European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

The first point to make relates to my hon. Friend’s last point. We have agreed to the sifting committee, which will be able to recommend—

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

It will be very busy.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Dowd Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 163, which stands in my name and would require the Government to publish a strategy for properly consulting the English regions, including those without directly elected mayors. We are getting ever closer to the Prime Minister’s self-imposed 31 March deadline for invoking article 50, but a question that I put to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union on 17 January remains unanswered.

To remind the House—and the Secretary of State, who is in his place—I asked him what discussions he had held with key stakeholders in the north-east about the effects of leaving the single market, given that 58% of our region’s exports go to the EU. I received an entirely unsatisfactory response to that question, and I remain concerned that the Government have ruled out membership of the single market before negotiations have even begun and without properly consulting those parts of the country likely to be most affected by this move.

Even more worrying is the fact that, despite the publication of the Government’s White Paper last week, we are still no closer to knowing what role representatives from all the regions of England, including the north-east, will play in informing the Government’s negotiating strategy and objectives. Instead, we have been provided with this entirely meaningless statement:

“In seeking such a future, we will look to secure the specific interests of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as those of all parts of England.”

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that comments from Members such as the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) about the port of Liverpool, which is in my constituency, having been in some decline are complete nonsense? The port is doing more tonnage than it has ever done, and it has recently had £350 million of investment. Conservative Members do not realise the good that the regions do for the economy.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am pleased that I took that intervention. My hon. Friend makes a strong case for why the Government’s “we know best” approach to the Brexit negotiations just will not wash with the British public. Furthermore, the word “region” appears just four times in the White Paper, and three of those references are in the footnotes.

The Government claim that around 150 stakeholder engagement events have taken place to help to inform the Government’s understanding of the key issues ahead of the negotiations, but I would be interested to know when, where and with whom those meetings were held. We know that the Secretary of State made a vague commitment in the House to

“get all the mayors of the north to come and have a meeting in York”—[Official Report, 17 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 802.]

but of course that cannot happen until after the mayoral elections have been held in May. I appreciate the sentiment behind the offer, but it is wholly inadequate. What will happen to those regions, including the north-east, that will not have an elected mayor after May and will therefore be excluded from that meeting? Surely, if the English regions are to have a truly meaningful input to this process, those discussions must start before May, given that the UK’s negotiations with the EU will already have commenced, and given the incredibly tight two-year timescale for achieving a deal that does not damage jobs and our economy.

We are repeatedly told that Brexit was about taking back control. We now know that that means an unelected Prime Minister who has sought every means possible to avoid scrutiny of her approach ploughing ahead with a hard Brexit, regardless of the consequences for different parts of the country. I am not convinced that people voted for that. I am not convinced that this Whitehall-knows-best approach will get the best deal for everybody up and down the country.

The only way for the Government to secure the best possible deal for all the regions—the north-east in particular—which have so much to lose from a bad deal, is to engage properly with those on the ground about what we need. That is why I am supporting new clause 163, which would compel the Government to ensure that that proper consultation took place.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

First, I am pleased that the Government have acknowledged in their amendment that they have a negotiating position. That is a major step forward. I am also pleased that an unelected Prime Minister has deigned to give Parliament an opportunity to discuss this in due course. It is a real shame that the Prime Minister did not start her premiership by giving that commitment; instead, she has been forced to capitulate to the reasonable demands of so many people across the House.

The fact that the Prime Minister even gave thought to gagging Parliament—that is what it was in the first place—is shocking. If she cannot get a major constitutional issue right, what hope is there for the ability to negotiate a deal with the EU, especially with three members of her Cabinet leading the charge who cannot even agree among themselves who is leading on what?

I am afraid that the Government are not even in the happy position of making things up as they go along. By their standards, that would be a rational and systematic approach to the negotiations. No, the three amigos, as the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) referred to them, are somewhere in the English channel without a tiller or an oar between them. They are drifting, and the problem is that they are not the ones who are paying the price for their incompetence—an incompetence dressed up as a need for confidentiality, or else the Germans or the French will be able to see our hand. Well, I will let the Government in on a secret: we do not have a hand to show anyone, including ourselves.

We have had bluster again from the Foreign Secretary, who has been ruminating across Europe, so he tells us. We have the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union’s misguided, nonchalant and insouciant attitude at the Dispatch Box, which makes Sergeant Wilson from “Dad’s Army” look positively frenetic, but without the charm. Meanwhile, as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) said, the Secretary of State for International Trade

“doesn’t have a job and he doesn’t appear to have realised that yet.”

That sums up the whole fiasco that is the Government’s position. On 19 July, I asked the Chief Secretary to the Treasury how many civil servants had been involved in planning, and he could not answer. That is typical as well.

Liverpool, Bootle—my constituency—and the wider borough of Sefton voted to remain in Europe. I expect that part of the reason for that is that during the 1990s and 1980s, the Tory Government took a sledgehammer to the social and economic infrastructure of Merseyside, and the European Community was the only institution that continued to support my constituency. In fact, while we were being cut adrift by the Tories, with the odd honourable exception of people such as Lord Heseltine, the European Community was the only substantial lifeline, both economically and socially, for my community. We looked to the EC for support, and we got it; we did not get it from the Conservatives.

As a port with a long history of looking out to the world, we are not afraid to meet and greet other nations; in fact, that is part of what makes us who we are—tolerant and outward-looking. We do not want the Government’s lack of a plan to halt the growth in the Merseyside economy—the second largest growth outside of London. Frankly, there is little in the statement from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union that gives me any confidence whatever that the Government will deliver anything for my city region. The Government are silent on that aspect, as on many others, and that is really not good enough. The three Secretaries of State were vociferous in their demand to leave, but they are absolutely silent on what comes next.