Oral Answers to Questions

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question; indeed, leaving aside the north Wales coastline, hers is one of the most beautiful in the UK. Coastal communities contribute an important part of our economy. They are part of the study that we have been undertaking, and we intend to make sure that their interests are reflected post-Brexit.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

T2. The Prime Minister called the general election in the name of building unity to strengthen her EU negotiating position. However, this is the Prime Minister who sent “Go home” vans around parts of urban Britain with high immigrant populations, this is the Prime Minister who aided and abetted the most disgraceful campaign against the first Muslim Mayor of our capital city, and this is the Government who, with their hard Brexit allies, seek to call anyone who calls into question their negotiating strategy a bunch of saboteurs. Is not the truth that, far from uniting this country, this Tory Government and its Ministers have been dividing it since they took office?

[Mr David Davis]

If the hon. Gentleman wants an answer to that, the first place he should start is on the streets of Britain, where he will find massive support for our Prime Minister, massive respect for our Prime Minister and a belief that she will deliver the best outcome in the Brexit negotiations.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) argued that we should not support the two amendments because they are justiciable; on that basis, we might as well pack up and go home, because everything that we put in legislation is justiciable.

I rise to support the two amendments, and I draw the House’s attention to the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, which I have the privilege of chairing: the Government should now make a unilateral decision to safeguard the rights of EU nationals in the United Kingdom. I say to the Secretary of State that the only argument against doing that, and against the Lords amendment, is that someone might be prepared to put the status of those 3 million EU citizens into play in the negotiations. That raises the question of how exactly that would be done, and to what purpose. It is precisely because the Secretary of State, and indeed the Prime Minister, have been so clear in saying to the House “We intend to ensure those people’s status and rights” that no one in the Chamber believes that the Government would be prepared to put those people’s status into play in the negotiations. If the Government are not prepared to do that, why not do the right thing now, and tell those people that they can stay?

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Is the Government’s position on EU citizens not based on a fiction? If they did not grant EU citizens the right to stay, presumably they would remove those who could not stay from the United Kingdom, but the Minister for Immigration has said that the Government do not know where EU citizens are in order to remove them from the United Kingdom. It is an empty threat, so why cause all this stress?

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. The whole House knows that that course of action cannot be contemplated, so the Government should follow the advice of the Select Committee.

On Lords amendment 2, I listened carefully to the arguments that the Secretary of State advanced, but I say to him gently that I do not think they would have persuaded him in his previous incarnation, before he became Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Let us just pause for a moment on the point that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) raised about the incentive to offer a bad deal. If that argument holds any sway, it held sway when Ministers said at the Dispatch Box, “Yes, we will give you a vote on a draft deal.” It cannot be the case that if the Government offer a vote on a draft deal, it does not raise the possibility of a bad deal being offered, whereas if we in this House vote to put that vote on a deal on the statute book, it does raise the possibility of a bad deal being offered. The two arguments are wholly inconsistent, and the House is not persuaded.

I also listened carefully to the language used by the Secretary of State, who I see is engaged in earnest conversation. He talked about our being able to act without our hands being tied, and to pass the Bill “without any strings attached”. We in this House are not strings; we are part of our democracy, and we are very attached to that democracy. Lords amendment 2 is not about seeking to reverse the decision of the referendum. Like the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), I and many others voted for this legislation because we respect the outcome of the referendum, but it is about Parliament deciding, in either eventuality, on how we leave the European Union. There is a terrible irony here. We are hearing the voices of those who, in the course of the referendum, used the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty as one of their principal arguments for voting to leave the EU, but whose enthusiasm for that sovereignty disappears in a puff of smoke when the House is asked to put that sovereignty on the statute book.

Finally, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that it is now time to put behind us the matter of who voted leave or remain in the referendum. We should come together and put aside division, including the division that is being urged on us by others in this Chamber. I say to him that having Parliament behind him in these negotiations and knowing that, in the end, the Government must account to Parliament for what they are able to achieve in those negotiations is not a weakness for this country, but a strength, and the sooner the Government recognise that, the better.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I will take one further intervention, from the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna).

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

The point is that if this is to be a meaningful concession, the House needs the opportunity to send the Government back to our EU partners to negotiate a deal if one has not been reached. Going to World Trade Organisation rules will be deeply damaging for our economy and wholly unacceptable.

[Mr Jones]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but frankly I cannot think of a greater signal of weakness than for the House to send the Government back to the European Union saying that we want to negotiate further. That would be seized on as a sign of weakness and therefore I cannot agree with it at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I have just condemned pretty much every forecast, I will not make that forecast. I will say that once Scotland gets back to domestic policy, it is almost certain that the Scottish nationalists will be seen for what they are doing: running down education, health and the economy. Let us get back to the real forecast.

I do not wish to sow the seeds of dissention, so I simply say that the new clause and the related amendments, which would put another set of shackles around the Government’s hands and stop them getting on with what the British people voted for on 23 June last year, must be rejected, because the Government must seek the best deal they can in line with what is good for the EU and for the United Kingdom.

[Mr Umunna]

I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). Before I speak to the amendment in my name, which is on a subject that was totally absent from the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution, I have to say that I am bemused by what can only be described as a 15-minute diatribe against forecasters and economists—the experts. That is why I was not surprised to see the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) join in with the diatribe. The Opposition have spent the past five or six years listening to these two now former Cabinet Ministers telling us about the importance of listening to independent economic forecasters. They told us how important it was that they set up the Office for Budget Responsibility, which the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has just spent the past 15 minutes slagging off.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Umunna]

I will just make a bit of progress. I will come to the hon. Gentleman in a bit, but I do not want to speak for too long because I know a lot of people wish to speak.

I am bound to say that I wish we were not here. As the right hon. Members for Chingford and Woodford Green and for Surrey Heath know well, because I debated with them a lot during the campaign, I campaigned strongly for us to stay in the European Union. I led the Labour “In for Britain” campaign in Greater London, and played a role in the “Britain Stronger In Europe” campaign nationally. But we lost. As a democrat, I accept that result, which is why I supported the Bill’s Second Reading. Of course, I respect people who interpreted the referendum result differently. Although we all have different views on whether to trigger article 50, we can all agree that while various promises were made by both sides in the referendum campaign, the key pledge of the winning side was that if we leave the European Union, £350 million extra a week will go to the NHS, which is why I tabled amendment 11.

Dominic Cummings, who worked, of course, for the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath and who ran the Vote Leave campaign, said on his blog last month that the £350 million NHS argument was “necessary to win”. He said:

“Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No.”

Hon. Members can go and read that on his blog. So the importance of that pledge cannot be overestimated. It cannot be detached from the triggering of article 50. It is inextricably linked to why millions of people voted to leave, to our withdrawal from the European Union and, therefore, to this Bill.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was at a public meeting in one village where people said, “It’s fantastic that we are leaving the European Union, because we are going to get £350 million a week for the NHS, and the Government will be able to reopen the A&E in Bishop Auckland hospital.”

[Mr Umunna]

That is right, and there are lots of examples of that throughout the country. That is not surprising, because prominent members of this Government—the Foreign, Environment, International Development, International Trade and Transport Secretaries, who are all members of the current Cabinet—went around the country in that big red bus that said:

“We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead.”

None of them disowned that pledge during the campaign. They also stood by a big sign saying:

“Let’s give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week.”

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that kind of cynical campaigning gives politics and politicians a really bad name? The people who saw the pledge on that big red bus now expect this Government to deliver on that pledge.

[Mr Umunna]

That is absolutely right. Those Members seek to hide behind the wording and to claim that it was conditional, but they knew exactly what they were doing when they stood in front of that big red bus and that sign: the clear message they intended to convey was that if we leave the European Union, £350 million a week will go to the NHS.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I have a huge amount of time for the hon. Gentleman, and I like him very much, but seeing as we are swapping stories about town hall meetings, I had a number of people come up to me in town hall meetings, saying, “Mr Walker, we’d love to vote to leave the EU, but the Chancellor has told us that if we do, we’ll lose £4,400, and there will be an emergency Budget.” I do not think it helps this country or this House to rehash the campaign from seven months ago.

[Mr Umunna]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman raised that point, and I also have a lot of respect for him. However, the point is that I am not trying to re-litigate the referendum campaign but to make sure that the promises these people made are delivered.

We know the NHS needs the extra cash, so it was not unreasonable for people to believe those promises. The Health Committee—people on both sides of the House sit on it—pointed out recently that the deficit in NHS trusts and foundation trusts in 2015-16 was £3.45 billion. We know that Ministers’ claimed increases in NHS funding are being funded by reductions in other areas of health spending that fall outside NHS England’s budgets. We know that reductions in spending on social care are having a serious impact, which is translating into increased A&E attendances, emergency admissions and delays in people leaving hospital. The NHS needs that extra cash, so it was not unreasonable for people who voted to leave the European Union to think that that pledge would be delivered on.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is complaining about a slogan on the side of a bus about giving extra money to the NHS and implying that his amendment gives money to the NHS, but it does not—it merely suggests that there should be a report on the effect of the withdrawal from the EU on national finances, including health service expenditure. He therefore seems to be falling into exactly the same trap as he is accusing others of. Motes and beams come to mind.

[Mr Umunna]

I do not know about the hon. Gentleman’s mote, but this amendment has been drafted so that it is inoffensive to people like him. Given that it is such a reasonable amendment, I suggest that he simply votes for it.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of Change Britain’s latest press release where the £350 million a week has gone up to £450 million a week through its exhortations to scrap such onerous regulations as the motor vehicles regulations, the greenhouse gas emissions reporting regulations, the welfare of animals in transport regulations, and the welfare of farmed animal regulations?

[Mr Umunna]

That is very interesting. I note that the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath is still in his place. I saw in The Sun, no less, in November that he was demanding—demanding!—that the Prime Minister spend a £32 billion Brexit dividend on the NHS, so I hope that he will be supporting our amendment as well.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making some very important points. It is interesting to hear Conservative Members scoffing and laughing at this. This was not just one of many pledges—it was the key pledge. I am looking at a collection of photographs of all the key proponents of the Vote Leave campaign. It was their No. 1 commitment to this country if it voted to leave the European Union. On that basis, does not this Chamber have a responsibility to honour the pledge on which people voted to leave the EU?

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

For all these reasons I have tabled amendment 11, which, as the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) stated, is very reasonable. It requires the Prime Minister to set out how the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will impact on the national finances, particularly on health spending. In short, she needs to set out how she is going to make good on that Vote Leave pledge to spend £350 million extra per week on the NHS.

[Seema Malhotra]

I am very pleased to support my hon. Friend’s amendment. Does he agree that this will also be a vital part of the keeping the public’s confidence in the process as we go forward over the next two years, not least given the conversations in a focus group I held in my constituency on Sunday where people said that this issue remains topmost in their minds as the reason they voted to leave?

[Mr Umunna]

Absolutely. This issue is not going to go away. It will be a major part of the general election campaign, whenever the next one comes.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Umunna]

I will very shortly.

I hope that we will have the opportunity not only to debate this amendment but to vote on it too. It has been signed by more Members than any other amendment. It is supported across parties and of course has the support of the Opposition Front Bench. In the end, in our democracy, it is in this House that Members are held to account for the promises they make and the things they say to the people. What better way to test the resolve of people such as the right hon. Members for Chingford and Woodford Green and for Surrey Heath than for there to be a vote on this issue so that people can see whether they meant what they said?

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Another commitment was that they wanted to make Parliament sovereign again, but Government Members are saying today that when we exercise that sovereignty we are being obstructive and using delaying tactics. They cannot have it both ways.

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

These people will never be forgiven if they betray the trust of the people by breaking their promise to do all they can to ensure that the £350 million extra per week for the NHS is delivered. They all know that only too well. Mr Cummings, who, as I have said, worked for the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath, discloses in the blog I mentioned that the Foreign Secretary and the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath planned to deliver, in part, on that pledge as part of the Foreign Secretary’s leadership campaign. Mr Cummings writes that when he told the Foreign Secretary

“‘you should start off by being unusual, a politician who actually delivers what they promise’”,

the reply was

“‘Absolutely. ABSOLUTELY. We MUST do this, no question, we’ll park our tanks EVERYWHERE’”.

Apparently, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath strongly agreed. Mr Cummings goes on to say:

“If they had not blown up this would have happened.”

No doubt the Minister will say to us that there are a number of reasons why the Government cannot support the amendment. I am going to pre-empt him and deal with each in turn. First, there are those who claim that it was not a pledge at all. The Transport Secretary has said:

“The specific proposal by the Vote Leave campaign was in fact to spend £100 million a week”—

of the £350 million—

“on the NHS. I hope that aspiration will be met.”

I say to the Transport Secretary, who of course is not here, that the poster, which the Vote Leave campaigners all stood by, did not indicate that that was an aspiration or use the £100 million figure. It was a pledge, pure and simple. The poster did not read, “Let’s aspire to spend £100 million extra.”

[Karl MᶜCartney]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Umunna]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly. The poster gave the clear impression that the money would be spent. It is true that the Office for National Statistics said that the £350 million figure was misleading, but the Vote Leave campaign, which the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath chaired, kept on using that figure regardless. Now they will be held to account for it.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for eventually giving way. He really should listen to the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who talked about forecasting. The hon. Gentleman has forecast—I think he will be wrong—that the £350 million will be an issue at the next general election. Does he agree that the Conservative party was not Vote Leave, and that the £350 million was the slogan of Vote Leave, not the Conservative party? As he is giving us a grand tour de force of the Brexit campaign, would he like to comment on “Project Fear”?

[Mr Umunna]

I think the hon. Gentleman was involved in Vote Leave—perhaps he was not—but I am not going to take any lectures about peddling fear and all the rest of it, in any campaign, from anyone associated with Vote Leave. I will come on to the point that he made about the Conservative party shortly.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I entirely agree with the points that the hon. Gentleman is making. Having made that complaint to the UK Statistics Authority, the response that I received was that the claim was potentially misleading. As he has said, Vote Leave campaigners kept using it. Surely, they kept using it because they knew they needed to do so in order to win the referendum. Now that they have done that, we need to hold them to account.

[Mr Umunna]

That is absolutely right, and I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I come to the point that the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) made about the Conservative party—[Interruption.] Admittedly, it could also apply to some people from the Labour party. Some say that the pledges were made primarily by people who may have been members of a Conservative Government, but who did not speak with the authority of that Government. Of the five Cabinet Members I have mentioned who took leading roles in the campaign, three were members of the Government at the time and one, the Foreign Secretary, attended the political Cabinet. Part of the reason why those key campaigners were put up to do media and to campaign for Vote Leave was that they carried the authority of being Ministers. We cannot detach one from the other.

The other, and connected, argument that is made is that the commitment was given by one side in a referendum campaign, not by a Government, so we should leave the matter alone and get on with things—we should all shut up. I am sorry, but I do not think that that will wash. Whether they were Ministers or not, all the key Vote Leave campaigners were Members of this House. As I have said, if our democracy is to mean anything, it is that Members of this House answer and are held to account in this House for the promises that they make to the people. After all, as has been said, they campaigned in the name of parliamentary sovereignty. If Parliament is sovereign, they should be held to account here.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I will not give way; I am going to finish.

Either those people made the pledge in the expectation of delivering on it, in which case they must now show us the money and vote for this very reasonable amendment, or they made it in the knowledge that it would never be met, in which case they will never be forgiven for their betrayal of those who, in good faith, relied on that promise.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am wholly in favour of spending £350 million or £375 million or whatever the figure is. But I want to ask the hon. Gentleman a specific question, as this is his amendment and he has stopped short of saying what he really thinks: the amendment says only that a report should be published. What is his and his party’s position on the spending on the NHS that will come only as and when we leave the European Union and get back the money that we give at the moment, which is £350 million or £375 million? Does he want to spend that all on the health service or does he not?

[Mr Umunna]

I think I detected a hint of support for the amendment in the remarks that the right hon. Gentleman has just made.

[Chris Leslie]

He’s melting!

[Mr Umunna]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to have accepted—I hear the word “melting” behind me—the premise behind the amendment. I very much look forward to his joining us in the Division Lobby.

My party established the national health service in the face of opposition from the right hon. Gentleman’s party. We have a far better record of providing the funding and support to our NHS. We need no lectures or demands from his party, which is in government and throwing it all into chaos.

I finish by saying this to the right hon. Gentleman. His Prime Minister goes around saying, “Brexit means Brexit”. If Brexit means anything, it is that he and all his colleagues who campaigned for Vote Leave need to deliver on their promise to put £350 million extra per week into the NHS. I look forward to seeing the right hon. Gentleman in the Division Lobby tomorrow.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

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

[Alex Salmond]

The Tory 2015 manifesto is not my bedtime reading, but as I recall, page 72 said:

“We say: yes to the Single Market”.

The Tories were right to say yes. It was funny that yesterday all the Conservative speakers remembered the commitment to a referendum, but not one of them remembered their commitment to the single marketplace. Of course it was not the case that a withdrawal from the European Community meant a withdrawal from the single marketplace. During the campaign, I had the pleasure of debating with Daniel Hannan MEP, who said:

“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the Single Market”.

Of course it is possible to honour the result of the referendum and stay in the single marketplace, and even if people think there will be an exit from the single marketplace, it is madness, in diplomatic negotiating terms, to abandon that position now. The UK should keep its place in the single marketplace and allow the other European countries to negotiate it out of it, not give it away before the first word is spoken in the negotiations.

I come next to the procedures of this House. I have here the list of amendments tabled to the Bill, stretching to 103 pages; we are told that they are to be debated in three days. Eighteen months ago, the Scotland Bill, which was not the greatest constitutional change in history, got six days of debate. I say to Labour Members such as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North, who listed all the things wrong with the Government’s approach, that if they believe that now, they should vote against the Government; if they cannot do that, they should at least vote against a programme motion that will make it impossible to debate the sensible changes that the right hon. Gentleman outlined.

As was well pointed out yesterday, the process is procedurally deficient, not only in terms of the time given, but in terms of the question that will eventually be put to the House. The final vote will be on the deal that comes back from a Prime Minister who said that

“no deal…is better than a bad deal”,

so the choice the House will likely get is a bad deal or no deal. It is therefore crucial that when the House debates it and comes to a decision, there is a meaningful vote—a vote that can make a difference—as opposed to Hobson’s choice, made with a metaphorical gun to the House’s head.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

If we end up in a situation in which the only deal on the table is a bad deal, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the responsibility for that will lie with the Prime Minister? It is not as if she can deny responsibility for that being a problem.

[Alex Salmond]

Yes, I would agree, but of course if we are all in the soup, finding out that it was the Prime Minister’s responsibility will avail this country very little. It is far better to try to ensure by our votes that we get a realistic choice that can actually make a difference.

Finally, I come to the situation in Scotland. Scotland has a 1,000-year history as a European nation. There is a plaque to Sir William Wallace in great Westminster Hall, the site of his unjust trial—for which, presumably, he will get a pardon at some point soon. After his greatest victory in the battle of Stirling bridge, which was akin to Leicester City winning the premier league last season, in terms of upset and surprise, his first act was not to hold a cèilidh, but to write to the Hanseatic League in Lübeck and elsewhere to secure Scotland’s trading concessions throughout Europe. The importance of Scotland’s European connections stretches back a millennium, and we are not going to allow this non-vision—this act of madness from this House—to take Scotland out of those connections.

The Scottish Government have put forward the proposition, “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, which offers the Prime Minister a way for Scotland to stay in the single marketplace, regardless of what she wants to do to this country. She said today that a frictionless border in Ireland was quite possible under the circumstances, without realising that if it is possible in Ireland, it is of course possible in Scotland. I see the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) nodding; in the early hours of this morning, I think I saw him, or perhaps it was one of his hon. Friends, say much the same thing on the BBC’s “HARDtalk”—a sad case, watching “HARDtalk” at 1 o’clock in the morning—and it was an important admission. Actually, it was the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). It is important to understand that there are examples in Europe at present.

The Prime Minister has it within her power and capacity to accept the Scottish Government’s compromise proposals and allow Scotland as a nation to retain its trading place in the European context. If that is not to happen; if the House says, “We will go ahead with a hard, Tory Brexit,” or a full English Brexit, as we are now calling it in Scotland, and says, “We’re going to sweep aside concerns from across the House about the economic and political damage, and we will not accept the proposals from Scotland to follow the votes of the people in the nation of Scotland and retain their European connection. We are not interested in preserving Scottish jobs and investment”; if those are the criteria and that is the attitude of the Government; if that is what the Prime Minister wants to do with Scotland, and she is determined to throw down that gauntlet, she can be absolutely sure that Nicola Sturgeon, as First Minister, will pick it up.

New Partnership with the EU

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The two policies, the industrial policy and the negotiating policy with the European Union, fit together hand in glove. My hon. Friend is quite right. We have paid an enormous amount of attention to business, finance, manufacturing, aviation, energy and so on—every single sector; 51 different sectors—to get the best possible deal that suits all of them. We will continue to do so.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Trading with the EU under WTO rules would be vastly inferior to our current arrangements, with 10% tariffs on cars, 13% tariffs on clothes and up to 40% tariffs on the agricultural produce the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) was talking about. For the sake of clarity, will the Secretary of State be absolutely clear: does the Prime Minister’s commitment to an interim implementation arrangement amount to the Government ruling out leaving the EU with no deal at all, and amount to the Government ruling out ending up trading under WTO rules, because that would be very, very damaging for jobs and businesses in this country?

[Mr Davis]

What the Prime Minister said in terms is that a bad deal is worse than no deal for a variety of reasons, one of which is that if you walk into a negotiation with no other option you will not do very well.

Article 50

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is best demonstrated by the fact that the ballot paper had on it: “Leave the European Union”—nothing else, and no conditions. He has put it very well.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Gina Miller, who brought the case, has been subject to death threats. She has been attacked for being foreign-born. She has been subject to racial abuse and threats of sexual violence simply for exercising her rights as a British citizen. As has been mentioned, the judges in her case have been attacked simply for doing their job and not dancing to the tune of the Executive. Does the Secretary of State believe that whether we voted leave or remain, we can all agree that these vicious and deplorable attacks are not what our country is about or in keeping with British values? On that point, in relation to the judiciary, if our judges are intimidated and harassed and we have marches on our courts, that takes our country down a very dangerous avenue indeed.

[Mr Davis]

I have already commented on the judges, but let me comment on the treatment of Gina Miller. I have said that I deplore—I cannot find words strong enough, frankly, to say how much I detest—the attacks on her. I have not seen them directly, but they sound to me to be effectively criminal attacks, because incitement of violence, threats of violence and racial abuse are all crimes.

Next Steps in Leaving the European Union

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that although 52% of people voted for us to leave, of course with the consequence that we will exit the European Union, the suggestion that the more than 16 million people who voted to remain are some kind of liberal elite is utterly false and divisive? A majority of young voters, a majority of ethnic minority voters and a majority of people in three of the constituent parts of our country all voted to remain, and the job of the Government is to find a deal that serves the interests of everybody—those who voted to remain and those who voted to leave—not to try to sow further seeds of division in our country.

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman will be surprised to hear that I agree with almost every word he said. The only distinction that I would make is that I consider myself a liberal, as I said earlier. The aim of the Government is to find an outcome that meets the needs of all the United Kingdom; again, it is invidious to talk about one’s own speeches, but that is precisely what I said last week. We need to engage the interests of all citizens of the country, whichever way they voted, in order to get the best outcome for the country.

EU Referendum Rules

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I want to add two points, and to ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees with them. One is that, whatever one’s view about whether there should be a vote in the House on triggering article 50, there should at least be a debate. The second is that whether to vote on article 50 is in a sense academic, because we will have to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 to give effect to our leaving the European Union. That will involve multiple votes, which will have knock-on impacts on existing legislation, which will need to be changed.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right. That is the case, which is why it was breathtaking to hear that Britain will not be discussing Europe for much longer. If we exit the European Union, this House is about to be consumed with legislation that will probably be with us for more than a decade. One Whitehall Department alone, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has 1,200 pieces of legislation that would need to be repealed. The task ahead for the nation is gargantuan. We are perhaps talking about the sort of effort involved in reconstruction after the war, or something comparable to the birth or the loss of empire.

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[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I apologise to you, Mr Gray, and to the Chamber for not being here at the beginning of the debate. I was in the main Chamber questioning the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union about his statement on this very subject.

I doubt if any Member today has taken or actually will take the words of this petition literally. It would condemn us to go on having referendums so long as neither side gets 60% of the vote or, even if one side does, the turnout is less than 75%. It is a recipe not for a second referendum but for a neverendum. It is essentially an emotional call by an unprecedented number of our fellow citizens to set aside the result of the referendum. They back that up with a number of arguments.

First, they argue—we have heard it argued today—that the leave side won by lying. Accusations of lying are, of course, a feature of all election campaigns, but free elections provide us with an opportunity to rebut contentious points made by the other side. In particular, the remain campaign, with the frequent help of the BBC, repeatedly rubbished the slogan on the leave battle bus that highlighted our gross EU contribution of £350 million a week and implied we could spend it on the NHS. I personally never used that figure. I always referred to Britain’s net contribution of nearly £10 billion—some £200 million a week. I did not meet a single voter who changed their mind and decided not to vote leave on finding that the net contribution was only £200 million, rather than £350 million.

[Mr Umunna]

May I assure the right hon. Gentleman, to whom I am grateful for giving way, that an untold number of Labour voters in this country voted for us to leave the European Union on the basis that they believed £350 million extra per week would go into the NHS? There is no getting away from the commitment that was made and no wriggling around—“It was an aspiration,” or, “It was a mistake.” That was the commitment that many, many Labour voters believed would be delivered on if we left the European Union.

[Mr Lilley]

In that case, let me say two things. First, the hon. Gentleman and the remain side were singularly ineffective in rubbishing that claim, despite the fact that I heard it being rubbished many times. Secondly, he says that working-class voters—Labour voters—would have voted to stay if they had known it was only £200 million a week, but were prepared to vote to leave for £350 million. He has put a price on their vote of the difference between those two sums, which I do not find true.

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[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

This debate is nominally about the threshold that we should have applied to the EU referendum, the argument being that if the leave or remain vote secured less than 60% support in a turnout of less than 75% there should be a second referendum. For the benefit of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), the motion arises from a petition by a leave campaigner who presumably lacked confidence at the time that his side of the argument would be victorious.

Of course, the debate is no longer about thresholds, but the more substantial question of a second referendum. I will quickly dispose of the threshold issue and move to the wider debate that is raging on the main issue.

On thresholds, the aim of the petition is reminiscent for me of the amendment successfully tabled by our Labour colleague, George Cunningham, in 1978 to the Scotland Act 1978, which provided for a referendum on Scottish devolution. He was thoroughly opposed to devolution for Scotland and his amendment would have required at least 40% of registered Scottish electors to support devolution for it to go ahead. The amendment had the effect of killing off devolution then because, although a majority in the poll—51.62%—voted for devolution with 48.38% voting against, the turnout was 64%, so just 32.9% of registered electors had actually voted in favour. As the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) pointed out, the institution of that mechanism had the effect of promoting the status quo.

I do not think it is desirable generally to hold lots of referendums because our constituents send us here to make decisions based on the manifesto and set of values that we put forward. Ideally, we should trouble our constituents with referendums only in the most exceptional circumstances. When major constitutional issues are at stake, it seems to me that there is some justification for that.

When we do have a referendum, as on this issue, I am sceptical about applying the high threshold proposed in the petition. I think there is great difficulty in telling those who have supported the proposition which, on the face of it, they seem to have done by a clear majority, that it cannot be carried because there has been a low turnout. After all, we are all here and a low turnout has not been an obstacle to any of us being elected. A low turnout or lack of support for a particular Government—the present Government has the support of less than 25% of registered electors—does not stop them taking office. People might question whether thresholds and mechanisms that were not applied to us during an election should be applied in a referendum.

I worry that with such thresholds we may end up with people seeking deliberately to depress turnout in what is, whatever side of the argument they are on, a thoroughly active democratic exercise. I am not completely closed to a higher threshold, given the constitutional change, but I am sceptical.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making an interesting point, but does he agree that—as I have seen in correspondence—constituents who signed this petition were reflecting not the detail of thresholds and so on, but their feelings about this. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) talked about people being emotional and pulling themselves together, but the real issue is how people felt about being lied to, the lack of clarity on the options before them and the clash of mandates when it comes to devolved Administrations, certainly in Wales. Does he agree that there was something more fundamental about how people felt in the aftermath and that we must do a lot to bring people back together?

[Mr Umunna]

I do not disagree with that. I will move on from thresholds, but the danger is that they may be seen to ignore views on either side.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, in my constituency of Boston and Skegness, the turnout was 77% and the vote to leave was also 77%. His point cuts both ways. If we were to have a second referendum, the sense of disempowerment in a constituency such as mine—and of going against democracy itself—would be palpable.

[Mr Umunna]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was going to mention his constituency, where he kindly hosted a visit for me. For the record, he represents the area that had the highest leave vote. I represent the area that had the highest remain vote. I wanted to go to see whether we could perhaps heal some of the divisions in society. That miraculously takes me to my first point on the substantial issue and whether we should have a second referendum.

My first point is that, yes, the referendum clearly delivered a decisive result, but it was not a landslide for leave. Different generations voted differently and I certainly saw that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. Different areas of the UK voted in different ways, as did different ethnicities. It is incumbent on all of us, given all that I have just mentioned, to see how we can stitch together this fragile democracy of ours. It was very much in that spirit that I made the visit to Boston and that I came to this issue.

The second issue that I want to raise is this. I campaigned all over the country for us to stay in the European Union. I led the Labour In for Britain campaign in London. I was one of the main national spokespeople for Britain Stronger In Europe. However, it would be disingenuous to deny what has partly powered this petition: a split has arisen in the remain camp post the referendum result. Half of remainers think that Britain has voted to leave; that is what the polls show, and now the Government have a duty to carry out its wishes and get the best deal in order for us to leave the European Union. Slightly less but about half—I am sure that many of those here who applauded would fit into this category—think that we should ignore the vote to leave or seek to overturn it by way of the second referendum that we are talking about today. So inevitably what I am going to say will disappoint half the people I have been campaigning with over the last few months.

It is true that a lot of overblown claims, misleading promises and the rest were parroted by the leave campaign. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said that perhaps there were a few overblown claims on our side as well. However, in the end, the leave campaign won, and it is important that it is held to account now for what follows, because it was the victorious side in the debate. That is why I, the right hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) have set up Vote Leave Watch—to scrutinise what comes out of the deal and to seek to ensure that people are held to account. Frankly, it is as much to give a voice to the 48% who voted to remain as it is for the 52% who voted to leave to see whether promises have actually been delivered. In so doing, we will hopefully try to forge a national consensus and bring the two together.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I have just a quick question on the point that the hon. Gentleman made with respect to a split in the remain vote. Given that the remain vote, as polls suggest, is split and given that he is a keen observer of the political scene, does he honestly think that a second referendum held, say, within the next year would overturn the result that we saw on 23 June?

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

I call Chuka Umunna—

[Mr Umunna]

I will come on to that.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Bearing in mind the clock.

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[Mr Umunna]

Oh, bearing in mind the clock, I was going to come on to that very point, but I just want to say that for remain campaigners to accept the will of the people is not to wave the white flag. It is not to say that the arguments that we have been making over many months are any less valid. But in the end we have somehow got to work out how we move forward and do so together.

One of the main reasons why I rejected the politics of many of those who voted for us to leave was that I felt that they peddled division and tried to set different groups against each other in our society—not all of them, but many. What I worry about in moving straight to the call for a second referendum is that it would further divide our country. Are we really saying that all the leave voters were completely brainwashed by all the misleading claims and myths that were parroted? Are we really saying that they were incapable of taking a step back, taking a view on all the different facts that were presented by either side and making their own judgment? Are we really saying—frankly, I have heard a lot of this—that they were just brainwashed by a bunch of right-wing tabloid newspapers? I am sorry; I just do not accept that argument, and there is a real danger, if we talk like that about people who voted to leave the European Union, that we are simply reinforcing the view that we are some kind of metropolitan elite who know better than other people. There is a real risk that we are seen to be patronising them.

So what are the circumstances in which I would entertain our having a second vote? A very clear set of promises were made. There would be £350 million going to the NHS every week. We would maintain full access to the single market, while not having the free movement that goes with it. EU citizens already here would be given the right to stay. As far as I am concerned, a set of clear pledges were given by all the different vote leave campaigners. I believe that if the deal that is reached at the end of this process is substantially and materially different from that that many of the leave voters believed they were promised, we could legitimately ask for a second referendum, but the fact is that we have not got to that point yet. If we go straight to one now, we will simply further divide our country. I say to people that as hard as it is—I feel emotional talking about it now—that we did not win the referendum, we have to keep this country of ours together and work out how we build those bridges. Regardless of where we sat in that debate, all of us have a duty to do that.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I point out that if hon. Members restrict themselves to seven or eight minutes, we stand a chance of getting everybody in. If they go on longer than that, there will be people who are disappointed at the end.

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[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

About a month before the referendum, when the result was widely expected to be successful for the remain campaign, I was asked on “Newsnight” whether I would respect the result of a close remain vote. I said that even if remain won by only by one vote, I would respect the decision. I note the point made by the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) that the petition was actually started by someone campaigning for leave, perhaps in the expectation of a remain win. Had that outcome happened—had remain been victorious in the referendum—and this petition had come before us, I would have stood up and given fundamentally the same speech that I am going to give now, saying that I respect the outcome of the referendum and suggesting that a second referendum is completely inappropriate. That is driven not by the result of the referendum but by what I believe to be a fundamental cornerstone of the democratic process.

The question on the ballot paper was clear and unambiguous, irrespective of what Members have said, or might say, in this debate. The question was whether the UK should leave the EU. Some Members who have spoken in this debate, and who I have spoken to about the issue, have attempted to retrofit a whole series of other implied questions into that referendum question. Questions about the nature of sovereignty, the nature of international trade and the nature of border controls are not unimportant, but they were not the question on the ballot paper. The question on the ballot paper was clear and unambiguous; to suggest that somehow it was other than that is grossly unfair.

A number of Members have said that the Government should be forced to abide by the campaign ideas of Vote Leave. I understand the thinking behind that, but it is worth remembering that Vote Leave was a cross-party, single-issue campaign group. There were Conservative politicians, Labour politicians and UK Independence party politicians in Vote Leave. I believe there may have been Liberal Democrat supporters, if not politicians, and there was a member of the Green party—just one, I know, but they were there none the less. It is ridiculous to demand that a Conservative Government be forced to deliver the agenda of a cross-party campaign group. If the remain campaign had won, no one with any credibility would have demanded that the Prime Minister bring Will Straw into the heart of Government to start dictating Government policy.

[Mr Umunna]

The hon. Gentleman and I had many debates during the referendum campaign, but, I am sorry, I do not accept his point about accountability. There is a complete contradiction here: many on the leave side made accountability and transparency the cornerstones of their campaign, but when people legitimately seek to hold members of the Government who voted leave to account for their pledges, they now say that there should be no accountability. To me, that is contradictory and not acceptable.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) resumes, may I say that the wind-ups will start at 7 o’clock, and by my maths at least five or six people still wish to speak? I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind.