EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Gove
As ever, I am in awe of the hon. Member’s ability, in a very short period, to bring so many metaphors together in what one can only describe as a car crash of similes. The Government, according to him, is wearing seven veils and clown shoes while also shifting goalposts. I have to say that I would love to see that circus performance, but I suspect that I will have to wait, because the SNP conference has I think been cancelled this year.
The second thing I would like to say in response to the hon. Member is that he refers disparagingly to this deal as a “Mongolian deal”. I do not know what Mongolia has ever done to offend the people of Scotland, but we in the UK value our friendship with the people of Ulaanbaatar and others. Certainly, we do not believe that this looking down on other peoples in other nations is appropriate. It may be appropriate for the atavistic nationalism which some SNP supporters avail themselves of, but those of us who believe in the Union, believe in friendship among all nations.
On the hon. Member’s final point about working together, I absolutely agree. The devolved Administrations must work with us and we must work with them to make sure that, as we leave the European Union, the communities of all parts of the United Kingdom prosper. One of the things I do regret is that, even though I value my close working with his colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Tourism, Fergus Ewing, unfortunately, Scottish Government policy would mean that we would be back in the common fisheries policy. That would mean the people of Scotland’s coastal communities would lose out. I am sure he would not want that, and that is why I hope we can continue to work together to reap the benefits of the sea of opportunity that Brexit will bring.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I think he is right, because it was clear in the whole agreement that both sides needed to negotiate in good faith with a view to reaching an agreement. Yet it has been quite clear throughout that, for example, the refusal of those on the EU side to engage on financial services, which are 80% of our economy, but their determination to get a deal on the majority of theirs, which is trade in agri-products, is not good faith. How exactly does he intend to go forward with regard to the problems in the withdrawal agreement that will now be outstanding even if we make no trade deal?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend makes two very important points, the first of which relates to the approach that the European Union has taken. As I mentioned, even while I have been at the Dispatch Box it has been reported that there has been a constructive move on the part of the European Union, and I welcome that. Obviously we need to make sure that we work on the basis of the proposed intensification that it proposes. I prefer to look forward in optimism rather than necessarily to look back in anger. However, as he says, the difficult period that we have had over the past two weeks has been the result of some on the EU side not being as energetic as we have been in trying to reach agreement. He also makes an important point about making sure that we iron out all the difficulties in the withdrawal agreement. That is part of my role in the Joint Committee. I am grateful to him and to others for the advice they have offered as to how we should approach these difficult issues.
Covid-19 Update
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
We have had a slight change of tack, in my view, from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has hitherto been willing to support the measures that the Government are putting in place to restrict the spread of coronavirus. We now see an equivocation; he wants it both ways. He said he supported the rule of six, and then his side refused to vote for it. He said he is unwilling to support the restrictions we placed on hospitality, and he continually runs down NHS test and trace. What he will not say is what he would do or exactly how he would propose to get this virus down without those kinds of restrictions. If he supports the tier 3 measures that Merseyside city region has rightly put into place today, he should say so. He should have the guts to say to local leaders across the country that he supports those measures and that he encourages them to go into tier 3.
It is a stunning silence that we have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. We, by contrast, are working with those local leaders to put in place the measures that will protect their populations, protect the NHS, keep our economy moving and drive the virus down. That is our collective endeavour, and I strongly urge the right hon. and learned Gentleman to work out where he stands and to stop flip-flopping from one side to the next—or rather, to go back to his previous position, which was to support restrictive measures where necessary to drive the virus down.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I recognise that these are difficult times and that he has to make difficult and, I hope, balanced choices, balancing the economic damage against the need to save our fellow citizens. In all this, one positive point that has barely been referred to is that the death rate has fallen from 3% in June to 0.6% at the moment, which has to be seen as possibly part of what the Government are trying to do.
The Government’s strategy, quite legitimately, is therefore to drive down the infection rate—I understand that—while searching for a vaccine, so I simply want to raise a point that others including the scientific advisers have raised. There is a lot of talk at the moment about the two antivirals that have now arrived, remdesivir and ivermectin. Given the Government’s objective of driving down the infection rate, and given that the average age of death at the moment is 82.4, should we not make those antivirals much more widely available at the earliest opportunity, through GPs and every other doctor, in order to get them to people to reduce the likelihood of their going into hospital and dying?
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just try to help everybody? We need short, punchy answers and questions, as that will help us to get through everybody on the list.
European Union: Future Relationship
Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his clear statement, and on his view that since the standards we set are higher than those in the EU, he will therefore not be demanding that the EU aligns with our standards as we go forward. That is refreshing. The settlement on Northern Ireland in the withdrawal agreement included provision on state aid, and since then, the EU has interpreted that as bringing the whole UK under state aid provisions. Will he confirm that in any future agreement with the EU, we will not accept that the UK leaves itself under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice when it comes to state aid provision?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course we must respect the integrity of that protocol, but it is not the case that the CJEU should be governing the application of state aid in the way that some have envisaged, which would be quite wrong.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
Iain Duncan Smith ExcerptsFriday 20th December 2019
(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Fox
My hon. Friend puts his finger on the most important point. We will face not a technical issue, but a political issue. Indeed, the political declaration sets out that we will have no tariffs, no fees and no quotas in the economic relationship. That is what normally takes up the time in trading agreements, so it is entirely possible that this agreement can be done. The debate we will embark on is not about tariffs, fees and quotas, but regulatory alignment. That will be the central debate in our negotiations with the European Union.
We need to see the issue in a wider global context. At the World Trade Organisation meeting in Buenos Aires, it became clear that there are two ways forward in the global trading system. One is the concept of harmonisation —a highly legalistic regulatory means of doing business, which says, “This is the way we do it today, so this is the way we will always do it in the future.” Against that, there is the wider concept of outcome-based equivalence, which says, “Yes, we know what standards we need to meet, but we want to find our own ways, our own rules and our own efficiencies in achieving them.” The EU is now in a real minority, as it is virtually only the EU that takes the route of harmonisation.
There are those in the forthcoming negotiations who will say that, to have access to the single market, Britain must accept dynamic alignment—in other words, we must automatically change our rules in line with the EU. The Prime Minister will have 100% support from the Conservative party if he rules out any concept of dynamic alignment, which would leave Britain in a worse place in terms of taking back control than we are in as a member of the European Union.
The debate we are embarking on is about a clear choice. At no point in the European debate was there the option of maintaining the status quo: we either had to embark on our own course, controlling our own borders, our funds and our future; or we remained tied to an economic and political model of the European Union that is utterly dependent on ever-closer union. I have never believed that ever-closer union is in Britain’s national interests, and if the bus has the wrong destination on the front, the best thing to do is to get off, which was what the British people decided to do.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I agree with my right hon. Friend. Does he recall that the Leader of the Opposition spent his time sneering at the standards in the United States—a democratic and advanced economy? However, if we look at its standards on campylobacter infection and salmonella, it has fewer deaths per capita than the UK or the European Union. It gets there by different methods, and it gets there better than we do, so we should stop sneering.
Dr Fox
I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not take too much notice of the anti-wealth, anti-American, anti-trade, tired old leftie rhetoric we get from the soon-to-be-forgotten Leader of the Opposition.
The debate before us is clear. The Prime Minister is leading Britain in a direction that will produce a confident, outward-looking country. For many of us, we were leaving the European Union not because it was foreign, but because, in an era of globalisation, it was not foreign enough—it spent too much time gazing at its own navel and worrying about political integration. We are embarked on an historic and correct course for our nation.
I return to where I began: the question of trust. In the spirit of the season, let me say that I hope that even Hugh Grant will watch our seasonal offering this year—“Democracy Actually”.