Leaving the European Union
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, and a rare pleasure to be back in Westminster Hall. Before I was appointed Chief Whip for the SNP, I covered a lot of Brexit debates in here; in fact, we called it the Brexit Minister hall, because we discussed the subject so frequently. It is good to see that has not changed. I do not think I will speak for two hours, but as a Whip this is a rare opportunity for me to speak. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said, the Chamber is usually so busy.
The petition is quite intriguing. It jumps out at me that article 50 must not “under any circumstances” be extended, whether for technical reasons, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) said, or for a general election, a zombie apocalypse, alien invasion or any circumstances. Brexit must go ahead on 29 March. But that date is not some sort of geological fixture or part of the fundamental laws of physics. It is a date that was put in to a piece of legislation, largely as a sop to Back Benchers. The original European Union (Withdrawal) Bill talked simply of “exit day”, which would be defined by statutory instrument. I wonder if we might be in a much calmer place if the original clause had stood. People are becoming fixated on 29 March—at least that is what the people who signed the petition seem to think must happen.
I want to dwell on the point made by the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). We hear that the British people must be given the Brexit they voted for and that anything else is not acceptable, but what is the Brexit they voted for? All the ballot paper said was, “to leave the European Union.” That might simply mean leaving the political institutions, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said and I suspect a lot of people thought. The hon. Member for St Albans said people had had 40 years of Europe and they did not like it. I have had slightly less than 40 years of European membership—only slightly less—and I have quite liked it.
Perhaps some of the people who voted to leave did not like the bogeyman that the European institutions had become. Perhaps they did not like the political institutions. Perhaps they did not like the political establishment that argued for remain, of which many of us in effect find ourselves a part. It is more difficult to make the case that they did not like their European health insurance cards, which allow them to access medical treatment wherever they go in Europe, that they did not like being able to travel visa-free across the European continent and take advantage of sunnier climates and cheaper holidays, that they did not like the medicines they get access to through the European Medicines Agency and that they did not like the safe regulation of nuclear materials.
Mrs Murray
May I give the hon. Gentleman the benefit of my experience? I voted to stay in the European Union when Labour held the referendum in 1975, but I voted to stay in a trading partnership, which is what it was sold as. Of course, this time I voted leave, and I know that a lot of my constituents, and probably a lot of his, feel the same way. As he said, he did not know anything other than the European Union, I thought he might like the benefit of my experience and age. Life did not end before 1972, when we were not members of the European Union.
Patrick Grady
I absolutely take that point. Of course, if we want to keep going back into history, the European Coal and Steel Community was founded in response to the second world war to link European economies, and peace has prevailed on this continent for longer than at any other time in the past several centuries largely as a result of closer European integration. The hon. Lady says the Common Market back then was very different from the European Union today, but rejoining the Common Market—or Common Market 2.0, which some Members are discussing—is not what the House is currently being asked to vote for. If anything, we are being asked to move further away from that.
Let us look again at what people voted for. They were told by the now former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), that there would
“continue to be free trade, and access to the single market.”
The current Environment Secretary said we would be
“redefining the single market, not walking away from it.”
The current International Trade Secretary said in 2016:
“The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history.”
All that is collapsing in front of our eyes. Shortly, the business in the main Chamber will move on to a statement about Nissan in Sunderland and the consequences of our plunging off the cliff with a no-deal Brexit on 29 March.
Patrick Grady
Well, that is where its parent company is and where it currently has factories it can easily locate to. The point is that it is not choosing to stay here in the United Kingdom precisely because of all the uncertainty.
Patrick Grady
I take that point. Nevertheless, jobs are at risk and there is massive uncertainty, and it is in large part to do with the cliff edge that we face because of Brexit.
From the SNP’s point of view, three things should happen, two of which are related. One of the effects of extending article 50 would be to rule out a no-deal Brexit. As I said, 29 March was just picked and written on a bit of paper. Frankly, that is true of all the Brexit negotiations. All this comes down to people in a room being willing to talk to one another. It is not rocket science. It is not changing the fundamental laws of physics. It is about there being political will among the negotiating parties to speak to each other and reach an agreement.
Of course, we are still in the European Union. We will continue to be members until such time as something called Brexit does or does not take effect. The easiest option—the simplest, safest and best option—is to continue on those terms. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, by definition, the best possible relationship with the European Union is membership; otherwise, nobody would want to be a member. Everybody would want the better deal. Everybody would want those terms and conditions. The point of leaving has to be that somehow we will have more benefits because of our relationships with the rest of the world, but there is absolutely no evidence of that. All the trade treaties we were told we would have simply are not in place.
Mrs Murray
The hon. Gentleman will correct me if I misheard him, but did he not say that we should stay in the European Union no matter what? He is sending the message to all those people in Glasgow North who voted to leave the European Union that he knows better and we should stay in.
Patrick Grady
Well, 22% of the people who voted in Glasgow North voted to leave the European Union. Some 78% voted to remain, and recent analysis suggests that figure will be even higher if and when we get a people’s vote.
Damien Moore
The hon. Gentleman said 78% of people in his constituency voted to remain. Was it a soft remain or a hard remain?
Patrick Grady
That is highly amusing. They voted to remain under the conditions we currently have. I will come back to what the relationship between Scotland and the European Union should be.
I believe we should remain—I believe that is the best option—but the point is that people should now be given a choice, because we now know what leave looks like. The Prime Minister set red lines—incidentally, I think she did so without the agreement even of her Cabinet; she announced them at the Mansion House or somewhere equally grand up the street. She did not set them after consulting on a cross-party basis, as she is now trying to do, or after putting forward a proposal or a Bill for the whole House to agree. They were set arbitrarily. Having set those arbitrary red lines, the deal now is probably, more or less, the only deal that could have been got. The Prime Minister wants to leave the ECJ, to stop free movement of people, to be able to negotiate our own independent trade deals, and whatever the fourth one is. Those red lines are very restrictive, and they inevitably lead us to a much more damaging relationship than the one we have or one we could have. Nevertheless, if we set those red lines, that is the deal we get.
That deal should be put to the people. Why should they not have the opportunity to have their say? What are the Brexiteers afraid of? If the Prime Minister’s deal is so glorious—if it is going to launch mother Britannia into a new position of ruling the waves, global leadership and all the rest of it—why are they so afraid to put it back to the people? Why would people not vote for it? The Environment Secretary said to me in the main Chamber a couple of weeks ago that other countries would be looking enviously at the United Kingdom’s deal. If that is the case, why would the people of the United Kingdom not back it in a people’s vote?
Damien Moore
Can the hon. Gentleman say that, in such a campaign, the remain side would be honest about some of the things the European Union has in store, such as further integration and a European army? Some of those things would be terribly unpalatable to people—even those who want to stay.
Patrick Grady
The United Kingdom has consistently negotiated derogations, alternative arrangements, opt-outs and so on throughout its history. The point of membership of the European Union is that, within the Union, a country can help to shape its direction and its future. Brexit will take us out completely.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, “We want to become a sovereign country again,” is a completely misleading phrase? All of us in the European Union are sovereign members; we are sharing and pooling sovereignty. That is the whole point about the European Union.
Patrick Grady
I was going to make that exact point in my peroration. Members can probably guess what that will be.
The problem is that this deal is not good enough. It has already been rejected by Parliament, and the Prime Minister has had to accept that it needs to be renegotiated so that we have these magical alternative arrangements. That in itself demonstrates that if the House—if parliamentarians, whether we are delegates or representatives—cannot agree on the shape and form of Brexit, then it has to be put back to the people, either in a people’s vote or in a general election. I assure the House that the Scottish National Party fears neither of those.
Patrick Grady
No, because we support remaining in the European Union. That brings me to my final point, which is about the treatment of Scotland in all of the debate. As I said to the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), 78% of my constituents voted to remain, which was one of the highest proportions in the United Kingdom. I want to listen to and understand the people who voted to leave, but I am not afraid or ashamed to stand up for the vast majority of my constituents. Some 35 residents of Glasgow North signed this petition—it is interesting to look at its geographical spread.
The day after the 2016 referendum, the First Minister of Scotland said that we had to respect the results of both the 2014 independence referendum and the 2016 UK-wide referendum on the European Union. The Scottish Government have consistently put forward alternatives, compromises and ways forward that could respect the result of the Brexit referendum across the United Kingdom. I meant to say at the start that the SNP voted against having the Brexit referendum, as we did not think it was necessary. We are not in the position of the Liberal Democrats, who now want to revisit an answer that they did not like.
The Scottish Government have not been listened to at all. For example, we proposed ways of retaining single market or customs union membership for Scotland—and potentially for Northern Ireland and parts of the United Kingdom that had voted to remain—and none of that was paid attention to. The promises made to people in Scotland, both in 2014 and 2016, have been broken. The major promise in 2014 was that voting no to independence guaranteed that Scotland remained a member of the European Union, which has proven to be false.
In these circumstances, the people of Scotland will come to the conclusion that it is not the European Union that is failing, but the Union of the United Kingdom; they will choose their own course, whether through a referendum or at a general election, and choose to take back control for themselves. As alluded to by the hon. Member for Bath, independent countries nowadays are defined by their interdependence; a country is known to be independent precisely because it is a member of the United Nations, because it has chosen to pool sovereignty through the European Union or because it has chosen to join any number of international organisations. That is the positive trend that the world should be aiming for, but instead Brexit represents a retrograde step.
Patrick Grady
I was coming to a conclusion, but if the hon. Lady is very keen I will give way.
Patrick Grady
I think that would be completely unnecessary. Clearly, there are going to have to be arrangements made for the border with Northern Ireland. If it is possible to do that in Northern Ireland, then it ought to be possible to do when Scottish independence comes. The best solution would be to revisit the whole issue through a people’s vote and ultimately give the people of the United Kingdom the option to remain in the European Union.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
Of course, the modern economy means that all these issues are integrated. As we said, the Agriculture Bill offers the possibility of a more bespoke policy. That is what Brexit can potentially deliver. So we are completely aware that a lot of these industries are integrated, and have a wide range of problems to solve. That is something that we are fully prepared to deal with.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Is the Minister aware that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told me two weeks ago that he believed other European countries would be looking enviously at the UK’s deal? Is that officially the Government’s position, and if so, are they not concerned that it puts the entire European project at risk, because everyone will want an identical deal, and there will be no European Union left?
Kwasi Kwarteng
Of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) has said a lot of things in the last three weeks—I am not particularly aware of them. In terms of the sentiment, the hon. Gentleman will understand that agriculture is a devolved issue. As a Government, we still view Brexit in a very positive light. I think there are lots of opportunities, as things like the Agriculture Bill would suggest, for this country going forward. What other countries do is up to them. I do not know what moves there are for other countries to leave the EU, but that is exactly what we intend to do: we want to deliver the deal, and we are leaving the EU on 29 March.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Patrick Grady Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The public, frankly, are fed up with this, but they are also worried. I have been overwhelmed with correspondence from my constituents, 69% of whom voted to remain, and many of whom have since changed from leave to remain supporters. They have raised concerns about the treatment of EU nationals and the impact that it will have on the NHS, and they are angry at the tone of the negotiations. Today’s carry-on after Prime Minister’s questions does nothing to restore anyone’s faith in the Government or the Tory party.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
My hon. Friend says that many of her constituents are moving from leave to remain. Is it not the case that many of them are also moving from no to yes on the question of Scottish independence as they watch this play out?
Carol Monaghan
That is exactly what many of the emails say—they voted no in 2014 because of their concern about European Union membership, and now their worst concerns are coming to pass.
I was in Romania last year as part of a parliamentary delegation. Everywhere we went, there was a celebration of Europe and its membership of the European Union. People showed great pride in the country having been a member since 2007. It was notable that one issue raised fairly regularly with the delegation was the brain drain that Romania was experiencing. It was seeing its most talented and very best young people moving to other parts of Europe. We gain benefit from that, and we should continue to.
Let us compare that with the UK. We joined a trade organisation very reluctantly in the early 1970s because we were being economically disadvantaged by not being a member of it. Almost immediately afterwards, there was a referendum to see whether that had been the right decision. Had we really done what we should have done? Throughout that time, we heard about European bureaucracy and about how things were being done to us. There was lots of comedy about it. I remember episodes of “Yes, Minister” in which people talked about sausages and bendy bananas. It is rather ironic that we are talking about the bureaucracy of the European Union and European Parliament when, just along the corridor, we have a whole pile of unelected bureaucrats sitting in this building.
The nature of the arguments in the referendum campaign also caused me deep concern. There were stories about millions going to the EU that could be spent on the NHS instead. There was scaremongering about swarms of migrants. A lot of this was stoked up by the right-wing media, and it was received by a public who were looking for leadership. EU nationals were blamed for the strain on schools, the health service and social housing, but let us be clear that the majority of EU nationals in the UK are of working age and are contributing. Three to 18 is the age of education, but the majority of EU nationals here are not in that age group. The biggest strain on our health service comes from those who are over 70, and that does not generally include EU nationals.
When I first came to London to sit in this place, I had a flat in a building where more than half the flats were empty, because they had been bought up and banked by foreign money launderers who used them as a place to keep their investments. Those flats were empty when homeless people were sleeping out on the streets. That was not the fault of EU nationals. If we want to deal with the housing crisis, we need to build houses for social use—for people who need houses. We need to stop building houses that are going to sit empty in the centre of London.
EU Withdrawal Agreement
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful to have caught your eye, and I will be very brief.
In 2015, the Scottish National party released the speech that Alex Salmond would have given if Scotland has voted yes to independence. If we had won the referendum in 2014, we would have embarked on a programme of nation building, of ambition, of progression and of bringing everyone together, recognising that not everyone would have voted in favour of independence, and recognising and reaching out to the people who voted no.
How that contrasts with what the Prime Minister did in 2016 and what she has done since. She has pandered to the hardest and most extreme Brexiteers on her own Benches instead of trying to bring the rest of the United Kingdom together. That is the legacy with which we have been left today, that is why we have found ourselves in the current farce and impasse, and that is why the deal that the Prime Minister has proposed is unacceptable to everyone and the no-deal contingency planning has had to be stepped up. It turns out that rather than getting £350 million a week for the NHS, we will have 3,500 troops on the streets. No one in the United Kingdom voted for that to happen as a consequence of Brexit, yet that is exactly what we are seeing.
However, the real story of the past few days has not been the contemptible failure on the Conservative Benches—we have known about their chaos for a very long time—but the failure on the part of the Labour party and the Leader of the Opposition, who should have taken his constitutional responsibility seriously and tabled a motion of no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. He is the man who should be the credible alternative in this House, and he has singularly failed to be that. That is because the Labour party is the pro-Brexit Labour party and the leader of the Labour party is the pro-Brexit leader of the Labour party, and that is a betrayal of the people the Labour party is supposed to represent.
It is true that hard-core Labour voters voted leave in 2016, but the job of the Labour party should not simply be to kowtow and run away in fear; it should remake and remake again the positive case for European membership rather than support a Brexit that is going to put those very people out of work and make them less well off.
That may be difficult for the Labour voters in the north of England, but the voters in Scotland have an alternative. The voters in Scotland have a way out: if we want to exit from Brexit, we can do that by exiting the United Kingdom.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman makes the very good point that the single market in services was never completed, and it probably never will be. It is in the UK’s interests to deliver on the outcome of the referendum, move on from leaving the single market and the customs union and deliver a new relationship with the EU. Many people, including those in the party to which the hon. Gentleman belongs, told us that that would never be possible, but the political declaration makes it clear that it is.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Government are paying lip service, at best, to the views of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government. In reality, I think they simply do not give a stuff about what people think north of the border. Yesterday, Scottish Conservative spokespeople were describing a debate in the Scottish Parliament as “needless”. Does the Minister honestly agree with them that the Scottish Parliament—and, for that matter, the Welsh Assembly—do not need to debate or vote on Brexit?
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Dominic Raab
It has nothing to do with fighting talk; it is to do with the professionalism and the smart approach we are taking to the negotiations, both on the substance and the detail of our proposals. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) is laughing, but Labour has come up with no serious alternative on the substance. We will continue to make sure that we get the best deal for the country, because that would provide the unifying effect and the healing of the divisions that the hon. Lady refers to.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
When I came back from Berlin during the October holidays, I went through the blue lane rather than the red lane or the green lane at customs. What lane will I use on 30 March next year, on 30 March 2020, and on 30 March 2021?
EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legislation
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Dominic Raab
We have worked very closely with the devolved Administrations at official and ministerial levels. Ministers discussed proposals for this Bill at the JMC on 5 July. The Sewel convention will apply in the ordinary way. I appreciate there will be different views on its application, and we do not know quite how it will look until we have the whole deal agreed. I look forward to working very constructively and sensitively with all the devolved Administrations.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
A very happy recess to you, Mr Speaker. It is quite embarrassing for the Government that they are already having to amend their European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which is only a month old and was passed without legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament. Does he believe that the customs Bill and the Trade Bill will also have to be amended by the withdrawal agreement Bill?
Dominic Raab
I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that we made it very clear when we passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act that we would have to consider the subsequent terms in the light of the negotiations. I would have thought he would welcome the implementation period, welcome the certainty it gives to Scottish businesses and to businesses across the UK, and welcome it as a finite bridge towards our end state of leaving the EU and taking back control of our laws, our borders and our money.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Walker
There has been regular discussion between the Government and Scottish Ministers, including ahead of the White Paper, and those discussions will continue. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government in good faith on the arrangements for a future partnership with the EU and on preparations for contingency planning.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I think that the Government are still planning to bring forward a withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill in due course, so will the Minister tell us whether that will require legislative consent from the devolved institutions? Will he also tell us whether he expects it to have to amend or repeal any aspects of the customs and trade Bills that we have been debating this week?
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Walker
Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point. Portugal is our oldest ally in the world—in fact, I think the longest-standing alliance in the world is between England and Portugal—and we want to ensure that the trade between us can continue to flourish, as we do with the trade between the UK and many other EU member states.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Does the Minister think that the sight of Ministers and Whips negotiating in real time their position on the customs union, either from the Dispatch Box or on the Benches, helps or hinders the UK’s negotiating position with the rest of the European Union?
Mr Walker
The Government are determined to present the right answer on customs to make sure that we have the frictionless trade we all want to see between the UK and the EU. The sight of the Scottish National party abandoning their parliamentary responsibilities is perhaps not one that encourages confidence from anyone.
Mr Robin Walker
The hon. Lady has raised that point before in these questions. She will appreciate that that is not necessarily a question for this Department, but she points to an area in which the UK may have greater flexibility in the future, which we should welcome.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State listed a series of conventions and mandates that he wants to see respected in the Brexit process. I notice that he did not mention the mandate of the 62% of people in Scotland who voted to remain and the 20-year-old Sewel convention, which determines the relationship between this place and the Government in Scotland. Does he seriously think that ripping up the 20-year-old devolution settlement on this island is a price worth paying for a hard Tory Brexit?
Mr Walker
As I have said, we are absolutely committed to the devolution settlement. The arrangements we have reached respect that devolution settlement. In a week in which we have seen a lot of debate about meaningful votes, it is a shame that the SNP colluded in a series of meaningless votes, three times voting on the same thing twice, which ate into the time available to debate these issues.
Oral Answers to Questions
Patrick Grady Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
Patrick Grady
Does the right hon. Gentleman foresee a scenario in which the deal negotiated is so mind-bogglingly positive that all the other European Union states want that kind of relationship as well, and the European Union itself implodes? Or does he accept that membership is the best possible relationship we can have with the European Union, so any new settlement will be disadvantageous compared with what we have now?
Mr Davis
Those who made a decision on the last part of the hon. Gentleman’s question were the British people—17.5 million of them—and they decided that that was not the case. Let me respond to the first part of his question, however, because he does have a serious point. Certainly in the institutions of the European Union, and in some member states, there are concerns that if we are too successful that will be tempting to others. I do not believe that that is a real fear, because we have unique circumstances—the English language, our historic traditions, our world network, our island status, our law—that other countries do not have. That is no fault of their own; they just do not have those advantages. That is what will allow us to make the best of this situation.
Mr Baker
Well, yes, but, of course, it is a rule taker. Its economy is substantially different from our own and it is outside the customs union. We just need to make sure that we follow a path that suits our economy, and that is the path set out by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
On what date were officials first instructed to begin drafting amendments to clause 11 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill?
Mr Robin Walker
We have been working on clause 11 of the Bill for some weeks and months; we have, of course, been discussing our approach with the devolved Administrations. It was always our ambition to achieve agreement on those amendments with the devolved Administrations.