European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Bob Seely Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution
Friday 20th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank voters in my constituency for re-electing me to serve as their Member of Parliament. It is an honour to represent one of the most diverse constituencies in the country. In 2016 it voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, and, in my experience, the strength of my constituents’ pro-EU views has only grown over the past three years.

The vast majority of my constituents did not vote to “get Brexit done”, and my mandate from them is to keep standing up for our values in Dulwich and West Norwood and to champion their interests. Our values are those of outward-facing internationalism, a celebration of diversity and community solidarity. These are the values that underpin our support for membership of the EU and these are the values that lead us to be deeply concerned about Brexit and this Government’s reckless approach to it.

Our values lead us to be concerned about the protections people are afforded in their workplace, the protection of our environment and our response to the climate emergency. They lead us to prioritise human rights and to be concerned about how Governments are held to account for human rights abuses which happen on their watch. And they lead us to be concerned about refugees and to want the UK to play a full role in responding to the global refugee crisis by welcoming people who have lost everything and helping them to rebuild their lives. Indeed, many of my constituents are already playing their part through community sponsorship groups and they want to see the Government doing the same.

We are dismayed to see in the Bill the Government jettison their previous commitment to the Dubs amendment on child refugees and the non-regression clauses, which were designed to ensure that the UK does not move backwards on workers’ rights relative to the EU—or at least that if the Government did so it would be completely transparent and they could be held to account. In relation to human rights, the previous Government removed the UK’s commitment to the charter of fundamental rights. The Bill further waters down the commitment to the European convention on human rights, and the political declaration makes no mention of rights previously protected by the EU charter of fundamental rights. There is a real risk that hard-won rights fought for over hundreds of years could be watered down by this or any other future Government.

The Prime Minister’s reckless approach to the implementation period is nothing short of a disgrace. There is not a shred of evidence that a trade deal with the EU can be secured within a year. The EU says it cannot. All trade deal precedents indicate that it cannot. Yet the Prime Minister seeks to enshrine in law the UK’s crashing out of the EU with no trade deal in just a year’s time. Brexit will not be done; it will be doing its worst to communities up and down the country. Jobs will be lost and lives left devastated if we crash out in a year’s time. I urge newly elected Government Members to reflect very carefully on what exactly this will mean for the communities they represent, and to heed the warnings of UK manufacturers about the dependence of supply chains on our membership of the single market and customs union.

None of this is hypothetical. It is about the ability of thousands of people to go to work in secure, well-paid jobs that keep a roof over their family’s head. It is about the rights of working people to holiday pay, maternity and parental leave, sick pay and protection from discrimination and unfair dismissal.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that, actually, in many cases UK standards are higher than those of the European Union? I am very confused as to why Opposition Members keep using the EU as a gold standard when actually it is the UK that is the gold standard.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I do not accept that that is the case. Nor do I accept that the Bill does anything other than leave those rights to the mercy of any future Government. I do not trust this Prime Minister to maintain the standards we have derived from the EU.

It is about the protection of our woodlands, rivers and coastal habitats at a time when the environment could not be more important. It is about the practical expression of our values in the way that we treat the world’s most vulnerable children.

I understand that the Prime Minister has a majority that means he will pass the Bill and we will leave the European Union, but my constituents will not be denied a voice in that debate. Make no mistake: the Bill will deliver nothing but damage to the UK on many fronts. I will oppose it, I will stand up for my constituents’ values and interests, and I will hold the Government to account for the consequences of their reckless actions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. That means that if I take an intervention, I get an extra minute, does it not?

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

You would lose lots of friends on the Government side.

[Mr Seely]

We cannot have that.

I would like to thank my constituents on the Isle of Wight for re-electing me. It remains a huge privilege to work on their behalf, and I look forward to continuing to do so. It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), although I found her arguments about our democracy straight after a very clear general election result to be somewhat tortuous. As someone who is half English and half German, I love Europe, but I am not sure that I want to be part of the European Union—in fact, I know that I do not. They are different things.

Groundhog day is ending, thank God. Democracy has reasserted itself. To quote the guitar piece that I am trying to learn for Christmas—Jeff Buckley’s cover—“Hallelujah”. The delay has been a disgrace, frankly. MPs in a functioning democracy cannot choose which votes to respect, and they cannot call for new referendums because they did not like the previous results.

The Labour party has been defenestrated because it refused to honour the pledge it made in 2017. We hear two different versions of the future: the one from the hon. Member for Cardiff North, which is effectively denial; and the one from the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), which is to accept the result and try to rebuild. One offers a route out for the Labour party, and the other offers a route to an existential crisis and a chance never to hold power again. It is up to the Labour party which way it goes. Throughout the summer we saw the Labour leadership, led by several of the new leadership candidates, tying itself in tortuous knots, like some sort of incompetent Houdini, and then being forever unable to untie itself.

The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) was absolutely right to say that her folks did not vote for Brexit, and she is right to champion remain. However, of over 100 Labour seats in the previous Parliament, 52 had leave majorities of over 60%, and eight had leave majorities of more than 70%. Many of those former hon. Members are now looking for jobs because they did not listen to their people. There is a lesson there for all of us.

Seventeen million people voted to leave because they felt that the political system no longer represented them. The European Union was not always part of the problem but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said, it was not part of the solution either.

I am delighted that we are leaving the European Union, because there has always been a relentless federalising agenda with which Britons have felt uncomfortable. This is now our chance to chart a different course for a new great project. This great project is partly about leaving the European Union but, as the Prime Minister has said, it is also partly about restoring folks’ faith in democracy and trust.

I therefore look forward to voting for this great and important Bill—it is a good Christmas present for many of our constituents. We respect remainers who voted to stay, but we have a withdrawal deal and we can get it through, and we can respect both sides while recognising that we are a leave nation and we need to deliver for those people who voted in the 2016 referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is a champion for workers’ rights and his constituents, and he will know that not only did our manifesto make that clear commitment—on page 5—but did so in parallel with the Bill. The Bill is about implementing in domestic law the international agreement that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has reached with the EU. This House does not need other people to tell us how to protect the rights of workers and others. As my hon. Friend well knows, in many areas this Parliament goes further than the EU in safeguarding rights, not least in areas such as maternity and paternity rights. Following the manifesto commitment to high standards, I look forward to the House continuing that tradition and maintaining good standards.

[Mr Seely]

One thing that concerns folks on the Isle of Wight and the south coast is seeing super trawlers hoovering up 250 tonnes of fish a day off Shanklin and Eastbourne. Is not one of the great benefits of the Bill, our leaving the EU and our getting a new fisheries Bill that we will be able to stop super trawlers coming into our seas, which we are not allowed to do at the moment because of our membership of the EU?

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is right. One of the key features of taking back control of our waters is this Parliament making those decisions for itself. One of the mysteries about Opposition Members is that those representing Scotland do not seem to have the self-confidence to take back those decision-making powers, but rather want to give them back to Europe.