European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell]

The House has heard many technical and legalistic arguments focused on the economic, trade and legal impacts of our leaving the EU, but so far in the Brexit process and debate, the interests of children and their rights have been barely mentioned. That said, I was pleased to hear the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) about baby milk and the related regulations.

It is important to focus on children, their rights and the effect of Brexit on their future. In all of this, our children have had very little voice or decision-making opportunities for the future of the UK. All our children depend on UK, EU, international and UN provisions and treaties to protect them and to secure their future rights. It is sad and ironic that it was this Conservative Government who refused to let 16 and 17-year-olds participate in the EU referendum.

No one said it better than my former colleague and my dear friend, the previous Member for Gordon—I know all Members miss him as much as I do—who summed up the hokey-cokey politics of this Conservative Government by saying:

“The case for votes for 16 and 17-year-olds has been demonstrated by the Scottish referendum—not as some academic exercise but on the joyful and practical experience of a generation of Scotland’s young people…Claims that teenagers are disengaged with politics or incapable of understanding constitutional issues was blown apart by the great contribution by young people in Scotland during the campaign…It is a ludicrous situation and nothing better illustrates the total lack of imagination which typifies the Conservative Party at its worst and their headlong pursuit of self-interest…It encapsulates Tory arrogance and the insult to young people will neither be forgotten nor forgiven.”

That is an extremely good point.

I remember studying, not that long ago, politics at the University of Stirling, where I learned about further EU integration. It seems very sad that the students of the future will be studying this process, our performance and the decisions that were made. I wonder what the textbooks and political history books will say and how they will read. I think they will say that this has been a political catastrophe—a series of unfortunate events.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

One key thing that future students will read about and find incredibly difficult to understand is how the same people who for 40 years argued that the EU had taken sovereignty away from this Chamber were prepared to give that sovereignty so quickly to the United Kingdom Government Executive. That is what all these clauses, including clause 8, will end up doing.

[Hannah Bardell]

Not surprisingly, I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.