EU Referendum Leaflet

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

What can I say to that? I thank my hon. Friend.

The total cost of the leaflet and the website and marketing that go with it is £9.3 million of taxpayers’ money. On top of that, the Treasury is publishing documents and the Government continue to have propaganda at the top of every gov.uk web page. At least that is not being posted to every house in hard copy at the expense of the resident receiving it.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I actually asked what the budget was for the entire campaign that the Government are conducting, and I was told that it was absorbed within other costs. That surely cannot be the case, and it certainly was not announced in the Budget.

[Paul Scully]

What worries me most about that answer is that the Treasury is projecting figures to 2030, but it cannot answer questions about Budgets now. That is of concern to me. Some colleagues have encouraged voters to return their leaflets to No. 10, but since that would mean even more cost to the taxpayer if they did it by freepost, I have not followed that line myself.

As might have been predicted, the publication of the leaflet has not been universally welcomed. Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance, said:

“This is a disgraceful abuse of taxpayers’ money. When cash is scarce and budgets are tight, politicians should not be wasting nearly £10 million of our cash on political propaganda.

The country is having an important debate about its relationship with the EU and it is essential that it is held on a level playing field.”

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[Paul Scully]

I really hope that we do not get to that. All Conservative Members in the 2015 intake, no matter what side of the debate we stand on, have signed a letter to say that, come 24 June, we will come together and abide by the result, because we have a Government to support, a country to help to run and difficult decisions to continue to make. It is important that we come together. We do not want anything to push people towards a sense of unfair treatment on one side or another. My hon. Friend makes a good point.

The Five Presidents’ report shows the direction of travel, should we vote to remain. It sets out plans for fiscal and political union, further pooling of decision making on national budgets and harmonisation of insolvency law, company law, property rights and social security systems. It makes it clear that those plans are to be pursued as single market measures applying to all 28 states. The Governor of the Bank of England admits there are risks of remaining in the European Union, in particular in relation to the development of the euro area. We have been roped into bail-out packages before, despite assurances that that would no longer happen. The latest guarantee, I am afraid, is no better. The Financial Times reports that it has seen the German draft White Paper pushing for progress towards a European army. That was due to emerge in June but is now being held back until July. Make no mistake: should we vote to remain, the European club will not be the same as the one we are already in for long.

The EU budget relentlessly increases. Only last month, Jean-Claude Juncker told my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) that he did not have to answer to her when she asked him what he was doing to bear down on the EU budget at a time when member states were having to bear down on budgets. That is not the answer of a man who cares much about greater accountability; that is the view of a man who wants to be left alone to get on with the project without interference from irritating ingrates.

Voting to stay in is not the same as voting to stay put. Despite the leaflet having positive headlines on each page, the body of the text suggests, in a number of ways, that the only way is Europe and that we are stuffed if we leave. Some are implied. For example, it suggests that many jobs might be lost, via the dubious claim that 3 million jobs are linked to the EU—a link described by the academic on whose study that figure was based as “pure Goebbels”. That link, by the way, first came about in around 2000 as a reason for joining the eurozone.

Some claims are more direct but simplistic and with little merit, such as the EU abolishing roaming charges. I can either wait until next year to use my EE phone in the EU at the same rate as I pay in the UK, or I can use my other phone, which is on the Three network, to travel today to EU countries, as well as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Macau, New Zealand, Norway, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and the USA, with absolutely no roaming charges. I do not have to wait for the EU to catch up with me.

That is another way in which the free market is far more agile than an unwieldy 1950s political project that is representing a smaller proportion of global trade over time as the rest of the world overtakes, despite the number of EU states tripling since we first joined. The economy of every continent has grown over the past decade except that of Antarctica and that of Europe. It is baffling that we should shackle ourselves to a political project with a limited vision to continue being a regional power, rather than looking further and using our attributes to be a global trading nation. Why are we paying to be a member of the world’s only stagnant customs union?

The leaflet claims that, as the UK is not part of the EU’s border-free zone, we control our own borders. We can certainly check passports at our border, and we can refuse entry to those without any valid identity documents. However, that is not the same as saying that we can refuse entry to anyone from other EU countries if they have valid documents, and it is certainly not the same as saying that we can control immigration.

[Mrs Main]

Following a recent answer to a question I asked on how many people are turned away from this country, it seems that 20 times more applicants from non-EU countries are turned away than those from EU countries. That shows that, unless people are particularly criminal outside the EU, we have only cursory checks and a cursory ability to stop people from EU countries coming in.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. My father was born in Burma. I have seen the good side of immigration, but mass uncontrolled immigration has a major effect on our infrastructure and public services—the NHS, housing and school places. We cannot tackle that effectively with one arm tied behind our back. Even the Treasury report uses the assumption that the Government will fail in their policy commitment to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, not just this year, but every year until 2030.

That is not the platform on which I stood last year, when immigration was such a huge issue on the doorstep in Sutton and Cheam, as it was around many parts of the country. The equivalent of the population of a city the size of Newcastle comes to the UK from the EU each year. Apart from the obvious lack of ability to control those numbers, those people join the queue in front of migrants from outside the EU who may have more suitable qualifications and skills that we need or desire in this country.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) mentioned the leaflets produced for the original 1975 referendum. Page 11 of one of those leaflets claimed:

“No important new policy can be decided in Brussels or anywhere else without the consent of a British Minister answerable to a British Government and British Parliament.”

Well, something has changed over the last few years, has it not? The reality 41 years later is that 65% of our laws, regulations and directives come from Brussels. The emergency brake on migration benefits is not applied by the UK; it is applied by Brussels. The red card system that is held up as a meaningful renegotiation success actually raises the bar for vetoing EU legislation, compared with the current orange card under the Lisbon treaty. Contributions to eurozone bail-outs are still a threat, despite assurances to the contrary, as we have seen before. We are contributing financially towards Turkey’s pre-accession assistance, despite assurances that it will not be a member any time soon.

Enough is enough. We have the fifth largest economy. We have the fourth largest army. We speak the language of business. We have the ideal geographic location for world trade, and we have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Yes, there are risks on either side, but I am confident that we are big enough, bold enough and entrepreneurial enough as a nation to manage that risk and to thrive if we vote to leave.

That vote to leave is a vote to take control, to bring decision making back to accountable people here in the UK and to decide how we spend up to £350 million per week here in the UK on the NHS, schools, housing and other vital services. It is that positive vision that I will be sharing with people. I perfectly understand the anger and frustration of the petitioners, who see their money—taxpayers’ money, not Government money—spent on propaganda. Even some remainers are quietly dismayed and uncomfortable at that move. I hope that the circling establishment, led by the Government, will cut the hyperbole and exaggerated claims.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The Government document is a disgrace. It is morally wrong, it is financially wrong and I think that it will backfire on them politically, which is the only good news in this otherwise rather sad debate. We should not need to do this. Any British democratic Government should understand that we want to have fair elections and referendums, and that we have a long tradition of not taking taxpayers’ money to spend in promotion of party political purposes or other political purposes during an election or referendum. In my experience, no Government have ever taken taxpayers’ money close to an election to propagandise for party policies. Nor should this Government be taking money from the many taxpayers who wish to leave the European Union in order to spend it on propaganda to try to thwart their wishes.

I was proud to stand in the general election on a platform of offering people a free choice and a free vote, after all these years when we have had no right to such a thing, and it is a great pity that it is being sullied by taking money from taxpayers and spending it in the distorting way that others have already mentioned.

I know that many other colleagues wish to speak, so I will concentrate on just two matters. This leaflet is extremely misleading and part of a very misleading campaign that is based on fear and misinformation about our relationship with the EU and what the EU is doing to us. The two claims in the leaflet that I wish to highlight go together in some ways. The leaflet says that we now have “a special status” and that often we can get our own way as a result of that special status. So I thought I would look at three crucial areas and ask, “Do we have a special status and are we getting our way?” Those areas are our right to choose our own taxes; our right to control our own borders; and our right to decide what benefits to give to which people who live in our community. All previous Governments who have negotiated treaties have always solemnly promised Parliament that we still had complete control over what taxes we raised, complete control over what benefits we chose to spend our money on and complete control over our borders. I am afraid, however, that none of those things is true.

Let us take part of the negotiation—this special status. We were told that, as a result of the negotiation, changes would be made to the VAT system. It is clearly the settled will of this Parliament that the tampon tax should be abolished, and it is clearly illegal under European law to do so. It is also clear that last summer our European Union Commission took our Government to court and successfully prosecuted them for daring to set the VAT rate on green products—insulation, all sorts of boiler controls and other things that promote the green agenda—at 5% instead of at the full VAT rate, and of course the Commission successfully won that court case. So our Government are now under a legal requirement of the European Court of Justice to put our VAT up to 20%, although of course they have not done so before the referendum because it would be embarrassing and tedious for them to do so.

We were then told that this new special status means that that is going to change, so that we will not have to put up our VAT on green products and we will be able to get rid of the VAT on tampons. So I looked at the document that the EU has now issued following the negotiation to see whether that is indeed the case.

The first thing to note is that the consultation that the EU is holding on VAT reform is mainly about centralising and taking more powers to Brussels over VAT, not giving more powers to member states. The second thing to note is that the document makes absolutely no reference whatever to the EU-UK agreement, or to the special status that we asked for and we were told we had got on VAT. The third thing is that, in the talismanic last couple of paragraphs about whether it might be possible to offer more freedom to member states to choose their own rates of VAT, no mention is made of the rates that we wish to remove or keep low and no guarantee is offered that there will be any legislation forthcoming. Again, the document says that it is terribly important not to have tax competition within the single market and very important to have a central policy that has political support.

One has to read that document to understand that there is absolutely no agreement on special status and no agreement at all that the UK can choose its own VAT rates. That is a broken promise. Also, we are told by the Treasury that we will lose a series of court cases on corporation tax again in this Parliament. We lost many such cases in the last Parliament and it cost £7 billion of revenue, which the British Parliament wished to raise on corporations but had to give back, and the Treasury forecast is that we will lose another £7 billion in this Parliament in losing court cases in the ECJ. The Treasury has never suggested that this new special status will prevent that. Therefore, it is quite obvious that we cannot raise taxes from companies where we want to and we cannot cut taxes on consumers where we want to, and that we have no “special status”.

If one then asks, “Is there a special status on borders?” the answer is, “No, of course, there isn’t.” We are governed by the freedom-of-movement provisions and that means we have to allow in anyone who can get a job or who is seeking work under the provisions of the freedom-of-movement clauses. The Government, who made a solemn promise to the electors to reduce the number of migrants coming into the country—so that we can catch up with the need for more school places, more GP surgeries, more hospital capacity, more roads and more houses for people—are unable to fulfil that pledge in any way, and the Treasury has now admitted that that pledge is for the birds over the five years of this Parliament and all the way out to 2030. Goodness knows why the Treasury thought it could forecast to 2030, because it cannot even forecast for this year, let alone to 2030.

[Mrs Main]

My right hon. Friend has just made a fantastic point about the lack of transparency. Does he share my concern? An independent report states that 3.5 million people are expected to come in by that time—it will probably be considerably more than that—but there is no indication to the British people where they are going to go, and it is calculated that a quarter of a million acres of extra developed land will be required to provide the housing for those people coming in.

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend is right—there is absolutely no proper provision for the very large number of people that the Treasury now admits are likely to come in. That is one of the few Treasury forecasts that I might believe. It is quite obvious that it could not forecast its own public spending, its own interest rates or anything in the recent Office for Budget Responsibility and Treasury documents. It had to make another revision again in the March Budget—it revised the forecast made in November—because it had found it difficult to grasp how the world might change between November and March. So there is this inability to forecast the economic numbers, but for once I think the Treasury may be honest in forecasting a substantial increase in migration. I suspect that the Treasury’s estimate is an underestimate because it has been constantly underestimating these figures in recent years, and it proves that we have no control over our borders and no “special status” whatsoever.

The third area is benefits. The Prime Minister made a great deal about benefits in the renegotiation; it was one of the few areas where he really pushed quite hard to get reform in the way that Britain wanted. I think both major parties campaigning in the last election wanted, for example, to no longer have to pay child benefit to children who are not resident in our country, but apparently that is something that we cannot negotiate. There is no “special status” to allow us to decide that child benefit should go to children living in our country rather than to children living elsewhere. There is some kind of fudge whereby we could pay the benefit at the level that applies in that country, which means in some cases that we will have to pay a higher level of benefit, although in other cases it means we will pay a lower level of benefit. So there is absolutely no control there.

Again, both major parties wanted amendments so that people coming here to work under the freedom-of-movement provisions would not automatically get the full range of benefits until they had been here for a bit and made some kind of contribution. We were not able to get a guarantee on that, either. There is some sort of four-year clause as a temporary expedient, but the benefits have to be phased in over the four years and the negotiating aim was not met.

On the big three things, therefore, which all independent democratic countries control through their Parliaments and Governments, Britain is unable to exert control: we cannot decide what taxes to impose; we cannot decide what benefits to spend our money on; and we cannot control our own borders. So I have to submit that the Government are completely misrepresenting the position when they say that they have negotiated a “special status”. They are completely wrong when they say that shows we can get our own way. They could not even get their own way on a very limited number of negotiating objectives at a point when they were threatening withdrawal and a referendum, so how will they ever get their way at all once the referendum is out of the way if, by any chance, the British people have not seen through this and voted to stay?

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[Dr Lewis]

The apocalypse as well. A future apocalypse, if not an immediate one. If all that is going to happen, why on earth was the Prime Minister ever willing to contemplate leaving the European Union in the first place?

[Mrs Main]

Does my right hon. Friend find it rather odd that we are so weak and pathetic that we cannot stand on our own, but are so strong that we are preventing all the other European countries from turning their arms on each other?

[Dr Lewis]

Indeed, and I will come to the question about war and peace a little further along, if I may.

It is a strange argument to suggest that out of something between 150 and 200 countries recognised at the United Nations, we, with the fifth strongest economy, are somehow deemed incapable of surviving outside the European Union. The vast majority of countries in the world do not, at least so far, belong to the 28-strong European Union network of nations. Who knows where the ambition will end? Perhaps one day half the countries in the world, or all of them, will belong to the European Union. One thing is clear, however. If countries are forced to integrate without the consent of the peoples concerned, the resultant political construct cannot possibly be run democratically.

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[Richard Drax]

I agree with the hon. Lady. It certainly seems from those who have contributed to the debate so far that people are easily manipulated, or bought, or whatever. If the allegation is one of corruption, perhaps that is a bit strong, but certainly for ex-servicemen to speak out as they did is most unusual. Generals and highly respected people who have served this country should not be politicised. They should never have been asked to write that letter on behalf of the Government. It was an absolute disgrace. I have since spoken to one of the signatories, who shall remain nameless, and I have to say that I do not think he is particularly proud of signing that letter.

Let me return to the document. Interestingly, it has seven pictures. It does not have very many pages, but it has seven pictures: a calendar; a gentleman working on a bit of engineering; a basket of food; a ship; a “UK Border” sign; a family in the kitchen, washing up the breakfast, lunch or dinner; and a family walking down the street with a baby. You could not make this up. If the argument to stay in is so strong, why are these pages not full of facts trying to persuade people to stay in? The fact is that the Government do not have sufficient facts to fill this tiny, shabby leaflet.

[Mrs Main]

Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am that there is no real image of what staying in looks like? There is absolutely no mention of the accession of Turkey. There is no mention that 70-odd million Turks will soon be able to be part of the European Union or that it is our official position to welcome and support that. We have not resiled from that and it should be in the leaflet.

[Richard Drax]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the potential mayhem that could be caused by uncontrolled immigration continuing. We have seen the evidence now: people are dying trying to cross seas to get to us. I do not blame them; if I were living in terrible conditions and I looked at my telephone and saw Dorset, I would say, “Darling, children, we’re off!” but we cannot allow uncontrolled immigration to continue. Turkey is a classic case.

Nor does the leaflet refer to the defence of our country. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, I warned that staying in the European Union would inevitably lead a Government—I suspect a socialist Government more than this one—to look at the European army, navy and air force and say, “We’ve got all these ships, planes and men and women in uniform. Why do we need 80,000 British soldiers, 12, 13 or 14 squadrons, or whatever we have, and 19 warships? We don’t need to spend billions of pounds on our defence, because we are being defended by the Europeans.” The temptation to cut our armed forces to pay for other socialist agendas will be enormous.

Let me talk about the Falklands briefly. I was serving at the time. Friends of mine in the Welsh Guards and the Scots Guards were sent down there, and some lost their lives. Where was Europe during that war? It was nowhere in sight. We stood alone again until the Americans came to our aid and provided us with equipment to pursue the war more effectively.

This is about our democracy, our decision making and—dare I say?—our royal family, whom no one has mentioned yet. Is a 28-nation bureaucracy run from the centre going to want to see little England waving its Union Jack? Is it going to want to see our royal family reminding our great country of the country we used to be? The Head of State is the Queen. They ain’t going to like that for much longer, I warn you now.

We have heard about the special status. We have also heard that the deal, if it can be called that, struck by the Prime Minister has been lodged with the United Nations. We were promised a treaty change but we do not have one. As I understand it, MEPs and the European courts can overrule the reforms that we have achieved, pathetic though they are. I fear that if we vote in and fall for this con trick, they will.

Over the page, the leaflet talks about a stronger economy and how the EU is creating all these marvellous jobs, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) has said, it is not the EU that does that, but the brave entrepreneurs who go out there and put their houses at risk to build and generate jobs. They then trade with other nations, as has been done since the world began. That will not change, because the Germans, the French and everybody else will want to trade with us, as we will with them, whether we are in or out.

We need strong economic partners to trade with. What if they are all basket cases? What if we simply cannot trade with Italy, Greece or Portugal because they are bust because they are trapped in the euro? The nature of those countries—they enjoy the sun and the wine—means that they do not make cars quite as effectively as the Germans. They make beautiful wine and enjoy life. They are different. The euro does not respect that. In the past, we would go and have amazingly cheap holidays and restore their economies. That can no longer happen, and it is to their detriment.

The leaflet talks about healthcare. We know that the pressures on the NHS are enormous. The many millions who come here are free to use it. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned the trade deals. What happens if we leave? It says that:

“The Government judges it could result in 10 years or more of uncertainty as the UK unpicks our relationship with the EU and renegotiates new arrangements with the EU and over 50 other countries around the world.”

So what? We can do it, and we will be in the driving seat. We are told that Canada has taken nine years to negotiate with the EU. I challenge anyone in this room to negotiate anything with 28 people from different backgrounds and come to a solution. It takes a long time.

Regrettably, I think this document is a sham, a disgrace and a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. I am ashamed—the hon. Member for Vauxhall used that word, and I will too. I thought better of the in campaign. We are going to see more fear sprayed around the country in the ensuing days.

I will end on this note. I was enjoying a ride with a taxi driver the other day. When he learned what I did—to my relief, he did not press the ejector button at that point—he said, “Look, guv; in or out?” I said, “What do you think?” He said, “Just the very whiff of having our country back makes me feel proud.”