Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Irish Government published on 8 June their legislative outline, entitled “The General Scheme of the Legacy of the Troubles Bill 2026”. That is intended to fulfil the commitment that the Irish Government gave in the joint framework to co-operate to the fullest extent possible with the commission.”
“Northern Ireland is a society, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than most, that has been undergoing profound change since the signing of the Good Friday agreement 28 years ago. As the famous lines go, we have a shared history, but not necessarily a shared memory.”
“The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, and I am grateful to him for his question. We all have a responsibility—political leaders have a responsibility to call out what was witnessed for what it is and not mince our words, and as I have already indicated, social media companies have a responsibility to ensure that such m…”
“I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that the common travel area, which is more than a century old, is of great benefit to the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland live their lives across that border every single day.”
“I do agree with my hon. Friend. The attack on Mr Ogilvie was truly shocking, and there was no justification whatsoever for the racist thuggery we witnessed on the streets of Belfast in the days following.”
“That was, of course, an awful feature of what we saw. One of the things I learned in my discussions was that those from the far right had taken a list of houses in multiple occupation in Belfast—a list that, in the interests of openness, was properly available on the Belfast city council website; the council has now taken it down—and used…”
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“If someone says, “You can jump off a cliff, with all the damaging consequences, in a couple of weeks’ time, or we could put it off for three months—which would you like?”, the sensible course of action to take, given the damage that it would do to the country, is to put it off. I accept that ultimately we need to find a way forward. I have my own views, as have other Members, about how that should be done, but that is not the purpose of the Bill. It would, though, provide for a framework within which the Government could decide what they are going to do.”
“I agree with the hon. Lady. Other Members will have lots of other experience of the potential consequences. These are not risks that we should take with our economy, businesses, jobs, livelihoods and health. I hope these risks remind everyone in the House that, for all the focus on process, motions and procedure, this debate is about the impact that a no-deal Brexit would have on the lives of the people we represent.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Throughout a lot of these debates we have not discussed anything like enough what will happen the other side of 31 October, if the Prime Minister is able to get his way. I shall come to that point in a moment.”
“I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because just as no deal is unacceptable, so revocation—which is basically saying, “Let’s cancel the whole result of the referendum”—is not acceptable either. I have expressed previously in the House my view about how we should resolve this matter by going back to the people. Other Members have different views, but that is not the issue today.”
“The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. One consequence of Prorogation is that our Select Committees cannot meet. We cannot scrutinise the Government and hold them to account. That is what we are missing.”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Those industries and sectors, whose representatives we have all met and whose evidence we have heard, are troubled that the message that comes from their expertise and knowledge—after all, they are the people who create the wealth of the country—is not being heard by a Government who say, “We are prepared to leave with no deal on 31 October.””
“If, however, the Council proposes an extension to a different date, the Prime Minister must agree to that as well, unless the House of Commons decides not to pass a motion agreeing to it. That is what clause 3(3) does. It has been wrongly claimed in some commentaries that the EU could propose an extension of any length—six months, 20 years, a millennium—and the Prime Minister would be required to accept it, but that is not so. In those circumstances, the House could decide. Furthermore, if a deal is reached after the Prime Minister has asked for an extension, that would override any extension, so it also allows him, if he can, to reach a deal after the European Council concludes on 18 October.”
“I think that the Government would find it rather difficult to get such a motion through the House of Commons, but the Bill allows them to seek to do that. Clause 1 specifically provides for both those eventualities, and if either of the conditions is met there can be no further extension. If, however, neither of those conditions has been met by 19 October, which was chosen very deliberately as it is the day after the conclusion of the European Council, the Prime Minister must ask the EU for a further extension until 31 January 2020 in the form of the letter set out in the schedule to the Bill. Clause 3 deals with what happens next. If the European Council accedes to that request, the Prime Minister must agree to it.”
“They absolutely do. Having now, in a sense, concluded a discussion and reflection on the economic and other consequences of no deal, I want to turn to what the Bill actually does. It intends to stop this happening by seeking an extension to article 50 in certain very specific circumstances. It is very important to understand that the Bill allows the Prime Minister the opportunity to reach a new agreement with the European Union at the European Council and to seek Parliament’s consent to any such agreement. That is condition No. 1. It also allows the Government to bring a motion to the House of Commons to seek our consent for leaving without a deal—for example, if discussions at the European Council prove unsuccessful.”
“I will give way in a moment. In other words, the Bill gives the Prime Minister the flexibility that he wants and needs to get a deal if he can. It does not render further negotiation pointless—if the Prime Minister were here I would say this forcefully to him—but what does is the Prime Minister’s apparent refusal to put any proposals to the EU if this Bill passes, which I can describe only as a very odd state of affairs.”
“The second point is that the two days is intended precisely to give the Prime Minister the chance to come back to the House in those circumstances.”
“If the Bill is passed, the House of Commons will pass it in the knowledge that it is seeking in the circumstances set out an extension to 31 January. If, however, the European Union proposes a different date, it seems to be only right and proper that the Prime Minister should be able to say, either, “Yes, that is fine by me,” or, “I will need to go back and check.” I agree with the hon Gentleman that, of course, we cannot bind the European Union in the way it seeks to work, but it is not at all unusual for member states to say, “Well, we will need to go back and check with our Parliament.” I am certain, given the importance of this issue, that the European Union would be able to find another procedure, which might not involve the European Council meeting again, to confirm the decision it made in making the offer in the first place.”
“I have dealt with that last point—an extension of whatever length. There is a means by which the Government can ask the House not to approve that, and then the House would have to make a decision in the light of what had been offered by the European Union. I do not accept the hon. Lady’s central premise that this somehow undermines the Prime Minister’s negotiating ability.”
“I am responding to the hon. Lady if she just bears with me. I do not regard the threat of a no-deal Brexit as part of a credible negotiating strategy.”
“Will the hon. Lady bear with me? The previous Prime Minister spent nearly two years saying that no deal is better than a bad deal and it did not seem to work then, and I do not think it will work now.”
“No, that is not the case. In those circumstances, the House could decide to ask the Prime Minister to go back. The central point is that it gives the House of Commons the ability to express a view, but if the extension was to 31 January we would have already decided that we were prepared to accept that. Therefore, it is only if the Prime Minister does not get a deal that the Bill prevents him from taking us out of the EU without an agreement.”
“Members should remember that, last time, Mr Tusk said, “Use the time well,” and it is important that we in this House show that we are not just saying, “Right, we want a further extension, and then we are going to twiddle our thumbs for another three months.” The Bill suggests a process. If the report is amended or rejected, there must be further reports from the Government on 10 January and every 28 days thereafter, either until an agreement is reached with the EU or until otherwise indicated by a resolution of the House. I think the framework in clause 2 will help to answer the question about what we intend to do with the additional time, and that will be a matter for Parliament.”
“Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford because the former Prime Minister readily accepted the decision of the House of Commons, but we are now in different circumstances. Clause 2 covers what happens if an extension is proposed and agreed. Members have asked, quite rightly, what the extension is for. The immediate answer is, of course, to avoid a no-deal Brexit on 31 October, but clause 2 provides a framework under which the Government will publish a report to the House on 30 November—this comes back to the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) raised with me earlier—and move a motion to the effect that the House has approved the report. That gives the Government a chance to say, “What are we going to do next?” It is also something that we can point to with the European Union.”
“I do not agree. Of course, we all recognise that with any of these provisions there is no guarantee that the European Union will grant a further request from the United Kingdom for another extension of article 50. It takes only one member state of the European Union to say, “No, I’m not giving the United Kingdom a further extension” for us to be in even greater difficulty than we are already. The provision seeks to require the Prime Minister to ask for and agree to an extension, because that is what is required to prevent the current Prime Minister from taking us out of the EU on 31 October without a deal. We did not have to put those provisions in the earlier Bill introduced by my right hon.”
“We have a duty to prevent it, and I hope the House will vote for this Bill tonight.”
“Given that it has taken three years to get this far—in other words, not very far at all—and given that it took Canada seven years to negotiate a deal and the Prime Minister says he wants a super-Canada deal, it is going to take years to agree a new relationship. Every single EU member state, member state parliament and regional parliament will have to agree to any deal. No deal will not be the end of Brexit; it will only be the end of the beginning. In that time, faced with that degree of uncertainty, businesses will have countless decisions to make about where to invest, what to make and where, what to do about the sudden disappearance of all the arrangements that they have come to know and work within, and what to do about the sudden imposition of tariffs. It would be utterly irresponsible to allow that to happen.”
“My final point is this. What would happen if we left with no deal? The Prime Minister talks about getting it done and ending the uncertainty, but the truth is—the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) made this point powerfully—that no deal would not end anything. It would simply plunge us into greater uncertainty—uncertainty about the degree and length of disruption, uncertainty about the border arrangements in Northern Ireland, and uncertainty about our future trading relationship with our biggest, nearest and most important trading partners, the other members of the European Union.”
“I have read those reports and they are of concern to me, as I know they are to the right hon. Gentleman and many others in the House. The aim of the clause is not, as I think the Leader of the House suggested yesterday, to create a “marionette Government” but, I would argue, to give the Government the time they need to do their job. I say that because it is not clear what is happening at the moment, as we discussed yesterday, and how much negotiation is taking place when no proposals have been made. It is very hard to understand that, because I would have thought that the Government had been working flat out since July. It is also important to make the point that even if agreement was reached, it is very hard to see how it would be possible to get the House’s approval and pass all the legislation between 18 October or so and 31 October.”
“I did directly address that question in my speech on Second Reading, but the hon. Gentleman has not read clause 3(3), which explains the circumstances in which subsection (2), to which he has such objection, would not apply.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House has spoken this evening. I say to the Prime Minister that, if the other place passes the Bill, this House expects him to uphold the law and to fulfil the obligations that will be placed upon him by this Bill and prevent this country from leaving the European Union on 31 October without a deal. May I thank the Clerks for their assistance, and the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and others for their great help? I also join my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) in most warmly applauding the bravery and the courage of many on the Government Benches who have stood by their convictions in the national interest.”
“It is not just Chancellor Merkel who has confirmed that no substantive proposals have been put forward. Last weekend, the Irish Deputy Prime Minister said that “nothing credible has come from the British government” on alternatives to the backstop. It is also reported that the Attorney General told the Prime Minister at the beginning of August that, if he insisted on the removal of the backstop, it would inevitably result in no deal. Is that true? If it is true, can the Prime Minister try to persuade the House why it is credible to argue that progress is being made in the negotiations, because a growing number of Members have come to the conclusion that what he really wants is a no-deal Brexit, and that is why many of us will try, over the next two days, to prevent that from happening—in the national interest.”
“It was reported yesterday that analysis done for the Department for Transport in the last fortnight says that in the worst case, the average delay for lorries and freight at Dover would be one and a half days, and in the best case, there would be a wait of two to three hours—either of which would cause chaos. Can the Secretary of State confirm for the House that the Government have received that analysis? What has the freight industry had to say to him about it? It has been warning for some time that it does not think the Government are prepared.”
“I am extremely grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way. Now that Mr Speaker has made it clear that there is nothing at all irregular about his acceptance of this motion, and given that the Leader of the House accepts, as I presume he does, that the House is in charge of its own procedures, how can there be anything constitutionally irregular in the House choosing—if it passes the motion and then the Bill tomorrow—to instruct the Government that there is an outcome to the Brexit negotiations that it is not prepared to accept, which is leaving without a deal on 31 October?”
“The Prime Minister has set out his new Brexit policy, but did he notice that, yesterday, the Taoiseach said that any suggestion that a whole new negotiation could be undertaken in weeks or months is “not in the real world?” If Leo Varadkar is right and, as a consequence, the House of Commons votes in the autumn against leaving the European Union on 31 October without an agreement, what will the Prime Minister’s policy be then?”
“Back in June, the Government’s view was that naval escorts for ships passing through the strait of Hormuz would not be appropriate because it would be seen as provocative and escalatory. Therefore, I very much welcome the announcement that the Foreign Secretary has made today in response to Iran’s seizure of the Stena Impero and his announcement of a proposal for a European-led force, which is a reminder to the whole House of the benefits of European co-operation. We have a very good example of another anti-piracy operation in Operation Atalanta, which has been very successful off the east coast of Africa. Will he tell the House how quickly he expects this mission to be established, and will it have sufficient resources to protect all the ships, which we now know are vulnerable, as they pass through the strait of Hormuz?”
“My final point is this: everyone in the House is well aware that Brexit has significant implications for the country as a whole, but it will have particular implications for Northern Ireland, which the Exiting the European Union Committee has reported on and many Members on both sides of the House have spoken of. I suppose that this amendment has a secondary effect: to ensure that the House would be sitting at a crucial time for our country, as I believe the country would expect us to be. I do not think that we could accept circumstances, if I may coin the phrase, in which we were sent missing in action, and I hope that the House will support the amendment.”
“In other words, the Minister would have to lay the report and the motion in neutral terms would have to be moved within the period of five calendar days, beginning with the end of the day on which the report was made. If my amendment is carried, we would be sitting in order to ensure that we had the chance both to consider the report and, crucially, to debate the motion that has been presented. That is the single purpose of my amendment. It would be rather odd—would it not?—for the House to legislate to provide for these reports and motions on specified dates, only to find itself not being here to consider the reports and to debate the motions because of some other action, namely the fact that we might not be sitting.”
“It has been used, most recently in section 68(10) of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 and in section 28(1) of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004—indeed, the Civil Contingencies Act makes specific reference to the Meeting of Parliament Act 1797. In other words, this amendment does not—I emphasise this—seek to establish a new constitutional principle. It simply seeks to use previous practice to make sure that Parliament is sitting when it needs to be sitting to debate these matters. As I hope the amendment makes clear, it would do so by requiring that Parliament be recalled on a specified day within the period in which compliance with subsection (2B) of Lords amendment 1 is required.”
“But there is a problem that my amendment seeks to fix if the House is not sitting—for example, because it has been prorogued —on the dates by which the reports have to be made, and the crucial dates are 4 September and 9 October. My amendment simply seeks to make provision for the House to be recalled in those circumstances to allow the opportunity for us to consider the reports and debate the motions that arise from the Bill if Lords amendment 1 is accepted by the House. I should say at this stage that probably not every Member of the House is entirely familiar with the provisions of the Meeting of Parliament Act 1797, but the most important thing to recall is that section 1 is still on the statute book.”
“I support Lords amendment 1, which very sensibly provides for when the reports required under the Bill should be made to the House and provides an opportunity for the House to debate them. In other words, it provides a context in which we can discuss what is contained in those reports by requiring them to be made and requiring a motion to be presented to the House. Given that other matters, which we debated at some length last week, have been added to the Bill since it was originally published—and have widened the scope of the Bill considerably beyond the original purpose solely relating to elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly—it seems to me even more important that we have the provisions in Lords amendment 1 in the Bill.”
“and learned Gentleman’s amendments tonight will be a very important step in helping it on its way.”
“The second point I want to make is that, if the new Prime Minister were to think, “I might be able to get away with it,” and Prorogation were to happen, it is important that he understands—I am confident of this—that there would be many Members of the House who would be determined to sit, meet, debate and express their view anyway. I do not believe that the House of Commons would be silenced in those circumstances. It would profit the Prime Minister nothing if he were to attempt to do that. I hope the idea will disappear into the dustbin of history where it belongs. If we do not succeed in putting the idea there by persuading the new Prime Minister finally to come forward and say, “Okay, I will never do that in any circumstances,” then voting for the right hon.”
“I rise very briefly to support the amendments moved by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), although I have to say I find it extraordinary that we are even having a debate about Prorogation. I hope that the very idea of proroguing Parliament to deny Members of this House the chance to express a view about the Brexit process at the vital moment—whichever side of the debate one is on, it will have enormous implications for the future of our country—will seem to many so outrageous, so underhand and so shocking. I cannot really understand why any Member, when presented with the proposition, would not say, “Well, that is completely out of the question.” It is a direct threat to our ability to have our say and to express our views.”
“It is clear that whoever was responsible for this was not thinking of the national interest. The whole House supports Sir Kim Darroch in doing his job, which is to report home without fear or favour. Does the Minister think that the expression of support for the ambassador’s position from the Prime Minister and others has been slightly undermined by the Foreign Secretary saying that he did not agree with the ambassador’s assessment? It would be helpful to the House if the Minister could explain why that is the case, because it seems to many of us that Sir Kim was only reporting what lots of other people can see for themselves.”
“It is reported this morning that Canada is apparently unwilling to roll over the provisions of the CETA deal—the comprehensive economic and trade agreement—for the United Kingdom in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Could the Prime Minister tell the House whether she discussed this matter at the G20 summit? May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Chancellor, sitting next to her, on the clear statements he has been making in recent days about the obvious danger to our economy from a no-deal Brexit?”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm for the record that any EU national who has been granted settled status in the United Kingdom is regarded as being habitually resident for the purposes of applying for and receiving universal credit?”
“Perhaps a representative of Leeds might ask a question. One of the arguments for going back to the people is the economic consequences of a no-deal Brexit. Over the past three weeks, the Select Committee has been taking evidence from the leading industrial sectors of the country representing great British success stories, and we asked them what a no-deal Brexit would mean for them. They said that it would lead to prohibitively high tariffs on farmers and medicine shortages. They said that it would be disastrous, the worst possible option. In the words of Make UK, it would be “nothing short of an act of economic vandalism”. Does the Secretary of State support leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October, and, if so, what would he say to those industries?”
“In the answer that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) a moment ago about the devastating impact of tariffs on sheep farmers in the event of a no-deal Brexit, he appeared to give the impression that the Government would compensate farmers for the cost of those tariffs. Can he please clarify this for the House: is it the Government’s policy, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, to pick up the cost of the tariffs that farmers would face—yes or no?”
“On the Council conclusions on climate change, does the Prime Minister agree that all EU member states need to show leadership and sign up to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, as we all hope the House will do later when we vote on the motion? If she does agree, what assessment has she made from the discussions she had at the European Council of the chances of persuading the four member states that currently refuse to do so to change their minds before COP 26 next year?”
“We haven’t been able to make an assessment, but we are not sure that there is a risk about the future.” I will ask a direct question of the Secretary of State: is it the Government’s view that Saudi Arabia has engaged in activities that have breached international humanitarian law?”
“The Government’s position is, frankly, inexplicable, because the Secretary of State referred to all the careful analysis that has been done, but anyone else undertaking an assessment of future risk—this goes to the heart of the point that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) just raised—would look at the past behaviour of those using the weapons that we have sold to Saudi Arabia. As the Secretary of State well knows, others have done so, and the UN panel of experts found over three years ago that “the coalition had conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law”. The Government cannot continue to say, “We’re sorry.”
“Given previous reports of individuals who have disappeared from wherever they were only then to turn up in China facing charges, the whole House understands completely why the people of Hong Kong are so anxious about their rights and so opposed to this piece of extradition legislation. The best thing that Carrie Lam can do is to say that it is being scrapped altogether. What remedy is there if either of the parties, but in this case China, decides not to abide by commitments freely entered into in the joint declaration to protect the people of Hong Kong and the one country, two systems state in which they thought they were living?”
“While the independent investigations that the Minister has mentioned continue—we all want to see the results of those—the fact is that six vessels have been attacked in just over a month. It has been suggested that one practical step that could be taken is to provide some kind of security escort for vessels in the Gulf of Oman and passing through the strait of Hormuz. I very much support what he said about the need to de-escalate tension. In his reply to a previous question, was he trying to indicate to the House that he thought that such a step might actually make matters worse rather than better? I endorse what he said about this ultimately having to be solved by negotiation. Ultimately, the United States of America and Iran will need to get round a table to sort out the difficulties that currently involve both of them.”
“Did I understand the Minister to say that she thought that UNAMID could play a role in investigating all these atrocities, including those in Khartoum? If that is the case, and if there is support from both the African Union —which plays a very important role—and the United Nations, I think the whole House would support it as well, because we need the evidence to hold people to account. The tragedy in Sudan and Darfur is that far too many people have got away with far too much.”
“The announcement by special envoy Mahmoud Dirir that talks may resume is of course welcome, but I want to focus on the point raised by the former International Development Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). The terrible violence has an awfully familiar ring to those of us who had to deal with the tragedy in Darfur, because the traditional response of the Sudanese state is to deploy forces to crack down on those whom they wish to oppose. There has been such a considerable difference between assessments of the number of people killed. I think the authorities claim that it is about 61, but, as we have heard, according to reports from other sources, including doctors, it is double that. There have also been reports of rape, and of bodies being thrown into the Nile.”