Cost of Living and Brexit

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to wind up this SNP debate on the cost of living. There have been a number of excellent contributions from my colleagues and some other speeches from across the House, and surely we can all agree that the cost of living crisis is something we need to work together to solve. I am very grateful to the Clerks of the House who worked with us in drafting the motion, because it is an innovative proposal—we acknowledge that—but we are in extraordinary times and people need solutions.

I believe that politicians should work together. I spent 16 years in the European Parliament. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) says, I seldom mention it, but I spent a number of years working with people, putting the badges to one side and finding solutions. Usually there is 20% over here that we will not agree on and 20% over there that we will not agree on, but there is 60% in the middle where we can find a solution. Surely to goodness, the people we all serve, who are struggling in their daily lives, need to see politicians working together and finding solutions. It really has been quite disappointing to hear that described as a “crackpot idea”, which I think is unworthy of this discussion.

We are looking to find solutions, and the first step is to admit that there is a problem. The fact is that too many people are struggling with real-life problems, and we can treat those problems. We have heard a number of points relevant to Scotland on which both Governments—the UK and Scottish Governments—are helping to ameliorate the situation. However, what we are trying to do is to get to the root cause of how we got here, where these problems come from and how we can stem them. People are struggling with their energy costs, their food costs and their rent or mortgage costs. We are all struggling with inflation, and we are all struggling with wages that are too low. Businesses are struggling with all of that, as well as with a labour shortage, a skills shortage, energy costs and finance costs. It is a perfect storm that needs brave measures and courage, and I really have been saddened to hear some of the hackery and the boneheaded, specious arguments against the establishment of this Committee.

I encourage colleagues to raise their game, because I am deeply alarmed—we will all have been having these meetings in our constituencies—at how many people are struggling and fearful right now in all our communities. Food import checks are going to be implemented from October, so food price inflation is likely to get higher, not better than it has been. As people come off fixed-rate mortgages—this point has been made—the rises they are looking at are utterly unmanageable for tens of thousands or millions of households and individuals. On top of that, we have the global instability caused by climate chaos, uncertain harvests worldwide, political instability, war in Europe and potential difficulties in south-east Asia, and the global food supply chain—the global supply chain full stop—is under unprecedented strain, so now really is the time to put the badges to one side and find solutions.

The causes of the cost of living crisis are interlinked. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) made the significant point that the motion does not, of course, deal with covid or Ukraine, but that is because covid and Ukraine were external shocks that we all needed to react to. Brexit is self-inflicted, and Brexit is also an ongoing process.

I am a Member of the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, and the trade and co-operation agreement that governs the relations between the UK and the EU is up for review in 2025. There is also the Windsor framework, which we supported. The SNP did not need to support the Windsor framework, but we did, because peace in Northern Ireland is too important. We supported that when we did not need to. We supported the Government in finding solutions to a problem that was brought about by the TCA, and indeed the lack of engagement and intellectual honesty that we saw from the UK Government in ignoring the problems that the Windsor framework goes a way to solve. We are going to come back to those. However, the TCA is up for review in 2025, and there are important solutions to be found.

We have heard that a committee of inquiry is an unusual thing, but actually it is not. In the Irish Parliament, the Oireachtas Éireann had a committee of inquiry into the banking crisis between 2014 and 2016. Obviously the banking crisis had deep significance in all our countries, but that was especially the case in Ireland and there were lessons to learn. The Danish Folketing had a commission of inquiry into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2012, because that major foreign policy decision needed to be learned from properly. The European Parliament had the special committee on the financial, economic and social crisis between 2009 and 2011—I know because I was on it—to learn the lessons of how the financial crisis came to be, and what we needed to do to stop it happening again. The idea that Brexit can be written off as an historical thing, when our citizens are dealing with the consequences of it day in, day out, does not withstand analysis. I understand that Government Members might be sick of experts, but I am quite a fan of them. A key provision of the proposal is that the Committee will be able to hear from experts and identify problems, so that we find solutions.

Brexit has impacted on the cost of living in a number of ways. As we have heard, there are other interlinked factors, but we believe there is a particular issue with how the UK left the European Union, which has made those things more difficult. We are willing to put our ideology to one side. We almost heard an argument that Members will vote against this Committee because SNP Members are in favour of independence. Well yes, damn sure we are. I am absolutely secure in my view that Scotland’s best future is as an independent state back in the European Union, and part of a global A-team of 500 million people. I also think that if the UK cannot do that, the best future for it is to get back into the single market, but I urge colleagues to read the motion—that is not what this is about. This is a suggestion for us all to work together, put the badges to one side, and find solutions to the problems that our people are experiencing.

The impact of Brexit on all those things merits further analysis. I am not interested in hackery about the other positions or parties, or who did what when. We are all in a problem that we need to fix, and we all need solutions. I will work with anybody to improve the lives of the people of Stirling, and to improve the lives of the people of Scotland. I want to see the people of the UK do well as well. Brexit, and the way it is running through, is making life more difficult on a daily basis for all our citizens. We have heard today about the benefits on which it was sold. I never cease to be amazed at the extent to which Government Members get giddy with excitement about hypothetical upsides and the gains of trade deals with various places and far-flung bits of the world, but ignore the 4% GDP hit that we have taken. There is a real need for intellectual honesty, and we think that this cross-party Committee would allow us to get there.

SNP Members believe that Brexit has made food more expensive—and wait until October. We believe that energy, particularly electricity, is more expensive—and wait until winter. We believe that the economy is weaker, trade is more difficult and the labour force is diminished, and that has impacted on and affected all our citizens whom we all serve. We owe it to them to put the badges to one side, roll our sleeves up and work together, and this Committee is an attempt to do that. We are willing to work together to find solutions to this problem, and I hope the other parties will raise their game and join us in that effort.