Leaving the EU: Customs — House of Commons, 2018-05-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am sorry, but I did say I was taking only one intervention We have a Government who claim to be taking back control but who are now seen to be running completely out of control. They claim to be restoring parliamentary sovereignty, for those parts of these islands where such a strange idea actually holds any sway, but they are at best failing to co-operate with and at worst appear to be wilfully obstructing Parliament’s attempts to hold them to account. The ducking and diving that went on with respect to a previous Humble Address, on the Brexit analysis papers, has been discussed often enough that we do not need to repeat it now. We also know that the Government are still trying to avoid complying with a recommendation from the Public Accounts Committee’s 18th report, published more than three months ago, that they publish details of what work Departments are doing to prepare for Brexit. Two weeks ago, the Chair of the Brexit Select Committee had to take the highly unusual step of publicly rebuking the Secretary of State for not giving proper priority to making him and his civil servants available to give evidence to the Committee. There are probably other instances going on right now, which are not yet in the public domain, where individual members of particular Select Committees will know that their Committees and their Chairs are losing patience with Ministers for either not being available to be questioned or for not providing information on time This morning, a hard-hitting report was published by the Work and Pensions Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee on the collapse of Carillion. In normal circumstances, it would have attracted huge attention. A lot of people have not noticed it yet because there are so many other Government failures, Government U-turns and Government fall-outs going on that it is difficult to keep on top of all of them. In publishing that report, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), said: "The company’s delusional directors drove Carillion off a cliff and then tried to blame everyone but themselves". I hope that she has registered that remark for royalties because I think it will be used an awful lot in future to describe the Cabinet’s handling of Brexit The Cabinet has miserably failed in its responsibility to introduce credible proposals to avoid what the Prime Minister described as a cliff edge. I suggest that we do for the Cabinet what the Cabinet would do for a failing council or health authority: it is time for this Parliament to take back control and put the Cabinet into special measures I do not just want the Cabinet to give us the information. The Cabinet is clearly incapable of taking a decision anywhere near on time, so as well as giving us the information, why not give Parliament the decision? Why not respect the sovereignty, as they call it, of Parliament? Why not agree to a free vote in this place on the customs union? I will tell you why, Madam Deputy Speaker: the Government know what the result would be. It would not be consistent with their red lines or anything that appears in existing Government papers Let us have that free vote on the customs union. The European Research Group can quietly go away and spontaneously combust when they see the result and the rest of us can concentrate on turning the bus round before it disappears over the Prime Minister’s cliff edge.