Engagements — House of Commons, 2018-11-21
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: I am a great supporter of the Prime Minister and, along with the British people, I accept what a difficult and tough job she has. There is much in the withdrawal agreement that I agree with, especially on food and farming, but it is not good enough as it stands. The Northern Ireland backstop threatens the integrity of the United Kingdom and weakens our negotiating position, and my farming instincts tell me that we should not hand over £39 billion before we get the deal. Please will the Prime Minister listen to these concerns and renegotiate the deal before we put it before the House?; Twenty-year-old Tommy Cowan and 18-year-old Georgia Jones, both from Havant, were sold ecstasy at a music festival and tragically lost their lives afterwards. As the inquest continues, will my right hon. Friend set out the work being done to tackle the drug dealers who prey on our young people, and will she join me in sending the condolences of the whole House to their families and friends?; Over the past three weeks, I have surveyed 42 schools in my Weaver Vale constituency. More than £3.4 million will be taken from their budgets, and 60% of those schools have cut staff. The Prime Minister’s claim that austerity is over is as credible as her Brexit plan. Will she get a grip or step aside?; Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming Debbie Pritchard, a specialist teacher from Harlow who is visiting us for #AskHerToStand day and is watching from the Public Gallery? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a question not just of getting more women into Parliament but of encouraging women from all walks of life, especially from disadvantaged, low-income and working-class backgrounds? Does she support initiatives by the Conservative Party Foundation such as the Conservative candidate bursary scheme to enable more women to access public life?; The Prime Minister has just repeated that voting down her deal risks there being no Brexit at all. Does she recognise that, far from being a risk, recent polls show that, actually, a vast majority of people would like no Brexit at all in order to save jobs, protect the environment and ensure our standing in the world? Will she acknowledge that the will of the people can change and that the will of the people has changed? Does she therefore think that the way forward is a people’s vote, or does she think democracy ended on 23 June 2016?; I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.There are no people more proudly and passionately British than the people of Gibraltar. The agreed text of the withdrawal agreement gives significant and important safeguards to them in the text and in the protocol. Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that under no circumstances will she permit that text to be reopened to put those safeguards at risk and that under no circumstances will she permit Spain to seek to exclude the people of Gibraltar from discussions on the future arrangements?; The Government snuck out changes to the police pension scheme, and Humberside’s chief constable, Lee Freeman, has written to MPs describing the impact as “devastating”. If the Government do not change tack, this would cost the force £9.2 million. It would mean doing away with 130 police officers or all 250 police community support officers. Is the Prime Minister worried about this? Or is the chief constable “scaremongering” and just “crying wolf”?; In all my time as a mortgage broker, I never once recommended to a remortgaging client that they should stick with the standard variable rate. They would have more freedom and they could leave the deal when they wanted without penalties, but it was bog standard and nobody ever wanted it. Given that my right hon. Friend is receiving representations to ditch her deal for World Trade Organisation terms, will she explain that, putting aside the worst-case scenario of no deal, in the very best-case scenario, WTO terms are bog standard, average terms, and far worse than the preferential tariff-free access we currently enjoy and which she has negotiated to maintain?; The Prime Minister said that school funding is up, and it is, but pupil numbers are up and costs are up, so the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that since 2010 there has been an 8% real-terms per pupil cut. How can the Prime Minister expect anybody to trust her on anything when she cannot get her numbers right?; Since the Prime Minister’s Modern Slavery Bill passed, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and France have joined Norway, Sweden and Iceland in passing a sex-buyer law. That makes us an even more lucrative market for sex traffickers because we are now, in effect, surrounded by states that tackle the demand which drives commercial sexual exploitation. In responding to the independent review of her legislation five years on, will she now commit to looking seriously at a sex-buyer law?; Last Friday, during Parliament Week, I visited St Elizabeth’s School in my constituency to meet the school’s council. The children told me that rising crime levels and falling police officer numbers have made them fearful of using and enjoying their local park, which is near their school. Will the Prime Minister tell the school council, which may be listening today, what strategy the Government are deploying to ensure that all young people feel safe and are safe from crime on our streets and in our public spaces?
George William Freeman (Conservative, Centre-right): Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, I and other colleagues have read the draft withdrawal agreement and the many briefings. It is clear to me that the Prime Minister and her Cabinet have laudably tried to reconcile the demand for continuity of market access today with freedom to diverge tomorrow. Is not the truth of the backstop as drafted that if—and as—we were to exercise our regulatory freedom, whether in agri-food or data protection, we would allow the EU to harden the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Can the Prime Minister reassure me, and seek reassurance in Brussels today, that the draft does not contain a trap, whereby if we dare to diverge, we will undermine our Union?