EU Membership (UK Renegotiation)

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Mark Field

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered renegotiation of UK membership of the EU.

May I say at the outset, Mr Percy, how delighted I am to see you in the Chair and what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship? I can think of no one more suited to the role. What an excellent way to start the parliamentary year.

I thank Mr Speaker for granting me permission to have this debate and I thank the Prime Minister for his commitment to delivering an in/out referendum as part of the Conservative party manifesto. Let us not forget that if the Conservatives had not won last year’s general election, the Labour party, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats would have denied us the referendum that the British people want to hold. There is a lot of speaking talent in the Chamber this morning, so I shall keep my remarks shorter than I would otherwise, because most hon. Members here know far more about this subject and are far more eloquent than I.

To keep things simple, the referendum question that we will face, either this year or next, is whether to remain in or leave the European Union. Repeated polls show basically the same pattern. About a third of people want to remain and about a third of us want to leave, whatever happens. In between, about a quarter to a third are uncomfortable with Britain’s present relationship with the European Union or are worried about the future, but they are also concerned that if we leave the EU, there might be bad consequences for their jobs or living standards. The lazy assumption of the establishment, the BBC and the CBI is that the UK will vote to remain.

I am privileged to represent the constituency of Kettering, which has the privilege of being the most average town in the whole country. I like to describe Kettering as middle England at its best. The people in Kettering will want clear explanations from both sides as to which way they will vote. It is true, I am sure we all agree, that people are wary of change, but a key point to get across is that whether we stay in the European Union or leave it, change will happen. My contention is that if we stay in, those changes will be bad for the United Kingdom, but if we leave, those changes can be made good. My central assumption this morning is that remaining in the European Union is the riskier option. Leaving and taking back control for ourselves is by far the safer choice, which is what we need to explain to the good people of Kettering and the great British public over the year—or years—ahead.

The first of the five main points I want to make is, I am afraid, that the Prime Minister’s renegotiation strategy has been unfortunately weak. It has been undermined from the start by the fact that he is in favour of staying in the European Union, whatever the outcome of those renegotiations. The reforms that we are likely to get, if any, will be too little and too late. For a start, it looks pretty certain that they will not involve any kind of change to the European treaties at all, so any proposed reforms will have the legal effect of simply being an unsigned contract. The Prime Minister promised us that we would have full-on treaty change, but that has effectively now been abandoned.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is more attuned to European matters than virtually anyone else in this House, so he will be well aware that any treaty change will require a series of domestic referendums. It will clearly not be possible to get that worked out by the end of December 2017, when we are committed to having a referendum. It has always been clear from the timetable that we have in place that having fully fledged treaty change in advance of our referendum was an impossibility. Does he accept that?

[Mr Hollobone]

If my right hon. Friend is correct, it strengthens the case for voting to leave. Why would we want to stay in the European Union knowing that treaty change is yet to happen, trusting in the judgment of European politicians to deliver what they say they will deliver? The safer choice is to vote to leave, and then we would have the upper hand in negotiating our successful exit from the European Union.

If there are changes to the treaty, it is likely to be another five to 10 years before they happen, and if they proceed along the lines of the infamous Five Presidents report, they bode ill for this nation. It would appear that we are not going to get an end to the supremacy of EU law over UK law. We will not get the United Kingdom out of the charter of fundamental rights, which gives EU judges huge powers over us. We will not get a restoration of the UK’s right to make free trade deals under the World Trade Organisation. We are not going to get any reforms to the common agricultural policy or the common fisheries policy—I hope the SNP spokesmen are aware of that. We might get some changes to the benefit entitlement rules, but most EU migration to this country is driven not by a search for benefits, but by the fact that the UK has the most successful economy in Europe and people are coming here to seek work.

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: one reason why we have so dismally failed to meet our migration targets has been the relative success of our economy. However, does he not also accept that it would be wrong simply to blame our membership of the EU for the fact that migration is at the highest levels ever? We have a huge amount of non-EU migration that comes in and, in many ways, we are all party to that; we all have constituents, particularly from the former Commonwealth countries, whom we represent when they want relatives to come to this country. It is that level which is unacceptably high and which has helped to ensure that our pledge to reduce the amount to tens of thousands has been fatally missed right the way through the last Parliament, and will be, I think, for many years to come.

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes, I think the two main factors behind the massive wave of immigration are, first, our membership of the European Union and the principle of free movement within it, and secondly, the Human Rights Act 1998, both of which mean that we are effectively unable to control our borders. If we want to control our borders, however, leaving the EU is an absolute prerequisite. We now have the farcical situation in which an unskilled Romanian immigrant can come to this country without our being able to do anything about it at all, and they get a job perhaps as a cleaner, but a skilled migrant from India who has a degree in astrophysics will find it very difficult to come to this country. We are going to get a sensible immigration policy back only if we leave the EU and get rid of the Human Rights Act.

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[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend is right. I think that many countries around the world that have been unable to negotiate a free trade arrangement with the EU would be all too keen to negotiate one with the world’s fifth largest economy. We would have an appetite for doing exactly that were we to leave.

[Mark Field]

It strikes me that the one group that would be pleased if we left on that basis would be the new breed of civil servants that would be required in vast numbers to negotiate all those free trade deals across the globe. My hon. Friend alluded to the fact that one of the bigger concerns is not the economic issues in the European Union but political ones. Would he not at least recognise the risk—if we left the EU, given how calamitous that would be for the European Union as well as, in my view, not being good news for the United Kingdom—of retaliation, particularly in areas such as the City of London, an area that we both know well because we both worked there before coming here? For example, euro-denominated business would be largely out of Frankfurt and Paris instead of London. Retaliation would be a significant risk and the smooth path he has presented would not come into place.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am afraid that my right hon. Friend has been, as part of his constituency duties, spending too much time at too many big lunches in the City of London with the wrong crowd. I will give an example of what I am talking about. ICAP is the world’s largest dealer broker for financial institutions. The chairman of ICAP, Michael Spencer, has said that the UK can “thrive” outside the European Union. We were told by my right hon. Friend’s friends in the City of London that if we did not join the euro, all that euro-denominated business would go to Frankfurt, Paris and elsewhere. Actually, the City of London is today doing more euro-denominated deals than ever before in its history, so I do not take much notice of those scare stories, but I do suggest to my right hon. Friend that if his contacts want to continue to put out that sort of propaganda for our staying in the European Union, it demonstrates the weakness of their case. I do not want my constituents in Kettering, in middle England, to be unnecessarily scared by baseless scare stories from financial institutions that should know better.

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head.

[Mark Field]

I will not respond to that, but in the good-natured way in which we are having this discussion, I should perhaps point out that I have had many lunches in the City of London in the 14 or 15 years for which I have been the local MP, but my lunching activities go back a lot further, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) will know, because 30 years ago we began our political lives together as junior common room presidents in respective colleges and then as officers of the Oxford University Conservative Association. I have had lunch with him relentlessly over the last 30 years in the City and I do regard my hon. Friend as very much the right crowd, who I should be hanging around with, among many others whom I lunch with.

[Mr Hollobone]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention.

The fact is that the EU is going in the wrong direction. As we know, it is planning a new treaty to save the eurozone from itself and to give the EU more control. In many respects, that is the right response for the eurozone countries to make, but it would be bad for the United Kingdom. In truth, the EU cannot cope. In some parts of the EU, unemployment is already 25% and youth unemployment more than 50%—the worst situation since the 1930s. Debts are large and growing. Unfunded pension systems require large tax increases, immigration increases or both. Voting to remain would mean signing up to the new EU treaty currently being negotiated, which has been spelt out in the Five Presidents report. That will give the EU even more power over our economy and take our seat on key bodies such as the IMF. No new treaty has ever given powers back or saved us money.

My constituents in Kettering and people across the country will be increasingly alarmed to read the contents of the Five Presidents report, set out in July last year. Who are these pompous five Presidents? The first is Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President. The second is Donald Tusk, the President of the Euro Summit. The third is Jeroen Dijsselbloem, President of the Eurogroup, whatever that is. The others are Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, and Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. They do like to call themselves Presidents whenever they get the chance. Among their plans are a euro area Treasury and increasing control over Europe’s fiscal systems.

Reserve Forces

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Mark Field

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the reserve forces.

May I say what a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger? May I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for the debate? I have called it because the defence of the realm is the most important duty of Her Majesty’s Government, and the reserve forces are an ever more important part of that. The recruitment and retention of reserves is an important issue for the House, and this is a good opportunity to hold the Minister to account for the way in which the Ministry of Defence is tackling it. Progress has been made, but I am sure the Minister will admit that more can and must be made. What better way to hold any Minister of the Crown to account than on the Floor of the House?

My understanding is that Her Majesty’s Government intend the armed forces to comprise the following numbers of servicemen and women by 2020: 29,000 in the Royal Navy, 31,500 in the RAF and 82,000 in the Army. They are to be supported by 30,000 Army reservists and 5,000 Royal Navy and RAF reservists. As of 1 October, the trained strength of the tri-service volunteer reserve stood at 25,970—an 11% increase on the year before. However, the target of Her Majesty’s Government is for the tri-service reserve to total 35,060 by 1 April 2019. Maths was never my strong point, but I reckon we have 9,000 reservists to go to get to that target—a 35% increase on where we are now. Broken down by force, the target would be 30,100 reservists in the Army, 3,100 in the Royal Navy and 1,860 in the RAF. That would seem to be a tough challenge for Her Majesty’s Government to meet, and I look forward to the Minister giving us the confidence that they are on track to do so.

The reserves are an important part of our defence. I know a little about the subject because in a previous life I served, in a humble capacity, as a member of the Territorial Army for eight and a half years. During the cold war, Trooper Hollobone was prepared to stand in a trench to hold back the Russian hordes advancing over the north German plain. I am pleased that that never came to pass, because I am not sure that I and my few pals would have been able to do very much in the face of the Russian onslaught, although we would have done our best.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I should point out that my long-standing friendship with Trooper Hollobone goes back to my university days. However, my only military experience with him on the front line consisted of the very nice lunches we had at the Honourable Artillery Company—which, I should point out, he paid for.

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[Mr Hollobone]

I welcome that helpful contribution. The hon. Lady is known throughout the House for her experience in military affairs. She is in charge of the all-party group on reserve forces and cadets, and she is a distinguished serving member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. In other words, she is a lady who knows what she is talking about, and she gives the Chamber very wise counsel. There are many very good things about Her Majesty’s armed forces, but one of the bad things is that they can be too rigid in applying themselves to future challenges. The threat of cyber-warfare is a big unknown, and we have to be flexible and adaptable, and to think outside the box in meeting that challenge. The hon. Lady is absolutely right: we need to get people on board who understand cyber and IT. If we have to change our recruitment and retention processes to make sure that such people are contributing to Britain’s defence, we should do that, and we should do it quickly. The announcement of the extra expenditure suggests that the door of Her Majesty’s Government is open to such thinking. I very much hope the Minister will pass the hon. Lady’s wise words on to the Treasury, No. 10 and all the others who make these big, important decisions.

[Mark Field]

I would like to echo the words of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon).It is very positive that the Government have recognised the great danger of cyber-attacks not only in the military sphere, but in the commercial sphere. Given that the Bank of England has been so robust about the importance of resilience and the potential gaps in that respect in the commercial sphere, does my hon. Friend agree that Ministers should look again at having a reinsurance package in the cyber area, rather like what Pool Re provides in the terrorism area?

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[Mr Hollobone]

Having completed that course myself, I know that it is a very challenging experience. The deaths of the applicants were tragic. The publicity around the horrendous circumstances of that incident will, funnily enough, encourage others to come forward, in a perverse way, because they will have seen how difficult it is to get into the special forces. My understanding is that the exercise in question was not actually run by the special forces, and I would imagine there is quite a lot of concern among the special forces that the tragedy has been branded as their responsibility. My clear understanding is that it was not run by the special forces. Part of the challenge and the attractiveness of the special forces to potential recruits is the very difficult nature of the task presented to them, and we must not dilute that in any way.

One thing I am sure we can all agree on is that pro rata, we have the best armed forces in the world and the best special forces in the world. We have centuries of experience in developing our military capability; we know what makes people tick and we know how hard we can push people. Sometimes, tragically, it goes wrong, but those are a minority of occasions. The bulk of the training that both regular forces and special forces receive is some of the very best in the world, and we should be very proud of that.

Like the hon. Lady, I welcome the announcement of extra spending on special forces, as well as extra spending on cyber-warfare. In providing the capability for both, the reserve has a golden opportunity to contribute. We will not tackle these issues just through regular personnel; we have to attract reservists with specialist skills.

[Mark Field]

On a budgetary point, while the commitment to additional spending within what we might call the defence budget is obviously welcome, does my hon. Friend share my view that we need to be a little cannier about the way in which we utilise the soft power that comes with the 0.7% in the Department for International Development budget for a range of areas, such as community cohesion in foreign lands? We can utilise elements of that budget for precisely this sort of element of the reservist side. Even if we cannot commit ourselves, as many of us would like to, to a 2% or even higher percentage of GDP for defence, at least elements of what would traditionally be the defence budget can come through the important soft power of DFID.

[Mr Hollobone]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I am all for maximising the military component—that is a clumsy phrase—of our defence spending. Using our soft power budget legitimately to enhance our hard power capability is fine. I am all for, for example, sending armed forces personnel on aid programmes in other countries to become familiar with the language, culture and how those countries work, because that will help our hard power defence effort.

I am pleased that the Government are committed to spending 2% of our GDP on defence. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government will not enshrine that in law, because if we have enshrined the defence spending into law, enshrining the 2% commitment in law should be no issue. I am confident that a majority of this House would support doing just that, if the Minister were so minded.

As I understand it—the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—there is an issue regarding medical reservists, who will make up about 50% of Defence Medical Services by 2020, with some specialties such as neurology and urology being provided entirely by the reserve forces. There is, understandably, concern about the approach some NHS trusts are taking on medical reservists—the NHS is hard pressed, and we need all the doctors we can get—but there are benefits for crossover expertise between doctors working in the NHS and doctors working with our reservists. Some years ago, I had the privilege of visiting our front-line A&E facility in Afghanistan, which I think is the most advanced A&E facility in the world. It is manned by NHS doctors, who can bring their expertise back to the UK. There are lots of crossover benefits, but there is considerable range of practice within the NHS regarding the ease with which reserve doctors are allowed to leave their NHS posts to fulfil their reserve training commitments.