Customs and Borders

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Two great problems have plagued Governments in this place for over 200 years —the Irish question and the European question. It takes a Government of some genius to bring those two questions down on their head simultaneously. I have been waiting a long time to say that.

I welcome this opportunity to confirm that my party’s policy is, and always has been, to stay in the customs union. We are a pro-European party—not blindly so, because we have long-standing criticisms of the European Union, but we have always been in favour of co-operating with people who share our views and our values. But that is all for a wider debate. Today I want to concentrate my remarks on the relationship with Ireland.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hywel Williams]

I will give way once.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am very grateful. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that generations to come may well look back at this moment and find it utterly incomprehensible that we could even have been considering sacrificing the Good Friday agreement on the altar of this ideologically driven Brexit? Five former Northern Ireland Secretaries have said a hard border threatens the very existence of the Good Friday agreement. Does he agree that that would be unforgivably reckless and careless?

[Hywel Williams]

As I said in an intervention, I have recently been to South Armagh with the Select Committee. I could scarcely spot the difference between the north and the south. The only difference was that the tarmac was slightly different, with the better tarmac being on the southern side. That is a light remark, but it does make the point that the Good Friday agreement has brought peace almost entirely to the island of Ireland. We gamble with that at our peril, and we will not be forgiven if it is lost. That is certainly the point made by my Irish friends. I should declare an interest: if I want to visit an easy-going and entertaining European capital, Dublin is a good deal closer to me than Cardiff or London, for that matter. My Irish friends tell me how much they value that link, and that is what I want to talk about.

I have been cautioned by Democratic Unionist party colleagues not to embroil myself in their domestic matters, but this is particularly relevant to north Wales and my Arfon constituency. There is an east-west element to the question of the border, as well as the north-south element between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as the Brexit Secretary acknowledged yesterday when he appeared before the Exiting the European Union Committee. The north-south element gets the attention, but the trade between the UK and Ireland, and specifically for me the relationship between Wales and Ireland, is hugely important and larger.

The east-west trade between Irish and Welsh ports is much more significant than the north-south trade, though it does not have the same political significance, because of the historical and tragic troubles they have had in the north of Ireland. The Secretary of State noted that the east-west trade is not only between the Republic and the UK, as there is also significant trade between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom via the Republic. It is a complex relationship.

We have heard a great deal about the potential problems in Dover, should there be border checks, of potential tailbacks all the way to London, with perishable goods spoiling and costs to business. The same could be said for Holyhead, though possibly at a slightly less intense level. I know that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) has pushed that matter very hard indeed and is always ready to make the point. I am glad to support him this afternoon. The same point could also be made about the link with Fishguard in south-west Wales.

The lack of attention to the Wales-Ireland link is significant for not only our local economies in the north-west but the Welsh economy in general. The problems are quite obvious. In Holyhead, there is absolutely no room at the port for the expansion required to deal with any sort of customs checks. That is a practical problem. The A55, which crosses north Wales, is not a good road in many ways. It has no hard shoulder and no crash barriers in many places. It is a designated Euroroute between Dublin and Moscow, and on to the Urals. There are only two roundabouts on that route between Dublin and Moscow, both of which are in north Wales: one in Llanfairfechan and one in Penmaenmawr. Indeed, we also have two very bad bridges over the Menai strait. Those sorts of practical problems really worry me when time is so short.

The Government and the European Union have provided us with A, B and C options, with A being a comprehensive deal, B being a particular deal for Northern Ireland and C being the rejected backstop of Northern Ireland staying within the customs union. The UK rejects the C option, and the A option of a comprehensive deal is very much favoured. The Secretary of State said yesterday that he reckoned there was a 90% chance of achieving a comprehensive deal—option A—with the European Union, but that leaves us with a 10% chance of option B. I worry that if we have a particular fix for the Northern Ireland problem, we will then need a particular fix for customs between the north and the south. As one former Taoiseach said, that might entail turning a blind eye.

I cannot see how we can have two competing customs regimes between two countries or two economic blocs. I asked the Secretary of State yesterday if he could name a pair of countries that have competing customs arrangements between them. He did not answer, and neither could Pascal Lamy when he was before us some time ago. For all those reasons, I think the customs union is the option to choose.

Spring Statement

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I suspect my hon. Friend knows well, this is the assumption that the OBR has adopted at the last three fiscal events. It has assumed that any saving from a lower contribution to the European Union will be recycled to fund things that would have been funded by the EU, but will no longer be so. How we choose to use that money and what our priorities are will, of course, be an issue for this Parliament, but we should note that we have already made certain commitments—to our agricultural community, for example—to maintain spending at EU levels until the end of this Parliament.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I have to say that the levels of hypocrisy from the Government are quite extraordinary. How can the Chancellor pledge to be improving air quality while simultaneously boasting of undertaking the largest road building programme since the 1970s? How can he say that the plastics crisis is urgent and then propose a deadline for the elimination of plastics in a quarter of a century’s time? Where is the latte levy? Where is the deposit scheme? Where is the urgency for action? Why is there such a gulf between the Government’s action and words?

[Mr Hammond]

I am tempted to say, “Eeyore.” I think that the hon. Lady is making a fundamental mistake by linking the road building programme to air quality. I urge her to take at least a medium-term view of the world. The vehicle fleet is decarbonising. Certainly within her lifetime, if not mine, we will have fully electric vehicles, and probably autonomous ones as well. We should think of the road building programme not as a negative feature, but as an enabler in the transformation of how our vehicle fleet works. We have made announcements today, and I hope that she will be pleased with the consultation on VED for vans. This is a much-needed approach to incentivise van drivers to buy the cleanest and greenest vehicles available.

Budget Resolutions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

It is also a pleasure to serve with the hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Committee. I am sure that the Chancellor will have has heard what he said. I am also sure that the Chancellor is looking forward to appearing in front of the Committee on 6 December, when we will be able to ask him such questions directly.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Nicky Morgan]

I will give way briefly, but then I will make some progress.

[Caroline Lucas]

Hidden in the Budget book is the really terrible news that no new money is available for renewables until 2025, but at the same time the Chancellor is giving away yet more tax breaks to oil and gas. How on earth is that compatible with a forward-looking country that is serious about climate change?

[Nicky Morgan]

This Government have done incredibly well in supporting the renewables industry. The renewable energy industry in the midlands is thriving. Again, however, the Committee may well want to take that up with the Chancellor.

I welcome the move on business rates—the change from RPI to CPI is very welcome—and I particularly welcome the move on the staircase tax, about which the Chancellor was asked when he appeared before the Committee recently. The approach builds on the evidence he gave, and I hope he is right about the cross-party support that the measure will be able to receive.

Paradise Papers

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One measure that the Opposition have said a future Labour Government would take is to stick the corporation tax rate up to 26%, which would do nothing to create jobs, nothing to create wealth, nothing to improve our economy and, most importantly, nothing to raise the vital taxes that we need to support our vital public services.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Given what the Paradise papers reveal about the industrial scale of tax dodging, together with the shaming fact that some of the UK’s overseas territories and Crown dependencies are the largest tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions in the world, will the Government drop their morally indefensible blocking of the development of a credible and meaningful EU blacklist of tax havens?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady is simply wrong. The discussions on the blacklist at the European Union are ongoing and the United Kingdom Government have done nothing to attempt to block them. We are firmly and deeply engaged in them and expect them to conclude by the end of this year.

Public Sector Pay Cap

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The answer is that the Government set the remit for the pay bodies last year. Those reports have all been submitted. We have responded to some of them, and we will respond to others in due course. Later this year, we will set the remit for the 2018-19 pay bodies.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

No Opposition Member is talking down our public services in the way that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury claims. We are talking up the incredible commitment of the people who work in them, despite the contempt with which her Government treat them. She talks about job satisfaction. Does she accept that what contributes to job satisfaction for nurses is having the time they need to spend with patients? When the NHS is under such strain, nurses simply do not have the time to spend with patients because there are so many staff vacancies. The NHS is in crisis. Lifting the pay cap is a crucial way of addressing it. Why will she not do it?

[Elizabeth Truss]

With respect, the hon. Lady talks the NHS down in her question. The fact is that the NHS is doing a tremendous job. We are reducing the bureaucracy so that nurses can spend more of their time with patients. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is driving an agenda of reform that is delivering better public services.

Autumn Statement

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That was a splendidly pithy answer, but questions are becoming rather long. There are still nearly 50 Members seeking to contribute, and I am keen to accommodate them, but I can do so only if people can—to put it bluntly—abandon the preamble and get on with the pithy, preferably single-sentence, inquiry. I am sure that we can led in this by Caroline Lucas.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Disappointingly, this Chancellor has joined his predecessor in failing to mention the words “climate change” even just once anywhere in the statement. That is in the year that is set to be the hottest on record, when parts of the country are under floodwater. Can he justify continued handouts to the oil and gas sector when there is no assurance of support for clean energy post-2020, no reversal of the critical solar tax hike, and nothing on keeping homes warm this winter?

[Mr Speaker]

One sentence if it involved the abandonment of punctuation.

Good Parliament Report

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Good Parliament report.

“The Good Parliament” report was published in July and during my speech I will quote a couple of sections from it. The first is this:

“Parliamentary reform is too often the result of individual MPs expending significant time and political capital.”

For me, that is the key reason why this report is important.

The intention behind the report was to try to ensure that Parliament is a more representative place, so that it is more representative of society, has a better division between the genders, has a better representation across classes, so that it is not quite so middle class, male and of a certain age, and so that it has greater diversity.

Another line from the report is this:

“2018 is a timely reminder of the promise of equality in parliamentary participation and representation in the UK.”

The report comes in the run-up to 2018 and hopes to make changes in advance of both 2018 and the 2020 election. This is absolutely the perfect time for it to come out. I recognise the incredibly hard work that Professor Sarah Childs, who is in the Public Gallery today, put into it, and the good intentions that the House and Mr Speaker in particular had in commissioning it, which are hugely appreciated.

Before I talk about the report’s recommendations, I will talk a bit about who I am, why my circumstances matter and why the report is so relevant to me and people like me in Parliament. I am not from a wealthy background. Nobody in my family has a degree. I am absolutely not from that kind of traditional privileged background that people imagine politicians come from. I am not saying at all that I grew up on the breadline, but my family were certainly not affluent in any way.

I am also an MP from quite far away. My constituency is 500 miles away from here, so I am tackling geographical issues. I am not unique in that. My Scottish National party colleagues are similarly from far away places. We tackle geographical issues that London MPs, for example, cannot even imagine. It is really quite difficult to tackle them.

I am also a female MP. Women are still very much in the minority in the House of Commons and we still face— I do not want to say “discrimination”—barriers because of our gender.

I am also a relatively young MP. I was 29 when I was elected, which in House of Commons terms—we could include the House of Lords in that—is incredibly young. In House of Commons terms, 29 is still pretty young to be elected.

I am also a parent of young children. I have a three-year-old and a five-year-old. When I was elected, they were obviously even younger than that. It is unusual, particularly for female MPs, to be parents of pre-school children, because it is incredibly hard to do this job if you have them, particularly when tackling all the other issues that people like me face. I am so far from home. I also suddenly have to finance this role. Obviously we get paid, but coming into this House without having a salary beforehand and having to pay back all of the money spent during election campaigns is hard to begin with. It is not easy. I feel that there are a lot of barriers in my way. I am from the SNP. I am no big fan of Westminster. I am not about this place being wonderful, but even if Scotland gets its independence, or when Scotland gets its independence, future generations of parliamentarians should not have to face the barriers that I have had to face in becoming an MP and in being an MP.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady is very kind to give way so early on. I commend her for what she is saying and I agree with everything she has said so far. Does she agree that one way to address one of those barriers is to consider the possibility of MPs job sharing? The report does not consider it, but a future one might. One way to keep one foot solidly in our constituency, perhaps to provide the kind of family care that she is talking about, and represent people here is job sharing.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I will come to that. First, I am going to talk about some of the recommendations in the report and the reasons why they are so good. I will also talk about a few things that are not in the recommendations but that I feel would have benefits—job sharing is one of those.

Article 50: Parliamentary Approval

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I expect that the Minister also defers to his hon. Friend on the matter of knowledge of kings.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the Minister consider the proposal put forward today by 1,000 lawyers of establishing of a royal commission or independent body to receive evidence from a wide range of groups, particularly about the risks and benefits of triggering article 50 at various times? Will he ensure that such a body will be able to report before Parliament votes?

[John Penrose]

I think that I am not being over-cynical if I wonder whether a proposal by 1,000 lawyers for a commission to deliberate at length might be a delaying tactic. The concern will be not to tie the hands of the incoming Prime Minister or her negotiating team in how we approach this matter. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) rightly pointed out, we must ensure that whatever we do and however we handle this, we aim to get the best deal possible for this country with not just other European member states, but other countries in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

10. What fiscal steps he is taking to support the development of solar power.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)]

We are continuing our support for solar, keeping the small-scale feed-in tariff scheme open beyond January 2016, setting tariffs on a path to help transition the industry to a sustainable, subsidy-free future.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the Exchequer Secretary for that very short answer. Given that the EU’s VAT reform action plan will give Governments discretion in applying rates of VAT, including on solar power, will he confirm categorically to solar installers in my constituency that the UK has officially and permanently dropped the proposal to hike solar VAT to 20%?

[Damian Hinds]

The reduced rate of VAT remains in place on all 11 of the categories of energy saving materials. Following the decision by the European Court, we have consulted interested parties on the issue and, given the complexities involved, we are still considering the responses.

HMRC and Google (Settlement)

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The point I would make is that this is a highly complex area, but there is a need for international co-operation in it, which is why we instigated the OECD looking at this as part of the BEPS process. That process has come forward with a number of recommendations. We have already legislated for two of those recommendations. There is a third that we are specifically looking at and consulting upon in terms of interest deductibility. It is right that we bring the international tax system up to date to reflect the way multinational companies are working. This has been left for too long; we are taking action.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Minister recognise that people’s anger is very legitimate and even more justifiable given that Google is effectively freeriding on publicly funded infrastructure, not least the £1.2 billion the Government have invested in superfast broadband, and may I urge him again to make sure these calculations are put in the public domain so people can see how the figures are arrived at?

[Mr Gauke]

We will see if the National Audit Office wishes to look at this particular area, but again I point to the fact that previously when people have made allegations about particular arrangements, it has turned out on closer inspection that that has not turned out to be true.