European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Mr Speaker, I am going to help you by being brief and I am going to speak from first principles.

I really wish, Mr Speaker, that I could fly you and Members on both sides of the House north into Scotland, north over the unedifying scenes that we saw earlier today and north into the clear sky of Caithness. I would take you to Scrabster, the small harbour that serves Orkney and Shetland and sits beside Thurso. At Scrabster, I have a constituent, Mr Willie Calder. He and his son, William, run Scrabster Seafoods Ltd, a highly successful company that indirectly employs 100 people in an area where jobs do not grow on trees.

I met Mr Calder and his son a few days ago, and he put the situation to me very clearly. It takes him two days to get his fish products to the markets in the south of France. It takes him one day to get to his markets in the north of France. One day’s extra delay, or even half a day’s extra delay, at customs or a port would ruin him. It is as simple as that. The bottom line—this is where I am keeping it short, Mr Speaker—is this: Mr Calder’s business, Scrabster Seafoods Ltd, matters to me a very great deal. My story is based on first principles, but it explains precisely where I am coming from. I sincerely hope that Members on both sides of the House and both sides of the argument will see where I am coming from. I say to them: please work for the best interests of the people whom I represent. I would be letting them down and betraying them if I did not stand up here and say that.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I want to speak in response to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who is no longer in her place. She said that her constituents felt insulted. Well, in the debates around these really crucial issues, some of those who voted another way also feel insulted. They are called remoaners; they are called traitors; and they are called mutineers. The lords who have crafted some very sensible amendments have been attacked for doing their constitutional job. Quite frankly, we need to have a much more serious debate about the future of this country and our future relationship with Europe.

The reality is that I accept that we are leaving. When I hear myself described in the press as a remainer or a remoaner, or whatever other adjective they want to give me, I have to say that I accept the referendum result, but what I do not accept is the massive damage that would be caused by a hard Brexit. It would damage my constituents’ jobs; it would damage their futures; and I will not support it. I say that loud and clear. For those reasons, I do support the Government’s amendment tonight on the customs agreement. That was something that I stood on in my manifesto. I thought that it was sensible and showed that the Government were willing to negotiate with Europe, build a positive relationship and, more importantly, not junk those economic and cultural ties that are so important to my constituents.

The EEA is not the perfect answer, but it is the framework from which we should work. I know that there are concerns around immigration. The reality is that it is freedom of movement of workers in the EEA and not freedom of movement, so there is already a big shift. We do not as a country apply the immigration controls that we could do. Much of the resentment that has been spoken about by Labour Members was caused by the Labour Government’s failure to apply the brake on the accession countries when they estimated that 12,000 to 15,000 people would come in from Europe; we had just under a million. That is why there has been that big groundswell of resentment.

There are some very sensible and pragmatic solutions out there, and I want to see this Government tackling them and looking at some of the options. The EEA is a framework that Europe understands. We should accept some of that framework and negotiate the opt-outs where we need them, and shape the agreement for the future.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I accept the sincerity of the views that my hon. Friend is putting across to the House, but does she accept, too, that if we accept the EEA, we will have free movement of workers from the EU, which means that we will have to have restrictions on workers from around the rest of the world?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am saying that there is a deal to be done. It is absolutely ridiculous to cut down our options, which is what has happened right after these debates. Artificial red lines have been drawn in the sand, reducing our chances of getting a good deal for this country. For that reason, I support the amendment on the customs arrangements. However, I will be abstaining on the EEA vote because I think that it is an issue to which we should return. I want my Prime Minister to go into negotiations knowing the feeling across the House—that we do not want to cut our ties, that we do not want a hard Brexit and that we want a sensible compromise. That is what I believe the majority of both leavers and remainers voted for; they voted for us to leave the political institutions of the EU, but to retain our relationship with it.