18/01/2017 Wednesday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Wednesday in Parliament.

Coming up: After her Brexit speech the Labour leader challenges

Can't night urged her to stop the threats of the bargain basement

Brexit? I have a plan, he does not have a clue.

MPs demand the Government do more to help a persecuted

According to reports the minority group have been subject to arson,

rape and murder. MPs try to find out why

we waste so much food. And: Pretty much everyone

hates theirs - but could we be about to enter a new era

for the passport photo? Any of us can send essentially a

selfie to the passport office for our passport.

But first: There'd been mutterings in the Commons on Tuesday

after Theresa May decided to make her big Brexit

speech not in the chamber but to an outside audience.

So Prime Minister's questions was the first chance for MPs

to grill her directly on her 12 point plan.

In her speech Theresa May made clear that the UK would not stay

in the single market, that MPs and Peers would get a vote

on the final exit deal and insisted no deal was better than

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn began with a swipe at

the Prime Minster for not setting out her plans in Parliament.

Restoring parliamentary democracy while sidelining Parliament.

Not so much the Iron Lady as the Irony Lady.

Yesterday the Prime Minister finally provided some detail.

Can I urge her to stop her threats of a bargain basement

Brexit - a low-pay tax haven on the shores of Europe?

It would not necessarily damage the EU, but it would certainly

damage this country - businesses, jobs

She demeans herself, her office and our country's

What I set out yesterday was a plan for a global Britain,

bringing prosperity to this country and jobs to people, and spreading

Yesterday we learned a little more of the right honourable

He said: "She has said, 'leave the single market,'

"but at the same time says she wants to have access to the single market.

"I'm not quite sure how that's going to go down in Europe.

"I think we have to have a deal that ensures we have

I've got a plan - he doesn't have a clue.

Last year the Prime Minister said that leaving the single market

would make trade deals "considerably harder," and that

"while we could certainly negotiate our own trade agreements,

"there would be no guarantee that they would be on terms as good

"as those we enjoy now," but yesterday she offered us

I also said it reported to leave the sky would not fall in and look at

what has happened to our economic situation since we voted to leave

the EU. Gentleman talks about

the future of the economy. I want us to be an outward-looking

nation trading around the world, and bringing prosperity and jobs

into the United Kingdom. The one thing that would be bad

for the economy is the answers He wants a cap on wages,

no control on immigration That would not lead to prosperity -

it would lead to no jobs, Will the Prime Minister provide

a commitment today that no part of the Great Repeal Bill will be

subject to English The honourable Lady knows full well

that if any part of proposed legislation brought before this

House applies only to England, it will be subject to English

votes for English laws. It was quite clear from

the Prime Minister's speech yesterday that she seeks to build

a Brexit consensus and to bring our To that end, and indeed

to strengthen the Prime Minister's negotiating hand, before Article 50

is triggered, will she please at least consider publishing

all those 12 objectives in a White Paper so that we can

debate them here in this place I absolutely understand

my right honourable Friend's point about Parliament's

desire to be able to debate the objectives that I set out very

clearly in my plan yesterday. One of the objectives

and principles I set It continues to be the Government's

intention that we will provide clarity whenever it is possible,

and we will ensure that, at appropriate times,

both the public and Parliament are kept informed and are able

properly to consider Member for Broxtowe,

the Prime Minister talked about her desire to give clarity

around our exit from the EU. Many of my constituents are European

citizens who are paying tax What assurance can she give

them about their future, particularly if they change employer

or are freelancers? One of the objectives I set out

in my speech yesterday was something I have said before

about the guaranteeing of rights for EU citizens

living here in the UK, but I also want to see the rights

of UK citizens living in the I remain open, and I encourage

others across Europe to agree with me that this is an issue

we should look at as early as possible in order to give people

the confidence and reassurance that the honourable

Lady is looking for. How can abandoning membership

of a customs union that takes 68% of Wales's exports,

including, crucially, 90% of our food and drink exports -

and that supports 200,000 jobs What we will be doing

is negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union

to get the best possible access for trade with the EU,

but we also want to be able to negotiate trade agreements with

other countries around the world. A number of countries have

already expressed interest We want to do that to open up

new export markets being delivered for businesses

here in the United Kingdom, including the sort of trade

in Wales that the honourable On the question of customs

with the European Union, we want an arrangement that

will involve the most The arguments on Brexit continued

on the committee corridor, where there were calls

for the Government to immediately guarantee the rights of EU

citizens to stay in the UK. During the latest session

of the Exiting the European Union committee that demand was made by EU

nationals living here and by British We do not want to be

these bargaining chips in the renegotiations and we

feel we have been taken hostage. That is a very strong

feeling people really feel in the communities

that we are This is a political issue but not

granting our rights... The Prime Minister

has said she wants to achieve this soon,

but in She tried to get agreement to

discuss this last council meeting, a lot of European countries wanted

to but Germany and others refused. Are you putting any pressure,

or you tell me what pressure you are putting on your home governments

to ensure they put pressure on the rest of the EU to

settle Our position is we want the British

Government to make the first move because the UK

is leaving the EU, not the other way round,

and that decision can only come

from the British Government because in the EU the national

governments have been told by the Commission

they cannot open any talks or negotiation before

Article 50 is triggered, Kafkaesque situation, as a result,

because no one wants No-one in the EU can make any move

because Article 50 You do not look up the Polish

or Romanian or other governments at I would say we are focused on the

British Government because we really believe they are the party that can

make the first move. We live in the UK, our Government

is the British Government. We want something to

be done immediately, in line with the Prime Minister's

speech yesterday. I think there should be

a resolution on the day I think there should be a resolution

in place by both houses of parliament calling on the other

member states to make Of course, this can be prepared

by diplomatic channels There is time between now

and the end of March Do you agree with the Prime Minister

that she should await for agreement from the other EU

countries to protect British citizens living abroad before giving

the rights to EU citizens here? It is the UK triggering

this process, it is Therefore it would be a magnanimous

gesture on the part of the Prime Minister and a good way

of opening negotiations. you are negotiating you should try

and offer benefits I think it would be an extreme

magnanimous gesture by saying, look, nationals in the UK,

we call upon you to do the same. These people cannot wait for it to

be happy is to get a resolution. I would prefer she acted unilaterally

now and that would encourage other countries to reciprocate, it would

improve relationships at the start of the negotiations and I cannot see

any reason why the 27 countries would not reciprocate.

You have a huge displacement crisis in terms of 1 million people, the

population of Birmingham, who are we can assume and I imagine are working

in the shape form and our people that may have to look at returning

to the UK or other arrangements, that does not include the May be

married to foreign spouses, like myself. If that happened to me, how

would my Italian wife and my son get the chance to stay in the UK? We're

talking about splitting families as well.

A foreign office minister has told MPs that Boris Johnson will raise

concerns about allegations of human rights abuses in Myanmar

when he meets the country's leader Aung San Suu Kyi shortly.

Thousands of Rohingya muslims are said to have fled

to neighbouring Bangladesh amid allegations that the Burmese

army has carried out human rights abuses.

Troops took control of the region after armed men raided police posts,

The Minister Alok Sharma came to the Commons to answer an urgent

While we condemn the attack and recognise the right of security

forces to carry out security operations to root out

the perpetrators, we remain deeply concerned by the conduct of the army

Although restrictions on media, diplomatic and humanitarian access

make the facts difficult to ascertain, we have been worried

by numerous reports alleging widespread human rights violations

As I said, we continue to monitor the situation closely.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

will visit Burma soon and will reiterate our

It is very difficult to get accurate information for what is happening

in the current states or in order to get to the truth beyond false

reports, will he call for access for independent observers

and journalists to visit displacement camps in this state?

The asked about UK support for an international commission,

I assume a UN type commission, and I just say that a UN-led

commission and enquiry can be established in one of three ways,

either by the UN Secretary-General, by the UN Security Council

Establishing and enquiry in this way would acquire broad international

support which we assess does not exist in the current

The Minister rather sidestepped the question of action in the UN

by saying that the government's opinion was that there

was not a sufficient consensus at the present time

Will the government commits to try and build that consensus

as opposed to merely remarking that it doesn't exist?

Will the Minister made very clear to the Burmese authorities

that the welcome re-entry into the international community

will not be helped if they fail to protect minorities

and particularly this second community?

A conservative returned to the plight of the Rohinga.

Hundreds are being attacked, many are being murdered.

The villages are being systematically burned or destroyed,

many are being sold into slavery with the complicity

The very authorities that treat the Rohinga.

My honourable friend the Minister has avoided the challenge

from the right honourable member from Gordon and my honourable friend

It is not sufficient for the government to cooperate,

the government needs to lead UN support if these reports are true.

Since the Burmese security forces started the campaign in October it

has been estimated that around 65,000 Rohinga.

According to reports, the minority group have

been subject to arson, rape and murder at the

Such allegations are incredibly serious and it is for that reason

I ask the Minister for the fourth time I believe if he will continue

to call for the establishment of an independent investigation

I hope Mr Speaker that I have made clear today that there are a huge

number of avenues that we in the UK are pursuing in terms of getting

humanitarian aid and making the case for minorities and actually making

very clear that we care very deeply about these matters and at the end

of the day that is something we will keep doing.

Going back to the point about the approach from a UN

perspective, as I have said, there are a number of areas

in which the UN is already engaged and will continue to work with us

to make the case that we must make sure there is resolution

You are watching Wednesday in Parliament.

Around 8 million tonnes of food, post-manufacture, as it is called,

The environment, food and rule affairs

committee is carrying out an enquiry into food waste in England and has

been healing from a panel of supermarket chain representatives.

One of the issues that get a lot of attention is what to do with

misshapen fruit and veg that does not make the grade.

Tesco has told the MPs about its Perfectly

What we typically have done, and I know others have

done the same, is we have widened our specifications to the point

where that is still perfectly edible food and it can be sold either at

discount, it takes account of the whole crop

flash of a specific product we can then

move extra product that would

not make our specifications normally into this perfectly imperfect world

and pretty much every customer who has ever bought one of those has

come back and bought another on the basis

that it works as a concept. Where the product is still outside

the specifications then again, you will hear a slightly different

story from Morrisons because of the

vertical integration but in our world what we do is we facilitate

for example potatoes that are too big or too small or into making our

recipe dishes, so potato products made by one

of her manufacturers are

supplied with potatoes that we could not possibly

sell within the stores because they would either be

enormous and very tiny and they are utilised,

165 tonnes or so loss but

We take the manufacturing approach so anything that is the

wrong shape or we could not sell goes into juices, smoothies, soups

So we try to do the same thing but I guess in a slightly

different way because we do not sell it in store messages in her basics

Morrisons and said it sold 25,000 tonnes of wonky vegs last

As of this year there will be 13 different types of fruit and

vegetable that we sell which is out of normal spec, why we are selling

more is because customers are more interested in the whole agenda and

want to buy more of it so they can buy it at a lower price or any

bigger back, but particularly because we have taken the extra step

to market it it has driven that kind of interest in the customers and if

you will pardon the pun, it is feeding the interest.

But, said a Conservative committee member,...

I wonder why you call these vegetables

wonky or misshapen or less than perfect.

They are perfect, they are just a different shape.

And I think you are contributing, or I wonder if

you are contributing by referring to them as some kind of weird

Wouldn't it be better simply to sell them as they are?

I think it helps customers to work out what the

buying in store sold by designating them

in a particular way it is

So if you were to buy onions from our wonky range they might be

more dirty, they may have more dirt on them and the sizes may be

different, and if the customer is not aware that they are buying

something slightly different to what they might ordinarily by typically

they will come back and say is this the same product?

And start to question what we are selling them.

One of the things we are trying to do is to be clear about what it is

customers are buying and provide choice.

What we're trying to do particularly with the way the

packaging is designed and in the way that we talk about it is to talk

I don't think it is about saying that

there is something we don't like or in fact

it may not be perfect, but I

don't think anybody around the table is sick guessing are trying to

suggest in the way that the market these

at the fruit and veg is

anything other than perfectly good to eat.

If you have that range, and most of us have a range which is

usually three tiers or two tiers, if you

introduce another part to the

range and don't signal to the customers in some way what the

purpose of that is, they find it pretty

unhelpful and confusing, so

we are adding to the choice, not just making it wider.

The marketeers have kind of found this way and

indifferent supermarket you will see different responses, it is the same.

We let people reach their own conclusions.

Millions of us have one and millions of us hate ours, I am

The photo booth shockers are the embarrassment of many a seasoned

traveller but couldn't be possible for people

to their own picture, the

so-called selfie, and send that in instead?

As I understand it, the government is seeking to arrange

that any of us can send essentially a selfie to the passport order

The passport is the gold standard as far

as identity assurance in this country is concerned.

Why is the opportunity not been taken to

prevent a situation in which people can afford to shop images to make

sure there is proper certification of when an image has been taken,

that it was duly carried out in the proper way

secure and reliable basis on which we can prove your identity?

The noble Lord is absolutely right, security standards are absolutely

paramount whether it is under the old system, shall we call it,

or indeed the new digital system and under

both systems the security standards are exactly the same, let me

Just by examples, both the USA and New

Zealand allow people to take their own photographs.

In terms of a selfie, a photograph that is

identified as a selfie that does not meet those security standards

and requirements are objected in the examinations process,

but that gold standard as the noble Lord is right

to point out is absolutely paramount as the robustness and confidence in

this very important document going forward.

Under the old system as it is called,

someone has to certify on

the back of the photograph that it is a true likeness of the passport

holder, how is that going to be achieved if it is a completely

My Lords, the current service that has

been in place since April of last year actually is only available at

this point in time to adults over the age of 26 who have previously

held British passports, there is the rigour in the new process.

What is the difference between a dodgy

A dodgy selfie my Lords is one that does not meet the rigorous

Finally, the Labour MP Tristram Hunt has made his last parliamentary

As to Hunt, a historian, is leading the director of London's

This decision will mean there will be a

by-election in the Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency.

Tristram Hunt said goodbye during the afternoon's

debate on Brexit and its applications for security, one for

It has been a profound privilege to represent

Stoke-on-Trent Central in

this chamber for six and a half years and I would like to place my

thanks to the Speaker, the clerks of the house,

the doorkeepers, staff, perhaps above all the library staff

who I feel now face quite a drop in demand.

It perhaps it seems particularly perverse to leave the

house now and let me apologise to the political parties and people

by-election upon them but it seems perverse to leave just as this place

is about to enjoy the largest return of powers since the act of restraint

In case you are wondering, an act of Parliament way

It transfers powers from the Catholic Church to Henry

Mr Hunt turned to what the impact of Brexit might be.

And as power and sovereignty is returned to

the UK Parliament I think the question we are debating today and

you will be into the future is whether we see a Britannia

unchanged, forging a new use of free trade, cultural exchange and

innovation or whether the world today is my right honourable friend

from Leeds Central suggested is so interconnected

in terms of economy, security of political power that we

have in leaving the EU expose ourselves to international headwinds

that will batter rather than benefit us.

And at this stage we have no answer to that.

The outgoing Labour MP Tristram Hunt.

And that is it from me for now but to join me again

at the same time tomorrow for another

round-up of the best of the