Article 50 Extension

Debate between Peter Grant and Anna Soubry

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

It might well be irresponsible, reckless and thoroughly irrational, but that does not mean that this Prime Minister will necessarily rule it out.

Within the last three or four days—the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) made this point very well earlier—we have received a clear message from the Government. They plainly intended the House to believe that we would be voting for a long extension if the agreement were not accepted.

The Prime Minister has whipped herself to vote against a motion that she herself tabled and presumably supported at the time when she tabled it. The Secretary of State—although he tried to say that this was not what he had done—has commended a motion and later voted against it. As two Members have pointed out, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on behalf of the Government, has said that asking for a short, one-off extension would be reckless, a few days before the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, went off and asked for a short, one-off, reckless extension.

The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), who is present, told us that there had been many votes in the House against Scottish National party amendments for revocation. There have not; there have not been any. He told us that the presidential rules for the Joint Committee under the withdrawal agreement did not provide for delegations. Rule 3 of annex VIII refers explicitly to delegations, so the Minister was wrong again. The same Minister told my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) that during the transition period we would still be in the European Union. That was a clear statement from the Dispatch Box, and it was absolute nonsense.

We have reached a point at which the House can no longer take at face value anything said by Ministers at that Dispatch Box. One of the most ancient and surely most sacred traditions of this House is that when a Minister speaks at the Dispatch Box, their word can be taken as being correct. That no longer applies, not through any ill will on behalf of individual Ministers but because far too often a Minister says something that was true today and different Ministers say something tomorrow that makes it cease to be true. This is no way to run a Government and no way to run a Parliament.

[Anna Soubry]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in the House on, I think, Monday when the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), who is present now, was answering an urgent question or whatever—there have been so many—stood at the Dispatch Box and said it is

“very plain that if we are given the meaningful vote, we will seek a short extension, if we get that through the House, and if we do not, we will seek a longer extension.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 818.]

So that is yet another Minister giving a promise—a commitment—at that Dispatch Box which, with respect, has not been worth the paper it has been printed on in Hansard.

[Peter Grant]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving yet another example. It is becoming increasingly clear that when Ministers come to the Dispatch Box to defend their Government’s handling of Brexit, they will say what they think needs to be said, and if it happens to coincide with the truth that is useful, but if it does not, someone has to come back afterwards and correct it. How can we expect European negotiators to have any faith in what British Government representatives are saying when time and again it is abundantly clear that we cannot take at true face value anything Ministers say from the Dispatch Box? We have a system of government and Parliament that depends entirely on being able to trust what Ministers are saying, and Ministers are simply not bothering to check the facts before they declare them in some circumstances.

European Affairs

Debate between Peter Grant and Anna Soubry

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

The right hon. Lady is making, as always, an impassioned and well-informed speech. The ballot paper contained a question about membership of the European Union, but there has never been a referendum on membership of the customs union or the single market. Nobody knows for certain what people want regarding those institutions.

[Anna Soubry]

I completely agree; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I take grave exception to the idea that across the length and breadth of this country people were sitting in pubs, cafés, bars or whatever discussing the finer points of the merits or otherwise of the customs union and the single market. The truth is that there are Members of this House who do not know what the customs union is, and there are Members of this House who do not understand what the single market is.

I am not going to name people, but I have had very good conversations with right hon. and hon. Friends about EFTA. I have explained, for example, that members of EFTA can retain their own fisheries and agriculture policies. There are colleagues who have said to me, “Good heavens, I didn’t know that. How very interesting. Can you tell me now about immigration?” So then I explain about articles 112 and 113, and so on and so forth, and about the brakes that could be put on immigration. These conversations have occurred only in the past three or four months, 18 months after the referendum and nearly a year after we triggered article 50. That is why I will say it again: when history records what happened in the run-up to and after the referendum, it will not be in any form of glowing testimony. On the contrary, I think we will all be painted very badly, apart from those right hon. and hon. Members who at least stood up and spoke out. If I dare say it, I think we have been increasingly proved right.

I think people are fed up. They want us to get on with it. They do not quite know what “it” is. Some people actually think we have already left the European Union. But they know that it is getting very difficult and very complicated. I believe that people are becoming increasingly worried and uneasy. It is the dawning of Brexit reality. They know that the deal, which they were told would take a day and a half, or a week and a half, will now take, if not for ever, then a very long time. When I say “for ever”, I mean that, if the Government continue to stick to their timetable, it will not be concluded until way after we have left the European Union. We will get very loose heads of agreement by way of a political statement attached to the withdrawal agreement, which this place will vote on sometime this October or November. People are beginning to realise that they have been sold a bit of a pup.

Only last week, I spoke to a constituent who voted leave who told me, in no uncertain terms—she was quite angry about it—that she had no idea about the implications for the Irish border of not getting this right. People of a particular generation really get it and understand this. Frankly, we are old enough to remember the troubles in all their ghastliness. We also remember the border. Some of us are old enough to remember customs border checks, when we had to go through a particular channel. We remember being terrified that the cigarettes or a bottle of whatever—I certainly would never have done any of these things, of course—might suddenly be uncovered by a customs officer, but that means absolutely nothing to huge swathes of our country. Older people, however, remember the troubles and they know how important it is that the border does not return. They understand how critical not having a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been to the peace process. They are now not just worried about the return of the border, they are quite cross about it. They are getting cross not just because they do not want it, but because they feel that none of this was discussed and explained before the referendum.

As I have said, we are now having the debate that we should have had before the EU referendum. I am looking towards those on the Scottish National party Benches. The debate held in Scotland in the run-up to the independence referendum was a long, long proper debate. If I may say so as an outsider, every single issue pertinent to the debate was properly teased out and discussed. I do not think anybody could have complained that they did not know the consequences.