Budget Resolutions

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I have to say in the nicest possible way that it is a bit rich for the right hon. Gentleman to make that point. Labour’s spending plans would cost £1,000 billion. It is an extraordinary sum of money, and all the people up and down the country would bear the cost of the debt for borrowing.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

My right hon. Friend is making a typically powerful speech. Will he tell the House how the measures in this Budget will help young people on to the housing ladder, particularly as since 2001 home ownership levels have halved for people aged between 16 and 35?

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The steps under this Government have led to an increase in home ownership, and the first time buyer rate has started to increase under this Government. This has been a challenge and initiatives such as Help to Buy have been important in realising that ambition and the aspiration for people to be able to own their own home. There is also the investment in social and affordable housing through our specific £9 billion programme, which is firmly focused on that.

I want to come back to my point about local government and the pressures we recognise have been growing especially around social care. That is why I am delighted that the Chancellor committed around £1 billion of extra funding for local services, with a strong focus on supporting some of our most vulnerable groups. That includes £650 million for adult and children’s social care; £240 million of that will go towards easing winter pressures next year, with the flexibility to use the remainder where it is most needed for either adult or children’s services. That is on top of the £240 million announced last month to address winter pressures this year.

In addition, the Budget pledged an extra £84 million over the next five years to expand our successful children’s social care programmes to more councils with high or rising numbers of children in care, and an extra £55 million is being made available for the disabled facilities grant in England in 2018-19. This new funding will allow councils to take immediate action to deliver the services their residents need while protecting them from excessive council tax bills.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because all this does is shunt costs on to other parts of the public sector. That is not a sustainable way of continuing. Sadly, I could give many more examples, yet the Government’s answer to these problems is not to drop the £1.3 billion cut to funding next year, nor to properly address the crises in social care and children’s services, but to offer mere crumbs from the table, which will do little to fix the problem that has been created.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest, but he has not answered the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty). The shadow Chancellor says that he supports the tax cut and the Leader of the Opposition says that he does not. Where does the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) stand?

[Andrew Gwynne]

Let me make it very clear. In case the hon. Gentleman has not realised, this is not a Labour Budget. A Labour Budget would look very different. We will not vote today to restrict extra money for the lowest paid in our country, and when we have a Labour Government offering hope for the future, a Labour Budget will rectify the giveaways to the top.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury believes that the Government have not cut local government budgets, but the fact is that, since 2010, spending power—the Government’s preferred measure—has fallen by 28.6%, which includes the 49.1% cut to central Government grants for local authorities. Yes, local authorities have been given new powers to raise funds, but the reality is that a 1% council tax increase in her area raises significantly more than a 1% council tax increase in mine. She can shake her head, but if she does not understand that areas whose properties are predominantly in bands A and B do not raise the same amount as areas with properties in higher council tax bands, perhaps she should not be Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

I will make the position clear, because Treasury Ministers appear to have found these calculations very difficult. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury told “Newsnight”:

“We are not making cuts to local authorities. What we have done is give them more revenue raising powers so that decisions can be taken locally.”

I am happy to give Government Front Benchers the calculations provided by the Tory-led Local Government Association and by the National Audit Office. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has gone further and provided an analysis of how the cuts have fallen across the country:

“the most deprived authorities, including Barking & Dagenham, Birmingham and Salford, made an average cut to spending per person of 32%, compared to 17% in the least deprived areas, including Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.”

These hardest-hit councils have been dealt a second blow by the Government’s reliance on council tax to fund the struggling social care sector, as they are unable to raise anything like enough through the social care precept compared with councils in wealthier areas.

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government can shake his head, but this year Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, one of the two authorities that make up my constituency, has a £16 million social care funding gap. One per cent. on council tax in Tameside brings in £750,000. The Tamesides of this world are never able to fill that social care gap from council tax, and that is what is so unfair.



Instead of providing the much-needed reform of social care, this Budget has once again shown a Government committed to sticking-plaster solutions. There is no Green paper and no long-term plan. Just as the £1.3 billion cut hits next year, the Government will need to find £1.5 billion just to keep social care running. Behind these figures are real people who need help, and the Government sit idly by.

Sadly, the Government’s small contribution to alleviating this crisis will for many people be far too little, and, for many councils, far too late. One of the most sacred values and duties of any Government is to ensure that the most vulnerable in society are protected. With overspending on children’s services hitting a new high of £800 million a year, the Chancellor’s pledge of £84 million for just 20 councils—I am interested to know which 20 councils they are—comes nowhere close to addressing the national crisis. Both crime and the fear of crime are rising in our neighbourhoods, yet this week’s Budget offers not a single extra penny for neighbourhood policing. The National Audit Office and the Select Committee on Home Affairs are warning that, without funding, our police service is teetering on the edge of collapse. The number of police officers has already fallen by 21,000 since 2010, and the independent police watchdog is warning that

“the lives of vulnerable people could be at risk.”

But instead of fixing the problem, the Treasury sees fit to play fast and loose with public safety with a £165 million raid on pensions. We are now in an unprecedented situation where police chiefs are threatening legal action against this Government.

The chief constable of Greater Manchester police has warned that upcoming budget cuts could take officer numbers back to levels last seen in 1975, wiping out the 50 additional officers funded by this year’s council tax precept. Another 600 officers need to be cut, on top of the 2,000 we have already lost, because of this Government’s mess on pensions.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

The test of any Budget is: does it take us closer to where we want to get to in 10 years’ time? It seems to me that one of the most important things to do over the next few years, and one of the dreams that so many Conservative Members have had for so many years, is the dream of a balanced budget. Once again, this appears to be a little bit like the apple of Tantalus. I am concerned about that because I believe, as the fiscal conservative I have always been, that we need to head towards a balanced budget.

Achieving a balanced budget has been delayed, but I am glad that we are still heading in that direction. The OBR says of the Budget policy decisions:

“Taken together they turn the £3.5 billion surplus…forecast for 2023-24 into a £19.8 billion deficit.”

It also says of the balanced budget objective:

“Had there been no fiscal loosening in the Budget, the objective would have been achieved in 2023-24.”

As it is, achieving that objective by 2025-26, it says, “looks challenging”. That is still an important aim. We must bear in mind that debt interest payments each year are about £52 billion and measures in the Budget will increase those payments by about £1 billion in future years. Opposition Members argue for ever more increases in spending, but I argue that it is better to ensure restraint, continue on our current track and aim for a balanced budget sooner rather than later.

We must also think about the kind of country we want to build. We want to build an enterprise powerhouse and a country that supports enterprise, small businesses and the self-employed. That is why it is important to make things easier for small business people and not to sandbag the self-employed with extra taxes and regulations, instead supporting them and ensuring that their enterprise is backed.

We must be the party of home ownership. Home ownership matters. As I said in an intervention, since about 2001, home ownership among people aged 16 to 34 has halved. We need to increase it. Meanwhile, the number of those renting has gone from about 10% to 20%. We must offer our young people better than a life of renting, and give them the chance to get on the home ownership ladder and build up a stock of wealth in a lower-tax country that ensures that hard work is rewarded.

[Giles Watling]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that the recent reduction in corporation tax oxymoronically produced more tax in the coffers? It is worth reducing the tax.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is right: if we cut the rate we up the take. We must support small businesses most of all because, since about 2000, small enterprises and businesses have created 4 million new business jobs. Big business has created just 800,000 jobs, so small businesses are the enterprisers and job creators that take our country forward and turbocharge our economy.

If we are to have more public spending, it is important to ensure we have public service reform. We must look at how public services are delivered and ask ourselves whether they can be delivered more efficiently. Are there activities that Government should do more of? Are there activities they should do less of? Why do we not have, alongside the Office for Budget Responsibility, an office of spending responsibility, or even a Budget committee so that the House can consider such matters and press individual Departments to embrace reform and fiscal rectitude?

We also need higher investment. It is all very well having a culture in which we get lots of people with low skills to do low-value-added jobs that lead to no productivity. Why are we not encouraging more investment in more equipment that can be operated by fewer, more highly skilled people who are better paid and drive our productivity forward?

I must take issue with the comments of the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) about how it is all indebted and about the corporate sector—that is absolute rubbish. Some £750 billion on corporate balance sheets has not been spent. There is a conundrum as to why that money is not being invested. We must consider the possibility of time-limited, perhaps very generous, investment allowances to get those corporates to invest in our economy, and to drive the investment and productivity gains that we need.

We need more competition in this country. Why do we put up with Openreach and its appalling service? Why has it not been unbuckled from BT with a strong investment target? Why do we have an oligopoly of banks and of big energy providers, and why have we not taken action on that? We need a bit more trust-busting from the Government and a bit more backing for the consumer interest over the corporate interest.

The Conservative party should be the party of small enterprise and investment. It should be the party that champions the consumer interest and is tough on corporatism and tough on the causes of corporatism. We also need to be the green and environmental party, which is why in the spending review we need a step change in investment in electric car charging points because it is not good enough. Only when we get that straight will big corporate car fleet buyers start to buy the cars that would then go into the second-hand market, so that this country can have the electric future on our roads that it should have.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

What I can confirm to the House is that in reducing corporation tax from 28% to 19% since 2010, we have increased the yield from corporations, not just by a few per cent. but by 50% over that period. We are now talking about taxation, so let us ask: what is Labour’s plan? It is to put taxes up to 26% for large companies and to 21% for small businesses, which would be a full 50% increase in tax bills for large companies and a 25% increase in tax bills for smaller companies.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that important point. Does it not underline the fact that if we cut the rate, we up the take? Does it not also show that Labour’s plans would result in reduced revenues, meaning more spending, more borrowing and more debt, which would take us back to the brink once again?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right; there is no doubt that if you keep on putting up taxes, as Labour says it will do and would be forced to do if, heaven forbid, it was ever to form a future Government, because its numbers do not add up, you end up killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

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[Mel Stride]

That is the wonders of the management and proper stewardship of the economy. It is about taking a balanced approach to our economy, which is getting the debt and the deficit down and restoring our country’s reputation for financial stability and confidence. That is now coming through to the point where we can start to take away some of the pressures of tax and of public expenditure as we move forward to more positive times.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does that not underline the fact that we can have strong public services and strong investment in the NHS only if we have a strong economy? It is because of the difficult decisions that the Government have taken over the past few years that the economy and the job market are so strong that we are able to make the investment in the NHS that the Labour party would not have been able to make.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Let us take employment: in this country we have a near record level of employment, we have a near record number of women employed, and we have the lowest level of unemployment since the 1970s. What is Labour’s record? Every single Labour Government in history have left office with unemployment higher than when they started. That is a simple fact. [Interruption.] It may be an inconvenient one, but it is a simple fact none the less.

The tax cut in the Bill is worth £9.5 billion. That means more money in people’s pockets. Since 2015, some 1.7 million more people have been taken out of tax altogether. The saving to the average taxpayer has been more than £1,200 since 2010.

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[Mel Stride]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is entirely right. I do not think that we are at the bottom of the G7 growth table at this precise moment—I think that we are some way off the bottom. He mentioned the important element of growth, and the forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility is that our economy will continue to grow for the next five years and, of course, we come into this period on the back of five years of continuous growth.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Mel Stride]

If there are no other interventions, I will take one from my hon. Friend for the third time.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank the Minister for my hat trick of interventions and for being so generous. I was looking at the amendment in the name of the Scottish National party in relation to VAT and the policing situation in Scotland. Can he confirm to the House that this VAT muck-up is entirely the responsibility and fault of the SNP? It should take responsibility and apologise for it.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is right: the Scottish National party will know that when it took the decision to reorganise fire and police in Scotland, it was fully aware and cognisant of the fact that that would mean that VAT was not recoverable. It really is thanks to the Members on the Conservative Benches who represent Scottish constituencies who have made the case so strongly to the Treasury that we were able to change that situation going forward. Perhaps I may now be able to make a little progress.

We have, of course, also announced that we are freezing fuel duty for a ninth year in succession and increasing the living wage by 4.9% from April. In this Bill, we deliver a freeze on the duty on beer and spirits, keeping living costs down and supporting our pubs. Our freezing duty on spirits comes as a direct consequence of Conservative Members representing their constituency interests in the industry.

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[Peter Dowd]

“Regressive” and “Conservative Government” go in the same sentence pretty easily.

The Budget does not move us towards parity for mental health services. It does nothing to end the crisis in social care, to which the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) referred, or in children’s services. It gets worse as the days go on. The Budget was a continuation of austerity under anyone’s definition, and the Bill is a written testament to that broken promise.

[Charlie Elphicke]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is very passionate. May I just take him back to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)? Will he support that generous and very sensible proposal? Does he think that that is the right way to go about things?

[Peter Dowd]

Look, we are always prepared to look at any idea, but we are trying to deal with the problem today. We are trying to deal now with the hundreds of thousands of elderly people who are not getting the service they are entitled to.

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[Peter Dowd]

Actually, we set out our tax policies in “Funding Britain’s Future”, and I will send a signed copy to the hon. Lady for her to have a look at. Perhaps Government Members can have a tutorial with Sir Roger Scruton and tease out some of the issues.

On Brexit, yet again, we have seen the Government using our exit to hand themselves broad powers, indefinitely. This is a continuation of the theme that I described—of a Government’s demand for power, even though they are clueless about how to exercise it.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The whole House understands that the hon. Gentleman is very enthusiastic about raising the rates of taxes for richer people, but does he not remember that the experience of reducing the top rate of tax from 80% to 60%, and then from 60% to 40%, was that more money was brought into the Treasury on each occasion? Labour’s plans to increase taxes will mean less money for the Treasury and less money for the NHS.

[Peter Dowd]

International evidence does not show that, but let me give the hon. Gentleman a figure. The top 1% have received an increase in share of total income—from 5.7% in 1990 to 7.8% in 2016-17. That was identified by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), who always paints such an uplifting picture of the country for the House.

It seems to me that the people I represent in my constituency know that the best cure for deprivation is a job. There is no doubt that this Government have had massive success in creating so many jobs since they have been in office. That is in sharp contrast to the toxic inheritance left by the previous Government.

The ultimate test of any Finance Bill is: what path does it set for the future of the country and what vision does it set for the next steps? Yes, the people I represent in Dover and Deal know that we have done well in creating jobs and creating new prosperity, but it is also important that we are a compassionate party and that we care for and look after the least well-off. It goes beyond just getting a job; it is important that we reduce the burden of taxation on those who are the least well-off.

That is why it is so important that the personal allowance has been increased to £12,500. I have long argued—since 2010—that we should increase the personal allowance and take people out of taxation altogether. I am really glad that we have come to a time when it is at such a high level. That is good for the least well-paid and good for taking people out of tax altogether.

I welcome the measures on universal credit. It is welcome that the Chancellor has listened carefully to the representations made by me and many other Conservative Members that we should look after those who are the least well-off. In many ways, universal credit improvements and the better funding of universal credit is the best way to reduce the incidence of taxation on the least well-off. It is the most targeted way of helping people, and I welcome that.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that properly funded universal credit and taking the lowest-paid out of tax are important, but does he agree with me that the billions of pounds we are going to spend giving the top 10% a tax cut would have been better spent on the low earners he mentions?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am going to come on to that in one moment, but I will just finish this point.

When talking about the importance of compassionate Conservatism and the vision we as the Conservative party should have of looking after the least well-off, it can never be right to put jobs ahead of people’s lives. That has been well settled on the Conservative Benches. Let us not forget that it was on these Benches that important legislation such as the Ten Hours Act was pioneered well over a century and a half ago. It was on these Benches that so much of our health and safety legislation was pioneered and put through. It was on these Benches that we made the argument that jobs should never come ahead of people’s lives.

That is why I join my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), who spoke movingly some moments ago, in saying that we cannot delay the action that is needed on fixed odds betting terminals beyond next April. It cannot be right to delay this, and it certainly cannot be right to do so on the basis of a bogus report. It has been said explicitly that that was not what the report was intended to be for or to do.

For that reason, we need to come together as a House and collectively persuade the Government to think again and accept that we should bring this in from April 2019, as has long been planned. In my constituency of Dover and Deal, addiction is a big problem for many people. Whether it is to alcohol, drugs or gambling, addiction is a big problem. It is the responsibility of this House—and, in my view, this has long been settled as a responsibility of compassionate Conservatism—to look after and care for those who suffer from addiction, so I think it is the right thing to do.

It is important that this is not simply about protecting the least well-off, helping them to have more money and protecting them from exploitation, but about making sure that we can power ahead as a country. It is important that powering ahead as a country is at the heart of this Bill. We need to get big business investing, because it has not been investing; it is sitting on about £750 billion of cash balances. We need to get big business investing in the future of this country. It should not be relying on low-skilled labour from overseas; it should be investing in kit, investing in people and investing in skills. That will ensure that our nation has much greater productivity and a more highly skilled home-grown workforce so that our countrymen will be able to do better and earn more in the years to come. That is important for investment.

It is also important that we back the entrepreneurs—the job creators. Who are they? The figures are clear. Since 2000, 4 million jobs have been created by small and medium-sized enterprises, whereas big business has created only 800,000. The obvious thing to do is to back small businesses—the entrepreneurs—with tax cuts and deregulation and by making it easier for them to get on and do well. That is why it would never be right to increase taxes on small businesses, because that would hold people back. It would never be right to increase the regulatory burden on small businesses, because that would make it harder for them to succeed. Nor would it ever be right to allow big banks to prey on small businesses and to litigate them into bankruptcy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) movingly said in his speech. That is why we need to ensure that there is a financial tribunal system to protect small businesses from being exploited by the oligopoly of big banks.

While we are about it, we ought to think about putting the consumer back in charge and back in the driving seat, by taking action to break up the big energy companies and the big banking oligopoly. We should make sure that we have more competition in this country. We should unbundle Openreach to ensure that we have much better, faster internet access. It is a disgrace the way Openreach carries on, cutting off villages. However, it does not just do that; when people change connection, half the time they have to wait half a month for the connection to be made, because of Openreach’s galactic incompetence. The company is more interested in investing in sports rights than in infrastructure; indeed, it does invest more in sports rights than in its infrastructure, and that has to change as well. If it were a stand-alone company, I am absolutely certain that that would be the case.

So, yes, the Conservative party should be the party of enterprise and of the small businesses that drive the economy, that create the jobs and that have created the jobs over the last 15 years. Yes, we should be the party of compassion for the least well-off. Then, however, I am challenged by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who says, “Should you not be in favour of increasing taxes on the richest, on businesses and all the rest of it?”

[Gareth Snell]

I fear that the hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting what I said. I did not say that the Government should be raising taxes; they should simply not be cutting taxes, which is a very different thing.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be muddled: is he a tax raiser or a tax cutter? It seems to me that the evidence of history is really clear. Back in 2006, I wrote a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies saying that we should halve the rate of corporation tax, which then stood at over 30%. I basically said that that would pay for itself, because if we cut the rate, we up the take. I made the case that we would have more revenues than were coming in at the time if we halved the rate to less than 20%. Since then, that policy has been put into action, and that has turned out to be the case: if we cut the rate, we up the take. In the 1980s, they cut the higher rate of tax from 80% to 60% and then to 40%. Each time the rate was cut, what happened? The tax take rose. That is why we ought to be looking at how we can reduce the burden of taxation in areas where we can raise more taxes.

There are some cases where we increase the burden of taxation and see revenues falling. We can see that in what has happened with stamp duty land tax on very high-value properties: we freeze the market, and we see lower revenues as a result.

[Alan Brown]

If cutting taxes always brings in more revenue, how come every measure in the Red Book on cutting tax shows that it will cost the taxpayer money? Either the Treasury does not know what it is doing in its predictions, or it is putting cause and effect together wrongly.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman actually makes a very fair point. The Treasury has a classic modelling system. I have always argued for a dynamic modelling system and the history books are on my side. The dynamic modelling system is the right way forward. It is the right approach to take, because history teaches us that if we reduce the rate of taxation, the revenues go up. That is elementary. That is obvious. Everyone on the Conservative Benches understands that. That is well settled: it was settled back in the 1980s.

It is important that we are compassionate and that we care for the least well off. Having a steady economy, with increased jobs and increased prosperity means that we have more money to invest in public services. However, we also need to inspire and support the entrepreneurs—the job creators. We need to be on the side of the consumer and ensure more competition in a more dynamic economy. Finally, we need to embrace the industries of the future. Let me talk briefly about electric cars.

Why is the adoption of electric cars so slow? The answer is that people are worried about their car conking out and being stranded in the middle of nowhere. We need a step-change in how we manage infrastructure and charging points. We need to make sure that infrastructure is not just in people’s workplaces, which is welcome, but across the land. Until that happens, there will not be the mass adoption of electric cars. We need to make that more viable and possible, because then big company car fleets will go electric. As soon as they do, that will cascade through the marketplace. The one thing we need to do more work on—the Treasury needs to do more work on it—is getting more investment in infrastructure for charging and electric cars. That way offers a real chance for our country to be less polluted so that the air we breathe is cleaner and our environment is better as well as ending our addiction to fossil fuels and our dependence on unstable countries around the world, thereby enjoying much greater energy security here in Britain.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The merits of the Government undertaking contingency measures are different from the political case that we must consider, which is whether we would find it desirable to undertake a course of action that would mean that we had to use those contingency measures. The focus of the debate in this Finance Bill should be a seriously hard-headed look at the consequences of no deal, and there should be a statement from Members on both sides of the House that that is not what we seek for the UK and that we do not believe that it is possible.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

rose—

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), and I may come to the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) if the intervention is good enough.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech. My concern is with how he can support undermining the making of contingency preparations that are in the national interest, which is the effect of amendment 7. It is just the wrong thing to do, and the Labour party ought to be more responsible than that.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman, and a little humility from Conservative Members on the point about responsibility for the Brexit negotiations would be appreciated. For my entire lifetime, this country’s European policy has been dictated by the internal politics of the Conservative party. Every Conservative Prime Minister in my lifetime has been brought down by the issue of Europe. To suggest that any other political party or actor in this country needs to have more regard for the national interest, when it is the Conservative party that has never been able to do so, is not something I will take.

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[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), because although we represent different parties and disagree on many issues, and although we will take different positions on the Prime Minister’s deal when it comes to a vote, on this issue we agree. I rise to speak to amendment 7 and to support amendment 8.

We agree on the dangers of no deal to the country. I tabled amendment 7 because I am really worried that delays, drift or brinkmanship mean that there is now a serious risk that we will end up crashing out of the EU with no deal in just 80 days’ time. I am worried that we could come to the crunch and Parliament would not have the powers to stop it happening. We have a responsibility not just to stand by. I believe that the Government should rule out no deal but, if they will not, Parliament must make sure that it has the powers to do so if it comes to the crunch.

Amendment 7 has support from across the House. It has been signed by Chairs of cross-party Committees—it has the support of the Chairs of the Treasury Committee, the Exiting the European Union Committee, the Liaison Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and others, too—and it is supported by those with a wide range of views on the best way forward. It is supported by those who support the Prime Minister’s deal and those, like me, who do not, and it shows that those who take a wide range of views on the best way forward have come together to say that we should rule out the worst way forward.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Just to clarify, does the right hon. Lady herself intend to support or oppose the Prime Minister’s deal?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I just said, and as I said when I spoke in the debate before Christmas, I am opposed to the Prime Minister’s deal. It is a blindfold deal that does not address some of the policing and security challenges, as well as customs union issues for manufacturing. I accept, though, that we take different views on that throughout the House. There are very different perspectives and views, which is why the opportunity to come together and rule out no deal is such an important one.