Covid-19: Strategy

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point that I addressed earlier a couple of times. I want to stress again for the benefit of the House and country: if we can, we want to bring primary schools back at the beginning of next month—reception, year 1 and year 6—and then to have all primary school children getting at least a month of education before the holidays in July. I appreciate that in that process not everybody will be able to get their kids into school as fast as they would like in order to get back to work. There will be childcare needs. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will be setting out in further detail how we propose to help those with particular childcare needs, but I want to stress that if people cannot get the childcare they need to get to work, that is plainly an impediment on their ability to work, and their employer should recognise that.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]]

Hundreds are dying every day and we still do not have sufficient testing and tracing to measure and control the spread of infection, yet the Government are starting to relax lockdown in a haphazard and confusing manner. The Prime Minister continues to claim his strategy is a success, despite us having the highest death toll in Europe. Is it the Government’s position that as long as the NHS can cope it is less important how many catch the virus and sadly die?

[The Prime Minister]

I must reject what the hon. Member said about relaxing the lockdown. We are not ending the lockdown. We have to be very clear with people that the measures remain in place. We are saying that they should look at the precise guidance that was given, which is that, if they must go to work—if their job means they must go to work—they should be actively encouraged to go to work, and we are setting out steps to allow them to do so. The other important change we are making this week relates to people’s ability to exercise. In the next two steps, on 1 June and the beginning of July, we will be governed entirely by the science, and we will continue to work with Opposition parties and across all four nations as we go forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for the enormous amount of work that he has done in previous iterations of his posts in this Department and others. He is absolutely right; the challenge of finding a vaccine for covid-19 is something that we are actively involved in, and we have already supported £5 million to the World Health Organisation. I was speaking to Dr Tedros yesterday to find out what other support we could bring, not only in cash terms but in expertise such as the skills of epidemiologists and logisticians, which could help the WHO to drive forwards in the weakest health systems across the world to ensure that they have the support they need.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State confident that her Department has sufficient resources to deal with the consequences of the ongoing conflict in Syria, especially given the recent call from the UN high commissioner for refugees for the international support for refugees trapped in Idlib to be sustained and stepped up?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I think we are all continually horrified by the increasing abandonment of any kind of respect for humanitarian law that we are seeing in Syria from the regime, supported by the Russians. I signed off an £89 million package last week to provide more immediate help in that area. The challenge is to get it in, and to ensure that those who are able to deliver that humanitarian relief are able to get in and out safely. The Foreign Secretary was in Turkey yesterday continuing to try to find ways to ensure that those communities are at least able to keep warm and fed while we find ways to really sort out this impossible humanitarian challenge.

Transport Infrastructure

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I would be only too happy to look in detail at the Goole-Leeds line and see what we can do to assist—we will suck it and see, as they say.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Newcastle and the north-east need this infrastructure investment in both HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail without any further delay. Will the Prime Minister make an immediately deliverable improvement to our national infrastructure, to ensure that the north-east and Newcastle are NPR and HS2-ready, by investing in our east coast main line, which needs urgent infrastructure investment between York and Newcastle?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point, and we are indeed upgrading the digital signalling on the east coast main line.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Catherine McKinnell 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

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

During the election period I spoke to many voters, and I fully appreciated the desire expressed by some—whether they had voted leave or remain—for closure on Brexit. It was very clever electioneering to convey the impression that this was simply a small foreign policy issue that could be wrapped up relatively quickly so that Ministers could get on with bread-and-butter domestic issues. However, we are no longer electioneering. It is time for reality to bite, and the reality is that this Bill is just the start of years of uncertainty about our future. Rather than getting Brexit done, it gets Brexit begun.

There are still so many issues to be resolved, and they are incredibly thorny ones. The most fundamental question is whether securing a United States or a European Union trade deal is more important to the Government. Both will require some sort of regulatory alignment, and the Prime Minister needs to decide what he is prepared to concede—on food, fisheries, labour and environmental provisions, just for starters.

The Government must also decide what kind of say, if any, devolved Governments will have in respect of trade agreements. If the Scottish Government are excluded from negotiations, what will that mean for our Union? We have already seen and heard about the challenges posed to Northern Ireland by the proposals to place a border in the Irish sea, which was something that the Prime Minister promised not to do. Some time ago, immediately after the 2016 referendum, I asked what the Government would do to ensure that regional voices and concerns were heard as part of the Brexit negotiations. The answer that I received from the Prime Minister was nothing, and I have little hope that it will be any more encouraging today.

Those are really big questions, and that is without even mentioning long-term tariffs, access to the labour market, the state aid regime, access to fishing waters, regulations—across the whole economy but particularly on food—the priority given to sectors such as farming, financial services, and automotive, environmental and labour policy, data flows and privacy issues, intellectual property, access to diverse EU regulatory programmes, and much, much more. The Prime Minister has committed himself to doing all that in just 12 months or risking another no-deal cliff edge.

Just as the election does not change the fact that Brexit will continue to dominate our politics for some time to come, it also does not change the economic reality of Brexit. The Chancellor flatly refused to publish any Treasury analysis of the Prime Minister’s deal when I wrote to him before the election in my then capacity as interim Chair of the Treasury Committee. He also refused to appear, or to send any Minister to appear, before the Committee. It is also difficult to see how the kind of Brexit that the Prime Minister wants to pursue is in any way compatible with the wider promises made by the Conservatives during the election campaign. The Government say that they are committed to increasing public spending—spending on the NHS, education and the police, at least—while also keeping tax, national insurance and VAT either flat or falling and reducing debt as a proportion of GDP over the course of this Parliament. What choices the Government make, and what promises they break, remain to be seen.

I am truly sorry that although parties offering a final say on any Brexit deal won 53% of the vote in the general election and although all the public polling indicated that the majority of the British public thought that it had been wrong to vote to leave the EU back in 2016, the voting public will not be able to have their say on the final Brexit deal. Indeed, that was precisely why the Prime Minister wanted a Brexit general election rather than a confirmatory referendum, despite having got a withdrawal Bill through Parliament at the last attempt before Parliament was dissolved.

We are where we are, as they say. The make-up of Parliament has changed dramatically, and we will now be leaving the EU at the end of January. However, the anxieties of the people whom we represent in the north-east about what Brexit means for their jobs and their livelihoods have not changed. The analysis showing that the north-east will be hit hardest of all has not changed, and nor has the threat that Brexit poses to the 63% of north-east exporters who rely on access to EU markets.

Brexit is not going to be done. The challenges of the next stage are infinitely more complex than those of the first. I will continue to represent the views, the anxieties and the interests of the people whom I represent here in Parliament, and to hold the Government to account on this monumental change for the country, which I fear that many will come to regret.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can of course give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that not only will this country maintain the highest standards both for environmental protection and of course for workers’ rights, but in the event that this House wishes to have higher standards than those proposed by the EU or if this House wishes to adopt standards proposed by the EU and the Government disagree, there will of course be an amendable motion to give this House the opportunity to have its say. We will ensure that that is the case.

If we pass this Bill tonight, we will have the opportunity to address not just the priorities of our relations with the EU but people’s priorities at home. I believe that if we do this deal—if we pass this deal and the legislation that enables it—we can turn the page and allow this Parliament and this country to begin to heal and unite.

For those, like me, who believe our interests are best served by leaving the European Union and taking back control, this deal delivers the biggest restoration of sovereignty in our parliamentary history and the biggest devolution of power to UK democratic institutions.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I absolutely recognise that people who voted for Brexit did not necessarily vote on economic lines. However, the Government are refusing to publish an impact assessment of this deal. The Prime Minister is expecting MPs to vote for something that we know will damage this country economically, without revealing the impact assessment. What do this Government have to hide?

[The Prime Minister]

If I may, I say to the hon. Lady that I understand the point she makes, but she has had an answer, I believe, from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday. I think it will be clear to everybody that the best way to avoid any disruption from a no-deal Brexit is to vote for this deal today—to vote for this deal to get it done. I think that will unleash a great tide of investment into this country and be a demonstration of confidence in the UK economy. By voting for this deal tonight, we will deliver a powerful, positive shot in the arm for the UK economy, and I hope very much that she will do so.

Once more, under this agreement, British people will be able to live under laws made by representatives whom they alone elect and can remove—laws enforced by British judges in British courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed. My hon. Friend represents a constituency that has suffered grievously from the Tory Government’s industrial non-strategy. SSI Redcar was closed down, and there are huge issues for manufacturing investment across her region and across her constituency. This House knows full well—and if Conservative Members cared to listen, they would know full well—that this proposal will damage manufacturing industry and therefore jobs, particularly in the north-east, which is the only part of the country with a manufacturing surplus on trade with Europe and the rest of the world.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The Prime Minister shakes his head, but every single Member represents people who voted leave and people who voted remain. Nobody voted for a wing-and-a-prayer, cake-and-eat-it, blindfold Brexit with no economic impact assessment of the biggest transformation of our economy in peacetime history.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a completely unacceptable way to bring forward this legislation? It is not fair on this House, and it is not fair on the people who will lose their jobs as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry, but the hon. Lady, in the course of her attempted point of order, frankly elevates me to a status that I do not enjoy. It is well beyond my limited capabilities to know the precise order of clauses, or that which is present and that which is not. My counsel to the hon. Lady is that in her pursuit of her mission, she could make a point of intervening on colleagues who speak with a compendious knowledge of the contents of the Bill to seek to extract from them the information that she seeks. I can see many pointy-headed, brilliant brains on the Government Benches who are doubtless going to rise to celebrate the merits of the Bill and whom she could usefully question on this matter.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, very well. Whether it will profit the hon. Lady, I do not know, but I am offering my benevolent assistance within the limits of my modest capabilities.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I, too, noted that the Prime Minister referred to checks and declarations on GB-Northern Irish goods as being “transitory”. He also said that they would “melt away” unless a majority of Northern Ireland chose to retain them. I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) that that is not in fact correct and that perhaps there has been some confusion between the future decision relating to a single market and being in a customs union. Does it not highlight the challenge that we face that the Prime Minister appears to need additional time to consider the real implications of the decisions being taken that will have a significant impact not only on this country, but in particular on our trading relationship with Northern Ireland and on trade from Northern Ireland to the European Union? This really adds to the weight of concern about the lack of time to properly scrutinise such issues in this debate.

[Mr Speaker]

I have two points. First, I do not sniff or cavil at the concern that the hon. Lady raises about the allocation of time, but ultimately the House has ownership of time in the simple sense that it determines acceptance or otherwise of the programme motion. Secondly—please do not take this as a pejorative observation, as I am just trying to take a holistic view of the situation—what she is really saying is that there is great disagreement about what is or is not the case. It calls to mind the fact that people often say, “Well, give us the facts and then we’ll make a judgment.” Sadly, it is not so simple. There is no agreement on what the facts are, and I am afraid that that has to come out in the course of the debate, which, as I say, is well beyond the competence of the Chair.

If there are no further points of order, we can now proceed, because I think that the leader of the Scottish National party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), is in a state of heightened animation at the prospect of being able to orate to the House.

Brexit Readiness: Operation Yellowhammer

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

When I was a food hall porter at British Home Stores in Aberdeen, I never saw any violence when the last lettuce was taken off the shelves, but maybe people are politer in Aberdeen than elsewhere.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

On 10 September, the Treasury’s official account tweeted that beer, wine, spirits and cigarettes would all be duty-free for people travelling to the EU if we left without a deal. Does the Secretary of State seriously think that promoting cheap booze and fags is a good use of public money, or does he believe that the hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs could be affected by our exiting the EU without a deal should drown their sorrows to recover from the blow?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point, but we have a responsibility to explain what the duty-free regime will be in the event of a no-deal exit. As I pointed out earlier, a no-deal exit without mitigations would have an adverse economic impact, but we are taking steps to mitigate those and to exploit the opportunities of exit in order to be in the strongest possible position to safeguard jobs in her constituency and to provide new opportunities for the next generation.

Leaving the EU: Preparations

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is a consistent champion for the rights of Polish people in the UK and elsewhere. The largest single community of EU citizens in our country is composed of Polish citizens. We were remembering earlier the anniversary of the second world war. We honour the sacrifice of those Polish soldiers, airmen and sailors who fought alongside us for democracy, and it is our moral duty to ensure that Polish citizens in this country are given the opportunity to stay and to enjoy the rights of which we are all proud and for which their forebears fought so proudly.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

A no-deal Brexit, according to Government messaging, is something we can completely prepare for as long as we spend enough money on advertising, while at the same time so crucial and fundamental that it must be kept on the table as part of the negotiations. It cannot be both. Which is it?

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The legal default position is that we leave on 31 October. If the EU will not move and we do not secure a good deal, we need to be prepared for that eventuality. That is the necessary outworking of article 50, for which I think the hon. Lady voted, along with many other colleagues across the House.

[Catherine McKinnell]

indicated dissent.

[Michael Gove]

If she did not, I can only apologise. I think a majority of her Labour colleagues did, but I salute her independence of mind on that issue.

The broader point I would make is that, because it is an eventuality for which we have to prepare, it is prudent that we should prepare, but one thing that I think the hon. Lady and I agree on is that it is infinitely preferable that we leave with a deal. That is why we should give the Prime Minister the space and time to negotiate, which is why I hope that she, along with me, will decline to vote for any motion today that would fetter the Prime Minister’s discretion.

Priorities for Government

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he can take it that this Government are going to leave no stone unturned to get a good solution for British Steel at Scunthorpe, at Skinningrove and elsewhere.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

In the north-east, children and young people will be off school today, and they may well be watching this spectacle, but forgive me for not encouraging them to have faith in the Prime Minister’s bluster and warm words, because the simple fact is that a no-deal Brexit puts at risk our 63% exports to the EU and therefore their families’ jobs. Will he rule it out today?

[The Prime Minister]

I hope the children in her constituency that the hon. Lady describes will be able to learn from watching these proceedings that they are going to get more funding for their schools—£4,000 per pupil in primary schools, £5,000 per pupil in secondary schools—and I am sure that would be welcome news to them all.

Exiting the European Union

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am not commenting on what might or might not have appeared on social media. I listed in my statement a number of illustrative cases where the legal status of the backstop had been changed by what has now been agreed. I hope that when the hon. Gentleman studies that, he will come round to that point of view as well.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

My issue with this withdrawal agreement is that it will leave every country and region of this nation poorer as a result of it than we would be otherwise, and nothing the Minister has said tonight changes anything. But given that he is focused on the backstop, will he not just admit that nothing has changed in respect of that either? There is still no fixed end date to the backstop and there is still no unilateral right of the UK to withdraw from it.

[Mr Lidington]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was saying that she had objections to the backstop, or not, because there have been mixed messages from her side of the House. The risk with what she said about the economic consequences is that she is seeking to re-fight the referendum campaign of 2016. Whether we liked that result or not, the result of the referendum was as it was. No European leader has questioned the democratic legitimacy of that referendum result, and I do think that there would be some serious damage to what is already fragile public confidence in our democratic institutions were we simply to disregard it.

Leaving the European Union

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I hope that my hon. Friend’s constituents will take some reassurance from the fact that the Government are having constructive talks with the European Union and making progress in relation to the changes that this House has required to the withdrawal agreement and to the package that was agreed with the European Union in November, such that we can take a vote and leave the European Union on 29 March with a deal. I hope they will also take some reassurance from the fact that if this House again votes to reject that deal, I have set out the steps that would be taken in relation to further votes on no deal and on an extension to article 50

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

With every answer that the Prime Minister gives from the Dispatch Box, there is a collective sinking of hearts in the country, because she seems to engage in nothing but wishful thinking, and the country is fed up with watching its Prime Minister chase unicorns. Will she please confirm in what specific circumstances she believes, or has been told, that this one-off extension to article 50 will be granted by the EU? What specifically would she use that time to achieve?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, I have not discussed an extension of article 50 with other leaders around the European Union table. However, the European Union—in the form of the EU Council and the European Commission—has made it clear that it would expect any extension to be on the basis of a clear agreement that there was a plan for achieving the deal. I want to ensure that we can achieve the deal before we get to that point, and if the hon. Lady is worried about uncertainty in the House, it is very simple: vote for the deal.