Prorogation of Parliament

Debate between Alex Sobel and Paul Scully

Monday 9th September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I could not agree more, and I was one of those 17.4 million people. I understand that there are many facets to this complex argument, but we Members are charged with showing political leadership. For three years, we have talked about what we do not want; we have um-ed and ah-ed; we have had political shenanigans; and there have been games afoot. In the last few weeks—it seems a long time since the summer recess—the debate has been like the trash talk in a press conference ahead of a heavyweight boxing match, with people trying to win the fight before the first punch is thrown.

People clearly expect us to get on with the job and leave the EU, with or without a deal. By now, we should be talking about how, not whether, we will leave. The fact that we are still talking about whether we will leave, three years after the referendum, demonstrates the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) made: we cannot pick and choose the election results that we want to uphold, and 17.4 million people—the most people to have voted for anything in a British election—have charged us with leaving the EU.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Do we not need to know whether we are leaving with or without a deal in order to understand what legislation will be required? How can we have a Queen’s Speech on 14 October, before the European Council, and how can we frame legislation when we do not know whether we are leaving with or without a deal?

[Paul Scully]

To be fair, I have allowed the last two interventions to distract me from the fact that the key purpose of a Queen’s Speech is to set out the domestic agenda—to talk about the 20,000 new police officers, and to ensure that people see the benefits of frontline funding for the NHS, levelling up funding for schools, and delivering full-fibre broadband across the country. However, as we ramp up preparation for no deal, we know exactly the kind of thing that we will need if we get a deal, although the deal that we are likely to get—if we get there—will be substantively different from the last withdrawal agreement. Also, we have been trying to pass legislation regarding no-deal preparations over the last few months.

Again, I am allowing myself to be distracted. We keep talking about deal or no deal, but actually we mean the withdrawal agreement; the deal is yet to come. We use the terms interchangeably. The deal, in terms of trade deals, is all about the future relationship with the EU, and we have not even got there yet. All we are talking about—I say “all”; of course it is complicated and significant—is how we physically leave the EU. Deciding what the trading relationship will look like will take time. One of my fundamental concerns—albeit from two and a half years ago, so it cannot be revisited—was accepting the sequencing that Michel Barnier and the EU put to us: that we had to get the divorce done before we could talk about the future relationship. It would have been far more sensible—this formed the basis of the Vote Leave campaign—to do both at the same time.

On the backstop, for example, instead of coming up with the convoluted system that has failed to get through this place so many times, it would have been far easier had we known what the ultimate trading relationship between Northern Ireland, in particular, and the Republic of Ireland would be. We would then have been able to work on solutions—alternative arrangements—not just in the last year, but in the last three years. That would have been a far better and more holistic approach to leaving.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In Kashmir, the internet has been shut down, and there is a lack of reporting on the crackdown by the Indian Government. We also have the events in Hong Kong. Britain is a party to the Chinese-British agreement of 1984, so in some senses what happens in Hong Kong is a matter of foreign policy but, equally, it is not. We will not be able to hold any scrutiny of the Foreign Secretary on that matter either.

There is a whole raft of things over and above legislation, but over that period all that people will be able to see are the party conferences, when only one party’s view will be given. In the week of 20 September, it will be my party’s view, which I will support. Once a year, we get a platform and a fair hearing in the media, but that is not the same as the parliamentary scrutiny that we would have if we were here.

The idea that—this is complementary to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes)—we could vote tonight for a general election, hold one and come back with the whole issue of Brexit cleanly resolved is absolute nonsense. In the current circumstances, in what would be a general election with only one issue on the ballot paper, no one can predict what the result would be. That would subvert the general election into a vote on one issue, when it should be about the economy, our health, our education system, our environment and every other issue that is important in the country. That is not the way to deal with Brexit; the only way to deal with it is to confirm the decision of the 2016 referendum, or not, by the Government’s negotiating a withdrawal agreement with the EU. The Prime Minister repeatedly tells us he has almost completed one, although today the Irish Prime Minister said that he had no evidence of any progress on it—I am not sure which Prime Minister I would like to believe at this stage, but on 14, 15, 16 or 17 October we will see which one is correct.

[Paul Scully]

Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Irish Taoiseach also said that if the UK is to leave, it should do so by 31 October? That was stated to be the viewpoint of the majority of EU member states.

[Alex Sobel]

This is an evolving situation on the EU side. If we prorogue tonight without a general election, I hope to go to Brussels tomorrow to meet a number of people in the European Parliament and the Commission, so that I can hear at first hand what is happening in the EU. It is difficult to know what is going on in the EU from the trial by media; it is hard enough to work out what is going on in our Government, never mind in 27 other Governments.

The general election is not an adequate alternative to solve our future relationship with the European Union. The only real way to finally address this question , as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) said, is a confirmatory vote on whether to accept a withdrawal agreement, or not to and therefore stay in the European Union. That way, people would go to the ballot box on this issue in isolation and resolve it. Underlying Prorogation are attempts not to allow us the time for Parliament to decide that question. It concerns me that this is a politicised Prorogation of Parliament.