Robert Neill
Main Page: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)Department Debates - View all Robert Neill's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland does an excellent job. She is exercising her ability to reach a personal decision and to campaign for Britain to leave the EU, and it is absolutely right she is able to do that. The key thing is that everyone in Northern Ireland should make up their own mind based on the evidence, and I look forward to coming to try to help persuade them to remain in a reformed EU.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister accept that the thousands of my constituents, the hundreds of thousands of constituents in London and the millions of constituents across the UK who work in financial services will be glad that he, at least, values their jobs, even if the Leader of the Opposition appears to dismiss them? Will he also recognise that the economic governance package is an important win for a strategic British interest and, therefore, that the pragmatic and businesslike thing is not to walk away from a market we are in, but to stay in it, improve it and make it work better?
The Prime Minister
I certainly agree with that. We should recognise that there are something like a million jobs in finance in Glasgow and Edinburgh—I think there are almost a million jobs in Manchester and Birmingham. The key point here is this: because we are in the single market, we have the right to passport—that is, to have a bank or a financial services company here in Britain that can trade throughout the EU. Leave the single market, and you lose that right. What would then have to happen is that companies based in the UK would have to move at least some of their jobs to another European country—that is why HSBC said the other day they would lose 1,000 jobs. So real jobs, real people’s salaries and real prosperity are under threat. We really need to explain this. It is complicated, but there is no doubt in my mind: leaving the single market for financial services would mean fewer jobs in Britain.