European Affairs

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Government’s position is that the referendum is an advisory one, but the Government will regard themselves as being bound by the decision of the referendum and will proceed with serving an article 50 notice. My understanding is that that is a matter for the Government of the United Kingdom, but if there are any consequential considerations, they will be dealt with in accordance with the proper constitutional arrangements that have been laid down.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I rather concur with the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), because I think that before the Government could move to any action as a consequence of the referendum, it would be essential for Parliament to debate the matter and for the Government to obtain consent from Parliament.

On the question of what happens if we leave, may I enlighten the Foreign Secretary? First, there is no obligation to go for article 50. Secondly, we would be taking back control over our borders, our laws and the £10 billion a year net that we give to the European Union. It would buy us plenty of options, which the Government seem determined to prevent us from even discussing.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend raises again the suggestion that there is no need to treat an exit vote as triggering a notice under article 50. He seems to suggest that there is some other way of doing it. He raised the question on Monday and I looked into it, because he caught my imagination, but I have to tell him that that is not the opinion of the experts inside Government and the legal experts to whom I have talked. We are bound by the treaty until such time as we have left the European Union. The treaty is a document of international law, and Ministers are obliged under the terms of the ministerial code to comply with international law at all times.

The UK’s current access to the single market would cease if we left the EU, and our trading agreements with 53 countries around the world would lapse. It is impossible to predict with any certainty what the market response would be, but it is inconceivable that the disruption would not have an immediate and negative effect on jobs, on business investment, on economic growth and on the pound. Those who advocate exit from the EU will need to address those consequences—the substantive consequences, of the kind that the British people will be most focused on—in the weeks and months of debate to come.

I want to say something about the environment in which the putative negotiations would be conducted, because it is crucial to understand how difficult the discussion would be.

Over the past 18 months, I have got to know pretty well my EU counterparts, and in many cases their senior officials, as well as the opposition figures in most of their countries and key figures in the Commission and the European Parliament. There is, perhaps surprisingly, an overwhelming consensus among them about the importance of Britain remaining a member of the EU. However, they, too, are politicians: they, too, have constituents to whom they are having to explain, even now, why Britain adds so much value to the EU that it has to be allowed a unique and privileged set of arrangements that are not available to any other member state. They have, collectively, already invested a lot of political capital in delivering on Britain’s agenda. I tell the House, frankly, that if we reject the best-of-both-worlds package that has been negotiated by the Prime Minister and if we reject the unique and privileged position in the European Union that is on offer to Britain, the mood of good will towards Britain will evaporate in an instant. That would be our negotiating backdrop. To those who say they would have to negotiate—

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[Mr Hammond]

I will in a moment, but I want to make a little more progress.

In addition, any market access we agreed with our former EU partners would come at a very high price. We know that because we know what the basic models are for access to the single market for non-EU member states. We can look at Norway: pay up as if you were a member state, accept all the rules as if you were a member state, allow full free movement across your borders as if you were a member state, but have no say, no influence and no seat at the table; or Switzerland: spend eight years—

[Mr Jenkin]

It’s silly.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend says it is silly, but it is a fact that that is where Norway is today. It is a fact that it took Switzerland eight years to negotiate piecemeal access to the single market sector by sector, and it has had to accept three times as many EU migrants per capita as the UK. That surely cannot be the future for Britain that the leave campaign seeks: it is literally the worst of both worlds.

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[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady has put her finger on it. That is what this debate will hinge on. Those who propose that we remain argue that we should stick with a proposition we know and understand, and lay on top of that the additional benefits that the Prime Minister has gained for us in the negotiation. Those who propose that we leave do not know—because they cannot know—what they are proposing to the British people. They can tell us what they would like to achieve and what they would hope to negotiate, but by definition they cannot know until afterwards and the British people cannot know until afterwards what proposition they would be voting for.

[Mr Jenkin]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hammond]

No. I want to move on to setting out what I see as the consequences of Britain deciding to remain.

If Britain decides to remain a member of the EU, I want it to do so with the mindset of a leader. Having renegotiated the terms of our membership and secured the protections we need against further integration, we need to be a loud voice in the EU. We need to exercise our influence as Europe’s second largest economy and the recognised leader of its reform movement. We need to stop seeing ourselves as passive victims of the EU, and start to see Britain for what it is—one of the most powerful and influential member states, and one to whom others look for leadership in keeping the EU on track as a competitive, outward-looking, free-market union that is engaged with the challenges of a globalised economy.

We can take on that role because Europe is changing. There was a time when Britain, with its sceptical approach to the European project, really was in a minority of one, but the political balance across the EU is shifting away from an unquestioning acceptance of the inevitability of “more Europe” to an engaged scepticism—a desire for the EU to focus on where it can add value, leaving the member states to get on with their own business where it cannot; and a recognition of the benefits of membership, with an increasing focus on the costs and a healthy pragmatism about the limits to what the EU can deliver. In Denmark, Finland, Poland, Hungary and other Baltic and eastern European member states, we increasingly find like-minded partners who share our vision of Europe. Even in the Netherlands, one of the founder member states, the mood has shifted sharply. In that country, there is a slogan that rather neatly sums up what I think most people in Britain think about the EU: “National where possible, Europe where necessary.” Across the continent, the population, as opposed to the political elites, has become more sceptical about the EU and more focused on the need for reform and accountability.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I will let my hon. Friend the Member for Stone speak for himself in the course of the debate. I am sure, however, that he will await—with a healthily sceptical approach—the return of the Prime Minister from Brussels with that package, and that he will consider it carefully and analytically, safe in the knowledge that underpinning this whole process is an absolute commitment to allow the British people to have the final say on this issue in an in/out referendum.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

None of the concessions that the Prime Minister has so far obtained from the European Union, including the veto of the fiscal union treaty, has fundamentally changed our relationship with the EU. How does he intend fundamentally to change that relationship?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right, of course. I have already mentioned an area in which we need fundamental change in the way in which the European Union operates. It is now a Union with a eurozone of 19 member states at its core, and those states will integrate more closely together. There needs to be an explicit recognition that those who are not part of that core do not need to pursue ever-closer union. There needs to be an explicit protection of the interests of those non-eurozone members as the EU goes forward. That is an example of an area in which we need specific structural change to the way in which the European Union operates.

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[Mr Hammond]

I am delighted to see that the right hon. Gentleman is robust in his defence of the interests of Tate and Lyle—his constituents—and I will take that representation and put it with the many others from both sides of the House about particular areas that we need to raise in the course of the discussion.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hammond]

I need to conclude my remarks because many Members wish to contribute.

Few subjects ignite as much passion in the House or indeed in the country as our membership of the European Union. The debate in the run-up to the referendum will be hard fought on both sides of the argument. But whether we favour Britain being in or out, we surely should all be able to agree on the simple principle that the decision about our membership should be taken by the British people, not by Whitehall bureaucrats, certainly not by Brussels Eurocrats; not even by Government Ministers or parliamentarians in this Chamber. The decision must be for the common sense of the British people. That is what we pledged, and that is what we have a mandate to deliver. For too long, the people of Britain have been denied their say. For too long, powers have been handed to Brussels over their heads. For too long, their voice on Europe has not been heard. This Bill puts that right. It delivers the simple in/out referendum that we promised, and I commend it to the House.