European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Debate between Caroline Flint and Steve Barclay

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the first step, not the final one. The House will have further opportunities to debate these issues.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that amendment (a) is a panic measure by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and others, because they had no idea or confidence that a deal would be before us today that would allow those of us in this House who want to secure a deal to move on and leave the European Union by 31 October? As a result, if the House votes for amendment (a) today, we will be forced—even if a deal is approved—to seek an extension until 31 January, underlining that the sponsors of Benn Act had only one motivation: to delay Brexit and stop it.

[Stephen Barclay]

I very much agree with the right hon. Lady’s points, as well as with the principle and consistency that she has shown throughout the debate. It is indeed an interesting snippet within the point that she raises that some of the voices in the media this morning were complaining that there had been insufficient time between the deal on 17 October and the debate in the House today, 19 October. And yet, this is the timescale that the Benn legislation itself required of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when it came to bringing issues before the House.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Caroline Flint and Steve Barclay

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Stephen Barclay]

I will come to the right hon. Lady in a moment, but I will just address my hon. Friend’s intervention. It is the case that the talks with the official Opposition were done in good faith on both sides. There were areas of genuine misunderstanding, such as about the appetite of the Government through the political declaration to participate, for example, in EU agencies. Perhaps at the start of the talks there was some genuine misunderstanding about that. However, as I set out at the start of those talks, if the purpose of those talks was to seek a second referendum, one only needed to look at the Kyle-Wilson amendment to see that the talks were not necessary. If we look at the way the talks collapsed, it was on the basis that the position of my shadow and opposite number—he is someone of great integrity, and I respect his position—is one of seeking a second referendum. If that was genuinely the crux of his concern, surely that was self-evident at the start of those talks, and it was not necessary for those talks to progress in order to tease out that point.

[Caroline Flint]

Of course, I have voted for a deal a number of times. I say, with the greatest respect, we have to move on from talking about who did what and when, and we have to look forward. Many of my colleagues regret not voting for a deal and they are dealing with that right now. From the Back Benches, we are trying—maybe those on both Front Benches could listen to this—to identify and agree that there is much in the withdrawal agreement Bill where there is consensus across the House. It is not the only deal, and our amendment asks Members to reflect and build on it, but, for goodness’ sake, we have to move on. There is an increasingly loud voice across the House wanting a consensus to move forward.

[Stephen Barclay]

I agree with the right hon. Lady in substance and form. She is right about the requirement for us to move forward and not to look back. In fact, I made a similar point to the Irish Government about how we can move forward constructively, rather than look back at some of the talks to date. She is also right that there is much in the withdrawal agreement on which we can move forward.

That is reflected, if one looks at—[Interruption.]. I am trying to address the right hon. Lady’s point. There is much in the letter to President Tusk where the Prime Minister has narrowed down the issues in the withdrawal agreement. Many of my colleagues are concerned about lots of different aspects of the withdrawal agreement, whether on money, the European Court of Justice or geographical indicators, and the Prime Minister has narrowed those issues down. However, it is the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole reflected, that some of us have sought compromise and will continue to do so.

Energy Prices

Debate between Caroline Flint and Steve Barclay

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

For a start, we had the most ambitious programme to help people in fuel poverty deal with their bills—the Government are cutting those measures—but we also started discussions across Europe about having Europe-wide legislation to tackle some of those issues by not only giving greater powers to regulators but ensuring more openness and transparency. I will talk about this more later, but I am sad to say that we are seven months overdue in implementing that legislation and putting into statute powers that we can use to control parts of the market. Perhaps the Secretary of State will say something more about why the package that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was negotiating when he was Climate Change Secretary has not been implemented.

Research published by the consumer group Which? showed that when people contacted the big six energy firms to ask how they could save money—that is, when they made the effort that the Secretary of State lectures us about—a third of them were given misleading advice. Either those customers were deliberately misled or the tariffs were so complicated that not even the staff selling them understood them. Can we imagine any other product or service where we would accept four out of five customers being overcharged—not just once, but time and time again—and nothing being done about it? When four out of five families are paying over the odds for their electricity and gas it shows how out of touch this Government are to lecture people about shopping around.

People do not want a Government who blame them for the fact that their energy bills have gone up. Families and businesses that do the right thing, work hard and play by the rules cannot understand why this Government are not only allowing electricity and gas companies to increase bills by so much, but seem to be apologising on their behalf. On Monday the Energy Secretary told the “Today” programme:

“Energy companies are not the Salvation Army”,

and said that he expected them to

“earn respectable returns for their shareholders”.

We know that the energy companies are not the Salvation Army, but it should not be Government policy to drive people into the arms of the Salvation Army either.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Can the right hon. Lady explain why, in 2000, the Labour Government set a 10-year target of securing 10% of electricity from renewables, with a starting point of 2.7%, yet failed to achieve it, adding only 6% in 10 years? In 2009 the current Leader of the Opposition set a legally binding target of 31%—in other words, signing us up to deliver 21% extra when we had already failed to achieve the 10% target in the preceding 10 years. Could she please explain that?

[Caroline Flint]

I am happy to support the Labour Government’s ambitious plans to be at the forefront of supporting renewable energy—and also, I should add, cracking the whip to make the energy companies play their part. Part of the problem is that the energy companies seemed to be on a mission to make us use more energy and pay more, rather than helping us to reduce our energy consumption and therefore pay less. We have nothing to apologise for on that front. What we are talking about today is what is happening this week, as the frost hits, and this winter, when people will face not only high energy bills but higher food prices, and wage freezes in the public and private sectors, in a country where unemployment is going up and people are feeling the squeeze on all fronts.

The question is: what can this Government do about that now? The answer, from Monday’s energy summit, seems to be: precious little. We do not think that this Government are doing enough. On Monday the Secretary of State could not bring himself to question whether it is right, at a time when millions of families and businesses are struggling with energy bills, that energy companies should be enjoying soaring profit margins, which are up more than eightfold since June. We do not think that it is, which is why we welcome The Sun’s “Keep it Down” campaign, and why we said that the Government should have used Monday’s summit to tell the energy giants to give up some of their profits and cut bills this winter. Was it any surprise that the BBC correspondent reported that the energy companies were “delighted” with the outcome of the summit? Well, they would be, because they were not asked to do anything.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Flint]

The hon. Lady speaks up for the south-west and I know that she has raised questions a number of times about water in the south-west. Again, however, I would have to say that she should speak to her leader and to the Secretary of State about what they are doing to challenge these utility companies over how they supply, and she should recognise the difficulties faced across our country. She also needs to recognise particular difficulties within regions as well as within the country.

[Stephen Barclay]

A central theme of the right hon. Lady’s remarks seems to be gas prices and bills for consumers. Will she remind us how much gas bills went up in real terms between 1997 and 2010?

[Caroline Flint]

I understand that the wholesale price has gone down from its peak in 2008 by two thirds; in fact, wholesale prices have been going down in the last month. That poses the question: why do we hear from the energy companies when they say that prices are going up, but when the prices are going down we do not hear from them so loudly? Ofgem has said it is not good enough that when the energy companies claim that wholesale prices are going up, the price to consumers goes up like a rocket, but when they come down, the price comes down like feathers. The truth is that it is a complex market and it is difficult. We are not an island that can control everything, but we should control the way in which the energy companies are expected to satisfy us and the public about how they run their tariffs, and they should open their books to show transparency so we can see at what price they buy and at what price they sell, to ensure that we get a better deal.