European Affairs

Debate between Hilary Benn and Mark Pritchard

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman will not tempt me to agree with him on that particular observation at all—[Hon. Members: “Go on!] No, I will not be encouraged to do that. I will, however, make an argument about the precise way that the benefits that I have just described have been brought to us because of opportunities given to us by membership of the European Union.

On sovereignty, the original decision to join the European Union was taken by the sovereign House of Commons, and confirmed by a sovereign British people in the 1975 referendum. All treaty changes that followed, including those that introduced qualified majority voting, were agreed by Conservative and Labour Governments, and approved by the sovereign Parliament. That tells us that we have chosen as a sovereign Parliament to work with others in Europe for a purpose: to achieve things that we think benefit us and our neighbours.

The second argument is about taking back control, and for some I think this is a belief that Britain standing alone would somehow have the voice that it possessed 50 years ago. We must be honest with each other. We live in a different world to the one that gave birth to the European Coal and Steel Community after the end of the second world war. We have witnessed the end of empire, the creation of the United Nations and the European Union, the formation of NATO, the end of the cold war, and the collapse of the Berlin wall. We have lived through an era that has seen the rise of new world powers, alliances, conflicts, threats, and the blistering pace of technological change that is revolutionising our economies and shrinking the way we perceive our world. We cannot turn the clock back, and to argue that we can is to mislead ourselves and others. We can, however, use the qualities that we as a nation are blessed with to make the most of the opportunities that this new world presents to us, and that is exactly what our membership of the European Union helps us to do.

Look at the strength of London as a financial centre. Look at the openness and diversity of our society, and our talent for creativity. The UK computer and games industry—not one I am particularly familiar with—did not even exist 40 years ago, but it now generates £2 billion a year in global sales, and supports nearly 30,000 jobs. Consider the worldwide reach of the English language. All those things help to make us the fifth biggest economy in the world.

[Mark Pritchard]

When we think about the City of London, we often think of bankers, and unfortunately of some of the high and perhaps disproportionate banking bonuses. However, banking is a necessary part of this country’s economy. Indeed, the pensions of this country are often found in the City of London, and they affect every single person up and down the land. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that an exit from the European Union would make it more likely that banks, institutions and pension funds would go to Frankfurt rather than London?

[Hilary Benn]

I agree that there are real risks, and the Foreign Secretary rightly made that point in his speech. It is perfectly legitimate to point out those risks, which even the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) acknowledged in his article in The Daily Telegraph, and we should take that important consideration into account. In truth, almost half our exports go to Europe precisely because we are part of the single market, and we must think about supply chains and services. We also export all the way around the world, in part because of deals that the European Union has negotiated with other countries.

The EU either has or is negotiating trade agreements with 90% of Commonwealth countries. I have heard it argued that being in the EU prevents us from having better trading relationships with other members of the Commonwealth, but that is not the case. Given that we are part of this huge market of 500 million people, why on earth would we want to exchange the certainty of deals that we currently have for the uncertainty of deals that we might not secure? As we have heard—the Foreign Secretary made this point forcefully—we already have good trade deals, and our only alternative examples are those such as Norway, but even the Norwegians say to us, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” I think the British people will look at that and say, “That looks like a pretty bad deal to us.”

In the late 1980s, when Mrs Thatcher was busy taking away trade union rights in this country, one reason that the British trade union movement changed its view was that it saw there was an opportunity for workers’ rights across Europe. The EU helped us to deal with some of the consequences of global change by protecting workers in every European country. Those protections include paid holidays, the right to spend more time with a new-born child through improved maternity and paternity leave, limits on working time, and better protection for agency and temporary workers. Those are striking examples of how, by working together across Europe, we can protect workers and prevent a race to the bottom.