Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes]

Is it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman wants remain to lose because he could then pursue his agenda of holding another referendum on independence within two years? His party is hardly doing anything to campaign to remain in the United Kingdom and for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. [Interruption.] Order. No. Mr Gapes, senior Member you are, with a lot to offer, but you also want to speak, and I do not want to be the man who puts you at the bottom of the list. Between us, we can all get there. Short interventions if you must, but it would be better if you did not intervene.

[Alex Salmond]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) should read today’s pamphlet, “The EU and You”, released by the Scottish Government, which explains in a considered and proper way why European Union membership is of benefit to Scotland. Not even the most rabid of the leave campaign could describe that pamphlet as anything resembling “Project Fear”. It makes a considered case for why EU membership benefits Scotland.

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the ICM poll for the UK today, he will see that the two sides are level in an online poll. In the ICM poll in Scotland, the margin is nearly 2:1 for remain. Given that even the hon. Gentleman will have noticed the diminishing fortunes of his party in Scotland and the rising fortunes of the SNP, does that not suggest that the campaign that we are conducting in Scotland is rather more successful in winning hearts and minds to the European cause than the campaign that is being conducted across the rest of the country?

A case in point is the release of the Treasury statistics on the economy yesterday—the expectations analysis. An expectations model is the ultimate GIGO model—garbage in, garbage out. The result is manufactured from the input to the model. The Treasury analysis suggests a 6% wipe-out of GDP from a Euro exit. No other credible forecaster is suggesting anything like that effect. Oxford Economics suggests 1.3% and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation suggests 1.5%. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which uses the Treasury model, is suggesting 2.3%.

[Mr Baron]

I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about “Project Fear”. It is terribly counterproductive. However, we should always remember that those who are peddling “Project Fear” are broadly the same group of people who predicted doom and gloom if we did not join the euro, so they have form. There is one ray of hope. Lord Rose, leader of the remain campaign, has said that if we were to leave the EU, there would be better control of immigration for the sake of public services—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. No. Now we have to be serious with the House because Members want to get in. I have just mentioned the need for short interventions. Please do not abuse the Chair, because what you are doing is abusing colleagues on both sides and that is not good for anybody. I want to get as many people into the debate as possible and, ideally, I want to get everybody in.

[Alex Salmond]

It is ironic that the Conservative Members who have been complaining loudly about “Project Fear” hardly raised a peep when the same campaign was conducted against the Scottish people some two years ago, so I would claim over the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) at least a right of consistency on these matters.

Established and credible forecasters are indicating enough of the economic damage that I believe would be done to this country by an exit, without having to manufacture and inflate statistics which brings the whole argument into disrepute. It is enough for people to know that there will be an economic impact, without trying to inflate that impact beyond what is reasonable.

I commend the Governor of the Bank of England, who has gone no further than saying that the scenarios

“could possibly include a technical recession”.

The Bank of England has demonstrated in both the Scottish referendum and, indeed, this referendum campaign how public servants should behave in terms of offering information and considered analysis.

The major danger to the remain campaign is not the arguments of the leave campaign, because the leave campaign is fundamentally split between those who see the UK’s future after an exit as similar to that of Switzerland or Norway, and those who think it can be some sort of transatlantic Singapore. That fundamental division cannot be resolved, because the way to minimise economic damage from an exit would be to adopt the Norwegian model, but the majority of the leave campaign will not subscribe to that because it would bring with it acceptance of the single market, various regulations and, of course, free movement of labour. That is the fundamental problem with the leave campaign.

The remain campaign across the UK should at the moment be as far ahead as we are in Scotland. The fact that we are not is an indication that the campaign should be recalibrated into one that starts to win hearts and minds, and that addresses some of the issues to which the Foreign Secretary alluded. Sixty-six years after the Schuman declaration, we can say that the European Union has contributed to peace, stability and prosperity across Europe. Over that time, building a single market of 500 million people has been no mean achievement. For Opposition parties in particular, the social gains for every family and every trade unionist in this country—things that the Government do not like to talk about—are a very substantial reason for not leaving the EU behind. It would also add to the credibility of our arguments if we accepted—as, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition did in his speech—the problems and difficulties that people have with the European Union.

The fishing community in Scotland, which takes 60% of the landings, are hugely sceptical, because, of all the EU polices that could be considered disastrous, the common fisheries policy is the greatest. On 11 May I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, suggesting that support for the remain campaign might be enhanced if, as part of the UK’s presidency of the European Council next year, he agreed that the Scottish fisheries Minister should co-chair—with the UK fisheries Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—the Agriculture and Fisheries Council. Incidentally, the Prime Minister was very open to such a suggestion when he came to office in 2010, as indeed was the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor, William Hague.

I suggested that a response to that invitation before purdah in three days’ time would be helpful to my former constituents in Banff and Buchan. I was therefore delighted to receive a letter last week from an unnamed correspondence officer at the direct communications unit at Downing Street, saying that my request was being considered. However, if the Foreign Secretary is genuinely interested in strengthening the position of the remain campaign, I hope he will indicate today to the fishing communities of Scotland that the Government will take advantage of the opportunity provided by the European Council presidency to address their needs and iron out many of the difficulties in the current regulations.

SNP Members would have wished the Government to address the fears that many of our constituents have about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership without being forced to do so by an amendment, because there are genuine fears that a court process may allow an aggressive intervention in the national health service. Last week, I had a meeting with the Baltic state and Scandinavian ambassadors, who indicated that when this Government took office, they invested great hopes in the Prime Minister’s northern agenda—the reform agenda for the European Union that he was putting forward at that time—but their view and belief is that the agenda has been deflected by a referendum that is about British exceptionalism as opposed to genuine reform of the European institutions.

My submission is that if we are to have a campaign that people will endorse and give an enthusiastic response to, that will prevent the danger of differential voting between enthusiastic Brexiteers and those who are cowed into submission by the Government’s “Project Fear” and that will mobilise people to get out of their houses and into the polling stations, the Government will have to rise above the campaign they are fighting so far and actually make a positive case for the European Union.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am now introducing a five-minute limit. I know it is disappointing but it is the way to get everybody in.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I shall try to proceed with Twitter-like brevity in this Twitter age, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I want to reinforce the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) on prisons, although I gently remind him that, given the position we inherited, there would now be 96,000 people in prison had we not done anything. That the number has stabilised at 85,000 is a signal achievement, therefore, even if it is disappointing that it has not gone down.

On the European convention on human rights, I entirely endorse the sentiments expressed in the speeches of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I do so having just returned from Russia with the Foreign Affairs Committee.

While pausing to put on record my thanks to Laurie Bristow, our ambassador, and his team in Russia for the programme they put on for us, I should say that part of it included meeting human rights activists in Russia. The convention is often the only resort they have as they go through the Russian courts. The Russian legal system is presided over by a Duma passing laws that are going in an illiberal direction, but there is at least a contested space of some kind. It is possible to get some protection, and overseeing that is the protection provided by the convention itself. We had some good briefings while we were in Russia, and the message came back clearly to us that this House should think about Russian human rights activists when we are considering British support for the European convention. Issues such as whether a few prisoners should have the right to vote stand pretty small in comparison with the quality of the work being done there and the courage behind it.

When it comes to reflecting on our overall relations with Russia, it is the case that they are absolutely in the deep freeze right now. Our bilateral relations are in an extremely poor place. I am struck by the fact that both the Russian mission here in London and our mission in Moscow are largely obstructed by tit-for-tat measures that prevent them from carrying out their duties effectively. Both missions are reduced to that situation, with both complaining about the measures imposed on them.

In our meeting with a Russian official in the Russian Foreign Office who oversees British affairs, I suggested that it might be an idea to start relaxing some of the measures on British representation in Moscow to begin to try to get out of this downward spiral. Let us see if some micro-measures can be made to make the work of British diplomats easier and start this process off.

What has gone wrong, of course, is the strategic relationship fall-out at the end of the cold war. Probably rightly, the west decided to secure the position of central and eastern European people, but the price was the failure subsequently to get an effective strategic relationship with Russia. That is now being made infinitely more difficult by Russia’s departure from the international rules of the road.

There is an issue about whether we are going to try to help the Russians out of the cul-de-sac that they have got themselves into. Even if it is initially at the level of cultural exchanges and students coming over here and so forth, we should invest in this relationship in any way we can. It is a very important relationship; Russia is a very important country. That is why it becomes even more critical when a country of that size is under the leadership that it is—a leadership that underneath it all has a deep lack of self-confidence, even though tactically it might feel strong.

Finally, on the European Union debate, I thought the first part of the shadow Foreign Secretary’s speech was terrific, but then he set up the Aunt Sallies about the opposition case. There are two internationalisms competing here, and there are very good arguments to show why geopolitically the United Kingdom has a choice here. I believe we need positive arguments on both sides. I cannot go into those arguments because of the time limit, but I urge all colleagues to be positive in how they present their case on this issue.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Let me say that Chris Elmore’s will be a maiden speech. I call Chris Elmore.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

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[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

There were a number of things I wanted to say, but time is limited. However, there are one or two omissions from the Queen’s Speech. Members will recall the debates we have had over the last few months about women’s pensions, and I thought there would be something in the Queen’s Speech to start to address the anomaly on that issue. As many Members in this Chamber know, some women feel they are being discriminated against, and the Queen’s Speech should have addressed that.

A campaign is also going on at the moment over the cuts to pharmacies in the national health service budget. Those cuts could result in some local pharmacies closing—so much for the Government talking about local democracy and involving local people. There is also the issue of student nurses and their bursaries. The bulk of student nurses are women—again, it appears that women are being discriminated against.

On the European situation, I was one of those who campaigned against going into Europe in 1975. I did that for a lot of good reasons. At the time, most people in the labour movement saw Europe as a market that had no benefits—certainly for the trade union movement. We had campaigns across Coventry. Trade union leaders came to Coventry and said, “If you go in, you won’t get out.” Then, of course, we had the Delors speech about social justice and social policies being introduced in Europe. That changed the attitude of the labour movement and the Labour party.

If we were going to have a referendum, we should have had one when we talked about the single market. As everybody knows, if there is a single market, there is a single bank and a single currency, whichever way we argue it. The Government at the time said they were going to change the agricultural policy, but, unfortunately, they did not do that. They signed us up to the single market, and they boasted about the rebate they got. It was a very interesting scenario. There was another occasion when we should have had a referendum—in fact, there was a chance of one—and that was Maastricht. I welcome the fact that we are now having a referendum, but we can see that there have been lost opportunities.

Like a number of people, I have changed my mind, and I have explained why before, but let me give an example of why. Nissan was interested in investing in Coventry; it was going to locate its car plant there. However, when it discovered that there was no regional aid and no leverage into Europe at that time, it located in Sunderland. I wish the people in Sunderland well, because Nissan has done well there. That is a good example of how people can change their minds when they are faced with the realities.

One reason that a lot of people—particularly some in the Conservative party, but not all—want to pull out of Europe is red tape. However, when we ask them to try to define it, the only thing they can come up with is health and safety or labour relations; they do not come up with any other reasons. In fact, the Leader of the House gave the game away about a month ago in a television interview, when he was pointedly asked, “What do you mean by red tape?” He blurted out, “Health and safety.” This is one of the reasons why we should certainly remain in Europe. It has been suggested that the world will be lovely outside Europe. However, people who argue that tariffs in the United States would be only 3% are wrong. We would find that when we traded with the United States, and particularly with the South American market, we paid a higher tariff. Equally, we would pay higher tariffs outside Europe but be expected to conform to the rules and regulations of Europe. These are the hard facts of life.

With the referendum only one month away, I support the right of people in Coventry to have their say, as I have indicated, but must clearly highlight the fact that the hard-won rights of the workplace are at risk—paid leave, for example. Anti-discrimination laws, jobs growth and our place in the world are at stake. We have two universities in my constituency that rely heavily on EU membership. European academics, scientists, technicians and students all play a leading part in Coventry.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.