The Government's Plan for Brexit

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I take that point. As I make progress through what I have to say, I will explain why, in some respects, that is not practical.

This debate is very similar to the last Opposition day debate Labour chose to have on Brexit, and it really is the last clause of the motion that extends beyond that. The Government and I certainly can accept the motion with the amendment that whatever plan we set out is consistent

“with the principles agreed without division by this House on 12 October”,

and that the House

“recognises that this House should respect the wishes of the United Kingdom as expressed in the referendum on 23 June; and further calls on the Government to invoke Article 50 by 31 March 2017.”

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Davis]

No, I am going to make a bit of progress. I will give way later. I normally like the badinage with the Opposition, but I have to make some progress on quite an important argument.

Dance on a pin as the shadow spokesman may, that is what the Opposition are signing up to: the Government invoking article 50 by 31 March 2017. Let us be clear about that. It has always been our intention, as I said in my intervention on him, to lay out the strategy in more detail when possible, provided it does not undermine the UK’s negotiating position.

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[Mr Davis]

My right hon. and learned Friend, the ex-Attorney General, should know better than to tempt me to comment on a court case that is taking place as we stand here, so I will not do that, but as he well knows, we will obey the rule of law; we will obey what the Court finds. We will ensure that we do the right thing. As the spokesman for the Opposition said, one of the reasons we are waiting on the outcome is to get precisely right what it is this House has to do.

[Geraint Davies]

On the timing set out in the amendment, does the Secretary of State not accept that, given that the French election is in May and the German election is in October, nothing will be achieved in that timeframe? If we trigger in March, there will be negotiating time lost in the two-year window. Article 50 should therefore be triggered in the autumn, in November, with time for a referendum on the exit package, so that people can decide on the final deal.

[Mr Davis]

No, I do not accept that. Between now and the possible end of the negotiating process, if it goes the full distance, there are 15 elections, and of course we have already had two events this weekend: a referendum and another election. There is no point in the period when there is no election under way, so it is simply not possible to meet the hon. Gentleman’s requirement.

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[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has been incredibly brave and, as a result of her courage, has faced hideous threats. I am sure that the whole House will want to wish her a happy birthday.

I shall try to focus my remarks on the motion and the Government amendment. I fully support Labour’s motion, but for the same reasons as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), I cannot support the Government amendment. In effect, it gives a blank cheque for us to invoke article 50 by March without any of us being any the wiser about the Government’s intentions today.

The Government promise to publish a plan, but it has been clear to me from Government statements and from statements of Conservative Members outside this Chamber in the last 24 hours that that plan will not be the White Paper that the Brexit Secretary once promised. It will not answer the big questions about our vital access to the single market, the rights of UK citizens abroad and EU citizens here, or issues such as tariffs. All the signals from the Prime Minister’s speech to her party conference and since have been that the majority of the Government want and are heading for a hard Brexit. In my view, that would be disastrous for jobs and prosperity in my constituency.

In the Labour party conference just a couple of months ago, we agreed as a party:

“Unless the final settlement proves to be acceptable, then the option of retaining EU membership should be retained. The final settlement should therefore be subject to approval, through Parliament and potentially through a general election or referendum.”

I accept that that does not specifically mention article 50, but it is surely explicit that, unless we start arguing now that article 50 is reversible, we should not support its invocation without having any confidence that the Government’s Brexit would be acceptable—and I have no such confidence.

I also happen to believe that the timescale that the Government have imposed on themselves is unnecessary, unrealistic and unwise. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said yesterday that it would be completed in 18 months, but the French and German elections mean that no meaningful talks will happen until the autumn of next year. Under the current plan, the talks will have to be completed within 12 months—the most complicated negotiations that this country has ever faced completed in just 12 months.

[Geraint Davies]

Given that the French and the German elections provide a case to delay article 50 and given that we can only negotiate before article 50—because, afterwards, we just give in our membership card and the Government decide—does my right hon. Friend agree that we should delay article 50 until November and then perhaps have a referendum on it?

[Mr Bradshaw]

I do not agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, but I do think it would make sense for the Government to delay the invocation of article 50 until after the German elections, to give themselves more time to secure a good deal.

The Government have prayed in aid a motion that was agreed by the House, without a Division, on 12 October. The Secretary of State for Brexit prayed it in aid in his speech as well, without making clear that it had said nothing about a March deadline. It is worth my putting that motion on the record. It said:

“this House recognises that leaving the EU is the defining issue facing the UK; believes that there should be a full and transparent debate on the Government’s plan for leaving the EU; and calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that this House is able properly to scrutinise that plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked”.

There was nothing in the motion about a 31 March deadline. It was completely different from today’s Government amendment.

It is relatively easy for me, as one who represents a “remain” seat, to oppose the Government in the Division Lobby tonight, but all of us, as Members of Parliament, are called upon to exercise our judgment on what we believe to be in the best interests of our constituents and the nation. I am afraid that I will not submit myself to a straitjacket of a timetable—an artificial timetable—to suit the Conservative party and deal with its internal problems when that would not be in the national interest, which is why I will oppose the Government amendment tonight.

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill).

I respect the vote in principle of the people to leave the EU, but they made that vote on three grounds: more money, market access and lower migration. What we are seeing, however, is that instead of getting £350 million to the NHS, it is going to cost us £300 million a week; instead of higher living standards, we have 5% inflation because of depreciation eating away at people’s incomes; and borrowing is going up, so everyone will be in debt with another £1,000 to pay back.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Is the hon. Gentleman essentially saying the people got it wrong on 23 June?

[Geraint Davies]

I am saying that people were misled, so basically now we are going to have another year of austerity.

On market access, everyone is talking about a hard Brexit. It is all very well Nissan, Tata and others being paid billions of pounds under the table to bribe them, to compensate for the tariffs they will inevitably face, but we will have to pay for that in the end, and we do not have proper market access.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman has made the astonishing assertion that there have been under-the-table bribes to Tata, Nissan and others to continue to locate in the UK. What is his evidence for that assertion?

[Geraint Davies]

Clearly they have come to the Government and said, “The only reason we’re in this country is to platform into the EU market, and if we face tariffs we want the money back or we’re going to move,” and the Government have given them the money. I know the right hon. Gentleman knows nothing about economics and just criticises the Bank of England, but that is the simple business case.

As for the ridiculous arguments the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues put about on trade, what he wants to do is turn his back on 46% of our trade and somehow dream we can make up those relationships, which were always weaker than the EU negotiating new bilaterals. That is fantasy land.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Geraint Davies]

I will not.

I do not think that people voted for Brexit—

[Michael Gove]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Geraint Davies]

No, I will not.

I do not think people voted for Brexit at any cost. In fact 75% of those who voted to leave have said they will not leave with a blank cheque and at any cost. The situation is that even though the majority voted in principle to leave, the mass of people—the silent majority—are now thinking twice. They do not want this decision made behind closed doors; they want to be able to have the final say. The silent majority want the final say on the final deal because they will live with the consequences.

A lot of rubbish has been talked about article 50 on both sides of this Chamber, but the reality is that as soon as we trigger it, that is literally giving back our membership of the EU. We then have no negotiating power, and the other 27 countries will decide in their own interests what deal we have. The Members on both sides of the House who want a referendum after we trigger article 50 must realise that if we have a referendum or a vote here and say we do not like the deal, the EU 27 nations will say, “Tough; that’s the one that suits us. It stops others leaving. Live with it and shut up.” That is a constitutional fact, and it is the primary reason why I cannot support the amendment that calls on the Government to invoke article 50 by 31 March. After that date, we will have no negotiating power. What is more, there is an election in France in May and an election in Germany in October, so that time would be wasted even if negotiations were going on because the two biggest power players would not be able to engage with us as they will be focusing on their domestic audiences. Article 50 should therefore certainly not be triggered until November next year at the earliest.

[Sammy Wilson]

Is the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument that we might as well never trigger article 50 because we will have given away all our negotiating powers, regardless of when it is triggered?

[Geraint Davies]

I introduced a Bill on the terms of our withdrawal from the EU. It stated that after the emergence of the situation in which we now find ourselves had become apparent, the British people should have the final say on the deal before article 50 was triggered. The EU would then have an incentive to negotiate with us, because it would know that our default position was to stay in the EU. At the moment, it has no such incentive.

The reason the Government are keeping their cards close to their chest is that there is nothing on those cards, because none of the 27 EU countries will speak to the Government. They are just saying, “You’re leaving—get out! Trigger article 50, get on with it, and we’ll tell you what you’re getting.” People are buying that up and thinking that it is in the British interest, which it clearly is not. I appreciate that the Government’s game is to rush forward with article 50 before March, to take two weeks to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, to rush towards a May election and then to have the appalling Budget that they will have delayed from March in the autumn. They would then say, “Oh, what could we do? We didn’t realise there was going to be a downturn.” Then all the money going to Nissan and Tata and the others under the table would be revealed. But the British people will not buy that—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

As the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) knows, the content of an hon. Member’s speech is not a matter for me. However, it would be a matter for me if the hon. Member for Swansea West said something in the course of his speech that implied wrongdoing on the part of any other Member or member of the Government. I am sure that he will confirm, as I call him to recommence his speech, that he did not mean to say anything of the kind.

[Geraint Davies]

There was certainly no wrongdoing. What I was suggesting is that huge amounts of public money are being pushed towards foreign companies to get them to stay here and that the Government have pointedly refused to tell the Office for Budget Responsibility, when asked, how much money was involved so that the OBR could factor it into its forecasts. The Government have refused to give those figures. These are enormous amounts of money; we are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds, which would affect our economic forecasts. The Government refuse to give the figures now, but they will come out after everything has been decided and article 50 has been triggered in March, when there is no room for reversal. The British public deserve and want either a good deal or no deal, and the right to decide that question. This should not be decided behind closed doors. We need to delay article 50 until November to allow the people to decide their own future.

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[Caroline Lucas]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady’s point about the devolved Administrations. Her party has put it clearly on the record and I am grateful for that.

I want to tackle head on the accusation that voting against this amended motion, or even being prepared to vote against triggering article 50, equates to disregarding the will of the British people. This is not about challenging the result of the referendum, which of course I accept, but it is about saying that we need to know what kind of Brexit the Government are planning to negotiate. As many others have said, it is not about the issue of departure, but about destination. We are no clearer about that now than we were three or four hours earlier. That is why I believe it would be irresponsible to vote to throw the country into the potential nightmare of leaving the EU within two years without knowing what might be in the plan and what kind of plan it is. To do so without any solid proposals for an interim deal after two years of negotiation would be particularly reckless.

Turning to the content of the negotiating position, I wish specifically to argue for an outcome that maintains strong social and environmental regulation, and free movement and membership of the single market, because I believe that that is what is best for Britain and for my constituency in Brighton, where so many businesses and the two universities have been talking to me about the uncertainty they believe is being engendered by the current proposals. On the environment, the referendum was not a mandate to weaken our standards on air, water or wildlife. A poll in August found that 83% of the public think that laws protecting wildlife should remain as strong as they are now or be made tougher following our departure from the EU. The environment must not, in any way, be the price we pay for any deal struck with the EU over membership of the single market. In the Environmental Audit Committee last month, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggested that about a third of EU environment legislation will not be carried over. That is wholly unacceptable and indicates that the Government are not prepared to fight for the UK to remain part of EU-wide action on tackling climate change, on reducing the use of dangerous chemicals or on animal welfare standards. Any plan must set out how the Prime Minister intends to reflect the cross-border nature of the environmental challenges.

[Geraint Davies]

Is the hon. Lady concerned, as I am, that 40,000 people a year are dying of diesel pollution in Britain and we may get rid of the EU monitoring standards?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just point out to the hon. Gentleman that he has just spoken and he is going to prevent other people from speaking, which is discourteous?