A TORY minister has been accused of “arrogant obfuscation” after he said the SNP want to “rebuild Hadrian’s wall and get England to pay for it”.
Kevin Foster, the Conservative MP for Torbay and Parliamentary-Under Secretary of State for Immigration, was answering a question in the House of Commons from the SNP MP Joanna Cherry when he made the comment.
Initially, Foster had dismissed a question from Neale Hanvey, the SNP MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
Hanvey had asked why Foster had been “repeatedly refusing” to have meetings with Holyrood’s migration minister to discuss the ending of free movement and its impact on Scotland. He said the last meeting had been in July 2019, before Foster had taken on his role as under-secretary.
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Foster said that Hanvey might find the answer to his question in a “video online” as he had “outlined several meetings [he] would be delighted to have with Scottish cabinet secretaries” to a Holyrood committee on Thursday, December 10.
“The kettles on if they want to take me up on the offer,” he finished.
Cherry said that she found Foster’s reply “fascinating” as it “does not really accord with my understanding of what happened at the meeting to which he refers”.
The SNP’s justice and home affairs spokesperson went on: “The UK Government’s immigration policies threaten to plunge Scotland’s working age population into decline, to cause serious staffing shortages in key industries such as the farming industry and to inflict lasting damage on our public services.
“The minister has appeared to dismiss these serious concerns and has point-blank refused to meet with the Scottish Government’s minister for migration since he came into office under this Prime Minister.
“So did I correctly understand his previous comment to say that that position has changed, and if so, when is he planning to meet with the Scottish Government’s migration minister?”
Foster largely repeated the content of his previous answer, saying Cherry should look up the video of his meeting with the Holyrood committee online and said he thought the “actual focus of the question was, as always from the SNP, pushing separation and not success for Scotland”.
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Cherry responded by saying that the minister “would do well to appreciate that the SNP represent the majority of voters in Scotland” and said that Holyrood colleagues had told her that Foster had in fact said he “wouldn’t be meeting with what he described as the SNP’s migration spokesperson.”
She asked that Foster put his plans to meet with the SNP Government’s migration minister on the record, saying she wanted a “clear yes or no answer”.
He responded: “This Government is going to focus on building a future migration system focused on ensuring the world’s talent sees Scotland at the heart of our United Kingdom, as its natural home.
“The SNP see it as an opportunity to ensure that the Scottish Government can always seek to recruit care workers at the legal minimum wage and a chance to fulfill their ambition to rebuild Hadrian’s Wall and get England to pay for it.”
A simple request to meet with the @scotgov Minister for Migration is met with arrogant obfuscation & an asinine remark about Hadrian’s Wall. No wonder we’ve had 16 polls in a row in favour of #Independence. The UK Gov's Immigration Minister is certainly playing his part pic.twitter.com/dMSiMaoXRe
— Joanna Cherry QC (@joannaccherry) December 14, 2020
Responding to the accusation on Twitter, Cherry said it was “no wonder we’ve had 16 polls in a row in favour of independence” as the UK Government’s minister “is certainly playing his part”.
Cherry shared a video of the tail end of the confrontation and added that a “simple request” to meet with the Scottish Government had been “met with arrogant obfuscation and an asinine remark about Hadrian’s Wall”.
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