Leaving the EU: Preparations

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend was a brilliant Health Minister and he knows that medical supplies have been termed as category 1 goods. As I mentioned earlier, as well as making sure that we have the freest possible flow across the short straits, there is additional maritime freight capacity and air capacity to ensure that vital drugs will be in place. I can therefore reassure him, his constituent and those living with epilepsy who need that medicine that it will be there.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Having previously worked as a supermarket fruit and vegetable assistant, I know how perishable and fragile supply chains are. I was therefore surprised to hear the Minister say on Sunday that a no-deal Brexit would cause no shortage of fresh food. Sure enough, soon afterwards the British Retail Consortium and the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium said that that, quite simply, was not true. It said:

“it is impossible to mitigate”

as stockpiling is not possible with such perishable produce. Will the Minister therefore accept that his statement on Sunday was inaccurate?

[Michael Gove]

I express my solidarity with the hon. Gentleman. I, too, worked with fresh fruit and vegetables when I was a food hall porter in the Aberdeen branch of British Home Stores in the 1980s, so I absolutely appreciate how important it is to ensure we have a ready supply of fresh fruit of vegetables and a wide range of them. The British Retail Consortium, with which I have worked, has been working incredibly hard to make sure we have access to the full range of foods we currently enjoy. It is the case that while the price of some commodities may rise, the price of other commodities may fall, but I am absolutely certain that consumers will continue to have a wide choice of quality of fresh foodstuffs in the event of no-deal Brexit.