EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between Luciana Berger and David Davis

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The presumption of the discussion was that everything we talked about applied to the whole United Kingdom. I reiterate that alignment is not harmonisation. It is not having exactly the same rules; it is sometimes having mutually recognised rules, mutually recognised inspection and all that sort of thing. That is what we are aiming at.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

In his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), the Brexit Secretary intimated that staying in the customs union and single market would betray the referendum result. No one told my constituents or the country before the referendum that Brexit would entail leaving the customs union and the single market. In the light of yesterday’s shambles, will the Brexit Secretary look again at the Government’s decision and move towards staying in the customs union and the single market?

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Lady will forgive a factual correction, people certainly did. The Prime Minister at the time did so, as did the Chancellor at the time and, I think, the leaders of the leave and remain campaigns. I suggest that the hon. Lady looks at the records of “The Andrew Marr Show”, on which they all said that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Luciana Berger and David Davis

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. This week, the Health Secretary told us that Brexit would mean Britain leaving the European Medicines Agency. This move is likely to send Britain to the back of the queue for innovative new drugs, make regulation more complex and threaten jobs in the UK’s thriving pharmaceutical sector. Will the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union tell us why his Government have so readily given up our membership of this vital body? Will he explain the measures he will introduce to ensure that people across Britain will enjoy the same access to medicines as our European neighbours?

[Mr David Davis]

That is all very well, but the complete premise of the question is wrong. That is not what the Health Secretary said; he was misreported and misinterpreted. What I will say to the hon. Lady is this: what we will be doing is, first, putting the clinical safety of the British people at the front of the priority list, and then looking after the interests of British industry, particularly biosystems and life sciences, in which we are a world leader now and will continue to be after we leave.

Article 50

Debate between Luciana Berger and David Davis

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the tone of his very good question. The issue here is not information. I have said over and over again that I will provide as much information as is consistent with the House’s previous motions on this, while not undermining our negotiating position, and that is what we will do. We will provide as much information as possible, but people should bear in mind that the article 50 Bill is going to be presented quite quickly to the House, so we do not have a great deal of time either.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a victory for transparency and openness, but a half-hour speech by the Prime Minister outside this House, with a couple of questions for the media, is no substitute for parliamentary scrutiny. Will the Secretary of State please take on board the views of Members in all parts of this House and bring forward a White Paper, which will unite this House in order to forge a way forward?

[Mr Davis]

I have been at this Dispatch Box, on statements alone, five times in the past five months, and I am at great risk of boring the House. I will just repeat to the hon. Lady what I have said already: we will deliver the maximum possible information and the maximum possible debate.

Article 50

Debate between Luciana Berger and David Davis

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes his point.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituent Christopher voted to leave the European Union, but he told me:

“I did not vote to suspend the rule of law, nor to forgo the protection of Parliament as a bulwark against tyranny.”

Does the Secretary of State accept that people on both sides of the Brexit debate are appalled by the Government’s approach so far? Will he just get on and accept the judgment that was made last week?

Health Service Commissioner for England (Complaint Handling) Bill

Debate between Luciana Berger and David Davis

Friday 27th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I am not sure that the legal liability relates simply to the person bringing the complaint. It could relate to other people too, such as those contracting services. It also relates very much to reputation. Someone may, in effect, be asked to make a confession according to a timetable, which is not a good idea in a statute.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) in his critique of amendment 5. On amendment 4, I would leave that to practice guidelines, rather than putting it into law. It is dangerous, as I said earlier, to create lots of onerous responsibilities in law. The aim of the Bill is to exert pressure and give a degree of public guarantee, not to try to tell the ombudsman how to cross every t and dot every i.

The one amendment with which I felt some sympathy but am still uncertain about is amendment 3. I presumed from the Bill that the ombudsman’s department would respond close to the 12-month point when it knew that it might go past it. Earlier, it is likely to have to adjust the timetable; later is not tolerable. I am uncertain whether it may lead to perverse or unintended consequences if we do exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has proposed. I will have to think about that. The Bill has to go through a Lords stage. I ask my hon. Friend not to press the amendment today, but I give him an undertaking that I will look at the matter closely and see if I can come up with a form of words that I can suggest as a change in the Lords; I will let him know if I am not able to do that.

[Luciana Berger]

I shall not speak for long, but I think it right to respond to the contributions, and to speak on the options proposed by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). As we know, new clause 3 proposes to make it a statutory duty for complaints to be resolved within 12 months. We do not think that that is necessary. It is clear that the Bill sets out sufficient steps to achieve that. I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that, as we know, the overwhelming majority of cases are dealt with within that time, but there are obviously reasons why it may sometimes take longer. As hon. Members suggested, there may be complex cases, other agencies may be involved, or there may be a historical or long-running case that requires the extraction of data from decades past, which it may take a long time to collate. It is often not the ombudsman’s fault that these things take time. We therefore do not think it appropriate to make meeting the 12-month deadline a statutory duty.

On the amendments, it is proposed that when the ombudsman contacts complainants, she gives them an estimate of how long the investigation might take. We discussed the point earlier in relation to new clause 2. We Members of Parliament can get updates from the ombudsman on the progress of cases and share those with our constituents if they want further updates. To be fair, if we think about all the processes in which we support our constituents, this is one in which updates are provided, and complainants are provided with information about how their complaints are progressing and when an outcome might be provided.

Amendment 1 would require the commissioner to keep the complainant informed of progress. There is nothing wrong with this in principle. We should encourage the ombudsman to do this anyway. As I mentioned, as Members of Parliament supporting those complaints, we can receive updates. On the point about financial resource, I have looked closely at the amendment and listened to the debate this morning, and think that where delays occur in the progress of complaints, more often than not that is down to the complexity of the cases, rather than a lack of financial resources, so amendment 5 is not necessary. We do not believe that new clause 3 or the five amendments are necessary.