European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden).

I begin by associating myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens). I wish that I was not engaged in this debate tonight. I wish that we were not having to clear up this mess. I wish that the former right hon. Member for Witney had not cut and run but was here to help us to dig our way out of this hole. I am not surprised that he left, because he offered us a political strategy that was based on the ethos and ethics of the Bullingdon club: smash up the place, put some cash on the table, and leave it to others to clear up. I am not sure where the cash is—[Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) knows, we appear to be half a trillion pounds further in debt than we were in 2010. Although I wish that we were not starting from this point, the people have voted. This is a democracy and I will respect the decision that was taken.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) hit the nail absolutely on the head. The people of this country did not vote for a plan or a blueprint. They did not vote to lose their jobs and they did not vote based on the full truth on the table. Indeed, the campaign was terrible, bedevilled with lies about what money would be saved and what money would be spent. There was, though, a vote to make Parliament sovereign, and we should start now by making sure that Parliament is sovereign over the plan. This must be the first debate of many, and tomorrow and in the coming days we will have the first votes of many. We will ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and his colleagues to come back to the House so that we can check whether they have got the answers right and their strategy sound.

As the Secretary of State sets about the negotiations, I want to ensure that three things are uppermost in his mind. First, we have to ensure that those who lose out from Brexit are helped and supported. We all know that there are people who will be battered and bruised by the Brexit process—there is no point pretending otherwise—but let us make sure that a plan is in place to support them. They are not the rich; they are the poor. As has been argued, they are the people whose tax credits have been frozen. As a result of that and the higher inflation that is now cursing fuel and food, they will be £620 a year worse off by the time of the next election. We need a plan for making sure that we do not waste £1 billion on corporate tax cuts by 2020. Let us use that money to unlock the freeze on benefits.

[John Redwood]

Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why we have been the fastest-growing G7 economy for the whole of the past year, with an acceleration in the second half, and why wages are up—real wages are up—and things are looking good?

[Liam Byrne]

I know that experts are no longer in fashion among Conservative Members, but the Office for Budget Responsibility is clear that, because of higher inflation, people on tax credits will be poorer, not richer, over the next couple of years. I genuinely believe that the Brexit Secretary does want to protect hard-working families, but let us see him put his money where his mouth is by arguing with the Chancellor in favour of unfreezing tax credits over the next couple of years. That should be our priority.

Secondly, we need a real plan to protect manufacturing in this country. We must recognise that manufacturing output has not yet recovered to its level before the crash. The car industry in regions such as mine in the west midlands employs 49,000 people today, but it will be destroyed if we have to rely on WTO tariffs of 10%, and if we add another 10% to costs by building a border to check the 60% of parts that we import to build the cars that are created in this country. Whatever deal is put in place, it must put manufacturing first.

Thirdly, we must ensure that there is no race to the bottom on rights—on workers’ rights, social rights and the rights of minorities. We have already seen the briefing that has come out from a No. 10 source that the Conservatives’ 2020 manifesto will propose exiting the European convention on human rights—that great European Magna Carta that we in this country helped to draw up after the war to stop any return to the holocaust that we marked last week. How can we possibly contemplate leaving that convention and joining the company of Putin’s Russia? I hope that, over the course of these debates, we will hear a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no exit from the convention on human rights.

Finally, although tests are looming on how we protect those battered and bruised by Brexit, how we defend manufacturing, and how we ensure that there is no race to the bottom on rights, the spirit of these negotiations is important. I have to accept that we will leave a federal Europe, but I believe that now could be the start of a confederal project in which we begin to step up our collaboration with our neighbours on security, jobs, international development, science—the things that we can do together in the world. In this debate, it is so important now that we do not listen to the devils and demons of division. Now is the time for the Government to listen to the better angels of our nature.