EU Exit Negotiations

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will pick up on a number of those points. It interests me that the hon. Gentleman was talking about the importance to him of staying in the single market, presumably because of his concern about trade with the European Union. Well, we want to have a good trade deal with the European Union, but we also want to be free to be able to negotiate our own trade deals around the rest of the world. He asked what were still the areas of disagreement between us and the European Union in relation to the withdrawal agreement, and I set those out in my statement. I am afraid that he used a very unfortunate term. He said that we were showing contempt for the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland. Far from that, it is precisely because we recognise our commitment to the people of Northern Ireland that we are working hard to ensure that we deliver no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and to ensure that people and businesses in Northern Ireland are able to carry on their day-to-day lives and their business as they can do today.

The hon. Gentleman also started off by referencing a piece of work that talked about the best economic future for Scotland. I hate to have to remind the Scottish National party yet again, but the best economic future for Scotland is to remain in the United Kingdom.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I know that my right hon. Friend will appreciate that, in deciding to remain in the customs union, the Leader of the Opposition is guilty of a shameless U-turn and a betrayal of millions of people—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear the right hon. Gentleman. Let’s hear the fella.

[Boris Johnson]

In that case, I will repeat that the right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, is guilty of a shameless U-turn and a betrayal of millions of people who voted leave. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister confirm, as I think she has just said, that the very latest deadline by which this country will take back control of our tariff schedules in Geneva and vary those tariffs independently of Brussels in order to do free trade deals will be, as I think she has just said, December 2021? If that is not the deadline, will she say what it is?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in pointing out the U-turn of the Leader of the Opposition. As I referenced in my response to him, the Opposition cannot hold the position both that they want to do trade deals around the rest of the world and also that they want to be part of a customs union. As I said, when we published the temporary customs arrangement proposal back in June, we set as a point of expectation that that would be completed by December 2021. As I indicated in my statement, one issue that we are discussing with the European Union is how we can ensure that we do reflect—properly reflect—the temporary nature of the backstop. I continue to believe that what we should all be doing is working to ensure that the backstop never comes into place and that, actually, it is not December 2021 that we are talking about, but 1 January 2021.

Salisbury Update

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I say first to the right hon. Gentleman that, as I said in my statement, I am sure all Members of the House join both of us in saying to the people of Salisbury, Amesbury and the surrounding area that they have been through terrible disruption in recent months and that we commend the dignity and calm with which they have dealt with it.

The right hon. Gentleman asked what we have done to approach the Russian Government on the question of bringing the two individuals to justice.

As I said in my statement, we are issuing an Interpol red notice and have issued a European arrest warrant but, as we saw in the case of Alexander Litvinenko, Russia does not allow its citizens to be extradited to face justice in other countries. I think the phrase I used in my statement was that an extradition request would be “futile”.

What we have done is to repeatedly ask Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March, and it has responded with obfuscation and lies. We want Russia to act as a responsible member of the international community. That means that it must account for the reckless and outrageous actions of the GRU, which is part of the Russian state. This is a decision that would have been taken outside the GRU and at a high level in the Russian state. It must rein in the activities of the GRU and recognise that there can be no place in any civilised international order for the kind of barbaric activity that we saw in Salisbury in March.

The right hon. Gentleman asks me about the OPCW and the United Nations Security Council. We have been working through the OPCW. I am pleased to say that we had an overwhelming vote on the proposal that we and others put forward earlier in the summer on strengthening the OPCW’s ability to attribute responsibility for the use of chemical weapons. Further discussions are to take place within the OPCW on that issue, but I hope that the whole international community—and, I would hope, some of those who previously were cautious about accepting what we said in March about responsibility for the attack—will now see the clear responsibility that lies at Russia’s door and act accordingly.

It is right that the United Nations Security Council has not been able to come together to agree an arrangement for the attribution of responsibility for the use of chemical weapons. Why is that? It is because Russia vetoes any attempt to do so. We will work through the OPCW and continue to give the very clear message that states and people cannot use chemical weapons with impunity. We will maintain, and do all that we can to reinforce, the international rules-based order in relation to the use of chemical weapons. I and the Government—and, I am sure, other Members of the House—will be very clear about the culpability of the Russian state for the attack on Salisbury.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for her statement. The whole House will have noted what I am afraid was the somewhat weasely language of the Leader of the Opposition in failing to condemn what is now incontrovertible in the eyes of all right-thinking people—the involvement of the Russian state at the highest level in the Salisbury poisonings. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that we will be asking that these two individuals be produced for justice by Russia? Will she be stepping up our diplomatic activity, our counter-measures and our targeted sanctions so that the whole international community can show its repugnance at what Russia has done in a way I am afraid that Leader of the Opposition signally failed to do today?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. Obviously he was Foreign Secretary when the attack took place and worked, as I did, with the international community on its response.

The CPS does not have a policy of requesting extradition from states whose constitutions bar the possibility of extradition. That is why we have issued the notices available to us—the Interpol red notice and the European arrest warrant. As I said in my statement, if these two individuals step outside Russia, we will take every step possible to ensure that they are detained and brought to face justice here in the United Kingdom.

On the other points that my right hon. Friend makes, we will indeed be stepping up our activity across the broad range of our capabilities and what is available to us across our national security apparatus to ensure that we make every effort to deal with malign state activity and, in particular, as I said in my statement, the activity of the GRU.

National Security and Russia

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

This has been an extraordinary day when, across the world, Britain’s allies have proved that if it was the Kremlin’s goal to intimidate us, to divide us from our friends, to make an example of Britain and to deter other countries from matching our robustness, its strategy could not have boomeranged in a more spectacular fashion. Tonight, there will be amazement in the Kremlin at the sheer weight of international opinion that is represented by those countries that are willing to stand with us and take the risk of expelling their own diplomats in response to the assassination attempt against Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and the reckless endangerment of members of the British public.

There are plenty of countries that have joined us in issuing powerful statements, and plenty are taking action in other ways. I will read out the list of countries that have today decided to expel diplomats whose presence, they have reason to believe, is no longer conducive to the public good: Albania, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, the United States and Macedonia—22 countries in all, and more than 100 diplomats expelled altogether.

[Rebecca Pow]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a pity that some Opposition Members—notably the hon. Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle)—did not recognise the fact that it is this Government who have brought together that amazing list of 22 countries in condemnation of Russia’s appalling act of violence on these shores?

[Boris Johnson]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I should stress that those countries that have chosen to expel Russian diplomats have consciously placed themselves at risk of the Kremlin’s retaliation. I know that I speak for not just my hon. Friend but every Member of the House when I offer my profound thanks to those countries for what they have done today. It is worth our asking why the global reaction to the outrage in Salisbury has been so much more pronounced than that which we saw in 2006 with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. The reason, of course, may be that those countries have feelings of affection and respect for, and a desire to support, the United Kingdom. That is true—or, at least, that is possible. But it is not primarily about us. Today the world has shown that it agrees with the analysis of the United Kingdom regarding the threat posed by the Kremlin.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am one of those who has congratulated the Government on their achievements with this coalition, but does the Secretary of State share my deep regret at the explicit refusal by the Austrian Government, whose leading party has a direct relationship with Vladimir Putin’s party in Russia, to expel any diplomats? That is extremely disappointing. Next time the Secretary of State is speaking to his Austrian counterpart, will he make Britain’s displeasure extremely clear?

[Boris Johnson]

I respectfully say that the right hon. Gentleman’s criticisms might be directed elsewhere.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who has shown with devastating effect in the course of this debate what an astonishing thing it is that 22 other countries have gone further in their condemnation of Russian actions than the Leader of the Opposition. That is a sad state of affairs. As speaker after speaker has said—I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) —what happened in Salisbury was part of a pattern of reckless behaviour by the Kremlin. Some have called it a new cold war. Some have drawn attention to the annexation of Crimea and the pattern of cyber-attacks against Ukraine. My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) spoke well and movingly about the suffering of the people of Georgia. We have seen the hacking of the German Bundestag, interference in foreign elections and attempts to conceal the use of poison gas by Syria’s tyrant. I note that Ukraine—the country that is suffering directly at the hands of the Kremlin—has expelled 13 Russian officials today.

[John Woodcock]

rose—

[Boris Johnson]

I give way with pleasure to the hon. Gentleman.

[John Woodcock]

The list of allies that have expelled diplomats is indeed impressive. Has the Secretary of State seen that, during the course of this debate, Iceland has announced a similar diplomatic boycott of the World cup to that of the United Kingdom? Does he welcome that, and does he hope that more of our allies in NATO and the EU will follow suit?

[Boris Johnson]

I am aware of Iceland’s action. If we think about this action in the round, there has never been a collective diplomatic expulsion or action like it across the world. I therefore hope that this episode will mark a turning point. We do not want this to be a bilateral confrontation between Britain and Russia, as many hon. Members have said.

Like many on both sides of the House, I have been very careful to make the distinction between our quarrel with the Russian state and our position with the Russian people. I echo the heartfelt sympathy voiced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about the horrific fire in the shopping centre in Kemerovo in Siberia, which claimed the lives of scores of people, including children. It is vital to state that our differences have never been with the Russian people, whose artistic, cultural, literary and musical achievements are matchless. Our quarrel, as I say, is with the Kremlin, whose approach is to conjure up the spectre—the turnip ghost, if you like—of foreign enemies to cement domestic support. The idea that Russia or the Russian people are ringed by enemies is totally implausible and untrue. Far from being surrounded by foes, the Russian people are surrounded by friends and admirers such as ourselves who want nothing more than to live in peace with them on the basis of the very international rules that, tragically, their leaders have made it their project to subvert or overthrow.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) said, the Kremlin has tried to respond to its actions in Salisbury with the usual tactic of concealing the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation. The Russian state media have pumped out no fewer than 21 separate theories so far, including some of almost sublime absurdity. They have claimed variously that Britain launched a nerve agent attack on its own soil in order to sabotage the World cup, that America did it to destabilise the world and, most sickeningly and cynically of all, that Sergei Skripal attempted suicide and apparently tried to take the life of his own daughter with him.

[Leo Docherty]

Conservative Members will welcome the Opposition’s somewhat tardy acceptance of Russian culpability for the crimes in Salisbury. What, in the Foreign Secretary’s judgment, has brought about that change of heart?

[Boris Johnson]

At this stage of the debate, all of us on both sides of the House will welcome as much unanimity and accord on this matter as we can find. We do not seek to make windows into men’s souls and to try to establish exactly how or why the Opposition decided to change their mind, but we welcome it. I listened very carefully not only to what the Leader of the Opposition had to say, but also to the explanation from the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). I welcome what the Leader of the Opposition said.

[Chris Bryant]

The most important thing in all this process is for us to be able to establish a unity of purpose not only in this country, but across all our alliances in NATO and in the European Union—and in the Commonwealth. I noticed that only one Commonwealth country, I think, was mentioned in the Foreign Secretary’s list, and I wonder whether he hopes that more will be signing up at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

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[Boris Johnson]

Suffice it to say that I am very impressed with the level of support that the UK has got and is getting around the world.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

With all these diplomats expelled, we will have to keep a much closer eye on Russia than ever before. Will my right hon. Friend therefore spend £25 million a year to save the BBC Monitoring Service?

[Boris Johnson]

We will be doing more to tackle disinformation in all sorts of ways, including by making sure that we monitor the output of the Russians properly. We will be hardening our defences, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) rightly recommended. We will be going after the money, as the hon. Member for Rhondda, the right hon. Member for Exeter and many others recommended. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has said, we are unconditionally committed to the defence of our Baltic friends and, yes, we will continue to spend more than any other major European country on defence. Tomorrow all that work goes on, but tonight we mark what I hope will be a watershed moment and a turning point when after all the lies, all the clouds of deceit and all the deployment of Russia’s wearying and sarcastic intercontinental ballistic whoppers—after all the outrage and the provocation that we have had from it—the countries of the world have come together, in numbers far greater than Putin can possibly have imagined, to say that enough is enough.

We want to be friends with Russia and we want to be friends with the Russian people, but it is up to the Russian Government to change, and to change now. I am proud that it is the British Government who have been in the lead, and I thank Members on both sides of the House, including those on the Opposition Front Bench, for the clarity and moral certainty with which they have spoken today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered national security and Russia.

European Council

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that we should make this decision ourselves as a sovereign nation and a sovereign people, but it is worth listening to our friends and listening to what they think is best for our country. Of all the leaders and politicians I have met around the world, I cannot think of any of our friends—not Australia, not New Zealand, not Canada, not America—who want us to leave the EU. The only person I can think of who might want us to leave the EU is Vladimir Putin. As for what the right hon. Gentleman, my former colleague, said about the need for this referendum, I make the slightly cheeky point that we are implementing the 2010 Lib Dem manifesto by holding it.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

May I ask my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to explain to the House and the country in exactly what way this deal returns sovereignty over any field of lawmaking to these Houses of Parliament?

[The Prime Minister]

This deal brings back some welfare powers, it brings back some immigration powers, it brings back some bail-out powers, but more than that, because it carves us forever out of ever closer union, it means that the ratchet of the European Court taking power away from this country cannot happen in future. For those who worry—and people do worry—that somehow if we vote to remain in, the consequence could be more action in Brussels to try and change the arrangements we have, we have a lock in this House of Commons: no power can be passed from Britain to Brussels without a referendum of the British people. So we have a better deal, we have a special status, and we have a chance to make sure that we build on what we have, protect our people and enhance our prosperity, and that is the choice we should make.

UK-EU Renegotiation

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I would argue that they have done both. When it comes to the security of the continent, we recognise that Europe’s external border, although it is not our external border because we are not in Schengen, matters. That is why we have sent more representatives to help the European Asylum Support Office than any other country and why we are happy to do even more, working with the Greeks and the Turks.

There is an important change in this deal that will increase the security of Britain. First, because we are not in Schengen, we do not have to let foreign nationals who come to other European countries into Britain, and long may that be the case. The key changes that the Home Secretary and I have managed to secure about protecting our immigration system from fraudsters, sham marriages, criminals and people who get married to European nationals to try to get into our country have become even more important. We are going to secure those, if this goes ahead, from within the EU.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

Since you have been so kind as to call me, Mr Speaker, perhaps I may ask the Prime Minister how the changes resulting from the negotiation will restrict the volume of legislation coming from Brussels and change the treaties so as to assert the sovereignty of this House of Commons and these Houses of Parliament.

[The Prime Minister]

Let me take those issues in turn, because my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise them. First, asserting the sovereignty of this House is something that we did by introducing the European Union Act 2011. I am keen to do even more to put it beyond doubt that this House of Commons is sovereign. We will look to do that at the same time as concluding the negotiations.

On what we are doing to restrict the flow of legislation from Brussels, for the first time ever in this deal, there is a commitment that Europe has to examine all its competences every year and work out what should be returned to nation states—subsidiarity in action, rather than in words. There is also the proposal to cut Brussels regulation through the bureaucracy cutting targets. That has never been there before.

I would argue that, looking across this deal, one can see that we have welfare powers coming back, we have immigration powers coming back, which I have just spoken about, and we have bail-out powers coming back. Of course, on the massive return of power that we achieved in the last Parliament with the justice and home affairs opt-out—the biggest return of power from Brussels to Britain since we joined the EU—we have absolutely nailed that down in these discussions to make sure that they cannot get around it. Those were all key objectives. I am not saying that this deal is perfect. I am not saying that the European Union will be perfect after this deal—it certainly won’t be—but will the British position be better and stronger? Yes, it will.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about Europol, and we are putting in investment and working very closely with it. We are also putting National Crime Agency officials into the operations in Sicily and elsewhere to break up the criminal gangs. I would be very cautious, however, about his suggestion about Calais. Anything that suggests that Calais will become a processing centre for people to come to the United Kingdom would simply make the situation there worse. We need to explain to people that coming to Calais and trying to get through the tunnel is not the way to get to the United Kingdom. That is what all the security and the defences are about, and we should keep them up.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

Having seen at first hand the work of DFID officials helping refugees from Daesh in their camps, can the Prime Minister confirm that there will be no reduction in that effort now that we are welcoming more to this country with DFID funds? I am sure that that was the implication of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said. I think the whole House will agree that we should all be proud of what those officials are doing and have been doing over many years.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will continue to invest in these refugee camps; £1 billion has gone in already and we will keep up that investment. Taking people from the camps is the right answer for Britain and the right answer for those people, and of course we will release some of the capacity of those camps, because at the moment they are under huge amounts of pressure, not just budgetary pressure but people pressure as well.

Debate on the Address

Boris Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Gillan]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I know how much you have done, Mr Speaker, to improve the education of young people across the country, and I hope that this would be a natural sequitur to the work we do here in Parliament.

In Buckinghamshire, we have seen close-up the ongoing fallout from the terrible activities of one Jimmy Savile in child sexual grooming in cases such as the successful prosecution of the former head of Caldicott school. I hope the Government will now look again at securing mandatory reporting in regulated activities, so that we can increase the safeguarding surrounding our young people and schoolchildren.

I have had my brush with devolution, and devolution features quite strongly in this Queen’s Speech. I, like many others with shire constituencies, will study the city devolution Bill very carefully. It is all very well to hand more power to the city regions and I am supportive of the principle of putting decisions closer to people, provided that the consequences for other parts of the country are carefully considered. For example, I have a democratic deficit in Chesham and Amersham as a consequence of the governance of London, because Transport for London and London Underground own my stations, and to try to get step-free access at Amersham station involves an almighty battle, because the money is usually wanted elsewhere in London and not in my area, which does not have a vote in the London Assembly. In addition, we need to ensure that in implementing the new policy, the shire counties and other areas of the country not directly within or in the area of a city region do not have their funding squeezed or get forced into alliances that take decisions further away from their electorate.

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that her constituents get a superb service from Transport for London, without which they would be much the poorer? It is thanks to the continued investment by this Government in London transport that we have been able to deliver record improvements in the underground generally.

[Mrs Gillan]

My hon. Friend has an impeccable record of providing services, but if he could provide me with my step-free access, I would be even happier.

I was pleased to see that the valuable work of the Silk commission is being taken forward in this Session, but I hope that the long overdue boundary changes and reduction in the number of MPs will also be taken forward. The Labour Government reduced the number of Scottish MPs when the Parliament received primary law-making powers, and that should have happened also for Wales when the National Assembly received its law-making changes. We are keen to rebalance the economy between north and south and east and west, but we also need to rebalance the representation in this House. An English MP’s work remit is arguably considerably different from that of the MPs for Scotland and Wales, who have Assembly Members and Members of the Scottish Parliament to carry out a proportion of the work that we do as English MPs. I very much hope that the changes to Standing Orders will deal with the perennial problem of the West Lothian question, which has still not been answered.

I could not speak in the debate without mentioning my pet project, of which I am a great fan—HS2—as high-speed rail is mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. In the previous Parliament the final compensation scheme was announced, but after five years the current scheme is still falling short of the fair and generous settlement that the Prime Minister promised. Constituents are having their lives and finances dissected and investigated in the sort of detail that could be said to be normally associated with bankruptcy or criminal proceedings. Even decisions on whether the Government should purchase their properties sometimes seem to be subject to lifestyle judgments being made by officials. In addition, the residents commissioner who was appointed last January has yet to agree to a meeting with me and has not published her quarterly report that was promised.

However, hope springs eternal. I was delighted that in our manifesto the Government will be maintaining the national protections for areas of outstanding natural beauty, national parks and sites of special scientific interest. As only 45% of the Chilterns AONB is currently fully tunnelled, leaving 11.4 km of the widest area of the AONB destroyed by shallow cuttings and so-called green tunnels, I feel sure that the fully bored tunnel which will protect the entire AONB must now be firmly on the Government’s agenda. In my view, this is the only way of mitigating damage to our rare habitat and fulfilling this vital commitment in the Conservative manifesto.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and to follow the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). None of us knows what the next five years has in store for us as Members of Parliament. He had a difficult time—on occasions unfairly—in the last Parliament, and I wish him the very best for this one.

I, too, recall being the seconder of the Humble Address, although I cannot believe it was 14 years ago, when I looked like a young Denzel Washington—of course, today I look far more like Forest Whitaker. Fourteen years have passed, I am a little older, my hair is growing white and, interestingly, I am now described as a senior Member of the House of Commons.

I am very grateful to the people of Tottenham for returning me. I was unusual in this general election in saying to my electorate that I wanted to be the MP for Tottenham, but only for a year, because I hope to follow the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) as the Mayor of London. He went into the election seeking to be the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, while also wanting to continue as Mayor. I wish him the very best over the coming years as he endeavours, I suspect, to secure another job. I was returned with the biggest majority of any MP that has stood for Tottenham, and I am very grateful for that.

Let me speak to all Members about an issue I know my hon. Friends will recognise. On the Sunday after the election, I took my eight-year-old to his Sunday football league, and I was approached by parents living in Edmonton in north London. Many such parents are on the minimum wage. They might be cleaners, dinner ladies, minicab drivers, hospital porters and so forth. They remind me of my family and me in 1992 when we fully expected Neil Kinnock to become Prime Minister. Those people were pleased that I had won my constituency, but they were bewildered at the scale of the defeat for the Labour party, and they were genuinely worried about what was in store for them. When the issue of the £12 billion-worth of cuts to come is raised, I hope that the Government will remain true to their pledge to be one nation, but I expect that it will be down to all of us in the official Opposition to make sure that we hold them to that over the coming months.

Let me deal first with the issue of devolution. As a member of an ethnic minority, I have always feared the prospect of nationalism. I understand the motives of SNP Members, but I believe powerfully in the Union and in the ability of all of us to take our place in that Union as British citizens. It is quite right to move towards the further devolution of powers to Scotland, but it is important to recognise the balance across our nation as a whole.

Let me remind Members of the important contribution of London to our economy, as it is providing a bigger share of our economy than at any time since 1911. The powers of a London Mayor in partnership with the local authorities in the 33 boroughs of London are, frankly, quite pathetic in comparison with the situation in other major cities across our planet. As we devolve greater powers to other cities and mayors and look to devolve further powers to Scotland, it is a matter of great concern that we are not seeing commensurate powers passed on to the Mayor of London or to those who lead the London boroughs. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) urges me to declare my interest. Of course I have an interest, but I believe that it is in the interests of London as a whole that the Mayor should have a greater say in the health and education of Londoners. We compete not only with other parts of the country, but with young people in Shanghai and Bangalore, so the Mayor should have more powers to convene and co-ordinate in order to drive up standards in this city.

Above all, we need to see implementation of the Travers review so that further fiscal responsibility can be passed to the Mayor. We need a much deeper relationship with respect, for example, to stamp duty, business tax and the ability to drive the infrastructure investment that London needs. There will be much debate about HS2, but, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Crossrail 2, I hope to see that gather pace during this Parliament, and I hope to see devolution to London.

[Boris Johnson]

I wish the right hon. Gentleman every good fortune in his efforts to replace me. I commend what he is saying about devolution, but may I advise him to couch it less in terms of more powers for the mayoralty than in terms of more powers for Londoners to set their own priorities, and to ensure that they have the necessary funds to invest in Crossrail 2, as well as in the housing that they need?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is right: the powers must sit somewhere. As he knows, however, I also referred to the 33 London boroughs. It is of huge concern that local government was stripped of so much during the last Parliament, and that the ability to deliver local services properly, with power where it should be—closest to the people—does not exist to the extent that most borough leaders would wish. Both the Mayor and those who lead our local authorities need to have that power and ability in the future.

Let me also remind the hon. Gentleman that he was involved in a report by Gerard Lyons which concluded that it would be a huge mistake for this country to exit Europe, and that London alone would lose £210 billion in revenue. The hon. Gentleman is known for his wit, but I hope that he is also known for his detail. The report concluded that it would be a disaster for us to go down that road. There is real concern about the fact that, as we head towards the referendum, big decisions in the City are effectively on hold because of the risk to our national economy. I hope that we reach a decisive conclusion as soon as possible, and that we opt to stay in Europe, because it seems to me that that must be in the interests of all of us.