European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Douglas Chapman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

Many people throughout the United Kingdom are very excited about Brexit. They know about the blue passports that they will be able to hold and about the new Brexit 50p coin, and the prospect of Empire 2.0 is coming to the fore. However, the more people learn about the Brexit process, the more they are realising that we will lose more than we could possibly ever gain. In my constituency, 60% of people voted to remain in the EU, and recent polls have shown that the proportion of remain supporters has increased to 68% or 69%. I think that as people in Scotland become aware of the real impact on their lives and jobs, there will be a hardening of the pro-EU vote.

I want to focus, however, on the impact of the UK’s leaving the EU on the important areas of defence and security. In my view, the Government have drastically underestimated the negative consequences of Brexit for our ability to maintain safety and security in the UK without the full co-operation of our European counterparts and the ability of our defence industries to trade and operate freely across the single market. We have a strong, competitive defence industry here in the UK. Firms such as Babcock, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce have successfully fulfilled Ministry of Defence orders for years, and even more newer companies are coming into the work stream. Those firms, like many others, have built up a valuable breadth of expertise and capability, and we should be doing all that we can to preserve their skills.

While the withdrawal agreement offers short-term stability to the defence industry, it provides no assurances in the long term to ensure that just-in-time supply chains and trading arrangements across the EU will be maintained. We must also consider the support that is currently given to the industry, particularly to small and medium-sized enterprises, in the form of European structural and investment funds and the European Investment Bank. The Government must commit themselves to continuing or replacing that support. Without it, we face further job losses in dockyards like Rosyth in my constituency and the gradual depletion of those skills from our industrial landscape. That would be an economic travesty, which I am sure neither Members nor our constituents wish to see.

In a report published in March entitled “Ministry of Defence: Acquisition and support of defence equipment”, the Public Accounts Committee said:

“The Department needs…to safeguard the interests of British industry after we have left the European Union.”

The Government have been warned time and again that they must protect our defence sector from the economic calamity of leaving the EU, and I urge the Prime Minister and the Ministers who are on the Front Bench tonight to take heed before it is too late.

Yesterday, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I co-led an evidence session with witnesses from the Ministry of Defence on the defence equipment plan for the next 10 years. The National Audit Office reports that the plan remains unaffordable, and the MOD itself admits that there is a black hole of between £7 billion and £14.8 billion black in its budget. Why is that affected by Brexit? We have established that, even under the Prime Minister’s deal, the UK will be worse off than it is with the current arrangements, and the Government themselves accept that. Almost every economic commentator who has produced anything of note also recognises that the public finances of UK plc will be in a much worse state beyond Brexit than they are at present. So given that the MOD is already struggling to realise its ambitions with the current budget, how will it cope with another blow to the economy when we leave the EU, especially under a no-deal scenario, and that is even before we start going anywhere near possible negative currency implications? With question marks already hanging over where the axe will fall in the equipment plan to bring it into balance, the Brexit situation puts at risk our defence capability.

Much has been said about our fishing industry, but what has been missing most in those discussions is a focus on securing our waters post Brexit. In particular, the north Atlantic is of key strategic importance, not only to safeguard fisheries and our oil and gas reserves and renewables, but to protect us from external threats. The MOD currently has a total of 19 Royal Navy escort ships, which is an historical low, while there are three Type 26 frigates on order at BAE Systems in the Clyde. That gives us nowhere near enough vessels to adequately protect our waters.

Another area of huge importance in defence is research and development. As a member of the EU, we currently benefit from numerous opportunities for collaborative research with our European partners through bodies such as the European Defence Agency. I recognise that it is possible for non-EU countries to participate in EDA projects, and I urge the UK Government to ensure provision is made to retain as much access as possible to these and to other defence funds as they become available.

One such project is Operation Atalanta, the highly successful EU-led anti-piracy operation off the horn of Africa in which the UK has played a leading role. At the height of Somali piracy in 2011, 736 hostages and 32 ships were being held by pirates. By April 2017, that number had fallen to zero. This demonstrates the value of joint EU efforts to tackle global security threats, and we must continue to be a part of those efforts.

The Galileo satellite system is another collaborative project that the UK is at risk of being excluded from as a result of Brexit. While the Government have put forward proposals for continued participation in Galileo as part of the wider security relationship, there is no guarantee they will be accepted.

With the Prime Minister putting forward the prospect of either this deal or no deal, Brexit will leave the UK exposed to a multitude of threats to our defence and security industry. In a recent article, Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, suggested:

“In security terms, the full benefits of membership—combining both shared decision-making and operational effectiveness—cannot be replicated under the proposed deal.”

He goes on to say:

“If the UK were to leave the EU without a deal, it would have severe and immediate consequences for the UK’s ability to combat crime and terrorism.”

On a recent visit to Culross, Torryburn and St Margaret’s primary schools, I discussed Brexit at length with the 12 and 13-year-olds there. It is perhaps a cruel irony that the EU came about through the end of two world wars that took many lives, yet that is the kind of legacy we are about to leave our children, and probably the saddest part of Brexit is the fact that we are ignoring the peace dividend we have had for the last several decades.