Achieving Economic Growth

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Today, I wish to focus on three key issues. The first is the cost of living crisis, which is the No. 1 issue facing the country. My constituents in Coventry North West have suffered months of sky-rocketing fuel bills, soaring inflation and hikes at the petrol pump. Sadly, this has been met by a carefree response from this Conservative Government whose policies are pushing many below the poverty line.

The crisis has been hitting my constituents hard since last summer, yet the Government are still not adequately supporting them. When I surveyed hundreds of my constituents recently, a massive 88% said that they did not expect their income to keep up with rising energy bills. Despite that, none of the 38 Bills outlined in the Queen’s Speech offered any specific or effective measures to tackle the cost of living crisis. That is why the Government must accept Labour’s plan to introduce a windfall tax on gas and oil companies that have reported record profits, and that would go a long way to providing a cut to energy bills of up to £600 per household. The Government must finally wake up to the urgency of the crisis on the ground.

Secondly, I wish to speak about planning rules and new housing developments, and the impact that they are having on certain communities. Across the communities of Holbrook, Allesley, Keresley, and Eastern Green in my constituency of Coventry North West, many of my constituents have real and heartfelt anxieties about the impact of large-scale new development and its devastating impact on greenbelt land.

For years now, I have heard constituents warning that the current planning rules are not fit for purpose. They say that they currently serve developers’ greed and do nothing to address the needs of local people and those who are most impacted. In Coventry, this means that the wrong type of houses are being built. They are built in the wrong part of the city and, eventually, are sold at an unaffordable price. From start to finish, the system is a mess and it is broken. Tens of thousands of new homes have been imposed on my city of Coventry in recent years, against the wishes of residents and their elected councillors.

Equally, the rules concerning new developments do nothing to guarantee that new homes will come with the necessary added infrastructure. That means that large-scale housing developments are being built without the necessary infrastructure, such as decent public transport, good-quality broadband connectivity, improved roads, green spaces, and extra local services, such as schools and GP surgeries.

What we have heard so far from the Queen’s Speech goes nowhere near reaching the key issues affecting my constituents. What we have are mere gestures towards a more democratic planning system, which will not fix the problems in Coventry or elsewhere across the country.

My final issue concerns healthcare and the future of our beloved NHS. Our NHS is struggling to keep up with increased and more complex demands, and it is finding it increasingly difficult to clear the backlog created by the pandemic. Let us look at our ambulance service as an example. In the west midlands, ambulance services are receiving more 999 calls than at any time in history, and yet, simultaneously, our region is facing crippling ambulance shortages. In my own city of Coventry, just days ago, a woman suffering from a heart attack had to wait two-and-a-half hours for the ambulance to show up. That is heartbreaking and it cannot go on. However, this is only part of the problem. Health services in the community are at breaking point following the failure of successive Conservative Governments to recruit more GPs and to roll out additional GP surgeries. Every morning, dozens of my constituents have to wait on the phone line, often for up to an hour, just to try to book an appointment with their GP. Too often, when they finally get through to somebody at their surgery, they find that all the appointments are booked up or that the next available appointment is not for weeks.

Frustratingly, although the Government have already admitted that they will fail to fulfil their pledge to recruit 6,000 extra GPs by 2024, and although those shortages are making life exceedingly difficult for many of my constituents, there was nothing announced in the Queen’s Speech to tackle this health crisis. Labour, however, has a very clear plan. We would make reducing waiting times and boosting staffing numbers in our NHS a top priority in government. Until this Government understand its importance, the problem will not go away.

One subject that was outlined in Queen’s Speech was women’s health, but, like so many other critical issues, it got empty words and no concrete promises. Many women continue to face appalling healthcare inequalities. For example, more than half a million women face horrendously long waiting times for gynaecology care.

The Government have repeatedly promised to prioritise addressing women’s health issues with a long-awaited women’s health strategy. However, they have failed again and again to deliver that strategy. It was meant to be delivered by Christmas last year, but that never happened, and we are still waiting for it five months later. If the Government genuinely want to do right by women’s health, they must urgently publish a comprehensive and intersectional women’s health strategy. Until then, they will continue to fail in their duty to provide world-class healthcare to every woman in this country.

This Tory Government have been in power for over 12 years now, and they appear to have entirely run out of energy and ideas. Whether on the cost of living crisis, housing or healthcare, the Government are first to deliver a soundbite, but last to deliver the lasting changes that the people of this country need. This Queen’s Speech should have been the opportunity to address some of the many complex challenges that we face. Instead, it was yet another demonstration of the Government’s disinterest in delivering for my constituents in Coventry North West. They, and the people of this country, deserve so much better.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The wind-ups will start no later than 6.30 pm, so six minutes, please. I am not imposing the time limit, but you will be really unfair to whoever is coming last if you do more.

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[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

Like the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), this is my first Queen’s Speech debate. For a Queen’s Speech delivered during a cost of living crisis, this year’s address was regrettably notable for its lack of urgency or solutions. As we have all been hearing, inflation is now at 9%—the highest in over 40 years—and people are struggling to imagine how they can make ends meet, let alone make it. The notion that people can solve the crisis by taking cookery classes or working longer hours is as tone deaf as it is offensive.

The Government talk a lot about levelling up, but in my constituency we see vital local services disappearing before our eyes. I could talk about the loss of multiple bank branches locally, or about protracted postal delays due to Ofcom’s failure to hold Royal Mail to its universal service requirements, but as I only have a short amount of time, I will focus my remarks on questions that cannot afford to be ignored.

With their commitment to making streets safer, I had hoped that the Government would pay some attention to local policing. They talk a good game about their commitment to recruit extra police officers, yet in our local force—Thames Valley police—we were promised an additional 609 officers by the end of May 2023; instead, they were down 29 officers in 2021. This is why I was particularly disappointed to hear that, rather than focusing on provision to improve local policing, the Home Office plans to spend this parliamentary Session attempting to force through draconian legislation that was so recently rejected during consideration of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

On future development, my constituents made no secret of their distaste for the Government’s previous planning White Paper. As such, I am glad that the Government appear to have heard the voices of the people of Chesham and Amersham and dropped those proposals. Having been made to think again, the Government are now looking to give communities more say over developments in their area. I only hope that the results live up to the billing.

I am pleased to see that there will be more emphasis on environmental considerations within that legislation. Without a doubt, the planning system plays a big part in protecting our natural environment. However, I am disappointed at the lack of stand-alone environmental legislation. In the UK, some areas of outstanding natural beauty are in decline, yet we are continuing to destroy unique and precious habitats, ancient woodlands and globally scarce chalk streams in my constituency alone. If we are to halt this decline and protect our environment for future generations, we need specific protections to do so. I have previously suggested a special designation and enhanced protection for chalk streams, and I again urge the Government to consider that.

Finally, on transport, the Government have committed to improve reliability for passengers, but I am sure fellow Buckinghamshire Members will share my disappointment that our local council received no funding for bus service improvement plans. I ask the Government what their plan is to improve transport connectivity in regions such as ours which were overlooked. The neglect of Chesham and Amersham’s transport services is particularly ironic given that our community is obliged to watch as ever-increasing amounts of money are poured into the HS2 project, which brings nothing to our area but pollution, congestion and destruction. The Government’s blinkered approach means they are simply ploughing on ahead, despite spiralling costs and an environmental impact far greater than estimated. I urge the Government, before the High Speed Rail (Crewe—Manchester) Bill is brought before this place, to please pause, assess the damage already done and undertake a fresh cost-benefit analysis of the project that takes into consideration the many changes that have occurred since hon. Members regrettably consented to it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That was well within six minutes—well done.

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[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

There is something liberating about coming in at nearly the end of the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. Knowing that you do not have much time to get your points across, you tend to get right to it, so I will.

I want to talk about not only economic growth, which we all understand the importance of, but the sustainability of that growth and the type of economy that it seeks to create, which is similar to what the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) was talking about earlier in the debate.

The cost of living is the order of the day, as it should be, but for all the talk of economic shocks and external factors that we cannot avoid, many of the largest price rises have come in areas where the Government on these islands have decided they no longer have a role to play, abdicating their national responsibility. I think in particular of energy storage and transportation—I say that as my attention has been to the news that Russia has decided to stop energy exports to Finland the day after it announced its intention to join NATO. That decision was met with a shrug by the Finns, who had been planning for such an eventuality and have avoided the Russian energy trap that so many other European states have sleepwalked into. Resilience is built into Finnish society, and its economy plays as much of a role in the defence of the homeland as its military. That is key to avoiding the temptation to fall back on the easy gains of what some call balance-sheet capitalism.

If the House will indulge me, I will quote a paragraph from the introduction to Brett Christophers’ excellent overview of the modern UK economy, “Rentier Capitalism”, which nicely encapsulates the quandary that this place will find itself in when trying to legislate for inclusive and sustained growth:

“A form of capitalism geared principally to doing pays heed to the balance sheet only to the extent that assets facilitate and liabilities mitigate profitable making or providing, or whatever else a business does. For a form of capitalism structured by contrast around ‘having’—rentier capitalism, in other words: a mode of economic organisation in which success is based principally on what you control, not what you do—the balance sheet is the be-all and end-all.”

In this political state, as successive Governments—blue and red—have sought to keep the City of London onside, unthinking deregulation has been the order of the day, and a rentier capitalist system has been created. That may have kept stakeholders happy, but as we stare down the barrel of massive utility price rises, I am not sure that our constituents, including mine in West Dunbartonshire, always have been. A Government who own and maintain the fundamental pieces of infrastructure that allow entrepreneurs to proliferate and thrive is one who can keep an eye on the horizon and ensure that our fundamental national interests are upheld, and the temptation to put shareholder interests ahead of citizen interests is avoided.

My contribution to this area is a paper published with Stuart Evers by the Progressive Policy Research Group last year regarding the ownership and regulation of telecoms infrastructure. As we get our head around the challenges that have been mentioned and the opportunities presented to us by the new digital economy, it is imperative that the keystone industries of the economy are kept principally in public hands, not only because extracting private rents from them is unfair but because that allows us to get back to focusing on an economy that actually does things. It will surprise no one in the House if I say that I cannot see a way in which this political state can extract itself from under the dead hand of the UK’s rentier economy, so I draw the conclusion that so many of my fellow Scots increasingly do: it is only through independence that Scotland can create an economy that is fairer for all of us, in which growth is sustainable and whose foundations are resilient enough to face the economic headwinds we are heading into. I only hope that the Government will allow us to make that decision for ourselves.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Tahir Ali will be the last Back Bencher to speak before the wind-ups, so any Member who has participated in the debate should make their way back to the Chamber for the wind-ups.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

We heard them say no, but whenever they say no to Scotland and say that they will deny Scottish democracy, the only thing that that does—this is a note of caution to Conservative Members—is drive support for Scottish independence. The more they say no to us, the more we will assert our rights, and the idea of Scottish independence will continue to grow and will overrun and consume them.

My little bit of advice to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite is to say, “Just get on with it.” Just give us that independence referendum and acknowledge that we are on a different trajectory to the hard Brexit UK that they want. They can have their hard Brexit. If that is what they want, and if they want an isolationist United Kingdom, please have it. That is their choice and their democratic right. Nobody is preventing them from doing that, and I will be the first person to say, “Good luck.” Let us hope they get on and make a success of it, but do not hold my country back, do not subsume my country into what they are trying to achieve. We do not want it, and we have told them that on numerous occasions. It is over. Scotland will be an independent country, and the sooner this House recognises that, the better.

I will finish now, because I realise that I have kept the House attention’s for long enough. The battle for hard Brexit is over, and Conservative Members have won, but the battle for Scottish independence has just begun.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Craig Williams.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 General Committees

[Sir William Cash]

I could not agree more. In fact, as I will mention later, as a result of the extension to 31 October, that amount of money comes to more than £7 billion. The original date was 29 March and it will cost about £1 billion a month. That is why my right hon. Friend is so right.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend is on the topic of wasting huge sums of money, is not the moveable feast of dates the reason why the Government are wasting £150 million and inflicting elections on the British public on Thursday, in the hope that some sort of deal can be done so that the people we are electing on Thursday do not have to take their seats? Is this not “Alice in Wonderland” politics?

[Sir William Cash]

It is actually horror-in-wonderland politics. In our consideration—the House of Commons was given only one hour to consider Lords amendments—I tabled an amendment that would have prohibited our taking part in the European elections. To my astonishment, despite the fact that that was Government policy, I was informed that No. 10 had given instructions to oppose my amendment. It is unimaginable, but that is exactly what happened.

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[Mr Evans]

I take on board what my hon. Friend is saying. When I have chats with people in my constituency, whether they voted remain or leave, they say, “For goodness’ sake, get on with it.” It must be incredibly difficult for the public, 80% of whom voted for two parties—Labour and Conservative—that said they would deliver Brexit for the people but, even when they talked to one another, could not come to an agreement on how to deliver. Does he agree that it further alienates the people from their politicians? Normally it is the people who say they do not like the politicians and they want to change them; in this case it seems as though the politicians want to change the people.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is a friend of long standing, and I could not agree with him more on that point. I do not suggest that my constituency is in any way unique or exceptional in sharing that view of, “Just get on with it.” One hears that from people who were devout leavers and devout remainers. I am not entirely sure whether opinion polls or anything else are teasing this out, but I think it is proving that the political class—we should not talk about the establishment, because we are all MPs, so we are part of the establishment whether we like it or not—seems at the moment to lack courage and gumption.

I think we are also proving something that has come as a shock to quite a lot of the electorate: there is nothing particularly special about being a Member of Parliament. There is no particular qualification that we have to have, apart from having more votes than the person who came second. We do not possess the inward-looking knowledge; we do not have some totemic thing that we can turn to and find answers to all the questions. We are all trying to find our way. Let us do it with a spirit of cordiality and, of course, with a sense of friendship, but in the interests of this place, our constituents and our country, we need to show that we are dealing with this in a serious, grown-up way.

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

May I first of all say that I hope, for the reputation of this House and the reputation of the political institutions of this country, that we will achieve a majority for at least a couple of these motions this afternoon in order to reassure the public that we do know what we are doing, or we are beginning to know what we are doing, and that we are capable of delivering responsible government and looking after the national interest in the present crisis? I think most right hon. and hon. Members must have appreciated at the weekend how little respect the public as a whole have for their political institutions at the moment, and how very low is the regard in which they hold what is going on in this House.

The House has blocked the Government’s policy. It will not vote for the withdrawal agreement, and last week in a rather curious mixture of votes it voted against the propositions before it. If we are to avoid ludicrous deadlock, today is the day when the House has to indicate that there is a majority and a consensus in favour of something positive that will give some guidance on where we are going.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I might do so when I have got going, but the filibustering on the business motion means that we have very little time for debate, so I am going to make an effort to keep my speech short. With respect to my hon. Friend, who is an old friend, I will not give way.

What happened last week was understandable. People plumped for what they wanted, and we spread so widely over eight motions that nothing actually got a majority. Today, I trust that people will vote for more than one motion if they can live with more than one, because if we just keep plumping for our one and only solution, we will find that we are broken up. That is what my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) had in mind when he introduced this process.

I voted for, I think, five of the motions last week, and, as I shall argue, I do not think that they are incompatible with each other. Some are larger than others, and they swallow one within the other. Some are on separate subsets of the problem. What we are all asking ourselves, in this deadlock, is, what compromise would each and every Member be prepared to accept in the national interest?

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[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her intervention. As she will see, I will reframe the way that she puts it, but I agree with the general direction.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Kyle]

I am going to make some progress. I promised Mr Speaker that I would take about six minutes, and I am trying hard to honour that promise.

Last week, 268 Members voted for the principle of a confirmatory ballot—the largest number of votes for any alternative Brexit proposition up to that point. The principle has effectively been used twice in the past 20 years to solve complex, divisive issues.

The first occasion was on the Belfast or Good Friday agreement. Many people, institutions and organisations were asked to give a lot to cement the deal, but they gained a lot together despite sections of Northern Irish society strongly rejecting it. The Good Friday agreement was put to a confirmatory ballot that confirmed the deal and led to a decisive end to the arduous process and a peace that has endured to this day. I do not want to risk undoing those gains, which is another reason why we need to unlock our politics.

[Mr Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Kyle]

I am going to make some progress, but I will allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene a bit later.

The second occasion was the alternative vote referendum in 2011. Electoral reform had been hotly contested and was a regular feature of public debate, and it was a divisive matter within the coalition Government. However, both Tory and Lib Dem parliamentarians were able to work together to legislate for it, because the matter would be subjected to a confirmatory public ballot. The innovation of a confirmatory ballot is important, because it is binding on Government. Once confirmed or rejected, the subject does not even need to return to Parliament. In the case of the Good Friday agreement, the matter was agreed. In the case of the AV referendum, it was rejected. However, the debate was settled instantly in both cases, as it would be in this case. There would be no return to Parliament, no more squabbling, no best of three, no “neverendum”, just a definitive end to the Brexit impasse—talking of which, I give way to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans).

[Mr Evans]

The hon. Gentleman has kept his word, for which I am extremely grateful. His idea would have some merit were it not for the fact that we had a general election in 2017, which our parties both fought on manifestos saying that we would deliver Brexit. Some 80% of the people voted either Labour or Conservative. Does he not therefore believe that, as I have heard from constituents over the past few weeks, we should just get on with it?

[Peter Kyle]

The Labour manifesto was published two and a half weeks after I agreed to stand as a Labour candidate, and the deal we are now debating was reached a year and a half after the general election. We did not see the Chequers agreement, the Government’s negotiating stance or the deal until months after that general election. By standing on either manifesto, we did not give the Government a blank cheque to deliver any deal.

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[Nick Boles]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her point, but I do not agree with it. My motion specifically includes a provision that the political declaration, as renegotiated, should then be cemented into the withdrawal Act, as will come if this House votes for this, and therefore this will require a majority of this House to vote to amend statute if there is to be a change. So it will not simply be a matter of a future leader of the Conservative party being able to rip this up and renegotiate it. They will have to amend an Act of Parliament in this House, and currently there is no majority for amending it in the direction that she fears.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

I agree that the public would be relieved if we ever did come to a conclusion, but they would be angry if we came to the wrong conclusion. Does my hon. Friend accept that his common market 2.0 proposal would allow free movement of people, that it would cost us billions to access the single market, that we would be justiciable by the Court and so we would be law-takers, and that we would not be able to do free trade deals—and was that not the basic tenet of what we voted for in 2016?

[Nick Boles]

Unfortunately, my hon. Friend is right about only some of those things. It is true that in normal days we would be subject to free movement, because that is the price of single market membership, and that we would have to pay over some financial contributions, although they would be probably of the order of half of what we currently have to pay. He is not correct to say that we would be justiciable by the European Court of Justice. If we were within the European economic area, which is what common market 2.0 proposes, we would be subject to the European Free Trade Association court, and the key thing about the EFTA court is that there is no direct effect in its judgments; they all have to be implemented by sovereign Parliaments before they take hold. So this is a substantially different relationship, one in which we would have a great deal more control. Of course we would be outside all the areas other than the single market—all the political areas of the EU—and we would truly have taken back control.

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[Nick Boles]

I am going to make some progress.

Some of my hon. Friends supported the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), which also supported British membership of the EEA and EFTA. Although the journey proposed by the common market 2.0 motion might take a little longer, I hope that those colleagues will recognise that the destination is, to all intents and purposes, the same and that they will therefore join my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth in supporting our motion today.

The construction of a compromise is not easy—nor is the realisation that we may not get everything that we want, that other people’s views and interests matter and that it is better to get half a loaf than to get nothing at all. Our constituents do not send us here for an easy ride or to duck difficult choices. This evening, let us live up to the words of the parliamentary prayer and, setting aside our private interests and prejudices, lead our country out of the Brexit morass.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Briefly, may I thank you, Sir, and the House authorities for the way in which the disruption was handled? It was a distraction, but there was no disruption to our proceedings. May we, through you, thank everybody involved?

[Mr Speaker]

We want to thank those who look after us and protect us. I very much appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has said. We just press on with the debate. That is what we are here to do.

Leaving the European Union

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 239706 relating to leaving the European Union.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. When the Petitions Committee scheduled this debate, we were not entirely sure where we would be in the Brexit process when it happened. As we start this debate, I am still not entirely sure. We are where we are. There are opportunities for Members to discuss the issue in the main Chamber as well, so I suspect we will not be overwhelmed by the numbers coming to speak here today. I will say a little bit about what is happening this week and then go on to interpret the petition’s text and discuss possible ways forward.

As I said, we are not entirely sure what is happening this week, but we understand the Prime Minister will probably put what she describes as a deal to Parliament again. I have said on numerous occasions that the one word I would like to eliminate from the English language is “deal”. She has said many times that the options are her deal, no deal or no Brexit. The third option is generally presented almost as a threat, perhaps to her own side. It is suggested that it is an idea not to be taken seriously, but it is worth remembering that at the referendum almost three years ago, in a very different pre-Trump world, out of a population of some 65 million people in this country, just under 17.5 million voted to leave, which means that almost 50 million did not. Today I speak up for that forgotten 50 million, the 48% who did not vote for this mess and whose voice has too often not been heard. The debate has been constantly about the first two options, but the petition concerns the third, and it deserves proper consideration.

In December last year, which seems an age ago now, I asked the Prime Minister to revoke article 50 in the national interest, not least to allow those who claim to speak for the 52% to sort out what they actually want. She told me that revoking article 50 would mean staying in the European Union. Well, I and many others are fine with that. The petition, which now has more than 135,000 signatures, including, it will not surprise Members to hear, more than 1,100 from my own constituency of Cambridge, calls on Parliament to

“Revoke Art.50 if there is no Brexit plan by the 25 of February”.

That date was passed two weeks ago and we still do not appear to have a plan that can be agreed by the House. It is therefore fair to say that the petitioners would like us to revoke article 50 now.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

By the hon. Gentleman’s own logic, if 135,000 people have signed the petition, does that not mean that about 65 million have not? We should therefore treat it with the contempt with which he has treated the referendum result.

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[John Redwood]

I think the main reason people are losing confidence and trust is that all Labour and Conservative MPs, as far as I am aware, were elected on manifestos—[Interruption.] The SNP MPs clearly were not, but Labour and Conservative Members dominate the numbers in this Parliament, and we were all elected on manifestos that made it very clear that our parties fully respected the decision of the British people. We knew it was a decision; that was what the Government leaflet to all homes said, and what Parliament accepted in the debates on the referendum legislation, so we must honour that pledge. Our Conservative manifesto went further and explicitly said that we would leave the European Union, the customs union and the single market. There was no doubt about that; we were not muddled; we did not have different views; we did not want Norway plus or a Swiss model; we would leave every aspect of the EU, as described.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

I find the situation bizarre, because it was this Parliament that gave the people the chance to have a referendum. It put the question that people voted on, but people did not vote in quite the way that it wanted. For possibly the first time, it is not that politicians have let the people down, but that people have let politicians down.

[John Redwood]

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend makes his point very well: Parliament gave people the decision and people took it.

The Conservative manifesto was very clear that we would leave on 29 March. It also said, clearly and correctly, that

“no deal is better than a bad deal”,

so that if it appeared that the deal on offer after the negotiations was a bad deal—as it clearly is at the moment—the preferred option should be no deal. It further said, very wisely, that negotiations on the future partnership should proceed in parallel with the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. I accept that the Government have made mistakes; their mistake of not keeping the two negotiations in parallel has led to a withdrawal agreement that most MPs could not possibly accept, because it is a surrender document and a disgrace—it is not Brexit as Brexiteers want it, and it is not something that remain voters want either.

The Labour manifesto was also crystal clear that the Labour party accepted the verdict as a decision. It did not offer a second referendum, nor did it think that the public had got it wrong. It set out a very imaginative and different United Kingdom independent trade policy at some length; I did not agree with all the detail, but I was delighted that the Labour party wanted a completely independent UK trade policy. Such a policy would be completely incompatible with staying in the customs union and/or the single market, because it would require all sorts of freedoms to negotiate higher standards and negotiate different deals with the rest of the world, which would not be compatible with staying in the EU’s version with lower standards and the customs union arrangements.

We are told that the petitioners think we should now revoke article 50 because we have not reached an agreement that Parliament can accept. That means no Brexit—turning down the views of the majority. The hon. Member for Cambridge tried to put the best possible spin on this by coming up with these specious numbers and saying that 50 million people did not vote for Brexit, therefore it cannot carry. That figure includes all the children in the country—I am interested to hear that, in his view, two and three-year-olds have a view and should have a right to a view. It is also assumes that everybody who did not vote in the referendum would, if they had bothered, have voted against Brexit, although there is absolutely no reason to presume that. On samples and polling, one would assume that the people who did not vote had exactly the same split of views as the people who did vote. There was nothing in the referendum to say, “If you want to remain, you might as well stay at home.” If people wanted to remain, there was every point in going to vote, just as there was clearly every point in voting if they wanted to leave.

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[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), a fellow member of the Petitions Committee, for introducing it.

Although I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the petition, I absolutely understand some of the frustrations that people feel. I admit that there have been many times over the past few months that even I—somebody who is passionate about leaving the European Union—have wondered whether it is not too much hassle, and whether saying, “Let’s call the whole thing off,” might be the easiest course of action. However, I believe that if we did that, we would be fundamentally wrong, and would be making a huge and damaging mistake. It would be hugely damaging to our democracy for us to seek to undo the democratic decision that the British people made in the 2016 referendum.

This House was absolutely clear at that time that we were allowing the British people to make the decision in that referendum, and that we would carry out the instruction that they gave us. If we do not deliver on that commitment, we will further damage, and perhaps destroy for a long time, the last bit of trust in this place and our democracy. We all accept that trust in politics is at a pretty low ebb. Given the way that this House and many Members and former Members have behaved in recent months, we can hardly blame people for having a very low opinion of it. It is sad to say that none of the main political parties comes out of this process with any credit, given the way we have gone about things. Ignoring the result of the referendum would do lasting damage, and I believe that there would be a significant backlash from the electorate.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason why people in every constituency in Lancashire, and people in the north-west, the north-east, the south-west and the south-east, voted to leave was that for far too long they had felt as if they did not have a voice? This Parliament suddenly gave them a voice via the referendum, but it now wants to reinforce the view that their voice does not matter. It would be hugely dangerous not to carry out the wishes of the British people.

[Steve Double]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has been looking at my notes, but that was going to be my next point. He has made it very well for me. Many thousands of people up and down the country, particularly in the parts that he highlighted, voted for the first time in their lives, or certainly for the first time in a very long time, in that referendum for the simple reason that they thought that, because it was a nationwide referendum, their vote would count and their voice would be heard. It would be an absolute denial of that if we did not deliver on the referendum.

Not delivering on the referendum would not just damage our democracy. We should think about what message it would send to the EU if, having gone through all this for almost three years, we turned round and said, “You know what? It’s a bit too difficult. I think we’ll reverse this, because it’s a bit too hard for us. It’s too tough a decision for us to make.” It would be a national embarrassment if, having gone through this process, we do not actually deliver on the referendum. It would weaken our position in the EU. Let us not pretend that, by revoking the triggering of article 50 and pretending that none of this ever happened, somehow we will go back to pre-2016 times as though nothing had ever happened. It would undermine and damage our position in the EU in a way that would be massively damaging to our country.

If the conclusion is that it is too difficult, too complex and too politically challenging ever to leave the EU, that would be the final confirmation, if one were needed, that we have surrendered our national sovereignty and are trapped in a political union that will inevitably lead to further integration with the EU. That would be the only conclusion that could be drawn if, after voting to leave and spending nearly three years trying to get out, we cannot do that. Clearly, we would never leave the EU. It would show the EU that we are too weak and timid, and that we lack the courage, faith and optimism in our nation to leave.

Let us be clear that many people feel frustration because we are not where we want to be. We should never have been in this position. It is clearly an understatement to say that we are not where we wanted to be. This close to the deadline, we should not still be debating whether we will actually leave. It is absolutely ludicrous that, after all this time, the question of whether we will actually leave the EU is still on the table. That issue was settled when this House voted to give the people of this country a referendum, and when, after people gave us their decision, a huge majority of this House voted to trigger article 50. The decision was made then that we will leave. It should not be in any doubt. This matter should have been settled once and for all. It is a failure of leadership—of politics—that we have not been able to settle this issue clearly and finally.

Many people up and down the country—particularly some of those we were referring to earlier—who voted in that referendum because they wanted their voice to be heard do not believe that we will ever leave. I speak to them in my constituency every weekend that I go back. They come to me and say, “Please tell me that we are actually going to leave.” I say, “Well, as far as I’m concerned, and if I have anything to do with it, yes we will.” They go on to tell me that they genuinely believe that we are in the midst of an establishment stitch-up that will somehow find a way to ignore the referendum result—some clever parliamentary shenanigans to undo it—and we will not actually leave. Thousands of people across the country think that. If we prove them right and allow Brexit not to happen, we will reinforce their view. That will be hugely damaging to our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double]

It is well documented that I have not been the biggest fan of our Prime Minister during this process. I believe that many mistakes have been made that have led us to where we are today, such as the lack of a clear starting position for negotiations, allowing the EU to dictate the timetable and nature of negotiations, and not preparing properly and early enough for a no-deal Brexit, to name a few. Clearly, we could have done so much better and, with better leadership, we could have been in a better position.

I am also very clear that not all the blame rests with the Prime Minister. Many Members of both Houses—and former Members of this House—have played a part in undermining her negotiating position almost every step of the way. Every one of them must share responsibility for our position. It is now quite clear that members of the Cabinet and other senior members of Government have publicly and vocally said that they support the Government’s position of “no deal is better than a bad deal”, while crossing their fingers behind their backs the whole way. When it appears that no deal might actually arise, they make it clear that they do not support that position and threaten to resign if it happens. To find out that those people, who supposedly supported a Government position, did not really mean it, is enough to undermine trust in our politics.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in any negotiation, being able to walk away makes our position stronger? If the person who we are negotiating with knows that we ultimately have to accept a deal under whatever circumstance, the deal is not going to be very good.

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes the point very well. If we say that we can only leave the EU with an agreement, we are actually saying that we can leave only on the terms that the EU dictates. If it knows that we will not walk away without a deal, it will dictate the terms—as in any negotiation—and that has been part of the problem all along. Too many people in this House—those on the Opposition Front Bench have certainly contributed to this position—have told the EU, “We will not allow Parliament to take the UK out of the EU without a deal,” and it has believed it. The EU has not been willing to come to the negotiating table in good faith and negotiate a good deal because it has known all along that Parliament was very unlikely to allow us to walk away without a deal.

Too many Members of this House have also said publicly “We respect the referendum result”—some even stood on manifestos that said so—while working tirelessly behind the scenes every week to undermine the result and find a way to prevent it from happening. That has also been hugely damaging to trust in our politics.

We will find out only in the years ahead, when all this is over and the history books about this period have been written, exactly how damaging those who have sought to undermine the Prime Minister’s negotiating position have really been to our country. I believe they have been hugely damaging and have largely contributed to where we are today. Only when the history books have been written will we really understand all that has gone on behind the scenes to give the message to the EU that we will stop the UK leaving if we can, in any way that we can. That has been massively damaging to our chances of getting a withdrawal agreement and future deal that this House can support.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s pointing out the definition of “binary”. I was coming on to say that I think there is a third choice, to which the Prime Minister has repeatedly alerted the House: the risk of no Brexit at all. My point was that the right hon. Gentleman argued that there was a binary choice, while the substance of his remarks was to argue for a third choice. That seems to be an inherent contradiction in the case that he put forward. Notwithstanding that, he went on in the next section of his speech to talk about honesty. I do not think that the way to demonstrate honesty, particularly to the young electorate of which he spoke, is to say to that electorate, “We will give you a choice and respect that choice,” and then when the electorate deliver that choice to say, “Sorry, we are not actually going to honour that.” To me, that is not the way to approach a debate with honesty.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

The referendum had the second largest turnout of any electoral exercise in the entire history of the United Kingdom, and we know that the result was a margin of 1.4 million, but when I listen to the Scottish nationalists speak it appears to me that not only do they want to say no to that result—the democratic wishes of the people of the United Kingdom—but to ignore completely the fact that more than 1 million Scottish people voted to leave the European Union. Does my right hon. Friend believe that they should have their voices heard as well?

[Stephen Barclay]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. It is not just that SNP Members want to say no; they seem to say no to the decision of the electorate but yes to giving them a decision. They gave them a decision on the independence referendum but then said that they did not want to listen to it. There was then the decision on the EU referendum, but they say they do not want to listen to that, either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

It is a delight to be here in Parliament for another three hours of Brexit chat, and it is staggering to think, given when this all started, that José Mourinho is out of his club before we are out of ours. [Interruption.] It gets worse. I was listening carefully to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), and I loved his honesty at least when he said that he does not want Brexit and that is why he is supporting the so-called people’s vote.

[Geraint Davies]

I am doing it because 25,000 jobs in Swansea depend on EU exports, and Swansea will be a lot worse off with Brexit.

[Mr Evans]

I admire that honesty, because a lot of people who bang on about this Orwellian concept of a people’s vote as if 2016 had not happened tend not to be as honest about their real motives. Their real motives are that they wish to stop Brexit; they wish to overturn the people’s vote of 2016.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The situation is very simple: I do not want my constituents to be poorer than they are at the moment, which is why we are sitting here day after day trying to get the Government to do something about it.

[Mr Evans]

It is wonderful that there is so much honesty here now. One of the Sunday papers said that eight of the nine organisations that are now backing the people’s vote state explicitly on their websites that they are trying to overturn Brexit, so let us not have any pretence about that.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Evans]

I will not give way again, as I have taken my two interventions.

Let us not have any pretence about what is going on. Of course the people have spoken, including a million Scots who voted to leave the EU, and by a margin of 1.4 million the British people decided that they wished to go. I am well aware that I sit in a Parliament packed full of remain Members, and I understand that they are very angry and feel badly let down by the electorate. This really does turn things on their head; normally people are let down by their politicians, but in this case the politicians have been badly let down by the people. They were asked for their decision as to whether we should stay in or leave the EU. We had this massive exercise in 2016 when the British people said “We wish to leave,” and the politicians cannot quite get over it—the establishment cannot quite get over it, the BBC cannot quite get over it—and they have tried their level best since that vote to ensure that, one way or another, the decision of the British people is stymied.

There are 285 MPs who voted remain who represent leave areas, so I understand where people are coming from in this Chamber. But when sovereignty passed from this Parliament to the British people and we issued a pamphlet to every household that said that we would carry out their wishes, and when this Parliament itself voted for the referendum, really we do have to respect the wishes of the British people instead of refighting the referendum campaign of 2016.

Indeed, when we talk about what was written on the side of a bus and how much money was going to go into the national health service, I would have thought that Scottish nationalist Members of Parliament would be more interested in how much of our membership fees that are not now going to be sent to Brussels will be going to Scotland—to public services in Scotland, to the NHS in Scotland—rather than into the pockets of Brussels. Indeed, I am sure that President Juncker is very happy with his pay increase this week, which takes his salary to €32,700 a month; that is how much the President of the European Union is getting—way more in a month than most of my constituents earn in a year. I am delighted that we are coming out of the European Union and saving that money so I can see it being spent in my patch, and the Scottish nationalist Members will see it being spent in their patches as well.

Yes, I believe we got some things wrong at the beginning of the negotiations. The scheduling was completely wrong. It gave the EU negotiators a stick, in the form of the backstop over the Northern Ireland-Irish border, and they have hit us with that stick time and again. We are talking about a backstop that the United Kingdom and the European Union both say they do not want to use. They hope they will not need to use it, and they also say that it is going to be temporary. However, when our Prime Minister went to see President Juncker to raise our concerns about the possibility of our legally being able to be held in the European Union for an eternity if the EU so wishes, or of the backstop being used as leverage in the next round of trade talks between us and the European Union, all of a sudden they dug their heels in. They say that they do not want to use the backstop and that it will be temporary, but they are not prepared to allow us to leave the European Union unilaterally if we believe that they are stalling. That absolutely says it all.

I am delighted that the Prime Minister made it so clear yesterday that there would be no revocation of article 50 and no second referendum. She knows what a second referendum would be all about. I am delighted, too, that the Cabinet has today stepped up its preparations for WTO. As I said yesterday, President Juncker listens to what is said in this place, and he gets a bit of succour from the calls for a second referendum because he believes that if the first vote is overturned we will still be spending our money in the European Union and taking its laws. He gets a bit of succour from that, but he will also hear that we are stepping up plans for WTO, and that should provide some leverage.

We should not get angry with our Prime Minister. Where is the anger at President Juncker digging his heels in? Does he really want to see jobs being threatened in the European Union? We always hear people standing up in this place and talking about safeguarding jobs in Britain, but what about safeguarding jobs in Germany, Spain, Italy and the various other EU countries that want to sell their goods to us? We have a £95 billion deficit with the European Union. We buy 850,000 German cars and £3.5 billion-worth of flowers and plants from Holland, and we will want to carry on doing that.

I shall not be taking part in any of the debates tomorrow, so I just want to wish everybody—including you, Madam Deputy Speaker—a merry Christmas and a happy Brexit in 2019.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with considerable experience and knowledge of the issue. He is absolutely right. That is why, from what I have seen and conversations I have had, London, Dublin, Belfast and Brussels have all been clear about the need to avoid the creation of a hard border.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

When we talk about the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, are we putting the cart before the horse? Surely we need to focus on UK-EU customs arrangements so that we know exactly where we are. We buy 850,000 German cars every year, and £3 billion of flowers and bulbs from the Dutch. Irrespective of what Wetherspoons did yesterday, we still drink more Champagne than the French and will continue to do so.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is right about the advantages of ensuring frictionless trade between the UK and the EU, and that is the Government’s policy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, and we debated at great length, a huge amount of sectoral analysis has been done by the Government on these issues. I think that he discussed at length with the Secretary of State in the Select Committee why quantitative impact assessments were not considered appropriate.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

Surely one of the assessments that the Government have made is how much money we will save by not having to pay to access the customs union, as well as the impact on all sectors of industry in this country of being able to do our own trade deals around the world.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the opportunities for wider trade deals around the world. As the Prime Minister has said, we will not make the same huge payments to the EU that we have to date. That will mean more money for public services in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Davis]

The hon. Lady voted against the Second Reading of the Bill, so she plainly does not want to make progress with it. She perhaps ought to put a dictionary on her Christmas list. An analysis—[Interruption.] Ready? An analysis outlines the components of a problem—the regulatory structure, the markets, the size and so on—and that is what we are doing. An impact assessment is played out in the Whitehall guidelines and involves a forecast.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

China is a massive market. Does the Secretary of State agree that the open skies policy that was recently agreed with China, increasing the number of flights by 50% to 150 a week, will be a great boost to business throughout this country when it comes to doing trade deals with China?

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he reminds me that according to the European Commission, 90% of world growth will come from outside the EU by 2020. I think he points to the importance of the UK turning outwards to be a global trading nation and enjoying productive, prosperous relationships with the whole world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), has met them, and I am sure that were he to be asked a question, he would give a fuller answer.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

It was very wise of the Government to prepare dossiers on the impact of Brexit on sectors in the United Kingdom. I assume that the European Union has done something similar regarding what it is going to do when it loses £10 billion to £12 billion a year. Indeed, the German Government might have prepared a dossier about the impact on their car industry, and the French might have prepared one on their wine industry. Has the Minister received any representations from Opposition Members about pressing those Governments to publish their dossiers?

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I feel sure that all sides in this negotiation are conducting their analyses of everyone’s negotiating capital. The electorate of all Members of this House will note who is asking for which negotiating position to be revealed, and what that says about their acceptance of the referendum result.

Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I say two things to the hon. Gentleman. He was in the Committee yesterday and he saw that I was answering questions as straightforwardly and factually as is possible. What I was describing were items of fact, not promises. His own Front-Bench colleague, my opposite number, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), said yesterday: “I don’t doubt assurances which are given at the Dispatch Box.” I think that is the proper approach to this.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

I wish the Secretary of State well in his negotiations with Mr Barnier, and I pledge that I will do nothing that could ever be interpreted as trying to undermine those negotiations. We have had 11 referendums in this country since 1975. Can my right hon. Friend think of one in which we have gone against the wishes of the British people? Will he accept that, as a democrat, I am deadly serious that, at the end of this process, we will be leaving the European Union?

[Mr Davis]

There have been a few references by Opposition Members to my commitment to Parliament, but my commitment to Parliament is an indirect commitment to the democracy of the British people, and that is what matters here. Seventeen and a half million of them voted for this—a majority of more than 1 million. We have to take it seriously; we have to deliver the best outcome on that decision.