Theresa May fails to satisfy Labour MPs on workers' rights after Brexit – as it happened

Here are the main points from Theresa May’s Commons statement.

• Theresa May repeatedly told MPs that she does not intended to water down workers’ rights after Brexit, but failed to satisfy opposition MPs that the working time directive is safe. Their questions were triggered by reports in the Sunday Times and the Sun on Sunday saying some Tories want to tear up the working time directive after Brexit. May responded to the many questions with similar answers, just stressing her commitment to workers’ rights in general terms. For example, when Labour’s Chuka Umunna asked her to “guarantee that post Brexit none of the working time regulations, importantly the 48-hour working week, will be done away with by her government”, she replied:

Under the EU withdrawal bill we are bringing these rights into UK law. I have said that we will maintain workers’ rights, and indeed enhance workers’ rights.

Later Umunna and other MPs said they were not satisfied by the assurances they had had. (See 4.46pm.) Their doubts are heightened by the claim in the Sun on Sunday that getting rid of EU rules on maximum working hours would enhance rights, not undermine them.

• Some Tory Brexiters expressed doubts about May’s negotiation. The strongest criticism came from Jacob Rees-Mogg and Peter Bone. Rees-Mogg attacked the EU’s new negotiating guidelines, saying paragraph 4, saying the UK would continue to bound by EU law during the transition, “would make the United Kingdom in the transition phase no more than a vassal state, a colony, a serf of the European Union”. Rees-Mogg urged May to copy Margaret Thatcher and “show mettle and steel in rejecting these rather hostile negotiating terms from the European Union”. Bone said the UK should refuse to pay the £39bn offered to the EU. The government has agreed to pay the £39bn, and does accept that it will be bound by EU law during the transition, but May managed to gloss over these points in her replies, and it did not feel as if Rees-Mogg and Bone were escalating hostilities. Other Tory MPs demanded assurances that Brexit would actually happen on 29 March 2019 and that the EU payments would be conditional on a final deal being negotiated. (They will be, but the relevant final deal will be the withdrawal deal - not the trade deal, which will come later.) For all the reservations, generally May’s MPs were supportive.

• May condemned the abuse of MPs for their stance on Brexit - but refused repeated invitations to criticise the Daily Mail in particular for its coverage of the Tory rebels who voted against the government on Wednesday. In her opening statement May said:

We are dealing with questions of great significance to our country’s future, so it is natural that there are many strongly held views on all sides of this Chamber.

And it is right and proper that we should debate them - and do so with all the passion and conviction that makes our democracy what it is.

But there can never be a place for the threats of violence and intimidation against some members that we have seen in recent days.

Jeremy Corbyn accused the Mail of “whipping up hatred” against the rebel Tory MPs. He and other Labour MPs challenged May to condemn the Mail, but she dodged these questions.

• May claimed the UK would be outside the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy after Brexit. Asked about these programmes, she said:

We will be leaving the European Union on March 29 2019, we will therefore be leaving the common fisheries policy and the common agricultural policy at that date.

The relationship we have on both those issues continuing through the implementation period with the European Union will be part of the negotiation of that period which will start very soon.

But, given that May also says the UK will be leaving the single market and the customs union during the transition despite the fact that for all practical purposes it will be staying in both, May’s comment is probably more of a linguistic tic than a statement of policy.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Here is the full text of Theresa May’s statement to MPs.

Theresa May has now finished her statement. I will post a summary soon.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has written an article for the Guardian about Brexit and workers’ rights. She says that, if the UK goes for a Canada-style, rights would be at risk.

Here is the article.

And here is an extract.

During the referendum campaign, Vote Leave promised Britain’s workers that their rights from the EU would be safe after Brexit. In the year and a half since, the prime minister has repeatedly stressed her desire to “protect and extend” workers’ rights – including in the Conservative manifesto.

So Theresa May’s promise is now being put to the test. Will she keep her word? Or is she a hostage to the hard Brexiteers in her cabinet?

That’s why I’m so concerned by the prospect of a Brexit deal modelled on the Ceta deal between the EU and Canada. David Davis has called Ceta “the perfect starting point” for trade talks. But Ceta puts the rights of corporations and foreign investors ahead of those of working people.

Worse still, nowhere does Ceta contain any workplace protections to stop countries engaging in a race to the bottom. If we do a Ceta-style deal, we’ll constantly be fighting a rearguard action to protect our rights at work.

For an alternative view, it is worth looking at how the Sun on Sunday reported the claim that ministers want to tear up the working time directive after Brexit. It’s a classic of its kind. The Sun ran the story under a headline saying: SHACKLES COME OFF - British workers set for post-Brexit overtime boom as ministers plot to scrap EU limits.

And here is how the story started.

British workers are set for an overtime bonanza after Brexit, it was revealed last night.

Ministers want to scrap EU laws which limit the working week to 48 hours — costing the average family £1,200 in lost pay.

The move would also be a boost to industry which loses billions of pounds bringing in agency staff to plug the gap.

Labour’s Stephen Timms asks if the reference to “full alignment” in the deal would apply just to Northern Ireland, or to the UK as a whole.

May says the “full alignment” provisions will only come in if other mechanisms to avoid a hard border don’t work. And she says the relevant clause makes it clear that this could be Northern Ireland only, if the Northern Ireland executive agrees, or it could be UK wide.

Here is Labour’s Chuka Umunna on what May has been saying about workers’ rights after Brexit.

The Times’s sketchwriter Patrick Kidd is not impressed by the session so far.

Labour’s Paula Sheriff asks May to accept that MPs from all sides of the Commons have been victims of abuse. It is not just Tory MPs who are victims, as May implied earlier.

May says no MP should have to put up with intimidation.

Labour’s Wes Streeting asks May to give an assurance that there will be no attempt to water down the working time directive rights, including maximum working hours, after Brexit.

May says those rights will be incorporated into UK law.

Labour’s Rachael Maskell asks, again, if there will be no watering down of these rights, and the ECJ judgments affecting them.

May says those rights are being brought into UK law. This government is committed to protecting and enhancing workers’ rights, she says.

Philip Hollobone, a Tory Brexiter, asks if the reciprocal rights for Britons living in EU countries will only apply to the countries where they live now, or whether they will apply if they want to move across the whole of the EU.

May says there will be further discussions on this in phase two.

Martin Vickers, a Conservative, asks if the UK will be able to control migration numbers during the transition.

May says EU citizens will be able to come to the UK during this period. But there will be registration measures in place, ahead of the UK taking full control after the transition period.

Here is HuffPost’s Ned Simons on what May is saying about workers’ rights.

Labour’s Pat McFadden says service industries are the “dog that hasn’t barked” in this story. Does May accept that services will have to have the same access to the single market after Brexit?

May says she wants an agreement that is right for goods and services.

Labour’s Stephen Kinnock asks May to confirm that the jurisdiction of the European court of justice will continue to apply during the transition.

May says it will at the start. But if it is possible to bring in a new dispute resolution period halfway through, the government will do that.

Here is the start of the Press Association story about May’s statement.

Jeremy Corbyn has urged Theresa May to “face down” cabinet ministers who want to scrap EU regulations which limit the working week.

The Labour leader asked the prime minister to “categorically” offer assurances over her intent to maintain the standards of the Working Time Directive during any transition period and beyond.

May, replying after updating MPs about the latest European Council summit, reiterated the government intends to “enhance” workers’ rights.

Reports emerged over the weekend which suggested Brexit-backing ministers could demand an end to the regulations which limit the working week to 48 hours.

Corbyn described the reports as “worrying”, adding: “These demands were reported to include that Britain should leave the working time directive.”

Labour MPs could be heard shouting “Shame”, with Mr Corbyn adding: “Can the prime minister state now, categorically, that she will face down this push with some in her cabinet and that Britain will maintain the standards of the working time directive both during a transition period and beyond?

“Will she also guarantee this government will not seek to use Brexit to water down any other working or social rights in this country?”

May, in her reply, said she had confirmed on several occasions the UK government’s intention to “not only maintain but also enhance workers’ rights”.

She said: “If he is so worried about workers’ rights, why did the Labour party vote against the very bill that brings workers’ rights from the EU into UK law?”

Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke earlier also said the government was committed to protecting employment rights.

He was challenged at work and pensions questions in the Commons by SNP MP Neil Gray, the party’s social justice spokesman, who asked Gauke “what representations he has made at cabinet to ensure his Brexiteer colleagues are not successful in ripping up our workers’ rights”.

Gauke replied: “I think it’s the case that [environment secretary Michael Gove] said, don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.

“This government is committed to protecting employment rights.”

Labour’s Mike Gapes asks May to confirm that the transition phase for Gibraltar will be the same as for the rest of the UK.

May says Gibraltar will be included in what is negotiated.

Labour’s Ann Clwyd asks why May has refused an invitation to address the European parliament.

May says she is discussing with the parliament the “interaction” she will have with it.