EU Withdrawal Agreement

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I want to make progress. I will take interventions later.

Here we have a Parliament in London that is silenced by the Government, and the devolved Administrations are silenced and ignored. The magnitude and seriousness of the challenge before us cannot be overestimated. The House will go into recess this week, and we cannot allow this farce to continue over the Christmas period. The Prime Minister has returned from Brussels with nothing. She has been humiliated, told by the European Union that there is no new negotiation, yet she continues to bury her head in the sand, hoping that the squeeze of time—the threat and the pressure of no deal—will get her blindfold Brexit over the line. It will not. This Government should hold the meaningful vote now. They should put the options on the table now or stand aside and let the people decide.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal for the vote coming back immediately. Of course, the various options open to us could then be voted on in a meaningful way. In that event, would he and his party vote for Norway-plus? I know he has argued for that, as indeed have I, and it would mean the single market and the customs union. Or does he take the view that that boat has set sail?

[Ian Blackford]

The right hon. Lady makes a useful intervention. The position of the Scottish National party has always been that the people of Scotland voted to remain, and we wish that to be respected. The people’s vote would create a circumstance in which we could at least test the will of the people of the United Kingdom. We have sought to compromise over the past two and a half years, and she is correct that we said Norway-plus is the minimum we would accept, but I believe that ship has now sailed. We ought to be staying in the European Union. That is the best option, and we should put it to the people. I am grateful that she also takes that view.

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[Stephen Barclay]

I am sure my hon. Friend speaks for the vast majority of businesses in Taunton Deane and elsewhere in the United Kingdom that want the certainty of a deal, the benefits of an implementation period that allows businesses to continue trading as now until the end of 2020, and the many other benefits secured by this deal, including a skills-based immigration system, the protections for 3 million EU citizens living in the UK and over 1 million UK nationals living in the EU, an end to spending vast sums of money and control of our fishing policy.

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; it is good of him to take so many interventions. By the way, I would like publicly to congratulate him on his appointment.

The difficulty with the argument about the so-called deal and trade is that we do not have the promised deal on trade. The promised certainty, particularly in relation to frictionless trade, is not in the withdrawal agreement, which is fixed in law and will be in the treaty, but in the political declaration, which can be ripped up by either side once we have left. The certainty that business is crying out for is unfortunately not delivered by the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement.

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[Keir Starmer]

The cries to support the deal would have a lot more authority if those on the Government Benches were supporting the deal. The Government are utterly split on this. Last Wednesday’s no-confidence vote exposed the fracture, and there is no point pretending it is not there.

Over the summer, the previous Brexit Secretary published 106 technical notices setting out the Government’s case for preparing for no deal. They did not get a huge amount of attention at the time, but it is worth reading and re-reading them, as my team and I have done, and as the Institute for Government has done. Those technical notices make it clear that the Government’s managed no deal would require the creation or expansion of 15 quangos, further legislation in 51 areas, the negotiation of 40 new international agreements with either the EU or other countries and the introduction of 55 new systems and processes. That is the analysis of the 106 technical notices—the Government’s own assessment.

The case I am making is that the argument that there should or could be no deal on 29 March is completely lacking in any viability whatsoever. The very idea that there could be legislation in 51 areas, 40 new international agreements, 15 new quangos and 55 new systems and processes in the next three months only has to be spelled out. That is not my assessment; it is the Government’s own assessment. It is not credible to pretend that that can be done by 29 March.

[Anna Soubry]

I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but not for the Opposition in this respect. He makes a good point—so are the Opposition now going to do their job of being an effective Opposition? By way of example, will we see an urgent question being asked in this place tomorrow about the Government’s plans for no deal? The Opposition have to put their money where their mouth is.

[Keir Starmer]

I respect the right hon. Lady, but what the Opposition do is a matter for us. It is not for the Government to give the Opposition advice on how to proceed with a no-confidence motion. If I am wrong, I will be corrected, but I think I heard her criticising us for not laying the motion last week so that she could get on and vote against it. I did not find that advice helpful in trying to come to a decision on how the Opposition should proceed.

Legislation on a proposed no deal would have to be passed by a Government who can no longer pass legislation, and these preparations now come with a £2 billion price tag. That is throwing good money after bad. I hope the Secretary of State will set out as soon as possible how that money will be spent, whether Parliament will have the chance to approve those measures and when no-deal legislation will be put before the House—at least in draft form, for us to see what it looks like and comment on it.

By now, the Government intended to have a deal agreed by the House. It is obvious that that is not going to happen. The Government need to get a grip and bring forward the vote. Let this House vote, then let us have a debate about the available and achievable options—and no deal cannot be one of them. I do not think for a minute that a majority in this House would countenance a no-deal Brexit. The price of delay will, as ever, be paid by the British people, businesses and communities, and that is a very sorry end to a year of failure.

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[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on securing this debate. I read the news in Aberdeen for a number of years, so I learned how to pronounce Scots. In all seriousness, I offer him my congratulations on securing this debate, and of course agree with much of what he said. I also agree with the analysis and with much of what was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). The Government have made a grave error in taking this matter away from Parliament, delaying it for what will be at least a month and then undertaking to bring it back for the inevitable conclusion that would have been reached had the vote occurred the week before last—or was it last week? It seems in all of this as though time disappears, but it has been a grave mistake.

I agree with both the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. and learned Gentleman said when they talk about the clock ticking away. I am afraid I have to say that I think the Government are playing the ultimate game of brinkmanship—it is deeply irresponsible—with Conservative Members, who are divided, as everybody knows. Unfortunately, the Government are flagging up to those who fear no deal as ultimately the worst thing that could happen, as they should do, that it is in some way acceptable, and they have never taken it off the table as we should have done two and a half years ago.

Of course, the Government are forgetting that we have no mandate: there is no mandate in this country for a hard Brexit. Everybody seems to forget that when we went to the polls in June 2017, the Conservative party lost its majority. We were saved, if I may say so, only by our brilliant Scottish Conservative MPs. However, we lost well over 30 Members from these Benches—hon. Friends—and we in effect lost that election. We lost our majority, and it was clear that the people of this country did not support a hard Brexit. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister should have taken it off the table then. Indeed, she must take it off the table now, because it is worst possible outcome.

I say with great respect to my hon. Friends that, in the game of brinkmanship being played, those who share the conclusion that a hard Brexit is the worst possible outcome are being told—we have heard this in calls from the Front Bench, and in some of the chuntering and comments from hon. Friends sitting along the Back Benches—“Well, if you don’t want a hard Brexit, you’ve got to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal”, as if there is no alternative. Indeed, there is an alternative. [Interruption.] Yes, there is, I gently say to the Government Whip sitting on the Front Bench.

Given the growing success of the people’s vote movement, those who want a hard Brexit are being told, “Ooh, if you don’t vote for the Prime Minister’s deal, you might get that dreadful thing called a second referendum, in which the people, knowing what Brexit now looks like, will have the opportunity to have a final say on it.”

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that it is rather extraordinary, at a time when we say we wish to reflect what is sometimes described as the will of the people, that we seem intent on dragging the country out of the EU on the basis of an agreement that appears largely to be rejected by the electorate themselves as flawed?

[Anna Soubry]

Here is a surprise: of course I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. I think we will also agree on this: Members on the Conservative Benches who think that we have somehow always wanted to be in the position we are in today of supporting a second referendum are absolutely wrong. Many of us—in fact, all of us—voted for triggering article 50 with a firm determination to be absolutely true to the referendum result. We sought to make compromises, and to reach out and form consensus. That is why it is so interesting—this is a fact—that Scottish National party Members, for example, would have voted for the single market and the customs union, as would many right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches; I know that Plaid Cymru Members, the Green MP, and so on and so forth would have done. There was a majority in this place for what is now called Norway plus, but that time passed; too many people who said in private that they supported it did not show the courage when it was needed, for reasons that I understand. That ship has now long set sail, but there are alternatives, and there are things that must now occur.

Many of us reached the conclusion that going back to the people was the only right and proper thing to do, for a number of reasons. It has become increasingly clear that many people have changed their minds. It is two and a half years on from the referendum. People now understand far more—this includes hon. and right hon. Members in this place—about what Brexit means and what it looks like. Many have discovered the huge benefits that our membership of the European Union conveys to our country—we have the best, and indeed a unique, deal. Those are many of the reasons why we now support and ask for a people’s vote.

We also look at the 2 million young people who were denied a vote in 2016 by virtue of their age and who now demand a stake and a say in their future because they will bear the brunt if we get this wrong. I gently say to colleagues that if we leave without that vote and it turns out that the people of this country would have voted to remain in the European Union had they been given a vote, they will never forgive us; they will have no faith left in politics, but they will never forgive the Conservative party, and we will take all the consequences.

We need to get this matter back before us. We need to have on the table, with meaningful votes, all the alternatives that are available to us. If we cannot settle on one, we have to look at the process, and that must be a people’s vote or a general election. What is the best? What do the people want? A people’s vote.

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[Justine Greening]

We have to accept that this country will always debate its relationship with the European Union and our neighbouring countries on the continent of which we are a part. We are a part of the continent, but we are an island just off the mainland of that continent. It is almost an inevitability that we will continue to debate how close our relationship should be with our European neighbours. We should accept that as normal, instead of obsessing about it as a Parliament and as a country when there are so many other, more pressing issues in the 21st century that we now need to get on with.

[Anna Soubry]

Is it not also the case that, because the political declaration is so vague—so vague it cannot even be properly examined by Treasury officials—all this will carry on rumbling away? There will be big rows, because we still have not determined our final relationship with the European Union.

[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was in Cabinet when we discussed the need for a transition period—but transitioning to something, not to nothing. Had the discussion then been that we were about to agree to do the political equivalent of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, the conversation would have been very different. That underwrites why the House is so unlikely to agree not only the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, which has its issues of rules without say for an unspecified time, but the political declaration, which is just 26 pages long, yet is meant to cover the detail of our future relationship with our other European neighbours and the European Union. What we do not need is for Parliament to keep going round in circles; nor do we need delay. We need some certainty for businesses and people in our country, and that means that we need to do three things as a matter of urgency.

Parliament must have a vote on the Prime Minister’s proposal and the deal. We cannot simply have the debate delayed and procrastination. We need a debate and a vote on the Prime Minister’s deal. After that falls, as I expect it will, we then need to get on to debating and voting on the other options that other Members of the House have brought forward. Whether that is Norway plus or Canada, we have to look at those as a Parliament, debate them and decide whether there is a majority in the House for them. I do not believe that there will be. I think that that has been clear since the summer and that we have wasted months, still without reaching a conclusion on the fact that there is gridlock in the House. We will therefore have to have a vote of the people. I cannot see the rationale for a general election. It is self-serving of the Opposition to try to get one. Brexit is not about party politics; it is above party politics. That is why the only people’s vote that we can have on Brexit is a referendum. We also have to recognise that if there is no consensus that we can find in Parliament, we have to trust people in our country to be able to find that consensus for themselves.

I finish by saying that there is no excuse in this House and from this Government for any further delay. We have spent two and a half years going round in circles, and we cannot simply go nowhere. We now have to take some decisions about going somewhere. We cannot have this continued dance from the Opposition about what their proposal is for Britain. Most people have realised that there is no proposal from the Opposition and that they face the same challenges as the Government in trying to square the circle of how to deliver a Brexit that is actually the Brexit that millions of leave voters voted for.

Similarly, and perhaps most importantly, I say to Government: do not delay the meaningful vote until the new year. MPs in this place would be happy to delay recess. Frankly, I would be happy to sit through Christmas and into the new year if it meant that we could find a direction on Brexit for businesses and people, who want certainty about where this country is going. There is nothing more important for this House to debate right now, and we have to find a route through. If the Government do not want that, they surely have to bring the House back on 3 January, when bank holidays in this country have been had, so that people going to work know that their Parliament is going back to work too to find a direction for this country. We have to do this sooner rather than later. People simply will not understand why this place is packing up and having a two-week holiday when we face the biggest constitutional crisis that this country has had in decades. It is simply wrong. The Government have to recognise that and they now need to take some decisions, take some action and make sure that this House has a chance to represent our communities on their deal, to vote it down and to work out where we go next.