European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

Thank you for that clarification, Dame Rosie, although I think that the points that I am making stand regardless.

Following on from the decision last Wednesday, let us be clear that an overwhelming majority of Members respect the result of the referendum, as was reflected in the vote on article 50, but there is also a clear majority who reject the deep rupture with our friends and partners in the EU 27 that is advocated by some of the more extreme Brexiteers. In the months ahead, that clear majority needs to find its voice. Most Members—many more than reflected in last Wednesday’s vote—recognise that our future lies in a close and collaborative relationship with the EU. [Interruption.] I am sorry if that was provocative to some Government Members. The Prime Minister describes that relationship as a “deep and special partnership”. It is a relationship based on maintaining common EU standards and regulations necessary for our future trading relationship, and it is vital in protecting jobs and the economy.

It is also a majority of the House who recognise that the referendum was a close vote—not the unprecedented mandate that some have suggested. Yes, 17.5 million people voted to leave the EU in 2016. That is roughly the same number as voted to remain in 1975, although that represented 67% of voters in 1975. It was a clear decision, but a close vote, and one that we should be implementing in a way that unites the country, not in a way that drives a further wedge between the 52% and the 48%.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should be trying to bring people together, rather than separating them. In that context, will he explain his definition of Brexiteer? He used the word earlier in the phrase “more extreme Brexiteers”. In his definition, is every Member who voted for article 50—I think that five sixths of the House did so—characterised as a Brexiteer?

[Paul Blomfield]

Clearly not. Like hon. Members across the House, including the overwhelming majority of the Opposition, I campaigned to remain in the European Union because I thought it was right thing to do economically and politically for our country and our continent. But I voted for article 50. That clearly does not characterise me as an extreme Brexiteer. Since I was elected in 2010, it has startled me that a small number of Members seem to define their politics by their ambition to leave the European Union at any cost and at any price; that is what I would describe as extreme.

[Richard Graham]

Again, just for clarification, Members who voted for article 50 are not Brexiteers, but presumably those who did not vote for article 50 are also not Brexiteers. Therefore, none of us is a Brexiteer; or are we actually all Brexiteers and just trying to resolve the issue?

[Paul Blomfield]

I am not really sure where the hon. Gentleman is trying to go with that argument. My point is that an overwhelming majority in the House wish to see us implement the decision of 2016 sensibly, and in a close and collaborative relationship with the EU 27. There are others—a small number, whose voices I expect to hear shortly—who would see us leave at any cost, and I regret that.

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[Paul Blomfield]

We will come to that point in the second half of our debate today, and I will take the opportunity to comment on it then. However, to answer the right hon. Gentleman, the point I was making was that he sought to interpret the leave vote in a way that, on the basis of the research he cited, was flawed.

Analysis he might look at of nearly 3,000 British people, which was conducted by the NatCen Social Research, found that concerns about immigration were the driving factor for 75% of leave voters, which should not surprise him, because that was something he put very much at the centre of his arguments during the leave campaign.

If we know what the vote was not, let us remind ourselves what it was: it was simply a vote to leave the European Union. The campaign was hugely divisive. I spoke at dozens of meetings during the campaign, and the very last question of the very last meeting, in a local church, was, “How are you going to put our divided country back together again after all this?” Sadly, that question is as relevant now as it was then, as some of the abuse faced by Conservative Members after the vote last week demonstrated.

Meeting that challenge is a responsibility for us all, and it starts with us recognising that the majority in this House speaks for the country in wanting a sensible approach to Brexit. Instead of fuelling division, the Government should reach out and seek to build on that consensus for the next phase of the negotiations, in a way that will bring people together.

Last week’s drama should have been unnecessary. We should have been able to readily agree on the sovereignty of Parliament and on a meaningful final vote for this place. Labour amendments 348 and 349—when we come to it—which seek the publication of any impact assessment conducted by the Government, should be as uncontroversial as the idea that Parliament should have a say.

Clearly, events have moved on since these amendments were tabled, but real issues do remain. We obviously brought a motion on the issue to the House on 1 November, asking that impact assessments should be passed to the Exiting the European Union Committee. We did that for the same reason that the House voted last week: we want proper transparency and accountability in this process, but that is not what we got.

The Government neither amended nor opposed our motion, but they hoped to sidestep it. When Mr Speaker confirmed it was binding—

[Richard Graham]

On a point of order, Dame Rosie. My understanding of the advice you gave earlier is that amendment 348, which is about impact assessments, is not being discussed at this moment. I think that you told us that this debate is supposed to be about new clause 21, which is about clear English. That is why I asked the question about the shadow Minister’s definition of the word “Brexiteer”. However, I have not heard anything about new clause 21, and I think that you said we are going to take amendment 348 later.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

No, I think the hon. Gentleman misheard. I actually said that amendment 349 was in the second set and that amendment 348 is in this set, as is clause 13 stand part and schedule 5—hence why the debate is a little wider than the hon. Gentleman might wish it to be.

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[Mrs Moon]

I took that intervention from my hon. Friend because she is a Welsh colleague, and she and her constituents will also be affected by these job losses in automotive and steel. This was nothing to do with rejecting an intervention from the Conservative Benches; it was about giving the Welsh voice prominence in this place, just for a change. Welsh workers are deeply affected by these industries, and it is appalling that the Welsh Government have not been given the information that they need to do what they can. It is equally appalling that we as elected Members are not being given the information that we need to work to protect the people we were elected to protect. The typically patriarchal attitude towards the workforce revealed by the impact assessments that have been done so far is deeply worrying. I do not think that any in-depth analysis of the financial impact has been done.

Interestingly, I was in the USA last week at a defence conference, during which the question of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and a potential free trade agreement with the UK came up. A very senior member of the Trump Administration told us that the US had an ambition for access to all services in each other’s markets and that it was particularly keen to have access to the UK’s financial services. We were told, however, that it would not be as keen if the US was subject to the European Court of Justice, because it would not want its companies to have such judicial oversight. I think that tells us everything we need to know about the importance of our remaining in the customs union and the single market and being subject to the European Court of Justice. That is how we will protect not only our workforce but the consumers who buy the products that they produce.

[Richard Graham]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has spoken so well today, and indeed throughout these debates. This is the first time that I have risen to speak on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and I do so because I wish to add a little to what has already been said about amendment 348. I do not intend to revisit the arguments put forward in the previous Humble Address, or the decisions taken by our Select Committee. That issue has been dealt with, but since the shadow Minister hinted that the Opposition would come back to it, I want to focus on the substance of the amendment and on why I disagree with it so strongly.

It is my belief that what amendment 348 seeks to achieve is without precedent in the history of negotiations by our country. It would require the Government to publish their economic impact assessments of the policy options for withdrawal from the EU. However, the missing words at the end are “during our negotiations on withdrawal from the EU”. Those missing words matter, because this is a particularly important negotiation for our nation—nobody is any doubt about that—and because this is a particularly delicate time. The Government start negotiations on the implementation period and on our future relationship with the EU soon after the new year. On the other side of the negotiating table, the EU has made it absolutely clear that it will not be publishing all its research. We will therefore certainly not see any published analysis, let alone any impact assessments relating to, for example, what no deal would mean for specific ports in northern Europe, or to any potential drop in GDP for the town of Calais.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Graham]

Let me just develop my argument first, if I may.

It is therefore a curious affair that we should expect our own negotiating side to lay out in great detail what our own negotiating position should be. I tried to find precedents in our negotiating history, and I did some analysis of negotiations in which I was involved in the later stages. Those were the negotiations leading to the joint declaration on the future of Hong Kong in the early 1980s. Some Members will remember that there was considerable concern at the time about the economic future of Hong Kong under the sovereignty of communist China, and therefore about confidence—above all, economic confidence—in the territory. Were any economic analyses of the different scenarios published? No; not least because, had they been published, all of them would surely, at that time, have made the assumption that any change in the existing arrangements would have been negative to the economy of Hong Kong, and therefore probably to the UK as well.

In fact, today—20 years after the handover—whatever our concerns might be about the commitment to some of the freedoms guaranteed under the joint declaration, Hong Kong has surely made significant economic progress. My point is that any analysis at that time would have been done on the consensus assumptions of the early 1980s, which would have been substantially wrong and, if published, would almost certainly have been an impediment to the sensible, pragmatic, diplomatic negotiating compromise that was then achieved to everybody’s benefit. In the same way today, the range of assumptions behind trying to calculate which future road in the negotiations will be most economically beneficial makes that almost impossible to calculate, so let me give a few examples of the sort of questions that would have to be considered.

The latest statistics show that our current trade is 43% with the EU and 57% with the rest of the world. If our relationship with the EU did not change—if we were not leaving the EU—what would those figures be in five or 10 years’ time? The figure for EU trade has declined, but would that continue or reverse? Would the strong predictions for growth in Asia prove optimistic and accurate or would they underestimate what will happen? Right now, we are exporting more goods than services, which was unimaginable five years ago, but will that continue? How would different trends in goods and services affect our future trade across the world? Which countries would we benefit more from trading with if our goods were doing better than our services or vice versa? When we leave the EU, with whom will we reach free trade agreements? FTAs are just one of the tools available to us, so what other trading arrangements will we set up? How long will each of those agreements take, and what will their economic impact be?

Looking at south-east Asia—the area where I work for the Prime Minister—if we want to, will we be able to move on individual free trade agreements faster than the current progress of the EU? What about the US—the biggest of them all? We know that the US executes 25% of its trade with the European Union with the UK alone and that 50% of its financial services trade is with the UK. Its interest in having a separate FTA with us will largely depend on the degree to which we offer something different or the degree to which we converge, have equivalence or have mutual recognition of the regulations and laws in the EU. Given what I have just outlined, how can we possibly know the economic impacts of various aspects of future potential scenarios with the EU?

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He seems to be arguing not for or against the publication of information, but against the whole idea of any kind of economic impact assessment at all, which makes me wonder what the Chancellor’s last Budget statement was about. If he is being consistent, does he also think that none of the 16 economic impact analyses published by the Government in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum were worth the paper they were written on? They were also based on surmise and speculation.

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[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because, as a historian, I think he raises an interesting question: to what extent have economic forecasts ever been accurate? He might wish to study the assessments of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which have on the whole been consistently gloomy over the seven years that I have been in the House. He would be hard pushed to find a record of any Government being successful in economic forecasting, because all sorts of assumptions have to be made. As a previous Prime Minister once remarked, it is so often in life that events shape things, rather than our own forecasts of what the future might look like.

The hon. Gentleman helpfully takes me back to my point, which is that all these forecasts and assessments of potential impacts depend on a huge number of variables. They will alter by individual company, by sector, by technology and by much else besides. Whatever any Government trying to deliver such an assessment could come up with in terms of the net benefits for different scenarios, they will inevitably prove inaccurate. Therefore, arriving at impact assessments in the definition that the Government use—with clearly quantified conclusions and benefits—would almost certainly prove misleading.

To publish such assessments is to share them with every negotiating partner of the UK and would be a huge own goal. Instead, we should expect the Government to continue doing what they have been doing: setting out their strategy in broad terms, as the Prime Minister did in her Lancaster House and Florence speeches. In due course, a third speech may be needed to shed light on what our Government feel about those important terms, “convergence”, “alignment”, “equivalence” and “mutual recognition”; to highlight the benefits of our services to us and to Europe; and to say why a broad and deep partnership will benefit both us and Europe, including in regard to the sectors of defence, security, research, aerospace, nuclear energy, development, academia and many others besides.

EU Exit Negotiations

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

No.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

This urgent question is spectacularly badly timed, in the middle of talks to move to the next phase—[Interruption.] The truth is—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. [Interruption.] Order. I will deal with this. The hon. Gentleman is unfailingly courteous. He is entitled to criticise a Member for submitting an urgent question, but it is not for him to question the judgment of the Chair. I took the view that this matter warranted the attention of the House of Commons today. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to depart from that view, he should not express it on the Floor of the House. If he has a serious question to ask, I am happy to hear it, but I seek his assurance that he is not arguing the toss with the Chair.

[Richard Graham]

I would never dream of it, Mr Speaker. My point was that many negotiations, if not most, come good towards the end. Therefore, rather than sledging the Government, I urge the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to maintain their resilience and patience and see this through, which will require compromises on all sides to reach a good solution.

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

Leaving the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I can confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that the information in the edited documents will be valuable to the House, but it is wrong to describe them as “edited documents”. I would describe them as comprehensive sectoral analyses that the Government have provided for the Select Committee and will be providing, on a confidential basis, to the House.

In response to the right hon. Gentleman’s question about the customs union and the single market, I remind him that he, like I, stood on a manifesto that said that we will respect the referendum result and confirmed that the UK will be leaving the customs union and the single market.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Minister is making a gallant and courteous defence of a situation that is unlikely to satisfy everybody in this House because of the terms of the Humble Address, but there are two aspects of this that need to be separated. The first is the requirement to provide everything to the Select Committee, which the Humble Address did call for. The second is the fact that surely no one in this House would want our country to go into the negotiating chamber in a weaker position as a result of decisions taken here. The shadow Secretary of State himself recognised that there is a way of dealing with these things, which is to redact what would be sensitive. Unfortunately, the Humble Address did not cover that, so I believe that it is now strongly in the Government’s interest to table a motion to amend the Humble Address, which many of us in the House would strongly support.

[Mr Walker]

Like many Conservative Members, my hon. Friend has suggested an approach that the Government could take. It is certainly something to which we will give due consideration.

EU Exit Negotiations

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend goes right to the point. There are three reasons for the transition: one is for the British Government to be able to accommodate and another is so that foreign Governments can accommodate; but, as he says, the most important is to allow British businesses to accommodate in the knowledge of what they are accommodating to.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Every individual and organisation that the Select Committee saw in Brussels and Paris last week stressed that their absolute priority is people and citizens’ rights. Does my right hon. Friend therefore agree that when an agreement on citizens’ rights is reached, it should be announced and committed to in perpetuity by both sides to help 4.5 million citizens to get on with their lives? Does he agree that not to do so would raise the question of who is really putting people first?

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Sadly, the phrase used earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg)—nothing is agreed until everything is agreed—is the primary maxim of the European Commission.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Analysis

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, and I agree with her. The Government’s policy follows naturally from the UK’s democratic decision to leave the European Union. We will take back control of our laws, our borders, our money and our trade policy, and I am confident that we will make a success of it.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you have said that this particular question should focus on the issue of when, and the Minister has said within three weeks. During that period, the Select Committee will be able to have a proper debate about what exactly we want to see and in what format. Those of us who are going to Brussels this afternoon will have the chance to ask Mr Verhofstadt what plans the European Union Parliament has to make the same demands to the European Union Commission, and to ask Monsieur Barnier what plans the Commission has to provide the same answers to the same demands. Surely there is no one in this House who would want to see us publish information that would damage this nation in negotiations with another party.

EU Exit Negotiations

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

That is a question the hon. Gentleman should put to the First Secretary, who is the decision maker on that. If the situation is not resolved very soon, we will have to find another mechanism. He is exactly right.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The vice-president of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association recently said that German manufacturers were concerned for the future of their businesses and that the economic price of failing to strike a trade deal with the UK

“will be bad for all of us”.

Given that the implication is that businesses on both sides of the channel would benefit from a quick agreement on both the long-term future arrangements and the transition, does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if the EU started discussing what future EU programmes we might want to participate in and what might be the nature of a free trade agreement, in order to speed up everything for the benefit of all businesses across the continent?

[Mr Davis]

Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. The reason that is not happening, as I have intimated before, is that the EU sees it as a tactical advantage at the moment. The simple truth is that it is not just German mechanical engineers, but the head of the Bavarian state, the head of Flanders, the head of Hauts-de-France, as I described earlier—it is many, many people—who see their own interest at risk. That is what will help us out in the end.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Clegg]

I must make progress; there is very little time.

Turning to the other, perhaps more meaningful amendment, the double standards that we have just heard about red tape are duplicated several times over by the double standards of Brexiteers saying, “We should free ourselves”—at any cost—“from the lack of democratic accountability in Brussels,” when the first thing they do is undermine and weaken the principle of democratic accountability in this House. I have listened closely to the Government’s case for rejecting that amendment, including today, and there is no first principle argument against it, because they concede to the principle of a vote; they just do not like us having the freedom to decide what that vote should be on.

The Government have come up with laughable arguments, which we have heard repeated here today, including that if we have just the bog-standard, plain vanilla accountability exerted by the House of Commons and the other place on any announcement made by the Prime Minister in two years, that will serve as an incentive for the EU to give us a bad deal. By that logic, the only Governments who can successfully negotiate good international agreements are dictatorships. They are not; they are democracies. Democracy can co-exist with good international agreements.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason the Government are digging their heels in as stubbornly as they are is that they somehow think that they will strut their stuff and impress our soon-to-be EU negotiating partners by indulging in parliamentary and procedural machismo here. Who do they think they are kidding? Do they think that Angela Merkel has put everything aside to look at this debate this afternoon? Do they think that she has said, “Oh, look at the way that No. 10 unceremoniously evicted Lord Heseltine and other venerable parliamentarians from their jobs. We had better give them a good deal”?

Does the Secretary of State think that Michel Barnier, whom I know well and know the Secretary of State knows well—a hardened EU negotiator if ever there was one—is saying, “Oh well, we’d better lower the price tag because they are being so tough with their own people”? It is a ludicrous assertion. So I simply say to Government Members, at this last, 59th second of the eleventh hour of this debate on these amendments: stubbornness can be a sign of suspicion and weakness, not strength; rejecting the rightful, conventional role of the House of Commons and the other place to apply democratic accountability to the actions and decisions of the Executive can be a sign of weakness, not strength; and this specious argument that condemns the lack of democratic accountability in Brussels while undermining it here, in the mother of all Parliaments, is a sleight of hand that should not be lightly forgotten.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

Let me tell the right hon. Lady about the views that were expressed in my constituency, even though they might be different from those being expressed in her own. When we discussed the social chapter and people’s employment rights, my constituents said, in terms, “You can’t trust the Tories.” It is because of that feeling—[Interruption.] Those were their words, not mine. It is because of that feeling that we need to have parliamentary involvement in the way this process is carried forward.

The Government have reluctantly come to the House with this Bill. I first requested that Parliament be involved on 11 July in an urgent question on article 50. The Government resisted, as everybody knows, and only came to the House because they were forced to by the Supreme Court. Some Government Back Benchers say that the negotiations are far too complex to do openly—the right hon. Member for West Dorset talked about 3D chess, for example—but I take the opposite view: it is precisely because the negotiations are complicated and multifaceted that lots of people should be involved.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The vast majority of the amendments—I think I counted 30—tabled by members of the Opposition basically call for a report within 30 days of the Bill coming into force setting out the Government’s approach in the negotiations. Does the hon. Lady imagine that Europe will publish reports on every one of these issues, setting out its approach in the negotiations? That would surely be giving away too much.

[Helen Goodman]

Had the hon. Gentleman been in his place to hear the fantastic speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), he would understand why my hon. Friend was proposing all those reports. I am speaking to new clause 29, which is about quarterly reporting by the Government once the negotiations get under way.

Another slight misconception among Government Members is that there is some best deal, but there is clearly no objective technical standard test. What is best in the constituency of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) might be different from what is best in my constituency. I am not casting aspersions on the motivations of Government Members; I am being realistic. When the Prime Minister talks about building a better Britain and doing what is best for the country, I am sure that she is being completely sincere, but she stood in a general election in Durham in 1992 and received half as many votes as the Labour candidate. The truth of the matter is that the process is complicated and there are different interests. Parliament, which is the sovereign body of the country, should be able to participate fully in that process, and scrutiny is the basic first brick of it.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin). On this Bill, we have both come to a similar decision. In the run-up to the referendum, I believed that the considerable short-term risks of leaving the European Union outweighed the unquantifiable future benefits, but I underestimated the deep mistrust of the European Union. The people have decided to leave. I must respect that decision, and I will support this Bill.

The hard work now begins. For example, how do we access the benefits of free trade and the inspection-free transfer of goods from outside EU structures such as the single market and the customs union? Some believe that nothing is possible, and that the alternative to working for success is to hope that things go badly—even to will it—to be ceaselessly critical and, ultimately, to achieve only an echo of Private Frazer’s lament, “We’re all doomed.” Although none of us has perfect foresight, I am absolutely confident that we will have much greater success in lining up future free trade agreements than some Members have suggested.

The negotiations will begin soon. In my view, we need an agreement in which we are generous to Europeans living here, enthusiastic in our continuation of academic and research co-operation, and resolute in our solidarity with Europe on defence and security. In that agreement, we must be practical about ways of controlling immigration but welcoming to skills, tourists and entrepreneurs; we must be free of the European Court of Justice, but never compromise on standards or the rule of law; and we must be adventurous in pursuing our own trade deals, but never underestimate the importance of free trade and easy customs clearance in all that we do with Europe. That is what I hope the Government’s White Paper will lay out. I hope that it will bring our one nation of diverse parts together. Whatever our concerns about the journey, we should start positively, not cynically.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes another important point. The farming industry is reliant, to a certain extent, on seasonal agricultural workers. As he knows, a seasonal agricultural workers scheme existed until fairly recently, and that is one of the models that the Government are considering.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

5. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on businesses in (a) the UK and (b) the EU.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)]

Our Department, working with officials across government, continues to undertake a wide range of analysis, covering the entirety of the UK economy and our trading relationships with the EU. We are looking at more than 50 sectors, as well as cross-cutting regulatory issues. We want to ensure that British businesses have the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within European markets, and to let European businesses do the same in Britain. We believe a strong partnership and a good deal on market access are in the interests of both the UK and the EU.

[Richard Graham]

While we will bring in more immigration controls, the ability for key sectors such as aerospace, health and financial services to bring in or relocate skills and talent from different countries is important to their success and our industrial and export strategy. What reassurances can my hon. Friend give such businesses?

[Mr Walker]

I know that my hon. Friend is a champion for the aerospace businesses along the M5 corridor and helps them in his role as a global trade envoy for our Prime Minister. As she said, we want the UK

“to be a secure, prosperous and tolerant country—a magnet for international talent and home to the pioneers and innovators who will shape the world ahead.”

We will continue to attract the brightest and the best to work and study in Britain. Indeed, openness to international talent must remain one of this country’s most distinctive assets, but that has to be managed properly so that our immigration system serves the national interest.