United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union
Richard Graham Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Hilary Benn
That is an interesting question, but I am being diverted from the final point that I want to make.
I listened to the Attorney-General’s kind reference to the indicative votes process. I almost forgot that the Government voted against it happening this week. If they were taking it seriously, they would indicate a willingness to compromise if the House is able to find a way forward.
The deal has been defeated twice because it offers no clarity or certainty for our future. If businesses come to me in my constituency and say, “Hilary, I know how it works today. I export. Tell me how it will work with this political declaration in three, five or 10 years.” I have to look them in the eye and tell them the truth: I have absolutely no idea. So is it right to ask the House to take us out of the European Union on that basis, especially when a new Prime Minister may be coming?
On “Newsnight” last night, it was reported that a Cabinet Minister was asked why the Government were going ahead with this vote and they replied, expletive deleted:
“I’m past caring. It’s like the living dead in here.”
I will not comment on the language, but that is the problem and it has always been the problem.
Hilary Benn
No. We have a divided Cabinet, a divided Parliament, a divided country and people are feeling very passionate out there, but this vote will not solve the problem. Monday’s votes might offer us a way forward, and I hope that the House will seize it.
Mr Baron
Because my hon. Friend will remember, as I do, the dire predictions if we voted to leave in 2016, which never materialised. They were so poor that the Bank of England and many others had to publicly apologise, and since then we have seen record low unemployment, record high manufacturing output and record investment, and those decisions in recent years have been made on the basis that we could be leaving on no-deal, WTO terms.
Mr Baron
I am sorry, I will not give way. I am going to continue for a little bit.
The second reason why I will vote against the agreement this afternoon is the indefinite nature of the backstop. I fully agree with those who say that there is a need for compromise. I do not like the transition arrangement, but I can hold my nose to it, because in a sense it is no worse than being in the EU, but what I find very difficult to swallow is the indefinite nature of the backstop. I cannot imagine that there is anybody in this place who would enter into a serious legal arrangement—an agreement—that gave the key to exit only to the other party. We could be locked into the backstop indefinitely. That is not delivering on the result of the EU referendum, the triggering of article 50 or the result of the general election, in which both parties committed to honouring the referendum result in their manifestos.
In conclusion, we triggered article 50. The legal default position of that triggering, which we passed by a majority of 384, is that we would leave with or without a deal. Monday’s motion will address the central issue of whether we leave on WTO terms if we cannot pass the Prime Minister’s deal today, and I would encourage the House to give it consideration.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
I have sat through today’s debate, and I will not take any interventions because I want other colleagues also to have the chance to speak.
We need to talk about trust. The British public are fed up with Brexit and are fed up with us. The vast majority of us in this Chamber stood on a manifesto to honour the referendum result. I respect those who did not stand on such a manifesto, but the majority of us did. This House, whether or not we like to admit it, is a remain House. The Labour party would like to bring down the Government, and it clearly sees this as an opportunity to do so. I understand that that is the Opposition’s job, and we were in opposition long enough, but it is fundamentally wrong for a party to stand on a manifesto saying it will honour the referendum result and then do everything it can in this House to delay, change or make it a soft Brexit, or whatever other language we might use.
Sir Mike Penning
I have already said that I will not give way.
We can rebuild trust among the British public, but we can only do so if we compromise—not, as the Scottish National party suggests, by not leaving, and not by saying we want to be in the European Union—[Hon. Members: “Hear! Hear!”] Yet again, I am so popular.
I am pleased that the Prime Minister is here, because this is fundamental. Those running leadership campaigns to replace her should, for God’s sake, put it on the back burner until we get this through. We are not voting today on the Bill. We are voting to get on to the Bill so we can consider the amendments that so many colleagues wish to make, including my friends from Northern Ireland.
Colleagues stood for election on a piece of paper that said, “I will honour the referendum.” They have to go back to their constituencies and say, “I have honoured the referendum result, as I promised you.” I will have to go back and say I have compromised, because I do not like the agreement. Most of us do not like the agreement, but it is a damn sight better than sticking two fingers up to the British public and saying, “We are going to ignore you.”
That is basically what is happening. Our constituents voted to leave, and not with caveats or with bits and bobs attached, and leave is what we should do, but I am petrified that this House is going to block the will of the British people, which is why I will support the motion today.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Richard Graham Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I rise to contribute briefly on two aspects of the debate: first, Lords amendment 51, which would require the Government to have, as a negotiating objective, membership of the European economic area; and, secondly, Lords amendment 2, which would require the Government to participate in a customs union. As a pragmateer, I know that we can make a case for both of them, for the risks of leaving the European Union are considerable and surely no one still believes that either the process or the negotiations are simple, because they are not.
Both approaches involve significant setbacks, however. Membership of the EEA would mean that we had no control over EU migration, and membership of the customs union would mean that we continued to subcontract our trade policy. This matters because, when it comes to immigration, the hard fact is that we cannot deport a criminal from the European Union unless their sentence is longer than two years, and it is virtually impossible to deport long-term unemployed rough sleepers from the European Union, as the recent European Court of Justice judgment made clear.
I believe that my constituents—indeed, all of our constituents—want their elected representative to take decisions about who can come here and work, and they do not hugely differentiate between individuals from Croatia and those from China or the Commonwealth. They would like us to take such decisions based on the needs of the country, the skills required, and whether the individuals coming here to work have those skills. On that basis, I believe that people in this country do want to see immigrants coming here.
On the customs union, the free trade agreements that the EU has already made are definitely an advantage. For example, we benefit hugely from the agreement with South Korea. However, to say, as some do, that we can never actually do as well as the EU is to underestimate the potential for us out there. Let me highlight the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to which some nine countries have now signed up, because there is a real opportunity for us to become part of that arrangement. Leaving the EU is clearly a risk—it is not a risk that all of us thought was worth the potential return—but if we are to make the most of doing so, membership of the EEA and of a customs union is not the way to satisfy anyone.
Lord Alli, a Labour peer, said on introducing Lords amendment 51 that
“it is up to the elected House to decide on the EEA, not this House.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 May 2018; Vol. 791, c. 58.]
He was right, and I trust tonight that we will vote down Lords amendments 51 and 2, and support the greatest flexibility, which is what the Government need in the negotiations.
Gareth Snell
It will come as no surprise to Labour Members that, when we divide this evening, I shall not be voting for Lords amendment 51; in fact I shall be voting; to remove it from the Bill. I do not believe that the European economic area is the answer to the problems we face. I have been very clear with my constituents at every opportunity that the problems we have in Stoke-on-Trent were not caused by the European Union, but a continuation of a Europe-lite version will not be their salvation either.
On the customs union, I fully support the work that Labour Front Benchers have been doing to secure a proper trading relationship for goods with the European Union once we have left. Our trade deal with South Korea is vital to the ceramics industry, and it is only by continuing those arrangements after exit day that we will be able to sustain growth in that very important industry in my city.
What I do not understand is those who now advocate that we can have some sort of customs union plus EEA membership. I am aware that Monsieur Barnier came out last night and said that that was possible, but as far as I am aware, nobody in this House today has spoken to the members of the European Free Trade Association to ask whether that is something that they are willing to wear. Many Labour Members have recently rightly argued that those who join a club late and then seek to fundamentally change its rules of association should not do so, and it is wrong that we should take that approach into the European Free Trade Association with the intention of trying to change the way it has operated for many years.
No one I have heard this afternoon has advocated joining the EEA without some form of change, whether that be to freedom of movement, the terms and conditions or the way we trade. If we do not believe that the EEA is the right model for us, why do we advocate hitching ourselves to it after exit day? Unpicking ourselves from the EEA will be much more difficult than getting the bespoke deal here and now that practically all of us have spoken about this afternoon. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) made that point when she said that there are elements of the EEA that simply would not work.
There has been much talk about articles 112 and 113 of the treaty around EFTA and the EEA allowing us to put a brake on immigration. Article 112 talks about severe and extreme societal, environmental or economic situations being taken into account for a time-limited period only. It does not address the concerns regarding immigration that were raised with me on the doorstep in Stoke-on-Trent during the general election. I take umbrage at Members who seek to suggest that people such as me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) raise the issue of immigration simply because we are opposed to it. I want a firm and fair immigration system that allows those from Poland as well as Pakistan to come here, work hard, do their bit and pay their taxes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Richard Graham Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Again, the facts speak for themselves. Since last summer, 5 million people have been entered on to the new individual voter registration system. Nine in 10 voters are transferred automatically on to it, and 1.3 million more people have been entered on to it since December alone. Of course we need to do more, across the parties and across the nation, to encourage people to register to vote, but it is the worst form of shameless scaremongering to suggest that a transition to individual voter registration—which the Labour Government advocated and introduced—is somehow entirely responsible for the fact that some groups are more under-registered than others.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I recently welcomed the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) to Gloucester, where he saw at first hand the regeneration in Blackfriars. That regeneration will be helped by the recent growth award via the local enterprise partnership. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that there is potential for small city deals or county deals to help to devolve and boost regeneration projects in cities such as Gloucester, or would he encourage us to bid for the next growth deal via the LEP?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to do the latter. First, he is right to point out that decentralisation should not be only an urban phenomenon or just something granted to larger cities, although they were the pioneer areas where the city deals and growth deals first happened. We have made a good start, with the £12 billion growth deals that are under way, on ensuring that every part of the country—county, city, rural, urban—gets more powers handed down to it from Whitehall, and I very much want to see that.