Speeches by Griffith.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I wish the Minister all the very best; she has already demonstrated that she is an effective performer on behalf of her constituents. In your time, Mr Stringer, you will have seen many Ministers pushed out to defend the indefensible, but very rarely are th…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wrote to the Chancellor on behalf of a constituent on 10 December last year; I followed that up on 6 January and 20 January, but on each occasion I received no substantive reply. It was only when I tabled a written question that Ministers finally informed me that my correspo…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not want to simply agree with him for the sake of it: it is not easy for Chancellors of whatever flavour to balance the books, but where we have wonderful industries such as all our drinks and spirits industries, including, if I may say so, our English wine industry, th…”

“I am in no way qualified to answer that. However, it is the Government’s position about crustacean welfare, and they should speak to it. Just before Christmas, they published a significant proposal to change the law on that. As ever in trade, this is not a point about the underlying fundamentals, on which the Minister …”

“I shall take good heed of those comments, Madam Deputy Speaker. We support having a sovereign trade policy, and this is an excellent example of where it could have advantages. We are talking about one of the largest economies on the planet, which is growing approximately five times faster than the European Union. Howev…”

“I will happily give way to the Minister.”

“The document produced by the Select Committee lays out the impact for defence, modest as I believe it is. I will leave it to those on the Government Front Bench to answer my right hon. Friend’s important question about security—”

“And Welsh, and from other parts of this wonderful kingdom. This Government, as the previous Government, have by and large got the importance of the wonderful Scottish whisky industry, but it is important to do anything that can be done to help. Of course, the way that one reduces taxes over time is by making tough deci…”

“I hope that my right hon. Friend is reassured to a degree by the Minister’s response. I will move on now—you will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my speech is not as comprehensive as the work of the Select Committee. I would be grateful if the Government could clarify a few points about the position on f…”

“Well, I was going to be generous to the Government and say something slightly positive. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that Governments of all flavours could do an infinitely better job of listening to businesses. They are the people at the frontline in the real world. His constituents have very deep links to the e…”

“My hon. Friend puts the point in a better and more informed way than me. It is important, and it is for the Government to set out very clearly how they propose to maintain or create a level playing field on these matters so that producers operating here to British standards are not disadvantaged, while we all get the b…”

“I will try to leave the Minister with a short list of questions, rather than going through each and every one as we go. Notwithstanding what the Minister has just said—perhaps we can revert to this later—there are also concerns about the Government’s hypocrisy in respect of pesticides and animal welfare, particularly w…”

“I will defer to the Minister on prawn eyestalk ablation.”

“But you don’t like the States.”

“I thank the Minister for that intervention; I drew some comfort from it, but we will have to see the detail of the exact crustacean protections we end up with. Finally, there is one glaring area that—even beyond the missing benefits to our important services industry—was a point of difference in the negotiations that w…”

“My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. The former Secretary of State—the current Leader of the Opposition—has been very clear that that was a deal breaker. It was deal or no deal, and if that had been an absolute red line, we would not have signed this deal. It is not a virtue to take any deal that is offered. A…”

“Let me finish my point, and then there will be plenty of opportunity for interventions. I will not anticipate the Minister’s point, but there are other agreements such as this in place—I want to be full and clear about that. There are social security agreements where contributions are both paid in and taken out. We hav…”

“I am glad to hear agreement across the House on the desire not to have a two-tier system. We all understand the need to pay our taxes to support our public services, but it will not feel right if two people are sitting cheek by jowl, side by side in the same place of employment—a factory or other work environment—but a…”

“I am delighted to see not just the excellent Minister for Trade, but the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] I did; just bank the win. I read that the Secretary of State is being earmarked as a caretaker Prime Minister, so we are pleased that he has the time to spend with us—I think we have 10 minutes before Labour col…”

“Of course, it is not just Bracknell, and one day those on the Labour Benches will understand that there are no workers’ rights if people have no work. Youth unemployment is up significantly. That is a tragedy that everybody should be ashamed of, and it is going up on Labour’s watch. Small businesses, which provide so m…”