UK Withdrawal from the EU and Potential Withdrawal from the Single Market

Lord Patten Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I expect that most of your Lordships will remember that about six months ago we had many experts predicting that the UK was soon to become a fog-bound basket case—a kind of incipient North Korea but with added drizzle. It has not quite turned out like that. Just this week we see government borrowing exactly on target for the year end, stock markets booming and 40-year UK government debt with a very low coupon being fought over by foreign investors, who were desperate when the Debt Management Office put it up for sale a couple of days ago. Of course, as we have heard this morning, the United Kingdom’s GDP in the most recent quarter puts us right at the very top of the G7 leader board. It has not quite turned out as most experts predicted. I have to say that I did not predict it, either—I do not count myself as an expert in very much. But no wonder people from abroad want to stay here and no wonder people abroad want to come here, as they will.

It is entirely reasonable that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in opening her debate, concentrated both on the rights of EU citizens here and the rights of the very large number of UK citizens living in the EU. But equivalence will have to rule in any sensible negotiation. Her Excellency the extremely sensible ambassador to the Court of St James from France said in interviews on the record—it was published in the Evening Standard, so it must be true—that we need equivalence and recognition of the rights of citizens in the EU and in the UK. She was right, and I hope she has squared President Hollande and the negotiators on all this. We are just at the beginning of negotiations, when reciprocal and reasonable rights will be one of the issues to be finally resolved.

Most EU citizens are very well settled in and integrated here. One part of my life is down in the West Country, where there is a well-settled European Union community—Polish, as it happens. Opposite the local Roman Catholic church is a delightful shop called Little Poland. I know of no incidents of any sort of anti-Polish sentiment. Problems always come when people feel that immigration has tipped the balance; that is what we see in East Anglia, Lincolnshire and elsewhere. That is why control of our borders is so important.

We also have to recognise that the balance can change quite quickly in the other direction. I am told that a fair number of EU immigrants to this country have left or are now considering leaving because the drop in the pound—which, as we have seen, helps exporters—is hitting the value of their wages, and hence the remittances they can send home. I believe that reasonable control of our borders on a needs-first basis is a national good in the interests of balance in all parts of the country. Whether it is up in the north-east with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham or elsewhere, we want good, integrated immigration and settlement, not immigration that causes trouble.

In the closing moments of my speech, I want to reflect on what the right reverend Prelate said in the closing moments of his speech. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said endlessly since last autumn—and most recently in the fleshpots of Davos—not just, in the oft-repeated phrase, that the UK should be and is open for business but that it will remain open for talent, university teachers, scientists, scholars and entrepreneurs, and not just those in the traditional financial services, where I work, but in the new developing fintech, biotech and artificial intelligence areas. I think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is right to stress that. It sends a very good, clear message to those we will be negotiating with in future months.