Draft Employment Rights (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Employment Rights (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Employment Rights (Amendment) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2018 Draft Employment Rights (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2018

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 13th February 2019 General Committees

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I want to pick up where my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey finished: on the issue of trust. I know the Minister to be a reasonable woman, and she is in her job at the moment, as the Prime Minister is in hers. However, the Government are basically asking us to take the draft regulations on trust. What will happen in the future, when we lose the protections and rights that we enjoy thanks to our European Union membership? It may happen under a different Minister, but it will almost certainly happen under a different Prime Minister. As we all know, the Prime Minister says that she will not hang around for very long, and she will certainly not take the Conservative party into the next general election.

We also know that, as my hon. Friend said, there are many Conservative Members itching to get their hands on employment protections and regulations. They want a bonfire and a race to the bottom, and they fantasise about a Singapore-style Britain somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. It is those people who are likely to steal the Prime Minister’s crown when there is finally a Conservative succession, because they are in the majority among her party members.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I just do not recognise that description of members of my party. I am sorry, but it is wrong to say that we fantasise about doing away with all that stuff.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I was not referring to the hon. Gentleman, of course, but I invite him to study the writings and comments of members of the European Research Group and their favourite economist, Patrick Minford, about their vision for our future. If the hon. Gentleman is not aware of those views, it is very worrying, because these are the people who are holding our country to ransom and taking over the Conservative party. There are Conservative MPs on my own patch whose local parties are being infiltrated by Arron Banks supporters with the specific aim of deselecting decent Conservative Members like the hon. Gentleman and replacing them with hard-right fanatics.

The Minister is asking us to take everything on trust in a world in which it is simply not possible to do so in a responsible way. She was very selective in her list of areas where Britain does have a good record, and where her own Government have a fairly good record on parental leave and so forth.

As others have mentioned, the Government do not have a good record when it comes to organised labour; they have a blind spot regarding its crucial importance in protecting workers’ rights and people at work. We have heard countless examples, including the scandal of tribunal fees, the Trade Union Act and so forth. The Minister is asking us not only to take on trust that the people in charge now will still be in charge in the months ahead; she is also giving a rather imbalanced account of the Conservative party’s record.

I occasionally read that there are members of my own party who would like to facilitate or support the Prime Minister’s EU withdrawal deal, in return for what I consider to be completely meaningless assurances about the future of workers’ rights. I simply invite them, before they take that leap of faith, to look at the way in which the Government are ramming through these SIs without proper scrutiny.

We are elected as Labour Members to support workers’ rights. I would not want any of my colleagues inadvertently to support a very bad deal, on the basis of assurances given by a Prime Minister who is not going to be around, and when the real power brokers in her party have absolutely no intention of respecting those guarantees.

Church of England (Women Bishops)

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bradshaw]

Indeed, and I understand that there have been spontaneous meetings at local and synodical level all over the country. At an emergency meeting this week, the synod in Bristol voted in a similar vein. There has been a real upswelling of indignation and sadness among many ordinary Anglicans.

As I was saying, things may be no better in the new Synod. The conservative evangelicals are well organised and motivated. If we look at the voting figures in the House of Laity, we see that the majority of lay representatives from some dioceses voted no, even when their diocesan synod had voted overwhelmingly yes. Of course I hope and expect that there will be conversations at local level with these people, to whom it should be gently pointed out that they have not really represented the views of their diocese very well. I have had quite a lot of dealings with the opponents, and particularly conservative evangelicals, and I am not filled with confidence that they will be persuadable.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

As I understand it, the Synod vote was not about whether there should be women bishops; apparently, that has been agreed already. The vote may well have been—I stand to be corrected—about how the Church can be kept together, in light of the fact that a minority of people, perhaps for theological reasons, cannot accept the oversight of a woman. That might be the nub of the problem. That is a question, as much as a statement.

[Mr Bradshaw]

The answer, of course, is yes, but the Measure made very generous provision for opponents of women priests and bishops; it would have allowed them to continue to have their own bishop. Supporters of the Measure believe that the concessions were pretty generous, and I do not think that they will become any more generous in the weeks and months to come.

That is why I say to the bishops that there comes a time in any organisation, whether it be a political party or a Church, when it is no longer sustainable or possible to move at the pace of the slowest, which in this case means not moving at all. The overwhelming majority of Anglicans do not want more delay. They believe that the opponents of women bishops will never be reconciled. If some of the opponents decide to leave for Rome or to set up their own conservative evangelical sect, so be it. Similar threats were made over women’s ordination. In the event, far fewer people left the Church of England than was predicted, and as time has gone on, more and more parishes that originally decided that they did not want women priests have come to accept and celebrate them.

West Bank (Area C)

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and I apologise if I seemed rude to my very good hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I do not mean to be rude.

I am aware of the organisation Breaking the Silence. Perhaps someone else will bring it up.

[Mr Bradshaw]

rose—

[Bob Stewart]

Perhaps it will be my right hon. Friend, although he is not meant to be.

[Mr Bradshaw]

On this issue, I think I probably am. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a better description than settlement, which is a fairly neutral, anodyne word, would be colony? These are illegal colonies. Does he agree that the description that he has just given of Area C, although it is not a complete parallel, is moving towards a situation that is comparable with apartheid South Africa?

[Bob Stewart]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. I am trying to avoid using words such as “apartheid” and “ghetto”. They are emotive terms. “Colony” is just acceptable, but I am trying to avoid using those terms, because, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole, I am trying to avoid putting blame on anyone. I am just trying to explain the situation.