Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising what is an important point. We do recognise that we need to do more to encourage women to undertake cervical screening tests. In October, we announced a package of measures that will be rolled out across the country, which has the aim of seeing three quarters of all cancers detected at an early stage by 2028. That will see a radical overhaul of the screening programmes, and they will be made more accessible and easier to use.

But I just want to give this very simple message, and I am able to do so standing at this Dispatch Box: smear tests are not nice. All those of us who have had smear tests recognise that they are not nice. But they are important. If you want to see cancer detected early, have your smear test. A few minutes of discomfort could be saving your life.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your words of welcome to Sammy Woodhouse, a very brave woman who has done the right thing in waiving her anonymity? We must all call out crimes of sexual violence and those responsible must be held to account.

We were promised strong and stable. What we have is a Government in crisis: a Government that have lost two Brexit Secretaries, a Home Secretary, a Foreign Secretary, and a Work and Pensions Secretary; a Government that have suffered three consecutive defeats in just two hours, the first to do so in 40 years; and, now, a Government that have been found to be in contempt of Parliament. Is it not time that the Prime Minister took responsibility—the responsibility for concealing the facts on her Brexit deal from Members of this House and the public? Will she take responsibility?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong about that. We have not concealed the facts on the Brexit deal from Members of this House. He will see that the legal position set out on Monday in the 34-page document, together with the statement made and the answers given to questions by the Attorney General on Monday, clearly sets out the legal position.

[Ian Blackford]

That is an incredibly disappointing response from the Prime Minister. The facts have had to be dragged out of this Government by Parliament. This morning, we have seen the detail of the legal advice. We have seen the fact that the Government tried to hide—this Government are giving Northern Ireland permanent membership of the single market and the customs union. The legal advice is clear. It states:

“Despite statements in the Protocol that it is not intended to be permanent...in international law the Protocol would endure indefinitely”.

Since the Prime Minister returned from Brussels with her deal, the Prime Minister has been misleading the House, inadvertently or otherwise. The Prime Minister must explain—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There can be no suggestion of “otherwise”. The right hon. Gentleman must make it clear that there is no suggestion that the Government are misleading the House deliberately. There can be no question of that. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to use the word “inadvertently”, which people do now and again, he can, but there must be no ambiguity on the point, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to clarify that—[Hon. Members: “Withdraw.”] Order. I do not need any advice from anyone. I know exactly what I am doing, and the right hon. Gentleman must comply.

[Ian Blackford]

Mr Speaker, I did use the word “inadvertently”, and I repeat it. Since the Prime Minister returned from Brussels with her deal, the Prime Minister has been misleading the house, perhaps inadvertently—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I always want the right hon. Gentleman to be heard fully, and he will be, but there can be no imputation of dishonour, and the insertion of the word “perhaps” suggests that the right hon. Gentleman wants to keep his options open. The option of imputing dishonour does not exist. That word must now be removed. Please rephrase, continue and complete—briefly.

[Ian Blackford]

Mr Speaker, I say again: “inadvertently”.

The Prime Minister must explain why she continues to deny Scotland the rights and opportunities that her deal offers to other parts of the United Kingdom.

[The Prime Minister]

I think what the right hon. Gentleman will see if he makes a careful analysis of the statement that the Attorney General made, of his answers to questions and of the legal opinion that was set out by the Government—in many ways, it was unprecedented that the Government published such a 34-page document—is that the advice he is holding in his left hand has no difference from the statement given. Indeed, I might take up the personal challenge from the right hon. Gentleman, because I have said on the Floor of the House that there is no unilateral right to pull out of the backstop. I have also said that it is not the intention of either party for the backstop to be used in the first place or, if it is used, to be anything other than temporary.

The right hon. Gentleman finished by saying, once again, that he wishes to look to what Scotland should have from the deal. We are leaving the European Union as the whole United Kingdom, and we will negotiate as the whole United Kingdom. For Scotland, remaining in the internal market of the United Kingdom is the most important economic interest, and it is in the interests of Scotland to come out of the common fisheries policy. That is in our deal and our policy, and not in his.