Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Steve Baker

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I have good news for the hon. Lady. Both sides have agreed in principle that we should have a free trade agreement covering all sectors with zero tariffs. We believe that with a good-quality customs agreement we can achieve near-frictionless trade, and I believe that, taken together, those arrangements will ensure that our manufacturing industries, including aerospace, will have an ever brighter future.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

The EEF—the voice of UK manufacturing and engineering—as well as ADS Group Limited, the CBI, the Institute of Directors and trade unions welcome Labour’s call for the negotiation of a comprehensive new UK-EU customs union post Brexit. Can the Minister name any significant manufacturing organisation or association that is on record as stating that either of the Government’s two customs propositions, set out in their future partnership paper in August last year, is remotely credible or workable?

[Mr Baker]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that his hon. Friend the Member for Brent North said that remaining in a customs union would be a “disaster”. What we need to do is stand up for the consumer interest, and that means taking control of our tariff policies while ensuring free and frictionless trade.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Steve Baker

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

The Government’s policy has been set out time and again. We will ensure not only that workers’ rights are preserved, but that they are enhanced and keep pace with the new working environment.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

During our consideration of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in Committee, concerns were repeatedly raised that critical environmental rights and protections could be cast aside as we exit the EU. If the Government are serious about raising, not lowering, those rights and protections after Brexit, why have they so far failed to introduce an ambitious new environment Bill, but are instead, as we now know from the leaked papers, commissioning analysis suggesting that Brexit could present an opportunity to deregulate in such areas?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Steve Baker

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Steve Baker)]

As a former fast catamaran sailor in the seas in the area that my hon. Friend refers to, I am happy to say that the Government’s maritime and ports sectoral report sets out a description of the sector, the current EU regulatory regime, existing frameworks for how trade is facilitated between countries in the sector, and sector views. This report has been available to Members of both Houses to read in a secure reading room. The UK will remain a great maritime nation.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

The House will be aware that yesterday the European Parliament had a vote on a resolution to endorse the agreement reached last week. Can the Secretary of State tell us why, unlike Labour Members of the European Parliament, Conservative MEPs were whipped to abstain and not to vote in support of that joint report?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Steve Baker

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

The committee will be busy, and that is why I am so grateful for the fact that several hon. Members—presumably including the hon. Gentleman—seem to be volunteering to do the important duty of serving on it, which no one should take lightly. I say to my hon. Friend that we have been extremely clear that any major change will come through primary legislation, but I cannot say that there will be no policy changes at all, however minor. The reality is that if a function comes back to the UK and we have to make a choice about whether it is allocated to the PRA or the FCA, that could be described as a policy choice.

I want to be clear with the Committee. I cannot say that there will be no policy changes whatever, but I can say that the Bill is about certainty, continuity and control. It is about making sure that the law works the day after we exit in substantially the same way as it worked the day before, from the point of view of those who are subjected to it. I can see that my hon. Friend brings great insight to the matter.

[Matthew Pennycook]

On a related point about the new sifting committee, will the Minister outline the Government’s view—this is partly a matter for Standing Orders—on how the chair of that committee would be appointed and whether Parliament could have a role in the election of the chair, rather than the post being appointed by the Government?

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Gentleman has been generous enough to say that he appreciates that that is a matter for Standing Orders. I am very sensitive to the role and powers of Parliament, which we have discussed throughout proceedings on the Bill. As a Minister, I really do not want to stand at the Dispatch Box and trespass—in this debate, of all places—on Parliament’s right to set its own Standing Orders.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Analysis

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Steve Baker

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if he will make a statement on when the Government intend to provide the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union with impact assessments arising from sectoral analyses carried out by Her Majesty’s Ministers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Steve Baker)]

We have this morning laid a written ministerial statement on this issue, which sets out the timeline and nature of our response to last week’s motion. As the Government have made clear, it is not the case that there are 58 sectoral impact assessments. During the Opposition day debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), told the House:

“there has been some misunderstanding about what this sectoral analysis actually is. It is not a series of 58 economic impact assessments.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2017; Vol. 630, c. 887.]

The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU made the same point during his appearance before the Lords EU Committee on 31 October, and to the House at oral questions to the Department for Exiting the European Union on 2 November.

Let me clarify exactly what the sectoral analysis is. It is a wide mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis, contained in a range of documents developed at different times since the referendum. It means looking at 58 sectors to help to inform our negotiating positions. The analysis examines the nature of activity in the sectors and how trade is conducted with the EU currently, and in many cases considers the alternatives after we leave the EU, as well as looking at existing precedents.

Our analysis is constantly evolving and being updated, but it is not, and nor has it ever been, a series of impact assessments examining the quantitative impact of Brexit on these sectors. Given this, it will take the Government some time to collate and bring together this information in a way that is accessible and informative to the Committee. We will provide this information to the Committee as soon as possible. We have made plain to the House authorities that we currently expect this to be in no more than three weeks.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Here we are again, Mr Speaker. As you will know, Members from both sides of the House have repeatedly requested that the 58 sectoral analyses undertaken by the Government be released. On each occasion prior to last Wednesday’s debate on our motion, Ministers argued that publication of these analyses would compromise the UK’s negotiating position. On no occasion did Ministers argue or imply that the information did not exist as discrete documents, yet yesterday, in his letter to the Chair of the Brexit Committee, that was precisely what the Secretary of State argued. Can the Minister tell the House why, if the information that Members have repeatedly called for does not exist as a series of discrete impact assessments, a clear impression has been allowed to develop over many months that it does?

In a response dated 29 September 2017 to a freedom of information request submitted by my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) requesting details about the analyses and their publication, the Department’s FOI Team stated:

“the Department for Exiting the European Union…holds the information you have requested”.

Yet in the Secretary of State’s letter to the Chair of the Select Committee, he implies that it will take time to collate and bring together the information because some of it is held by other Government Departments. Can the Minister confirm that the information given by his Department’s FOI Team on 29 September is correct and that the Department holds the information? If not, why was the Department’s FOI team permitted to state that the information is held? If the Department holds some of the information but not all of it, what is preventing the information that is available from being released to the Brexit Committee immediately?

This farce has dragged on for far too long. Ministers cannot use semantics and doublespeak to avoid the clear instruction that this House has given. There can be no further delay; Ministers just need to get on with it.

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Gentleman says that an impression has been allowed to develop. It was never our purpose to allow such an impression to develop. As I have explained, the Government carry out a wide range of analysis across these sectors in order to inform our negotiating position. Our purpose is to develop our negotiating capital. Our purpose is not to create the kinds of stories that the hon. Gentleman seems to be pursing. The Government hold a wide range of information across a wide range of documents. The information is provided by Departments and collated by my Department, but what it does not comprise, and has never comprised, is quantitative forecasts of impact on those sectors. I think that the public will look at Labour Members today, look at what they are asking for, look at the kind of narrative they are trying to create, and ask, “Whose side are they on?”