Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Cartlidge and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are putting £2 billion into the kickstart programme for 18 to 24-year-olds and investing massively in the restart programme for those who have been longer out of work. I can also tell the hon. Gentleman that the businesses I talk to are currently facing shortages of workers in many sectors, and we will work flat out to ensure that we get those who want jobs to those who need workers.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for the support he has already shown for coming forward with an offshore transmission grid, which he knows will help us to both export our surplus offshore wind to the continent and reduce the infrastructure associated with new wind farm capacity. It is very important to our communities, but there is a question over timing. Given that he has already set out an ambitious and clear timetable for increasing offshore wind generation, will he now come out with an equally ambitious timetable for delivering an offshore grid?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is spot on in what he says about the need for an offshore grid. As well as building the fantastic windmills, it is vital that we bring the energy onshore in a way that has minimal disruption for local communities and enables us to maximise efficiency.

Transport Infrastructure

Debate between James Cartlidge and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have told the House, we have electrified the line up to Cardiff. When it comes to tunnels—it is not a widely known fact—the Welsh Labour Government, which the hon. Gentleman supports, spent £144 million on a study on whether or not to open the Brynglas tunnels. Open the tunnels and unblock the muscles of the Welsh dragon.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I very much welcome the statement, particularly my right hon. Friend’s commitment to a more convenient ticketing system. Many of my constituents commute into London three or four days a week for a better work-life balance, but find that they have no choice but to pay the cost of a full-time season ticket. I urge him to ensure that the trial of part-time season tickets is rolled out nationwide so that we have a ticketing system that suits the modern-day reality of our flexible labour force.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport assures me that that is indeed his intention.

Brexit Negotiations

Debate between James Cartlidge and Boris Johnson

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises one of the crucial questions that the proposals evoke. It is obviously now a matter for discussion with our friends not only in Dublin but around the EU. We do think there is a way forward, and I am happy to keep the hon. Lady abreast of our way forward as we go there. It must be done, one way or another, by consent.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I do not know whether, given his busy schedule, my right hon. Friend will have had time to read the EU’s latest free trade agreement, which is with Vietnam, but even a cursory glance shows that the entire agreement is based on tariff reductions in exchange for market access. Does that not show, first, that it is fanciful to believe that we could somehow leave the EU but stay in the customs union and get these types of trade deals? Secondly, is it not a reminder that when we leave, the EU will be negotiating its own trade deals and that it will therefore be in both parties’ interests to have a technological way to deal with variations in respective territories’ tariff schedules?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, because he speaks with the voice of technological optimism and understands the details of these questions very well. That is indeed the way forward for this country. A wealth of opportunity will open up if we have the courage to take these steps.

Prime Minister's Update

Debate between James Cartlidge and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The surest fire way—[Interruption.] Well, no. Of course there will be an attempt to try to obfuscate the effect of this Act—the capitulation Act, the surrender Act or whatever you want to call it. It does—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but it greatly enfeebles this Government’s ability to negotiate. What I will say is that the best way to honour the memory of Jo Cox, and indeed to bring this country together, would be, I think, to get Brexit done. I absolutely do. It is the continuing inability of this Parliament to get Brexit done that is causing the anxiety and the ill-feeling that is now rampant in our country. If we get it done, we will solve the problem.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Whatever one calls the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019, is it not a fact that it does not take no deal permanently off the table? It would delay it to the end of January. Does the Prime Minister agree that there are only two ways for those of us who are concerned about no deal to stop that outcome permanently, and that is either to revoke article 50, with all that that implies for democracy, or it is to do the right thing and to come together to pass a deal, which I have every confidence that the Prime Minister will obtain in the European Council?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, because that is exactly the right answer. I genuinely think that the best way forward for our country is to come together and to do a deal, and that is what I hope that colleagues will do.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between James Cartlidge and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I will come to that, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for conceding that it was always infantile to pretend that there was no risk of getting into the backstop, because that was, for a long time, the contention of those who proposed that the backstop should be instituted.

I am afraid that this deal has now reached the end of the road. If it is rejected tonight, I hope that it will be put to bed and we can all face up to the reality of the position and the opportunity that we have. What we need to do then—now—is to behave not timorously but as a great country does. We have broadly two options. We can either decide, if the EU is unwilling to accept the minor changes that we propose, that we will leave without a deal—yes, I accept that that is, in the short term, the more difficult road, but in the end it is the only safe route out of this and the only safe path to self-respect—or we can decide to take a route that will end in humiliation by accepting arrangements with the EU that seem to limit disruption in the short term but will leave us as an EU protectorate with many important rules set elsewhere.

Members have asked, “What’s the worst that could happen?” I will give two examples, but there is any number of rules and regulations. The financial services industry would be subject to laws set by its leading competitors, which is emphatically not what the City wants. The Commission has already made it clear that it wants to use the passerelle clause of the existing treaty to bring in qualified majority voting on taxation. We would be subject to that, under a qualified majority vote in which this country would not participate. I urge Members to think hard and to see that that predicament would be democratically intolerable. We would have to tell our constituents that they had no power or influence in setting some of the rules that govern our country.

[James Cartlidge]

I have huge respect for my right hon. Friend, but he said that there were two choices. In terms of WTO rules, which he has advocated, there are two choices; that is correct. We can either have tariffs that hit our consumers, or we have no tariffs on imports, which would leave our exporters and industry at a terrible disadvantage. Which of those two options would he go for?

[Boris Johnson]

In any circumstances, we would have the freedom to decide what our tariffs were going to be, and under this—[Interruption.] Under this deal, we would lose the power to decide what tariffs we levied on the perimeter of the UK.

The most powerful argument that has been made this afternoon is the threat that some Members are apparently ready to hijack the long-standing rules of the House in order to take our constitution hostage, with Parliament to direct the Executive in international relations. That upends hundreds of years of constitutional practice and makes a nonsense of relations between Parliament and the Government. I believe it would lead to an even greater gap between people and this place. Let us abandon that project of dismantling our constitution in the name of making this country an effective colony of the EU.

Instead, we should take what now seems to be the more difficult route but is, in the end, the only one that preserves our self-respect, which is to leave as we are required by law on 29 March and to become once again an independent country able to make our own choices. I am not in favour of crashing out, as many call it. The Malthouse compromise indicates the way forward—the UK observes single market rules and customs duties and restrains our right to compete for a period of three years while we negotiate a free trade deal. I believe the EU would be open to that.

As we come to the final stages, it is vital that we retain our freedom of manoeuvre and do not rule out no deal. A delay will achieve nothing except to compound the uncertainty for business. Now is the time to behave as what we are—the fifth biggest economy in the world, the second biggest military power in NATO and, by many counts, the most influential cultural and intellectual force in Europe—and not to accept what I believe would be a humiliation and the subordination of our democracy.

Syria and North Korea

Debate between James Cartlidge and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. In the end, it was the Russian intervention that saved Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The Russians have it in their hands to change the outcome in Syria for the benefit of not just the Syrian people, but Russia as well.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, but, to echo the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), there are Members who are concerned about this phrase “regime change” and any policy that moves in that direction. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if the US moves towards a more explicit regime-change policy with regard to Assad, we would support it only after a vote in this House endorsing such a policy?

[Boris Johnson]

The policy of the Government is spelt out very clearly in resolution 2254, which calls for a political process leading to a transition away from the Assad regime. I think my hon. Friend will agree that that is the right way forward.