30/01/2018 Tuesday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to the programme,

where Mps demand to see leaked

documents which reportedly show

the UK will be worse

off after Brexit.

For the government to not publish

this is deeply irresponsible and

dishonest. This is a cover-up, pure

and simple and it stinks. We have an

analysis which is involving

continuing,

Meanwhile in the Lords Peers

begin two days of debate

on the EU Withdrawal bill,

A former Brexit minister

calls for more clarity

in the government's position

at this pivotal moment in our

history, we cannot, we must not,

indulge in that very British habit

of just leveling through.

And: more questions

about the collapse of

the construction firm,

Carillion.

But first: Mps have urged

the government to release a leaked

report predicting the UK would be

worse off after Brexit.

According to news website BuzzFeed,

the leaked document,

titled EU Exit Analysis

Cross Whitehall Briefing,

was drawn up for the Department

for Exiting the EU.

It looked at scenarios

ranging from leaving

with no deal to remaining

within the EU single market.

It concludes that growth would be

lower in each outcome

and almost every part

of the economy would suffer.

Answering an urgent question

the minister played down the report

describing it as a selective

interpretation and an attempt

to undermine our exit from the EU.

It is a preliminary attempt to

improve on the flood analysis. To

test ideas and design a viable

framework for the exit of the EU. At

this early stage, it only considers

off the shelf trade arrangements.

This is not what we are seeking in

the negotiations. It does not yet

consider our desired outcome. The

most ambitious relationship possible

in the European Union as set out by

the European Union.

Not good enough!

Here we go again, Mr Speaker. Brexit

impact assessments take two. Be

caught on the government to publish

impact assessments, a simple

argument on the significant,

Parliament is entitled the likely

impact on Brexit and to hold the

government to account. The

government refused repeatedly our

request. Would they not publish this

now? Not in nine months, but now! So

we can hold them properly to

account.

We have, this economic

analysis is not what is formally

known as an impact assessment. But

what I would say to the house, what

I would say to the house Mr Speaker,

what I would say to the house Mr

Speaker is that...

Order! Order!

This is unseemly!

This does not cut

it any more. One thing that is

striking about the figures that is

being released, they are similar to

the Scottish Government figures on

Scotland's base in Europe. If they

can produce these figures, why not

this government?

Namely, a single

civil service forecast wheat or

otherwise, has been accurate.

Mr

Speaker, no I am not able to name an

accurate forecast, and I think they

are always wrong.

It is reported

that chemicals clothing

manufacturing, cars, and retail,

will be the hardest hit. Can the

Minister offer an explanation

between the discrepancy between what

we were told and what we now in fact

no?

I have explained that we have

always said that it was continually

evolving across a wide range. What

else are they expect but for the

government to continually work on

the subject? It is clear that indeed

the food sector, all fighter sectors

-- by told.

Quite frankly Minister, I take

exception to being told that is not

in the interest for me to see a

report that allows them to best

represent my constituency.

For the

Minister to use the excuse of not

publishing this, because he has not

had a chance to edit, distort,

redacted, is a total and utter

disgrace. It is the right of the

public to know about their

livelihoods and their future, and

for the government not to publish

this is deeply irresponsible and

dishonest. This is a cover-up, Mr

Speaker, clear and simple, and it

stinks. The

alternatively he might

just go to the marked at the darkest

hour!

How can we unite together when

the side of the house is withholding

information from the house!

When

certain members of this house,

including the honourable Lady, keep

provoking as much division as

possible?

These long-term forecasts

are as useful as newspaper

horoscopes, but more importantly, it

gives assurance that despite the

hysteria, the government will not be

distracted by pulling us out of the

European Union.

He reminds me of the

great economist is said, if I recall

correctly, is to make a strong

astrology look respectable, and that

is a great deal.

Steve Baker.

Well while all that was

going on in the Commons,

down the corridor in the Lords,

Peers were beginning the first

of two days of debate

on the EU withdrawal bill.

More than 190 peers

are listed to speak.

The legislation transfers European

law into UK law to stop

a legislative black hole opening

up after Brexit.

Labour former transport

secretary Lord Adonis,

proposed a rare vote to regret,

but not stop the bill.

The interests of the public as a

whole, do not lie in making bread

ten... They do not lie in

undermining the good agreements,

they do not lie and diminishing

trade and our peoples rights to live

and work across Europe. They do not

alike in scapegoating your..., for

the social challenges that we face.

And they emphatically do not lie in

weakening our solidarity with

Germany, France, and to the other

democracies of Europe and standing

up to Vladimir Putin and others who

now and in future threaten our

borders, our lives, and our values.

A Conservative warned

of making a "constitutional

horlicks" of the bill A former

European Commissioner said business

But so are our responsibilities. We

have a duty to advise, improve what

we can, but not to obstruct or

overturn, least of all, to sabotage.

leaders wanted certainty.

We must surely plays a greater

priority in being able to shape our

own future than on preserving the

status quo. Particularly, when

technological innovation is itself

going to change the status quo, no

matter what we decide on Brexit. So

we need speed, we need honesty, we

need certainty.

And there was strong criticism,

from a former Brexit minister.

All we hear day after day is

conflicting, confusing voices. If

this continues, and ministers cannot

agree among themselves on the future

of what the government wants, how

can this Prime Minister possibly

negotiate a clear, precise, terms

for the future relationship of the

EU? My fear, is that we will get

meaningless waffle in a political

declaration in October. The

implementation period will not be a

bridge to a clear destination, it

will be a danged plank into thin

air. And we shall find ourselves

forced to accept a deal that gives

us access to the EU markets, but

without UK politicians having a

meaningful say over these ways of

regulation and legislation. Now my

Lords, this outcome would not be the

end of the world Summit say, some

may say, it is inevitable. My point

today is this, as this pivotal

moment in our history, we cannot, we

must not, indulge in that very

British habit of just muddling

through.

A former UKIP leader said

he supported the bill,

but thought the government needed

to change tack on the

brexit negotiations.

We should sit them down, and told

them that we did our best to make it

comply with Article 50. We see no

future in going on like this. So we

are unilaterally taking back our

law, our borders, fisheries, and so

on, but we will also be generous. We

will give them wide and mature

residents, we will allow them to

continue free trade with us. We will

go on helping them with security,

and then we will decide, my lords,

how much cash will give them. Which

may be nothing after the 29th of

March next year, if they do not

behave themselves to

protecting the

environment, and process, but in its

current form, this bill will fail on

all of those aims. And sadly the

gaps in the bill but the environment

will be the biggest casualty.

Both

government and opposition parties

are finding it hard to agree for a

Way forward. So a referendum on a

new question, about the future

relationship may be common

unavoidable. Although this is not

something that we should be voting

for at this stage.

I am not here to

thwart, but the noble Lord has

spoken, 28 years at the other end of

the building asserting, I will not

depart from that simply because I've

been sent to your lordships House.

But I know it my duty is, and it is

to bring to the attention of the

other house the manifest defects

that exist in this legislation. We

may not make them any wiser, but if

we do it properly with this bill, we

will make them better informed.

Heavens knows they need it.

Lord Campbell.

And that debate in the Lords

continues and concludes

on Wednesday night.

You're watching Tuesday

in Parliament, with me,

Alicia McCarthy.

The chief executive of Royal Bank

of Scotland, has said that the blame

for the mistreatment of small

businesses in the lender's

controversial restructuring unit,

GRG, lies with the executives

who ran that department.

Ross McEwan was giving evidence

to a Treasury Committee hearing

into the bank's behaviour around

the time of the financial

crash in 2008.

I think it has to be the executive

operation that takes the

accountability.

How many people

being subjected to this?

Suspended as these reviews go on and

if it does get reviewed as well.

earlier Tony Boorman,

from the consultancy firm,

which was commissioned to write

a report on the unit,

told MPs GRG staff were focussed

on the financial returns

to the bank.

They had it's about to its customers

and objectives financial objective

for the bank, we did not argue that

that was not a reasonable thing for

improvisation. But also one in which

it emphasised assisting customers

helping to turn them around, to

determine relationships. In

practise, will be found in set out

in our report, was that the focus

was entirely on the commercial,

almost entirely on the commercial

interests of the bank and in

particular, during the early period,

the collection of charges from

customers.

The bank's chairman,

Sir Howard Davies,

was asked about a memo,

written in 2009, which talks

of applying particularly

high interest rates,

which would then be reduced

if customers signed over a stake

in their business or property.

I am acutely embarrassed by those

documents, found by the bank itself

over the course of the review and

handed over to Parliament. And they

are the stuff of which nightmares

are made as far as an executive is

concerned. It is quite hard to

believe how people could have

written in such a way about a

customer, about customers, and we

can do nothing but base ourselves as

far as that's concerned. It is also

the awful. I will accept his

answers, I will point out that that

budget memorandum had originated in

one regional office and possibly had

circulated to another office.

Therefore it's was not widespread,

it was not a policy that was being

followed across the organisation,

but he set the fact that the memo

could be written of that kind and

did say something about the

organisation.

Let me pull from the

document, what the staffer told. Any

documents. Sometimes you just need

to let customers hang themselves.

From this exercise from our reviews,

but also this review. This report,

we've been making those changes are

the past four years. I think this

comes to the question of this

organisation. We want this to be a

great organisation. We were appalled

we saw this, absolutely appalled.

That I saw, which was written into,

we did not hide it, we did not does

give it to the skilled person. We

went back and said, the consequence

does this have on all the customers

and those three years? 40,000

documents, find out what happened

here. Was there any, did it impact

those customers?

Ross McEwen.

The UK's biggest accountancy firms

are facing renewed scrutiny

in the wake of the collapse

of the construction firm Carillion.

The accountancy watchdog -

the financial reporting council -

was challenged by MPs at a joint

hearing of the Business and Work

and Pensions Committees.

Given the oligarchy that now exists

amongst the accountancy firms,

shouldn't we be considering a

recommendation to the Government to

break them up?

Onto that one first.

We feel that there should be more

competition in the major accounting

and audit area. We ask the

competition commission in something

like 2012 to do a review and they

did and they made a number of

recommendations come up which have

been lamented -- conditions, which

have been implemented. There has

been no entry to the market by other

firms at that top end of the

corporate sector.

There would be if

we broke the companies up.

I think

the CMA now at some point will need

to review the effectiveness of what

they recommended and look at it

again.

Later in the Commons,

in a sustained attack by Labour,

the Shadow Business Secretary laid

out what she said was the situation

for Carillion's suppliers.

These businesses are owed an average

of £98,000, small firms, 141,000,

medium firms, 236,000, and large

businesses are owed on average £15.6

million.

Since the tent, Carillion

has paid out over 500 million in

dividends to shareholders while in

the same period, running up a

pensions episode of hundred and 87

million, now threatening the

security of thousands of

hard-working people. While those

people suffer, the former CEO was

rewarded with a Borges package worth

-- a bonus package worth 1.5 million

in 2016. Will the Government join me

in condemning this scandal and work

with the Labour Party, or will it

just be business as usual?

Leads

allow me to ensure the honourable

Lady that any payments due to

directors and executives of

Carillion have been stopped. Nobody

is getting paid. Nobody is getting

executive bonuses. The Secretary of

State, on the moment that the

insolvency happened, wrote most of

the insolvency service and to the

FRC to ensure that there was a

thorough investigation of all of the

payments to directors, and, if

necessary, they have PWC and the

insolvency service, they have the

power to club-mac all of those

payments -- to claw back.

Andrew Griffiths.

Everyone who currently receives

the main disability benefit

is to have their case reviewed

after a court ruled

that the personal independence

payments system discriminated

against people with mental

health conditions.

1.6 million people claim the benefit

and it's thought as many

as 220,000 people could

receive more money.

But, answering an urgent question

about the changes, the minister said

the vast majority of claimants

would not be affected.

For the group of people

that may be affected,

we will undertake a detailed review

of their application and award.

We will write to those individuals

affected and all payments will be

backdated to the effective date

in each individual claim.

There will be no, no face-to-face

reassessments of awards.

This mess is one of the Government's

own making and it is a clear

example, to this government,

of the dangers of seeking

to undermine both the independent

judiciary and the House of Commons.

Madam Deputy Speaker,

I find it shameful and depressing

that it took a court case to drag

this government back

to the edge of decency.

And I find the money wasted on legal

proceedings abhorrent.

But since it is now at the edge

of decency can I urge the Government

to take a few more steps?

Will the Secretary of State

apologise to the victims of the

Government's actions? I appreciate

she is new imposter but I think this

is important. Will she also

apologised to the families of those

who have taken their own lives as

the result of government's benefit

policies, and will she confirmed she

is now undertaking to restore some

semblance of unity to this area of

policy by reviewing all PIP cases

where benefits have been reviewed

and stop rather than those only

affecting mental health.

It is with

deep regret that the honourable Lady

has made such appalling and

unsubstantiated claims about people

committing suicide as a result. We

in this House, all of us, have a

duty to be very mindful of the

language reviews the evidence, the

evidence that we use for making such

assertions. We are talking about

some of the most vulnerable people

in society and it is shameful when

the members in this House

deliberately misused data.

MPs have given their initial

approval to the legislation paving

the way for the next phase

of the proposed

High Speed Rail line.

The £55 billion railway

between London and Birmingham

is under construction and is due

to open in 2026.

Two further phases are planned,

the first linking the West Midlands

to Crewe, the second

going from Crewe to Manchester,

and Birmingham to Leeds.

Opening the debate on the Bill

for the West Midlands to Crewe link,

the Transport Secretary,

recognised that some MPs

were concerned at the impact

the scheme would have

on their constituencies:

We will do our

best to minimise those

and we will do our best

to work as closely

as

possible with you to make sure that

people who are affected are treated

as decently as possible.

High-speed two will be

the crown in the jewel

of Britain's rail network when it

begins operations in the next

decade.

It will be a shining example

of Britain's capability and talent.

It will encapsulate

our technological and

engineering prowess.

But, Madam Deputy Speaker,

I can tell the Secretary of State

that there will be uproar

across the land should this piece

of the family silver be handed

over to Virgin Trains

or Stagecoach or their ilk.

A Conservative didn't reckon

the extended line would provide

a viable alternative to flying,

he painted the picture of family

from his constituency trying

to get to Paris.

Imagine now, imagine now, the wife,

the children, the baggage.

They get on the train

at Litchfield City

Station

but, let me say, this

applies to stations up

and down the country.

They arrive at Birmingham

New Street, and then what happens?

They then have to leave

Birmingham New Street

with the two children

and all their bags and walk for 22

minutes, and I want to praise

at this point, Counsellor

Tony Thompson in Litchfield who has

done this walk

and timed it, without,

though, the children,

and without all the bags, it

took him 22 minutes to trap across.

Here is me, tramping

across Birmingham to get

to Curzon Street to get HS1.

And then can they relax,

knowing that they will, in a moment,

then can they relax knowing

that they will end up in Paris?

No.

Because instead the train

arrives at Newsom.

When he pointed out Eurostar trains

to Paris and beyond left

from St Pancras station.

And that's it from me for now,

but do join me at the same time

tomorrow as the Lords

conclude their first big debate

on the EU withdrawal bill,

and it's all change

at Prime Minister's Questions,

with Theresa May away

and David Lidington filling

in for her at the despatch box.

But for now, from me,

Alicia McCarthy, goodbye.