Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Q12. My right hon. Friend might be aware that in a Westminster Hall debate last week, Members of the Scottish National party declared that if the Scottish Government did not agree with the final Brexit deal they would push for another independence referendum. This obsession with breaking up our United Kingdom is damaging the Scottish economy and causing uncertainty, so will she join me today in calling for the SNP to drop, once and for all, its obsession with a second independence referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

The point my hon. Friend raises is very important. Scotland had a referendum in 2014. That referendum was legal and fair, and the result was decisive: the people of Scotland voted clearly to remain part of the United Kingdom. At the election, they sent a message that they did not want a second referendum on this issue. I say to the Scottish Government, as we prepare to leave the EU, that they should be working with the UK Government to get the right deal for the whole of the UK, not taking Scotland back to the divisive constitutional debates of the past. I agree with my hon. Friend that the SNP should take its unwanted proposal off the table once and for all.