European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The decision that we make today will shape the future of our country for years to come. In making that decision, three issues weight most heavily on my mind.

The first is the potential risks that this deal poses to the future of the Union of the United Kingdom. We have heard many times that the deal explicitly separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, with a border down the Irish sea and with Northern Ireland remaining part of the EU’s trading system—something that the Prime Minister promised he would never allow. I fear that these proposals would have knock-on implications for Scotland’s future relationship with the UK, too. I fear that the deal is an open goal for the Scottish National party in its bid for independence. We have heard the argument that Northern Ireland voted to remain and that it is still part of the EU, with frictionless trade, so why should Scotland not have that, too? I have always believed in the importance of unions—that we are stronger and have more power and control when we work together. I do not expect all Government Members to share that most fundamental of Labour beliefs, but, as members of the Conservative and Unionist party, I find it very hard to believe that they would vote for a deal that could put the future of our Union at risk.

The deal would also have potentially profound consequences for the future shape of our economy and public services, paving the way for the Government to take England, Scotland and Wales out of the single market and customs union—the hardest of all hard Brexits, short of no deal, with all the risks that that brings for manufacturing and services. Whatever the Prime Minister claims, there are no legal guarantees for workers’ and consumers’ rights and environmental standards. They can deny it until they are blue in the face, but we remember that it was precisely in order to cut those rights and standards that Brexiteers argued for years that we should leave the EU, so they cannot convince us otherwise now. I wish Government Members would just be honest and say, “We believe that the future of the country is as a low-tax, small-state, deregulated country.” They have a perfect right to think that, but they should have the guts to put that vision of Britain to the British people.

Finally, on the implications for our democracy, I know that colleagues on both sides of the House understand the risks that this deal poses to the Union and to our economy, but believe that the risks to our democracy are even worse. However, the truth is that the deal is not what people were promised during the referendum, nor will it get Brexit done. Far from it: we will have years more of negotiations, with another cliff edge at the end of the transition. I do not doubt that many people will be angry if the deal is voted down tonight, but we must put it back to the British people so that they can decide whether this is the future for the country that they want.

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

That gives me more pleasure than you could believe possible.

For all of us in this House who care deeply about the security of our fellow citizens, but perhaps in particular for my good friend the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), common market 2.0 would offer unfettered access to the databases and information-sharing programmes of the EU. That is only available to countries that are members of the EU or of EFTA.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether, under common market 2.0, there would be a temporary or permanent customs union?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend, as ever, puts her finger on the nerve, shall we say. There are different views in the House about our commitment to a future customs arrangement. On the Conservative side, we would like to have a customs arrangement that guarantees frictionless trade until there are alternative arrangements, which the EU has approved, that might set us free to be able to strike our own trade deals. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) shouts “Unicorn” from her seat. Well, that is not exactly what the EU has said. It has just said that it is not ready yet and that it does not know when it will be ready. On the Opposition Benches, hon. Members want to have a permanent customs union. The beauty of our motion today is that it allows us all to vote for it, because the truth is that we do not need to make that choice now. Those alternative arrangements will not be ready for several years and at the next election the Opposition parties can argue for a permanent customs union and we can argue for free trade or the EFTA free trade agreement, and we can agree to pursue our different visions of the future.

Article 50 Extension

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Several hon. Members have rightly said that the Prime Minister’s letter requesting an extension to article 50 was not what this House was promised or what this House agreed. I want to make a slightly different argument, which is that a short extension will not solve the huge problems that we face in dealing with Brexit. It is clear that the Prime Minister has refused to change course. She simply wants to run down the clock and blackmail MPs into supporting her withdrawal agreement. If we have another vote on the agreement next week and she loses again, even the EU agreeing to an extension would not solve our problems, because we will simply be back here in two or three months’ time. A cliff edge will have been replaced by a brick wall, and no deal will be back on the agenda, so that will not work.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

At Prime Minister’s questions today, I was conscious of how thoroughly disrespectful the Prime Minister was to every Member of this House. She is just being stubborn, and as she carries on with her vanity project, it is our country that will go down. We are very, very concerned.

[Liz Kendall]

I completely agree. I will come back at the end of my speech to the Prime Minister’s way of dealing with Parliament.

Even if the Prime Minister succeeds in getting her withdrawal agreement through next week, Brexit will not be sorted, because the withdrawal agreement will not resolve any of the fundamental choices that we face about our future relationship with the EU. We will be leaving without knowing where we are going, which means that we will simply end up back here, time and again. We will be back here at the end of the transition period, and when that, too, is inevitably extended, we will be back here again, grappling with the same problems.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way very briefly on that point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall]

Probably not, because I really want to let others come in. I am so sorry.

Extension has to be for a purpose, so it is about facing up to the choices that Brexit inevitably brings. Either we remain as close to the EU as possible, to protect jobs and prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland, but give up our say over the rules—or we cut all ties, with all the risks and uncertainty that that brings. We have never been straight with the British public about those choices, but doing that will require time. It will take time for this House to agree, if it can, on which option we should look at. It will take time to negotiate any other alternative with the EU, whether that is a customs union, a common market or whatever else. My view is that this must be not simply about what this House decides about our future relationship, but about what the public think. That is the only way to get a sustainable solution.

One reason that many people are concerned about a longer extension is that they are worried that it would mean our having to take part in the European Parliament elections, but I do not think that that is a foregone conclusion. Eleanor Sharpston, an advocate-general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, has called that view

“an oversimplified and ultimately fallacious presentation of the situation.”

She says that, just as the article 49 rules have changed for countries acceding to the EU, the article 50 rules could change for the UK. For example, the mandates of UK MEPs who have already been democratically elected could be extended so that they remain in place for months to come. It is not a foregone conclusion; it is about the political will to find a way forward.

Just as I believe that the Prime Minister should change course, I think that the EU should, too. The EU has insisted that we cannot discuss our future relationship until we have agreed on the withdrawal agreement with respect to money, EU citizens and the border in Northern Ireland, but the truth is that we cannot solve the issue of the border in Northern Ireland unless we know where we are going in the long term. Our very failure to agree how close we will remain to the EU has inevitably led to the requirement for a backstop, so the EU has to change course if we are to solve this.

I conclude by echoing my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). Let me give a warning to the Prime Minister and others about pitting this Parliament against the public and about criticising and castigating us for not bending to the will of the people—as if there were one single will of the people that is clear and always the same. We are representatives, not delegates; we are here to exercise our judgment. It is our job to question, to scrutinise and to stand up for what we believe in. It is dangerous to try to pit this Parliament against the people, instead of defending our parliamentary democracy—one long-term challenge among many others that the Prime Minister has simply failed to live up to.

Article 50 Extension Procedure

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I know that my hon. Friend is a passionate believer in Brexit, but it has been very clear from the events last week that there is no majority in this House for leaving without a deal. The Prime Minister and her Government believe that we should take some instruction from the House to take no deal off the table, and that is what happened.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The Minister was getting a bit het up earlier about questions being asked—perhaps the Government should come to this place with something to say. There are 11 days before we are due to leave, and the Government have absolutely no plan whatever about how to get the country out of this mess.

Time and again, Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and said that the House cannot agree on what it wants, yet the Government whipped people to vote against the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), which would have set aside a day for us to put those options forward. Opposition Members know how we want to get out of the mess, so why do the Government not give us the chance to do so?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

In my brief time as a Minister, I have been very clear about the way to get out of the mess. The obvious way was to vote for the deal—a reasonable deal. The Opposition voted it down and now they turn around and have the effrontery to say, “What shall we do?” They have been totally negative. That is exactly why I have calmly set out the next steps for the extension of article 50.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend, as a former Member of the European Parliament, always speaks with great authority on these issues, and she is absolutely right. After 45 years, we are winding down a complex relationship with the EU, and certain things are incumbent on us in that process, including safeguarding citizens’ rights and honouring our legal obligations. As a Brexiteer who supported leaving on the basis that we should be trading with the rest of the world, I find it a strange idea that our first measure on leaving would be to walk away from our legal obligations. I do not think that other countries around the globe would find that persuasive.

I know that my hon. Friend is a huge champion of business in her constituency; it is important that we respond to the fact that businesses do not want a series of changes; they want one set of changes, and they want transitional arrangements in place to give them certainty as they go through that process. This is the challenge for the House. It is not enough for it simply to say what it is against, or to suggest that under WTO rules these risks could be mitigated.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Is not the reality that the so-called implementation period will essentially keep us in the EU—in the single market and the customs union—so that we do not harm our economy and have more time to sort out what on earth we are going to do, and that the so-called backstop is about aligning Northern Ireland with the EU, so that there does not have to be a hard border and we do not threaten peace in Northern Ireland? The Secretary of State talks about the House having to make up its mind. Why is he not more honest? Why does he not admit that this is essentially about keeping us in until we can make up our minds what on earth we are going to do? If that is the case, what is the point?

[Stephen Barclay]

No, I do not accept that, not least because 80% of the economy is outside the backstop. The political declaration is quite clear that the country will get control of its trade policy. That is one of the inconsistencies in the position of the Leader of the Opposition, who seeks both to be in a customs union and to have an independent trade policy. The shadow Business Secretary is on record as saying that is not a tenable position—[Interruption.] Sorry, the shadow International Trade Secretary.

The point is—this goes to the heart of the hon. Lady’s question—that we need to honour the result of the referendum, which was the biggest democratic vote in our history, in a way that gives us control over immigration through a skills-based system, and over agriculture and fishing, and in a way that allows us to put an end to sending vast sums of money to the EU. These were the key issues on which the British people voted. I recognise that some, in particular the Father of the House, did not vote for a referendum, but the vast majority of the House did, and the vast majority voted to trigger article 50. We need to honour that, but accept that we leave either with a deal or—by default, if the House does not support the deal—with no deal. We cannot run away from that reality.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018: Statutory Obligations on Ministers

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My right hon. Friend asks me a question that is well beyond the scope of this urgent question, so I shall not attempt to answer it at this time.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Why would anyone believe a word that the Government say about when the vote will take place when Ministers have spent weeks promising that the vote would be today, and when the Prime Minister’s only hope of survival is to delay the vote till the last possible minute to try to force MPs to change their minds?

[Mr Walker]

I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady’s narrative. The Prime Minister has been clear that she has listened to the House. She understands the concerns throughout the House and wants to take them back to European counterparts to make sure that we have the best deal before the House. She will then bring that back here and put it before the House for us to decide on.

Leaving the EU: Meaningful Vote

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We obviously want to bring forward the meaningful vote expeditiously, because that will give us proper time for scrutiny of all the legislation, but there must be time for the relevant Select Committees, and indeed every hon. Member of the House, to scrutinise it carefully. We are a little dependent on the time it takes us to negotiate the deal, but I will certainly bear in mind the important point he has made.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The reality is that the Government promised the House a meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement, and now they are trying to backtrack and say that it is take it or leave it, in an attempt to bully MPs into accepting whatever they manage to cobble together. The Secretary of State’s predecessor said:

“Under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons it will be for the Speaker to determine whether a motion…is or is not amendable.”—[Official Report, 21 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 13W.]

Can he confirm that it is also for the Speaker to determine the order of those motions, and the order of any amendments? If he does not think that is the case, will he publish the legal advice that says the contrary?

[Dominic Raab]

It is not for Ministers to determine the ambit, remit or scope of the prerogatives of the Speaker or this House, although we will of course respect them.

EU Exit Negotiations

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We have been clear that we will see no return to a hard border under any circumstances. That has been made clear to not just all parties in Northern Ireland but the Commission in Brussels.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Let me try again, because the Brexit Secretary is trying to shimmy his way out of this. Yesterday, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said:

“There can be no withdrawal agreement without a precise future framework”

on trade. Is that true—yes or no?

[Dominic Raab]

True.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Liz Kendall Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leslie]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I must make some progress, because I have to talk about new clause 4, which relates to the divorce bill—the payment or the settlement. The Prime Minister said that the amount would be somewhere between £35 billion and £39 billion. When the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Fareham, was on “Question Time”, she said that that was absolute nonsense and would never happen, but it turns out that £39 billion equates to over £700 for every adult in the UK. That is how much we are talking about. That is £700 a head for all the men and women in her constituency who voted for her and all those who did not vote. Strangely, that did not feature on the side of the red bus, and the notion of £350 million a week for the NHS has disappeared into thin air. We do not want to catch that particular bus ever again.

I am glad that the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), who chairs the Treasury Committee, has written to the Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office to ask him to examine the reasonableness of the sum. The phase 1 agreement said that a methodology had been agreed between the two sides to calculate the sum, but that has not been made available as far as I can see. I hope that the NAO will have that methodology, and that it will go through the agreement with a fine-toothed comb to find the exact figure that our constituents will end up paying.

Amendment 39 seeks to tease out what is happening on the question of transition, for which there are all sorts of metaphors. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) talked about there being no safe harbour, but the metaphor I like to give is that, if we have a cliff edge, transition is about our having a plank going a few feet out from the cliff edge: it would perhaps give us a bit of extra time, but it would not obviate the precipitousness of the fall that could affect the country—it simply defers when that will happen. The European Union side is absolutely clear that if we are going to have a transition, it will need to be on exactly the same arrangements that we have now, minus having Britain around the table with a say on the rules. That was why I tabled amendment 39. The Government have to get on with securing a transition, and the Chancellor was right to talk about it as a diminishing asset.

The arrangements had better be visible and available for businesses to see by the time we get to Easter and the March European Council meeting, because they need to know what will happen. Otherwise, quite naturally, they are going to have to make contingency plans to protect their business thereafter. I was talking to the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union, which has come up with the sort of transition deal that it believes that many of its firms that work and invest here, employing many of our constituents, want to see. It thinks that a transition needs to have two distinct aspects. First, there needs to be a bridging period during which we can settle all the rules, finish all the negotiations, and establish the treaties and procedure. That will definitely take more than 21 months, and I saw that the chief executive of the EEF was completely scathing yesterday about how little could be achieved in the period currently envisaged. Secondly, there needs to be an adaptation period—a phasing in of the new rules. We need to start getting into exactly what the transition will involve, and that was why I tabled amendment 39.

My final point is about new clause 6, on which I will seek the views of the House if I get the opportunity. It relates to what will happen if unforeseen circumstances arise in the process. What will right hon. and hon. Members do if the Government come back with an unacceptable deal? We need to know what our options are. We have asked the Prime Minister on many occasions about the article 50 process. It is a notification process, and she sent the letter in, but when we ask whether the process can be extended, altered or revoked, she says that that is not the Government’s policy. That, of course, is not the question we are asking. We are asking whether the process can be extended. What is the legal advice? The Government have obviously taken legal advice, and I suspect that it says that the UK, if it so chose and the circumstances arose, could unilaterally revoke article 50. We would of course have to do that before exit day, because if we chose to do so after exit day, we would be looking to apply to rejoin the EU under article 49, which would mean our losing many of the benefits in our current deal. We in the House of Commons need to know the options available to us.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

On that point in particular, does my hon. Friend agree that all the new clauses and amendments are about trying to get greater openness and honesty about the pros, cons and trade-offs of the choices we face as a country? It is vital that that information is available not just to this House, but to the public. It is our job as Members of Parliament to put it before the country, because these huge decisions have big consequences, but we have had to drag the Government every step of the way towards putting such information before the country.

[Mr Leslie]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is important that our constituents know that nothing is inevitable. One parliamentary decision cannot bind a successor Parliament, because Parliament has the capability to do a number of things. Although the article 50 notice signalling the Government’s intention has been sent in, it is not a binding commitment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

I shall speak to new clause 20 in my name and those of other Members, and I also want to express my support for new clauses 6, 12, 11, 1 and the other Opposition amendments and many of the other excellent proposals put forward today. I wish to make it clear, too, that although we debated amendment 5 yesterday, I do not seek to press it to a separate Division today. However, I hope that, given the debates we have had about devolution, Members in the other place look very carefully at the issues in question and whether the Government come forward with amendments to address the concerns about clause 11 and other parts of the Bill.

I am proud to have tabled new clause 20 along with other hon. Members because I am a Labour and Co-operative MP, and part of the co-operative ideal is that democracy, decision making and process are not one-off events, and nor do they only involve one group of people. As a Co-operative MP, I believe in the involvement of Members, of management, of consumers and of others who have a stake in the running of a business, enterprise or organisation, and I believe we should be looking at this Brexit process in a much more co-operative way. Indeed, that would address many of the concerns about the way it is going forward.

We are at present heading forward with a monolithic approach by the Government—a reckless hard Brexit approach that does not take into account the many other ways. The point has been clearly made that the public can change their mind and look at different options. There are many options that we could take in this process, but we are being handed one particular route forward and there is an attempt to shut down the debate on any other options that might be out there.

Thankfully, other organisations have rejected this and have been using the excellent procedure of the citizens jury to try to understand what the public think about the detail—not just the question of leave or remain—and about crucial questions such as whether we should remain in the single market or the customs union. My new clause 20 seeks to institute a citizens jury on the Brexit negotiations. It would involve a selection of citizens from across the country who are informed about the facts that we so often do not have before us. It would be able to deliberate on and discuss them in a free and fair way, and it would incorporate people who voted leave and those who voted remain, as well as people with all the shades of opinion in between.

[Liz Kendall]

I have been a long-standing champion of citizens juries. In fact, I wrote the first book on the citizens juries in 1992. They give people real information, choices and trade-offs, and it has been proven that people can take difficult decisions if they have that open and honest information. I warmly support my hon. Friend’s new clause.

[Stephen Doughty]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was not aware of her historical involvement in this matter. That is absolutely fantastic. I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and many others have been involved in this process as well.

Before I conclude, I want to draw attention to a recent example. The citizens assembly on Brexit was organised recently by a number of universities and civil society organisations, including the constitution unit at University College London, the centre for the study of democracy at the University of Westminster, the University of Southampton, Involve and the Electoral Reform Society. That citizens jury came up with some very interesting results. It concluded that our priorities for trade policy should be minimising harm to the economy, protecting the NHS and public services, maintaining living standards, taking account of the impacts on all parts of the UK, protecting workers’ rights and avoiding a hard border with Ireland.

Those are all sensible suggestions, and that is not surprising because they come from the British people. They do not represent the one monolithic view of the way forward that the Government are presenting. The public are presenting a sensible approach to Brexit, and that is what we need more than ever at this time. We do not need to hear wild claims about what the public think. It is a shame that we sometimes do not get these debates in this House, but I am thankful that Members on both sides have been brave enough to stand up in this debate and put forward their views. We need to listen to the public on this as well.

EU Exit Negotiations

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend makes her case with her characteristic tenacity. She can have this as a guarantee from me: we will not be treating any part of the United Kingdom differently from any other part.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The way to solve the border issue, to protect the Good Friday agreement and to hold our United Kingdom together is to stay in the customs union and single market. Is it not the case that the Government only have themselves to blame for choosing—choosing—to rule this option out when they do not have to, which is putting the future of our country at risk?

[Mr Davis]

I think that the hon. Lady was elected on a manifesto pledge to respect the result of the referendum, and her own shadow Chancellor said that staying in would not respect that result.