Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

We are talking closely with the Welsh farming community, as are Members on both sides of the House. The Prime Minister was at the Royal Welsh Show last year as part of that engagement. The hon. Gentleman will know that the National Farmers Union in Wales, and indeed across the United Kingdom, has made it clear that the best way of supporting farmers is by backing the deal.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister has promised that her discussions with the devolved nations and the Opposition parties will be without preconditions, so clearly she will not refuse even to discuss the prospect of extending article 50, because that would be a precondition; she will not refuse even to discuss the prospect of taking no deal off the table, because that would be a precondition; and she will not refuse even to discuss the possibility of giving the people another say, because that would be a precondition. Can the Secretary of State therefore confirm on the record that all those topics will be available for discussion, in honour of the Prime Minister’s promise that there will be no preconditions?

[Stephen Barclay]

The Prime Minister was clear in her statement to the House on Monday that there are no preconditions. That is why she is engaging not just with the devolved Administrations; today I will be joining her for meetings with trade union leaders as part of that engagement. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the extension of article 50 is not a unilateral decision—it requires the consent of the other 27 member states. However, the main issue, and in fact, probably the only precondition that one could apply, is the fact that we need to honour the referendum result, and that is what the Prime Minister is committed to doing.

[Peter Grant]

The Prime Minister was very clear in her statement to the House that there were no preconditions. She has been equally clear in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) that there are preconditions. The Secretary of State, and indeed the Prime Minister, will be becoming only too well aware that within probably a fairly short time the UK Government will be bombarding Scotland with promises about how much they love us, how equal a partner we are, and how much they want us to stay. Can I suggest to the Secretary of State that if he expects the people of Scotland to be conned by those false promises again in 2019, he should at the very least make sure that his Prime Minister stops breaking the promises she made to the people of Scotland last week?

[Stephen Barclay]

Let me just say very gently to the hon. Gentleman that the con is to have a referendum and then say that one will not honour the result. We had a referendum on independence in Scotland. The Scottish people spoke very clearly in that. I suspect that one of the reasons for that was that the trading relationship within the United Kingdom is the most economically beneficial to them. Having taken that decision, the next referendum was on a UK-wide basis, and it needs to be respected on that basis.

EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister changed her policy on whether we should leave the European Union. She changed her policy on no deal being better than a bad deal. She changed her policy on this being the best possible deal when she went off to try to get a better one. Is the Secretary of State here instead of the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister has finally realised what we all realised a long time ago, which is that she has lost the plot, that she is no longer in control of these negotiations and that she should be packing her bags and going?

[Stephen Barclay]

The reality is that the Prime Minister was committed to respecting the referendum result, and that is what she has done. She set out a manifesto commitment to honour the referendum result, and that is what she has done. She has been consistent in both.

Leaving the EU: No Deal

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

rose—

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will give way in a second. The reason for saying, “Would she google?” was that the French Assembly passed a law on the Monday before. There is a host of issues. The hon. Lady can look up what they are going to do to mitigate the problems with flow, but equally the Government have a host of mitigation solutions for this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) on securing this emergency debate, and we are grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing it at such short notice. This is another instance of the parliamentarians of these four nations having the opportunity to debate what is by far the most serious and urgent matter affecting all of our constituents today, yet we debate it not with the support of the Government, but in spite of the Government; not a single Government Back Bencher stood in support of the application earlier.

For more than two years, the Government did next to nothing to plan for a no-deal Brexit, despite constantly telling us that no deal was better than a bad deal. Now, when everybody bar the Prime Minister realises that she has brought back a bad deal, we are suddenly being told that this bad deal is better than no deal after all. Practically the only positive thing that can be said about the Prime Minister’s deal is that it is not quite as bad as no deal. The Government are spending a fortune on a massive propaganda campaign to try to get businesses and constituents to put pressure on us to support the deal. They are touring all around the British Isles—the Prime Minister did not go to Glasgow, but she went to Renfrewshire for 20 minutes—but they are not doing this to talk up the benefits of the Prime Minister’s deal, because that would not take very long at all, would it? They are doing it talk up the likelihood of no deal. They are quite deliberately setting out to scare businesses and institutions, in the knowledge that that will encourage them to put pressure on us.

I can give the House an example of how transparent this is. A few weeks ago, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland arranged for a number of businesses and other bodies from Northern Ireland to come over here for a day, and she invited us all to go and speak to them about their concerns over a no-deal Brexit. They were there at the invitation of the Government to talk us out of no deal. I did not have time to speak to them all, but I asked many organisations from Northern Ireland, “If you could have any result you wanted from these negotiations, what would it be?” Every single one of them said, “Don’t do Brexit.” So when the Prime Minister and the Minister insist that the only way to stop no deal is to support the Prime Minister’s deal, I say no it is not. We can stop Brexit altogether. If we do that, the question of no deal and a bad deal can at the very least be put back to the next time the public get the choice to make that decision. Why have the Government suddenly started to put out so much publicity about the harmful impacts of no deal? The consequences of no deal have not changed. They were there for us all to see on the day after the referendum. Let us face it, they were there for all to see on the day before the referendum as well.

I commend the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), for securing this debate, and I earnestly hope that we can work together, along with a number of Government Members and with other parties here, to try to stop this madness altogether, but we cannot forget that the position we are now in was entirely foreseeable when Parliament gave the Prime Minister unconditional authorisation to trigger article 50. Disastrous failing has undoubtedly followed disastrous failing on the part of Her Majesty’s Government at every stage in the process, but there has also been a disastrous failing on the part of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. When they needed to oppose, they singularly failed to do so—with, I stress, some honourable exceptions.

I do not propose to spend much time on a line-by-line analysis of the £4 billion that has already been taken away from our health service, our police, our local authorities and other essential services to pay for the Government’s incompetence, because, although that is an eye-watering sum in anyone’s book, it is peanuts compared with the true cost of a no-deal Brexit, or indeed any kind of Brexit at all. I just want to draw attention to one line of that departmental allocation. It is not the biggest sum, by any stretch of the imagination, at less than 0.5% of the total, but to me it is the one that should warn us not to go anywhere near a no-deal Brexit in any circumstances. We know that £16 million extra has been allocated to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I hope that no one in this Chamber can avoid a shudder at hearing that. A no-deal Brexit means that we need an additional £16 million for the Police Service of Northern Ireland. What do the Government think it is for? I can tell the House that it is not for extra traffic wardens.

I am astonished that we should ever need to remind anyone of what is at stake in Northern Ireland if we leave without a deal that secures the permanent status of the peace process, yet only two days ago, the Democratic Unionist party spokesperson on Brexit, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), asked the Prime Minister:

“Would it not be far better to walk away now with £39 billion in her pocket and with her hands free”?—[Official Report, 17 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 548.]

No, it would not. The vast majority of the people in Northern Ireland are saying just now, “Do not walk away with no deal in any circumstances whatsoever.” The price that Northern Ireland would have to pay for a no-deal Brexit cannot be measured in sums of money, but if it could, it would be well in excess of £4 billion.

The Government’s motivation for suddenly turning up the heat on no deal is as transparent as it is manipulative. They know that they cannot get a majority in Parliament for the Prime Minister’s deal. Instead of accepting that and seeking to build a consensus that could get parliamentary support, which incidentally is something the Prime Minister of a minority Government should have been doing from day one, at the last minute the Government are seeking to coerce Parliament—some people might go as far as to say that they are seeking to blackmail Parliament—into voting for the Prime Minister’s deal by making no deal the only other option.

The Prime Minister still insists that no deal is the only alternative, but that is not true, and we know from her own words that it is not true. She has tried the usual negotiating tactics. For example, when someone negotiates with two different sets of people in different directions, they put them in separate rooms and give the first set a scare story to persuade them to move towards them, and then they give the second set a scare story to persuade them to do the same. However, the Prime Minister made the mistake of telling everyone the same scare story at the same time. In the Chamber, when everyone was here, she warned the no-Brexit brigade in her own party, “If you don’t vote for this deal, there will be no deal.” Then she warned the no-deal brigade, “If you don’t vote for this deal, there will be no Brexit.”

The Prime Minister has put three options on the table. When we come to a meaningful vote, whether in this place or whether the public get a say, the third option of not leaving must be put back on the table. If she thought for one second that her deal would get more support in this House, or among the citizens of these four nations, than not leaving at all, she would be the first to put that question to a vote. The reason she will not ask the people again about Brexit is that she knows what the answer would be.

There have always been other options, but the Prime Minister has been too blinkered and dogmatic to recognise that they existed. Compromises were available. Some were offered two years ago by the Scottish Government, but she paid so little attention that I think she has forgotten they even existed. She must have forgotten that they existed, because when she came here to present her deal and said, “Nobody has ever put forward an alternative option,” she of course spoke in good faith—because everybody who speaks in Parliament does so in good faith. The only explanation must be that this document, presented to her by the national Government of one of our four nations, meant so little to her that she forgot it even existed.

[Dr Whitford]

Was not the Prime Minister’s fatal mistake to have painted herself into a corner with red lines before doing the first impact assessment, because otherwise she could have looked at what the best alternative was?

[Peter Grant]

I accept that is one of the disastrous mistakes the Prime Minister has made. We must remember that over the past few weeks, while the Government kept telling us, “But everyone in Europe has said that this is the only deal possible,” what they said was, “This is the only deal possible, given the firm negotiating stance that the United Kingdom has set.” That has been made perfectly clear, and I have no doubt that the Government have been told that by their contacts in Europe as well. Had the Prime Minister not painted herself into a corner with the stupid and unnecessary red lines, she would now have a much more workable deal that might well have got the acceptance if not the support of a significantly greater number of Members of this House.

One of the many examples of the almost despotic arrogance that we have seen from the Prime Minister is the fact that she, and she alone, appears to know exactly what was in the minds of the 17.5 million people when they put their mark against “Leave” on the ballot paper. None of us can know that for certain. I would never have the arrogance to say that I know what was in someone else’s mind, which is why I never call into question the motivations or integrity of those who happened to vote a different way from me. None of us can know for certain, but does anyone seriously believe that even a tiny fraction of those 17.5 million people voted for lower living standards, for food shortages, for the possibility that patient safety, and even patients’ lives, will be put at risk as a result of difficulties in getting essential medical supplies to them, for the possibility of troops on the streets to quell violent civil disorder, or for the likelihood of God only knows what for the future of Northern Ireland? I do not know what those 17.5 million people voted for, but I would be astonished if anything more than a tiny fraction voted for that kind of nightmare scenario, all of which is taken either from official Government statements or from unofficial and unattributable Government briefings.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I have said that again and again. Some 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union. As we know from Government Members, within that leave vote people are split. So can the Government tell us—I would be interested in the hon. Gentleman’s views—how many of those 17.4 million people voted to leave without a deal and how many voted for the deal that the Prime Minister has brought back? Taken together, when we consider the split in the leave vote, the majority of people are actually for staying in the European Union, which is why we need a people’s vote.

[Peter Grant]

The referendum was a choice between one very definite answer on one side and an infinite number of possibilities on the other. One of my hon. Friends said at the time, “We know people have voted to leave, but we have no idea where they have voted to go.” The Prime Minister quickly shut down that discussion by defining what people had decided to do, and then she has the cheek to tell us that we are somehow being anti-democratic if we think perhaps the 17.5 million people voted for something else.

[Deidre Brock]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the first EU referendum was won on a tissue of lies, undeliverable promises and illegalities and that we should undo the rough wooing of the Brexit referendum and rededicate the decision to the people?

[Peter Grant]

There is no doubt at all that the EU referendum, as well as having the biggest participation of UK citizens in any democratic test, was also the most corrupt and most dishonest there has ever been and, I sincerely hope, we will ever see. Revelations are still coming out, even today, about the illegalities, some of which I suspect will never be brought to account. The penalties imposed on those who corrupt the democratic process are puny compared with what happens to a person who is found to have attempted to corrupt the full course of justice, so there is clearly a question that has to be addressed in future legislation.

We know that the calamitous effects of no deal are not what the majority of leave voters voted for.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

Not just now.

It is not what they were promised either in the Government’s information or by the leave campaign. It is not what they voted for, and I believe it is the absolute duty of this Parliament and of this Government to make sure it is not what they get. It would be an unpardonable dereliction of duty for the Government, or anyone else, deliberately to use the procedures of this House in such a way as to maximise the danger of the worst possible outcome, the least-favoured outcome, simply because it is the only conceivable way to deliver an outcome that the Prime Minister has decided she wants but which practically nobody else in this Parliament wants.

In the past few days, as was mentioned earlier, a number of Conservative MPs have said publicly that they are likely to resign the party Whip if it looks as though the Prime Minister is herding us towards a no-deal Brexit. I would not want to see anyone put in that position.

I have respect for a number of Conservative MPs—for most Conservative MPs, in fact—even though I disagree with them, and I do not think any of them will hand back their party card easily or with a light heart, but think about it. It would not need many more Tory MPs to do that before suddenly, even with the Democratic Unionist party, the Government no longer have a working majority. There is already a motion of no confidence in the Government on the Order Paper, and it would take only one signature on that motion, and a few more people in the Conservative party to decide to put the countries of this Union before narrow party advantage, and suddenly the entire Government, not just the Prime Minister, would find that their jaikets were on the shoogliest of shoogly nails. That might be what concentrates minds, which would be welcome, but what does it say about the state of British politics when hundreds of thousands of other people’s jobs can be sacrificed by the Cabinet for an ideologically driven hard Brexit but a threat to their own jobs suddenly makes them sit up and take notice?

Ultimately, whatever voting procedure the Government decide to use whenever, if ever, we get to that vote, Parliament will be faced with a choice between two final options, and no deal cannot be one of them. Think about what happens in, to take a random example, a Conservative party leadership election. I understand that quite a few Conservative Members had reason to check the rules recently. If there are more than two candidates, they go through a series of eliminations, with the least supported candidate dropping off at the end of each round and the election finishing with a run-off between the two most supported candidates.

If that process is good enough to pick a temporary, sometimes extremely temporary, leader of the Conservative party, why cannot we do it for the most important peacetime decision these islands have ever taken? If we did that, no deal would be off the table before we started, which would ease a lot of the concerns that the Government are now quite deliberately fuelling.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman then confirm his support for my European Union (Revocation of Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which I presented yesterday? The Bill would basically rule out no deal, and unless a deal is agreed in a public vote, we would stay in the EU.

[Peter Grant]

I think the hon. Gentleman knows the answer to that question, because I have co-sponsored his Bill, although if I had realised that that meant I was expected to be here to speak on his Bill on Burns Day next year, I might have thought other about it.

I do not think it is acceptable, and it will be forever held up as a mark of shame on this entire Parliament, that it is left to Opposition Back Benchers to try to use procedural methods to force the Government to allow Parliament to give the decision that Parliament wants to give, rather than trying to force Parliament to give a decision that we really do not want to give in preference to a decision that we really, really do not want to give. When it comes to a decision, by whatever process, it is not acceptable, it is anti-democratic and, in terms of sovereignty of the people of Scotland and the rights of the people of Northern Ireland, it is unconstitutional to force us into a situation where no deal is one of only two deals left on the table. No deal can be ruled out and should be ruled out. For all the parroting of this and other Ministers, it is not up to Parliament to take no deal off the table by accepting an unacceptable deal. It is up to the Government to take it off the table right now by saying that no matter what happens, they will not impose it on us and on everybody else.

When it comes to a final decision, the two options available to us have to be the ones most likely to be accepted by as many MPs as possible, even if they are not supported by as many MPs as possible. I will not support anything that takes us out of the EU, but I might be willing, reluctantly, to accept something that is less disastrous than what we are faced with just now. The final choice cannot be between the Prime Minister’s deal and no deal. The combined Parliament of our four nations and the citizens of our four nations must be given a choice, and that choice, if it is to be a fair choice, can only be between the Prime Minister’s Brexit and no Brexit.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree entirely. Let us not forget that this will impact on people’s lives and citizens’ rights—the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the European Union. What will happen to the European arrest warrant? What will happen to our entire security apparatus across the EU? It is not just about trade and the WTO; it is much bigger than that.

I have been deeply impressed by the professionalism and dedication of every one of those who have come in to speak to the Select Committee to give evidence. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are engaged in a charade. Let us take the state of preparedness at our ports. Jon Thompson, the head of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, told us that his French counterparts have categorically refused to engage in bilateral discussions about how to plan for a no-deal exit, because bilateral contacts are not permitted under the terms of article 50. We can continue, should we wish to do so, to allow in goods from the EU at Dover without checks on 30 March, but we have absolutely no idea what the French are going to do at Calais in the event of no deal.

On our customs processes, Mr Thompson told us that there are 145,000 businesses across the UK who currently import or export their goods solely within the EU. Thanks to our membership of the customs union, not one of those businesses ever has to complete a customs declaration form because all the checks are done at the point of departure—that is, at the relevant factories, warehouses and farms. If we exit without a deal, every one of those businesses that wishes to continue trading with the EU will need to know how to complete a range of complex customs declarations. According to Mr Thompson, however, to date only 2% of the 145,000 have contacted the HMRC to seek guidance on what they should do in the event of no deal.

On health, Sir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, told us that there is no clarity on reciprocal healthcare arrangements for UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK. This will end in the event of no deal. A British tourist in Paris needing medical treatment is currently entitled to full access to the French public healthcare system, but as of 30 March 2019 he or she may be required to hold a private insurance policy.

On legislation, Jill Rutter, director of the Institute for Government, told us that, in order to ensure that UK law is operable on 30 March 2019 in the event of no deal, a mountain of primary and secondary legislation would have to be passed. The Government have so far managed to pass six of the 13 currently announced Brexit Bills. Without a deal, they will need the Trade Bill to complete its passage through Parliament, along with other key Bills in areas such as agriculture and fisheries, as well as legislation to secure EU citizens’ rights. And then there is the mountain of secondary legislation, with between 800 and 1,000 statutory instruments having to be passed by 29 March. Even if MPs were to start working on all this primary and secondary legislation now, it would be a herculean task but, as we are not even going to have the vote until the 15 or 16 January, there is no sign at all of this being able to be brought forward. We are in the realm of the impossible.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman fear there is a significant risk that, just as the Government are trying to put unacceptable pressure on Parliament to accept a bad deal by holding up the threat of no deal, so, as these major and often contentious pieces of legislation come through, Parliament will be put under intense pressure to agree bad legislation without proper scrutiny just because we have to get something on the statute book in time?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is a steamroller. The tactics and strategy are based on steamrollering, bullying, blackmail and holding a gun to Parliament’s head. The purpose of this debate is to show that Parliament will not have it. We will not be bullied. We will not be presented with a false choice. We will not be blackmailed in the way the Government are attempting. It is a constitutional and democratic outrage.

Secondly, we have no idea how the EU27 would react to a no-deal exit, but draft legislation recently tabled by the French Government contains this sentence:

“In case of withdrawal of the UK from the EU without agreement, British nationals and their family members currently residing in France would be staying illegally”.

This leaves little room for doubt as to the mindset of member states’ Governments or the profound challenges that would be created for the British Government and for British citizens and businesses.

Thirdly, but not least, it is absolutely clear that there is no parliamentary majority for no deal. It is equally clear that it is impossible that the Government could consider a no-deal exit without the support of Parliament for such a course of action. The conclusion is, therefore, that a no-deal Brexit is simply not on the cards, and a responsible Government would be making that statement clearly today.

As no deal is not going to happen, and given that the Prime Minister’s deal is dead in the water, it is finally becoming clear, I hope, that there is an option that can bring Parliament together and get us through this difficult time. It is an option I have been talking about for two years now—many of my hon. Friends and colleagues from across the House will be sick to death of me banging this drum, but I will continue to do so. An EFTA-EEA-based Brexit combined with a customs union—otherwise known as the Norway-plus option—is the only option that resolves the Irish border issue and protects the jobs and livelihoods of the people we were elected to represent. It is the only option that I believe can command a cross-party parliamentary majority and which has a hope of reuniting our deeply divided country.

It is vital that Parliament hold its nerve. This is not a choice between the Prime Minister’s deal and no deal, because no deal is simply not going to happen; this is a choice between the Prime Minister’s deal and the right deal; it is a choice between caving in to the Prime Minister’s empty threats and scaremongering and standing up for the interests of our constituents; it is a choice between capitulating to a bully and asserting our sovereignty. I am confident that when the time comes Parliament will step up and do what is right for the country.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is always a delight to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr). I can reveal that his speeches are watched with great excitement in SNP headquarters, where the single question is: how many more phone lines will we have to open for people wanting to join the SNP?

Looking back to April 2017, immediately after article 50 was triggered, we knew that for two years nothing very much would change, but nobody really knew what would happen after that—that depended on the outcome of the negotiations. In December 2018, we know that during a two-year implementation period nothing much is going to change, but nobody has any idea what will happen after that. So after two or two and a half years of the greatest efforts by the brightest buttons in the Tory box, we are no further forward than we were in April 2017. All they have done is bring back and order us—not ask us, but order us—to support a deal, every single aspect of which is immeasurably worse than the deal that we already have and the deal that our nation overwhelmingly voted to retain.

Yesterday, without a hint of irony, the Prime Minister warned about damaging the integrity of our democracy. This from a Prime Minister who broke her promise not to call a snap election and broke her promise to give Parliament a vote last week, and from a party that allowed two self-confessed gross misconduct MPs back in just to let them vote in a leadership contest and a Government who are the first in history to be in contempt of Parliament. If the Government are worried about a loss of trust in the integrity of our politics, I suggest they get themselves a very large mirror and spend some time in front of it. If they want to know about the millions of people who are wondering whether this façade of a democracy is ever going to deliver, they should not only speak to but listen to some of the 62% in Scotland who voted to remain with the deal we already have, or indeed to some of the 71% in Northern Ireland who voted for a peace process that, right now, is not guaranteed under Brexit and which, even if the Prime Minister’s deal is accepted, still will not have a guaranteed long-term future.

The Prime Minister claims to have listened to Parliament. She has listened to Parliament in the way that a defence lawyer listens to the case for the prosecution: absolutely no prospect of her budging an inch from her position, but listening for potential clues as to how she can impose her will on everyone else. Yesterday, she told us that this was not about expressing our personal views, saying that

“expressing our personal views is not what we are here to do.”—[Official Report, 17 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 528.]

In response to 23 different Members of Parliament, she then expressed her personal views about what was right and what was wrong. So when the Prime Minister says that we are not here to express our personal views, what she really means is that we are here to listen to her personal views and then do what we are told, regardless of what 649 other Members of Parliament and 60 million other people may think is best. That is not a parliamentary democracy; that is an elected dictatorship. When the word “elected” refers to a Prime Minister without a parliamentary majority, without the confidence of a third of her own MPs, and opposed by nearly 58% of those who voted in 2017, that elected dictatorship becomes dangerously close to an unelected dictatorship.

Had the Prime Minister not run away from debate last week, we would have been discussing the Union for eight hours on Tuesday. The question for Scotland is, which Union? The day is fast approaching when the people of Scotland will be asked whether they want a Union that is a true partnership of equals, such as is enjoyed by our friends in Ireland, or a so-called partnership of equals, which even today has demonstrably treated our nation and our nation’s elected representatives with absolute contempt. When that question is asked, and it will be asked very soon, the answer from the sovereign citizens of Scotland will be as emphatic and as final as it is inevitable.

EU Exit: Article 50

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

First, I warmly congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and her colleagues on this thoroughly deserved and epoch-making victory. May I gently advise the Secretary of State that it is not a good look for a Minister and a Government who claim to abide by the rule of law to seek to impugn the motives of the winners in a serious court case, or to appear to agree with colleagues who want to impugn the professionalism and integrity of the court that has delivered the verdict?

The Secretary of State has confirmed that the judgment does not change the law but clarifies it, and that it does not change Government policy. Does it change the Government’s understanding of the law? He has carefully avoided the question that has been asked twice, which I will ask a third time: how much has this cost the British taxpayer? Was that money spent because the Government were badly advised and thought they could win, or was it spent criminally negligently by a Government who knew they were going to lose and continued to spend our money just for the hell of it?

[Stephen Barclay]

I have answered the question about the money several times. The Court judgment was reached just today, so not all the costs associated with the case will have accrued as yet. We will need to work that out in the normal way. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) will know about that from her time practising at the Bar. Again, I have already answered the question about respecting the process. We respect the Court’s decision, but the facts of the matter do not change, and they are that this Government are committed to honouring the referendum, we will ensure that we leave on 29 March next year, and we have absolutely no intention of revoking article 50.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his first Question Time. The Prime Minister listed the end of the free movement of people as the single biggest cause for celebration in her deal. The reality is that, every week, Fife is losing talented young families, who are leaving their home and the land where they belong because they do not want their children growing up in a place where they have been regarded as bargaining chips and queue jumpers. That is causing enormous heartache to thousands of my fellow Fifers and to hundreds of thousands of my fellow Scots. Will the Minister explain why I should celebrate that?

[Mr Walker]

From the Prime Minister downwards, we have always been clear that we hugely value the contribution of EU citizens living all over our country; we want them to stay, and we will make sure that they can stay under any circumstances. However, the best way to do that is to secure the agreement we have negotiated and to secure citizens’ rights arrangements for 4 million citizens, including many UK citizens living in the EU.

[Peter Grant]

It is very hard to reconcile the reassuring words from the Minister with the fact that the Prime Minister herself used the phrase “queue jumpers” to refer to thousands of my constituents and tens of thousands of my fellow Scots. The Government’s own analysis has shown that every single Brexit scenario they could think of—ending the free movement of people, cutting migration from the European Union to somewhere close to their ridiculous target—damages our economy in the longer term. As well as being morally repugnant and socially divisive, ending the free movement of people is economically stupid and violates the sovereign will of the people of Scotland. Does the Minister agree that anyone in this House who claims to stand up for Scotland has only one option next week, and that is to thoroughly reject this miserable deal and to get back round the negotiating table?

[Mr Walker]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman will be particularly surprised to hear that I do not agree. I believe that the sovereign will of the people of Scotland he referred to was to stay in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union and end free movement. However, every scenario in the Government’s analysis showed our economy continuing to grow.

Leaving the European Union

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Needless to say, I am opposed to remaining in the European Union, and Brexit must not be stopped. A huge majority of my colleagues—544 MPs—voted in favour of the European Union Referendum Bill, 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, 494 MPs voted to trigger article 50, and 60% of my constituents voted to leave.

There can be no doubt that the British people and their representatives in the House of Commons think that Brexit should go ahead. We made a promise; now let us stick to that promise. The referendum question said nothing about the possibility that we would have a so-called people’s vote. The referendum on 23 June 2016 was the people’s vote: it gave the British people the opportunity finally to have a say on our future relationship with the EU. The people spoke, and we have to listen. The referendum question said:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

That language was approved by the independent Electoral Commission. The question was clear, and the people voted to leave the European Union by a sizeable margin.

The risk to the UK’s trade after Brexit has been much exaggerated, much as the immediate aftermath of a leave vote was exaggerated by Government and business. The British people were promised rapidly rising unemployment, an emergency Budget, and untold horrors by those who supported remain in 2016.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Sorry, but I will carry on. The reality has been quite different, with a thriving economy, the fastest wage growth in a decade, record low unemployment and record high job vacancies. Why on earth would the British people believe “Project Fear 2”, which has been rolled out by those who seek to undermine the will of the British people? No agreement with Europe will not mean an end to trade; that is a simply ridiculous argument. In 1980, the EU’s share of world GDP was about 30%. In 2017, it was about 16%, and by 2022, it is expected to fall further to 15%.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

The petition, signed by more than 100,000 people, states that if the Government fail to reach an agreement with the EU by the deadline, Brexit should be stopped. After last week’s chaos, who can blame those who signed it? Tory infighting is usually something I would welcome, because it is fun to watch blue on blue, but Brexit transcends party politics. We have 130 days left before we crash out of the EU, and we do not know what we are going to do. In responding to the petition, it is time that we ditched our divisions and looked at the facts, because they are shocking. We have no majority for the Northern Ireland backstop, no majority for a deal that makes us a rule-taker, and no majority for a withdrawal agreement that leaves 3 million EU citizens facing unacceptable limbo.

At the heart of my support for the petition is the case of EU nationals. Some 22,000 EU nationals live in Hampstead and Kilburn, and it is in defence of their rights that I rise to speak. These are not people who have the right to vote for me. This is not about politics; it is about the fact that they have lived in the community for years and years. This is their home. They make an unquantifiable contribution to our community, our NHS, our businesses and our creative sectors.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Lady share the Welsh and Scottish Governments’ view that the Prime Minister’s comments about queue jumping at the weekend were deeply offensive, and should play no part in a civilised debate about our future immigration policy?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will read a few of the words that the Prime Minister has said about the EU nationals living here. I repeat that 22,000 EU nationals live in Hampstead and Kilburn. The Prime Minister has repeatedly told the House and Members that even in the case of no deal, EU citizens will have their rights protected. However, to choose just one example, on page 28 of the agreement, article 15(3) states that the right of permanent residence can be lost if family or work obligations mean that someone has to leave the country for five years. As the3million says, EU citizens living in the UK will soon have to pay to apply to stay in their home, and will have to undergo systematic criminality checks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stringer]

The fact is that we had a vote, and it was hard-fought-for. Like many hon. Members on both sides of the House, I had been arguing for a referendum since before I joined Parliament—I was elected in 1997, as was the right hon. Gentleman. Right hon. and hon. Members had been arguing for referendums going back to Maastricht—I voted to have a referendum on Lisbon—and we kept losing. The argument for a referendum was that many of the people’s rights had been given away in treaties such as Amsterdam, Nice, Maastricht, the Single European Act and Lisbon, and they should have had a chance to vote on that.

[Peter Grant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stringer]

I have not finished answering this one.

Eventually, a party that agreed that there should be a referendum won a general election. Hon. Members from all parties voted to have a referendum. I accept that in a democracy people can change their minds, but they cannot do so before we have implemented a decision that hundreds of right hon. and hon. Members voted for. That would detract from democracy.

If the result of the referendum is not respected fully and carried out, there will be a fundamental issue for those who support the 1975 innovation of referendums. The Scottish National party, for example, will no doubt come back for another referendum on the future of Scotland; we have also had a referendum on the voting system, and might have another. That will undermine the legitimacy of not only this referendum but others. People who voted leave would not necessarily accept the legitimacy of a second referendum, and not to implement the first one would undermine the whole constitutional construct of referendums. That is the answer to the question of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).

At the previous general election, the right hon. Gentleman stood on an election ticket for another referendum and won his seat. I accept that, but only 12 people from his party won on that particular ticket; my party stood on a ticket to honour the referendum result, as did the Conservative party, and that is what I intend to vote for, and will continue to vote for, whether that means voting in support of the Government if they put sensible things forward, or voting against if they do not put sensible things forward—which I think is the position with the agreement.

A great deal has been said today, and I will go through some of the arguments put forward. One was that during the referendum people did not know enough to come to a conclusion and were duped in some way. As in all electorates, people on both sides distort: they get excited and go past the facts. For example, I have never been in a general election in which the Lib Dem literature put out in the constituency has stayed close to the known facts that everyone else in the constituency believes in, but that is not a reason to rerun elections. The same happens at a national level. In a democracy, we leave it to the electorate to use their common sense to judge, from their experience, between nonsense and sense.

[Graham Stringer]

I am sure, Sir Roger, that if I started to get into matters that may come before the courts, you would rule me out of order. I will not do that. All I would say is that legal action has often been taken over general elections—another case from Kent is before the court at this very moment—so I do not accept that point. After the 1975 referendum, it took more than 40 years to hold another. As I explained in answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s previous intervention, a party needs to win a general election saying, “We want a second referendum”, before we have one—and good luck to them, because I think they would lose.

All parties have a great deal of division. The country is split, and party support is split. Many leave voters vote for my party, and for the Conservative party, so if the parties chose to move away from their position, they would be in electoral peril—but it is up to the parties to stand for that, if they want to, and to lose the support of people who voted leave.

It is often said—it has been said in this debate—that promises were made by Vote Leave that have not been kept. I campaigned as hard as I could for leave, but I made no promises. How can a Labour MP, in opposition, make such promises? The referendum was not a manifesto that one party was behind; it was an argument about what this country should do—should we be in the European Union, or out? The only decision, as I said at the beginning, was whether to leave or stay in—a decision that the electorate made.

[Peter Grant]

I am intrigued by the hon. Gentleman’s astonishment at how a Labour MP could possibly make promises to the electorate during a referendum. His colleague next to him, the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), will know what I am talking about. Did the hon. Gentleman read the vow that Gordon Brown put on the front page of Scotland’s biggest national newspaper immediately before the 2014 referendum? That was clearly a case of an Opposition politician—a Labour politician—making promises about what would happen if, in a referendum, people did what he wanted them to do. Why is the hon. Gentleman so astonished about what a Labour politician might do in 2016, when his own party leader did it in 2014?

[Graham Stringer]

I am not sure that I completely understand the question. One cannot promise to carry out something if one is not in government; one can only make the case for people voting a particular way in a referendum. The electorate voted as they did, and that was clearly an instruction for the Government to carry out. They have not been very good at doing it, but it was an instruction. During the debate that set up the referendum, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who was on Labour’s Front Bench at the time, gave an absolute commitment: “This is not for Members of Parliament to decide. We’re passing the power over to the electorate to decide.” That was echoed by all the parties. One cannot make promises in a referendum campaign; all one can do is advise people which way to vote, which I did. It is a bogus argument to say that promises were made and not carried out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased to be able to begin the summing-up speeches, but I am in two minds because a little birdie told me that the Division bell may go at around half-past 6. I wonder whether we should try to get through the debate by then, rather than having a hiatus of perhaps an hour and a half and coming back for the last few minutes.

The events of the past week or so have made this debate even more topical. By far the most significant thing to happen in the past week has been the Prime Minister, not once but twice, going on the record and saying, “We can stop Brexit.” She no longer talks about there being two options—her deal or no deal. She now talks openly about the possibility that Brexit may not happen.

Interestingly, in her lengthy contribution, the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) never actually said we cannot stop Brexit. She attempted—not very successfully, in my humble opinion—to explain why we should not stop it, but she never tried to say we cannot stop it. I invite the Minister to tell us, right at the beginning of his response, whether he agrees with the Prime Minister that Brexit can still be stopped. Once the Government conceded that point, the debate would become very different. I still believe that we can stop Brexit, if that is the will of Parliament and the will of the people. How do we know what the will of the people is without asking them? That is a question that some people may want to answer.

I believe the Government tried not to have to present a coherent argument that we should not stop Brexit because, once all the facts have become known and people, I suspect including a lot of MPs, realise just what it involves, there is no longer a coherent argument. The recently departed Brexit Secretary admitted that he did not realise how important trade between Dover and Calais was to the UK economy. If the person who led negotiations on the UK’s behalf did not fully understand what Brexit was about, what chance did the 34 million other people who took part in the referendum have of understanding all the intricacies and details?

I could almost understand the rationale for saying, “Well, maybe it’s a bad idea and maybe a disastrous idea, but we have to go through with it anyway because it’s what people voted for.” The truth is that none of us has the right to say what those 17.5 million people voted for. We know they voted to leave the European Union. I think it was the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake)—it may have been someone else in his party—who said immediately, “Now we know where people voted to go away from, but we’ve no idea what they voted to move towards.” We can guess that not many of those people voted deliberately to make themselves, their families, their towns and their communities poorer.

We do know that those people voted for some kind of Brexit in a referendum that, by today’s standards, would not get a clean bill of health as free and fair. The leave campaign, in its various guises, stands accused on a number of counts of breaching spending limits that are there to stop the wealthy elite from buying our democracy. We know there were large-scale breaches of data protection law. We know that the leave campaign lied to us. How else can we describe the £350 million on the side of the big red bus?

[Graham Stringer]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, when we include the leaflets arguing the case for remain that the Government sent out, the remain campaign effectively spent twice as much? Those leaflets cost £7 million, doubling the amount spent on the remain campaign.

[Peter Grant]

It is a matter of record how much the UK Government spent. It is not yet a matter of record how much the leave campaign spent, and I doubt whether it will ever be a matter of record where exactly in the world that money came from. Some of it was deliberately channelled through Northern Ireland to ensure that its original source could never be made known. Interestingly, those who are so desperate to have no regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain are quite happy to have regulatory divergence when it stops the source of that half a million pound donation ever being made public.

The Brexiteers tell us—the hon. Gentleman tried to—that none of this really matters. They tell us that, somehow, if someone cheats at the Olympics and gets caught, they have to hand back their medal and lose their world record 10, 15 or 20 years later; if someone cheats at football, they are banned from the competition the next year; but if someone cheats with the very fundamentals of our democracy, “Well, that’s just what politicians do.” If that is the view of the Brexit side in this argument, it is no wonder that, as the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood mentioned, politicians are held in such low regard by the citizens of these islands. If politicians themselves are prepared to stand up and say, “Oh, yeah, somebody cheated, but it doesn’t matter because it’s only politics”—

[Lisa Nandy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

Happily.

[Lisa Nandy]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is indicative of the poor quality of that side of the argument that the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) refused to take a single intervention or to engage with any of the arguments, but is currently on Twitter calling me a betrayer of this country because I made the point that we had to calm the debate down? [Interruption.] Oh, now she seems to have found her voice. Perhaps she should have found it earlier when we were debating the actual issue facing this country.

[Peter Grant]

I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the comments the hon. Lady made about the language of the debate—

[Andrea Jenkyns]

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am afraid that is not a point of order, and the hon. Lady must not address another Member directly across the Chamber. If she wants to think about how to phrase her point of order, I am very happy to take it. Alternatively, she can intervene on the Member who has the floor. I call Peter Grant.

[Peter Grant]

I have to take the word of the hon. Member for Wigan about what her counterpart has put on Twitter, because the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood blocks me from viewing her tweets. I do not know why. Is that what the standard of debate has come to—getting blocked by a fellow MP on Twitter just for saying some things they do not agree with?

The hon. Member for Wigan made the point powerfully that the whole Brexit process has worsened what was already an extremely worrying position in British politics. Too many people have lost the ability to disagree without becoming disagreeable. Too many people have lost the ability forcefully and passionately to present a case in disagreement with somebody without resorting to personal insult and abuse. Yes, there are people who would claim to be on my side of the Scottish argument who resort to the same tactics. I will call them out just as quickly as I will call out others.

It is one of the many ironies of this situation that the people on whose behalf appalling abuse was heaped on a small number of Conservative Back Benchers for rebelling on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill to help to secure a majority in favour of Parliament being given a vote on the final deal, and in some cases the people who participated in that abuse, would be furious if they were denied the right to vote on a deal that they are not happy about. I believe there is an unanswerable case for asking the people again, this time with an electorate who know exactly what they are being asked to vote on and in a referendum that can be made fair in all regards.

[Catherine West]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if there is a further vote, on this question or any other, we should get to the bottom of the National Crime Agency inquiry, clean up not just the funding but some of the messaging that came out, and learn the lessons from that?

[Peter Grant]

There is no doubt at all that the law in these islands has not kept up with modern campaigning techniques—particularly social media campaigning. There is a legitimate, right and lawful way to use social media to press a political campaign, and there are other ways, which certainly are not moral and should not be legal. We have not yet got the law in the right place for that. In any election, if there are valid and significant questions afterwards as to whether it was fair, the result is tainted for everybody.

For example, we now know there was a dodgy decision-making process about where the World cup would be held in a few years’ time, which tainted that decision immediately. If people are prepared to demand a re-run of a vote about where the World cup would be held, because they think the decision might be a bit dodgy, how much more important is it to at least look at and satisfy ourselves as to whether one of the most important decisions that people in these islands will ever be asked to take was taken fairly, or whether there was serious or criminal misconduct and whether that seriously undermined the legitimacy of the decision.

[Martin Whitfield]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good point about the use of social media. I point out, with some disappointment, that there are Members in this Chamber who are tweeting about the competence and views of other Members in this Chamber. Is it not the case that, if we are going to improve the quality of debate and the confidence that members of the public have in us as their representatives, we need to be respectful of the debate, as well as the mentions and motions that are made in the House?

[Peter Grant]

I will defend the right of anybody, whether they are a politician or a normal person, to take exception to somebody’s political views and to knock down their views as hard as they can if need be. However, when they begin to knock or mock the person, a line has been crossed. Obviously, I cannot monitor what is happening on Twitter just now and some people have made sure that I cannot monitor what they are doing publicly on Twitter.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

No, I really need to move on. I said that I did not want to take up too much time and I may have taken more interventions than I expected.

We hear a lot about sovereignty when we talk about Brexit. Regarding sovereignty in Scotland, it might be worth reminding Members that on 4 July 2018 the House unanimously agreed a motion that stated that

“this House endorses the principles of the Claim of Right for Scotland…and… acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs.”

How do we square that with the fact that 62% of people in Scotland said that the form of government best suited to their needs was a Government who were part of the family of nations that is the European Union? I am not suggesting that the whole of Brexit has got to stop for ever to suit one part of the United Kingdom, but it is unacceptable that the majority view in Scotland and in Northern Ireland has been completed ignored by the Government almost from day one.

For example, during media interviews over the weekend, the Prime Minister claimed that nobody had put forward a workable alternative to her proposed agreement. That is categorically untrue. It is almost two years since the Scottish Government published “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, setting out a couple of options that would respect the overall result of the referendum to leave the EU but would retain as much as possible of the benefits of EU membership for those parts of the equal partnership of nations where people had voted to remain.

“Scotland’s Place in Europe” did not set out the Scottish Government’s preferred option—and certainly not my preferred option—because it was based on a method of leaving the European Union. It was a significant compromise by the Scottish Government and it was dismissed with hardly a second glance. That is possibly why at the weekend the Prime Minister was, no doubt in absolute good faith, unaware that it had ever been published. I think she put it in the bin without bothering to read it and has now forgotten it ever existed. Ironically, the proposals and options set out in that document are probably closer to what the vote leave campaign promised leaving would be like than anything I have seen since. It is certainly closer to the Brexit campaign promises than anything the Government have produced, either in the speeches made by the Prime Minister or in the draft withdrawal agreement.

It is clear that the Government do not want any kind of meaningful debate or vote in Parliament about what Brexit should mean. The Prime Minister unilaterally and unnecessarily drew red lines before she began to negotiate and then complained that other people had not been pragmatic or flexible enough. We now have a Prime Minister who has insisted from day one that the Brexit negotiations cannot impose a binary choice on Britain, who is herself imposing a binary choice on Parliament by saying, “Take it or leave it. My deal or no deal. If you don’t let me be in charge, I’ll take my ball and go home.”

The Prime Minister, who for two years has been appeasing the hardliners by insisting that no deal is better than a bad deal, is now trying to browbeat the rest of us into voting for a very bad deal, by telling us that no deal is not better than a bad deal—it is actually significantly worse. This Parliament should not accept a choice between two bad outcomes or be forced to accept a choice between two outcomes, neither of which can command anything like a majority in the House. I think it extremely unlikely that the Prime Minister’s draft agreement can get a parliamentary majority. No deal, as beloved by the 28 MPs who signed up to the Leave Means Leave website, has even less chance.

What kind of democracy is it? What kind of taking back control for Parliament is it if Parliament is denied the option of recommending a proposal that is probably the only one that would gain an overall majority in Parliament? Of course, it does not mean that Parliament can overturn the result of a referendum that was held two years ago. I do not think that England and Wales can stay in the European Union unless there is a referendum in which their people say that that is what they want to do. Surely, if Parliament believes, and it is the judgment of 650 Members, that the best option available now is that we do not leave, we have got to be prepared to go back to the people and say, “Now that you know exactly what this Brexit thing really means, do you still want to go ahead with it? Do you want the Government to try and get a better deal, or do you now think that we should not be going ahead with Brexit at all?”

I am absolutely convinced that there will be a people’s vote in Scotland in the not too distant future. The Prime Minister, and indeed the rest of Parliament, may well have a significant part to play in deciding whether that people’s vote is conducted among 5.5 million people on one question or 60 million people on a different question. The intransigent and patronising approach to Brexit that the UK Government have been adopting is effectively persuading greatly increasing numbers of people in Scotland that when we exercise our unalienable right to choose the form of government best suited to our needs, fewer and fewer people in Scotland are prepared to believe that that will be based in the city of London for much longer.

[Tom Brake]

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. I seek your guidance on whether it is appropriate for Members who have taken part in this debate to tweet during it and to use the word “betrayal”. Would you agree, Mr Hollobone, that using that word in such a heated discussion is something that Members should know to avoid? We are trying to work in a reasoned and safe manner, as far as possible. The use of the word “betrayal” potentially has risks associated with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

I hate to correct the right hon. Gentleman, but he is wrong. I will send him a copy of his party’s own leaflet, which criticised the Government for offering only a conditional referendum, criticised Labour for not offering one at all and said there should be an in-out referendum and the result should be binding. He should take care, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan pointed out that we should all take care, when reflecting on these issues.

It has been informative to watch as the “No deal is better than a bad deal” mantra has finally been dropped by almost everybody on the Conservative Benches. We have watched people who have been parroting that for quite some time rush into the TV studios over the weekend, seeking to secure support for the Prime Minister’s deal by saying, of course rightly, that no deal would be a disaster for the country.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that it is slightly strange that the Prime Minister tries to frighten remainers by saying, “If you vote down the deal, we will leave without a deal,” while at the same time she tries to fight off the ERG by saying, “If you vote down the deal, we don’t leave at all.”?

[Paul Blomfield]

I do; it is a reflection of the corner into which the Prime Minister has painted herself.

Petitioners should be reassured that we, as Opposition parties, will work across the House to ensure that we do not face a no-deal scenario. When the deal is inevitably voted down, the Prime Minister must follow the direction of the House. She has been intent on denying Parliament a truly meaningful vote, just as we have been intent on securing it. We will not accept the premise that she is trying to present —“It is my deal or no deal, take it or leave it, like it or lump it”—and nor will Parliament. When the deal is voted down, we need maximum flexibility and all options on the table.

We will demand a general election, as hon. Members would expect, and I hope that some Conservative MPs, although perhaps understandably reluctant to vote for one after their last outing, may come to realise that it would be in the interest of the country to break the deadlock. If they do not, then all other options must be kept open, including a public vote that would include remain as an option on the ballot paper.

The Government have spent the last two and a half years putting the interests of their party before the interests of the country, pursuing a divisive split from the EU rather than seeking to build a new and close relationship, and negotiating within their warring party rather than negotiating effectively with the European Union. They have failed the country. Our people need and deserve better, and this Parliament will need to ensure that they get it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is attempting to draw me down an avenue of inquiry I will not be pursuing. What I will say is that we have made it clear that under no circumstances will we see or erect a hard border in relation to Northern Ireland.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

This week the NAO warned that not a single one of the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ preparations for a no-deal Brexit was in anything other than a red-amber state of lack of preparedness. That is on top of the 80,000 lost Scottish jobs, £2,300 out of the pockets of every Scottish household and a 9% hit to our economy that a no-deal Brexit is likely to bring. Is the Secretary of State seriously telling us that it is possible for him and the Prime Minister to bring back a bad deal that is worse than that?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point to the risks of no deal, but the point is to have the planning and preparations in place to ensure we can avoid or mitigate those risks. In addition to the remarks I made earlier, £8 million of funding for customs intermediaries has been announced. We also need to prepare for the worst-case scenario, whereby the authorities at Calais are deliberately directing a go-slow approach, by supporting a diversion of the flow to more amenable ports in other countries.

[Peter Grant]

HMRC will not have the capacity to cope and the Border Force will not have the capacity to cope, but at least we know that the Government’s capacity for incompetence is utterly unbounded. The Secretary of State is criticising others for so-called intransigence. Is it not time for the Government to drop their own intransigent stance, go right back to the beginning, rub out the three stupid red lines and start again?

[Dominic Raab]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that at this late stage of negotiations, we can go back to the beginning, I am afraid his approach is rather delusional. We have made good progress and we are close to agreeing a deal. The responsible thing for Members from all parts of the House to do, regardless of their views on Brexit, is to get behind the Government so we can clinch that good deal for all quarters and all parts of the UK.

Leaving the EU: Meaningful Vote

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend. She will know, because it is set out in our memorandum—I know she scrutinises these things very carefully—that we are amenable, subject to the prerogatives of the Speaker and the House, to this being an amendable motion. She will also understand the need—this is why it is a meaningful vote of the very highest order—for there to be a clear decision that we are given on the deal we are confident we can strike with our EU partners, so that we know whether we can proceed to implement it.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) not only for securing the urgent question but for the forensic way in which he has completely dismantled any credibility that the Government’s position may have had. I also endorse in their entirety the comments from the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), about the appalling comments that have been directed against the Prime Minister. I disagree with the Prime Minister on a lot of things, but nobody should be issued with the kind of threats that she has been expected to cope with over the last few days.

Too much of the discussion is now about who will become the next Prime Minister. The long-term career prospects for the Prime Minister, or any of us, are infinitesimally trivial compared with what will be at stake if and when this Parliament gets a chance to do its job in a meaningful vote—that means not only a meaningful motion, but that we must be able to put forward and vote on meaningful amendments before the final decision is taken.

Will the Secretary of State confirm that meaningful amendments will be allowed and that Parliament will have the opportunity to meaningfully amend the motion before we are asked to agree the final deal? Given that we are getting hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute updates on the Government’s negotiations with a select 50 or so Members of Parliament, will he tell us when the Government intend to start seeking consensus across the 600 Members of this House who are not members of the Democratic Unionist party or the European Research Group?

[Dominic Raab]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, as set out in the memorandum we sent to the Procedure Committee, which has been published, there will be a substantive and amendable motion. I do not think that any hon. Member, on either side of the House, would table a meaningless amendment, so I reject the premise of the question in that regard.

EU Exit Negotiations

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his comments. Our proposals deliberately deliver on not only the referendum result but the manifesto commitment that all Conservatives stood on at the general election, which was to exit the customs union but secure the best possible trading relationship and preserve the integrity of the whole United Kingdom. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, we have clearly set out the ambition and pragmatism of our proposals and it is now quite right to expect the EU to move in our direction. If the EU does match that ambition and pragmatism, I am confident that we can still reach a deal.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the advance sight of his statement—both the advance copy of today’s statement, which I received a few hours ago, and the statement that he made on 4 September, which was basically an advance copy of today’s statement, because very little seems to have changed since then.

It was nice to spend some time listening to Ministers from a united, competent Government who very much have the citizens of their nations at heart and to listen to political disagreements being heard and debated in a respectful and consensual manner—but then I had to leave the Scottish National party conference early to come down here, and everything has changed.

We still do not know what the Government intend to propose to the European Union in respect of Northern Ireland. We know the litany of what they are not going to do—it has to be thrown over every time to keep the Democratic Unionist party on side—but we do not know what is being proposed on Northern Ireland. We are running out of time and need answers very quickly indeed.

There was a brief update on the EU’s response to the trade package in the Chequers proposal. The EU did not raise concerns about it, it said that it will not be acceptable to its member states. It is not going to happen. Chequers has been bounced. The Government should take it off the table and try again.

May I gently correct the Secretary of State and say that the single, simplest and easiest way to achieve everything that the Government say that they want to achieve through Brexit is to stay in the customs union? We welcome the progress and the commitments that have been made on citizens’ rights, but the rights of those citizens would never have been under threat had it not been for the unilateral decision to come out of the single market. If they are that worried about the rights of future generations of citizens, they should stay in the single market. Why cannot we do that? It is because of an unnecessary, dogmatic, unilateral decision that was taken by the Prime Minister almost before the negotiations had even started. From day one, the approach has been dictated by hardliners who, if they are lucky, constitute one in five of the parliamentary Conservative party; they could not manage one in 10 of the membership of the present House of Commons. Those Members would happily go for a hard no deal Brexit, although they say that that is not what they want—I am talking about those who are serried, appropriately enough, to the far right of the Secretary of State right now. An entire dogmatic approach is still being driven by a tiny minority of this House. We could almost say that the tail is being allowed to wag the dogma.

What assessment have the Government made of the cost to every business in the UK of complying with the avalanche of technical advice that they are now being expected to follow? Has any assessment been made of that, and, if it has, will we be allowed to see it this time? Will the Secretary of State confirm that, whatever some who prop up this Government may tell him, peace in Northern Ireland is not expendable, it is sacrosanct and it is not negotiable under any circumstances whatsoever?

Will the Government reject once and for all the demands of the hard-line minority? Will they accept that it is now time to listen pragmatically and constructively to the compromises that were offered almost two years by the Scottish Government and to the compromises being offered by others in this House right now? Will he agree to talk to those who might have an answer before we all crash off the cliff edge together?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his call for sensible and respectful debate and agree with him that every effort needs to be made to preserve our precious Union. One thing that is very clear in this House, notwithstanding all the differences that we have, is that we will not allow any proposals from the EU to draw a customs line down the Irish sea.

The hon. Gentleman asked about Northern Ireland and our proposals. Our White Paper proposals on the economic partnership will provide the long-term sustainable answer to this question. As well as preserving frictionless trade with our EU partners, they will, in the process, resolve the concerns around the Northern Irish border. At the same time, we remain committed to the joint report in December, which would be for a limited, finite and temporary backstop.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about economic analysis. That will be made available in time for the meaningful vote. Finally, he asked about staying in the single market and the customs union. The reality is, as he well knows, that if we stay members of the single market and the customs union, we would not be leaving the EU.