Brexit Readiness: Operation Yellowhammer

Heidi Allen Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right: we need to make sure that not just individual medicines but medical products, including radioisotopes, are available for the NHS to use. Extensive steps have been taken, not just, as I mentioned earlier, to ensure the smooth flow of goods through the short straits, but to ensure that there is additional capacity at other ports and that that capacity can be provided by a variety of different modes of transport.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Ind)]

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is deliberately dodging questions this afternoon, which suggests that he still has not got his head around the House’s scrutineering role over the Government. Perhaps he should refer again to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling. I would have liked to have asked him a couple of difficult questions about statutory safeguards for EU citizens in the UK in the event of no deal, and about the fact that being determined not to have a hard border in Ireland is no solution at all and that the Government have still not made any practical proposals. Instead, I will ask him a really simple question: for the fifth or sixth time of asking, what was the date on which the Government changed the title of the Yellowhammer document?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for reminding me of the vital role that this House plays in scrutiny, which I take exceptionally seriously. It is and always has been the case that we have a base scenario based on unarguable facts and a reasonable worst-case scenario. That has always been the case.