EU: UK Membership

Lord Maclennan of Rogart Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)]

My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for initiating this debate. It is an opportunity to state the positive about the European Union, which most of the media have resigned from doing. They have largely focused on splits, rows and, sometimes, failures to achieve objectives. I feel that the European Union is essential to the prosperity and peace of the continent. In my earliest memories, during the bombing of Glasgow in 1941, my grandmother was blown from one end of the kitchen to another, so it is a great achievement to have the almost 70 years of peace that we have had in the European Union. We have also seen democracy growing in the additions to the early Union in eastern Europe. Poland is growing in strength and democracy. It is interesting that its former Prime Minister Tusk is now seen as a leader of the European Union.

Our trade with Europe constitutes some 48% of what we export. That seems an enormously powerful stimulator of manufacturing and organising for a wide population of 510 million. We heard from other noble Lords about the influence that we can exert over the decision-making in the rest of the world—and of course in Europe itself. We in this country have about 1% of the world’s population and about 3% of its GDP. How would we seek to hold the ears of other Governments if we did not operate as a collective unified voice? China and the United States would regard us as trivial. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that we can pretend in this day and age that we are still an imperial power.

A great deal has been said about immigration in recent months and weeks. The fact is that 2.2 million people from this country live in the European Union. If we were to expel the 2.3 million immigrants who live here, or make it more difficult for them, we could see barriers erected against our own citizens who have chosen to live, work and retire abroad. Some 79% of the citizens of Europe who come here are in employment, according to the Eurostat figures. The average age of those people is 34. Some 32% of them have university degrees. They come here with skills. They are not sucking away public money; they contribute tax. That is a huge benefit.

I do not believe that the European Union is incapable of improvement. I would like to see the European capital markets union grow so that the City of London could become a centre for the whole of the European Union’s finances; I would like to see greater liberalisation of services adding to the GDP of this country; and I would like to see the negotiations going on with China and the United States bring greater benefits through equally prosperous integration.