EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee

Barry Sheerman Excerpts
Monday 19th October 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Michael Gove Portrait Michael Gove
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My colleague Lord Agnew, the Cabinet Office Minister, has been in touch with my hon. Friend and with the local authority to stress that there will be additional investment, which will mean more jobs in Warrington. We expect that there will be an additional 375 jobs created in Warrington, split between new jobs for colleagues in the Border Force, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Mitie and the haulage firm Wincanton. The current expectation is that that number will rise to around 460 jobs by December next year. We are also working to make sure that there is appropriate additional funding to ensure that there is no additional traffic problem for him, his constituents or those in neighbouring villages.

Barry Sheerman Portrait Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
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I have known the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster all his political career. May I urge him not to keep the door ajar but to open the door to continuing negotiations? Not to have a deal would be a historic, shameful failure. It would hurt my constituents and his, with broken businesses and unemployment, and blight the future of a new generation and generations to come. Please, I beg him to try again for all of us.

Michael Gove Portrait Michael Gove
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We sincerely want an agreement, but we cannot have an agreement on any terms. I know that his constituents, like mine, voted to leave the European Union—

Barry Sheerman Portrait Mr Sheerman
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indicated dissent.

Michael Gove Portrait Michael Gove
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Oh, a curious absence, then, in Yorkshire. Whatever our disagreements, the hon. Gentleman and I agree that we should work together in the best interests of all the citizens of the United Kingdom. I am always grateful for his wisdom. Ever since I first arrived in the House, he has been a good friend and a wise head, and whenever I have gone wrong it is because I have not paid too much attention—sorry, it is because I have not paid enough attention to his words.