European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Peter Grant

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

As the Minister will know, I questioned the Prime Minister on this issue on 25 July. I reminded him that during the referendum he personally promised that no EU citizen living in the UK would be treated any less favourably as a result of our leaving the European Union. I asked the Prime Minister whether he would

“now guarantee the right to healthcare, pension rights, the right to leave and return, the right to bring over family, the right to vote and all the other rights currently enjoyed by EU citizens”.—[Official Report, 25 July 2019; Vol. 663, c. 1498.]

The Prime Minister, at the Dispatch Box, told me and this House that the Government were giving those guarantees “unilaterally”. Which clauses make good on those promises from the Prime Minister about the right to pensions, the right to healthcare and the right to bring family members over at some time in the future? If they are not in the Bill, the Prime Minister has made promises from the Dispatch Box that the Government have no intention of keeping.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir George Howarth)]

Order. I draw Members’ attention to the fact that interventions should be brief and to the point. I am not necessarily saying the hon. Gentleman’s was not, but for further reference I think that advice should be taken.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Peter Grant

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) on a speech that was fluent, forceful and, at the same time, generous to her predecessor. Her speech has also made me determined me to visit Canterbury, which sounds such a delightful place.

I have a few points: on why people voted to leave in the referendum; on where the Bill stands in relation to why people voted to leave; and on how all the other aspects of Brexit are going, and how they relate back to why people voted as they did. There may be other areas, but there are three that I think are most relevant. First, people voted to restore the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. However they define that sovereignty, the issue was certainly debated forcefully, and it was occasionally raised on the doorstep—I use the word “occasionally” advisedly.

Secondly, people voted to restore some kind of economic independence. People felt that we were spending too much money in Europe and that we would be better off outside, where we could negotiate better trade arrangements with the rest of the world—everything in the garden would be rosy. Thirdly, the issue most commonly raised with me on the doorstep was immigration.

I will briefly address those three points. On the first issue of sovereignty, the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) can dance on the head of a pin all they want about what the Bill actually does but, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) so forensically demonstrated, the Bill is a transfer of power from Parliament and towards the Executive. That certainly is not what the people in my constituency voted for.

Secondly, on economic independence, apart from the fact that it will potentially cost us £70 billion just to walk away, people did not vote for a worse trade deal and for worse economic relationships within the European community. Okay, I accept that the Prime Minister says, “You can’t leave and, at the same time, be a member of the single market. You cannot leave and, at the same time, be a member of the customs union.” I am sure she is right, but let us be honest about what we know the Government are seeking to do.

[Peter Grant]

Please will the right hon. Gentleman explain Norway’s arrangement? Norway has never been in the European Union but is a full member of the customs union and single market, as are Iceland and Liechtenstein. It is a complete fallacy to suggest that being outside the EU has to mean a country is outside the single market—unless it chooses to be.

[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The one I was going to make is that if we are being brutally honest, we all know what is going to happen. The Government, through the negotiations, are going to find a set of arrangements as close as possible to being part of the single market but without being a member of it and something approximating the customs union. If they do not do that, they will not be looking after the best interests of this country. That much we know, which leads me on to the question about immigration.

If the Government are going to achieve anything approximating the customs union and some sort of relationship with the single market, the price they are going to have to pay is to agree some sort of approximate arrangements about the free movement of labour between the UK and the EU. Ministers might say, “Well, we can do that.” No, you can’t. The reality is that if the people negotiating on behalf of the EU were to say, “Okay UK, you can have something that approximates the single market and customs union, and you don’t need to worry about any free movement of labour”, they would soon be removed from their negotiating positions. This idea is not realistic.

Where are we in this audit of what we have achieved since the referendum? First, we have a set of arrangements in this Bill that are less democratic, and that give less power to Parliament and more power to the Executive. That is hardly what was promised in the referendum. Secondly, we are likely to be paying £70 billion for the privilege of leaving—not getting £350 million a week to put back into the health service. Finally, if we get anything like reasonable arrangements on our economic relationship with the EU, we are going to have to accept some level of free movement of labour. Everything people voted for is going to be betrayed.

Exiting the EU: Scotland

Debate between George Howarth and Peter Grant

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

It may be helpful if I make it clear at the outset that, as a result of the Division, the proceedings have been pushed back 15 minutes: this debate will conclude at 4.45 pm.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Scotland and the process of the UK leaving the EU.

It is a pleasure to speak here under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

Exactly 174 days ago, 62% of people in Scotland voted to remain in the European Union. We are now about three fifths of the way between the referendum and invoking article 50, so 107 days from now, at most, the Prime Minister intends to trigger—probably irrevocably, although that is subject to some discussion—the process of taking us out of the European Union, despite the fact that 62% of us want to stay in.

Two years after that, we face a spectacle in which the citizens who hold sovereignty over one of the most ancient—indeed, most European—of all nations will face the threat of having our European Union citizenship stripped from us: neither because we wanted to rescind it nor because we broke the rules and it was rescinded by the European Union, but because it was taken from us by the actions of a Government who have never held a majority in Scotland during my lifetime.

There will be some on the Government Benches—there are not many here today, admittedly—and possibly even on the Opposition Benches, whose public response would just be, “Tough! That’s the way things go. If you don’t like it, you just have to lump it,” dismissing Scotland’s concerns out of hand. My advice to them is to think very carefully indeed about how such an attitude is likely to be received north of the border.

With this debate, I am not trying to reopen the argument that was won and lost in ballot boxes the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. I find it strange that, although I have now accepted that certainly England and Wales are leaving the European Union, some hon. Members who represent constituencies in those countries may be trying to prevent that from happening. I respect the will of the people of England and Wales. They have given a mandate and I understand that the Government seek to implement that mandate. However, I ask the Government to accept—even simply to recognise—the fact that no such mandate exists from the people of Scotland or, indeed, the people of Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. May I remind Members who have made interventions that the terms of the motion are specifically about Scotland? We should not be trying to develop this into a wide-ranging debate about other parts of the United Kingdom, tempting though I am sure that is.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Mr Howarth. May I just say in response to the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) that the jury is still out on whether the Joint Ministerial Council is worth the paper that its name is written on? We will find out once we see the position adopted by the UK Government and the evidence—or lack of evidence—of any change at all in their stance to take account of the very different demands and needs of the different parts of the United Kingdom.

It would be easy for the Government to carry on and negotiate a settlement that satisfied just their own Back Benchers and their own priorities, but to do so would be to ignore the distinct constitutional identity of Scotland and their party’s own promises to treat Scotland as an equal partner in the Union. It would renege on the Government’s call for Scotland to lead the Union and would ditch forever the respect agenda that they were so keen to promote barely 24 months ago.

To ignore and dismiss out of hand the wishes and the expressly stated decision of the people who hold sovereignty over Scotland and who are sovereign even over this Parliament when it legislates on Scottish matters would certainly please the hard-liners on the Government Benches for a few hours—until they saw how it was received in Scotland. How it would be received in Scotland is not hard to imagine, so I do not need to dwell on that here.

The first argument for giving Scotland its proper place throughout the Brexit process is that it is Scotland’s proper place. If we are truly an equal partner in this Union and an integral part of the United Kingdom, we are entitled to nothing less than equal partnership. We should be an integral part of the most important negotiations that the United Kingdom has undertaken since 1945.

The second argument stems from the Prime Minister’s repeated claims that she will negotiate a deal in the best interests of all the United Kingdom. How can she possibly know what is in the best interests of all the different nations and regions of the United Kingdom? Who is now telling her what is in the best interests of the people of Scotland? Who in the inner circle of the Cabinet will speak up for Scotland’s interests or those of other devolved nations when—not if, but when—they do not coincide with the interests of other parts of the United Kingdom? The Secretaries of State for the devolved nations are not even part of that core decision-making team. How can it be credible for Cabinet Ministers to say that they will negotiate for what they know is in best interests of Scotland, when they are fighting among themselves about what is in the best interests of the United Kingdom?

By contrast, the Scottish Government are pretty clear about what they believe is in the best interests of Scottish people. Their immediate response after the referendum was almost unanimous and supported across party lines in the Scottish Parliament. They have committed to publishing proposals before Christmas that could deliver as much as possible of what is in Scotland’s interests, while still allowing the UK Government to respect and honour the decision made on 23 June. It is sad but not surprising that before anyone even knows what that document will contain, it is already being torn to pieces by the social media trolls—none of whom, I am sure, has any connection with the Conservative party.

I hope that the UK Government will at least take time to examine the Scottish Government’s proposals. I am not insisting that they adopt them in their entirety, but I would like an assurance that at least they will be examined and given the respect that they are due. That really is the least the UK Government can do, given that for months their party leader in Scotland has been screaming demands to know the Scottish Government’s plan for Brexit. Interestingly, I do not remember ever hearing her asking to know her own Government’s plans for the United Kingdom, but maybe that is more her problem than mine.

I have not seen the Scottish Government’s document, but—again, in contrast to the UK Government—they have been clear and consistent in setting out what they believe Scotland needs to see at the end of the process. We need to retain full access to the single market. If that does not happen, the impact on our economy may be very serious indeed, because Scotland is a trading nation. Our exports support tens of thousands of jobs—not only in Scotland, but elsewhere. They also provide a very tidy income indeed, thank you very much, for Her Majesty’s Treasury. I hope that that will not be forgotten.

We also want to retain free movement of people. The UK Government have decided that free movement of people is fundamentally a bad thing that we should not accept at all, but in order not to have to accept it they are prepared to lose the benefits of membership of the single market. In Scotland, we do not see a conflict, because we want to keep free movement of people. We see free movement of people as a positive. We have benefited as a nation, socially, culturally and economically, from migrants coming in from other parts of the European Union. Our citizens have benefited from opportunities to become immigrants in other people’s countries. We want that to continue, and that is not just the view of the Scottish Government: all the indications are that it is the overwhelming view of the people of Scotland.

I suggest to the Minister that the apparent conflict between Scotland’s attitude to the free movement of people and the attitude of some other parts of the UK, and between Scotland’s determination to remain a full part of the single market and the lukewarm reception that the single market gets in other parts of the UK, can be resolved if the Government are prepared to countenance a negotiating position that seeks an agreement to allow immigration rules to apply different criteria in different parts of the United Kingdom, to meet different pressures on services and needs in the employment market. If they are prepared to accept that—it is now quite common practice in a lot of EU countries—the rules on the single market, trade areas, customs union and so on do not have to apply absolutely uniformly across the whole United Kingdom.

It has become increasingly obvious over the past few years that there are very few areas of public policy in which one size can hope to fit all throughout the United Kingdom. I suggest to the Government today that, for some of the major pillars of policy on which we will need to negotiate agreements in the lead-up to Brexit, one size cannot possibly fit both Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

If the Government are not prepared to seek a solution that allows different sizes and different applications of policy in different parts of the United Kingdom, what are they suggesting instead to deliver the stated wish of the sovereigns of Scotland—the 5.5 million people who rightly and inalienably hold the right to determine what the future holds for our nation and which direction it goes in? If they are not prepared to respect that sovereign will, how will they ensure that, when the Brexit process is completed, the people of Scotland believe that they are still valued, equal partners with a mission to lead the Union?

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Peter Grant

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a good and valid point. Conservatives expressing concerns about possible unfairness in the conduct of this referendum are referring to exactly the kind of unfairness that they and their colleagues were happy to exploit in the Scottish referendum.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a debating point, which is acceptable to an extent. However, he should stick to this referendum rather than previous ones.

[Peter Grant]

I stand corrected, Mr Howarth; I apologise.

I turn to amendment 32. I understand the intention behind it, as charities should be doing charitable work rather than being engaged full time in political campaigning. However, let me give one example of its possible unintended and undesirable consequences.