EU: UK Membership

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Shipley for having secured this debate. It is an important debate and it is an important time for our country to have these discussions. Before I move to the substance of my speech, I could not possibly not congratulate my noble friend Lord Wrigglesworth on his fabulous speech, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said, was delivered with such verve and conviction. My acquaintanceship with my noble friend goes back to SDP days when he was one of the grandees and I was one of the workers. It is very nice to see him here on slightly more equal terms, which I have to say are to my benefit.

This debate is hugely significant in the sense that, while most speakers have spoken from more or less the same hymn sheet, some speakers have not. Of course, it is important to mention the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, as well as that of the noble Lords, Lord Stevens of Ludgate and Lord Stoddart of Swindon. These debates on the other side of the fence to most of us will be hugely significant as we move forward to cross swords over the referendum campaign. I was not surprised to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said. She quoted Professor Congdon and Professor Minford who, distinguished as they are, are also known to be very long-standing critics of EU membership. In a sense, it might have been more fruitful if we had heard from more authoritative and more impartial sources on the other side of the camp. I regret that we did not get that. However, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, illustrated ably why their analysis needs further scrutiny and I am sure, particularly since the paper by Professor Congdon is relatively recent, that research institutes will analyse his findings very seriously.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills per capita calculation takes a longer-term look at those figures on the basis that:

“EU countries trade twice as much with each other as they would do in the absence of the single market programme”.

That of course was based on the OECD’s estimates.

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, also made a point about EU jobs that are engaged in trade from the EU to the United Kingdom. I think she used the figure of 4 million jobs, rather than the widely accepted figure in terms of UK jobs relating to trade with the United Kingdom. There was a difference of 1 million on her side. I would argue that while we are talking about 3 million jobs that may be lost if we disengage from the European Union, the noble Baroness says that there would be 4 million jobs and that therefore the European Union would be loath to disengage from us, which would give us the benefits of non-tariff barriers, free trade and so on. Of course, 4 million jobs spread across 27 states with a population of 420 million is a very much smaller impact than the impact that it would have on a single country—that of the United Kingdom.

I turn now to recent debates on the cost of welfare through inward immigration, because that has become the flavour of the time and it needs rebutting. There is clear evidence to show that EU migrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits and services here in the United Kingdom. The Department for Work and Pensions recently published figures for 2011. Of those receiving working-age benefits, it is true that 25% were from within the EU, but Poland, which had the highest figure of those receiving benefits, was in the seventh slot, behind Asia, Africa, the Middle East and several other countries. Of EU accession countries, only one figured in the top 20 of countries from which people claim benefits in the United Kingdom. That compares to the 10% of Britons who claim benefits in Germany alone, so it goes both ways and we must not allow this debate to run away. The idea that migrants from the accession countries and from the wider EU are coming here for some sort of benefit or health tourism needs to be looked at more carefully.

The free movement of peoples is also enormously significant in terms of its impact for us in the United Kingdom. The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that if we curbed EU migration—mostly young people, in terms of demographics, who are coming into an ageing society and who will ameliorate the impact of the demographic changes of ageing here in significant proportions—it would cost our economy something like £60 billion, or 2% of GDP, per year by 2050 and increase public borrowing by something like 0.5%. Moreover, we also benefit from inward tourism from the EU. Some 19 million visits were conducted by EU citizens in 2012 and some £7 billion was spent here.

To conclude, I come to the very important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, that this is not just a dry cost-benefit analysis, not just about how many pounds in and euros out. What matters to our trade and our economic position is not just money. What matters is the future of our young people, the status of our country internationally and the debt we owe succeeding generations if we do not take the right decisions in the forthcoming referendum.