European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I will support the Prime Minister’s deal today because, as the west midlands businesses that employ thousands of my constituents tell me, “It’s good enough”—good enough for us to leave and thrive outside the EU. Not perfect, maybe, but those who flirt with plan Bs must examine their conscience when they hear the plight of industry. This is not the time to take a stand against the pragmatic reality of what is on the table. I credit my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for recognising that.

Right now, what business needs is some certainty. With only 73 days to go before we leave the EU, firms are already having to take costly decisions to stockpile goods and parts and, in some cases, to mothball production capacity. The cost of that hits their bottom line and ultimately results in them having to let people go. The car industry, for which the EU is the principal market, is particularly hurt. Let us remember that its factories are drawing on workers from some of the most deprived parts of the UK. Colleagues might not yet have lost jobs in their constituencies, but in the west midlands we certainly have.

I call on the Government to find a way to help the UK car industry, which is such an important employer, exporter and life transformer, through the challenges that it faces. Those challenges grieve me deeply, as the renaissance of manufacturing had transformed the lives of my constituents. Take, for example, single mums on my council estate who have taken up well paid jobs through apprenticeships with companies such as Jaguar Land Rover. Next week, when Dawn—not her real name —shows up in my surgery to complain about losing her job, the thing she understands as “Project Fear” is not being able to keep up the mortgage payments on the home she has provided for her kids.

What can we do to stop that inescapable human cost? At the very least, as a Parliament, we must stop the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal. There is a majority for no to no deal in Parliament, and the letter I co-authored with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) attracted 225 signatures. I and other hon. Members have tried to withdraw amendments tonight that could have wrecked the meaningful vote, but we remain determined to rule out no deal.

Businesses tell me they have roughly 14 days to decide whether to shut factories to weather the storm of disruption after we leave the EU or stockpile at huge expense. The least we can do is to provide a stable platform or foundation by ruling out no deal. The hit on business is taking place now: 90% of the CBI’s members are stockpiling, along with the SMEs in their supply chains, spending billions on contingency that they would otherwise use to invest. Some 10,000 lorries pass through Dover every day. Just-in-time delivery will become not-in-time delivery with the slightest hold-up at the border. The path the country has chosen is fraught with risk, even if, in time, opportunity beckons, so let us at least manage the risk of a no-deal Brexit so that constituents like Dawn do not face losing their jobs, their homes and their livelihoods.

As Second Church Estates Commissioner, I might be expected to make reference to the profound comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury about Brexit in the debate in the other place, that leaving without a deal would be a political, practical and moral failure. I echo the words of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) that we must come together, try to unite and bring unity to our country.