17/01/2017 Tuesday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Tuesday in Parliament.

Coming up in the next half hour:

As Theresa May sets out her Brexit plans, in the Commons MPs are told

both houses will have a vote on the final deal.

The Northern Ireland Secretary calls for a respectful election

following the breakdown of the Stormont Assembly.

And is it time for an overhaul of business rates?

When you look at High Streets around

the country, they are full of charity shops, estate agents

and the odd coffee shops.

But first, the Prime Minister has confirmed that the UK will leave

the European Union's Single Market as a result of Brexit.

Theresa May made the announcement during her first major speech

outlining her strategy for taking Britain out of the EU.

Mrs May said she wanted to build a stronger Britain

in charge of its own laws, in control of immigration

and pursuing free trade and she warned Europe's leaders

that no deal for Britain was better than a bad deal.

In the Commons, the Brexit Secretary set out the proposals to MPs.

It's a plan to build a strong, new partnership with our European

partners while reaching beyond the borders of Europe

as well, forging deeper links with old allies and new

ones.

Today we set out 12 objectives for negotiation to come.

They answer the questions of those who ask what we intend while not

undermining the UK's negotiating position,

we're clear what we seek is new partnership not a partial

EU membership - not a model adopted by other countries,

not a position that means half in and half out.

So our objectives are clear, to deliver certainty

and clarity where we can, to control our own laws, to

protect and strengthen the Union, to maintain the common travel area

with the Replublic of Ireland, to control immigration,

to protect the rights of EU nationals in the UK and UK

nationals in the European Union, to

protect worker's rights, to allow free trade with the EU markets,

to forge new trade deals with other

countries, to boost science and innovation,

to protect and enhance cooperation over crime,

terrorism and security,

to make our exit smooth and orderly.

It is the outline of an ambitious new

partnership between UK and the countries of the European Union.

We are under no illusions, agreeing terms which

works for both the UK and the 27 nations of the EU will be

challenging and no doubt there will be bumps

on the road once talks begin.

We must embark on negotiation clear however that no

deal is better than a bad deal.

The Prime Minister knows setting out ambitions

is the easy bit, delivery is more difficult, much more difficult.

The Prime Minister has taken a precarious course of taking the UK

out of single market membership and changing

the customs arrangements.

This will cause concern to businesses as the Secretary of State

knows and to trade unions and the Prime Minister should have

been more ambitious.

I think we should loyally support the government.

Hear, hear.

Will the Secretary of State confirm this, that insisting on patrolling

our own borders and insisting on doing

international trade deals is

inconsistent, not just with membership

of the EU but also the

customs union and the single market?

So I agree, after the speech today, it is not hard Brexit, it is full

Brexit.

The Prime Minister made a welcome commitment in the first

part of her speech to enhance and protect

workers' rights but at the

end was threatening to take them away and to undercut the rest of

Europe and rip up the British economic model if we don't get what

we want.

Can he now withdraw that threat and be clear that Britain

will not do that because otherwise if the government is prepared to rip

up workers' rights as soon as a negotiation gets difficult,

how can we trust them to ensure that the

rest of Britain's interests are protected if the negotiations get

difficult as well?

I will say to her what I said to the head of the TUC,

there is no circumstance under which we will rip up

the workers' rights.

My right honourable friend made clear that

no deal is better than a

bad deal.

In the unlikely I'm sure event that we were likely to get a

bad deal in the House were to vote against it,

what would be the impact in terms of status with the European

Union?

The referendum last year set in motion

a circumstance where the

UK is going to leave the European union and it

will not change that.

We want to have a vote so that the House

We want to have a vote so that the House can support the

policy which we're quite sure they will approve of.

What I do not understand when listening to his

statement or listening to my right honourable friend is which country

in the world is going to enter to trade agreement with this country

on the basis that the rules are

entirely what the British say they are going to be on any

to particular day and if that is any dispute about

the rules, it will be sorted out by the British Government.

LAUGHTER.

Those on that side have a very short memory.

I can't forgive my right honourable friend.

He did not hear

the first point and I will answer

like this, of course there will be disagreements and

they will be arbitrated by an organisation we agreed

between us, not normally the European Court of

Justice.

Once the UK has left the EU, there will be a 9

billion hole in EU finances, given reduced resources wide as the

-- why does the government believe that the EU will prioritise

the good seating a deal

with the UK when a more lucrative market such as the US or China?

I'm afraid she is wrong about the lucrative market bit.

We are the largest market for the European union.

EU workers in Scotland contribute ?7.5 billion to the

economy, not to mention the huge contribution they make to our social

fabric, what will he do to protect their rights

and Scotland's place in

Europe as they voted for by a majority in the EU vote?

We will not be managing the immigration or migration policy

in a way which harms the national interest and that means not causing

labour shortages or shortage of talent.

That applies not just globally but to each nation state of

the United Kingdom as well.

The Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire is hoping that

campaigning in next month's Assembly elections do not "exacerbate

tension and division".

Northern Ireland is going to the polls on March the 2nd

following the collapse of the Executive in Belfast.

Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness,

resigned last week in protest at the handling

of a renewable energy scheme.

That meant the First Minister,

the Democratic Unionists' Arlene Foster, was out of a job too,

bringing the Northern Ireland Executive to a halt.

Elections by their nature are hotly contested.

This is part of the essence of our democracy.

Nobody expects the debates around the key

issues in Northern Ireland to be anything less than robust.

I would however like to stress the following,

this election is about the future of Northern Ireland and

its political institutions.

Not just the Assembly, but all the arrangements that have

been put in place to reflect relationships

throughout these islands.

That is why it will be vital for the campaign to

be conducted respectfully and in ways that do not simply exacerbate

tensions and division.

I have personally been involved for almost

three decades in Northern Ireland's issues and I have learned one thing

that political vacuum should be avoided at all costs so I say

this to the Secretary of

State today, you must make sure that you are not only willing to fill

that vacuum but work for all parties to seek a way forward so we avoid

the nightmare scenario of six weeks of increasingly bitter campaigning

which will leave us in the same place when it started with no

solution in place to heal the divide and bring

together those elected to

represent all the people of Northern Ireland.

Laurence Robertson has just returned from Londonderry.

I did detect and witnessed a great sense of frustration about

what is happening and a great sense of disappointment that the assembly

yet again was under threat and indeed this time has fallen.

Does the Secretary of State therefore

agree with me and indeed the proposal made by the shadow

secretary of State that the coming weeks should perhaps be used to

want to say a retturn to

direct rule?

The DUP says Sinn Fein did not opt out

because of the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, or RHI.

We are deeply disappointed, frustrated and indeed

angry by the decision of Sinn Fein to walk away and cause the

election.

What is this about?

It is not about the RHI issue because if

it had been we could have sorted it out.

This election serves to delay those issues being sorted out.

It is about Sinn Fein seeking opportune

political advantage and seeking to overturn the election results

held just a few months ago and hoping to

gain concessions from the government, on legacy issues,

such as rewriting the past and putting more soldiers in the

dock, and other concessions from the DUP.

Let us be clear, we will work through this election and afterwards

to create devolved government that

is stable in Northern Ireland but let this

House know the people of

Northern Ireland all know that just as we have not given into Sinn Fein

demands in the past, we will not bow down and give

into Sinn Fein's unreasonable demands going forward

because that is what this election is all about.

The SDLP is urging the Northern Ireland Secretary

to support an inquiry into the energy scheme.

Without a public inquiry, Mr Speaker, public confidence in a

political settlement will sink even lower

and make restoration of the

executive even more difficult and that is what people are telling me

on the streets over the last few days and the last week that they

basically need to see clarity that we're having

an election here in a fog.

James Brokenshire replied that the issue was critical

in re-establishing the public's trust and confidence.

MPs have been told that staffing is the biggest problem facing

maternity services in England.

The Health Committee heard that enough midwives

are being trained but they are not necessarily being employed.

The committee's hearing followed a report from

the National Childbirth Trust which blamed a shortage of midwives

for women feeling like they had been treated "like cattle".

The NCT study of two and half thousand women found half had

experienced a "red flag" event such as not getting timely access to pain

relief due to a lack of staff.

There are clearly workforce pressures on all the health

disciplines associated with maternity care and I would add

health visitors who are extremely important women in the postnatal

period.

Half of the women you surveyed experienced clinically

unsafe care.

Yes, we looked at the events which are defined by NICE in

guidance as red flag events.

They are identified as those that do in

most cases mean there is a staffing shortage.

In this case, mostly in midwifery.

So it was mainly care processes that were delayed

- including medication being given which might

have been pain relief or

antibiotics or other drugs needed by women which was obviously should

have been given in a timely fashion either because the woman was in

great pain or with antibiotics, obviously they need to be taken as a

course and it is very important they're taken on time.

One woman reported that the bed she had given birth

in, she was not helped to washed or sheets changed for 12 hours

which I imagine is really unpleasant and distressing for her and

certainly the risk of greater infection.

While we're training enough midwives and enough midwives

are coming out into the system, the difficulty is that not enough of

them are being employed.

Although we have been seeing increases in

midwifery numbers over the last few years, we are now seeing

flat-lining.

The number of midwives is actually starting to look as

though it's reducing in our services.

The number has been quoted around 2500 up to 6000 as a gap,

would you support that?

Our figure is that we are 3500 mid-range short.

You feel it is worse?

Yes.

There are various issues, one is we're seeing

a rapidly increasing number of midwives retiring from the service

so the number of midwives now aged over 50 is very significant so

there's a need to replace midwives when they leave and the number going

out is pretty much equating to the number coming

out is pretty much equating to the number coming in,

so you are getting flat-lining.

The National childbirth trust talks about findings from

their recent survey that half of the women in their survey

received clinically unsafe care because of

staffing shortages, how do you respond to that?

My understanding of what that assessment is is that you

have the NICE guidelines and we have been able to be clearer than ever

before about whether we are safe or the optimum guidelines which are set

for the units saw a red flag which essentially

means that the director

of midwifery has got sight of the fact that there is a staff

issue within a unit which is a positive because previously we did

not have that information about the red flag People event.

We are able to respond accordingly.

By and large our units remain very safe places

but that is not a position we would want to be

but that is not a position we would want to be in the longer term and

that is why challenging ourselves going forward about the workforce

and having the right staff is absolutely critical.

It is also the reason that whilst the national

figures are very useful, we need to better understand what is driving

local scenarios because some places are finding it hard to recruit and

we need to understand why some places have models that are working

and learn from some of that practice as well.

You're watching Tuesday in Parliament,

with me, Alicia McCarthy.

At the same time that Theresa May was on her feet

making her big speech, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond,

was answering Treasury questions.

He explained that the UK could not stay in the single market

following Brexit because EU leaders made it clear they would not allow

curbs on the free movement of people.

Does my right honourable friend agree with me that the resilience

of our economy will be best served by what the Prime Minister has said

today, that Britain will be leaving the single market

with no ifs and no buts?

Well, Mr Speaker, for six months, we've kept open as many options

as possible while we review the way forward in this negotiation

with the European Union.

We've heard very clearly the views and the political red lines

expressed by other European leaders.

We want to work with them,

we want to recognise and respect their political red lines.

And that is why the Prime Minister is setting out right now

the position that she is, which is that we will go forward,

understanding that we cannot be members of the single market

because of the political red lines around the four freedoms

that other European leaders have set.

In the seven years to 2014, Scotland's trade with

the EU rose by 20%.

Twice the rate of growth in trade to the rest of the UK.

Vital for a resilient economy.

Today's hard Tory Brexit puts that at risk.

But is this not also a kick in the teeth to many of those

who voted leave, believing there would be an EEA/EFTA-type

arrangement in place, to mitigate the damage done?

Mr Speaker, I reject the honourable gentleman's analysis.

I think what this is is engaging constructively with the real world.

Recognising the political red lines of our European Union partners.

If we don't recognise them, frankly,

we are banging our heads against a brick wall.

They have to recognise our political red lines,

we have to recognise theirs.

Then we have to work together to find pragmatic solutions that

works for all the people of the UK within those red lines.

That is what we're doing.

What we now know from what the Prime Minister's saying now,

she is intent on pulling up the drawbridge,

leaving the single market and possibly the customs union.

We will be cutting ourselves off

from one of the largest markets on the entire planet,

threatening jobs and public finances.

This is not a clean Brexit, it is an extremely messy Brexit,

with the consequences we already see in terms of the rise

of the rate of inflation.

Now, with real living standards squeezed by this policy

announcement so far, isn't it time...?

I appeal to the Chancellor, he has the opportunity then

to reconsider his cuts to in-work benefits

and, in the Budget in March, withdraw them in full.

No, Mr Speaker.

What the Prime Minister is setting up today is ambitious agenda

for a Britain engaged with the world,

and a Britain engaged with the European Union.

What she's setting out is a broad-based offer for future

collaboration in trade and investment, insecurity,

an education, in technical and scientific collaboration,

and many other areas.

We want to remain engaged with the European Union,

and I'm confident that the approach the Prime Minister is setting up

today will allow us successfully negotiate a future relationship

with the European Union.

Philip Hammond.

Well, let's stay with Brexit because later in the Commons,

MPs debated the impact of leaving the EU on the rural economy.

The National Farmers Union says UK farmers' contribution to the economy

grew to almost ?10 billion in 2014.

And that the food and farming sector as a whole is worth ?108 billion.

The debate had been called by the SNP -

its spokesman worried about the future.

Under the Government's current direction of travel,

Brexit will not be a clean break for the sheep farmers

in my constituency, whose produce could face prohibitive tariffs

and whose direct support payment could be wiped out.

It will not be a clean break for the fish processors in Shetland,

where more fish was landed

than in the entirety of England and Wales in 2015,

but whose access to the largest seafood market

in the world is now under question.

Nor will it be a clean break for the soft fruit farmer in Angus

when the plug is pulled on the seasonal labour

his business needs to function.

And it will not be a clean break for the most remote Highland

communities that are now contemplating the loss of hundreds

of millions of pounds in European regional development funding.

We find ourselves facing a combination, once again,

of Tory indifference to the needs of the Scottish economy

and a dramatic democratic deficit.

Yes, I will give way.

I am grateful to the honourable gentleman for giving way.

He and his party are optimistic people,

and rays of sunshine in this House.

I wonder if he cannot see any possible benefit

to the Scottish rural economy, particularly fisheries,

the European policy of which decimated

the Scottish fishing industry?

I thank the honourable member.

Actually, if you come and spend a little bit more time

with us, you will find that we are optimists at heart.

But what this debate is about, Madam Deputy Speaker,

is the realities.

Incomes falling and debts are rising.

Incomes were down by a shocking 29% last year.

A fifth of farmers are struggling just to pay their bills.

The average debt for a farming business is now ?188,500.

Too many have gone out of business altogether,

including more than 1,000 dairy farmers in the last three years.

So not all farmers are thriving or even surviving.

I'm determined that we secure a deal and leaving the EU

that works for all parts of the UK, and recognises the contribution

that all corners of this country make to our economic success.

Will she also make it a priority to publish proposals

to have a British fishing industry where we can catch

more of our own fish and protect our fishing grounds for the future?

Well, I'm grateful to my right honourable friend.

He makes a very good point about the potential

for all UK fishing, and I do hope that our policies,

when we come to them after consultation,

will enable us to deliver exactly has he asks for.

Andrea Leadsom.

Finally, Ministers have faced calls for a "root-and-branch re-appraisal"

of business rates after warnings about the impact of revaluation

on high-street shops.

The Communities and Local Government Minister, Lord Bourne,

told peers business rates were based on independent valuations,

and that most would see no change or a fall in their bills from April

due to a revaluation.

Business rates are based on evaluations carried

out independently by the Valuation Office agency,

and it is right that ministers do not intervene in that process.

Nearly three quarters of all businesses will see no change

or a fall in their rates will from April,

thanks to the 2017 revaluation, with 600,000 businesses

set to pay no business rates at all.

Nevertheless, the core of the High Street is badly affected

in many parts of our country.

There was an article in Saturday's Times about Southwold.

Not a huge place.

The local baker's rates

are going up from 4,000, or just over, to 14,000.

And, against that background, will my noble friend

look at the possibilities of revising the proposals

where an increase is up to 15%?

The rules at the moment suggest that there can be no appeal.

Secondly, where there is a small reduction or any reduction,

that reduction is paid in April, and not phased in?

Many peers thought Lord Naseby's question had gone on too long,

but he had one final suggestion to make.

Finally, my Lords, is it not time for a whole

root and branch reappraisal of this form of business?

My Lords, most businesses, as I've indicated,

will be seeing a fall in their business rates.

Those that are subject to increases, of course,

it's phased in over a period of time,

to take just one area which my noble friend touched upon.

That is paid for by those that are seeing a reduction

also seeing that phased in over a period of time,

as is required by law under the 1988 Local Government Finance Act.

As a simple sailor, there must be something wrong when you look

at high streets around the country - they are full of charity shops,

estate agents and the odd coffee shop.

They seem to be falling apart.

There must be something wrong with what is going on.

My Lords, I would certainly not call the noble lord

a simple sailor for one minute.

But, my Lords, it's true that many high streets are thriving.

I visited many high streets that are thriving.

In essence, my Lords, what is important is

that we seek to protect small and medium-sized businesses.

We've been doing that, my Lords, and that is the way forward.

Lord Bourne.

And that's it from me for now,

but do join me at the same time tomorrow, when among other things,

we'll have the highlights from Prime Minister's Questions.

But for now from me, Alicia McCarthy, goodbye.