European Union: UK Membership

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Voaden]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. People vote Lib Dem for lots of reasons—but maybe they do not think that we will betray them in the same way that the Conservatives did.

Only last week, with many colleagues, I returned to the European Parliament as part of the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. While there, I heard the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), refer to research by Aston University that showed that exports to the European Union have fallen by 27% since Brexit. For a Government who want growth, that figure alone should be enough to change their attitude.

That figure is no surprise, however, to anyone who talks to some of the businesses in my constituency. One shellfish exporter tells me that they have to have 17 pieces of paper signed by a vet for every consignment of mussels they export to the EU, making it impossible to trade efficiently with their biggest customer and hampering growth in their business. A small household product retailer has had to end trade with all EU customers because of the new GPSR—general product safety regulation. Delicatessens struggle to cope with the red tape involved in importing smaller shipments of wine and food for the UK, which is the kind of regulations that only big suppliers are able to manage—I am sure that is repeated right across the country. A precision engineering company’s exports have also been badly affected by Brexit red tape—on and on it goes.

Apart from the impact on trade, the opportunities for our young people are being severely curtailed by Brexit. I will not revisit all the arguments that several Members have put forward in this debate, except to say that it is a tragedy that our children and grandchildren will not have the chances that we had—that so many of us had—to go to Europe to develop skills, including cultural understanding and language skills, and to bring all that experience back to the UK. It is high time that the Government agreed a youth mobility scheme with the EU. Last week, I welcomed the PPA agreement that said that the Government understood the need to establish a youth opportunity scheme, including apprenticeships. We all understand the need; let us hope that the Government will go further than that and address it.

Our country has been impoverished by Brexit in so many ways—economically, culturally and politically. I am sure that I am not the only one to be absolutely demoralised by the millions of hours of negotiations that took us out of the European Union, and now, potentially, the millions more that will go into negotiating the piecemeal, bit-by-bit replacements for all the benefits that we lost.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with her time. On that point about the many hours taken to renegotiate and change the deal to get potential customs union access, we are now hearing talk from the Government about cutting waste in Whitehall. The irony is that the additional burden put on civil servants in Whitehall due to Brexit is now being spoken about as something that we need to get rid of. Does she have a suggestion for something the Government could do in relation to the European Union to reduce the workload for civil servants?

[Caroline Voaden]

If it were that easy, I am sure the Government would get rid of all that red tape at the stroke of a pen. Sadly, I do not think it is that straightforward.

It is not just about the hours that were wasted in those negotiations; the cost of all those civil servants’ time is unimaginable. I appreciate the scars borne by Members who served through those years, as referenced by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), but I do not agree that we should not revisit our intentions, given the clear evidence that we now have of the disaster that Brexit has been.

The Conservative Government wrecked the UK’s relationship with Europe. The current Labour Government say that they want a reset, but no one I spoke to in Brussels last week was clear what that really means. Fixing our broken relationship with Europe is the most obvious way to boost our economy, providing much-needed funding to fix our public services. The single biggest thing we can do to turbocharge our economy in the medium and long term is form a customs union with the EU, tearing down the trade barriers and shredding the red tape that is holding us back. We must also fix our trading relationship to protect Britain from Trump’s trade war.

The Liberal Democrats have always believed that we are stronger as part of Europe. It is a long road back and, thanks to the Conservatives, it will take a long time to rebuild trust, but we owe it to future generations to make it happen. Sadly, it is probably too early to campaign to rejoin the EU right now—it is not even an option on the table—but we must take concrete steps towards it, rather than just repeating meaningless warm words, and start rebuilding the shattered relationship. To answer the petitioner’s question of whether the UK should rejoin the EU, I will go out on a limb and say that yes, I believe we should.