Britain's Place in the World

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I promised I would give way to the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) first.

[Keir Starmer]

I am not going to vote for a general election until we have an extension. I am not going to allow our country to crash out of the EU without a deal. That is perfectly straightforward. That is my position. The hon. Gentleman may disagree, but that is my position. I am not going to vote for a general election until I know that an extension of article 50 has been secured and we are not leaving without a deal.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. We can see the desperation on the Conservative Benches for a cut-and-run general election. They know very well that the antidote to Brexit is the reality and the real lived experience of Brexit. I will tell you, gentlemen, that the experience of empty shelves and lack of medicines do not election winners make; when that occurs and you have your election, you are going to go down in flames.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am not. It is not “you”; it is “they”.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

They are going to go down in flames.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I hope the Secretary of State would come to the House to answer that question and the many other questions that go with it. My judgment call is that a no deal fundamentally affects not only that aspect of our economy but many others, and fundamentally undermines the Good Friday agreement. There are many Members on both sides of the House who would not want to put this country in that position under any circumstances. Even dangling the threat that we would still leave without a deal on 31 October if the negotiations were ongoing is therefore absurd.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way, and then I will make some progress.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. Is he as amazed as I am with the quasi-religious, mystic veneration that the Brexiteers have developed for 31 October? The date was given to them not from on high but by Donald Tusk in Brussels, yet they venerate it and think it is cast in tablets of stone. Their position goes from absurdity to absurdity.

[Keir Starmer]

My principal position is this: we did the right thing several weeks ago in passing a simple piece of legislation that says, “If by 19 October there is neither a deal nor agreement to no deal, we should take the safeguard of applying for an extension.” That is the law; it is not a debating point in this Chamber any more—it was, we debated it and we passed it. That is the law and it is what needs to happen on Saturday. In my experience, everybody says they want a deal—I do not doubt the sincerity of that, although I accept that people want different deals—until they see the detail. That is what happened to the previous Prime Minister. She was supported on the proposition of a deal, until she brought the deal back and people looked at it—then they did not like it. So there is a danger at the moment in overreaching where we have got to. We need to wait to see what comes back in the text, but what happened last time was that the principle of a deal was agreed but the detail was not agreed when it got back here. That is why the Act we passed several weeks ago is so important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I welcome the Queen’s Speech and the range of Bills the Government have put forward. I would prefer that we were not having a Queen’s Speech. I would rather be knocking on doors in Poole at the start of a general election campaign, because it is true that there is an impasse in this Parliament, caused largely by people who said one thing in the general election but changed their position. I have not done so because I think that honouring the result of the referendum is a matter of honour. It is what we said in our manifesto and what I said in my election address. In fact, all the parties said that they would honour the result of the referendum.

People voted to leave—for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health; it was not actually conditional on anything in particular. But I happen to believe that a deal is probably better because a managed exit will probably be less difficult. The important thing is to have a transition, which will give us some time to get a trade agreement. The trick with all this is to maintain the best possible trade arrangements with the EU while opening up opportunities with other countries in the world. In the short term, the EU is more important, but in the long term other countries may be more important.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman mentions referendums. May I give him the good news—the breaking news, in fact—that the First Minister of Scotland has announced from Aberdeen that there will be a referendum in 2020 and that it is going to be on Scottish independence? We welcome that on the SNP Benches.

[Sir Robert Syms]

The simple truth of the matter, though, is that we always knew that a deal produced by the Government would be a compromise. I think it unfortunate that the previous deal, although it had major faults, was not passed. I hope that the Government make some progress with the talks this week and that perhaps a little later in the week we have some good news. Certainly, engaging with the European Union, which the current Prime Minister is doing, is a good thing. I think the EU has proved to be a little bit more amenable to further discussions than one might have thought earlier in the year, and I hope that we make some progress. However, as I said in my intervention on the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), deadlines are what make progress. What gets the attention of the European Union is a deadline creeping up. The EU must be thoroughly fed up with us, with extensions and further negotiations and endless Brexit, but we have to come to an end point.

Where I disagree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman—although I understand his point and where he stands at the moment—is on a confirmatory referendum, which would probably take us up to the spring at the earliest. That is another six months. We have a lot of discussion in this Chamber about money and resources. That would mean our continuing to pay into the EU budget for another six months. It would mean that there would be less money within the UK budget for paying for some very important things. I hope that we get a solution that is an agreement, and I hope it is put to this House. I do not think another referendum is the right way, because there is a fundamental democratic point, which is to carry out the result of a referendum that was given to the British people. Having a second referendum before we implement the first referendum would, I think, cause my constituents great anger. However, everybody takes their position, and I have admired the way in which he has manoeuvred and gone forward and backwards. He made a long speech today and did not take many interventions. That is what happens when one does not have very much to say and does not really have a position, and the position may change. From an Opposition point of view, that is brilliant, but from the point of view of our country, it is not the best position. The Opposition have to come down on a definite position at some point.

I welcome the immigration Bill and the end of freedom of movement. However, that does not mean reducing immigration: it means setting and controlling immigration at what is appropriate for the British economy. I hope that we remain an open and confident country taking our part in the world. Our history, our tradition and our language mean all of that.

The Secretary of State made some very important points. If our aid budget teaches girls to read, they can read a medicine bottle and teach their children to read. It is a major game changer in terms of the world, and Britain is at the forefront of doing it. It is because the focus of Britain is worldwide and the focus of some European countries is rather narrower that we have a larger aid budget and people appreciate it around the world.

I welcome the fisheries Bill, which gives us a great opportunity to revitalise our fishing industry. It is very important to bring that forward. The financial services Bill will have a major impact.

On the medicines and medical devices Bill, it is true that, despite the great success of our NHS, we are sometimes quite slow to innovate in drugs and medical devices. Whenever I have known anybody come up with a new idea, it tends to get trialled, re-trialled and re-trialled again rather than implemented. There is a lot of progress that we can make.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to mental health and social care reforms, which are remarkably good. The further consultation on the victims’ law is very important. I think we are all very concerned about what we are doing for victims.

Of course, many of us have pensions and many people have lots of little different bits of pensions. More information through the pensions dashboard is quite important in enabling people to make long-term choices.

I also support what the Government are doing on voter ID. When I collect a package from Royal Mail or from various bodies, I have to produce ID. In terms of the very important prospect of voting, it is not unreasonable for people to have to produce ID. Whether or not the focus on a passport or driving licence is too narrow and ought to be a little wider—maybe a council tax bill or something—I do not know. However, it is a debate to be had, because there is a lack of confidence in some of the ways in which elections are conducted in our country.

As a nation, we have so much to be proud of. Sometimes we do not stand up for our own interests and blow our own trumpet, but the Government have a good record. We have provided a very good base—a successful economy—and because of that we are able to spend a little more money in key areas. I hope that we can resolve Brexit sooner rather than later and therefore get back to a proper domestic debate on all the important issues such as health, education and transport. I fully support the Government’s Queen’s Speech, and I hope it gets the support that this House ought to give it.