Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

In October 2019, the Brexit Opportunities Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and assured businesses that the “broad, sunlit uplands” of Brexit lay ahead. Yesterday, I spoke to Elizabeth, whose company, Gracefruit, has exported chemicals for cosmetics to the EU for almost two decades. She weathered the financial crash, but such was the impact of Brexit that she has told me she no longer has the

“mental or emotional energy to make a success of a once-thriving business.”

So would he like to tell Elizabeth, and all the others struggling with red tape, soaring costs and a loss of market, when they can expect those “broad, sunlit uplands” to arrive?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The sun is shining, metaphorically, regardless of the meteorological conditions outside. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are in charge of how this economy works, but what we cannot do is make the EU dance to our tune. If it wishes to disadvantage its own consumers—if it wishes to put up prices for its consumers—that is a matter for the EU, but we are producing a dynamic, open, free market UK economy.

[Brendan O'Hara]

The idea that the Minister for Brexit Opportunities believes that the sun is shining for small and medium-sized companies in this country is absolutely unbelievable because, in the first year following Brexit, Elizabeth’s business fell by 65%. Because of red tape and new regulations, her product line had to be reduced from 350 products to one, and the company has had to lay off 50% of its workforce. So it is Brexit that has been an unmitigated disaster for Gracefruit and so many other long-standing successful businesses. Is it not time that this Government stopped playing games with people’s lives and livelihoods and admitted that their Brexit experiment is a lose-lose for everybody, bar a few double-breasted suit-wearing hedge fund managers and City spivs?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

The Financial Times has reported that the checks on food imports that were due to be introduced in July will be delayed yet again. In the middle of a Tory cost of living crisis and a period of food insecurity that may have short-term benefits, but, as the British Veterinary Association has highlighted, it is not sustainable, and it serves only to highlight the absurd claim that Brexit would reduce red tape. What possible Brexit opportunity can the Minister identify from delaying these checks yet again, because of the extreme harm they would have caused, and what long-term solutions are the Government exploring?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The SNP once again wants to be ruled by the European Union. This is the most extraordinary claim from a party that wants to be independent. It wants to be independent for one minute, and then it says to our friends in Brussels, “You take over because we are not able to do it for ourselves; we are too weak, feeble and frail to be able to stand on our own two feet, so we’ve got to get somebody else to do it.” The great advantage of being out is that it is up to us. We have the single trade window coming forward, which will be world-beating, and potentially one of the best systems anywhere, cutting out bureaucracy not just for people with whom we are trading in the European Union, but globally, because we in the Conservative party have a global horizon, rather than this narrow Brussels-based horizon of the Scottish nationalists.

[Brendan O’Hara]

I will attempt to pick the bones out of that one when I read Hansard. Hearing of Brexit opportunities reminds me of that classic comedy, “Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion” when Bud and Lou get lost in the desert and come across an ice cream parlour that everybody knows to be a mirage except them, and that is exactly what this is—a mirage. Many of our performers are now having to rely on the charity, Help Musicians, for a £5,000 grant so that they can afford to take their performances to Europe. Why do our performers now require charitable help, and what happened to that promised post-Brexit bonfire of red tape?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In 1661—[Interruption.] I am not with Abbott and Costello; there is a much better Carry On where they are in the desert and Kenneth Williams is leading them in the Foreign Legion. Let us go back to 1661. In 1661, outside in Old Palace Yard, the public executioner took all the Acts that were passed by the illegitimate Cromwellian Parliament and burned them. I have to say that I would like to do something similar to what was done between 1972 and our departing from the European Union. We are building up the kindling wood thanks to the readers of The Sun who are sending in their brilliant suggestions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If the hon. Lady has had a chance to look at the annunciator, she will have seen that the Prime Minister will be making a statement at 5 o’clock. It is best that my right hon. Friend make the statement, rather than my trying to pre-empt him.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Following this morning’s inexcusable attack on independent Ukraine, may I put on record the SNP’s unequivocal condemnation of President Putin and his actions, and repeat our support for and our solidarity with the people of Ukraine?

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State for fantasy island—sorry, the Minister for Brexit Opportunities—to his place. That was an easy mistake to make, particularly as he believes that Brexit is already a success and that there is no evidence that it has caused trade to drop, despite the Office for National Statistics reporting that UK exports to the EU have fallen by £20 billion in 20 months. How can we trust him to deliver growth when he has hitherto been unable to accept the evidence of the ONS and the experience of just about every exporter in the UK who is losing business while drowning in a sea of paperwork and bureaucracy?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I welcome the cross-party support for the actions that the Government are taking in regard to Ukraine, and the cross-party support for the people of Ukraine in these very difficult circumstances.

As regards the hon. Gentleman’s statement about exports, he may have missed the fact that there has been a pandemic. I know that sometimes the SNP does not pay careful attention to public affairs, but the pandemic has had an effect on supply chains across the world and is one of many things that cannot be blamed on Brexit. I am delighted, however, that Scotland is reaping the rewards of Brexit and has decided to have a green freeport, which will be an enormous boost to the economy of Scotland. Perhaps he has noticed that, through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, more powers have been devolved to Scotland. Is it not eccentric that our Scottish friends would like to be ruled from Brussels, rather than being part of a United Kingdom that works effectively for everybody?

[Brendan O’Hara]

Yet another classic example of “If the facts don’t fit the narrative, ignore the facts.”

Such was the faith that the Minister had in himself to find these Brexit opportunities that the first thing he did was issue a “What would you do in my shoes?” appeal to readers of a national newspaper. I am sure that the suggestions for what he could do came thick and fast, but what was the best suggestion that he received? Will he be implementing it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have received 1,800 recommendations from the wise readers of The Sun. I believe that the British people have an enormous amount of wisdom from which politicians, particularly politicians in Scotland, could benefit.

Business of the House

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government are considering a number of ways of tackling knife crime, including having additional police, increasing stop-and-search powers and revisiting sentencing, to ensure that people who commit the most serious offences spend longer in prison.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Last year, Huma Younus, a 14-year-old Pakistani Catholic girl, was one of an estimated 1,000 young girls, mainly from Christian and Hindi communities, who was kidnapped, forced to convert and made to marry an older man. Last month, the high court in Karachi told Huma’s distraught parents that because she had had her first menstrual cycle her marriage was, in its eyes, legal. So, on the eve of International Women’s Day, may I ask the Government to raise Huma’s case with the Pakistani authorities? May we also have a Government statement to reassure this House that those in receipt of UK aid money are protecting children such as Huma?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There was a debate in Government time on the issue of the persecution of Christians. We raise that issue regularly with foreign Governments in respect of the treatment of their nationals and the protection of women’s rights. The overseas aid budget is committed to doing that. These issues are well raised on the Floor of this House in order to remind the Government to raise them with the relevant Governments.