Lord Godson: ...of Kilwinning for securing the debate. He is part of both the physics and chemistry of our union and, when the history of these times comes to be told, his own distinguished part in the Scottish referendum will, I hope, have a bright place in the history books. I also join other noble Lords in welcoming my noble friend the Minister, whose distinguished forebear, who has already been...
Deidre Brock: ...further, as evidenced in last week’s Budget, so should there not be some discussion, or even a debate, about the huge uplift in civil service jobs that Brexit seems to have required since the EU referendum in 2016? Despite all the glorious promises of strength and environmental protections in this freer, fairer and better-off Britian, we are seeing green policies abandoned right, left...
Bill Cash: On Friday, the Minister for Europe wrote to me as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee. He is in Gibraltar today and, following the granting of this urgent question, and to prove its value, I received an urgent letter two hours ago from the Chief Minister of Gibraltar proposing a meeting with my Committee next Wednesday. The Rock was not covered by the Brexit withdrawal agreement or...
Lord Offord of Garvel: In January 2024, my department published an overview of the benefits of Brexit, on its fourth anniversary, to the UK economy. Since the referendum, the UK economy has grown faster than those of Germany, Italy and Japan, and is equal with the French. The IMF is now predicting that the UK will have the fastest growth in the G7 in the next five years. Meanwhile, our exports have reached £870...
Jonathan Edwards: ...agricultural community. Thankfully, organisers and the unions have done a great job in ensuring that matters have remained peaceful and within the law. Much of that anger has been growing since the EU referendum, as farmers have witnessed the destructive approach taken by policymakers to the development of post-Brexit agricultural policy. There is no doubt that leaving the European Union...
Ash Denham: ...me to take part in one of these debates, although he may not be so keen once he hears what I have to say. We are more than midway through the second pro-independence term of government since the referendum. In response to the Supreme Court judgment, the Scottish Government appointed an independence minister to build the case and rally the cause for independence, and the First Minister...
George Eustice: ...farm incomes have actually risen sharply overall since 2016. Throughout history, farmgate prices have always been heavily influenced by exchange rates. The sharp devaluation of sterling against the euro after the 2016 referendum result—literally within seconds of it becoming apparent what was likely to happen that evening—meant that anybody who was in a productive sector, whether...
Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court: ...who need it, both in the UK and across the world. In short, the sector provides the investment resources for sustainable growth. Like many in this House, I supported the UK’s membership of the European Union, for all its limitations, and I feel that, whatever its political benefits, Brexit has damaged the performance of the British economy—but that is water under the bridge. Where I...
Steven Baker: ...this Dispatch Box that we were always going to have special arrangements for Northern Ireland. When I resigned from the then Government in 2018, the issue that I forced among our colleagues in the European Research Group was that of Northern Ireland. We wrote a paper that said that there would need to be alternative administrative and technical arrangements so that there could be an open...
Baroness Hoey: My Lords, I have a vivid memory of speaking at a meeting during the referendum campaign back in 2016. All sorts of speeches were made and grand ideas put forward, and then right at the end of the meeting a lady got up and said, “I don’t care about any of this. The only reason I’m voting to leave the EU is so that we can get rid of live animal exports for slaughter”—although I do not...
Alun Davies: ...that control has moved from parliamentary democracy to executive diktat, and that is not right. This Parliament has less oversight of the matters under consideration in the relationship between the EU and the UK than it had prior to the UK leaving the EU. That is not right. We have, instead, a complex web of new structures, and, of course, the more complex a structure, the less accountable...
David Torrance: We all know that Opposition parties do not like talking about Brexit, but given that approximately 60 per cent of the dental workforce is European, to simply ignore it or pretend that it has played no part in the situation in which we find ourselves is beyond disingenuous. It simply cannot be ignored. It is utterly undeniable that Brexit, which all the main parties at Westminster are now...
Baroness Suttie: ...Bew and Lord Hain, made that case extremely powerfully in tonight’s debate. A colleague was reminding me just the other day of the excellent report on Brexit and the island of Ireland that the EU Select Committee of your Lordships’ House published way back in December 2016. That report so accurately anticipated so many of the issues that we are still trying to tackle, nearly eight...
Theresa Villiers: The important statutory instruments that we are discussing today are the latest in the process of implementing the result of the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. They may not have attracted the same volume, attention or emotion as those endless meaningful votes in 2018 and 2019, but they are no less important. This has been a long and difficult process that has divided the nation,...
Bill Cash: Section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 prescribes that parliamentary sovereignty will prevail, notwithstanding section 7A of the 2018 Act. The wording is a bit difficult to read because one has to go through all the enactments to ensure that one has got it right, but it does say “including the Windsor Framework”, so for practical purposes our parliamentary...
Penny Mordaunt: ...have voted against—over 70 times on one recent Bill. We have been faithful to the British public in our promises. We have been faithful to them in delivering on their decision to leave the EU, for which we had a landmark anniversary this week. Whatever way people voted in that referendum, we stuck with that democratic result—we did not try to reverse it or campaign for a second...
Lord Lilley: ...market began in the early 1990s, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry at the time—it was me—made many bullish speeches about the beneficial impact this would have on our exports to the EU. Sadly, over the ensuing quarter of a century, our goods exports to the EU stagnated, growing by less than 1% per annum. By contrast, our exports under WTO terms to the rest of the world grew...
Kemi Badenoch: Today, the Department for Business and Trade will be publishing an update detailing the wealth of Brexit benefits the Government has seized since the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Since the UK’s departure from the EU, this Government has cut burdensome red tape for business. We’ve built dozens of trading relationships with new friends and old allies. And we’ve taken...
Angus Robertson: Tomorrow marks the fourth anniversary of Scotland being taken out of the European Union. Scotland was not only removed from the EU but forced out of the single market and the customs union. The United Kingdom Government imposed an end to freedom of movement, and it removed opportunities for our young people by abandoning the Erasmus scheme. Moreover, as we all knew would happen, the UK...
Kirsty Blackman: ...in this situation. I will just mention a couple of other things. Regarding climate change and a just transition, energy prices are going up. The UK Government are putting through the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill to ensure that there is more licensing of oil and gas fields, which will make absolutely no difference to the prices that people pay for their energy. What it will make a...