01/11/2017 Wednesday in Parliament

Hello, and welcome to Wednesday

in Parliament, our look at the best

of the day in the Commons

and the Lords.

In a day of high drama

at Westminster, MPs tell

the government to hand

over their assessments of the impact

of Brexit to a committee of MPs.

With allegations of harassment

swirling around Westminster,

Theresa May says she'll work

with other party leaders to get

a grip on the problem.

There are proper processes in this

Parliament for people to be able to

report misconduct and for that to be

dealt with.

And a trio of ministers drop-

in on the committee corridor,

including one Foreign Secretary.

I don't want to deceive the

committee.

He is making a very good

job of it!

I don't think the

committee could be misled by

anything I have said because I

haven't said anything.

In a development which shook

Westminster, the defence

Secretary Sir Michael Fallon

suddenly resigned late on Wednesday,

following allegations

of past behaviour.

He told the BBC he believed

it was the right

thing to do to resign.

He said that his behaviour

in the past had fallen short

of the standards expected

by the military.

The BBC understands his decision

was not in relation to any

new or specific allegations.

He said it was right

that the Prime Minister

and Parliament are now taking

this issue seriously.

Earlier, the Prime Minister has

asked other party leaders

to meet her to discuss

an independent process for tackling

sexual harassment at Westminster.

Allegations of misconduct by MPs

towards more junior staff have been

surfacing almost daily.

Mrs May's close colleague,

the First Secretary

of State, Damian Green,

has said claims that he made

inappropriate advances

towards a Conservative activist

are completely false.

He's contacted his lawyers.

Damian Green was sitting a few feet

away, as Theresa May addressed

the issue as soon as she stood up

at Prime Minister's Question Time.

Mr Speaker, members on both sides of

the House have been deeply concerned

about allegations of harassment and

this treatment here in Westminster.

This demands a response that is why

my right honourable friend, the

leader of the House, has been

meeting with their counterparts and

we're hoping all sides can work

together quickly to resolve this. I

have written to war party leaders,

inviting them to a meeting early

next week so we can discuss common

and independent grievance procedure

for all of those working in

Parliament. We have a duty to ensure

that everyone coming here to

contribute to public life is treated

with respect.

Just put on record

that I am happy to meet with the

Prime Minister and all party leaders

to discuss this. We need better

protections for all in this House.

This House must involve workplace

trade unions in that but it is also

incumbent on all parties to have

robust procedures in place to

protect and support victims of

sexual abuse and harassment.

It is

absolutely essential, and he is

right that we have processes that

political parties have processes to

deal with allegations of misconduct

and also that obviously we have the

mysterious code and proper

investigations take place against

the ministerial code when that is

appropriate and I believe it is also

crucial for everyone working in this

Parliament, be they working for a

member of Parliament or the House

authorities or a journalist working

in this Parliament that there are

proper processes in this Parliament

for people to be able to report

misconduct and for that to be dealt

with and I think that is very

important and I am grateful for him

for saying that he will meet with me

and I hope other political party

leaders, I see the leader of the SNP

is nodding his head at this point,

to look at this issue.

Can I

associate myself with the remarks

made by the Prime Minister when she

spoke about zero tolerance for these

sexual processes. I would like to

work with the government to make

sure we have a system that we can be

proud of to protect all members of

the houses of Parliament.

It's long been rumoured

that the party whips who enforce

discipline keep a note of MPs'

misdemeanours to use as leverage

against individuals.

One Labour MP accused

the Prime Minister of ignoring

concerns about that.

I would like to thank the Prime

Minister for her opening words about

the role of the revelations this

week but can I say to her that three

years ago I brought evidence to her

in this House that whips had used

information about sexual abuse to

demand loyalty from MPs. I brought

that information to her in this

House and I warned her at the time

that unless real action was taken we

risked repeating those injustices

again today. On three occasions I

asked her to act and on three

occasions she did not so can I ask

her, in this, of all weeks, for the

fourth time will she finally take

concrete action to tackle this?

I

will, of course, look back at the

questions that the honourable lady

had said that she raised with me

this House. I assume she raised

those with me when I was Home

Secretary. I will say to her that I

am very clear that the whips office,

I hope this goes for all whips

offices across this House, should

make clear to people that where

there are any sexual abuse

allegations that could be of a

criminal nature that people should

go to the police, it is not

appropriate for those to be dealt

with by whips offices, they should

get the police and that continues to

be the case. I will look at the

questions that she raised with me

but I am very clear that we take

action against those where there are

allegations that we see and the

evidence is there that there has

been misconduct.

Theresa May.

Ministers don't want to publish

the results of studies on 58

different economic sectors

and the impact leaving

the EU will have on them.

They say it's because disclosure

might damage the UK's

negotiating position.

In the Commons, Labour opted to use

a rather obscure parliamentary

technique designed to make a vote

on releasing the documents

binding on the government.

But let's concentrate on the main

substance of the assessments.

Looking at the list which I have

here, two things are obvious. The

first is that in many ways it is

unremarkable and could and should

have been published months ago. The

second is that the wide range of

sectors analysed demonstrate why it

is so important for members of this

House to see the impact assessments.

I am going to highlight three

sectors on the list. Construction

and engineering where there are 2.9

million jobs involved, medical

services and social care, where

there are 3 million jobs involved

and pharmaceuticals where there are

50,000 jobs involved. These are just

three of the 58 sectors and it is

obvious why this is of such

importance.

But one Conservative

didn't like the way Labour

was going about this.

This is a foolish and irresponsible

debate to have been called. He knows

that there is a blanket ban on

disclosing advice to ministers. It

is in the ministerial code and in

the civil service code, that is

absolutely standard. It is normal

for select committees themselves to

request information, not to get the

official opposition to do it on

their behalf. This is gameplay.

Sir Keir Starmer was surprised

at Bernard Jenkin's remarks.

This is a shared concern across the

House. That intervention, I am

afraid, is typical of what has been

going on for 16 or 17 months, which

is that every time somebody raises a

legitimate question it is suggested

that somehow they are frustrating or

undermining the process.

The Brexit minister said many

thousand of documents

were being prepared with regard

to the UK's exit from EU.

Some of these would not undermine

our negotiating position though

others might have more of an impact.

The House will appreciate that the

more information that is shed more

widely the less secure our

negotiating position and the harder

it becomes to secure the right deal

for the British people. The House is

the right to require the release of

documents but I sincerely hope in

what is requested in terms of how

they guaranteed confidentiality

going forward and how much is

guaranteed, the select committee and

the House will be mindful of the job

that ministers need to do and that

job is to secure the vital national

interest of the United Kingdom as we

negotiate our departure from the

European Union.

We can discuss all

sorts of processes and whether it

will undermine negotiations but will

you not agree that withholding this

information is now becoming very

counter-productive and it looks like

it is hiding bad news.

Absolutely!

The government will always take a

careful view where we have disclosed

plenty of information during the

course of this process where we see

it is in the national interest to do

so, of course we will.

The damage

caused by Brexit could be even worse

than any of us had previously feared

and that would weaken the UK 's

negotiating position. It would

fatally undermined the UK's

negotiating position. It could be

that analysis shows that Brexit is

such a catastrophic decision that we

shouldn't do it at all. What kind of

government in possession of that

kind of information would choose to

hide it rather than to act on it? It

seems to me that the only scenario

in which releasing any information

can possibly undermine the UK's

position is if that information

shows that the damage caused by

Brexit is worse than any previous

analysis has indicated.

The chairman of the Brexit Committee

said impact assessments

were published all the time.

But on the single most important

decision that we have taken because

of the result of the referendum, as

the country since the end of the

Second World War, nothing has been

published in the way of an impact

assessment by government.

As to the

papers themselves, I have no

particular view that this is a

normal circumstances a matter for

the government and I would have gone

along with the government had it

wished to oppose today's motion, but

in the event that it does not it

must publish these papers to the

Brexit select committee in full.

People like me except that we are

going to leave the European Union

but I am not going to stand by and

see the future of my children's

generation and the grandchildren

that I hope will follow being

trashed and ruined without any form

of debate and disclosure as to the

consequences, and arguably the

options that might be available, as

disclosed in all these documents

that cover, as we know, so many

sectors in so many ways. This is

grown-up, Sirius Star. The days of

carping from the sidelines, I say to

honourable members on this side,

have gone. You have one and you are

in charge of this and now you have

to face up to the responsibility of

delivering a Brexit that works for

everybody in this country and for

generations to come.

And in dramatic, if confusing,

scenes at the end of the debate,

the Government abstained

on the motion, which meant Labour's

call for the documents to be

handed over was passed.

MPs then demanded ministers act

on the Commons' vote.

You're watching Wednesday

in Parliament with me, Mandy Baker.

Now, a string of Secretaries

of State sat down in front

of committees this Wednesday.

And one of them was Michael Gove.

The question facing him was:

will the price of our food

go up after Brexit?

And if so, by how much?

It's one of the issues a Committee

of Peers is looking into.

Lord Krebs, a former Chairman

of the Food Standards Agency,

told the Environment Secretary that

some of the major retailers

believed that cutting

formal ties with the EU,

or leaving with no deal

at all, would result

in significant price increases.

The chairman of Sainsbury's

estimated about 10% or thereabouts,

so I wondered what the figures

are that your officials have come up

with in different scenarios?

I think it's almost impossible

to predict with accuracy,

for a variety of reasons.

One of them is that some

of the biggest factors which bear

on food prices are beyond any

politician's control,

so there are world commodity prices,

and it's also the case

that there are the prices of inputs,

like energy and so on.

It's also the case that, if you have

reform in the supply chain,

you can also bring prices down

and ensure that you have a greater

degree of competitiveness.

So tariff barriers are simply

one factor in many that

help to determine what food

prices might be.

It is the case that,

if we were to have significant

tariff barriers, then we would find

ourselves in a position where,

depending on the foodstuff,

the tariffs in their own terms

could add to what otherwise might

be the cost of food,

but it is also the case that,

if you erect tariff barriers,

then there will be a process

of import substitution as well,

and it may well be the case that,

at the same time as there

being domestic suppliers replacing

those who were exporting to this

country, you might also find

that there are opportunities

to ensure that those domestic

suppliers become more efficient.

Michael Gove.

All of this is a way of saying that

to focus purely on the process of

leaving the European Union and the

moment at which we leave and the

creation of any tariffs as having a

decisive impact on food prices in

the absence of anything else is to

look only at one part of the

landscape.

Since the food industry

has come up with estimates of its

own, perhaps I can put the question

the other way around, do you agree

or disagree with what the chairman

of Sainsbury's and British Retail

Consortium are saying?

I have huge

respect for everything that they had

said and I wouldn't want my name or

my department 's name alongside any

specific prediction.

I will take

that as a no, you do not agree.

I do

not want to be impolite to people

who I think are doing a great job in

running fantastic industries but

I... We must choose our own words

carefully so I wouldn't want to

disagree or distance myself from

them, simply say that I would

express my own approach towards

these issues in a slightly different

way.

You saw that the impact Brexit

on food prices is a problem but are

you prepared to release anything to

the public?

The first thing I would

say is as the Secretary of State for

exiting European Union has made

clear, it is a very important

addition of the UK civil service

that it should be able to offer

advice to ministers candidly and

that there should be, as the

secretary of state pointed out a

safe space during which civil

servants can offer advice ministers

can challenge and you can have a

robust conversation that would go on

to show good policy. The second

thing to is that while I have the

highest regard for civil servants,

it is not as though within the

department or anywhere else there is

a magic formula that can explain

what will happen post-Brexit which

nobody else could possibly access so

supermarkets have made their

judgment and other economists have

made theirs and it is impossible to

predict with accuracy but what the

informed citizen can do is to look

at a variety of factors and draw

their own conclusions about what the

policy interventions should be in

order to achieve the maximum

possible benefit.

Michael Gove.

Another Secretary of State to face

a committee was Boris Johnson.

He told the Foreign Affairs

Committee that he's not seen any

evidence that Russia interfered

in British elections.

He was asked about a possible

Russian role in UK affairs.

Is it your belief that the Russians

have played any role in British

elections and referendums?

I haven't seen any evidence of that.

You seem uncertain about whether

you've seen it or you haven't.

I can confirm to you, Mr Bryant,

that I don't think...

I haven't seen...

Not a sausage!

Niet!

So you don't think the Russians

played any role or sought to play

any role in the elections?

I don't know about sought to play

but, as far as I know,

they have played no role.

During more than two hours

in front of the committee,

Boris Johnson was asked

about relations with many countries

and many organisations.

The new chairman of the committee,

the Conservative Tom Tugendat, had

a question about the Islamist group

Hamas.

Does the UK have any

direct links with Hamas?

We, obviously, talk to a wide range

of people across the world.

I'm sure that, in the course

of contacts with...

I wouldn't want to rule

out, Mr Chairman...

Is that a yes?

I wouldn't want to rule

out or to mislead the

committee on this matter.

I wouldn't want to exclude

the possibility of our talking

to Hamas but, let me just say,

on Hamas, that...

That's not a yes or a no, is it?

No, it's not!

I don't want to exclude

the possibility that we are...

In the end, good diplomacy involves

talking to all sorts of people

who are not necessarily...

That sounds like a yes!

I think that sounds like a yes!

I'm not saying...

I don't wish to disappoint you,

but I'm not going to offer you...

Are you aware of any contact?

If I were, I couldn't tell you.

What I will say is that...

I don't want to mislead

the committee.

You're doing a very good job of it!

On the country!

I don't think the committee

can possibly be misled

by anything I've said

since I haven't said anything...

Exactly!

..on this matter!

Boris Johnson.

And not to be left out,

Liam Fox appeared before

the International Trade Committee.

He said he was "frustrated" by

the fact that the European Council

had not yet given the green light

for talks to move on from any

divorce deal to discuss

the future trade relationship.

I am very keen that we get a deal

with the European Union,

but I'm not afraid of not getting

a deal and I think that we need

to work within those parameters.

I think that those who say we want

the deal at any price

undermine our negotiating hand,

and those who say we want no deal

and we want to walk away are not

taking a realistic view

of our economic position.

Are you not equally

frustrated by the lukewarm

attitude of the Chancellor

of the Exchequer towards Brexit?

I had a very constructive meeting

with the Chancellor yesterday,

and it was far from lukewarm!

Nigel Evans turned to the European

Union's attitude to Brexit.

There does seem to be this

image that certain people

within the European Union just

want to punish Britain to stop

anybody else from leaving

and to also pay us back,

so who do think is going

to win this battle?

I think the language,

which is regrettable,

that some people want to punish

Britain for leaving in case

any other people would want to leave

is the language of a gang,

not the language of the club.

And I think I think it should be

avoided because it doesn't make...

Who's employing that

language, do you feel?

Is that the language

of the European Union?

I think there have been some

unwise phrases used.

I think it's much better for us

to get away from the hyperbole.

In the longer term,

it's in the interests

of all European Union citizens

to maintain an open liberal

trading environment,

and I would add, one thing to that -

to go back to the

international investors...

Just a minute.

Would part of that hyperbole be

that the European Union

will whistle for its money?

I think we need to stay away

from language that suggests we don't

want to deal or we want a deal

at any price.

You campaigned vigorously for Leave

and you stood by that bus that said

£350 million would be saved every

week from leaving

the European Union.

Are you prepared for any of that

money to be paid to the EU

to access the single market

on a favourable trade deal?

Well, if I am, with due respect,

I'm not going to set out any Cabinet

negotiation position here,

and I think that we need,

before we make any offer on any

financial settlement,

to know what we're getting as that

end stage, and I think,

as I said to one of my fellow

ministers in another country,

would they be willing to guarantee

us a sum of money before we told

them what the agreement

that we were signing up to was,

and they said absolutely not,

so why should we?

The committee moved

on to contingency planning

in the event there was no deal.

Would you advise the private sector

to develop contingency plans

and to execute them for a no deal?

No, because, on balance,

at the present time,

I think that we are more likely

to get a deal, but I think it

would be reasonable for them

to develop such plans.

Clearly, the longer we take to get

into end state discussions

with the European Union,

the greater the likelihood that

people would want to implement

as well as develop, which is why

I think it's in all our interests

to get into those end state

discussions as early as possible

so that business has greater

certainty about what the potential

end state looks like.

Liam Fox.

A Labour peer has said he's sent

the Chancellor details of a British

bank's involvement in laundering

money allegedly stolen

from South Africa.

The former Cabinet minister

and one-time anti-apartheid

campaigner Lord Hain has previously

named other financial institutions

involved in a corruption scandal

linked to the wealthy Gupta family

and the South African

President Jacob Zuma.

In the Lords, the peer

gave a warning.

There are disturbing questions,

around both the complicity,

witting or unwitting,

of UK global financial

institutions in the Gupta-Zuma

transnational criminal network,

and also about these institutions'

wilful blindness to the reality

that the laundering process most

often necessitates financial systems

with lax regulation and controls.

Unless we urgently find ways

to leverage our respective

capabilities to coordinate

and influence action

between the law-enforcement

and banking sectors domestically

here in the UK and globally,

we cannot win this battle.

Mr Zuma and the Guptas

deny any wrongdoing.

A report into the experiences

of the families of the Hillsborough

victims has called for a change

in culture to stop the "burning

injustice" in the way bereaved

relatives are treated.

It was in 1989 that 96 Liverpool

fans died in the crush at an FA Cup

semifinal match against Nottingham

Forest.

In a second inquest into the tragedy

last year, the coroner ruled

they were unlawfully killed.

At Prime Minister's Questions, the

report was raised by a Labour MP.

An hour ago, the government

published this report -

the Patronising Disposition

of Unaccountable Power.

It's a report of right

reverend James Jones,

which the Prime Minister herself

commissioned to ensure that the pain

and suffering of the Hillsborough

families is not repeated.

But, Mr Speaker, given what we've

heard in this session and given

the events surrounding

the Grenfell Tower disaster,

I think that I worry that the pain

and suffering of the Hillsborough

families is already being repeated.

So can the Prime Minister

commit her government to supporting

both the duty of candour

for all public officials and,

as this report requires,

and end to public bodies spending

limitless funds, providing

themselves with representation

which surpasses that

available to families?

I've always been very

clear that the experience

that the Hillsborough families had

should not be repeated.

That's why we have looked

and we are committed to the concept

of the public advocate,

because we want to ensure that

people have the support

that they need, and it's important

that we learn the lessons

from Hillsborough.

I was, as she knows,

involved in making the decision that

enabled the Hillsborough families

to have legal support on a basis

that I felt was fair in relation

to the other parties involved

in that inquest, and I can

assure her that we will not forget

the Hillsborough families.

Theresa May.

And that's all we've got time for.

So from me, Mandy Baker, goodbye.