Debate on the Address

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) and to hear about his alternative Queen’s Speech. I was particularly interested in his proposal for a real home rule Bill for Scotland. What concerned me was that he made no reference to control by the Scottish people and the Scottish Parliament over their own fishing grounds or agriculture policy. Surely the logical position for those in Scotland who want home rule is that they want control over their own fishing and agriculture, which can be delivered only by voting leave on 23 June.

I was very much with the right hon. Gentleman on the concerns he expressed about maritime patrol aircraft. I have raised this issue in the House on a number of occasions. I do not think we have had a satisfactory explanation for how we are going to protect our borders against intruders, whether they are people traffickers, drug smugglers or whoever. It was a great mistake by the Government to disband the very effective maritime patrol system operating out of Hurn airport in my constituency.

I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman). It is great to hear she has really dug into the idea of being a Back Bencher. “Don’t give up the chance to make a difference”, she says, “Seize the day”. Indeed, that is exactly what I intend to do on 23 June.

At the heart of the Gracious Speech is the statement:

“My Ministers will uphold the sovereignty of Parliament”.

In my humble submission, that can be delivered only by leaving the EU, because our very membership undermines the sovereignty of Parliament. That is why my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is so much in the Brexiteer campaign: he realises that only by leaving the EU can we truly retain our sovereignty and have control over our own laws.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) on his speech, but he omitted to say that one of the great benefits of the referendum has been that the Government have been forced to come to an accommodation with the British Medical Association and the junior doctors over weekend working. The Government, understandably, are trying to clear the decks of obstacles in the run-up to the referendum.

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is still on the Front Bench. I congratulate and thank him for the joke against himself about the plague of locusts. It shows he has taken on board the very serious criticism, in a leader in The Daily Telegraph, over the way he had allowed his capacity for invective to extend to suggesting, through exaggeration, that the whole of our destiny was at stake in the referendum. This time last year, he was saying he could envisage our leaving the EU at his request. He said he would be quite prepared to do that if he did not get a sufficient deal. He went out to get a deal and he thinks the deal was sufficient, but in any event it was quite a marginal situation.

Some of the hyperbole coming from the people who want to remain in the EU—I say this with the greatest of respect to my right hon. Friend—suggests that at no time could it have been in the interests of the people of the UK to leave the EU. That must be manifestly absurd in the light of the fact that he was telling his 27 colleagues in the EU that he would be quite prepared to recommend that we leave the EU, with all the consequences that would flow. That is still one of the big unanswered questions in this referendum campaign. If he thinks it would so obviously be doom and disaster if we left the EU, why did he call a referendum or ever let it be thought he might support the leave campaign?

The Government’s credibility has been damaged by a cavalier misuse of statistics designed to mislead the public in the referendum campaign. This time last year, I was arguing for an independent audit of the economic costs and benefits of the EU. In successive Sessions of Parliament, I have had a Bill providing for such a thing, and I put down a parliamentary question last June asking whether such an independent audit could be brought forward, but I did not get any substantive reply from the Treasury. Yet now we are told that the cost of leaving the European Union would be £4,300 per annum in terms of GDP per household. That rather good programme that the BBC is running at the moment poured scorn on that statistic—on Saturday, I think—when it said that GDP per household is not the same as income per household. In fact, GDP per household is some £66,000 per annum—and would every household not love to have £66,000 per annum on average? GDP per household is not the same as income per household, but it was being suggested that by 2030 every single household would have incurred a loss of that amount.

Then I looked at the leaflet that is part of the Electoral Commission brochure being circulated to every household as part of the referendum campaign and I saw, right at the top of the remain campaign propaganda, the assertion, quoting a CBI figure, that it would cost £91 billion if we were to leave the European Union. Because I was speaking last night to a group of accountants, I went and checked the origins of the figure produced in the remain leaflet. I found that, in March, PricewaterhouseCoopers did indeed do a study at the behest of the CBI. It is quite a substantial study, running to many pages, and is called “Leaving the EU: Implications for the UK economy”. That document makes it clear that if we remain in the European Union, real UK GDP in 2030, the date chosen by the Treasury for these exemplifications, will be about 41% higher than it is at the moment and that if we leave, it will be about 39% higher: a marginal difference of about 1% or 2% in 2030—not tomorrow or the next day, but 15 years out. It is therefore absurd for the remain campaign to use scaremongering, fear-creation tactics by trying to present to the people a totally different picture, which contrasts with data that the CBI itself commissioned from an independent firm of chartered accountants of international repute.

It is against that background that this Gracious Speech must be addressed, because the people are pretty cynical and sceptical. They are pretty sceptical about the Government’s claims that if we remain in the European Union, we will be able to retain control over our borders—implying that we have control at the moment over who comes to our country and who leaves from the European Union, which we manifestly do not. Even if those people have criminal convictions, we cannot deport them or prevent them from coming because of their human rights and the European Union’s freedom of movement rules.

When we have assertions in the Gracious Speech that the Government are going to do lots of wonderful things, including building another 1 million houses, one has to ask the question: if we are that short of houses, why are we contemplating having 3 million more migrants from the European Union by the year 2030? How will we be able to deliver on our manifesto pledge to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands when all the figures show that every year we get more than 300,000 coming in from the European Union? My challenge to my right hon. Friend—I would be happy to give way to the Prime Minister if he wishes to intervene on this point—is: how will we ever be able to deliver on that solemn manifesto promise unless we leave the European Union? I accept that when that promise was made, my right hon. Friend thought he would be able to get a much better deal from his 27 counterparts in the European Union, but having failed to secure that deal, how does he think we will ever be able to meet that important manifesto promise?

The Queen’s Speech refers to more and fairer funding for schools. Speaking as a Member representing a constituency in Dorset, I know how unfair the current funding system is. Surely, we know that the tremendous pressure on our public services is caused by high levels of net migration, and the same is true for infrastructure. The Gracious Speech refers to improving infrastructure for businesses. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visits Dorset, as he does on many occasions, he will know that the traffic conditions are dire—again because of the pressure of population and traffic on the roads, leading to high levels of congestion.

That feeds into pressure on the green belt. My constituents share the Conservative vision of the green belt being sacrosanct, but the erosion of the green belt through pressure from housing and industrial development is very great at the moment, and there is nothing in the Gracious Speech about fishing and agriculture, which are two important parts of the economy of the south-west of England.

A great deal in the Queen’s Speech is premised on the fact that we are going to leave the European Union after the vote on 23 June. I am grateful to the Government for ensuring that it appears in the Gracious Speech. I have already referred to the issue of sovereignty, but the only way to improve the number and quality of housing is to ensure that we do not experience this incredible pressure on our public services—forced on us by uncontrolled immigration.

Let me make a few further points. The Queen’s Speech says that

“further powers will be devolved to directly elected mayors”.

Let me say to the Prime Minister that there is no appetite in Dorset for directly elected Mayors, although there is an appetite for genuinely devolved powers. The Government need to start to think about differentiating large urban areas where an elected Mayor may be appropriate, from largely rural areas where there is no appetite at all for such directly elected Mayors.

The reference in the Queen’s Speech to

“powers governing local bus services”,

is rather vague. If the consequence will be the unravelling of the 1985 legislation—I was a member of the Standing Committee considering the Bill dealing with buses—that introduced choice and competition into this country’s bus services, I would be extremely concerned. My constituents find that bus services are becoming less frequent, which is a real problem. They are prepared, they tell me—even if they are pensioners—to contribute something towards the cost of buses, so that they can retain a service. A free bus pass is no use if there is no bus on which to use it. I hope we will be able to look at that issue when the buses Bill is debated.

There is considerable scepticism about the assertion that local authorities will be allowed to retain business rates. Does that mean that all the business rates raised in a local authority area can be retained by that local authority? The advice I have been given suggests that it does not mean that, and that if a high resource is coming in from business rates in one area, there will be an equalisation system to ensure that not all those business rates will accrue to the local people. That needs to be made clear.

The Queen’s Speech also mentions provisions relating to our prisons. During the last Parliament, the current Leader of the Opposition and I were on the same trip to Denmark, when the Justice Committee visited Danish prisons. We noted that the regime there was so liberal that prisoners received a higher income than they would have received in their home countries in eastern Europe, whence they had come in order to commit crimes in Denmark. There is absolutely no deterrent for people who come to Denmark from another EU country where wage levels are much lower. The number of burglaries being committed by people from eastern Europe is a big issue in Denmark, but there is no deterrent, because, even when those people are incarcerated, the penalties they pay are low, and the income they receive for working in prison is greater than the income they would receive at home.

We talk about the need to get more resources into our prison system and reduce the pressures on our prisons. Why can we not do more to ensure that foreign offenders can be deported rather than filling up our prisons? We have tried to make progress in our negotiations in the European Union, but so far we have failed. When we look at the small print in the Gracious Speech, we see a great deal that will be able to blossom and flourish when the people vote to leave the European Union on 23 June.