Priorities for Government

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I say to my hon. Friend that he will know them as soon as possible.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister talks passionately about unleashing the productive potential of the whole north-east—just as he did about freeing kippers, but without the detail. What three things does he admire most about the north-east, and how will a no-deal Brexit make it more productive?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the people of the north-east should be left to decide what they admire most about that fantastic region, and it would be patronising of anybody to say what they admire about any particular region of the UK. The north-east is the only region of the UK that is a net exporter—[Interruption.] Yes—I bet she didn’t know that! The hon. Lady is not interested in economic success. We are interested in backing business and industry—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise the importance of increasing cycling and walking. It is important for people’s health and the local environment. Schemes such as the Derwent valley cycle way provide significant benefit to the local economy as well as to health and the environment. We have doubled our spending on cycling and walking in England, and our local cycling and walking infrastructure plan enables local authorities to take a strategic approach to planning improvements and to integrate them into wider plans for transport and economic development. I am sure the issue will continue to be supported by Conservatives in government.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Q2. In Newcastle, the Prime Minister’s departure invokes neither the despair of a Rafa Benitez nor yet the joy of a Mike Ashley, and she may take comfort from that, but as she considers her choices—House of Lords, dignified retirement, working with her successor—may I ask her to work to bring dignity and choice to others? She is a WASPI woman; will she dedicate her prime ministerial retirement to justice for all WASPI women?

[The Prime Minister]

We have put £1 billion extra into the pension system, recognising concerns that were expressed by women about the changes to pensions. The hon. Lady references what I am going to be doing in the future, but I thought I had already made that very clear: I will be continuing in this House as the Member of Parliament for Maidenhead.

G20 and Leadership of EU Institutions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I was able to make clear to President Putin the view that the United Kingdom takes: this was an illegal annexation of Crimea. I was also able to make it clear that we expect Russia to return the sailors and ships that were taken from the Kerch strait.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister spoke of engaging constructively with the European Union, which I welcome, but went on to praise a slate of top-job nominations agreed in backroom deals. Does she not think that the people of the European Union should have had the opportunity to vote for the Commission President in the European parliamentary elections, and that a British Prime Minister should champion democratic values in the European Union, in the G20, and in the United Kingdom, which means a vote on any deal?

European Council

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have already committed, as a Government, to protect the rights of EU citizens living here in the UK regardless of whether there is a deal on our leaving the European Union. We have been encouraging other member states to reciprocate for UK citizens living in those member states. As I indicated earlier, there is a legal issue about whether competence on this question rests with the European Union, which it would as part of a deal, or with individual member states as it would in no deal. We continue to encourage both to ensure that the rights of UK citizens in EU member states will be upheld and protected once we leave.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

There are about 5,000 Tory party members in the north-east, and only they will get a say in who succeeds the Prime Minister at European Council meetings. That means that whoever he is and whatever magical realist renegotiation or hard-right, no-deal crash out he comes out with, it will have absolutely no mandate in the north-east. Do we not deserve a final say so that people can decide for themselves?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady is asking for a final say on the issue of Brexit, as I said earlier—

[Chi Onwurah]

On the deals.

[The Prime Minister]

The deal is the issue that is on the table at the moment: the question is how we leave the European Union, whether we do so with a deal, and whether we do so with the deal that was previously negotiated. Any of those options actually delivers on what people voted for in 2016, and we should be doing just that.

Electoral Registration: EU Citizens

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As I said earlier, the UC1 form is there for anybody to complete and send in. It is on the website, it takes about 30 seconds to complete—or maybe a minute, for anybody whose handwriting is as slow as mine—and I hope that as many EU citizens as possible who are able to vote in this country take advantage of that opportunity and use their vote, if we have the elections.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

European Union citizens make a huge contribution to our public services, our economy, our communities and our country, and to my city of Newcastle. I hope that the Minister recognises that and recognises that they have suffered immensely through the Brexit process, not being able to vote in the first place and facing a rise in hate crime and continued uncertainty about their status and that of loved ones. Does he not think that he should go the extra mile to facilitate their voting and that not doing so adds insult to injury and reflects a lack of flexibility of responsiveness, which is the reason why we are in this mess in the first place?

[Brandon Lewis]

The reason we are in this position is that on 29 March too many Members of Parliament did not vote to leave the European Union. However, I agree with the hon. Lady that EU citizens play a hugely important part in our economy, culture and society. That is why it is important that the Government and the Prime Minister have been clear from the very beginning that we want to protect and secure the rights of EU citizens in the UK. They are a hugely important part of our economy and I hope that as many as possible who wish to do so take advantage of the opportunity to vote in the elections, should we hold them. However, I still hold to the point that my main aim is to ensure that we do not have those elections in the first place and that we honour the referendum result.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent work as a Minister. He was an exemplary Minister, and I am sorry that he felt it necessary to resign from the Government. We do indeed want a deep and special partnership with the European Union. We also, as he says, want to embrace the opportunities of the 168 countries that are not part of it, by having an independent trade policy. That is precisely what is delivered by the deal that the Government have negotiated with the European Union. We can guarantee our leaving the European Union with a deal and in a safe way by ensuring that the deal is supported, so that we leave the European Union, as set out by the EU Council, on 22 May.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Q11.   Newcastle voted, by 50.7% to 49.3%, to remain. It divided our city, and I was determined that we should not have to vote again, but this is a complete shambles. Parliament gridlocked, Government paralysed, businesses stalled, jobs lost, households stockpiling, our global reputation trashed and a Prime Minister incapable of holding her Cabinet together, never mind the country. Will she consider the possibility that she is making a terrible mistake?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady wants to ensure that we are able to deliver on the overall vote of the referendum in a way that protects jobs, our Union and our security, and in a way that is orderly and guarantees Brexit for the British people—she said that she did not want a second referendum—I suggest that she gets behind the deal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this very important issue. Companies must do more to understand their supply-chain risks. Our cyber essentials scheme extends our influence to organisations that provide products and services to Government; it specifies standards that will improve their cyber-security. We use contractual arrangements to ensure that they help those in their supply chains, often small companies, to be more secure.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Technology can help deliver public services which are better, smarter, more tailored and put people in control, but that requires investment in people, processes and equipment. The 2017 WannaCry attack on the NHS was a consequence of a lack of investment in all three. What is the Minister doing specifically to give local authorities and other public service deliverers the resources and the skills that they need to ensure secure digital public services?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the challenge of cyber-security, but we have responded to that challenge. That is why we have created the National Cyber Security Centre, funded by £1.9 billion of additional money. On the WannaCry incident, we have learned the lessons since that attack and we are, for example, rolling out Windows 10 across the NHS.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That intervention has no relevance to the debate that we are having today. This debate is about the Government’s proposals in relation to leaving the European Union.

The statement in the Attorney General’s legal advice still holds. He said that the backstop would endure indefinitely until a superseding agreement took its place. That was the case in January, and it is the case today. I reiterate the view of the Attorney General: despite the theatre of the Prime Minister’s late-night declaration in Strasbourg, nothing has changed.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the critical issue here is that the Conservative party cannot countenance a trading arrangement that puts both Northern Ireland and Ireland and the European Union in the same trading arrangements, so whether it is today or next week or the end of this month or May or at any time, that party opposite cannot bring forward a Brexit that people can agree on?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is clear that this Government delayed the vote from 11 December, then were found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to release legal information, then broke the record for losing a vote in Parliament, and now have come back to the scene of previous disasters with exactly the same proposal, and I earnestly hope the House tonight rejects the agreement that the Prime Minister has brought to us.

The Prime Minister has also attempted to convince Labour Members of this House about an equally empty promise on workers’ rights. She said last week in her speech in Grimsby that being aligned with the European Union on workers’ rights would mean that if it lowered its standards, we would have to lower ours. It is simply not true. European Union standards are a floor, not a ceiling: if the EU chose—I hope it never would—to reduce those minimum standards, that would not compel the UK to lower its standards. It is important to clarify that point because I am sure the Prime Minister had no intention of misleading anyone when she made it. However, being aligned to those standards means that if the minimum improved the UK would be compelled to improve, and indeed I would want us to go much further than the EU on many workers’ rights.

Leaving the EU

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, that is one of the things that we have now seen confirmed by the European Union. That is indeed its commitment. It wants to ensure that we can work together so that we get that future relationship in place at the end of the implementation period and so that the backstop need never be used.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister recognise that by threatening Members of Parliament with a democratic catastrophe if we vote against her job-destroying deal, she is embracing not only the hand of President Trump, but his methods? Will she now say, explicitly and for the particular benefit of those who threaten Members of Parliament both online and on our streets, that her Government losing tomorrow’s vote would not undermine democracy and that, on the contrary, it would show that no one, particularly not this failing Government, is above our parliamentary sovereignty?

[The Prime Minister]

What I have said would undermine democracy—I am clear about this—would be the failure of this Parliament to deliver on the vote of the British people and to deliver Brexit. However, there should be none of the sort of behaviour that we have seen online or physically in relation to Members of this House or other members of the public regarding their views on the European Union. I have absolutely no truck with that. That aggressive and vicious attitude is absolutely wrong. I say to the hon. Lady that this deal protects jobs and that what would have a negative impact on jobs would be to leave the European Union without a deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

This is often described as the most important decision this House has taken since the second world war, so it is an even greater privilege then usual to speak in tonight’s debate. In making my remarks, I will try to be less divisive than the times in which we find ourselves, because these are very divisive times. Newcastle reflects that: we voted 49.3% to leave and 50.7% to remain. We reflect the diversity, division and commonality of the UK. When taking the metro from Newcastle airport to Byker, people travel through a reduction of 11 years in the average lifespan of those living nearby. The north-east is the only region to export more than it imports, and 52% of that goes to the EU as part of highly integrated, just-in-time supply chains. So we have stark inequalities and a regional economy integrated into Europe, but still we have strong remainers and committed Brexiteers. How am I to represent that?

We have to start with the most important thing about Brexit: what it tells us about our nation. The fact is that the Brexit voters won more than the Brexit vote: they won the right to be heard. Before Brexit, few were paying much attention to the views of people in council estates such as the one where I grew up; they had not gone to the right schools, and did not have the right jobs or the right vowels. The Brexit vote caught people’s attention, and let me give one example of that. As shadow Minister for industrial strategy, I meet industry groups and lobbyists all the time. Before Brexit, they told me how much they contributed to the country, but they meant London. Now they tell me how much they contribute to the regions. They have started measuring it. That is the Brexit effect.

The right to be heard is a key battleground in the history of our country, and it is at the heart of the age-old division between those who labour in silence and those who speak from a gilded platform. We must recognise that, despite its many well-intentioned people, the European Union did not appear as a champion of the voiceless. I am vice-president of the Party of European Socialists, and I acknowledge that although European socialists have been responsible for hugely important achievements, from the social chapter to protecting the environment to ending mobile data roaming charges, Brussels never felt like a stronghold of socialists standing up for the voiceless—and that was before the financial crisis and the gospel of austerity championed in Brussels, even if its most enthusiastic choir was in David Cameron’s Government.

Immigration is often cited as the key issue of the Brexit vote, and it is certainly one that was talked about very much on the doorstep. Labour has recognised that leaving the European Union means that free movement as it stands will come to an end, but I do not believe that that will make anyone here more prosperous or their jobs more secure. As an engineer, I worked all over the world, not taking other people’s jobs but meeting skills needs and contributing to other cultures. I believe that, like sustainable trade, the right kind of skills exchange makes everyone richer. As shadow Minister for industrial strategy, I know that it was not immigration that betrayed the working people of Britain, but the laissez-faire economics that privileged the rich and the well connected. I will not support the further betrayal of my constituents by a Brexit deal that sacrifices their future prosperity for outdated and outmoded ideology, which is what the Prime Minister’s deal would do.

British industry is integrated with Europe: we are part of supply chains that go back and forth across the North sea and the channel multiple times. These European supply chains cannot be replaced by American or African or Australian ones—the logistics and the costs are just too high. As an engineer, I know the challenges involved in creating proper, effective supply chains, and they cannot go backwards and forward across the Atlantic in the same way they do across the channel. The promises of the posh and privileged, who promised the world while hedging their own not inconsiderable assets, have misled people.

This deal dumps our industry out of the customs union within 24 months. It introduces barriers to our trade in services and creates legal uncertainty and regulatory mismatches with Europe. It undermines our science and innovation base and cuts off access to key talent. It therefore endangers our core industrial competitiveness and threatens the future of British industry and, as a consequence, the economic, physical and mental wellbeing of communities throughout the country, and especially my constituents.

I do not accept that the nation should be voiceless when it comes to what the deal is, so I will not accept that it is a choice between this deal and no deal. Only a general election can address the issues that drove the Brexit vote, and this Government, which is in office but not in power, should go to the country to set out their stall. If they are too scared, we should go back to the country in a public vote—one that I hope would include the voices of 16-year-olds.

The next few weeks—indeed, the next few days—are going to be very difficult for this country. No matter what the result of the vote next Tuesday, we will enter a period of uncertainty about both our short-term and long-term future and relationship with the European Union. Whatever that uncertainty brings and whatever debates follow on from that, I will insist that the interests of the people who sent me to Parliament, our values, our solidarity, our commitment to social justice and a more prosperous future, define not only the United Kingdom’s future, but the future of our relationship with Europe.