Cost of Living and Brexit

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitford]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. While soft fruit is a particular issue in Scotland, this is an issue right across the UK because of the lack of European staff in harvesting. As my hon. Friend says, the sector is seeing food rotting. We are also seeing this issue in other sectors; there is hardly a sector that is not struggling for workforce.

With regard to the checks on incoming foodstuffs from the EU, the former ill-named Brexit Opportunities Minister, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), delayed the checks for the fourth time last year. At the time, he suggested that they would cost £1 billion, and described them as an “act of self-harm”—duh! I could have told him that in 2016. On top of that, the now-infamous mini-Budget that tanked the pound and the stock market while the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), was still on his feet, sent mortgage costs spiralling. The relentless rise in interest rates in response to inflation is making home ownership unattainable for young families, as well as pushing up rents.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has rightly pointed to the disastrous mini-Budget that was imposed on us by our previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). Does the leader of the Scottish Conservative party group in the Scottish Parliament, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who initially demanded that the Scottish Government implement those disastrous policies, and now demands that they spend billions of pounds to mitigate their effects, have any credibility?

[Dr Whitford]

It would be a more appropriate response by the Scottish Conservatives to get down on their knees in the Holyrood Chamber and apologise for the abuse they gave the Scottish Government for not following such crazy policies.