I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the European Union’s openness to extend the transition period for negotiations; calls on the Government to immediately accept this offer and notes the Scottish Government’s publication of 3rd June entitled, “COVID-19: The Case for Extending the Brexit Transition Period”, warning of the damage a no deal would cause to the economy in addition to the cost of the covid-19 health crisis.

The Prime Minister, like all of us here, could not have foreseen the covid-19 pandemic when his Government initiated the process of leaving the European Union, but 2020 has become a year like no other, and this Government must adapt and do what is right by their citizens. Our priority must be dealing with this health emergency and the consequent economic challenge; it is definitively not business as normal. That is why my Government in Edinburgh, under the stewardship of Nicola Sturgeon, has prioritised dealing with the crisis above all else. We are demanding that the UK Government do the same—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, it has started already. This is a serious subject, and what we get is laughing and guffawing from the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). He really should show some respect and grow up.

The SNP is calling on the Government immediately to extend the Brexit transition period while we navigate the unprecedented health and economic crisis we currently face. The European Union has expressed its ongoing openness to extending the transition period for negotiations, and the UK Government now need to accept that offer. The Government will claim that this opportunity ended at the end of June, but we are dealing with realpolitik here. We know that while we are still in the transition period this House can legislate for an extension and the European Union would recognise the mutual benefit. It simply requires political will and leadership.

The Scottish Government have set out their position in “COVID-19: The Case for Extending the Brexit Transition Period”, which sets out why it is vital, if we are to ensure the most rapid recovery possible from the covid-19 crisis, that the UK must immediately seek an extension to the Brexit transition period for two years. We are in unprecedented times: a health pandemic, an economic crisis, and the real threat of a second wave of covid-19 later this year. Now is the moment for the UK Government to recognise reality and to reconsider their position.

The United Kingdom is facing an unprecedented economic crisis. The Office for Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England have published various scenarios in which GDP falls by as much as 13% to 14% this year, which would be the largest decline in economic output in 300 years. By comparison, the most recent largest single-year fall in GDP was 4.2% on the back of the financial crisis in 2009. This overshadows anything that any of us will ever face.

At least 1 million jobs have already gone, and many more will go when the Government end the furlough scheme, which is needed as a bridge to secure employment until recovery takes hold. Indeed, we know from the Office for Budget Responsibility that close to 2 million of those on the furlough scheme could face unemployment. Just dwell on that: the threat of unemployment in the UK could perhaps increase to as many as 4 million people. Just dwell on the human misery—the families struggling to make ends meet and pay their bills; a sharp rise in poverty, and the human cost of that for families and their children. That is why a stimulus package is required to build confidence and get folk back to work.

The right hon. Gentleman is outlining the stark realities that we currently face across the whole United Kingdom, and indeed the world. Because of that, is he grateful that Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, and that the broad shoulders of this Union are supporting Scotland, with more than £10 billion going from the UK Government to Scotland just during the covid pandemic?

I must say that I am disappointed in the hon. Gentleman, as I would expect more of him than that. I say to Conservative Members that we must ensure that we have the tools at our disposal in the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. I spoke about the importance of the furlough scheme, and we welcomed that. We will welcome Government measures that help to deal effectively with the challenge we face. There is a harsh reality, however, for our industries in Scotland, such as the tourism industry, which is important in my constituency and that of the hon. Gentleman, as well as many others.

Effectively, we are facing three winters, and there is a truncated summer season. Our tourist industry barely exists over the winter months, and the last thing we need is to find that the UK Government are kicking the legs away from our industry by ending the furlough scheme early. The challenge for every Conservative Member of Parliament from Scotland is to ensure that if the UK Government do not provide the necessary support for our businesses and our people, those powers have to reside in the Scottish Parliament. Will Scottish Tory MPs stand with us and ensure that the Scottish Parliament has the powers it needs to do its job and protect the people of Scotland? I think we know the answer.

The Chancellor said that the UK is suffering because of covid-19, in common with many other economies around the world. However, the UK economy is likely to suffer worse damage from this crisis than any other country in the developed world. According to the OECD, a slump in the UK’s national income of 11.5% during 2020 will outstrip falls in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US. With the continued risk of a second wave hitting the economy and our communities in winter, the idea of the UK leaving the European Union at the same time is economic madness.

The outlook is bleak—there is no other way to look at it—and things are about to get much worse, unless the Government end their refusal to extend the Brexit transition period. Refusing to do so is the ultimate act of self-harm. With businesses fighting for survival, a bad deal or no deal will burden businesses with additional costs and red tape. Yesterday, the Financial Times told us that UK Government officials had indicated that a potential additional 215 million customer declarations will be required, at a cost of up to £7 billion. Businesses are fighting for survival, and the UK Government want to send them a bill for £7 billion. I wonder if the Prime Minister will put that on the side of a bus. That is not taking back control; that is self-induced madness.

We can stop this now. We can recognise that this is a price that we cannot pay in the middle of a health and an economic crisis. All it requires is political will. All it requires is leadership.

Is it not the case that the injudicious dropping of a crisp packet would be enough for the Scottish National party to be asking for the extension of the implementation period or the scrapping of the whole project altogether? Might I remind the SNP—I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has the figures—that more people voted for Brexit in Scotland than have ever voted for the SNP?

Really? Is that the best that Thanet can send to the House of Commons? Heaven help them. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that we were told that if we stayed in the United Kingdom in 2014, Scotland would be respected and that we were to lead the UK. The question for him and for his Government is: why did they not respect the fact that Scotland voted to stay in the EU, with 62% of those living in Scotland voting to do so? At every opportunity in the past few years, the Conservatives, as they have been in every year since 1955, have been thoroughly rejected by the people of Scotland, and it is no wonder. We stood on a platform in the election in December about Scotland’s right to choose. The Tories said, “Say no to devolution. Say no to independence.” How did that go down? They lost more than half their seats and we increased our representation from 35 to 48. I think he has had his answer.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

You’ll get your opportunity later.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

I hope it is a point of order.

It is a point of order, Mr Speaker, because the right hon. Gentleman said that Scottish Conservatives stood on a manifesto commitment against devolution. This Government have given more powers than ever to the Scottish Parliament, and we have never stood on a manifesto against devolution—

We do not both need to stand at the same time—it is easier if you sit down. As a person who is very good with red cards, you should be aware of what we need to do to keep good order. That is a point of clarification and I am sure you will want to save some of that for when you speak later.

Mr Speaker, to use football parlance, I think the hon. Gentleman is offside and the Tory party regularly gets a red card from the people of Scotland. The Tories have shown themselves hostile to devolution since time immemorial; a leopard does not change its spots.

Why are this Government intent on this hammer blow hitting the UK economy when we are already in dire straits? We need to create the circumstances for recovery, not make a bad situation even worse. Instead, this UK Government want to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on border infrastructure to prepare for Brexit. Any rational person—I know that not many of those exist on the Tory Benches—would point out the lunacy of such tomfoolery, but of course this is driven by the ideology of those who want to “take back control” whatever the cost, whatever the impact on jobs, whatever the impact on communities, and conveniently blame it on covid-19, rather than admit the reality that it has been self-induced as a result of dogma. This is economic self-harm brought on by the UK Government, cheered on by Dominic Cummings as he holds the reins of power in Downing Street—well, not in our name.

We know that the UK is not even ready for leaving the EU at the end of December. The Government’s own International Trade Secretary has warned of possible legal challenges from the World Trade Organisation; increased smuggling from the EU if not all UK ports are ready to carry out checks; concerns about the protocol if EU tariffs are applied to all goods heading for Northern Ireland by default; and the undermining of the UK’s international trade policy. The NAO said that the Tory Government’s 2019 £100 million Get Ready for Brexit campaign was ineffective and made no clear difference—another monumental waste of scarce resources. Can the Minister, when she rises to respond, tell us how much money will be wasted on the new Let’s Get Going campaign?

Then there is the issue of lost EU funding—something that has been so critical for Scotland for so many decades. “Not to worry”, we are told, “The UK will step in with a shared prosperity fund”. Where is it? Where is the shared prosperity fund? There has been no detailed information from the UK Government on how the fund will operate. Can the Minister update us?

The European Commission’s Brexit preparedness publication also makes for grim reading. Certificates of authorisations will no longer be valid for placing products in EU markets. Products certified by UK-based bodies will no longer automatically be allowed into the EU. All service firms will lose access to the single market unless equivalence arrangements are in place to ensure that standards are the same in the UK and the EU. The visa exemption for UK nationals does not provide for the right to work in the EU and is subject to the reciprocity mechanism applying to third countries. It could be suspended if EU citizens ceased to be given visa-free access to the United Kingdom for short stays. The right to work and travel freely in the EU—rights we have enjoyed for more than 47 years—ripped up, opportunities cut off, hopes shattered, dreams crushed, and for what?

Experts and industry figures have been clear: businesses will not be ready for the end of the transition period at the end of this year. More than 100 UK company chiefs, entrepreneurs and business groups have written to the Prime Minister saying that businesses simply do not have the time or capacity to prepare for big changes in trading rules by the end of the year, especially given that we are already grappling with the upheaval caused by coronavirus. They can see that, we can see that; the only people who cannot are those on the Government Front Bench and their cheerleaders on the Back Benches.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the CBI—hardly the biggest fan of Brexit—says that if we extend the implementation period it will create uncertainty for business and completely advises against it? What does he know that the CBI doesn’t?

I could read out statistics from all sorts of business organisations that are, quite frankly, scared stiff about what ending the transition will mean.

A survey by the Institute of Directors tells us that three out of four business leaders believe that their organisation is not ready for the end of the transition period and that one in seven says that dealing with the pandemic has taken up bandwidth that would have been devoted to preparing for Brexit. The Institute for Government says that in normal circumstances meeting

“the 31 December deadline would have been heroic: doing so in the midst of an international health crisis, with the energies of governments across Europe focused on their handling of the outbreak, seems out of reach.”

Jimmy Buchan, chief executive of the Scottish Seafood Association, said:

“We are within six months of Brexit and we still do not know what the future holds for us.”

That is the uncertainty that businesses are facing. For many businesses that manage to survive the coronavirus crisis, this second, Brexit shock would hit them at their weakest and could be the final straw that puts them out of business—more jobs lost, more households in desperate situations, and all because of the intransigence of the Tory Government.

It does not have to be like this. We on the SNP Benches welcome the EU’s openness to extending the transition period for negotiations. Six political parties from every nation of the United Kingdom wrote to Michel Barnier calling for the UK and the EU to agree a two-year extension. In a letter to me, representing the SNP, along with the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, the Social Democratic and Labour party, the Green party and the Alliance party, the EU’s chief negotiator confirmed:

“an extension of up to one or two years can be agreed jointly by the two parties. The European Union has always said that we remain open on this matter.”

Mr Barnier said that any extension decision should have been taken by the Joint Committee “before 1 July”. We have been given an olive branch—a get-out-of-jail-free card—but the Prime Minister has failed to grasp it. The UK Government have set themselves to crash out of the EU with a devastating bad deal or a catastrophic no-deal.

All the while, EU leaders have highlighted the lack of progress in negotiations. Angela Merkel recently said:

“To put it mildly, progress in the negotiations has been very limited. I will continue to press for a good solution. But we in the EU and also in Germany must and should prepare for the event that an agreement is not reached after all.”

That should deeply worry all of us.

There is still time to change course. The Institute for Government has made it clear that there are mechanisms for an extension. It cites four legal options for extending the transition period: amend the end date of the transition period in the withdrawal agreement; create a new transition period to begin on 1 January 2021, which would mean striking a new agreement alongside future relationship negotiations; include an implementation phase as part of the future relationship treaty; or create an implementation phase to prepare for a potential no-deal exit.

The Scottish Government have set out the evidence to back up the arguments for an extension to the transition. Their analysis has revealed that ending the transition period in 2020 could remove £3 billion from the Scottish economy in just two years—£3 billion in just two years. Are our colleagues from Scottish Tory constituencies prepared to sit back and see that self-harm take place against their constituents, or for once, are they going to stand up for us, stand up with us and stand up for Scotland?

The Scottish Government’s analysis revealed that ending the transition period will be calamitous—a £3 billion hit to Scotland made in Westminster and delivered by this Prime Minister and his Government. A no-deal Brexit scenario has greater economic implications and could see the economy 8.5% smaller by 2030 compared with the scenario of continued EU membership. That is the price that Scotland will have to pay if we stay in the Union of the United Kingdom. Those are eye-watering numbers, but behind the statistics is the human cost: unemployment, hardship, poverty—Scotland paying the price for Tory dogma.

I take no pleasure in saying that UK relations with the Scottish Government are worse than ever under this Prime Minister’s leadership. We have been increasingly concerned at the lack of any meaningful consultation with the Scottish Government and other devolved nations on the Brexit talks and at the growing threat of a Tory power grab in devolved areas, including agriculture and food standards—all for a Brexit fantasy that Scotland never gave its consent to and that is now being used as a power grab from the Scottish Parliament, and for a future that we never voted for.

It is worth reminding folk in Scotland of the promises that were made in 2014 during the independence campaign. If we stayed in the UK, we would be staying in Europe. Well, we stayed in the UK, and we have been taken out against our will. All the way through this process, the Scottish Government have sought to achieve a compromise to best protect jobs. [Interruption.] We talk about compromise, and the Tory MPs laugh at Scotland. That is the way that Scotland is treated by the Tories in this House. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Carry on, because people in Scotland will be listening.

We have said that staying in the single market and the customs union is the least worst option for jobs and our communities. At every turn, we have been shut out, shouted down and disregarded. It is little wonder that so many who voted to stay in the UK in 2014 now recognise the UK they voted to remain in no longer exists. It is little wonder that poll after poll shows a majority for independence. So many see our future as an independent country in Europe—an outward-looking Scotland, working constructively with others—and see this as a choice of a progressive future with independence, or one of staying with an increasingly inward-looking UK. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) keeps chuntering away from a sedentary position. If he wants to say something, I will allow him to get in. [Interruption.] Well, perhaps he would not continue to shout and chunter; it is most disrespectful to everybody, including his own constituents.

My right hon. Friend speaks about the polling, which shows that we are only going in one direction as support for independence has gone up. Does he agree with my analysis that the UK Government are clearly carrying out polling on a regular basis—we know that the Cabinet Office is carrying out that polling—and does he, like me, want to see the UK Government publish the polling analysis that is being paid for by taxpayers, which will show that support for Scottish independence is on the rise?

Indeed, let us have transparency. Let us have some openness. The UK Government should indeed publish that information.

Where does power lie today in the United Kingdom? The Prime Minister has invested political and Executive oversight in an unelected adviser, Dominic Cummings. We know that a Green Paper is to be published tomorrow, ahead of a joint ministerial meeting with the devolved Governments, that is nothing more than a blatant power grab under the guise of the establishment of a UK internal market. When this Tory Government said they wanted to take back control, they did not mean just from Brussels; they meant from Edinburgh, they meant from Cardiff and they meant from Belfast. This Tory Government’s contempt for devolution has always been known. They fought against devolution in 1997, and they lost.

Of course, the covid crisis has seen the Scottish Government give effective leadership to the people who live in Scotland. The success of that leadership is reflected in the high standing of our First Minister not just with the public in Scotland, but elsewhere—[Interruption.] Again, I hear the laughing and the chuntering. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister and his team have dithered and given out mixed messages. Rather than recognise and applaud the success of the Scottish Government, the Tories want to attack them. The Tories cannot come to terms with our Scottish Government providing effective leadership, so they want to constrain our Parliament—that is the reality—and not just our Parliament, but the Parliaments in Wales and in Northern Ireland.

I am grateful that the Welsh First Minister is standing shoulder to shoulder with us, and I am asking our colleagues in the Labour party—

Where are they?

Where are they, indeed. Members should not worry, because the SNP will provide an effective Opposition.

I am respectfully asking my friends in the Labour party who are present to stand with us. We went through the Lobby together to establish devolution, and devolution is now under attack from this Tory Government. There is a question to be asked of the Labour party: will they stand with us? [Interruption.] It would be helpful if they would turn up, but I hope that when it comes to votes —and there is going to be a fight over the coming months—we will stand shoulder to shoulder against this attack on devolution in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland.

What is now taking place is nothing more than an undignified attempt to neuter the Scottish Parliament. Let me put the Tories on notice that we will stand up for the sovereign rights of our Parliament enshrined by the referendum result and by the establishment of our Parliament. Let me remind the Tories: our Parliament was established by overwhelming numbers in 1997. It belongs to the people of Scotland.

Not the SNP!

“Not the SNP!” Do I really have to take that? I know the hon. Member represents an English seat and perhaps he does not pay much attention, but if he looks at every one of the results of elections to the Scottish Parliament since 2007 and to Westminster since 2015, as well as the European results, he will see that the people of Scotland have put their trust in the SNP to defend them from the kind of attacks that we have from the Tory Benches. [Interruption.] I hear, “What about a referendum?” so let me say this. We went to the people of Scotland last December and we stood on the principle of Scotland’s right to choose. We got 45% of the vote. There is a bigger gap between us and the Tories than there is between the Tories and Labour in the United Kingdom. We won that election, by any definition. The people of Scotland elected us in 48 of the 59 constituencies. There are six Tories from Scotland. We won that election. I accept that the Conservatives won the election in the UK, but that means that it is incumbent on the Conservatives to recognise that the SNP won in Scotland.

No, it’s not.

“No, it’s not”—well, there we are: democracy Tory-style. The Tories think that they can simply ignore the people of Scotland. I say to them: carry on, because people are saying now that support for the SNP and support for independence is rising, and you will not stop the people of Scotland determining our own future. It is ours to choose and we will not be stopped by any Tory Government.

I am going to make some progress.

A Scottish Government assessment of the proposal that is coming tomorrow shows that successful pioneering policies such as minimum unit pricing for alcohol, our no tuition fees policy and the smoking ban would face the unelected body that the Conservatives now want to put in place. The proposed establishment of an unelected external body to determine whether a Bill in the Scottish Parliament has met a new test is outrageous. It is completely undemocratic and will not be accepted. Westminster, under these plans, will have the power to block the legislative process in Scotland under the guise of this new body, so that Scotland’s elected representatives could not decide what is best for Scotland. The internal market plan would also require standards in one part of the UK to be automatically accepted in others. This would be a serious threat to Scotland’s high food standards.

Any forthcoming legislation on these plans needs the consent of the Scottish Parliament. The decisions of the Scottish Parliament must be respected. Will the Minister confirm that Westminster will recognise the importance of consent from the Scottish Parliament, and accept that if consent is not granted the legislation cannot be passed? That is the historical position.

The internal market plan also suggests that the UK Government will include state aid in their power grab. The Scottish and Welsh Governments have been clear that state aid policy should be devolved under current legislation. They want to stay closely aligned with the EU state aid rules. Legal experts have noted that Westminster’s decision to legislate to make state aid policy a reserved power was an implicit recognition that the UK Government were not confident of winning the argument in court. We already know that this Tory Government will do what they want to Scotland with regard to state aid if they get their way on this. Of course, the Tories have form. In 1992, John Major’s Government diverted cash from the highlands to try to boost dwindling Conservative support in south-east England.

Let us be clear: the UK faces a constitutional crisis. Scotland continues to be completely ignored by Westminster and Westminster has proved itself to be utterly incapable of acting in Scotland’s interests. With the exception of the Scottish Tories, who have completely isolated themselves, the Scottish Parliament is united against the moves to erode Scotland’s devolved settlement. All the Opposition parties, as well as the SNP in government, recognise this threat to devolution coming from the Tories. The Scottish Tories remain tin-eared. The UK Government must recognise that Scotland has a choice: we either accept the downgrading of our Parliament or we choose to become an independent country. Let me appeal to those who live in Scotland to join the momentum. There is another way: we can stop the power grab, we can defend our interests, and we can finish our journey to independence.

People want an extension, and in Scotland people have a right to an extension. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union. A new poll has put support for Scottish independence at 54%, and that is the second Panelbase poll to show such figures in recent weeks. This marks the highest level of support for the SNP and independence ever, in any poll of its kind. The recent polling on independence shows the unstoppable power of people choosing their own future.

Since the Westminster election of 2019, a majority of polls have shown support for independence in the lead. Commenting on the findings, Professor John Curtice said:

“Never before have the foundations of public support for the Union looked so weak.”

He explained that

“the past three months have exemplified how Scotland could govern itself better as an independent, small country”.

Even a casual observer could draw that conclusion, based on how the Scottish Government led by Nicola Sturgeon have dealt with the covid-19 crisis compared with this UK Government. Indeed, Nicola Sturgeon scores more highly with English voters than the Prime Minister does—[Laughter.] Conservative Members think the fact that the Prime Minister is unpopular, certainly in Scotland, is funny. We do not think it is funny; we think it is something much worse than that. It is now impossible for the UK Government to deny Scotland a choice over its future. The Prime Minister may be the best recruiting tool for Scottish independence since Margaret Thatcher.

The cost of leaving the EU and managing a health crisis simultaneously is unacceptable, particularly when we could be facing a covid second wave in the winter. If the Prime Minister and the Tories fail to seek an extension, if they push ahead with their power grab, and if they continue to impose a future on Scotland that we never voted for, the choice will be clear. The only way to protect Scotland’s economy and our place at the heart of Europe is to become an independent country, and that day is coming. We can provide our road map to independence. We will have our say. Scotland will become an independent country.

It is a pleasure to respond to this Opposition day debate, not least because it affords me the opportunity to pay tribute to UK and, in particular, Scottish businesses, which have been so resilient and creative during these unprecedented times. It is not just that we want the economy to recover and that we want to beat coronavirus; it is that we can only defeat coronavirus, and whatever might follow it, if the economy recovers. Without businesses and the tax revenue that they generate, we will not have an NHS or a care system, or room for manoeuvre at the Treasury. I want to thank all those businesses for what they have endured and for all the efforts they are making to keep going. I am sure the whole House would agree with that.

Will the Minister give way?

One moment, please. I should also like genuinely and sincerely to congratulate the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and his party on having a policy on the transition period, which is more than the official Opposition have managed to do to date.

In the time that I have, I want to touch on some of the very understandable issues that concern hard-pressed businesses about next year and about how the Government are helping to mitigate the economic effects of coronavirus and to prepare for when we will take back control of our borders and leave the single market and the customs union. These will bring significant changes, and also opportunities, for which we all need to prepare, which is why we have already undertaken a series of measures to help businesses and individuals to get ready for the end of the transition period, whatever the circumstances are.

Before I do that, however, I want to put this debate in context. I wonder what the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber thinks the odds are of the Government extending the transition period. How likely does he think it is that we would do that, given that its end date is enshrined in law; given that the Government of the UK were elected on a mandate not to extend the transition period; given that the deadline for asking for an extension to the transition period has passed; given that doing so would simply prolong the negotiations and bring uncertainty for our businesses; given that it would hinder our economic recovery; given that an extension would see us paying more to the EU, which is not a good idea; given that we would have to back EU laws and decisions that we had no say in designing, which is an even worse idea; and given that the legislative and economic flexibility that we need to respond to coronavirus would not be possible? What are the chances of the Government doing that? What are the chances of this Opposition day debate succeeding or having any influence? I suggest none.

The Government have been very clear multiple times that we will not extend the transition period. Some might argue that it is not only undesirable to do so but now impossible, so why are we having an Opposition day debate on this issue, on this particular topic, and not on, say, rewards for health and care staff, not on investment in Scottish infrastructure, and not on food standards or Scottish farmers, which my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) debated recently? Why are we having this debate in a week when key negotiations are ramping up and David Frost is going in to bat for Scotland’s interests—[Laughter.] I am sure that Scottish fishermen do not appreciate Members laughing. Why not have a debate on issues that might strengthen his hand in negotiation? Why not hold a debate on fishing or, indeed, on any practical or tangible issues that Scottish MPs on these Benches have been talking about at every single opportunity they have been given to stand up for their constituents? Why pick this issue? Why pick the issue of the transition period? Sadly, it is because the purpose of this debate is not to influence or secure change, or even to suggest any further practical measures that could help business. There was no mention in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech of the phased approach, the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, or Treasury schemes. No, this Opposition day debate is designed to do what Scottish nationalists always try to do, which is, sadly, to further divide, to sow seeds of doubt, to undermine confidence, and to highlight differences right at the moment when everyone should be pulling and working together. Stirring up division is clearly something that SNP Members enjoy, and I have never understood those motivations in politics. Even if that is what floats your boat, to do it now, when we should be maximising the benefits and focusing on those benefits for the whole of the United Kingdom and for the sake of all our citizens, is truly amazing. It shows, sadly, that SNP Members, and anyone else supporting them today, have learned nothing from the past few years.

The sizeable majority that this Government enjoy is, in very great part, down to the fact that the people of this country want to move forward. They want to look to the future, not unpick the past, and they respect democracy. This Opposition day debate is simply an attempt to undermine and prevent an instruction given to this Government by the people of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues wish to return to division, to chaos, to paralysis, which is what pushing out the deadline for negotiations would do. The motion does not focus on anything practical in the report. That is not surprising really, as that report was written prior to the announcement on the phased border and the border operating model. None the less, it is the SNP’s debate today, so, despite the fact that events and people have moved on, I will focus on the issues that those Members have raised.

I thank the Minister for giving way and ending her lecture, telling us what we should be thinking about. If we are talking about division, a lot is predicated on what she said about control of our borders, ending free movement and controlling immigration. Earlier she talked about business resilience. Can she tell me how ending free movement will help businesses, how it will help the fruit and vegetable growers who already cannot get people to do their work? Can she explain what good that will do for the economy and what it will do for food exports, when we have a reliance on EU vets?

I have been through the detail of the report mentioned in the motion and looked at each sector that it focuses on and mentions. We have not just brought in schemes that help to support business and to mitigate the changes that are going to have to be brought in. The Treasury has also introduced schemes in the wake of coronavirus, and I will come on to that. However, I want to address—

Bear with me.

I want to address the issues the report raises, because the reasons why we are having this debate are illuminating. The report proposes a two-year delay to our timetable and claims that not having one would reduce Scotland’s GDP. The version of the report I have seen says that that will be by £1.8 billion, but the hon. Gentleman refers to £3 billion—a figure that many dispute. However, some say that the cost to UK GDP of a delay would be around 2%.

There are a number of interesting graphs to support the right hon. Gentleman’s points, but I would ask any SNP Member present to add an additional line—one illustrating the hit to Scottish GDP from the break-up of the United Kingdom. Pre Brexit, the Scottish Economic Association put the cost of Scottish independence at 5.5% of Scottish GDP, stating that that would be even greater after Brexit. So why does £1.8 billion or £3 billion matter, when £5.5 billion does not?

The right hon. Gentleman cannot wring his hands about the 144,000 jobs contingent on exports from Scotland—jobs that we are determined to protect—while discounting the 545,000 jobs reliant on trade with the United Kingdom. He cannot claim to mourn the end of EU funding mechanisms that bring benefits to Scottish citizens—and that will be replaced, I might add—and at the same time discount the very real United Kingdom dividend to the taxpayers of Scotland of about £2,000 per household. He cannot complain about the results of negotiations, on the grounds that he thinks he has not been consulted, and at the same time advocate extending a transition period that would make us subject to EU laws, schemes and decisions over which he has had no say whatever. He cannot claim to use economic forecasts to make one argument, but disregard them for another. And he cannot claim to be a democrat, while ignoring the results of votes.

This debate is simply about creating conflict and division, just as the right hon. Gentleman’s press release today is. He has not seen the details of the proposal he alluded to at Prime Minister’s questions earlier, but he does not need to, because the facts are irrelevant to his case, as were many of the things he said in his speech about these proposals.

I want to turn to the substance of what we are doing to support business, because, after all, that is what matters. There will be significant changes and opportunities ahead, and we will help businesses and citizens to manage the necessary adjustments in a very practical and flexible way in order to minimise the challenges and maximise the opportunities. None of those schemes did the right hon. Gentleman mention.

In the withdrawal agreement struck by the Prime Minister, we removed several significant uncertainties that were a feature of our contingency planning ahead of 31 October. We are now taking the necessary steps to ensure that the UK is ready to take advantage of the opportunities. That includes the £705 million of investment announced to make sure we have the right infrastructure, tech and border personnel in place. That is in addition to the £84 million to boost the capacity of the customs intermediary sector. The border operating model and the phased approach we announced earlier have been put in place after extensive consultation with the sector and provide further clarity and certainty for the border industry and businesses.

While we have already made good progress in getting ready for the end of the year, there is still more to do. There are actions that we would strongly encourage businesses and citizens to take now to ensure we are ready to hit the ground running as a fully independent United Kingdom. That is why, earlier this week, we launched a new, major campaign to communicate the steps that we must all take to prepare for the end of the transition period.

I thank the Minister for eventually giving way. She asked many times why we have brought this debate today. Let me just pick out one sector and give her another 1.8 figure. Scotland’s quality food sector exports £1.8 billion of food per year, 70% of which goes to the EU. My question to the Minister is, how many businesses in Scotland has she spoken to about the effects on them, because that, in just one sector, is why we are bringing this debate?

When I came into office I spent a considerable amount of time working with the Central Office of Information and all Government Departments to improve our communications with business. An enormous number of meetings and forums take place not just with me and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster but with every single Department across Whitehall. Our officials continue to have those discussions and consultations, as do Ministers.

I would say this to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, who mentioned one or two sectors: you have not spoken about any of the Government schemes. You have not spoken about the phased approach. You have not spoken about free services that are available from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and how they can be improved. You have not called for any of that.

The right hon. Gentleman began the debate calling for leadership and for the Government to adapt. Indeed, the past few months have been an inflection point for nations and individuals. I call on the SNP to adapt: try co-operation; try finding some common ground for the sake of all our businesses and citizens. I would say that to you at any time but now more than ever, against the backdrop of this unprecedented time that we face.

The Minister talks about the need for the SNP and the Scottish Government to compromise. She is in the Cabinet Office and will be aware of the document “Scotland’s place in Europe”. Can she name any part of that document, which contains a raft of proposals and compromises from the SNP on the single market and the customs union? On which of those would the United Kingdom Government compromise?

There are many things that I could talk about, but one of the first meetings I held was to put together our negotiating position: we listened carefully to all the devolved Administrations on some of their concerns, particularly on programmes, and we changed our negotiating mandate accordingly. We do listen, and I have taken great pains. I gently point out—I am not going to repeat the vast number of meetings I have had, as I have done that frequently at the Dispatch Box—that as someone who has, in quite difficult circumstances, made sure that I could attend every single meeting that I had planned with the devolved Administrations and the Scottish Government, as I am happy to do, I was stood up by the Scottish Minister. I have shown up for every meeting; the Scottish Minister has not shown up for every meeting.

To conclude, I call on the SNP to adapt—to find common ground—for the sake of all our citizens and businesses, because that is what leadership looks like, and it is what Scotland deserves.

Before I call the spokesman for the official Opposition, I say to the House that many people in the Chamber are making the serious mistake of calling other people “you”—even the Minister, whom I have never heard make such a mistake before today. I am anxious that people who are new to the House and have not really seen the Chamber operating properly should not be led astray by those who should know better. Throughout Prime Minister’s questions today, people called the Prime Minister “you”. In the Chamber, “you” means the Chair. One addresses other Members as “the hon. Gentleman”, “the hon. Lady” or something else, but not “you”. [Interruption.] Quite. I call Paul Blomfield.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am just reflecting on “something else”.

I am pleased to be able to respond to the debate and remind the House that when we debated the withdrawal agreement Bill in January, the Opposition warned of the foolishness of the Government’s tying their hands by committing the date for the end of transition to law. We argued that unforeseen events might result in the Government’s needing some flexibility, although clearly no one expected a crisis on the scale that we face with covid-19. However, our amendment was rejected and the departure date was locked in law. Clearly, the Government could have changed that before 1 July, but they did not and they must live with the consequences.

We are now past the date when an extension could have been agreed. The Government did not seek one and nor did the EU propose one. That ship has sailed and, frankly, it is the wrong focus for a debate on the negotiations that we need today. The issue is not the time available to the Government, but their approach to the talks. If, instead of the motion, the SNP had tabled something seeking to protect Scottish whisky or Welsh lamb, or to avoid non-tariff barriers in manufacturing, we could have worked together on it, because the country needs the best possible agreement—now more than ever—and we hope the Government will secure that, but it is now five months since we left the European Union. We have had four rounds of formal negotiations. We have had a high-level summit between the Prime Minister and the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament. We are into our third week of intensified talks. But, judging by the Government’s own statements, we have seen very little progress.

It was not supposed to be like this. Remember the election campaign? Time and again, the nation was told by the Prime Minister that he had an “oven-ready deal”. That is what the people voted for: a deal negotiated by the Prime Minister himself and signed off last October —the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. The withdrawal agreement delivered our departure from the European Union and the political declaration set out the principles for our future relationship. The two went together: a single package. As the Prime Minister said:

“The ambition for our future friendship is contained in the revised political declaration”.—[Official Report, 19 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 572.]

That was the deal promised to the British people. It refers to:

“an ambitious, wide-ranging and balanced economic partnership”

with

“no tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions across all sectors”.

It was a deal that would safeguard

“workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection”

and keep people safe with a

“broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership”.

There was a promise that the Good Friday agreement would be protected through the proper implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Those are the promises against which the Government’s deal will be measured, but it is not going well. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster chilled British business when he warned that the UK may accept tariffs on some goods if that is the price we have to pay to avoid the level playing field provisions. And let us not forget what exactly the level playing field is about: food standards, workers’ rights, environmental protection and consumer protection.

The Government’s proposals in this area have been described as “a giant step away” from the political declaration. The UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, has said there is “fundamental disagreement” in most of the important areas. He went on to say:

“there is a big gap”.

The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), warned her successor that he would not be able to keep our people safe without access to the quantity and quality of data that is currently available through Prüm, passenger name records, the European Criminal Records Information System and SIS II, but her successor will not commit to that. Just yesterday, the Met police Brexit lead said that UK police forces’ ability to detain criminal suspects from the EU will become slower and less effective if the Government fail to secure a Brexit security deal. At the same time, Northern Ireland businesses are saying:

“we are really in a quandary as to what way to turn…We need a bit of clarity because we haven’t a clue where we’re heading—It’s like walking out into the fog.”

The Government have not even managed to negotiate the continuation of the pet passport.

The weeks ahead are crucial. The Government need to double their efforts to deliver the deal that they promised to the British people. They need to listen to business, whose voice, the CBI, said recently:

“A good deal with the EU will be just one strand of a national recovery plan as the UK responds to the coronavirus pandemic, but it will be one of the most important for the future of our economy, jobs and livelihoods.”

They need to listen to those reeling from the Government’s announcement on the border arrangements, which left the chief executive of the Road Haulage Association saying that he was

“completely at a loss to understand how this framework can be achieved by 1 January 2021.”

They should listen to the TUC, which has called on the Government to

“prioritise negotiating a deal with the EU that guarantees good jobs, rights and other protections rather than a deal with the US that stands to undermine these standards.”

We have already heard how important this decision is, so will the hon. Gentleman elaborate on where the Labour party is? Why are the Labour Benches empty? Where are his Back Benchers? Why are they silent on this important issue?

I have elaborated on our position clearly: we expect the Government to deliver on the deal that they promised the British people. I understand the anxiety among those on the Conservative Benches when they see how the talks are going and see that they—those who were elected on that pledge—may not be able to turn to their constituents and say that they have done that job.

That really is not good enough from the hon. Gentleman. Not one Labour Back Bencher is down to speak in this important debate. They may not care about these issues, but our constituents do. As part of the official Opposition, surely he should be doing better than this?

There is great concern and great appetite to have a serious discussion about the negotiations on the future relationship with the European Union. We have brought the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to the House twice through urgent questions when he had refused to report to Parliament. Some of my colleagues may have anticipated that this debate would not be the one we needed to have, but instead would be framed by the leader of the SNP at Westminster as being about independence, as he did in his final words. We want a serious discussion about the negotiations.

The Government should also listen to voices in every part of our country, and they need to engage effectively with the devolved Administrations—

Will the hon. Member give way?

I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman might want to hear my point.

No, I am quite happy to intervene.

Go on then.

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. Does he agree that the intransigence of his party on this issue is perhaps why it received 42% of the vote in Scotland in 2010, but just 18% in the general election of 2019?

The nature of these interventions indicates why it does not seem that the SNP is serious about having a debate about the actual negotiations on which the future of our country is going to be so dependent. It is all about point scoring, not protecting jobs and protecting the economy.

The Government should listen more effectively to those voices of the devolved Administrations and recognise that the Joint Ministerial Committee is not working. It needs to be put on a formal footing, with its decisions properly recorded and respected. The agreement reached with the European Union will affect the nations and regions of the UK differently, and the devolved Administrations will be on the frontline of delivering it. They must be properly consulted and proper regard must be given to their views. It is not a question of vetoes, but a question of respect for the devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as the Government negotiate with and repatriate powers from the European Union. We need—I make this point both to the Government and to the leader of the SNP at Westminster —a spirit of constructive partnership between the four Governments of the United Kingdom, rather than division.

My hon. Friend is making some important points. To expand on that last point, the concern for the devolved Administrations must be not simply with the UK-EU deal, but with how they are involved in all free trade agreements and in organisations such as the trade remedies authority, with how those deals are put together, and with how the Administrations are engaged and consulted. My real fear is that that will not happen.

My hon. Friend is right to have that fear, because the experience over the past months demonstrates that there is not the real consultation that there needs to be. The Government are playing with the future of our country if they do not respect, engage with effectively and have regard to the views of all the devolved Administrations.

There are just five months left until we leave the transition period—months in which we are already facing the biggest hit on jobs and livelihoods in our lifetime as a result of covid-19. The people of this country expect the Government to do everything possible to mitigate that damage, not to add to it. The Government will not be forgiven if we reach the end of the transition without a deal, or with a deal that falls short of the ambition that they signed up to in the political declaration. That was their promise to the British people, and it is that on which they will be judged.

It is an absolute honour and a privilege to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this SNP Opposition day debate.

The SNP motion calls for an extension to the transition period for negotiations with the European Union. It is important that we are absolutely clear what the motives the SNP’s are for calling for that extension to the transition period. It is not about protecting Scotland’s economy. It is not about assisting the economic recovery after the coronavirus pandemic. It is all about creating further uncertainty and constitutional chaos to assist in the nationalist dream of breaking up the United Kingdom. That is the SNP’s top priority. That is its only priority. That, in fact, is the only reason many SNP Members got involved in politics in the first place—[Interruption.] I am pleased that they are nodding in agreement. I am pleased that they are agreeing with me—we agree on something at last. Any proposal from the separatists should be considered in that context. The SNP is aggravating on Brexit simply to push its independence obsession.

There is no doubt that the impact of the coronavirus on Scotland’s and the UK’s economy will be significant, but the answer is not to add further uncertainty to Scotland’s businesses with further dither and delay on Brexit. Businesses want certainty so that they can plan for Scotland’s and the UK’s future outside the European Union. Businesses are already preparing for life outside the EU at the end of 2020. The last thing they need or want is the further uncertainty that has been advocated by the SNP today, so I fully support the UK Government’s commitment not to extend the transition period at the end of 2020, because that would simply risk further economic damage to Scotland’s economy.

I also fully endorse the massive support of more than £13 billion that this UK Government have pumped into Scotland so far during the covid-19 outbreak. That includes nearly £5 billion in furlough payments, £1 billion for the job retention scheme, the kick-start scheme, the VAT cuts, the “eat out to help out” scheme, nearly £1 billion in the self-employed income support scheme, hundreds of millions of pounds in business loans and increases to benefits, plus £4.6 billion in Barnett consequentials. That is a £4.6 billion boost to the Scottish Government’s budget during this covid-19 outbreak. I know that some in the SNP, including the Scottish Government’s Finance Minister, Kate Forbes, like to pretend that this support does not exist unless the Scottish Government logo is branded all over it, if Scotland were no longer in the United Kingdom, the safety net of support that the UK can provide during this pandemic and other crises would not have been there for other parts of these islands or, indeed, for Scotland any more.

The hon. Member and I have disagreed numerous times about the UK’s place in the European Union and what we should do about that, but does he share my confusion about why a party that is so intent on dragging Scotland from one valuable Union—indeed, the most successful economic Union in history—is so intent on using another to do it?

I completely agree. The points that the SNP’s Westminster leader made earlier could have been made by anybody during the campaign about whether we should leave or remain in the EU; Nigel Farage would be proud of the arguments that he articulated. I am pleased that the hon. Lady is nodding wholeheartedly; it was a very good Farage argument that was put forward by Mr Blackford.

Let me move on to reiterate the support that has been made available by the UK Government and what that means from a practical perspective for Scots. These are not abstract sums of money that have no bearing on everyday lives in Scotland; these are people’s jobs and livelihoods, and the economic wellbeing of our families. Some 800,000 jobs in Scotland have been saved so far during the pandemic, highlighting the strength of our Union. The coronavirus job retention scheme has furloughed 628,000 Scottish jobs, and the UK Government have spent £425 million on supporting 146,000 self-employed people in Scotland through the self-employment income support scheme.

Of course, when talking about jobs, it is worth remembering that nearly four times as many jobs in Scotland are linked to trade with the rest of the United Kingdom as are linked to trade with the European Union. The Fraser of Allander Institute estimates that around 545,000 jobs in Scotland are supported by demand for our goods and services from the rest of the UK. That is why it is so important that we do everything we can to protect the strength of the UK single market, ensuring that businesses across the UK can continue to trade easily. Scottish exports to the rest of the UK are worth £51.2 billion, against £16.6 billion in EU exports. Whether they are in my constituency in the Scottish borders or in Eastleigh, West Bromwich, Brecon or Dudley, our businesses should be able to trade freely in every part of Britain.

The importance of the UK internal market is the reason the suggestion from Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, that she may close the Scotland-England border or impose quarantine restrictions on people from England is so damaging to Scotland and to our economy. After the First Minister’s announcement, tourism businesses, B&Bs and hotels contacted me to report that their customers from the rest of the UK had started to cancel their bookings because they were so worried about the border being closed and quarantine restrictions being imposed. That should concern us all, because overnight trips from the rest of the UK were worth nearly £3 billion to Scotland in 2018.

To compound matters, we had the horrific scenes on the Scottish-English border in my constituency, on the A1 north of Berwick, of nationalist protesters shouting—and I quote—“Stay the F out” at English people travelling into Scotland. These racist protesters have admitted taking inspiration from the division stoked by the SNP politicians. They were inspired by comments by SNP politicians. One of the protesters has been pictured with Nicola Sturgeon and other senior SNP figures—

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Surely it cannot be allowed to stand that the hon. Gentleman effectively accuses SNP Members of stoking racism. The SNP condemns unreservedly any kind of anti-Englishness or any kind of racism directed at people from south of the border.

The hon. Gentleman knows—[Interruption.] Please do not talk so loudly while I am talking. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) can heckle other people, but he cannot heckle me. Well, he can try. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) knows that his point of order is not a point for the Chair, but a point of debate. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) will give way when he is ready to give way, and I look forward to hearing the retort from the hon. Member for Glasgow North.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am going to take an intervention—don’t you worry—but I want to conclude this important point about the completely unacceptable behaviour towards our neighbours, friends and family members trying to cross the border between Scotland and England, coming into my constituency to work, to see family members and to visit friends. Nationalist protesters with “Yes” banners were shouting abuse at them. That is totally unacceptable.

rose—

I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member that she will condemn that type of behaviour.

I would like to say to the hon. Member, who has made a number of allegations, that the SNP, as he knows, does not have any truck with racism in any of its forms. He seems to suggest that the SNP is an anti-English party; if it makes a country racist to seek self-government, the other 190 members of the United Nations are all racist countries. The First Minister’s granny is English, so what possible motivation could the hon. Gentleman have for these hysterical comments? If he is condemning any analysis that suggests that borders may perhaps be temporarily closed to control this virus, perhaps he would like to comment on the practice that has been adopted by Australia, which is doing the same thing between states.

The fact that the hon. Lady refused to condemn that behaviour on the border speaks for itself. Similarly, the delay from the First Minister of Scotland to condemn that behaviour also caused great concern, not just in my constituency but across Scotland. That is not the Scotland I represent, and it is not what we are about. That behaviour on the border is unacceptable, and we should condemn it.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am listening carefully to what he is saying about the situation on the border between England and Scotland. As a border MP representing an English seat that has a border with Wales, I can say that we in Shropshire have also seen real difficulties and problems in our community as a result of Cardiff pulling further and further away from London, which causes confusion for border communities such as mine.

I am grateful for that point. As the Minister described so well, in these times of crisis, as a nation—every part of the nation, whether it be Wales or Scotland or England—we should be coming together to tackle those challenges, not having foul-mouthed nationalist protesters standing at the borders shouting abuse at our English friends and neighbours.

I want to develop the economic point. We can see the economic damage that can be caused to Scotland by statements made by nationalist politicians when they deter people from travelling to Scotland. Even before the current crisis, the SNP’s record of managing Scotland’s economy has been extremely poor. The SNP is holding Scotland’s economy back. Scotland’s deficit is six times that of the UK. The rate of unemployment in Scotland is higher than it is anywhere else in the UK.

Even before coronavirus, the SNP had cost Scotland more than a quarter of a million jobs, and then we have its failures in other policy areas, too. Under the SNP, Scottish schools have slipped to their lowest international scores in science and maths. There are 3,600 fewer teachers since the SNP came to power. On the NHS, Nicola Sturgeon’s waiting time guarantee has never been met. Crime is on the rise, with most areas of Scotland now having fewer police officers on the frontline. The Scottish Government have missed their own legal emissions targets, and the SNP has broken its promise to extend Scotland’s broadband fibre network. That is a catalogue of failure by the SNP, yet SNP Members come here today arguing for more uncertainty, more delay, more constitutional upheaval and yet another independence referendum.

In thinking of certainties in this debate, I trust that the hon. Member shares with me a great gratitude to the armed forces. Regardless of whether they are Welsh, Scottish, English or Irish, they cross borders into Wales and Scotland to come and help to defeat the virus. I think we can all be proud of the armed forces of the United Kingdom.

I am grateful for that important point, which is a useful reminder of the important role that our armed forces have played in tackling this pandemic. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding the House of that.

I am not entirely sure why SNP Members claim to support independence for Scotland, because if they had their way, they would be rushing to give that independence straight back to the European Union by joining it again. They would be handing newly acquired powers back from Scotland to the European Commission; handing back control of our fishing waters to the European Commission; and dragging Scotland back into the hated common fisheries policy.

The SNP lacks ambition for our great nation of Scotland. I am sad to see the division and uncertainty in Scotland that the SNP is stoking up in an attempt to score political points. The SNP will use any means to push for its independence obsession. It will not come as any surprise to the House that I will not support the SNP’s motion. The SNP is desperately trying to undermine the UK and the UK internal market, putting Scottish jobs and the livelihoods of my constituents and other Scots at risk.

It is the UK Government who are putting the protection of Scottish businesses and jobs at the heart of their approach, both in their EU negotiations and in tackling this pandemic. I support them in everything they are doing to achieve that.

It is an experience to follow the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), with his typical hysterical and emotion-filled contribution. I will resist the temptation to follow a lot of where he attempted to lead this debate.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will give way in a moment, but first I will thank my right hon. Friend for the thoughtful way in which he opened the debate. He laid out clearly why we believe that it is the best interests of everyone across these islands that the UK Government, even at this late stage, seek an extension to the transition period. He is absolutely correct that at a time of economic crisis, in the middle of a global pandemic for which there is currently no vaccine and when no one knows where or when the next wave will come or how severe it will be, it is beyond madness for this Government to believe that it will be possible to conduct and conclude all the necessary negotiations and implement the results within the next five months. The reality is that the Government know it—they know that that cannot happen.

Without an extension to the transition period, the UK will almost certainly crash out of the European Union at the end of the year, with all the economic chaos that will inevitably follow, and those who in 2016 were regarded as the not to be taken seriously, wide-eyed extremists on the fringes of the Conservative party will have won. They will have achieved their goal.

My right hon. Friend was also absolutely right when he reminded the House that this is being done to Scotland by a Government we did not elect who are pursuing a policy that we overwhelmingly rejected. In the 2016 EU referendum, the people of Scotland said unequivocally that we wished to remain part of the European Union. That message has been reinforced time and again since 2016, in both general elections and in last year’s European elections.

Does the hon. Gentleman concede that in the 2014 independence referendum, the people of Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the UK?

I respectfully say to the hon. Gentleman that democracy is a constantly evolving process—it is not a one-off event. I know that this will be a problem for many Government Members, but people have the right to change their minds. Politicians have the right to bring back ideas for themselves and for the public to decide upon. In fact, the Tories’ deputy leader in Holyrood has been beaten more times than my granny’s old carpet, but he comes back time and again, as is perfectly his right so to do. It ill behoves the hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) to stand there like some kind of imperial overlord telling Scotland that it can only go so far and no further. This Tory Government will not decide Scotland’s future. The people of Scotland will decide Scotland’s future.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the thoughtful way he is dealing with these issues. I just want to respond on the issue of Scotland being open and make it crystal clear that Scotland is open. We are an open country; we are an open democracy; and we want people to come to Scotland irrespective of where they come from. We find that there are issues to do with public health that the First Minister is taking responsibility for. That is what responsible Governments do. Let me make it crystal clear that, with Scotland now being open for business, people from England are welcome to come to Scotland, and I know that my hon. Friend will agree with that.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and I absolutely agree.

Numerous opinion polls since the referendum of 2016 have shown that the desire of Scots to remain in the European Union is strengthening and hardening as time goes by, because not only are they being dragged out of the European Union against their will, but it is being done by a Government who are seemingly hellbent on doing it in the most damaging and reckless fashion possible, including refusing even to consider extending the transition period. That is why I firmly believe that Scotland is moving towards becoming an independent nation.

The debate in Scotland is not now framed in terms of “should” and “could”. More and more, that debate is framed in terms of how and when Scotland becomes an independent nation. As my right hon. Friend said, the polls bear this out. The highly respected pollster Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University said just last week:

“Never before have the foundations of public support for the Union looked so weak.”

That is because, increasingly, those Scots with no particular emotional attachment to the United Kingdom who in 2014, after careful consideration, decided against independence for whatever reason are changing their minds. Those Scots who, maybe with a heavy heart but in good faith, decided in 2014 that independence was a step too far and who were perhaps seduced by the idea of being in a partnership of equals or liked the idea of Scotland staying and leading the United Kingdom, who believed the promises that their Parliament in Edinburgh would become the world’s strongest devolved Parliament, or who truly believed that only by sticking with the United Kingdom could their citizenship of the European Union be guaranteed are changing their minds. Opinion poll after opinion poll tells us that they are changing their minds in droves.

That crucial, pragmatic group of people who will look at an issue, weigh up the pros and cons and come to a considered decision based on what is best for them, their families, their communities and the country are increasingly saying that an independent Scotland is the only viable option, particularly when set against the madness they see unfolding here. They are doing it quietly. They will not shout about it. Mercifully, they will not go on Twitter and have a fight about it. They will do it, as they have done in the past, by looking at the available options and doing what they honestly believe is the right thing.

Let us be clear: the United Kingdom, by its actions since 2014, has brought about its own demise. The United Kingdom is the architect of its own downfall. Every bit as much as the SNP, under the exceptional leadership of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been pulling Scotland towards independence, so this Government have been actively pushing Scotland towards the exit door. I am sure that in decades to come, scholars and academics will produce theses on the end days of the United Kingdom. They will debate whether this UK Government were utterly incompetent and arrogant to the point of stupidity or whether this was in fact all part of a great Tory plan.

For what it is worth to students of history reading Hansard decades and centuries in the future, I reckon at the moment that it is probably the former. But I can see how someone could come to conclude that it was the latter. If the United Kingdom Government were serious about preserving the Union in 2014, following the narrow no vote in the referendum, they could have decided to make good on their promises to Scotland. If they were serious about preserving the Union in 2015, they could, following the election of 56 SNP MPs to this place, have decided to ensure that in any future EU referendum Scotland’s voice would be heard and Scotland’s decision respected.

If the Government were serious about preserving the Union in 2016, after every single part of Scotland voted to remain in the European Union, they could have decided that the hard, no-deal Brexit was off the table. If they were serious about preserving the Union in 2019, after they lost more than half their Scottish MPs and saw their vote share in Scotland collapse, they could have decided not to indulge in a shameless power grab, trying to seek back the powers of the Scottish Parliament. If they were serious about preserving the Union in 2020, having seen Scottish public opinion swing towards independence, they could have rowed back from the brink of Brexit calamity, agreed to an extension period and sought to salvage something from the wreckage that is Brexit.

But no, the Government did not. Such is their arrogance and misplaced self-assuredness, and so blind and disdainful are they about what is happening across a border that only last week they told us did not actually exist, that they, like zealots, are ploughing on with the project regardless of the inevitable consequences. It would even appear that their oft-vaunted precious Union is expendable for the project. If someone is a Scottish farmer terrified at being put out of business when the UK is flooded with cheap, low-grade meat and poultry from America, or a Scottish hotelier tearing their hair out wondering where next season’s workers are to come from, or a Scottish health board worker trying to work out how to recruit in subsequent years EU nationals to work in our health and social care sector, or a young Scot seeking to live and work in other European nations and take advantage of the opportunities that every single person in this room today has taken advantage of, then that is just too bad. The bottom line is that their voices do not get to be heard. Their opinions do not get to be counted; their fears and concerns are just not important enough to matter. The only thing that matters to this Government is the project.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

No, thank you.

The Government’s insane, narrow British nationalism may well involve driving the UK off a cliff and seeing what emerges from the wreckage. I suppose that in that respect they have just the man at the wheel of the bus, skulking around between Downing Street and Barnard Castle, but let me tell the House that Scotland is not coming with them.

This week, I and probably millions of others were left slightly bewildered as the UK Government displayed once again their love of a totally meaningless, utterly vacuous three-word slogan. This week’s classic was “Let’s get going.” But perhaps, on reflection, as three-word slogans go it is not that bad, because that is exactly what Scotland is planning to do—we are going to get going, we are going to get out of this deeply damaging Union, into a future as an independent member state in a Union of equals with the European Union.

I honestly believe that Scottish independence is an idea whose time has come, and thankfully there is precious little that Government Members are going to do about it.

I intend to be brief, so I hope the House will forgive me if I do not take interventions.

I wish to speak today on behalf of places that many Members will never have heard of, and whose voices have too rarely been heard. In the referendum, almost two-thirds of my constituency of Leigh voted to leave the EU, but in many of its local communities the vote to leave was more than 70%—in some cases, more than 75%. Communities such as Siddow Common, Hope Carr, Higher Folds, West Leigh, Shakerley, Mosley Common, Derby Road, and Kings Avenue in the Oaklands and Meadows estate, voted most overwhelmingly to leave the EU. In fact, every single polling district in my constituency voted to leave the EU, from those who live in the bungalows and semi-detached houses of Pennington to those in the red-brick terraced streets of southern Atherton and those who live in the new-build houses of Astley.

Not too long ago, in many of those places, we would have been more likely to find the Loch Ness monster than a Conservative voter. I am stood here today because huge numbers of my constituents broke with the political habits of a lifetime to send me here to end the political chaos that had been crippling the country since the EU referendum; and that referendum seems, does it not, like a lifetime ago.

I will not betray the trust of my constituents by supporting the SNP’s motion tonight; it would be wrong to do so. Extending the transition period with the EU will only prolong the political turmoil that this country has faced and damage businesses that have tried repeatedly to prepare for Brexit over the past few years, only to face endless frustrating delay. They have been given the certainty of a final deadline to work towards after four years, and now here we are, with some people trying to disrupt the Brexit process yet again.

I have nothing more to say on this matter. This subject has been done to death. My constituents are sick of it. The public are sick of it. Let us get on with it: let us put this matter to bed once and for all.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy), who at least tried to make his point, even if I did not agree with a word of it. He at least tried to make a point that was worth making—by contrast with the bitter and twisted rant by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont)—and even managed to get the Loch Ness monster in, so he gets an extra point.

The Minister asked why we brought this debate to the Chamber. We did so because it is the right thing to do for people and communities and businesses across Scotland, who are facing a treble whammy of hits in terms of the economy—on their lifestyle, their jobs and their family status. There are people living across Scotland, including in my constituency in the highlands and islands, who will be dealt a serious blow come January if there is no extension to the transition. The UK Government are not sleepwalking into this; they are running towards a cluster crisis.

My constituents—and Scotland—never voted for this and they do not want it. It is bad enough that the combined loss of economic activity in leaving the EU is estimated to be up to £3 billion. But on the covid emergency, the UK Government’s language—unlike that of the Scottish Government, whose aim is elimination of the virus—shows that they are planning for a second wave, with the forethought that we shall be going into a second wave while we are faced with a no-deal-Brexit exit—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way later.

No matter how the Prime Minister tries to cover it up by calling it an Australia-style deal, it is simply nothing, and does no good for any of the people who will be affected in Scotland.

I seek clarity on the point the hon. Gentleman makes. He seems to be criticising the Government for planning for all eventualities in a pandemic. Is he honestly saying that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP Scottish Government are not planning for all eventualities on covid-19?

The hon. Gentleman is a former Minister who resigned because his boss’s boss took a trip to Barnard Castle and so broke the covid regulations, so fair play to him, but of course that is the problem. He has left a legacy there and it is now an issue that the Government have to plan for that second wave. To clarify, in Scotland we are planning for elimination of the virus. That is the right thing to do.

We are facing a calamity. The Minister, who is not in her place now, said that she wanted us to focus on the policies of the UK Government—or should we say promises, or rather broken promises. For communities around Scotland, especially in regions such as the highlands and islands, there is another pressure caused by this reckless course. According to research by the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions, locally we will lose over £160 million and, Scotland-wide, over £800 million. That is the extra punch that our communities are losing out on in terms of EU structural funding. This is funding that underpinned further education, youth employment, smart cities, connectivity for islands and communities, small and medium-sized enterprises, apprenticeships, regeneration, innovation, productivity, social inclusion, and a whole lot more.

People in Scotland, across our cities, towns, villages and communities, are now seeing that the promises will not be delivered through the so-called shared prosperity fund, because it is not coming. Communities and charities have used the EU funding to benefit people, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. They have been waiting now for years to find out what funding will be available post-Brexit, and in spite of promise after promise it is becoming clear that come January there will be none. The Minister had the opportunity to answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) about the shared prosperity fund earlier, and she chose not to do so.

I have been asking for clarification on this point since 2017, as have many others. A succession of Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have all promised details. They said they would consult widely. In 2018, the mantra was: “before the end of the year”. Time and again, they repeated that. In 2019, it turned into “shortly” and “soon”, and in 2020, it is morphing into “in due course”. In fact, we are now at the end point. There is no funding in place. Nobody can bid for anything as we enter 2020. All those promises have been broken, it has all been a glaik.

If the fund ever is established—let us imagine that it could happen somehow—it looks as though yet another power grab will be at the centre of it, with, ironically, as is proposed, another unelected body telling the devolved Parliaments what to do about the funding. In Scotland’s case, these should be decisions for the Scottish Parliament. It is no wonder—this has been repeated, because people are noticing these things—that polling in Scotland is showing support for independence consistently above 50%. It is no wonder that people who voted no in 2014, who said, “We just can’t do it”, are now coming to me and my colleagues and saying, “You know what? It was a big mistake. We were sold a packet of goods they had no intention of delivering. If they had, we would have had some of it and we have had none of it.”

As this Government ride roughshod over our people’s rights, and ignore the needs of our communities, it is important that they think again. Let me recall the words of the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), during a Backbench Business Committee debate on shared prosperity that I secured in 2019. He twice made the promise that devolution would be respected. Indeed, his second clarification stated:

“To be absolutely clear and to repeat what I said in my contribution, the Government will fully respect the devolution settlement in respect of the UK shared prosperity fund and, I am sure, in all other respects.”—[Official Report, 5 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 445.]

At that time I told him that he would be judged not on those words, but on the actions of his Government. Let me tell hon. Members, and those watching the debate, that the people of Scotland are making that judgment, and seeing that Westminster is not working for them. It is not listening to them or delivering what they need, and that is why more and more people are convinced that Scotland would be better served by taking our place as an independent nation.

There is another unique hit that we will take as a result of this Government’s actions. This is the worst of all possible times for young people across our constituencies for the economic crisis to be coupled with Brexit. That is not in Scotland alone, as it affects all nations of the UK, but it is particularly harsh in places such as the highlands and islands, where we have been working incredibly hard to turn around the demographic of losing our young people.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am going to continue. The jobs that will be lost in the coming weeks and months will predominantly be of those in the 16 to 25 age bracket. Why? It is because they are cheaper to make redundant; they are usually on zero-hours contracts, if they have a job, and they normally have a lower length of service than anyone else. Young people will be disproportionately affected, so if for no other reason than to protect the next generation who will want to deliver a lifestyle that is suitable for them and their families, to which we should all aspire in this century, surely the Government should now ask for that extension. Nobody would blame them, because everybody understands that this is a unique crisis. They should ask for that extension and protect our young people.

It is always a pleasure to speak in SNP Opposition-day debates, because we get the opportunity to play Blackford bingo. We heard the regular things from the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) who must always, at some point—today twice—show full outrage at Conservative Members for daring to make any sort of noise when he is speaking during a debate, totally ignoring, of course, the chirling nature of his colleagues behind him, when Government Members choose to make points on behalf of the people of Scotland.

We also had, as we always do during Blackford bingo, the words “power grab”, yet I have never heard a single SNP Member be able to articulate what powers are being grabbed. If it is a power grab, there must be powers that are held by the Scottish Parliament, and enacted by the Scottish Government on behalf of the people of Scotland, that we, the UK Government, are taking away.

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he will be the first SNP Member ever who is able to explain a power held by Holyrood that the UK Government are going to grab away. I look forward to it.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The shared prosperity fund has been mentioned by every SNP Member who has spoken thus far. For those present who do not know, that is the successor to the EU funding mechanism that the Scottish Government, and local government, have used productively for 20-odd years to encourage economic growth. The proposal is for the UK to take over that funding and control it from London, via the Scotland Office. That is a power grab, surely, in any objective sense of the word.

The search goes on, so I will keep asking. What the hon. Gentleman has just described is a power held by the EU that the UK is going to get back, because we chose in a referendum to leave the EU, which the SNP would want to give back to the EU.

rose—

Attempt No. 2—I will give way to the SNP Chief Whip.

The hon. Gentleman knows that the principle of the devolution settlement is that if it ain’t reserved—if it is not scheduled in the Scotland Act—1998 it is devolved. The Government are scheduling these powers that should come from Europe, as he says, to the Scottish Parliament and they are grabbing them and keeping them here in Westminster. That is a power grab.

It is not. I was very clear, but I will try to be clearer for SNP Members if they need me to be. Can any SNP Member explain just one—not 10, or hundreds—power that the 129 MSPs and the Scottish Government currently have, which, during this “power grab”, the UK Government will somehow take away? [Interruption.] None can; SNP Members simply cannot do it, because there is no power grab. As I said in my intervention, this and successive Conservative UK Governments have given more powers to the Scottish Parliament than any other and it is now one of the most powerful devolved Administrations anywhere in the world. The problem, more often than not, is not the lack of powers in the Scottish Parliament, but the lack of desire, will and vision on the part of the Scottish Government to use those powers to the best of their abilities. That is really the crux of the argument.

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber missed my opening remarks, but I want to come back to his motion, on which the House will divide later. It is about the transition period, the EU and the UK Government. It seems strange to have this debate after the deadline set by the EU and the UK to decide whether to have an extension to the transition period. A decision was taken by the UK Government not to seek an extension and the EU Commissioner said of that decision:

“I take this as a definite conclusion of this discussion”.

The EU Commissioner who responded to the UK Government’s decision has decided that that is a definitive conclusion of this matter, and I wish the SNP would accept it as such.

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and Democratic Unionist party Members on outnumbering the Labour party Members on the Opposition Benches, with not one Labour Back Bencher to speak in this important debate?

I am always happy to agree with my hon. Friend. Let me add that Scottish Conservatives in the Chamber today would outnumber, if he were here, the one Scottish Labour Member by five or six to one. We continue to be a strong force in Scotland and in this Chamber.

Let me return to the title of this debate and what we are discussing generally this afternoon, because there have been a number of omissions in the SNP speeches we have heard so far—I am sure this will be rectified later. We have not heard the F-word at all during this debate. I represent Moray and the Minister on the Front Bench represents Banff and Buchan. In a debate about the EU, I expect to hear about fishing, particularly from the SNP. So why, might we surmise, would SNP Members and their leader here, who represents a constituency that has many fishing interests, not mention fishing once during this debate? Is it perhaps that they are ashamed of their policy towards Scottish fishermen?

During this debate, we are speaking about an extension, but what SNP Members have not spoken about is what they would do at the end of that extension, because of course they just want to prolong this period of instability for our businesses, communities and individuals. At the end of it, they do not want another extension or a deal with the EU to be granted by the UK Government; they want to stop us leaving the EU. That is a perfectly acceptable policy for them to hold, but they therefore have to explain to fishing communities in Moray, in Banff and Buchan, and around Scotland, including those that they represent here and at Holyrood, what their plans are for the fishing industry in Scotland. It is very clear: they would say to the 1 million people in Scotland who voted to leave the European Union, many of them in fishing communities: “We don’t need you, we don’t trust you, we think you were wrong, and we’re going to take you straight back into the European Union and straight back into the common fisheries policy, which you have campaigned against throughout your lives and which has been damaging to your business, because we don’t trust the result you gave in 2016.” That is a shameful position for Scottish National party Members to hold. Maybe it is not surprising, then, that they have not once mentioned the word “fishing” in this debate.

I would very much appreciate it if just one Conservative Member could explain to me why Conservative Members suggest that there would be total control of the seas around the UK in the event of Brexit when UNCLOS—the United Nations convention on the law of the sea—makes it very clear that that would not be the case, and, on the basis of historical fishing rights, the other countries in the EU will be challenging this in court? I never hear Conservative Members talk about that—all they say is that UK waters will be completely controlled by the UK, and it simply is not true.

I would say to the hon. Lady that I am her one Conservative Member, because I can explain it to her. When we finally leave the transition period on 31 December, we will become an independent coastal state controlling who fishes what, where and when in our waters—a proud independent state. There are examples of others that are able to do that, and we will follow suit.

Something that is not often considered in this debate is how big a difference a short extension of the transition period would make. Fishing leaders in Scotland have said that a one-day increase in the transition period beyond 31 December this year would be a one-year increase for their industry, because we would go into a whole new round of talks. When the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber suggests that we as a Government and a country should have two years of extra negotiating during the transition period, we should ask what that would mean for our fishing industries. It is something I am not willing to accept.

I represent the constituency in Scotland that came closer than any other to voting leave in 2016: just 122 votes separated leave and remain. So while I know it is very convenient for Scottish National party Members, the Scottish Government and others to say that Scotland voted to remain, not everyone in Scotland did. One in two people in Moray voted to leave and one in two people in Moray voted to remain. This argument does foster great passion, understandably, but it is not as black and white as the SNP would often like to make it.

I also want to focus on the points about leadership that we have heard during this debate. I tried to intervene on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber when he highlighted poll ratings which suggest that Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership has been positive during this pandemic. I was going to ask him: was it leadership when Nicola Sturgeon chose not to inform the Scottish people of the first case of covid-19 being identified at the Nike conference? [Interruption.] I am sorry if the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) thinks it is funny that the Scottish Government, the First Minister and Scottish Government Ministers withheld information from the Scottish people about the first case of covid-19 in our country, but I do not believe it is a laughing matter. I hope that he will reconsider his actions when I am discussing an important matter about people who have lost their lives.

Is it leadership when the UK Government are carrying out more covid-19 tests in Scotland than the Scottish Government? I am happy that our broad shoulders of the United Kingdom can help the Scottish Government, but I would have thought that the Scottish Government were ambitious enough to have the testing facilities in place to do more than the UK Government, but I am extremely grateful that the UK Government are there to support the Scottish Government.

Is it really leadership when we have senior members of the Scottish National party, and indeed the First Minister, threatening to put up barriers at the border to stop people coming into our country? Given that the Scottish Tourism Alliance criticised those comments by saying that 70% of tourism in Scotland is from the rest of the United Kingdom, any signal from the First Minister, the Scottish Government or the SNP that we are closed for business is unacceptable. This is not a political issue—it is a financial issue for bed and breakfasts, hotels, restaurants and all those who rely on investment and money from people across the United Kingdom to support them. We need to send an unequivocally clear message that Scotland is open for business. I was grateful to hear that from the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber today. Sadly, I would say that the message has come too late.

While the hon. Gentleman and I do not share the same view of the European Union—and I would not wish to leave at this moment—does he share my confusion at hearing an SNP Member say that this was the worst possible time for the economic dislocation of leaving the European Union, without recognising the economic dislocation that would be caused to Scotland by leaving the United Kingdom? [Interruption.]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The pathetic actions of some SNP Members in response to a legitimate point made by one of my political opponents show their narrow-mindedness, not just in this debate but every time there is a debate in the House of Commons. That was only one of a number of confusing comments from the SNP in the debate and, sadly, I think we will hear more this afternoon.

I want to come on to a point that I made in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. It was unbefitting of him and his party not even to recognise the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom during the pandemic. People in Scotland, whether they support the Scottish National party, the Scottish Conservatives, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Labour party or the Scottish Greens, or have no party affiliation at all, recognise that during a pandemic, when people were looking for health and economic responses, the UK Government went above and beyond, with one of the strongest and most comprehensive arrangements anywhere in the world, to support individuals, businesses and communities.

Almost £13 billion was provided to protect hundreds of thousands of jobs, with support for the self-employed. Support from the UK Treasury went to the Scottish Government, which they sent to local government in Scotland to support businesses with grants of £10,000 to £25,000. That is by any measure the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom supporting every part of the UK: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. Whether Members disagree with the Government or with the Conservatives more generally, I hope they would all accept that it is because of that that we have got to this stage of the pandemic in as strong a place as possible.

Let us try to bring some grace to the debate. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on something: when we are dealing with a pandemic, it is important that we work together. I shall use an example of something that happened in my constituency, on the Isle of Skye, where there was an outbreak in Home Farm care home. The testing by NHS Highland and the UK-wide testing was put in place to make sure that we supported the community and we got to a position where we controlled the outbreak. That is an example of the benefits of the two systems coming together, so I am happy to give credit where it is due.

Let me also mention the job retention scheme, which we welcome. I stress on behalf of my colleagues in the Scottish Government and the SNP that, where appropriate, we will work with the UK Government—that is what we have to do in this crisis—but will the hon. Gentleman join me in recognising that we need flexibility in the scheme, particularly to support our rural industries for as long as necessary, so that they can come back with as strong an economy as possible?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, particularly for his earlier remarks. It is perhaps a milestone in the debate to have some consensual discussion between the opposing sides. On the job retention scheme, he asked for flexibility and, again, I hope he will accept that the UK Government delivered that. When it was established at pace not just by the Ministers and the Treasury but by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, there were strict rules, which were necessary, but, listening to concerns from Scottish businesses, communities and others across the whole UK, the Chancellor and the UK Government amended it to allow the flexibility that he is asking for. On further flexibility, the right hon. Gentleman will know that many countries across Europe are winding down their job retention schemes, because it is impossible to continue them for much longer.

The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for 25 minutes.

I have been speaking for 25 minutes—the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber spoke for 35 minutes.

Order. That is a criticism of me, not of the right hon. Gentleman. It is obvious to me that some speeches—actually, all speeches bar one—have been long this afternoon. However, I have been counting the number of interventions, and this is a real debate, so I do not see any need to curtail it while it is flowing with equal force on both sides.

I am very glad, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my other role, I tend to ignore the heckling I get from the sidelines and focus only on the referee. I am glad to get that guidance from you.

I was listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman’s comments about broad shoulders. There is no doubt that there has been some level of financial co-operation between the rest of the UK and the Treasury. However, if the shoulders are so broad, why has Scotland, with 8.3% of the UK’s population, received just over 4% of all UK borrowing, and why, indeed, when the Prime Minister announced his £30 billion the other week, was only 0.1% allocated to Scotland?

The SNP and the hon. Lady talk about “some”, but that is £13 billion—£13 billion going in a matter of months from the UK Government directly to her constituency and my constituency and protecting jobs. Just because the Scottish Government cannot rubber-stamp that money and say that they delivered it to the people of Scotland, that does not devalue what the UK Government are investing directly in Scotland.

I want to bring my remarks to a conclusion by saying—

I will give way as many times as hon. Members like. Eeny meeny—I will give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady).

Just before the hon. Gentleman brings his remarks to a conclusion, I just wondered whether, with “independent coastal state”, “most powerful devolved Parliament”, “barriers at the border” and “broad shoulders of the Union”, I can get the prize for Ross bingo.

I think Blackford bingo has a bit more of a ring to it. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can think of something that rhymes with Ross for the next debate—[Interruption.] I said Ross.

Earlier, as the hon. Gentleman was going on about the broad shoulders of the UK and talking about testing during the covid virus pandemic, he said that the UK has done a lot more testing in Scotland than has been done through the Scottish Government. I am looking at the statistics that the Scottish Government put out every single day, and the cumulative total of covid-19 tests carried out by NHS labs was 324,474, while the total number of covid-19 tests carried out through the UK Government testing programme was 205,000. Does he agree that 324,000 is higher than 205,000?

What I would say is that if the hon. Gentleman had listened to my speech, rather than trying to google the answer, he would have heard me say that the UK Government are currently testing more people in Scotland than the Scottish Government are, and that is correct. He cannot deny that. The daily testing shows that the UK Government are conducting more tests than the Scottish Government. That is what I said, and that is correct. If the hon. Gentleman gets back on his iPad, I am sure he will have a look at that.

I want to finish by saying something that, sadly, we have to say all too often now in these debates led by the SNP. It has come up time and time again, and it is important because, as the SNP likes to say, the people of Scotland are watching. I gently say to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and to members of the SNP that they do not speak for Scotland. The SNP does not equal Scotland. I do not speak for Scotland. The Labour party does not speak for Scotland. The Liberal Democrats do not speak for Scotland. Scotland is a diverse nation, with a range of views that we should all encompass and debate, but in a manner that is befitting of this place and the people who send us here. I am sorry that in every single Opposition day debate we get from the SNP, we hear protests from SNP Members that they are speaking up for Scotland. They are not. They are speaking up for their belief about Scotland. They are speaking up for their party’s views in Scotland. But they are not Scotland—nobody is Scotland.

When we get an Opposition day debate that looks at the benefits of our two Governments in Scotland—the UK Government and the Scottish Government—I will join SNP Members in the Lobby and support them. However, as long as they use these Opposition day debates simply as party political events for the Scottish National party, rather than actually trying to achieve something for their constituents or our country, I will not support them—and tonight, I will certainly not be supporting the SNP.

I am struck, as ever, following the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), that PG Wodehouse really did get it right when he said that a Scotsman is rarely confused with a ray of sunshine. I have to say, though, that we do not need to make a performance art out of it. I will endeavour to strike a sunnier, more consensual note in this discussion, because I am very proudly centrist in my politics. On the centre ground is where I will be found. That is where most people of Scotland are and where most people of Stirling are, and that is where we all need to tend towards in order to find solutions to this debate today.

This debate is not about stopping Brexit. We accept and we regret the fact that it has happened. It is about extending the transition period to avert a self-imposed economic disaster. There are solutions to be found. At the heart of this is the need for us all to take a step back and reboot the conversation. There are several conflicting world views at play in this discussion—all of them legitimate. Scotland voted to remain. Northern Ireland voted by a nuanced vote to remain also. Two of the four home nations voted to remain. Two of the four home nations voted to leave. The UK-wide leave vote was 52% to 48%. All those are facts—simultaneously correct and simultaneously legitimate. We have a conundrum to which we need to try to find solutions. Surely those numbers, those facts, suggest that we should have a more nuanced, respectful approach than we have seen from successive Governments since 2016.

There are solutions to be found. I respect England’s vote. I particularly respect what the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) said about his constituency and how every ward voted to leave. I respect that. I do not believe that Scotland had a right at any point in the process to stop England leaving the European Union, much as we disagreed with it, so why the hell does that not go the other way round? Respect must be reciprocal if it is to exist at all. The Scottish Government have endeavoured at every stage of this process to engage with the discussion and the conundrum. I was involved intricately with that at the Brussels end of operations. We tried to find nuanced solutions that would have recognised the conundrum that we all faced: we published “Scotland’s Place in Europe”; we put forward the idea of a Scotland-Northern Ireland backstop; and we put forward the idea that the UK could leave the European Union but remain within the single market, which would have been a compromise that most people could have lived with. All those proposals were shot down, ignored and belittled by a Government who were so busy trying to negotiate with themselves that they could not spend any time thinking about Edinburgh, Cardiff or Northern Ireland. It is a poor show, and it is a poor show that we are here now, facing into a very negative situation for all the citizens that we serve, however they voted. We need to save the situation and it is not too late to change course. It is not too late to dig up the tram tracks that the UK Government have set for themselves.

All our suggestions were dismissed, but our party is left with fewer and fewer options. We will work within the law. We will work within the constitution. We will work within Scotland and the UK’s democracy. We will work within the settlements that we have, but we will not meekly comply because of a vote that happened in another country. We will not meekly go along with it because we are told to by a party that has only recently found a common purpose—for the moment. It will not last long.

Leaving aside the democratic deficit of the United Kingdom, which is clear for everyone in Scotland to see, let us look at the project that is actually being imposed on us against our will and against our democratic vote. Brexit is proceeding on a flawed premise. There were a series of interlocking promises that have not been respected, that have been forgotten about and dismissed. There were the promises on the side of a bus and an oven-ready deal that is neither ready nor anywhere near an oven. We have a deal that is falling apart. In my first speech in this place, I described the withdrawal agreement as a grubby, shabby document and we were proven right, because within seconds of that vote being passed, the governing party walked away from the commitments, which were being viewed in Brussels as solemn commitments —to a level playing field, to a non-competitive aspect, and to various mechanisms. Those were all being treated as solemn commitments from a UK Government who now do not look very solemn, or serious, or at all credible in the eyes of our wider European colleagues.

Brexit has already made the people of these islands poorer on any objective analysis of the economics. All that pain is perhaps necessary, I am willing to accept, if the benefits are there to see and to be explained, but —I believe in intellectual honesty in my politics—all those benefits, surely we must accept, are at best hypothetical, and absolutely none of them has been delivered in the real world in any sense. Conservative Members wonder why we are sceptical on these Benches about this project. It is because we have not seen any advantages spelled out after four years of looking for one.

rose—

Do tell, sir, please.

Thank you very much for giving way. You said at the start of your speech that this was not about stopping Brexit; it was just about extending the transition period. So why now are you making the case for why we should not leave, and don’t you think it is uncanny how everybody who is arguing—

Order. I would be very grateful if the hon. Gentleman would rephrase his intervention, referring not to “you”, which would mean me in the Chair, but to the hon. Gentleman.

Following on from what I said, does the hon. Gentleman find it uncanny that all those who seem to be arguing for an extension are the people who were previously on the barricades trying to block Brexit completely, full stop?

I am grateful for the opportunity to perhaps correct if I was unclear. I accept that Brexit has happened. I gave up my seat in the European Parliament because of it; I wanted to come here to fight for Scotland’s place in Europe. There was a point in the December election when we could have had that argument. In the halcyon days, we were thinking about a hung Parliament—with a Labour Administration, with SNP support, and a second EU referendum—but I won Stirling with 51% of the vote and my party won Scotland with a massive vote, to a Parliament we do not want to be in, on a pro-EU platform. Because of events elsewhere, it was clear that Brexit was going to happen anyway. I accepted that Brexit had happened in my first speech, so I have made that point. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. What I am trying to do is extend the transition period to avoid a disaster that Conservative Members are going to inflict on this House out of bone-headed ideology, and when the chickens come home to roost, I do hope they will be as accountable as we have been to the people of Scotland on those points.

I again urge the Minister, for whom I have much respect, on the shared prosperity fund. There has been much talk about the power grab. I see the eyes rolling on the Conservative Benches now, but it is a very concrete example. This was not a power that rested in Brussels. The European frameworks exist in order to empower national and local governments. This was a power that was entirely with the Scottish authorities. The proposal on the table now from the UK Government is to put those powers in the hands of the Scotland Office—a part of the UK Government—removing that budget and removing that competence from the Scottish authorities. If that is not a power grab, I will need to have a look at the dictionary that Conservative Members are working with because, in any objective sense, it is. The Minister can assure us now that I am wrong. I will happily be proven wrong. I will happily engage with what we can do with the shared prosperity fund in Scotland, but it must be as a matter of respect for devolution under the competence of the Scottish authorities. If it is not, it is a breach of trust, it is a breach of faith and it is a power grab.

As I say, the pain of Brexit or the pain that Brexit is causing could be worth it if the benefits were there to be seen, but beyond warm words and sentiment, and beyond slogans that do not stand analysis, we have not seen that. Let us be generous—I do try to be generous—and say that the one-year negotiating period was heroically ambitious. That was before covid. Covid has intervened and has taken the focus of all our Governments and all our public officials away, rightly, to a health emergency. Extending the transition period is not about fighting old battles. I am not in the business of fighting old battles. Extending the transition period can be done and will give us breathing space and certainty to allow our economy to recover from a health emergency that is turning into an economic emergency. To add a covid-inflicted disaster to that because of Brexit would be flat lunacy.

I was struck by the Paymaster General’s previous comments. She is not in her place now, but I was struck when she used the phrase that we are now past the point whereby a request can be made. She said that some might argue it is impossible to apply for an extension. She is not here now, but I will happily give way to anyone on the Conservative Benches who can name anybody in Brussels who is of that view. Anyone—Berlin, Paris, Ljubljana? It is a matter of straightforward principle and pragmatism in Brussels that, if the UK applies for an extension, it will be granted. The EU has, at every stage of the process, accepted with regret the democratic choices of the United Kingdom. It will not engage in our internal discussion, so it is with regret that it accepts that an extension will probably not be applied for.

We have not heard any indication today that the UK Government will change course, but they should, and this is a plea from us to do so, because we can still change course. We must change course. This is not about old battles. I asked whether anybody in Brussels, Berlin or anywhere else shared the Minister’s view. How about Dublin? Speaking of Dublin, Ireland is an independent state in north-west Europe that has done quite well lately. With Norway, it was voted on to the UN Security Council. It has the EU Commissioner for Trade in the inestimable Phil Hogan, who is a very strong negotiator in trade deals—Government Members will want to watch that one. It also has the president of the Eurogroup in Paschal Donohoe. The international accolades just keep coming for Ireland, and that is all based on the solidarity, support and encouragement of 26 other EU member states that have its back against the former colonial power.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the fact that Ireland managed to get itself on to the UN Security Council, but Scotland is a permanent member of the UN Security Council through being part of one of the most successful unions. Does his attitude not show that he actually wants to downgrade Scotland’s place in the world by making it a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council?

I am happy to engage with that point. I have spent a number of years on the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and I am now foreign affairs spokesman for my party. The UK is, of course, a P5 member, and Scotland is represented by virtue of that mechanism. I think that it could serve us better if we were an independent member of the UN and an independent member of the EU, working in concert with 27 of our closest neighbours, because I do not have any faith or trust in where the UK is going under the Conservative party. The Brexit process has proven us to be right.

I heard the point made earlier about the 2014 referendum. We do accept that that vote happened; we do accept that arithmetic reality. But a number of people voted no to independence on the basis of specific promises—promises that they cannot risk their European status, that we are a family of equals and a partnership of nations, that the UK is the only way to guarantee economic stability. All those promises and all that airy sentiment now look an awful lot more threadbare than they did, and no amount of bluster from Government Members will disprove that point.

Look at the recent results of votes in Scotland. Under a system where we do not make the rules, we won massively the majority of seats from Scotland in this House. Scotland is represented in this discussion by nobody from the Labour party and by a Minister who represents Milton Keynes. We have no territorial ambitions in Milton Keynes—the Minister can rest easy—but to say that it is part of Scotland is something of a stretch.

The legitimacy of this Government in the eyes of the people of Scotland is really something that Government Members need to have higher up their consciousness, because the people of Scotland are watching. The people of Scotland will have a choice at some point on whether independence in Europe is a better option than being stuck on an island run by the Conservative party. Ireland has shown us what independence in Europe actually looks like, and the Government are showing us what the UK will continue to offer Scotland. I think we have a better choice, and I believe that independence in Europe is coming.

I would like to say that I am surprised and overwhelmed by the positive atmosphere and constructive tone of the debate and that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has come down from his humble croft with a wonderful solution based on his inestimable skills as a slick city financier—but alas, no. Like that one bore at every party who becomes more opinionated as the evening wears on, the right hon. Gentleman has returned to his singular obsession.

This week’s excuse for nabbing us by the constitutional vol-au-vents is covid, but let us not pretend that this debate is about anything other than what it is. The SNP has not met a referendum in this century that it did not want to overturn. Whether it is the neverendum of indyref2, or frustrating Brexit by extending the transition period a little bit more, for SNP Members “once in a generation” lasts about 30 minutes. That is a half-life of caesium-130, not a major constitutional change.

I was at the Glasgow count in 2014, watching as authority after authority sent in no votes in result after result. I was there when SNP Members started cheering early when the Inverclyde result came in. Do you know what, Madam Deputy Speaker? They still learned nothing; they were calling for a second referendum before the fine folk of Fife had even sent the final coup de grâce.

Of course, the right hon. Gentleman trots out the line that Scotland voted remain, but I remind him that the United Kingdom voted to leave. My constituency, Heywood and Middleton, voted to leave by well over 60% and, contrary to the groupthink of the bien-pensant Écossais on the Opposition Benches, they did know what they were voting for. They saw the opportunities and the challenges, and they chose to seize them. The heart of the matter is that the right hon. Gentleman remains deeply embittered that his brand of independence did not pass—and if he cannot have what he wants, nobody should have it.

Heywood and Middleton made a pretty bold decision in December by ending Labour’s lease on its votes, and that was in no small part down to the enthusiasm of the right hon. and learned Member the Leader of the Opposition for a second referendum. Let no one forget that that is his position. If nothing else, this debate will be a telling test of whether Her Majesty’s Opposition have learned any lessons. I see not. When it comes to Brexit, the Labour party has had more positions than the “Kama Sutra”, and seems in no position to end the walk of shame that started on 13 December. This country has waited far too long for politicians to get themselves into gear. It wanted an outward-looking global Britain, with control over our money, borders and laws.

In closing, I would like to turn to something—[Hon. Members: “More!”] Quantity from that side, quality here. I wish to turn to something that an SNP Member said in yesterday’s debate on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) made an insightful point, which I shall quote exactly. He said that

“nations are best served when they govern themselves.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 1428.]

The United Kingdom can, should and must now govern itself in line with the instruction that the people gave us in 2016.

I would like to thank the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) for what was, frankly, patronising drivel about Scotland and how we think, and for his insight into the 2014 referendum. He did get a joke in about the “Kama Sutra”, so obviously that was enough to have those on the Government Benches cheering; it is a joke we have all heard before so it was not very clever.

The motion before the House is all about common sense. It makes sense to extend the transition period during this covid pandemic. Only the Tories and their unelected tsar, Dominic Cummings, can think that a no-deal crash-out in December, in the midst of this global pandemic, is a good thing. It is quite clear that they are happy to pile chaos upon chaos.

Today’s motion and debate are also about nationalism and those who are obsessed by borders—and by that, of course, I mean the British nationalists, who think that the decline of the UK was due to the malign influence of the EU; those nationalists who are obsessed with controlling the UK borders and keeping people out; the very ones who cling to the glory days of the empire and think that the empire will return. Their idea of independence is so different from what we see as Scotland’s future.

We see a future in which Scotland is a member of the EU—one in which we still have freedom of movement for EU citizens and our students can still participate in the Erasmus scheme. As it stands at the moment, if we remain in a UK that is out of the EU, students from the EU who apply to a Scottish university will initially be given only a three-year study visa—a visa that is not even long enough for them to complete their four-year course in Scotland. That is a simple example of how Scotland does not matter and does not figure when the UK formulates policy, particularly in respect of immigration. It is always based on what the Tory Government think England wants and how the voters in England will react.

We know that Scotland relies on immigration for growth, and we actually value those who come and work for the NHS. Meanwhile, the Tory Government and the Prime Minister had to be shamed into abandoning the health surcharge that they were applying to people who were saving lives and keeping the NHS going. Scotland simply cannot afford to be wedded to an immigration system designed for the south-east of England: as well as being inward-looking, it would cost Scotland financially and economically.

Bizarrely, despite the Tory Government’s obsession with controlling the UK borders, they are not actually in a position to do so if they leave without a deal in December. Throwing £700 million at it this week will not magically create a system that will be in place and operating by 1 January 2021. It certainly will not deal with the problem of the Irish border and the fact that there promises to be no new infrastructure. There is no IT system available at the moment that can actually do what they claim it can.

On that, the one aspect the International Trade Secretary understands is the fact that the UK risks being a smugglers’ charter. It is such a risk that she believes the UK could be subject to a challenge from the World Trade Organisation, basically because of the UK’s desire for no border checks for EU imports to Great Britain for the first six months of 2021. How is that taking control of your borders? The International Trade Secretary highlighted a lack of plans and timescales for tariff declaration systems, border controls and necessary infrastructure for ports in the UK. She also outlined the fear that the dual tariff system will not be in place for 1 January 2021, in breach of prior commitments made to Northern Ireland in the Government’s Command Paper. It is quite clear that the Government are not ready to leave the transition period in December 2020. They really do need to think again about how they go forward.

The hard Brexiteers, of course, still tell us that despite all that, and despite the International Trade Secretary’s highlighting her own concerns to the Cabinet, there is no need to extend the transition period—that is, hard Brexiteers such as the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who, in previous no-deal planning, awarded a ferry contract to a company with no ferries, no money and no assets. But sure, these are the people who can come together and somehow magic all these solutions into place by December 2020! It is a complete and utter fantasy. Fortunately, the people of Scotland can see through that hard-headedness. They did not vote for Brexit and they certainly do not want a no-deal crash-out. A survey has found that 83% of people in Scotland, and even 77% of people across the UK, say that the UK Government should agree to an extension. Why are those views being roundly ignored?

There is a reason why 48 SNP MPs, out of 59 seats, were elected in December. More and more people in Scotland can see that having our independence means that we can steer our own path. We know they see that the Scottish Government have handled the covid-19 pandemic better than the UK Government, despite what the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) was saying earlier. We have now reached a stage at which for over a week there have been no deaths in Scotland. I think everyone in the Chamber should welcome that. It is a shame that the death figures in the UK are still way too high, but I think that is a sign of how we have handled it much better in Scotland.

Polls across the entire UK show that Nicola Sturgeon is showing real leadership, unlike the Prime Minister. It is becoming obvious to all that if we are to have a true economic and green recovery, Scotland needs independence. People can see that the Tories crowing about how grateful we should be for getting Barnett consequentials is no substitute for having our own powers on borrowing and taxation. They can see that the summer financial statement the other week bypassed Scotland altogether.

To return to the point the hon. Gentleman makes about death rates and figures, in the Science and Technology Committee we have been hearing much about different rates in care homes and lots of the powers that are currently with the Scottish Government to prevent care home deaths. I encourage him to look at the figures, because Scotland is much worse than England.

I would have thought that, as a scrupulous member of that Committee, the hon. Lady would know that the death rate in care homes in Scotland is not actually higher than the death rate in care homes in England. That said, it is much higher than we would have liked, no doubt about it—it would have been much better for all if so many people did not suffer. I go back to the main point: there have been no covid deaths at all for over a week now in Scotland. It is quite clear that we are handling the virus much better, and yesterday there were only five new cases identified in the whole of Scotland.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but honestly that comment is beneath him. The population of Scotland is so much smaller than that of England that of course there would be more deaths in England than in Scotland. He should withdraw the accusation that his Government have done more than the UK Government on covid. It is based on population and the point he raises is not a very good one.

I will not withdraw the factual assertion I made that we have handled the covid-19 pandemic in Scotland better than the UK Government. And if we are talking about population, we can do that pro rata. The death rate in England is far, far higher than in Scotland. There are still daily deaths occurring every day in England and, as I have said, there are none in Scotland. That is nothing to do with having a lower population—zero is zero.

I suggest that it does this House a disservice if people outside see us haggling over which country has had fewer deaths—frankly, I think it does Members on both sides of the House a disservice—so I would like to go back to the hon. Gentleman’s comment on the summer statement last week. He spoke about how the UK Government’s funding had bypassed Scotland. That is an untrue statement. What it did was bypass the Scottish Government, and once again, that shows that unless the money has the stamp of the Scottish Government on it, the SNP does not accept that money being spent here can benefit the people and businesses of Scotland.

The hon. Gentleman knows that that is part of the debate about a power grab. The UK Government are trying to bypass the Scottish Government, so he is right in that, because they want to stick a Union flag on it—well, that trick does not work either. I go back to my earlier point: he is one of the Scottish Conservative MPs who stand up and brag about Barnett consequentials, but it is a sad state of affairs that we are expected to be grateful for Barnett consequentials, which come from a UK Government plan on how to spend money in England. They look at England’s needs and apply money to be spent based on England’s needs. We then get a wee share of that money and we are supposed to say, “Thank you very much, UK Government. The broad shoulders do us so well.” That is not how it works. In the Budget process, Scotland’s needs are never taken into account and people in Scotland understand that.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way in his characteristically kindly manner. Perhaps I can take him back to the thrust of his speech. Is it not very regrettable that we still do not seem to have any details that lead us to believe anything very much about what the shared prosperity fund will mean for Scotland? Someone who travels in my constituency or that of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) will see many, many signs with European stars on them. Scotland and the highlands have benefited greatly from European funding. I do not know what will replace it in future and I would like to know.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I thank him for advising me to get back to the thrust of my speech, as I will now, on that very theme. As he correctly points out, in the highlands and islands, so many areas have benefited from European funding over the years. So many road upgrades have been undertaken, with causeways built, to connect islands, all based on European funding. That money is no longer accessible to Scotland. That money was making up for the deficiencies of direct rule from Westminster. Why were all these projects outstanding? Why did they have to be funded by European money? Because Westminster was not taking account of Scotland’s needs.

On the shared prosperity fund, as the hon. Gentleman said, we have no clarity. It says it all that responsibility for the fund lies with the Minister for English local government, so, clearly, it will not take into account the needs of Scotland. It is going to be tailored to local communities in England. We will get some money and be told to be grateful and thankful—“Take your money and on you go.” It is not working any more, and the people in Scotland understand that.

We have heard today that this is the most successful political union in the world, and they tell us how lucky we are to have such a powerful devolved Parliament—the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world, apparently. And yet, if we look across the Irish sea to Northern Ireland, we see that the Northern Ireland Assembly has powers over welfare and pensions, and an independent civil service, for example, which the Scottish Parliament does not. Wallonia in Belgium scuppered the EU-Canada trade deal, so there are some other examples of Parliaments that have much greater power and responsibility than the Scottish Parliament. Most federal states in the United States have more powers than the Scottish Parliament, so this myth that it is the most powerful Parliament in the world does not wash. Of course it has done good for the Scottish people. Of course it is much better than direct rule from Westminster, but do not pretend that it is the most powerful Parliament in the world.

The real truth of the matter in terms of Unionist condescension is that they do not even believe that the people of Scotland should choose their own future. We have heard it today—“You had your referendum in 2014. The people voted in 2014 to stay in the UK, so shut your mouths and get on with it.” That does not wash either. The opinion polls show consistently at the moment support for independence at 54%. It ill becomes these people to say, “You’re not getting another referendum.”

The hon. Gentleman just mentioned opinion polls. Does he not agree that on 10 and 11 September, prior to the independence referendum, opinion polls showed that Scotland was going to vote for independence, yet when it actually came to the vote a few days later, it voted to remain part of the UK? Why should we listen to opinion polls? Should we not listen to the voice of the people as they express it at the ballot box?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for another wonderful insight from afar. Yes, there was one opinion poll and yes, it did excite us, but it was only one opinion poll; all the other opinion polls showed that no was going to win, so I do not understand his point. It is clear that the opinion polls have moved and now consistently show record support for independence.

It is clear from some of the observations from Conservative Members that they do not understand what the Scottish population are thinking and how they feel. Their denial just beggars belief. They can talk in this Chamber about denying Scotland another referendum, but they cannot deny the will of the people in the long run. I assure them that independence is coming, it is coming soon, and then we will rejoin the EU and be an outward-looking, ambitious nation.

As I said in reply to the point of order from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), I have let the debate run and put no restriction on time because it has been a very robust debate and I think it has benefited from everyone being able to take a lot of interventions rather than being constrained by a time limit. I hope not to have to introduce a time limit, because we have plenty of time for this extremely important debate, but I would appreciate it now if hon. Members would please hold the floor for around eight minutes. Eight minutes is quite a long time. That time will be reduced later in the debate, but if everybody takes around eight minutes for the time being, everyone who has indicated that they would like to speak will have an opportunity to do so, and that would be fair.

First, I reassure the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) that I will not mention the “Kama Sutra”, so no upset caused there. [Interruption.] Oh, sorry—I just did.

I welcome the Minister’s comments about the importance of sticking to the deadline and our promise to the British people. The Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union, of which I am a member, received evidence relating to the effect of covid-19 on the negotiations. The negotiations are progressing and intensifying, but no amount of extra time will resolve the sticking points. The European Union is refusing to follow its own precedent and incorporate terms that it has accepted in other trade deals. The Select Committee’s report spoke of the possibility that covid-19

“may focus minds on arriving at a timely deal.”

I hope that causes the EU to recognise that its position is unreasonable and accept its need to compromise.

The report also highlighted the importance of giving certainty to business. The SNP’s motion would only give way to months more of uncertainty. It is reckless and acts as a thin veil for the party’s desire to cancel the decision taken by the United Kingdom in 2016.

Does my hon. Friend agree that four years is enough time to have negotiated a deal with the EU?

I thank my hon. Friend for making that really important point. We have moved on now, and there is no more time for dither and delay. We need to move on.

It is hardly surprising that the SNP called this debate, given its form for disregarding referendum results. Fifty-seven per cent. of the people of Dewsbury, Mirfield, Kirkburton and Denby Dale voted to leave the European Union. I was proud to campaign for a truly global Britain to take back control from Brussels and reclaim our independent trade policy. During the last general election, the spectre of the Brexit party risked splitting the leave vote and allowing the Labour party to hold the seat. Imagine my relief when my Labour opponents, in their infinite wisdom, published election leaflets branding me as the Prime Minister’s chum and a no-deal Brexiteer. I would like to thank the Labour party for its gleaming endorsement, without which I probably would not be standing here today. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. The fact that the Labour party thought those leaflets would hinder my chances rather than endear me to the electorate just shows how out of touch it is.

I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) in asking where Labour Members are today. Where are they? Looking at the sparse Labour Benches, I see little sign that anything has changed. It is deeply worrying that the Opposition could muster only one Back-Bench Member to speak in this debate—[Interruption.] And I am not sure where the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) is. I want to offer Labour Members—who are, hopefully, watching or listening in their offices—some genuine advice: listen to the British people and accept the result of the referendum and the enormous benefits of being an outward-looking nation. They should unanimously oppose this motion. By doing so, perhaps they would get a little bit closer to reconnecting with their traditional voters.

I must confess that I am not, in fact, a no-deal Brexiteer. That is not to say that we should be fearful of a no-deal Brexit, given adequate preparation. However, I am optimistic that the Government will secure a deal that works for the whole United Kingdom. They are on track to deliver a deal that protects our legal autonomy and takes us out of the single market and the customs union. We will then be able to secure the vast boons of trade deals with countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Japan. My constituents have no desire to dither and delay, and nor do I. I will be opposing the motion with a spring in my step.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for securing this debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood). I noted his use of the term “take back control”, which I might use as well, but possibly running in a different direction. I would also like to inform the House that our Senedd in Wales is today holding the first ever debate on annibyniaeth—independence. In the light of the fact that we are also holding this debate here, and of the tenor in which it is being conducted, it is fair to say that the scaffolding of the UK is being strained to breaking point by the unprecedented circumstances in which we find ourselves.

One of the dominant themes of our public debate since the 2016 EU referendum has been that power should lie closer to the people. The campaign was largely won on the emotional appeal of autonomy and control. “Vote leave and take back control” was the mantra that was repeated ad nauseam in debates inside this House and elsewhere. There was, and there remains, a clear emotional appeal to that message, and while I regretted Wales’s decision to vote to leave, back in 2016, I recognise that that vote reflected a genuine and justified dissatisfaction with our distance from where decisions are taken in our politics. Therefore, 2016 should have been a turning point and the beginning of a new process of truly bringing power closer to the people. We should have seen more devolution, not only to our national Parliaments but to local authority level. That vote should have started a process of bringing disengaged voters back into the democratic process, and of giving people real control over the decisions affecting their real lives.

The UK Government themselves acknowledged the need for that. The Brexit White Paper released in March 2017 proclaimed:

“As the powers to make these rules are repatriated to the UK from the EU, we have an opportunity to determine the level best placed to make new laws and policies on these issues, ensuring power sits closer to the people of the UK than ever before.”

Instead, what we have had is a centralisation of power—centralisation to these corridors here in Whitehall, standing in the way of powers that should have been in transit from Europe to our national Parliaments rather than empowering Whitehall further. If this were a true Union of equals, these former EU powers would have gone equally, naturally, to all our Parliaments. The process started with the EU withdrawal Act, which ensures that the only Parliament that will take back control is the one most removed from the lives of the ordinary people whom many of us in the Opposition represent.

The UK internal market Bill threatens our powers further, by allowing Westminster to dictate trade, environmental, food and animal welfare standards and provisions and by giving Westminster control over state aid—a clear breach of devolution in spirit and actuality.

Westminster once again undermines our nations when it comes to an extension of the transition. The Welsh Government, as well as the Scottish Government, last month called for the transition period to be extended. They were ignored.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the Welsh Government. Labour is in power in Wales, of course, yet Labour Members have not bothered to turn up to this debate. I congratulate the right hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) on representing Wales on both sides of the House when Labour does not care.

In these extraordinary circumstances, I will agree with the hon. Gentleman. I am deeply disappointed that where Labour is in power, and when it has made a clear statement to an effect that is relevant to the title of this debate, it does not have people here to push that argument.

I return to the UK internal market Bill and beyond. The Westminster Government, in this matter and others, not only disregarded the approaches from the Scottish and Welsh Governments, but did not consult them when they gave official notice to extend the transition.

Now, of course, the coronavirus has affected every nation badly, Wales among them. A recent Office for National Statistics survey found that 46% of Welsh businesses have six months or less of cash reserves—the highest percentage among the UK nations. In just five months’ time, businesses that export to the EU will be subject to customs declarations regardless of whether or not a deal is struck, adding increased costs and immense red tape to businesses that are already struggling.

In 2018, HMRC estimated that each customs declaration form would cost an average of £32.50 to complete. The Government expect that about 400 million additional customs declarations a year will have to be made from next year. The 46% of Welsh businesses that do not have the cash reserves to see them beyond this year will simply be unable to afford the added costs, and we fear that Welsh exports will be deeply affected, even to the point of collapse.

Thousands of job losses have already been announced in Wales: in aerospace, manufacturing, media, and—most recently, today, with the announcement that 80 full-time jobs and 70 casual workers’ jobs are at risk—at the Urdd. The Urdd is a 90-year-old organisation that runs the largest youth festival in Europe. It is critical to Welsh cultural survival, and we have heard today that there is that threat to 150 jobs out of 320, which is deeply concerning.

The right hon. Lady has mentioned the Urdd Eisteddfod, an important celebration of our Welsh language and culture. Another such example is the Royal Welsh Show, which has not yet received any support from the Welsh Government, despite the additional funding that the UK Government made available. Does she agree that it also deserves support?

These cultural events are critical for us in Wales, but this year’s National Eisteddfod has of course been cancelled. The Urdd is also one of the organisations that encourages our young people not just to learn Welsh at school, but to use it with each other and to have fun through the medium of Welsh. That support for the language is critical.

For a Government to be actively walking towards further disruption in January is reckless in the extreme, and I fear that it is all part of a plan. The disaster capitalists—those who profit from disaster—are now in charge, and they are gambling that the combined shocks caused by covid-19 and a destructive Brexit will allow them to reassemble the broken pieces into a radically different economic system. I urge the other Welsh Member here—I had to think ex tempore there—to consider the impact that a crash in January, on top of the covid-19 recession, will have on our constituencies and to consider the effect of the collapse in confidence on our fragile rural and tourism-dependent economies. We need that confidence, yet we see no confidence coming our way.

Plaid Cymru tabled a motion that gained the support of many Members on 13 March—right at the beginning of the pandemic—calling for an extension to the transition. The pandemic has changed everything, and we must now put all our energy into the recovery. The UK Government may have missed the deadline within the withdrawal agreement for a simple extension of the transition period, but that does not mean that we are bound to a January crash. There are other options, as other Members have rightly pointed out. I urge the Government to do the sensible thing—the common-sense thing—and to negotiate a real implementation period to protect our economy from the double blow of the pandemic and Brexit.

Here we go again: another SNP debate, another debate on Brexit. I rise today, surprisingly enough, to oppose the motion in the name of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), but I do so in a particularly generous and forgiving mood. It was Oscar Wilde who said, “We should always forgive our opponents, because nothing annoys them so much.” So I forgive the Scottish National party for bringing before the House today this motion on, frankly, a false and flawed assumption: that the covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the Government’s negotiations with the European Union to the point that businesses will be left, as the Scottish Government argue in the document described in the motion, with less time to prepare than was previously anticipated. That is quite simply not the case. The process has continued throughout the pandemic, with civil servants working from home and the negotiations taking place virtually.

SNP Members are not the only people to be worried about the efficiency or the productivity of people working from home, but if they truly believe that it is impossible to conduct effective negotiations remotely, that does prompt the question why they were so insistent that we could function effectively as MPs under the virtual Parliament arrangements, which the SNP fought so hard to keep. Indeed, on 8 June in this very place, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) made a strong and eloquent case for retaining remote working and hybrid arrangements, because they were working properly and should be brought back “in full”. I do not believe for a minute that he believes that it should be one rule for us and another for other people, but I do agree with him that remote working does actually work well, and our negotiating teams have been demonstrating that every day with their continued important work on exiting the European Union.

Of course, it is unfortunate that we do not have remote participation, because far more SNP Members would have wanted to take part in this debate if they had been able to contribute via the remote screens. If Brexit is heading towards being such a success, as the hon. Gentleman claims, can he explain the opinion polls showing that people in Scotland are moving towards independence by a substantial majority? Are the polls wrong? Are the people misguided? Or is it actually that the misguiding principles are coming from the Conservative Benches?

I would happily stand and debate opinion polls and their trajectory, but there is only one poll that truly matters, and that is when people get to the ballot box. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree that the SNP only managed to get 45% of the vote in December. That is a fantastic total and a very strong result, but it shows that 55% of the Scottish population voted for parties that want to remain in the United Kingdom—a United Kingdom that is, I am afraid, because we believe in democracy, leaving the European Union this year.

Throughout the Brexit debate, there has been a false assumption that the status quo was one of the options that remained available to us. That was never true and has never been less true that it is today. The European Union has been hit just as hard by the pandemic as the UK has, and it will have to make difficult decisions about how to respond to the economic effects, exactly as we will. Our staying in the transitional arrangements with the EU, when the EU is rightly not factoring British interests into its plans for recovery, does not make sense. We need all the flexibility available to us to respond to the economic damage caused by the pandemic, and staying inside the EU’s one-size-fits-all framework is simply not conducive to that.

We have had this debate over and over again for the past three to four year. What this country, and businesses in this country, need is certainty, not more dither and delay. It is disappointing and of serious detriment to the interests of the people of Scotland that the SNP has not yet learned how negotiations work. If the past four years have taught us anything, it is that without firm deadlines, negotiations grind to a halt. That is precisely why deadlines exist—to ensure that important tasks are completed in a timely fashion. I am sure that Opposition Members visit schools in their constituencies from time to time, as I do. The next time they visit I invite them to ask teachers how likely it is that their students’ coursework would materialise were endless extensions on offer.

The leader of the Scottish National party in this place, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, spoke today about the importance of economic certainty and putting the economy first. My goodness me! It was a bigger conversion than Paul’s on the road to Damascus to finally hear the leader of the SNP making our arguments for us. Surely it means that the SNP has finally accepted our argument against breaking up the United Kingdom, given the huge economic cost that would bring. If the economy comes before all other concerns, the case for Scottish independence is as dead as a dodo.

Parking the politics for a moment, in all honesty does the hon. Gentleman not share my concern that our part of the United Kingdom, which we both are elected to represent, is due to be the hardest hit of the entirety of the United Kingdom as a result of Brexit? Does he not have any concerns about that whatever?

The hon. Member knows that I share concerns about the economic prospects of our part of the country, which we are both proud to represent, and that is why I, unlike him, welcomed the huge stimulus announced last week by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so much of which will be going to support Scottish businesses.

rose—

Perhaps the hon. Member would like to stand up and welcome the Chancellor’s package of announcements that was unveiled last week.

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and giving me another opportunity to reflect on the package last week, which he knows was devoid of any support whatever for Scotland’s oil and gas sector in terms of an oil and gas sector deal. I see his head go down, because he has just walked into that one, knowing exactly what I was going to say. I go back to my initial point. Does he not in all honesty have concerns that our part of Scotland will be detrimentally impacted by Brexit? Just say it.

I may have walked right into that, but that is because last week Oil & Gas UK welcomed the package of support unveiled by the Chancellor. It was very welcoming of the furlough scheme that we put up, and it is looking forward to working with us as we develop the oil and gas sector deal. By the way, that deal and support would not come if Scotland were not in our wider United Kingdom.

I have to say something to the hon. Member and any SNP Members. If, heaven forbid, a second independence referendum took place and, heaven forbid, the result went in their favour, we would respect the result because, after all, we are democrats. I doubt we would see SNP politicians coming back here asking for an extension to any transition period that had been agreed, but the untangling of the Union that we are going through now is nothing compared with what it would be like to untangle an economic, political and military Union that has existed for more than 300 years.

The SNP looks both ways when it comes to leaving Unions. They will find any excuse to drag out the Brexit process for as long as possible, but when it comes to independence, it is full steam ahead—no plan, no timetable, no currency, no mandate, no way. They are simply Euro-Unionists. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) mentions the side of a bus. Earlier, we heard the leader of the Scottish National party talk about what the SNP campaigned on during the December election. Its campaign was solely about “Stop Brexit”; it was not about another Scottish independence referendum. Independence was not even mentioned for the duration of the campaign, so toxic was it to the Scottish National party’s platform. On the side of the SNP bus, in black and yellow, was “Stop Brexit”. It failed, we are leaving the European Union at the end of the year, and we will make a success of it.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will not, because I have already taken two interventions—not even for the hon. Gentleman.

SNP Members know that I campaigned and voted to remain in the European Union, but there is a certain thing called democracy, and we must abide by the results. Otherwise, everything that we stand for in this place, and out in the wider country, falls flat on its face. We fought the referendum. My side lost, the leave side won, and we must respect that, just as one day—hopefully—the Scottish National party will respect the fact that it lost in 2014, and that Scotland is staying as part of the United Kingdom.

At least the Scottish National party is consistent, and has a position on Brexit and the transition agreement, and I am sure we will debate the issue again in the months to come. Sadly, that is more than can be said for the Labour party, which is all but invisible today. I say in all candour to my friends on the Opposition Benches that it does not look likely, with the sort of actions demonstrated today, that they will get back to the position in which they need to be if they are to become a force in Scottish politics again, let alone in UK politics.

I am conscious of what you said earlier, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will draw my remarks to a close as I know that plenty of people wish to speak. This motion is not about covid, the economy, or people’s livelihoods; this motion is about the Scottish National party and its obsession with stymying the democratic role of the British people. We should be proud of voting it down this evening.

It is, for a change, a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), and I am glad to see him doing better. His more measured approach to this debate has been noted on the SNP Benches, and I wish him well—although, as usual, he was talking guff.

We are in the middle of a health crisis that stretches not just across borders—whether or not the Prime Minister recognises them—but across continents. At least 600,000 people around the world are dead from coronavirus, and many millions more will contract the virus in the future. That situation requires an international response, yet sadly, and predictably, the UK has gone further into its Brexit bunker, and decided to try and opt out of the world.

We have heard repeatedly about how Ministers want the UK to remain close friends with our EU allies, but what sort of friend insists on diverting the resources of the EU and its member states away from dealing with the most serious health emergency in modern history, and to negotiating with an obstinate and childish ex-member that seems to use a “Dad’s Army” script as its terms of reference? The EU has made clear time after time that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) said, it would be more than amenable to an extension to the negotiations, to allow it and the UK the space and time that is needed to deal with the public health emergency consuming us all. The response from the UK? “No thanks. I’m all right Jack.” What sort of relationship does it think will emerge on the other side?

Scotland is being dragged into a bombastic mix of exceptionalism, isolationism, and outright self-destruction. Ministers and Conservative Members have said that we voted as a Union, but people in Scotland have heard that before. People in Scotland also know that our democratic wish to work alongside our longstanding partners and allies has been torn up and chucked in the Brexit bin. Again, we are seeing that the British state is fundamentally incapable of good governance for Scotland or the rest of the UK. A clique of self-congratulatory Oxbridge graduates would steer their own country on to the rocks in the name of Brexit if they even knew where the steering wheel was. Instead, they have allowed their country to drift over the decades, taking the rest of us with them.

Scotland has never endorsed this self-immolation. For all that Ruth Davidson was lauded to the heavens by her high-profile supporters in the press, her crowning triumph was 28% of the vote in 2017—a figure that dropped two years later. The Tory record at election after election has been an unbroken streak of dismal failure for decades, yet our entire society and economy have been reshaped and allowed to wither on the vine, because that same Tory party has governed the UK for nearly 28 out of my 40 years. Now they expect us to keep silent and meekly go along with their back-of-a-fag-packet Brexit.

As I have said a few times in this place in the past few weeks, my constituency is facing the biggest challenge to our economy for decades. Rolls-Royce, Glasgow airport, easyJet, British Airways, Menzies Aviation and Swissport—I could go on to list company after company, and sector after sector—are in the process of collectively laying off thousands of my constituents. I have asked time after time what the UK Government plan to do to support constituencies such as mine, which are staring economic disaster in the face, but there has been no answer and no sign of a plan. But EU countries do have plans and they are implementing them now. They want to save jobs and key industries, and they have their levers and powers to do that. The Danish Government do not have to send missives to the Germans asking permission to have an industrial or macroeconomic policy. The French Government are implementing their plan for aviation now, yet there is no plan in the UK—none. Aerospace and aviation are left to rot; there is no sectoral support and no sign of any.

Businesses face a double whammy of coronavirus and Brexit, both accentuated by UK Government incompetence, ideology and arrogance. The exporters in my constituency still do not know what and where they will be able to export to the EU in the new year. Our manufacturers still do not know whether they will be massively disadvantaged by trade barriers that their EU competitors regard as fit only for the history books. The service industries still do not know what access, if any, they will have to the single market after 1 January, all while every business and individual in the country grapples with the impact of coronavirus, and the massive dislocation it is causing and will continue to cause.

This is history repeating itself. Our country lived through decades of de-industrialisation as asset-strippers and spivs were allowed to run riot and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs in the name of ideology—the UK Government sat back and let it happen. Emigration from Scotland ran into the hundreds of thousands as families moved anywhere and everywhere they could to find a skilled job—the UK Government sat back and let it happen. Our towns and cities became victims of the post-industrial economy—the UK Government sat back and let it happen.

The hon. Gentleman talks about the uncertainty that many businesses in his constituency face, but surely that uncertainty would drag on if we were to extend the transition deadline today. Surely it would be far better to focus on getting a deal and providing greater certainty through a clear framework of where we are going to be in the years ahead, rather than extending and pushing it down the road.

I am very grateful for that intervention, but I have just listed all the circumstances in which businesses do not know what is going to happen after 1 January, so what certainty is the hon. Gentleman talking about? I have no idea and neither do businesses in my constituency. If he has some certainty to give us, I would be happy to give way again so that he can tell us what that is.

The UK has shown itself unfit and unwilling to govern Scotland properly, with, more often than not, zero democratic mandate to do so. I know that an independent Scotland, with its governance, capability and capacity, could plot a better course than the one we are locked into. I know that we could take our place back in the EU alongside the other small independent countries that make up the majority of its members. Do the Government want to carry on telling the people of Scotland that somehow we, on our own, are an economic basket case propped up by the largesse of the Treasury, as has been indicated? That is their concern, but I urge them not to be hypocritical; they should deliver that message to the people of Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Luxembourg, Slovenia and all the other nations, self-governing, sovereign and independent, that make up the EU. The UK Government should pop up in the national news programmes of those countries telling the electorate that they are doing it wrong. They should be firing out press releases and extending the Prime Minister’s role as Minister for the Union to cover all these countries, Britsplaining their way across the continent. But they will not find a receptive audience and they do not find one in Scotland. More and more, the rot at the heart of the UK is laid bare for all to see and people are saying enough is enough—enough of jingoism, isolationism and palling up with Trump; enough of watching the poorest in society being punished by a welfare state that is meant to help them; enough of rhetoric towards our friends in the EU that, until very recently, was the sole preserve of the Daily Mail letters page.

We want a Scotland that protects our citizens and works to protect others. We want a Scotland that values Europe and the benefits we bring each other when working in partnership. The Minister for the Union and his colleagues should realise now that to block the democratic will of the people to achieve these goals would be another nail in the coffin for the UK and another example for the Scottish people of how the UK works against our interests, not for them.

Scotland belongs in Europe, and the people of Scotland will make that happen sooner rather than later. The Government, despite what they may think, cannot stop democracy, and they cannot and will not stop the people of Scotland choosing their own future.

Order. After the next speaker we will have to have a time limit of five minutes, but that does not apply to Wendy Chamberlain.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. There have been relatively few opportunities for me, as a new MP, to debate the current negotiations with the EU during this Session, so I welcome the debate. It is timely because, after several years of bluster since 2016, this week we have finally started to see some more details of what Brexit will mean in practice.

On Monday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster set out the £705 million cost of new border infrastructure and a new comms plan, which has been reported to cost £93 million on top of last year’s £100 million defunct Get Ready for Brexit campaign. On Tuesday, the Government confirmed that some 250 million customs declarations will be required every year, at a cost of £13 billion per annum.

Some of us in this Chamber are old enough to remember that the current Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster promised that if we voted leave, the NHS would receive £350 million a week. We were told that leaving the EU would be easy and frictionless, but now this Vote Leave Government are spending, on my calculations, around £250 million a week to prepare us for the realities of Brexit, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. These were preparatory measures; we have no idea what the exact cost of our exit will be. There will be tariffs; the question is on what scale, and we now know that that means a deterioration in our terms of trade. It means higher costs for business, and ultimately it will mean a rise in the cost of living, which will hit the poorest in this country hardest.

I acknowledge that that means that, in many cases, those who voted for Brexit will be hit hardest, but this is not the Brexit that they were promised—all at a time when the country faces unprecedented economic disaster and the greatest public health crisis this century. This is not Project Fear; the Government’s announcements, slowly though they may have come, have continually confirmed that this is Project Reality. Members on the Government Benches might criticise me for talking Britain down, but as I highlighted in my question to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster earlier this week, the current actual financial opportunities identified by the Government equate to absolutely zero.

Back in 2016, we were told that Britain would be welcomed, as we left the EU, with open arms by the international community. Despite lots of rhetoric around trade discussions, that welcome is far from certain. The rhetoric of leaving one Union to be welcomed by a host of nations is also used by Scottish National party Members, and that is not the only parallel between the campaign to leave the union in Europe and that to leave the Union of these four nations.

I have to question the consistency of advocating, on the one hand, that Brexit is doing a great deal of damage —with which I agree; so much, in fact, that delay is required—while, on the other, failing to acknowledge that leaving the UK would be even more fiscally damaging. The UK has many similarities to the EU. The UK has a single market—one which, I acknowledge, is currently being undermined by our EU departure a customs union—and a single currency. We share a currency, and other far closer and deeper economic and social ties.

Britain carries out 40% of its trade with the European Union, and I agree with the SNP that leaving that institution is causing, and will continue to cause, profound economic shocks, but Scotland does over 60% of its trade with Wales, England and Northern Ireland, and impacting that would be cataclysmic.

The current crisis has been a clear indicator of the fact that working together can achieve better outcomes. It is likely that we will hear that, had Scotland voted for independence in 2014, with the obvious difficulties of separating from a 300-year-old Union, coupled with a likely currency crisis, it would potentially be in a very precarious place at this time, as it dealt with covid.

Earlier, I mentioned consistency. If the pandemic had struck in a world in which Scotland had voted for independence and was in a period of transition out of the UK, do we really think the Scottish Government would have been pressing for an extension to the date of Scotland’s departure owing to covid? I do not think so; it is very likely that the SNP would be ploughing on. They would probably have had the same thinking as the current UK Government: given the scale of the crisis, no one will notice a bit more chaos, and if they do, we can point to the crisis. And why? Because they, like those on the Government Benches, do not acknowledge the costs of their beliefs.

The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) stated that the SNP looks both ways on Unions. So do those on the Government Benches. If the argument is that coronavirus has such an impact on the UK that an extension to Brexit is required, why is the SNP continuing to push for a referendum on Scottish independence?

The First Minister claims that anyone who says anything contrary to the Scottish Government at present is being a political opportunist, but, too often, her party is happy to foster the politics of grievance. Last week, the Finance Cabinet Secretary, Kate Forbes, dismissed the financial support that went directly from the UK Treasury to Scottish people and businesses as if it did not exist. We have also talked about the Barnett formula today, and one of the benefits of the support that has been delivered directly by the UK Treasury is that it has not been subject to Barnett consequentials and has been absolutely based on the needs of UK businesses and employees.

I fear that responsible politics are in short supply these days, not least at the top of the UK Government. I mentioned a commitment made by the Prime Minister back in 2016, and he made another one almost a year ago on the steps of Downing Street, when he promised he would govern as a one nation leader. If that is the Prime Minister’s intention, he makes it very difficult to recognise it in his actions and those of his Government. In relation to the pandemic, what started as a four-nations approach with movement in lockstep—I have heard this on the Scottish Affairs Committee—quickly degenerated into acrimonious briefings and a breakdown in communications.

We have heard frequently in this Chamber from those on the Government Benches about the precious Union, but for me, the terminology “Union” and “Unionist” rings hollow. If the way the Government have handled relations with Scotland and the other devolved nations during the pandemic is Unionist, I am certainly something different. I am a Liberal. I am a federalist. I am an internationalist: I believe not in erecting borders but in dismantling them, and I do not think the politics of nationalism—on either side of this House—the politics of grievance and, ultimately, the politics of division are any way in which to conduct truly progressive politics. I am proud to stand here representing a constituency that voted both to remain in the UK and to remain in the EU.

As the Government look towards the end of this year, I urge them to remember that two constituent parts of the UK voted decisively to remain in the EU. The failure to take that properly into account in negotiations weakens the bonds of the UK. The pandemic has shown that devolution can deliver financial support, while nations and regions make different choices on their social and public health responses. On Brexit, it is incumbent on the Government to be a Government for all four parts of the country, not just England.

We have clearly missed the opportunity of an extension, so now the Government must do all they can to seek a deal that will give us the closest possible relationship to the EU and minimise the impact of our departure during the covid crisis.

I want to start by talking about the catalogue of demonstrated Brexit costs, which grows almost unceasingly. I continue to be told by constituents of how it will cause massive damage to their businesses, and I am going to highlight just one of the most recent examples.

Leith and Edinburgh have a long association with the European wine trade—back as far as the 13th century—and it continues today. Raeburn Fine Wines, with premises in Leith, Edinburgh and London, has been telling me about the effects of the Brexit proposal on the wine trade. Perhaps surprisingly, the UK accounts for a large share of the world trade in fine wines, but that is under threat. Import certificates for EU wines will add business costs and near impossible bureaucracy to the uphill challenge of surviving the covid recession.

Wine is not the only high-quality sector facing an uncertain future. The recent announcement of the membership of the Trade and Agriculture Commission showed that the Government intend to break their promise to farmers to protect food standards post Brexit. The financial services sector also features heavily in my constituency, and it faces being locked out of EU markets or migrating to EU nations to protect its access. Universities face losing research cash. The health service faces losing access to essential supplies, including any new vaccine for the virus causing the current pandemic. Our fishing industry is about to be sold out by this Government, who will be handing out quotas with abandon. The list goes on and on.

Brexit was already a damaging prospect. Add the global pandemic, the trade negotiations going worse than anyone predicted and the OBR forecast of one in eight soon being out of work, and it is not clear to me and many others why anyone other than the blindest zealot would plough on unthinkingly. Now those zealots want to tie an unwilling Scotland to the handcart on the road to hell, with an internal market that once again renders the wellbeing of the people of Scotland secondary to the financial considerations of the south-east of England. No room for nuance or subtlety in the brave new Brexit; no room for devolution in the sunny uplands of broken Britain.

The Government are so frightened of debate that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is in hiding and they have sent expendable cannon fodder instead. That points to the fact that Government Ministers do not seem to understand the four nations. Some of them famously think that there is no border. They think that wisdom rests in Whitehall and all must comply. They have lost even the limited vision that once embraced England’s northern powerhouse—that, too, will be ground down in the new Tory version of Mao’s long march. No dissent will be tolerated, no differentiation accepted. At a time when the best economic solutions for Scotland, Wales and huge parts of England diverge hugely from the solutions offered in Parliament, uniformity will be enforced. Four legs shall be good and two legs shall be bad.

The proposed UK internal market is an infernal insult to nations that need different frameworks and support; to the people who will suffer the aftermath of the pandemic; and to those who aspire to something better than the fag end of British imperialism and exceptionalism. What has become breathtakingly clear during the coronavirus pandemic is that the UK Government are dysfunctional and incompetent. I shall give a few examples. Ministers and Spads who went roaming around England in flagrant abuse of the rules remain in post; confusing and inconsistent messages are sent out; financial help for those affected was provided at first, then withdrawn; figures on testing capacity have been massaged until they are meaningless.

It is a shambolic mess, much like the Government’s Brexit negotiations and trade talks. Failure mounts upon failure’s shoulders until the combined weight is too much to bear. The bluster and bravado are no substitute for clear thinking and proper action. The confusion and dither, the stumbling up cul-de-sacs and falling over kerbstones are not statesmanship—they are just bluster and bombast. It is a sad and embarrassing caricature of a Government who talk populism and serve elitism.

Order. I think we have to move on—sorry. I call Lee Anderson.

This debate has nothing to do with covid or the negotiations with the EU. It has more to do with the Opposition once again refusing to accept democracy. Of course, Opposition parties have form in refusing to accept the democratic will of the people. Let us remind ourselves that we voted to leave as the United Kingdom—not as Northern Ireland, not as Scotland, not as Wales, not as England. Look at the Conservatives—we are the 109s, and we are here because of the Opposition’s reluctance to accept democracy. Most of us are from leave constituencies, and we were voted in because of the Opposition. That is a fact.

On 23 June 2016, my phone did not stop ringing. People all over Ashfield were ringing to ask where they could go to vote. They were people who had never voted before; people of all ages who wanted their voice to be heard. When the results came in the next day, the same people called me again to say that their vote really did count. The referendum result went a long way towards restoring confidence in democracy in left-behind areas like mine—the same areas that the Opposition told us would suffer if we left the EU. In Ashfield, our pits, factories and swathes of manufacturing industry have vanished over the past 40-odd years, and during the same period we have been part of the wonderful EU. People in Ashfield cannot see the benefits of being in the EU, and no one has ever explained it to them—I wonder why? Perhaps the Opposition do not realise that in places like Ashfield they cannot threaten us any longer.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not.

The Opposition cannot tell us that we will suffer, lose our jobs and homes if we do not listen to them. We have suffered in the past, we have lost jobs and seen our area decline and be ignored, but we are fighters in Ashfield and we are coming back stronger. For the first time in decades we have hope, we know we can make a success of things, and we know that Ashfield can once again become a force to be reckoned with in a UK that is not controlled by the EU. But four years later, the Brexit blockers—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am not giving way.

Four years later, the Brexit blockers are still at it. The majority of people in Ashfield and the first-time voters are not happy with them. Even the remain voters are not happy with them. We are all democrats and we should respect that. My voters were not happy with the Labour party last December when the people of Ashfield voted me in, and many of my colleagues across the midlands and the north. Just after the election, Labour started knocking on doors in Ashfield to ask why its voters had left it. I was sort of hoping that there would be more Labour MPs here today, but perhaps they have some extra guidelines on social distancing—that is probably why they are not here. Imagine ignoring your core voters for four years and then telling them that they did not know what they were voting for, or that we should have a confirmatory second vote, and then telling them that no one voted for a hard Brexit, a no-deal Brexit or any other type of Brexit. The people of Ashfield voted for Brexit, deal or no deal. The fact that the SNP is now using covid as another excuse to prolong the agony just shows how low it is prepared to sink. But we still do not know what the Labour party’s policy is on this—perhaps in a couple of years’ time Captain Hindsight will tell us all.

The good news is that I have some oven-ready advice for the Labour party. It needs to start knocking on doors before an election and actually asking people what they want rather than telling them what they should want. It was easy for me: I asked the voters, “What do you want?”, and they answered, “Get Brexit done.” I promised to get it done, they voted for me, and here I am, eight months later, after decades—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am not giving way.

Here I am, after decades of Labour MPs in Ashfield and after four years of Labour telling the people of Ashfield they did not know what they were voting for. Yes, I am here, and I am sticking up for people in Ashfield. The same Opposition parties keep ignoring my people, but that will not go on for much longer. The Labour party still does not get it. It does not understand its own voters in the midlands and in the north. The SNP is a bit smarter than the Labour party: it does not really want to be a part of the EU, but sees continued membership as a way of forcing independence and splitting up the Union. But have no fear—I will be waving my Union Jack at midnight on 31 December to celebrate the United Kingdom finally getting to make its own way in the world, and I hope that the SNP will be joining me.

I must say to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) that I think that is highly unlikely.

It is clear that the path being steered by the UK Government is compounding the economic uncertainty caused by covid, and is at odds with the interests and the wishes of the people in Scotland. It is certainly at odds with the interests and the wishes of the people in my constituency, who rejected Brexit by three to one. I am really confident that as an independent country Scotland would not be on this path. People in Scotland see through the spin, the bluster and the deceit that are at the core of this Government and the strategy they are pursuing.

Scotland’s Government are taking a considered and cautious approach to getting us out from under this dreadful pandemic. There is no way the same could be said of the UK Government’s response. That is not a party political point: 70% of Scots who voted Labour or Conservative in 2019 approve of the Scottish Government’s handling of the pandemic. With the full powers of independence, we could have made different choices reflecting our different circumstances. It is notable that across the UK fewer than half the people think that the UK Government have handled the pandemic well—a figure that bumps along the bottom of international rankings alongside their pal Trump’s shambolic Administration. This lack of planning and structure bodes very poorly for Brexit.

This is as much about the way that the UK Government consider the needs of all our communities. To borrow a phrase, “lions led by donkeys” is a not unreasonable description of the relationship between the UK’s Government and its citizens. Ironically, the donkeys of yesteryear and those of today, some of whom sometimes lounge on the Government Front Benches, share a remarkably similar outlook: dismissive yet underprepared, and uninterested in experts but well-schooled in Latin soundbites—not of much practical use given the circumstances we are dealing with.

Why would anyone think that this Government—a Government who are all over the place on this pandemic, and whose mismanagement of it has affected all four nations of the UK—are capable of rebuilding the economy in a sustainable and fairer way, while they say nothing at all on issues such as child poverty? Why would anyone think that that kind of Government are capable of negotiating an exit from the EU other than by crashing us out, which many on the Government Benches appear to want to do, no matter what harm it does?

It may be late in the day, but it is not too late to do the right thing by delaying the end of the transition. The problem is that leading members of this Government and their advisers have no interest or track record in doing the right thing. It is not just in their dealings with the EU that that is the approach. Inability to negotiate is often associated with a domineering culture. That is how the UK Government conduct their relationship with the devolved Administrations. Having failed to get their way through the four-nation approach to the pandemic, the UK Government simply wandered away down a path of U-turn and confusion. In typical domineering style, their solution is not improving their ability to work with others, but planning to use the powers of this place to undermine those they should be working with.

Brexit, as it is now appearing from under the desk of Dominic Cummings, will not come quietly. The devolved Administrations tried to work with the UK Government on a post-Brexit settlement that respected the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but when the UK Government’s proposals emerge, they will represent a power grab from the devolved Administrations on a grand scale. Having seen the chaos that this Government have presided over in recent months, few voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will welcome these proposals.

The best recruiting sergeants for the cause of Scottish independence are those who are wilfully charging on with their plans for Brexit and riding roughshod over our votes in Scotland once again, while the rest of the world watches in disbelief as they put at risk the wellbeing and economic future of their citizens. My message to the UK Government is clear, as they set about pushing down this road that Scotland expressly voted to avoid: as you set out to shake the Union to its foundations, do not be surprised if it is not left standing when you are finished.

This debate purports to examine the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on negotiations for a future UK-EU relationship. In fact, it has become clear that the Scottish National party, with the Labour party in hock, is still pushing the agenda of frustrating Brexit by calling on the Government to accept the EU’s offer of an extension to the transition period.

It should be abundantly clear to the SNP-Labour axis that after all these years the people of the United Kingdom are tired of endless delay and remain subterfuge. The British people voted for Brexit four years ago, yet they are still waiting for us to fully extricate ourselves from the EU’s stranglehold. We hear those on the SNP Benches ask, “Where are Labour?” I agree—where are Labour? The fact that they cannot even be bothered to turn up to the debate shows that they support this rather than opposing it. They are happy not to make up their minds, and they are happy to support this ludicrous motion to try to stop Brexit. That says it all about the Labour party.

The results of the 2016 referendum and December’s election made clear what the mission of this House must be: to fully leave at the end of the year, come what may. It is critical to the health of our democracy that people have faith in our political system and know that the results of elections and referendums are obeyed, including ones on independence for Scotland. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, now more than ever we need the certainty of exiting the transition period for a number of reasons.

Is the hon. Member firmly in the camp which says that we had the referendum in 2014 in Scotland and that is it—we never get the chance to have another referendum, and people do not get to change their minds in a democracy? Is that what he is saying?

I am saying that we voted in a once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-generation referendum, and we cannot keep going back and asking the same question again and again. Nothing is more undemocratic than asking the same question again. In fact, one organisation that kept going back and asking countries to vote again and again was the European Union. Time after time, it asked countries to vote again because it did not like a decision. We are democrats: we must stand up for democracy. Even when we do not like democracy, we have to support it; otherwise, the mandate of every single one of us in this House is null and void, because we can go back again and again. For Members to argue for another referendum on Scottish independence now is for them to argue for their own position in this House not to be secure—to argue that the people who elected all of us do not know what they voted for. If they do that, they have no authority to call for a referendum. It is a bizarre argument for the SNP to make.

Let me return to what this debate should be about: the EU and coronavirus. We need to leave for numerous reasons. Business investors need confidence and stability; we need to end the transition period so that we can get the Brexit dividends that will turbo-charge our economy; and, given the ongoing challenges presented by coronavirus and various geopolitical tensions, we must move forward from this Brexit paralysis.

The people of this country are tired of scaremongering and of this great country being talked down. Everyone on all sides of the debate just wants the best possible deal for Britain—or they should do. The Government are working hard to achieve exactly that: an ambitious, comprehensive, Canada-style free trade agreement with our European friends and allies, built on mutual respect and co-operation. We are making good progress in the negotiations and they are proceeding apace. In fact, the reason why we got rid of the virtual Parliament and came back was to get the legislation passed. The SNP was against our coming back to a physical Parliament—another of its delaying tactics that would have delayed Brexit even longer.

I remind the House that those on the Opposition Benches told us that we would not get a deal in respect of Northern Ireland, yet here we are today. We must not be distracted by the Labour and SNP naysayers who seek to talk down our nation down—[Interruption.] They are even chuntering to talk our great nation down.

Regardless of what type of deal we agree with the EU, I am absolutely certain that Brexit will provide great opportunities for the whole of the UK. My priority is to protect jobs and livelihoods in the areas—such as my constituency of Rother Valley—that have been long forgotten and often left behind. Brexit offers us a chance to create many high-quality British jobs in all four corners of the nation and truly to level up. We can promote UK plc by exporting our skills and goods globally to whomever and wherever we please.

It is necessary to point out that all four nations of the United Kingdom will benefit from the Brexit boom. Our friends in the SNP offer little for the people of Scotland beyond shameless and insidious separatist rhetoric. They neglect to mention that the UK single market is worth over three times more to Scotland than the EU single market—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) wish to intervene, or does he wish to chunter? I will happily take an intervention from a chuntering man.

The hon. Gentleman talks about rhetoric; has he listened to the first half of his own speech? It has been replete with rhetoric the entire time. He should really read his own speech before he finishes it.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for intervening about rhetoric; after all, this debate is more about rhetoric. I was told it was about the European Union and Brexit, but all I am hearing about is Scottish separatism and Scottish nationalism from this nationalistic party. It is all about trying to bang the tartan drum and trying to get things back, but we had a referendum. Let us move forward and talk about the debate that matters: the Brexit boom that we are going to get and the things that this whole Government were elected to do. We will fulfil our mandate.

I remind the Scottish nationalists—the separatists on the other side of the House—that every single person in Scotland receives a dividend of £1,968 per year more. That is £2,000 per person; it is a great deal for the people of Scotland. However bad the SNP’s separatist rhetoric is, though, Labour’s position is even worse—its Members cannot be bothered to turn up to this debate. After years of flip-flopping and changing their mind on Brexit, they still do not support our exit from the EU. If they did, they would be here, arguing with Government Members against the nationalists, but they cannot be bothered to turn up. My constituents in Rother Valley know only too well that if Labour had won power—with the help of the SNP, because Labour would have been propped up by an SNP Government—Brexit would have been abandoned. That would have gone against the good, ordinary working people of my constituency.

In stark contrast, the Conservative party has kept its promise by taking the UK out of the EU on 31 January. We shall exit the transition period in the same decisive fashion, in order finally to take our rightful place among the nations of the world.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you would think it would be a no-brainer for the Government to extend the timetable for our Brexit transition. Given the global crisis that has engulfed all our lives, to do anything else would be ludicrous—it would be like someone driving 30 miles to test their eyesight.

Trade agreements are long and complex processes, and the transition period was already tight before the covid crisis put a spanner in the works. Now any decent deal is looking beyond reach, and there is not enough parliamentary time to properly scrutinise whatever might be agreed. Yet we have a Government who do not care about doing decent deals in the full light of day and have set their face against the scrutiny of their actions. Nailing the detail even on far easier questions is not a strength of this Administration. On the covid-19 strategy, for example, you would have thought that they would have an angle on what they actually want to achieve by now. Yet when I asked the Government whether elimination was part of their plan, I received a holding reply on 6 July, telling me that the Government could not answer the question within the normal timeframe. How can we trust them with the timeframe for Brexit when they still do not even know what they expect to achieve from this situation?

This is not a principled Government, but a reckless one. We know that they were reckless with public health advice: Dominic Cummings’s hazy drive to Durham during lockdown is testimony to that. Public anger over the hypocrisy was brushed off, and we were told to move on. It was another case of, “Do as we say, not as we do.”

The signs do not look good for post-Brexit decisions either. Refusal to negotiate sensibly with our European partners has locked the UK out of the successful Galileo satellite programme. The Government have recently gambled £500 million in a share of a bankrupt satellite company, OneWeb, hoping that they can tack navigation capabilities on to the wrong type of satellites. I say £500 million because that is what has been reported in the media, but when I asked the question formally, I was told that the figure could not be disclosed as it was commercially sensitive. There is no public scrutiny, no business plan and no risk assessment published for this decision, which, by all accounts, goes against the better judgment of experts such as those in the UK Space Agency. With activities such as these, is it any wonder that many people question whether this Government can even tell their arse from their elbow?

In 1995, George Robertson, the then shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, famously said:

“Devolution will kill Scottish nationalism stone dead.”

Here we are 25 years later, and the Scottish independence cause is very much alive and stronger than ever. Meanwhile, the uncompromising actions of British Brexiteers look like the actual move that will kill the Union stone dead. Devolution, albeit in its limited present form, has allowed the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to develop their own solutions, rather than toeing the line from the Tories. It has let people across these isles know that their voices matter and that we can aspire to more, instead of just simply taking what we are given.

With Scotland’s modern, transparent Parliament in Holyrood, people have elected a Government who better reflect their views, respect evidence, listen to experts and care about the poor, but this current Tory Administration cannot allow such a thing. They seek to put us back in our box. They will dismantle the democratic structures which were so hard won by the people of Scotland. Lord Robertson may not have had the most honourable intentions in backing a Scottish Parliament, but there were many in the Labour party who recognised and cherished its role. We in the SNP were together with Labour at that time, and we must stand together again now as the institutions are disgracefully disrespected by the actions of this Government.

As recently as 2015, Gordon Brown was promising greater devolution and home rule. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the party of home rule has apparently forgotten its roots, and that is certainly shown by the fact that there are so few of them here today, which is a pity.

One.

Well, few.

This is a Government who have torn up the respect agenda, which was at least given lip service by their predecessors. The growing culture of disrespect has been brought into sharp focus with Brexit. Scotland voted to stay in the European Union by a strong majority in every constituent part. The hostility displayed towards Europe by Brexiteers—there was a thinly veiled xenophobia from some—was as abhorrent to those on these Benches as it was to the people whom we represent.

After the Brexit vote, the Scottish Government tried to find the least damaging compromise, yet it was rejected. On devolved competences, this Government have seen no need to negotiate and reach agreement with the Scottish Parliament, and just press ahead regardless. Their actions have not gone unnoticed. Now is the time for Scotland to rejoin our European cousins as an equal independent nation.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), with his wonderful accent, huge passion and interesting perspective.

After so much dilly-dally, dither and delay, the United Kingdom finally left the EU on 31 January, and on 31 December it will be job done. Back in 2016, there were a whole range of opinions on whether we should be in or out, but a democratic decision was made and it must be delivered. Now, on doorsteps and in boardrooms across the UK, there are lots of opinions on what the future relationship with the EU will look like and how to make the most of the opportunities that await.

I have heard from many businesses in my part of the world about what they think—from people who voted to remain and those who voted to leave—and there is one common ground that unites sensible, forward-looking business people from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They want no more debate about in, out or shake it all about. They want certainty, and on 31 December they will get it—potential-unleashing, investment-encouraging certainty.

An independent, trading United Kingdom will look out to the world, instead of purely inward to Europe, hooking up to trade with the biggest and fastest-growing economies on the planet. I do not think even the most ardent remainer would argue that Europe is the place to be for economic growth, so it is right that, while we will continue to trade with Europe on mutually agreed terms, we will broaden our horizons with new and better trade deals with the US, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and others. Moreover, the potential for free ports is something that should be welcomed, across the UK and across the political divide, as an amazing opportunity to turbocharge our economy. But others will need to join the queue, because Teesside asked first. We are champing at the bit and we are ready to roll.

The Government are delivering on the referendum result. We are taking back control of our borders, with a points-based system whereby people would be judged not on where they come from, but what they can contribute here to the UK. This is another opportunity to reach on up, with the best scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs coming to play their part in a global Britain.

The naysayers and democracy-denying Brexit blockers who said that a vote to leave the EU would see confidence crash or that the sky would fall—many of them were on the wrong side in the single currency debate as well—do not know better than the 17.4 million people in the UK who voted to leave. We have left, and we are going to make a success of it. Some of the 17.4 million people live in Stockton South, some are represented by SNP Members, and some elected Labour Members as well. I realise that Labour and the SNP seem to adopt a creative approach to referendums—keep asking until they get the answer they want—but it is time to move on.

It is time to move forward together. Let us look forward to our shared future and make the most of trade opportunities that will unleash the UK’s potential. The Government are investing £705 million to fund new infrastructure, jobs and technology at the EU border, so we will be ready to take full advantage of our new sovereign status on day one. So let us talk up the UK. Our amazing, dedicated workforce and fantastic, innovative businesses are about to prove they can succeed on the world stage.

As we emerge from a health crisis, we are grappling with an economic crisis that could scarcely be more serious. To leave the EU in December with no extension of the Brexit transition period, something which the EU has offered, is complete madness. This oven-baked Brexit touted by the Prime Minister truly is half-baked. Those on the Conservative Benches have told us that we need to stick to this timetable to create certainty. The only thing that is certain is that we are heading for a no-deal Brexit, and that does not provide certainty for business or our constituents at all.

As for this myth about the broad shoulders that Scottish taxpayers have been subjected to out of the goodness of this Government’s heart, in Scotland we have actually received merely just over 4% of the entire borrowing of the UK. Given that we have 8.3% of the UK’s population, I would suggest that Scotland is being sold short, and that is before I even talk about the £30 billion that was announced last week, of which Scotland received 0.1%—far less than the 8.3% our population suggests we should have got. While we on the SNP Benches welcome the furlough scheme, it has to be said that it has more holes in it than a spaghetti strainer.

Unless the UK Government, wedded as they are to Brexit ideology, extend the transition period for leaving the EU, productivity in Scotland, and indeed across the UK, is seriously threatened. Unemployment in Scotland could conceivably reach 10%. If the Government head off this Brexit cliff, to which 63% of Scots are opposed, they will rob Scotland of jobs, opportunities and prosperity, and it is something the people of Scotland have rejected over and over again.

This so-called oven-ready Brexit continues to be, and always has been, a con. The much-vaunted easy trade deals we were promised are of course nowhere in sight. These fears are not just expressed by the SNP. The chorus of concern from the business world is deafening. And still the Government close their ears. Only days ago, Angela Merkel talked about the EU preparing for a no-deal Brexit, but rather than listen to these concerns, raised across the devolved nations, the Prime Minister has chosen to treat the leaders of the nations of the UK like disobedient children who will not take their medicine and sit quietly. While he drives the UK off the Brexit cliff—we remember the words about this being a Union of equals—we know that at the same time he is doing his best to dismantle the entire devolution settlement.

We know that the Tories have always been hostile to devolution, so much so that in 2016 the Tory party in Scotland was reduced to advertising in newspapers to find candidates—to find paid guns for hire; they could not find enough true believers in their cause. You can imagine, Mr Deputy Speaker, the quality of the candidates who applied and were eventually elected as a result. The Tory contempt for devolution is shown in the increasing attacks we have seen on the Parliament that belongs to the people of Scotland.

Will the hon. Member give way?

I will not give way; there is a shortage of time.

Clearly, the Government’s philosophy is this: if they cannot win elections in the constituent parts of the UK, they simply seek to dismantle the institutions that they cannot control. If this Tory Government actually believe they can prevent Scotland from having the opportunity to choose her own future in this or any landscape, they are sadly deluded. They cannot stem the tide of independence, which they themselves have helped to strengthen and give rise to. We stood on a manifesto of Scotland deciding her own future—much as that may be uncomfortable for some Tories on the opposite Benches—and the Tories stood on a manifesto in Scotland of getting Brexit done. The result of that election tells us what the people of Scotland feel.

Democracy did not end in Scotland in 2014 and the reality is that the UK Government are now frightened of the inevitable referendum that is to come, because they know that support is growing as they ride roughshod over Scotland’s democratic wishes.