Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Anna Soubry

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I start by saying that I wholly endorse and support the wise words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). I also wholly endorse and support the wise words of my new friend, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). Before anybody listening to this speech or reading about it elsewhere has a problem with that, I should also agree with the short intervention made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve).

Get real. We are living in extraordinary times, and incredible things have happened. Who would have believed a year ago that we would be here having this debate after all that has taken place? Increasingly, and rightly, many of us will now be taking a cross-party approach to these issues. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said, as we leave the EU—I accept the verdict, the referendum result—we face difficult, dangerous times. Putting our country and the interests of all our constituents first transcends everything, and that includes the normal party political divide.

I pay handsome tribute also to the wise speech—except for when it got partisan—made by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). I agree with him. We are in difficult, dangerous times and we tread with great care. As he rightly said, there was one question on that ballot paper and it is wrong to assume that a whole series of mandates flow from that one simple and straightforward question. With great respect to the Prime Minister, her Cabinet and all those in government, we are using the answer to that question as an excuse for other mandates. That is simply wrong.

I am concerned about the extrapolation—a new buzzword, perhaps—that involves our just saying, “Oh well—52% of the British people apparently voted for controls on immigration.” The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) mentioned people concerned about immigration. She should tread carefully. When people said they were concerned about immigration, I suspect that what they were really asking for was not control—that might make it go up—but less immigration.

I gently say to the hon. Lady that we have to be true to what we believe in. It is so important that, in the debate now unfolding about immigration, we are brave and true to what we believe in and take people on. My right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and I stood in Loughborough market on the day of the referendum and had that debate, but the tragedy was that by that time it was too late. The British people at heart are good and tolerant; if we make the debate, they will understand the huge benefit that migration has brought to our country for centuries.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I agree with many of the things my right hon. Friend has said about immigration, but did she not stand in 2015 and, I believe, in 2010 on a clear Conservative party manifesto commitment to reduce net immigration to tens of thousands?

[Anna Soubry]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I accept what he says, but let me say here and now that we have to abandon that target; we cannot keep it. We know the reality: people come here to work. In simple terms, Sir, who is going to do the jobs of those people who come here? There seems to be some nonsensical idea that, with a bit of upskilling here and a bit of upskilling there, we will replace the millions and millions of people who come and work not just in those low-skilled jobs, but right the way through to the highest levels of research and development—the great entrepreneurs. We should be singing out about this great country of ours; we should be making it clear that we are open for business and that we are open to people, as we always have been, because they contribute to our country in not only economic but cultural terms. We are in grave danger if we extrapolate in a way that I believe is not at the core of being British.