Leaving the European Union

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Blunt, having heard you—it was rather unwelcome—from your seat, perhaps we can now hear you on your feet.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I rather suspect that given all the enthusiasm that Brenda of Bristol had for the last general election, the prospect of an extension of this debate for several months will be received with dismay by the country. However, underneath that dismay is massive uncertainty. There is a real price for extending this debate, and I urge my right hon. Friend to stick to her guns and make sure that there is a choice between her deal and leaving to World Trade Organisation terms. That is the choice that the European Union faces, which hopefully will bring it to end the backstop, and that is the choice that the Labour party should face as well.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that we can indeed bring an end to the uncertainty. We can do that. I believe that the best way to do that is through a meaningful vote in this House to support the deal that the Government will bring back from the European Union.

European Council

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important that we recognise when we have a referendum in this country that we do not say to people, “Well, if it comes out with the result that most people in Parliament want, we will accept it, and if not, we won’t.” We accept the results of referendums in this country. Given that the majority of Members of this House stood last year on manifestos that said they would respect the result of the referendum, we should do that.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The certainty of World Trade Organisation terms from 29 March, without even including the opportunity for tariff-free trade under article 24 of the general agreement on tariffs and trade and the immediate opportunity to negotiate and conclude free trade agreements with the EU and the rest of the world, hardly sounds like an outcome to be avoided at all costs, and certainly not like a disaster. The extent of any disruption from a move to WTO terms depends on the policies of our European Union partners. If it becomes clear on Wednesday that their preparations appear to make transition more difficult, not easier, will the Prime Minister make sure that of the £39 billion that we would otherwise pay to the EU, the first charge is for British businesses affected by their policies? Will she show the first flash of steel by making it clear that she will at least consider that the £1.2 billion of sunk costs in the Galileo project might also come into consideration?

[The Prime Minister]

The work on the financial settlement that led to the £34 billion to £39 billion—significantly less than the £100 billion that was being talked about at European Union level at one stage—did of course take into account all the aspects of the contributions that the United Kingdom has made into the European Union over the number of years of our membership. As a result of the tough negotiations that the UK undertook, we have seen a significantly smaller sum of money than the one that the European Union initially thought of.

Exiting the European Union

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, I recognise that the issue raised about the backstop is a genuine concern for many Members across the House. That is why I believe it is right that we address it.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

On Friday, the Treasury confirmed to me that the House has approved £4.2 billion of planning for no withdrawal agreement and, in terms, that stability in a no-deal scenario partly depends on the EU taking a similar non-disruptive approach to planning. With the economic prosperity of one of its members—the Republic of Ireland—very closely engaged, and with £39 billion at stake, as well as the interests of the EU businesses that sell twice as much to us as we sell to them, why on earth would it not be planning with us a non-disruptive move to the certainty of WTO terms and the certainty of our having control over our economy and the ability to make future trade arrangements?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks “Why on earth would it not?” The fact is that the European Union has been making some of its own preparations for no deal. It has sent out certain notices in relation to certain matters. However, it has not been engaging with us on the aspect of determining, or mitigating, the impact of no deal on both sides of the border.

Leaving the EU

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady is asking me whether the Government are going to produce economic analysis, I can tell her that we are.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Businesses in my constituency point out firmly that their greatest enemy is uncertainty and they are now starting to tell me that certainty will be provided by World Trade Organisation terms because of the weakness of our negotiating position once we exit the period required for unanimity under the future arrangements. Government Departments have now had 20 months to prepare for a straight transfer to WTO terms. We would have some share of £39 billion to ensure that that transition was worked as effectively as possible by our European Union partners, whose policies would dictate how well that transition went. Surely those preparations now need to be surfaced and the European Union engaged in those discussions.

[The Prime Minister]

Businesses do look for certainty and certainty is given to businesses in the withdrawal agreement, because it is a withdrawal agreement that contains within it the implementation period that ensures that businesses have that certainty going beyond 29 March next year. As regards the World Trade Organisation arrangements for trading with the European Union, I am frequently encouraged by colleagues around the House to ensure that we can negotiate really good trade arrangements with countries around the rest of the world that will not be based on WTO arrangements. I have to say that, if WTO arrangements are not good enough for those other deals around the world, I think it is entirely right that we seek to obtain, as we have done, commitments to better than WTO arrangements in our relationship with the European Union.

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady will know that we made changes to universal credit to ensure that people are able to access 100% of their payments at the earliest possible stage if that is what is necessary. She raises the issue of poverty. Let me just give her a few figures. There are 1 million fewer people in absolute poverty today—a record low; 300,000 fewer children in absolute poverty—a record low; and 637,000 fewer children living in workless households—a record low. That is due to the action of this Government and the impact of universal credit.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Durham University PhD student Matthew Hedges was arrested when he was leaving the UAE, having completed his research into the impact of the Arab spring on the UAE’s foreign policy. He has now been sentenced to life imprisonment for spying for the United Kingdom. A number of us will note the irony of a former MI6 officer who works in the outer office of the de facto ruler of the UAE who has organised many of the excellent visits from this House to the UAE. The action is wholly inconsistent with the behaviour of a nation with which we have a mutual defence accord. Will the Prime Minister please give this her urgent attention? If he is not released, I do not see why we should be committed to its defence.

[The Prime Minister]

We are, of course, as is my hon. Friend, deeply disappointed and concerned at today’s verdict, and I realise how difficult and distressing this is both for Matthew Hedges and for his family. We are raising the matter with the Emirates authorities at the highest level. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is urgently seeking a call with the Foreign Minister, Abdullah bin Zayed. During his visit to the UAE on 12 November, he raised the issue with both Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and the Foreign Minister. I can assure my hon. Friend and other Members that the Foreign Office will remain in close contact with Matthew, his family and his lawyer. We will continue to do all we can to support them as they consider the next steps, and we will continue to press this matter at the highest level with the Emirates.

Pairing

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) does not exactly look heart-warmed by the prospect that redemption awaits him.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It would be frightfully good for him.

[Mr Speaker]

Good for him? Well, that’s a divisible proposition.

Leaving the EU

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, I do not believe it will.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is just over 16 months since the Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously—leavers and remainers together—concluded that

“the previous Government’s decision not to instruct key Departments to plan for a ‘leave’ vote in the EU referendum amounted to gross negligence. Making an equivalent mistake would constitute a serious dereliction of duty by the present Administration.”

Does my right hon. Friend understand the relief that the no-deal preparations will be overt, and will she ensure that the resources and commitment that may have been absent from the preparations are given to this important task to show the steel in our position?

[The Prime Minister]

As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, we have allocated a significant amount—£3 billion over two years, £1.5 billion of which has already been allocated to Departments—for Departments to do their work on preparing for leaving the European Union. Some of that work will relate to what might be necessary in getting a deal, and other work will relate to what would be necessary if there were no deal. Work has already been undertaken by Departments, but we are now stepping up the pace and intensity of that work.

G7

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The United Kingdom Government are taking a number of actions. We are providing real support for the refugees in the camps. We are providing real support to Bangladesh to be able to provide for those people. We continue to work and will continue to press the Myanmar Government to create a situation in which the refugees are able to return to their former homes in safety and security—that is the key issue. It is not just about people being able to return home; it is about being able to ensure that, when they do so, they have the confidence of knowing they will be safe and secure.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Trudeau or Trump?

Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We look to you to protect the conventions of this House. It is a long-standing convention that when the Government propose to make a statement to the House, the Opposition Front-Bench team, through the usual channels, is afforded sight of the statement an hour or so before it is due to be made. It is understood that commercially confidential matters can be redacted, but the convention has been scrupulously adhered to by previous Conservative Governments and, up until now, by the current Conservative Government and by previous Labour Governments as well. It is also a convention of this House that the Government do not bring statements on those days that are specified in our Standing Orders as being for the parliamentary Opposition to choose the topics.

Both of those conventions have been breached today. This is the third time that the Government have tabled statements on Opposition days. The reason is obvious: it is to erode the principal debates. Mr Speaker, you know today’s debates are heavily subscribed. What can you do to protect us from what I regard as a constitutional outrage?

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

No, no. No further point is required. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me say to the House this: I have been advised by the Secretary of State for Transport, who beetled up to the Chair to catch a word with me during Prime Minister’s questions, that the statement is commercially sensitive. I have no reason to seek to gainsay the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether it is, but no doubt it has such an element. It is regrettable if there is not very substantial notice for the Opposition. [Interruption.] Order. I am dealing with the matter. I do not need any help from the Secretary of State. I am advised that the Opposition did in the end have approximately half an hour’s notice of this statement, and I am happy to hear from the Secretary of State if he wants to respond to the point of order.

On the point about the making of Government statements on Opposition days, this is by no means unprecedented, including under previous Governments. However, if I may say so—and I will—it is highly undesirable for there to be statements on very substantial public policy matters, in which the House will doubtless be interested, on an Opposition day. One looks to people traditionally with responsibility for safeguarding the rights of the House, of whom the Chair is one, but not the only one, to take these matters very seriously. This is an undesirable state of affairs, and if it were to happen on further occasions, a great many hon. and right hon. Members, not to mention interested parties in the Opposition day debates outside the Chamber, would view it, frankly, as an abuse. I hope that that message is heard loudly and clearly on the Government Front Bench, at the highest level, by the people in particular by whom it needs to be heard. If I have to make the point again on future occasions, and to use the powers of the Chair to facilitate the rights of this House in other ways, no matter what flak emanates from the Executive, I will do so in the future, as I have always done over the past nine years, and no one and nothing will stop me doing my duty by the House of Commons.

If the Secretary of State wants to respond to the point of order, he is very welcome to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

Very well. I will indulge the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).

[Crispin Blunt]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Seven minutes ago, The Guardian’s “Politics live” with Andrew Sparrow said:

“East coast rail franchise to be brought back under public control.”

It appears that someone has broken an embargo, or something has gone wrong, because I guess that that is what the Secretary of State’s statement is to be about. Will you put investigations in place to find out why that statement has been made before we have had the opportunity to listen to it from the Secretary of State?

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I respect his sincerity, but it is not for me to initiate inquiries on this matter. I say two things to the hon. Gentleman whose point I otherwise take very seriously. First, let us see what is in the statement, and whether in fact there has been a leak. Secondly, were it to transpire that there had been, that would be a matter to be laid squarely at the door of the Department whose statement it is, and it would be incumbent on the Secretary of State in those circumstances to initiate any such inquiry. At this point, we should hear the statement. I thank the Secretary of State for approaching the Dispatch Box to deliver it.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In making my contribution towards the end of this debate, I want to reflect particularly on the speeches that were made from the Government Benches at the beginning. My hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) brought us back to the fundamentals of parliamentary accountability. Parliament controls the laws, supply and confidence over the Executive. Through those mechanisms, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset made clear, we have the ability to hold the Government firmly to account.

The history of the Armed Forces Act 2006 and, underneath that, the evolution of convention regarding Governments coming to Parliament and our flexible constitution have brought us to the place where we now have the expected accountability of Governments coming to Parliament in order to seek authorisation for specific military actions. But this is merely convention. If we examine the occasions on which the Government have come to this House to seek parliamentary authority in order to reinforce their prerogative powers, we find that they have happened because of the political situation and the Government’s assessment of what they need to reinforce their authority. In 2003, the then Labour Government and Tony Blair had a minority of support from their Back Benchers for the proposed action in Iraq. That made it necessary for the then Government to seek parliamentary authority to reinforce their political position.

Regarding the authorisation that Parliament gave to the Government of the day, I sat on the Opposition Benches during that debate, listening to the then Prime Minister make his argument, thinking that it was a bizarre state of affairs. My former colleagues in the armed forces were on the start line, in the final stages of their battle procedure before they conducted the invasion of Iraq, in which the British armed forces were responsible for about a third of the frontline with our American allies. It struck me as extraordinary that we were having a two-day debate in Parliament that was ending at about 10 o’clock or midnight, about six hours before that operation was due to commence, and that Parliament was going to say yes or no to that operation. On those grounds alone, I thought that it would be irresponsible to my former colleagues for us to suddenly say, “No, you’ve got to stop guys. We have decided that it’s the wrong thing to do.”

As we now know from history, it probably would have been better had we said no. But we should have been saying no infinitely earlier than the immediate military commencement of a major strategic operation like that. We know that Tony Blair gave his commitment to President Bush in April 2002. We know that our military were being instructed to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and to be part of that operation from the summer of 2002. This is where Parliament and the conventions that we have appeared to have established collide with military and operational reality.

I am in total agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) about the circumstances under which one seeks parliamentary approval for operations of the kind that we saw last week. He and I jointly authored a pamphlet, which every colleague in the House received in July last year, on how Britain should respond to chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Our answer to the parliamentary problem that the Government faced was some kind of pre-authorisation motion, so we would have had a debate about the circumstances that the Government faced last week and they would have then been able to act within authority that had been given by Parliament for the kind of action involved. Indeed, that parliamentary approval itself might have acted as a form of deterrent, with the Syrian Government then knowing that they would face action involving the British armed forces in response to the kind of situation that the Americans had already reacted to before.

All this involves the development of a convention about the Government coming to this House. I do not think that a war powers Act is the appropriate answer. As my hon. Friends have made clear, this House does have the essential elements of control over the Executive—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are immensely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will call the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on condition that he sits down at 3.53 pm—the start thereof, no later. Is that agreed? It is agreed.