Kelvin Hopkins
Main Page: Kelvin Hopkins (Independent - Luton North)Department Debates - View all Kelvin Hopkins's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. While it would be good if the World Trade Organisation was signing more multilateral trade deals, there has not been a successful round for 22 years. So if we are interested in driving free trade and market access in the world today, we need to be part of a bloc that can sign good and effective deals. We have seen that with Korea and with Singapore, and we now need to see it with all the other countries that the EU is doing these deals with. As I have said, of course outside the EU we can sign deals, but the information I have from country after country is “Yes, we’d do a deal but only after we’ve fixed our deal with the EU,” and that is likely to be a bigger deal and a better deal. So I think the argument on this trade deal issue very much goes one way.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Britain has an enormous trade deficit with the rest of the EU, amounting to over £60 billion a year, equivalent to over 1 million jobs exported from Britain to the continent, half of them to Germany. Is it not obvious that the EU needs us much more than we need it and the last thing the EU is going to do is start a trade war with Britain?
The Prime Minister
The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s statistics is this: obviously, 50% of our trade is with the EU, but if we take the EU as a whole only about 7% of its trade is with us. So were we to leave the EU and then contemplate the negotiation that would follow, clearly we would not be in the stronger position. I think that is important. The second point I would make—I made this point earlier—is that, yes, we have a trade deficit in goods, but we have a massive trade surplus in services and it is in the single market in services where the prospects for progress are greatest today. So there would be a danger if we were to leave that maybe we would get that deal on goods relatively quickly because of our deficit, but if they held up the deal on services where would all our service companies be? Where would those jobs be? What would we say to those companies about how long it could take to get a deal to safeguard the incomes and prospects of families across our country?