Britain's Place in the World

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

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

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way in just a minute.

There would be obvious consequences for our public services, for businesses, for food and environmental standards and for workers’ rights. I know that for some Members that has always been the key purpose of Brexit, but it would be profound, because we would move away from a European-style economy with a level playing field underpinned by strong rights and protections, to a different economic model based on deregulation, low tax and low standards. In short, we would end up with an arm’s length relationship with the EU and would be hand in hand with the United States. That is not something that the Opposition will ever countenance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

Let me draw on my experience and answer that. It is perfectly true that we want to collaborate and co-operate around the world on issues that are important to us, including modern slavery. I have paid tribute in the past, and do so again, to the previous Prime Minister for what she did on modern slavery. She took it forward and put serious legislation before the House that made a real difference, not only in this country but around the world. But the most intense work that we do, with the best arrangements, is with the EU. On counter-terrorism, we have arrangements in place across the world—of course we do—but the best and the most intense are with the EU by a country mile.

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree with that and it chimes with what I was saying.

I think there was a second part of the challenge that was put to me that I have not yet addressed, which is: surely our future lies elsewhere other than trading with the EU. I do not accept that. What is this argument? Is it that, somehow, not trading with the countries that we trade most with—[Interruption.] Perhaps if I can finish, the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) can come straight back in. Through EU trade arrangements, we have access to another 67 countries, so the best part of 100 countries are available to us through EU membership, because of the trade deals that the EU has done. So we have the original 27—[Interruption.] Just let me finish the point, and then Members can shout at me—[Interruption.] I am asked, “why wait?” It might be worth waiting. We deal directly with 27 countries as a result of the customs union and the single market in a most effective way, and every business in the country that trades with Europe says that relations are excellent. Through our EU membership, we have another 67 countries that we deal with on EU trade agreements. That is nearly half the world. So this argument that somehow there is a brilliant tomorrow out there that has nothing to do with the brilliant arrangements that we already have in place is something that I have never seen evidenced. In fact, I looked through the Government’s impact assessments—when we were finally allowed to see them—for evidence that these new trade agreements would make up for all the loss, but it was not there. The Government’s own assessments said that we will be worse off as a result of leaving the customs union.

[Mrs Main]

I am sorry for missing the very beginning of the debate, but I had a meeting with the aviation Minister.

I want to go back to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s point about the proposed deal being very bad for workers’ rights and so on. I completely accept that that is Labour’s point of view and that the Labour party thinks there should be a referendum on the deal. If it were put to a referendum and the public voted for the deal—even though Labour Members feel that it is not the deal they would like—and then there were to be a Labour Government, would they implement that deal? There will be a huge amount of legislation with any deal, and it is important to know that a Labour Government would deliver the deal even if they disagreed with it.

[Keir Starmer]

Let me be clear about my position. If we go down the road of having a referendum, I think that it must be between a negotiated deal and remain. When I say “negotiated deal”, I mean one that the EU would actually sign off, because I do not think it is fair to people to offer an option to leave that is not a proper option. I would go further. I would advocate that this House actually passed the implementation legislation, subject to a coming-into-force date or something like that, to show that it could be done straightaway. We would have to show that the deal had been secured with the EU and could therefore be delivered, and also that we had already put in place the means to deliver it in this place so that we could actually resolve this situation—one way or the other—within a short period of time. I now think that that is the only way to break the impasse.

I am now going to make some progress because I have taken a lot of interventions. I have outlined Labour’s approach, and it is our approach because we believe in international co-operation, upholding international law, and that we need to work alongside our closest and most important allies. Let me take just one example of that: climate change. I listened very carefully to what the Secretary of State said. This Queen’s Speech has 22 Bills—yet what was there on climate change? One mention, in the final paragraph. The climate emergency should be the issue around which our politics evolves and revolves. It is the foreign policy challenge of our time and the defining issue of global security. It should be the focus of the UK’s diplomatic and development efforts, and it, not Brexit, should have been the centrepiece of this Queen’s Speech. The fact that it got just one mention is a measure of the Government’s lack of leadership on this central issue.

This Queen’s Speech was entirely unnecessary. It is packed with Bills that the Government know are never going to get passed. It fails to recognise—let alone tackle—any of the huge challenges we face, and shows that the Government are oblivious to the need for radical change. Frankly, it is the weakest defence imaginable for the decision to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, which was unlawful and obviously unnecessary.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I am proud that this Government are ending the postcode lottery and ensuring fairer funding for our schools, which I have led on in this place. I know that many Members across the House were looking for a fairer funding formula, and we have got it in this Queen’s Speech. The schools in my constituency will hugely welcome this injection of funds. St Albans schools will now see an increase in funding above the new minimum levels of per pupil funding. The average amount in St Albans will be £5,161 per secondary school pupil and £4,123 per primary school pupil. I welcome that.

I was also pleased to hear the Prime Minister say yesterday in response to my intervention that this Government are committed to protecting parental choice and respecting diversity within our education system. That includes private schools. It is worth noting that our country welcomes 55,280 overseas students as of January 2019. I welcome the announcement that those students can now stay for two years after graduation, because it means that they can contribute to our economy. Many foreign young people also attend our excellent private schools. Private schools generate billions of pounds for the UK economy, support thousands of jobs and contribute significantly to tax revenues. Trashing that, as the Labour party wants to do, is wrong. I have in my constituency what is believed to be the oldest private school—St Albans School—and I am meeting parents and the headteacher of St Albans High School for Girls this Friday. They are extremely worried about this act of vandalism, and many people have asked me, “Which charity will be next on the hit-list?” We need to think about that.

I am pleased that, by March 2021, the local growth fund will have invested £12 billion in projects to boost jobs and growth across England. The fund has made projects such as the Hertfordshire enterprise zone possible, creating 8,000 new jobs. However, I will still be pressing for a review of business rates, because the current model based on property values is not fit for the modern business economy. It also allows too many online retailers to escape paying their way, which is wrong.

The Environment Bill is a flagship policy for this Government, and I welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech. In St Albans, like in many areas across the country, we have air quality management areas, including one at the Peahen junction. These polluted areas have been subject to this designation for years, and it is time we had an audit of where these areas are and how long they have had this designation. Simply recording the pollution with no obligation on local authorities to deal with the problem and eradicate the pollution is not good enough. We need to know the extent of the problem.

I will be pressing for the inclusion of noise pollution in the Environment Bill, as it seems to be overlooked by many of those campaigning for our environment. I missed the first part of the debate because I was meeting the aviation Minister. My constituency has big problems with noise pollution from Luton airport, and I was pleased to hear that the aviation Minister will be looking into that matter. Noise pollution, whether from roads or flights, blights lives.

Today’s debate is about our place in the world. As the only major country that is simultaneously meeting the NATO target of spending 2% of our GDP on defence and the UN target of spending 0.7% of our gross national income on international development, we hold our heads high in the world. Bangladesh, in which I take a particular interest, received £190 million in development funds from the UK in 2018. I was pleased that the Secretary of State announced in September an extra £87 million for the Rohingya, which is truly welcomed by the people languishing in those camps as a result of persecution.

A lot of funding from DFID goes to democracy strengthening, including in Bangladesh, which is a young country; it is nearly its 50th anniversary. Emerging countries must learn that if faith is lost in the democratic process, through dodgy elections or broken promises, the whole future of electoral participation will be lost.

It is worth noting that many people have said, “Well, the last referendum has not been delivered”, which prompts the question why anyone would want to participate fully in another referendum. I am pleased that the Prime Minister is willing to try to deliver on the loud voice of this country: the country voted to leave. No one can argue that the 2016 referendum was poorly interacted with; it was a huge exercise in democracy, with 33.5 million people voting, and many have told me that they voted for the first time. It was a democratic instruction to the Government of the day. This was not about political allegiances; it crossed political divides. Since then, this House has failed them. We have retreated to our political corners, and that is not good. Political posturing means that this House is putting party before country now and refusing to back a deal, with some in this House doing so without even seeing it.

Even worse than this is that we now have a party trashing the concept of democracy by threatening to ignore the democratic mandate, and actually overturn and revoke it. That position has been described by the leader of the Greens, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), as

“arrogant, self-indulgent, cynical and very dangerous”.

Hear, hear. If we cannot deliver on what the British people have said, why will anyone ever trust any of us again? The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who leads the Liberal Democrats, said in 2008 that they were being gagged when they wanted an in/out referendum. Now she likes to hold the title of “Democrats” in her party name, but any party that refuses to acknowledge and try to carry out the direct democratic mandate of the people should lose the right to call themselves democrats. If the PM comes back with a deal, we all owe it to the 33 million voters to think very long and hard about how we will vote. Narrow party politics does not have a place in this decision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the many speakers who have not followed the early trend of continuing the long-running saga of “Carry On Brexit” but have really contributed to this debate on Britain’s role in the world. I am grateful to them for having shone light on so many aspects of it.

I want to touch on our place in a wider and changing world, to which there are several ingredients we need to be aware of. The first is that America is different from what it was. Its unremitted focus on making America great has reduced its previous role as a liberalising influence in the world, spreading democracy. Instead we see it leaving difficult, long-term situations and often leaving a vacuum for wildly unsuccessful regimes— but it remains our essential partner for so much in the world.

Then there is China, using its size, muscle, foreign exchange reserves and buying clout to shape its growing power around the world, with ambitions to lead and dominate. We will need continued engagement and principled disagreement in equal measure in our relationship with China. While these two giants wrestle like York and Lancaster or Rome and Carthage in times past, the rest of the world does not want to take sides. As Apple has found, being neutral is not always easy, and our role is surely to be close to both, even when we wish to criticise.

Then there is the EU, still the world’s largest trading bloc. It will remain our single largest trading partner for a long time to come and a key partner for security and much more besides. As we divorce, we must never forget this. Then there is Asia, more secure, more democratic and with a much larger middle class than ever before: consumers for our goods, services, education, health, innovation and technology. We should surely be focusing more of our resource, students and thinking on how we can work with Asia.

The Commonwealth, often the underappreciated “C” in FCO, is a powerful network for good, interconnectivity and mobilising for great causes, whether tackling malaria, eye treatment or girls’ education. I worry, however, about Her Majesty’s Opposition’s attitude to the Commonwealth. This is not something modern. When William Hague took over as Foreign Secretary in 2010, he was the first Foreign Secretary to visit Australia for 13 years and the first to visit New Zealand for 30. We must never take either the Five Eyes intelligence arrangements or the Commonwealth relationships for granted.

Overall, we face a world that is richer, more aware and more fractious. There are more economic migrants than ever before, which is raising issues not even seen after the displacements of two world wars. For the first time since 1989, when the Berlin wall came down, the world has seen the democracy index go to negative. We must work to change that.

[Mrs Main]

On the democracy index, does my hon. Friend share my concern about how negative it is to pledge a referendum and then just ask for another referendum, not having delivered on the first? Why should people participate in democratic processes when they are ignored?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the case of a direct act of democracy like a referendum, it is incredibly important to accept the result.

That brings me to a handful of suggestions for the Government. We need, first, an umbrella or co-ordinating role for the Foreign Office, with independent International Trade and International Development Departments, but with a Foreign Secretary who is above them all, with £14 billion-worth of development in one pocket and free trade agreements and market access relations in the other. We need a new democracy fund—no doubt financed largely by the International Development Department—to help us to work with partners across the world. Those with our democratic values are much less likely to be in conflict with each other.

We need, as the Prime Minister said, to step up our environmental leadership. The 2020 UN climate change conference in Glasgow—I do not like using the term “COP26”, which sounds like a futuristic police state drama—will give us an opportunity to demonstrate how we can work with the rest of the world on those incredibly important issues.

We need to ensure that our prosperity fund is not just about making partner nations prosperous, but about using our innovation to find creative solutions to problems such as plastic on beaches across Asia, which is not only bad for the environment but bad for the tourism industries and economies of those countries.

We must recognise the value of our armed forces. Whether they are peacekeeping or fighting disease, they are always ready for conflict and always available to help to train personnel. That is one of the things that make us stand out in the world. We also have 25 trade envoys, an innovation brought in by the former Prime Minister David Cameron. I think I am the longest-serving trade envoy in the House of Commons: next month it will be eight years since I was appointed. What this shows more than anything else is that in the business of business, relationships do matter. Ministers come and Ministers go, but trade envoys can be there for a long time, and that can be valuable.

Then there is the issue of our relationship with Europe. It seems to me, quite simply, that we must resolve what that is going to be, and then focus on how we can do more across the world. I should particularly like the Government to think more about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and what more we can do with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The same applies to other continents with which I am less involved, such as Latin America and Africa.

The Prime Minister’s Queen’s Speech called for the UK to play a major role in global affairs, with multilateral diplomacy, trade engagement, and sustainable policies that are right for our planet in this age. We must recognise that the world needs and wants our experience and skills, and our reputation for quality. That is why, for example, Cambridge Assessments examines more than 1 million people every year in China. It is why Prudential has more than 270,000 agents offering health insurance to people in Indonesia. It is why there is British design in nearly every major airport in the world, and it is why half the businesses that accompanied the previous Prime Minister on a trip to China—I was with her—had not existed five years earlier. They were innovative, they were about tech, and the world wants them. The opportunity is there, and we must seize it.