Conduct of negotiations

Part of European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill – in the House of Commons at 3:15 pm on 8 February 2017.

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Photo of Caroline Flint Caroline Flint Labour, Don Valley 3:15, 8 February 2017

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Howarth. I listened carefully to the contribution from Kit Malthouse. I believe that it is part of our job in the House of Commons to raise questions about important decisions that affect all our lives and, through the use of amendments and other means, to open up the discussion and seek answers from the Government of the day. That is important in the debates that we will have today and in the future. The Government have refused on numerous occasions to accept contributions from those on my own Front Bench and others, but they have then gone away and thought about the issues and decided, “Maybe there’s something in that.” We seem to be pushing at the Government, although they do not want to accept some of the amendments, some of which I have put my name to. Part of the purpose of having these debates in the public arena is to hold the Government to account and make them look again at the important subjects that are being raised at the moment and that will, I have no doubt, be raised in the next two years and beyond.

I was delighted to read in the White Paper that one of the Prime Minister’s 12 objectives was to enhance employees’ rights and maintain EU protections. On page 32, the graph suggests that we will have 14 weeks’ statutory paid holiday. I wonder whether she will keep to that suggestion. Some amendments on the protection of workers’ rights tabled by my hon. Friend Chris Leslie were not selected, but we will take heart from the suggestion in the White Paper and perhaps hold the Prime Minister to account on that particular issue.

I want to challenge the Government on a number of aspects of this important process, and I do so as an MP who believes that the decision is made. Whatever the falsehoods, exaggerations or unpleasantnesses that surfaced in the referendum, none of those invalidates the UK’s decision. The House should make it clear that we respect the outcome of 23 June. I commend the approach of Labour Front Benchers on those matters, and I commend the work of my hon. and learned Friend Keir Starmer in particular, because it is thanks to his efforts that the Government have accepted a number of Labour’s demands.

The Government have accepted our essential demand for a vote in the House prior to withdrawal. There will be lots of debate about what that should mean, but it has been a concession. The Government have also accepted that that vote has to include our proposed relationship with the EU after we leave. They have accepted that the vote must take place on a draft withdrawal agreement, and that it will do so before the European Parliament or Council decides on that draft agreement. In accepting those Labour arguments, the Government are asserting that the UK Parliament does not play second fiddle to our colleagues in the European Parliament, and that this House asserts some measure of control over the withdrawal process. It is really important that this is not seen as a debate only for the Prime Minister and her Ministers, and that everyone in the House is able to air their views and influence the discussions.