European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Martin Horwood and Lord Hain

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hain]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because I am about to name-check him—and to answer his question.

The City must be properly consulted, as new schedule 2 and amendment 68 would provide, and its concerns, like those of CBI members, need to be understood by the electorate well in advance of a short and compressed campaign so that voters are not bamboozled by newspapers and stampeded into a referendum.

[Martin Horwood]

The right hon. Gentleman is making important points. I suspect that we probably agree on whether Britain should be in or out of the European Union, but he must accept that we do not really need a formal consultation exercise to find out what the CBI thinks. It said clearly, in a definitive report published on Monday:

“While the UK can certainly survive outside the EU, none of the alternatives suggested offers a clear path to an improved balance of advantages and disadvantages or greater influence.”

The CBI clearly wants us to stay in. Do we really need a consultation to establish that?

[Mr Hain]

What we need is for the Government to consult the CBI properly, not just stick a copy of its report into the Library. We need a report to Parliament, as amendment 68 suggests. It is a serious report by a serious organisation—

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[Mr Hain]

I agree completely. All that social protection would be dispensed with under the Conservative nirvana.

New schedule 2 and amendment 68 would provide for consultation on the common agricultural policy, a matter that was briefly raised earlier. I would like not only the National Farmers Union to be consulted under sub-paragraph (b) of new schedule 2 but the Farmers Union of Wales and NFU Cymru under sub-paragraph (j), because the CAP is wasteful and works against the interests of the world’s poor. However, a Britain on the margins of Europe would not be in a strong position to reform the CAP—I am sure that that would be revealed by a consultation—and nor would it be able to create more sustainable agriculture and rural communities. Without a full commitment to the EU, we will have less influence, too, on determining European negotiating positions in the World Trade Organisation negotiations. I am sure that farmers’ unions and organisations would endorse the position that I have just advanced in a consultation.

If we exited from the EU, we would have less influence on CAP reform. The fact that we are on the border of the rest of the EU means that we are affected by the CAP whether we like it or not. We would disadvantage our own farmers by not having the ability to influence what was going on in Brussels and the policies that flow from that. A consultation would reveal that. Overwhelmingly, farmers’ unions and organisations would favour remaining in the EU. The consultation would reveal the arguments in detail and test them in a way that will not be possible in a short referendum campaign.

[Martin Horwood]

I agree entirely with what the right hon. Gentleman says about the way our influence on many of these issues would be reduced if we left the EU. However, if I may draw him back to his new schedule, is there not a problem with such a prescriptive list of organisations? If the NFU is included, why not the Soil Association or the Country Land and Business Association? If Universities UK is included, why not the Russell Group or the Gazelle group of FE colleges? If the Association of Chief Police Officers is included, why not GCHQ—that would be topical? There is a problem with having such a prescriptive list.

[Mr Hain]

I am at a loss to understand what exactly the Lib Dem role is in all this. If the hon. Gentleman looks at new schedule 2, he will see that sub-paragraph (j) provides for “other organisations”, and that includes all the organisations that he mentioned and many more that I am about to mention.

On the question of a proper, concerted approach to the environment in the whole of the EU, the consultation could seek the views of Friends of the Earth, which is mentioned in sub-paragraph (h), the Local Government Association, which is mentioned in sub-paragraph (i), Greenpeace, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the World Wide Fund for Nature. All those organisations would be able to confirm in a consultation that Britain on its own would be unable to guarantee a sustainable future for our citizens. We are so close to the continent of Europe that clear skies, pure water, clean beaches and a healthy environment can be delivered only through co-operation at European level. A consultation on the environment would reveal the case for staying in the European Union and why the Bill is so irrelevant.

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[Mr Hain]

Indeed. A consultation should be held, and one of the first organisations that should be consulted under paragraph (j) of new schedule 2 is Nissan. With its 6,500 workers in Sunderland, it is a major European car manufacturer. What did its chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, say today? He said:

“If anything has to change,”

Nissan would

“need to reconsider our strategy and our investments for the future”—

that is to say, if Britain were to leave the European Union.

[Martin Horwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hain]

I will make progress. I have let the hon. Gentleman in a number of times.

The point that I was about to make about consultation is that inward investors, particularly Japanese companies such as Nissan, come into the European Union bringing with them tens of thousands of jobs—direct jobs and indirect jobs—and a great deal of wealth. They come here because they will be part of the single market of the European Union. Again, under new schedule 2 we would be able to consult them. We would be able to consult Ford, which has plants at Bridgend and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Such companies are in the United Kingdom rather than elsewhere in the European Union because we are members of the EU and part of the single market. We would want to consult them, as well as Sony, Toyota—[Interruption.] We would want to consult Airbus, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) reminds me. That is a really important company, right on the Welsh-English border in the north-east of Wales. It would need to be consulted as well.