Oral Answers to Questions
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As so often, my right hon. Friend has spoken with complete good sense. I do think it was remarkable that so many Members of the House were able to come together last night and approve the Bill’s Second Reading. I think that it was a great shame that the House willed the end but not the means, but there is still time for the Leader of the Opposition to do that and to explain to the people of this country how he proposes to honour his promise—which he made repeatedly—and deliver on the will of the people and get Brexit done. Perhaps he will enlighten us now.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I join others who have expressed their deep sadness at today’s news that 39 people have been found dead in a lorry container in Grays. Can we just think for a moment about what it must have been like for those 39 people, obviously in a desperate and dangerous situation, to end their lives suffocated to death in a container?
This is an unbelievable human tragedy, which happened in our country at this time. We clearly need to look at the whole situation and look for answers to what has happened. I do, however, also pay an enormous tribute to those in the emergency services who went to the scene to deal with it. All of us should just think for a moment about what it is like to be a police officer or a firefighter and about what it was like to open that container and have to remove 39 bodies from it and deal with them in an appropriate and humane way. We should just think for a moment about what inhumanity is done to other human beings at this terrible moment.
Yesterday, before the Prime Minister decided to delay his own withdrawal Bill, he promised to maintain—[Interruption.] Let me finish. Before he decided to delay his own withdrawal Bill—[Interruption.] If Members care to look at Hansard, they will see what it says. The Prime Minister promised to maintain environmental, consumer and workers’ rights. Why, then, did he have those commitments removed from the legally binding withdrawal agreement?
The Prime Minister
I do not think we could have been clearer yesterday in our commitment to the highest possible standards for workers’ rights and environmental standards. Indeed, I think that one of the things that brought the House together was the knowledge that, as we go forward and build our future partnership with the EU, it will always be open to Members in all parts of the House to work together to ensure that whatever the EU comes up with, we can match it and pass it into the law of this country. That, I think, commanded a lot of support and a lot of assent across the House.
I must say that I find it peculiar that the right hon. Gentleman now wants the Bill back, because he voted against it last night, and he whipped his entire party against it. I think it remarkable that the House successfully defied his urgings and approved that deal. What I think we would like to hear from him now is his commitment to getting Brexit done. That is what the public want to hear, and I am afraid they are worried that all he wants is a second referendum.
Jeremy Corbyn
The Prime Minister does not answer the question that I put to him, which was about environmental, consumer and workers’ rights. I am not surprised, because he once said that “employment regulation” was “back-breaking”, and he voted for the anti-Trade Union Act 2016, which stripped away employment protections. The provisions in the Bill offer no real protection at all.
Yesterday, during the debate on the Bill, the Prime Minister pledged that the NHS was safe in his hands. If that is the case, will he be backing our amendment in the Queen’s Speech debate tonight, which would undo the very damaging privatisation of so much of our NHS?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman is showing complete ignoratio elenchi—a complete failure to study what we actually passed last night in that historic agreement. It is very clear that it is open to the House to do better, where it chooses, on animal welfare standards or social protections, as indeed this country very often does. We lead the way: we are a groundbreaker in this country. I am afraid to say that the right hon. Gentleman has no other purpose in seeking to frustrate Brexit than to cause a second referendum.
As for the NHS, this is the party whose sound management of the economy took this country back from the abyss and enabled us to spend another £34 billion on the NHS—a record investment—and, as I promised on the steps of Downing Street, to begin the upgrade of 20 hospitals, and as a result of the commitments this Government are making, 40 new hospitals will be built in the next 10 years. That is this party’s commitment to the NHS. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Russell-Moyle, you are an incorrigible individual, yelling from a sedentary position at the top of your voice at every turn. Calm yourself man; take some sort of soothing medicament from which you will benefit.
Jeremy Corbyn
Two questions and we are still waiting for an answer, although we could do with a translation of the first part of the Prime Minister’s response.
I hate to break it to the Prime Minister, but under his Government and that of his predecessor, privatisation has more than doubled to £10 billion in our NHS. There are currently 20 NHS contracts out to tender, and when he promised 40 hospitals, he then reduced that to 20, and then it turns out that reconfiguration is taking place in just six hospitals. So these numbers keep tumbling down for the unfunded spending commitments that he liberally makes around the country.
The Prime Minister continues to say that he will exclude our NHS from being up for grabs in future trade deals. Can he point to which clause in the withdrawal agreement Bill secures that?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman is completely wrong in what he says about privatisation of the NHS, and I must resist this, because those 40 new hospitals and those 47,000 extra clinical staff, including 17,000 nurses, were not paid for out of private funds; they were paid for by the NHS, and the reason we are able to pay for them is because the Conservative party and this Government believe in sound management of the economy—not recklessly putting up corporation tax, not recklessly wrecking the economy and renationalising companies in the way that he would do.
The right hon. Gentleman asks about the NHS in any future free trade deal, and I understand his visceral dislike of America and his visceral dislike of free trade.
Jeremy Corbyn
I actually asked the Prime Minister which clause in the Bill protects our NHS, and obviously there is time for him to help us with an answer on that. He should also be aware that no public capital allocations have been made for the funding commitments that he has announced; all he said is that there is seed funding. I am not sure what seed funding is, but it does not sound like the commitment we were seeking, and it sounds awfully like private finance going into the NHS to deal with the issues it faces.
Less than one year ago, the Prime Minister said that any
“regulatory checks and…customs controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”
would damage
“the fabric of the Union”.
Given that this deal clearly does damage the fabric of the Union, does he still agree with himself?
The Prime Minister
I know that this was raised many times in the House yesterday, and I believe that the Union is preserved, and indeed we are able to go forward together as one United Kingdom and do free trade deals in a way that would have been impossible under previous deals. This is a great advance for the whole UK, and we intend to develop that together with our friends in Northern Ireland. But I must say to the right hon. Gentleman and indeed his colleagues on the Front Bench that I think it is a bit rich to hear from him about his sentimental attachment to the fabric of the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland when he has spent most of his political lifetime supporting the IRA and those who would destroy it by violence.
Jeremy Corbyn
The Prime Minister has a habit of not answering any questions put to him. Northern Ireland will remain on single market rules within the EU on goods and agricultural products, and the rest of the UK will not. As the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) pointed out yesterday, that will create a very real border down the Irish sea, which the Prime Minister told a DUP conference, in terms, he would never do—and it was not that long ago; it might have been when he was trying to become the Tory party leader.
The Prime Minister told the House on Saturday there would be no checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, yet yesterday the Brexit Secretary confirmed to the Lords European Union Committee that Northern Irish businesses sending goods to Britain would have to complete export declaration forms. Is the Prime Minister right on this, or is the Brexit Secretary right? They cannot both be right.
The Prime Minister
Let us be absolutely clear that the United Kingdom is preserved, whole and entire, by these arrangements, and indeed the whole of the UK will be allowed to come out of the European Union customs union so that we can do free trade deals together. There will be no checks between Northern Ireland and GB, and there will be no tariffs between Northern Ireland and GB, because we have protected the customs union. This lachrymose defence of the Union comes a little ill from somebody who not only campaigned to break up the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland by his support of the IRA but also wants to spend the whole of the next year not just on a referendum on the EU but on another referendum on Scotland. That is what he wants. This is the threat to our United Kingdom—on the Labour Front Bench.
Jeremy Corbyn
I really do wonder whether the Prime Minister has read clause 21 of his own Bill. The Good Friday agreement was one of the greatest achievements of this House, led by a Labour Government at that time. The Prime Minister unlawfully prorogued Parliament. He said he would refuse to comply with the law. He threw Northern Ireland under a bus. He ripped up protections for workers’ rights and environmental standards, lost every vote along the way and tried to prevent genuine democratic scrutiny and debate. He once said that “the whole withdrawal Bill, as signed by the previous Prime Minister, is a terrible treaty”, yet this deal is even worse than that. Even if he is not that familiar with it, does the Prime Minister accept that Parliament should have the necessary time to improve on this worse-than-terrible treaty?
The Prime Minister
It is this Government and this party that deliver on the mandate of the people. I listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman just said, but has he said it before. They said we could not open the withdrawal agreement, and we did. They said we could not get rid of the backstop, and we did. They said we could not get a new deal, and we did. Then they said that we would never get it through Parliament, and they did their utmost to stop it going through Parliament, but we got it through Parliament last night. This is the party and this is the Government that deliver on their promises. We said we would put 20,000 more police officers on the streets of this country, and we are. We said we would upgrade 20 hospitals, and we are. We said we would upgrade and uplift education funding around the whole country, and, even more than that, we are increasing the minimum wage, the living wage, by the biggest amount since its inception. This is the party that delivers on Brexit and delivers on the priorities of the British people.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
Jeremy Corbyn ExcerptsTuesday 22nd October 2019
(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019-19 View all European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
On Saturday, we warned that, if the House passes the Government’s deal, it would be a disaster for our country. Now, as we look through the details of the Bill, we see just how right we were: page after page of what amounts to nothing less than a charter for deregulation and a race to the bottom; a deal and a Bill that fail to protect our rights and our natural world, fail to protect jobs and the economy, and fail to protect every region and nation in the United Kingdom. The Bill confirms that Northern Ireland is really in the customs union of the EU and goods will be subjected to tariffs. On Saturday, the Prime Minister said there would be no checks, but yesterday the Brexit Secretary confirmed to the Lords European Union Committee that under the Government’s proposals Northern Irish businesses that send goods to Great Britain will have to complete export declaration forms, and today the Government estimate—this is the Government’s estimate—that exit declaration forms will be between £15 and £56 per customs declaration. So the Prime Minister was at best—I am being generous here—mistaken on Saturday. The more divergence, the harder that border will become and the greater danger and risk it will put on the historic Good Friday agreement.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman think that we should still leave the European Union—yes or no?
Jeremy Corbyn
We are challenging this Bill today and that is the whole point of this debate. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, my party’s policy is that we would negotiate an appropriate deal with the EU and allow the people to make the final decision. This deal leaves open the possibility of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal by the end of next year.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I do not disagree with what my right hon. Friend said, but does he understand why those of us in seats that voted heavily to leave, and who stood on a manifesto in 2017 that said that we would respect the result of the referendum, feel very strongly that this Bill must be allowed to proceed to Committee so that we can engage in the detail and see whether it is possible to get a Brexit deal that protects our constituents? For many people back home in towns such as Wigan, this is an article of faith in the Labour party and in democracy, and those of us who are seeking to engage in the detail do so not because we will support a Tory Brexit—our votes at Third Reading are by no means secure—but because we want to see if we can improve the deal and keep people’s trust in our democracy.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I also thank her and other colleagues, some of whom represent seats that voted heavily to leave, for their engagement, for the discussions and for the constructive way in which all that has been approached. I do understand the concerns in those constituencies and communities. I know that she supports the principle of a customs union, which the Labour party placed in its manifesto and has restated since. My view is that we should vote against this Bill this evening for the reasons that I have set out. I understand her view that it is possible to amend it in Committee—that is always the process in Parliament—but my recommendation would be to vote against this Bill. However, I understand and respect the way in which she has approached this and the way in which she represents her community and her constituency. She will join me in being pretty alarmed at the stress that the manufacturing industry is under at the moment. If we do not have a customs union, manufacturing in this country will be seriously under threat.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
For many areas that rely heavily on manufacturing, the deal as it has been set out, which includes leaving the customs union and single market, inevitably means tariffs, which inevitably means less manufacturing and fewer jobs in those areas.
Jeremy Corbyn
My right hon. Friend’s constituency, which I know very well, was once a centre of manufacturing in Britain, but the Government of Margaret Thatcher put paid to that. He is right that, in the event of tariffs being introduced on manufactured goods and in the event of WTO conditions, the opportunities for sales in the European market, which are obviously huge at present, would be severely damaged. I ask colleagues to think carefully about what I see as the dangers behind the Prime Minister’s approach, because he does not offer a safety net—[Interruption.] There are so many people trying to intervene. Can I deal with one at a time, please? That would be kind. The Prime Minister does not offer a safety net—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. If I may gently say to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), it is at the very least a tad tactless, when he has just been advised that the Leader of the Opposition is dealing with one intervention first, immediately to spring to his feet. I enjoin him to remember his emotional intelligence.
Jeremy Corbyn
I do not think there is any process that allows an intervention on an intervention on an intervention. I think you would probably notice it, Mr Speaker.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
I am minded to vote in favour on Second Reading not because I support the deal but because I do not; I want to improve the deal so that it reflects the manifesto that I stood on and respects the referendum result, and so that we leave with a deal that protects jobs and trade. Does my right hon. Friend understand my motivation?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Having on several occasions spent time with her in her constituency, talking to people in her community and visiting factories and enterprises in the area, I fully understand both her concerns and their concerns. I commend her for her work in representing that area and the obvious friendship that exists between her and all the people she represents—she is a great MP. She wants to represent her constituency and her constituents’ concerns. I hope that she will understand why I believe this Bill should not be given a Second Reading, but I am sure she will agree with me that to bring this Bill for debate less than 17 hours after it was published is a totally unreasonable way of treating Parliament, and I hope she will join me in the Lobby this evening in opposing the programme motion.
It is no wonder that some Conservative Members are suddenly so keen to jump on board with this deal, because it opens the door to the no-deal exit that this House has voted against on numerous occasions.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman understand that the reason so many Opposition and Government Members want to get the Bill through is that we want to avoid no deal? The best way of doing that is to support this deal, so why will he not support it?
Jeremy Corbyn
I do not know what has happened to the hon. Gentleman’s maths, but so far three Members have intervened who have expressed disagreement with the Bill and want to get a better deal to get a customs union, which is hardly the position he adopts, so he should be careful of assuming that all my colleagues over here, who are desperate to represent hard-up communities that have been so disgracefully treated by this Government, are suddenly jumping on board with him. I have news for him: they are not.
It is plain and simple: this Bill is a charter for a Brexit that would be good for the hedge fund managers and speculators, but bad for the communities that we represent, our industries and people’s jobs and living standards. Industries from chemical processing to car manufacturing are all deeply worried about how the Bill will operate.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the reasons so many of us are concerned about the programme motion is how little time we have to bottom this out. The Prime Minister tells us that things will be better if we leave the European Union. He just said that he would look at the European work-life balance directive, but on 2 September the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy already ruled out to me implementing it. It is a directive that would give people carers’ rights and care leave that our constituents do not currently have. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with rushing this through is not just what we will lose, but what we will miss out on because this Prime Minister will not give any commitments on them?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course, she is absolutely right that, while the Prime Minister claims that there is no intention in his mind to undermine workers’ rights—I cannot see into his mind, so I do not know, but that is what he says—there is no legal protection within this Bill for dynamic alignment with the European Union on consumer rights, environmental protections, workers’ rights and much else besides. I therefore urge colleagues to think very carefully about how they vote on the Bill tonight.
Mr Baker
I treasure the interview that the right hon. Gentleman and I gave to Sky News before he became Leader of the Opposition, when the only thing that we agreed on is that we should leave the European Union on democratic grounds. What has changed since he became leader of the Labour party? Can he not see that, if he votes against the programme motion, he and his whole party will be seen as voting against delivering Brexit?
Jeremy Corbyn
Parliament needs to do its job and that is what we should be given the chance to do; we should not be rushed into this 17 hours after the Bill’s publication. I would also say—I was a trade union organiser and official before I came into this House—you do not give up what you have won and gained; you protect what you have and try to get better in the future. The Bill undermines workers’ rights in our country and in our society, and those who vote this thing through in its present form will find that many of our current rights will be severely damaged.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
This place can be quite intimidating at times. I came here believing that people who sounded a bit posh and walked around with an air of entitlement somehow knew what they were doing. If nothing else, I thank the Prime Minister for disproving that at least.
Jim McMahon
I was catching a breath—the Prime Minister wore me out; I was getting up and down so much earlier.
Opposition Members are genuinely agonising over the best way forward in reconciling constituencies that have very different views on Brexit, and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the work he is doing to try to retain that coalition. Regardless of where people come from, surely it is important that we have the right information and the right risk assessment. Is it not wrong that the risk assessments are incomplete and that the Government’s own advisers have not even been able to rate their risk assessments because of the lack of time?
Jeremy Corbyn
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a distinguished former leader of his local authority, he knows the importance of going through documents in detail and having a chance to take advice on the implications. Even with the greatest brains in the world—I am sure this House does contain the greatest brains in the world, there is no doubt about that—17 hours is not very long to deal with 40 clauses and 110 pages of legislation.
The Prime Minister is trying to blindside Parliament to force through this deal, and this Parliament must challenge him.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that, should it be passed, this Bill will open us up to a free trade agreement with the US that will have huge ramifications for our valued national health service and for the food we eat?
Jeremy Corbyn
Yes, it will. The only way forward for the Prime Minister would be to go on to WTO rules and then to seek a special trade deal with the United States. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has noticed, but Donald Trump adopts an “America first” policy. Donald Trump’s attitude towards trade is, to put it most generously, one-sided towards the USA. There will be no equitable deal with the USA, and those companies in the USA that want to get control of our health service will come knocking on the door to take over our national health service.
This is a Bill of huge significance and complexity, and it will decide the future of our country, of our economy and of the economic model we follow. Accepting the programme motion will mean that all 40 clauses have to be considered and voted on within 48 hours, starting this evening. That would be an abuse of Parliament and a disgraceful attempt to dodge accountability, scrutiny and any kind of proper debate.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Has my right hon. Friend noticed that clause 36(1) says
“It is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign”?
Yet the Prime Minister will not give this Parliament of the United Kingdom the chance to fully scrutinise his proposals.
Jeremy Corbyn
My right hon. Friend makes a strong case that Parliament should have the opportunity to properly scrutinise what the Executive want to do. I do not think the Prime Minister has really taken that into account in his botched and speedy procedure and in his obsession with getting all this stuff through in a few days.
What the officials once said would take four weeks to properly scrutinise is now being done in one day. Colleagues on both sides of the House should simply ask themselves why. So much for Parliament taking back control. Parliament is being treated as an inconvenience that can be bypassed by this Government.
There is a crucial element to this. When we in this House deal with major issues for the country, we need the information and we need—
Several hon. Members rose—
Jeremy Corbyn
If hon. Members hang on a second, I will deal with this. No economic impact assessment whatsoever has been made or presented to this House. At the very least, this House should have that assessment and that expert advice in order to scrutinise the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer does not seem to think it is relevant that this Bill and their deal need that kind of scrutiny—even more so in the light of today’s dire public finance figures.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that there has been no economic impact assessment of the Bill, so many of us have to rely on the impact assessment of the previous Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, which showed a detrimental impact on the north-east to the degree of 7% of our GDP. How can that be justified to our industry and manufacturing in the north-east, which are already so far behind the rest of the country?
Jeremy Corbyn
Indeed. My hon. Friend represents a constituency that has suffered grievously from the Tory Government’s industrial non-strategy. SSI Redcar was closed down, and there are huge issues for manufacturing investment across her region and across her constituency. This House knows full well—and if Conservative Members cared to listen, they would know full well—that this proposal will damage manufacturing industry and therefore jobs, particularly in the north-east, which is the only part of the country with a manufacturing surplus on trade with Europe and the rest of the world.
Catherine McKinnell
The Prime Minister shakes his head, but every single Member represents people who voted leave and people who voted remain. Nobody voted for a wing-and-a-prayer, cake-and-eat-it, blindfold Brexit with no economic impact assessment of the biggest transformation of our economy in peacetime history.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a completely unacceptable way to bring forward this legislation? It is not fair on this House, and it is not fair on the people who will lose their jobs as a result.
Jeremy Corbyn
I commend my hon. Friend for what she says and the way she says it. We all represent people who voted in different directions in the referendum, or who did not vote at all. We all have to represent them, but in making these decisions, we have to ask ourselves this question: if this deal is good for our country, why have the Government not produced a single scrap of evidence showing that?
Lady Hermon
I am enormously grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Let me pay tribute to a former Labour leader, Tony Blair, who was the architect of the Good Friday agreement, which delivered much needed peace and stability to Northern Ireland after 30 years of atrocious violence that affected all communities right across the island of Ireland.
I am extremely concerned that the Labour party, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have anxiety that the Prime Minister’s new Brexit deal, in some way, undermines the Good Friday agreement and its achievements. Will he please take a few moments to explain his concerns? I think that is really important.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I am sure she and the whole House would agree that the Good Friday agreement was an historic step forward that has brought relative peace to Northern Ireland. My concern is that this Bill creates a customs frontier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK—the Prime Minister told the DUP conference that that is something he would not do—and requires the certification of goods before they can be sent from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK, and it therefore creates a different trading relationship.
Although there might not be an aspiration at the moment to put any physical customs points on the road borders between Northern Ireland and the Republic, I gently say that the direction of travel is not a good one. The hon. Lady knows as well as I do that, as soon as we start doing that, we will end up seriously undermining the historic achievements of the Good Friday agreement.
Mr Duncan Smith
I return the right hon. Gentleman to a simple fact, about which I am concerned. Does he recall that he once sponsored a Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972? Can he explain what has changed and why, in voting against this Bill, he will be voting against repealing the 1972 Act?
Jeremy Corbyn
I also recall that I strongly supported the social chapter to try to bring social justice across Europe, and I just remind the right hon. Gentleman of his historic achievement of bringing in universal credit and all the damage that has done to so many people in this country.
The only economic evidence we can go on is the economic assessment carried out under the previous Prime Minister, and that was clear.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should not vote for anything that could make our country poorer, and this Brexit deal would do exactly that? Does he also agree that the previous referendum should have been regarded as illegal due to the overspend by the Prime Minister? The only way forward is a people’s vote.
Jeremy Corbyn
People voted in different ways in the referendum in 2016—that is obvious—but nobody voted to lose their jobs, or to find that their regulations and living conditions had been damaged. The function of Parliament is to hold the Government to account and scrutinise this agreement. A bare bones free trade agreement, which is what the Prime Minister is promising, would dramatically hit our country’s GDP, and would disproportionately hit the poorest regions and make everybody in this country worse off. It would also lock in the existing privatisation of our national health service, and nothing in this Bill protects our health service or public services from future trade deals.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that many EU nationals in this country are really afraid, because they do not know what their future is going to be? An Italian flower seller in a market in my constituency has lived here 15 years and has been constantly asked, “When are you going home?” Today, I have received an email from a doctor in the constituency, who said of a colleague:
“There are significant concerns about the tardy response by the ‘Brexit department’, for want of a better name for that organization, in that there has been no confirmation of—
this German doctor’s residency and—
“status going forward.
He is obviously very anxious and distracted by this situation.
We need to keep primary care morale up in the current difficult times and our valued European doctors—
and nurses—
need to feel confident about their future within the UK.
This doctor has been a cornerstone of the NHS in Wales for over 20 years.”
My right hon. Friend knows very well that we are losing doctors and nurses, and we cannot afford to do it.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. She says it with heartfelt passion and she is right: there are many people who have come to this country from all over the world, made their homes here and made a massive contribution to our lives and our society, and every one of us owes our health to those people who work in our NHS, whether they come from Commonwealth countries, other countries or the European Union. They should not be put through the strain either of the Windrush hostile environment or the sword of Damocles hanging over many at the moment because they know they have only five years’ definite stay in this country. I will just remind the House that in July 2016, my party, through Andy Burnham, then our shadow Home Secretary, moved a motion guaranteeing permanent rights and residence of EU nationals. The Prime Minister was the only Tory to support it at that time. I do not know what has happened to him since then.
On trade and investment, will the Chancellor do his job and provide the House with a comprehensive economic impact assessment on this deal? At the very least, will he do so before Report stage? This Bill falls hugely short in all areas.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jeremy Corbyn
I have given way a great deal, as I am sure all Members would agree. I am going to make some progress and then give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas).
On jobs and manufacturing, this deal will reduce access to the market of our biggest trade partner and leave our manufacturers without a customs union. As we have heard in many interventions, Members have heard desperate pleas from businesses in their constituencies all saying that they need frictionless supply chains. So I ask all Members to do the right thing: let us work together to make sure that a comprehensive customs union is hard-wired into our future relationship with the EU.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He knows that we disagree on elements of this Bill and this issue. As his former Whip, with my Whips tie on, may I ask him for an assurance that Labour Members who exercise their conscience this evening and do not follow the whip will not have that whip removed, any more than he had it removed when he exercised his conscience?
Jeremy Corbyn
I believe in the powers of persuasion and tonight I would like to persuade my hon. Friend: come with us, vote against this Bill and vote against the programme motion, because I believe, and I think he may agree with me, that that is in the interests of his constituents.
Caroline Lucas
Does the Leader of the Opposition share my concern that this Brexit deal could lead to a loss of freedom of movement within the island of Ireland for international family members of Irish or UK citizens? In other words, it imposes the equivalent of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, denying families their reunification rights. Will he acknowledge that this is a barely mentioned but worrying aspect of yet another way in which this deal breaches the Good Friday agreement?
Jeremy Corbyn
Yes, I understand and accept the hon. Lady’s concerns on that. She is eloquently making the case for far more scrutiny of this Bill, so I am sure she will be joining me in opposing the programme motion this evening, because it will prevent just that kind of scrutiny. I note that the programme motion allows just one hour for consideration of all Lords amendments, however many there may or may not be.
Jeremy Corbyn
I will give way to my hon. Friend, with his quiet demeanour, but let me just say, on workers’ rights, that by removing any level playing field provision the Government are asking us to give them a blank cheque on rights at work.
Mr Speaker
It is a great relief to the House; I was worried that the hon. Gentleman might explode in the atmosphere, which would have been a most unfortunate scenario.
Karl Turner
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for eventually giving way. I was incredibly concerned when I was reminded by my wife earlier today that we spent longer choosing a sofa than this House has to debate this incredibly important Bill. The important point is this: the Prime Minister’s own legislative adviser, Nikki da Costa, has said and advised him that she thinks this House needs at least four weeks to debate this important legislation in order for it to go through both Houses. We have just not got enough time to debate this—does my right hon. Friend agree?
Jeremy Corbyn
My hon. Friend makes a strong point. We got the Bill at 8.15 last night and this afternoon at 1 pm we start debating it—that is utterly ludicrous. We are then going into Committee stage. The Bill then goes to the Lords and comes back, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, for a one- hour debate on Lords amendments. These are serious issues that have huge implications for communities, factories, jobs and people. This should not be dealt with in this way.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Over the past couple of years, Members from across the House have asked many, many questions about the customs relationship between the EU and the UK post Brexit, but nobody thought to ask whether customs arrangements within their own country would be affected. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister should have, at that Dispatch Box, apologised to the businesses in Britain that trade within Britain and are now going to have start filling out forms that they would never have had to fill out before?
Jeremy Corbyn
Indeed, and that is just one aspect of the Bill that has been revealed today. I suspect much more will come up.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
One reason why we need greater scrutiny is that as a result of the Bill, the relationships in Northern Ireland fundamentally change the decision-making processes. The stakes are so high and the risk is evident for us all to see. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need proper scrutiny and more time to consider the Bill, for the sake of peace?
Jeremy Corbyn
Indeed, the Northern Ireland peace process—the Good Friday agreement—is one of the most significant things that this House has ever done. We should understand the threat that the Bill brings.
I was speaking about workers’ rights, on which the Government want us to trust them. The provisions in the Bill will mean that the Government merely have to inform the House if they propose to diverge from EU standards. Am I correct in understanding that no notification, let alone a vote, would be required if the measure is currently contained in secondary legislation? The provisions fall way, way short of those in the Workers’ Rights (Maintenance of EU Standards) Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), and the TUC concluded:
“The deal itself does not meet the TUC’s tests that any brexit outcome must protect jobs, rights, and peace in Northern Ireland. By moving away from a close economic relationship with the EU, the deal would be a disaster for working people’s jobs and livelihoods. The deal would not require”—[Interruption.]
I am surprised that Government Members do not want to hear what the TUC says about the deal. The TUC continued:
“The deal would not require government to maintain existing rights, would not require rights to keep pace with those across the EU, and would leave workers with a significantly reduced ability to enforce the rights they do have.”
The TUC concluded by saying:
“It would do nothing to improve employment rights in the UK, now or in future.”
The Government talk about maintaining world-class environmental standards, but actions speak louder than words, so can I ask the Prime Minister—
Several hon. Members rose—
Jeremy Corbyn
I am not giving way for a while.
Why has the Prime Minister, instead of entrenching non-regression environmental standards into the Bill and the deal, taken out the level playing field commitments? I always say, Mr Speaker, that on all these issues you do not have to take my word for it; manufacturers and industry are deeply concerned about this deal. Environmental campaigning groups and green groups are deeply concerned. I challenge the Prime Minister to name a single trade union in this country that backs this deal. He knows that he cannot, and they have made their views very clear through the TUC.
Several hon. Members rose—
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Leader of the Opposition has made it clear that he is not giving way at the moment. There is a fine line between beseeching someone and hectoring, and Members are in danger of falling on the wrong side of that dividing line. The Leader of the Opposition is entitled to continue with his speech, and he will do so until he is ready to give way.
Jeremy Corbyn
The Prime Minister and I agree on very little, but we both give way a great deal. I am not going to give way for the moment.
Clause 30 makes it worryingly clear that if no trade deal with the EU is agreed by the very ambitious date of December next year, Ministers can just decide to crash the UK out on World Trade Organisation terms. That is not getting Brexit done; it is merely pushing back the serious threat of no deal to a later date. Let us be clear: as things stand the Bill spells out the deeply damaging deal that the Prime Minister has negotiated—and he knows it, which is why he is trying to push it through without scrutiny. Labour will seek more time to scrutinise. We will seek a clear commitment on a customs union, a strong single market relationship, a hard-wired commitment on workers’ rights, non-regression on environmental standards and the closure of loopholes to avoid the threat of a no-deal Brexit once and for all.
Lastly, the Prime Minister’s deal should go back to the people; we should give them, not just Members of this House, the final say. They always say that the devil is in the detail; I have seen some of the detail and it confirms everything we thought about this rotten deal. It is a charter for deregulation across the board, paving the way for a Trump-style trade deal that will—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Government Members do not like hearing this bit, so I will say it again: it will pave the way for a Trump-style trade deal that will attack jobs, rights and protections and open up our precious national health service and all the history and principles behind it, and other public services, to even more privatisation. That is exactly what the Prime Minister set out in his letter to the President of the EU Commission, when he said that alignment with EU standards
“is not the goal of the current UK Government.”
There we have it in his own words. That is a vision for the future of our country that my party, the Labour party, cannot sign up to and does not support. That is why we will be voting against Second Reading tonight and, if that vote is carried, we will vote against the programme motion, to ensure that this elected House of Commons has the opportunity to properly scrutinise this piece of legislation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jeremy Corbyn
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On Saturday, this House emphatically rejected the Prime Minister’s deal. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are too hasty; I have not finished yet. Tonight the House has refused to be bounced into debating a hugely significant piece of legislation in just two days, with barely any notice and no analysis of the economic impact of this Bill. The Prime Minister is the author of his own misfortune. I make this offer to him tonight: work with us—all of us—to agree a reasonable timetable, and I suspect that this House will vote to debate, scrutinise and, I hope, amend the detail of this Bill. That would be the sensible way forward, and that is the offer I make on behalf of the Opposition tonight.
Prime Minister’s Statement
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I join you, Mr Speaker, in thanking all the staff—cleaning staff, catering staff, security staff, officials and our own staff—who have come into the House this morning. They have given up a weekend to help our deliberations. I also thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of his statement.
The Prime Minister has renegotiated the withdrawal agreement and made it even worse. He has renegotiated the political declaration and made that even worse. Today, we are having a debate on a text for which there is no economic impact assessment and no accompanying legal advice.
The Government have sought to avoid scrutiny throughout the process. Yesterday evening, they made empty promises on workers’ rights and the environment—the same Government who spent the last few weeks negotiating in secret to remove from the withdrawal agreement legally binding commitments on workers’ rights and the environment.
This Government cannot be trusted, and the Opposition will not be duped; neither will the Government’s own workers. Yesterday, the head of the civil service union Prospect met the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and, at the conclusion of that meeting, said:
“I asked for reassurances that the government would not diverge on workers’ rights after Brexit… He could not give me those assurances.”
As for the much-hyped “world-leading” Environment Bill, its legally binding targets will not be enforceable until 2037. For this Government, the climate emergency can always wait.
This deal risks people’s jobs, rights at work, our environment and our national health service. We must be honest about what it means for our manufacturing industry and people’s jobs: not only does it reduce access to the market of our biggest trading partner, but it leaves us without a customs union, which will damage industries across the country in every one of our constituencies. From Nissan in Sunderland to Heinz in Wigan, Airbus in Broughton and Jaguar Land Rover in Birmingham, thousands of British jobs depend on a strong manufacturing sector, and a strong manufacturing sector needs markets, through fluid supply chains, all across the European Union. A vote for this deal would be a vote to cut manufacturing jobs all across this country.
This deal would absolutely inevitably lead to a Trump trade deal—[Interruption]—forcing the UK to diverge from the highest standards and expose our families once again to chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef. This deal—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I did say that the statement by the Prime Minister must be heard. The response of the Leader of the Opposition, in the best traditions of parliamentary democracy, must also be heard, and it will.
Jeremy Corbyn
This deal fails to enshrine the principle that we keep pace with the European Union on environmental standards and protections, putting at risk our current rules on matters ranging from air pollution standards to chemical safety—we all know the public concern about such issues—at the same time that we are facing a climate emergency.
As for workers’ rights, we simply cannot give the Government a blank cheque. Mr Speaker, you do not have to take my word for that. Listen, for example, to the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, who says—[Interruption.] She represents an organisation with 6 million affiliated members, and she says:
“This deal would be a disaster for working people. It would hammer the economy, cost jobs and sell workers’ rights down the river.”
Listen to Make UK, representing British manufacturers, which says—[Interruption.] Government Members may care to listen to its comments on the deal. Make UK says that
“commitments to the closest possible trading relationship in goods have gone. Differences in regulation between the UK and the EU will add cost and bureaucracy and our companies will face a lack of clarity inhibiting investment and planning.”
Listen also to the Green Alliance, which says that the deal amounted to a
“very sad Brexit read from a climate perspective.”
The message is clear that this deal is not good for jobs and is damaging for our industry and a threat to our environment and our natural world. It is not a good deal for our country, and future generations will feel the impact. It should be voted down by this House today.
I also totally understand the frustration and fatigue across the country and in this House, but we simply cannot vote for a deal that is even worse than the one that the House rejected three times. The Government’s own economic analysis shows that this deal would make the poorest regions even poorer and cost each person in this country over £2,000 a year. If we vote for a deal that makes our constituents poorer, we are not likely to be forgiven. The Government are claiming that if we support their deal, it will get Brexit done, and that backing them today is the only way to stop a no-deal exit. I simply say: nonsense. Supporting the Government this afternoon would merely fire the starting pistol in a race to the bottom in regulations and standards.
If anyone has any doubts about that, we only have to listen to what the Government’s own Members have been saying. Like the one yesterday who rather let the cat out of the bag by saying that Members should back this deal as it means we can leave with no deal by 2020. [Hon. Members: “Ah.”] The cat is truly out of the bag. Will the Prime Minister confirm whether that is the case? If a free trade agreement has not been done, would that mean Britain falling on to World Trade Organisation terms by December next year, with only Northern Ireland having preferential access to the EU market?
No wonder, then, that the Foreign Secretary said that this represents a “cracking deal” for Northern Ireland, which would retain frictionless access to the single market. That does prompt the question: why is it that the rest of the UK cannot get a cracking deal by maintaining access to the single market?
The Taoiseach said that the deal
“allows the all-Ireland economy to continue to develop and… protects the European single market”.
Some Members of this House would welcome an all-Ireland economy, but I did not think that they included the Government and the Conservative and Unionist party. The Prime Minister declared in the summer:
“Under no circumstances… will I allow the EU or anyone else to create any kind of division down the Irish Sea”.
We cannot trust a word he says.
Voting for a deal today will not end Brexit, and it will not deliver certainty. The people should have the final say. Labour is not prepared to sell out the communities that it represents. We are not prepared to sell out their future, and we will not back this sell-out deal. This is about our communities now and about our future generations.
The Prime Minister
I must confess that I am disappointed by the tone the right hon. Gentleman has taken today, because I had thought that he might rise to the occasion and see what the electorate—and, I believe, his own electorate—broadly want us to do, which is to get Brexit done. I thought he would wish to reflect the will of the people who voted for Brexit in such numbers in 2016 and have waited for a very long time.
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong about environmental and social protection. This Government and this country will maintain the very highest standards, and we will lead in environmental protection and social protection across Europe and the world. We lead, for instance, in our commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050, and as I have told him many times, Brexit gives us the freedom and the opportunity to do things that we have not been able to do and that are deeply desired by the British people, such as banning the live export of animals—that is to say nothing of shark fins—and many other things we can do differently and better.
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong about business. The overwhelming view of business is that there are great opportunities from Brexit. Also, both Stuart Rose, who is a former chairman of the remain campaign, and the Governor of the Bank of England have said today that this is a good deal for the British economy. As I look ahead, the only risks I see to the British economy are the catastrophic plans of the right hon. Gentleman and his semi-Marxist party. What British business wants is the certainty and stability of getting Brexit done on 31 October, and then the opportunity to build a new future with our European partners and to do free trade deals around the world.
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong about Northern Ireland, which, along with the rest of the UK, will exit the EU customs union, in defiance of what the European Commission and, indeed, the Irish Government had intended.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about trust. I do not wish to be unnecessarily adversarial today, but he patently does not trust his own party—he does not trust the shadow Chancellor—and, above all, he has not been willing to trust the people of this country by granting them the right to adjudicate on him and his policies in a general election. He will not trust the people, and he does not trust the people by delivering on the result of their referendum in 2016.
I suggest to the House, in all humility and candour, that it should ignore the right hon. Gentleman’s pleadings and vote for an excellent deal that will take this country and the whole of Europe forward.
Debate on the Address
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
This year marks two anniversaries. The first is the 70th anniversary of the Parliament Act 1949, which asserted the primacy of this House over the then hereditary House of Lords. It is worth remembering in our deliberations this week the primacy of the House of Commons over that and over the Executive. The second is the 50th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1969, which I remember very well because it extended the vote to everyone over the age of 18. As we meet today, we should commit to strengthening our democracy and the vital role of this democratic House in holding the Executive to account.
By tradition, at the beginning of each parliamentary Session we commemorate the Members of the House we have lost in the past year. Earlier this year we lost our great friend Paul Flynn—a fiercely independent, passionate, very kind and very principled Member of this House. I remember him reading out in this House the names of those who had died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—two wars to which he was opposed. He briefly served in our shadow Cabinet, and I think the whole House was enlivened by his performance. He joked at the first meeting of the shadow Cabinet and when he spoke from the Floor of the House that he was part of a job creation scheme for octogenarians. He was there not only because he was an excellent orator, campaigner and Member of the House, but because he was also an excellent representative of the people of Newport West, the constituency that he served so well and so passionately for 32 years.
Today’s proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address share a route to this place; both were local councillors prior to entering the House. I pay tribute to all those who put themselves forward to represent local communities as councillors, because without them our democracy would be worse off. They work hard and for long hours, and are often not particularly well rewarded or appreciated for the work they do. We should recognise that they are part of our democracy.
I was a little surprised to see that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) had been asked by the Prime Minister to propose the motion today, because I understand they have not always enjoyed the best of relationships. As we know, the Prime Minister has earned a reputation for enjoying life to the fullest. I understand that during his time as London Mayor he became incandescent with anger and rage on learning that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire—at that time, a Westminster councillor—intended to introduce a nightlife tax. Thankfully, the hon. Gentleman was able to reassure the now Prime Minister that the nightlife tax would apply only to car parking charges and not to other activities—although, on reflection, he may have missed a great opportunity of earning a great deal of revenue for the people of Westminster.
I suspect it is no coincidence that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire has shown great independence of thought as a politician, as he grew up in Chesterfield during the 1980s—a cradle of political dissent. Today, the hon. Gentleman is again in danger of finding himself upbraided by the Prime Minister, this time as a member of the “nose-ringed…unco-operative crusties”. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman took his arguments against fracking into the lion’s den of the 2018 Tory party conference, and predicted that his party’s support for fracking would see it lose seats—in North East Derbyshire, I assume. My late, great friend Tony Benn, who was the Member for Chesterfield, gave one of his last diaries the title, “Dare to be a Daniel”. I hope that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire continues to dare, and that he will also emulate the daredom, the experience and the wit of his constituency neighbour and my great friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). [Interruption.] He is my great friend.
Researching today’s seconder, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), I believe I have uncovered yet another secret Conservative project originating in Merton in the 1980s that led directly to Downing Street three decades later. Chief of the Wimbledon set, as they became known, was the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). By her side stood her loyal lieutenants—the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and, of course, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth. Today, those who were part of the Wimbledon set are described as “competent and professional”, which really begs the question, how did the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) ever sneak into the Wimbledon set? [Interruption.] The most expensive Transport Secretary we have ever had—don’t worry about it.
The House may not know this, but in 2013 the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth and I found ourselves in political agreement. I was happy to support her early-day motion to mark the anniversary of the death of Emily Wilding Davison. It is worth the House hearing some of EDM 164. It said that the House
“commemorates the centenary of the death of Emily Davison…salutes her courage on behalf of the suffragette cause…and pays tribute to her and her fellow campaigners for their brave and ultimately successful efforts to secure votes for women”.
While I may be dubious about the company she keeps, the hon. Lady is deserving of the honour of seconding today’s Loyal Address.
There has never been such a farce as a Government with a majority of minus 45 and a 100% record of defeat in the House of Commons setting out a legislative agenda they know cannot be delivered in this Parliament. [Interruption.] Hon. Members heckle about a general election. I said to the Prime Minister last month, “Get an extension, take us away from the dangers of a no deal, and then we are in a position to do that.”
We may be only just weeks away from the first Queen’s Speech of a Labour Government. In that Queen’s Speech, Labour will put forward the most radical and people-focused programme in modern times—a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild and transform our country. It will let the people decide on Brexit, build an economy that works for all, rebuild our public services that support everyone, tackle the climate emergency, and reset our global role to one based on peace and human rights.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
The Prime Minister gave the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of having a general election tomorrow. Had that general election taken place tomorrow and he had been successful, he would have been going to the Council of Ministers this weekend to negotiate. Why did he reject that opportunity when he has been calling for it all the time?
Jeremy Corbyn
Quite simply because we do not trust the Prime Minister.
This Government have had three and a half years to get Brexit done and they have failed. The only legitimate way to sort Brexit now is to let the people decide with the final say. To pass this House, any deal needs to meet the needs of workers and businesses. That means including a new customs union—a close single market relationship—and guarantees of workers’ rights, consumer standards and environmental protection; and, if I may say so, guarantees that the Good Friday agreement will not be damaged or undermined in any way. A withdrawal agreement was announced, but we do not know yet if the Government have done a deal. What we are sure of is that this House has legislated against crashing out with no deal and that the Prime Minister must comply with the law if a deal does not pass this House.
The Queen’s Speech talked about the opportunities that arise from Brexit, but the Government’s own figures suggest that a free trade agreement approach would cause a near 7% hit to our economy, while a no-deal crash-out would cause a 10% hit. Those seem like opportunities that we could all live without. For many people, the economy of this country is fundamentally weak. Since 2010, there are more workers in poverty, more children in poverty, more pensioners in poverty, more families without a home to call their own and more people—fellow citizens—sleeping rough on our streets. Fewer people can afford their own home, and wages are still lower than they were a decade ago. Productivity is falling, and the economy contracted last month.
At the weekend I was in Hastings on the south coast, where last year food banks staffed by volunteers distributed 87,453 meals, and one in seven people in that town live in fuel poverty. Are those not shocking figures in this country in the 21st century? There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address our stagnant economy, nothing to address low pay and insecure work, and nothing to reverse the rising levels of child poverty or pensioner poverty.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the challenges of rising child poverty, compounded by the mental health issues that young people face and rising special educational needs not being met due to our education system lacking the resources it needs, are contributing to the next generation growing up in despair, for which the country will pay the price for generations to come?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. We have almost a lost generation. Children are going to understaffed schools with very few teaching assistants, where headteachers are going to parents with a begging bowl to try to match school budgets, and too many young people are growing up in bad housing, with incredible levels of stress and worry about the future. That contributes to the mental health crisis that this country as a whole must address.
Will the Prime Minister match Labour’s commitments to scrap the benefit freeze, end the benefit cap, ditch the bedroom tax, scrap the two-child limit and the disgusting rape clause, and end punitive sanctions in the benefit system? While we welcome the legislation to ensure that employers pass on tips to their workers—something that the Labour and trade union movement has long campaigned for—the Government must go further, and I urge them to listen to the package of measures set out by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) in her brilliant speech at the TUC last month. This Queen’s Speech was supposed to herald an end to austerity and a new vision. Instead, it barely begins to unpick the devastating cuts to public services.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the climate and nature emergencies demand so much more than the six words they were accorded in the Queen’s Speech and an Environment Bill that will widely weaken the protections we currently enjoy as members of the EU? Will he join me in calling for a comprehensive green new deal to decarbonise the economy by 2030, so that we can show we are genuinely serious about the climate crisis?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am coming on to that in a moment, but I absolutely agree: what we need is a green new deal. We need a green industrial revolution, and we have to face up to the reality of the climate emergency. If we do not, the damage to the next generation and the one after it will be even worse.
Our national health service has suffered the longest funding squeeze in its history, while life expectancy is falling and infant mortality rising. Schools have had their budgets cut, class sizes have risen, and headteachers are sending begging letters to parents. Any Government Member who is concerned about that should simply take a walk down the road and speak to any primary school headteacher about the stress that they and their pupils are going through. The police have lost more than 20,000 officers, while violent crime soars.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he support this Government’s policy to rapidly increase school funding?
Jeremy Corbyn
If only they were, it would be a good thing. All the off-the-cuff announcements made by the Prime Minister since July do not add up to addressing the austerity created by the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats during their period in coalition.
NHS England has made clear that core treatment targets cannot be met within the funding settlement offered by the Government. They cannot be trusted with the national health service. Waiting lists are going up, waiting times are going up, and the shortage of GPs continues to create problems at every doctors’ surgery. The Government’s refusal to guarantee key standards lets down the 4.4 million patients on the waiting lists, all those waiting longer and longer in accident and emergency departments, and the nearly 34,000 patients who waited more than 62 days for cancer treatment last year.
With 40,000 nurse vacancies, there is an urgent need to restore the nursing bursary for the nurses of tomorrow. If the Prime Minister really wants to defend the NHS, he needs to end privatisation so that our NHS is focused on making people better, not on people on the make—a universal service free at the point of use. We do not want just tinkering around the edges. We want to bin the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and truly end all privatisation in our national health service.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
I trained in the bursary system and lived on a pittance each month. It is this Government who have introduced degree nurse apprenticeships whereby student nurses earn while they learn.
Jeremy Corbyn
I have news for the hon. Lady: it is her Government who ended the nurse bursary system—simple.
Will the Prime Minister support Labour’s plans to provide free prescriptions to people in England, as has been done in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Will he also back Labour’s commitment to legislate for safe staffing levels in all our hospitals?
The previous Queen’s Speech, in 2017, stated:
“My Government will reform mental health legislation and ensure that mental health is prioritised in the National Health Service in England.”
Two years on, all we have are the same warm words. The mental health crisis continues to get worse and worse, as many people in great stress are told that there is no therapy available for several months. As a result, terrible things can happen.
It is a similar story on social care. The 2017 Queen’s Speech promised:
“My Ministers will work to improve social care and will bring forward proposals”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2017; Vol. 783, c. 6.]
Today we have the same promise after two years of inaction and failure, with 87 people dying every day while waiting for social care that is not provided.
This Queen’s Speech is shockingly weak on education, with no commitment on early years, on colleges or on universities. The money announced for our schools does not restore the funding lost since 2010. It is all very well promising extra police, but the reason why we do not have enough police is that the Government cut 21,000 police jobs and nearly 7,000 police community support officers. If the Conservative party—the party in government—wants to talk about providing police with protections, perhaps it can tell the police why it subjected them and millions of other public sector workers to cuts in their pay and pensions, damaging their terms and conditions of employment.
I know that this Government do not have a great record of listening to judges, but they are surely aware that judges already have the powers to ensure that the most serious offenders serve more than half their sentences in jail. Our prisons are severely overcrowded. There are 2,500 fewer prison officers in our prisons today than in 2010—hence many of the problems throughout our prison service. The privatisation of the probation service was a shambolic and costly failure. I hope that lessons have been learned, and we will examine closely any proposals on rehabilitating offenders. I hope that, alongside the tougher sentencing, the Government will also recognise that too many people are in prison on very short sentences for non-violent and non-sexual offences. Our society, I believe, could be better served by their being subject to community sentencing and restorative justice.
What will the Prime Minister do to address the appallingly low conviction rate for rape and other serious sexual offences? The dog-whistle rhetoric around foreign offenders is a rather ugly mask for the fact that, by crashing out of the EU, the Government risk losing some of the most effective measures in tackling cross-border crime: the European arrest warrant, participation in Eurojust and access to numerous databases.
We will, of course, closely study the detail of the Government’s proposals on rail reform, but it is no good simply changing the way in which train operating companies carry on extracting profit from our fragmented railway system. Only a Labour Government will cap fares and ensure that the railway is run for the passengers, not for profit. There is nothing in this Queen’s Speech to reverse the devastating cuts to bus services all over the country. A Labour Government will restore rail and bus services, and the integration of those services.
Two years ago, the horror of Grenfell happened. We all remember it very well and we remember the response of the public and in this House. But I have to say that nine out of 10 private blocks of flats with Grenfell-style cladding have still not had it replaced. Not a single private block has been made safe under this Prime Minister. Will he confirm today that he will set a hard deadline for all landlords to replace dangerous cladding, that he will toughen sanctions against block owners that will not do that work, and that he will fund the retrofitting of sprinklers in all high-rise social housing blocks? Will he restore the budget cuts to our fire service, who acted so heroically on that dreadful night of the Grenfell fire?
Perhaps the Prime Minister can set out what measures there are to address the Government’s abject failure on housing. That has led to more people sleeping on our streets, more families in hostels and temporary accommodation, and fewer people able to buy their own homes. Labour will end no-fault evictions. We will tackle the leasehold scandal and kick-start the largest council house building programme for a generation. It will be Labour that will fix the housing crisis in this country.
The introduction of pension dashboards is welcome, as is the legislation for CDC—collective defined contribution—pension schemes, which I hope will help to resolve the Royal Mail dispute. Sadly, the proposals do nothing to address the injustice done to women born in the 1950s. That injustice must be put right. Additionally, this Queen’s Speech does nothing to guarantee the free TV licence for the over-75s.
The Government handed our armed forces a pay cut for seven years. Cuts to council budgets in England have made it far harder to deliver the armed forces covenant, leaving our veterans and our personnel and all of their families worse off.
We will not allow the Government to stifle democracy by making it harder for people to vote. There was only one instance of voter personation at the last election. Some 11 million people in this country do not have—[Interruption.] This is serious. It is about elections and it is about democracy. Some 11 million people in this country do not have a passport or a driving licence. There are huge risks in the legislation being proposed which will disproportionately affect working class, ethnic minority and young voters.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way on that point. Does he agree with me that the decision to require voters to have photo ID at the ballot box is clearly an attempt by the Conservative party to suppress voting, and is designed deliberately to hit the poorest hardest?
Jeremy Corbyn
There is no question. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This legislation is designed to hit the poorest the hardest: those who do not have passports or access to other forms of identity, and who will thus lose their right to vote and decide who governs in the future. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman will give way when he chooses. He does not need to be told what to do by people gesticulating at him. Stop it. It is low grade, downmarket and out of keeping with the code.
Jeremy Corbyn
Freedom of movement has given opportunities to millions of British people to live, work and retire across Europe. It has benefited our economy immensely, with European Union workers playing a key role in sustaining many of our industries and public services. No responsible Member would vote to rip that up, unless there is a proper plan in place. In the shadow of the Windrush scandal, the settled status scheme for European Union citizens risks another round of wrongful denial of rights and shameful deportations. I look forward to the Prime Minister assuring those European Union citizens, who have made such an enormous contribution to our lives and our society, that they will have a secure future in this country.
The Government say that they will be at the forefront of solving the most complex international security issues and global challenges, yet they are playing precisely no role in stopping the horrors unfolding in the Kurdish areas of northern Syria, ending the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen, or standing up for the rights of the Rohingya, the Uyghurs, or the people of Palestine, Ecuador or Hong Kong. They are continuing to cosy up to Donald Trump, and sitting idly by as he wrecks the world’s efforts to tackle climate change and nuclear proliferation.
As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said in an intervention, the crisis of our age is the climate emergency as declared by this House in May, but there is no action announced in the Queen’s Speech. I pay tribute to the climate school strikers and to Extinction Rebellion. Sadly, the Government have not listened. The Prime Minister derided them as “nose-ringed…crusties”, although I note that their number included a Conservative former Member of the European Parliament, who I believe is related to the Prime Minister. So many people are concerned about bad air quality, the failure to invest in renewable energy, the pollution of our rivers and seas, and the loss of biodiversity. Only this Government have the power and resource to tackle the climate emergency if they wanted to, but they are missing with inaction. It is Labour that will bring forward a green new deal to tackle the climate emergency.
The legislative programme is a propaganda exercise that the Government cannot disguise. This Government have failed on Brexit for over three years. They are barely beginning to undo the damage of a decade of cuts to our public services. It does nothing for people struggling to make ends meet. It does nothing to make our world a safer place or tackle the climate emergency. The Prime Minister promised that this Queen’s Speech would dazzle us. On closer inspection, it is nothing more than fool’s gold.
Brexit Negotiations
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(4 years, 12 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of his statement, but what we have before us is a rehashed version of previously rejected proposals that would put the Good Friday agreement at risk and trigger a race to the bottom on rights and protections for workers, consumers and our precious environment. Given the seriousness of this issue and the vagueness of the proposals so far, will the Prime Minister tell the House if and when he plans to publish the full legal text that he must submit to the EU?
These proposals would lead to an even worse deal than that agreed by the former Prime Minister. The Prime Minister signed up to the backstop in Cabinet, and as a Back Bencher he voted for the withdrawal agreement. His letter to the President of the Commission yesterday claims that both are now unacceptable, so perhaps he can tell us what has changed. Why did he support the agreement then but oppose it now? The letter makes his intentions clear: it rejects any form of customs union—something demanded by every business and industry body in Britain, and by every trade union.
The Government want to ditch EU standards on workers’ rights, environmental regulations and consumer standards and engage in a race to the bottom. Deal or no deal, this Government’s agenda is clear: they want a Trump deal Brexit that would crash our economy and rip away the standards that put a floor under people’s rights at work and protect our environment and consumers. No Labour MP could support such a reckless deal that would be used as a springboard to attack rights and standards in this country.
The truth is that after three years this Government still have not found an answer to solving the issue of the Irish border and the Good Friday agreement. Where once they were committed to having no border in Ireland, they now propose two borders in Ireland, ripping up the UK-EU joint report from December 2017. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the Government have now abandoned their commitment to the people of Northern Ireland, which was to ensure no
“physical infrastructure or related checks and controls”
on the island of Ireland? [Interruption.] I am sorry, but I am only quoting what the Government said.
While EU leaders have been lukewarm, the response from businesses in Northern Ireland has been stark. Glyn Roberts, the head of Retail NI, said that the proposal would lead to north-south tariffs with “huge negative impacts” on farmers and the agrifood sector. He went on:
“It would also mean two borders requiring renewal after four years, surveillance in border communities without their consent, and checks north-south and west-east.”
Tina McKenzie, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses Northern Ireland, was absolutely clear:
“All the promises of unfettered access have been abandoned… Northern Ireland is a small business economy and this is a death knell for some of those businesses.”
These plans are simply unworkable. What we have before us is not a serious proposal to break the deadlock. Instead, the proposals are nothing more than a cynical attempt by the Prime Minister to shift the blame for his failure to deliver. We can conclude only that his political adviser was telling the truth when he called negotiations with the EU a “sham”. Will the Prime Minister give a clear answer to one question: if he does not get a deal at the October Council summit, will he abide by the law of this country and the European Union (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019 and request an extension to avoid a disastrous no deal?
The Government’s proposals are neither serious nor credible. Labour consulted with UK industry, businesses and unions about the need for a comprehensive customs union, close single market alignment and robust protections for workers’ rights and environmental standards. We need an extension for a serious negotiation towards the sort of deal that Labour has set out, and then let the people decide whether to leave with a sensible deal or remain.
The current proposals would damage the whole UK economy, and the Northern Irish economy especially, and would undermine the Good Friday agreement. They would lead to a race to the bottom on workers’ rights and environmental rights and strip back even the limited protections that the Prime Minister’s predecessor had agreed to.
Instead of spending the last few months building consensus in Parliament and across the EU, the Prime Minister has put forward proposals he knows will not be acceptable either in Brussels or Westminster and that would damage UK industry, people’s jobs and living standards. The only people who would not suffer are the Prime Minister’s hedge fund donors who are currently betting against the pound and running down our fragile economy. He is doing nothing but seeking to divide and risking this country’s future for his own political gain—an America first deal with President Trump. The proposals are unrealistic and damaging, and they will be—as I think the Prime Minister knows full well—rejected in Brussels, in the House and across the country.
The Prime Minister
I must confess that I am disappointed by the tone and some of the remarks that the right hon. Gentleman has made, because I think that this is a very good basis for a deal. To take his points in turn, and to take his questions seriously, he asks what the advantage is of this deal over the previous withdrawal agreement. Simply, it is that the objections on all sides of the House to the previous withdrawal agreement were based on the backstop, which would, as he knows, keep the UK locked in the customs union and single market with no say on those arrangements. I listened carefully to hon. Members on both sides of the House during those debates and that was the burden of the House’s objections to the backstop.
The right hon. Gentleman asked a reasonable question about standards and environmental and social protections. I think that it would be the will of the House under any circumstances to keep our standards the highest in the world. The advantage that we have in coming out of the EU, as I am sure he would accept if he reflected on it, is that we can go further. There are some things that we can now do that have been long called for by the British people—for instance, on animal welfare—that would be very advantageous. For instance, we can now ban the cruel export of live animals. I am sure that he will see that advantages will flow from that approach.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about physical infrastructure at the border, and I have been clear many times—and the Government have been clear many times, as were the previous Administration under my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—that under no circumstances would the UK institute physical infrastructure at or near the border.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the concerns of businesses in Northern Ireland. Of course they must be at the forefront of our minds, and we will ensure that their needs are properly looked after. That is indeed why we have made the compromises that we have for the immediate future to protect their immediate interests. He asked about unfettered access to the GB market, and they will of course have unfettered access to the GB market with no checks whatever. That goes without saying. One thing that is certain about those businesses is that they want a deal. I have talked to them, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has. I believe that this is their chance, and our chance, to get a deal.
I listened to what the right hon. Gentleman said about delay and keeping this country in the EU beyond 31 October. That option does not commend itself to me: it would incur another £1 billion a month to no advantage whatever. The people of this country have had enough unnecessary dither and delay. They want to get Brexit done; they want to get on and do a deal. This is a very good basis for a deal, I commend it to the House and I hope that right hon. and hon. Members across the House will support it.
Prime Minister's Role in Creating a Safe Environment
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
What the Minister has said is absolutely right: that code of conduct has to be enforced and, indeed, as far as the Chamber is concerned, adjudicated by the Chair. The record is clear and the evidence is there for all to see. People can observe week after week after week after week that there can be abuses on both sides—for example, during Prime Minister’s questions—and every time without fail the Chair intervenes to seek to restore order. It has been the case; it is the case; and it will always be the case. It is not a matter of party politics; it is a matter of procedural propriety, and that is the way that it must continue to be.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing this urgent question.
It is extremely disappointing that the Prime Minister has not respected this House by attending here today. His language and demeanour yesterday were, frankly, nothing short of disgraceful. Three years ago, our colleague—our Member of Parliament—Jo Cox was murdered by a far right activist, shouting, “Britain First. This is for Britain.” The language that politicians use matters and has real consequences. To dismiss concerns from Members about the death threats that they receive and to dismiss concerns that the language used by the Prime Minister is being repeated in those death threats is reprehensible. To dismiss those concerns in an abusive way, as he did, is completely unacceptable. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) and for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), and other Members, including the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for what they said yesterday.
Today, I have written to all Members of the parliamentary Labour party expressing solidarity with my friends and setting out the conduct expected of all colleagues. No part of this House, as you have said, Mr Speaker, has a monopoly of virtue. Inappropriate language has been used by all parties, but we all have a duty to keep our debates political and not to descend into personal abuse.
I disagreed profoundly with the previous Prime Minister, but she did offer cross-party talks to try to find a compromise. She also set out her approach to this House, allowing for scrutiny and debate. I was pleased to participate in a meeting with her and other party leaders about conduct and abuse in the House and around the parliamentary estate. The current Prime Minister, unfortunately, has sought to entrench divisions, refused to set out any detail of the deal that he is seeking and continues to pledge that we will leave with no deal on 31 October, despite the fact that this House has voted against, and legislated against, such an outcome. Not only should he comply with the law, but he should come to this House and apologise for his conduct yesterday, which fell well below the standards expected by the people of this country of the way their elected representatives should behave, should speak and should treat each other.
Kevin Foster
I have outlined what the Government are doing, but the Leader of the Opposition mentioned the murder of Jo Cox—a dreadful crime committed by an extremist. Many of us who were in the House at that time remember exactly where we were when we heard the news of that appalling attack—in my case, I was attending a constituency event. In the same way, many from a previous generation of politics remember where they were when they heard that our colleagues Anthony Berry, Robert Buckland and Airey Neave had been assassinated by those looking to bring terror to this country.
The biggest issue is that delay will just bring more division to this country—
Prime Minister's Update
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for giving me an advance copy of his statement. Unfortunately, it was like his illegal shutting down of Parliament—“null” and
“of no effect and should be quashed”,
in the words of the Supreme Court. This was 10 minutes of bluster from a dangerous Prime Minister who thinks he is above the law, but in truth he is not fit for the office he holds. I am glad to see so many colleagues back here doing what they were elected to do: holding the Government to account for their failings. Whether it is their attempt to shut down democracy, their sham Brexit negotiations, their chaotic and inadequate no-deal preparations, the allegations of corruption, their failure on climate change or their failure to step in to save Thomas Cook, this Government are failing the people of Britain, and the people of Britain know it—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I said that the Prime Minister should not be shouted down. The same goes for the Leader of the Opposition. Let me say to people bellowing from a sedentary position: stop it—you will exhaust your vocal cords, you will get nowhere, it will not work, and these proceedings will continue for as long as is necessary for the Chair to be satisfied that proper scrutiny has taken place. It is as simple and incontrovertible as that.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Yesterday’s Supreme Court verdict represents an extraordinary and, I believe, precarious moment in this country’s history. The highest court in this land has found that the Prime Minister broke the law when he tried to shut down our democratic accountability at a crucial moment in our public life. The judges concluded that there was no reason,
“let alone a good reason”,
for the Prime Minister to have shut down Parliament. After yesterday’s ruling, the Prime Minister should have done the honourable thing and resigned, yet here he is—forced back to this House to rightfully face the scrutiny he tried to avoid—with no shred of remorse or humility and, of course, no substance whatsoever.
Let us see if he will answer some questions. Does the Prime Minister agree with his Attorney General that the Government “got it wrong”, or with the Leader of the House that the Supreme Court committed a “constitutional coup”? This is a vital question about whether the Government respect the judiciary or not.
The Attorney General was categorical that the Government would comply with the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. Can the Prime Minister confirm that?
I pay tribute to those MPs from all parties across the House, to the Lords and to those in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly who have not only fought so hard to stop a disastrous no deal, but continued to take the case against Prorogation through the courts. The Government have failed to silence our democracy.
During the period of unlawful Prorogation, the Government were forced to release their Yellowhammer no-deal analysis and plans. No wonder the Prime Minister has been so eager to avoid scrutiny and hide the dangers of his Brexit plan. The release of those documents leads to many questions that the Government must answer now that our Parliament is back in operation.
I would like to start by asking the Prime Minister why the Government in August described leaked Yellowhammer documents as out of date. When the documents were produced in September, they were word for word the same. It is clear that they have tried to hide from the people the truth—the real truth—of a no-deal Brexit and the fact that their policy would heap misery on the people of this country.
Let us take a look at the analysis: chaos at Britain’s ports, with months of disruption; people going short of fuel and fresh foods—[Interruption.] It is your paper, you wrote it and you tried to hide it. [Interruption.] I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker—I do not hold you responsible for writing the document. There would be disruption of people’s vital medical supplies, rises in energy prices for every household in the country, and a hard border for the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Most damning of all is the passage that simply says:
“Low income groups will be disproportionately affected”.
There we have it, Mr Speaker: a simple warning, a simple truth, that a Tory Government are continuing to follow a policy they know will hit the poorest people in our country the hardest. They simply do not care.
The damning document we have seen is only six pages long. It is only right that this House should expect more transparency from the Government.
The Government say that they are doing all they can to get a deal before 31 October, but the truth is that the Prime Minister has put hardly any effort into negotiations. Any progress looks, at the most generous, to be minimal. Only yesterday, the European Union’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said that there was
“no reason today for optimism”.
Why does the Prime Minister believe Mr Barnier has that view? This House is still yet to hear any detail of any deal the Government seek to negotiate. We are told the Government have distributed papers to Brussels outlining proposals for a change to the backstop. Will the Prime Minister publish these papers and allow them to be debated in this House of Parliament? For this Government to have any credibility with our people, they need to show they have an actual plan.
The Prime Minister also has questions to answer about his conduct in public office and, in particular, about allegations that he failed to declare an interest in the allocation of public money to a close friend while he was Mayor of London. It was announced today that, in the light of the Sunday Times report, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is reviewing the funds allocated. Did the Prime Minister initiate that review? Will he fully co-operate with the DCMS review and that of the London Assembly? Will he refer himself to the Cabinet Secretary for investigation? No Prime Minister is above the law.
No one can trust the Prime Minister, not on Iran, not on Thomas Cook, not on climate change and not on Brexit. For the good of this country—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Leader of the Opposition is entitled to be heard in this Parliament, and he will be heard. [Interruption.] Order. I do not mind how long it takes, these exchanges will take place in an orderly manner. Be in no doubt about that.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Quite simply, for the good of this country, the Prime Minister should go. He says he wants a general election. I want a general election. It is very simple: if he wants an election, get an extension and let us have an election.
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman asked several questions, and I will try to deal with them in order.
On the first point, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General made it absolutely clear that this is a judgment with which he disagrees, although of course he respects the judgment of the Supreme Court.
On the second point, about the Benn-Burt Act, I will say what I am sure the Leader of the Opposition understands. We will, of course, obey the law and we will come out of the EU on 31 October.
On the point about preparations for a no-deal Brexit, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who just spoke for two hours on this matter. Our preparations are very far advanced, and I think this country can be entirely confident that we will be ready, deal or no deal.
On the point about whether or not we are on the verge of getting a deal, it is absolutely true that negotiations are difficult, but we are making progress. All I will say to the Leader of the Opposition and his friends is that the negotiations have not been made easier by the surrender Act he passed.
On the next point, I am very proud about everything I did as Mayor of London. I may say to the current Mayor that he would be better off spending less on press officers and more on police officers in London, because we were funding 20,000 more on our streets. As for being trusted on Iran, the Leader of the Opposition took the shilling of the mullahs from Press TV.
I was rather sad that the Labour conference was interrupted by the ruling, because I was awestruck by some of the things I heard, which doubtless were designed to obscure the inanity of the right hon. Gentleman’s policy on Brexit. He wants to abolish fee-paying schools, at a cost to the taxpayer of £7 billion. He wants a four-day working week, cutting the incomes of the lowest paid in this country. He wants to abolish Ofsted, and now we hear he wants to abolish all controls on immigration from the EU.
But it turns out a crucial passage was missing from the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. There is something slightly pitiful about him, because it seems that he actually did want to call an election now. There was a passage in his speech calling for an election now, but it was censored by the Stasi in the form of the shadow Chancellor—or perhaps the shadow Lord Chancellor. The right hon. Gentleman is being gagged, muzzled, held captive by his colleagues. They will not let him say what he wants to say. I say, “Free the Islington One!”
Why will the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues not allow him to have an election? Why will they not allow him to unleash his charms on the electorate? It is because they are not only terrified that he would lose, but even more terrified by the remote possibility that he would win. He cannot control his own party. He cannot decide whether he is for leave or for remain. He is being held captive by his colleagues, the electorate are being held captive by this zombie Parliament and this zombie Opposition, and the right hon. Gentleman wants the entire country to be held captive in the EU after 31 October, at a cost of more than £1 billion a month. We say, “No!” I say, “No!” Let us get Brexit done and let us take this country forward. [Applause.]
The Prime Minister
Obviously I congratulate Nissan on what it is doing and on its stunning manufacturing performance, and we are working very hard to protect supply chains, not just for Nissan but for all our motor manufacturing companies. The best thing for those companies—
The Prime Minister
The best thing for those companies, as the Leader of the Opposition shouts from a sedentary position, is to get a deal and not to enfeeble the Government’s negotiating position by trying to take no deal off the table, which is what he has tried to do.
Mr Speaker
I have known the hon. Lady since she entered the House in 2005, and we have worked together on a number of matters in the past. Rather than issue a lengthy reply now, I would like to reflect on what she said. I am also happy to meet Members—either individually or in groups if they wish—to consider further these matters. We certainly need to take very great care in the days and weeks ahead, and I am as sensitive to that matter as I think I can be. Let me reflect further on what the hon. Lady has said, and I will be happy to see her either for a Privy Counsellor-type conversation or in another form if she so wishes.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for what you have just said—and the sincerity with which you said it—about the threats made to Members of Parliament; the abuse, racism and violence happening in our communities; and the unfortunate messages that come from the language used, which is then repeated on the streets when people threaten public representatives and others with violence. May I ask you to use your excellent and very good offices to call together the leaders of all parties in this House to issue a joint declaration opposing any form of abusive language or threats? We should put the message out to our entire community that we have to treat each other with respect. If we do not, those on our streets who would do violence feel emboldened to do it and the most vulnerable people in our society suffer as a result. It happens in my constituency and in the constituencies of every other Member of this House. We are an elected Parliament, and we have a duty and responsibility to protect all our citizens from the kind of inflammatory language that has been used that is then meted out on the streets in a form of violence against individuals.
Mr Speaker
I will reflect carefully on the point of order just raised by the Leader of the Opposition. I am very open to convening a meeting of senior colleagues for the purpose of a House-wide public statement. I do not wish now to prolong these exchanges, but I take extremely seriously what has been said to me.
Points of Order
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to put on record my thanks to you for being a superb Speaker of this House, my thanks to you as a colleague in Parliament, and my thanks to your family for the way in which they have supported you through often very difficult times when many of the media have been very unfair on you. Your two sons are getting good at football. I did some kicks with them in Speaker’s Court the other day and I was very impressed, actually; they are coming on well. And I know you support the same club as me.
In your role as Speaker, you have totally changed the way in which the job has been done. You have reached out to people across the whole country. You have visited schools, you have visited factories, you have visited offices; you have talked to people about the role of Parliament and democracy. I have never forgotten you coming to City and Islington College in my constituency and spending the morning with me talking to a group of students, all of whom had learning difficulties, and we discussed with them the roles of democracy and Parliament.
You have taken absolutely on board the words of Speaker Lenthall that you are there to be guided by and act on behalf of our Parliament. This Parliament is the stronger for your being Speaker. Our democracy is the stronger for your being the Speaker. Whatever you do when you finally step down from Parliament, you do so with the thanks of a very large number of people, and as one who has made the role of Speaker in the House more powerful, not less powerful. I welcome that. As somebody who aspires to hold Executive office, I like the idea of a powerful Parliament holding the Executive to account; it is something I have spent the last 35 years doing myself.
So, Mr Speaker, enjoy the last short period in your office, but it is going to be one of the most dramatic there has been. I think your choice of timing and date is incomparable and will be recorded in the history books of parliamentary democracy. Mr Speaker, on behalf of the Labour party I thank you for your work in promoting democracy and this House. Thank you.
Mr Speaker
Thank you. I just say to the right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, that he is very much more experienced and senior than I, but I think that as Back Benchers in our respective parties we did have quite a lot in common. Certainly, speaking for myself, as a Back Bencher, and frequently as an Opposition Front Bencher, I found that I had a relationship with my Whips characterised by trust and understanding—I didn’t trust them and they didn’t understand me.
Early Parliamentary General Election (No. 2)
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The only point of any importance that the Prime Minister has just included in his speech is his clear indication that he does not intend to follow the law that has just been passed that requires him to ask for an extension in certain circumstances. He also gave no answer on the two decisions this House has already made today concerning the publication of Yellowhammer documents and his own behaviour as Prime Minister in respect of laws agreed by this House. He seems to have failed to grasp that those on the Opposition Benches have actually been very clear and that the House has expressed its will: until the Act has been complied with and no deal has been taken off the table, we will not vote to support the Dissolution of this House and a general election.
I want an election, as the Prime Minister pointed out, and the Conservative party has very generously broadcast footage of me and my friends saying that we want an election. I do not retreat from that at all; we are eager for an election, but as keen as we are, we are not prepared to risk inflicting the disaster of no deal on our communities, our jobs, our services, or indeed our rights. [Interruption.]
No deal would not be a clean break. It would not mean just getting on with it. It would start a whole new period of confusion and delay, but this time set against a backdrop of rising unemployment, further deindustrialisation and deepening poverty all across this country. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I said a moment ago that the Prime Minister should not be shouted down. Let me say to those who are shouting their heads off that it will be readily obvious to people observing our proceedings that that is exactly what they are trying to do, including some extraordinarily stupid and noisy yelling from people secreting themselves behind the Chair and thinking they are being clever. It is very low grade, it is very downmarket, it is very substandard, it is very boring, it is very predictable, and if the Whips operated any sort of discipline, they would tell those people to try to get a life.
Jeremy Corbyn
The point I was making was that this will be against a backdrop of unemployment, increasing deindustrialisation and deepening poverty within our society, so it is not surprising that the Government were so keen to hide the Yellowhammer documents—their own documents—which would demonstrate that to be the case. We have no faith that the Government are seeking a deal in good faith. Indeed, the former Work and Pensions Secretary said in her resignation letter:
“I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the government’s main objective.”
EU leaders have received no proposals. Government Ministers have offered no explanation of the deal they are seeking—even if there is such a deal—let alone any worked-out proposals to be presented to Parliament for scrutiny. It is no wonder they are so keen to prorogue so early, to avoid any scrutiny of what they are doing.
The only conclusion that can be reached—and it is backed up by all the leaked reports in the press—is that the Government’s pretensions to negotiate are nothing but a sham. The Prime Minister knows full well that there is no mandate for no deal, no majority support for it in the country and no majority support for it in this House, but he refuses to rule it out and refuses to set out any proposals to avoid it. This is a very serious issue: the Prime Minister is running away from scrutiny with his blather and his shouting. Many people, including the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), are increasingly coming to the conclusion that no deal is his only answer, but he has no mandate for that. The last general election gave no mandate for no deal, and the 2016 referendum gives no mandate for it. The co-convenor of the Vote Leave campaign said in March this year that
“we didn’t vote to leave without a deal.”
He is now the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. No deal is opposed by every business group, every industry group and every trade union, and it has been opposed in votes in this House.
I want to turf out this reckless Government—[Interruption.] This Government that are driving up poverty, deepening inequality, scapegoating migrants, whipping up divisions and failing this country. A general election is not something for the Prime Minister to play about with for propaganda points, or even his very poor quality posts on social media, so perhaps he can, possibly for the last time in this Session of Parliament, answer some questions. First—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] Order. Order. Mr Philp, you are very loud and rancorous. Calm down, young man! You are getting very over-excited—very, very over-excited—and you can do a lot better than that. You must try to do so.
Jeremy Corbyn
First, where are the Prime Minister’s proposals for the renegotiations? Where are they? When were they published? What is their content?
Secondly, if the Prime Minister seeks no deal, why does he not argue for it and seek the mandate for it that the Government do not so far possess? There is no mandate for no deal. [Interruption.] No, I am not giving way. Thirdly, if, as he claims, the Prime Minister is making progress—
The Prime Minister
If the right hon. Gentleman really wishes to avoid a no-deal Brexit, will he explain why he is unwilling to call an election, go to Brussels and seek—[Interruption.]
The Prime Minister
If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to avoid a no-deal Brexit, why does he not call an election, get a mandate, go to Brussels and negotiate a deal himself? What is his objection to that?
Jeremy Corbyn
We are the responsible party in this room, and we do not want to crash out with no deal. There is also the issue of trust in a Prime Minister who is unable to answer any questions and is desperate to suspend Parliament to avoid any scrutiny.
Thirdly, if the Prime Minister is making progress, as he told the House last week, why did the Taoiseach tell him only this morning that he was yet to receive realistic, legally binding and workable plans? That was only this morning, so the Prime Minister must be able to remember it. Perhaps he could explain why the Taoiseach felt the need to say that. [Interruption.] I realise the desperation of the Tory party when all it can do is rearrange the mics on the Titanic.
Finally, since the Prime Minister did not bother to turn up—[Interruption.] With great respect, I inform Conservative Members that I have no intention of giving way to any of them, okay? Since the Prime Minister did not bother to turn up for the previous debate, will he respect the law and implement the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 if he has negotiated an agreement that is backed by this House on 19 October?
This Parliament is not a platform for the Prime Minister’s games. It is a Chamber in which the elected representatives of the people hold the Executive to account. That is what parliamentary democracy is about. The Prime Minister has been asked four simple questions—[Interruption.] I am not giving way.
The Prime Minister is talking up no deal to one wing of his party and talking up getting a deal to another. The sad reality is that he is not preparing adequately for the first and not negotiating at all for the other. Sunday 15 September is International Day of Democracy, when the UN celebrates Governments being held accountable to their national Parliaments in a democracy. This Government are only interested in shutting down Parliament to avoid any scrutiny. The Prime Minister’s obfuscations and evasions are being rumbled both at home and abroad, and that is why he does not answer questions and is so keen to avoid any scrutiny.
Tonight the Prime Minister will be attempting to prorogue Parliament for one of the longest Prorogations there has ever been—shutting down Parliament, shutting down democracy, avoiding questions, and taking this country over the cliff of a no-deal exit, with all the damage that will do to many of the poorest and most vulnerable communities in our society and all the damage it will do to trade and jobs, and all because he wants to take this country in the direction of a trade deal solely with the USA rather than anybody else. We are not walking into traps laid by this Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I earlier urged the House to trust the people, but once again the Opposition think they know better. They want the British Prime Minister to go to a vital negotiation without the power to walk away. They want to delay Brexit yet again, without further reference to those who voted for it, handing over to Brussels an extra £250 million a week for no purpose—enough to upgrade more than five hospitals or train 5,000 new nurses. And most egregiously of all, not only have they refused to choose the way ahead; they have now twice denied the British people their say in an election. The House cannot choose; it will not let anyone else choose. It resolves only to be irresolute and decides only to be undecided, determined to dither, adamant for drift, so now the House will move to adjourn and resume with the state opening and the Queen’s Speech on 14 October. I hope the Opposition will use that time to reflect. Meanwhile, the Government will press on with negotiating a deal, while preparing to leave without one. I will go to that crucial summit in Brussels on 17 October, and no matter how many devices this Parliament invents to tie my hands, I will strive to get an agreement in the national interest.
This Government will not delay Brexit any further. We will not allow the emphatic verdict of the referendum to be slowly suffocated by further calculated drift and paralysis. While the Opposition run from their duty to answer to those who put us here, they cannot hide forever. The moment will come when the people will finally get the chance to deliver their verdict on how faithfully this House executed their wishes, and I am determined that they will see that it was this Government who were on their side.
Jeremy Corbyn
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] I think we have had quite enough playground politics from the Conservative party this evening. The one thing the Prime Minister did not say was that he was going to obey the law of this country. He did not say that he acknowledged or accepted three votes that have taken place in this Parliament. At his request, the House is now apparently due to be prorogued this evening for one of the longest prorogations in history simply in order to avoid any questioning of what he is doing or not doing, simply to avoid discussion about Yellowhammer, and particularly to avoid any discussion about the proposals that have been put to the European Union that he has or does not have or that do or do not exist. This Government are a disgrace, and the way the Prime Minister operates is a disgrace—[Interruption.]
Jeremy Corbyn
I hope that the Prime Minister will reflect on proroguing and shutting down Parliament to avoid a Government being held to account, because that is exactly what he is doing today and proposes to do to this country.
Ian Blackford
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I should perhaps congratulate the Prime Minister, because at least he has been consistent. He has lost every vote he has brought to this House since he became Prime Minister. Perhaps that is why he is trying to shut down democracy this evening. The message that must go to the Prime Minister is that he can run for the next few weeks, but we will be back here in the middle of October. He is the Prime Minister of a minority Government, and he has been given an instruction that he has to go to Brussels and get an extension. Once that extension has been delivered, we will have an election, and Boris will be swept from Government. The people of Scotland will get their say, and I look forward to our securing our future as an independent Scottish Government away from the clutches of a Tory Brexit Britain—an isolationist Britain that is taking us away from our partners and friends in the European Union.
Early Parliamentary General Election
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
This is the second time I have replied to a Conservative Prime Minister who has sought to dissolve Parliament and call an election because they did not have a deliverable Brexit policy. Although I am not condemning the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) by comparing her to her successor, she at least made detailed speeches setting out her Brexit policy—even if we fundamentally disagreed with them. This Prime Minister claims he has a strategy, but he cannot tell us what it is. The bigger problem for him is that he has not told the EU what it is either.
At Prime Minister’s Question Time today, as in the statement yesterday, the Prime Minister was unable even to say whether he has made any proposals whatsoever to the EU. Basically, the policy is cloaked in mystery because, like the emperor’s new clothes, there really is absolutely nothing there. The naked truth is that the reality is deeply unpalatable: a disastrous no-deal Brexit to take us into the arms of a trade deal with Donald Trump that would put America first and Britain a distant second.
The Prime Minister knows there is no mandate for no deal, no majority support for it in the country and no majority for it in this House. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—the co-convenor of the Vote Leave campaign—said in March this year that
“we didn’t vote to leave without a deal.”
Even the leaders of the leave campaign are absolutely clear that the referendum conferred no mandate for no deal. No deal is opposed by every business group, every industry body and every trade union—and by this House, as today’s vote and others have shown.
We want an election because we look forward to turfing this Government out.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Does the Leader of the Opposition want a general election? A yes or no will suffice.
Jeremy Corbyn
The right hon. Gentleman obviously did not hear what I just said. Before he gently interrupted me, I was about to point out that the offer of the election today is a bit like the offer of an apple to Snow White from the Wicked Queen, because what the Prime Minister is offering is not an apple or even an election, but the poison of a no deal. I repeat what I said last night. Let this Bill pass and gain Royal Assent, and then we will back an election—so we do not crash out of the European Union with a no-deal exit.
It is the anti-democratic instincts of this Government that cause us concern. Despite the expressed will of the House to support the Bill debated today, the Conservative peers—the Government’s colleagues in the Lords—have tabled 92 amendments for debate. I really doubt that this is motivated by a desire to improve the legislation; not a bit of it. Instead, it is motivated by a desire to filibuster the Bill—an undemocratic cabal in Downing Street, aligned with an undemocratic and unelected House to override the democratic will of this House expressed in the Bill to which we have just given a Third Reading. If the Government cannot win the argument, they try to shut down debate.
We had the Prime Minister deciding to prorogue Parliament in August, and today he wants to dissolve Parliament to shut down scrutiny. He cannot handle dissent and debate in his own party, and has extraordinarily expelled 21 of his own MPs who voted against him last night. The hypocrisy of this process is phenomenal, from a Prime Minister who twice voted against the former Prime Minister’s Brexit plans.
A general election is not a plaything for a Prime Minister to avoid his obligations, to dodge scrutiny or to renege on commitments. He has committed to renegotiate Brexit, but where is the plan and where are the proposals? If he has a Brexit plan, be it no deal or the new mystery proposal deal of which we have yet to see any information, he should put it before the public in a public vote—a referendum or a general election—and seek a mandate from them. Let the Prime Minister go to Brussels tomorrow and ask for an extension so that he can seek a mandate for his unknown Brexit plan and put it before the people.
The truth is that this motion from the Prime Minister is about playing a disingenuous game that is unworthy of his office. I look forward to the day when his Government and his party, with all the austerity and misery they have heaped on this country, are turfed out of office, and when we prevent this country from crashing out on 31 October, with all the damage—he knows, because he has already seen the documents—that it will do to people’s lives and job prospects in this country. It is a cynical move from a cynical Prime Minister.