David Davis
MP for Goole and Pocklington · Conservative · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) on putting a Bill in front of the House that has support from literally everybody in the Chamber?”
“The Post Office Horizon scandal highlighted the institutional instinct to find a convenient scapegoat. Innocent people paid the price, while the institution sought to protect itself. If the Thirlwall inquiry asks too narrow a set of questions, systemic NHS failures will go unexamined.”
“Last month’s sentencing of Nicola Sturgeon’s husband exposed the real reasons behind the Scottish Government’s persecution of Alex Salmond. From 2010 to 2022, Peter Murrell abused his position to embezzle almost £500,000 from the SNP to buy luxury items. He used SNP money to buy a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf.”
“The consultants also reported that in the two months since the change infants have been sick but recovered as expected.” The report highlighted deficiencies in staffing levels, leadership and communication, but, in the trial, it was not shown to the jury—they knew nothing of it.”
“One of the nurses let go later described it as “the decimation of the Nursing and Midwifery service”, adding that “eight registered nurses...were replaced with nursery nurses...unqualified staff are replacing qualified staff”.”
“There was little space, cots and incubators were stored in corridors, and mothers struggled to find somewhere to breastfeed their babies. Susan Gilby, the hospital’s chief executive between 2018 and 2022, later described the unit as “dark, dingy and cramped”, providing a “less than ideal” environment to work in.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,828 lines we hold for David Davis, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 42 of 117.
“Of course, we will have the practical limitations of having signed a deal and there may be implications because of that, but the whole thing will be put in front of the House.”
“In terms of the customs border, there is of course already a difference between levy and tax rates and excise rates north and south of the border, and we manage without a hard border. That is what we will continue to do. With respect to the Budget, the hon. Gentleman is optimistic if thinks the Chancellor gives any of us more than a week of advance warning of his Budget. Of course, I have discussed with him the financial aspects of our relationship with the European Union at many meetings. As for the new legislation, I do not think it is in the gift of the Government to put before the House primary legislation that is incapable of amendment. The nature of primary legislation is that it is always capable of amendment.”
“On the question about Northern Ireland, what I have said in terms, which is what I have said here in the House, is that there will be no internal border within the United Kingdom. That is an absolute fundamental because, apart from anything else, the Good Friday agreement—the Belfast agreement—requires the Government of Northern Ireland to operate on behalf of all communities, and at least one community in Northern Ireland would not accept a border in the Irish sea. As for the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, everybody has accepted that there must be no return to a hard border. Some of that is dealt with by the continuation of the common travel area, which has been around since 1923—in that respect, it is not new.”
“With respect to the first half of my right hon. Friend’s question, if the original motion is put but not passed, the deal falls—full stop; in toto. He is quite right about the second part, but he will remember the Maastricht Bill and, as I remember it, there were quite a lot of amendments and quite a lot of votes on it. The House was able to express its view, but it did so in the light of the consequences.”
“If the Government achieve their primary policy of having a tariff-free, barrier-free free trade agreement, then a customs agreement following on from that would be very light touch, in which case it would be relatively straightforward to maintain a relatively invisible border. If that is not the case, I suspect that the alternatives would be expensive but not impossible.”
“May I start by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his opening comments? At the time we published the White Paper on what was then the great repeal Bill and now the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, I said that we would listen to the House of Commons. Indeed, I said to the shadow Front-Bench team that if any rights were removed, we would endeavour to replace them, and any other changes similarly. On Northern Ireland, the circumstance that we face at the moment is that there is a range of permutations or possibilities depending on what the outcome is with respect to a free trade and customs agreement.”
“The hon. Lady is exactly right. That is true across the board. We were told that a free trade agreement was impossible to achieve, but the former EU Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht, said that, no, it was not impossible if the political will was there. The same is true in this case. If the political will is there, this can be done. I am quite sure that the political will is there both north and south of the border.”
“No, I cannot quite confirm that. It will depend on when the withdrawal treaty is negotiated. It is the intention of the Union to try to negotiate that by October next year. Ideally, it will be before the conclusion.”
“The right hon. Lady quite rightly corrects me for misspeaking slightly. “Ideal” was perhaps the wrong word. The right words are that it is our principal policy aim—that is what we are trying to do—but there is something that I cannot guarantee: if the Union does not come to a conclusion in negotiations, we cannot actually bring the withdrawal Bill before the House before we have a withdrawal agreement. That is the sequence that I am pointing to.”
“What I can say to my right hon. Friend is that if we do not have a withdrawal agreement, we cannot have a withdrawal agreement Bill—full stop.”
“Let me repeat the probable sequence of events. If Mr Barnier hits his target and I hit mine, we will conclude the withdrawal agreement and associated agreements in the latter part of next year. He is aiming for October next year; that is his stated aim. If we do that, the withdrawal and treaty vote—the simple, in-principle vote—will first come to the House. As soon as possible thereafter, the withdrawal agreement Bill will come before the House. That is the sequence. It will be in plenty of time and we will be able to amend it at the time.”
“I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his welcome of the Bill, but the extension of article 50 can be done only by unanimity, and that is its weakness.”
“If I may say so, “any number of occasions” was one occasion—in front of the Select Committee, when I was asked the explicit question what could happen to the negotiation in extremis. Since I was pointing to previous examples, it is hardly a statement of either intent or expectation—it certainly is not. As for the rest of the hon. Lady’s question, this is pretty straightforward. We are aiming to hit October. Mr Barnier is aiming to hit October. I hope that we both do. I certainly hope that we hit the target of being well before the departure date. The reason for the amendment to the Bill is that it reflects what European law tells us.”
“I have spoken to Sir James Dyson. I do not necessarily agree with his tactical advice, but he is a brilliant exponent of what a great success this country can be when its engineers get stuck into the job.”
“My hon. Friend makes his point clearly. The simple fact is that everybody has known March 2019 is departure date ever since the article 50 Bill was passed.”
“Nobody is holding a gun to the House’s head. What I will say to the right hon. Gentleman is that the decision being put before the House was put there by 17.5 million voters.”
“What I have said to the House many times over is that what my right hon. Friend alludes to is not the primary policy of this Government—the policy of this Government is to obtain a free trade deal—but he is quite right: in the event that such a thing did not happen, we would be able to make a good future for Britain. It is not the best future, though; it is not the best choice in front of us.”
“The hon. and learned Lady makes the mistake that, I am afraid, many metropolitan media commentators make, which is to assume that everything they are told in Brussels is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“First, let me say to the hon. Gentleman a milder version of what I said to our Scottish nationalist colleague, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry): he should not take just what the European Parliament says as the end of the exercise. However, he is of course right in one respect: a transitional arrangement will look very like what we have now, but it will not be membership, and it will allow us freedoms that we do not have now. It is critical to remember that as well.”
“We have published a whole paper on the subject. There is a whole range of options available for the country, including using trusted trader schemes, using electronic pre-notification and using exemptions for small businesses. There is a whole series of them that we have talked about at length—the right hon. Gentleman just has to read them.”
“Yes, of course that is what we are aiming to do. One point that has become very clear in the negotiations is that matters such as the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland are soluble once we get on to the next stage, but really cannot be advanced as we stand. For many reasons, both economic and political, we want to make that advance as soon as possible.”
“I hope so. The right hon. Gentleman refers to “everybody involved”, and one of the major successes of the October Council was the fact that the Commission team—the so-called taskforce 50—was told to prepare for that. A moderately complex policy has to be put in place. It has a number of mildly contentious areas, so the team needs to be ready for it. The process is under way, and if we get the decision in December, we will deliver, I hope, on what I said to the Select Committee.”
“To be fair to the Labour spokesman, I think he was agreeing with the position laid out by the Government and that the issue is incredibly sensitive. I think he is being very responsible in that regard. My hon. Friend is right in one respect: if this process does not start early, and does not deliver a free trade area and a customs agreement, it will be much more difficult to resolve the border issue. We will still do so, but it will be much more expensive, much more difficult and politically more problematic. The best way to proceed is with fast progress in the next few weeks.”
“Of course it would be quite difficult to do that. As with any treaty, when this treaty is carried into British law, the House will be able to amend it, but it will have to take account of the consequences of so doing.”
“First, it is very strange to talk about harm to the integrity of the United Kingdom when we have the highest employment we have ever had in our history and the lowest unemployment in my adult lifetime. As for the transition period, it is not for negotiation, but to allow countries, Governments—our Government and EU Governments—and, most importantly, companies to accommodate changes in knowledge of what the deal is.”
“I am afraid that I do not agree with Michel Barnier, if it was he who said that to the Committee. How can I put this? The ambitions of the Commission on this are lower than they should be. The simple truth is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and we need to have something that is pretty binding before we are going to sign off the withdrawal agreement.”
“The Bill cannot be brought before Parliament before the withdrawal deal is struck, but I remind the hon. Lady that the Government have undertaken to provide a vote on the whole deal before we even come to that.”
“It is not for me to tell the Irish Government what they should do, but I would say that they share with us a determination to maintain no hard border. They obviously have an economic interest in the outcome because we are their biggest trading partner. They must have a very strong interest in a similar outcome to the one that we are seeking, and I hope they will reflect that in their conversations with the Commission.”
“My right hon. Friend is exactly right. By my count, if we include Bills already passed and Bills in prospect, we are looking at 10 pieces of primary legislation that Parliament can vote on, amend and, of course, comment on as a result of Brexit and in delivering Brexit.”
“Clearly the hon. Gentleman was not listening to my answer to the previous question. To deliver Brexit, this House will deal with at least 10 pieces of primary legislation. That is hardly denying Parliament a say in events.”
“When we had an urgent question on that about two weeks ago, I reiterated to the House the statement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), the former Minister of State for Exiting the European Union, in which he said that a meaningful vote is one that allows people to say whether they want or do not want the deal.”
“That is precisely why Government policy is to deliver a frictionless trade arrangement between us and the EU27, most importantly the Republic of Ireland.”
“I made an undertaking to the House about a year and a half ago that I would be more polite than hon. Members have ever seen me in my comments about the Commission, and I will stick to that.”
“We have been quite creative so far. Many of those who have been here a long time are already permanent residents. One of the things the Italian Government persuaded me was worth doing is ensuring that people’s transition to the new permanent residence is completely frictionless, requiring no more than a photograph and a criminality check. We have given those who will still be making the application a two-year grace period beyond our departure, and we published a report last week to show that the process will be simple, straightforward and very cheap. Those things are designed to make people feel more secure, as I hope they do, because I reiterate that we value the contribution of the 3 million Europeans who are in this country today.”
“I never thought that I would accuse my hon. Friend of sounding like the European Commission, but that is its favourite phrase, and I stick by that, too.”
“I will not comment on the hon. Gentleman’s fitness regime—he is too far away from me to tell. If the House did as he describes, I guess that the Government would take that as an instruction to go back and speak to the European Union. Whether that would deliver any outcome, I do not know.”
“On the latter point, my hon. Friend is right. On the former point, there might well be some minor consequential changes, but I do not think there will be any major changes.”
“My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is a meaningful vote, but not meaningful in the sense that some believe—that the decision can be reversed. That is not available to us.”
“I am paid to put up with being worn down occasionally. No, I would not say that; my relationship with Mr Barnier has been nothing other than cordial. Of course this is a tough negotiation and it may well get tougher yet.”
“My hon. Friend goes right to the point. There are three reasons for the transition: one is for the British Government to be able to accommodate and another is so that foreign Governments can accommodate; but, as he says, the most important is to allow British businesses to accommodate in the knowledge of what they are accommodating to.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Sadly, the phrase used earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg)—nothing is agreed until everything is agreed—is the primary maxim of the European Commission.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. We see—how can I put this?—time pressure being played against us all the time, and we have to resist that properly.”
“Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. Properly seen, this is a positive-sum negotiation. Only if one side is unwise and does not take the point on free trade will it become a negative-sum one.”
“The Government have firmly committed to protecting workers’ rights and to extending those rights when that is the right choice for the United Kingdom. The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will ensure that workers’ rights enjoyed under European Union law will continue to be available in UK law after we have left the European Union. However, we do not need to be part of the European Union to have strong protection for workers. The UK already goes well beyond EU minimum standards in a large number of employment areas.”
“We have one of the best records in the European Union for safety at work—much better than Germany, much better than Italy, much better than nearly all European countries.”
“Yes, I can give that guarantee. The hon. Lady’s constituency voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union, and it did that with open eyes. This assertion that our trade union rights and, more importantly, our employment law rights are somehow less good than in the rest of the European Union is simply untrue. My first meeting as Secretary of State was with the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress. The reason for that was that I knew her, because I had been co-operating with her on trade union law reform just a few months earlier. If the hon. Lady wants a single test of employment protection in the United Kingdom versus the European Union, she should look at the most fundamental right, which is the right to safety at work.”
“The first thing to say to the hon. Gentleman is that in the first three speeches I made after taking this job, I made it very clear that we were not going to use departure from the European Union as a way of reducing employment rights. In addition, independently of this process, the Prime Minister initiated the Matthew Taylor review. The point of that review was to report back on employment rights—security, pay, progression and training, as well as the balance of rights and responsibilities, representation, opportunities for under-represented groups, and new business models in the gig economy and such things. The Prime Minister actually intends to improve employment rights, not reduce them.”
“The nature of the British constitution is that Parliament is always the last to decide—we cannot entrench anything in British law in perpetuity—so as a party and as a Government, we will be seeking to extend workers’ rights, and it will be in our control for us, as a Parliament representing our constituents, to do that.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I have said all along from the beginning—in fact, from the White Paper that presented what was then the repeal Bill and is now the withdrawal Bill—that we believe that all the rights enjoyed under the charter are rights that come either from European Union law, the ECHR, British domestic law or EU law that we are going to carry forward. I said to the shadow Secretary of State when the White Paper was presented that if any rights had been missed we would seek to put them back, so that is what we will do. We will of course discuss this at great length during the Committee and Report stages of the Bill. My undertaking to my hon. Friend is that we will protect all those rights.”
“It is nice to have a question from a co-conspirator from my freer days on this subject. Yes, we will look at these issues together. I have spoken briefly to Guy Verhofstadt about this, although not at great length, and I will be interested to hear from him what is being proposed. Of course we will listen to anything of this nature. The aim of this exercise is to be good for Europe and good for Britain, which means good for the citizens of Europe and Britain. That is what we intend to do.”