Prorogation of Parliament

Debate between Martin Whitfield and Alex Sobel

Monday 9th September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is a really important debate, not least because 1.7 million people signed the petition. We have had demonstrations up and down the country, including in Leeds both this and last Saturday. The previous Saturday saw the largest demonstration in Leeds since the protests against the Iraq war, with 5,000 people turning out to hear some of the city’s and the region’s MPs, who are all from the Labour party.

Those demonstrations happened because people think that we need to be in Parliament to scrutinise the Executive at this crucial time, rather than spending five weeks in our constituencies and at party conference. Nor, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) said, should the Prime Minister be electioneering using public money in that time, before general election spending rules apply.

It is vital that we are here because the country is in no way prepared for crashing out of the EU on 31 October as the Prime Minister seems intent on doing. Today, I read in The Times that our EU negotiating team is composed of just four people. How will four people negotiate a new withdrawal agreement with the European Union in the time that we have left before the European Council? That does not seem credible and does not stand up to scrutiny. That is why Parliament is being prorogued: so that scrutiny does not exist.

What else do we need in that period? A number of Bills that have started to go through the House have not completed the process, and they need to before we reach any watershed moment with the European Union. If they have not been completed, it will be absolutely chaotic—we will live in a chaotic country in which international law has not been properly legislated for; not enacted by our legislature.

The Trade Bill, for example, has not been finished. Why not, because it should have? We were on track to pass the Trade Bill in May—I do not mind if the Minister corrects me on that, but I think we should have completed the Bill then. We have not done so because of the attempts—which I would have supported—to insert a customs union into the provisions of the Trade Bill, and the Government, under both this Prime Minister and the previous one, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), did not want a customs union. Progress on the Bill was therefore slowed down, so we will not complete it in time for 31 October.

An immigration Bill would have provided some surety for EU citizens in this country—though perhaps not, depending on what happened with it—and regulated immigration post Brexit. What now happens to those EU citizens if the Prime Minister does not negotiate a withdrawal agreement and we leave with no deal on 31 October? I hope that the Minister has a good answer, because 3 million people in this country are interested to know what their status will be without the completion of such an immigration Bill. They do not believe the promises that have come from Ministers and the Executive.

What about the Fisheries Bill? Central to the leave campaign in 2016 was that the UK would take back control of fisheries and fishing rights, but how will that be possible without a Fisheries Bill? Without that legislation, will not other countries with which we share our territorial waters contest us in international courts? What a laughing stock we will be if we leave on 31 October without the legislation. The Agriculture Bill, too, is meant to frame what we will have post the common agricultural policy.

I am sure the Minister will say, “Oh, but these Bills will be in the Queen’s Speech”—obviously, he cannot give us a decisive answer on what will and will not be in the Queen’s Speech, but he will try to reassure us. However, I want to know how we will legislate for all those Bills by 31 October.

[Martin Whitfield]

Is my hon. Friend aware—I am certainly not—whether any carry-over motions have been tabled to save those Bills? That would avoid the necessity of them having to appear in the Queen’s Speech and mean that we could get back to them in the ridiculously short time that we will have left.

[Alex Sobel]

We only have a few hours before the House is prorogued. I am sure that colleagues of the Minister are busily preparing to ensure that we do not have to bring those Bills back in the Queen’s Speech, but one Bill we will without doubt need to be in it is an environment Bill. We were expecting an environment Bill to be introduced; we were expecting to be through First and Second Reading and in Committee—I wanted to be on the Committee, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), who is sitting next to me—but we have no environment Bill. I would like to know what regulations will exist, and how we will enforce them from 1 November, if the Prime Minister completes the task that he has set for himself.

In Leeds, we are due to have a clean-air zone, because our air quality is among the worst in this country. Three times the Government have been taken to court by ClientEarth and lost, on the basis of EU regulations forming part of UK law to enshrine, embed and widen air quality through a number of local authorities in the UK. The Government have failed to deliver to Leeds what it needs—a charging system, and equipment for such vehicles—so we in Leeds will be in breach of EU regulations on air quality for longer than we expected.

Who will provide the environmental protection that we need? I asked that question of the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, but until a few hours ago the Minister of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She said that in a no-deal Brexit scenario, the new agency would not be formed until the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021, and that people would have to take environmental action retrospectively. That means that we will have no environmental protection in this country from 31 October until that date. I have an issue with effluent discharge into the River Wharfe, and I hope for some enforcement action on it. Will I be disappointed? Will people have to swim in effluent for two more years because there is no regulation? I would like to know.

The issues are not small and minor; they are huge, and Parliament should be here, sitting to debate those Bills, scrutinising them in Committee, and getting them through so that on 31 October we are not in a situation in which the people of this country have a far worse quality of life.

Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups

Debate between Martin Whitfield and Alex Sobel

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel]

For the record, I did say shiploads—boatloads of materials. Zero Waste Vietnam is a very proper organisation; it would not resort to any foul language. In that case, a local organisation presented us with evidence that the plastic that we are exporting may not actually be recycled. That is the point of these export recovery notes.

[Martin Whitfield]

One of the great challenges of recycling is that the bottles and containers are often dirty when they go into system, and thus pollute whole loads. One of the great behavioural changes that we need to adopt is the ability to clean these containers ourselves before we submit them to be recycled.

[Alex Sobel]

We certainly do not want to see boatloads of dirty waste, so I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We also need a complete audit of our PERN system and should look at reform. If we are to export plastic, which I do not actually agree with, we need to know that it will be recycled when it arrives at its destination.

Although the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) is not in his place, I want to thank him. I have a copy of his letter, which I read carefully this morning. The recommendations of the Administration Committee are not only recommendations for this House; they are recommendations that the Government should consider and which present a holistic approach to tackling the use of plastic. The letter mentions ending sales of plastic water bottles. It also includes the latte levy, which we will not have outside this place, but we will have here. The Committee proposes that we incentivise the use of reusable cups through loyalty rewards and that we get rid of condiment sachets. I was amazed to read how much sauce we eat in this place. We consume 334,800 sachets of sauce a year; we are a saucy lot in this House. I thank the Administration Committee and hope that the Government take on some of its saucy suggestions.

Banking Misconduct and the FCA

Debate between Martin Whitfield and Alex Sobel

Thursday 10th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Whitfield]

Absolutely. The cost of bringing a case to get rectification is so important.

The FCA has repeatedly said that it does not have the powers to deal with commercial lending and that it is up to Parliament to decide if it wants those powers to be extended. However, in various statements, the Treasury has repeatedly stated that this is a matter for the FCA and that if the FCA feels it needs more powers, it should ask for them. All that is happening is that this hot potato is being kicked between two different areas, and we are not getting answers that, in reality, are satisfactory to anyone. I would appreciate clarification from the FCA on the parameters of what it needs in order for it to ask for more powers. At the moment, we are seeing the widespread and systematic destruction of British businesses, which in my mind certainly seems to qualify as a reason to request additional powers.

The lack of mechanisms for redress and of action in general has severely undermined public confidence in the integrity of our system, and it is time that we tackled this head-on. We are therefore calling today for a full public inquiry into the ecosystem of commercial lending, and particularly into the treatment of businesses in financial distress. This cross-departmental issue covers both the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury, so it is too wide-reaching to come under the remit of just one Select Committee in Parliament.

I will briefly turn to the role of professional advisers and the wider issue of commercial funding. I welcome the focus that section 166 has placed on the inherent conflict of interest that exists between financial institutions, surveyors, lawyers and insolvency practitioners. For too long, we have focused solely on financial institutions, but not on the professionals that support them, often in the form of secondments from within the walls of the very financial institutions themselves. Frankly, it beggars belief that this is an accepted industry practice. The mechanisms involved in taking control of businesses and their assets are operated via LPA receivers and insolvency practitioners.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that these professional practitioners are quite often working hand in glove with the banks? Does he also agree that the fees, particularly in insolvency practice, are very high, which, on top of the issue with the banks, can push businesses under?

[Martin Whitfield]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I would draw attention to the very basic case of those owning a business that has constantly paid back its loans on time and maintained contact with the bank, who may suddenly, through a simple slip of a pen in the valuation or revaluation of the business by part of the bank’s organisation, find themselves in breach of their loans—and they lose their business. That is not a question for the shareholders or for the directors; with a movement of a pen, their business becomes the bank’s.

RBS has been at pains to point out that the Promontory report did not find any evidence of deliberate under- valuations, but in any event the report could not in many cases find any evidence about how valuations were conducted, and there is a suggestion that they were simply made up. These valuations could then be used to appoint an insolvency practitioner, subject to huge costs, and a cosy relationship between a surveyor, an insolvency practitioner and a bank suddenly means that another family business has been lost.