Brexit: Benefits to Economy and Society

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to report to Parliament on the benefits that leaving the European Union has brought to the United Kingdom’s economy and society in the past four years; and if so, when.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

In January 2024, my department published an overview of the benefits of Brexit, on its fourth anniversary, to the UK economy. Since the referendum, the UK economy has grown faster than those of Germany, Italy and Japan, and is equal with the French. The IMF is now predicting that the UK will have the fastest growth in the G7 in the next five years. Meanwhile, our exports have reached £870 billion, and we are well on target to reach our overall target of £1 trillion. That growth in trade is greatly assisted by our free trade agreements, now signed with 73 countries globally plus the EU.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am extremely sorry that the Minister’s department gave such little publicity to its fourth anniversary paper. Given that the Government fought the last election, very successfully, on getting Brexit done, and we are now coming up to an election in which they will want to say again that Brexit was a success, should they not be making a major theme of what the benefits have been in a report on the last five years? Does the Minister agree that the public are more aware of the costs than the benefits of Brexit? Good balance in a report to show that there have been at least some benefits might help the Conservatives regain a little support in the opinion polls.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. The major benefit that we must be better at communicating is certainly around our international trade. We all know that when the UK voted to join the Common Market in the 1970s, Europe accounted for one-third of global trade at that point. When we left in 2019 it was 16% of global trade, and the forecast is that it will be 9% in 2050. Putting aside the cultural, political or geographical issues, the British people have made a savvy business decision to tilt to where the trade is—the Indo-Pacific—and we should be better at communicating that to people.