Scotland and North-east England Post-2014

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacNeil]

Croatia joined the EU in July 2013. When did Croatia join the euro?

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

You’d be obliged to join the euro.

[Phil Wilson]

My right hon. Friend says that Scotland would be obliged to join. The position of the Scottish National party is that once it believed Scotland should join the euro. Then it wanted Scotland to have its own currency, and now it wants to stay with the pound. Can SNP members make up their mind? It is not possible. They want to have their cake and eat it.

Thousands of north-easterners would have to take their passports to go to work in Scotland, and Scots would have to take their passports to travel from Scotland to England. I have relatives in Scotland who visit my family in south Durham every week. My brother is English and his partner is Scottish. They make that journey every week without let or hindrance, and now the SNP wants to put border controls there. Scotland will not be a member of the EU or of the common travel area, and cannot have it both ways.

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[Mr Straw]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. First, the concerns and issues that he is raising for the north-east of England also apply to all colleagues of all parties in the north-west of England. Secondly, on his central point—that we are better together—does he think that a far better comparison than the one used by the SNP representative here in Westminster Hall, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), which compared Scotland with Liechtenstein—

[Mr MacNeil]

Austria.

[Mr Straw]

Or Austria. The better comparison is to look at what happened in Germany. Three centuries ago, Bavaria and Prussia were at war—Catholic versus Protestant. They finally came together and I do not think that anybody, either in Bavaria or Prussia, would argue that those regions have not been able to maintain their distinctive identities and institutions while hugely benefiting from the fact that they are part of a single union.

[Phil Wilson]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We can have 300 years of history, as we have between Scotland and England, and still keep separate identities. We have an identity in the north-east of England, which in some ways is similar to the Scottish identity; we even call our children “bairns”. From my perspective, the identity is there and it is a great thing, so why do we have to create independence and an international border between the two countries? To say that we need to do that to secure our identity is not true.

Currently, 70% of Scotland’s trade is with the rest of the UK, including the north-east of England, and 70% of Scotland’s imports come from the rest of the UK. If the SNP wants independence, why does it want to keep the pound? If it wants to keep the pound, why not stay as part of Britain? It would save—