Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I am aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) about this issue, and the hon. Gentleman is aware that we are in dialogue with the Home Office on these issues. As I said, the Migration Advisory Committee is looking in the round at our labour needs after we leave the EU.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

4. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the future of the UK food and drink industry after the UK leaves the EU.

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the future of the UK food and drink industry after the UK leaves the EU.

[Peter Grant]

Those discussions must have been the shortest in history if they were about the benefits of leaving the European Union.

This week, the chief executive of the National Farmers Union warned against selling out agriculture for simple ideology. Does not the Secretary of State accept that the unilateral decision to withdraw from the customs union and single market was based purely on ideology? When is he going to stop the platitudes and the mild assurances, and accept that that ideological decision threatens to destroy the future of agriculture in these islands?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have to say that the discussions about the benefits of leaving the EU that I undertake with my Cabinet colleagues go long into the night, often fuelled and sustained by glasses of fine Scotch whisky and smoked salmon from parts of that beautiful country. One of the things we appreciate is that the appetite for smoked salmon, whisky and Scottish and British produce is growing faster outside the European Union than it is within it.

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The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

5. To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what discussions the Committee has had with the Electoral Commission on the decision to publish election expenses in Northern Ireland submitted since July 2017.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South)]

On 12 March 2018, the Electoral Commission published the first information about political donations and loans in Northern Ireland following the necessary legislation coming into force. This gives details about donations and loans received from 1 July 2017. The Electoral Commission welcomes this transparency, but continues to urge the Government to bring forward additional legislation to enable transparency from 1 January 2014, as envisaged by the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that answer, because it confirms the clear view of the Electoral Commission that full transparency requires donations from 2014 to be fully declared, including the £425,000 donation that was effectively laundered through the good offices of the Democratic Unionist party, which was almost certainly raised in mainland Great Britain and almost entirely spent in mainland Great Britain. Will the hon. Lady tell us whose interests can possibly be protected by keeping that particular donation secret?

[Bridget Phillipson]

The law requires the Electoral Commission to keep confidential all information about donations and loans in Northern Ireland before 1 July 2017, and it is unable to make any comments about donations to the DUP prior to that point. However, it remains of the view that donations and loans from 1 January 2014 should be published and continues to urge the Government to bring forward the necessary legislation.