31/03/2017 The Week in Parliament

Hello, and welcome to The Week In Parliament.

A dream come true for many people, but a day others hoped

The UK has told the European Union that it is

This is an historic moment from which there can be no

We are going to make our own decisions and our own laws.

The terms of the UK's divorce deal will

The Labour Party set out its red lines.

Labour will not give this Government a free hand to use Brexit

to attack rights, protections and cut services, or create

And the Scottish parliament voted in favour of a

The SNP urges the Prime Minister to show some respect.

If she remains intransigent, and if she denies

Scotland a choice in our future, she will make Scottish

The journey towards triggering Article 50 began nine

52% of voters in the EU referendum put a cross next to the

box that said Leave the European Union.

Those 7.4 million people unleashed a huge political upheaval.

David Cameron resigned the next day, prompting a lively fight to

One by one the candidates fell by the wayside,

allowing Theresa May to be installed at Number Ten in July.

Theresa May had taken on one of the toughest jobs in British

To start with, her aim to invoke article 50 without

approval from Parliament was subject to a legal battle.

Gina Miller's successful High Court challenge,

backed later by the Supreme Court, led to a ruling that Parliament must

give permission before the Government can trigger Article 50.

Legislation was produced, giving Parliament the

right to authorise the start of the Brexit process.

The EU Notification Of Withdrawal Bill had a bumpy ride

in the Lords, but earlier this month became law, allowing Theresa May

to meet her deadline for triggering Article 50 on Wednesday March 29th.

On Wednesday, all eyes were on Brussels at 12:30pm as the UK's

ambassador to the EU handed Theresa May's letter

to the EU Council President, Donald Tusk.

Mr Tusk said at a press conference later in the

Meanwhile the Prime Minister made a statement

in the Commons, calling on the country to pull together.

In accordance with the wishes of the British people,

the United Kingdom is leaving the EU.

This is an historic moment, from which there can

We're going to make our own decisions and our own laws.

We understand that there will be consequences for the UK of leaving

the EU, we know that we will lose influence over the rules that affect

We know that UK companies that trade with the EU will have to align with

rules agreed by institutions of which we are no longer

a part, just as we do in other overseas markets.

She said that for some people it was a day of

celebration, for others it was a day of disappointment.

Let us come together and work together, let us

together choose to believe in Britain with optimism and hope.

For if we do, we can make the most of

the opportunities ahead, we can together make a success of

And we can together build a stronger, fairer, better Britain,

a Britain our children and grandchildren are proud to

The direction the Prime Minister is threatening to take this

country in is both reckless and damaging.

And labour will not give this Government a free hand to use

Brexit to attack rights, protections and cut services,

So let me be clear, Mr Speaker, the Prime

Minister says that no deal is better than a bad deal.

But the reality is no deal is a bad deal.

The SNP leader at Westminster said the Prime

Minister had broken a promise to reach an agreement

on Brexit in Scotland before triggering Article 50.

The Prime Minister says that she thinks that

Brexit will bring unity to the United Kingdom.

On this issue, it is not a United Kingdom and the Prime

Minister needs to respect the differences across

If she remains intransigent, and if she denies

Scotland a choice in our future, she will make Scottish independence

The question and answer session went on for three hours or so.

There weren't many signs of the country pulling together.

It was indeed, as Theresa May had remarked,

a day of celebration for some, including the veteran Conservative

MP Sir Bill Cash, who has been campaigning to leave the EU for

Sir Bill was one of the rebels who tried to stop the

Maastricht Treaty being approved by the Commons in 1992.

And now he is witnessing the fruits of his labour.

Can my right honourable friend reaffirm

that at the very heart of this letter lies a democratic decision

in the referendum of the UK voters, given to them by a sovereign act of

Parliament by 6-1 in this House, enabling the British people to

regain their birthright to govern themselves,

for which people fought and died over generations?

But the Liberal Democrat leader was not

Today the Prime Minister is not enacting the

will of the people, she is at best interpreting that will,

choosing a hard Brexit outside the single

market that was never on the ballot paper,

so on this day of all days the Liberal Democrats will not roll

over as the official opposition has done.

Our children and our grandchildren will judge all of us

I am determined that I will look my children in the eye

and be able to say that I did everything to

Theresa May's statement was read out in the

Lords, where Lady Smith compared it to a celebrity divorce.

There will be some who rejoice and look

forward to the opportunities, others though will despair for the shared

A few well fondly recall the marriage, divorces

and remarriage of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor with some hope.

But through it all, my lords, the only

people to get rich were those trying to unravel those 40-plus

years of relative harmony, the lawyers.

Meanwhile, the former diplomat said that it wasn't a day to carp

The Prime Minister and the Government are

setting off on a road which could best be described as a magical

For its destination, they have no clue any more than the

Time now for a quick tour of the year 1972.

It was the year David Bowie released his

Ziggy Stardust album, and that the Swedish

There was a miners' strike and an emergency three-day week.

The conservative Edward Heath was the

One of his jobs that year was to get the

European Communities Act 1972 approved.

The Act paved the way for the UK to join the European Economic

And it gave EU law supremacy over UK national law.

BBC Panorama made a programme about the UK's entry into

Well, at 45 years later, the UK Government is go to repeal

the 1972 Act through a new Great Repeal Bill.

The day after Article 50 was triggered, the Brexit

Secretary David Davis explained the task ahead.

Repealing the ECA on the day we leave the EU enables a return

to this parliament of the sovereignty we ceded in 1972.

It ends the supremacy of EU law in this country.

The Great Repeal Bill will also convert all EU law into UK law.

This means, for example, that workers' rights and environmental

and consumer rights that are insured under EU law In the UK will

continue to be available in the UK law after we have left the EU.

Can I thank my right honourable friend for

making it clear that two years from today,

our sovereign parliament will

indeed have the power to amend, repeal or improve all this ghastly

I will pass on the assessment of the legislation, but I

will of course reinforce the point Ive already made.

The aim of this Bill is to bring the decisions back

If he panders too much to the secret and not so secret

agenda of the barmy army Eurosceptics, prominent behind him,

we will not get the level of collaboration we otherwise would,

Wednesday the 29th of March, as well as being Article 50 day,

marked one week since the terror attack at Westminster.

Khaled Masood drove at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge,

killing three people and injuring dozens.

He went on to kill PC Keith Palmer in a knife attack inside the

The Palace of Westminster and surrounding area

On Wednesday, a commemoration was held at

Hundreds of people gathered on the bridge, which

Commons Speaker, John Bercow, announced two

reviews of security at the Palace of Westminster,

2:40pm today marks a week on from the shocking events of

Our thoughts will be in particular with the Metropolitan

Police, as they mourn their colleague, PC Keith Palmer.

The Foreign Office minister, Tobias Ellwood, has received

widespread tributes for coming to the aid of PC Keith Palmer.

Mr Ellwood has said he is heartbroken that the

Foreign Office Question Time was the first occasion

since the attack on which Tobias Ellwood has appeared on the

Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary took the opportunity to

May I start by paying tribute to the member for

Bournemouth East, for his extraordinary courage last

As PC Keith Palmer's family said this weekend to the

minister and to others who rushed to help, there was nothing more

You did your best and we are just grateful that he was

I'm very grateful for her kind remarks.

I will make it clear that I was one of many that stepped

forward on that dark day, and our thoughts and prayers remain

with those families and friends of the

victims, including our own PC Keith Palmer.

The activation of Article 50 came on the

day after the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of holding another

referendum on independence for Scotland.

The vote had been scheduled for last Wednesday, but

proceedings were suspended as news reached Holyrood of the Westminster

Resuming the debate, the Scottish First Minister, Nicola

Sturgeon, said withdrawal from the EU would bring profound

It is change that will impact on our economy, not just in

the here and now, but for the long-term.

Indeed it was the UK Treasury ahead of the referendum last

year that said Brexit would make the UK permanently poorer.

There will be an impact on trade, investment and

on living standards, and an impact on the very nature

Much that we have come to take for granted over, certainly

most of my lifetime, the freedom, just as one example, to travel

easily across Europe, is now up for negotiation,

with outcomes that are, at this point, deeply uncertain.

The First Minister says that she wants the UK to get a good

But no matter how good it is, she still wants to push for

Whereas our view, and the UK Government's view

At a time of enormous uncertainty, where it is only three

years since the last vote, when we were told it would be

once in a generation, that the decision

of the Scottish people would be respected by both sides,

where there would be no rerun without an overwhelming

change in public opinion, and that the people in Scotland have

the right to see the Brexit process play out, they need

to see it operating, to see it working in practice.

And that, at this moment, we should be pulling together, not

The Labour leader blamed the Conservative Party for

They set Scotland against England in the general

election, and whose reckless Brexit gamble brought us to this point -

where leaving the EU has just provided the SNP with the latest

excuse it was looking for to push for another referendum.

So some humility from the Tories, and a genuine desire to

properly engage with this place wouldn't go amiss.

The Scottish parliament backed another referendum

It means the Scottish Government is now authorised to seek permission

from the UK Government for a referendum.

Theresa May has however said that now is not the time.

But now it's time for a round-up of some

The energy secretary Greg Clark promised lessons would be learned

as he gave details of how a multibillion pound contract to

decommission Magnox nuclear-power sites had to be scrapped.

This was a defective procurement with significant

I am determined that the lessons to be learnt should be

That those responsible should be properly be held

to account and that it should never happen again.

The joint committee on National Security strategy held

a session with cyber security retreat experts.

What is the worst-case scenario for a cyber attack on this country

You could see a very likely scenario where our ability

for our financial markets to operate, our ability for much

of our health systems, our electricity, our critical

national infrastructure to function could be disabled.

And a Labour peer was lost for words when the government agreed

to the proposal to change the law on money held by letting agents.

I'm pleased to announce that the government intends to make

client money protection mandatory in line with the recommendation

of the review shared by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord Palmer

This will ensure that every agent is offered the same level

of protection giving tenants and landlords the financial

The government, my Lords, will protect on how mandatory client

money protection should be implemented and enforced.

Well, that has taken the wind out of my sails.

Will the noble Lord, the Minister accept my thanks?

What with triggering Article 50, PMQs was not, for once,

Jeremy Corbyn raised a critical issue with funding in schools.

Last week, she told me four times we have protected

Does she still stand by that statement?

We have protected schools budget and we're putting record

Today Mr Speaker, the Public Accounts Committee says

of the Department for Education that it does not seem

to understand the pressures that schools are already under.

And they went on to say that funding per-pupil is reducing in real

terms and goes on to say, schools budgets will

be cut by 3 billion, the equivalent of 8% by 2020.

Is the Public Accounts Committee wrong on this?

What we see over the course of this Parliament is ?230 billion

going into our schools but what matters is

the quality of education that we see in our schools.

1.8 million more children in good or outstanding schools,

and a policy from this government to ensure that every child gets

Then, the parents are wrong, teachers are wrong, the IFS

is wrong, the National Audit Office is wrong, the Education Policy

Institute is wrong, and now the Public Accounts Committee,

which includes eight Conservative members in it is also wrong.

So, which organisation does act Prime Minister's view on education

We said we would protect school funding and we have.

Real terms protection for the schools budget.

We said we would protect the money following children

The school budget reaches 40 million as pupil numbers rise in 2020.

Barely a PMQs goes by where he doesn't call

When it comes to spending money that they haven't got, Labour simply

It is the same old Labour, spent today and give somebody

Well, we won't do that to the next generation.

Now, some distressing stories about animal cruelty have been

shared in the Commons as MPs look for an increase in penalties

They want the maximum sentence for offenders to be

The fox had a habit of going to a large supermarket every

The fox was got hold of by a gang of boys from my own constituency.

They got it by the tail, pulled it round and round and round,

smashed head against a wall several times, and then stamped on its head.

And the punishment for that, well, it was hardly punishment at all,

so I think it is absolutely necessary to increase the penalties

for people who put that kind of cruelty on animals.

The small dog named Scamp was found buried alive on the 19th of October

On the 22nd of February, 59-year-old Michael Heathcock

and 60-year-old Richard Finch, both from Redcar, pleaded

guilty to offences under the Animal Welfare Act.

They were sentenced to just four months, meaning they probably served

Not enough time for reflection, punishment, or rehabilitation.

The people of my constituency have been horrified by these cases,

and it is important for me to pay tribute to their response.

After hearing of these incidents, they held vigils for the animals

with hundreds of people coming to lay flowers and send

There are also plans for a dog park to be built in their memory.

The perpetrators do not represent our community.

People in Redcar are decent and kind.

I know many passionate animal lovers and I meet wonderful dog owners

as I walk my own dog on the beach or in the hills.

But, Mr Deputy Speaker, my constituents are angry.

They feel the criminal justice system is letting them down

and that is why I am standing here today.

And I know from working in psychology that there

is certainly a link between cruelty to animals and psychopathy,

So, this is something that must be taken seriously,

both in terms of animal welfare standards, but also in terms

of thinking of the impact of this on other victims of cruelty

because these individuals are practising cruelty basically

on animals which they will then transfer onto humans.

The government does not have any plans to increase sentences.

The environment minister said magistrates could already impose

unlimited fines and ban people from owning or even being

Election fever has swept through the House of Lords as 27

hereditary peers vied for a seat in the upper House.

Tony Blair expelled hereditary peers from the Lords in 1999,

although 92 were allowed to stay on, and an additional 15

A seat became available following the death of Lord Lyell.

A total of 346 peers took part, a turnout of 43%.

After 16 rounds, using the alternative vote system,

the candidates were whittled down to two.

The results of the by-election came in on Monday.

The Conservative Lord Colgrane emerged victorious with a votes

Lord Colgrain is an executive headhunter and former

He is the great-grandson of the Scottish banker Lord Campbell.

To mark the occasion, we have dusted off our ermine-o-meter

and the election of Lord Colgrain brings the total number of peers

Elections to the Northern Ireland assembly were held at

The idea was for the Democratic union party and Sinn Fein to form at

aquatic coalition. The secretary said that it

was a source of deep The situation is not sustainable,

and beyond a short period of time, will have an impact

on public services. What we are talking about here

is the health service, schools, voluntary groups,

and services for the most This isn't what people voted

for on the 2nd of March. He said he was hopeful for

a positive outcome from the talks. If these talks are successful,

it would be my intention, weekly, to bring forward legislation

after the Easter recess to allow It would avoid a second late

assembly election for which I detect Brexit negotiations in Northern

Ireland are the most sensitive in all parts of the United Kingdom. The

European Commissioner lead negotiator has identified an

occasion for the peace process one of three main priorities for him to

enter these negotiations and we don't have proper people attending

the talks under the GMC. In the background to all this is the worry

that any vacuum could be filled by those for whom the bullet is

preferred to the ballot box. We end with some of the more

offbeat moments in the week that Theresa May

triggered Article 50. A baby was born on Article 50 day

to MPs Andrea Jenkins The Conservative Jason McCartney

announced the news. This is indeed a momentous day. On

the half of the whole House, may I pass on our congratulations on the

birth of their baby boy this morning, Clifford George. Excellent

news. I think it is right to congratulate the father. A total of

113 MPs answered questions over three hours and one of the speakers

started to get confused as he called Angus MacNeil. He is jovial, let's

put him out of his misery. We've already heard from him. I'd

forgotten. I do apologise. No! Once is enough! Enough! Let's give the

last word to perform at the mad who wrote Article 50. As this

negotiation precedes, the Countrywide forget what it was told

and ministers will be judged by their own words. Why is words from

the author of Article 50. The House of Commons is now on its eastern

rate, the House of Lords will be sitting as usual next week, we will

be back on Tuesday the 18th of April. In the meantime, look out for

a review of the year so far with my colleague Keith Macdougall, but for

now, from me, Christina Cooper, at by. -- goodbye.