Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. I do not see how it relates to rights, standards and protections, but we will be discussing the matter with commercial operators in the sector. A number of key UK providers have already said that they do not intend to apply roaming charges.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The question relates to when we leave the EU, and I have a little digital thing on my phone that says that we are going to leave in 253 days’ time. There has been a lot of talk in the media today about the Government considering extending the article 50 period and the exit date. Will the superb Minister lay that rumour to rest, and confirm that the Prime Minister will stick to her guns and that we will leave on 29 March next year?

[Mr Walker]

I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that, as it says in the EU (Withdrawal) Act, and as is clear in the White Paper, we are going to leave on 29 March next year.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise this attempted point of order, upon which the sagacious advice of the senior procedural adviser of the House is, forgive me, that it was not much of a point of order. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman is not in a small minority in that regard. If it is any comfort to him, I can assure him that in my 21 years’ experience in the House, the vast majority of points of order are bogus.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

You used to do it!

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman suggests that I used to do it. I do not remember that, but if I did, all I would say to him is that that was then, and this is now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

No.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the excellent Minister explain something to me? Say we have our own trade policy with Nigeria, or another developing country, and its food is coming into this country with no tariff. If that country is suddenly told that it has to pay a tariff of 30%, 40% or 50% because that is the EU external policy, but that it might get that back at some time in future, is this new customs partnership a good idea?

[Suella Braverman]

The Government set out the two options in our policy papers last summer, and one of those options will be adopted in due course. Free trade has brought unprecedented prosperity to some of the poorest countries in the world. My hon. Friend referred to developing countries: free trade has lifted more than 1 billion people out of poverty by increasing choice and lowering prices for consumers. It will enable us to forge trade agreements with some of the poorer countries in the world, thereby incentivising them to capitalise and industrialise, and to be sustainable and not dependent on aid. This is a great opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robin Walker]

I am not aware of the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State has ever reflected on the fact that if David Cameron had kept his promise of staying in office, implementing the views of the British people and triggering article 50 immediately after the referendum, we would nearly be coming out of the EU now, and I would probably be arranging having a statue of David Cameron in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State get the feeling that the public are fed up with how long this process is taking and wish we could just get on with it a bit quicker?

[Mr David Davis]

I have been asked today to give careers advice to myself and now to past Prime Ministers, from which I will demur. Had we triggered article 50 immediately after the referendum, we would have had to absorb 40 years of European Union law into British law almost in a geological nanosecond—a very, very short time. It would not have been easy to do. Although my hon. Friend is right about the departure date, it might have been a lot more uncomfortable than it is going to be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

Of course we are concerned about aerospace; it is one of our greatest industries. I remind the hon. Gentleman of what was said by his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). He said that retaining membership of a customs union would be “deeply unattractive”, because it would stop us negotiating our own trade deals:

“As a transitional phase, a customs union agreement might be thought to have some merit. However, as an end point it is deeply unattractive. It would preclude us from making our own independent trade agreements with our five largest export markets outside the EU”.

For all the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones) says, his party is at sixes and sevens.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

If China is illegally dumping steel in the United Kingdom, will the excellent Minister agree that it is better that the British Government decide what the remedy is, rather than the European Union?

[Mr Baker]

I certainly agree that we should have our own trade policies in place and that we should not be standing against free trade. We should be unequivocally embracing free trade, but we must stand against unfair, anti-competitive practices, and that is what we will do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robin Walker]

I did not quite hear the full detail of the hon. Lady’s question, but I can say that our focus on consumer protection is absolute. I spoke at the Which? conference earlier this week to show how we will put consumer rights at the heart of our approach to Brexit.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We have had the Hollo; let’s have the Bone.

[Mr Bone]

Thank you for saving me up, Mr Speaker.

Hon. Members know that we will leave this dreadful European Union superstate in 379 days, but they might not know that that will also mark the end of the Secretary of State’s grand tour of Europe. He is in a unique position to advise the British people about which countries like us and which do not so that we will know which countries to go to after we leave. Will the Secretary of State tell us the answer?

[Mr Davis]

I am very tempted to give my hon. Friend the list from the last three weeks, which would take about five minutes. Two things have struck me while talking to all my European opposite numbers: all of them are sad that we are going; and they all want a strong future relationship. They all want to stay our friends and allies, and that is what we will deliver.

Royal Assent

European Free Trade Association

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is nice for a leaver to make just a brief contribution—perhaps you have heard enough from leavers, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) on securing this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who made a powerful case from his point of view in relation to EFTA.

My view is that we should get behind the Government. We on this side of the Chamber should certainly be supporting the Prime Minister and the Government. To say that this is a Brexit-dominated Government, when the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, and the excellent Minister were remainers, paints an unfair picture. I think the Government are working in the interests of all the British people.

The Government decided to delegate the decision about whether we remain in or out of the European Union to the British people. There was a massive democratic process and we had the leave result. We are leaving in 413 days, so as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk said, the clock is ticking.

In the referendum, the British people voted to end free movement, not to spend billions and billions of pounds each year with the EU, and to make our own laws in our own country that will be judged by our own judges. Within all that, Parliament should debate what Brexit looks like—quite rightly—and this debate is part of that.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bone]

I cannot, because I have very little time.

It is right that the Government are saying, “Hang on. We’re the fifth biggest economy in the world. We want to make a bespoke deal.” The Brexit Secretary has described the deal as Canada plus plus plus, but he is really saying that it is a bespoke model. From that point of view, how can people object? We are in a unique situation. We already have a free trade arrangement with the European Union. It sells us £80 billion more of goods than we buy from it, so it is in its interest to have a deep and special relationship.

In conclusion, I hope the whole House will get behind the Government to achieve what must be in the British interest: a bespoke deal and a special relationship with the European Union. I urge my Conservative colleagues to stop carping at the Prime Minister, to get behind her and to support the Government, not vote against them. They should argue their case and let the Government take us out of the European Union in the best possible way in 413 days’ time.

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

That was quite a long question. There are two particular scenarios that are not modelled in this analysis. One is the policy choices that the Prime Minister rightly set out in her Florence speech, and the other is exiting in the unfortunate, and we think unlikely, circumstance of not reaching an agreement and how one might take the right policy choices in the event of trading on WTO rules. We will continue to take this analysis forward, and I look forward to the day when we are able to present appropriate analysis to the House before the meaningful vote.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the Minister recall, prior to the referendum, what became known as “Project Fear”? Everything was going to go wrong after the referendum if we voted to come out—something short of bubonic plague—but that did not happen. With those warnings, the British people still voted to come out, so of what relevance is another forecast now that predicts exactly the same as “Project Fear”?

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I well remember “Project Fear” in all its manifestations. Most of us on the leave side thought at the time that those horror predictions would not come to pass after the vote and, happily, we have been proved correct. I look forward to continuing to prove economists wrong after they make horror story predictions.

Leaving the EU: Implementation

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady raises an important point, but we want to make sure that businesses have certainty both about the implementation period and about where they are headed through it. The benefits to businesses of an implementation period will be much greater if they know the shape of the future relationship to which we are headed, so I do not believe that prolonging this discussion will be in the interests of either the UK or the EU.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the excellent Minister confirm that in 424 days’ time, when we leave the EU and start the implementation period, we will know what our future relationship with the EU will be after the implementation period?

[Mr Walker]

I am happy to reiterate to my hon. Friend that that is absolutely our objective.

EU Exit Negotiations

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

What I will say to the right hon. Gentleman, given that he is a Labour party member, is that he must have much greater experience than I have of disagreeing with himself. Look at his own Front Benchers and the 11 different positions they have taken.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Did you notice, Mr Speaker, that the shadow Minister, just at the end of his question, committed the Labour party to dropping 29 March 2019 as the date on which we come out of the European Union? Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is the Government’s policy that we are definitely coming out by 29 March 2019?

[Mr Davis]

It is not just the Government’s policy; it is the law of the European Union.

Leaving the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s last question, no.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I find that I agree with the comments of the Father of the House and the Chairman of the Select Committee, but I do understand that there is a dilemma for the Government. One recent motion clearly says that all documents should be delivered. A previous motion in this House says that the Government should not produce anything that damages our negotiations. Those motions are not clear, so would it not be an idea for the Government to come back with another motion clarifying the situation?

[Mr Walker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion. Of course such suggestions are not necessarily for me to respond to, but it is certainly something that we will have a look at.

EU Exit Negotiations

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The Bill cannot be brought before Parliament before the withdrawal deal is struck, but I remind the hon. Lady that the Government have undertaken to provide a vote on the whole deal before we even come to that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

In June 2016, the people of this country voted to come out of the EU, to end free movement, to stop paying the EU billions of pounds, to make our own laws in our own country and to be judged by our own judges. Are the Government going to deliver that by March 2019?

[Mr Davis]

Yes.