United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

To sit down no later than 2.30 pm, Mr Tim Farron.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). The Government’s position throughout this Bill, as it is on every other piece of legislation, is directed at an audience. The audience that was listening to their intentions to break international law was an international audience. While of course it is welcome that those clauses have been withdrawn, it is ludicrous that they were ever on the table in the first place. International opinion of the United Kingdom has been measurably affected by that as a consequence.

The fact that Britain is a country that is prepared to break its word and break international law so flagrantly—for whatever purpose Government Members might think they have behind that—is heard, noticed and remembered. As a consequence, Britain’s standing in the world is reduced, Britain’s influence in the world is reduced and Britain’s sovereignty is reduced. That is why the sovereignty myth being peddled by the Government at the moment is so far off the mark of reality.

I will focus my comments in the moments ahead of me on the issues to do with mutual recognition and the differences between the four nations of the United Kingdom. Mutual recognition is embedded in this Bill and we seek to remove it, because it is about setting the United Kingdom’s formal negotiating position using the standards that are the lowest among the four nations. As we go and have a negotiation on food, farming and other trade issues with other countries, we will use the standards of whichever of the four nations has the lowest as the common standard across the United Kingdom.

That is appalling for two reasons. It is a race to the bottom when it comes to standards in agriculture and in other matters as well, and it is a threat to the integrity and the survival of the United Kingdom. Both those realities hurt my communities in Cumbria, first because of the impact on farming. The fact that the British Government continue to refuse to write into legislation minimum standards—particularly on animal welfare and environmental standards—leaves our farmers open to being undercut by cheap imports from other countries; people talk in particular about the United States, but there are other deals as well.

That is hugely damaging to our proud record of high-quality animal welfare and environmental standards and ethics in this country. Alongside that, the Government’s decision in 28 days or so to start removing a vast chunk of farm incomes in England through the basic payment scheme undermines family farming in this country to the extent that it will reduce our capacity to feed ourselves and fundamentally change the landscape of places such as the Lake District. That is wrong, and we need to ensure that those standards—our proud, high British agricultural standards—are written into statute.

However, from my perspective and that of most people here, it is also massively regrettable in how it undermines the integrity of the United Kingdom. In Cumbria, we share a border with Scotland. Animals raised in Dumfriesshire are sold at market in Cumbria, and animals raised in Cumbria are sold at market in Dumfriesshire. The border is pretty meaningless to most of us on either side of it. To undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom in this way, and to play into the hands of those who would want the United Kingdom to be split up, is utter folly from the Government. Some 95% of Cumbrian farm exports are to the single market, but the single market that matters most to us is the United Kingdom single market. My great fear is that Conservative Members increasingly know little, and care less, about what it would take to keep the United Kingdom together.

I run the risk of offending some people around me, but I say this to the English nationalists on the Government Benches whose modus operandi to win the elections of the past few years has been to blame all the ills of the country on people outside our borders: that has done you a lot of good in terms of electoral results in recent years, but it can happen to you in reverse, as nationalists north of the border point to the nationalists on your Front Bench and decide to make a call that it is time to end the Union. That is why we need to uphold the Lords amendments: because we believe in the future of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

A few references to “you” there, Mr Farron—you should know better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

I do, and I am sorry.