Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are deeply grateful, but we must try to attend to the questions asked, and to do so in a timely way, because progress is desperately slow. Members can do better than that, one would hope.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Would there not be a double whammy if Britain left the EU? First, there is the widely predicted risk of depreciation, which will lead to higher interest rates. Secondly, any notion that our exporters would benefit from a cheaper pound is more than offset by the additional tariff barriers that those firms would encounter worldwide.

[Mr Osborne]

The former shadow Chancellor is right to point to both the immediate economic shock, which I think is generally accepted—even those who, for perfectly honourable reasons, advocate withdrawal, accept that there would be an immediate economic dislocation—and the longer-term costs. If we tell Britain to make this leap in the dark, we have to be able to answer the question: what is the alternative? How do we reassure the car manufacturer in north-east England that tariffs will not be imposed on its cars, as a result of which it will not be so competitive and there will not be so many jobs in its factory? Those are the questions for this big national debate.