14:47 Hilary Benn (Labour)

The first of the facts is the fact of our membership of the European Union, and what it has brought. It has brought jobs, growth and investment. It has brought rights for workers and consumers that are guaranteed from John O’Groats to the tip of the Peloponnese, and from Lisbon to Riga. It has brought paid holidays, improved maternity and paternity leave, limits on working times, and a fairer deal for agency and temporary workers: all those are protected by the EU. It has brought environmental protection and progress, from cleaner air to cleaner beaches, and from better safeguarding of our most precious habitats to tackling dangerous climate change. Europe has acted together to make a difference. As the Foreign Secretary said, we have access to the largest single market in the world, to which we sell 44% of our exports, and indeed, through our membership, we have trade deals with 53 other countries’ markets. That shows how Europe’s collective negotiating strength achieves stronger trade with the rest of the world than we could hope to achieve alone.

When it comes to domestic security, whether we face the threat of terrorism or organised crime, we are made safer by working with our allies, sharing information and bringing criminals to justice through the European arrest warrant. In relation to national security and dealing with climate change, Europe has shown great leadership. The Iran nuclear deal was led by the European Union. As for standing up to Russian aggression in Ukraine, the sanctions to which the Foreign Secretary referred are clearly biting on the Russian economy. I am sure that the whole House will support what he said earlier about the renewal of those sanctions in July, until such time as the Minsk agreement is fully observed by Russia.

As the United Kingdom, we have always been at our best when we have been an outward-looking and confident nation. We helped to build the institutions that have given the world the best chance to make progress: the United Nations, NATO, and of course the European Union, where we were latecomers. Let us look at the challenges that our children and grandchildren will face: fighting climate change; reducing poverty; dealing with conflict—people fighting over religion, as we see currently, and over water, land and energy—the rise of the politics of the right; and dealing with the consequences of large numbers of people moving around the globe. Mark my words: that will be the story of this century. The question we have to ask ourselves is: what will give us the best chance to manage those challenges and deal with the changes they will see in their lives, just as we have seen in ours?

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18:28 Rachael Maskell (Labour)

What are the issues that we should be debating this week? Climate change, population expansion, 60 million people on the move on our planet, disease, famine, humanitarian disaster, instability and conflict. There was not a whisper of any of these issues in the Queen’s Speech, yet right across our country there is a deafening chorus crying out for a response and leadership on these very issues. Even worse, we see the Brexiteers wanting to take us into the wilderness, without being able to articulate where we are heading, how we are going to engage with nations, how we are going to trade, how we are going to protect jobs and provide for our future security, or how we are going to address climate change and find the solutions to the issues facing the populations under so much threat. That why our membership of the EU is so crucial.

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