Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate and to follow the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry), even if I disagree with almost everything he said. I thank Opposition Members for giving us the opportunity not only to praise the Union, which we on the Government side of the House always welcome the chance to do, but to reconfirm to the millions of people up and down the country—including more than 1 million people in Scotland and a clear majority of people in my constituency—that when they voted to leave the European Union, we will still deliver on that commitment.

We entered the European Union as one United Kingdom, and we exited the European Union as one United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—because together we are stronger. The covid-19 pandemic has shown exactly that. Scotland has been able to benefit from over £13 billion of support from this Government—a Government of the Conservative and Unionist party that is protecting jobs, businesses and livelihoods across every part of our Union.

Despite all that support, SNP Members still believe in tearing themselves away from their most important trading partner. As they know, the UK single market is more than three times more important to Scotland than the EU single market. Ripping that up would be the real act of economic self-harm. However, if SNP Members are saying in this debate that they have seen the light and now value the economic certainty and financial protection they get from being part of the Union, all of us on the Government Benches would be delighted, and we could finally wave goodbye to their divisive separatist agenda.

SNP Members are right that businesses need certainty, and that is exactly what we have provided since I was privileged enough to come to this House in December. Businesses in every part of the UK now know that on 1 January next year, the UK will operate its own independent trade policy, with our own tariff schedule.

The covid-19 pandemic has created great challenges around the world, but we have risen to them and we have adapted. People are working from home. Businesses are using new technology, and our negotiators have done the same. As a member of the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union, I know that the impact of covid has been a key topic of our discussions, and we addressed it last month, in the interim report that was unanimously agreed by the Committee, including by SNP Members opposite. As part of that report, we took evidence from Mr Frost, Mr Barnier, trade experts and others. That evidence highlighted the fact that, while the pandemic has disrupted negotiations, they have slipped by only a matter of weeks. They are still taking place virtually—and now face to face—and they have been intensified. There is a real impetus to get a deal done.

Whatever the outcome, things will change at the border. As a result of this Government’s announcements, those changes are known and already being prepared for by businesses across the country. Those on the SNP Benches should therefore be transparent about their motives. This is not about the UK leaving the EU. This is about their separatist agenda. Even if it was about the transitional period, they know as well as anyone else in the House that it sometimes does not matter how long negotiations last: if positions remain diametrically opposed, no amount of stalling will result in an agreement. I for one will not break the promise I made to my constituents because of EU intransigence—as the Committee’s report also made clear, the EU needs to change its mandate if an agreement is to be reached.

On a final point, we must address the elephant in the room—or, rather, those not in the room—and that is the Labour party. Looking through the list of speakers, I was, like most of my colleagues, perplexed to see that no one from the Labour Back Benches put in to speak. I considered why that might be. On the Union, Brexit and covid, no one had anything to say. Could it be that their position on Brexit has flip-flopped so many times that none of them knows what to say? Or is it that they, like the Scottish nationalists opposite, believe that democratic decisions taken by referendum should just be ignored? Either way, they appear out of step with the country, with the Leader of the Opposition missing in action.