Northern Ireland Protocol: UK Legal Obligations Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Northern Ireland Office
Margaret Ferrier
Main Page: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)Department Debates - View all Margaret Ferrier's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Brandon Lewis
Absolutely. That was very clear in the votes in 2016 and the past two general elections, arguably in 2017, as well as the overwhelming mandate in 2019, bearing in mind that people, even Labour voters, were at the time voting for a party that said it would deliver on leaving the EU. I appreciate that Labour has changed its position somewhat over the past year or so. There has been a regular, clear mandate from the people of the United Kingdom that we should get on and deliver on what they asked for: to leave the European Union, to bring back sovereignty to the UK Parliament, and, where we can—as we will be doing through the UK internal market Bill—to devolve more powers to the devolved authorities as part of the United Kingdom.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Adam Tomkins MSP described the proposed changes to the Northern Ireland protocol as being
“in breach of our international treaty obligations”.
Can the Secretary of State confirm that he agrees with his Tory colleague’s analysis, and does he accept that the UK internal market Bill demonstrates a complete failure of the negotiating strategy that gives Scotland a raw deal that it did not vote for?
Brandon Lewis
I appreciate that the nationalist party in Scotland wishes to put a border between Scotland and England. The reality is that what we are looking to do is to take powers back from Brussels. We feel that people in Scotland can exercise them better than people in Brussels. That is what we will do through the UK internal market Bill.