Priorities for Government

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for all the co-operation and support that has enabled the Government of this country to carry on and to protect the people of this country from the depredations of the Labour party, because, frankly, that is what we would face were it not for his encouragement and his support. He is, of course, right in what he says about the primacy of the Union. He and I share the same perspective that we can do that by coming out as a United Kingdom, whole and entire, getting rid of that divisive anti-democratic backstop that poses that appalling choice to the British Government and the British people—to the United Kingdom—of losing control of our trade, losing control of our regulation or else surrendering the Government of the United Kingdom. No democratic Government could conceivably accept that, and I am entirely at one with the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on getting off to a terrific start. His words yesterday outside No. 10 and again today will have brought real hope and inspiration to people and interests right across the United Kingdom. He touched on one of them just now. The common fisheries policy has been a biological, environmental, economic and social catastrophe that has ruined coastal communities and brought devastation to our marine environment. Some recent comments by Government Ministers have alarmed those fishermen that, perhaps, the negotiations will involve the CFP being used as a bargaining chip. Will the Prime Minister confirm to me that, on the day we leave, we will establish total sovereignty over the exclusive economic zone and all the resources within it, we will become a normal marine nation like Norway or Iceland, and, from then on, we will negotiate, on an annual basis, reciprocal deals with our neighbours?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend. Valiant for truth in these matters, as he has been for so long, he is, of course, quite right that we have a fantastic opportunity now to take back control of our fisheries, and that is exactly what we will do. We will become an independent coastal state again, and we will, under no circumstances, make the mistake of the Government in the 1970s, who traded our fisheries away at the last moment in the talks. That was a reprehensible thing to do. We will take back our fisheries, and we will boost that extraordinary industry.