Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Mark Reckless and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

That may well be right. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that in a debate on a subject of such importance, some Liberal Democrat Members should have been present, not only to tell us their views but to listen to those of other Members of Parliament. Parliament is here to debate such issues, whether we agree with each other or not. By not turning up at all, Liberal Democrats are effectively refusing to engage with this important question.

Let me put my cards firmly on the table. I am not a supporter of our membership of the European Union. I believe that we should leave, and I support the Conservative party’s call for a referendum to give my constituents and others across the land their say about whether we should remain members. It represented a catastrophic loss of confidence in the nation’s future in the 1960s and 1970s that we decided to join the then Common Market, which mutated into the European Economic Community, the European Community and finally the European Union.

An individual would have to be in at least their mid-50s to have been able to take part in the referendum in 1975 on whether we should remain members, so a whole generation of the British public have never had their say on the matter. I am four-square behind the Conservative party manifesto promise to give the British people a say in 2017 on whether we should stay in or get out. I will vote to leave. I do not believe that renegotiation will work. I am not entirely convinced that Her Majesty’s Government will take the renegotiation as seriously as they should, but more or less nothing that could be achieved in the renegotiation would convince me that Britain was better off in the European Union. One reason for that is the cost; our annual membership fee is £10 billion and rising. Over the course of the coalition Government’s term, our total membership subscription will be almost twice what it was under the final term of the previous Labour Government. Our membership fee is simply too expensive. The other big reason why I will vote to leave is the reason we are here today.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend moves on to that point, he expressed a certain scepticism about the renegotiation. Is it his understanding that that renegotiation is happening now, or will it not even start until 2015?

[Mr Hollobone]

My understanding is that the renegotiation has not started. The Government are undertaking a balance of competences review—a ridiculous name that nobody understands the meaning of—and are coming up with a list of items on which we will apparently renegotiate the terms of our membership. As far as I can tell, no chief negotiator has been appointed and renegotiation is not a Government policy but a Conservative party ambition.

The Liberal Democrats and the Labour party are doing their best to frustrate the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), which promotes an EU referendum. I am not entirely convinced, because no member of the Government has yet clarified this, whether if that Bill were to succeed in the other place and become an Act, it would form part of Government policy. We wait to hear from the Liberal Democrats on that.

[Mark Reckless]

Can my hon. Friend help me in a related area? Is the target of cutting immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands Government policy, or is it merely an aspiration of our party because the Lib Dems do not agree?

[Mr Hollobone]

I would welcome clarification from the Minister on that point, as would my hon. Friend. I welcome the Conservative party approach to cutting immigration, but I do not think it goes far enough. If I get to that part of my speech, I want to demonstrate why I do not think that aim can be achieved, not least because of our lifting of the restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. I am as sceptical as my hon. Friend about the way in which Conservative members of the Government, or the Government as a whole, may or may not start to renegotiate the terms of our membership of the European Union. I welcome the opportunity that I hope my constituents will have in 2017, under a majority Conservative Government, to have a say in a referendum.

The previous Labour Government’s lifting of the restrictions on immigration from the A8 eastern European countries was a catastrophic mistake. I would welcome a clear and frank apology from the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), for that huge “spectacular mistake”—the words of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). Under the leadership of the Labour party, the Home Office estimated a maximum net inflow from the A8 nations of 13,000 a year through to 2010. In the end, the total is one million and rising. Her Majesty’s Government under the coalition have declined to estimate the numbers at all, lest they make a similar error. That is not good enough. They should have at least tried to commission some research to have some feel of the number who might come to our shores, not least because local authorities, schools, hospitals and police services need to know the potential impact of immigration on their communities.

The only helpful estimate we have is provided by Migration Watch, which I think everyone agrees has a tremendous reputation on immigration matters.

European Union Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

That would be very nice, but I do not see the coalition Government repatriating any powers. For many people, it has now come to the issue of whether we are in or out. I do not believe that we can be “In Europe, but not run by Europe”. That slogan is, I am afraid, no longer valid.

I know that many Conservative Members believe that we can reform Europe to make it better, but some of us have reached the point where we simply do not believe that that is achievable. I do not want to spend the rest of my life arguing that we can improve Europe for the better. I believe that Britain’s best chance is to be an independent, sovereign, self-governing nation, with an enterprise economy looking out into the world, free from the restrictions that the European Union imposes upon us.

If Britain left the European Union, that would not mean the end of the European Union. It would still exist, but we would be freed from its shackles. We would be able to look out on the wider world, regain our economic self-confidence, and start to trade properly with superpowers such as China, India, and all the other countries with which we used to have such a wonderful relationship. Membership of the European Union is increasingly holding us back from both our past and our future as an entrepreneurial nation.

Our best hope of securing a decision in this Parliament lies in new clause 11. The new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough may well present us with the only opportunity that we will have in the five years of this coalition Government to decide whether we are to have an in/out referendum. I know that the new clause does not provide a perfect solution, but part of the genius of my hon. Friend is that he has got this far.

[Mark Reckless]

Does my hon. Friend agree that members of the Labour party are generally in favour of winning elections, and that if there is a strong enough demand from the British people for such a referendum, it is very possible that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) will flip his position on the issue?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend may well be right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman is spot on, but I would go rather further. I do not believe that Her Majesty’s Government, and other Members, are not confident; I think they now know that they would lose. They may not be drenched in e-mails and letters, but many members of our electorate have simply given up. That is why turnouts at general elections are now far lower than they used to be. Powers have drained from the House of Commons and Her Majesty’s Government to Brussels, and people are increasingly asking, “Why bother to elect Members of Parliament at all, given that all the decisions are made over in the EU?”

I believe that if we had a referendum, all those issues would emerge. I believe that most people in the country would be happy if we re-entered some kind of European Free Trade Association. I believe that most of them want a common market—a trading arrangement with European countries. What they do not want is membership of this political club.

[Mark Reckless]

Would my hon. Friend support a relationship with the EU rather like that of Norway and Switzerland? They sell rather more to the EU than we do, and are also rather richer.