Leaving the European Union
Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and John Redwood(5 years, 2 months ago)
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John Redwood
Well, the Government will make sure that haulage will work, and of course that is something that the Government can and will do. I have every confidence that roughly the same number of lorries will come through Calais and Dover on 30 March as on 28 March. I am sure it will work fine. I know of no reason why the Government would stop lorry drivers moving through Calais and Dover.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Chris Heaton-Harris)
I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene at this unusually early stage; I know that he was just coming to the point that, back on 19 December, the Commission issued a no-deal notice to say that lorries can travel as they do now until December 2019, so there is no issue.
John Redwood
Exactly. That is another way of putting my reassurance that of course things are going to work, because it is in the interests of both sides.
I find it almost unbelievable that MPs elected to this place, who are meant to be serving the interests of their constituents, take delight in spreading false rumours about how everything will go wrong, like this nonsense about how drugs will not arrive in this country on 30 March. I know of no pharmaceutical companies on the continent that currently supply drugs to the NHS but have notified it that they no longer wish to do so. I have seen very clear documentation from the French side that it knows how it will handle the transit of trucks containing drugs, and there is very clear evidence that the UK Government wish all those drugs to carry on coming in with no new barriers. So what is the argument about drugs, other than a deliberate scare story to make the most vulnerable people in our country think that there is something wrong with Brexit? It is a disgrace, and we are fed up with it.