G7 Summit

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about the US’s attitude towards Russia. May I gently remind him that, when it came to the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury, the United States expelled 60 diplomats in support of the UK, in solidarity with the UK and to show their revulsion at Russian behaviour? As for whether or not it is right to have a Queen’s Speech, the Opposition have been calling for a Queen’s Speech just about every week—finally they get one, and they protest.

On the EU, it remains the policy of the Scottish nationalist party once we have come out of the European Union on 31 October—it is their avowed policy; they are inevitably committed to this by logic—to go back into the EU. That is what they say they want to do if they were to achieve independence: to submit to the whole panoply of EU law, to scrap the pound in favour of some unknown currency hitherto unbaptised—the Salmond, the Sturgeon or whatever it happens to be—and, above all, to hand back control of Scotland’s fisheries to the EU, just as they have been reclaimed by this country. What an extraordinary policy!

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that, from 1 November, it will be the UK Government and authorities in control of our ports such as Dover? Will he confirm that it will be the Government’s policy to ensure the smooth transit of food, pharmaceuticals and other goods into our country, as today, so that there will not be shortages?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I can confirm that that is exactly what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and others have been preparing for months and that those measures are now well in train.