Exiting the European Union and Global Trade

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Adrian Bailey

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have been lenient with the hon. Lady because I appreciate that she has been in the House only for a matter of days. Nevertheless, she should be intervening on the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), not making a speech about something said earlier by someone else. I am sure she will get the hang of it, but I cannot let her go on any longer. I am sorry.

[Mr Bailey]

The ability of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) to make a speech while intervening demonstrates that she is rapidly acquiring the skills of Parliament.

To return to the point I was making, if being a member of the EU is an impediment to trading with other countries, why do some of our key EU rivals, such as Germany and France, manage to trade far more successfully with other markets than we do? Could it be that, notwithstanding their EU membership, they are doing something right that we are not doing? Our approach should take that into account; we should not blame the EU for the deficiencies in our ability to get the maximum from our trading potential with countries outside the EU.

There is a rather naive and totally fallacious belief that somehow it is going to be easy to trade with other countries when we come out of the EU. If we look at the World Bank ratings on the ease of doing business in the expanding markets of China, India and Brazil, we see that China is ranked 96th, India 149th and Brazil 143rd. The idea that they will become any easier to trade with if we come out of the EU is, quite frankly, self-delusion. The right hon. Member for Wantage outlined some of the practical difficulties in setting up any trade negotiations with other countries, and they will still be alive.

The fact is that by coming out of the EU, we are moving from a trading bloc that is relatively easy to deal with to one that is not. We need to make it clear, at this point, that we want to remain in the EU single market and customs union.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Adrian Bailey

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think it is fair to comment that this Budget has not met with unalloyed joy and enthusiasm across the country and in the media. It may come as a surprise to the House that I am going to demonstrate a degree of enthusiasm for one piece of the Budget that I think is highly commendable.

I am, of course, talking about paragraph 5.10 on page 48 of the Red Book, in which the Chancellor commits himself to reducing the burden on small co-operatives. I am enthusiastic about it because I have been a lifelong supporter of co-operatives, but also, and very personally, because the proposal was in the ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced on 8 November. May I put on record my appreciation to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is in his place, for discussing the implications of the proposal with me afterwards, and may I say how much I welcome and appreciate its incorporation into the Budget?

I gently remind the Economic Secretary that I made a couple of other recommendations in the same ten-minute rule Bill, which have yet to appear in the Budget. I hope that following further consultation I will be able to praise him in future Budget debates for implementing them as well. As a general point, I hope that this will set a precedent for the Government, and the Treasury in particular, listening to Opposition Members and implementing some of their recommendations. I am sure that doing so will benefit future Budgets greatly.

The second thing I want to do—again, I am not being totally critical of the Government—is to put on record my appreciation for the report on the so-called midlands engine, which has been published today. Not only does it recognise the role of the west midlands in the national economy—and our phenomenal, high-quality manufacturing base, which is driving the economy and above all driving our exports—but it identifies the long-standing issues prevalent in the economy that need to be addressed if we in the west midlands are to reach our potential. Those issues are low productivity, skills, and difficulties with connectivity and transport infrastructure.

Although I welcome the proposal and the money that is being invested, may I make a couple of qualifying points? I think there is a very real danger that the potential benefit that accrues from the project will be undermined by some of the proposals in the Budget. My first point is that skills in construction, in particular, must be sustained if we are to improve our transport infrastructure. At the moment, about 10% of the construction workforce consists of employees from outside the country. If the ensuing Brexit negotiations affect their position and construction firms’ ability to employ others to sustain the policies and extra investment in the west midlands, that could undermine the ability of the midlands engine to reach its full potential. I emphasise that provision must be made in the Brexit negotiations for the construction industry to recruit the appropriate level of skilled personnel to fulfil such projects.

My second point, about education and skills, is particularly relevant in my constituency and the Black country. On 24 March, I am due to meet local headteachers to discuss funding problems in their schools, notwith-standing all the fine words that have been spoken about the pupil premium and so on. While the midlands engine will make provision for promoting skills, vocational education and science-based education, there is absolutely no point in putting in that money if we are not providing adequate funding for the original primary and secondary school education to ensure that people have the literacy, numeracy and other qualifications necessary to make the most of such money. There is a grave question mark over that at the moment.

When I meet the headteachers, I guess that one of the things annoying them—this annoys me and a lot of people in the Black country—will be the Government’s preoccupation with investing in unloved, unwanted, selective schools while they neglect to invest appropriately in our existing school estate. I would point to a National Audit Office report saying that there is a £1 billion need for investment in our existing school estate to deal with the immediate problems. There are certainly schools in my constituency that need immediate investment. If such money is used to promote new selective schools, the Government will, quite frankly, be distorting the existing state school system and estate, and failing to realise the potential of the pupils attending such schools. This is totally unacceptable. It is unwanted, and it really sticks in the craw of the people who, day in and day out, try to give our children the best possible education within the existing system.

I have worked out, on the basis of the figures in the Budget, that the £320 million going into the 110 new schools means that there is an average of £3 million for each of them, while the £210 million for the 10,000 state schools in the existing estate means that each will get an extra £21,000 over the course of three years. That huge disparity is bound to prejudice the life opportunities of the many millions of students going to our existing state schools.

Whatever fine words the Chancellor used and however well he packaged the statistics on which the Budget is based—he can, shall we say, tell a good story—the reality is that the previous Tory-led Government and this Government have so far failed. The public sector deficit, which we must remember was supposed to be eliminated by 2015, will certainly not be eliminated by 2021 and may well still be with us in 2025. Whatever happened to the long-term plan that was the mantra of the Tory-led Government up to 2015 and was used in the carefully choreographed comments made by every supporter of that Government to demonstrate the effectiveness—or otherwise—of their economic policy? The fact is that I do not recall anybody saying that the long-term plan might actually last only until 2015. It has now disappeared, or evaporated, from the political lexicon of the House. It would be laughable were it not for the fact that so many millions of people have endured cuts in their wages, cuts in their public services and, in some cases, very real hardship indeed. As a result, we face the perfect storm: the cumulative failure of austerity policies that have failed to generate the necessary tax receipts to pay off an adequate amount of our public debt; the increased demand placed on our public services—particularly social services and health, but also education—that have to be met one way or another over the next few years; and, of course, the uncertainty generated by Brexit.

I could not help but be amazed by the phraseology used by the Chancellor over his decision to waive the fiscal targets in order to make available more money for what has loosely been called a “fighting fund” or “war chest” for Brexit. My understanding of a fighting fund or a war chest is that it is money that is put away out of existing consumption to be used for problems that arise in the future; it is not about heaping debts on future generations to pay for mistakes made in the present, such as the results of Brexit arising from this Government’s policy.

I would like to have gone on, but I will try to stick to the 12-minute limit. The Government are failing to address the big issues that have arisen from their failure to deal with public spending and the economy over the past seven years. I concur with the disappointment expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) at the Government’s failure to recognise that and to take the necessary big steps to address it. I think that the Budget is a major failure. It is a sticking-plaster Budget that spends money just to avert a crisis, without examining the underlying crises and the policies needed to address them for the benefit of everybody in the long run.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I appreciate that some hon. Members have been sitting here all afternoon. There is something a little unfair about this but, c’est la vie, I am afraid that I have to limit Members to 10 minutes.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Adrian Bailey

Friday 29th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bailey]

I have listened to my hon. Friend’s argument and I think that there is a lot in it. What he perhaps has not brought out so far, although he seems to be touching on it now, is that this is not only an issue about BBC English or BBC Welsh; Euro-speak is likely to become embedded in this debate. That underlines the need to involve organisations dealing with plain English and the Welsh equivalent to ensure that the terminology current in Europe and in those organisations in this country connected to Europe—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have allowed a great many interventions during this debate. Everyone who has indicated that they wish to speak on this group of amendments has made many interventions, and everyone has now had the opportunity to hold the Floor. I am sure that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who has already rehearsed many of his arguments in interventions on the speeches of other hon. Members, will soon be drawing his remarks to a conclusion.