European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chuka Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. This is so important and we have been brought to this point because our democracy is deadlocked. We are faced with a perfect storm created by a clash of mandates: we are trying to work our way through dealing with a clash of mandates between views expressed by a majority of people who participated in a referendum in 2016 and views expressed in a general election which has led to a hung Parliament and the chaos in this House of Commons.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that we would have to produce a reason for wanting an extension, but does he agree that the reason that would command wide support here is so that we could clarify the political declaration and develop the ideas of some sort of customs arrangement and some sort of regulatory alignment mapping out our future relationship? Does he agree that most of the European nations would welcome that development, and probably a very long extension to the end of 2021 would be quite readily available?

[Chuka Umunna]

I do not disagree at all with the Father of the House. I think a long extension would be preferable. I do not think there is anything for us to fear in terms of European elections. After all that is called democracy and at least it means more of our constituents can get involved in this process. In terms of the different elements of this Bill and the duties we are seeking to impose on the Government, it has been said that to find a way forward through all of this requires compromise. As I have said, I believe there should be a duty in this Bill for the Government to seek an extension in order to provide for a people’s vote. Why do those of us who argue for a people’s vote want a people’s vote? We do so because we want to give the British people the ability to take a different course, and in so doing there is compromise. The easy thing to do if we wanted to stop Brexit from happening would be to simply ignore the 2016 result.

Customs and Borders

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I will strive to do my best, Mr Speaker.

May I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the other Chairmen of the Select Committees and the Liaison Committee on obtaining this debate and on tabling the motion? It is remarkable how little attention Parliament has been allowed to pay to the momentous events that are taking place at the moment and that will certainly take place over the next few months, which have a profound importance for the future health of our economy and the standing of this country in the world.

At the moment, Cabinet members are trying to agree among themselves their negotiating position, and those in the shadow Cabinet are trying to reach an agreement among themselves on their response. Meanwhile, events are moving on, and I think the House of Commons should have more opportunities to give its views, exercise influence and debate a substantive motion every now and again, not just a motion that has already been dismissed, in the curious way we do in this Parliament, as somehow not legally binding and therefore one that need not be regarded as important.

I have often agreed with the right hon. Lady in the past, but I do not think I have ever heard her make a speech in which I agreed with just about every sentence she uttered. That will enable me to respond to your request, Mr Speaker, because she said it all with great eloquence and there is absolutely no point in my simply trying to repeat all of it or anything like all of it. The only thing I disagreed with is that she revised—no doubt for party reasons—the strange conspiracy theory that trade deals with America might involve privatising the NHS. I have no doubt that someone will try to explain the logic of that argument in the course of this debate. However, I totally agreed with everything else she said.

That is rather surprising, because everything the right hon. Lady said was in line with what has always been the official, mainstream policy of the Conservative party throughout the first 50 years of my membership of it. Some of my colleagues seemed to have a strange conversion—like St Paul on the way to Damascus— about two years ago, but I am afraid that the light did not strike me.

This debate bodes well for what needs to emerge. Many of us in this House have argued for some time for a cross-party convergence, in the national interest, so that this House can make sure that no damage is inflicted by the consequences of our leaving the European Union, or—to be more precise, I am afraid—so that we can limit that damage so far as possible.

The underlying point is clear: the economy of this country and, to an extent, those of other European countries, will be damaged if a sudden decision is taken to erect new barriers at the border between the UK and our major trading partners.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I will give way in just a second. There are no advantages in introducing tariffs to European trade, which I do not think anybody wants to do, or new customs procedures and processes, and there are no advantages in producing regulatory differences between our market and the European market. If people insist on having a new free trade agreement, it should include, and as far as possible replicate, the arrangements that the customs union and the single market give us now. If any hard-line Eurosceptic wishes to get up and say why it is positively in the British interest to have new customs procedures, and that we want more lorry parks at Dover and wish to delay the lorries carrying goods one way and the other, I would be interested to hear it. I shall turn in a moment to the main argument—indeed, as far as I am aware, it is the only argument—that most of them ever give for leaving the customs union. First, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Chuka Umunna]

I am grateful to the Father of the House for giving way. He has served in this House for 48 years, if I am not mistaken, and served in a number of Governments. He will know that this Government have been advised by their own officials that leaving the single market and the customs union will make this country poorer. In all his time in this House, can he think of any Government who have knowingly taken a decision of this gravity that would make the country poorer? Can he think of any example of any Government he has seen do that?

[Mr Clarke]

Not deliberately—but accidentally, several times. [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman makes reference to my great longevity, which is the one non-controversial feature of my presence in this House. Practically all my old friends from several Governments are now ennobled and in the House of Lords, where they are debating these very matters. Actually, all my colleagues who have served in Governments during my time—particularly under Margaret Thatcher and John Major—who are still with us and in the House of Lords are voting in line with this motion. They are of the same opinion, because is it is utterly unprecedented for us to get into a position of this kind.

The only argument—certainly the only one the Prime Minister ever uses—for leaving the customs union is that we can have trade agreements with the rest of the world. We also refer to “a customs union”, for reasons that have been explained; it would be a replica of the present customs union. It is quite right to say that, in the customs union, we do not have total freedom to negotiate. We have a common tariff barrier around the customs union, and no member can punch holes through it and start letting in goods from various markets under different arrangements. Once anyone started to do that, it would be necessary to stop the goods seeping through. A great deal of work is being done at the moment, as I understand it from following the leaks in the newspapers and talking to my contacts among those involved, to try to find a way to achieve something similar that would be acceptable. We will have to see how that goes.

It has already been said that, for over 40 years, Governments of both parties in this country who essentially believed in free trade, and who found that Britain gained ever more advantages from developing a free trade climate, have been extending free trade through our membership of the European Union. First, we had the common market—the customs union—and then we added the single market to it, removing all the regulatory barriers. Then we encouraged EU agreements with an ever-increasing number of countries, which reduced the barriers yet further in all those markets around the world. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has said that this helped us to make progress in the rest of the world as well. Not only have we participated in that but, in my opinion, British Governments have been the most influential and leading advocates of that approach inside the European Union.

It is not true to say that we have been an isolated, powerless member, ignored and penalised by the others. I believe that on issues of the economy, on liberal economic policy and on trading policy, the United Kingdom has been the leading influential member in Europe, and I think that was probably as true under the Blair Government as it was under the Thatcher and Major Governments. We were responsible for the single market. All the way up to the Cameron coalition Government, we were in the lead in Europe in pressing for the EU agreements to be extended to other countries.

I do not remember even Eurosceptics bothering to raise much objection to that policy. Even during the referendum, I did not hear any Brexiteer, including the ones I debated with, saying that they wanted more protectionism or that they wanted to withdraw from all that. Dan Hannan is one of the most articulate advocates of the Eurosceptic cause, and I debated with him twice in town hall settings during the referendum. I always got the impression that he was in favour of the single market. Again it is important to stress that it is possible to leave the European Union and to stay in the single market and the customs union. There is no constitutional or legal barrier to that happening, and the Commission has made it plain that it could be on offer. However, if we are not going to do that—for reasons that I do not understand—we will have to replicate it pretty well.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The right hon. Gentleman makes one of the points that I was going to make. The most important effect of passing either new clause 3 or amendment 7 —there is actually more to this than a meaningful vote, if we consider the various stages—and achieving proper parliamentary accountability is that that would affect the tenor of the negotiations. Like every other Head of Government in the European Union, our Prime Minister would need to have at the back of her mind, “Can I deliver to the House of Commons what I am thinking of conceding?” Every other political leader in Europe will do that, because they will have to sell what they sign up to to their own Parliaments. If we do not have a meaningful vote, we will be the only member state whose negotiators are not under a legally or constitutionally binding commitment to sell the deal, because they will be able to make the deal and then come back to the House of Commons and the House of Lords and say, “This is it. What do you think of it?”

[Chuka Umunna]

The Father of the House is absolutely right that the Bill essentially gives the Government a blank cheque. On timing, the only commitment I can see in today’s written ministerial statement from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union about what will happen before we leave the EU is that the proposed withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill will be introduced before we leave. That is clearly unacceptable. Any piece of legislation seeking to do what that Bill has in mind must be passed before we leave the European Union, even if that means extending the process to maintain parliamentary sovereignty.

Rehabilitation and Sentencing

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I can confirm that we are proposing to reform that matter. We are consulting on it, so I look forward to having the hon. Gentleman’s representations on what level of offence should never be excluded from disclosure, how long it should take for cautions for other offences to be spent and what we should do about juvenile offences, which are sometimes held against people for far too long in what has become a law-abiding adult life. We will not duck the issue, we will reform the system and I look forward to hearing his views.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

HMP Brixton is in my constituency, and 80% of the prisoners there are on short-term sentences of less than four weeks. I will look at the Green Paper to see what it will do to address the fact that it is difficult to rehabilitate within that time frame. I was e-mailed last week by the prison’s independent monitoring board, which made it clear that there should be absolutely no cuts to the prison. What guarantee can the Secretary of State give me that the Green Paper will not be used to impose cuts on my local prison?

[Mr Clarke]

I realise the difficulties of a prison such a Brixton, with such a high proportion of its population being short-term prisoners. We cannot get rid of all short-term prison sentences. I have never believed that that was possible, because magistrates face people who have come before them frequently, and they have tried everything else. In such cases, there is absolutely no way of dealing with their recidivist behaviour other than to send them to prison, or sometimes back to prison yet again. I hope that some of the payment-by-results providers will be able to start providing rehabilitation for such people, for whom no provision is currently made once they are put out of the door.

As far as spending on the Prison Service is concerned, we are affected, as in every other service, by the financial constraints we are under. It is not true that it is not possible to make any savings in how we run the prison estate. Spending on the Prison Service will depend in large part on what burdens are imposed on the system in future years by the level of crime and sentencing patterns, because it is partly a demand-led service. I cannot simply give an undertaking that nothing will be changed. We intend to follow on from the last Government’s policy of using competition, among other things, to test costs and ensure that we have the most cost-effective way of providing the quality of service that we want to provide.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

These matters are devolved. I have no doubt that we will look at good practice on both sides of the Irish sea from time to time to ensure that we benefit from what we each do. I am in regular contact with my opposite number in the devolved Northern Ireland Government, and I will try to take the opportunity to discuss these matters with him to see how we are both getting on.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I am encouraged by the responses from the Secretary of State, particularly given that this is a big issue in my constituency, which is home to Her Majesty’s Prison Brixton. We want to expand provision for mental health services in that prison so we are keen to know whether he agrees that it would be a mistake this week to reduce funding for mental health services in our prisons?

[Mr Clarke]

Not surprisingly, everyone is trying to anticipate tomorrow’s announcements. We will have to make fairly marked reductions to the budget of the Ministry of Justice and the various services for which we are responsible. Against that background, we will need to take an approach to how we tackle these problems that is more radical and reforming than the previous one, which involved simply paying for more and more places for more and more people, leading to overcrowded prisons. Our approach will underline the need to take a particular look at drugs, mental health, illiteracy, innumeracy, foreign national prisoners and all the other things to ensure that we find better ways of dealing with rehabilitation problems whenever possible.