Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

That is the point of bringing them back to the House for it to be able to deal with them. It will be right across the board. We are talking about 40 years of law, and it will take time to correct those that we do not agree with—of course, much of it we do agree with. That will take time, but the House will have its opportunity.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

Paragraph 4.4 of the White Paper speaks of working closely with devolved Administrations for

“an approach that works for the whole and each part of the UK.”

I cannot help but feel that it is déjà vu all over again; so far, this Government have done nothing to demonstrate their intention to work with the devolved Administrations. If the Government continue their unsustainable approach of ignoring the will of the Scottish Parliament in relation to Brexit, and indeed on any other issue, why should the devolved Administrations trust the UK Government on anything?

[Mr Davis]

Sometimes the Scottish National party seems to have one element in its ideology and one element only, and it is entitled “grievance”, and the maximisation of grievances. In the past six months, I have attended six meetings with the representatives of devolved Administrations. In a number of the policy areas that we have discussed and that made it into the previous White Paper—employment rights, environmental rights and a whole series of other areas like those—and on the agreement that we need to maintain the maximum possible access to trade for all parts of the kingdom, we have been in the same place. We have, of course, not been in the same place on every single element of policy. We said at the beginning that the DAs would not be given a veto, but would be very heavily consulted and involved in discussions, and that is precisely what we have done. The fact that the Scottish National party wants to claim that it is not happy about that is a matter for it, not for me or the facts.