Leaving the EU: Preparations

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Tory gain.

[Michael Gove]

I think my hon. Friend is right. In Crail and Anstruther, as well as in St Andrews, I think people are looking forward to Conservative representation in North East Fife in due course.

The hon. Gentleman talks about a tale of two Governments. Even as the Scottish Government are unveiling their programme today, they are doing so, after 10 years in government, with education standards declining and the number of people in the health service, including doctors, declining—and unfortunately, as the recent “Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland” figures show, Scotland, were it an independent country, would have the biggest deficit of any nation in Europe. That is hardly a record of success.

The hon. Gentleman asks about Prorogation. Prorogation is necessary before every Queen’s Speech. One can no more be against Prorogation in order to ensure a Queen’s Speech than one can be against the functioning of this Parliament, properly constituted.

The hon. Gentleman asks about food prices. Of course food prices fluctuate—some go up and some go down—but the temporary tariff schedule that we have put in place will protect consumers and ensure that in many cases food prices are either stable or drop.

Ultimately, the problem for the hon. Gentleman is that Scottish National party Members may talk about democracy, but we have had two major referendums in this country, both of which they seek to overturn. They want to ignore the vote to stay in the United Kingdom and they want to ignore the vote to leave the European Union. Their policy is take us back into the EU. That would mean abandoning the pound, abandoning coastal communities in Scotland, and once more recognising that the Scottish National party wants separatism and Brussels rule ahead of a strong United Kingdom and the benefits that it brings to the citizens of the whole UK.

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[Michael Gove]

Of course we want to make sure that any documents we publish accurately reflect the range of possibilities that leaving the European Union might entail. Thousands of pages of information were published in the technical notices that were published by my right hon. Friend the Brexit Secretary. It is also the case that on gov.uk/brexit there is much information about what leaving the European Union would entail. The right hon. Gentleman specifically refers to the Yellowhammer document. The point about the Yellowhammer document is that it is an aid to Ministers in order to ensure that we can deal with the reasonable worst-case scenario. Of course, the assumptions in the Yellowhammer document are arrived at independently by civil servants, and rightly so.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The BBC is constantly engaging with Polish diaspora groups in this country to accentuate potential problems over the EU resettlement scheme. Could the Secretary of State give me an assurance of what money has been afforded to ensure that the maximum number of EU citizens are processed as quickly and efficiently as possible in the event of no deal?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is a consistent champion for the rights of Polish people in the UK and elsewhere. The largest single community of EU citizens in our country is composed of Polish citizens. We were remembering earlier the anniversary of the second world war. We honour the sacrifice of those Polish soldiers, airmen and sailors who fought alongside us for democracy, and it is our moral duty to ensure that Polish citizens in this country are given the opportunity to stay and to enjoy the rights of which we are all proud and for which their forebears fought so proudly.