Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Catherine West and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the impact on industries in our local areas. Does she agree that the medical services and social care sector is incredibly important in all our constituencies? A leaked Department of Health report from earlier this year suggested that there could be a shortfall of 40,000 nurses if there is a hard Brexit—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) answers that intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker has just made it clear, and I reiterate it, that if people make long interventions at this point in the debate, they are depriving someone else who has been sitting here all afternoon of the opportunity to speak at all.

[Catherine West]

I agree with my hon. Friend and thank her for all her excellent forensic questioning in this area. It is sad, however, that she has had to spend hours and hours asking those questions when it is really our basic right as parliamentarians to have the information we need for this important treaty making. It is probably the most important constitutional question that we in this Parliament will have to grapple with. My worry is that we could be heading for a crash course, which relates to my intervention on the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about there being an element of people not wanting to know the facts and figures. Those who have already made up their mind want to be positive, but perhaps they also want to ignore the facts. That is the opposite extreme, and opposites are unnecessary and probably bad in this regard.