Preparations for Leaving the EU

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a characteristically original, helpful and constructive idea. As well as the individual country guides, we should also publish a guide that allows for the comparisons of the kind he mentions.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Page 104 of the document says that the agricultural support will be continued at the current level until the end of this Parliament. Given that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster wants an election before Christmas, this is possibly the emptiest promise in the whole document. It is no wonder that the National Farmers Union described the Government’s plans as “catastrophic”. He knows that hill farmers will face 48% tariffs on lamb exports. He has a salary of £140,000 a year. They earn £14,000. How can he stand there and behave as if this is not a serious, critical, existential problem?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making those points about hill farmers, whom she represents with such energy and passion. She is right—I have never shied away from this fact—that if we leave without a deal some sectors of our economy will face bigger challenges than others. Sheep farmers, along with the Northern Ireland dairy sector, are perhaps two of the sectors most likely to be most adversely affected. We take very seriously our responsibilities towards those who rear and grow the food on which we depend, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has the necessary comprehensive support package to help anyone who may be adversely affected.

Prime Minister's Update

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course my hon. Friend is completely right. We will reach out to Members on both sides of the House, and I hope that our overtures will be received in a kindly spirit.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I must say that I feel the Prime Minister’s goading of my colleagues from Yorkshire reveals that he has changed little since he was a student burning £50 notes in front of homeless people.

I do have a real question, and the problem is that this statement was billed as the Prime Minister’s update. Rather than just talking about vague concepts, could he tell the House what proposals he has tabled to the European Union?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady has made an allegation about my conduct as a student that I am afraid, if it were allowed to stand, would enter the record. She has no evidence for it whatever because it is completely untrue, Mr Speaker, and I would like you to ask her to withdraw it.

Priorities for Government

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will make sure that the Chancellor writes to the hon. Lady about that matter at the earliest opportunity.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Single mums often come to my constituency when non-resident parents do not fulfil their duties. What is the Prime Minister’s plan for tackling this problem?

[The Prime Minister]

We must work with our partners around the world to make sure that non-resident parents fulfil their duties. As the hon. Lady knows, there are conventions to insist on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the universal credit system, we have one-to-one support provided by work coaches, and it is working. We have just seen the figures released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics showing that the rate of women in employment is at a record high.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Minister is also wrong with respect to national insurance contributions being attributed, or rather not attributed, to women who have more than one period of maternity leave within two years. Will he go back to look at the correspondence I have sent to the Department about this very serious problem?

[Alok Sharma]

Of course I will look at the correspondence and make sure that the appropriate Minister meets the hon. Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the fact that this country is a great place for women, indeed everyone, to do business. This is one of the challenges facing us in our new future outside the European Union and, with women like us in our country, we have a very bright future indeed.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

T4. Women who are in a car crash are 17% more likely to die than men, so will the Department consider a legal requirement on car manufacturers to have female dummies to test their cars?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point, and I will take it up with the relevant Department.

Leaving the European Union

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Absolutely right. If we get through Second Reading, we can determine the details, through the progress of the Bill, of the precise nature of our leaving. That will enable us to see progress for this country. To pick up on what my hon. Friend said, I believe it is absolutely in the national interest that we should leave the European Union as the referendum vote set out, but that we should do it with a good deal for this country. That is what is on offer.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) asked the Prime Minister if she was intending to offer a free vote on the second referendum. I would like to ask her the same question about the customs arrangements, which she knows are extremely important for manufacturing industry. Would it be her plan to offer a free vote on those customs arrangements?

[The Prime Minister]

As in the normal progress of these things, whipping decisions will be taken when we see the proposals on the table. I reiterate the point I made in response to the right hon. Gentleman. The key issues raised around manufacturing industry are, yes, the benefits of a customs union—they are in the political declaration already—and ensuring we reduce friction for trade at the border. That is not just about customs, but the benefits of the customs union are in the political declaration already.

European Council

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I enunciated earlier, over not just the last few months but in advance of the withdrawal agreement being agreed in November 2018, we have been pressing the issue of the Irish backstop. As my right hon. Friend knows, legally binding changes were obtained in the agreement between me and President Juncker at Strasbourg in early March. Those changes were, of course, brought to this House, and the House then continued to reject the withdrawal agreement. What we are now doing is finding a way through that ensures the deal we have agreed with the European Union can find a majority in this House. Once again, the European Union has been clear that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The six largest manufacturers in my constituency and the National Farmers Union all pressed to take a no deal off the table, and I am extremely glad that that has happened. When the Prime Minister next looks at the Opposition’s proposal for a permanent customs union, will she bear in mind the example of Turkey, which is in the customs union but also has its own separate trade deals with third countries?

[The Prime Minister]

I can assure the hon. Lady that people have spoken to me, both positively and negatively, about the Turkish example in relation to a customs union. In practice, Turkey does not find itself able to have that freedom in relation to trade deals because of its arrangements with the European Union.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Unsurprisingly, given the close co-operation that there has been between us, I entirely agree with everything that the right hon. Lady has just said. It is of the utmost importance that the business of the House motion on Wednesday should also provide for a further day, or days, in which to take forward the process that will begin on Wednesday so that it can reach a successful conclusion. We will also have to attend to the question that has been discussed this evening and that began to be aired when the Prime Minister was answering questions on her statement: what the Government will do if the House reaches a majority—not for some unicorn or some ludicrous proposition that utterly contradicts common sense, but for a sensible way forward—and how we will persuade the Government at that stage to allow that majority view to be implemented. That will be a major issue.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I support his amendment and will vote for it tonight. I am delighted that he has agreed that we need to move to paper ballots and to end some of the gamesmanship that has been going on. The Father of the House raised the issue of the voting system, so I shall not repeat that point, but there are two other points that we need to bear in mind. One is whether the votes are indicative or definitive. Perhaps we will move from one to the other, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said. The other point is how an option gets on to the ballot paper. That is also an extremely tricky, nice issue. What I want to know from the right hon. Gentleman is whether he thinks we might need time to amend the business of the House motion. The way we do that will also be a subject for discussion, as will actually going on to do it.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I was with the hon. Lady nearly to the end, but not quite to the end. I am conscious that although the point that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford made a minute or two ago is right—we should allow ourselves a couple of days to do what should have been done over a couple of years—we are also under very considerable time pressure. There is a reality in the situation, which is that on 11 April, we will hit the buffers. Therefore, we should not spend too much time debating the process. We should, if possible, move forward on the basis that there is sufficient consensus about the process not to have to debate it, and get on with the substance. To that end, it would be sensible if we began this process by allowing Members who wish to put forward alternatives to do so. There are groups of people who support, for example, a people’s vote as a confirmatory process or otherwise, Norway plus, or the propositions hitherto put forward by the Opposition. We need to let those Members formulate their propositions in their own terms, in the ordinary way.

You have a long record, Mr Speaker—previous Speakers have also had a long record—of finding a way of selecting for debate amendments that carry sufficient weight in terms of numbers, cross-party support and so on. That is a perfectly proper process to use. It does not involve any one of us tilting the playing field, and it enables us to proceed without too much further debate about process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As a member of the Procedure Committee, I have been thinking for about six months about the voting system. In autumn, the then Brexit Secretary came with proposals to change how we were going to run the meaningful vote. Since Christmas, however, it has been evident that we need a new system. The simple binary yes-no choice does not work very well in a situation like Brexit, where there are multiple options. We ran into problems on House of Lords reform, and the Prime Minister has found similar difficulties in the past six months. Partly, that is due to the way she has handled the situation, but it is also partly because it is very easy, with a yes-no approach, to build coalitions against things and quite a lot harder to build consensus and coalitions for options.

A month ago, the Father of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and I proposed using preference votes as we do for Select Committee Chairs. We were probably a bit premature with that idea, and I am extremely pleased to be able to support the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) tonight. It is clear that the Prime Minister’s brinkmanship has brought us to this self-inflicted crisis. It is now essential that Parliament takes control and uses a new process. I am also pleased that the right hon. Member for West Dorset has agreed that we should be moving to paper ballots, voting on all the options in parallel. That will reduce considerably the scope for the gamesmanship that is bedevilling this process.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady makes a very good argument. We were discussing this earlier. Parliament is quite inefficient at making certain decisions, as we are finding out. Just as an analogy, if we sent Parliament off to buy a gin and tonic the questions would be what sort of gin? What sort of tonic? Would there be ice or no ice? Would there be lemon or lime? The paralysis from that one decision would probably be something akin to what we have with Brexit at the moment. Her suggested approach makes eminent sense in a Parliament that cannot decide any more than yes or no.

[Helen Goodman]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I was going to say that the benefit of a new system is that it would enable us to find out where the consensus actually lies. It is absolutely obvious that not everyone in this situation will get their first choice, but we need to make a distinction between those things that Members and the public are very worried about and find totally unacceptable, such as no deal, and those things that, while they may not be a person’s first choice, they can live with and can go along with. The process we need to move into needs to institutionalise that.

It is also obvious that building consensus will be painful, because it inevitably involves compromise. That, however, is essential on a major national project such as Brexit. It is much better for us to acknowledge those difficulties and take a calmer approach to reconcile Parliament and the public than to be driven into a high-conflict situation with the rising tone of anger that we see at the moment.

The one thing that the right hon. Member for West Dorset said that surprised me a bit was that the business motion on how we are going to do this will, in his schema, be on the same day as the first round of indicative votes. I had not planned to speak today, but I thought that I had better set out what factors I would like to be taken into account in the drawing up of the process and the design of the system.

The first issue is the status of the votes: are they indicative or definitive? Indicative is good, because it allows people to feel flexible and more open-minded. However, we will move to definitive at some stage, to bind the Government, because we cannot continue with the situation where the Government defy the will of the House.

The second point we need to be clear about is that this vote may be on paper, but it is not a secret ballot. We want transparency. We want to be accountable to the public and to our constituents. And, of course, the Whips need to be able to do their job as well. That, too, requires some transparency.

The third issue is how to get on the ballot. I was slightly concerned in the middle of the day when I was hearing that the Government were planning to draft up for every Member what their view of other Members’ options would be. That seems to me to be completely inappropriate. Groups of hon. Members must be allowed to say for themselves what their options should be. I appeal to Mr Speaker to allow more, rather than less, on to any ballot paper, if we get to that.

The fourth point we need to think about is how to vote: preferences or standard crosses. I think the right hon. Member for West Dorset is considering a traditional cross by the side of the option or options we like, rather than preferences. I am happy for us to embark on that, but, as he acknowledged, we may need to move to preferences as time goes on.

There are two other points that we need to bear in mind. First, how many votes are we going to have? How many preferences can we expect to be allowed to use—two or three? We need to consider explicitly whether people could use the same number of preferences, or whether that could be something that people would want to flex. My feeling is that everybody probably ought to have the same number of votes. Connected to that is how many voting rounds we go through. We know we have to do this in a fairly speedy way, because of the 11 April deadline. We may need more than one, but we cannot have a completely open-ended process going on ad infinitum. We need to bring it to closure at some point.

If people think that this is highly innovative, they should not be quite so alarmed. We vote on paper regularly. We have done indicative voting before. We have given preferences before. What we are proposing to do on this occasion is bring them all together. [Interruption.] The most important thing, as I can hear the Minister saying, is that we have some speed, not just for the political process but to end the uncertainty facing businesses up and down the country. To be three weeks out and still to have no deal, a soft Brexit or a public vote to remain on the table is shameful.

Our international reputation has taken the worst hammering in living memory. The Confederation of British Industry said that it has lost confidence in the political process. The TUC has specifically asked us to look for a new parliamentary mechanism. MPs are always telling other people to change and adapt. Now, perhaps it is time for us to do the same. Confidence in our parliamentary process will be restored only when we show that we can act constructively and creatively.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will not give way. I am conscious that I have been speaking for a long time. Other Members wish to speak, so I am going to make progress now. I want to finish what I am saying about the Government’s case and then move on to the amendment that you have selected, Mr Speaker.

We do not want to be in a situation where the only certainty would be more uncertainty, but if the House has not come together around a deal by Thursday next week, the only viable extension would be a long one. We would have to hold the European Parliament elections, and the Government would facilitate a process with the House to consider the potential ways forward to reach a majority. However, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last week, that delay would ensure that the only certainty would be greater uncertainty for businesses and for the constituents whom we represent. That is the choice that we face and the responsibility that we must now shoulder.

If I may, Mr Speaker, I will turn to the amendments that you have selected for debate.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Lidington]

No. I apologise to hon. Friends and Opposition Members who wish to intervene, but I have given way many times, and I have tried to be fair to Members of all political parties represented in this House. I want to speak on the amendments, conclude my remarks and let other right hon. and hon. Members speak.

If I may, I will turn first to amendment (h) in the name of the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). It requests an extension of article 50 for the defined purpose of holding another referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. I do not think it will come as a surprise to the hon. Lady if I say that the Government’s position is well rehearsed. I respect her persistence and that of others who have tabled similar amendments putting forward this proposition, but I do not believe another referendum offers the solution that we need. Rather, it would reopen the divisions established in the 2016 campaign, and would damage what is already a pretty fragile trust between the British public and Members of this House. Our obligation, first and foremost, is to honour the mandate given to us in that first vote, which was to leave the European Union, and that is why the Government are focused on honouring that mandate in a smooth, orderly way.

Leaving the European Union

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are seeking changes to the withdrawal agreement, but the bulk of it remains the same. It is about intricate issues such as the legal aspects for those businesses that have contracts with the European Union after we leave the European Union, and citizens’ rights and ensuring the guarantees and protections for citizens’ rights. He says that in the event that this House did not vote for a deal I should stand by the Leader of the Opposition and explain why this House had not voted for a deal; that might be a little difficult because, given his new policy, the Leader of the Opposition does not seem to want to deliver Brexit.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister’s language, borrowed from the extremists, in describing the Bill from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) as commandeering the House is totally irresponsible. Does the Prime Minister not understand that this is a parliamentary democracy, that we own the Standing Orders and that we can vote to change them either permanently or temporarily at any time?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course it is absolutely right that the Standing Orders of this House can be changed by this House; in recent times the Standing Orders of this House have often been interpreted in ways that were not expected.

Leaving the European Union

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know—given his previous ministerial position and his interests—that my right hon. Friend has considered this issue with great care. However, it is not simply a question of the tariffs that we set for items going across our border. Questions of the WTO requirements in relation to customs declarations at the border, and other issues which are referred to in the political declaration, such as issues relating to data, are also relevant to this matter.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

If the House votes to take time to consider options other than those that the Prime Minister has been presenting to us, will she accept that that is not an attack, but a sign of the strength of our parliamentary democracy?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady is referring to the issue of an extension of article 50—

[Helen Goodman]

indicated dissent.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady shakes her head.

[Helen Goodman]

I am referring to Standing Order No. 14.