European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Richard Graham and Hilary Benn

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I will give way one more time.

[Richard Graham]

The right hon. Gentleman wrote in September that it would be

“utterly irresponsible for the Government to be rushing headlong towards”

no deal. Now that the House knows that the Government have a deal on the table, surely he and all his colleagues, who were elected on a manifesto pledge to respect the result of the referendum, should support this deal, rather than risk no deal. Is it not the case that no deal will ever be good enough for him?

[Hilary Benn]

The direct answer to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I also have the pleasure of serving on the Exiting the European Union Committee, is that to attempt to say to Members that the choice has to be between a bad deal—this is worse than the previous Prime Minister’s deal—and no deal is not a very attractive proposition. During the passage of this Bill—if it gets its Second Reading—I hope that we will attempt to improve some elements of it.

Clause 30 goes to the heart of the point about no deal, because the withdrawal agreement makes provision for the possibility of an extension to the transition period, which, at present, will end in 14 months’ time. Clause 30 says that the House can agree to a further extension, but it requires a Minister of the Crown to move the motion in the first place. The situation I am worried about is what if the Minister of the Crown fails to come to the House, does not move a motion proposing that the Government should request to the joint committee that the transitional period be extended, and the answer is that we would fall out without a deal in 14 months’ time if an agreement had not been reached. The House has voted on several occasions to make it clear that it is opposed to leaving with no deal, and there are arguments on either side as to whether people think that is a good thing or a bad thing, so I flag this up at this stage, because we will need to deal with that point—I gather that an amendment is on its way if it has not already been tabled—and to safeguard against it.

There is a second related problem to clause 30. What happens if a deal has not been negotiated by the end of December 2022 when the two-year extension has been applied for and secured? Now we would be facing exactly the same difficulty: the possibility of exiting without an agreement at the end of the transition period. In those circumstances, there is no way under the agreement that the British Government can get a further extension, so we have to find a way of ensuring that a deal is concluded by that time.

Ministers claim that, because of the high degree of alignment, it will all be done really quickly. I would just observe that took three and a quarter years to get to this point, and it took Canada six to seven years to get an agreement. Michel Barnier said this morning that he thought it would take around three years to negotiate such a deal, so we will be looking for assurance from the Minister in Committee that under no circumstances will the United Kingdom leave the European Union at the end of the transition period without a deal. I think another amendment may be on its way about that. The same point is relevant to citizens’ rights, which have not been raised much in the debate so far. We could do with clarification from Ministers, because if the transition is extended, will they also change the deadline by which EU citizens have to apply for settled status?

As I said on Saturday, I will not be voting for the Bill, above all because of the political declaration—I do not have a problem with the withdrawal agreement—which is not the right approach to take, because it is not good for business. I am very surprised, like other hon. Members, that the Government have just blithely said, “We are not going to undertake an economic assessment,” and I assume that the reason for that is simple. They did one before which showed that a free trade agreement is the second-worst outcome up for the economy after no deal, and they do not really want to have to point that out again.

My final point is about clause 31, and it links to the economic impact of the political declaration. The clause deals with the oversight of negotiations on the future relationship, and it appears to give Members some oversight, some say, over the nature of the negotiations on the future relationship, but proposed new section 13C(3) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 says:

“A statement on objectives for the future relationship…must be consistent with the political declaration of 17 October 2019”.

I simply point out that if, in one, two or three years’ time, the House realises that the objectives of such a free trade agreement are not in our economic interests, because we finally realise the damage it will do to the economy—we have seen what businesses have said and the concerns they have expressed—the current wording of the clause gives no opportunity for Parliament to get a Government to change those objectives. I do not think we should accept the Bill on that issue, as it is currently worded.

United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Debate between Richard Graham and Hilary Benn

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[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.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Debate between Richard Graham and Hilary Benn

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I would say to the hon. Gentleman that it does. My father and I were in agreement 41 years ago when we both campaigned to leave the Common Market, but the British people in their wisdom voted to stay. I change my mind, and my late, dear father did not. However, he taught me many things, one of which was stand up for what you believe in and to say what you think, and that is what I am doing from this Dispatch Box today. Also, every subsequent change relating to our membership of the European Union has been agreed by this House—by our democracy—and the referendum will give the British people the chance to take this really important decision. I am making my argument as to why we on this side of the House are passionately in support of remaining in the European Union.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on two points that in my view no one should be in any doubt about. First, trade is absolutely critical. All the countries with which I and all the other trade envoys deal are in no doubt that we will do much better with them by being within the European Union rather than outside it. I am also in no doubt that the 53 agreements that the European Union has entered into would take a very long time to replicate—if, indeed, that could be done at all. Lastly, on inward investment, I am also in no doubt that a wave of foreign direct investment that could come here is being held up at the moment as a result of uncertainty.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with all three points that the hon. Gentleman has just made, particularly the last one. We all know that what business hates more than anything else is uncertainty, and at the moment there is great uncertainty about our future in the European Union. We need to end that uncertainty as quickly as possible, and we need to end it in the right way.

Greater than all the benefits that I have tried to describe thus far is, for me, the most significant contribution that the European idea has made to our lives. That is, quite simply, 70 years of peace on a continent that had been at war for centuries. Anyone who has visited those graveyards in France and Belgium, as many Members have, will understand the significance of that achievement. You only have to walk along the rows of graves in which the flower of two generations of young Europeans rest, having given their youth and their lives, to understand the force of that achievement.

That achievement did not come about by accident. It was the sheer determination and vision of Europe’s founders to end the history of slaughter and to build something better out of the ashes of a still smouldering Europe that made it happen. The Schuman declaration said it all. It resolved to make a future war not merely unthinkable but materially impossible. What it achieved was peace, as the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames)—he is not here today—described most eloquently in his remarkable speech back in February. That peace even has the seal of approval of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who wrote two years ago in his biography of Churchill that Europe’s securing of the peace had been a “spectacular success”. What a pity that he has learned nothing from his own former wisdom.

amendment of the law

Debate between Richard Graham and Hilary Benn

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

Well, I have already told the Secretary of State that when he has proposals that will work and succeed, I will support them. If he wants the benefit of further advice from the Opposition, I would be happy to see him in his office, especially if he is buying the tea and biscuits himself.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hilary Benn]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I wish to make a little more progress.

I will now turn to the Budget. I have some questions to put to the Secretary of State. We know that the Government have a soft spot for people who earn a lot of money, but why is he proposing that his new deposit and mortgage scheme should be made available to anyone earning any amount, including millionaires, so that they can buy a house worth up to £600,000? Why is he changing the rules in that way, given that Firstbuy is currently only for those with family incomes below £60,000, and given that the Treasury document published last Wednesday states that the scheme is meant to help

“households struggling to save for the high mortgage deposits required by lenders”?

How many struggling top rate taxpayers does he expect to take advantage of the new scheme? No doubt they will be very grateful to him for his generosity.

In respect of the mortgage guarantee element of the help-to-buy scheme, can the Secretary of State clarify once and for all whether people who already own a property will be able to use it to buy a second home? He did not quite answer that earlier—[Interruption.] No, he did not. On Thursday, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills could not answer the question. When asked, he simply said:

“The scheme has not yet been designed in detail.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 1102.]

At the same time, the Minister for Housing told “World at One” that second-home purchases would not be allowed. The BBC then reported that No. 10 had had to clarify the position. It seemed that the Housing Minister had been referring to another part of the help-to-buy scheme relating to equity loans. So yesterday we all turned on “The Andrew Marr Show” to watch the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and far from ruling it out categorically, he said, in a formulation that the Secretary of State has repeated today:

“Our intention is not to help people to buy second homes”.

If the Government do not want it to happen, why do Ministers not simply make it clear that it is not going to happen? Otherwise, reminiscent of last year’s Budget, we will have fanfare followed by farce.

In the event that these schemes are over-subscribed, what criteria will be used to determine which applicants are going to get assistance? I listened very carefully to the Secretary of State when he said that foreign nationals would not be eligible for assistance from the scheme, but where in the Government’s scheme description does it say that foreign nationals will not be eligible? I have looked at the mortgage eligibility criteria, and they do not say that. Has he taken any advice on whether EU nationals who are resident in the UK will be barred by law from taking part in the scheme?

What estimate has the Secretary of State made of the impact that “help to buy” will have on the housing market, given that we know that it is the lack of supply that has led to high house prices? The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has warned that the Government must be careful not to create “another housing bubble”. It seems that the scheme is not even a done deal with the lenders, because the Council of Mortgage Lenders has set out certain conditions that it wants to be met, or else, it warns, the scheme could be made “uneconomical”. How many additional homes, in total, does the Secretary of State think will be built as a result of the scheme?

[Hilary Benn]

That is a very good question that has already been asked. I am very happy to give way to the Secretary of State if he wishes to answer it. Does he wish to answer? No, he does not.

We need a lot of new affordable homes because of the decision taken by the Government nearly three years ago to slash the affordable housing budget, when £4 billion was taken away. We are then asked to be grateful to the Secretary of State when we hear in the Budget announcements that an additional £225 million will be made available, although it seems that only £125 million of it will be spent before 2015. That figure is dwarfed by the original £4 billion cut. We are told that this is a time for tough choices. A quarter of a billion pounds was identified by the Secretary of State to try to persuade councils to collect the bins in the way that he thinks is correct. It was such a failure that only one council took him up on his offer. A quarter of a billion pounds and one council: think how many affordable homes that money could have been used to build! If the Government want to be taken seriously on affordable housing, they have to will the means. That is why we called for the 4G auction proceeds and the bankers’ bonus tax repetition to be used to build 125,000 new affordable homes to get the economy moving.

The Secretary of State referred to councils. We know that he is presiding over cuts to the local authority sector that are bigger than in any other part of the public sector and that the cuts are being unfairly applied. Councils need as much money as they can find to help, in part, to build homes. When the Secretary of State was asked about these cuts earlier this year in front of the departmental Select Committee, he said that in his view the cuts were “modest”. In private, however, it seems that his views are rather different. When it was reported last month that the Chancellor was looking for further cuts from certain Departments, including CLG, The Times said that

“sources close to Mr Pickles”—

[Interruption.] It certainly was not me. The Times said that

“sources close to Mr Pickles made clear that he was not accepting the latest reductions, arguing that council services had already been cut to the bone.”

It seems, therefore, that the Secretary of State’s private views are rather different from his public views. We are used to hearing Liberal Democrats say one thing to one audience and another thing to another, but I am surprised that the Secretary of State is also doing so.

This is a familiar record. The Secretary of State, as the statistics show, is not very good at getting things done. It is not just me who thinks that; the Chancellor does, too. Apparently the Chancellor was in a fiery mood at the Cabinet meeting following the loss of the triple A credit rating and challenged Ministers about the poor rate of growth. The Daily Telegraph reported:

“Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, was given a ‘dressing down’ for failings in the Government’s flagship enterprise zone programme, according to sources.

With less than a month until he unveils his Budget, the Chancellor criticised Mr Pickles over figures that show that one in three enterprise zones is failing to attract enough businesses. Mr Pickles is then said to have attempted to deflect the blame on to Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, by accusing him of failing to convince foreign businesses to invest in the schemes.”

It is a very familiar story: Cabinet members are so busy fighting and blaming each other that it is no wonder that they cannot sort out the problems facing the country.

The reforms to the national planning policy framework were supposed to streamline the planning system, but it seems that they have left councils less able to decide applications quickly. The national rate of decisions taken on major applications within 13 weeks has fallen from 62% in 2011 to 57% in 2012, and the same is true of minor applications determined within eight weeks, which are down from 72% to 69%, and the transition period is about to finish.

The planning Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford, said recently that he wants further relaxation of the planning laws. We would be very interested to hear what he has in mind.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. May I confirm for him that the relaxation of planning laws introduced by the new planning Minister has been incredibly helpful to my constituents? It has ensured that work on three brownfield sites is now going ahead, which will be a great boon to the people of Gloucester.

The right hon. Gentleman also made a point earlier about the Secretary of State’s problems with delivery. Given that the right hon. Gentleman agreed earlier with one of my Liberal Democrat friends that delivery was a problem for his party when it was in power, is it not better to focus on the Budget announcements and—