Leaving the European Union

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

The petition, signed by more than 100,000 people, states that if the Government fail to reach an agreement with the EU by the deadline, Brexit should be stopped. After last week’s chaos, who can blame those who signed it? Tory infighting is usually something I would welcome, because it is fun to watch blue on blue, but Brexit transcends party politics. We have 130 days left before we crash out of the EU, and we do not know what we are going to do. In responding to the petition, it is time that we ditched our divisions and looked at the facts, because they are shocking. We have no majority for the Northern Ireland backstop, no majority for a deal that makes us a rule-taker, and no majority for a withdrawal agreement that leaves 3 million EU citizens facing unacceptable limbo.

At the heart of my support for the petition is the case of EU nationals. Some 22,000 EU nationals live in Hampstead and Kilburn, and it is in defence of their rights that I rise to speak. These are not people who have the right to vote for me. This is not about politics; it is about the fact that they have lived in the community for years and years. This is their home. They make an unquantifiable contribution to our community, our NHS, our businesses and our creative sectors.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Lady share the Welsh and Scottish Governments’ view that the Prime Minister’s comments about queue jumping at the weekend were deeply offensive, and should play no part in a civilised debate about our future immigration policy?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will read a few of the words that the Prime Minister has said about the EU nationals living here. I repeat that 22,000 EU nationals live in Hampstead and Kilburn. The Prime Minister has repeatedly told the House and Members that even in the case of no deal, EU citizens will have their rights protected. However, to choose just one example, on page 28 of the agreement, article 15(3) states that the right of permanent residence can be lost if family or work obligations mean that someone has to leave the country for five years. As the3million says, EU citizens living in the UK will soon have to pay to apply to stay in their home, and will have to undergo systematic criminality checks.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

On that point, does the hon. Lady agree that it is ridiculous that some children born in this country to EU nationals from other parts of the EU who have been here for decades now have to apply to be British?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree that that is absolutely ridiculous. It also goes against all our British values of welcoming people.

In the Prime Minister’s CBI speech, EU migrants were told that they would lose their place in the queue for employment opportunities. We are at a pivotal point in our history. Do we want to become a Trumpian society in which we demonise migrants and do not make them feel welcome? Or do we want to go back to the British values of welcoming people to this country, as refugees or migrants, because of the contribution that they make to our country? Does what the Prime Minister has outlined sound like the protection of existing rights? My residents in Hampstead and Kilburn do not think so. I will illustrate my point with the example of two of the 22,000 EU nationals living there.

Sarit from Hampstead town is an EU doctor. In a year, he does 2,000 NHS surgeries. He said that Brexit is a threat to his work in the UK. I went through a very difficult childbirth two years ago on the NHS, and every single doctor, nurse and midwife who treated me was from the EU. There has been a 96% drop in the number of EU nurses applying to work in our NHS. Georgia, a Cypriot constituent, has lived in my constituency since 2003. She wrote to me of her fears about the new reticence of firms in Canary Wharf to hire EEA citizens.

The official Vote Leave statement said on 1 June 2016:

“There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident”.

They

“will be treated no less favourably than they are at present”.

With that clearly no longer the case, we can add the betrayal of EU citizens’ rights to the long list of betrayals that have led to an undeniable shift in public opinion.

Hon. Friends have mentioned the people’s vote. A Sky News poll on 15 November asked whether voters would support or oppose a referendum to choose between the draft Brexit deal, no deal, or remain, and 55% were in support of a people’s vote. In a YouGov poll, 59% of respondents said that they now support a people’s vote. The change in opinion is clear, and as parliamentarians we have a duty to act on that change, and on the failure to achieve a deal.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady referred to the withdrawal agreement. Does she accept the opinion of Unionists that no Unionist can support a plan that gives Brussels more say than the UK Parliament over trade and rules in Northern Ireland? How can anyone in this House support a plan that draws a regulatory border down the Irish sea, and support the withdrawal agreement? Does she feel our angst and our annoyance at what is happening?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Perhaps the Minister can answer that question, as well as my long list of questions. Have the promises of Vote Leave materialised? If not, should not the public be given another say on the deal that is reached? Does the draft deal stand a chance of passing through the Commons, in the light of dissent from across the House? If not, should not the public be given another say on the deal that is reached?

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is making a convincing case for people having changed their minds. Two years ago, the Conservative party chose a leader, yet some people in that party now want to choose another leader. They do not want that leader set in stone for two years. To draw a parallel, people have changed their minds on this subject. There should be an opportunity to see whether the will of the people is still the will of the people.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that the leader goes on another holiday, so that we have an opportunity to choose another leader for the country.

Does the Minister believe that a no-deal scenario, with all the chaos that it will cause, is a viable path for our country? If not, should not the public be given a say on the deal that cannot be reached? It has for some time been clear to me, and thousands in my constituency, that the Government do not have the answers, so ultimately the people should be given the opportunity to vote again.

[Jo Stevens]

Given that voters found out only last Wednesday what they apparently voted for in 2016, the only proper democratic course of action is to put the Prime Minister’s proposal to the public by way of a people’s vote, and to see whether they want to accept that or remain in the EU. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Tulip Siddiq]

When we went to the ballot box on that fateful June day, there was only one question on the ballot paper: “Do you want to leave the European Union or not?” All those people arguing that it became a proxy vote on immigration—I agree that it was—and about all the other associations with the vote should remember that. It was not a sensible way to run a referendum that I did not agree with in the first place.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Historically in this country we have only ever had one question on the ballot paper. How easy will it be for such a referendum to include more than one question?

[Tulip Siddiq]

History will probably show that we did not always get it right. I am not resistant to change. It is because I respect democracy that I think we need a people’s vote. I respect people’s opinions and the right to change one’s mind once a decision has been taken. Democracy in the UK did not begin and end with the referendum in 2016, and it certainly does not end after two years of shoddy negotiations by the Government, after which we do not know what will happen in 130 days. Given the Government’s failure to bring home a deal that can command widespread support in the House, it is high time that we parliamentarians trusted the British public to have their say and vote again.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

This is the first time I have served under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. You are a near neighbour of mine in constituency terms and used to represent a huge chunk of my constituency. I know I do not do as good a job as a constituency Member of Parliament as you did, but I hope I can at least be good and behave myself in front of you as Chairman of this debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as it was to serve under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale).

I have learned many things during this debate. The first thing is never to drink a litre of water over a three-hour debate, but that is by the bye. I learned the power of a petition, because we have had a good and, on the whole, constructive debate. I commend Ciaran O’Doherty, the lead petitioner, because it is a big step to do this sort of thing, and to get the publicity that has gone with it. He should be congratulated in many areas, because without any mass of publicity, his petition has breached the 100,000 mark. Sky is trying to get a petition about leaders’ debates—a petition that I am in favour of—which it advertises on a regular basis on its news broadcasts, and which now sits at 70,000-odd signatures, so Ciaran O’Doherty should be very much congratulated on getting the number of names on his petition that he did.

I also congratulate the Petitions Committee on arranging this debate, and the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on sponsoring it. I have enjoyed listening to many of the contributions, and I thank the hon. Lady especially for the polite and sensitive way in which she introduced the debate. I will talk about many of the questions she raised, especially around no deal, which other people call “leaving the EU on WTO terms”, and one of my colleagues calls a “global British leave.”

I should state at the beginning that no one is talking about introducing a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. We will not do so, and the Irish Taoiseach has said again today that Ireland will not. That is not on the table. I will pick up the points that the hon. Lady very properly mentioned about the concerns of EU citizens in the event of us leaving on WTO terms. As the Prime Minister said, these people are our friends, neighbours and co-workers, and

“EU citizens living lawfully in the UK today”

will be entitled, and welcome, to stay.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) for her contribution. As ever, she hid her views under a bushel; I wish she would just tell people where she stands on issues. As ever, she strongly represents the people who voted for her in her constituency when she won it at the general election, and her constituents’ views on these matters. Her point about trust in politics, a fair point that was echoed by a number of other speakers, was particularly well made.

I listened to what the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) had to say about EU citizens’ rights. There is a careful balance to be struck here, because there have been a whole host of assurances from senior politicians, I think on both sides of the House, that EU citizens currently resident and working in the United Kingdom would be welcome to stay here under a no deal, and the Prime Minister has already pledged that under a deal. I think the hon. Lady may have been slightly confused, if I may be so bold, as to the bit of the withdrawal agreement that she read out; that was an inner deal, a reciprocal way that both we and the European Union will deal with EU citizens living in the United Kingdom and UK citizens living in the EU. I will happily write to her, or have a chat with her afterwards, to clarify that.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Does the Minister think it is the right way forward—even if, as I understand it, this is the agreement that we have reached—that if someone has been out of the country for five years for any reason, their status is not settled?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I think the hon. Lady will find that that is common in international law across the globe, so yes, I think it is correct. I can only hold in admiration Sarit, the hon. Lady’s medic constituent, who does 2000 surgeries every year, thank him for what he does, and say, “You are more than welcome to stay. We welcome you with open arms. Thank you for being here in the first place.” I wish Georgia well in finding a job. I hope I have made the point about how we will deal with EU citizens.

It is always a pleasure to listen to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talk. He will remember a day in the last general election, at the beginning of the campaign, when he and I were canvassing on the same street in his constituency—a constituency I know well, as I lived in the neighbouring one for a decent period of time. He is a very good champion of his area, but he is completely out of sync with his constituents on this particular matter, since it is a 56% leave seat, and the area we were canvassing might well have a different view from him on this point.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

As Members, we make difficult decisions every day. Some of them are of local significance and others take on national significance. The only reason we have the ability to make these decisions in the House is that our local constituents gave us their consent and voted for us at the general election. The point has been made to me that we are not delegates, but when all my neighbours, local business people, local pharmacists, local health professionals and local political allies and, indeed, opponents are telling me to take a stand, I cannot help but feel that this is the right course of action. I did not want to resign from my Front-Bench role. I know it was not a great office of state, but it was an important role that allowed me to hold the Government to account over their aspirations for social mobility.

Today, we are debating whether to trigger article 50 and give the Prime Minister permission to exit the EU. I feel that I would be abandoning my duty to my constituents, who have overwhelmingly and unwaveringly made the point that they do not want to leave the EU—75% voted to remain—if I voted for the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) made the point powerfully from the Dispatch Box yesterday that this decision has not been easy. It has been in a haze of conflicting emotions that the Labour party has sought to decide what to do, but for me there are two main reasons for voting against the Bill.

The first concerns the future of the 17,000 EU nationals living in my constituency. Some people have accused me of taking this stand only to ensure my re-election at the next election, but those EU nationals cannot vote for me anyway. I am taking this stand because in Hampstead and Kilburn we do not wince when we hear people speaking a different language on public transport; we do not scapegoat others for the pressures on our health system, criminal justice system and housing just because they do not look like us or sound like us; and we do not indulge in baseless theories that our country is at breaking point. Rather, we celebrate these EU nationals—they are as much a part of our fabric as anyone else and have as much right to be here as the generations before them. If I vote for the Bill, I will be abandoning my responsibility to these EU nationals.

The second reason I will be voting against the Bill concerns the lack of access to the single market, which will affect three main groups in my constituency. The first are the self-employed, who have argued that they need tariff-free trade with the EU. The second are those in the scientific and technical industries. In the last 10 years, the scientific funding from EU sources has increased by 73%, and at this point their projects are in jeopardy. The final group are those in the financial services and insurance sectors, who have no clarity over the future of their passporting rights.

These are the reasons why in good conscience I cannot vote for the Bill. To quote my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), this is not how we do things in the House. We need clarity. We need to see the economic impact of this decision. In good conscience and for the sake of my constituents, whether they can vote for me or not, I will not be voting for the Bill today.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I voted to remain in the European Union, as did 75% of my constituents, so it is not surprising that my inbox has been filled with questions about access to the single market, customs union, immigration, the environment and workplace protections. Perhaps the most pressing issue, which has come up over and over again, is the protection of EU nationals. Forty-six per cent. of my constituents were born offshore, and they have emailed me constantly asking about their future.

Anne, who lives in Hampstead and has done for 40 years, keeps asking me what will happen to her. Will she have to relocate? Can she live in the country that she has called her home, where she raised her family, where she got married and where she is a community member and part of the local school, or will she have to relocate? Unfortunately, I cannot give her the answers, because the Government’s plans have been shrouded in secrecy from the very beginning. I applaud my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) for forcing the Government to say that they will publish plans and let us know what they are doing, but it is far too little, far too late. The Government should have done that a long time ago.

This is not simply a moral issue; we have to think about the benefits to our economy. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that EU immigrants to Britain are significantly younger than the national average and more likely to be in work. In Camden, which forms part of my constituency, 13% of employed residents hold an EU passport. The Government need to acknowledge not simply the moral issue about using people as bargaining chips, but the significant impact that there will be on our local economy if we do not secure the future of the people who hold EU passports and live in this country. The proportion of people in my constituency who hold EU passports rises to 17% in professional, scientific and technical industries. The figure is 14% in financial and insurance services and 10% in information and communications.

I know I do not have much time, so I call on the Government and the Prime Minister to do a few things. Immediately try to secure the future of EU nationals who live in this country and who consider this country to be their home. Do not pander to the people who treated the EU referendum as a proxy vote on immigration. Stop trying to chase failed migration targets. That has not worked in the past, and it is not going to happen now. I call on the Government, the Prime Minister and Members of the House to secure the future of EU nationals living in my constituency and across the country and to put their uncertainties to rest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to make sure that we embrace the full range of challenges and opportunities in the Brexit process, and we need to engage with business through that process. It is excellent that my hon. Friend is holding a forum and it is good that he is listening to businesses in his constituency. That is certainly something that we as the Department will be doing all around the country.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

The Government’s shocking record on tackling air pollution is well documented, with almost 10,000 associated deaths in London in just one year. Given that the Government regularly flout EU regulations on air pollution even now, what assurance can the Minister give me that once we exit the European Union, they will not simply abandon all legal protection on air pollution in the capital and, indeed, in the country more widely?

[Mr Walker]

The Government are firmly committed to improving the UK’s air quality and cutting harmful emissions. That is why we have committed more than £2 billion since 2011 to increase the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles, to support greener transport schemes and to set out a national plan to tackle pollution in our towns and cities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. Many hon. Members are seeking to identify the challenges associated with exiting the European Union, but there will also be a great number of opportunities, not least because we will be in charge of our own affairs and our own trade policy. For that reason, my Department and the Department for International Trade are engaging regularly with businesses not only in the United Kingdom but around the globe.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

T4. In Camden, where I live, the Back to Business and FastForward programmes benefit enormously from the European social fund. Those programmes create a more inclusive labour market employing 400 people in my constituency, many of whom are disabled. Will the Minister outline what plans he has to protect the funding for such programmes, which promote social inclusivity?

[Mr David Davis]

Most EU funds will be guaranteed post-departure by the Treasury, as we said in August. After that, the decision will be one for the British people, the British Parliament, the British Government and the relevant Department. I am sure that they will take on board what the hon. Lady has said.