Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), who gave a powerful speech. I agreed with everything she said, and I want to reiterate something that she said at the end and the beginning of her speech.

Like the right hon. Lady, I campaigned to remain in the European Union but, like her, I accept the result of the referendum. Although the Prime Minister and her Ministers have spent the past few months parroting the mantra “Brexit means Brexit”, that is simply meaningless tautology. People voted leave for many different reasons, and Brexit could take many different forms. A majority of my constituents voted leave for various reasons, but they did not vote leave to become poorer, they did not vote leave for their wages to drop, and they did not vote leave to lose their job. I urge the Government to bear that in mind in everything they do.

Members on both sides of the House, from different corners of our country, have a hugely important job to do. Our job is not to rerun the referendum, nor is it to block our exit from the EU. It is to hold the Government to account and make sure that they secure the best possible deal for the country and our constituents.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. She, like me, represents a midlands constituency, and therefore she, like me, will want some answers on what the Government’s future relationship with the single market will be, bearing in mind that it was a previous Conservative Government who took us into it. More importantly, companies such as Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan want to know those answers for the purpose of future investment, because Jaguar Land Rover has invested a lot of money in the midlands. Years ago Nissan was going to invest in Coventry but could not get regional aid, and that is why we went into the single market.

[Emma Reynolds]

I agree entirely. Jaguar Land Rover is also a very important company in my constituency. Those companies want clarity from the Government. The Brexit Minister told the House earlier today that he has made several statements and appeared before several Select Committees, but he has said almost entirely nothing. We need clarity and proper parliamentary scrutiny. That does not mean seeking to thwart the will of the people, as the right hon. Member for Loughborough said so powerfully.

I will focus my remarks on three tests that I want to put to the Government. First, are they driven by the national interest or their party’s interest? So far, regrettably, their record is not good. Was it purely a coincidence that the Prime Minister’s announcement that we would invoke article 50 by the end of March 2017 happened to be on the first day of the Conservative party conference? Was it just a coincidence that she wanted to reassure her party faithful that she, having been a lukewarm remainer, actually thinks that we should leave the EU?

Equally, the Conservative party’s interest was uppermost in the Prime Minister’s mind when she claimed that

‘there is no such thing as a choice between ‘soft Brexit’ and ‘hard Brexit’’,

because she knows that her party is divided on the issue. That is not only bizarre, but wrong. If there was no such distinction, why did the pound slump to a 31-year low days after the Tory party conference, due to fears of a hard Brexit? If there is no such distinction, why has the Treasury said that a hard Brexit could cost £66 billion a year in lost revenue and that the economy will be between 5% and 9% smaller than it would be if we stay in the single market? If there is no such distinction, why has Nissan said that there will be no further investment in its UK plants if it does not know whether in future it will face tariffs on its exports to the rest of the EU?

It is clear to me that some Tory Members—we have heard it already today—are happy to trade with the rest of the EU, which is still our main trading partner, on WTO terms. Worryingly, the International Development Secretary seems to be in that category. However, other right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches disagree. The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) called it “bonkers.” She is right, because it would mean tariffs on our exports: 10% on cars, 20% on beer and whisky, and obviously non-tariff barriers on trade.

The Conservative party’s 2015 manifesto—the right hon. Member for Loughborough has already mentioned this, but it is worth repeating—stressed:

“We benefit from the Single Market…We are clear about what we want from Europe. We say: yes to the Single Market.”

That is the basis on which the Conservatives were elected to government. They were right last year, which is why the Government must push to retain access to the single market.

Secondly—this is a really difficult test—can the Government mitigate the risks of leaving and maximise the opportunities? Again, so far the record is not good. Many right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches seem to believe that there are only upsides to leaving the EU, but it is obvious that there are some fundamental risks to our economy if we get this wrong. The Government should level with people and say, “Exiting the EU will not be straightforward; it will be difficult, sensitive and, indeed, risky.”

I believe that the Government must aim for a soft Brexit. That means having the best possible access to the single market without tariff and non-tariff barriers, and retaining workers’ rights, environmental and consumer protections and the security measures that are so vital to keeping our country safe. But I also believe that we need to look at some restrictions on free movement. I had many conversations with constituents in Wolverhampton who voted to leave the EU. They did so for a variety of reasons, but one of those was immigration. Some say that reconciling the two issues is impossible, but within the European economic area Norway has an emergency brake on free movement and Liechtenstein has controls over it, and within the four freedoms of people, capital, goods and services in the EU, there is not absolute free movement of services.

My third test—I will be brief, as I am going to run out of time—is that the Government should not be in denial about the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). We need to negotiate a transition period. If we are to negotiate a free trade deal with the rest of the EU, there is going to be a cliff edge between exiting, including closing the article 50 negotiations, and the conclusion of that free trade deal. That will take years; it will be a mixed deal and national Parliaments throughout the 27 member states will have to ratify it. I hope that the Brexit Secretary of State will not be in denial about that issue, which is one of the most important aspects of our renegotiation. I also hope that the Government will start to do a lot better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Unlike some of the fantasists and ideologues on the Government Benches who believe that Brexit is somehow a pain-free process, I live in the real world. We do not deny that the British people have voted to leave the European Union, but Labour Members are determined to achieve a Brexit for working people—not a hard Brexit or a Brexit at breakneck speed, but a Brexit that does not damage Britain’s national interests, the interests of our economy and the interests of our workers.

We are also determined—I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) for her outstanding speech—to ensure that Parliament has the opportunity to call the Government to account during the next stages. I particularly pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who is an outstanding lawyer. Quite rightly, he has led on the argument that this House should call the Government to account.

I want to make three points. First, on Jaguar Land Rover, may I tell a story? About three months ago, I was getting out of my car in Edwards Road, and I heard a voice call, “Jack”. It was Warren, a big bear of a man with a beard. I first met him at a jobs fair we organised four years ago, and he got an apprenticeship at Jaguar Land Rover. He said, “Come with me. I want you to meet my partner and her mum and dad.” He showed me a little Edwardian house. He said, “Jack, I can’t believe it. We are moving into the house of my dreams, I am with the woman of my dreams, and it is all because I’ve got a good and secure job in the Jaguar plant.” Forgive me for saying it, but this is what drives me on. As I said earlier, in an area which is rich in talent but one of the poorest in the country, I do not want to see the Warrens of this world let down during the next stages.

I was deeply involved in the drive to secure the future of Jaguar Land Rover back in 2010. It has gone from strength to strength ever since. For example, the new engine plant in Wolverhampton employs 42,000 people. I want to pay tribute to the workforce, but also to one of the most outstanding, if not the most outstanding, chief executive with whom I have ever worked, Ralf Speth. It is a world-class company, and when it expresses concerns about the consequences for it of hard Brexit—not being able to sell without tariffs into the European Union—its voice must be listened to.

The second point is about workers’ rights. The Secretary of State said, “Don’t worry. All will be okay.” I do not believe that. I was a Brexiteer back in the 1970s. What changed my mind was social Europe in the 1980s. I remember taking the case of the Eastbourne dustmen to the European Court of Justice, because the then Conservative Government had refused to extend TUPE to cover 6 million public servants, with the terrible consequences that tens of thousands of jobs were privatised without protection, pay was cut in half and the workforce was sometimes cut by a third.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

A good clue to what might happen to trade union rights or industrial rights after Brexit can be seen—it is dead simple—by looking at the last trade union legislation.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Now, as in the 1980s, some of the leading Brexiteers are the ones who talk forever about red tape. I call that workers’ rights. When they say, “Trust us”, I reply, “What? Trust the same people who ran a disreputable campaign?” They promised £350 million a week for the national health service, when they knew damn well that there was no possibility of delivering it.

My third and final point is on the very difficult debate about immigration. I must say that the way that some in the Brexit camp played the race and immigration card in the referendum campaign was nothing short of shameful with, on the one hand, that infamous poster with Nigel Farage, and—dare I say it?—on the other hand, the current Foreign Secretary talking about the tens of millions of Turks who might come to our country. The consequences have been very serious. There has been a rise in hate crime in my constituency. Poles in Erdington High Street have been told, “Go back home.” An Afro-Caribbean man who has been here for 40 years was told, “Go back home.” So was a Kashmiri taxi driver who has been here for 35 years. An Asian train guard was threatened by a large aggressive white man. The guard was shutting the doors when the man told him to hang on because his mates were five minutes away. The guard said that the train had to go. The white man pointed his finger an inch from the guard’s nose and said, “Oh no you don’t. We make the rules now.”

I thought that that kind of brutish behaviour was something of the past. Forgive me for raising this. My dad came from County Cork to dig roads, and my mother came from Tipperary to train as a nurse. I was 13 years old when my dad told me for the first time—and I could not believe this, because I adored him, but he could not look me in the eyes, and was looking down at the floor—about what it was like, when he arrived, looking for lodging houses in Kilburn and Cricklewood and seeing those infamous signs: “No dogs. No Irish.” I thought that we had fundamentally changed as a country, but this country has been scarred by the way the referendum campaign was conducted.

I recognise that during the next stages there will be a difficult debate. On the one hand we have the needs of the economy and the national health service, but on the other we have to listen to the voice of the millions who, from discontent, voted Brexit. We have to ensure that no one in our country is left behind. Getting that balance right will be immensely difficult. I hope all parties—certainly this is what we in the Labour party will do—will make sure that we do not have a repeat of the shameful, divisive rhetoric. The consequences of that rhetoric for the people we represent are very serious indeed. When I go into a local secondary school to meet a diverse group of 16 and 17-year-old pupils and am told that on the day after the referendum they were asking whether they would be sent back home, and that the following week some of them were racially abused in the street, it is clear to me that we have to stand together and say that while we must absolutely have a debate about the future, it must never again be a debate scarred by racism.