Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Oliver Dowden)]

I should like to begin by paying tribute to all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate and spoken with genuine sincerity and passion. There have been some excellent contributions, and a wide range of issues have been raised. Particularly, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson). All those contributions made the same point: people want to get Brexit done. They want to move on, and the only way we can do that is to ensure that we have a general election mandate to ensure that that happens. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)—sadly, he is not in his place—who gave a heartfelt and excellent speech paying tribute to this House.

I hope hon. Members appreciate that there will be further opportunities for discussion during the course of the Bill, particularly in the Committee stage that follows, so if they will forgive me, I will not go into detail on some of the points that I think will be addressed at that stage. What we really are facing today is the simplest possible Bill. It is a straightforward piece of legislation to allow a general election on 12 December so that we can elect a new Parliament, gets Brexit done and allow this country to finally move on. Let me be clear: the Government would rather be getting on with a smooth and orderly Brexit now.

[Lady Hermon]

I presume that as part of the Prime Minister’s general election campaign, he will make a grand tour of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, so could the Minister just explain what the Prime Minister will say to the Unionist community there and how he will reassure them that their future is safe in his hands? I can assure the Minister that, at the present time, there are many in the Unionist community who do not feel confident that their future is safe in the Prime Minister’s hands.

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I do not know exactly where the Prime Minister will go on his election tour, but I am sure he will go to Northern Ireland. He will take the message to Northern Ireland that the deal that he has negotiated will allow the entire United Kingdom to leave the customs union as one and that that deal we based on a mechanism of consent.

The challenge that we have in getting such a deal through this House is that whenever Parliament has had the opportunity to get Brexit done, it has not taken it, even though 80% of us in this House stood on a mandate to honour the referendum result. Let us look at the record. Parliament voted to extend and delay in March, and to extend and delay in April. Through the Benn Act, Parliament forced the Prime Minister to extend beyond 31 October. Most recently, it voted against a timetable that would have allowed us to leave in an orderly manner, on time on 31 October, as we have promised. So I really fear that if Parliament has the choice of another delay or an extension beyond 31 January, it will surely once again take the opportunity to delay and to extend. The risk that we face is that, as we tick through to 2020, we once again find ourselves back in this Chamber discussing Brexit more and more, and that is completely contrary to what the public want. The public want us to get on with it and get Brexit done.

[Jess Phillips]

I wonder whether the Minister can tell me how we will stop the paralysis if what is returned to the House is exactly what we have now.

[Oliver Dowden]

I heard the hon. Lady make that point repeatedly throughout the debate. The very simple answer is that the people should vote Conservative and vote for a party that will get the deal through and ensure that we finally leave the European Union, as people want us to do.

[Jess Phillips]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I think that I have dealt with the hon. Lady’s point.

Thanks to the Prime Minister’s efforts, we have a deal that we will be putting to the British people at the general election, and we will then seek to deliver the deal through the House on the back of a stable and sustainable parliamentary majority that will finally allow us to leave the European Union, as most of us have promised to achieve.

[Jim McMahon]

Now that the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has had its Second Reading, we should be using this time to take it to the next stage instead of calling an election.

[Oliver Dowden]

The problem with the argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman is that when we had the opportunity to get Brexit done and to get it done by 31 October, he and Opposition Members chose to vote against the programme motion that would have enabled that. The challenge facing us is that every time this House has had the opportunity to deliver on Brexit, it instead chooses further delay.

The deal that the Prime Minister has reached has confounded critics in this House and elsewhere. People said that we would never be able to reopen the withdrawal agreement, but we reopened it. He has nailed the naysayers who said that the EU would never let go of the Northern Ireland backstop by getting rid of the backstop. When people said that we could not ensure that the whole United Kingdom could leave as a single customs territory, he refused to accept it. This Government have made sure that the UK can leave the customs union as one entire United Kingdom that is free to chart its own course.

The Government’s position for some time has been that if Parliament cannot back the Prime Minister’s deal, we must surely have a general election. Up until today, however, that has not been the position of the Labour party. We have had the extraordinary spectacle of a Leader of the Opposition who spends every day castigating the Government’s failures—indeed, his party busily puts out leaflets demanding a general election—but when that golden moment arrives finally to have that general election, what happens? The Leader of the Opposition has repeatedly spurned it. I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition has finally faced up to the inevitable, ensuring that we will make some progress with this Bill. I am confident that we can make that progress, and that we can get on and have that general election.

When the general election happens, we will have two contrasting visions for 2020. The choice in front of the British people is clear. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has a deal that ensures that we deliver on the promises we made in the 2017 manifesto. We can finally deliver on Brexit and get the job done. Once we have got the job done, we can finally turn to the priorities that matter to the British people. The great one nation agenda being advanced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will allow us to deliver for our hospitals and for our schools.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Many excellent speeches species were curtailed at three minutes this evening. Why is this awful, repetitious performance being allowed to go on for so long?

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister has two and a half minutes in which to develop his peroration, but the hon. Gentleman has registered his disapproval.

[Oliver Dowden]

Thank you for that opportunity, Mr Speaker, but I think I will be able to do so in slightly shorter order, so I hope that I can bring pleasure to the hon. Gentleman.

In the election, we will deliver on a one nation agenda: delivering for our schools and our hospitals, safer communities, more police, massive investment in our infrastructure, keeping our streets safe and tackling the cost of living. The alternative will be the nightmare advanced by the Leader of the Opposition, who wants to make 2020 the year of two referendums: one on Brexit and another on Scottish independence—more energy-sapping, mind-numbing stagnation and more pointless delay, so I urge right hon. and hon. Members to back this Bill and back the general election. Let the Government get Brexit done and allow the country to move on.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

[Mr Speaker]

Under the Order of the House of today, we shall now—for which I may have to substitute “shortly”—move to a Committee of the whole House.

I say this as much for the benefit of people outside the elected Chamber as for anybody else. I have collected the voices, as the Speaker is required to do, and it is clear that there is an overwhelming majority in support of Second Reading. From Second Reading, we proceed to Committee. When the House sits in Committee, the Speaker does not occupy the Chair. That responsibility is taken by A. N. Other, who will be wending his or her way to the Chamber as I speak. I say with some confidence that another Chair will arrive ere long to take up his or her important duties.