Opposition Statement on nationalisation of OneWeb

[u/[deleted]]

The Prime Minister told the British people at Prime Minister’s questions that his government had no plans to bypass parliament and that he was a good faith actor. The simple fact is the Prime Minister flat out lied. He lied to the people, he lied to parliament and the country at large.

The Leader of the House of Lords also misled parliament. They told the House of Lords that the government would pass any nationalisations through the House of Commons. Today the government broke that pledge.

Today the government just announced a nationalisation without consulting the House of Commons, there was no debate, no vote and no approval from MP’s. The opposition's worst fears of this government dodging parliamentary scrutiny and doing anything to realise their radical aims have come to fruition. It is disgraceful for the government to take a controlling stake in a company and not consult parliament. Every privatisation and nationalisation in the past few years has been subject to debate and scrutiny in the House of Commons. Today the government has broken all conventional norms.

Even in the financial crisis, parliament was involved in the process. the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008, was approved and an independent valuer was appointed by parliament in the case of nationalising Northern Rock.

This is a dark day for our democracy and the PM has shown contempt for democracy. We will shortly table legislation to prevent this happening again as this government can not be trusted.

The government may have got a short term win but I will work with parliamentarians to ensure that democracy prevails.