UK-EU Renegotiation

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly do that. It will be a complex negotiation. The eurozone counties want the ability to integrate further and to know that we are not trying to block the action they need to take, but clearly we want to make sure that we, as members of the single market, are not disadvantaged.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am sure the Prime Minister will welcome today’s news that the largest offshore wind farm in the world is to be built off the east Yorkshire coast by DONG Energy and Siemens. This will create up to 2,000 jobs in the Humber estuary and result in £6 billion of investment. Does this not show that, whatever the debate and frustrations around the right terms, it is in our country’s economic interest to be part of, and engaged in, the EU as a leading player?

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted with that news, because the Government have given great support to Siemens and DONG Energy. We have—I think—the biggest offshore wind market in the world, because we have provided the regulatory certainty the industry needed. In the east of England, that has achieved not just one big factory, but the industrial regeneration of all the related industries. Irrespective of the outcome of the referendum, we have to make Britain the best place in the world to invest and grow a business. When the arguments come, I am sure many of those who want us to stay in a reformed EU will argue it will make us even more attractive, but we should wait until the starting gun is fired.