Relations with Europe

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, referendum is the most undemocratic method. It is a snapshot of a point in time; it is finite. Democracy needs to be dynamic so that every four or five years people have the opportunity to change their minds. For the last year or so, at every opportunity, in every speech, at the opportune moment, I have boldly asked the audience—domestic, international, at universities, even schoolchildren—whether they think Brexit was a huge mistake and an act of self-harm for the United Kingdom. I am not exaggerating when I say that 99% of the hands go up—it happened just today.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for initiating this debate, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, on her excellent maiden speech. We first met two decades ago, when we were on “Any Questions?” on the BBC together.

The Government have said clearly and unequivocally that they are interested in re-establishing our relationship in Europe since it weakened post-Brexit. This includes a new UK-EU security pact, improving bilateral relationships and the Joint Expeditionary Force—I do not think anyone has mentioned that so far.

It is a complex geopolitical environment, increasingly so, but here is a fact: in 2023, 52% of our imports and 42% of our exports were with the European Union. We got a huge trade deficit with the European Union, and these levels of exports are 11% below the pre-pandemic and pre-Brexit levels. The TCA has arrangements that are very restricted. The Government have said that they want to improve the relationship but do not want to rejoin the single market. Come on—why cannot we be bold? Why cannot we join the single market? Why cannot we then move towards the EEA Norway-type model and eventually move towards rejoining the European Union?

The war in Ukraine has led to increased co-operation between the UK and EU with regard to sanctions, intelligence sharing and military training, and with the challenges we face in defence procurement. Will the Minister admit that we have problems when it comes to defence procurement because we are no longer in the EU?

One of the most senior police officers in this country—I will not name the individual—said during the Brexit debate, “If people knew the security arrangements we have with the EU, they would vote to remain just because of that one issue alone”.

Regarding the youth mobility scheme, why can we not have a scheme where 18 to 30 year-olds can study and work in the UK and Europe? That has been proposed by the EU—we have rejected it. On the security partnership that we have, can the Government make their ambitions more concrete? The Erasmus programme is way better than Turing. Turing is one-way; Erasmus is both ways. We are losing out, our children are losing out, European children are losing out. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, how the music sector is losing out due to complex visa rules, cabotage restrictions, carnets, and musical instrument certificates. This is ridiculous. We do not need this. In 2018, 10,100 UK students participated in Erasmus. School trips have dropped hugely since Brexit. Some 47% of musicians report reduced EU work.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, spoke about cherry-picking. Well, I was president of the CBI, I sat on BusinessEurope. Do you know what its people used to say to me? “Why did you leave? We really respected you. You were different, but we envied you because you had the best of both worlds. You had your own currency; you could set your own interest rates.” Today we have the worst of both worlds.