European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Brexit will be bad for our country and that is why Liberal Democrats will be voting against this Bill tonight. We know that it will be bad for the economy, because the Government’s own assessment in November 2018 looked at the impact of a free trade agreement on the British economy and concluded that it would mean that our economy would shrink by more than 6%— greater than the amount that the economy shrank during the financial crash.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that this will self-evidently be good for our country and economy, but I do not know when we decided to do away with the idea of having any financial responsibility and looking at the actual numbers. This Government have not even bothered to do a proper economic impact assessment. I am sure that we do not all agree with the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who said that he had “had enough of experts”—actually, I would quite like the Government to get the experts to look at this, thank you very much.

We know that Brexit will be bad for our NHS. We have already lost 5,000 nurses from other EU countries from our NHS. At a time when we face a huge shortage of nurses, we can ill afford to lose 5,000 EU nurses and to lose more in future. The truth is that freedom of movement is good for our NHS. It is good for our public services and good for our economy.

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

Does the hon. Lady recognise that the fact that more than 40% of applicants for settled status are being given only pre-settled status is increasing the insecurity of European citizens?

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady is right: the way that this country is treating those 3 million citizens from other EU states is shocking.

This Brexit deal will be bad for our security, because it will rob our police of the ability to use the European arrest warrant, which, since 2004, has seen 1,600 criminals extradited back to the UK to face justice. This Brexit deal will be bad for our United Kingdom family of nations. It beggars belief that this Conservative Prime Minister has agreed to a deal that will see a border down the Irish sea—something he said that he would never do. There are people who will try to use this to break up our country, but we must not let them break up our family of nations. Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are stronger working together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

If my right hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, I feel that I must press on.

As I was saying, I believe that this is an improvement on what we were offered before, but there are still elements that I do not like. I am not happy with the idea that, for 15 months we will be, in the words of the Leader of the House, essentially a vassal state, taking orders from the European Union without being able to vote on them and continuing to pay in. I am willing to pay that price as long as there is a clearly defined end point after which we will be free to set our own rules and to reach the trading agreements that I want to see and no longer be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

[Dr Whitford]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Whittingdale]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I must press on.

I congratulate the Prime Minister on having defied all the sceptics. My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), sitting next to me, at least has had the grace to say that he was wrong when he said that the Prime Minister could never reach a new deal with the European Union. There are others in the Chamber who said that repeatedly but who have been less honest in now accepting that.