Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I also welcome you back to your place? You are much loved in this Chamber, and you have been deeply missed.

The best thing to do with these forecasts is not to hand them to the Brexit Committee but to put them in the nearest waste bin. I will explain why. I backed remain in the referendum, partly on account of the Treasury’s forecasts in April 2016 setting out what it thought would happen in the case of a vote to leave the European Union. It provided two scenarios: “shock” and “severe shock”. There were no categories entitled “success” or “continued economic brilliance for our country”. The “shock” scenario predicted recession and a sharp rise in unemployment. It also predicted that GDP would be 3.6% lower and that unemployment would be 500,000 higher, with 74,000 jobs being lost in the south-east alone. It wanted to ensure that everyone understood how badly every single region of the country would fare.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a great point. We all remember “Project Fear”. Will he confirm beyond doubt that those Treasury predictions related not to effects that would happen after Brexit but to what would happen immediately after we voted to leave the European Union?

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am looking at the forecast of 500,000 more unemployed, and it relates to the beginning of 2018. The Treasury produced a little chart showing just how bad it would be, how joblessness would rise and how if people did not vote the right way they would lose their jobs and be visited by recession.

Under the second category—“severe shock”—it was forecast that GDP would be 6% lower and that unemployment would increase by 800,000. Those forecasts made me think that there was a big risk involved, and that we ought to back remain. I advised my constituents to back remain, but they advised me that they did not agree and that they wanted to leave, by a margin of about two thirds. So I thought, “Well, we will make do, and try to secure the economy as best we can, because things are obviously going to be really dreadful and I am really worried about the employment situation.” But what has actually happened? I have not seen a recession. In fact, growth has continued in this country. There are 32.2 million people in employment, and 1.4 million unemployed. That is an unemployment rate of 4.3%, and unemployment is at a 42-year low. Rather than going up by 500,000 or 800,000, it has in fact fallen by 250,000.

We do not hear about that from Opposition Members, do we? We do not hear them saying, “Well, wasn’t that Treasury forecast completely and utterly wrong?” All we hear them saying is, “Don’t be mean to civil servants who come up with forecasts that are hopelessly wrong.” We do not hear them asking why those forecasts were wrong. There has been no recession, and GDP and employment have continued to grow. It is hard to think of any part of that dossier that was correct. Indeed, it is now notorious as the “Project Fear” dossier.

I have asked questions about this in the Treasury Committee, of which I am a member, and every time I ask a Bank of England official or a Treasury official about it, they shuffle nervously and sometimes give a little cough. Sometimes they say, “The reason we did not have a massive rise in unemployment and a recession was that the Bank of England cut interest rates by 0.25%.” Interest rate cuts can be assimilative, but I am not sure that a 0.25% cut really made that much difference to 500,000 jobs. I think that the Treasury’s predictions in April 2016 were wrong, and if they were wrong before, the chances are that they could well be wrong again.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I, too, was worried about “Project Fear”, and I wrote to the Treasury after the referendum asking it to name and shame the 80% of economists who had claimed that there would be absolute meltdown if we voted to leave the European Union. The Treasury refused to name and shame them. I wanted their names because I wanted to ensure that they never got a job anywhere near government because their predictions were so bad, but the reason that the Treasury would not name and shame them was that they were already working there. They are the architects of this latest report.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a forceful point, and these people are not just in the Treasury.

The shadow Secretary of State—a knight of the realm, I should add—was kind enough to come down from St Pancras to see us in Dover recently. Grandly, he came down to tell the people of Dover that we ought to retain the benefits of the single market and the customs union. Everyone understood what he meant. He meant that we should stay in the single market and the customs union, that we should continue to have a trade policy made in Brussels rather than in Britain, and that we should continue to have uncontrolled EU immigration into this country with completely open borders. My constituents are very clear on one thing: they do not want uncontrolled immigration into this country. It has not helped them or their families, and they do not feel that it is helped their prosperity. They do not want trade policy to be made in Brussels. They want it to be made in Britain. That is why this Government are right to be leaving the single market and the customs union.

This is not a question of forecasting; it is a question of a mandate. That mandate was handed to us by our electors when they voted to leave the European Union. I understand that there are those on the other side who wanted to remain and who still want that. I respect that. I do not really respect their constantly re-fighting the referendum, but I respect the fact that they feel passionately that we should be back in Europe. However, that is not my mandate from my constituents, and it is not the mandate given to a lot of Opposition Members who represent constituencies in Wales and in the north of this country, who ought to spend a bit more time talking to their electors on the doorstep and a bit less time at grand dinner parties enjoying elite establishment-type conversation about how terrible it is all going to be.

Let me move on from Hampstead to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean). She was absolutely right that we cannot predict the future, so why is it that the EU-funded CBI so passionately wants Britain to stay within the single market and within the customs union and says that businesses do, too? The answer is that it loves the regulation produced by Brussels, which helps to keep things in their place, but we need to become more competitive as a country. If we become more competitive, we will grow more quickly.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

Border Checks Summer 2011

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is a fair point. There are several important ongoing inquiries into what happened, and they are the right thing to do. It is right that the new boss of UKBA should have the licence and ability to supervise his staff—and that includes Brodie Clark. If the new boss takes that view, and the Home Secretary endorses it, that will be the right execution of the chain of command. The House should respect that, and it should respect the need to let the inquires go through and be conducted properly. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) may not agree, and may want all the papers published on the internet immediately, but the proper processes should be followed and dealt with. We should ensure that we have the most secure borders possible, because our constituents are deeply concerned about what has gone on.

I talk to people on the doorsteps of Dover who tell me, “I am really unhappy about the fact that we have had so many people come into this country,” and it is a matter of public record that about 2.2 million have done so. European Union citizens have in broad terms a free right of entry to come and go, but that does not apply to people outside the area.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Without trying to be too opportunistic, I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that when the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) told the House that concerns over immigration, border controls and asylum were just “nonsense” and apparently “huff and puff” in many of the tabloid newspapers, he showed that he has no credibility on the subject—and neither do the Labour party.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and he is right. The hon. Gentleman discussed the matter in a question on the EU constitution, and in fairness I should read out his entire remarks. He said to the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett):

“The Home Secretary may well have heard over recent days much huff and puff in many of the tabloid newspapers about the draft constitutional treaty and what it will do to border controls and asylum and immigration in Europe. Will he ignore all that nonsense”?—[Official Report, 16 June 2003; Vol. 407, c. 15.]

The then Home Secretary replied: “Yes, I agree entirely.” One gets a perspective from that, but I do not want to labour what is a partisan point. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be able to read out more of what he said—he did go on; indeed, he does go on—when he gets his own chance to make some remarks.

I shall close with the concerns of my constituents. We need more controls for people from outside the European Union. The figures reported by the labour market survey show a total increase of 966,000 in employment between quarter 1 of 2004 and quarter 3 of 2010—that is, 966,000 people not born in the UK. UK-born employment fell by 334,000, while foreign-born UK employment rose by 1.297 million. Of those, 530,000 were born in the EU8 countries. The essential point is that the majority—800,000—were born outside those countries. We see immigration as somehow an EU problem, but there is a bigger problem with people born outside those areas—people for whom we can take controls. I hope that in time we will not only do that, but do more to make the Home Office fit for purpose, after the mess of the past 13 years.

Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Ms Eagle]

It is clear that the policy can be introduced only at the risk of injecting huge and dangerous uncertainty into the public finances. I give way to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen).

Local Government Finance

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I meant no discourtesy, Mr Speaker.

Moving quickly to my own history, when I was elected in 1994 we had a hung council. We had a mess to sort out. All three parties worked positively together to do that and, frankly, to look at how to un-bankrupt a council that by then had £1 billion of debt. Difficult decisions were made. The emphasis was very much on ensuring better front-line services. My experience was that although we made difficult rebalancing decisions, we were able not only to protect front-line services but to improve them quite dramatically. People on the doorstep were saying that they were now getting front-line services, as opposed to excessive bureaucracy and—I regret to say in the case of Lambeth in those times—in some cases corruption, so positive changes can be made when difficult decisions are taken and things are reworked.

One thing that I particularly welcome is the council tax position. Council tax has been increased in the last decade or so—I believe that it has doubled—to the current level of £1,439. That is an awful lot of money and a massive increase. We know that, because of the deficit, it is not possible to increase local government spending on the grant settlement side of things. We also know that people have been flayed alive for over a decade, given the amount of council tax that they have been asked to pay. I therefore particularly welcome the Government’s decision to work positively with local authorities to freeze council tax. That is important to constituents such as mine who live in deprived circumstances. Many of them are elderly, and many are poor. Stopping council tax rises benefits them massively, particularly those on fixed incomes. Therefore, on the one hand, we have a set of tough decisions aimed at ensuring that we make those efficiencies, and on the other, we have managed to stop council tax rising, which is important.

I totally agree with the Secretary of State when he says that we need smarter procurement. We are doing that in Kent, with the Kent Buying Consortium. He has said that we need better asset management, too. Many people are more than aware of the position in Newham, where there is a new, flashy building that has cost an awful lot of money. We have to be much more cute about using asset management. We have the streamlining and merging of operations, and in Dover and Shepway we increasingly have shared services, so that there will be a shared chief executive and shared back office. That agenda has been embraced in Kent, which is important. It is also important to consider how best to deliver services. Suffolk county council has at times been a bit over the top with its chief officers, but it has led the way on how services can be run, with care homes operating as social enterprises. In my constituency, I am promoting the case for a care home in Deal to be transferred to a community interest company when the local authority feels unable to continue running it.

That is the right way forward. I do not think that this is a debate in which we should necessarily be partisan or throw rocks at each other, because we know the financial position. I could quote the figures showing that Labour was going to cut the budget by £5 billion—that was in Labour’s pre-Budget report—and all the rest of it, but would that help matters? No, because we know the position of the nation’s finances.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that my local council in North West Leicestershire is facing budget cuts of 10% somewhat undermines the complaints made by the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), about Liverpool’s budget being cut by 9%? Does that not prove that we are indeed all in this together? We all know who put us in it, and we should not let them forget it for one moment.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. Just as when all parties in Lambeth worked together positively in the local authority’s interest, it would be best if we all worked together in the national interest to ensure that all councillors, from all parties, did not try to score political points, which we have seen far too much of lately, but instead worked positively, thinking not about advancement, aggrandisement or the headlines that they might be able to get, but about their constituents. At the end of the day, we were all sent here by our constituents—whether in Liverpool, which is seeking a bit of attention, or anywhere else, it does not matter. All local authority leaders have a responsibility to give their constituents the best possible services and assistance in these extraordinarily difficult conditions.

Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Charlie Elphicke

Friday 22nd October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. What does substantial compliance mean? I am not sure. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington really should have drafted the Bill properly to include a proper definition of substantial compliance. That might at least have earned Labour party support, if not necessarily Conservative support. If before laying the Bill without any discussion he had worked with the Government, it might have been less controversial. He could have worked with his own party to produce something that could achieve the kind of consensus that there should be for private Members’ Bills.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The salient point is on substantial compliance. Imagine if in canvassing our constituents we were to “substantially comply” with a ballot by delivering papers only to the 80% of people we thought likely to vote in the direction we wanted. Would that be substantial compliance or democracy?