Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I agree with every word of that intervention, and I am grateful for it.

The motion makes a simple but important proposition. Let me address why. Primarily, after nine years of austerity, a no-deal Brexit would make the huge social and economic challenges that the country already faces much worse. In the words of manufacturers organisation Make UK, it would be an act of “economic lunacy”. To quote the CBI, it would take a “sledgehammer” to the economy, and Toyota has said that “no deal is terrible” and would “create big additional challenges”. Only yesterday, I was with GMB representatives at the Ford plant in Bridgend. They were very clear about the appalling impact of no deal on jobs.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is in exceptional circumstances that the Trades Union Congress and the CBI say exactly the same—that no deal is utterly reckless and irresponsible?

[Keir Starmer]

I hope it is not the only time that the CBI and the TUC say the same, but they obviously do on this issue.