EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my astonishment that it took the Information Commissioner so long to get a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s premises, given that Facebook got in there in a minute and a half?

[Mr Bradshaw]

This is in no way a criticism of the Information Commissioner or of the Electoral Commission —they are doing their best—but they do not have enough people, expertise, money or power. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We had the farcical scene of the Information Commissioner trying to get access to Cambridge Analytica’s office for almost a week, while Facebook had got in right at the start. That just symbolises the paucity of the powers that we have to deal with this digital world when our legislation and resources are based on an analogue age.

European Council

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We do look constantly at the contribution that we are making. My hon. Friend is right that we have several hundred troops in Estonia as part of the enhanced forward presence. We are also contributing in other parts of Europe—to the work that is being done, for example, in Poland. However, we will obviously continue to look at this.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Given that the Prime Minister’s political secretary, Stephen Parkinson, is the person responsible for outing the Vote Leave whistleblower, using No. 10 paper and documents, what is she going to do? Prime Minister, you should sack him!

[The Prime Minister]

No. I am sorry, but that is not what I should be doing. My political secretary does a very good job as my political secretary, and as I have said, any statements that have been made were personal statements.

Grenfell Tower

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

If illegal activity has taken place, that is a matter for the police and it is part of the criminal investigation they will be undertaking. It is not just a question of what the inquiry does; it is a question of what we are doing now in relation to other tower blocks, which is why we are encouraging local authorities, housing associations and indeed private landlords to send in their material for testing.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

As the leader of a party that is responsible for seven years of austerity, which has cut 56% of the cash available to my local authority in the past seven years, and has spent its time talking about regulation as a bad thing, is the right hon. Lady now going to apologise to the country for the state of local government, when the richest borough in London could not cope with this emergency, while at the same time, it was giving money back to its council tax payers?

[The Prime Minister]

We are dealing with the aftermath of a terrible disaster that has led to people losing their lives and others losing their homes and everything that they owned. We are ensuring that we are putting the steps in place. As I have said, I recognise that initially the response was not good enough, which is why we have stepped up that response. It is why—I did not respond to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), but I said this in my statement—I have indeed been chairing the Cobra meetings myself. And it is why we have been putting extra resource in, to ensure that that response is suitable. This will be an issue of looking at the regulations. As I said, my understanding is that these regulations were established in 2006, and we will be looking at those. The inquiry will look at them and at how they were applied; it will look at the actions of the local authority; and I am sure it will look at the issues that have been raised about the residents’ complaints in advance of this disaster about the tenant management organisation, and it will get to the bottom of who is responsible.

European Council

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend rightly points out that we have a timetable of up to two years for the negotiations, and it is possible that the details will not be finalised until close to the end of that period. He is also entirely right to suggest that those in Scotland who talk about having a second referendum should remember what the right hon. Member for Gordon said: it was a once in a generation vote that took place in September 2014. It seems that a generation is now less than three years.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has said that no deal is better than a bad deal. We all wish her well in getting the best possible deal for the UK, but will she now publish what the effects would be of crashing out of the European Union on World Trade Organisation rules, so that we can have a debate in this country about her assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for the Government as we look ahead and try to negotiate the best possible deal for the United Kingdom. That is precisely what we will be doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing our attention to the example of Woodall Nicholson. We are pleased to hear that it has those good plans for the future. As we leave the EU, we will be doing so from a position of strength, and my hon. Friend is right to say that skills and manufacturing are important parts of our economy for the future. That is why, in the industrial strategy, we are looking into how we can develop the excellence that we have in the United Kingdom to ensure that we have a prosperous, growing economy for the future.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Last week, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) pointed out that the Prime Minister’s aspiration to achieve barrier-free, tariff-free trade with the single market, getting all the benefits but paying none of the costs, was akin to disappearing down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. I think that the Prime Minister makes a very interesting choice for Alice, but if she does not manage to achieve that high ambition, will she produce an analysis of what trading on the basis of WTO rules would mean for our economy, so that we, too, can make a proper choice?

[The Prime Minister]

I commend my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) for the significant service that he has given to the House and his constituents over the years. He and I have worked well over a number of years—although I should add that, when I was Home Secretary, I used to say, “I locked ’em up and he let ’em out.”

The Government believe that it is possible, within the two-year time frame, to secure agreement not just on our withdrawal from the European Union, but on the trade arrangements that will ensure that we have a strong strategic partnership with the European Union in the future.

European Council 2016

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said in an earlier response to the Leader of the Opposition, the treaty sets out a potential two-year process of negotiations. For how long, over those two years, it is necessary for the negotiations to take is a matter for the progress of those discussions and talks. My right hon. Friend makes a very valid point that the sooner certainty can come the better that will be for business, but we need to make sure we are getting the right deal for the United Kingdom.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Perhaps the Prime Minister could then tell us with some certainty when her plan for exiting the European Union, which she has agreed to present to this House, will be ready. Presumably, it will be some time before she triggers article 50.

[The Prime Minister]

Yes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise that, as my hon. Friend says, many people look with very great concern at the cost of motoring in this country. I suggest, as I have to some of my other hon. Friends, that he be a little more patient and wait for the Chancellor’s autumn statement.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has talked about her worries about social care, but surely we have to judge her by her actions. In the last six years there has been an average 37% cut in local authority funding—57% in my area—and nearly a quarter of all those older people in need of social care have been denied any help at all. What is she going to do about it?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady might have noticed that I have been asked several questions about social care—[Interruption]—and I will give the answer that I have given previously. What the Government are doing about social care is to put more money in through the better care fund, to give local authorities the opportunity that is in the social care precept and to make sure that health and social care come together to ensure that we deal with the issue of bed blocking.

European Council

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to say to my right hon. Friend that the European Union has been looking for some time at the proposal for something that it has described as a smart borders system, looking at the model of the system used in the United States. That concerns the security of the EU’s external border. There is a separate issue, namely the arrangements in Greece relating to the asylum system. The Greek Government have made some changes to how they deal with asylum claims in response to the requirements of the EU-Turkey deal.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is being uncharacteristically coy about the terms of the negotiation to leave the European Union, yet we know that once the papers are given to the Commission they will be shared with the European Parliament. Will she not now undertake to share those papers with this Parliament—the sovereign Parliament—so that we can have a proper opportunity to look at the position that the Government are taking and comment upon it?

[The Prime Minister]

I assure the House, as I have before, that it will have a proper opportunity to look at these issues as we go through—and not just a one-off opportunity: as I have set out, there will be a number of debates that will enable Members of this House to give more detailed comments on various aspects of the impact of Brexit on different sectors of the economy, for example.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can say that I believe every effort is being made to fill the vacant obstetrics posts at the Horton general hospital. I understand that those mothers who are having a midwife-led delivery are still able to go to the Horton general hospital, but others have to go to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. Maternity services are important to people and I believe the trust is actively looking to ensure it can fill those posts. What matters is a safe maternity service for mother and baby.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Many people across the House will be reassured that the Government accepted the amendment to the Opposition motion to be debated later this afternoon that guarantees that this House is able properly to scrutinise the plan for leaving the European Union before article 50 is invoked. Can she tell us: will that scrutiny involve a vote?

Tributes to Tony Benn

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Today, we have had the chance to pay tribute to the life and work of Tony Benn, one of the greatest MPs and certainly one of the greatest orators of his generation. He would have been gratified that Parliament has had this chance to recall his long involvement in our national political life in this way, despite the fact that he was neither a Head of State nor royalty. He did, however, serve in this place—with a couple of unintended interruptions—for more than 50 years, and was granted the freedom of the Commons when he retired as an MP.

As we have heard over and over again today, we never got doubt or ambiguity with Tony Benn. We have heard many moving anecdotes and tributes to him, and many Members have pointed out that he had strong views, and more talent than most for getting them across to his audience, either from a platform or in a book. He was passionate, and he was a lifelong socialist who never lost his appetite for the battle, even though he waged it in distinctly different phases during his long and fulfilled life.

Tony Benn was an assiduous Back Bencher, and the first to table a motion against apartheid. I last heard him speak during the Remembrance service for Nelson Mandela, held in Westminster Hall at your suggestion, Mr Speaker. He opposed capital punishment, and he championed human rights long before it was fashionable to do so, introducing his own human rights Bill in 1957. He also championed divorce laws, although he enjoyed a 50-year marriage to his beloved wife, Caroline. I can attest to the fact that she was a formidable campaigner in her own right. He was the Peter Mandelson of his day, demanding that Labour modernise its communication strategies, especially where television was concerned, although it is fair to say that his political journey took him in a slightly different direction thereafter.

Tony Benn served, as a junior Minister, as Postmaster General: as a republican, he tried and failed to get rid of the Queen’s head, but he did manage to shrink it down to a much smaller size. As technology Minister, he oversaw the development of Concorde, but I think he tired of the constraints of ministerial office. Instead, he decided that he needed to range more widely to change the political terms of trade by sheer rhetorical force. As we have heard today, he had plenty of sheer rhetorical force. It was for doing that that he came to be regarded by the media as “the most dangerous man in Britain”.

First and foremost, however, Tony Benn revered the House of Commons as the crucible of our democracy, as we have heard over and over again in today’s tributes. He said that it was the place where kings and tyrants could be tamed and revolution averted. This was in contrast to the House of Lords, which he described as the

“British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians”.

His solution to most problems was more accountability and more democracy. Let’s face it, that is never a bad place to start.

Tony Benn fought a determined campaign to renounce the peerage that he had reluctantly inherited on the death of his father in 1960, and it was those sad circumstances that threw him out of the Commons for the first time. His ultimate success in renouncing his hereditary peerage had at least one unintended consequence. The Peerage Act 1963 allowed him to return to the Commons. It also allowed Sir Alec Douglas-Home to renounce his peerage so that he could mysteriously emerge as leader of the Conservative party and succeed Macmillan as Prime Minister, much to the chagrin of Rab Butler, who many still believe was robbed of the premiership in this dubious way. Such was the fuss that the Conservative tradition of allowing leaders to emerge without any obvious voting by anyone had to be abandoned.

Tony Benn was subsequently to lead another successful campaign to extend the franchise of Labour leadership elections beyond the parliamentary Labour party, which was to culminate in the creation of the electoral college at the Wembley special conference in 1981. He lived long enough to see the Labour leadership election franchise extended further to one member, one vote at the special conference that I chaired this March. So it is possible to argue that it was campaigning by Tony Benn that caused the methods of electing the leaders of both the Tory and Labour parties to be reformed, and in both cases it was to move them in a more democratic direction. Of course, his determined opposition to Britain’s membership of what was then called the Common Market helped to give us our first referendum, too.

Tony Benn was a mesmerising speaker in any context: in the Commons; on a platform; and, latterly, on a theatre stage or in the Left Field tent at Glastonbury. He followed in the footsteps of the Levellers and the Chartists. He was a true English radical, evangelising, teaching and persuading generations of left activists about the power and potential of politics to change things for the better. Even when he was making a case with which I did not agree, I marvelled at his formidable communication skills; he had a way of making complex ideas seem simple, and a memorable turn of phrase ensured that his observations stayed with you long after the meeting had ended.

He revelled in social progress. I remember talking to him 20 years ago about the ordination of women into the Anglican priesthood. He had been down especially to watch the first women vicars being ordained and was delighted at the joyful occasion he had witnessed, and he was aware of its significance in the battle for women’s equality. I remember going as a young activist to campaign in the Chesterfield by-election in 1984, in which Tony was seeking to return to the Commons for the second time. My sister, my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), and I went over to help with a contingent which included Allan Roberts, the then Member for Bootle. Things were looking a bit wobbly and the stakes were high. We were sent off to try to remove from a tower block, strategically placed on the main road into the town, a forest of Liberal posters, which had suddenly appeared, causing much consternation in the campaign headquarters. My sister discovered that the posters were down to a disgruntled Labour voter who had decided to switch sides. This lady had demanded, “Get that Tony Benn down here if you want me to change my mind.” By coincidence, we bumped into him a few minutes later and so my sister carted him off to the woman’s front door. She invited him in and he reached over to an old photograph that she had on her mantelpiece. It was a group shot of Labour politicians and he named every one of them, except one, which he correctly surmised was her husband—a former local Labour councillor. She was utterly charmed, and the Liberal posters all came down and were replaced by Labour ones. The tide turned and it was said that in the Labour club that weekend my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) started singing again.

The leader of the Labour party has paid a fulsome tribute to Tony Benn. He leaves behind many memories, and his fascinating and honest diaries, a legacy of which we have heard some today. Most of all, he leaves behind his devoted children, Stephen, Hilary, Melissa and Joshua, to whom we extend our sincere condolences. I believe that the tributes we have heard today do a great service to the memory of a great man who lived a long and fulfilled life. May he rest in peace.