New Partnership with the EU

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

As nonsense questions go, that pretty much takes the biscuit. We have made very plain indeed what we intend in this regard. We are a dominant scientific power in the European Union. We have worked night and day to ensure that we guarantee the position of students and research grants, and we will continue to do so. If the hon. Gentleman plays that down, he will harm the very sector that he is supposedly trying to protect.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Given that nearly everything that has been said by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State today is incompatible with the Scottish Government’s “Scotland in Europe” compromise document, how do the UK Government plan to honour the promise to take those proposals seriously, unless they now plan to explore all options to support continuing Scottish membership of the single market?

[Mr Davis]

As I said in an earlier answer, that paper will come before us in a few days’ time. It has, of course, more than one component. The hon. Gentleman talks as though it were only about the so-called—opt-out, do they call it? But it also contains questions about devolution, and the treatment of employment and immigration, all of which we will discuss at that time. We will treat those questions seriously, as we always have.