John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Cabinet Office
(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
My right hon. Friend might be aware of a petition in Gibraltar for it to have an MP elected to our Parliament. The petition now has close to 10,000 signatures, which is almost half the electorate of the rock. Will he therefore consider backing my private Member’s Bill to give Gibraltar the option of electing an MP to this place and reward Gibraltarians for their unwavering loyalty?
Mr Speaker
That is an extreme case of shoehorning in a particular concern, but it suffers from the disadvantage of bearing absolutely no relation to the question on the Order Paper. The hon. Gentleman has made his point in his own inimitable and mildly eccentric way, and we are grateful to him for doing so. Let us have a question that is in order.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
On a serious point, many of my constituents were affected by the collapse of Carillion. How confident is the Minister that the big four accountancy firms have learnt their lessons for the future?
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Never mind the House of Lords. When are we going to see this House reduced to 600?
Mr Speaker
It is all very well the hon. Gentleman breezily declaring, “Never mind about the House of Lords.” The question, inconveniently for him, is focused on the House of Lords. Generosity gets the better of me, however, and I am itching to hear the ministerial reply.
Chloe Smith
Mr Speaker, I think the simplest answer is that the Boundary Commission will return with its proposals shortly and the House will have the pleasure of looking at them.
Chloe Smith
There was not a question in that, but none the less, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. This Government believe fundamentally in the treatment that our House of Commons has given to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which will now serve our country, in leaving the European Union, with certainty for businesses and citizens.
Mr Speaker
I think a fair interpretation is that it was a rhetorical question, which is not entirely without precedent in the history of the House of Commons.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
Chloe Smith
The Labour party might like to reflect on the fact that it was its 2000 Act that allowed the pilots to be run.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) is signalling that that was very much her own question. It has to be said that Whips’ handouts are also not unprecedented in the House, but she is keen to draw attention to her own independent mindedness on this important matter.
Danielle Rowley
I recently spoke at an event at Newbattle Abbey College in my constituency about encouraging people to vote—no Whips were in attendance. Meanwhile, the Government’s voter ID pilots saw at least 340 people turned away, and many more would have been discouraged from voting. Is this not a slap in the face of people who are working hard to encourage people to vote?
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
We empathise with the hon. Gentleman. It is okay; maybe some lozenge will be provided, or some water. Please, let us hear the question.
Mr Speaker
Was that heard? I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I think we may have to ask someone else to ask his question for him.
Sir David Evennett
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman has raised the question of Airbus. If he is so concerned about our aerospace and aviation industry, why did he not back the expansion of Heathrow in this Chamber? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] Order. Mr Snell, calm yourself. Acquire the quality of an aspiring statesperson. Calm! The question has been asked, and the answer from the Prime Minister must, and will, be heard.
The Prime Minister
I do not normally agree with the secretary general of Unite, but on this occasion I actually do agree with him, because he says that backing the expansion—the third runway—at Heathrow would ensure that our country
“remains a world leader in aviation and aerospace”.
Jeremy Corbyn
Well, the Foreign Secretary did not back it either, but in his own way, he was helping the aviation industry: by spending 14 hours in a plane for a 10-minute meeting in Afghanistan.
The Government are not threatening the EU with their ridiculous position; they are threatening skilled jobs in this country. But at least one Government Minister understands this: the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). He has asked this question, which I think is about the Health and Foreign Secretaries:
“Do the leadership aspirations of multi-millionaires trump the need to listen to the employers and employees of this country?”
Well, apparently they do. The head of BMW, which directly employs more than 8,000 workers—that is 8,000 jobs—in this country, has said that he needs to know the Government’s plans for customs. He says:
“If we don’t get clarity in the next couple of months we have to start making those contingency plans”—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Prime Minister was heard. No concerted attempt from either side of this House to shout a Member down will ever succeed. However long it takes, the Prime Minister will be heard and the Leader of the Opposition will be heard. Get the message.
Jeremy Corbyn
The noise of people hiding behind the Gallery is interesting, Mr Speaker. I am asking the Prime Minister how many more firms are telling her in private what Airbus and BMW are now saying very publicly.
Jeremy Corbyn
Coming from a Prime Minister who presides over an economy in which 1 million people are on zero-hours contracts, that is very rich. She rules out a customs union, the Leader of the House rules out the Prime Minister’s preferred option and reality rules out a maximum facilitation model. That leaves only no deal, which she refuses to rule out. She is putting jobs at risk. Sadly, it is not those of the warring egos in her Cabinet—they have now been rewarded with an invite to a pyjama party at Chequers. Meanwhile, thousands of skilled manufacturing jobs and the future of whole industries in Britain are at stake. The Prime Minister continues to promote the fallacy that no deal is better than a bad deal. No deal is a bad deal. Is not the truth that real jobs—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. I will say it again: there is unlimited time—[Interruption.] Order. There is unlimited time as far as I am concerned. [Interruption.] Order. The questions will be heard and the answers will be heard, and nothing and no one will stop that happening. It is as simple and unmistakable and clear as that.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
No deal is a bad deal, but is not the truth that the real risk to jobs in our country is a Prime Minister who is having to negotiate round the clock with her own Cabinet to stop it falling apart rather than negotiating to defend the jobs of workers in this country?
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
Two Select Committees—the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee—have today released a joint report describing a vision of a social care system where quality personal care is delivered free at the point of need, separated from the ability to pay, and how to achieve that vision. The Committees’ citizens jury said this was a system they were prepared to pay for. Does the Prime Minister share that vision?