European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Rachel Reeves Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Attorney General
I must make some progress. I will take many more interventions.
On the 585 pages, what does the agreement do? First, it secures the rights of 1 million British citizens living in the European Union and of 3 million European Union citizens living in the United Kingdom. What are we to say to them if this House today does not take the advantage of resolving and giving them the certainty of knowing that their position is enshrined in fundamental law?
The Attorney General
It is not a legal document, but no political declaration would ever be a legal document, by definition. Under EU law, we cannot have a finally negotiated text with all the legal detail.
Let me come to the two clear conditions in the political declaration—[Interruption.] I will complete in a few minutes. First, no free movement—
The Attorney General
Will the hon. Lady forgive me, but I really cannot? Her own colleagues say that I am taking too long, and I must wind up.
The position is that the political declaration includes two clear conditions. First, there will be no free movement. One cannot belong to the single market without participating in the four freedoms, therefore we will have a deal that admits of a spectrum of landing places where we will not belong to the single market.
The Attorney General
No, I must now make progress.
Secondly, there will be an independent trade policy. One cannot have a customs union—certainly one that is not bespoke—while having an independent trade policy. The Labour Front-Bench team say that they want a customs union with a say. That would be the first time—if it were ever negotiable—that the European Union had allowed a third country to have any say over commercial policy. Therefore, it is a fantasy, a complete fiction.
The Labour Front-Bench team also say that they want a strong single market deal, forming the exact same benefits—
The Attorney General
No. The same benefits but with no free movement—that is exactly what the Government want. They want a clear, strong, deep relationship with the European Union with no free movement, so I say to Labour hon. Gentlemen and Ladies and—
Rachel Reeves
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. He has been speaking for almost an hour, and for almost that entire time he has been addressing the concerns of a wing of his party, rather than the concerns of this House. In the past week, two amendments have been passed, neither with the support of the Government—to the Finance Bill and to the business motion—and both those amendments made it clear that the view of this House is to avoid a no-deal Brexit. That is the priority of this House—not the issue of the backstop, which he seems to have been addressing for the past hour. Instead of trying to unite his party, as the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has urged him to do, will the Attorney General try to unite the country, and to do the right thing by it, by ruling out leaving the European Union on 29 March without a deal?
The Attorney General
The hon. Lady can eliminate a no deal today; all she has to do is to vote for this one. In reality, it is the height of irresponsibility for the Labour party, which claims to be a party of Government, to plunge millions of our citizens into legal uncertainty of that type because of a factitious, trumped-up basis of opposition, whereas the real strategy is to drive this Government and this House on to the rocks, and to create the maximum chaos and the conditions for a general election—[Interruption.] We know the game, I say—[Interruption.] It is as clear as day—[Interruption.]
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).
This is not about what happens this evening, because that is a foregone conclusion. This is now about how the Prime Minister responds to the defeat tonight, and where she and the Government take us next. My Select Committee, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, took evidence on these issues back in November and December. I just want to give Members on all sides of the debate a sense of that evidence and of what businesses said to us.
Paul Everitt from ADS, the aerospace, defence, security and space business trade body, told us that the withdrawal agreement is “not as good” as the deal we have today and that it
“won’t ever be as good as it is today.”
Nestlé said that leaving the EU is
“like ripping all the wires out of the back of a huge mainframe, and then when you are standing there with all these wires, it will take an awful lot of time to rewire us into a different trading system.”
The chair of the American Pharmaceutical Group said,
“we are trying to rebuild what we may have taken apart.”
Of course, we have also had the news from Jaguar Land Rover, which described a “perfect storm”, of which Brexit is one fierce element, that is now resulting in 4,500 job losses.
We are in a position in which the Government say that the deal they have negotiated is not as good for our economy as the one we have today, and we have businesses telling us that the deal the Government have negotiated is not as good as the one we have today; yet tonight, we are in a place where the Government are asking us to vote for a deal that we know will make our constituents poorer, our economy weaker and our security arrangements less secure.
I cannot in good conscience vote for that deal. I did not come to this decision lightly. My constituents voted the way the country voted—to leave—but I do not think there is a single person in my constituency who voted for the deal before us this evening. I do not think that by voting for this deal we will heal the divisions in our country. Since the referendum, nearly 1,000 young people in my constituency have turned 18. They are probably the people who will be most affected by the decision that we will make this evening, yet they had no say in it.
I hope that in the days ahead the Prime Minister will start to listen, as she has not listened so far, to the voices in this House and to the people in this country. I hope that she will rule out no deal in the interests of our country, of our economy and of building a better future for us all, and then allow the people to have a say on the deal she has negotiated.