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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Ben Wallace)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) on securing this important debate. We can probably all agree that this will be a once-in-a-lifetime referendum. I certainly welcome the chance for the people of the United Kingdom hopefully to reaffirm their commitment to this country being a member of the European Union. I have always supported our membership, and the Government’s efforts and the reforms we have achieved mean that we can make a strong case for remaining within the European Union.
Since the general election last May, the Government have pursued an agenda of reform and re-negotiation to deliver change in our relationship with the European Union. Following months of negotiations, we ended up with a new settlement that gives the UK a special status within the EU, as well as setting the EU as a whole on the path to long-term reform. We have protected the UK’s rights as a country within the single market but outside the eurozone to keep our economy and financial system secure and to protect UK businesses from unfair discrimination.
Our new settlement confirms that the regulatory burden on businesses, and particularly small businesses, will be reduced and there will be a new focus on extending the single market to bring down the remaining barriers to trade within the EU. We have secured agreement that the treaties will be changed in future, so that the UK is carved out of ever closer union, and we have established a mechanism for decision making to return from Brussels to the UK. We have secured new powers to tackle the abuse of free movement and to reduce the unnatural draw of our benefits system in order to meet our aim of reducing immigration by creating fairer rules, while protecting our open economy. Our new settlement resets the balance in our relationship with the EU. It reinforces the clear economic and security benefits of EU membership, while making it clear that we cannot be required to take part in any further political integration.
The UK is stronger, safer and better off in the EU. It is better off, because Northern Ireland and its businesses need access to 500 million consumers to which they can sell their goods; consumers who can afford to buy our goods and who can trade their business or supply our businesses in Northern Ireland. It is better off because being part of the European Union puts us in pole position to negotiate free trade agreements around the world with other large trading blocs and other large economies.
I am probably one of the few people in this House who took part in the negotiations for the UK-US defence trade co-operation treaty back in 2006—it is an individual treaty between the UK and the US—which involved very long graft. Ask anyone in aerospace what actual concessions we got from the United States and they will say it was a bare minimum. I was also part of the EU-US trade treaty negotiations in the early part of the previous Government, when I worked for the then Lord Chancellor. It was clear at that stage that the United States was only interested in a free trade agreement with the European Union. That is where the game is; that is where free trade agreements are made. We are therefore better off being part of the EU, so that we can collectively negotiate at that position.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Does the Minister agree that the EU is about not just economic union, but social union? It is a Union that has delivered many valuable social and employment protections across Europe for its members.
Mr Wallace
The EU is a whole range of things, but I think that at its heart it is about trade. The freedom to trade is the greatest driver of reform and of other people’s freedoms and rights across the world. Originally, the concept of the European Union, or its predecessors, revolved around trade. I believe that for Northern Ireland businesses, access to regulation-free, tariff-free trade with its neighbour in the Republic of Ireland or elsewhere in Europe is absolutely one of the benefits and is at the heart of why we should remain members of the European Union.
Jim Shannon
When the Prime Minister went to secure concessions from the European Union, he was unable to secure anything for the fishing industry or the agricultural sector directly. Remembering that we put some £19.7 billion into the EU and receive £15 billion in return, we are better off out of the Union; the fishermen will have control of their industry, as will the farmers, and the extra £4 billion that we will have can be used directly for those sectors.
Mr Wallace
I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, and nor do many in the Ulster Farmers Union whom I have met to discuss the issue. In this modern world our farmers need access to markets and access to consumers. One reason why farmers in the Republic have a higher milk price is the efforts of the Irish Government to forge new export markets for their milk products. That is not about leaving the European Union; it is about helping our farmers, whether in England or Northern Ireland, to access new markets and new consumers. We have to remember that the consumers have to be able to afford the products. It is all very well trying to push products outside the European Union, but how many people in the rest of the world will be able to afford European products? There are a few in developing countries, but the idea that our farmers will get easier access to markets if we leave the European Union is just pie in the sky.
Mark Durkan
We have heard a number of interventions this morning, and clearly some people seem to believe that if the UK leaves the EU suddenly all the money that the UK sends into Europe will make its way to Northern Ireland instead, for the benefit of farmers and fishermen there. Does the Minister’s right hon. Friend the Secretary of State share the belief that there is a crock of gold for Northern Ireland at the end of the Brexit rainbow?
Mr Wallace
We are all grown-ups, I hope, in this House. We all know the pressures that every Department across Whitehall gets on an annual basis from Treasury Ministers and other Ministers alike. Our farmers, with their direct payments from Europe, are often in a position to resist pressures from other Whitehall Departments. Take the idea, for example, that we would have let previous Labour Secretaries of State responsible for agriculture to get hold of that money en route to farmers. How long would it have lasted? This Government will continue to support our farmers, but I cannot guarantee that that would happen if Members from other parties in this House got into government.
The Government believe that being a member of the European Union makes us safer. Co-operation on security is at the heart of a successful security policy. We all remember the days of wrangling with Irish courts about deportation and bringing people back to the United Kingdom for trial. Not so long ago I recalled someone under licence, and they will be brought back under a European arrest warrant. It was straightforward. There is no more of the long wrangling that often saw people walk free. The co-operation that we have around the table in Europe on security issues creates trust, and at the heart of a good security policy is trust. I believe that remaining part of the European Union will allow us to develop that trust and build on it, and I also believe that we will be stronger. We are part of the European Union, and we are part of NATO, the G8 and the G20. All those organisations—all those unions and groupings—allow the United Kingdom to amplify its voice across the world stage. They allow us not to stand alone on many issues, which is very important.
The hon. Member for South Down mentioned the border. It is a fact that if we vote to leave the European Union, we will be outside the customs union. If we are outside it, the EU will require the remaining member states to make sure that there are safeguards to protect that customs union. That will inevitably be some form of barrier to trade, to small and large businesses in Northern Ireland. I met some small businesses in north Belfast only a few days ago. They effortlessly trade and grow their business across the border, and they effortlessly make sure that they have new markets in the Republic of Ireland. I do not think that the whole border will be shut if we leave, but I certainly believe that there will be extra barriers to trade that we do not need or that are unhelpful.
I will make a final point. People will hear the debate about guaranteeing our borders and sovereignty. It is obviously true that within the European Union we have arrangements with regard to our borders, but let us not forget that we are members of the UN. We have obligations under a succession of treaties—the 1951 Geneva convention relating to the status of refugees, the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees, the 1948 universal declaration of human rights, the 1984 UN convention against torture, which prevents us from deporting people to countries where torture or harsh punishment exist, and the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child. All that means that were we to leave the European Union, we would still be obliged to take into this country a huge range of people under our UN obligations. That is an example of where our sovereignty does not 100% lie. Are we saying that we will then leave the UN? Is that the next thing—“Stop the world, we want to get off”?
We should remember that were we to leave the European Union, our borders would not be as easy for trade as we may like, and they would not be as open to the hundreds of thousands of tourists that come to Northern Ireland every year. Our borders would also not be so easy for our air flights to and from Northern Ireland, so that people can arrive in the south, travel up through for tourism and fly out of Northern Ireland. All that is incredibly important to remember.
I have to say to the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) that I am a Unionist. Many of the reasons for belonging to the United Kingdom are the same as the reasons for belonging to the European Union. I do not say that the reasons are all the same, but the freedom to trade, the shared culture and the removal of barriers are things that, in my heart, make me a Unionist. I do not understand the Democratic Unionist party’s view that by putting in a new border we will somehow guarantee ourselves all those investments and good trade practices that are important, and also the ability to be stronger in Europe, rather than weaker on the outside.
Ms Ritchie
Does the Minister agree that there has been so much financial benefit in terms of tourism, economic development and investment, and that we must not imperil those by an exit?
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).