Andy Burnham: A few moments ago, the Prime Minister failed to adequately answer the important question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton). Has the Prime Minister carried out any detailed analysis of the impact the harder form of Brexit she seeks will have on the economy in the regions, in particular the north? If she has, will she publish it? If she has not,...
Andy Burnham: rose—
Andy Burnham: Thank you, Mr Speaker. One cannot help but notice that all the talk these days is of the midlands engine. Suddenly, the northern powerhouse is about as popular on the Conservative Benches as its originator, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne). Although I am not against investment in the midlands, will the Secretary of State give a cast-iron guarantee that manifesto commitments to...
Andy Burnham: We are now just one month from the start of the new inquest into the Birmingham pub bombings. West Midlands police has set aside for itself a legal fund of £1 million, but as of today, the bereaved families have no legal funding. Prime Minister, this is a shameful state of affairs. Please intervene and show the Birmingham families the same compassion as was shown to the Hillsborough families.
Andy Burnham: The right hon. Gentleman’s non-answer to the reasonable question asked by the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) illustrates the point. The reason he is struggling today can be found in the words of Sir Andrew Cahn, who said in September: “I find it…shocking…that David Cameron as Prime Minister prohibited the civil service from doing preparatory work…I think it was a...
Andy Burnham: When it comes to fighting for their rights, the women of Leigh are the WASPIest of them all. That is why I rise to present one of the biggest petitions of them all, with well over 1,000 names. The message they have asked me to convey tonight is, “Prime Minister, we won’t go away until we have justice.” The Petition of residents of Leigh. [P001850]
Andy Burnham: A decade ago, Labour introduced a points-based system for non-EU migration. In the referendum campaign, five of the Home Secretary’s Cabinet colleagues and many Conservative MPs pledged to extend it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) has said, without consultation or debate, the Prime Minister today ruled that out but failed to tell us what she would do instead. That...
Andy Burnham: That was a complete non-answer. People at home might wonder why we are getting non-answers on Brexit: it is because the Government told the civil service not to plan for it, hence the confusion we are in. There is one issue that the Minister could clear up today—the status of EU nationals who are already here. The failure to address that is creating uncertainty for families who have chosen...
Andy Burnham: I, too, welcome the Home Secretary to her first questions, but I do hope we will get better answers than the ones we have just had from the Immigration Minister. I will give it one more go, Mr Speaker, this time on security. Last week, in relation to discussions with the French Government on Calais, a senior Government source briefed The Times that the UK might withdraw co-operation on...
Andy Burnham: (Urgent Question) To ask the Home Secretary if she will clarify comments made last week in another place on calls for a public inquiry into policing at the Orgreave coking plant in 1984.
Andy Burnham: I promised the Hillsborough families the full truth about the 20-year cover-up. They will not have it until we also know what happened after Orgreave. A year ago the IPCC found senior officers gave untrue statements exaggerating violence from miners to distract from their own use of force, some would say brutality. So the force that would wrongly blame Liverpool supporters tried to do the...
Andy Burnham: I start by welcoming the Home Secretary to her new position and welcoming her well-judged and heartfelt words to the House today. She spoke for us all in condemning this nauseating attack, and in sending our sympathy and solidarity to the families affected and to the French people. From the very outset of the right hon. Lady’s tenure, let me assure her of my ongoing support in presenting a...
Andy Burnham: rose—
Andy Burnham: Before the Minister sits down, will he address the point that I raised, and that was echoed by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless)? I am talking about the use by the BBC of the phrase, “so-called Islamic State”. I have been in mosques recently and seen how it causes great despondency among the people who are trying to counter radicalisation. They say that the use...
Andy Burnham: I would customarily start a speech such as this by saying something like, “Where is the Home Secretary?” but even I will admit that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has better things to do today. I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the Opposition Benches to pay tribute to her tenure as Home Secretary. I have found that she has certainly been prepared to listen,...
Andy Burnham: I strongly agree with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. The experience of the Sikh community in challenging the proscription of the International Sikh Youth Federation was pretty dispiriting, in that it had to pursue a lengthy legal process while facing an unresponsive Home Office. There may be good grounds to proscribe organisations—my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester...
Andy Burnham: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I just wanted to see whether his understanding is the same as mine. I think that we had an indication at the end of the Minister’s speech that the Government are planning to abstain on this motion tonight. It is a motion that gives EU nationals a right to remain—that is what it talks of. Does he agree that, if they abstain and there are...
Andy Burnham: I am struggling to follow the logic of the Minister’s position. He made a very angry statement a minute ago saying that they were not pawns, but he is saying explicitly that there is a negotiation here and that the Government will not make commitments to them until they have got commitments over there. That is precisely what they are. Why is he linking the two issues? Why does he not just...
Andy Burnham: Surely 23 June was the moment when the position changed. Surely anyone who came here before that date came here in different circumstances. It is easy to trace everything to that day. May I return the Minister to the issue of the link with British nationals? The Government have a responsibility to people who are living here today, are worried about their future, and are feeling insecure. Why...