October EU Council

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, but I remind the House that there is a further statement to follow, that coming from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and the remaining stages of a Bill, so there is a premium on brevity, to be exemplified first by Mr John Redwood.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What advantages does the Prime Minister expect to get in the future partnership arrangement that will be better than leaving and spending the £39 billion at home, with a huge boost to our economy and public services?

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that a future partnership that protects jobs and ensures that we have a good trading relationship with the European Union is worth negotiating for and worth achieving for the United Kingdom. There are many who say to me in this House that we want to ensure that we have good trading relationships on better than WTO deals around the rest of the world. I agree that having those good trading relationships on better than WTO deals is a good thing, and that is what I want to achieve with the European Union.

EU Exit Negotiations

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Trying to sign a withdrawal agreement without having legally binding texts on the future partnership would leave the UK in a deeply vulnerable position and unable to negotiate properly. Will the Prime Minister confirm that, in her view, no deal is still a lot better than a bad deal, and that a bad deal is giving £39 billion away, for no good reason, that we need to spend on our priorities?

[The Prime Minister]

I still believe that no deal is better than a bad deal. I am still working for what I believe is the best outcome for the UK, which is a good negotiated deal with the European Union for the future, but of course, we continue with our no-deal preparations. As my right hon. Friend will know, the negotiations on the financial settlement have already taken place. We are clear about the importance of linking the withdrawal agreement to the future relationship, such that we cannot find ourselves in a limbo situation and that we are able to see that future relationship committed to by the European Union and put in place. As I say, I want to see it put in place on 1 January 2021.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is right to say that a negotiated deal is the best outcome for the United Kingdom. She is also right to say that protecting the Union is of fundamental importance to Members on all sides of the Brexit debate on the Government Benches. But as we just heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), there are people who disagree with what she said in her statement about the

“no-deal outcome that no one wants”.

There are people in this House and on the Government Benches who want a no-deal outcome.

[John Redwood]

indicated assent.

[Nicky Morgan]

My right hon. Friend is nodding.

People in this country are now really concerned and worried about no deal, including businesses, EU citizens living here and British citizens living in the EU. I urge the Prime Minister to ensure that we do not slip into any kind of no-deal scenario, because I believe that this House will not support it and therefore would have to step into the negotiations.

Leaving the EU

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is right to reaffirm that we are taking back control of our laws, our money and our borders, which I fully support, but will she clear away the ambiguity or contradictions in the Chequers statement that imply we will give the ECJ powers, we might pay money to trade, we might accept their laws and we might have their migration policy?

June European Council

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind the House that, in accordance with long-standing convention, right hon. and hon. Members who came into the Chamber after the Prime Minister began her statement should not expect to be called to question her about it. More widely, if I am to have any chance of accommodating the understandably extensive interest in the matter, there will be a premium upon brevity, which is now to be brilliantly exemplified by Mr John Redwood.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister table urgently a full free trade agreement, covering both goods and services, and ask the EU whether they want that or no deal? Either way, we must take back control of our laws, our money and our borders.

[The Prime Minister]

We will be taking back the control that my right hon. Friend sets out; that is what people voted for in the referendum, and that is what we will deliver. We will be setting out, in greater detail than we have done so far, our proposals for that trade agreement with the European Union, making very clear to it the options that now lie on the table.

G7

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman asks about a police inquiry, which of course is a matter for the police, and the body responsible for looking at elections and the democratic process is the Electoral Commission. He asks about the comments made by President Trump on the G7 versus the G8. There was a good reason why the G8 became the G7—Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea—and the response I have given both in private and in public is that any conversations about whether or not Russia could come back round the table cannot take place until Russia has changed its attitude.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I strongly support the Prime Minister’s wish to be a leader of free trade worldwide. Do we not need to get our vote and voice back at the WTO as soon as possible and leave the customs union in order to do that?

[The Prime Minister]

I assure my right hon. Friend that we are indeed working on establishing ourselves as an independent member of the WTO at the point at which it will be possible to become one, having left the European Union.

Leaving the EU: Customs

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will explain later why I believe the implications of the Opposition motion would be extremely damaging for the quality of Government decisions under Governments of any party.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I fully support the position the Minister is taking. Does he recall that when Labour Governments were giving away powers of self-government right, left and centre at Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon, they never shared their reasons or the negotiations they had beforehand, even though the issues were deeply contentious among Conservative Members and led directly to the vote to leave the European Union?

[Mr Lidington]

Wishes are always expressed by Members, usually those in the Opposition parties at any given time, for Governments to divulge more about internal discussions between Ministers, but I think the right constitutional principle is that the roles of both the Executive and Parliament need to be respected.

Three key principles are at issue in this debate. First, there is the need for confidential and frank discussion between Ministers in Cabinet and Cabinet Committees, and after eight years in Government one general truth that I have learned is that a policy proposal almost always benefits from discussion among colleagues, who bring different perspectives and interests to bear.

Voter ID Pilots

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

As I set out very fully—I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to make my remarks in full—I have answered the EHRC very carefully and laid that answer in the Libraries of both Houses so that people can read the full background to these pilots and the parliamentary process that they have gone through. I can confirm that it is my belief that this policy does not violate the first article of the ECHR and that these are not discriminatory measures.

The hon. Lady asked me about the Windrush affair. The relevance of that to this matter is that those from a Windrush background are already eligible to be on the electoral roll in the sense that British citizens and qualifying Commonwealth voters can vote in all elections. I am conscious that a statement on Windrush is to follow, so it would not be helpful if I detained the House by discussing that issue in the detail that it deserves.

The hon. Lady suggested that these pilots are not proportionate. I am concerned if Labour Members think that any level of crime is not worth going after. Is that what we are hearing from them? There is considerable concern about a lack of confidence in our democratic system that is increased when we see a perception of electoral fraud. This policy is designed to increase confidence in our system and to make it harder for someone to commit such a crime against another person. Electoral fraud is not some kind of victimless crime; it hurts a person—a victim—who has had their voice taken away.

I wonder whether Labour Members have instead come here with a different purpose in mind. Do they perhaps think that they are going to lose votes through this policy? I have here a letter written to a local newspaper—it happens to be the Norwich Evening News, a very fine organ—from a Labour party councillor who is concerned that this policy is going to affect

“those most likely to vote Labour.”

Is not that the real story that we see in Labour Members’ concern? Are these not crocodile tears because they are concerned that they are going to lose votes that they perceive they own? I think that is a disgrace.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is there anything in these pilots, if successful, that would help with the problem of people voting more than once, which some people thought occurred in the last general election? I fully support the initiative to have more honest voting.

[Chloe Smith]

This policy does not directly address the particular concern that my right hon. Friend raises, but I understand why he does so. I share his concern about allegations of any type of electoral fraud, and it would be a matter of electoral unlawfulness if a person were to vote twice in the same election.

European Council

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are absolutely ready to start negotiations with the European Union on the security partnership and treaty for the future. It is in both sides’ interests to have that treaty in place. So far, that has been the very clear message from my European partners. I think that they will have every intention, as we do, of ensuring that those security arrangements are in place when we end the implementation period.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given the very strong mood in the country to just get on with Brexit, will the Government now produce their draft legislation, so that we can have the new fishing policy, the new farming policy, the new spending policies and, above all, the new borders policies that will represent the Brexit bonus that we are all waiting for?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend has covered a number of issues. He will know that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is indeed consulting on what would replace the common agricultural policy, and it will be consulting the fishing industry and others on what would replace the common fisheries policy. Of course, legislation will be coming forward as necessary to cover all the issues that we need to address before we see the end of the implementation period and have in place the future relationship.

UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about having Scottish nationalist MPs in this House, but I note that there are only nine here today, which is, of course, fewer than the number of Conservative Scottish Members of Parliament. The decisions that led to the approach in my speech were taken by the whole Cabinet, not by a sub-group of the Cabinet, and all members, bar one who was in this House at the time, were present when that decision was taken.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about timing. Like the Leader of the Opposition, he appears to have misunderstood the fact that the European Union set out at the beginning that there would be different phases to this negotiation. I was always straight with the House that I believed that citizens’ rights should be in the first phase. They were; we agreed that in December. Many people, including possibly the right hon. Gentleman—I cannot remember—were sceptical about whether we would get that deal. We did get that deal, and now we move on to the second phase of the negotiations.

May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that, yet again, he has tunnel vision on there being only one approach to take on a single market and a customs union? We will ensure that we get trade with the European Union that is tariff-free and as frictionless as possible; that there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland; and that this country will be able to run an independent trade policy, negotiating trade deals around the rest of the world.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman talks about Scotland as an independent nation taking decisions. Yet again, I remind him that, from the point of view of Scotland’s economy, the most important thing is to be part of the United Kingdom.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The Prime Minister speaks for the big majority of the British people when she says that both sides now need to get on with it. Will she confirm that the British Government will ensure that we are ready to leave in March 2019, with or without a deal, and with or without a positive response from the EU?

[The Prime Minister]

I can reassure my right hon. Friend that we will be leaving in March 2019 and that we continue to work on all scenarios to ensure that we are ready.

European Council

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, dispute resolution is part of any trade agreement negotiations, and that will be exactly the same with all the trade agreements that we will negotiate now.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that no binding offer about the money will be made until there is a general agreement that Parliament accepts, because I do not see how else we can proceed?

[The Prime Minister]

The joint progress report, which was published by the UK and the European Union prior to the December Council, made it absolutely clear that the settlement within it was set out in the context of going forward and having agreement on the future relationship.