UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Let me be clear that when the Attorney General has been talking to representatives of the European Commission this week and when my right hon. Friend the Brexit Secretary has been talking to them, they have been talking about changes to the overall terms of the agreement to facilitate our orderly departure from the European Union.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he did yesterday with the publication of the summary of the no-deal papers—let me put it that way. My question to him is: why are the Government only now, after two and a half years, looking at these alternative arrangements, given that the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs did an enormous amount of work on finding some alternatives—they travelled the world—but came to the conclusion that there are no alternatives some considerable time ago?

[Mr Lidington]

I thank the right hon. Lady for what she said about the papers published yesterday. I thought she was being uncharacteristically unfair to the Government in her criticisms about not dealing with this earlier. A lot of official and ministerial time has been spent in the past 18 months examining some of these things. One problem that was identified, which still confronts us today and which we are talking to the European Commission about in the context of these discussions about alternative arrangements, is that we have to deal not only with the problem of the technology itself and making sure there is technology that is fit for purpose, but with the fact that, on the sort of model that has been discussed, we would need to see a significant number of derogations by the EU from its normal arrangements. So there are legal, and not just technical, problems that would have to be overcome.

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[Anna Soubry]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

As I have referred to the right hon. Lady, I will give way to her and then I will make some progress.

[Anna Soubry]

The right hon. Gentleman is, as ever, being very generous. It is very important to make this clear. I took a sample of the many papers from which this document has been compiled, and I can assure the House that, from my reading of the contents of those papers, it is an accurate and fair summary. Furthermore, the original document that I was given was then edited and updated—that is how up to date it is. I am confident about that. I now want the detail, but that is another matter.

[Mr Lidington]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for that.

I will, if I may, move on to the various amendments that have been tabled. Let me move straight to amendment (f) in the names of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and my right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman).

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[Stephen Gethins]

It is extraordinary: I have not even mentioned Slovenia yet, but the hon. Gentleman knows the reference I am making. I know he is a decent Member and has served his country well in the diplomatic service, and I know he will have been embarrassed by the Foreign Secretary’s recent remarks. I want to talk about—[Interruption.] I am a Front-Bench speaker. I want to talk about the UK’s standing in the world of which we are still a part for the time being.

There are those who are quite content to compare the EU with the USSR and cannot handle these remarks from Donald Tusk. Just at the point when we need friends and influence around the world—as the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who works so hard on these things, knows full well—we are losing them. Let us look at some of the reactions to that. Carl Bildt, the former Swedish Prime Minister, said that Britain used to be a nation

“providing leadership to the world. Now it can’t even provide leadership to itself.”

Latvia’s ambassador to London said:

“Soviets killed, deported, exiled and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Latvia’s inhabitants after the illegal occupation in 1940, and ruined lives of three generations, while the EU has brought prosperity, equality, growth, and respect.”

I ask Members to please reflect on what our closest friends and allies are telling us. Asked to respond to Hunt’s remarks when he compared the EU with the Soviet Union, the European Commission’s chief spokesman, said:

“I say respectfully that we would all benefit, in particular foreign affairs ministers, from opening a history book from time to time.”

The Foreign Secretary clearly did not listen. He doubled down when he went to Slovenia and referred to it as a “Soviet vassal state” to which the former Speaker of the Slovenian Parliament said:

“The British foreign minister comes to Slovenia asking us for a favour while arrogantly insulting us.”

At a time of crisis, the greatest crisis that the UK has faced since the second world war, we are led by political pygmies who do not understand the history of those countries that are closest to us, never mind the history of the nations of these islands. They have turned the UK into the political basket case of Europe. There is utter astonishment and bewilderment in Brussels and elsewhere at the UK’s decline. There is also astonishment in Scotland at what is going on down here, even by those who, unlike me, backed the Union.

The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) was right to raise a point of order last night and I listened to it carefully. I am glad that, because of her work, we got the no-deal papers released, and I thank her for it. It has to be said that the document was pretty flimsy, a very small document. There is much more to the Scottish Government’s document. Their analysis, which they were happy to publish a long time ago without having to be forced, has shown that any form of Brexit will be damaging for Scotland’s economy. The deal will be damaging to Scotland’s economy, which is why we cannot vote for it, but a no-deal Brexit could result in a recession worse than that in 2008, causing Scotland’s GDP to fall by up to 7%, and unemployment to rise by around 100,000.

[Anna Soubry]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady as I have made reference to her.

[Anna Soubry]

The point that everybody in this House needs to understand is that, on Privy Council terms, I saw the entirety of the most recent documents that members of this Government’s Cabinet and the important sub-Committee had seen. I saw a large number of those documents, the contents of which make it clear, in the words of the Business Secretary, that a no deal would be ruinous. Last night, I attributed those words to the Brexit Secretary who was very keen for me to set the record straight. I would have liked him to have adopted that view, but it was the Business Secretary who described no deal as ruinous. Notwithstanding that clear information, which was available to the most senior members of this Government, they refuse to take no deal off the table. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that that is the disgrace. The Government know what a no deal would do to this country, and they refuse point blank to take it off the table.

[Stephen Gethins]

As usual, the right hon. Lady makes a powerful and valid point. As this is the first time I have been able to say this, might I also say that it is nice to hear her speaking so much more closely to me now?

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[Anna Soubry]

You might regret it.

[Stephen Gethins]

The right hon. Lady is right, I might regret it. As so often, she makes a powerful point. That is why our amendment today—I hope she will support it—is a very simple one that will take no deal off the table. The Cabinet knows how damaging it will be; business knows how damaging it will be. These papers are there. They have been seen, as the right hon. Lady correctly points out. On top of that, the Scottish Government analysis shows that EU structural funds are worth €941 million to Scotland across the EU budget period, and we do not know what happens next. That is almost €1 billion and we do not know what happens.

There are 4,500 EU national staff facing uncertainty in Scottish universities, and I see that daily in my constituency work. A letter from 150 universities says that

“leaving the EU without a deal is one of the biggest threats our universities have ever faced”.

The University of St Andrews, which signed that letter, has been around for more than 600 years, so it has a bit of context; it knows a thing or two.

Do you know what stings? Scotland never voted for this. We were the first to suggest an extension, as common sense. The Scottish Government were the first to propose a compromise, to which the UK Government did not really have the decency to respond. And here we are proposing to reach out and work with the Government to take no deal off the table as well. We did not vote for this process but we have to engage with it, and we have engaged with it. I pay tribute to our friends and colleagues from different parties who have worked with us, because this is the right thing to do.

The Scottish food and drink industry thinks that we will lose £2 billion in sales annually. This does not affect the hedge fund managers or those who have pushed money offshore. It affects the poorest and most vulnerable, as well as small businesses, and it has an impact on unemployment in some of the areas of the United Kingdom that can least afford it.

I hear people saying about the EU as a political union, “Why would you want to be a member of the UK in the EU?” Well, you know what? The EU listens. We are in a partnership of equals in the EU; it cannot force us to do things. We have a Court of Justice, a Parliament and a Council of Ministers—the UK has none of them. The EU is a club for independent, growing and thriving member states. There is no place for independence or a partnership of equals within the United Kingdom.

Our amendment is a simple and straightforward cross-party proposal that rules out no deal all together. Yes, we want to take things out of the hands of the Prime Minister, but we also want her to commit to this because I am sorry to say that, with her twists and turns, it has become increasingly difficult to trust anything the Prime Minister says. Four weeks away from leaving, our amendment seems to be a responsible course of action, as there are so many pieces of legislation still to be passed.

I have raised many points, but I now address the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). We have put £4.2 billion into no-deal preparation. Just think what we could have done with that £4.2 billion at a time of continued Westminster austerity, when our public services are crying out for it and when we should be tackling climate change, poverty and many other challenges. Continuing with no deal is irresponsible, irrational and—I appeal to some of the Tories—very, very expensive. I hope that all Members will join us in backing our cross-party amendment.

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[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). How much I agreed with everything that he said.

The situation is really quite disgraceful. It is a disgrace, and when history records what has happened over the last two and a half years, it will not falter to put the blame where I am afraid it has to be put. It will not fail to observe that one of the most striking features of the last two and a half years, among too many right hon. and hon. Members in this place, has been a breath-taking lack of courage and honesty. When I say that I mean honesty about the situation we found ourselves in after the EU referendum, honesty about the choices we face and honesty with the electorate about the consequences of the choices we face.

As I think everybody in this place knows, I was one of the people who, with members of then other political parties—I am not actually in a political party at the moment; that does not really matter—founded, and I am proud of the fact that we worked cross-party, something called the People’s Vote. It came after a great deal of thought and consideration. As far as I am concerned, it is not designed to thwart or frustrate Brexit; I get tired of some of the words that are used in such a disparaging and very silly way. It was a genuine desire to find a solution to the unholy mess that we had got ourselves into, and I still believe that the only way through this mess and through this crisis is by taking it back to the British people.

I take very grave exception to hon. Members on the Conservative Benches, who really should know better, saying that in saying we want a people’s vote we are saying that people were stupid, did not know better and did not understand back in 2016. Let us be very clear about why so many of us who believe in a people’s vote, and it is a growing number, take that view in the face of the death threats, the threats to our safety, the threat of deselection—not now in my happy case—and so on. The reason we say it is that it is right that people are entitled to change their minds. It is right that young people—denied a vote by virtue of their age in 2016, but now obviously of the age when they can vote—should have a say about their future, given that they more than anyone will bear the burden of Brexit. But there is this: now we know what Brexit looks like, and we did not—any of us—know what we meant when we put to the Great British people the option of leave.

I do take grave exception to something else: the fact that this Government—a Conservative Government—have still refused to take no deal off the table. I take grave exception to that not only because there is no mandate for it and it was not promised at all—in fact, the opposite was promised by leave campaigners, who promised us a deal before we even left the European Union—but because this Government know the facts about the huge danger that it poses to the economy and the future prosperity of all the people of this country, and faced with those facts in black and white, as I saw yesterday, they still refuse to take it off the table. That is my priority—making sure that no deal is not an option—and that is why I will be supporting amendment (a).