European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Chancellor is being very candid. According to his recently published long-term economic analysis, the Government’s two scenarios would result in a hit to GDP, or a lowering of the growth rate, of between 3.4% and 6.4% if there is a deal, and of between 6.3% and 9% if there is no deal. Will he confirm that this is indeed the choice the UK are putting before Parliament?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is misinterpreting the analysis. These are not rates of GDP growth; this is an estimate of the relative size of the economy at a 15-year horizon under different scenarios. In all scenarios, we expect that GDP growth will recover and continue.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the Chancellor put on the record what he thinks the hits will be? He said in response to a Labour Member that there would be a lower growth rate. What are the percentage differences in the two scenarios—deal and no deal—versus staying in the EU?

[Mr Hammond]

I am sorry but the hon. Gentleman is wrong. I did not talk about a lower growth rate. I am talking about a smaller overall size of the economy. It is our central view that, once the economy has moved to a new equilibrium, growth will resume in all these scenarios and that our economy will go on getting larger.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

What are the numbers?

[Mr Hammond]

This is not an economic forecast. It is a modelling of five different scenarios. Our economic growth rate in 2033 will depend on a raft of other issues, not only on the outcome of this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Next week, we will make one of the most significant decisions that most hon. Members will ever make in this House, and it will impact on current and future generations. So far, hon. Members have ensured that we approach the debate leading to that decision with the seriousness of tone that it warrants—indeed, I think we have seen some of the best of the House over the past few days—and we have to find a way through.

On Wednesday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said:

“My final plea to the House is as follows. Now is the moment to tell each other the truth… No one is going to get everything they thought they would get. No one is going to receive all the things they were told they would receive. All of us are going to have to compromise, and we are going to have to find a way forward that a majority can agree upon.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 802.]

I fully concur with those sentiments, and that is what we are about in this coming period.

I wish to focus on four points—I recognise that a large number of Members wish to speak, so I will be as succinct as possible. My first point, on which I hope we can find widespread majority and common ground across the House, is that we must seek to prevent a no-deal situation occurring by either imposition or default. Secondly—and I say this in as straight a way as possible—it is increasingly obvious that the Prime Minister’s deal is neither politically nor economically acceptable, and neither is it capable of bringing the House or country together.

Thirdly, as the House looks for an alternative, Labour has proposed a plan that we believe could unite the country, by addressing the concerns raised in the referendum campaign while securing the benefits of a close and collaborative relationship with our European partners. That is what we are about. My fourth point is an expression of a worrying concern, given the current state of our economy, about the impact of a bad deal on our communities.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

As we know, next week the Government’s deal will go down in flames, whatever putative deal is in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman will get nowhere, and the UK will look down the barrel of no deal or no Brexit. When looking down the barrel of no deal or no Brexit, will he also pick up a microphone, look at the camera and tell the people what he would choose: no deal, or no Brexit?

[John McDonnell]

I would choose what the House is seeking—in good will, I believe—which is a compromise that secures the will of the people while at the same time protecting jobs and the economy. [Interruption.] Government Members shout that that is the current deal, but at some stage in the next few days reality will dawn on people that it is highly unlikely that that deal will secure a majority position in the House. We have to be honest with each other and take this opportunity for an honest expression of views. Not only will the deal not secure a majority in this House, but it is certainly not bringing the country together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I rise to speak today on what is the United Kingdom’s 96th birthday. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland started 96 years ago. When I think back to John Major talking in the ’80s about 1,000 years of British history, I have longed to utter those words and make people realise that the UK is not as old as he thought.

On this 96th birthday of the United Kingdom, we are in what I would call a Laurel-and-Hardy situation with Brexit. It is clear that Brexit is crazy, silly, nuts, wacky, cuckoo, potty, daft, cracked, dippy, bonkers—the list goes on. In Gaelic, I could say that it is gòrach, faoin, amaideach, caoicheil, air bhoil—the list again goes on. We are seeing that the UK will struggle to see its 100th birthday as a result of this nonsense. As the Chancellor laid out in his speech earlier, Brexit will have opportunity costs. He gave us five scenarios, but we are down to two scenarios from the Government. The Prime Minister has given the UK a choice between a deal or no deal, leading to economic damage of between 3.4% and 6.4% of GDP or 6.3% to 9% of GDP respectively. Each percentage point of GDP equates to up to £26 billion. By way of contrast, the 2008 crash was a 2% event. Those percentage points mean a loss of jobs, wages, prosperity, housing, infrastructure, taxation for health and education funding and so on.

How does all that happen? Well, there are a few examples. For instance, Toyota takes 50 lorries a day across the channel to factories in Derbyshire, with a four-hour lead-in time. If there are snarl-ups at the border, that will not happen. Honda takes 200 lorries. It is no wonder that the Japanese Prime Minister, Japanese companies and Japanese diplomats here in the UK are concerned, and we should be worried, too. The situation will affect our lamb, shellfish, cattle and many of our other exports, and chemical companies, such as BASF in my constituency, are well aware of that. Some people suggest that we should use ports such as Zeebrugge rather than Calais, but that would take longer to do the same thing. The UK is already laggard in productivity, so to take longer to do the same thing will make matters worse.

Why are we in this situation? The Prime Minister made contradictory promises. She said, “We will be out of the customs union and the single market,” but she also said, “There will be no border in Ireland.” Something had to give and, as we know now from the loss of the DUP’s support, she reneged on those promises. She had to, because there was a catastrophe coming down the way. One of the funny things about the Brexiteers is that they all want Brexit, but they do not want it in March, because they know full well the damage that Brexit is about to do. While they want Brexit in their wild abstractions, they do not want it coming this March, because they know what Brexit will do. Brexit will be economically damaging to everybody in the United Kingdom, and as a result, it is a folly for us that we are stuck in the United Kingdom.

In this crazy fantasy, 96 years later, the Irish are delighted that they have left. For those who voted no in Scotland in 2014, there is an awakening going on, and that is without a campaign—incidentally, people can visit SNP.org/join if they want. People are seeing the two unions differently. One is a union of independent nations of Europe meeting as equals, and the UK now knows the muscle of independent Ireland and Varadkar, with 26 behind them in a regional trade agreement. Leaving that union is tearing up trade arrangements. By contrast, when Scotland leaves the United Kingdom, we will merely be completing devolution to move political powers from here to Edinburgh, closer to the people.

Had we left in 2014, this folly and nonsense of Brexit would not have happened. Brexit, in actual fact, overturns the will of the Scottish people. It does not respect Scotland or the result of the votes of the Scottish people. Brexit shows the epic misgovernance of England, so what chance is there for Scotland when England cannot govern itself well? The escaped Irish have belly laughs, and their biggest wind-up is to go on television at various points of crisis and tell the UK to stay calm. Back in Tipperary, Waterford and Galway they are laughing, because they know exactly what it means to tell London to stay calm. The UK has many problems, and they are of its own making. The UK has crashed the Rolls-Royce, and the Prime Minister is trying to tell us that the choice now is to go down the second-hand car shop to choose a second-hand car or a moped. It is an absolute mess.

David Schneider, the comedian, tweeted today that in 2016 the Brexiteers said “‘Take back control! Make Parliament sovereign again!’”, which he contrasted with Lord Digby Jones, who said on Twitter yesterday, “Beware the tyranny of Parliament!” As Laurel and Hardy said, what a fine mess they have got themselves into.