It is a great pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I thank those who initiated the petition, which has secured over 130,000 signatures, including many from my constituency. I must also thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for eloquently opening the debate.
I have the privilege, pleasure and displeasure of summing up the debate on behalf of the Scottish National party. Having listened to the previous speeches, I feel a bit like I am in a European Research Group support group meeting. The hon. Member for Cambridge made an excellent contribution; he spoke passionately in favour of the European Union and reflected on his experience of representing a university town. There is no doubt that our universities will be worse off as a result of our pulling up the drawbridge and adopting the isolationist approach that the Brexiteers seem to advance.
We had an incredibly consistent speech from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). He outlined his fantasy Budget if he was in the Treasury. Unfortunately for him, his party has moved away from that. He rightly spoke about investing more in social care, but he omitted to mention that we have an ageing population and we will need people to look after them when we limit free movement of people. I am not sure that was factored into his economic analysis.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who is a friend, spoke about our turning into a national embarrassment. I fear that point may have come already. Legal action is being taken against us for contracts with a ferry company with no ferries. We may have already arrived at the point of national embarrassment —a view shared even by Brexiteers.
The clock is ticking towards leaving the European Union in just 18 days. I cannot believe that this close to Brexit we still do not know what will happen. When I speak to my constituents I find that incredibly embarrassing. Even as a remainer, I find it embarrassing to go round my constituency and explain to folk that we still do not know what will happen. People look to me as a Member of Parliament and say, “You must know what is happening because you are in the House of Commons.” The reality is that the vast majority of us are still getting our information on Twitter about when the Prime Minister is flying to Strasbourg, when we might get updated legal advice from the Attorney General, and when or if at all we might have meaningful votes this week. That is a national embarrassment that brings this place into disrepute.