Labour

Keir Starmer MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, commenting on the latest round of Brexit negotiations, said: 

“Any movement towards breaking the deadlock in Brexit negotiations is welcome, but the reality is that this should have happened months ago. Instead, the summer has been wasted by Cabinet infighting and the Prime Minister’s inflexibility on key issues such as the European Court of Justice.

“It looks highly likely that the October deadline for concluding the first phase of talks will be missed.

“This poses a real risk to the British economy and continuing uncertainty for EU and UK citizens.

“Both sides need urgently to work towards a breakthrough that can move discussions on to how Britain forges a strong, progressive partnership with the EU for the future.”

Jon Trickett MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, commenting on Theresa May’s speech, said: 

“Today’s speech told us two things. First, Theresa May knows the economy isn’t working for most people but won’t do anything about it. Instead they give tax breaks to the few at the top while working people are worse off. Second, the Conservatives have no new thinking and no answers to the challenge and opportunities facing our country. They are yesterday’s party.”

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Social Care, commenting on the findings of a new report by the Centre for Mental Health and NHS Benchmarking Network, said:

“It is deeply worrying that community mental health provision has fallen and the number of psychiatric acute inpatient beds reduced, while the number of detentions under the Mental Health Act has risen. This puts even greater pressure on over-stretched acute mental health services.

“The findings of this report show that the Tory pledge to make mental health an equal priority with physical health is nothing more than hollow rhetoric.

“Under the Tories, mental health services have come under increasing pressure due to under-funding and staffing shortages. The Government should match Labour’s pledge to invest more in mental health services and ring-fence mental health spending to ensure funding reaches the front line.“

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Barry Gardiner MP, Labour’s Shadow International Trade Secretary, speaking after the UK threatened retaliatory action against Boeing because the USA Department of Commerce recommended a 219.63 per cent tariff on the Bombardier C Series aircraft, said:

“Theresa May tried to avert this dispute when she spoke with President Trump weeks ago. Clearly she was less persuasive than she led us to believe. But her ineffective pleas have now been compounded by the Defence Secretary’s bumbling aggression. The correct way to resolve this trade dispute is not to threaten Boeing that future ‘significant defence contracts’ are in jeopardy, it is to use the rules that are already in place in the global trading system through the WTO.

“The UK and Canada must urgently sit down with Boeing to find a resolution to this row which threatens so many jobs.

“Instead of putting ourselves in the wrong by threatening to victimise Boeing – an empty threat given that thousands of jobs in the UK rely on the aerospace sector – the UK as one of the founders of the World Trade Organisation, should refer the case to the WTO dispute settlement procedure.

“For subsidies to be actionable under WTO Rules they must be shown to cause material harm. This is why the American case has no merit. Boeing ceased to manufacture planes for the single aisle market served by the C Series long ago and they did not even compete for the Delta contract therefore they can show no material harm arose to their company.

“This is the correct, grown-up way for a country to behave under a rules based trading system, not to issue wild threats that would themselves violate WTO Rules. That the Trade Secretary either does not know or has not bothered to advise his cabinet colleagues of this speaks volumes about his own competence.”

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Tracy Brabin MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Early Years, commenting on a report by the Sutton Trust and Sound Foundations, which found the government’s scheme to give working parents 30 hours of free childcare could harm social mobility, said:

“This report confirms exactly what we have been warning for months – the Tories are failing to provide high quality early years education for the children who need it most. The whole system is now being under funded and undermined. 

“They have created less than a quarter of the places they promised, excluded parents on the lowest incomes, and mismanaged the scheme so badly that many families simply can’t find a provider prepared to offer them the free hours they are supposedly entitled to. 

“Only this week Labour outlined the alternative – genuinely free, universal and high quality early years education for every 2-4 year old, with the resources needed to actually deliver it.” 

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