European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Hilary Benn and Tom Brake

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I do not agree. Of course, we all recognise that with any of these provisions there is no guarantee that the European Union will grant a further request from the United Kingdom for another extension of article 50. It takes only one member state of the European Union to say, “No, I’m not giving the United Kingdom a further extension” for us to be in even greater difficulty than we are already.

The provision seeks to require the Prime Minister to ask for and agree to an extension, because that is what is required to prevent the current Prime Minister from taking us out of the EU on 31 October without a deal. We did not have to put those provisions in the earlier Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford because the former Prime Minister readily accepted the decision of the House of Commons, but we are now in different circumstances.

Clause 2 covers what happens if an extension is proposed and agreed. Members have asked, quite rightly, what the extension is for. The immediate answer is, of course, to avoid a no-deal Brexit on 31 October, but clause 2 provides a framework under which the Government will publish a report to the House on 30 November—this comes back to the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) raised with me earlier—and move a motion to the effect that the House has approved the report. That gives the Government a chance to say, “What are we going to do next?” It is also something that we can point to with the European Union. Members should remember that, last time, Mr Tusk said, “Use the time well,” and it is important that we in this House show that we are not just saying, “Right, we want a further extension, and then we are going to twiddle our thumbs for another three months.”

The Bill suggests a process. If the report is amended or rejected, there must be further reports from the Government on 10 January and every 28 days thereafter, either until an agreement is reached with the EU or until otherwise indicated by a resolution of the House. I think the framework in clause 2 will help to answer the question about what we intend to do with the additional time, and that will be a matter for Parliament.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Surely, one of the things that we would want to do during that time is to try to find a solution to the Irish question. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the EU Commission taskforce is reporting that the Prime Minister is reneging on his commitment to protect the all-Ireland economy and meaningful north-south co-operation? Clearly, the time should be used to ensure that there is decent co-operation.

[Hilary Benn]

I have read those reports and they are of concern to me, as I know they are to the right hon. Gentleman and many others in the House.

The aim of the clause is not, as I think the Leader of the House suggested yesterday, to create a “marionette Government” but, I would argue, to give the Government the time they need to do their job. I say that because it is not clear what is happening at the moment, as we discussed yesterday, and how much negotiation is taking place when no proposals have been made. It is very hard to understand that, because I would have thought that the Government had been working flat out since July. It is also important to make the point that even if agreement was reached, it is very hard to see how it would be possible to get the House’s approval and pass all the legislation between 18 October or so and 31 October.

My final point is this. What would happen if we left with no deal? The Prime Minister talks about getting it done and ending the uncertainty, but the truth is—the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) made this point powerfully—that no deal would not end anything. It would simply plunge us into greater uncertainty—uncertainty about the degree and length of disruption, uncertainty about the border arrangements in Northern Ireland, and uncertainty about our future trading relationship with our biggest, nearest and most important trading partners, the other members of the European Union.

Given that it has taken three years to get this far—in other words, not very far at all—and given that it took Canada seven years to negotiate a deal and the Prime Minister says he wants a super-Canada deal, it is going to take years to agree a new relationship. Every single EU member state, member state parliament and regional parliament will have to agree to any deal. No deal will not be the end of Brexit; it will only be the end of the beginning. In that time, faced with that degree of uncertainty, businesses will have countless decisions to make about where to invest, what to make and where, what to do about the sudden disappearance of all the arrangements that they have come to know and work within, and what to do about the sudden imposition of tariffs. It would be utterly irresponsible to allow that to happen. We have a duty to prevent it, and I hope the House will vote for this Bill tonight.

Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Debate between Hilary Benn and Tom Brake

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I agree absolutely. Indeed, I made the point yesterday about the importance of transparency and about a lack of transparency not being in the national interest. I gently say to Ministers that trying to have a go at people who are asking questions about what analysis has been done and what it shows, and attempting to suggest that all of them are trying to undo the referendum result, is an unwise approach. I think it reveals a great defensiveness and a lack of confidence on the part of Ministers about the position that they have put the Government in.

[Tom Brake]

I bring the right hon. Gentleman back to the issue of growth. Yesterday, the Minister said that all the forecasts suggest there would be some growth. Does he remember, as I do, how keen the Government were to claim that the UK was until recently the fastest-growing economy? Now, Ministers are clearly saying that if there is some growth—however small that is—it is excellent news for the United Kingdom economy.

[Hilary Benn]

Indeed, that is the case. Ministers have made those arguments and, of course, when the growth is better than that in any other countries, they would. However, what the analysis appears to show cannot be avoided: in all the options that it looked at, the country would be less well off than we would otherwise be.

We are told that the analysis is preliminary. Nineteen months after the referendum, how on earth can it still be preliminary—really? We are told that the people who are meant to be in charge had not seen it until two nights ago, when it is about to be shown in a locked room to members of the Cabinet. We are told, as has been said, that it does not include modelling of the Government’s preferred option. Why on earth not? The answer is a simple one: the Government do not know what their preferred option consists of. Therefore, they cannot model it.

Apart from anything else, the Government said that they really hoped with the Florence speech last October to get the European Council to move on to phase 2 of the negotiations, but we clearly were not ready then, because we now know that they had not done the modelling, and we are still not ready now, in view of what we have been told. As any teacher would understand, there are only so many times that the family dog’s eating habits can be offered as an excuse for not producing homework.

Being told graciously, as we all were yesterday, “We will give it to you eventually, when the deal has been done,” was not on. I very much welcome—I say this to the Minister in all sincerity—the fact that overnight Ministers have had a rethink and will accept the resolution. I say on behalf of the Exiting the European Union Committee—because we are buying some more lever arch files—that we will handle the material when it is given to us in the same, I hope, professional way that we handled the last lot of information, in line with the commitments I gave to the Secretary of State.

This shambles—I use the word deliberately—is a symptom of a fundamental problem that the country faces. First, the Government took decisions early on, such as leaving the customs union, leaving the single market, having nothing to do with the European Court of Justice and no free movement, without having made any assessment of what impact that would have on the British economy—none. The decisions were taken for ideological reasons, without looking at any evidence.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Debate between Hilary Benn and Tom Brake

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hilary Benn]

I will, but then I must make a little more progress.

[Tom Brake]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that when the Brexiters campaign on the issue of trade, they should be aware of the fact that India currently invests more in the United Kingdom than in all the other EU countries put together, and that the UK invests more in India than any other G20 country?

[Hilary Benn]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he has given me the opportunity to add to his point. We are the most successful country in the European Union—more successful than Germany, more successful than France—in attracting foreign direct investment. There are a number of reasons for that, some of which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, which the Chair of the Select Committee welcomed; but there is no doubt that one of the reasons is the fact that we are part of a single market consisting of 500 million people.