Leaving the European Union

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Peter Grant

Monday 22nd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant]

That prompts the question as to why the Secretary of State for Scotland made those unconditional guarantees at the Dispatch Box. There was a time when a Minister who made promises at the Dispatch Box and did not keep them could not possibly remain a Minister. Perhaps, if we were prepared to go back to those days, we could start to rebuild some of the trust that has been lost.

One of the great ironies is that, while a lot of the emotion linked to petitions such as this is the result of a lack of trust in politicians, both the hard Brexiteers and the not-so-hard Brexiteers on the Government side are asking us to trust the entire future of our nations to a small and not particularly accountable group of Government Ministers and advisers in the negotiations. To me, that seems completely illogical. If the process has been driven by people’s loss of trust in their politicians, the one thing we should not be doing is passing legislation that allows a few Ministers to go off and do what they like, with little or no effective scrutiny or holding them to account.

I will not say “blame” because I do not like using the word, but I think certainly the Conservatives, and the Labour party for a number of years, deserve to be strongly criticised for not standing up to dismiss the EU myths. I know that Labour have begun to do it more recently, but by that time it was too late. Instead of David Cameron saying that as part of his EU negotiation he would put an end to benefits tourism, why could he not have just told the truth and said, “We don’t need to put an end to it because it doesn’t really exist to any noticeable extent in the first place”? Why did he not say, “We’re going to use the rights we already have to prevent benefits tourism in its entirety”? Why, when there was so much talk about the damage being done to our economy by immigration, did no one in the Government stand up and say, “Immigration is good for our economy”?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

It is all very well to explain that, but when we look at the signatures on the petition, they come from areas that have had very large impacts from inward migration from the European Union. That was largely caused during the period when former Prime Ministers Blair and Brown could have put restrictions on the number of EU migrants coming in, and did not. That is what has caused the issues, because the volumes coming in meant that it was difficult for local councils to adjust to the demands on their services. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s point on that matter.

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point, and I have a lot of sympathy with her. However, the fact is that under the existing freedom of movement rules within the European Union, if the UK Government determined that there were particular geographical areas of high unemployment, for example, they would have the authority to take steps to restrict freedom of movement in those areas. That is just one example.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to talk about the difficulties that local authorities, health authorities and so on have had in dealing with a significant number of people, whether they have come from the UK or elsewhere. A significant increase in the population of an area in a short time does cause difficulties, which were made much worse by the complete inadequacy of the system of Government funding for local services, certainly in England; I.do not know whether it applies in Northern Ireland or Wales. Local authorities simply were not given the powers they needed to take decisions to cope with increased demand for their services, because it was easier for some people to blame it on immigrants than on a failure of Government policy.

We have seen the EU myths that were never properly challenged; we had the myth again today about the all-powerful European Commission, able to impose laws on the United Kingdom. It is not. The Parliament of Wallonia was able to hold up the comprehensive economic and trade agreement deal. The Parliament of the United Kingdom tried to prevent the relevant UK Minister from signing it, but they went off and signed it anyway, against an explicit instruction from the European Scrutiny Committee acting with the full authority of the House of Commons. The Scrutiny Committee said to the Minister, “No, you don’t sign it.” The Minister went and signed it anyway.

The lack of parliamentary control and scrutiny over what has been happening in Europe for the last 20 years is not down to problems with the European Union. It is down to this Government and previous Governments being prepared to ride roughshod over the will of the House when it suited them.

If we were to accept just walking away from the European Union right now, none of these great international trade deals, which we are told will suddenly come out of the pipeline a few days after we leave, will be possible. Who will go into a major trade deal with anybody who says, “Oh yes, we had the biggest trade deal in the economic history of planet Earth, and we walked away from it and didn’t even stay to comply with the obligations we’d adopted and agreed to under that. We welched on the last trade deal we had; can we have a trade deal with you, please?” That is not going to happen. Even as a matter of self-interest and to present ourselves as an honest trading partner to future trade deals, we must ensure that we fulfil the obligations of our existing EU membership.

I do not have to hand figures for the rest of the United Kingdom, but in Scotland, we currently have £15.9 billion-worth of exports that go either to the EU or to countries to which we have access because of our EU membership. That is 56% of all Scotland’s international exports, and the figure is likely to rise to between 80% and 90% by the time we actually leave the European Union, because of the number of new trade deals that are coming on stream. We are looking at a potential drop in Scotland’s GDP of £12.7 billion if we leave without a deal. Actually, there is no scenario of leaving the EU that does not cause a reduction in Scotland’s GDP, but leaving with no deal is by far the worst. People would on average be £2,300 worse off. Who was it who said that nobody voted to make themselves poorer when they voted to leave the European Union? Perhaps they did not vote for that, but if we leave without a deal, it is what is going to happen.

I respect the views of the people who have signed this petition. I take offence at those who say that I am accusing people of being stupid. I would never use words such as “traitor” or “disloyal” to anybody simply because they voted or spoke in a way that I disagreed with. It is mainly Conservatives who have had those terms thrown at them, and worse, simply for following what they think are the interests of their constituents. That is despicable and should be called out and condemned unreservedly by us all whenever it happens. I have spoken out previously when people who claim to be on the same side as me have used similar inflammatory language about people they disagree with. There is simply no place for that in any democratic and free society.

That said, I genuinely do not understand what people who signed the petition think would happen if we were to leave the EU tomorrow without a deal. Let us say that we did leave tomorrow without a deal. There is no agreement on the future of the 3 million EU nationals living in the UK or the 1.5 million Brits living in the European Union. There is no deal about no border in Ireland, and that quite possibly means there is no longer a peace process in Ireland. There is no deal that allows our planes to continue to fly to the EU’s airports and its planes to bring us back from our holidays afterwards.

I think that the Prime Minister was highly irresponsible in coming up with the cheap line that no deal is better than a bad deal. The final sentence of the last report from the Exiting the European Union Committee was that it could not envisage, or it would be difficult to envisage, any scenario that the negotiating team would bring back that could possibly be as damaging as leaving the European Union without a deal, so let us get rid of that terminology, the sloganising, and the sound bites. They might sound good and get a few cheers on the front page of the Daily Mail, but they are contributing to a negative part of the whole debate. No deal is not better than a bad deal. No deal is the worst of all possible deals. This Parliament should have the courage of its convictions and send that message out, and each of us should be prepared, if need be, to say face to face to those of our constituents who signed the petition, “I know that you have done this sincerely and this is what you believe, but I cannot support it, because I am convinced that it is a recipe for complete and utter disaster.”

English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Peter Grant

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I simply do not understand the hon. Lady’s argument. I used to represent an area in Wales and would like to take this opportunity to put the record straight. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) suggested that I had lost numerous first-past-the-post elections to the Assembly, but in fact I lost only one—by 500 votes—and was then elected in 2011, in the second election after that. I know that the hon. Gentleman himself lost the election in North Shropshire before he was elected in Wrexham.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), my constituents in Wales had a number of elected representatives to whom they could go, namely Assembly Members and MPs, and they would often go to MPs to raise matters that were devolved to the Assembly. My constituents in England, however, have made it clear that they want a single person to represent them, namely their MP. The electorate have voted on it and have made their democratic will clear through the Members of Parliament they have elected to this House.

There is an inherent injustice in MPs from Wales, who cannot vote on education, health, certain transport matters, housing and the Welsh language in the constituencies that they represent, being able to have an influence over and a vote on those matters here. That will not change under the proposals. When this House deals with legislation that has a devolved element, the Welsh Assembly will be able to give consent to this place under a legislative consent motion. When the majority of 150 Labour MPs trooped through the Lobbies, the hon. Lady’s party knew very well that it was setting up a system that the hon. Member for Wrexham described in a Westminster Hall debate as unequal and unfair.

This small step is a modest one, as has been said by many other Members, and it will be reviewed in 12 months’ time. It is right, after 20 years of inaction following the devolution Acts and numerous amendments, that at this time, in this House, there is an opportunity for those of us who represent English seats to fight to ensure that the small matter of consent, which applies in all other devolved Administrations, applies here.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Lady agree, on behalf of the people she used to represent in Wales, that it would be utterly unacceptable for the people of Wales to vote to remain in the European Union and then be dragged out simply because a majority in the bigger neighbour voted that way?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, foreign affairs is not a devolved issue. That is a United Kingdom decision. It will be decided on, I am glad to say, by all the citizens of the United Kingdom. It is the Conservative party that is making sure that every single citizen in the United Kingdom will get a vote on that issue.

On the Barnett consequentials, I am very grateful to the Leader of the House for listening to the debate under Standing Order No. 24. It is clear that consideration has been given to the potential for Barnett consequentials. That is reflected in the changes to the proposed Standing Orders. Scottish citizens voted for a devolution settlement that reflected their wishes: they wanted a Scottish Parliament. English citizens have voted for a different settlement and do not want to have a separate English Parliament. They want matters to be dealt with in this House in a way that is fair and gives them some equality.