European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-12-20
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Daniel Double (Conservative, Centre-right): It is an absolute pleasure to deliver this speech with you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, albeit only briefly. It is a great honour to speak while you are in the Chair and to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant). I start by placing on record my great thanks to the people of St Austell and Newquay for returning me to this House for the third time. I do not take any of their votes for granted, and I will continue to serve my constituents to the best of my ability I will be supporting the Bill, and I want briefly to give three reasons why I believe that that is the right thing to do. The first and most important reason is that the Bill delivers on the referendum result. It gets Brexit done. Those of us who have been in this place for the last three and a half years have spent far too long going round and round in circles, frustrating the life out of the country while we make no progress at all. At last, after three and a half long years, we get to cross the line and pass this Bill so that we can all move on. We get to do what we told the people we would do in 2016: take back control of our laws, our borders and our money. This Bill paves the way for us to do just that. At last, we have a Parliament that is willing to make that decision, and that reflects what the people voted for in 2016 The second reason why I believe it is right to support the Bill is that it ends all the uncertainty. When the general election result came through just last week, I heard loud and clear a huge sigh of relief from people right across my constituency and the country, because we can end the uncertainty at long last. We can end the debate about whether we will leave the EU, and we can get on and move forward. That is what business wants, and it is actually what the EU wants. It was quite clear that the EU welcomed the result of the general election, because it provided a clear pathway forward instead of allowing us to continue to go round and round in circles Some Opposition Members have made points—I am sure that, in their view, those points were very valid—about things that are missing from this Bill but were in previous proposals. I say to those Members that they had their chance. They could have voted for the withdrawal agreement in the spring and had the things that they mourn the loss of today. They could have backed this withdrawal agreement just a few weeks ago. The things that they regret are now missing were in the previous Bill, but they decided to play party politics and take a huge gamble. Well, I am sorry, but that gamble was lost. The British people have spoken. We are going to end the uncertainty and we are going to deliver Brexit The third reason is that the Bill paves the way for our future outside the European Union and provides the path to secure free trade agreements. I believe that we can secure an agreement by this time next year, because we have seen that, when there is a hard deadline, the European Union can and will move quickly. I therefore welcome the inclusion of a hard deadline, which says that we will not extend or delay any further, but focus on ensuring that we get a trade agreement with the EU. Also, the Bill opens us up as a country to the rest of the world. I believe that, far from diminishing our place in the world, passing the Bill and leaving the European Union under this withdrawal agreement paves the way for a truly global Britain to engage with the rest of world. Some of the things said in this Chamber sometimes make it seem that the world is just the European Union—it is not. There is a great big world outside the European Union, and I look forward to our being able to engage with it as an independent nation once again.