European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

There is no question but that our coming out of the single market will have an economic impact. My constituency has a major aerospace contingent and the complex supply chains that snake across Europe will be affected. People here talk about freedom of movement as a bad thing, but we should remember that for the people trapped behind the iron curtain and the Berlin wall, it was incredibly precious.

In this country, EU nationals contribute to our communities and public services. Some 130,000 of them are health and social care workers—doctors, nurses and the people who might be looking after our relatives. The Nursing and Midwifery Council has reported a 90% fall in nurse registrations from Europe since last July. That is going to affect England, which has a nurse vacancy rate of almost 10%.

We, too, benefit from freedom of movement. We get to travel, settle, work or study anywhere we like in the EU. Key to doing that is the possibility of our moving our social protection and healthcare rights with us, so if we work and live in the EU in the long term, we qualify like any other citizen. If we are there for less than two years, as a student or traveller, we take our European health insurance card, which we also take on holiday. For pensioners, there is an S1 form. More than a quarter of a million of them are using those forms in France and Spain, which means that they have guaranteed healthcare like any other citizen. Even if they are given the right to remain in the EU but lose the right to free healthcare, some of them might have to come back, which will put pressure on this country.

We are not looking at the benefits we have gained from agencies such as the European Medicines Agency, which I have mentioned at Prime Minister’s questions. It has given us quicker access to drugs than other markets. The EMA also drives research into rare and ultra-rare diseases. Combined with Horizon 2020, it has made the EU the biggest research network in the world, but that works only if there is freedom of movement for academics, and we should be aware that some of them are already leaving this country.

We have benefited from environmental improvements in water and air quality, and from food and safety controls that might now be under threat from a free trade deal that our Prime Minister will have gained by grovelling to the most appalling man in the western world, the new President of America. We might all have to go vegetarian if we want to avoid chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef. Exactly what will be the impact on our NHS if the large US healthcare companies force their way in?

Conservative Members say that we should just get over it, but they should recognise that 62% of the people of Scotland voted to remain. I would like us to be independent in the EU, but my Government in Scotland have come forward with what is an absolute compromise for us. I request that people read “Scotland’s Place in Europe” and treat it with a bit of respect, instead of just not bothering with it and rubbishing it. We do not want to veto the right of England and Wales to come out of the EU; we just do not want to be dragged out with them.