Euratom Membership

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I am very pleased indeed that Euratom is now getting the attention it deserves, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) on securing this debate.

It is wonderful to see the support that Euratom is getting outside the Chamber—for example, from former Conservative party leader William Hague, writing in The Telegraph yesterday. It has also been on the front page of the Evening Standard; The Times today came out in favour of Euratom; and no less a luminary than Dominic Cummings, the man who ran the leave campaign so effectively, has used quite strong language—he nevertheless makes his point effectively—to argue that we should not leave Euratom. The reason, of course, he shares that view is that Euratom has nothing to do with our leaving the European Union.

This is a debate not about stopping Brexit but saving our membership of Euratom. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), the former Brexit Minister, pointed out, we served our intention to leave Euratom on a technicality. It was quite clear that the Government had received legal advice that put it into their mind that it might be an ineffective serving of the article 50 notice if we did not serve notice that we were also leaving Euratom. The trouble that those of us who support our membership of Euratom have is that none of us has seen that legal advice. It is obviously unprecedented for the Government to publish legal advice, but it would be very useful at the first meeting of the working group, which no doubt the Minister will announce in his remarks, to have some distilled version of the legal advice that the Government received on the link with Euratom.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Without wishing to go over old scores, the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt remember that the Government were also given legal advice that there was absolutely no need whatsoever to have a parliamentary vote on triggering article 50. Does that make him wonder whether the Government’s legal advice on this should be subject to some scrutiny before it is implemented?

[Mr Vaizey]

That is a very effective point. It is certainly the case that those of us who wish to remain in Euratom will now seek our own legal advice, but it would be nice to know where the Government stand on this. The other point that has emerged is that no assessment has been made of the impact of leaving Euratom or, rather, of the Government’s current position, which is to leave Euratom and then rejoin it. The Government are being offered a time-saving opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The sentence that I think sums up how we got into this mess came from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who said that we have to start getting answers to some of these questions. How about getting answers to the questions before we had the referendum, or how about Members asking those questions before they trooped through the Lobby to vote for the shortest and most destructive Act that this Parliament will ever pass, and possibly the only Act of Parliament for which the explanatory notes were half a page longer than the Bill? The fact is that the first full day of debate on the triggering of article 50 lasted almost 11 hours, and Euratom was mentioned once by a Conservative Back Bencher—hats off to the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). His mention of it came nine hours into the debate.

The Government’s entire White Paper on leaving the European Union devoted only eight sentences to Euratom. It is described as an important priority for the Government—so important that it is mentioned on page 44, paragraph 831. Even then, there is no recognition whatsoever of the need for life-saving medical isotopes, which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who is no longer in her place. She has had an illustrious career saving lives in the NHS using radioisotopes. Without the Euratom treaty, the United Kingdom will have no—I repeat “no”—reliable source of those radioisotopes.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that plenty of countries outside Euratom have easy access to medical isotopes and that there is no reason why, if we leave, we will suddenly become an international pariah and be denied those treatments?

[Peter Grant]

I accept that membership is not essential, but this is not the only item on which we need negotiations finalised and ready to implement within a ridiculously short and entirely self-inflicted timetable. If Euratom were the only thing the Government had to negotiate between now and March 2019, there would be no problem. But there are areas that will have an essential long-term impact that the Government will not have time to negotiate properly in order to get the best possible deal. With a bit more candour from the Government about how difficult that process will be, we might all be better off.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government need to be candid about all the costs of the various options being explored—associate membership, third-country membership and remaining in Euratom—and about the difference in costs? We know that during the referendum campaign a lot of inaccurate information was circulated about the cost of remaining and the associated benefits of leaving. We need some frank information about the costs associated with retaining membership of Euratom or leaving.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be brief.

[Peter Grant]

I fully agree with the hon. Lady. The figure of £357 million comes to mind for some reason —it must be because I got the bus to work this morning. There has not been the necessary degree of openness and detailed debate on any of this. That is why one of the biggest mistakes was to call the referendum and then have the vote in such short order. We were told repeatedly by the Conservatives that we had been talking about this for years, but we have not been talking about the detail in relation to important agencies such as Euratom, the European Medicines Agency and many others.

It is good to see, albeit belatedly, so many Government Back Benchers now demanding that the Government do what some of us were asking them to do beforehand. All I can say to them is this: “The next time you want to demand that the Government do something different, please do so before voting for the Bill that makes it impossible for the Government now to listen to what you are asking for.” I say that because the Government are now claiming that we are in this situation because their Back Benchers, some of whom are here today, voted obediently for the article 50 Bill, without any queries about the implications for Euratom and other important institutions. Members here who are bemoaning the impact of that Act need to go home, look the mirror and ask themselves what responsibility they have.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

I am about to finish and cannot give way again.

Those hon. Members need to ask themselves, “What responsibility did I have for this mess, and what can I do to ensure that I don’t allow obedience to the Whips to make me vote for such a disaster in future?”

[Several hon. Members rose—]