Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We are absolutely mindful of the risk that the hon. Gentleman describes. He knows that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that the dark days of the 1970s do not return to Northern Ireland.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I see that yesterday the Minister tried to mitigate fears about a no-deal departure by saying that it

“is not a world war.”

That might be an insight into his thinking, but is “less damaging than a world war” really a benchmark for success? Does he agree with the Security Minister, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), who said:

“A no-deal situation would have a real impact on our ability to work with our European partners to protect the public”?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s questions, as always, but I would like to point out that he has wrenched my comments completely out of context, and they were made not yesterday but on Monday. I was merely echoing what the former Governor of the Bank of England, the highly respected economist, Mervyn King, has said about our GDP growth since 1800. On an annualised basis, there would be very little impact, even in the case of no deal.