European Union Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I do not intend to speak for long; I just want to make a few observations about the new clause.

I listened intently to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who will know from our communications that I have some concerns about how the new clause would work. I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said about the new clause’s unintended consequences, but I take a slightly different view from him as I think that it is worth supporting, if for no other reason than to send a message to Ministers about what many people in my constituency and of my generation feel about the European Union. I was not born when we last had a referendum on the EU—I am a few years younger than the proposer of the new clause. My generation has never had the opportunity to express its view at the ballot box on the EU as an institution.

[Mr Hollobone]

Actually, nobody has had the chance to express their view on the European Union, because it was not the European Union in 1975—it was the common market.

[Andrew Percy]

I stand corrected. Many of my constituents who took part in that referendum, including my own parents—at least one of them was sound enough to vote no—tell me that it was not what they voted for. My hon. Friend is entirely right to correct me.

My generation has had no opportunity through the ballot box to express a view on whether we should remain a member of the European Union, because broadly speaking both parties have always supported membership. My view is firm—I do not think that we should remain a member—but I am not arrogant enough to suggest that it is for me to dictate to the British public. I simply want the British public at some point to have a say on whether we should remain a member of what has become a very interesting institution—as one hon. Member called it.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

Over the past few days, I have had nearly 100 e-mails and letters about forests, but since 7 May I have not had a single letter or e-mail about withdrawal from the European Union. This debate shows the difference of opinion across the country, and the genius and magic of this place that it matches Members so closely to their constituents in their passions and needs.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would be happy to take him to Goole, where he could talk to people in my community who are concerned about the large amount of immigration resulting from our membership.

[Dr McCrea]

On the point about the letters and postbag, how many letters has the hon. Gentleman received in support of the European Union?

[Andrew Percy]

The answer is fairly simple: a big, fat zero.

[Mrs Main]

If we are going to judge from our postbags, we would not be having a referendum on the alternative vote system, which has been mentioned to me by only one person—a local Liberal Democrat, who said, “You’ll never again be able to say, ‘Nobody has ever mentioned AV to me’”. We cannot use the postbag of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) as some sort of barometer of opinion.

[Andrew Percy]

All we would end up debating from my postbag is the state of our roads following the recent cold weather—but that is not how politics works.

I have been led away from my line of argument, which is that it is time that the people had a say on the EU. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), many people in communities such as Goole, which has seen large amounts of immigration as a result of EU expansion, would say, “Lots of people come here to fill jobs people here won’t do. They come here to work incredibly hard, but we have had such a mass influx, and nobody asked us for our permission through the ballot box for the extension of immediate rights to come to this country and work without any requirements or immigration controls.” Nobody asked the British public, who are rightly angry about that, and that is why they wish to have a referendum.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, with whom I share a boundary, for giving way. Is he aware that his Government, whom he so vigorously supports, are maintaining the current level of European immigration over five years, with an extra 700,000 projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility? Government Members seem unwilling to discuss that in the House.

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Gentleman—my neighbour on my southern border—makes an interesting point. Thanks to what was given away by the previous Government, it is pretty much impossible to do a great deal on this issue, which is one reason why we now either accept a mass influx of uncontrolled immigration or we get out of the European Union. That is really the only choice that the public have.

There are some technical problems with the new clause. If we had an in/out referendum following the rejection of an initial referendum, that would lead to problems with the debate on the first referendum. It would probably become a debate about whether we should have an in/out referendum, which would be undesirable. I mean no disrespect to the genius of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough when I say that new clause 11 is not perfect. However, from my point of view, I could not vote against anything that introduced an in/out referendum, which is why I shall be supporting this imperfect but well-meant new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

I was honoured to be asked to add my name to the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I, too, would like to celebrate his genius not only in drafting the clause, but in taking advice from the Clerks and outdoing the Government Front-Bench team in having such a long debate on the provision this evening. He has worked tirelessly to get this issue debated on the Floor of the House, and I would like to congratulate him.

I am proud to say on behalf of my Kettering constituents that I am in favour of an in/out referendum and that if there were one, I would vote to leave the European Union. I have absolutely no doubt that if that issue were put to my constituents, a majority would vote to leave the EU. That would not necessarily always have been the case. Had there been a referendum 10 or 15 years ago, there might well have been a majority for staying in. I have no doubt that a majority of voters in the Kettering constituency would have voted to stay in the Common Market in the referendum of 1975. Now, however, people are so fed up with European issues and with the effect Europe is having on their country and their way of life that we have crossed over so that there would no longer be an overwhelming majority in favour of staying in. The majority would want to leave so that Britain can be a proud, self-confident nation once again, without having to pay a massive annual membership fee—soon rising to £10 billion a year—and without having to open our borders to all and sundry from across the European Union, allowing them to flood to these shores.

Immigration is a European issue. It did not used to be, but it is now. People in my constituency and across the country are fed up with the numbers of people coming into our country from abroad and fed up with uncontrolled immigration from the European Union. Frankly, my Kettering voters feel let down by the political establishment that our being in the European Union should have been allowed to take over so many aspects of our lives.

[Andrew Percy]

Does my hon. Friend share my embarrassment at the very idea that people from Australia, Canada and New Zealand—our Commonwealth brethren —are made to wait at our borders while we have absolutely no control over people coming here from 20-odd countries in Europe?

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention because he has hit the nail on the head. In the few times I have had the misfortune to go abroad, whenever I come back into this country, I always try to do so without coming through the European Union section. I have been told several times that a British passport holder has no choice and has to go underneath the blue flag with the yellow stars. I just think it is a huge shame that our country has come to that.

The Minister gave the game away early on when he had difficulty responding to my perfectly reasonable request that Her Majesty’s Government undertake a comprehensive audit of the costs and benefits of our membership of this European club. I would have thought that everyone would be in favour of such an audit. After all, if the argument for being in the European Union is so strong, why not get the evidence together and put it to the British people? Those who feel strongly that the time has come to leave the Union would also like to see the facts and figures presented. I perfectly understand that it is going to be apples and pears, and that some things are not perfectly calculable, but Her Majesty’s Government should at least make some kind of effort to tell the British people why it is so important for us to remain in the EU. As far as my constituents and I can see, the membership subscription is now too high, we have no effective control over our borders with the EU, and business and other institutions in our country are being strangled more and more, month by month, by the red tape emanating from Brussels. It is time that it stopped.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

Of course the Chinese are interested in trading with the EU bloc, because it is a big economic entity. Were we outside the EU, however, China would also be interested in trading with us. As for the idea that if we left the EU we would lose 3 million jobs, that has never been proved by the Labour party, and it is misleading to tell the British people that so many jobs are tied to our membership of the European Union.

[Andrew Percy]

I cannot get away from my old job as a teacher. I want to help to disabuse the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) of a couple of assumptions. Does my hon. Friend agree that businesses are not buying British goods just because we are in the European Union? The French are not buying goods from this country out of the goodness of their hearts; they are doing it because they make hard-headed business decisions, and they will continue to buy things from this country whether we are in the European Union or outside it. It is extremely likely that if we were outside it, we would continue to have a free trade agreement with them.

[Mr Hollobone]

The point is that if we left the European Union, we would continue to trade with the European Union. The idea that, if we tore up our membership slip, suddenly no one would talk to us or trade with us any more is nonsense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Main]

From the hon. Lady’s rather tetchy remarks, I gather that most of her right hon. and hon. colleagues are off somewhere else debating more pressing matters, but this is being debated now and unlike her I think it is crucial that we debate it clearly. If we are game enough tonight to let people have a little sniff of the freedom of choosing, it could be the first time that many of them have a chance to hear the arguments for and against staying in the European Union.

[Andrew Percy]

On the comments of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) about Labour Members wanting to discuss more important issues, perhaps she would like to comment on why the Opposition have chosen the subject of forests, rather than the NHS, for tomorrow’s Opposition day debate.

[Mrs Main]

That was not quite on the subject of the debate, but I take my hon. Friend’s point.

Opposition Members could have had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and I believe that my party and other hon. Members here felt that the people should have had a say, but they did not. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) advocated quite strongly having a debate on the in or out issue; I do not feel that the treaty’s ratification negates that aspiration. I am sure that he would make a very robust defence for having an “in” vote, whereas other Members on the Government side who have concerns about it would make a robust argument for an “out” vote. That said, I am fed up with hearing constantly the mantra that now is not the time. It is never the time; it has not been the time for the past 19 years. When will be the time? The Bill offers us the opportunity to have a little hook on which to hang the possibility—that is all—that at some time in the future, if the people were unhappy about the relationship with Europe, they could say so.

I do not know how the people of St Albans or Cheltenham would vote or how the country would vote on this issue. I could be surprised and find that they wholly endorse our position within Europe, in which case any future Government could go forward with a robust mandate for referendum locks on transfers of power within treaties, because that would not necessarily mean that people want to give away more powers. People might say that they are happy with exactly the level of power that has been given away but that they do not want to give away any more. They might say yes to staying in but no to further transfers of power. That is why I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset: I think that one can be in that position. Indeed, that is the position we are in now, because we are not taking a vote on this—we are staying put but saying that no more powers should be transferred.

I would like the good people of this country to have a say, because they do air their concerns when one talks to them in supermarkets, pubs and cafés. They air their concerns when they hear about some of the nonsense legislation we have to put up with and when they hear that we cannot do anything about some issue because it is a result of EU legislation. I think they would like a say, but that does not mean that they cannot be persuaded. I say to hon. Members, “Give us the chance to put the argument to the people and let them decide. Don’t be frightened of giving them the chance to make a decision because you think they’ll make the wrong decision. It’s their country and we’re here to represent their views.” I do not believe in not asking them their views. If we can have a referendum on the alternative vote, which was never raised on the doorstep prior to its being raised in the House and which was not being advocated by a single party in the House, we should be able to have a referendum on something that was raised on the doorstep and on which some parties stood as a sole issue—Europe. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) that the Opposition Benches are empty because Opposition Members are not interested; I believe they are empty because they have been told to go off and play away at something different. It is the complacency demonstrated by those empty Benches that has led us to where we are.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough for his ingenuity in getting the new clause debated on the Floor of the House tonight. I am sorry that the Whips and other hon. Members feel they have been kept here tonight because the usual suspects are making a noise and a row about Europe. But if we did not, I believe our constituents would say to us, “Don’t ever say to me that you’re unhappy about Europe, because when there was a chance for you to give us a say—at some point in the future not yet decided—you shut down that avenue, because you could.” Tonight, I do not believe that avenue should be shut down. I believe it is the fear of knowing the answer that is shutting it down, not any logical reason.