Progress on EU Negotiations

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The premise of my right hon. Friend’s question is that if the future relationship is not in place by 1 January 2021, and if in some sense there needs to be that interim arrangement, we would then automatically go into the backstop. That is not the case. The withdrawal agreement makes it clear that there is the alternative of the extension of the implementation period, but it also refers to these alternative arrangements, and, as I said in my statement, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his proposals in relation to that matter and we are working on them. So it is simply not the case that we automatically fall into the backstop described in the withdrawal agreement.

Secondly, there are many instances in the document—I will not go through the full list—where it is clear that that arrangement, whether the extension of the IP, an alternative arrangement or a backstop, is there for a temporary period before we are able to put the future relationship in place. What the backstop and those alternative arrangements and the proposals amount to are what I think my right hon. Friend was talking about at the end of his question, which is our commitment to the people of Northern Ireland that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and that they will be able to carry on their business much as they do today. That, I hope, is what we are all striving to achieve in relation to this matter. There are a number of ways in which we can achieve that, as the withdrawal agreement and political declaration make clear, and we are working on all of them.

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

I thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of her statement.

This Government really are spluttering forward in a haphazard, chaotic way. There are of course outstanding political concerns still to be addressed by the EU27 this Sunday. Central to this political declaration remains the matter of fishing rights—a matter critical to Scotland. A week ago, Scottish Conservative Members in this place wrote to the Prime Minister and said:

“At the end of the Implementation Period, we must be able to negotiate access and quota shares with the EU and other third countries independently...This means that access and quota shares cannot be included in the Future Economic Partnership.”

Paragraph 75 of the political declaration agreed today states:

“Within the context of the overall economic partnership the Parties should establish a new fisheries agreement on, inter alia, access to waters and quota shares.”

There we have it: Scotland’s fishing community is once again a bargaining chip used by a Tory Government in Brussels.

Worse, the detail in the draft withdrawal agreement has pitted fishing against aquaculture—access to waters versus access to trade—making plain once again that Scottish interests are expendable. When the UK entered the then European Economic Community, under the leadership of Ted Heath, the Conservatives traded away our fishing rights, and they have done so continuously since then. Scotland’s fishing rights—thrown overboard as though they were discarded fish. So much for taking back control; more like trading away Scotland’s interests.

This is an absolute dereliction of the promises Scottish Conservative Members and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made to Scotland. Shame on them! Will the Prime Minister tell the House if her Scottish MPs and Secretary of State have agreed to this political declaration? Is it not the case that she has just lost further critical votes on the deal, because the Scottish Tory MPs could not possibly vote in favour of this sell-out of Scottish fishing interests?