EU Referendum Leaflet

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the hon. Lady. She will be glad to hear that we will not be putting the fact that the Queen is married to a Danish-Greek prince at the heart of our campaign. We will be putting at the heart of our campaign the fact that the European Union makes us greener, wealthier, fairer and safer.

Fundamentally, we need to think about questions of fairness. That was reflected in the amendments that SNP Members tabled to the European Union Referendum Bill. I see in the Chamber Opposition and Government Members who backed some of those amendments—they were unsuccessful, but we are getting used to that in this place. We tabled those amendments because fairness has to be at the heart of this debate.

The Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), said that whoever is defeated must be able to do so with good grace. That is critical. I hope the Minister will agree that the referendum needs to be seen to be scrupulous. In our amendments to the Bill we were quite particular about the purdah period, because we hope not to see any last-minute promises or vows from either side, made out of panic.

I note that some Government Members have hit out at “Project Fear”. I am glad that since the Scottish independence referendum, a large number of Conservative Members have had their hallelujah moment about that. I feared seeing far too much of “Project Fear”. I sincerely hope we will move on from that.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I apologise, Mr Stringer, for not having been here for the whole debate. As my hon. Friend said, several of us were in Brussels and have returned by Eurostar, having heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) make an eloquent and clear positive case for remaining in the European Union—the antithesis of the scare stories we are hearing from both sides south of the border. I have no doubt that he will be a figurehead and champion for the remain cause in Scotland and across the UK. Would my hon. Friend care to reflect on whether such a figurehead or champion exists for the leave side in Scotland?

[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. We keep on hearing that there is nobody here from the remain side. My answer to my hon. Friend is: I do not know. I have no idea who will be in charge of the leave campaign up in Scotland, because we have no one. So far, we have 59 out of 59 SNP Members of this Parliament in favour of remaining, 128 out of 129 Members of the previous Scottish Parliament in favour and five out of the six Scottish Members of the European Parliament in favour. Nobody is emerging for the leave campaign, but we will see what comes from the new lot.

I know that Members will be wondering what happened in the Scottish Parliament elections. They will all be glad to hear that the SNP won again, with 47% of the vote, which was up on 2011. Furthermore—[Interruption.] I hear sedentary points being made by Conservative Members; I would love to take an intervention. No? Nothing at all. The SNP Government won the highest proportion of the vote of any sitting Government in Europe. They are the most trusted Government in Europe.

Let us compare the track records. The Scottish Government have already published their agenda for EU reform, and they have a better track record on publishing documents. The White Paper published for the Scottish independence referendum was downloaded free, at no cost to the taxpayer, 100,000 times. Will the Minister tell us how many times he expects the referendum leaflet to be downloaded?