European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Paul Williams Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is right, but I am confining myself to the impact of new clauses 17 and 80.

We need to understand how Ministers will cope with this big bill when the deal is done. Will Ministers give everybody a massive tax bill—and it will be a massive tax bill, because we are talking about at least £800 per person, or £3,000 per household—or will they increase Government borrowing?

I return to the simple point about the promises that were made by, among others, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), during the referendum campaign—the £350 million a week for the NHS that we saw on the side of a bus. This is £16 billion a year. After the Brexit vote, I had a number of public meetings with my constituents and asked them what their expectation was when they voted to leave the EU. I will never forget this nice old lady saying, “Helen, it will be marvellous, because now there will enough money for the Government to reopen the A&E in Bishop hospital.” That is obviously not what the Government have in mind. It is incumbent on them to be open and clear with the British public, and that is what new clauses 17 and 80 are driving at.

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

We have all heard the famous phrase “a week is a long time in politics”. Well, it has now been almost 18 months since the public voted to leave the EU and in that time lots of new issues have come to light. From leaving the single market and customs union, to the renewed tensions over the Irish border, we know things now that voters could not have been expected to know all those months ago. We also know that the Brexit divorce bill is likely to cost the Treasury upwards of £50 billion. That is almost £2,000 per household that could have been put to more positive use but instead becomes the opportunity cost of Brexit. Some people will say, “That’s money that would have been paid to the EU anyway”, and to some extent they are right. The difference is, however, that the money we paid to the EU in the past bought us collective benefits and access to shared resources, such as Euratom and the European Medicines Agency, that are now at risk as a result of Brexit.

[Tom Brake]

I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) listed as one of the costs of Brexit all the costs to us as a nation—individually—of establishing all the agencies we currently share with the EU.

[Dr Williams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. We have no idea how much extra it is going to cost us to establish our own agencies to cover the roles of the many European agencies we have shared. This opportunity cost is not simply about the raw cash we need to spend; it is also about the time and other resources devoted to making this happen. When I stood for election to Parliament, I had in my mind a long list of issues I wanted to address and ideas I wanted to drive forward to make this country a better and fairer place. Instead, I find that much of the time in this House is now being devoted to tackling the myriad problems that have arisen, and working to reduce the harm that may come to our country and our economy from leaving the EU.

This whole process is not just an opportunity cost—it is also an opportunity lost. Nobody in my constituency who voted to leave the EU voted to make our NHS worse off. They wanted to see it improve and, if anything, were persuaded by a somewhat misleading figure on the side of a bus, but the threats to our health services are very real. Just yesterday, Dr Jeanette Dickson, from the Royal College of Radiologists told the Health Committee that the isotopes we import for cancer treatments could be rendered useless by delays in the customs process. Quite simply she told us, “If we do not have an assured supply, the reduction in rate of cure means more people will die of thyroid cancer.” That is thousands of lives every year that will be at risk if we get this wrong.

Voters did not vote to make their family poorer either; they genuinely wanted to see our economy thrive and believed that exiting the EU would bring renewed prosperity for their families. But with slowed economic growth, a collapse in the value of the pound and rising costs of imports, that flourishing economic future seems a far cry from this Government’s current performance.

[Ian Paisley]

Earlier in this debate, I was accused of having an extreme view on something. Is it not rather extreme to suggest that people are going to die of cancer because of this? Seriously, listen to yourself!

[Dr Williams]

I recommend that the hon. Gentleman looks at what was said by the expert who provided evidence to the Health Committee yesterday. She explained what would happen if we get this wrong—what I suggested was conditional, because I said “if” we get this wrong. She said that radio isotopes that we do not produce currently in the UK and need to import from other European countries, and that are essential for cancer treatment, will not be available to provide that treatment.

[Carol Monaghan]

Just to add a little more on that, these isotopes often have a half-life of six hours, which means that within 24 hours they are effectively useless for treatment. We do not have the ability to produce them here so they must be imported. If we are not part of the Euratom treaty, we will have serious problems with cancer treatment. It is not scaremongering, it is fact.

[Dr Williams]

I thank the hon. Lady for adding to the evidence. We must listen to the evidence.

As we know, the proposals before us would require the divorce bill to be assessed by independent watchdogs, and I support that. It is important that the information that comes out of the Government’s negotiations with the EU is properly scrutinised in this Chamber and beyond. As a scientist, I learned to follow evidence. When new evidence emerges, so must our course of action change. As a doctor, if a test carried out on a patient revealed a totally unexpected result, I would repeat the test again rather than plough on with a process that I thought would harm the patient. For some years, medical professionals used to say that smoking was not a risk to people’s health, and they also used to tell pregnant mothers that moderate drinking during pregnancy posed no risk to the health of their child. With the benefit of hindsight, new information and the evidence we have now, how ridiculous do those statements seem?

We must continue to keep an open mind and to scrutinise the divorce-bill negotiations and Brexit more widely. As the opportunities seem to diminish and the potential for harm to our economy and society increases, we must also be willing to ask whether this is what the public voted for. Yes, we have a duty to act on behalf of our constituents, but as representatives, not simply delegates. I promised the residents of Stockton South that I would fight and work for them all, regardless of how they voted. The public must have the right to change their minds; that is one of the key aspects of democracy. It is why we have elections every five years—or perhaps more often. If public opinion shifts, we must all be able to look at matters again.

Attention to detail and accountability to Parliament are crucial to the Brexit process, and particularly the divorce bill. That is why I shall support new clauses 17 and 80 tonight.

[Graham Stringer]

rose—