EU Referendum Leaflet

Debate between Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Paul Scully

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Trevelyan]

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman anticipates my words.

On the numbers, there is real cash—real money—involved in selling and buying goods. I am not willing to brook the scaremongering message that businesses that sell us their products—all £67 billion of them—will want to stop doing so. It is said that the EU creates jobs and makes us money. None of that is true. The reality is that hard-working businessmen put their houses on the line to set up a business and employ people. They make a great product that other people want to buy. That is how jobs are created and how business and growth happen. It has nothing to do with the EU. It is about people buying and selling goods. It is as old as the hills and will continue.

British car drivers will still want to buy BMWs and Mercedes, and I have no doubt that the Germans will still want to sell them to us. We will be in what is described as a free trade area, which goes from Iceland through to Turkey. The risk of dramatic and terrifying tariffs is not a real risk. That is not what can happen under WTO rules within a free trade area.

The leaflet is frustrating. Not only is it biased, but it is unable to explain the reality of what trade means and how it might work, for better or worse, if we were to vote to leave on 23 June. At best, it is simply scurrilous. One of the real problems with the message about exports being key is that only about 5% or 6% of our businesses, which are a very important part of our UK trade, actually export to the EU. In my constituency in north Northumberland, I have a large number of small businesses, very few of whom export at all. They mostly sell their goods to other UK citizens. Of those who do export, they export to all corners of the globe, not only to the EU. In fact, thanks to the Emirates airline that set up a Newcastle to Dubai route four years ago, many now trade in the middle east in a whole new world. We have opened up dramatic new markets thanks to one aeroplane that goes once a day. It has been a fascinating thing to see. The EU is not the be-all and end-all of trade.

[Paul Scully]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Emirates airline is a really good example of a Dubai-based airline benefiting from the European open skies policy, despite, funnily enough, not being based in the EU?

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I agree entirely. The EU seems to have a propensity to believe that its status and existence is vital to everything else, but I am very pleased that business people around the world continue to override that and do what businesses do: create great new products and provide services that the whole world can reach and make use of.

My postbag has been heavily weighted by the views of businesses—before the leaflet arrived, but even more so after it arrived—overwhelmingly saying that being part of the EU has been hugely onerous, often adding enormous and unnecessary regulations that are not relevant or necessary because they do not trade in the EU. They add to costs, reduce productivity and often create frustrations in the day-to-day life of the businesses. Farmers, mackerel smokers, drone engineers and pastry producers are under more and more pressure from the EU, which has brought them unbelievable packaging regulations—and the weight of extra costs—that they would not need if we were not in the EU. They could trade with UK businesses and overseas global traders under a set of regulations that were sensible and financially viable, which would help their productivity to grow. If they continued to trade within the EU, no doubt they would be perfectly comfortable to meet whatever packaging and other requirements were needed for those markets.

In conclusion, the thing I found most frustrating about the leaflet—other than the fact that it was deeply depressing, presented only one side of the argument and managed to skew information in a way that anyone sitting an A-level would be chastised for because they were not presenting the facts as they should—was that £9.3 million is a lot of money in anyone’s book. I currently do a great deal of work with military charities. Combat Stress has been struggling to persuade the Chancellor to maintain funding for the incredibly important veterans services it provides. It received £6.3 million from the Government in 2014, but that was brought down to £4.6 million last year, and the charity is fighting to maintain that level for this year. I consider it wholly unacceptable, as do many of my constituents, that the Government have chosen to spend £9.3 million on this leaflet rather than finding one of the many ways to spend it to support those who put themselves in harm’s way to protect our nation. To suggest that war and genocide are the likely outcomes of voting to leave is insulting to our soldiers, sailors and airmen, and to every member of the British population who had to read such rubbish. I am sad for those yet to receive the leaflet who will do shortly.