European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Justine Greening and Pat McFadden

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

I have always been a pragmatist on Europe and our membership of the EU, so my community and I wanted a practical way forward found following the referendum, but the Prime Minister’s negotiated deal, which we are being asked to vote on, while well intentioned, is not a practical way forward for Britain. It means rules without say. Instead of us taking back control, it gives away control. We will have less say over the rules that shape our lives. Worse, we will not be at the table when rules are set that will matter to Britain strategically—rules that might disadvantage the City or British industry if designed the wrong way. We are not taking back control; we are giving it away.

From my perspective, that sovereignty giveaway alone makes the deal unacceptable for Britain. In fact, I find it impossible to see any future Parliament ever updating fresh rules set at EU level that we have had to commit to, whether we liked them or not, so this deal will in the end be shown to be inoperable, most likely when we have a Government with a low or no majority, as at present. This fragile and unstable withdrawal agreement and political declaration will double up political instability, and translate it into economic instability, making things worse.

The PM’s deal is inoperable. I might welcome the Government’s assurances on EU workers—there are many in my community—but the detail is limited to the very short term. My constituents and people running businesses who come to my surgery want more than that; they want to know what happens beyond the so-called transition period. As others have said, it is disappointing that the Government have not yet set out their immigration plans for the House to take into consideration during today’s debate and at next week’s vote. This really matters to the very mixed community that I represent; it needs clarity.

On the Union, and Northern Ireland in particular, I am greatly concerned about the deal undermining the Good Friday agreement, and the Government’s weak approach to the backstop. I am concerned about the prospects for the re-emergence of a hard border in Northern Ireland, and about that becoming more of a challenge the more we diverge on product standards and regulations. I am concerned about the prospects of a Northern Ireland that risks being increasingly decoupled from the United Kingdom, and about how that could undermine the Union that is at the heart of the United Kingdom.

I am sure that others will talk about the economic projections. The effect on our economy and jobs is also of huge concern. The open-ended and uncertain period covered by the withdrawal agreement leaves this country utterly exposed as a rule taker, at a time when we face global economic uncertainty and an increased push for protectionism. During this period, the EU can decide whether we are breaking rules on state aid or have complied with them, and whether and how much we can be fined. It will be judge and jury. That is what we are being asked to support in the withdrawal agreement, and I cannot accept it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) compellingly set out, the timescale covered is hugely likely to be extended.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right about rule-taking and sovereignty. Does she agree that the reason we have got into this position is that the whole Brexit debate has defined sovereignty as being purely about immigration and the movement of people, and not at all about the rules that govern our economy?

[Justine Greening]

I think people are now much more familiar with the trade-offs involved in Brexit. I will come back to that point later.

This thing is called a transition period or an implementation period, but a transition to what? The bottom line is that all we have on our destination is 26 pages of something called a political agreement. It is not binding, there is no detail and there are no guarantees or timescales. For anything that is comparable, such as a big infrastructure project, we would have a national policy statement, with perhaps 1,000 pages of detail for the House to consider. Here, we have just 26 pages.

A proposed deal on leaving the European Union is perhaps the ultimate national policy statement, yet we have virtually nothing. It is the political equivalent of being asked to jump out of a plane without knowing if your parachute is attached. It is like agreeing to move out of your house without knowing where you are going to live next, or not having agreed the sale price, but signing the contract anyway. None of us would do this in our own lives, yet the withdrawal agreement and political declaration ask us to do it on behalf of our country.

Overwhelmingly, my community does not support the deal. I will not, therefore, be able to back it. There are practical problems and there are problems of sovereignty, but there are democratic problems too, because this Brexit deal is not the Brexit that leave campaigners campaigned for or that leave voters voted for. It does not deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum. Leavers in my community reject it—I have had hundreds of emails and letters about that. Remainers reject it: they are left thinking, “What’s the point if leavers are not happy with the outcome of the referendum that they won? What is the point of leaving, simply to have all the same EU rules anyway?”

Forcing the Prime Minister’s deal through when it is universally unpopular will do nothing to heal the divisions in our country. In fact, it will be worse: it will kick the can down the road, which is exactly what the public expect politicians to do. It is a short-term political fix at the very time when we desperately need a long-term plan. People deserve better. That is why they are so frustrated.

Brexit has turned into a pantomime, it feels like groundhog day, and there is gridlock in Parliament. We have been talking about Brexit for years, and we all need to recognise that Ministers, Front Benchers and MPs will of course vote the way they think is right. I hope the Government do consider a free vote for Government Members, because we all represent very different communities with very different views. However, free vote or no free vote, I believe it is clear that there will be no majority in this House for any Brexit route forward—not for the Prime Minister’s deal; not for Labour’s ever-opaque deal, whatever it may be; not for no deal. There is no majority for anything, yet we have to bring this to a resolution. We cannot keep going round in circles forever. We have to solve Brexit so that we can get on to solving some of the issues that lie behind Brexit. Parliament now needs to take the steps that will allow us to get back on to a domestic agenda, which is what the public want.

Some Opposition Members might say, “Let’s have a general election,” but that would solve nothing, because Brexit is not about party politics. That is why the House has had so many challenges in grappling with Brexit-related legislation. This place is gridlocked. Giving a party political choice to people on a question that is not about party politics will not work. Labour is putting its own narrow party political interests ahead of the country’s vital need to resolve the path forward on Brexit.

I know that the route forward that is left might be unpalatable to many, including Labour and Conservative Front Benchers, but it may be the only viable route out of Parliament’s gridlock, and that is to do what we always end up doing in a democracy: ask the people. A referendum can be held in 22 weeks. We could hold one on 30 May.

Schools that work for Everyone

Debate between Justine Greening and Pat McFadden

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I tend to agree with my hon. Friend, and I would add that on the one hand there is a vehement dislike of the status quo while on the other hand apparently an objection to bringing forward any reforms to change it.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Let us deal with this nonsense that if we are not in favour of the Secretary of State’s reform, we are not in favour of any change. Where there is failure, underachievement or lack of ambition in the system, there should be change. The system should not be a reform-free zone. But if the Prime Minister believes that the expansion of grammar schools is better for social mobility, how does she explain that in grammar-school Kent just 27% of kids on free school meals get five good GCSEs, whereas the national average is 33% and in London, where there has been substantial turnaround based on all-ability schools, that figure is 45%?

[Justine Greening]

As the right hon. Gentleman sets out, the sense that somehow grammars are the only schools delivering good and outstanding education for our children is wrong. That is why we should not be shy of the fact that we ought to open up the system to allow grammars to play a stronger role; we can do that precisely because it is not a binary system any more with all the other schools in that system performing weakly. As he says, however, we need to recognise that it is not just opening up new grammars that is going to enable more children to get more good school places; that is part of the answer, but the other part of the answer is to enable schools to learn from one another and to collaborate more, and of course, as I have set out, to see other actors in the educational establishment, like universities and independent schools, playing a bigger role in the future.

New Grammar Schools

Debate between Justine Greening and Pat McFadden

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend raises a good point about the broader issue of selection. All children are different, so playing to their talents and natural interests is important. Parents should have more choice and diversity in the school system so that they are able to find not just a good school, but a good school that will be particularly good for their child.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The job of education in the 21st century is to maximise opportunity for the maximum number of children, whatever their background. Ofsted’s chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, said this week that a return for grammar schools would not do that, but would be a

“profoundly retrograde step that would actually lead to overall standards sliding back, not improving”.

He said that in grammar school Bexley, just 9% of disadvantaged children go to its grammar schools, while in non-grammar school Hackney, 62% of children go on to university compared with 48% in the country as a whole. Does the Secretary of State agree that where there is failure and disadvantage, the answer should not be this festival of bring-backery, but instead a focus on expanding opportunity for all schools right across the system?

[Justine Greening]

Expanding opportunity is at the heart of what we are doing. Rather than jumping the gun, I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to wait to see the Government’s proposals. Yet again we have heard the Labour party complaining about the current system while seemingly maintaining a position of not wanting to have a debate about how we can make it better overall and then ensure that the entire school system can benefit from that improvement.

Syria Crisis: UK Response

Debate between Justine Greening and Pat McFadden

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend, and I have read reports of her visit. I reassure her that we are playing as much of a role as we can in working with Greece. The UK has worked with the UNHCR, which has registered many of the refugees who have arrived in Greece. In the end, we have to accept that Greece has sovereign control, and it will want to organise how it deals with refugees. Yes, it needs resourcing. The European community is discussing how it can effectively do that, and the UK has been part of that. In the meantime, our focus has rightly been on dealing with the root causes of why those people lost any hope that there was a future for them in the region where they lived and had grown up. That surely has to be the main focus.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister accepted when the House voted to extend the military campaign against ISIS from Iraq to Syria in December that that would extend not only our involvement but our responsibility. May I ask the Secretary of State more about the political peace process that she has touched on? It would be easy to lose faith in it, given the events of recent days, but does she agree that although the aid efforts she talks about are commendable, the only long-term solution for the people of Syria is not aid but a country in which they can live? Is there anything more that she can say about how to get the political process back on track?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that a key next step will be taken this Thursday, when the International Syria Support Group meets. That will build towards the resumption of peace talks, which are having what the UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura described as a “pause” until 25 February. There are two elements to this. One, of course, is the peace talks and the political dialogue that is under way. The second, as I said in response to an earlier question, is the military action that is needed to eradicate Daesh from the part of the country that it holds. Making progress on both of those is critical. The final step, the rebuilding of Syria, will be a chance to put into practice much of the planning that is there already but unable to be got on with.