The House has emptied out somewhat now, but Keir Starmer is still taking questions on trade deals and the EU. We are still expecting a statement from foreign secretary David Lammy this afternoon.
Ellie Chowns, the Green party of England and Wales MP for North Herefordshire, has said the party “broadly welcomes” the UK-EU deal announced by the government yesterday.
She told MPs:
On behalf of the Green party, I broadly welcome the progress that was made at the summit yesterday. It’s not quite the step change that we need, but it is a step forward towards the closest possible relationships with our closest neighbors that we continue to champion, although I would gently point out that it’s hardly unprecedented, because, of course, up until we left the EU we had a much better relationship.
She then asked why Keir Starmer was being “so timid on the youth mobility scheme, given the huge benefits that this would offer to our young people and our country as a whole.”
Helena Horton has an update on Thames Water
Thames Water has blocked controversial plans to pay executives “retention payments” out of a £3bn loan, the environment secretary told the Efra committee.
Steve Reed said: “Just over the last few days we have seen a very unfortunate situation where Thames Water appeared to be attempting to circumvent that ban, calling their bonuses something different so they can continue to pay them. I am very happy indeed that Thames have now dropped those proposals. It was the wrong thing to do. They have now withdrawn their proposal to make those payments.”
The company won a court battle that allowed it to accept the loan, which comes with an expensive 9.75% interest rate and fees. The chair of Thames Water has written to the committee to clarify his comments after the Guardian revealed he wrongly told it last week that the bonuses were “insisted upon” by the creditors.
Sir Adrian Montague told the environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) select committee last week that the lenders had insisted that “very substantial” bonuses of up to 50% of salary should be paid to company executives from the controversial loan in order to retain key staff.
The chair of Thames Water has now written to the committee to say he “misspoke” after the Guardian revealed his comments were not true.
After the Guardian approached Thames to ask why its chair claimed the lenders “insisted” bonuses were paid, Montague wrote to the Efra committee to clarify his comments.
“Following the session we have been approached by the Guardian who we understand intend to write a story suggesting that we misled the committee in relation to the Company’s management retention plan.
“I appreciate that in the heat of the moment I may have misspoken when I stated that the creditors insisted on the management retention plan.”
Helena Dollimore, Labour MP and member of the committee, said of Montague’s appearance: “He was trying to justify the paying of these retention payment … that the creditors of Thames Water had said it was a condition of the loan for top leaders to get retention payments. Since that evidence to our committee we’ve seen documents filed in the high court that suggest Sir Adrian misled in his wording … This is very serious behaviour from the bosses of Thames Water at our committee.”
Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader, is in parliament today. He tells MPs that the government has “surrendered the fishing industry”, and that “my constituents are furious that you have surrendered on freedom of movement and on rule taking under the ECJ.”
He continues, saying, “there is good news, prime minister. Do you accept that you have also surrendered the jobs of many of your backbench MPs at the next general election to Reform?”
Keir Starmer gently replies “I will happily explain to his constituents the huge benefits of these deals, measured in jobs that will be saved, jobs that can now thrive, bills that will come down. And it is really important for our economy that we have these deals. That is in the interests of his constituents. It’s in the interests of the whole country.”
Long-term Brexit campaigner Mark Francois has just angrily accused the government of making the UK a rule-taker again from the European Union. Keir Starmer wearily replies “I’d forgotten about some of the nonsense that gets spouted.”
Francois continues to heckle the prime minister as he answers, with multiple MPs calling on the Conservative MP to shut up.
Just to confirm what Keir Starmer mentioned earlier, the MP for Clacton and Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, has not attended parliament for this statement on the UK-EU trade deal.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has given his response to the UK-EU deal in this debate, suggesting that people on the frontbenches of other parties “need to calm their jets.”
He continued:
This is obviously not a surrender, just as it’s obviously no substitute for membership of the European Union. Nor indeed is it, as the prime minister has repeatedly said today, providing unprecedented access to the EU market. That is simply absurd.
He then calls for more investment in Scotland.
Emily Thornberry, chair of foreign affairs committee, made a short intervention earlier, and opened by saying “Can I begin by thanking the prime minister for what he has said about Gaza? It couldn’t be clearer the message that he’s sending to the far-right government of Netanyahu, and it should have the unanimous support of this house. It is essentially: this must stop.”
Responding to veteran Brexit campaigner Bernard Jenkin, who accused Labour of betraying the referendum result with this UK-EU trade deal, Keir Starmer said the fact that Labour was doing trade deals with India and the US show the government wasn’t rejoining the European Union.
Starmer says they have stuck to their red lines about not rejoining the EU, “no single market, no Customs Union, no freedom of movement.”
Starmer says the fact there are deals elsewhere “could be no better evidence that we not going back into the EU.”
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has said his party does not think the newly announced UK-EU reset deal “goes far enough to fix our broken relationship with Europe,” but says that nevertheless the party welcomes parts of it.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Ed Davey said:
We have long been arguing for an agri-food deal to help British farmers export to Europe.
We have long argued for a youth mobility scheme to give our young people incredible new opportunities, and British businesses, especially in hospitality, a boost.
We have long argued for closer alliances on defence in the face of Putin’s imperialism and Trump’s unpredictability.
So can I welcome the progress on these issues, even it is only very limited progress on things like youth mobility, because we’ve all seen the terrible damage caused by the Conservatives Brexit deal.
Hearing the Conservative leader complain today is like listening to a back seat driver who previously crashed the car.
