EU-UK Summit

Debate between Richard Tice and Stella Creasy

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Richard Tice]

And dependants, because the scheme is still open-ended. We do not know the age or number of people involved in the youth experience scheme, and we have no idea about its duration. I am hoping that I will still qualify at the age of 60.

[Ms Creasy]

I, too, share a burning desire to still be considered young—alas, I have to face the brutal reality. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has similar concerns about the 13 other youth mobility schemes that we have with countries around the world. Does he fear the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Canadians, the Japanese and the Uruguayans who come on such schemes in the same way that he fears the Europeans? Or is it that he thinks the Europeans are younger and fitter than him?

[Richard Tice]

Well, the Europeans may well be younger and fitter than me, but the truth is that proximity makes a big difference to the concerns of my constituents. Boston has received a significant quantity of net immigration from eastern Europe, but it has not seen any Australians. There is a proximity issue, but surely it must be right that if the Government are going to agree a deal, they should agree the terms of the deal. We do not know the numbers, the cap or, really, the duration of the scheme—we know absolutely nothing. We are completely at the mercy of the European Union.

I invite any hon. Member to spend a day with me in sunny Skegness and knock on a thousand doors. I promise them that not a single person who answers the door will say, “I want a youth experience scheme for Johnny or Judy.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Tice]

The renewable energy industry is receiving subsidies of tens of billions of pounds, which are added to all our household bills. The wholesale cost of energy is between 30% and 35% of the total cost of energy, so all the rest is subsidies, policy costs, transmission costs and profit. If we scrap net stupid zero, we drive down prices. Instead, the deal will handcuff us for evermore to higher bills; it will not reduce bills in any way.

[Ms Creasy]

As a proud member of the Community trade union, and on behalf of all the other trade unions who represent those who work in the steel industry, including many in the Scunthorpe steelworks, I want to ask the hon. Gentleman what he will say to them when they are campaigning for the deal. They recognise that, as I said, 75% of our steel exports go to the EU. If he cuts off their access to the EU market by making them pay an additional subsidy, he will kill the British steel industry. Does he have any words of comfort for them about where their jobs will go?

[Richard Tice]

The hon. Lady may have forgotten that it was thanks to our intervention that British Steel and the blast furnaces have been saved. We stood there six years ago, and I said, “Don’t sell British Steel to the Chinese,” but the Conservative Government ignored our advice. British Steel has consistently said to me over the last six years that the cost of energy drives up the price of steel. That is why the quantity of steel that we have produced in this country in the last decade has plummeted—because of our high energy costs due to the ever increasing cost of renewable energy.

The key problem is the cost of energy, which has driven down the production of steel by about half in the last decade. That is why British Steel is so cross about the cost of energy. We have an opportunity to manufacture and sell more steel internally, in the UK, but the tragedy is that the Ministry of Defence, for example, does not use either of our key steel producers—Tata Steel or British Steel—as a critical supplier, which it should do. Why does it not do that? Because those producers are uncompetitive. Why? Because of the cost of energy in our domestic market. The fifth surrender is the EU emissions trading scheme, which will be a serious handicap and handcuff over the next few years.

The sixth surrender is on the use of passport e-gates. I know it caused some interest, but the reality is that, once again, nothing has been agreed. It is supposedly the great benefit, yet it turns out that it is not agreed. We have no idea when it might commence; it might be this year or next year. It also turns out that no country is obligated to sign up to our supposed access through the e-gates—no, it will be a voluntary process. Actually, we have not agreed the benefit that we have all been told is the deal’s greatest opportunity.

In other words, once again, little has been agreed and everything has been conceded. Interestingly, even before the deal, nations such as Portugal already allowed us through e-gates. We already have the opportunity that is supposedly the great benefit of this deal, so why do the deal in the first place?

The deal has been done, despite all of these great surrenders, because we have a Prime Minister who did not want us to leave the EU. More than that, he did not want to trust democracy; he wanted to do it again by having a second referendum. One week, he says that he wants freedom of movement and more immigration, and the next week, he says he wants less immigration. It is hard to keep up.

European Scrutiny Committee

Debate between Richard Tice and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

It is important to have a debate on this motion. We have heard all afternoon splendid speeches and maiden speeches, have we not? But the thrust of this afternoon has been scrutiny, accountability and responsibility. It seems extraordinary to me that while the other House has a Committee to scrutinise our relations with the European Union—indeed, today it has proudly announced that it has been reformed—and the Government want to reform the House of Lords, we could have a situation in which there is only a Committee to scrutinise relations with the European Union in the other place. We have talked about scrutiny all afternoon. Of the 27 Committees referred to on the Order Paper, the European Scrutiny Committee is the only one that includes the word “scrutiny”, yet it is the one Committee that the Leader of the House wants to do away with. I find that extraordinary.

We have heard from the Government before the election, during the election and since the election about the importance of our relations with our friends in the European Union and how negotiations may take place on a whole raft of important issues. Do hon. Members remember the slogan, “Take back control of our borders, our money and our laws”? Surely the whole point of our debate about our relationship with the European Union is that this is the place where we debate and legislate for laws on behalf of the people, so if we are to take back control of our laws, surely those laws and the negotiations proposed by the Government on behalf of the people should be scrutinised in detail and earnest, as has been proposed all afternoon with regard to other matters.

I suggest to the Leader of the House, the Government and the Whips that we need to reflect on that. I urge the Leader of the House to withdraw the motion, reflect on it from the sedentary position of our sunbeds over the next month and bring it back to the House in September.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Those of us who will be not on a sunbed but in our constituencies do recognise that point. The hon. Gentleman and I will take a different view on the benefits of what the Government are doing to reset our relationship with Europe now that we have left the European Union so that we can finally get the trading benefits sorted and sort out the border tax mess left by the last Government. Does he recognise that there is now a lacuna where people may question where such a debate will happen and what role parliamentarians may play in it, and that perhaps one fruitful thing would be to clarify what will happen to the European Statutory Instruments Committee, which seems to have been dissolved yet was looking at the European laws that we were transposing into UK law?

There are a number of questions that may not be for this evening but are for the future of this Parliament. Given what the hon. Gentleman is expressing, he and I might disagree on the outcomes, but we agree that they are important questions, and we would like to understand what will happen next.