No-deal EU Exit Preparations

(Urgent Question): To ask the Prime Minister if she will make a statement on no-deal Brexit preparations.

I thank my hon. Friend for his urgent question and congratulate him on securing your approval for it, Mr Speaker.

The Government have always been clear that leaving the European Union without a deal is not an outcome that we want. Last week, Parliament voted against leaving with no deal, signalling a clear majority against such an outcome. However, the legal default is that the UK will leave the EU without a deal unless an alternative is agreed; any agreed extension would not change that. A longer extension would also entail holding European Parliament elections in the UK. As the Prime Minister stated in her letter to Donald Tusk, we

“do not believe that it would be in either of our interests”—

the UK’s or the EU’s—

“for the UK to hold European Parliament elections.”

Will my hon. Friend give way?

It’s a UQ!

Order. I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), for whom I have the highest regard, but this is an urgent question—stop the clock, please.

It’s been a while.

Well, the hon. Lady graced the Front Bench with considerable distinction and it is some time since she has sat on the Back Benches. It is entirely understandable that she did not know the procedure, but there is no scope for intervention when the Minister is delivering his mercifully brief oration.

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I apologise to my hon. Friend.

The Government have undertaken significant action to prepare for a potential no-deal scenario. We have published 450 pieces of no-deal communications since October 2018, including information on reciprocal healthcare arrangements with the EU, on driving in the EU after exit, and even on how to take a pet abroad. We have contacted 150,000 businesses that trade with the EU to help them to get ready for no-deal customs procedures. We have held meetings, briefings and events with stakeholders across the economy, including around 300 engagements in the past month alone. We have responded to stakeholder feedback to make sure that communications are clear by updating approximately 1,300 pieces of gov.uk content based on their input.

More than 11,000 people are working on EU exit policy and programmes across the Government. We have launched a public information campaign, which includes information on gov.uk, to help citizens and businesses to prepare for leaving the European Union. TV adverts started today and radio, press and outdoor poster advertising are ongoing. Furthermore, the Treasury has provided £4.2 billion for EU exit preparations, including preparations for a no-deal scenario, and £480 million has been allocated to the Home Office to ensure that it is fully prepared.

Getting ready for this scenario depends on action not only from the Government, but from a range of third parties, including businesses, individual citizens and the European Union itself. Despite Government mitigation, the impact of a no-deal scenario is expected to be significant in a number of areas. Leaving the European Union with no deal is the legal default until Parliament passes a deal or agrees on an alternative. We are focused on achieving that, but until it has been achieved, we will continue to prepare for no deal and we advise businesses to do the same.

I thank the Minister for that response. It is important that the Government recognise the current position. Whatever the possibilities for how Members may vote in this place or how the EU may respond to requests for extensions, he is absolutely right to suggest that the current legal default position is that the United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union on 29 March, with or without a deal. It is important in more than one sense that those on the Front Bench recognise that. The narrative that seems to be emerging from No. 10 is that Parliament has not expressed its view as to what should happen. I would suggest to the Minister that it has. In February 2017, by a majority of 384, the House clearly said that with or without a deal we would leave on 29 March 2019. There was no equivocation about; it was black and white.

The Government have said they are making adequate preparations. Many of us on the Government Benches—and, indeed, on the Opposition Benches—have questioned the Government about those preparations. We know that billions of pounds have been spent, and we have had assurances from the Government, including from the Dispatch Box and in Committee. On 12 February, I asked the Prime Minister if she could

“reassure the House that should we leave on 29 March on no-deal WTO terms, we are sufficiently prepared”.

She answered very directly:

“We are indeed. We have ramped up our preparations. We are continuing our preparations for no deal.”—[Official Report, 12 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 752.]

I applied for this urgent question because media reports, including some emanating from this place, suggesting that a no-deal Brexit would prove a profound economic shock mirror the incorrect warnings before the 2016 referendum and are causing—[Interruption.] This is an important point for Members to appreciate, as we sit in this Westminster bubble. These pronouncements are causing concern across the country. It is easy for Opposition Members to say, “Oh, don’t worry about it”, but for a lot of people sitting in their homes, these dire predictions of economic gloom, which are unfounded, are causing concern.

I found it interesting that my hon. Friend was barracked by Opposition Members for pointing out how strong our country’s economy was. I would have thought they would be proud of that.

I hope that in my opening answer I gave the House a sense of how much preparation the Government have done since August 2016, although preparations have of course been ramped up in the last few months. I will list a handful of points: more than 550 no-deal communications have been sent out since August 2018; we have had 300 stake- holder engagements since February; we have been signing international agreements with our trading partners and rolling over others; 11,000 people are working on EU exit policy and programmes across Government; a number of IT programmes are ready to go should we need to activate them; and we have published the HMRC partnership pack containing more than 100 pages of guidance for businesses on process and procedures at the border in a no-deal scenario. The Government have been preparing assiduously and quietly behind the scenes for no deal, but we want to get a deal over the line; that is the most important thing for us.

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question.

The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) talked about the wishes of the House, and he was right to do so, but the House has twice ruled out leaving the EU without a deal and twice rejected the Government’s deal by historic margins. It is simply unacceptable that the Prime Minister continues to doggedly press ahead with her Hobson’s choice of her deal or no deal. Resilience is an admirable quality; obstinacy is not. Does the Minister recognise that by their approach the Government risk being considered in contempt of the House yet again?

The Government’s energy at this critical time should be going to find a way forward that can command the support of the House and the country and that is not the Prime Minister’s flawed deal, which the Government themselves have said would shrink the economy by 4%. The situation requires flexibility and the Government reaching out across the House, and that includes flexibility on the length of the extension of article 50. The Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster said last Thursday of a 30 June extension:

“In the absence of a deal, seeking such a short and, critically, one-off extension would be downright reckless and completely at odds with the position that this House adopted”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 566.]

Does the Minister agree that rather than this focus on no deal, the Prime Minister’s priority should now be to create opportunities for the House to consider all the options available to get the country out of the impasse she has created?

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that a lot of hon. Members sitting behind him represent seats that voted to leave the EU in big numbers and would be surprised to hear that Her Majesty’s Opposition are trying to stop that happening. As I said in my opening answer, the legal default is that the UK will leave the EU without a deal unless an alternative is agreed. No agreed extension will change this fact.

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. Has he noticed that in the last few hours Monsieur Barnier has issued an instruction declaring that the EU must now prepare for the no-deal scenario, claiming that only two elements of its work need to be completed? One is short-term visas and the other is the budget for 2019. Does that mean that the EU considers that if we do not reach a deal we will leave on the 29th?

I have outlined the legal default position a couple of times already. My Department monitors the European Commission’s no-deal announcements and those of individual member states. The Commission has made no-deal announcements on Erasmus, social security, fishing, air transport, aviation safety, road haulage, trade and exports and dual-use systems, EU funding for the Peace programme, energy efficiency, the Connecting Europe Facility, shipping inspection and a whole host of other areas. The European Commission, like us, would be ready in that circumstance.

Save for what one Conservative MP referred to as the headbanger wing of the Conservative party, everybody thinks that Brexit is a bad idea—businesses, medical personnel, universities. Parliament voted to rule out no deal because it represents a colossal political failure. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) talked about what concerns people. I will tell him what concerns people: a decade of Westminster austerity hitting schools, the NHS and other public services. We are spending £4.2 billion on a no deal, including millions for ferries. No one voted to leave on 29 March. No one voted for a no deal. Will the Minister take no deal off the table and invest the money in hard-pressed public services?

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU and that a huge number of them, including in Scotland, will find his comments very disappointing. As I have pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and other hon. Members, the legal default is that the UK will leave the EU without a deal unless an alternative is agreed.

May I pursue the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)? In a statement issued yesterday, Mr Barnier said, quite correctly, that

“voting against ‘no deal’ does not prevent it from happening.”

He also said:

“Everyone should now finalise all preparations for a ‘no deal’ scenario.

On the EU side, we are prepared…and are working on the two last measures that still need to be adopted, namely on short-term visas and the EU budget for 2019.”

Will those two issues be resolved in 11 days’ time, and how many issues does the Minister think the UK Government still have outstanding?