It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who will, I suspect, play a key part in
scrutinising, on behalf of this House, the negotiations with the EU over the next few months, years and decades.
I have managed to avoid debating the European Union, though debating it has been a customary habit of many members of my party for a number of years; I did so by becoming a Minister, although I was the EU budget Minister and enjoyed undergoing scrutiny by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee.
Let me make it very clear, as hon. Members in all parts of the Chamber have, that although I wanted us to remain a member of the European Union, I accept the result of 23 June. That is why I think that the Government amendment can be supported by everyone who has spoken so far. However, once the article 50 negotiations are completed, we, from outside the European Union, will have a wholly different relationship with EU member states. That is why I also support the Labour motion—because it recognises that leaving the EU is the defining issue facing the United Kingdom. It was the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) who said that the decisions that we take over the next few months and years in Parliament will shape this country for decades and generations to come. That is a responsibility that we all need to take very seriously, and that we should undertake, as the shadow Secretary of State said, without point scoring and partisanship.
Clearly, the key question will be about access to the single market, and balancing that with the issues around freedom of movement and immigration control. I was struck by the fact that the words “single market” were nowhere in the Secretary of State’s statement to Parliament on 5 September; I made that point to him them. Not mentioning it will clearly not be tenable. The relationship between the single market and freedom of movement was not on the ballot paper, and it is what we will be discussing in this House for months to come.
As I have already said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, the Conservative party’s 2015 manifesto is clear about what we want from Europe. We—that is, all Members of Parliament elected on the Conservative party manifesto in 2015—say yes to the single market. The Prime Minister, in her speech to the Conservative party conference, said very clearly that we want
“to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the Single Market”.
For anyone to say that the single market will not be part of the discussions, and that just because we are repealing the European Communities Act 1972 we will not discuss the single market, is not correct.