Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Change UK)]

Is it not now clear that there needs to be maximum solidarity internationally—from European Union countries, the United States and Latin American countries—with Juan Guaidó and the people of Venezuela, as the final days of the Maduro regime approach?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who has been consistent in his condemnation of the regime. We are working through the Lima group; it is absolutely right that we should give support to the region as well as Venezuela in particular. I call on all Members to support and call for swift presidential elections so that we can let the country move on.

Proportional Representation: House of Commons

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am one of the few parliamentarians to have been elected under both the first-past-the-post system, as a Member of this Parliament, and a proportional representation system—I was elected twice to the European Parliament.

Some people say proportional representation will lead to a more consensual approach to decision making. I have seen that consensus sometimes does occur more in the European Parliament than people occasionally perceive to be the case here, but in my experience from the past couple of years, there are many areas of Westminster in which decision making happens along consensus lines; I think especially of the work we do in Select Committees and on all-party parliamentary groups. On the other hand, I have seen fundamental flaws in the proportional representation system, and we should be very careful when thinking about adopting changes to our system.

Let me take Members back 10 years to 2009, when European elections were held at the height of the expenses scandal. The turnout was very low, which meant people could get elected with only a very small number of voters turning up to support them. Two members of the British National party were elected, with fewer than 3% of the voters supporting them. At the time, that party would not allow someone to join as a member unless their face was white. Those people were given seats in the European Parliament. They were given credibility and respectability.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Change UK)]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that part of the problem with that election was the closed-list d’Hondt system, which discriminates? In certain regions it allows extremist parties to get through, but in other regions it requires parties to reach a much higher figure. Would it not be better to move to a national form of proportional representation for European elections, such as the one that the French use?

[Vicky Ford]

We could use the German system—a national system with a national list, which means that a candidate needs 0.7% of the vote to get a seat. My point is that, especially as turnout is low, a very small number of votes can give people with quite extreme views credibility, funding and access to support, so we should be very wary.

In my experience, proportional representation also really changes a Member’s relationship with their voters. Because there are multiple Members for each seat, there have to be wider constituencies, meaning that Members do not have the same close relationship with their voters. [Interruption.] I will not give way, I am afraid, because lots of people want to speak. Under proportional representation, Members do not have the same intimate relationship with their voters, in which the voters know, “That is my MP; I can hold that person responsible,” and the Member knows they are responsible to those people. Proportional representation breaks the link between the voter and the elected representative. I would be very wary of doing that to our democracy.

Democracy, as Winston Churchill said, is the worst form of government, apart from all the rest. Trust in our politics is very low, but I do not believe that changing our electoral system is a miracle cure or a silver bullet that will solve that problem.

European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Two years ago, after the triggering of article 50, the Prime Minister went on a walking holiday during the Easter recess. Does she have any plans to go on a walking holiday in April? If so, will it begin at the end of next week, when the recess is supposed to happen, or after 12 April?

[The Prime Minister]

I always look forward to the prospect of a walking holiday, but, obviously, with matters as they stand at the moment, my focus is on trying to ensure that we deliver on Brexit and do that with a deal and by getting the legislation through.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Two years ago when we debated article 50 and I voted against invoking it, I said that we would get on an escalator with no brake and no way of getting off. I now understand why the Prime Minister invoked it at that time. It was because she wanted to stop a European Parliament election. The timetable of agreeing an article 50 process 18 months before the Government had even got an agreed position, which lasted about three days before the resignations, was driven by fear inside the Conservative party. They did not want UKIP to come back in a European election, so they triggered article 50 at that point.

The reality is that the Government are now trying to get us out as quickly as possible, and amendments that refer to the end of June are also trying to get us out quickly because people fear a European election. The reality is that if we do not have a European election, we will have no voice, no say and no vote within the councils of Europe when we may still be in a transition. That will give us a great period of weakness in any future framework negotiations.

In the 1970s this country was the sick man of Europe. We are now the joke of Europe.

[Mr Speaker]

Kneeling while speaking is a new phenomenon in the House of Commons.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will just make a little more progress before I take any more interventions. I have been quite generous already.

I want to say a word about Gibraltar. The documents confirm the understanding reached between the UK and the EU on the interpretation of article 184 of the withdrawal agreement as regards the territorial scope of the future relationship. We will always stand behind British sovereignty for Gibraltar, and the UK Government negotiate for the whole UK family, including Gibraltar.

The second element we have negotiated is a UK-EU joint statement in relation to the political declaration.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

I will give way in a few moments. I will just make a little more progress.

The second element, the statement in relation to the political declaration, sets out a number of commitments to enhance and speed up the process of negotiating and bringing into force the future relationship. There is a new commitment that the negotiating track on alternative arrangements will consider not only existing facilitations and technologies, but also those emerging.

[The Prime Minister]

We are happy at any stage to sit down with the Irish Government and talk to them about the arrangements that could be in place in relation to the Northern Ireland border with Ireland.

[Mike Gapes]

On Gibraltar, can the Prime Minister confirm that well over 90% of the people of Gibraltar voted to remain in the European Union, and that if her deal goes down tonight it will be essential that Gibraltar continues to have as close a relationship as possible with the European Union single market?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the vote. Significantly, the last time the people of Gibraltar were asked whether they wanted to continue their relationship with the United Kingdom they were very clear, overwhelmingly, that that was what they wanted. That is why we are clear that we negotiate on behalf of our whole UK family. The deal on the table tonight, the deal that Members will be voting for, delivers the close relationship for the future that the hon. Gentleman has been talking about. It delivers on the result of the referendum, but it also recognises the importance of a close relationship for us for the future with the European Union.

Exiting the European Union

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that confirmation. I have also been advised by the senior Clerk at the Table—aided, abetted and reinforced by another distinguished ornament of Chamber and Committee Services sitting immediately to his left—that the documents are on the website of the Department for Exiting the European Union. That is characteristically up to speed and helpful of the Clerks, and I thank them for that service, as I am sure the House does.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, yes. The hon. Gentleman is not hailing a taxi, but nevertheless I am happy to hear his point of order.

[Mike Gapes]

While the Minister was speaking, the journalist Paul Waugh had on his website some of the documents. I went to ask in the Vote Office whether the documents were available. I was told no. They had been received electronically, but they had to be printed by the Journal Office. I seek your clarification, Mr Speaker, as to when in this House copies of those documents were available, given that journalists clearly had been given them and that they were in printed form and put out by Mr Paul Waugh on Twitter.

[Mr Speaker]

My understanding—there was some earlier huddled consultation about this matter between me and the Clerks at the Table—is that the documents were laid at 10.58 pm. I say that for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman and the House. I would not want, particularly when engaging with someone of his seniority and distinction, to be imprecise, and I certainly would not want to say 10.57 pm or 10.59 pm, subsequently to be corrected by the hon. Gentleman, who is a stickler for precision at all times. I gather they were laid at 10.58 pm and then distributed more widely thereafter. I hope that that is helpful in a factual sense. It may not be as satisfactory as he would like—that is qualitatively a different point—but it is the factual answer.

Leaving the European Union

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman has layered assumption on assumption and on assumption in his question. The first stage is for us to ensure that we can bring back a deal from the European Union with the changes that this House has required such that this House will support it and we can leave on 29 March with a deal.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

In her remarks at the very beginning, the Prime Minister said:

“The very credibility of our democracy is at stake.”

I agree with her, because this House voted against leaving the EU with no deal and yet this Conservative Government have not abided, in their approach, with the decision of this parliamentary democracy. So democracy is being treated with contempt by an overbearing Government. Is it not the fact that there is a conspiracy between an incompetent Conservative Government and an incompetent Labour leadership to facilitate Brexit, against the needs, interests and wishes of the majority of people in this country?

Leaving the EU

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is precisely what we are talking to the European Union about: how we can resolve the issue of the backstop in a way that will command the support of this Parliament. We have agreed that we will enter those talks, and that is exactly what we will be discussing.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The European Union and all the people speaking for it in the different institutions have made it absolutely clear that the withdrawal agreement negotiated by this Prime Minister, agreed by this Prime Minister and signed off by this Prime Minister is not going to be amended. But this House has rejected the withdrawal agreement. Is not the only way out of this now—and this gives the Prime Minister what she wants—for this House to adopt the negotiated withdrawal agreement with a sunset clause? Then it can be put to the people in a referendum: whether they accept it or whether they wish to remain in the EU with the better deal that we have now.

[The Prime Minister]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers I gave earlier in relation to the issue of a second referendum.

Leaving the EU

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. and learned Lady says that it is my claim that these assurances have legal force. Obviously it is the European Union that has been clear that they have legal force and, as she has said, the Attorney General himself has said that they would have

“legal force in international law and thus be relevant and cognisable in the interpretation of the Withdrawal Agreement.”

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister referred to the “subversion of our democracy”. In our parliamentary democracy, no Parliament can bind its successor. It was not this Parliament that agreed to hold a referendum or to prematurely trigger article 50, but the previous Parliament. If she is talking about subversion of democracy, was her calling of the general election that she lost in 2017 a subversion of democracy?

[The Prime Minister]

May I gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that, actually, the Conservative party is in government in this country and we will deliver on the referendum of 2016?

European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that there are many people who voted if not for the first time ever, certainly for the first time for a considerable number of years, in that referendum. They did so in the belief that the politicians were going to listen to them. I think that their belief and faith in politics and politicians, and in our democracy, would be shattered if they were asked to think again. We should deliver on the vote that took place.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I listened very carefully to the words that the Prime Minister used. When asked about indicative votes in the House, she said, “We have no plans.” When asked whether she would revoke article 50, she said, “This Government will not do that.” If the House voted to instruct the Government to revoke article 50, would she resign and make way for another Government who would carry out the wishes of the House?