Withdrawal Agreement: Proposed Changes Debate
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Pat McFadden
Main Page: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)Department Debates - View all Pat McFadden's debates with the Department for Exiting the European Union
Withdrawal Agreement: Proposed Changes
Pat McFadden Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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James Duddridge
I think everyone in the House believes in higher protections for workers’ rights and maintaining and expanding them over time. My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the Opposition’s level of confidence: not only are they not confident that they will be in government to improve workers’ rights, but they do not seem to be confident that they will even win a general election. They are running scared of going back to the people because they know that they are trying to overturn the will of the people who wanted Brexit.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Paragraph 13 of the memo issued last week confirms that even if the European Union agrees to the proposals, and even if Parliament then agrees them, they would not come into force for more than a year, unless they had also been endorsed by the Northern Ireland Executive, which has not met for several years. Will the Minister confirm that if the Northern Ireland Executive continues to fail to meet, the proposals automatically fall away after 12 months?
James Duddridge
The right hon. Gentleman is right: we are in a constrained period and we are trying to do an unprecedented amount of work. Even separate to the problem of which he speaks directly, there are already many hurdles to get over, but we will work together with all our partners to re-form Stormont—that is our priority in relation to Northern Ireland—so that we can get this deal through.