Extracts from Commons
debate on the EU Withdrawal Agreement
(Aberdeen North)
(SNP):...There are EU workers in our care, manufacturing
and agri-food sectors, and those sectors rely on them. Today, NFU
Scotland said:
“We cannot feed our nation without this labour.”
That is incredibly serious. If we do not have enough people
coming to work in our agri-food sector, we will lose the ability
to be the world-leading country that we are. We will lose the
ability to feed even people who live here, let alone to export
and to bring in the tax revenue that we get from exporting.
(Hitchin and Harpenden)
(Con):...In the time remaining, I would like to examine
what happens if we end up with no deal. We have heard from many
Members about how devastating that would be. I urge anybody who
thinks that no deal is not necessarily a good idea but will not be
that bad and is manageable to speak to manufacturing businesses,
retail businesses, agricultural bodies such as
the National Farmers Union and the
Country Land and Business Association, and the many senior civil
servants who have worked on these issues in Government and know the
parlous state of things...
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con):...It is
very striking to me that all the main national business groups in
this country support the deal: the Federation of Small Businesses,
the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, the EEF,
the National Farmers Union and the
Scottish Fishermen’s Federation are all backing it. The voice of
business is clear: they want us to get on and back the deal. But
there is more to the deal than keeping business moving, so let me
finish with a bit of history...
(Gloucester)
(Con):...Some of my colleagues prefer a no-deal
solution. They believe that there is a way, as an invitation this
evening put it, to open up the political space to take a
different approach, but the nation’s employers simply do not
agree. I have spoken to manufacturers big and small, to retail
and services companies, to the university in my constituency and
to many other traders and investors as the longest-serving of the
Prime Minister’s trade envoys in the House of Commons, working
with one of the fastest growing regions in south-east Asia, and
not one has told me that no deal is the best way forward.
Instead, they tell me that fear of uncertainty is holding back
investment, jobs and apprenticeships and beginning to lose them
contracts. Are they all scaremongering—the FSB, Business West,
the NFU, Gibraltar, the Falklands, or even a family-owned
Gloucester SME, which told me on Friday that
“customers and jobs will go elsewhere, and we are 14 weeks away
from the most damaging impact on our economy for at least a
generation”?
To read the whole debate, CLICK
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Extract from Oral
answer (Lords) on Brexit: Agriculture
: To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what representations they have received from the
farming unions about the impact of Brexit on agriculture.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
(Con): My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set
out in the register and my membership of the National Farmers’
Union. Defra Ministers and officials are engaging fully with
representatives from the UK’s farming unions. Farming
organisations stress the importance of: vibrant domestic food
production; safeguarding our world-leading animal welfare
standards; opportunities for exports; and ensuring that the UK
takes the necessary steps to secure a deal with the EU. The
Government share those priorities...
To read all the exchanges, CLICK
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