Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: Border Arrangements

Debate between Deidre Brock and David Lidington

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend is spot on.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

From the Foreign Secretary’s comments, it seems that the Government are happy to contemplate a hard border with Ireland, which would be a disaster for Northern Ireland. Is it not now clear that the Government have been negotiating in bad faith with Ireland and the other countries of the EU?

[Mr Lidington]

I have sometimes felt that the hon. Lady’s party would be happy with a hard border between Scotland and England. I do not want her or anyone in the House to be under any misapprehension about this: the Government are absolutely committed to what they agreed in the joint report. Ever since the referendum, we have made it clear that we are not going to support a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Business of the House

Debate between Deidre Brock and David Lidington

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning is taking this matter very seriously. I shall draw the hon. Gentleman’s concern to his attention, but I assure him that my hon. Friend is on top of the issue.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House will be aware that paragraph 25 of the European Parliament’s draft motion on Brexit makes it clear that passporting for financial services will not be countenanced. Financial services are of key importance to Edinburgh and to many of my constituents who work in the sector. May we have a debate in Government time to hear how the UK Government intend to support our financial services organisations, which are facing serious disruptions?

[Mr Lidington]

I refer the hon. Lady to the Prime Minister’s letter yesterday, which made explicit mention of our objective of securing trade access for our financial services and, of course, reciprocal rights for financial services firms based in other European Union countries. The hon. Lady temps me to speculate about a forthcoming negotiation; as she knows, that is not something I am prepared to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Deidre Brock and David Lidington

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I sympathise with my hon. Friend and her constituent, and all passengers who come across these problems on the Chase line. It is clearly unacceptable, and it is important that the operator works hard to secure a rapid and sustained improvement. The Government have introduced new rules to ensure that rail passengers will soon be able to claim compensation if their train is more than 15 minutes late, but as the Transport Secretary said yesterday, more needs to be done, and we want to see much closer working right across the railway industry, so that this kind of problem can be resolved much more swiftly.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Q6. Does the Leader of the House agree with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that Brexit offers an opportunity to remove pesky emissions standards? In the red, white and blue of Brexit, will his Government still commit to continued tough targets to protect our environment, or will tackling global warming become just a load of hot air?

[Mr Lidington]

The Government remain utterly committed to both national and global ambitions and targets on climate change. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, in her previous job, played a key role in brokering the Paris agreement last year—the first ever global agreement on climate change. I hope that the hon. Lady would welcome the fact that we are going to be ahead of our targets and ambitions in delivering on the proportion of electricity provided by renewables in this country and that we continue to work to get our carbon emissions down.