European Free Trade Association — [Mike Gapes in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 10:26 am on 7 February 2018.

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Photo of Peter Bone Peter Bone Conservative, Wellingborough 10:26, 7 February 2018

It is nice for a leaver to make just a brief contribution—perhaps you have heard enough from leavers, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend Stephen Hammond on securing this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend James Cartlidge, who made a powerful case from his point of view in relation to EFTA.

My view is that we should get behind the Government. We on this side of the Chamber should certainly be supporting the Prime Minister and the Government. To say that this is a Brexit-dominated Government, when the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, and the excellent Minister were remainers, paints an unfair picture. I think the Government are working in the interests of all the British people.

The Government decided to delegate the decision about whether we remain in or out of the European Union to the British people. There was a massive democratic process and we had the leave result. We are leaving in 413 days, so as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk said, the clock is ticking.

In the referendum, the British people voted to end free movement, not to spend billions and billions of pounds each year with the EU, and to make our own laws in our own country that will be judged by our own judges. Within all that, Parliament should debate what Brexit looks like—quite rightly—and this debate is part of that.