Brexit and Foreign Affairs

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

Where I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) is on the fact that the decision that was taken just over one year ago was probably the most momentous political decision taken in my lifetime and that it will have profound consequences for this country. Obviously, it is essential that we should try to get the best possible deal. Unlike him, though, I campaigned in favour of a leave vote and I continue to believe that the decision that was taken is in the best interests of this country and offers huge opportunities for us both to reassert the supremacy of Parliament in our becoming an independent self-governing nation again and to take advantages of the opportunities that are opening up to us around the world.

Negotiating many of the detailed issues will be the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and the talks are just beginning. I do not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he says that no deal is necessarily worse than whatever bad deal we may get. It would be crazy for us to go in at the start stating that we could not contemplate not reaching a deal. That is a guarantee of not getting the best outcome. I do not want to spend too much time on the negotiations. I hope that, if I am successful in re-joining the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)—if he is chosen as the Chairman—we will be seeing a great deal of the Secretary of State.

The opportunities that come from our decision are set out very clearly in the Queen’s Speech, and the first is the repeal Bill. I would have thought that everybody in this House welcomed the fact that, as we are going to leave the European Union in two years’ time or thereabouts, the repeal Bill will give certainty as it ensures that European law, which currently applies, will be transferred into British law. It also gives us the opportunity to consider at our leisure each of those individual measures to decide whether they are most appropriately framed and whether we could reduce some of the burden, or, in some instances, perhaps even increase the protection if we think that that is the right thing to do. The repeal Bill is not necessarily about reducing regulation— although there may well be plenty of examples where it is sensible to do so—but about giving us back the control to decide for ourselves the most appropriate level of regulation.

The immigration Bill will allow us to design our own system of determining whom we should welcome into this country and to whom we should say that we simply cannot accommodate them given the need to reduce the overall level. It means that we can create an immigration system that is fair to all and that does not discriminate in favour of European citizens against non-European citizens. We can judge everybody on the basis of what contribution they can make.

The agriculture Bill will allow us to design a system of support for farmers that is tailor-made for the benefit of British agriculture. It is not a one-size-fits-all system, which has to accommodate Greek olive growers just as much as it does wheat farmers in Essex. I hope that it will mean that we can deliver more support to British farming, and at a cheaper price as we will not have to be sending the money across to Brussels to have it judged, recycled and sent back to us.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

On that point, my right hon. Friend will surely agree that the common agricultural policy is one of the most environmentally destructive pieces of policy in the history of policy. Repatriating the common agricultural policy gives us an opportunity to ensure that, as we dish out vast quantities of taxpayers’ funds to landowners, we get something in return, including biodiversity and general benefits for our natural environment.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir David Amess)]

Before the right hon. Gentleman responds, let me make this appeal to the House. There are 37 speakers and a number of Members waiting to make their maiden speeches. If there are lots of interventions, we will be down to a three or four-minute time limit. I appeal to Members on both sides of the House to reduce their interventions.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I accept your stricture, Mr Amess. I agree completely with my hon. Friend, whom I am delighted to see back in his place in the House of Commons. British farming is already doing a great deal to support the environment. In designing a new system of support, we should emphasise that farmers need to be rewarded for what they are doing to conserve the landscape for future generations.

The fisheries Bill allows us to right a wrong that was done about 40 years ago. Many fishermen in this country feel that they were sold out when we joined the European Union and were the price that we had to pay for membership. This Bill will allow us to restore their traditional fishing rights.

The trade Bill allows us now to reach new agreements with the countries that offer the greatest opportunities—the countries that are experiencing the fastest growth and where there is the most likely demand for British exports and British goods. It is no coincidence that there is no European trade deal with China, India, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, or the United States of America, and yet all those countries want to do business with us and trade with us, and this gives us the opportunity to do so.

This debate about hard Brexit versus soft Brexit is a complete fiction. Soft Brexit does not exist. Apparently, it means remaining within the single market and customs union, which means that we will not be able to set our own immigration policy or our own trade policy and that we will still be subject to the European Court of Justice. Frankly, soft Brexit is worse than remaining a member of the European Union. The reasons that we wanted to leave the European Union require us no longer to be a member of either the single market or the customs union. Therefore, I strongly support the approach taken by my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister.

I am pleased to see the Foreign Secretary in his place. He may know that I have taken a long-standing interest in events in Ukraine, and I am delighted that he will be meeting the Prime Minister of Ukraine next week. Ukraine may have passed out of the headlines, but the conflict going on in that country is still raging. About 2,700 troops have died since 2014 and nearly 10,000 have been wounded. This is a country on the mainland of continental Europe, part of which is still under occupation in Crimea by Russian troops. In another part, a separatist movement supported by Russia is waging war. We support the Minsk process to try to put that right, but we do have a responsibility as one of the original signatories to the Budapest memorandum, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine. I very much welcome the attention that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is paying to this, and I hope that he will take the opportunity next week to express once again the very firm support of the British Government for the people of Ukraine.

I welcome the counter-terrorism review that has been initiated, but there is one aspect that I want to highlight in the hope that my right hon. Friends will draw it to the attention of the Home Secretary. Many people were quite distressed to see in the streets of London very recently the flags of Hezbollah in the al-Quds day rallies. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. The military wing is already proscribed in this country, but there is frankly very little distinction between it and the so-called civilian wing, the political wing. I know the Home Secretary has said she will look at this. It is already proscribed in many countries such as the United States, Canada and the Netherlands. Given the distress that was caused by seeing the flags paraded through London, and people calling for the extermination of Israel and supporting what is a terrorist organisation, I hope she will look at that matter urgently.