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Brexit: Hammond confirms government will defy MPs and refuse to publish full legal advice - Politics live
PMQs: May faces Corbyn after economic Brexit analysis is published - Politics live
(35 minutes later)
Under its new editor, Geordie Greig, the Daily Mail has turned against the Tory hard Brexiters and turned into a supercharged cheerleader for Theresa May. In that spirit it has splashed today on new polling from Survation which suggests that public support for May’s Brexit deal is increasing since it polled on this on 15 November, the day after May secured backing for the deal at a five-hour cabinet meeting.
Corbyn says after eight years of making the UK poorer through austerity, this “botched Brexit” will deliver more of the same. He says the report from the UN’s Philip Alston said, for the government, the impact of Brexit on poverty was an afterthought. Who is backing her plan?
Total support for the deal is up 10 points, the poll suggests.
May mentions different groups that back her plans. On the economy, she says youth unemployment is at a record low. And today the number of children in workless households is at a record low, as is the proportion of workless households.
Awareness of, and public support for the UK Government’s Brexit withdrawal agreement has increased significantly since Survation’s November 15th polling: https://t.co/jv87uRlJTx pic.twitter.com/pn1cXe2rgF
Corbyn says the Alston report said there were 14m people living in poverty. A private CBI email said it was not a good deal. May is just committed to working for frictionless trade. She used to guarantee frictionless trade. Now she is offering friction - and less trade. What is best? Extending the transition, or falling into the backstop?
(Note: this is just amongst people who have heard or seen details of the plan. That is 72% of all respondents. Amongst everyone - ie, if you included the people who pollsters that they did not know anything about the plan - support would possibly be lower.)
May says there is an exit from the backstop. But the government does not want to be in it in the first place. The EU cannot sign trade deals until the UK leaves. She says within a year the EU and the UK turned a short outline agreement into 560 pages of legal text. So in the two years available it will be possible to agree a deal, she says.
And by a narrow margin, people want MPs to vote for the deal, the poll suggests. (These figures are based on responses from everyone, not just from the 72% who have seen details of the plan.)
Jeremy Corbyn also praises Lady Trumpington. And he says he wants to pay tribute to Harry Leslie Smith too. He was an irrepressible campaigner, and was passionate about healthcare for all.
He says Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday that Brexit deal mitigates most of the negative impacts of Brexit. Which ones does it not mitigate?
Here is the Mail splash.
May says the analysis does not show that the UK will be poorer in the future. What would make the UK poorer would be Corbyn’s policies.
The Mail plays down other findings in the Survation poll less helpful to the PM, including 48% of people saying there should be a second referendum, and only 34% saying they are opposed.
Corbyn says May said this was the best deal, and the only deal. It is not hard to be the best deal if it is the only deal. On that basis, it is also the worst deal. Does May agree with Hammond this will make people worse off?
Other polls have delivered very different results. At the end of last week Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory deputy chairman released some detailed polling on this topic and it found people saying MPs should vote down the deal by nearly two to one - although the question was skewed because it asked what MPs should do “if they are not happy with the terms on offer”?
May says this is the best deal which delivers on the result of the referendum. She says the political declaration is not a wishlist. It sets out ambitions for a broad partnership. What does Labour have to offer? Six bullet point. Her weekend shopping list is longer than the, she says.
There will be an urgent question on the government’s analysis of the economic impact of Brexit after PMQs.
Douglas Ross, a Scottish Conservative, says he has concerns about the Brexit deal. What assurances can May give to the fishing industry and for the union?
BREAKING NEWS: @johnmcdonnellMP UQ granted at 1245 to demand that @PhilipHammondUK make a statement on the Government’s publication of economic and fiscal analysis of various Brexit scenarios. He should have made an oral statement, it is a shame he has had to be dragged here.
May says she is a committed unionist. She will ensure the UK becomes an independent coastal state. The UK will decide who gets access to UK waters. And fishing access will not be traded for anything else.
The Financial Times’ Laura Hughes has more from the Michael Gove hearing, which has now finished.
Labour’s Rosie Cooper asks about the “misery” inflicted on passengers by Northern Rail. There can be no more excuse. This fiasco began in May. Isn’t it time to end this franchise?
Michael Gove: "I think the prime minister's deal is the best one for the country. The only thing I am advocating is the prime minister's deal."
May says she is clear that the performance in the north following the timetable changes was “unacceptable”. Passengers are not getting the services they deserve, although there are more services now than there were. Where operators are at fault, the government will take action.
Michael Gove says Defra is preparing for a no deal Brexit but that "the thing that worries me most is what the impact would be in particular on food exporters in the event of no deal".
Theresa May starts by paying tribute to Lady Trumpington.
What can the House of Commons do if the government refuses to comply with the binding motion saying it must publish the full legal advice on the government’s Brexit deal? (See 9.40am.) Luckily I can give you an expert opinion on this, because John Bercow, the speaker, gave a detailed answer when asked about this last year (exactly a year ago today, in fact), after the Commons used a “humble address” motion to force the government to release its Brexit impact assessments.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question at PMQs.
A minister who refused to comply with a binding motion of this kind could be in contempt of parliament. Bercow went on:
PMQs will start soon.
A member wishing to allege a contempt should, in the first instance, raise it not in a point of order, nor indeed in the media, but by writing to me as soon as practicable after the member has notice of the alleged contempt or breach of privilege. I then decide whether or not the matter should have precedence ... I am more than happy to confirm that my doors are always open for such written notices.
I normally do a snap verdict as soon as Jeremy Corbyn has finished, because for many people what matters most at PMQs is how Theresa May and Corbyn perform against each other.
As this note explains, if the speaker decided there was a case to answer, he would allow the MP to hold a debate in the chamber, normally on a motion referring the matter to the privileges committee for investigation. The committee (which is chaired by a Labour MP and does not have a government majority) would then investigate, and could recommend a punishment for the offending MP. That recommendation would then have to be endorsed by the Commons as a whole in a vote, although normally privileges committee reports are agreed without opposition.
But, with the Brexit vote looming, what matters most is May v the Commons, and so I will post a verdict towards the end, squeezed in just before the economic analysis UQ.
Presumably opposition MPs have been writing letters to Bercow this morning. David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, was the person who spoke for the government on this issue in the legal advice debate when the “humble address” was passed, and so presumably he is the person now in contempt of parliament.
Here is the key table from the government’s economic analysis.
At the weekend the Mail on Sunday said that Michael Gove, the environment secretary, decided to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal because “Britain would run out of clean drinking water within days” if the UK left without a deal. The report said:
The government’s Brexit economic analysis is out. It runs to 90 pages and it is available here (pdf).
Whitehall disaster planners have warned Ministers that leaving the EU without a deal could spark a national crisis as crucial chemicals used in water purification are imported to the UK from Europe.
It is one of five government papers out today analysing the deal. You can find them all here.
The deliveries risk getting caught in weeks of border chaos if Britain quits the EU next March without the Prime Minister’s deal with Brussels being approved by MPs.
Philip Hammond, the chancellor, will not be responding to the urgent question about the Brexit impact assessment, according to Labour. He will send his junior minister, Mel Stride, in his place.
The vital chemicals are timed to arrive ‘just in time’ and cannot be stockpiled as they are too volatile, meaning water plants would have to turn off the taps as soon as they ran out or risk poisoning millions.
Despite being able to do an extensive media round, @PhilipHammondUK is refusing to come to the House of Commons and answer questions on the Govt’s own analysis of various Brexit scenarios. He’s sending out @MelJStride in his place. #HidingFromScrutiny https://t.co/ZZucoutGE4
At the environment committee Gove has just been asked about this. He said there was an issue with water, but that the Mail on Sunday report seemed to be founded on “Chinese whispers”. He explained:
It is the case that the water industry is reliant on chemicals that are imported from the EU in order to ensure that we have pure and safe drinking water. But it is also the case that the overwhelming majority of those chemicals come in to ports which are not in the narrow straights - they come in through Immingham rather than through Dover, some come through Dover. It is the case that prudently we have talked to the water companies, and I have been talking to the regulator, to make sure that those chemicals can be sourced.
So, if we leave without a deal, then we need to take appropriate steps to mitigate. We are taking those steps. So it should be the case that our water will be - in fact, it will be the case that our water will be completely safe.
Gove also denied being the source of the Mail on Sunday story.
Second World War veteran and Labour activist Harry Leslie Smith has died aged 95, the Press Association reports. Smith, from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, championed human rights and the welfare state, and appeared at the Labour party conference in 2014 to speak about life before the NHS. A post on his Twitter account, which has more than 250,000 followers, announced his death on Wednesday morning.
At 3:39 this morning, my dad Harry Leslie Smith died. I am an orphan. #istandwithharry
The PA story goes on:
The verified Twitter account links to a Facebook page called Harry’s Last Stand.
A post on that page, dated November 21, says: “My dad, Harry Leslie Smith is critically ill in hospital in Ontario Canada after a fall, yesterday morning. You can follow updates on his twitter feed harryslaststand and the hash tag IStandwithHarry This is his son, John.”
Jeremy Corbyn has led tributes from Labour MPs.
We will all miss Harry Leslie Smith - he was one of the giants whose shoulders we stand on. A World War Two veteran who dedicated his life to fighting for our National Health Service, a peaceful world and for countries to meet their moral responsibility by welcoming refugees. pic.twitter.com/1RW63dSa6Y
Very sad to hear of the death of Harry Leslie Smith. He was one of a kind who never wavered in his fight for equality and justice. We should all carry his passion, optimism and spirit forward.
RIP Harry Leslie Smith will always remember this wonderful speech on the NHS you gave at Labour Conference https://t.co/SGhKKMs4ES
Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has given at least four broadcast interviews this morning. Here are the main points.
Hammond confirmed that leaving the EU will make the UK poorer, even under Theresa May’s plan, which is intended to minimise the economic damage caused by withdrawal. On the Today programme, when it was put to him that GDP would be lower under every Brexit scenario, he replied.
Yes, you’re right in that analysis. If you look at this purely from the economic point of view, there will be a cost to leaving the EU because there will be impediments to our trade. What the prime minister’s deal does is absolutely minimise those costs.
He said that a no deal Brexit would have “a much higher impact on the economy than the deal the prime minister has negotiated.”
He claimed that over time the negative impact of leaving the EU under May’s plan would be minimal. At one point he said there would be “a very modest impact on the overall size of the economy”. And at another point he said:
The economy will be slightly smaller in the prime minister’s preferred version of the future partnership.
He said economic impact was not the only factor to take into account when evaluating Brexit. He said:
I’m the chancellor so of course I look at the economy as being of overriding importance, but there are other considerations.
And I recognise that many people feel very strongly about the need to leave the European Union to regain control of our fishing waters, to regain control of migration and control of our borders, to have the right to do third-country trade deals. These are things which have value to people, and it is true that the economy will be very slightly smaller if we do the deal the way the prime minister has set out and negotiated, but the impact will be entirely manageable.
He rejected claims that warnings about the impact of a no deal Brexit amounted to scaremongering. When this was put to him, he replied:
I’m not trying to scare anybody and I reject the term ‘scaremongering’. If the government wasn’t doing anything about the possibility that we could leave the European Union in just four months’ time with no deal at all, if we weren’t making any preparations, I’d be on this programme and you’d rightly be attacking me for not preparing Britain for a possibility which clearly could happen.
And in that case we know, for example, that there will be significant delays at the Channel ports because customs procedures will have to be introduced where they don’t exist now, and that will slow down the flow of vehicles and therefore the flow of good coming into Britain and going out of Britain.
Of course we have to prepare for that, we have to make arrangements that will, as far as possible, minimise any disruption that will be caused by that no-deal exit.
He confirmed that the government will not publish its full legal advice on the Brexit deal, even though the Commons passed a binding motion saying it must. Asked about this, he said it would be “impossible for the government to function” if such confidential material was made public. He went on:
There’s a very important principle here, that the government must be able to commission impartial legal advice which absolutely tells it like it is to enable it to shape its decisions, while always complying with its legal obligation in the negotiations.
It would be impossible for government to function if we create a precedent that the legal advice that the government receives has to be made public.
We must have, as every other citizen has, the right to take privileged legal advice which remains private between the lawyer and the client.
So the client has the ability to ask the difficult questions, to receive full and frank legal advice, and then to make a decision based on that full and frank advice.
This is certain to be raised in the Commons later.
Here are two anti-Brexit MPs on Philip Hammond’s comments this morning.
From Tom Brake, the Lib Dem Brexit spokesman
Jaw-dropping..@PhilipHammondUK calmly states on @BBCr4today that leaving the EU, with the PM's deal, No Deal or any other deal will damage British jobs.Is he the first UK Chancellor who has openly admitted they intend hurting the UK economy?#PeoplesVote#FBPE
From the Labour MP Owen Smith
Philip Hammond’s admission that Brexit is going to cost our country between £40 and £150 BILLION per year is surely the first time in our history, other than in war, when a British Chancellor has advocated a policy that will inevitably mean cuts to the NHS, Schools, Defence etc?
According to Steven Swinford in the Daily Telegraph (paywall), the government’s official analysis of the impact of Brexit will say that, under Theresa May’s Brexit plan, the economy will be between 1 and 2% smaller after 15 years than it would be if the UK stayed in the EU. Swinford writes:
A cross-government analysis is expected to show that under the Chequers agreement, which forms the basis of her deal, the UK’s GDP will be between 1 and 2% lower over 15 years than if it had stayed in the EU.
However, in a move that will prompt a backlash from Tory Eurosceptics, the ministers are expected to argue that the UK will still be significantly better off than it would if it left without a deal.
The analysis suggests that under a no-deal Brexit the UK’s GDP will be 7.6% lower than if it had stayed in the EU, equivalent to around £150bn ...
[The analysis] compares staying in the EU with four scenarios: the prime minister’s deal, a Norway-style deal, a free trade agreement with the EU and going onto World Trade Organisation terms under no deal Brexit.
The analysis suggests that under Mrs May’s deal GDP will be between 1 and 2% lower over the next 15 years. Under the Norway option GDP would be 1.4% lower, under the free trade scenario 4.9% and under no-deal 7.6%.
In October 2016 Philip Hammond, the chancellor, told the Conservative party conference: “It is clear to me that the British people did not vote on June 23 to become poorer.” But now he is admitting that they did. He has been giving interviews this morning ahead of the publication of the government’s official analysis of the impact of Brexit, and he confirms that Brexit will make the British economy smaller - even under Theresa May’s plan, which is intended to mitigate the economic impact of leaving the EU. He told Sky News this morning:
If you look only at economic benefits, yes there will be a cost to leaving the European Union.
This is, of course, no surprise to anyone who has taken an interest in the subject. (And in October 2106 Hammond himself knew that Brexit would harm the economy; in that speech he was just trying to make a point about what people thought they were voting for, not what they actually were voting for.) But Hammond’s decision to be so explicit this morning will probably anger his some of Brexiter colleagues, who refuse to believe mainstream economic forecasts.
It might also put him at odds with May herself, who on Monday in the Commons was rehearsing the ‘all forecasts are rubbish’ line championed by people like Jacob Rees-Mogg. (What she actually said was: “I think it would be an interesting debate for this house, the extent to which economic forecasts can actually be described as facts.”) She is bound to be asked about this at PMQs, and it will be interesting to see if she is willing to be as candid on this as Hammond.
There was a lot more in the Hammond interviews. I will post a summary soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.15am: Airbus and ADS executives give evidence to the Commons business committee about Brexit.
9.30am: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, gives a speech at the King’s Fund annual conference.
9.30am: Michael Gove, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the Commons environment committee about Brexit.
10am: Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister, gives evidence to the Carl Sargeant inquiry.
10.30am: David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, gives a speech on the reliability of economic forecasts.
Around 11.30am: The Brexit department is due to publish the government’s assessment of the economic impact of Brexit.
12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.
2.45pm: Executives from pharmaceutical industry give evidence to the Commons business committee on Brexit.
4.30pm: The Bank of England publishes its assessment of the economic impact of Brexit.
As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I finish, at around 5.30pm.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.
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