European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

People in my Stockton North constituency voted two to one to leave the EU. They wanted to take back control, they wanted £350 million a week more for the NHS, and many had genuine and understandable issues with freedom of movement and immigration. They voted for other reasons too—they were discontent with their lives after six years of Tory austerity, and unemployment in my constituency is still double the national average. They felt ignored in a society where the rich were getting richer, poverty was, and is, on the rise, services were being cut, and they saw limited prospects for their lives to get better. Worse still, they believed that their children faced an uncertain future.

However, people did not vote to be worse off, or to see chemical and other energy-intensive industries on Teesside devastated, with a huge impact on jobs and investment. They did not vote to weaken food standards, for their own movement to be restricted, or for hard-won rights for workers to be set aside. They did not vote for a backstop arrangement to protect Northern Ireland, leaving us to abide by EU rules without influencing them for who knows how long. Yet that is exactly what they will get with the Prime Minister’s deal.

We are on the cusp of shattering the hopes of our people. If we vote for isolation from Europe with the Prime Minister’s deal, not only will we find ourselves on the outside, but we will face an indefinite period of uncertainty. If we were to find ourselves with no deal at all, we would be cast aside from our most lucrative markets, left floundering in the world, dependent on countries across the globe for trade deals, and face the prospect of surrendering our standards for everything from food to chemical manufacturing.

I am always mindful and respectful of that voting statistic from people in my constituency, but my constituents are not daft. They know that the false promises made about NHS funding, immigration, taking back control, and so many other things, will not be delivered. They also know about the controversy over the illegality of the leave campaign.

I cannot possibly vote to satisfy everyone in my constituency, from the no-deal leavers to those demanding a second referendum and many in between, but I can vote to protect them from a bad deal and from no deal. The Government are failing to deliver a prosperous deal for our country. I favour a general election or, failing that, a second referendum, which, according to my own and national surveys, the majority of my constituents now want.

My votes are also for the north-east of England, which is a huge net exporter of goods to the EU and depends on markets there for cars, chemicals and countless other manufactured goods. It also depends on the EU for expertise, grants and tourists. Much of that is starting to go wrong, as evidenced by members of the North East England chamber of commerce, whose quarterly economic survey results recently reported less international trade activity, citing Brexit uncertainty as the key reason. The region looked set for a record year of trade, outperforming 2017 in the first and second quarters of 2018, according to the chamber of commerce, but a 10% decline in exports to the EU represented a reduction of £200 million in business, dwarfing other gains.

As some Members might know, I have a long-standing interest in UK energy, having spent a large part of my career working in the gas industry. A year on from the launch of the Government’s industrial strategy and the Helm review into the cost of energy, a new report published last month by UK Steel shows that UK producers face electricity prices twice those of their direct competitors in France, and 50% more than those of German producers. Gas prices also remain high, at more than twice those of US manufacturers and three times those of Russian producers. Carbon prices have also sustained new peaks during the autumn period. In short, the cumulative impact of the cost of decarbonising energy risks becoming unaffordable for chemical businesses in my constituency. The truth is that this deal does nothing to help that and little to allay the fears of industry in any of those areas.

Ministers are also trying to replicate all manner of regulations in British law, but companies in my region—international companies—tell me that it is not good enough. One set of EU regulations, the REACH—registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—regulations, are critical to my region. I have been contacted by many of the companies affected. SABIC is an international petrochemicals company and an employer in my constituency. Its chemical products and technologies are utilised in a vast number of everyday essentials, such as medicines, food, drinks, tele-communications, IT, clothing and much more. The volume of its activities, in terms of exports and imports, and the complexity of just-in-time supply chains, with multiple border crossings involved in moving raw materials to finished products, mean that any disruption will adversely affect the competitiveness of its business and the potential for future trade and investment. That is industry telling us that we cannot simply trust that things will work out and that we can go it alone. Industry employers—the people who pay the wages of millions of people—are saying that this is a problem.

By voting against this deal and against a no-deal Brexit, I am standing up for my constituents and their industry. If the Government cannot secure a deal that has the confidence of Parliament, and if Parliament cannot persuade the Government to change tack and seek a different kind of agreement, based on a strong customs union and other links to guarantee trade, investment, jobs and people’s rights, we should either have that general election or return the matter to the people in a second referendum.