European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I am glad that there is a deal and I will vote for the Bill to implement it, because a deal is far better than no deal. That is the right thing to do. But to pretend that the deal is not what it is is not being honest, and nor is it a base from which we can go forward. To pretend that there are no non-tariff barriers when there are is just not true. The Prime Minister will not just get up and say, “I got it wrong. I didn’t tell the truth when I was addressing the public.” [Interruption.] The Prime Minister says I do not know what I am talking about. His words were that there will be no non-tariff barriers to trade. Will there be no non-tariff barriers to trade, Prime Minister? Yes or no? The ox is now on his tongue, I see.

Whatever the Prime Minister says, there is very little protection for our services. That is a gaping hole in this deal. Ours is primarily a services economy. Services account for 80% of our economic output, and we have a trade surplus with the EU in services, but what we have in this text does not go beyond what was agreed with Canada or Japan. The lack of ambition is striking, and the result is no mutual recognition of professional qualifications. Talk to doctors, nurses, dentists, accountants, pharmacists, vets, engineers and architects about how they will practise now in other EU states, where they will have to have their qualifications agreed with each state separately with different terms and conditions. Anybody who thinks that that is an improvement really does need to look again at the deal.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Keir Starmer]

In just one minute.

The deal will make it harder to sell services into the EU and will create a huge disincentive for businesses to invest.

The very thin agreement on short business travel will make things much harder for artists and musicians, for example. Prime Minister, they want to hear what the answers to these questions are, not just comments from the Front Bench.

On financial services, even the Prime Minister himself has accepted—I do not know whether he will stick to this, or if it is one that he will not own now—that the deal does not go as far as we would have liked, so pretending that it is a brilliant deal just is not on. We have to rely on the bare bones of equivalence arrangements, many of which are not even in place, that could be unilaterally withdrawn at short notice. That is the reality of the situation. We are left to wonder: either the Prime Minister did not try to get a strong deal to protect our service economy, or he tried and failed. Which is it?

Let me turn to security. The treaty offers important protections when compared with the utter chaos of no deal, such as on DNA and fingerprints. There are third-party arrangements to continue working with Europol and Eurojust. I worked with Europol and Eurojust, so I know how important that is, but the treaty does not provide what was promised: a security partnership of unprecedented breadth and depth. It does not, and anybody today who thinks that it does has not read the deal. We will no longer have access to EU databases that allow for the sharing of real-time data, such as the Schengen information system for missing persons and objects. Anybody who thinks that that is not important needs to bear in mind that it is used on a daily basis. In 2019, it was accessed and consulted 600 million times by the UK police—600 million times. That is how vital it is to them. That is a massive gap in the deal, and the Prime Minister needs to explain how it will be plugged.

Let me turn to tariffs and quotas. The Prime Minister has made much of the deal delivering zero tariffs and zero quotas. It does—

Public Health

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be able to contribute this afternoon.

We undoubtedly face a very difficult and, indeed, challenging situation, and I support the Government’s approach. Cases of the virus are doubling every few days and, given the sheer pace of growth now, it is quite clear that they will outstrip the capacity of the NHS to respond. We cannot ignore the very serious position that we now face. These measures, however difficult, are necessary and, indeed, other options, such as the tiered system, have quite clearly now failed.

I pay tribute to all those who are contributing so bravely in the NHS and other services: our care workers, NHS workers, key workers, volunteers, and, indeed, other members of the community. This bravery and determination is impressive and it is being demonstrated by people who have been through this once already this year and, in some cases, during the summer and the early autumn as well.

I wish to raise a series of very specific points, to which I hope the Minister will be able to respond later. First and foremost, it would have been so much better had the Government acted sooner. The numbers were quite clear. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) mentioned earlier from the Dispatch Box, had this action been taken sooner, lives would have been saved and the economy protected. It is worth reflecting on that and I do hope that Ministers will reflect quite deeply on this issue and on the delay, which has been so unfortunate.

I hope the Secretary of State for Health will look into fixing the test and trace system. It is quite apparent that it is currently failing. There is a low rate of test and trace going on compared with what is needed. In my own area, we have seen some very serious problems, including delays in facilities coming to Reading and Woodley. We have also seen a very unfortunate incident in a care home, and I ask him to look again at whether it is possible to have a much greater capacity for testing in care homes, as people are particularly vulnerable at this time. I also ask him to look at the scope for far greater testing across the health and care system, perhaps looking in much greater detail at the scope for testing home visiting staff. Constituents have raised that with me with great concern. Elderly vulnerable residents would be reassured if there were more capacity for testing visitors coming into their homes.

There are a number of other measures, mainly economic and social measures, that I hope the Government as a whole will look into and that other Members have raised today. In particular, I mention the concerns of many self-employed people. I realise that Members across the House share this issue. Someone said to me only today, “I have paid in all my life through taxes and the national insurance system, and now—at a time of great need—I am not able to get anything back.” I hope that the Government look at the loopholes in the current measures, reconsider them and understand that there are people who may be missing out on support at this difficult time; I do appreciate that they are reviewing some of the measures.

I urge the Government also to look across sectors in the economy, not just at the most visible end of them. For example, measures have been put in place in the hospitality sector to support pubs, and it is right that they should be supported. Across the supply chain and other dependent businesses, though, there has been much less support. It is important that Ministers remember that and take further action to look at whole supply chains and sectors, and to understand that a wide range of businesses are under pressure at this difficult time.

Finally, I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras and others across the House about the importance of people being able to worship, and I hope that the restriction will be reviewed. I also hope that the contribution and value of sport to our society, to children and to people’s mental health is reconsidered.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood]

I think my constituents will expect a little bit better than that. They will expect the Government to get on with the job that they promised to do. The Government said they were going to deliver a Brexit deal, they said they had it ready, and my constituents do not expect them now to say that they made a mistake—that somehow it was not what they expected.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

At the heart of it, is not the issue that this whole thing comes across as a giant piece of bluff and bluster by a failing Prime Minister? As my hon. Friend rightly hints at, this is a means to distract the public from other immediate pressures. To make matters worse, it damages our reputation in the eyes of the world at a time, as Members have correctly pointed out, when we need to seek a trade agreement not only with the EU but with a number of other countries.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The timing is very interesting. We are at a point when many people are looking at the Government and are extremely worried about their incompetence and the way they are dealing with the current health crisis. With today’s debate and the Prime Minister’s position, well, people will wonder what is going on.

People will be baffled because every time they have listened to the news, watched politics on TV or opened a paper in recent days, they will have seen a senior Conservative MP, or a former Tory Attorney General, Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer, expressing grave concerns about the content of this Bill. Those concerns are not just from those who might be called “the usual suspects”—those who were remainers—because this is not about whether we leave the European Union. We have left. That argument is over. Their concern is that the Bill deliberately breaks international law, will prevent us from completing a deal with the EU in the very short time available to do so, and will have much wider ramifications for the future of our country. They are risking the UK’s reputation across the globe.

Many hon. Members have already asked how other countries, with whom we want and need to make trade deals, will trust a Prime Minister who, just a few short months after he negotiated and signed an agreement, now says that he intends to break its terms. We do not have to guess what they will think; we can see for ourselves the reaction from our friends and allies, including, as has already been said, from the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. If the Prime Minister really considers that this deal contains serious problems that could break up our country, why did he sign it? Why did he claim it was a great success? Had he not read it, or did he not understand it?

Of course, the dangers of the Bill are not just about the UK’s ability to negotiate trade deals; they are about the UK’s reputation and its moral authority. How can our Government seek to uphold the rule of law if we break it ourselves? How can we hold other nations to account on their treaty obligations on international standards when we disregard our own?

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I commend what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) and what has been said by many other Members, particularly the Leader of the Opposition. Let me also pause for a moment to convey my sincere tribute and deepest sympathies to the families who have been through the most appalling, absolutely dreadful experience over the past two years.

I want to reinforce some of the points made by colleagues from London, but also to make the point that this is a national problem, and a very serious one. It affects towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom. In my own area, Reading, several thousand people live in blocks of flats, some of which are very tall, and there is a significant expansion in the number of towers in the town. Those who travel there by train will see that a huge new tower block is being built right next to the station. There are plans for another enormous tower block on top of the Butts Centre, and the process is continuing as we rapidly urbanise and become more like an outer-London borough. Yet at the same time we face significant problems with cladding, and other fire safety issues which have not been fully discussed here today.

Immediately after Grenfell, four blocks with the unsafe cladding Members have been describing were identified in our town. Some of that is being rectified only now, two years after the disaster. Is it not awful that, in the fifth wealthiest country in the world, we cannot get our act together to solve such problems in a medium-sized, wealthy town?

To make matters worse, new problems are being discovered all the time. In the past few weeks, in a development that was finished in the late 2000s or perhaps 2013, a block containing 200 to 300 people was identified as having dangerous cladding of a different type from the kind we have been discussing today. There is also a series of other problems. I was briefed about this by Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, to whom I pay tribute along with other colleagues in the fire service around the country. It was deeply worried about a whole series of related and interconnected problems in building safety that are not being addressed by central Government. The fire brigade felt that it did not have the resources or the powers to intervene, and it was unable to get the necessary support from building control because the regulations had been stripped away. This is very serious.

I can give examples of poor conversions in which builders have unwittingly knocked through partition walls, allowing the potential for fire to spread through large blocks without any interruption. There was a case of that in Slough that the fire service was deeply concerned about. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North said, fire services are also concerned about the cladding on a whole range of other buildings, including commercial buildings, schools and health buildings. They are also worried about the serious problems of houses in multiple occupation, including conversions over chip shops or takeaway premises. Some of these are deeply unsatisfactory, because a fire could easily be caused by the business premises. There are also examples of Victorian buildings in densely populated areas being wrongly converted. [Interruption.] I appreciate the pressure on time, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you so much for letting me make these points. I call on the Government to act urgently.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

I would like to proceed.

Secondly, what is the right way to reach a resolution on an issue that has been so difficult for us and for the country? Surely the right way to reach a resolution on Brexit, and on the proposals before us, is to properly and fully consider them—not to have the pre-cooked, pre-prepared tantrums of the Prime Minister. The withdrawal agreement Bill is a hugely important piece of legislation—perhaps the most important that this House has considered for many years—and it deserved proper scrutiny.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is simply a dreadful deal, that the attack on workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer protections is simply appalling, and that we need time to discuss these important matters?

[Mr McFadden]

I do. There are many other points about this deal that we should properly explore, not least because for the first time, the proposal before us is to have two Brexits, not one—one Brexit for one part of the country and another Brexit for the rest of the United Kingdom.

There are those who will say, “You have been discussing all this for three years; you have had plenty of time,” but as others have said in this debate, much of that time was taken up by an internal negotiation within the Conservative party and the Cabinet, with multiple Cabinet resignations, and the specific proposals before us were published only a couple of weeks ago. They are different from the proposals in the past.

Prime Minister's Update

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the eloquence with which she has just made the point I tried to make earlier. She might direct her wrath at the Leader of the Opposition, because I think it is time we had an election.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I have been saddened by the tone of debate in this House tonight. With power should come great responsibility yet, sadly, that is not always the case. We have seen the Prime Minister treat this House and, indeed, the rule of law with a disturbing lack of respect. Does he have any shred of remorse for his behaviour?

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid the straight answer is no. I must repeat the humility with which we approach the judgment of the Supreme Court and, indeed, the Supreme Court itself but, on the substance of the issue, we are only sharing an opinion that is also held by the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls—those are very high legal authorities.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant). I rise to speak in favour of amendments (f), (a) and (d). This country, and indeed this House, now face a very serious situation and a very substantial challenge. At this crucial time, with just a few days to settle the issue of Brexit—an issue that, as we all know, the Government have been unable to resolve for the last two years—we have to find a way through the impasse.

We have had months of delay, with the Government kicking the can down the road, putting off the inevitable, delaying reality and trying to pretend that their shabby deal was the only way of resolving Brexit. That is even though the proposed deal would have resolved only the withdrawal agreement with the EU and, indeed, offered only 22 pages of non-legally binding text to outline the whole of our future relationship with the EU. In other words, it set up several years—possibly six or even 10 years—of further botched negotiations, when the UK would have been in a very weak negotiating position.

Given the weakness of the Prime Minister’s deal, it was not surprising that it was rejected by both ardent leavers and those with deep concerns about Brexit. I sincerely hope that we have now moved on beyond the charade of this Government trying to put the same deal back to Parliament again and again. That is why it is time for Parliament to take control of this process.

As you know only too well, Mr Speaker, in a parliamentary democracy, when a Government lose the good will and support of a majority in Parliament, they should rethink their approach. That is what I hope will happen tonight. It is my sincere hope and belief that we have a real opportunity to break this dreadful impasse. It is now incumbent on the Government to listen to MPs and the millions of people who marched on Saturday. I urge Ministers to listen and consider the very real merits of thinking again. It is time for indicative votes, including on a confirmatory referendum. We have to put this serious matter back to the people, and the Government have to fundamentally rethink their approach.

Overseas Electors Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I absolutely agree. I genuinely think that the points the hon. Gentleman made in Committee were very reasonable and worthy of consideration again today. We should think very carefully about the point he makes.

[Matt Rodda]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the churn on the electoral register in some city centres and densely populated areas? In one part of Reading, a quarter of the population on the register changes every year. In my view, this indicates the need for far greater resources for the work he is advocating.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not know the precise problem in Reading, but I am sure it exists in other places too. He is right to raise that. As I made clear earlier, if the House imposes duties on electoral registration officers, it is only right that we provide them with the resources to perform those duties—it would be completely unacceptable not to—so I take his point and would tend to agree with it.