Cross-border Travel (Spain/Gibraltar)

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

What I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that wherever we have evidence that border delays are being imposed without good reason, we will take that up with the Spanish authorities at the appropriate level. That may sometimes be at the local, operational level; it may sometimes, as in the most recent case, need to be at a senior level, with the Spanish Government in Madrid.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the strong statement by the Minister today and the equally strong statement from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on the Opposition Front Bench about Gibraltar’s sovereignty. The Minister will know that tobacco smuggling regularly occurs—and to a much greater extent than between Gibraltar and Spain—across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland—

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Which way?

[Ian Paisley]

North and south. Yet despite that, there have never been such delays or such an overreaction by the services in Northern Ireland in relation to our trade and the impact on our trade. I hope that the Minister will send the strongest possible signal and, indeed, that he will ask our Prime Minister to represent fairly the people of Gibraltar to the Spanish Prime Minister and tell him to get his hands off this Rock. It’s not going their way.

[Mr Lidington]

The UK Government, from the Prime Minister down, could not have been clearer to our friends and partners in Spain that although we want a good bilateral relationship with them, we will not, and we shall never, agree to any transfer of sovereignty over Gibraltar unless that were the wish of the people of Gibraltar, nor would we enter into any process of sovereignty talks and negotiations unless the people of Gibraltar were content with that.