EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. That is what I hear from many of my European colleagues: we are about to move from one phase of European Union development into a new phase that is hugely beneficial to the United Kingdom, yet we are talking about walking away from it. Our financial services industry alone currently contributes more than 7% of UK GDP and employs more than 1 million people, two thirds of them outside London, but there is not yet a single market for financial services across the EU. The potential is huge.

A fully functioning digital single marketplace could be worth as much as £330 billion a year to the EU economy, with the UK again set to benefit more than any other country, as the leading digital economy in Europe. By the way, it would be a huge boon for Britain’s digital-savvy consumers, who would be able to shop freely across the digital single marketplace. Individuals are already feeling the benefits of last year’s EU agreement, led by the UK, to end mobile roaming charges, which it is estimated will save UK consumers around £350 million a year, and for years we have all been enjoying the budget airline boom created by EU regulations.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason why the markets had such a shock yesterday was the prospect of us leaving, based on a couple of polls? That £30 billion shock to our financial system hit not just capitalists but the pension funds of hard-working people, which deteriorated. If the prospect of Brexit caused that shock, what on earth would actual Brexit look like?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. We can regard what has been happening in the markets this week as a fore-tremor—a taste of what could be to come if the people of Britain vote to take a leap into the dark on 23 June.

A fully fledged energy union in gas and electricity markets could save £50 billion a year across the EU by 2030, with huge benefits for consumers through their energy bills, as well as making Europe safer from threats of energy blackmail. But it is not just intra-EU trade benefits that our membership delivers. As a member of the world’s largest economic bloc, we benefit directly from being party to EU trade agreements with more than 50 other countries, with terms far more favourable than any that we could have negotiated alone, because of the combined negotiating muscle of an economic bloc with a quarter of the world’s GDP.