Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-10-11
Topic: Immigration
Questions: The Prime Minister will know that financial and professional services are the UK’s largest source of tax revenue and our largest driver of trade surpluses. Yesterday I met representatives of that sector, who wanted me to pass on to the Prime Minister their warm support for the pragmatic, sensible arrangement that she has made to ensure the critical legal and contractual continuity that the sector needs as we leave the European Union. As well as recognising that, will she perhaps build on that positive approach by considering issuing a White Paper on our future vision for trade in services, as we have done for other sectors?; I fear that that “more” was not for me. I am afraid I must return to the subject of universal credit, but perhaps the difference between Government Members and Opposition Members is that we believe in universal credit’s transformative properties and want it to work. And work it will, but we have to get it right. I thank the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for promising on Monday to advertise more widely that advances are available to claimants, but many of us on the Government Benches feel that more people taking up those advances must surely mean that the in-built six-week wait just does not work. Will the Prime Minister please consider meeting me so that I can explain to her why, if we reduce that six-week wait, we will do a better job of supporting those just about managing families who are struggling to make ends meet and who have no savings to cover them over that period?; Following yesterday’s announcement of almost 2,000 job losses at BAE Systems, many hundreds of which are in Warton in my constituency where very dedicated and highly skilled people work, can the Prime Minister assure me that she and her Government will continue to do everything they can to support export orders to Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as supporting those dedicated workers in finding alternative employment and the wider Lancashire economy?; Prime Minister, last week you announced that you would fund 25,000 extra socially rented homes over five years. The waiting list in Brighton is already that. Along with Brighton, my other local authority, Lewes District Council, is wanting to build more council houses, but your policies will not help them, because they are limited not by the open market, but by the Government’s arbitrary cap on borrowing and financing against housing stock. Will the Prime Minister agree with me, the Conservative-led Lewes District Council and the Labour-led Brighton that the cap on the housing revenue account must be lifted to get councils building for Britain again?; In my constituency of Monmouth, children as young as 12 have been labelled as transgender and prescribed potentially life-altering sex change drugs. Does the Prime Minister agree that the law needs to be tightened to prevent this potential mistreatment of vulnerable young people?; In her radio interview yesterday, the Prime Minister was pressed three times on the position of EU nationals in the UK in the event of no deal. She was unable to answer, suggesting that this was a “technical” issue. But people do not live technical lives. Their lives involve relationships, jobs and their children’s schools. With the clock ticking and the possibility of a no-deal Brexit looming nearer, will she reassure my 10,000 plus constituents who are EU residents exactly what their rights will be if there is no deal?
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): First, let me re-emphasise—I have said this before in this House—that we value the contribution that EU citizens have made in this country and we want them to stay. That is why we made citizens’ rights one of the key issues, and one of the early issues that is being discussed in the negotiations that are currently taking place. We are working to ensure that we get a good deal. If there is no deal, we will obviously have to have arrangements with other member states regarding not just EU citizens here, but UK citizens in those member states. But we are working for the best deal for the United Kingdom. We are very close to agreement on citizens’ rights. We want EU citizens to stay here in the UK because we value the contribution they are making.