UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Debate between John Baron and Andrew Bridgen

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I refer Members to my business interests as listed in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Very briefly, I encourage a note of moderation when talking about no deal. Many of us, if not all of us, prefer a good deal to no deal—that is one of the key logics of leaving the European Union—but I suggest that WTO rules are not the so-called disaster that everyone is suggesting. We have to look at economic reality. We trade profitably with the rest of the world outside the EU on largely WTO, no-deal terms. What people can forget is that investment is about comparative advantage and the extent that a country’s corporation tax rates are lower and its labour markets are flexible, how good its top universities are and its financial expertise. In aggregate, those things are more important than WTO tariffs. If proof were needed, we have only to look at how well the country is doing economically in the face of so-called concern that we could be leaving the EU on no-deal terms. Investment decisions over recent years have been made in the full knowledge that we could be leaving on no-deal terms.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the truth is that many of those in this Chamber who wish to take no deal off the table want to stop Brexit, but have not got the guts to admit it to the electorate, because they know that two thirds of our constituencies voted to leave the European Union?

[Mr Baron]

Unfortunately, there is an element of truth to that, but I would not want to label everyone as being in that camp. Many Members have quoted predictions about the future, but I suggest that we have to keep the argument and the debate grounded in reality.

People need to remember that there were many predictions of economic woe and gloom should we vote to leave the EU in 2016. They came from the Bank of England, the IMF, businesses, and the various sector organisations and public organisations. Some of the predictions suggested 500,000 or 700,000 extra unemployed by December 2016. What happened? Actually, we created jobs, and economic growth did well. We now, today, have a record low unemployment rate that is half the EU average, record manufacturing output, and record inward investment. So we need to be careful of predictions, as Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, recognised. The Bank of England had to apologise publicly for getting it so wrong, as did so many others.

We have been told by our own Government that the preparations for no deal are in full swing. On 12 February, I asked the Prime Minister whether the Government are ready, saying:

“can she reassure the House that should we leave on 29 March on no-deal WTO terms, we are sufficiently prepared?”—[Official Report, 12 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 752.]

Her response was just three words: “We are indeed.” So the preparations have been made, and I think we should take some comfort from that.

Ruling out no deal makes a bad deal more likely. There needs to be an element of moderation across the House when describing no deal. The economic reality is at variance with the various doomster forecasts that were proved so wrong back in 2016, and we should take note of that fact.