EU-UK Summit

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ms Creasy]

As somebody who still remembers a powerful school trip to Ypres to look at the first world war sites, I know that the dramatic decline in school trips to Europe is harming our children’s education. I am sure the Minister will want to refer to that.

The public are living in the world we are in now, which is why they want us to look at the deal. They recognise that Europe now has the highest employment rate since 2005, whereas elsewhere the second-term Trump Administration have brought tariffs and turmoil, just 121 days in; Putin has now invaded Ukraine itself; there is a horrific conflict in the middle east; and China and Iran now figure in our national security concerns, too. And as ever, technology overruns us all. There are now 159 million TikTok users in Europe, and it is predicted that within three years some 15% of our day-to-day decisions will be made by artificial intelligence. All of us will probably become redundant; I shall leave it to Conservative Members to decide whether that is a good or bad thing. Everybody else has moved on. It is time that we in this House do, too.

In that spirit, let me fail to heed my own words and turn to perhaps one of the most damaging aspects of the Brexit debate. I welcome the Minister’s hard work and the deal that has been struck as a testament to the ambitions of the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the concept of cakeism. It is truly incredible to see that, far from it being impossible to be pro cake and pro eating it, the new bespoke deal delivers for the UK in many ways that many people had suggested were not possible.

I put on the record my support for the formal security and defence partnership, with the promise of exploring participation in a new defence fund while retaining our red line about not participating in the single market. I will, of course, take an intervention from any Conservative Member who wishes to apologise for the deliberate refusal of the previous Government to put anything about foreign policy or defence co-operation into the previous deal—a decision that has left us uniquely exposed.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

As the Government say, NATO is the cornerstone of our defence, and that is how we co-operate with our European partners on defence. EU defence is an add-on that has been in the minds and the ether of the EU since the Maastricht treaty, but it has never come to anything substantial.

[Ms Creasy]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will want to tell that to his constituents. Of course NATO is vital, but we are dealing with a new world. They see the aggression of President Putin and the need to stand up to address the situation in Gaza. They see the leadership being shown by our European colleagues and they wish us to be not playground generals, but grown-ups. That is exactly what the defence deal will mean.

I also welcome the proposals for co-operation on foreign aid, because that is crucial not only to tackling poverty around the world but to preventing conflict. Conflict is driving many to flee persecution, proving how aid is often our best defence against the small boats, rather than the bluster of some Conservative Members.

There has been a resolution to the risk of divergency in our carbon emissions trading schemes, which would have been a death knell for the British steel industry. Energy UK estimates that will mean around £800 million per year of payments going to our Treasury rather than to the EU. It is worth remembering that 75% of our steel exports, worth £3 billion, go to the European Union. Frankly, if we want to save British Steel, we need to save its market, which is what the resolution will do.

The talks will allow us to use e-gates at the borders. Queuing might be a national pastime, but it is not a national sport that any of us enjoy. There will be co-operation with Europol and data sharing on fingerprints, DNA and criminal records. Again, I suspect that in future years many of us will realise how criminal it was that that was not part of the original deal, which made it easier for the people who wish to do harm to our constituents to evade justice by crossing the border.

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[Ms Creasy]

That is a fair and central question. I was coming to the point that we must ensure that our young people do not bear the brunt of the obsession with isolation at the expense of influence. That is why it is right to negotiate a youth mobility scheme and to look at Erasmus. I urge the Government to ensure that the scheme prioritises apprenticeships and training opportunities, so that future generations can benefit in the way that many previous ones did by taking a job in Spain or Germany, as well as going there to study.

Ultimately, this is just the start of the process—I am very aware that “Frozen III” is due to come to cinemas soon. There will be much more detail to work out, and I am sure that the Minister will give us a timeline for when decisions will be made and when we will get that detail.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Lady allow me to intervene?

[Ms Creasy]

I was about to conclude, but I will give way.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I want to correct the hon. Lady on a matter of fact. The dispute about sand eel fishing was resolved, under the trade and co-operation agreement, by a bilateral arbitration panel. It had nothing to do with the European Court of Justice. It is a normal trading agreement. There was no involvement of the Court of Justice of the European Union. [Interruption.]

[Ms Creasy]

I can only urge the Member to go and look at the basis for the decision-making arbitration panel. I can hear the Minister champing at the bit to correct him as well.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

She has misled the Chamber!

[Ms Creasy]

“Misled” is a very serious term, and I hope the Member will withdraw it.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Would the hon. Lady like to correct the record, because what she said was incorrect? We can prove it afterwards, and she will have to correct the record afterwards if that is the case.

[Ms Creasy]

I refer to the point about the protection of The Hague and where The Hague takes its judgments from. Ultimately, the decisions were made in the Court of Arbitration. It relies on those rulings. That is part of the process. I suspect the fact that the Member has decried that speaks to the need for us all to have more time to scrutinise and do justice to this issue. I suspect that when he makes his speech, he will continue to make the argument that we do not want to work with the European Court of Justice. The truth is that his Government brought in mechanisms that used the European Court of Justice as part of their framework—[Interruption.]

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[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am grateful to be able to make a short contribution to this debate. I will not repeat everything I said in last week’s debate, but I want to make this point.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) said that we do not want to go back to the old arguments we had about Brexit at the time of the referendum and while we were negotiating the trade and co-operation agreement before we finally left, but that is exactly what the Government are doing. Who is trying to turn back the clock? Who has decided that we should rejoin the single market for food and agriproducts, having promised that we would not rejoin the single market? It is this Labour Government.

The idea that the Government should be able to wash their hands of their responsibility to voters for honouring the referendum result is an absolute absurdity. Let us remind ourselves that these are the same people who hated the idea of leaving the EU, who campaigned passionately to stay in the EU for ideological reasons, who refused to accept the referendum result, who desperately tried to pervert the referendum result or get a second referendum, and who, in their hearts, have never really accepted the referendum result.

They long to rejoin. That is the motive behind this: they know they cannot rejoin the European Union because they know the voters will not have it, so they are rejoining by stealth. That is what they are doing. They have rejoined the single market for food and agriproducts, which means we are effectively back in the European Union as far as the regulation of food and agriproducts is concerned, only we do not have a say on the new laws that will be made and imposed on all British food businesses.

[James McMurdock]

On that point, I invite the hon. Gentleman to elaborate on what he thinks it might mean that the Government scrapped the European Scrutiny Committee.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The House of Lords still has a European Affairs Committee, which held an inquiry in the run-up to the reset. There has been no inquiry into the reset by any Select Committee of the House of Commons, apart from the Business and Trade Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) are absolutely right that we need to reinstate the European Scrutiny Committee, because there will be a flow of new regulations coming out of the European Union that should be scrutinised in the proper way, as they were when we were a member of the European Union. Without that, there is no proper scrutiny in this House at all.

I will now move on briefly to the question of how bad Brexit really was as an economic event. We were told that the British economy would fall off a cliff, that the housing market would collapse, that interest rates would rocket—actually, none of those things occurred. When we left the European Union at the beginning of 2021, the dial hardly moved. Our economy was growing at roughly the same rate as other economies in the European Union.

[Rachel Blake]

I am interested in the hon. Member’s economic analysis. Does he really think that the economic consequences of Brexit could only have started in 2021, at the moment when we actually left the European Union, and not when the decision was made?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

We were told by the Office for Budget Responsibility that there might be a 4% reduction in what our GDP would otherwise have been. That has not occurred—the OBR was wrong. Our economy has continued to grow at roughly the same rate as the other EU economies. Of course, there have been adjustments because the economy has a different trading relationship with the EU. We now have a very deep and comprehensive trading relationship with the EU, as opposed to being in the single market, but there are swings and roundabouts. There have been gains in other areas. The other big advantage is that our contribution to the European Union, which used to be very substantial, pushing up to £20 billion a year, is now right down, which is a huge advantage.

Given all the exaggeration about how bad Brexit was going to be and how bad Brexit is, how seriously should we take what the Government are now saying about the huge benefits of this so-called reset?

[Anneliese Dodds]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I will give way once more, because I need to be brief.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I want to ask him specifically about goods exports—this relates to the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith). I just looked at the House of Commons Library analysis, which states:

“Goods exports to the EU exceeded £215 billion in 2017, 2018 and 2019 but have not done so in any calendar year since”—

that came out in April 2025—

“and were £177 billion in 2024”.

Our goods exports to non-EU countries have not recovered, either. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise those figures?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The Library does not say that Brexit is the cause of those declines. [Interruption.] It does not say that, and there are all sorts of factors. For example, we are closing down the North sea and exporting far less fuel. We used to import a lot of uncut diamonds and then export them to the EU, but we do not do that any more. That was worth £1 billion a year.

[Alex Ballinger]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am not giving way again. The basis for recalculating our trade statistics has changed. There is also what was known as the Rotterdam effect. The point is that our underlying economic growth is broadly the same.

In Tuesday’s statement, the Prime Minister claimed:

“The deal means that British goods that have long been off the menu in Europe can regain their true place, including shellfish”.—[Official Report, 20 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 890.]

He went on to say, and he mentioned this several times:

“Under the Conservatives’ deal, shellfish was locked out, but it can now be sold back into the market”.—[Official Report, 20 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 897.]

So what are the statistics for shellfish exports to the EU? They declined very substantially between 2019 and 2021, from 32 million tonnes to 25 million tonnes, largely because of covid, I suspect. In 2022 they declined a little bit more to 22 million tonnes. That is not off the menu —22 million tonnes of shellfish exported to the EU. They went up in 2023 to 23 million tonnes and have continued broadly at that level. They were not locked out. That is just not true.

The fact is we have a different trading relationship. Yes, the EU puts up lots of stupid and time-wasting barriers to trade, but that is because it knows this Labour Government are suckers and have fallen into this trap. The Government think they are going to get rid of all these checks. Well, under this new arrangement, we are going to have EU vets inspecting British farms and British food producers without any authority from the British Government, except through some kind of agreement.

We also know that the agrifood SPS agreement has not yet been agreed. And why has it not been agreed? There is no start date given by the Government. We have not seen the small print. There will have to be legislation, and we do not know how much we will have to pay the EU for this so-called privileged access.

It begs the question, given that shellfish was not locked out, and given that our shellfish exports to the EU remain substantially the same, what else are the Government saying about this deal that is completely untrue? I suspect that, just as they exaggerated and continue to exaggerate the disadvantages of being outside the European Union, they are also grossly exaggerating the economic advantages of this deal.

I come back to the point: if the referendum decided one thing, it was that we should no longer have our laws made in the European Union and that we should no longer have to contribute to the EU budget. Both of those commitments, which the Government made in their manifesto, have been betrayed. We have rejoined the single market in food and agriproducts, and we are going to contribute money to the European Union once again.

This will have a sting in the tail for the Government. I am afraid that all those so-called red wall seats are now vulnerable to a sense of betrayal among the voters that this Government cannot be trusted on even the most fundamental thing. I remind the Chamber again that 17.4 million people voted leave, which is a good deal more than the 9.7 million who voted Labour, giving them such an extraordinary majority on such a paltry share of the vote—less than 34%. The idea that this is a superior mandate and that the Government now have the right to overrule a referendum result is very dangerous territory. It is playing into the hands of the Reform party, which is the very thing that Labour fears.

It is vital that we have the European Scrutiny Committee back. Now that European regulation will be created and applied once again in the United Kingdom, even though we do not have any say over it, we should be able to scrutinise it properly through a proper scrutiny Committee. I would be grateful if the Minister would address that point.

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[Sam Rushworth]

Those people are clearly delighted that the situation that the hon. Gentleman previously voted for has continued. That is how international trade works: we buy things and we sell things. Supermarkets such as Asda, Morrisons, Marks and Spencer; producers such as Salmon Scotland, the British Meat Processors Association and Dairy UK; the defence sector such BAE Systems; British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Confederation of British Industry are all lining up to say this is a good deal for the economy, so I think many people are confused by Opposition Members, who have nobody backing their side of the argument. Deep down, I think they know that this is a good deal for their constituents.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

May I point out that supermarkets tend to be interested in their balance sheets and profits, and not in democracy and accountability, which this debate is really about? Can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House what concessions the EU made in this deal?

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[Sam Rushworth]

That is 100% correct. I do not think that there is any Member in this place who has not met businesses in their constituency that previously exported to Europe and heard the tales of woe as a result of the deal that the previous Government negotiated. That is why so many people are lining up to say that the deal represents a good deal for them. When my constituents voted for Brexit, they voted for two things: to be better off and to control immigration. I do not like the word “betrayal”, which has been bandied around in this debate, but in the last five years we have seen a betrayal of the promise that was made to them.

In 2010—the year that the Conservatives took office—annual asylum claims were just 18,000; barely anybody arrived in the UK by a small boat. That remained relatively constant up until Brexit—so, what happened? First, because they told people that co-operation with our friends in Europe was the problem, they pulled Britain out of the Dublin agreement, meaning that we could no longer return people to the first country where they claimed asylum. Do not take my word for it; let us hear what the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), was found to have said in a recording leaked this week:

“Because we’re out of the European Union now, we are out of the Dublin III regulations, and so we can’t any longer rely on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum. When we did check it out, just before we exited the EU transitional arrangements…we did run some checks and found that about half the people crossing the Channel had claimed asylum previously elsewhere in Europe…and therefore could have been returned.”

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Why were they not returned?

[Sam Rushworth]

I was not in the previous Conservative Government, so I cannot answer that, but it is absolutely clear that what people voted for actually got worse.

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[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the Members who secured the debate: the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) and for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice). It is a case of singing the greatest hits of the past—singing the old songs—in a beautiful duet, presaging some appalling coalition.

I pay particular tribute to the hon. Lady; I recognise her expertise and her interest in this topic. Speaking of greatest hits, she invoked Elsa in “Frozen”, and I recognise the self-identification. Of all people, her soul is spiralling in frozen fractals, but she has a warm heart underneath. Of course we do know that, at the end of that film, Elsa returned to the castle. That is the ultimate purpose of some Members speaking in this debate; they want to return to the embrace of the EU.

I honour that, and I accept that some people were not happy with the result of the referendum. I would not have been happy if it had gone the other way, and I would not have given up campaigning to leave. Nevertheless, I wish there was more honesty from the Government Benches in recognising that what is being debated here is the first step to rejoining. That is the underlying purpose, because all the arguments that have been made against the previous deal were really arguments against Brexit, and all the arguments that are being made in support of this arrangement are arguments for rejoining. As it was eloquently put by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), the case for co-operation in Europe is really a case for rejoining.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The point is, if people are prepared to compromise on dynamic alignment for food and agriproducts, what issue of principle will act as a barrier to prevent them extending that co-operation to other products or other fields of European law where they think it is ideologically convenient to do so? The only problem is that, if they think they are currying favour with the European Union by doing so, they will be disappointed, because the EU will simply ask for more concessions without making concessions of its own.

[Danny Kruger]

My hon. Friend is right. I will cite a very good article in The Spectator last week by Oliver Lewis, who was the deputy negotiator for the Brexit deal and the trade agreement. He wrote rather wearily about recognising the terms that had been agreed by the Government, because they were the terms that the previous Government continually resisted in negotiations. His point, which echoes that of my hon. Friend, was that the way the EU works is to force agreement on headline principles, which, over time, are translated into concrete policy. Where a thin end of the wedge can be driven in, as it can be with this agreement, more and more follows. That is what we should anticipate.

It is worth pointing out how thin the terms of the agreement are and how much detail remains to be worked out. We have conceded a set of principles that will allow ever closer alignment and submission to the regime that we painfully left some years ago. We see coming submission to the European Court of Justice, an agreement on rule-taking, a return to the single market in agribusiness, as my hon. Friend mentioned, and paying money into the EU budget.

Those were the explicit things that all parties in this House committed to ending when we agreed the outcome of the referendum. In 2019, both main parties agreed to abide by them, and in 2024, they agreed to abide by them and explicitly ruled out submission to the European Court of Justice, paying money and returning to the single market, all of which has now been agreed in principle by the Government. It is only a set of principles, but they are bad principles; they represent the betrayal of Brexit and of our manifestos. I will not go through the specifics, because other Members have done so very well, but I will quickly point out how thin these agreements are.

On e-gates, there will be some benefit for the Dordogne-visiting community that some of us have in our constituencies, but it is not a great achievement. Indeed, it is not even an achievement for this summer, so although I hope the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is enjoying his holiday in France, I do not think he will have benefited from the deal. He will probably have gone through an e-gate anyway, however, because there are already many e-gates that British citizens can use when going to and fro. That arrangement will still need to be negotiated, with each member state operating its own independent policy.

We have discussed food, and I will not go on about that other than to say that we have agreed to take the EU’s laws but we do not have any detail yet. Because we export so little, any benefit from a reciprocal arrangement will greatly benefit the EU at the expense of our exporters.

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[Alex Ballinger]

We have been talking in this debate about some of the advantages to British agriculture and the British fishing industry of access to the European market. Of course, it will be fantastic for the people who have been welcoming this deal, and the deal will also be very much welcomed by the many consumers in Halesowen who will see prices on their supermarket shop fall as a result of it.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

What about the extra costs of regulation?

[Alex Ballinger]

If the hon. Member wants to intervene, he may do so.

As a former military man myself, I should also talk about the benefits to defence, including access to £150 billion of defence contracts. Many defence contractors in Halesowen have been cut out from European contracts since Brexit. They are very keen to be involved in this deal.

We should also be talking about the benefits to families. The deal means lower food prices on supermarket shelves in Halesowen, which will put money back in people’s pockets. For young people who deserve more than a future limited by bad decisions of the past, the deal gives them back the right to work, study and live across 27 countries. For too long, we have closed the door for young people. This deal opens it up once again.

For those asking whether the deal undermines our independence, let me be clear: we remain in control. We are outside the single market and the customs union, and Britain makes its own laws. This is about making Brexit work—not revisiting old fights but delivering for today. While Labour delivers, the Tories and Reform continue to stand on the sidelines offering no answers and only more chaos and division. This deal does not bring us backwards; it pushes places like Halesowen forward. We are fixing what was broken by the last Government, and we are making Britain stronger, fairer and ready for the future.

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[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

It is quite extraordinary that the hon. Lady does not understand the different between a bitter concession that was forced out of the previous Government, wisely or unwisely, that we deeply resented and was time-limited to five years, and an extension of 12 years, which is at least 2.2 times worse, for something freely given away. I remember when the Labour party used to deride the common fisheries policy as an ecological and social disaster. Now it is embracing it, and so is the hon. Lady. I can only assume that she does not represent any fishermen in her constituency.

[Sarah Olney]

I am so sorry to hear about the resentment that the hon. Gentleman feels at the deal that his Government negotiated. However, he must accept that that is the basis on which the new deal has been struck. That was the starting point for the negotiation. I am sorry to hear it was so terrible, but that was the starting point.

The betrayal by those who advocated for the opportunities of Brexit did not end there. Of course, it was not just the Conservatives, but the leader of the Reform party. The public were promised that immigration would fall. Instead, it has risen to record levels. Far from the economic liberation that the Brexiteers pledged leaving the EU would bring, the OBR has estimated that barriers to trade with Europe will reduce the output of our economy by 4% over 15 years.

More than that, we know how much public opinion has shifted on this issue, as many have come to realise that the promises of the leave campaign were so detached from reality. The leave campaign promised £350 million a week to the NHS, but the truth has become painfully clear. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) gave the game away in an interview in December. Speaking about America, he said that

“it’s got cheap energy, because it ‘drill baby drills’, they’ve got lower regulations and they’ve got lower taxes.”

That is the real Brexit agenda: environmental vandalism, stripping away regulations that keep us safe and cutting taxes for the rich. I hope Members will acknowledge the extent to which that campaign misled the public.

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[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, Mr Vickers. The more that we learn about the reset, the clearer it becomes that far from being the win-win that the Prime Minister promised, it is little more than a bundle of missed opportunities wrapped in hollow rhetoric and enfeebled by untenable concessions.

The Prime Minister heralds this agreement with the EU as a monumental win, but in reality it shackles us once more to the whims of Brussels and undermines the very principles underpinning the genuinely historic decision of 17.4 million voters in 2016 to take back control. Instead of taking back control, these agreements entwine us within the jurisdiction of a foreign court. They mean we are beholden to decisions made elsewhere about the quality of British food. That is the very antithesis of taking back control. It is no wonder the Government were so reluctant to let Parliament know what the Prime Minister was planning to concede.

We support efforts to reduce unnecessary trade barriers that clearly damage both sides and to reach an agreement based on mutual recognition between partners that respect each other and their sovereignty, and that work together for mutual benefit. Instead, we are presented with a one-sided deal that sees us forgo rights that are enjoyed by virtually every other independent country in order to sign up to EU schemes on EU terms.

Ahead of the summit, we set out five tests against which we would judge whether the Government’s deal actually respected the referendum result, as they promised. There obviously could be no return to free movement, no new payments to the EU, no loss of our fishing rights, no compromise on NATO’s primacy in European defence, and no dynamic alignment with EU rules. From the details published so far, it is hard to see how the agreement can possibly meet all five of those vital tests.

On the first test, there is little detail about the youth mobility scheme. We support limited youth mobility schemes with effective controls—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”]— as we agreed in government with countries such as Australia and Canada, but they have to be done right and they need controls. Without controls they could become the back door to free movement.

I hope the Minister will be able to help in his summing up, because the briefings from the Government and the European Union are worrying. It is clear that the two sides have different ideas as to what is on the table, and the common understanding does absolutely nothing to clear up that ambiguity.

Will the Minister fill in some of those gaps? Will participating EU nationals have to pay the NHS surcharge, or will British taxpayers be left to foot the bill? Will EU students pay the overseas rate or the home student rate for higher education tuition fees? If the latter, will the Government recompense universities for the lost income? Crucially, what does he expect the cap on those numbers to be? Does he expect the number of EU participants to be around the 10,000 mark, as for those who come to the UK under the Australian version of the scheme, or does he expect a higher number?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

There is another question. A truly bilateral youth exchange arrangement would be fine. It would be like the trade and co-operation agreement, with no reference to the European Court of Justice. Or is this going to be an extension of the withdrawal agreement arrangements involving EU citizenship, which is subject to the European Court of Justice and temporary and time-limited? The real question that the Minister has to answer is: what will be the involvement of the European Court of Justice in overseeing this arrangement?

[Mike Wood]

That is an important question for the Minister to answer. This should not come as news. The Leader of the Opposition was quite clear on Tuesday that of course we support the principle of mobility schemes. After all, we negotiated so many of them, which the Minister did not support when he was shadow International Trade Secretary.

The Government’s deal clearly also fails the tests on payments to the EU and on fishing rights. Our fishermen stand betrayed. Instead of the four-year transitional arrangement they had under the previous agreement, they have been lumbered with French, Spanish and Dutch mega-trawlers being handed long-term access to their waters. That will become the new permanent state of being, and it will have to be negotiated away from. From Cornwall to Tobermory, fishermen find themselves devastated by a Government prepared to sell them short. That is not what they were promised, and certainly not what they deserve.

Again, it is difficult to judge from the information published on Monday whether the security and defence partnership could undermine NATO. There is clearly a need for western Europe to take greater responsibility for the security of the region and to improve its collective capability. There is no question but that closer co-operation can bring benefits for Britain—particularly for contractors able to bid for projects funded by safe loans—but of course none of that is ensured in any of the material published so far. It is surely true that our partners will benefit at least as much from the incredible contribution that the British armed forces will make to that security so, given such mutual benefit, there should be no case for additional payments or concessions.

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[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, and pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) and the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) for securing it.

We are here at the end of three weeks in which the post-Brexit independent trade policy that Conservative Members spent so long arguing for has been exercised. We have been exercising our sovereignty. We have agreed a trade deal with India; hon. Members may recall that a previous Prime Minister promised a UK-India deal by Diwali—to be fair, he did not say which Diwali, but none the less, we know he did not deliver it. This Government did. What about an economic deal with the United States? The Brexiteers promised it year after year. Did they ever deliver one? No, they did not. This Government did. Now, for the hat-trick, we have the improved deal with the European Union.

After all their years of arguing for an independent trade policy, one would think that, when a Government successfully exercised one, Conservative Members would have something positive to say about it—but sadly not.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I want to make some progress first.

I did enjoy the shadow Minister’s speech. After hearing his comments in the middle about both the youth experience scheme and working in Europe, if he wants me to go and see his leader and put in a word for him to keep him in his job, I am more than happy to do so. I am not sure that the Back Benchers here got the memo about the line he was going to take, but I am sure they will become a bit more coherent in due course. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow quoted the “Frozen” song “Let It Go”, but I am afraid, looking at the Conservative party, it is more a case of “Let the storm rage on”—that is clearly what they are doing today.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness said what a significant week it was in parliamentary history, and I entirely agree with him. Whenever we have these debates on UK-EU relations, people with a real interest in and passion for it turn up. My sparring partners are here: my good friend, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), whom I frequently spar with on these matters, and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), who I will give way to in a moment once I have made some progress. He often intervenes on me, and he is always here making the case—but, in this significant week, where is the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)? In a supreme irony, he is in the European Union.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness also spoke about youth mobility. For me, what makes the difference are the experiences that I hear about from people whose lives have been transformed by having a year or two overseas. I want hon. Members to listen to the story of a young man and what he went on to do, because he spoke about two exciting and challenging years he had spent in France. He had really engaged while there. He said this:

“Living in Paris and working in Paris, taught me a lot”.

That young man became the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. Given the amount of time that both he and the hon. Member for Clacton spend abroad, I am astonished that they want to deny the same opportunity to everybody else.

I know that the shadow Minister is at heart a sensible, pragmatic man. The Conservatives and Reform have made a decisive choice in the last week. We have secured a deal that will lower household bills—hon. Members need not take my word for it; they can take the word of most major supermarkets and retailers. I do not hear their voices in support of the position of the Conservatives or Reform. Energy bills are coming down—here hon. Members can take the word of Octopus Energy, which is saying just that, and the support of the major energy firms for the Government’s position.

The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is right about the Five Eyes relationship. Nobody could deny the additional tools and information that we will get from this deal to tackle the boats in the channel and to deal with serious and organised crime. That is the deal this Government have secured—good for jobs, borders and bills. Both those parties will go into the next general election promising to reverse it, and they will have to tell each and every one of their constituents why they want to erect trade barriers, put prices up and make our borders less secure.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I look forward to that debate in 2028 or 2029 with the hon. Gentleman, and indeed with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness.

Let me come to the other speeches. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who also benefited from a year abroad, quite rightly spoke about the importance of the automotive sector.

The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) talked about scrutiny, an issue also raised by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex. On that, the SPS agreement will require primary legislation; I am sure I will have a continuing debate with Opposition Members during its passage.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) spoke about the wide business support for the Government’s position. When the Conservative party used to win general elections, it used to claim to be the party of business; it most definitely is not any more.

Now let me come to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex. I should start by saying that I am getting slightly concerned about him, because not once in his speech did he talk about increasing Conservative votes. He talked about increasing Reform votes. He referred to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) as his hon. Friend rather than the hon. Member. Are we to see this as a new political direction for the hon. Gentleman? I do not know—but his speech certainly leaned in that direction.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about a democratic mandate. The democratic mandate for what has been agreed with the EU comes from the Labour manifesto. It respects the result of the 2016 referendum: no return to the single market, no return to the customs union and no return to freedom of movement. That is the basis on which this Government have negotiated. People said, “You need to have a Norway deal. You need to have a Swiss deal. You can’t negotiate a bespoke deal for the United Kingdom.” But that is precisely what this Government have delivered within 10 months.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Where in the Labour manifesto did it say that we would start contributing to the EU budget once again? How much are we going to have to pay and when will we know?