Renegotiation of EU Membership (Devolved Administrations)

George Kerevan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) on securing his first Westminster Hall debate. As he said, it is timely that it has occurred on the same day as a ministerial statement on renegotiation and, indeed, on the same day as the Minister was able to have a phone call with his counterpart in the Scottish Government. It would have been very disappointing to come to Westminster Hall to find that there had been no consultation or discussion with the Scottish Government or other devolved Administrations.

The Prime Minister has been at pains to demonstrate how determined and wide ranging his renegotiation strategy has been. He has been jet-setting across Europe to meet almost anyone who will listen to him, forging interesting alliances in the process, but there has been scant evidence of communication, let alone negotiation, with his most important European allies of all—the constituent nations of the UK.

The Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk that was published today states:

“I want to enhance the role of national parliaments, by proposing a new arrangement where groups of national parliaments, acting together, can stop unwanted legislative proposals.”

Well, Ms Dorries, Scotland has a Parliament, and Wales and Northern Ireland have Assemblies. Surely they should be working with the UK Parliament and Government to protect and enhance our position in the European Union. During the referendum in Scotland, as my hon. Friend said, Westminster politicians, led by the Prime Minister, were falling over themselves to tell us that we should lead the UK, not leave the UK, and that Scotland’s only hope of remaining in the European Union was to remain in the United Kingdom. Now it seems that both those propositions were without foundation. Scotland’s membership of the European Union is now at far greater risk, and its opportunity to minimise that risk by being an equal partner in the renegotiation process is also threatened by the lack of consultation with the UK Government to date.

I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to the range of questions raised by my hon. Friend, especially with regard to a formal process. In June, the First Minister called for a distinctive forum in which the views of the devolved Assemblies could be heard in the renegotiation process, so I hope that the Minister will tell us about progress on that.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Prime Minister has now held talks with every single constituent member of the EU, but that nine of those member states have smaller populations than that of Scotland?

[Patrick Grady]

It does not surprise me at all to hear that. I look forward to seeing the photographs of the Prime Minister. He met the Scottish First Minister to negotiate the Edinburgh agreement in advance of the independence referendum, so I hope that he will sit down with his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to—