Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – present).
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Our thoughts are with everybody in Spain who has been affected by the devastating train crash this morning. I have been in touch with Prime Minister Sánchez to relay our condolences and to offer any support that we can give. May I also send condolences to the families who lost loved ones during the storms over the weekend, and thank our emergency services and everyone who has worked so hard to support those affected?
Let me, in his final week, pay tribute to the Clerk of the House for his 30 years’ service to this place. Tom’s wisdom, professionalism and abilities at the piano are all hugely admired, and I know that the whole House will wish him well for the future.<span id="291" class="column-number" data-column-number="291"></span>
Finally, I am sure that the whole House—including, I am sure, those on the Scottish National party Benches—will join me in congratulating Harry Kane. From Leyton Orient, on loan, to the Ballon d’Or—what a journey! Many congratulations, Harry. We are all so proud of you.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
My hon. Friend is right. The water industry is a symbol of what has gone wrong. The private interest has been allowed to dominate the public interest, which is why we will introduce a strengthened water Bill that will lift the bar on public ownership, alongside other reforms over the next decade. The vast majority of the public support this. They do not want to see sewage in our rivers and seas—unlike, I believe, the Leader of the Opposition, who told her conference recently, “Water privatisation has been a success.” She cannot really believe that, can she?
There is no confusion at all. The Government have a collectively agreed position, which I have set out today. It is entirely consistent with everything I have said, including what I said at the time of the by-election.
The red lines in our manifesto, including those on freedom of movement, will stay firmly in place for the whole of this Parliament, but what I will not do is defend the deal negotiated by the right hon. Lady and the Government she was in, which, in my view, gave us a harder Brexit than was promised at the referendum, and has been bad for growth and bad for control of immigration.
It may have escaped the right hon. Lady’s notice that we are three weeks away from a UK-EU summit. It is an opportunity to improve the poor deal that the Conservatives negotiated and to get a better deal in place for Britain—a deal that backs British farmers and British food producers, and that removes red tape from our businesses. If we get the right deal, it will protect our car industry, protect our steel industry and allow better co-ordination on migration. The Tories used to stand for these things. If they still do, will she back Britain’s negotiating position as we go into that summit?
I do, because I am not. I am trying to get a better deal for Britain at the summit that we are about to go to. The right hon. Lady has mentioned things said in the past. Can I remind her of what she said? <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> Well, I am going to—I am sorry. She said it was a mistake for the Conservative party to
“leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU.”
She has just nodded. She may as well have said it was a mistake to leave the EU without a plan in place to control migration, because that is what led to the Boriswave under the Government she was in, when migration into this country changed and went away from revolving-door migration and towards long-term settlement. It is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is having to reform indefinite leave to remain. She has my support in making those changes, but let us have a little humility from those on the Conservative Benches, who left Britain with low growth and migration out of control.
I think I have answered that very clearly by saying that the red lines in the manifesto are firmly in place. The right hon. Lady stood there a moment ago and said that she admits mistakes. She was asked twice by BBC London during her conference whether Brexit, and the deal she negotiated with her colleagues, was good or bad for London, and twice she could not bring herself to answer that question. Perhaps, before she finishes today, she will answer it now.
Yes, yes—now the right hon. Lady is speaking the truth. The country was paralysed by the Conservative party: low growth, insufficient control on migration. That is what this Government is dealing with, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will stand up and show that we have a plan to get that growth going across the country.
Where I am focused is getting a better deal for Britain. That is my responsibility, and I will lead from this Dispatch Box over the next few weeks. I will do everything I can to get a better deal for Britain—a better deal for farmers and food producers, less red tape on our exporters, more support for our steel and our car industries, more control of migration. I will stand here and defend doing that, as well as being true to our manifesto. That is the difference between this side and that side of the House: we stand up for the British interest. Where is the Tory party of old that used to stand up for those things? The reason she could not answer in this House today on whether or not she was backing the position that I have set out is that she is too worried about the threat to her right to stand up for Britain. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
I have repeatedly set out the red lines of the manifesto, and can I just say this one final time? I am doing what I can to get a better deal for Britain, and getting a better deal for Britain, I can tell the right hon. Lady, is part of this job. I am standing up for British business. Can I tell her who supports what we are doing? The CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Retail Consortium, Asda, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, Salmon Scotland—they all support what we are trying to do. Why does she not join us, with other colleagues across this House, and send a strong message that Britain is calling for a better Brexit deal, so that we can get growth going again, as my right hon. Friend will shortly show to this whole House?
I do agree with my hon. Friend. I do not think we should accept in this country that anybody should spend even one night sleeping rough on the streets. I said when I walked up Downing Street coming into office that I wanted to change that and wanted to bring an end to rough sleeping. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for committing funding for the whole of this Parliament to support a drive to give everybody an offer of support, and I can confirm to the House today that we are increasingly confident that everyone will get such an offer before the Christmas break. My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue, and I thank him for attending the summit. I hope everybody will get behind this national drive.
I am prepared to meet the right hon. Gentleman, and I thank him for what he said. It is a start, but we are in a position where we are trying to build a cross-party consensus around better support for older people, a new social care system in which there is much stronger support for family carers, as he has so rightly argued.