Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

As I was saying, Mr Speaker, I am not sure whether certainty about the future is a human right, and I am certainly not sure whether the House would necessarily extend it to the hon. Gentleman. The simple truth is that we have a large group of people—some of them European citizens and some of them British citizens abroad—to whom we want to give certainty across the board about their right to remain, their right to healthcare, their right to welfare, and so on. I have now seen, one way or another, representatives of around half the member states, and it is plain to me that they all treat this issue seriously and want to see it dealt with early in the negotiations. That is the Government’s policy—to ensure certainty for everybody.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

11. Whether the Government plan to refer to the recommendations of “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, published by the Scottish Government on 20 December 2016, in their notification to the European Council of the invocation of article 50.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

14. If the Government will respond to “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, published by the Scottish Government on 20 December 2016, before invoking article 50.

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[Roger Mullin]

Who knows what the Scottish people will think of such an imprecise answer to a specific question? Let me try something else that may help the Secretary of State. How many trade negotiators have been recruited to deal with matters such as the very specific and unique needs of some sectors of the Scottish economy?

[Mr Davis]

Many trade negotiators have been recruited, particularly by the Department for International Trade. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman raises the question with that Department, because it has been very busy at that in recent months. The simple truth is that the British Government share the hon. Gentleman’s aims for his constituents and for the people of Scotland—namely, we want the best possible deal, which will be best for the Scottish economy, for Scottish business and, most of all, for Scottish people.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is exactly what we are trying to achieve.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

In response to the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), I would say that it was because of the failure of UK economic policy that after my brother graduated as a scientist he was forced to emigrate to Canada. He eventually became the chairman of the OECD science and technology committee and helped to write the science and technology policy for the free South Africa, yet the failure over here forced him to emigrate.

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely valid point.

Amendment 61 calls for a revised national security strategy. The existing national security strategy is based on a 2015 assessment that took no account of Brexit—[Interruption.] I am not sure what Government Members are so concerned about. It is completely legitimate for Opposition Members to table amendments to the Bill and it is perfectly right and proper that we have the opportunity to debate them.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

No, but I will say this to the hon. Gentleman, because he probably has a lot more influence on the Government Benches than I do—that is one thing I will give him. The Government are desperately in need of friends and good will. If we benefit financially from EU nationals being here, and if our society is richer for their being here, we want to keep them regardless—they are not bargaining chips, but that is something the Government seem to ignore. If EU nationals are not bargaining chips, I would encourage him to join us in the Lobby and give them the certainty they need and deserve.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

The situation is even worse. While accepting what the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) said, pitting Elke Weston, an EU national in my constituency, against my friend Tracy de Jong Eglin in the Netherlands does not in any way give them succour; it makes their situations worse.

[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I am not surprised, given the amount of hard work he has done for EU nationals in his constituency.

If Conservative Members are so confident in the ECHR, which they now promise us they are, I look forward to the hon. Gentleman voting against his own Government. I do not trust Conservative Members entirely, but if there is not a problem under the ECHR, he and his colleagues will have absolutely no problem joining us in the Lobby.

We will debate the devolved process in the next tranche of proposals, but let me just say this about scrutiny. All this will have an impact on the devolution process, be it in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. If Ministers respect the devolution process, they should have no problem with the additional scrutiny that comes with it. Right now we are in a situation where the unelected House of Lords will have a greater say on this process than the elected Scottish Parliament and other devolved legislatures. No Government, regardless of their colour, have a monopoly on wisdom. The whole point of having a Parliament is that we scrutinise, with the courage of our convictions, and this place makes a contribution. If this Government are confident in what they are doing—or know what they are doing and have any kind of a plan—they should welcome scrutiny in the Chamber here and then elsewhere in these islands, because fundamentally that scrutiny will provide better legislation. On something of such enormity that we are about to undertake, they have a responsibility for it to be scrutinised as much as possible.

Let us not underestimate the impact of the decision that we are about to make this week. It will impact on our rights, on our economy, and on each and every one of us. We will encourage the strengthening of anything that increases scrutiny of this process. The Government’s record so far has not been good. I am not heartened by what I have seen, with a White Paper that was rushed out and could not even get its facts right. We therefore owe a debt of responsibility to people across the UK—and, indeed, beyond—to have more scrutiny than we are promised and more than we have at present.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Roger Mullin Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who is not in the Chamber at the moment, spoke about the future. The Bill will have huge impacts on future generations, affecting the prosperity of our children and our young men and women. That is thrown into particularly sharp focus in the highlands. For generations, young people left the highlands to seek further education and to seek their future, until we had a Scottish Parliament and benefited from the engagement of the European Union.

The University of the Highlands and Islands is celebrating 20 years of EU co-operation, which has allowed us to have that much-needed symbol in the Highlands—a physical university campus in Inverness. Among other things, our co-operation with Europe has helped to reverse the decline that I mentioned. So, too, have EU nationals, and I was struck by the words of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), because I agree that these people who come to our country to add to it are our friends and neighbours, and they deserve to be treated as such.

However, with the direction that the UK Government are taking, that all changes. The UK is scrabbling about for deals—any deals—with no stone unturned, no matter who is underneath it. Holding hands with Trump, legitimising his symbolic exclusion, his walls and his rising xenophobia, and shaking hands with Erdogan—all this is clearly saying that it is weapons before weans, dogma before doctorates. The alternative to a rock-hard Brexit is a change of course, if not for the UK, then for our universities, for people who will be put in a really difficult position, such as those in Gibraltar, and, of course, for Scotland, where 62% of people and 100% of council areas voted to remain. There is a choice for this Parliament.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Has my hon. Friend noticed a shiver running along the Labour Front Bench looking for a spine to run up?

[Drew Hendry]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I hope Labour Front Benchers and other Labour Members will follow the example of some of those I have referenced tonight and vote against article 50.

If there are exceptions on borders for Ireland, and exceptions for Nissan and the City, this is a matter of choice—it does not have to be a rock-hard Brexit. People in the highlands and elsewhere in Scotland want hope for the future. They want future conditions to reflect our nation: they want a big-hearted, open-minded, co-operative future where all who contribute to a better society, wherever they come from, are valued. They want an enlightened future, not an insular little Britain hand in hand with those who would drag us into the darkness.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It would be very churlish of me not to recognise some of the contributions from those on the Government Benches. In particular, I wish to mention the speeches of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and the many contributions and interventions of the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). Those two individuals have probably done more to progress the cause of Scottish independence than anyone else today.

I voted, of course, with my colleagues against this ill-thought out and vastly underprepared referendum. Not only that, but, at the time, my colleagues and I said that, if there was to be a referendum, we wanted the maximum franchise possible, and this Government did the reverse. They denied the vote to the people whose future is most at stake—the 16 to 18-year-olds. Of particular concern to us at the time were the EU nationals, who were refused a vote in the referendum, but who had been allowed a vote in the Scottish referendum. I think that I was the first Member of this House to raise the issue of EU nationals.

Before the vote took place, a horrific immigration debate was unleashed, which bordered at times on xenophobia. I talked to two of my constituents, who said that they felt so upset at the whole process that they were leaving the country the week before the vote and were deciding their future. Sadly for me, they are selling their house and leaving Scotland for good. They should have been welcomed here. What happened after the people who made the immigration argument had won? Their leader horsed off to help a president get elected in the United States, pushing the same kind of vicious immigration xenophobic debate that got that man Trump elected.

On this of all days, we should remember a different Republican president. On this day in 1865, the House of Representatives of the United States passed the 13th amendment to the constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

There was a statesman—Abraham Lincoln! I will end with some of Abraham Lincoln’s favourite lines, which will be recognised by many and that he carried with him all his life:

“Then let us pray that come it may,

(As come it will for a’ that),

That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,

Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that .

For a’ that an’ a’ that,

It’s coming yet for a’ that,

That Man to Man, the world o’er,

Shall brothers be for a’ that.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

15. What recent discussions he has had with Ministers of the Scottish Government on the Government’s plans for the UK leaving the EU.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)]

The Government are absolutely committed to working with the Scottish Government, alongside the other devolved Administrations, as we formulate plans for the United Kingdom to leave the EU. That includes working through the new Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations, which had its first meeting last month and is due to meet again on 7 December.

[Roger Mullin]

Can the Minister outline the benefits of Scotland securing full membership of the single market post-Brexit?

[Mr Jones]

I find it extremely difficult to see how one part of the United Kingdom could remain part of the single market while the rest did not. I refer the hon. Gentleman to what the First Minister of Wales said only the other day:

“I don’t see how there can be separate market access arrangements for the different nations within the UK that share the same land mass.”

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[Mr Jones]

I can confirm that. We had a debate very recently in which that point was reiterated several times.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

T8. Following the Chancellor’s statement, will the Secretary of State point to the precise page on which we can find the Brexit bonanza in either the autumn statement or the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast?

[Mr David Davis]

I recommend to the hon. Gentleman the comments of the shadow Chancellor, who said that Britain should grasp the opportunities available and use Brexit to transform society. Sadly, the shadow Brexit Secretary does not help.

Next Steps in Leaving the European Union

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the great repeal Bill will include incorporating all the existing rights currently guaranteed by EU law to EU citizens?

[Mr Davis]

My job in the first instance is to bring that decision back to this House. What I have said to those who have expressed concerns about that matter is that we will certainly not be removing employment rights or employment law from British citizens as a result of bringing back that process. That is the situation: we will not be withdrawing employment rights as a result of this process.