European Union: Single Market

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, when the noble Lord says that the European Union is not reformed, he ignores the fact that we are out of the parts of the Union that do not work for us. We will not have to join the euro. That is agreed. We will not have to be part of eurozone bailouts. That is agreed. We will not be part of the European army. That is agreed. Importantly, we will not be part of a EU superstate. We have the best of both worlds—and the one thing that we have is a market of 500 million people on our doorstep without any trade barriers at all.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I have not assessed the Civitas report, but I have read quite a lot of it. I think that the former Business Minister, Edward Davey, might be a little surprised to see that he had been a catalyst for a whole 213-page document about the single market. We were told earlier that it was a ground-breaking document, but even the author of the Civitas paper says that,

“non-member countries pay nothing for exporting to the Single Market, other than the tariff and trade costs of individual exporters”.

Would the Minister not agree that that is the very reason that the United Kingdom needs to be in the single market, precisely so that our individual exporters are not subject to the tariffs that third countries are subject to? Can the Minister tell us—

[Noble Lords]

Too long.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

Sorry.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree. The question is whether a genuinely free trade area of 500 million people on our doorstep is a good thing to be part of.