European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

No, my hon. Friend has had one intervention via a point of order, and I think that is it for him.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I doubt it.

[Frank Field]

So do I.

I think new clause 49 should be the start of a new negotiating position. Mr Barnier has told us that we have to put our money on the table and get serious within two weeks, and I think we should jump at this opportunity. In two weeks’ time, the Government should lay the outline of our agreement. I believe they should say over which decades they are prepared to meet our commitments, and at the end of the two weeks, we should say that at that point we will cease to pay any contributions to the European Union. I want the balance of power to move swiftly from their boot to our boot. From that date, two weeks hence, at the invitation of Mr Barnier, we should say, “Fine. Here’s the outline of the agreement. Here’s the beginning of the money settlement”—paid over a period of time, because there are pensions contributions and so on—“but from this day, until you start seriously negotiating with us”, which they have not, “there will in fact be no more money.”

It is wrong to think that all the £17 billion a year will be coming back to us. The £5 billion that Mrs Thatcher negotiated from the unfair formula is already coming back to us. That was watered down—by whom I will not say, but there is only so much one can say from the Labour Benches—but, nevertheless, £5 billion is coming back. There is also £4 billion coming back to promote anti-poverty programmes in this country. I wish to tell the Committee that I applied for money from those funds to feed people who are hungry and may be starving, but what did Mr Barnier and his group do? Nothing. We supposedly have huge sums of money coming back—spent at their direction—but that does not actually feed people who are hungry.

I want to end by saying that I shall push the new clause to a Division for a number of reasons. One is that it always seems to me better to gain an advantage when one can, rather than later: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The Government are introducing their own timetable, as set by the European bureaucrats— whoever they are—instructing us when we might take leave of them, but I think we should decide today to leave on our terms and at a time of our choosing.

As I have said, the new clause should not be read in isolation, because it and the other three new clauses provide us with an alternative way of exiting without all the claptrap the Government have put in the Bill. I believe that, before the end of the negotiations, something like such a four-clause Bill will be adopted.

On the first and civilised intervention—the point of order—about timing, it is perhaps a fallacy to think of terms for oneself applying to terms for the nation, but I have never bought a house without having in the contract the date when it will be mine and on which I can actually move in. When I was elected to the House of Commons I knew that I would have a contract of up to five years, and I have never had a job without being given a starting date.