European Union (Withdrawal) Acts
Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and John Bercow(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey
Please forgive me for not giving way; we are extremely pushed for time.
What does this deal mean for business? I will put it simply; for business, for our industries and for our manufacturing, it reduces access to the market of our biggest trading partner, threatening jobs up and down our country at a time when more investment is needed, not less. There is no economic impact assessment and no accompanying legal advice—funny that; I wonder why. According to The Guardian, Britain is on course to sacrifice as much as £130 billion in lost GDP growth over the next 15 years if the Brexit deal goes ahead.
Industry has been clear that it needs market access. It needs a customs union to keep vital supply chains flowing, but this deal sells them out. With no barrier-free access and no customs union, it puts the fantasy of chasing damaging trade deals with Donald Trump over the needs of our country. Again, the House does not have to take my word for it. Make UK, which represents British manufacturing, is clear that
“commitments to the closest possible trading relationship in goods have gone”
and that the deal
“will add cost and bureaucracy and our companies will face a lack of clarity inhibiting investment and planning.”
Even the CBI added that the
“deal remains inadequate on services”
and that it has
“serious concerns about the direction of the future UK-EU relationship.”
This is a bad deal for industry, a bad deal for manufacturing and, more importantly, a bad deal for jobs.
Let us look at what the deal will mean for the environment. Let us see what green groups are saying about it. Greener UK, for example, has raised—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is excessive noise in the Chamber. It is very unfair on the hon. Lady, who is developing her contribution. Let us listen to each other courteously.
Rebecca Long Bailey
Greener UK has raised huge concerns, saying that
“environmental safeguards are absent from the new withdrawal agreement”
and that the Government’s toothless Environment Bill
“provides neither an enforcement body with independence… nor a commitment to non-regression in domestic law.”
All this is coming at a time when we face a climate crisis across the world, and it is simply unacceptable.
The Government are asking us to trust them on all these issues without, quite tellingly, setting out any detail or legislation today. The Prime Minister says that nobody in his Government wants to reduce rights or standards, but that is a remarkable statement, especially when looking at their track record. How can we trust them?—[Interruption.] Government Members can cheer all they like, but how can we trust a Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who made it clear that, for small businesses, she envisages
“no regulation whatsoever—no minimum wage, no maternity or paternity rights, no unfair dismissal rights, no pension rights”?—[Official Report, 10 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 209.]
How can we trust a Foreign Secretary who wrote a pamphlet called “Escaping the Straitjacket” that outlined his plans to cut workers’ rights and regulations? How can we trust a Prime Minister who said the UK should scrap the social chapter and claimed that the current
“weight of employment regulation is… backbreaking”?
The answer is that we cannot trust them. If their intentions were to maintain current standards, why have they slashed every level playing field commitment in the withdrawal agreement?
We are about to make history and, in the final moments before we enter the Lobbies, MPs will consider the weight placed upon their shoulders. Is this deal right for their communities, industries and future generations? No, it is not. Agreeing this deal will not get Brexit done; instead, it will sell out our country and sell out our communities, leaving us open to an onslaught of deregulation and a reduction of rights that will put jobs at risk. That is something no Labour MP, nor any other MP worried about protecting their community, could ever support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and John Bercow(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. We are grateful to the Minister. He has spoken with considerable force and alacrity, and I am sure that he is very pleased with his own words, although we have had enough of them.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree with the TUC that, while decarbonisation presents exciting economic opportunities, the lack of a comprehensive and just transition policy and a coherent industrial strategy means that many well-paid, highly skilled unionised jobs are under threat?
Points of Order
Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and John Bercow
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Earlier today, the Minister for the Cabinet Office may have accidentally said, in response to a question about the UK’s carbon budgets, “We are not off track” to meeting those targets at all. The Government’s official adviser on climate change, the Committee on Climate Change, has reported that the UK is off track to meeting its fourth and fifth carbon budgets, and official statistics published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have also shown that it is off track. It is therefore a matter of established fact that the UK is off track to meeting its targets. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, on how we can correct the record?
Mr Speaker
I think that the hon. Lady has done so very successfully, not least to her own satisfaction. The observation that she has just made will be faithfully recorded in the Official Report, which she may choose to disseminate more widely, possibly in her own constituency or beyond. I hope that she will go about her business with an additional glint in her eye and spring in her step in the knowledge that she has taken early action to put the record straight, as she sees it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and John Bercow(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I was not looking for the right hon. Gentleman, although it is always a pleasure to be reminded of the fact of his presence.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
I wish you and the Secretary of State a happy new year, Mr Speaker, but the sad fact is that the good work plan does little to change the lives of precarious limb (b) workers, who will still not be entitled to statutory sick pay, maternity pay or the right to claim unfair dismissal. For those on a zero-hours contract, all the requests in the world will not legally oblige their employer to provide more stable employment. I have asked this question time and again to no avail: can the Secretary of State confirm what happens when an employer refuses a request for more stable working hours?
Points of Order
Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and John Bercow(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am saving up the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). It would be a pity to squander him at too early a stage of our proceedings.
Rebecca Long Bailey
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy suggested in response to my earlier comments that I have never said what further undertakings he should have sought from Melrose. I know he cherishes our exchanges—there are many of them, so I forgive him for forgetting one of them—but on 27 March, in response to an update from him, I questioned the absence of numerous undertakings and was very specific about what they were. I would simply like to correct the record, and I accept his apology in advance.
Mr Speaker
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for her attempted point of order, which I would prefer to classify as a point of continued debate. I am sure it will be of intense interest across the House, and copies of this particular extract of today’s proceedings will probably be lodged in the Library. More particularly, I rather imagine that she will wish speedily to communicate what she has just said to many, many thousands of people across Salford and Eccles.