deal and cause a huge crisis. Surely now it is time for the Prime Minister to recognise that she has to stop banging her head against the brick wall of her defeated deal and reach out across this House in the interests of stability and our democracy, and come to a deal that actually has the support of a majority of this House, rather than kowtowing to her own Brextremists.
The Prime Minister
The point is that, so far, apart from saying that it would support leaving with a deal with changes to that deal in relation to the backstop, the House has given no positive vote on what it wants to go forward. The hon. Lady talks about the 2017 general election. I remind her that 80% of the votes cast in that general election—[Interruption.] It is no good Labour Members waving their hands. Eighty per cent of the votes cast in that election were cast for parties that stood on a manifesto of honouring the result of the 2016 referendum.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will make further progress before I give way again.
We are a country where passionately held views do not stop us making compromises to achieve progress. We are a country that values both our national sovereignty and the unbreakable bonds of a shared history and an interdependent future that connect us to our friends and neighbours. A bad deal would be even worse than no deal, but best of all is a good deal, and this is a good deal.
Members acknowledged many of the benefits delivered by the deal, but none the less rejected it in January, so let me now set out what we have added to the deal on the table since the last vote. On the rights of EU citizens, we have waived the application fee, so that now there is no financial barrier for any EU nationals who wish to stay. As I have said before, they are our friends, our neighbours and our colleagues. They have added much to our country, and we want them to stay.
On the rights of workers and on environmental protections, assurances about the Government’s firm intentions were not enough, so we have committed to protecting those rights and standards in law. If the EU expands workers’ rights, we will debate those measures here in this Parliament, and this House will vote on whether we want to follow suit. This Parliament has already set world-leading standards, and after we leave the EU, we will continue to do so.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I hope that the right hon. Lady’s voice lasts to the end of her speech. The Democratic Unionist party has just announced that it is not supporting her deal, and her own European Research Group has announced that it is not happy with the deal. Does she not now think that she should have reached out across parties from the beginning to seek a proper consensus across this country to give us a chance of moving forwards? Will she now admit that her strategy has comprehensively failed?
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the ex-forces community and we are working hard, as my hon. Friend has indicated, to ensure that they receive the support they deserve. As he says, any personnel who have left the military since December 2018 will automatically be given one of these new ID cards, which will allow them to maintain a tangible link to their career in the forces. As the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has responsibility for defence people and veterans, said:
“These new cards celebrate the great commitment and dedication of those who have served this country, and I hope they can provide a further link to ex-personnel and the incredible community around them.”
I hope that they will, as my hon. Friend says, be a sign of the incredible valour that those ex-servicemen and women have shown.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
In 2017, during the election, we learned what the Prime Minister’s definition of “strong and stable” was. As our automotive industry disintegrates before our eyes, as investment is put on hold and as growth slows, are we now learning what the Prime Minister’s definition of “smooth and orderly Brexit” is?
The Prime Minister
I say to the hon. Lady, as I say to every Member of this House, that there will come a further point, in this Chamber, when every Member will have a decision to take on whether we want to ensure that we deliver on the vote of the referendum—most Members stood on a manifesto to do that—by leaving the EU with a deal. That will be a decision for all Members of this House. I know where I stand: I believe we should be leaving with a deal. I hope that the hon. Lady agrees.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As I said earlier in my speech, we will bring a revised deal back to this House for a second meaningful vote as soon as we possibly can. If it were not supported by the House, we would table an amendable motion for debate the next day, and if we have not brought a revised deal back to this House by Wednesday 13 February we will make a statement and again table an amendable motion for debate the next day. The right hon. Lady references the timetable up to 29 March; actually this House voted for that timetable when it voted to trigger article 50.
I would like to move on to the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
The Prime Minister
No.
We should not indulge the amendment from the Leader of the Opposition. First he wanted a comprehensive customs union, then it was a new customs union and now it is a permanent customs union. Last week, I asked him whether he means accepting the common external tariff, accepting the common commercial policy, accepting the Union customs code, or accepting EU state aid rules: he had no answers then; he has no answers now; he hasn’t got a clue. He is still facing both ways on whether Labour would keep freedom of movement, and last night he whipped his MPs to oppose the Bill that would end free movement and introduce a skills-based system. And he is still facing both ways on a second referendum: his amendment calls for legislation for a public vote, but we still do not know whether he would use it or what the question would be.
I know that many Labour voters and MPs, and others in the Labour movement, are frustrated by the Leader of the Opposition’s approach. It is surely time for him to step up to the responsibility of being Leader of the Opposition and finally sit down with me and talk about how we can secure support in this House for a deal. As I said last week, he has been willing to sit down with Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA without preconditions; it is time he did something in our national interest, not against it.
The Prime Minister
No, I am going to make some progress.
None of the amendments I have addressed so far will ensure that we deliver Brexit. Instead, they simply provide more arguments against action and more reasons to stand still. Rather than setting out a plan to make Brexit work, they create further delay. And delay without a plan is not a solution; it is a road to nowhere.
The Prime Minister
No. I have said to the hon. Lady that I am going to make progress.
I am not prepared to stand still and put at risk either the Brexit that the people of this country voted for or the economic success they have worked so hard to secure. After this House gave its verdict on the withdrawal agreement, I stood at this Dispatch Box and pledged to work with the House to determine what steps to take next, and in the two weeks since, I have done just that. [Interruption.] Labour Front Benchers say that I have not done that. Actually, the only people I have not been able to talk to about this are the Labour party’s Front Benchers, because they decided not to come.
I have listened to the House, met MPs from all parties and spoken with and listened to Members of the European Parliament, Heads of the devolved Administrations, senior trade unionists and the leaders of Britain’s biggest businesses. From those conversations, it is obvious that three key changes are needed.
First, we must be more flexible, open and inclusive in how we engage this House in our approach to negotiating our future partnership with the European Union. Secondly, we must and will embed the strongest possible protections for workers’ rights and the environment. The Government will not allow the UK leaving the EU to result in any lowering of standards in relation to employment, environmental protection or health and safety. Furthermore, we will ensure that, after exit day, the House has the opportunity to consider any measure approved by EU institutions that strengthens any of those protections. As I have set out before, we will consider legislation where necessary to ensure that those commitments are binding. To that end, in the coming days, we will have further talks with the trade unions and MPs across the House to flesh out exactly how we can ensure that their concerns on those fronts are met. My message to Britain’s workers, in factories, offices, warehouses and right across our country, is that you can rest assured that the Government will deliver for you.
Jeremy Corbyn
I am making progress, if I may.
The primary part of Labour’s amendment is about finding a workable solution. That means a new customs union, a strong single market deal and no race to the bottom on workers’ rights, on environmental protections and standards or on consumer standards. The EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has been clear that
“unanimously the European Council…have always said that if the UK chooses to shift its red lines in future…and go beyond a simple free trade agreement…then the European Union will be immediately ready to…give a favourable response.”
We understand that just this weekend the EU Commission President told the Prime Minister that accepting the case for a permanent customs union would help to solve the issue of the backstop arrangement. Indeed, Ireland’s Europe Minister made exactly that point at the weekend, saying:
“The backstop is there because of the red lines that the UK put down”
at the beginning of this process.
We understand that today the Government will back the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady)—the Prime Minister said as much—which will require changes to the backstop, but still we have no clarity on what changes they are or which red lines will change to allow that to happen. On the other side, we see that there is flexibility—an apparent willingness now to renegotiate—but only if the red lines change.
Ms Angela Eagle
Does my right hon. Friend share my puzzlement, after listening to the Prime Minister for close to an hour and with many people having asked the question, that we are still no nearer to knowing any detail on what the phrase “alternative arrangements” means, except that the Prime Minister said they were arrangements that were alternative?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We are witnessing the long, slow decline of this Government as they run down the clock. They put off the vote then lost the vote. They came to the House today and are now offering more votes next week, then a week later and a week later. They are running down the clock, using the fear of no deal as opposed to the Prime Minister’s deal. Her deal was defeated two weeks ago, but the Prime Minister is still to answer the question on which of her red lines she is prepared to change, or even just be flexible on. It is clear that the obstacle to a solution is the Prime Minister. She is refusing to accept the clearly stated will of this House, which has decisively—in record numbers for a parliamentary vote—defeated her deal and which is equally clear in its opposition to a disastrous no deal, which I hope and expect will be reiterated tonight.
Stephen Barclay
Unlike the shadow Secretary of State, I am happy to give way.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Secretary of State. I wonder whether he could enlighten the House about the phrase in the amendment tabled by the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady). What are the “alternative arrangements” that they are going to barrel off to the EU to renegotiate in the next couple of weeks?
Stephen Barclay
If the hon. Lady had read the political declaration, she would know that the alternative arrangements are referred to in paragraph 19, but what she has drawn attention to is the stark difference between Labour and the Conservatives.
The amendment tabled by the Leader of the Opposition has barely been referred to today. Members on his own side did not even want to mention it as they referred to amendments tabled by Back Benchers. They did not seem to want to engage with it. That is because the Leader of the Opposition starts from a position of calling for unity, but cannot adopt the unified position of accepting an amendment from his own Back-Bench colleagues.
Leaving the European Union
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I do agree with my hon. Friend. A lot of people voted for the first time, or for the first time in many years, in the referendum in 2016, and I think their faith in politicians would be shattered if we failed to deliver on that vote. We have a duty to deliver on that vote in the referendum.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The Prime Minister could reach out by relaxing her own self-imposed red lines, including thinking about other solutions such as staying in the customs union, which would deal with the backstop situation, but she seems intent on trying to get her dead deal through the House by playing chicken with her own Brexiteers and what she calls her confidence and supply partners. Will she, first, tell us that she really does want to reach out? Secondly, will she tell the House this: if we do amend the motion next Tuesday, will she respect that decision and put it into effect?
The Prime Minister
Of course, as I have said, it is possible for people to move amendments to the motion next Tuesday. We wanted to sit down with all parties and with different groups across the House, because there are different opinions on these issues in parties across this House, and find out where it will be possible to secure support for a deal to take that forward to ensure that we leave with a deal, but underpinning that, of course, is the importance of us delivering on the referendum. I believe that it is a duty for this Parliament to deliver on the referendum, to deliver Brexit, and to deliver a Brexit with a deal.
No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will make a little more progress. I have already been generous with interventions.
If those talks bear fruit, as I said earlier in Prime Minister’s questions, then be in no doubt that I will go back to Brussels and communicate them clearly to the European Union, and that is what Members asked for. The leader of the SNP MPs said that we should have talks with all the leaders of the Opposition parties and work together in all our interests. The Chairman of the Brexit Committee said that if the deal was defeated, “I would like to think that she would take a bold step—that she would reach out across the House to look for a consensus.” That is exactly what I propose to do. It would be a little strange for the Opposition to vote against that approach later today and in favour of a general election, as that would make that process of reaching out across Parliament impossible.
The Prime Minister
I will give way to the hon. Lady, as she has risen several times.
Ms Angela Eagle
I thank the Prime Minister for her generosity in giving way. With all due respect to her she has come to the House today, after suffering a very, very large defeat indeed, with the same lines and she is making the same assertions as she was making before the vote—it is as if the vote never happened. Her Downing Street spokesperson said that any discussions would have to start and proceed from the red lines that she herself established. Does she not realise, in all honesty, that the time has come for her to show some flexibility on those red lines and get us into a genuine discussion rather than just repeating the lines that we have heard for the past five months ad nauseam?
The Prime Minister
What I am doing is setting out what the British people voted for in the referendum in 2016, and it is our duty as a Parliament to deliver on that.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I rise to support this motion of no confidence because at this critical time in our history I believe we have a Government who are incapable of governing, let alone doing so in the national interest. Never have I witnessed in all my 27 years in Parliament a Government as inadequate and incompetent as this one. I have never witnessed a Prime Minister so inept that she has squandered all personal authority and goodwill, yet like a broken record she continues to insist on her right to carry on regardless.
This is a Government becalmed in a sea of their own troubles and neglecting the country: presiding over increasing levels of poverty, homelessness and inequality, and ducking crucial reforms on social care, leaving millions relying on charity to eat. The deep splits in the Conservative party consume all of its energies, and Brexit is like a black hole that devours all light, out of which literally nothing can emerge.
This is a Government who have failed badly even on their own terms. They have failed catastrophically on Brexit. They have failed to unite a country that their obsession with the EU divided in the first place. They have failed to deliver on the Prime Minister’s personal promise to deal with “burning injustices”, instead providing us with a parade of incompetent Ministers, unparalleled in any Administration since the second world war.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a telling point. While the Government dither over Brexit, meanwhile back home we face the range of issues she has just talked about: food banks, unemployment and problems with the health service, education and so forth. One of the reasons why we want a general election is to deal with those things.
Ms Eagle
I agree with my hon. Friend. This Government are paralysed, dealing with their own obsessions, not with the real need and crucial policy issues in the country.
Yesterday’s defeat on the draft withdrawal agreement was a catastrophic loss of the Prime Minister’s own personal plan to engineer a hard Brexit in the UK, and it was entirely deserved. The Prime Minister has been humiliated by losing the vote on a plan she devised after little or no consultation with her own Cabinet. She finds herself in this position because of a series of colossal misjudgments that were entirely her own and for which she must now take personal responsibility.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is, as always, making an informed and detailed speech. Does she agree that it is only because of David Cameron’s botched legacy of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 that the Government are able to ignore the will of this House? In any other circumstances, after losing on the figures of last night’s vote, the Government would and should fall.
Ms Eagle
I entirely agree, and some of the imbalances caused by that Government in the way our unwritten constitution works need to be addressed.
The Prime Minister decided to kowtow to her own Brextremists rather than reach out. She tried to exclude Parliament from the process completely. She triggered article 50 without a plan and then called a general election, which shattered her own majority—but of course she is doing her best to avoid a general election now.
The UK is now angrier, more divided and more fearful for the future than I have ever known it, and democracy itself is being questioned. Instead of trying to bring the country back together by reaching out, the Prime Minister has set herself up as the embodiment of leave voters, ignoring those who voted to remain. Yesterday, she even dangerously claimed that she is now the champion of “the people” against Parliament. She has failed to unite the country because her only interest is in uniting the Conservative party, and that has proved to be impossible.
This is a Government who do not seem to understand that demanding that people unite around their own partisan viewpoint can never heal divisions. They are not capable of reaching out, listening, compromising and responding to genuine fears, and as such they are not fit for purpose.
On taking office, the Prime Minister promised to tackle “burning injustices” that made life difficult for those she called “just about managing.” She failed to acknowledge that much of the suffering in our country has been caused by the previous Governments in which she was a senior member. This Government refuse to acknowledge that years of cuts in public expenditure targeted most heavily on the poorest have resulted in much of the suffering and burning injustice she promised to end. The Government have issued countless press releases and have held a series of never-ending consultations on everything from social care, restaurant tips and rogue landlords to domestic violence, but nothing has changed.
Instead the country has been presented with a parade of incompetent Ministers who were simply not up to the job: a Home Secretary forced to resign over the Windrush scandal and the “hostile environment”, which saw UK citizens treated like criminals and deported back to countries they had left as small children; and a Transport Secretary handing out shipping contracts to a company with no ships and no access to commercial ports, and who presides over the chaos of the railway timetable disasters and blames everyone but himself—a man who cannot even organise a fake lorry jam on the M20. There have also been three Brexit Secretaries in two years, each of them undermined by the Prime Minister, and then there is perhaps the Prime Minister’s crowning achievement: appointing the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) as Foreign Secretary—and she wonders why the UK is now a global laughing stock.
This Government are paralysed by their own obsessions. They have proved incapable of addressing a country crying out for change. It is time for them to go.
Exiting the European Union: Meaningful Vote
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend puts it well. As I have said, the Prime Minister is responding to the wish expressed by many Members of the House.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman and I both entered the House at the same time, and I doubt that either of us has been in a situation quite as dangerous and fraught as this. Surely he will agree that, after yesterday, the Prime Minister has shredded her credibility and that many people on both sides of the House now find it almost impossible to believe a word she says. She asserts one thing one day and the opposite the day after. She sends her Cabinet out to assert that the vote is going ahead even as she is planning to pull it. Surely he must understand that we cannot go on with this Prime Minister at the helm.
Exiting the European Union
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The European Union has already indicated that the backstop is temporary in nature. It is therefore entirely reasonable to ask the EU to give further clarification about that temporary aspect of the backstop and the ability to bring it to an end.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
In my 27 years in this House, I have rarely seen a Government in such a farrago of chaos as the Prime Minister has caused with her negotiations. Last week, she said:
“I caution hon. Members that not only has the EU made it clear that the withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened—we have agreed the deal and the deal is there”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2018; Vol. 65, c. 755.]
She has now abandoned the vote and come back to the House to tell us that somehow the unopenable deal is open again. She is seeking assurances that will not be worth the paper they are written on, because she has done her legal deal already. Why on earth does she not just abandon this dancing on the head of a pin and let us vote on this appalling deal?
The Prime Minister
We have negotiated with the European Union a deal in two parts: the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration on our future relationship. One aspect of the withdrawal agreement has raised particular concerns. That aspect is already dealt with in the withdrawal agreement through various assurances about the temporary nature of the backstop. In discussions with colleagues, it is clear that those assurances are not sufficient, and we therefore go back to seek further reassurance on the temporary nature of the backstop.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I have said I will make some progress, and then I will be generous in my acceptance of interventions.
We can choose to settle this issue now by backing the deal in this motion—a deal that delivers Brexit and a new partnership with the European Union, a deal that delivers for the whole United Kingdom, a deal that begins to bring our country back together again.
The Prime Minister
I have said this to Members before, and I will say it again. There is a difference between ensuring that we have the security capabilities that we need in the future, and simply saying that we will be doing that in a particular way. What paragraph 87 makes clear is the intent to have
“exchange of information on wanted or missing persons and objects and of criminal records, with the view to delivering capabilities that, in so far as is technically and legally possible, and considered necessary and in both Parties’ interests, approximate those enabled by relevant Union mechanisms.”
The Prime Minister
No; I am sorry.
This is a fundamental issue which has underpinned the approach to these negotiations. We could have approached the negotiations by saying, “We are going to take the models that already exist, and in all cases we are going to say that we have to be in those models in exactly the same way as we are today.” What we have said is that we look to ensure that we can have the capabilities that we have where we need those capabilities, and that is exactly what we are delivering—
Leaving the EU
Angela Eagle Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
At the heart of this political declaration and of our future economic partnership is a comprehensive free trade deal. It is just a better comprehensive free trade deal than Canada.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
In the Prime Minister’s lexicon, is “smooth and orderly” the new “strong and stable”?
The Prime Minister
A smooth and orderly exit is what business wants and I am sure what citizens up and down this country want.