European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Mandelson and Lord Spicer

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mandelson]

Why am I not fighting to keep us in the European Union? My word! Judging by my email inbox, the noble Lord must be the only person in the country who does not believe that I am fighting for Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. Of course being a democrat, I respect—oh, there is no point his waving his hand in that Edwardian way.

I am afraid that we have had a referendum, but the point is this: we can now make a choice between leaving the European Union and wrecking our economy, or leaving the European Union and making the best economic job that we can of doing so. There is a huge difference between negotiating our future trade relationship from the safety of being a relative insider, which is what we would be as a member of the EEA, as opposed to being an outsider and jostling for preferential access to Europe’s marketplace like any other country—fighting with many others for access at Europe’s border. Of course the single market is not perfect, notably in its coverage of all services. However, almost half of British trade in goods and services takes place in the European market. It should therefore be an absolute priority for us to secure the continuity of that trade we already have.

There is another crucial issue for us, given the nature of our manufacturing sector in this country. Other noble Lords have touched on that. The point is that the single market is not just a huge trading space: it is also a giant factory floor. Among mature economies trade is now increasingly less in finished goods than in part-finished goods moving back and forth across borders, often many times, as part of increasingly sophisticated value chains.

[Lord Spicer]

If everything is so hunky-dory, why is there such a massive balance of payments deficit?