European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Graham Stringer

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer]

I do not know what decisions will be made. I believe that the Government are likely to pay too much. Let us ask ourselves: why would we be paying money so that the rest of the EU can trade with us and every year sell us £70 billion more in goods than we are selling to the EU? Why is that a deal that we should be keen to support? I suspect that the Government will come back and put it to—

[Stella Creasy]

Whatever my hon. Friend’s feelings towards the European Union, he has just said that he fears that we may pay too much, whatever the number is. New clause 17 is about knowing what that number is. Surely he must support that principle. Then we can answer the question about whether it is too much, not enough or completely irrelevant.

[Graham Stringer]

I hope that my hon. Friend was listening to me when I was arguing in favour of transparency. I was arguing against the particular wording of these amendments, which I believe to be biased. Of course we should be transparent about what things cost, and we should have the right to have a view and determine what we think about that. Who could argue against that? All I am saying is that, if we are paying £40 billion over 40 years, that is probably against £400 billion that we would be paying, and that should be the context in which these figures are produced.