Strengthening the Union

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered strengthening the Union.

The Prime Minister and the Government have said, time after time, that it is our responsibility and duty to govern for the whole of the United Kingdom. The UK Government are responsible for governing for the benefit of everyone in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but this reality is perhaps easy to forget. Devolution has changed the constitutional landscape of the United Kingdom, and with multiple Governments working across our four nations, it is perhaps easy to forget the value that this concept—this thing we call “the Union”—brings to us all, but the Prime Minister’s words show that this Union cannot and should not be taken for granted. It has always been of profound importance to all of us. It is central to our wellbeing, our security and our prosperity, as well as to who we are, whether we are from Scotland, Wales, England or Northern Ireland. It is a part of our identity as citizens of the United Kingdom, so I welcome this timely opportunity to discuss our Union of four nations.

I have the privilege of travelling regularly across the nations of the UK in my role as constitution Minister—I was also formerly a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office—and I see the strengths of our country. It is clear to me that delivering for all parts of the United Kingdom is—as it should be—at the heart of the Government’s approach. All parts of the UK need to work together to seize the opportunities of, for example, leaving the European Union. Being part of a bigger and stronger UK benefits all citizens in its four nations.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Perhaps the Minister can explain, then, why the former Foreign Secretary described Northern Ireland’s role in the Brexit process as

“the tail wagging the dog”

and sought to dismiss the serious concerns about the prospects of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, or indeed, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Perhaps she can explain why that was and dissociate the Government from those comments, now that the former Foreign Secretary has dissociated himself from the Government.

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman did the job himself in the final few words of his intervention. I will look forward to some better ones as we go on.

Let me start with a few points on identity. The individual identities of each of the four nations remain strong. We could ask any of the millions of football fans who watched England’s endeavours in Russia about that. Each of us is proud of our distinct history and culture and our different traditions, but we also see this through amazing events such as the Royal Highland Show and the Royal Welsh Show—taking place later this week—which, of course, Cabinet Ministers attend and support.

Although our distinct identities are proudly held, perhaps particularly when we are watching sport, there is another set of values and ideas that unite us all, from Coleraine to Colchester and from Campbeltown to Caernarfon. The values of tolerance, democracy, equality and fairness are central to who we are as citizens of the United Kingdom. We may disagree over whether we prefer Scotch whishky—I mean whisky. It sounds as if I have already been on the whisky, Madam Deputy Speaker! Let me start that sentence again. I am going to attempt to get through a sentence that compares Scotch whisky to English ale, to Northern Irish scones, to Welsh cakes—I may well get to the end of that sentence with a cheer from the House. Whichever one of us has the better cakes or drink, or the more noble history, we are united in our deeper beliefs, democratic traditions and our long history of working as one to benefit us all. When we come together as one people, we benefit from the security and stability that comes from being one of the largest economies in the world, pooling risks and sharing benefits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

First, as far as this Government are concerned, NATO is, and will remain, the bedrock of our collective security, and certainly the threat posed by Russia will be one of the subjects that the Prime Minister and other leaders will be discussing at the summit in Brussels. I reflect with regret on the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has said on the record that he wishes that we were not part of NATO. The use of nerve agents in this country is appalling and impossible to excuse. The police continue to investigate what happened and how the attack was caused. The Government are fully committed to supporting the region and its residents and have announced new financial help to Salisbury and the surrounding area today.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Q6. Until she was raped at the age of 18, my constituent led a healthy and happy life. Since then she has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder, seizures and blackouts, panic attacks, anxiety and depression, and is heavily reliant on her mother’s care. The Department for Work and Pensions has refused to award her the enhanced rate of personal independence payment on the basis that when she presented herself for her assessment, she was not demonstrating those particular symptoms. As a result, her mother is unable to claim income support and carers allowance, which is placing financial hardship on top of severe emotional distress. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to arrange a meeting for me with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions? What my constituent has experienced is, I am afraid, another example of what we see week in, week out in our surgeries: the cruel and inhumane consequences of this Government’s welfare policies.

[Mr Lidington]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has campaigned on the issue of DIPG for some time. I think the whole House will want to offer sympathy—which I certainly share—to his constituent and to anyone affected by that appalling condition. I will certainly draw the points that he has made to the attention of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and I am sure that a meeting will be arranged for him with either the Secretary of State or one of her Ministers.

Leaving the EU

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that small businesses form the backbone of our economy. It is right that we have heard from businesses large and small about their interest in maintaining frictionless trade across our EU-UK borders. That is exactly what we will be delivering in this proposal.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

There is an air of complete unreality this afternoon, because it should be blindingly obvious from the resignations of the Foreign Secretary and the Brexit Secretary, and from the constituency of opinion they represent on the Government Benches, that there is no majority in the House for the Chequers deal—it is dead. No European leader ought to take it seriously because it will not pass through the House. The question for the Prime Minister is this: when will she finally accept that trying to appease the hard Brexiteers on the Conservative Benches will never work? She can reach across, but she must also accept that Opposition Members will never vote for a deal that delivers, yes, a softer Brexit on goods, but a hard Brexit on services.

[The Prime Minister]

Through all of these decisions, I have had people complaining that I have taken the view of this side of the argument or taken the view of the absolute opposite side. What I have done is put forward what is in the national interest for the best Brexit deal for Britain.

Leaving the EU: Customs

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and then to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), and then I will make progress.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

If the right hon. Gentleman is such a believer in Cabinet collective responsibility, what does he make of the conduct of the Foreign Secretary, who continually and consistently undermines the Prime Minister and her position? What does he think will do more damage to our negotiating position: publishing some documents or the conduct of an incompetent Foreign Secretary?

[Mr Lidington]

I will explain later why I believe the implications of the Opposition motion would be extremely damaging for the quality of Government decisions under Governments of any party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Surely the key question that we should be asking ourselves is whether, if Parliament were to pass this motion and the information were to be released, it would undermine our negotiating position. I would argue that that is most certainly the case. Of course it is the aim and objective of those who support the remain cause that the EU will give us the worst possible terms and that, as a result, we will go on to reject an agreement, but there are also practical reasons, and political judgments have to be made.

What do we know already? We know that the Government are intent on delivering the Brexit that was determined by the referendum. We know that they will bring back control of our money, borders and laws to this House, rather than their being based in Brussels. In doing that, they intend to ensure that trade between ourselves and the EU is as frictionless as possible, that we avoid a hard border in Ireland, and that we establish an independent trade policy.

What do we know about the facts and figures? We know that in 2016 we had a trade deficit with the EU of £71 billion. In that same year, the UK had a trade surplus with the rest of the world of £34 billion. The European Commission has predicted that 90% of world economic growth over the next 10 to 15 years will come from outside the European Union, so surely our focus should be on countries outside the EU.

[Wes Streeting]

This is just total fantasy stuff. The idea that we do not presently trade with the rest of the world is just laughable. Through the European Union, we have trade agreements with the rest of the world, and the reality is that leaving the customs union and the single market will diminish our ability to carry out such trade. As a London MP, I find this unbelievable. My city will be all right post-Brexit—it will not be easy, but it will be all right. However, communities such as the hon. Gentleman’s—big fishing communities—are going to be absolutely hammered. What on earth is he doing by justifying the absurdity of the Government’s policy?

[Martin Vickers]

For the hon. Gentleman even to suggest that the fishing industry has in some way benefited from our membership of the European Union is simply laughable. I would gladly invite him to my constituency so that he can meet the people who were involved in the fishing industry. Very few of them are involved in it now because of the European Union.

To go back to the facts and figures that I quoted, it is noteworthy that only this week Liam Halligan asked in The Sunday Telegraph why, if the customs union is so vital to Britain, we are running a massive trade deficit inside it but a large surplus with nations outside it. We need to ensure that we are able to set our own trade policies so that we can trade freely with the expanding economies in the world, and the reality is that those economies are not in the European Union. We have to widen our horizons. The success of Britain has always been our free trade with the world as a whole.

Syria

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that it has been difficult over the years that this conflict has taken place to bring the parties around the table. It is important not only that the opposition parties in Syria are willing to come around the table, which they are, but that the regime is, and Russia needs to play its part in ensuring that the regime is willing to come forward and to sit down and discuss the future of Syria.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

We all know that the Syrian civil war will end only through diplomatic means, which is why this evening’s Stop the War demonstration should be taking place outside the Russian embassy and not outside this Parliament. The truth is that, had the UN Security Council fulfilled its obligations, we would not be facing the scenario that the Prime Minister described this afternoon. However, can I ask her to look again, with the same degree of urgency and same scale of response that she has provided in the last week, at the humanitarian crisis? This country has taken only 11,000 refugees. Syria’s neighbours, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, are bearing the brunt of the humanitarian crisis. We have a responsibility to protect Syrian civilians, whether they are in Syria, in surrounding countries or making their way to this country, and we have not stepped up to the mark, not nearly enough.

[The Prime Minister]

As I said before, we are of course providing support in the region to those refugees. We have done so on the basis that we believe it is important. We want to see a resolution to the Syrian conflict, such that people will be able to return home in the future. That support in region is more likely to enable that to happen. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right when he says that Russia must bear its responsibility for what is happening in Syria and for the continuation of this conflict.

UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is nevertheless of great interest to learn about the gardening habits of the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). I feel duly uplifted by that discovery. I simply say to the hon. Lady: never, never give up.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

At the time of the referendum, both Tony Blair and Sir John Major warned of exactly the scenario faced by the Prime Minister now in relation to the Northern Ireland-Republic border, which is presumably why a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union. If everything is as plain sailing as the Prime Minister suggests, why has the Foreign Secretary written her a memo entertaining the prospect of a hard border? Given that he has undertaken to publish that memo but has not found time to do so, perhaps the Prime Minister could prod him—or even jab him as hard as necessary—to get that memo out of him as soon as possible.

[The Prime Minister]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that the Foreign Secretary has not said that. He is absolutely clear that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. That is the position of the Government, and that is what we are working on. We have set out proposals, and I look forward to discussing them with the Commission and the Irish Government.

[Wes Streeting]

Clip him round the earhole. Get the memo out of him.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is very discourteous behaviour. Let us hear from another well-behaved individual. Ah, yes: Jeremy Lefroy.

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: Border Arrangements

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

What we learned at the end of 2017 was that despite all the predications about the imminent collapse of the negotiating process at that time, with political will, both from London and from our 27 partners and the European Commission, an agreement could be reached. That provides a good basis on which to move further forward now.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Sir John Major and Tony Blair warned during the EU referendum campaign that this would be an issue, and I am sorry to say that what the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who is a serious person, has said today at the Dispatch Box is simply implausible. We are not talking about a Back Bencher or the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for paper clips; we are talking about the Foreign Secretary, who has a central role at the heart of the Brexit negotiations. He is entertaining, in memos to the Prime Minister, the prospect of a hard border, which the Minister for the Cabinet Office says has been ruled out. So the only question, which he has not answered, is: if what he says is the settled position of the Government, why is the Foreign Secretary setting this out in the memo? If the Foreign Secretary says he is going to publish the memo, when is he going to do it? If the Minister cannot answer those questions, should the Foreign Secretary not have had the guts to come here to answer for himself and clean up his own mess?

[Mr Lidington]

The Government’s policy is as I have set out. We are now, at the very start of the negotiating process, bringing forward ideas about how we would wish to give practical application to the commitments that we have entered into and developing them internally among the Government. The Prime Minister will say more about that on Friday.

European Council

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The question of onward movement is one that will be looked at further in the second stage of the talks. This is reciprocal in terms of EU citizens’ rights here in the UK and UK citizens’ rights in the country in which they live in the European Union. There are further elements of that that we will be discussing in the later stages.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

One of the most frequent criticisms of this place is that politicians are unable to give straight answers to straight questions, so can I give the Prime Minister another opportunity to answer the questions from Streatham and from Penistone and Stocksbridge? Can she guarantee that, after we leave the European Union, there will be no attempt to water down the 48-hour limit on the working week, provided for by the working time directive? It is a very simple yes or no question.

[The Prime Minister]

I have said on a number of occasions this afternoon that we will be bringing those workers’ rights that are in European Union law into UK law, so those rights will continue to exist. The party in this House that has voted against bringing those rights into UK law is the Labour party.

Brexit Negotiations

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I indicated, if we look at the scope and analysis that has been done, the estimate is that the sum of money would be £35 billion to £39 billion, but we have said, as my right hon. Friend will have heard in answer to previous questions, that there may be some programmes of which we do wish to remain a member, and therefore we would be willing to pay an appropriate price for the cost of that. But a very good piece of work has been done on these financial arrangements, and, obviously, we take that forward, as I said, in the context of agreeing that future relationship.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Paragraph 49 of the agreement says very clearly:

“In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.”

In making that undertaking, can the Prime Minister provide the reassurance that British people, businesses and public services are looking for—that she has finally closed the door to the disastrous no-deal scenario that so many Government Members have advocated?

[The Prime Minister]

No. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the joint progress report, he will also see that these things are all set in the context of agreeing the future partnership and the future trade arrangement between the United Kingdom and the European Union, but I remain of the view that no deal is better than a bad deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

The work on the common frameworks that clause 11 addresses points to the fact that we are keenly working with the devolved Administrations on drawing up those frameworks. We have an absolute commitment to ensuring that we can look at the principles that were agreed between our Governments on 16 October and that explicitly recognise that frameworks will not be needed in many of the areas currently governed by EU law.

As we have said from the outset, the Bill starts a process that will lead to a significant increase in decision-making powers. That is not a power grab. We are ensuring that more powers go back to the devolved Administrations and legislatures.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The Minister talks about the constructive relationship with the devolved Administrations. Has he taken time to look at what they have said about the shambles today?

[Chris Skidmore]

A bit of a wasted intervention. I am here to talk about clause 11. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the clause, but he came in slightly late.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

I came for your speech.

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind, but we are discussing the effect of clause 11 and schedule 3 —that is the purpose of Committee.