EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Greg Hands Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Hands)]

It is my privilege to bring this most timely debate to a close. This is, of course, the final word from the Government at the Dispatch Box before the British people go to the polls next week to make one of the most important decisions about the future of the United Kingdom in the modern era. For many people, this is the biggest political decision that they have ever had to make. Indeed, I was only nine years old at the time of the 1975 referendum.

This is not like a general election. It is not just a choice for the next five years. There is no going back from the choice that we make, as a nation, next Thursday. A vote to leave would be irreversible. There is no “try before you buy”, and there are no returns. That makes it all the more important that we make the most of the opportunities, such as this debate, to look again at what is really in the interests of everyone in the UK.

I thank all Members for their contributions. In closing the debate, I want to be very clear about my conviction that the UK is far better off as part of the European Union than outside on our own. There have been 53 speakers today, 46 of whom have supported Britain’s staying in Europe, many of them passionately so. I cannot mention all of them, so I will refer briefly to four—two from each side.

First, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), in a moving and important speech, declared for remain here on the Floor of the House. I commend her for making the right choice. In the interest of fairness, let me briefly mention one of the speeches against the motion, of which there were not many; there were seven in all. I did not agree with the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), but she made extensive references to Looe in her constituency, where I spent many happy years as a child growing up, and it was great to hear references to places such as Pengelly’s fish shop.

I will mention two speeches from Labour, by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly). Far be it from me to suggest how Members should campaign in their constituencies on the matter, but I thought both of them did well to mention the local businesses, local jobs and local facilities that would be under threat from a vote to leave the European Union. I have to mention that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and I were both migrant workers in the 1980s in West Berlin in the Feinschmecker-Etage of the Kaufhaus des Westens.

I want us to remain, and I say that as someone who is not blind to the faults and the flaws of the European Union. Being critical of the EU does not mean wanting to leave the EU; it means wanting to keep enjoying all the benefits it has to offer while continuing to fight for the best interests of the UK in Europe. If we choose to stay, we can have the best of both worlds. We will never be forced to join the euro, and the deal struck by the Prime Minister in February means that our rights as a country outside the eurozone will be protected, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said. We will have no membership of Schengen, no ever-closer political union, greater control over welfare and greater control over the pull factors for migration.

Crucially, we will also be at the heart of the single market, which is improving in the areas of services, capital, energy and digital. We will have a seat at the table when the rules affecting us are set. We can trade freely with half a billion people inside the EU. As part of this huge trading bloc, we have gained much better deals with other countries across the globe than we ever would have done had the UK been sitting at the negotiating table alone.

[John Redwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I do not have the time. I am sorry.

Today, we have seen yet further proof that the UK’s economy is on the road to recovery. We have the highest employment level on record. Unemployment is at its lowest since 2005, the year I first entered Parliament. We can be proud of what we have achieved. However, we are putting our hard-won recovery in jeopardy: with one enormous leap into the dark in just eight days’ time, we risk throwing it all away.

I care about facing up to the facts. It is only right to examine what voting to leave might do and, frankly, we should be concerned. In the Treasury, we have done a lot of work to understand what leaving the EU might mean for this country. One study of the short-term impact of leaving suggests that if we vote to leave, we could be pushing ourselves headlong into a recession within a couple of years. In fact, compared with remaining, we might well see a rise in unemployment of between 520,000 and 820,000; a fall of between 12% and 15% in the value of sterling; a decrease in GDP of between 3.6% and 6.0%; and increased borrowing of anything up to £39 billion, which is the equivalent of a third of the NHS budget each year. Some people say, “So what?” Others say, “This is a price worth paying.” For the vast majority of people in this country, however, these things—they are just what will happen in the immediate aftermath—really matter.

We have debated employment rights quite a bit and heard about the benefits of the EU in creating and guaranteeing them, but no one among the leavers has been quite clear about which of these rights would be guaranteed if we leave. So many questions have been left unanswered about what Britain might be like if we left. Of course, there is also the possibility we might still just have to follow any regulations handed down by Brussels, but, crucially, with no choice or influence over what they are. Norway is a clear example: it is required to comply with EU legislation, such as the working time directive or the agency workers directive, in exchange for access to the EU market, but, crucially, with no vote on the decision making.

It is also unclear how leaving the EU could be better for our businesses and for our trade, because the world in which we live and trade is more globally interconnected than ever before. All the alternatives to EU membership would represent a huge step backwards in terms of trading with the EU and, I believe, with the rest of the world as well.

It is the sheer number of uncertainties about leaving the EU that is so concerning. People desperately want to know what leaving would really mean. What would our relationship with the EU be? Would we have access to the single market, and if so, on what terms? What about our trading relationships with other countries. and what happens to all the laws and rules we have that come from the EU? Resolving such questions will be intricately complicated—so much so that it is doubtful whether negotiations would be completed after a decade, let alone in this Parliament. Let us think about that for a moment: where will our lives be in a decade’s time? Let us think in particular about the young people whose futures also lie in the balance on this decision: where will they be after a decade?

Our economy is growing once more. In my view and that of the Government, that is not an accident. It is the result of the sacrifices we have all made, and the parts we have all played in fixing the economy. A vote to leave, with all the uncertainties that surround it, will put all of this country’s hard work at risk. Let us listen to our global allies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and Germany, and indeed to businesses based in this country—not just our major financial corporations, but the smaller companies that rely on exporting to the EU market. It is clear to me, as it is clear to them, that it is by remaining in a reformed European Union that we can keep growing, not bring about a recession of our own making; keep creating jobs, not jeopardise people’s livelihoods; and keep attracting investment, not lose out to our international competitors.

As I said at the start, this debate represents the final opportunity for this House to look at this vital question. This is not about the narrow interests of any one political party; it is about coming together in the national interest. If, like me, the House believes Britain is stronger, safer and better off in the EU, I urge it to support this motion.

Question put.