European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

No, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. In my constituency, the votes were pretty finely balanced in 2016 between the two sides in the referendum. It would not surprise me that 10% of my constituents felt strongly in favour of revocation in the way that he suggests. Obviously, one takes seriously not only the scale and strength of the opinion expressed in the demonstration at the weekend but the number of signatories attracted to the petition, but that does not mean that one can simply ignore or set aside the fact that 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU in 2016.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Lidington]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, but then I will try to make some progress.

[Mrs Main]

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has mentioned the 17.4 million people, many of whom had never voted before, who took the trouble to vote leave in the referendum. Given the recent votes in the House—on no deal, the withdrawal agreement and the second vote—and given that the Prime Minister now seems to have taken no deal off the table, for some of us there are different options to think about. It is vital that the withdrawal agreement comes back before the House, because, if no deal is off the table, much worse deals might well be put forward by this remainer House, and those of us who do not wish to see those happen will feel we have a very bad situation.

[Mr Lidington]

I certainly hope that we have the opportunity to vote again on the withdrawal agreement this week.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Anne Main Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is not to conclude anything in respect of my views; the hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member of this House and what he can conclude from the selection is that key propositions will be put to the House. If people agree with those propositions they will presumably vote in support of those amendments, and if they disagree with those propositions they will presumably vote against those amendments. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying so, I think that point is pretty clear.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Now that there has been clarity on which amendments have been selected, I am somewhat concerned about amendment (h), because it does seem to imply a certain heavy cost to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in having to fund all this. Can we have some figures associated with what the cost of conducting a public vote would be? I simply ask for clarity on that matter.

[Mr Speaker]

That is not a matter for me. The reality is that that amendment is perfectly orderly. If the hon. Lady disapproves of that amendment, and, more specifically and narrowly, if she wishes to ascertain further and better particulars either about the meaning of the amendment in terms of words or in terms of the mindset of the mover, that is a matter that will be extracted in the course of debate.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Lidington]

I am conscious of the concern about time that you expressed, Mr Speaker, but I will briefly give way to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles).

[Mrs Main]

I have listened very carefully to just about every debate on this topic, and I understand that the European Union would give an extension only if it thought there was a reasonableness behind the request; I can perfectly understand that. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what rationale we would give to ask for this very short and limited extension, given that the House will have already rejected the newly negotiated deal? I cannot think what else could happen in those couple of months that would be helpful.

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend is asking me to go deeper into the realms of hypothetical speculation. Tempting though that is, all I can say is that a lot would depend on where we had got to in the negotiations, the reasons for which the House in these hypothetical circumstances had rejected the revised agreement and so on.

Leaving the EU

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady says that she has looked at the political declaration, and we make it clear in that declaration that the future relationship will have no tariffs, quotas or restrictions of that sort. She asked why not a customs union. The customs union requires us not to be able to strike our own trade deals. The benefit of the deal that has been agreed and that the Government first put forward is that we would achieve the benefits of no tariffs, no quotas and no restrictions at the same time as being able to negotiate our own trade deals.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred several times to the need for legal certainty. The response today from the Attorney General to a question that I asked on this very matter suggested that he was always willing to assist the House in being able to find that legal certainty. May I ask that any changes negotiated are brought back to the House, and that the Attorney General gives us the benefit of that advice? The legal certainty is what will make many colleagues feel that they can or cannot support something.

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise hon. Members’ concerns regarding the legally binding nature of any changes that are achieved. Of course, the Attorney General will make information available to the House to enable the House to take its decision.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

Of course, we come to this place under the rules that have been laid down, and under the rules of elections in this country, the SNP won 35 of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster. That is a majority for the Scottish National party in this Parliament. The Conservatives can only dream of having a majority. The Prime Minister went to the country on the basis that she would come back with an overwhelming majority; she came back with a bloody nose and a minority Administration who rely on the votes of the Democratic Unionist party, having handed over vast sums of money to keep themselves in any kind of power.

Today, as the Prime Minister faces a vote on her motion, the threat of resignations overshadows the debate. We know that senior Ministers have refused to rule out resigning if no deal is not taken off the table. Politicians play a slow game, and time is running out for businesses. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) said that the Prime Minister’s attempt to put pressure on moderate MPs to back her deal to avoid a disorderly Brexit was “a disaster for business”.

The chief executive of Airbus, Tom Enders, said the business

“could be forced to redirect future investments”

in the event of no deal. The chief executive of Siemens, Jürgen Maier, said:

“The thing all of us won’t be able to manage is a no-deal”

and now the British Retail Consortium warns of food shortages and empty shelves.

Just dwell on this: Sainsbury’s, Asda, Marks and Spencer, the Co-op, Waitrose and Costcutter all warn of not having sufficient supplies and of shelves lying empty. We are used to seeing images of empty shelves in war-torn or failing states, but there is a real threat of empty shelves in the United Kingdom in less than two months. Still the Prime Minister refuses to take no deal off the table. I point the finger of blame at the Prime Minister and her Government. The primary responsibility of any Government is to protect their citizens. We have a massive failure of leadership. If there are shortages of food and medicine, that will be a response to the failures of this Government. There is genuine, heartfelt fear and alarm from some of our biggest businesses.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

What is the right hon. Gentleman’s objection to enabling the Prime Minister to probe the EU on what it is prepared to give way on, to help to deliver the deal that he would like? What is so objectionable in new amendment (n)? Can he give any reason for not supporting it?

[Ian Blackford]

This is a complete fantasy. All of us play with the Good Friday agreement at our peril. The peace in Ireland has been hard won. The European Union has reached agreement with the UK on the Prime Minister’s draft deal on the basis of making sure that we enshrine the Good Friday agreement. None of us should be playing with fire and seeking to unwind the Good Friday agreement. That is the effect of what would happen. It is the height of irresponsibility to go down that road. [Interruption.] I am going to come on to the backstop in more detail later.

The Prime Minister could make it clear today that she will bring measures before Parliament to rule out no deal. Prime Minister, it is in all our national interests to remove the threat of supply shortages that is a threat to food safety—remove it today.

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I am a former soldier. During my military career, we were given an aim and an execution to carry out that aim. The Government were given an aim by the people of this country—to leave the EU. The execution of that aim has, sadly, gone wrong for many reasons. I will not stand here today and overly criticise my Government, although I will make one point. I wish some Members on the Treasury Bench would stop accusing the likes of me of perhaps ruining Brexit. That is not my aim. I voted against the Government last night because the deal is not in the national interest and would not deliver Brexit. It would keep us half in, half out, with no one in the room to stand up for our country. There were many other reasons, including the backstop.

In my humble opinion, the problem we have is that there is a disconnect. Today, I have heard many hon. Members on both sides of the House give perfectly reasonable speeches responding to the vote last night, which was a huge defeat for the Government, but what I have also heard is that, in most cases, there is no consensus in this House on following through on what the people of this country told us to do. We were told to leave the EU, and in the vote last night—a catastrophic defeat—117 of my colleagues voted against the Government. The rest of those who voted against the Government—the majority of them—did so for a number reasons. Some do not want Brexit at all; some want a second referendum; some want a general election.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about asking for a second referendum? Why should anyone trust referendums or any electoral process if, when we are given a mandate to do something, we do not follow it through?

[Richard Drax]

I agree, and in my short speech on Monday I made exactly that point. How can any of us go to our constituency with our political manifesto and tell people, “This is what we are going to do,” when quite clearly we do not do what we say we are going to do? Who in this country will believe us?

This debate is not about personal views. The personal views of Members are hugely diverse and different, and I respect that. There are 650 of us, and I suspect that every right hon. or hon. Member has a view on something, but the people of this country, to whom we gave a vote, told us to execute leaving the EU.

What to do next? I have great sympathy for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. She has been handed a can of worms—an extremely difficult issue which I suspect no one in this House could manage either better or worse. However, may I suggest that she gets back on her feet and deals more firmly with the EU? I believe that if we, as the United Kingdom, had stood like a rock to say, “We want a deal—of course we do. We want to be your friends and your allies, but we want to be in charge of our destiny,” the EU would by now have said, “We hear you. You are one of our major trading partners. Of course we want to deal with you and remain friends with you, because you are friends of ours and will continue to be so.”

I advise Ministers to go back to the EU as fast as they can—people say there is no time, but the EU has a wonderful way of moving quickly if it needs to. The Prime Minister must say to the EU, “I have heard the voice of the House—the home of democracy. I cannot get this deal through. We need far more flexibility than you have been prepared to offer. For example, remove the backstop.” I think that then she could come back and get the agreement of the House. Then, we could get on with Brexit, which is antagonising millions of people across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Volunteering services are enormously important, and none more so than the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who put their lives at risk and often rescue people who make perilous crossings to try to get into this country. Is it not time that we looked at the RNLI’s funding? Many people think it is funded by the Government, and it is time we gave some money towards it.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the vital role that the RNLI plays. As she says, many people do not realise that it is funded entirely by voluntary contributions. I pay tribute to all those across the country who raise funds for the RNLI, including, if she will allow me, the Sonning branch in my constituency.

European Council

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have answered those questions previously. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), it is important that we follow up on the opportunity to seek these further political and legal assurances in relation to the concern that people have on the backstop. It is also important, as I indicated to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), that we look at the status of the political declaration, which is another issue that people have raised.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for reminding the House that 472 now-sitting Members decided to give a people’s vote in 2015; I suspect that if they had decided to keep the vote just to themselves, they would have voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, which means that there is now an in-built bias against delivering Brexit. So please steer a straight course, Prime Minister—the country expects us to deliver Brexit. A people’s vote is simply an opportunity to try to overturn the democratic vote.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly what this Government are doing—steering a course to deliver on what people voted for. We gave them the decision, we asked them to make that decision, they made that decision, and we should respect it.

Exiting the European Union

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong, of course, because we did provide an economic analysis for this House. We published an economic analysis, and we published the legal position in relation to the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. That has been available for Members of this House. He talks about the vote as if there is no vote in the future—[Hon. Members: “When?”] We are deferring the vote while we have these further discussions with the EU.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The Prime Minister cannot fail to have noticed that there are plenty of challenges—legal challenges—surrounding Brexit, including whether or not the referendum was legally binding and whether or not we could take article 50 off the table. My concern is that any reassurances or assurances given will only be subject to legal challenges down the road if they are not legally binding. Therefore, assurances and reassurances will not make a difference to how I feel about the flaws in this particular withdrawal.

G20 Summit

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I discussed with the crown prince was the need to find a political solution to what is happening in the conflict in Yemen. This is very important, and talks are due to take place in Stockholm. I have encouraged all parties to take part in those talks. The way to resolve the issue in Yemen is through a long-term political solution.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has twice given assurances to the House today that we can, indeed, do trade deals and that those deals can be signed and ratified, but not implemented until we have left the transition period. Can she confirm what the status of those trade deals would be should we go into the backstop period?

[The Prime Minister]

The backstop would require some restrictions in relation to trade deals—notably, we would be applying the common external tariffs—but there would be some freedom for us in relation to trade with other countries around the world. I am glad my hon. Friend has repeated the confirmation I have given that it would be possible during the transition period to ratify, negotiate and sign up to trade deals. Of course, it is the intention of the Government, and the clearly stated intention of the European Union, that at the end of that implementation period we will be in a position to operate those trade deals.