I start by picking up on a couple of points made by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). He referred to apprenticeship cuts, and I think issues about apprenticeships and training drove many people in the north, for instance, to vote for Brexit. The fact that the Government are now cutting apprenticeships funding will exacerbate the problem.
The right hon. Gentleman also referred to legislation. I wonder whether he would like to speculate on whether, in practice, when Ministers are presented with the opportunity to delete, I think, 7,000 pieces of EU-related legislation, they will actually want to do that in preference to promoting whatever the key project within their Department is, whether that is reforming the health service or education reforms. I suspect that the legislation is going to sit there for a very long time, because Ministers will have no interest whatsoever in getting rid of it.
To come to the subject—I am sure you will not allow me to deviate for much longer, Mr Gray—I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on focusing exclusively on the subject of the petition. I will do so perhaps slightly more loosely than him, but I will focus on the issue of the second referendum.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a strong case for a debate about what could happen in for future referendums if there is not a strong majority for constitutional change or a significant turnout. We could look at that matter again. The issue before us today, however, is whether there should be a second referendum following the one that has just taken place. My starting point is that there should not be a second referendum simply for the purpose of overturning that referendum, notwithstanding the fact that, I am afraid, I think the leave campaign lied blatantly throughout the campaign. I accept that the remain campaign perhaps also over-egged the pudding with some claims that were made, but the leave campaign lied particularly on the issue of the NHS, with the pledge of £350 million per week for the NHS when we left the European Union. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health about that and got a response from the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), who said:
“Firstly, neither the Department nor its Ministers were involved in making or endorsing the statement that additional funding would go towards the NHS if the UK were to leave the EU.”
So if anyone was in any doubt, the Department of Health has made it clear that it is not expecting to get any more money as a result of our departure from the EU.