Budget Resolutions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I totally agree with the Foreign Secretary that today—at this moment—we are presented with a massive opportunity to create a new form of global Britain. I particularly agree with his points about Britain’s soft power. Just to clarify the point about the British Council, the figures actually show that there will be a 43% rise in FCO funding by 2020, reflecting the seriousness with which we take the opportunities for Britain’s soft power.

The opportunities for global Britain are of particular importance to my constituents and to people in the Black country part of the west midlands. The announcement of the midlands engine strategy in the Budget is a significant moment for the people of the Black country. The Budget sets aside £55 million of new investment for the area, building on the significant investment made in the previous Parliament when, through the city deals, £1 million was invested in an advanced science, technology and engineering centre at Halesowen College. Significant progress has already been made in investment in the Black country, and the area is one of the UK’s fastest growing sub-regions, with more jobs and better skills, but we need to do more.

As we build the global Britain that the Foreign Secretary talked about, areas such as the Black country face five key challenges. The first is skills. Even though the number of young people not in education or training in the Black country is below the national average—we have made significant progress—skills gaps still exist in the area that I represent. I welcome the £7 million of new capital investment for further education that was announced in the Budget as part of the midlands engine strategy, but more is needed for investment in technical skills and to tackle historical levels of educational underperformance in the Black country and the wider west midlands. Skills gaps hold the Black country back as we seek to develop this global Britain.

The second challenge is transport and infrastructure, where historical under-investment is also holding the west midlands back. I welcome the announcement of £25 million to tackle congestion as part of the midlands engine, and we need a longer-term focus on the potential benefits of HS2, the development of Birmingham airport, and our rail and road network across the Black country and the west midlands.

The third big challenge addressed in the Budget, and one that we need to consider in the long term, is innovation rates. The Black country is becoming a world leader in, for example, the automotive, aerospace and advanced manufacturing sectors, with products such as Bugatti brakes and even the chairs used on “Match of the Day” being produced in the area, which is developing a worldwide reputation for design and product manufacturing.

The fourth challenge, which is a cumulative impact of the others, is relatively low productivity. It is a puzzle that we are yet to solve, and we need to tackle it by approaching it from all angles: improving skills, improving education at primary and secondary levels, and investing in transport infrastructure and the wider social realm.

The fifth challenge for the Black country is exporting, inward investment, and the potential opportunities of Brexit. With a 49% increase in exports since 2010, the west midlands’ export performance has been excellent in recent times and better than many other UK regions. We must be positive about the future and position the west midlands front and centre in our global trade plans to take advantage of the opportunities presented by Brexit. That is why I welcome, as part of the midlands engine strategy, the move towards the creation of a midlands trade and investment programme to develop markets to which the west midlands does not currently export. It has a good record in China and the United States, but we have the opportunity to open up and exploit new markets in many other countries.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that foreign language skills are one of the most important things that we lack? That is intimately associated with our relatively poor export performance in the past, and we need better learning and teaching of foreign languages in order to penetrate those new markets.

[James Morris]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Foreign languages are one key component, but the challenge in areas such as the Black country is to raise education performance levels more broadly. Standards need improving at primary and secondary levels, and we need to focus on technical education. The west midlands must face outwards and take advantage of the global opportunities that are currently presented.

Critically, the Black country and the west midlands are too often talked about as though they are a relic of Britain’s industrial past, but that is wrong. The Black country is increasingly in the vanguard of our industrial future. It is a leading player in high-tech manufacturing and has an increasingly competitive, productive economy. We do not need to focus on managing decline. The Black country is not some kind of industrial museum to look back on with fondness as part of Britain’s industrial greatness. The area is becoming a world leader in critical parts of our economic future.

As we take a forward view of global Britain, it is important not to focus just on London and the south-east; part of our long-term strategy should be the rebalancing of the economy. It is taking a long time, but we have made a lot of progress towards achieving that rebalancing. We must redouble that effort, invest in the appropriate skills and in the future of the businesses in the west midlands, and take away the barriers to growth, which include our transport infrastructure. It is simply too hard to get around the Black country and the wider west midlands, and the evidence is that transport bottlenecks make it increasingly difficult for the west midlands to realise its economic potential and achieve productive growth. As I said, we are not managing decline or nostalgically looking back to a mythical golden age; we seek to embrace the future of the Black country and of our young people in a global Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a real honour to follow the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton), who made some extremely important points, particularly about those who are self-employed.

I believe the Budget was extremely balanced and very sensible, not trying to do too much, but trying to do the right things and, by and large, succeeding. The concentration on technical skills—the T-levels—on infrastructure and on living within our means was welcome. We saw money put into the right places, including business rate relief, addressing a problem for a number of companies in my constituency and, no doubt, in the constituencies of all right hon. and hon. Members.

There was also a substantial increase in the investment in social care. I believe this is just the start; we need to see a radical revamp of the financing of health and social care. In announcing a Green Paper on social care, the Chancellor took a first and firm step in that direction, and it needs to be followed by others, but I very much welcome the increased investment in social care.

Of course, there has been some discussion about the ways in which the additional revenue was found, but let us not forget that this was a balanced Budget: the Chancellor did not seek to increase borrowing—absolutely rightly—and nor did he seek to cut spending any further than was already planned in some Departments. He sought to raise the revenue to pay for the additional investment in social care. That is absolutely the right way to go about it, and I commend him and his team for that.

Raising the revenue through national insurance contributions was absolutely understandable given the constraints, but I welcome the fact that there will be a closer look at this whole area. As the right hon. Lady said, self-employment will be with us increasingly in the coming years, and more and more people are becoming self-employed. That is something to be welcomed, and I have been self-employed in the past. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) said, it is something we should encourage, but, at the same time, we have to recognise the risks involved.

In future, as we look to raise additional revenue, we ought to look at some of the reliefs available to the higher paid, whether that is reliefs on national insurance and pensions, or reliefs available through schemes that have perhaps outlived their usefulness and that relate only to people at the higher end of the income scale.

That brings me to an important point. As a Parliament and a nation, we have to decide what level of income—what percentage of our GDP—we will raise in taxation and what percentage we will spend. We tend to raise approximately 37% of GDP in taxation, and that will continue through to 2020-21. We spent 40% in 2015-16, and that will go down to about 37% at the end of this Parliament. If we are to maintain the kind of commitments in all areas that we, and the Government, wish to, whether on defence, international development, looking after the elderly through social care, increasing investment in health or increased pension costs, we will find it very difficult to stick to a level of 37% of GDP in terms of both income and expenditure—it will be nearer 40%. That is still well below almost all our fellow European countries, certainly France and Germany. However, we have to take this seriously. It is not legitimate for us to stand here and advocate the kind of investment that, rightly, we want to see, while retaining our footprint as global Britain, and not be prepared to pay for it.

I serve on the International Development Committee, and a couple of weeks ago was privileged to see the work that DFID-supported organisations do in Tanzania with some of the poorest people on this planet in supporting them in their education. We have seen many other such schemes around the world. In Congo last year, we saw DFID working in a place where pretty much nobody else was working—apart from the Congolese people and Government themselves—to bring water schemes to people for the first time.

I was there with the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). I think he will remember that visit, where we washed our hands together having drawn water from a pump that had just been put into a village—the first water that those people had not drawn directly from the river. This work supported by DFID is absolutely priceless. As the Foreign Secretary said, it gives Britain a global presence. However, the point made by another speaker about funding for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is also valid. We have to remember that as we withdraw from the EU there are many Foreign Office missions around the world where we do not have a DFID presence and yet a lot of British development is going on through the European Union. That will now have to be picked up by the Foreign Office. We need to look very carefully at the funding for that.

I would like to say many other things, but time is limited. I make just one plea. The British Council does fine work, as we saw in Tanzania. It wants to teach people English and there is huge demand for that, so we need to give it the necessary resources.

Yemen

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman raises some important points. The UN resolution gives legitimacy to Mr Hadi’s call for support by any means—I think those are the words that were used—which is why it was possible to put together the Saudi-led coalition to thwart the advance of the Houthis from the north of the country.

The right hon. Gentleman is also right to underline our important relationship with Saudi Arabia, which it values and we value. Saudi Arabia is learning the hard way, and making those steps has been difficult. It is better that we do as we are doing and take Saudi Arabia through the process than for it to join other countries that would not exert the same pressure concerning humanitarian issues, women’s rights and all the other aspects that we want it to move towards.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

What discussions have my hon. Friend and his colleagues had with the UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O’Brien? Have the United Kingdom Government agreed to meet any request that the United Nations has made in that respect?

[Mr Ellwood]

The Minister of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) met Stephen O’Brien only a couple of weeks ago, and I meet our former colleague regularly. At the UN General Assembly in September last year, he co-chaired a meeting with the Secretary of State for International Development to raise funds, to ensure that other countries joined us in providing the finances necessary to give humanitarian support to Yemen. I pay a huge tribute to him and the work that he is doing in the United Nations.

UK-West Africa Relations

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Duddridge]

I have great respect for my hon. Friend’s views on health, and he hits the nail on the head. It is ludicrous for DFID to promote health when there is vast expertise in the Department of Health that we should leverage. The same goes for the Department for Education. We can do a lot more. We must also support parliamentarians. I recently met the Sierra Leonean Select Committee on health through the good offices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. It was clear that it was not getting the leverage in its Parliament to move things forward and propose changes.

I have recently started engaging on tuberculosis, which I had really associated only with being a by-product of HIV. The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 800,000 people in west Africa fell ill with TB in 2015, and nearly 300,000 people died. The mortality rate in west Africa for TB is around 36%, which is double the global average. I am keen to work with the Global TB Caucus, and I encourage other hon. Members to do so. Parliamentarians can play a great part in dealing with TB, and that caucus mobilises parliamentarians from across Africa. Will the Minister see whether his good offices in west Africa—ambassadors and high commissioners—can be used alongside the Global TB Caucus to encourage parliamentarians of those nation states to get more involved and collectively work with us to deal with this issue?

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning TB, which is absolutely vital. Does he agree that tremendous progress has been made in west Africa in the past 15 years in reducing both the incidence of malaria and mortality from it, not least given the support from DFID and the UK Government more generally? There is a real issue in the Sahel with intermittent malaria, which DFID is trying to tackle. As Nigeria is one of the two countries in the world where malaria is most prevalent, it is vital that we continue that support.

[James Duddridge]

My hon. Friend has a great reputation on those issues and on international development more generally. He is entirely right gently to reprimand me and say that we must look at the successes as well as the problems. The successes show that the aid budget works and that we should do more of it—they do not show that there are so many problems even after we have done all that work. Aid works and we should do more of it.

I turn to the perennial subject of Donald Trump—he pervades even a debate about west Africa. Will the Prime Minister raise the subject of Africa when she meets Donald Trump? I think she should. We should find out his views about Africa and aid in Africa. We have heard his views about family planning, and there may be a vacuum that the UK and other countries will need to step into, but what is his view of AFRICOM, the US’s African command? What is his view about stepping in if things deteriorate in places such as Burundi, where the Americans would have been well placed to offer support if regional forces did not? Will the Americans be prepared to step up? What discussions has the Minister had with his French and American counterparts about the global effort if there is a need to surge forces into Africa?

There were many places that I did not get to visit. I encourage the Minister to travel the road less trodden and visit the likes of Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. I wish I had gone to Gambia. If one has visited some of those smaller countries, when things kick off—for want of a better word—and there is a problem, one sometimes has a rough idea and can pick up the phone and speak to people. The UK Government’s understanding, knowledge and penetration of Africa means that they are able to do that.

I have taken far too long—I apologise to Members—but in summary, I ask the Minister to do three things: help Nana in Ghana, look to set up a Francophone group of businesspeople, and lobby for structure of government changes so that Africa is better represented by HMG here in the United Kingdom.

African Great Lakes Region

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for an extremely good and well-informed speech, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) who has also sponsored this debate.

The UK is increasingly engaged in the great lakes region and rightly so. It is vital that we continue to be so for the long term, and that we do not dip in and out but maintain our presence in a positive way in the many different respects I will come on to. I am more positive about the great lakes than I have been for some time. We have on many occasions in the past year raised huge concerns about the future of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, yet I hope the agreement reached on new year’s eve will be remembered in the same way as we remember the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland: as a time when differences were put aside in the interests of their people. As the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said, the agreement talks about elections this year, no third term for President Kabila, and no referendum or constitutional changes.

I pay great tribute to the Catholic Church, which has done so much; to the retiring US envoy Thomas Perriello, who has done a tremendous job; to our own Foreign and Commonwealth Office; to the EU; and to our own great lakes envoy, Danae Dholakia. I also want to pay tribute to the work done by DFID—colleagues and I saw its work on a visit in July—particularly on health in remote regions and access to water. They are some of the best projects I have ever seen. They are done at low cost by people who have been really committed to the DRC for decades. These are not consultants who come and go, but really committed people who put their life’s work into helping the poorest.

Burundi is another matter, but we must be as positive as possible. The years 2015 and 2016 have been a tragedy for that country. It is vital that 2017 is better. Every effort must be put into turning the country around, principally by those who have responsibility for it. One lesson we have to remember is to ensure that any agreements made are watertight. The Burundi problem arose from the lack of clarity over how many terms the current President would serve or in what way he would be re-elected. As a result, hundreds if not thousands of people have been killed. Any agreement must look forward to problems that may arise when they are signed.

The former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, is negotiating and has done a fine job. We must continue to support him in every way possible. It is disappointing that some organisations have withdrawn their support from the process. We can understand the reasons why, but I believe it is the only game in town and they need to be engaged with it. As President Mkapa said, they need to deal with the situation as it is: to work with President Nkurunziza; to try to persuade the Government of Burundi to turn away from an extremely dangerous path; to see extrajudicial killings stopped; to see paramilitaries and roaming gangs return to lawful activity; to restore law and order and human rights; and above all to not let the blight of ethnic hatred, to which the hon. Member for Bassetlaw referred, come back. Burundi has suffered as grievously from genocide as Rwanda, but it was a rolling genocide over decades and not a genocide in 100 days in 1994.

I will not say much about Rwanda, because other Members possibly will do so. It has been a success story, but with problems along the way. There is an election this year. This is a time for the country to come together. It is also a time to look to the future. If as seems likely President Kagame, who in many ways has been an outstanding if flawed leader, stands again, he needs to look beyond the next term as to who his successor will be. He has the interests of his country at heart. He will want it to prosper in the future. He knows that he will not be around forever—none of us are.

Tanzania is probably the country in this region that is closest to my heart, having lived there for so many years. It has generally managed the transition to free and fair elections extremely well, except, sadly, in the case of Zanzibar. There was progress in Zanzibar from 2010 to 2015, but the elections in that year were flawed and pulled in a way about which our Government made their view quite clear. The elections were re-held in 2016 without the presence of the main Opposition party. It is vital that the island of Zanzibar comes together with the Union Government and resolves this problem. The people of Zanzibar deserve nothing less. They are a peaceful and wonderful people.

At the same time, Tanzania has respected the two-term limit for presidents impeccably, for which we should give that country great credit. The CCM, the major ruling party, has achieved a great deal, but it needs to go further. The Government need to bring in an independent electoral commission in Tanzania. In my opinion, that is the biggest flaw in Tanzanian democracy at the moment. At the same time, the Opposition need to use Parliament and the parliamentary process to deal with the understandable questions it has for the Government, rather than just taking to the streets every time. I pay tribute to the Opposition for keeping calm and not going ahead with the major demonstrations proposed in September, which I believe would have resulted in unnecessary violence and possibly deaths.

On Uganda, the examples of former Presidents Benjamin Mkapa and Ali Hassan Mwinyi in Tanzania, as well John Kufuor in Ghana, show the benefit of presidents who recognise the importance of term limits. Those who stay on forever rarely go gracefully. That is surely a lesson for Uganda. The peace and stability since 1985 has been a huge relief for the people of Uganda, but proper open and democratic transition is also a sign of wisdom and maturity.

Finally, I wish to refer to development in all these countries. In our debate on the sustainable development goals last November in Westminster Hall, I referred to the five levers of development that I believe are crucial, including to all the countries of the great lakes region: jobs and livelihoods, health and health research, education, gender equality and infrastructure. DFID and the UK are involved in pretty much all these countries, including in Burundi—not directly but through multilateral means—and it is vital that this continues. As I said at the beginning, we must remain committed for the long term to ensuring the future prosperity of this wonderful and very important part of the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, a cerebral and immensely patient Member of the House who is unfailingly courteous at all times, Jeremy Lefroy.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What support are Her Majesty’s Government giving to the welcome moves towards a settlement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

[Mr Ellwood]

I had the pleasure of visiting the country last year. I was very concerned about the delay to the elections, of which my hon. Friend will be aware, and President Kabila not recognising that his time was up. I am pleased that political dialogue has now been developed between the Government and the Opposition, and that we are now on a programme to ensure elections happen in 2017. I will return to the country very soon to make sure that is enforced, and to offer our support and assistance to this important country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes two separate points, and we need to consider both distinctively. I will be visiting South Africa in the new year and I will be looking at some of the election processes that take place. We are supportive of both countries, but in the case of Israel, it is a democratic country in a very tough neighbourhood and Britain stands by our friendship. We are an ally of Israel and long may that continue.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

What discussions have the Government had with their counterparts about the very dangerous political crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

[Mr Ellwood]

I visited the DRC during the summer, and I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done in that regard. As in other parts of Africa, there is a president who does not want to honour the constitution and wants to stay on longer. We request that he recognises the constitution and stands back. We need the electoral commission to complete its work so that there is an updated electoral register and fresh elections can take place. We hope that happens soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

On the contrary, the meeting on Sunday was extremely successful in the sense that there was a unanimous agreement from all the parties concerned—not only France, Germany and Italy, but Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and ourselves—that we should proceed to put pressure on the Assad regime and its puppeteers in the form of the Russians on the basis that I have already outlined to the House: economically, diplomatically, through the United Nations and through the use of the International Criminal Court.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T10. What support is the United Kingdom giving to international efforts to address the dangerous political situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

[Mr Ellwood]

I have had the opportunity to visit the DRC, a country that my hon. Friend knows extremely well. President Kabila is refusing to step back; he wants to continue after his two terms. We have made the case forcefully that he must honour the constitution and allow the democratic process to take place. It is a large country, with 80 million people, and if it goes back into a dark chapter, there will be consequences for the surrounding countries. We are in a very delicate place in the development of democracy in that country.

Aleppo and Syria

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I shall come to that point as well, but let me say now that the whole purpose of the efforts of the International Syria Support Group—and those of other elements, under Staffan de Mistura—is to answer the question that my right hon. Friend has so eloquently posed.

The fifth failure lies in the surrounding countries, particularly Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Although they have acted heroically in dealing with the extraordinary number of people who have fled across the borders, often under gunfire, there has been a lack of support from the international community for countries whose populations have ballooned, given that one in three of the people in Jordan and Lebanon has fled from Syria. Britain has undoubtedly done her stuff. I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State for International Development is present; she can be extremely proud of the Department that she has inherited for the outstanding work that Britain has done in helping refugees in the surrounding countries—more, I might add, than has been done by the whole of the rest of the European Union.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend may well be aware that, in a fairly short space of time, far more Syrian than Lebanese children will be being educated in Lebanese state schools. Does that not speak volumes for the hospitality of the Lebanese?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend has made his point with great eloquence.

We are not using the opportunity—if I may put it in that way—to provide an education for the children in the camps, given that they at least constitute a captive audience. Every child in a camp in one of the surrounding countries should be receiving an education. There should be education and training, and, indeed, there should be opportunities for the countries that are receiving all the refugees to have free access to the European Union for their goods and services. That is not happening. Moreover, because some countries have failed to pay their dues to the United Nations in some of the camps, the children and adults there are receiving only half the rations that they should be receiving, and they are down to starvation rations at that.

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak in this debate after so many powerful and lucid speeches. I am unashamedly speaking in favour of remain, but next week my constituents each have one vote—the same number I do. My job here is to try to represent what I see as their best interests. They may not see it like that, but it is what I see as being in the best interests both of my constituency and the country.

I will follow on from what my hon. Friends the Members for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) and for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) have said about the importance of stability, prosperity and co-operation, and about the United Kingdom’s place in the world and its position as a force for good.

Let me start with stability and prosperity. It is quite clear—this is acknowledged even by those who speak for leaving—that there will be at least a short-term impact on the United Kingdom economy if we leave the EU. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has said as much. He talks about the Nike swoosh, or the dip, that would happen. We are talking about not a graphic but a direct impact on people’s pockets and on Treasury revenues.

As for what happens in the medium term, there is more debate. A vast majority of economists have said that being part of the European Union would be better for our economy in the medium and long term, but I accept that there are a wide range of views on that. How much that would cost—how much we would gain, or not gain—is more difficult to say. One thing is absolutely clear: those who claim that we will thrive outside the European Union in a way that we do not inside are profoundly mistaken.

Economically, there are two areas in which we suffer the most. The first is our failure to export enough, which we have spoken about time and again, and the second is our productivity. Neither has anything to do with our membership of the European Union, and both have everything to do with ourselves. Germany and France have considerably higher productivity levels than us, as does the United States. Germany is quite capable of exporting three or four times as much to China as we can, from within the European Union. I fully agree that there are aspects of regulation and so on where we might do better if we controlled them entirely ourselves, but those are minor points—mere pinpricks—compared with the responsibility on our shoulders to improve our productivity and exports. We can do that whether we are inside or outside the European Union. Coming out of the EU is no panacea.

It is clear that where we will suffer if we leave is in inward investment. I have spoken to inward investors in my constituency on whom thousands of jobs depend, and they say they want us in and that it is very important. As the Foreign Secretary said earlier, with our current account deficit as it is, a reduction in foreign investment would be dangerous. I have not had investors coming to me and saying, “I’ve been waiting for you to leave the European Union so that I can invest in Stafford.” That has never happened.

On co-operation and Britain’s place in the world, I am unashamed about the need to work together. There are many challenges in this world, and putting ourselves on the outside is not the way forward. We must not underestimate the importance of good relations with our neighbours, even if they come through difficult meetings in the European Union week in, week out and month in, month out. The other bodies of which we are a member, such as the United Nations, are no substitute. They meet infrequently and are much bigger bodies.

Who wants us out? Do our best friends? Do the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada—those with whom we have the strongest personal and political ties? Absolutely not.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech, which plays into the idea of getting some sort of independence from the European Union. It strikes me that there is a misunderstanding among some people in the debate about the referendum. The EU is not a country, it is an intergovernmental organisation. That fundamental point has been misunderstood by people who imagine that they are leaving some country. They are not. They are leaving an almost global body, and that is the mistake that many of the exiters make.

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[Jeremy Lefroy]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The EU is a body of proud sovereign countries that take their independence extremely seriously. The east European countries did not throw off the Soviet yoke to get a yoke from Brussels.

When it comes to stability, prosperity, co-operation with others and the United Kingdom’s place in the world, I firmly believe that we are better in, so I shall be voting to remain.

International Syria Support Group: Airdrops

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It is the United Nations that is talking to the Assad regime about getting access, the United Nations that has the good offices to make those approaches, and the United Nations that is in charge of delivering the humanitarian assistance. That is the way forward that we judge at the moment is most likely to lead to a successful outcome that is safe for those receiving the aid and those delivering it.

There are parts of Syria where high-level airdrops of humanitarian assistance might be of help if we could not get overland access, but that is not a precise way of giving help. There are other parts of Syria where the nature of the conflict, or the densely populated urban character of the communities we are trying to help, means that we would have to bring in helicopters and could not rely on high-level airdrops at all. That again emphasises the complexity of the task and why the best outcome, for all its imperfections, would be the UN securing access, with the agreement of the regime, either over land or, failing that, for airborne assistance.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

What material support is the United Kingdom giving the United Nations in preparation for access being granted, as we hope it will be?

[Mr Lidington]

As my hon. Friend knows, we have committed very large sums—£2.3 million—to humanitarian assistance in the crisis in Syria and its neighbouring countries. We are ready to provide additional support, if the UN wants it, for an expanded airdrop operation in the besieged areas.