UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. To be honest, I was not expecting to be called quite so early in the debate, so I prepared a relatively short speech, having been conditioned by the time limits that have usually pertained in these debates. So I do not expect to detain the House for too long with my observations.

I begin by picking up where the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), speaking for the Opposition, left off. In his final words he acknowledged that something important has changed. Indeed his colleague, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), intervened earlier in the debate to say that the atmosphere is changing, and I think he is right. The pragmatism and courage the Prime Minister showed yesterday in making her statement is a very important change. I also welcome the Brexit Secretary’s recognition that, when my amendment carried on 29 January, Parliament demonstrated a clear majority against no deal. I listened very carefully to him speaking on the “Today” programme on Radio 4 this morning, when he set out that, if that majority should be restated, and if the meaningful vote did not carry before 12 March, Parliament would have an opportunity to vote on an extension to article 50 the following day. I am pleased to see that the will of Parliament will now be respected.

I absolutely agree with the deputy Prime Minister that the best way to avoid a no-deal Brexit is to vote for a deal. I did just that on 15 January and I will do so again when a deal is next put. I really do appeal to colleagues across the House to do the same. Agreeing a deal would help to ensure an orderly Brexit, which is essential to protect jobs. I have been absolutely consistent on my motivation on this issue, which is to protect the jobs and livelihoods of my constituents and those of my colleagues.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister has indeed repeated ad nauseam that the way to avoid no deal is to vote for her deal, but is it not the case that the way to avoid Parliament voting against her deal would have been to talk to Parliament a year ago to find out what kind of a deal would be acceptable to the vast majority of Members of this House?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

As an experienced former commercial negotiator—I know that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) is one of those as well—I have learned that, in difficult negotiations of this kind, it is no good harping on about the past. We have to focus on the future and to be relentlessly optimistic and bring good will to the table.

Getting back to the subject that is closest to my heart, I sounded the alarm months ago about the risks to the car industry of a no-deal Brexit. Many workers in my constituency have already lost their jobs, and more recently we heard the sad news about Nissan and Honda. The loss of jobs is devastating, but far more will be risked if auto manufacturers leave these shores. The chairman of Unipart, John Neill, said in the weekend Financial Times:

“If we lose the automotive industry, we lose one of the most powerful drivers of productivity and a powerful source of industrial innovation”.

The UK is now the ninth biggest manufacturing country in the world and we just cannot afford to lose this critical industry.

A no-deal Brexit threatens not only our car makers. Last night, representatives from the CBI, Next, Bosch, Ford, the TUC, Make UK—formerly the EEF—the Food and Drink Federation, the Investment Association and Virgin Media, to name but a few, spoke to a large number of MPs at an event in Parliament. All those organisations fear the chaos of a no-deal Brexit and implored parliamentarians to come together and agree a deal. Those colleagues who think that leaving without a deal is in the national interest must answer the concerns of the industries that millions of jobs depend on.

Chris Cummings, chief executive of the Investment Association, which represents firms collectively managing around £7 trillion, told MPs last night that £19 billion had left the United Kingdom since the referendum. The Investment Association can measure that, because it involves its members. The current run rate of this capital flight is approximately £2.4 billion each month, so the notion that no deal has already been priced into the markets is simply not true. The full consequences have not yet been accounted for.

The human cost of no deal is not just jobs and livelihoods today, which are very important, especially in constituencies such as mine; it will also impact the value of people’s pensions and savings in the future. Having touched on pensions, I want to make a point that is relevant to amendment (b), which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that the Government will accept. Colleagues might recall that I have also sounded the alarm about the plight of UK pensioners living in other EU countries, and especially about the provisions for their healthcare. If the United Kingdom were to leave the EU without a deal, there are at present no provisions in place to ensure that their healthcare would be paid for. Given the size of the contingency fund of taxpayers’ money that the Government have had to make available for the risk of a no-deal Brexit, I suggest to my right hon. Friends that some portion of that could be used to bridge the gap for UK citizens in Italy, Germany, France and Spain who are already receiving letters from the authorities warning them that their healthcare costs will not be covered from 29 March. That is a source of real anxiety and human cost to the people concerned.

Businesses cautiously welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday, which has the capacity to take away the threat of no deal on 29 March, and the director of the CBI described it as a “glimpse of sanity”. She called on the Government to permanently rule out no deal to provide the certainty that business needs. That would de-risk the situation and create the space to secure a pragmatic deal. People often confuse risk with uncertainty, because a binary choice between a deal or no deal with 15 days to go is a high-risk situation, which creates uncertainty. The Prime Minister’s pragmatic response yesterday helped to reduce that risk and creates the space to secure a deal.

The contingency planning for no deal has already cost business millions and the taxpayer billions. Pfizer alone has spent £90 million on no-deal preparations, and that money cannot then be invested or directed to the frontline, so jobs will be lost in the end. The Federation of Small Businesses reports that 85% of its members are not ready for no deal and, as somebody mentioned earlier, very small businesses do not have the capacity to prepare for a no-deal scenario in the same way as some larger ones can.

Last night’s publication of the Government’s assessment of the state of preparedness for no deal did not provide a lot of reassurance on that, so it is time to be pragmatic—the Prime Minister has taken a lead on that—and to deliver an orderly Brexit. We need to come together across parties to try to get a deal over the line. If we cannot do that, we will fail the nation.

If MPs cannot bring themselves to put the national interest first at a time like this, they should consider the risks we face to security, freight delays, air traffic control, visas, food, medicine and energy shortages, healthcare for UK citizens in the EU, scientific research and educational exchange. We have heard more and more about those things, and all that disruption is having and will have an impact on the people whom we represent. As demonstrated on 29 January, there is a clear majority to rule out no deal, and I expect that that majority will increase at the next opportunity. However, we cannot just stand against something; we must urgently build a consensus for a deal that we stand up for in the British national interest.

It is clear that businesses need a deal to deliver frictionless trade and customs co-operation. Are the parties really so far apart on some form of customs partnership? The 2017 Conservative party manifesto mentioned having a special relationship based on a customs arrangement, and the official Opposition are calling for a customs union, so I feel that we are within touching distance if there is a determined effort to reach a consensus.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

Just wait a minute—sit down. I have taken one intervention. We should look at how badly the SNP is doing in terms of representing the interests of the EU, as it were, with regard to election results.

Let me put the SNP to one side for a second and suggest to my fellow fusilier, the Secretary of State, that, as a leaver, I also accept that there is a need for compromise with regard to the withdrawal agreement. One cannot, after 45 years of integration, move from imperfection to perfection in one bound; there has to be compromise on both sides. That is why, while I have trouble with the transition period—there are many aspects that I do not like—at least it is definite. It is no worse than being in the EU itself—not really. As my right hon. Friend will know, what many Conservative Members have a problem with is the fact that the backstop is indefinite as it is presently constituted. I urge him to ensure that we have a meaningful change to the backstop to address the fact that at the moment we could be locked in an indefinite backstop that only the EU could free us from. No sensible person would enter into a relationship of that sort—it is madness.

When I say “meaningful” change, I mean that it has to have equal standing with the backstop, or the bit that we are changing. The Northern Ireland protocol containing the backstop is an appendix, so there is scope for a further appendix putting this right. It would be face-saving for the EU, if the agreement itself had not been changed. We could put a meaningful appendix into it. I suggest that the Government give that some thought, because it could assuage the concerns of a lot of Conservative Members with regard to the withdrawal agreement. Instead of worrying about where any additional text would go, agreement about the text itself could first being sought. That could be very helpful, because an awful lot of time could be wasted in trying to agree where that text goes before the text itself has been agreed.

That is something for the Secretary of State to think about. I wish him and his team well—genuinely so. I have expressed concern that the Prime Minister’s next steps, as outlined yesterday, may, at the margin, make a good deal less likely because the EU could perhaps hope that Parliament does its work for it by taking no deal off the table and by extending article 50. However, I still wish him well, because it is still within our grasp to achieve a withdrawal agreement that could bring us all together—certainly those of us on the Conservative Benches, and a number of hon. Members on the Opposition Benches—to get this agreement through.

Let me quickly turn to the Labour party’s policy on a second referendum, because that has not been touched on in this debate so far, but it is absolutely scandalous. Labour said that it would respect the wishes of the referendum, and now it is offering a second referendum. In one way, that is good, because it is clear blue water between the Conservative party and the Labour party. However, I would just offer these thoughts to the Labour party with regard to its recent assurances that it is going to offer a second referendum. First, it is a condescending policy—it is saying that people did not understand what they were voting for.

[Peter Grant]

Two days ago, the hon. Gentleman told this House that the United Kingdom already trades on WTO terms with everybody outside the European Union, and the Prime Minister had to correct him. If somebody who led the campaign to have an EU referendum still does not know about the trade deals that we have as part of the EU, what chance have the other 60 million people in these islands got?

[Mr Baron]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman misheard me. I said that we trade with the majority of the world outside the EU on WTO terms—that is a fact—and we trade very profitably with them. That is the issue. While it is clear that most of us would prefer a good deal to no deal, the exaggeration of how bad WTO terms are has to be set in context.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Mr Baron]

I am sorry, but I am going to finish because I do not think that a third intervention will add anything to my time, to be perfectly honest.

The Labour party policy on a second referendum is condescending because it says that people did not know what they voted for the first time round. The predictions of doom and gloom from the establishment in this country—the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, the Government and leaflets through the door—and of 500,000 more people unemployed by December 2016 if we voted leave were so badly wrong that most of those public bodies had to apologise.

The policy is condescending, but it is also contradictory, because it suggests that people might not have understood it last time but will understand it this time. Why would they understand it this time if we do not have faith in them to understand it the first time? Why not then have a third or fourth referendum? Finally, it is dangerous, because we made a clear pledge that we would respect that referendum result. I thank the Labour party for its policy, but it is wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is easy to ask what has changed since the last debate, and the one before that, and the one before that. I was tempted to talk only about what has changed, because I could quite easily fit “nothing” into four minutes. However, something important has changed. The clock has changed. Cliff-edge day is getting nearer and nearer. The Prime Minister insists that this is not a deliberate, cynical and criminally reckless ploy to run down the clock and blackmail us into voting for a rotten deal as the only alternative to no deal at all. I do not believe that, and I doubt that many other Members in the Chamber do either.

I have been accused tonight of not understanding democratic deficits. I have visited the Dutch Parliament, and I know that Dutch Members of Parliament are able to vote every time a Minister goes to the European Council to tell the Minister how to vote. We are not able to do that. I serve in a Parliament nearly three quarters of whose Members are appointed by patronage and favour, not by democratic mandate. I know about democratic deficits. I have never been alive at a time when my country has voted for a Conservative Government, but Conservative Governments have ruled over me, and misruled over me, for more than half my life. No one in this place is going to tell me, or five and a half million of my fellow Scots, that we do not understand what a democratic deficit means.

I must point out to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham)—although I do not know whether he is still in the Chamber—that our amendment is not redundant. The Prime Minister has not promised to give us a chance to take no deal off the table. She has offered to give us a chance to take it off the table on 29 March. I want it off the table on 30 March, 31 March, and every day from then till kingdom come. It is not acceptable that the Prime Minister has refused to confirm that that will happen if the House rejects no deal for a second time. We have already rejected it, and it is still on the table. How is that for a democratic deficit?

We have seen so many principles of good government thrown out of the window by a Government who now seem almost to be playing the game that winning a vote is all that matters. It does not matter what is in the vote. It does not matter if they win a vote to take us over a cliff edge, as long as they win it. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)—who I do not think is in the Chamber now—brilliantly described the choice that we are being offered: she said that the Prime Minister’s deal takes us over the cliff edge, but with luck we might have time to knit ourselves a parachute on the way down, before we hit the ground.

This is not a good enough choice. Those who want to force Parliament into such a non-choice are not being democratic. They are seeking to frustrate the clearly expressed will of the House. The House does not want to be forced to choose between a rotten deal and no deal. Some of us have another choice before us. Scotland will never accept the xenophobic, isolationist and divisive future that the Government are trying to force us into. Scotland has an alternative future, and that future will be claimed by the people of Scotland before very long.