European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Stephen Gethins and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

My constituency is rich in immigrants who make our community richer, and not just financially—we welcome them. The hostile environment created by the Government is an abomination that should shame us all.

From the very start—from before the 2015 general election—this has been nothing but an exercise in Conservative party management, and not a terribly successful one at that, yet we all pay the price. Farmers do not know whether they should plant their crops for next year—indeed, the National Farmers Union of Scotland has called for the UK to remain in the customs union. Young people do not know whether they will have the same opportunities that we had, with uncertainty about programmes such as Erasmus. Researchers do not know the kind of collaboration they will be able to rely on, but we all benefit from such collaboration.

Just this week I opened a conference at the University of St Andrews, where Professor Stephen Gillespie, Dr Wilber Sabiiti and Dr Derek Sloan are at the forefront of the international fight against tuberculosis—the conference was held using EU funding. We know that Brexit will be economically devastating—the Treasury has told us that. The Scottish Government have shown that every single Brexit scenario makes us worse off. The Fraser of Allander Institute has also reflected that Scotland is set to lose £8 billion over the rest of the decade.

Before we get catcalls from Government Members, I should say that FAI director Professor Graeme Roy says that the rest of the UK could be even harder hit. That is not something that we or others want to see. That means less cash for public services, and the situation is made worse by the Government’s other policies on immigration, with 2,500 doctors refused visas in the first five months of this year. It is a hostile environment. That is why the Lord Dubs amendment—it is being debated today—on the rights of unaccompanied minors and child refugees, the most vulnerable in society, is so important.

Scotland voted to remain, and we know that every Brexit scenario is damaging. That is why the Scottish Government proposed the compromise—the least worst option—of staying in the single market and the customs union. Last night, we had 19 minutes to discuss devolution in the context of legislation that will have the biggest impact on the devolution process since its establishment. That smacks of a lack of respect.

The 2017 general election gave all Members an opportunity. When the Prime Minister asked UK voters for their views on Brexit, they returned a hung Parliament. Only the SNP—and the Democratic Unionist party, to be fair—was returned in a majority of the seats in which we stood. But there should be an opportunity to reach out. Some of the SNP’s best policy achievements came during a period of minority Government between 2007 to 2011, when Scottish Government Ministers were required to work constructively with other parties and needed other parties to work constructively with them. No one got everything they wanted in that particular set of circumstances—I know that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) was in that Parliament—but that is something that we can all learn from. [Interruption.] I hear chuntering from Government Members saying that we lost. Actually, the SNP gained an unprecedented majority having pursued those particular policies.

There has been a particular impact on Ireland—[Interruption.] Government Members would do well to listen to this. The Good Friday agreement has been undermined by Government Members, and right now, we should be listening to Ireland. The best friends anyone can have are honest and we all rely on critical friends. Frankly, right now the UK has no better friend than Ireland. In fact, the UK has benefited from Ireland being a full member state of the EU, as it would if Scotland were a full member state. I have heard so much about how canny the Commission is and how we cannot trust its negotiating position. No one is trying to pull the wool over Brexiteers’ eyes; it is just that they have come up against the brick wall of hard reality, and that is clear two years on.

All this comes at a time when politics in this place, as has been demonstrated today, could not be poorer. Notwithstanding some fine individuals whom I respect on both sides of the House, we have the most ineffective and incompetent Government in living memory, and they are let off the hook only because they are shadowed by the most ineffective Opposition most of us have ever known, and hopefully will ever know. We want Labour Members to be doing better and we rely on them to be doing better, but at just the time when we need an effective Opposition and Government, we have neither. Given the devastating impact that leaving the EU is having on jobs, the economy and those who have made the UK their home, the UK is on the cusp of becoming a failed state that does not represent its constituent parts and, for the first time ever, leaves the following generation worse off than the ones that came before it. One way or another, there is a better way to do this.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Mr Speaker, an English Member may restore some of the calm that has not accompanied the Scottish exchanges—thank you very much for calling me. I will try to be as brief as possible. We have a ridiculous situation thanks to the programme motion—we have about three hours left to cover amendments on a whole variety of different subjects that have all been lumped together. In the interests of time, I will confine myself to discussing the future trading arrangements of this country with Europe and the rest of the world, and the Government amendment seeking to get rid of the reference to “a customs union”. Obviously I will not follow all the Front-Bench spokesmen in being extremely generous in giving way. I apologise in advance, because I do not think I will give way much, if at all, because otherwise a large number of other Members will wind up speaking, as they did yesterday, with three-minute time limits and other absurdities that this House has inflicted on itself by accepting the programme motion.

I come to the issue that we are currently addressing most vigorously, although there are many, many more to come: our future trading and economic arrangements with the rest of Europe and the world. My views are well known, and I set them out in Committee. I wish to see absolutely no new barriers to trade and investment erected between ourselves and the rest of continental Europe. I do not think such barriers are necessary to fulfil Brexit. I certainly do not go along with some of the more extreme advocates, who seem to be positively relishing the idea that we should erect new barriers of all kinds between ourselves and 27 nation states on the continent, while having the most open and exotic free trade approach to the rest of the world, reducing barriers of every kind to other trading nations. In today’s globalised world and rule-based order, free trade is particularly essential to the British, and we have to minimise the damage that might otherwise be caused when we implement Brexit.

Let me deal briefly with the argument that is bound to be raised by some—“the moment you mention this, you are defying the referendum.” Again, I shall not repeat what I said yesterday, but I do not think the referendum remotely addressed the important subjects we are debating today; it was a yes/no question on a very broad-brush issue. I took part in a lot of debates up and down the country, doing one or two against Dan Hannan MEP, whom I know well. He is a difficult man to debate against. In my opinion, he is one of the most articulate and informed of the Brexiteer campaigners. I disagreed with him, but I got the clear impression that Dan Hannan was not against the single market and the customs union—that was not his view at all. None of that came through in the debate.

Unfortunately, the national media reporting of the referendum debate was pretty pathetic; it was all about Turks and how much money was going to go to the health service and so on. All this argument about trading arrangements was brought to a head only after the referendum, when the Prime Minister was induced by her then special adviser, Mr Timothy, to give the unfortunate speech at Lancaster House. Suddenly, new red lines were introduced: we were leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and rejecting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. I will not go further on that, as I made the same point yesterday.

I do not remember any ordinary member of the public asking me anything during the campaign about the customs union and the single market. To this day, when I go to my constituency nobody is quizzing me about the customs union and the single market. Nobody is following these debates, except when there is reference to the fact that if we get this wrong, we could do immense damage to the livelihood and wellbeing of very many people. If we do get it wrong and unintentionally create borders to trade, we will make the prospects for future generations even more difficult. In this debate we have heard great vehemence about the customs union and “the single market” and how appalling they are, but the arguments used against them are very narrow.

The Prime Minister has been absolutely consistent for months. She does not say, “Oh, we’re against the single market”—and not surprisingly, because it was the Thatcher Government who created the whole institution in the first place. Although the Prime Minister is not a Thatcherite entirely, on economic policy she and I both believe in open, free markets. There is nothing undesirable about the single market arrangement, except that it allows the freedom of movement of labour. That is the only objection to it that most Conservative Brexiteers ever raised, unless they are of the hard-line head-banging variety, who go much further than that. That is the only objection that they have.