Leaving the European Union
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As I made clear earlier, I do not want to see us extending article 50. I want to see us getting a deal agreed and through this House, such that we can leave on 29 March with a deal. It will be up to this House to determine, in a vote, whether or not it wishes to extend article 50 if that meaningful vote is rejected.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
For the record, and this will not be a surprise to anybody, let me say that I will not, shall not and cannot vote for a second referendum, regardless of how much lipstick is put on it in what it is called. I think that in their heart of hearts both the Front Benchers from my party and the Government know that a majority does not exist in this House for a second referendum. That is a distraction from the main purpose of our job, which is to find a deal. I have spoken to the Prime Minister about workers’ rights, funding for our towns post Brexit and what we need to do to find a way through this. Some of my colleagues have labelled those things as bribes, but they are wrong; what we are trying to do is find a constructive way forward. So in the spirit of that constructive dialogue, the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Prime Minister to set out changes to the political declaration—not the withdrawal agreement–that would make the deal acceptable to the Labour party. May I ask the Prime Minister to seriously consider and reflect upon those, because the only way she will get a majority in this House and the majority to implement the legislation going forward is if there is a deal that is supported by the sensible mainstream bulk of both parties?
The Prime Minister
First, on the issue of funding for towns around this country, when I stood on the doorstep of No. 10 when I first became Prime Minister I was clear that I wanted a country that works for everyone. What the hon. Gentleman has referred to fits right into that desire and policy of ensuring that we are responding to the needs of people across the whole country. On the other question he has raised, the Leader of the Opposition did write to me with a number of issues and I have responded to that in writing, because a number of points he has made are actually already reflected in the political declaration. There are a number of other issues where we have taken this forward, for example, as I said today, in relation to workers’ rights. My team have been able to have one further meeting with the Labour Front-Bench team and we are happy to have further meetings with them should they be willing to have them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Harriett Baldwin
Ethiopia is one of the countries in which the Department for International Development has extensive programmes. I am very pleased to hear that the good folk of Colchester are supplementing that work with this wonderful project to knit hats for babies.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/ Co-op)
Penny Mordaunt
Under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, we have led the charge on tackling modern slavery globally, including at the United Nations General Assembly this year where we increased our financial contribution to £200 million to combat the issue. Critically, we have also held events with the private sector, because it is only with the private sector and by ensuring transparency, knowledge and security across all of its supply chains that we can eradicate this terrible practice from the world.
EU Exit Negotiations
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
First, I thank my hon. Friend for her comment and recognition that, by definition, in looking at these issues, there will be compromise. Obviously, people on both sides of the argument voted in the Brexit vote. I think the overwhelming view of the British people now is that they want to see the Government getting on and delivering Brexit for the British people.
My hon. Friend asks specifically about goods. We have expressly within the outline political declaration—we will flesh this out in the fuller future framework document—put as a key element, at the forefront of our thinking, the need to ensure we have a continuing good trading relationship, with seamless transfer of goods across borders.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been very clear that my constituents voted to leave the European Union, and the only way we can do that smoothly is by leaving with a deal. However, it is clear from what has been said in the House today that the Prime Minister’s deal does not have a majority. She has ruled out withdrawing article 50 and said that she will not support a second referendum, and I do not believe that a majority exists for that in this place either. But I hope that, like me, the Prime Minister realises that no deal would be a catastrophe. Will she outline her contingency plan for this deal failing and preventing a no-deal Brexit on 29 March?
The Prime Minister
The decision on the deal will come before this House in a meaningful vote, and every Member will have the opportunity to exercise their vote according to their conscience, the need to deliver for the British people, and consideration of the impact that their decision will have on their constituents’ future.
Overseas Electors Bill (Second sitting)
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister have any actual numbers to back up the suggestion that overseas electors may not have those things? I ask that because we could be talking about a relatively tiny proportion of the overseas electorate and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North pointed out, the number of individuals who may be enfranchised under the Bill could run to the millions. Does she have some numbers that could put the flesh on the bones of that statement?
Chloe Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman for asking for that information, but I do not have it, nor do I think it is relevant. We would not say to a category of domestic electors, “Don’t worry—if it’s only small numbers, you’re not coming in”, nor would we say, “If you don’t have an email address or a telephone number, you’re not going on the register.” No Member would dream of saying that to one of their constituents. We should use the same principle here. I do not think the numbers would help the hon. Gentleman’s argument, and in any case I can confirm that I do not have them with me in Committee.
One germane point, however, is that we have committed to encourage applicants to provide an email address, because it is rather obvious that when we are talking about sending communications around the globe, email may be one of the quickest ways. However, as I say, we recognise that not all applicants will have an email address, so it is not right to make that a legal requirement.
I will move on to country of residence. Currently, electors are not asked how long they have lived in their current country of residence, and I put it strongly to the Committee that again, that is irrelevant to one’s eligibility to register to vote. An individual could have moved from country to country very rapidly, but that would not reduce their Britishness—the key tenet of the Bill is that one is British however far one has gone. That does not change whether someone has lived in a place for one day, 15 years or 15 years and one day, so I do not think it would serve a purpose for EROs to keep records of those periods of time in an elector’s life.
Moving on to voting offences, some of the amendments provide that the renewal declaration must require declarants to state that they are aware of voting offences under the RPA. I appreciate the basis on which those amendments have been tabled; as I said at the outset, we should all endeavour to reduce and indeed eliminate voter fraud and voting offences, but I am not sure that the renewal form is the right place to bring those offences to the attention of the elector. They are already brought to the attention of voters overseas, where they vote by post, in the postal voting pack that they receive. There is currently a requirement to include a statement on the initial application form that it is an offence to provide false information in the application and of the penalty for that offence, so we already have that. I do not think it is necessary to have more than that.
Furthermore, legislation currently prevents a person from having two declarations of the same date with different addresses and brings a declaration to an end if the same person seeks another declaration in a different constituency. That position will not change under the new proposals.
Leaving the EU: Negotiations
Gareth Snell Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Jenny Chapman
Our Front Benchers’ position is clear: we do not want an exit from Brexit. We respect the outcome of the referendum. I know that the Liberal Democrats do not approve of that position, but that is what it is.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend and her whole team have done a sterling job for the Labour Front Bench. While she is clarifying Labour party policy, could she also clarify from the Dispatch Box that it is not Labour policy to support a second referendum?
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
We are having a slight let-off from the hot weather, but it strikes me that we have become a bit of a cliché with our similarities to a Mediterranean country over the past few weeks. We have had incredible weather, we are good at football and we have chaotic politics. In the chaos of the past 48 hours, many things have been revealed, not least the fact that the now former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union spent a grand total of four hours this year negotiating the deal with Michel Barnier. I can inform the House that I have spent more time filling in my World Cup chart than the former Secretary of State spent doing his job.
I want to focus on our countryside and on the production of food. Cumbria and the Lake District won their own world title a year ago this week when the area became a world heritage site. We are very proud of that, and it was clear in the document that the world heritage site status that we were afforded by UNESCO was just as much down to the work of the farmers who maintain the landscape as it was down to the physical nature and the geology itself. It is massively important to recognise that it is not just the landscape that makes our countryside so beautiful, not only in the Lake District but in the dales and all the other beautiful parts of the United Kingdom; it is largely down to the work of our farmers.
The production of food is also of massive significance. I am sure all Members will share my concern that we have seen a massive rise in the amount of food that we import over the past 20 years. In 1990, we imported about 35% of the food that we consume. The figure is now about 45%. As the process of leaving the European Union trundles on, one thing that will undoubtedly have an impact on this country’s ability to feed itself will be the agriculture Bill that we are expecting to see, perhaps before the summer or perhaps shortly after.
It will also massively depend on what kind of deal we get. What situation will we face when it comes to tariffs or no tariffs on our imports and exports? That is why it is right, and respectful of the British people, to decide to engage fully in what kind of deal we get and to object if the Government present us with a shabby deal or if others in the Government wish to have a deal that is even shabbier than the one that the Government are presenting.
I am one of the 6% of Members of Parliament who bothered to go and look at the Brexit impact assessment documents in Whitehall when they were sort of semi-released earlier this year. Obviously I would not leak a single word of what I read—oh go on, since you’ve twisted my arm. One of the things that most struck me was the war-gaming that the Government had done for some rather terrifying prospects. For example, it is worth bearing in mind that, whether we like it or not, membership of the European Union has removed from this place and this country the imperative to debate whether it was right to subsidise food over the past 40 years, but by golly we have, and we will notice if we stop subsidising food.
Over the past 40 years, the average spend of a lower-middle-income household on food has gone down from 20% of the weekly wage packet to 10%. At the same time, housing costs have doubled. If we remove direct payments for farmers and/or if there are tariffs on imports into this country, the reality is that we will see a significant rise in the price of food on the shelves. The wealthiest people in this country spend 10% of their income on food, but the poorest spend 25%. I do not care how anyone voted two years ago or what they think about the Chequers deal, because they should care about impending food poverty on every street in this country. That is likely to be the most worrying aspect of what we get if we have a bad deal.
The Government are mindful of the problem, which is why they war-gamed what it would look like if the EU charged tariffs on UK exports into the single market, but the Government chose not to retaliate with import tariffs on EU goods. I can understand that the Government would do that to protect the interests of the poorest consumers in this country, but UK farming would be thrown under a bus. It would be decimated within a decade. That is why such issues matter. That is why the content of the deal matters. It is not anti-patriotic, anti-democratic or anything of the sort to question the nature of the deal, not based on esoterica about sovereignty or anything else, but based on the hard, visceral reality of whether people in this country can afford to feed their children.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Gentleman is correct about food poverty, but it is wrong to suggest that it is a construct of Brexit. Will he tell us what he did in government for five years to deal with food poverty? People in my constituency have been hungry for a long time, and that is not due to Brexit.
Tim Farron
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we did. Among other things, we forced the Tories to implement benefit rises of 5%, and we ensured that we raised the income tax threshold to lift more than a million people out of poverty. It is much easier to be on the Opposition Benches than the Government Benches, but I am rightly proud of the five years that the Liberal Democrats spent in government, preventing the Tories from doing their worst and ensuring that we did the best for our country. We know that the Government have war-gamed throwing farming under a bus, but they are also preparing to levy shocking increases in food prices on both the poorest and middle-income families.
The Chequers deal is interesting. It is worth saying that I think the Prime Minister is a decent person. We go back quite a long way, and I take her to be a decent person who is seeking a consensus where perhaps none is to be found, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Of course, the reality is that the Chequers deal is unimplementable, undeliverable and unacceptable to the European Union. It would mean effectively being in a single market for goods while not being in the single market, effectively being a member of the customs union while not being in the customs union, and effectively having freedom of movement while not having freedom of movement, and the European Union will say no to that.
My assumption over the weekend was that the most hard-line separatists within the Conservative party were accepting the Chequers deal, no matter how soft it looked, because they knew that the Prime Minister would present it to Brussels, Brussels would say, “Get knotted,” and it would then be Brussels’ fault that we did not get a decent deal.
Steve Double
The answer is simple: if that decision goes the other way, do we have a third and a fourth? Do we just keep going until we get the decision that some of us want? No. We made it clear to the British people. As has already been said, the former Prime Minister said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime decision and that there would be no opportunity for people to change their mind and go back. That was it, and we need to respect that.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Gentleman talked about people turning out to vote leave. Did he experience in his constituency what happened in my constituency, where not only did people turn out to vote leave, but the highest number of people in any election in the past 20 years turned out to vote? We simply cannot scoff at that.
Steve Double
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the turnout was very high. I observed that the more “Project Fear” turned up the heat and told people that they were wrong to think of voting to leave, the more people were driven to vote leave. It was very much a reaction against being told by the establishment, “We know best. You should do what we tell you.”
My second point is that to have a second referendum now would undermine our negotiating position. The point has been made many times, but it needs to be made again: if the EU knows that whatever deal is agreed will be put to a vote of the British people, it will make sure that it is the worst possible deal that it can provide, in the hope that we will reject it, reverse the decision to leave and remain in the EU. For that reason, we cannot allow a second referendum to take place.
My third point is that any second referendum would cause further delay and uncertainty. People want us to get on with it. Business wants certainty: it wants to know what the end state is going to be. Any second referendum would delay that and create even more uncertainty, because even when we had agreed a deal with the EU, we would not know whether the British people were going to support it. British business would not know whether it was going to be the final outcome. If it was rejected, that would create further delay and uncertainty. Right now, more than anything, business wants to know what the state of play is going to be when we leave. Business wants certainty and to know what the circumstances are going to be. Any second referendum would cause further delay and create even more uncertainty.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) because, despite being on opposite sides of politics, we share some commonality in respect of this issue, which is that we are both democrats, but thankfully not Liberal Democrats. We both understand that our constituencies voted leave for a number of reasons, none of which were necessarily those categorised by the overtures of the right-wing press, who make it out to be all about immigration and rather nasty things. People were shouting out against the establishment for considering them not worthy of having their say.
The huge turnout in Stoke-on-Trent Central—before I was its Member of Parliament, I hasten to add—demonstrated an engagement in a political process that has not been replicated since. There have been two opportunities to vote in an election in Stoke-on-Trent Central since the referendum: a by-election, in which I was elected to this place, and a subsequent general election. Fewer people voted in those subsequent elections than voted in the referendum, which shows that the issues on which they voted were diverse and complicated.
Let me pick up on the motion. The Liberal Democrats have, as always, quite adeptly tried to position themselves as one thing—in this case, the moral conscience of the remain-voting populace of this country—but at the same time tabled a motion that does not really address the issues. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay said, the motion is on a process issue; it is not on a policy issue or a substantive issue. It is about a unity Government.
We can make jokes about the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) having a ministerial car he can be driven around in, but the motion is about the Liberal Democrats inveigling their way back into government so that they can influence something on which the electorate have consistently rejected them. If they are so confident that their position can command the support of the electorate, they can all trigger by-elections in each of their seats and run purely on having a second referendum. If their confidence is correct, they will all be returned to this place with increased majorities and it will all be fine and dandy. I suspect, though, that they do not have the courage of their convictions to do that, because they know that what they are actually doing is attempting to subvert democratic processes merely for electoral gain further on down the road. That is that they are doing with this motion, so I shall not support it.
The Liberal Democrats have also failed to address the following: what is the question they actually want to put to the public? I find it quite odd that, on the one side, we have the Liberal Democrats and, on the other, members of the European Reform Group, who are all waiting in the wings, rubbing their hands in absolute glee at a no-deal scenario, because actually that is what they want. The Liberal Democrats, along with members of the European Reform Group on the Conservative Benches, and, sadly, a number of my colleagues, who normally would be here in vocal force, but who have not found their tongues today, are all rubbing their hands in glee at a no-deal scenario because they see a no-deal scenario as a path to something else. They are very different, diverging paths, but the best thing that they can hope for to facilitate their own political interests is a no deal.
The Liberal Democrats and some of my colleagues believe that a no-deal scenario would instantly lead to our staying in the European Union forever and a day—job done, democracy thwarted, never mind what the people thought, that is what it is, big shrugs, move on. Members of the European Reform Group, who again would normally be here in the Chamber—I presume that they have something more important on today; some letters need signing, no doubt—would normally see a no deal and think, “Great, we have thrown off the shackles of an imperialist Europe that tried to thwart Britannia in all of her mighty ways.” I find it absolutely mind-boggling that, in the 21st century in this place, we have, on the one side, the Liberal Democrats and, on the other, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and his motley gang all campaigning essentially for the same thing and they will not be honest about why they want that.
That is why I do agree in part with what is in the motion regarding a unity Government, although not because I seek to be part of it or because I think that it will work. What the Prime Minister should have done, almost 18 months ago now, when she did not have the majority of her own party before the general election, and when she did not have a majority for her party after the election, is look across this Chamber and its 650 Members, minus the abstentionists, and say, “How can I bring together a majority in this House for a Brexit deal that works—a Brexit deal that means that I can come back from the European Union with a deal that I know will command parliamentary majority support and that delivers on the customs arrangements that we all pretty much agree we need?” Actually, what we are arguing over is what we call it, not what it does. She should have said, “How can I bring together a majority in this House for a Brexit deal that allows us to have access to the single market and determines how much we trade off paying for that access against how much freedom of movement we are willing to accept and also delivers on the protections for workers’ rights, consumer rights and environmental rights?” We know those are important because we have all said that they are important but, again, we have not quite got there. Instead of doing that, the Prime Minister took a very narrow view and tried to satiate two warring parts of one political party, to the detriment of her negotiations.
I and a number of colleagues, along with, I suspect, many Labour Front-Bench Members—I cannot speak for them as I am a humble Back Bencher—would happily have a conversation about how we can make Brexit work. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay said, we have spent far too long talking about process, rather than talking about policy. We have spent too long talking about dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and not about the societal changes that we need that will help our country to come together and accept a Brexit deal that works.
This is where the second referendum, a people’s vote, or whatever you wish to call it and dress it up as, is a folly and a nonsense. Nothing has altered in my constituency in the past 18 months that would change the way my constituents would vote if they had the deal put to them for a vote. In their minds, they would simply see this as a re-run of the referendum—are we in, or are we out?
Bob Stewart
I recall vividly that, when we were debating the referendum in my constituency and looking at documents produced by the Government, it was made absolutely clear that, if we voted to leave the European Union, that implied explicitly that we would be out of the single market and the customs union. It was plainly put down.
Gareth Snell
I am sure that it was. Subsequent elections meant that there is no majority necessarily in the House for that matter. If we are democrats, we are also pragmatists. It is better that we have a pragmatic deal that commands the majority of this House and that is workable so that we can end the uncertainty that exists in communities and in business, rather than necessarily stick to one or two dogmatic points. I have known the hon. Gentleman for a year, and he is a wonderful speaker at a number of events that I attend, but where we are and where we have come from are very different. However, again, that does not mean that we should suddenly be having a second referendum as advocated by the Liberal Democrats. I say again: I do not know what has changed in my constituency that would make my constituents think that, somehow, a vote on the deal would not be an in or out matter.
Gareth Snell
Perhaps if I were to ask the right hon. Gentleman for his diary, it would show a weekly trip to Stoke-on-Trent, so he could tell me what my electors are thinking—but I am guessing it does not. I need no lessons on what my electors think, because I speak to them week in, week out. Most of them simply want to get on with the process. My constituents voted 70:30 to leave, for a whole array of reasons. Some will have been driven by the issue of efficiencies in the NHS. I would point to the fact that the reason why the NHS is on its knees is that the Liberal Democrats enabled five years of the Conservative Government who put through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, not just chronic underfunding by the Conservative Government.
What my constituents do not say is, “Oh, actually, I’ve thought about it, and I no longer think leaving is a good idea.” In the entire time I have been Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central, I have had one email from one constituent telling me that they would vote differently—one. I do not see the great swathe of changing public opinion that has been referred to here; nor do I see any appetite for a second vote. All that would do is lead to greater division in this country; it would put off talking about the policy and the radical platform for change that we need to make communities better; it would allow the European Union to sit back and watch as we squabbled among ourselves, failing to get a deal that worked. If there is a Division on this motion this afternoon, I shall not be supporting it.
Layla Moran
Indeed. That is why it is so striking that people do not now want to ask them what they think of this new settlement. The point of this debate is to ask the people and to trust the people. The people of Oxford West and Abingdon put me here to make the case on how Brexit is going to affect them and their families.
Layla Moran
Real people’s voices have been missing from this debate, so I am going to introduce some after taking this intervention.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Lady says that she was sent here to stop a hard Brexit, but the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said that he was here to get an exit from Brexit. Is she opposed to a hard Brexit and therefore wanting a softer form of Brexit, or is she opposed to Brexit in its entirety?
Layla Moran
I personally feel that there is no deal better than the deal we already have. That is what we had in our manifesto and that is our clear mandate. As I said, I achieved an enormous swing, so I can only assume that my constituents understood that. The Conservatives were proposing a possible World Trade Organisation-style Brexit—much harder, I dare say, than what Labour is suggesting now. However, I would still categorise Labour’s position as also being for a hard Brexit, because at the time, soft Brexit was defined as staying in the single market and the customs union, and somehow the rhetoric has changed over time.
It would be interesting now to turn to Ross from Kidlington. I care about what people—my constituents—think rather than just what this House thinks. Ross said:
“We are beside ourselves with how this government is behaving: squabbling in its ranks, only interested in keeping their own nests feathered, telling outright lies to those who voted for Brexit…Why are MPs in the in the Labour party not following their own consciences and voting for what they really believe?”
I find fascinating the number of conversations we have outside this Chamber where MPs from across the House recognise how damaging Brexit is going to be. I do not understand how they can look their constituents in the eye knowing that their jobs may well go and knowing the effect on the economy. In Oxford West and Abingdon, we have one of the most buoyant economies in the country, but if we leave the single market, even we will face a medium-term depression. I cannot stand by and watch that happen.
I loved what Jonathan from Abingdon had to say:
“How, now two years post referendum, do the government have no plan to implement and it scares me more than anything else. Even though every expert opinion is that it will damage the country, including the governments own experts, they are still ploughing ahead with it seems the full support of the Labour party…Please continue to fight this crazy act of self-harm the government is proposing with everything you can.”
I intend to do that. These are my constituents and I am standing up for them today.
The point about a further referendum is that new facts have come to light. We are not just talking about the Northern Irish border, although that is one of the most alarming aspects.
Ryan, a Gibraltarian student at Keble College, said that Brexit
“poses an existential threat to my homeland…The fate of my country is out of the hands of Gibraltarians, and is being decided behind closed doors. I fear the Government may negotiate something of ours away without our consent.”
Then there are the universities—Oxford and Oxford Brookes—and Erasmus, Horizon 2020 and the science sectors. The first question I ever asked in this House was on Euratom. At the time, someone sidled up and said, “What’s that?” We did not entirely appreciate the full consequences of Brexit, and now we do. I am pleased to say that the House has taken that on very positively, but new facts have come to light, and business is what I am most concerned about.
It is not just about BMW, which is in Oxford. Fabulous Flowers wrote to me and said:
“We need to ensure a stable workforce with labour from other EU member states and all sectors of horticulture and flower growing, harvesting etc in the UK. We have to question the UK’s capability in terms of infrastructure and resources at points of entry to handle the level of import controls. A longer wait at the border could bring a disadvantage to flower imports in future as it could impact on quality or vase life. Flowers could end up more expensive.”
It is not just about big business; it is also about the little guys, and they matter too.
As a science teacher—that is what I did before I came to this place—I believe in evidence, and it is not just me. I know that because some of the kids I taught are now adults, and they believe in evidence too. It is only fair that if new evidence comes to light, people should be allowed to change their mind. If it is a deal that they did not vote for and is not what they expected, what could be any more democratic than going back to the people and making sure it was what they wanted in the first place?
Sir Edward Davey
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know what was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. In 2005, like all parties, we argued for a referendum on the European constitution. In 2015, we said that if there was a big change affecting sovereignty and powers, we would have a referendum. What happened afterwards was completely different, and the hon. Gentleman ought to know that.
I was saying that I detect that the demand for a people’s vote—a final say on the deal—is growing louder and louder. There are many reasons why I think that; it is not just evidence from the polls and from people talking to me around the country. I think it is a reaction to the chaos of this Conservative Government. If I were a Conservative MP, I would be embarrassed by the Government; I do not think we have been so badly governed since the second world war—probably before.
The Government simply cannot make up their mind about how to deal with the biggest issue of the day. They are totally split. The chaos of the past 48 hours beggars belief. It is pretty clear that the Chequers statement will not stand the test of time. The European Research Group, the hard-line Brexiteers, and some Tory remainers reject it and Brussels is saying that it is unacceptable. It is pretty clear that, after two years of effort, this chaotic Government cannot manage it. That is why we tabled this motion.
As one of my colleagues said earlier, people are sick and tired of Conservative Ministers, and indeed MPs, putting their personal or party interests above the nation’s. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) said, when we talk to some colleagues outside the Chamber, they admit that Brexit is a disaster.
Gareth Snell
Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify a point I asked about in my speech? What question would the Liberal Democrats put on the ballot paper in a referendum? There are people who would not want to support a final deal but who would not countenance staying in the European Union.
Sir Edward Davey
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question as it enables me to explain that in detail. We are arguing for a people’s vote. People should have the final say when the deal is done, not before, so that they have the details of the question. One of the problems with the 2016 referendum was that no one knew what Brexit meant; in fact, we still do not. When we do eventually know—when there is a deal for people to look at, touch and feel—we suggest that the people should have the final say about whether that is what they want or whether they would prefer to stay in the European Union.
We need to look at what the Government have achieved so far. The process has been far longer than people were told. People were told it would be easy and that it would be quick, but after two years we still do not have a policy or a White Paper. We were told that Brexit would be very good value for money. We were not told that it would be so costly. No one said that Brexit would cost £41 billion—and that divorce bill is going to go even higher. It is costing far more than people were told, but it is also far more complex than people were promised. People were sold simple truths: it would be easy to extricate ourselves from our friends and neighbours who we have worked with for so long for over four decades. It is clear that that is not the case. There still is no deal. Frankly, given the performance and shocking chaos of the past 48 hours, that deal looks a long way away.
Wera Hobhouse
I really cannot because we have very little time left. The Conservative Brexit vision is for a Britain and a Europe from before the European Union was formed. Their vision is for a continent of competing nation states, but the profound vision of the EU—we see this most clearly in the island of Ireland—is that people can have multiple identities. We can be British and Irish, British and French, and British and Polish. To be British and Irish is to have no border in Ireland, but it also means staying in the single market and in the customs union. People are now beginning to realise that it is also about staying in the European Union.
Gareth Snell
Many of my constituents would describe themselves as British-Pakistani. To suggest that somehow people can only retain that identity if we have some sort of open-border policy is somewhat ridiculous.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and absolutely—I passionately believe in multiple identities and I used to live in an area in the north of England where there were many people with Muslim and British identities. However, I think that, in this country, we simply fail to understand the idea of multiple identities, and in the Brexit debate, that is also a big failure.
Where do we go from here? In June 2016, the people voted narrowly to leave the European Union. Liberal Democrats believe that it was not a blank cheque to this Government, or indeed any Government, to do anything that they like. Democracy did not stop in June 2016, but it seems for this Government that it did. The will of the people on that date is their mandate for anything that they want to do now. The shocking thing is that the politicians who argue that they are enacting the will of the people are the same politicians who refuse to ask the people again now, after many things have changed—after we are not getting £350 million back for the NHS and after we know how complicated it is to extract ourselves from the customs union without creating a border in Northern Ireland.
Ask the people again. From Magna Carta onwards, democracy in this country had to be fought for. The people have woken up to this. This Government are acting in the name of the people without the people’s consent. Ask the people now. The people must finish what the people have started.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to sum up at the end of this debate, to which there have been many contributions by Members from throughout the House. I will start with the comments of the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is no longer in her place. She gave defending the Government’s position on Brexit her best shot; as a remainer, she knows that it will do and is doing us great harm. I give her credit for at least trying to present the Government’s policies in the best possible light.
The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who speaks for the main Opposition, said that the Labour party did not want an exit from Brexit or a final say on the deal. That will come as a surprise to the majority of her party members, who support a final say on the deal and an exit from Brexit. She went on to say, following an intervention—I think this was meant to be a clarification—that the Labour party was not calling for a final say on the deal but was leaving open the option of one. We can read into that whatever we want. I read into it that the Labour party is preparing a position that it might move to at some point in the near future. We hope that that will happen at the Labour autumn conference, and we welcome the flexibility that the hon. Lady outlined.
The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) said, perhaps rather surprisingly, that his views did not matter. I suppose that depends on whether he thinks we are delegates or representatives in this place. I think that the views of Members of Parliament matter, and that we are not here simply to deliver something that has been voted for by a majority of our constituents, particularly if we know that it will do us a huge amount of harm. The hon. Gentleman and other Members have held out the idea that fisheries, for instance, will benefit heavily. As I understand it, however, even when we are out of the common fisheries policy, the UN law of the sea will still apply, so the idea that no other country will be able to access our waters does not bear scrutiny.
I was pleased that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) spoke in support of the motion. He set out, in stark terms, the economic damage that the Government know Brexit will cause us, and in an intervention he rightly highlighted the fantasy jobs Brexit on offer from the Labour party. I am afraid that the Labour spokesperson could not provide any evidence at all to back up her suggestion that there was a jobs Brexit out there.
The only thing I will say for the speech of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) is that it was very short. However short it was, it was long enough for me to note that I disagreed with every single word in it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) rightly concentrated on food poverty, and he gave a concrete example of some of the potential consequences of Brexit. Thanks to an intervention, which I do not think was supposed to be helpful, he was able to list all the things we managed to do while we were in government, such as taking millions of people off tax, creating millions of extra jobs and introducing the pensions triple lock and the pupil premium. Those things were all achieved in a five-year period of strong and stable government, on which I am sure everyone in this country looks back nostalgically as they watch the Tory party tearing itself apart and shedding Ministers on a daily basis.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) said that business wanted certainty. As I said in an intervention on one of his colleagues, the only thing that is certain is that any model of Brexit that the Government adopt will damage business. If he wants certainty, that is the certainty that business can rely on.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who is clearly not a Liberal Democrat supporter, said that it was not clear what the Liberal Democrats wanted. I think it is quite clear: we want an exit from Brexit, and we would achieve that through a final say on the deal. We accept that the only way we could legitimately secure an exit from Brexit would be through a final say on the deal that everyone in the country could take part in.
Tom Brake
I will not give way now, but I may do so in a moment if I have a bit of time.
The hon. Gentleman also said that a policy debate was absent. Let me point out to him that we will not be having a policy debate in this place for the next four or five years, because this Government and any successor Government will have to focus on delivering Brexit. That will take three, four or five years, so the hon. Gentleman can put any policy debate that he wants on hold. We will also be financially worse off. I am sure that the Government will not want to challenge the Office for Budget Responsibility, which says that Brexit will cost £15 billion a year. We are calling for a Brexit dividend, which would mean abandoning Brexit and grabbing that £15 billion a year. No doubt the UK Statistics Authority would be happy to support that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) was right to point out that throughout the Brexit debate the Government have ignored the 48%. I have intervened on the Prime Minister and given her an opportunity to stand up for the 48%, but she has not done so; she has stood up for the 52% instead. I commend my hon. Friend for adopting the Leader of the Opposition’s tactic of bringing individuals into these issues, because we do need to hear from real people—real people with real issues to address, whether they are fishermen, residents of Northern Ireland or, indeed, business owners. It is better to hear from them than it is to hear from some of the ideologues on the Government Benches—and, indeed, a few on the Opposition Benches—whose ideology drives them to abandon their common sense so that they cannot see the consequences of what they are advocating.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) rightly focused on the contribution of EU citizens and European schemes such as Erasmus, and also on one of the things that makes me most angry—the obstacles that the Government are putting in the way of young people’s rights to live, work and study abroad.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) was asked, in another helpful intervention, what question we would ask in a referendum. His simple answer was, “Do people want to vote for the Government deal, or do they want to stay in the European Union?”
My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) rightly said that if we become involved in a campaign for a final say on the deal, we must sell the positives of the European Union, which was not done during the referendum a couple of years ago. There is public support for a final say on the deal, and, indeed, there is public support from members of Unite. As I am sure the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central will be pleased to hear, a net plus-23% of them support a vote on the final deal. So union members are calling for it, and I welcome that, but there is political support for it as well.
It is with great pleasure that I quote what the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said:
“If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.”
The right hon. Gentleman has, of course, been replaced as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab). What did the new Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union have to say on the matter a couple of years ago? He said:
“Tory MPs may push for second referendum after 2020 if Remain win”.
I am happy to pray in aid the support of both the outgoing Brexit Secretary of State and the incoming one for a final say on the deal and a chance for people to have an exit from Brexit.
Mr Walker
I say to the right hon. Gentleman, and to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who spoke about the results of the 2017 election in her own constituency, that they should pay attention to the fact that more than 80% of the people who voted in that general election voted for parties that had made it clear that they would respect the result of the referendum. The 8% who voted for the Liberal Democrat party do not represent a majority in the country or a significant shift of opinion on this issue. We are at a critical point in our negotiations, and we simply could not afford the distraction of this debate about a second referendum. What we need to do now is to progress our negotiations with the European Union in order to achieve the right outcome. The approach agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers is a constructive way forward. We are seeking to get the best deal for the UK as a whole, and we intend to negotiate under the best possible conditions. To do otherwise would be irresponsible in the extreme.
Gareth Snell
Does the Minister share my assessment that by pushing for a second referendum the Liberal Democrat no-deal fanatics are actually making no deal more likely, because they are making getting a good deal more difficult?
Mr Walker
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I did not agree with some of his speech, but he just made a strong point. We must ensure that both sides understand the need to engage constructively in the negotiations over the months ahead to seek a new relationship between the UK and the EU.
I have great respect for the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who made a passionate speech singing the praises of the EU and its model of bringing countries together. I understand the case that she makes, but it was also made during the EU referendum, when the British people decided not to consent to continued participation in that political project. We must respect that crucial decision. The Government have been clear in all such debates that our position respecting the referendum has remained the same. We said ahead of and at the time of the 2016 referendum that we would respect the result, and that remains the case. It is interesting that those on the Opposition Benches who support the idea of a second referendum only discovered their desire after being on the losing side.
On the night of the referendum, as we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, Lord Ashdown, perhaps in anticipation of a different outcome, said:
“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken. Whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%, when the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you do not.”
What does it say about the faith in the judgment of the British people of those who support such sentiments if they simply wish to ask the same question again in the hope of getting a different answer? As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said, it is a case of “Keep voting until you agree with us.”
The British people voted to leave the European Union, and it is the duty of this Government and this Parliament to deliver on their instruction. We have done so by voting overwhelmingly to trigger article 50 and by passing essential legislation, such as the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Petitions brought to this House for debate have repeatedly failed to garner the support of the House. Our position on this issue is therefore clear, and we have repeatedly said that there will be no second referendum or, as the right hon. Member for Twickenham suggested earlier, a third one.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Snell Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires British companies with a turnover of £36 million to make declarations of actions that they are taking to reduce modern-day slavery, yet by their own admission, the Government neither keep a record of companies that should make a declaration nor monitor those that have done. What action is the Minister taking with his Government colleagues to make sure that British companies are not unwittingly perpetuating modern-day slavery?
Alistair Burt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are setting up a new business hub to try to ensure that companies accept their obligations in that regard, and we will be working hard with them to make sure that they do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Snell Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
The Cabinet Office is working in close partnership with all piloting local authorities to ensure that each pilot has a tailored and comprehensive awareness-raising campaign that encourages eligible voters to bring ID to the polling station.
Chloe Smith
That is an extremely good point, and it is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to in my earlier answer regarding the call for evidence on how those with disabilities might in some ways be disempowered from using the registration and voting system. In this case, I would expect the piloting local authorities to look carefully at the issue in their own work, and I will undertake to do so as well from the point of view of the Cabinet Office.
Gareth Snell
What guarantees can the Minister give people who do not currently have the necessary ID to go and vote in the upcoming elections that they will be able to have access to the photographic ID that is needed without incurring personal cost?
Chloe Smith
The local authorities involved in the pilots are ensuring that nobody will be left behind in the way the hon. Gentleman might fear. They will provide ID if a voter does not have it, in the format of, for example, barcoded poll cards or letters that are relevant on the day. Those kinds of issues remind us why it is important to do pilots to test things out
Carillion and Public Sector Outsourcing
Gareth Snell Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Jon Trickett
Carillion did not go bust eight years ago, when Labour was in power; it went bust last week. The fact is that the hon. Lady has not answered the central point, which is that 13 of the 20 biggest Government contractors have subsidiaries in tax havens—[Interruption.] And the Minister is prepared to defend it. It is outrageous. [Interruption.] Leeds City Council, in which I no longer play a part, did not hand over a contract to Carillion the other week.
Thirteen of the 20 largest Government contractors have subsidiaries in tax havens. Those companies are happy to take taxpayers’ money and make a profit, but it seems that they are not prepared to pay tax back, which is morally incorrect and should not be happening. In fact, it is a scandal.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) put a question to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on local authorities. Does he agree that the reason local authorities are too often forced down the route of contracting out services is that the Government have starved them of funding for the past seven years, meaning that local authorities simply do not have the wherewithal to do the work themselves?
Jon Trickett
My hon. Friend makes a powerful and unanswerable point.
We want a categorical assurance that the jobs of the subcontractors and employees are protected and that the services will be sustained. Is it not clear that the Government played roulette with people’s livelihoods in the most reckless manner? The truth is that the Government have been so wedded to the dogmatic idea that the private is always good and the public is always bad that they never questioned the existing orthodoxy, even when the evidence was right in front of their nose.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr David Lidington)
Mr Deputy Speaker, I take comfort in the fact that I can at least join the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) in expressing a wholehearted welcome to you, Sir, on your return to the Chair of the House.
I want to start by addressing the motion and to make it clear that, if the motion passes, the Government will of course comply with the will of the House. The Public Accounts Committee, as the House will know, already possesses powers to require the Government to supply it with papers. Whether or not the motion passes, it is my intention to share with the Public Accounts Committee as much information as I reasonably can that will help it with its inquiries. I hope, too, that in debating the motion hon. Members on both sides will understand that the information cited in the Humble Address is highly commercially sensitive.
I agree that the Public Accounts Committee is a vital mechanism by which Parliament can hold Government to account, but the Government also have an overriding obligation to ensure that information is not placed in the public domain when that would be either improper or give rise to particular risk. There are important considerations not only for Government but for the House to consider about the impact of releasing the documents.
First, we must bear in mind the impact on markets, whether good or ill, of making such documents public. Because the information requested is highly commercially sensitive, if made public it could have damaging impacts not only on market confidence, individual suppliers and the Government’s ability to manage our relationship with those suppliers effectively, but more widely on the jobs of people employed by those companies—constituents of Members on both sides of the House—the delivery of public services and, potentially, the broader economy. We also need to act in a way that is consistent with our legal obligations and mitigate any litigation risks to Government. If the motion is passed, I will undertake to discuss in short order with the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee the best way to make information available to her and her Committee, while ensuring that those genuine risks are minimised.
In his speech, the hon. Member for Hemsworth asked several questions about the Government’s contingency planning ahead of what turned out to be the collapse of Carillion a couple of weeks ago, and he also asked about the role of the Crown representative. To be clear, a new Crown representative was appointed in October last year and started work in November. He was appointed just after the regular quarterly list of named Crown representatives was published. The new list, which will include the name of the new representative, is due to be issued imminently, so the House will then be able to see the name of the new Crown representative to Carillion, along with all the others.
There was a longer-than-usual delay in the decision on the new nominee because, in the wake of Carillion’s first profit warning in July last year, my predecessors rightly took the decision that, rather than a Crown representative who was experienced in finance, they wanted somebody who was experienced in the restructuring of corporations: it was apparent that Carillion would need to undertake some considerable corporate restructuring and refinancing if it was to get its house in order, as it was then confident of doing.
Crown representatives are experienced board-level executives—they are not civil servants—who work on a part-time basis in the Cabinet Office to advise on commercial matters with suppliers and sectors. They help the Government to act as a single customer, but they do not advise suppliers on their finances or future business strategy. In the course of normal events, they do not have access to privileged information. Given the hon. Member for Hemsworth’s remarks, I should make it clear that Crown representatives are not politically appointed. They are contractors assigned to companies where they have knowledge of the sector and where there is no conflict with other concurrent roles that the individual man or woman may have. They have no authority to take procurement decisions.
Gareth Snell
Does the Minister agree that, even if it is within the letter of the law, the perception of people who have donated money to a political party subsequently getting a paid Government position looks bad and undermines the integrity of the work they are trying to do?
Mr Lidington
As I have already said to the House, these are not political appointments so there is no political intervention in them. It is quite right that donations to all political parties are made public. That is what the House has voted for and embodied in legislation, and it makes the situation clear to everybody.
Let me turn to Carillion’s liquidation. Along with all my fellow Ministers and, I believe, the whole House, I recognise that the collapse of Carillion has caused huge anxiety for the people who work for Carillion companies, the people in Carillion pension schemes, the suppliers and subcontractors and, of course, the people who use the public services provided by the company’s workers.
I reiterate the priorities that have animated the Government throughout the process. They have been: first, to make sure that public service delivery continued without interruption, which has been the case, as no public bodies have reported any major service disruptions; secondly, to reassure the workers employed on public service contracts that they will continue to get paid for their work; thirdly, to make sure that the right support is in place for pensioners; and fourthly, to protect taxpayers from an unacceptable bail-out of a public company, the risk of which is rightly borne by the shareholders and the banks that have lent to it.
The situation today is that the official receiver is now effectively running Carillion, and in the course of time his investigations will show exactly how the company ran into trouble. Although Carillion was under some financial pressure from three UK public sector construction projects—two hospitals and a road scheme in Scotland—it is already clear from the company’s statements to the stock market and from information that has become public since the liquidation that the problems it faced lay largely in its overseas construction projects and in the level of financial risk that it took on.
Within days of the first profit warning in July 2017, the Government retained legal and accountancy support and started an intense period of contingency planning. Preparing these plans involved considerable effort by officials from right across Government. The Department of Health and Social Care co-ordinated a similar exercise for NHS bodies, including trusts, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government worked with local authorities that had exposure to Carillion. The key aim of all these contingency plans was to ensure that public services were kept running safely and smoothly in any possible scenario. The solution had to be specific to the contract in question, had to be affordable and had to be capable of being executed, if necessary, at short notice.
As a result of that planning, the work covered by the service contracts has continued with minimal disruption: the school meals have been served, the hospitals have been cleaned and the maintenance staff have continued to go about their work. With regard to the construction contracts, some infrastructure work, such as that on the Aberdeen bypass, now continues uninterrupted. Other construction sites where work has paused have been put into a safe state so that work can be resumed quickly. The official receiver is working hard to resume work on these sites at the earliest possible date. This work requires customers to find new project management firms that can oversee the completion of their projects.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I shall be quick. I will focus my comments specifically on workers who find themselves potentially in limbo. In particular, I want to follow up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith) on TUPE arrangements. The Government made changes to employment law in the previous Parliament so that it now takes two years to accrue proper employment rights—redundancy protections in particular, but also rights such as holiday pay. When the Minister winds up the debate, will he guarantee the continuation of the service protections that so many workers may rely on when companies take on existing workers or the public sector takes on contracts previously held by Carillion, so that, should the worst happen and those workers find themselves facing redundancy at some point, they will get a payment that recognises the service they previously gave, rather than the new terms and conditions they might find themselves on?
I will touch briefly on a situation arising in Stoke-on-Trent. The city council is working on a programme to outsource to a company a number of its soft-facilities management arrangements, particularly on housing and housing support services. Will the Minister please address the fact that, across the country, local authorities find themselves having to look at outsourcing options as a way to provide public services because of the chronic and long-term underfunding they have received? Local authorities do not make those choices willingly; they do so because they are dealing with budget deficits that need to be addressed, and often the short-term solution is to enter into contracts that on the date of entry save money, but, with inflation uplift, cause them to have greater budget deficits over time. Will he please talk to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government—or whatever it is called now—to ensure that local government is properly funded? We could prevent future outsourcing.
Finally, when the Minister talks to those groups of workers who are looking at what their options are, rather than going down the line of a state monopoly and nationalisation or that of a private sector contract, will he please give genuine thought to a solution whereby workers could form new worker-led co-operatives to take on that work? One of the problems with outsourcing is that we lose accountability and the people who use the services cannot genuinely help to drive what they should look like. I would be grateful if he addressed those three points.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Snell Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am happy to give my right hon. Friend that confirmation. We are preparing for every eventuality. We are committing money to prepare for Brexit, including a no-deal scenario. It might be helpful if I update the House. The Treasury has committed over £250 million of new money to Departments such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department for Transport in this financial year for Brexit preparations. In some cases, Departments will need to spend money before the relevant legislation has gone through the House. The Treasury will write to Departments and to the Public Accounts Committee explaining this process shortly. Where money needs to be spent, it will be spent.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister
The message that I would like the hon. Gentleman to take back to his constituent’s partner is that we offer our condolences at the death of her partner. We are working to ensure that there is greater consistency in the judgments that are originally given on PIP assessments. We introduced PIP in order to ensure that we are able to focus payments on the most vulnerable. I completely understand how she feels about the position she is in. We offer her our deepest condolences.
Early Parliamentary General Election
Gareth Snell Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Gareth Snell
I try not to take it personally that, having arrived so recently, the Prime Minister is that desperate to get rid of me that she is calling an election.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister, in calling this election, has essentially said that she does not have confidence in her own Government to deliver a Brexit deal for Britain? One way in which she could secure my vote and the votes of my hon. Friends is to table a motion of no confidence in her Government, which I would happily vote for.
Jeremy Corbyn
I congratulate my Friend on his election to the House and on his work. I agree with him: I have no confidence in this Government either.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
This is an appropriate time to be called. I noticed a tweet earlier from David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, whom I am sure we all remember fondly, welcoming the Prime Minister’s decision to call an early election. Given that in one sense the country is in this mess because in calling the referendum David Cameron put party before country, it is hardly surprising that the current Prime Minister should follow him and choose to put party before country once again.
Tim Farron
Give me a moment.
From the moment the Prime Minister took office, she has ignored the closeness of the referendum vote and has pursued the hardest form of Brexit, driving division instead of cohesion. She has ignored the British people, British businesses, the British public sector and the national health service, and now, in another clear act of putting party before country, she has chosen an early election. We must not buy the nonsense that she needs a mandate to deliver Brexit; the Labour party has given her that mandate. She is acting upon the narrow majority of the 2016 referendum.
Tim Farron
I will not, as other Members wish to speak. I am flattered that so many Members wish to know my views. I will put myself up for a leaders debate with the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), the Leader of the Opposition and others, even if the Prime Minister does not do so, and people will have more of a chance to scrutinise me then.
Last June’s referendum was a vote to start the process and it gave a mandate to the Prime Minister to negotiate Brexit, but it did not give her a mandate to enact any old deal at the end of the process.
Tim Farron
I will not.
What the Prime Minister is asking for now is a blank cheque to allow for the British people to have to put up with whatever stitch-up she and the Brussels bureaucrats put together over the next two years. That is not democracy. An election taking place on 8 June will not decide the outcome; it will be about imposing upon the British people a deal that nobody voted for.
So, yes, the Liberal Democrats welcome this opportunity to show the British people that there is another way, and that the values of tolerance, openness and fairness can help build vibrant and successful communities and opportunities across the whole of the United Kingdom and beyond. The Government have made it clear that this is not the Britain they believe in; they have chosen isolation over co-operation, and meanness over fairness. I believe in a better Britain, and that is why we will support this motion.