Renegotiation of EU Membership (Devolved Administrations)

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Indeed. Thank you, Ms Dorries. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am reminded of the words of the great Yogi Berra, who said:

“It’s déjà vu all over again.”

The Minister has certainly earned his ministerial stipend today. He took questions for an hour and a half to two hours earlier in the House and is now about to reply to this debate. I do not know if the Prime Minister is a generous man in personal terms but he certainly owes the Minister a drink for what he has been put through today. The only consolation for him is that his colleagues are not here for this debate as they were for the statement earlier. He is at least spared their unstinting support in the endeavours that the Government have set out today.

I do not know whether the debate is well timed or—possibly, more accurately—a few hours late. The horse has somewhat bolted on this. The Prime Minister has made his speech. The Minister has made his statement. The letter to the President of the European Council has been written. I do not propose to go over the exchange that we had earlier or the questions that we exchanged, except to add a point about the negotiation that was perhaps not covered so much in statement. We are seeing this through British eyes and the four demands have been put together by the Prime Minister and the Minister in that sense. The rest of Europe is coping with an unprecedented refugee crisis. An official from another member state said to me last week, “The trouble is that we are in two different movies.” That is one of the issues for the process.

The issue before us is the consultation and involvement of the devolved Administrations, which, of course, should be appropriately consulted and involved. Quite rightly, people have said that different issues are viewed in different ways in different parts of the UK. Not every issue has the same impact everywhere. I want to speak specifically about Northern Ireland because I attended the debate mentioned by the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), which was organised by Newry, Mourne and Down District Council a couple of weeks ago.

We had an excellent debate about cross-border movement of people, movement of goods, business, trade and farm subsidies—the whole thing. The team for staying in the EU were me and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. I am pleased to say that a vote was taken by 300 or 400 people—mostly small businesspeople—at the end of the debate. The proposal to stay in was carried by 92% to 8%. I make no predictions or claims that that was necessarily a representative audience of everywhere in the UK, but the debate should go to every part of the UK. Every part should have the widest possible involvement. Ultimately, the question—all the things that have been raised about representation and so on—revolves around whether we view the situation through nationalist eyes. If we do, we will effectively see the UK as four member states. Those who are not nationalists will see it as one member state. We joined as one member state, we will have this referendum as one member state, and we will make the decision as one member state. The issue about appropriate consultation and involvement should be seen in that light.