- 4:30 pm
- Before we start, Mr Speaker has asked me to say that Members who are able to bob to indicate that they wish to speak during the debate should do so. Obviously, if you cannot, we will take that into account. I should also say that about 13 Back Benchers are down on the list to speak in the debate. I know we have about three hours, but that probably means we will have to impose a time limit. At the moment, as guidance, Members might want to look to take about seven minutes, or something like that, given there are likely to be some interventions.
- I beg to move,That this House has considered e-petition 628226, relating to the impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union.It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.The petition, as at 11 am today, had attracted more than 178,000 signatories. The number was changing by the minute, so it will be even higher now. I highlight that it remains open until 18 May and I urge anyone who agrees with its premise to add to the significant support it has already received.I am delighted to be leading the debate, not least because I wholeheartedly agree with the grounds of the petition and its request:“The benefits that were promised if the UK exited the European Union have not been delivered, so we call upon the Government to hold a Public Inquiry to assess the impact that Brexit has had on this country and its citizens.It is time that the people of this country were told the truth about Brexit, good or bad. We deserve to know how Brexit is impacting on trade, the economy, opportunities for young people and how it has affected the rights of individuals. This can only be done by an independent Public Inquiry, free from ideology and the opinions of vested interests.”Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Packham, the man who started the petition. An elected member of the European Movement’s national council and a manager of one of its local branches, Leeds for Europe, Peter is a passionate pro-European campaigner, and I am delighted that he is able to join us in the Public Gallery today. I thank Peter and Leeds for Europe for their petition urging the UK Government to hold a public inquiry into the impact of Brexit, as well as everyone who signed it, because those actions brought us here for what I am sure will be an informative debate.
- The hon. Member is making a very good start to this important debate. Does he agree that one of the worst-affected sectors is the creative sector? Many musicians across the UK have been in touch with us as their representatives to say how they have been negatively affected by the lack of agreement between countries. I hope that he and others will refer to that in their speeches.
- That is a good point well made. The problem we have with the debate is that so many areas have been adversely affected that even with the best part of 20 minutes, I will struggle to touch on them all. I look forward to other Members extrapolating from the points we start with.A public inquiry has been set up to look into the UK’s pandemic response, so it is reasonable—I would suggest sensible—to also hold one on the impact of Brexit. The public have a right to know. Putting aside the fact that support for Brexit is at its lowest since the referendum, the impact of leaving the EU on the UK needs to become common knowledge. We need to know where we are before we can plot our way forward to where we want to be.
- Some of those who felt the impact of Brexit most keenly were not old enough to vote. Children and young people have lost access to schemes such as Erasmus. Schoolchildren were stuck for many hours on coaches at Dover over the Easter holidays, and we had Conservative Ministers telling us that that had absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Furthermore, the Tourism Alliance tells us that the number of schoolchildren coming from the European Union on school trips has halved because of bureaucracy around group visas and the inability to travel without a passport, whereas it used to be possible to travel on an ID card. Does the hon. Member agree that children and young people have fared the worst and that many people were not aware of that when the decision went through?
- I thank the hon. Member for that point. I agree that young people have lost the most, but I hope that we can regain some of that for them in the future.To put it simply, can we make Brexit work? I very much doubt it, but can we move on without knowing what the foundation is? The UK Government opened its response to petitioners by saying:“The UK’s departure from the EU is the result of a democratic choice”.For that reason, at the outset of the debate, it would be remiss of me not to point out that 62% of those who voted in Scotland did not want to leave the EU, with every Scottish council returning a remain majority. Just under 56% of those who voted in Northern Ireland did not want to leave the EU either.
- Does the hon. Gentleman agree that transparency is the key to all good governance and that, without knowing the impact of leaving the European Union, we will never be able to resolve the issues we have at present?
- That is a very good point and one that I will also make.It will come as no surprise to anyone that, as a citizen of one of those nations, those figures do not seem very democratic to me. It is not my place to comment on the Northern Ireland situation—
- I’ll do that. Don’t worry.
- I am sure the hon. Gentleman will.It is not my place to comment on the Northern Ireland situation, particularly pertaining to the added complexities of what was the Northern Ireland protocol. However, I can say that the whole Brexit saga lays bare why Westminster is unfit to govern in Scotland’s interests. Indeed, not only has the Brexit debacle blown apart the case for Westminster control, but the ensuing debate has shown beyond doubt that the two major Westminster parties are committed to the damage that leaving the EU is having on trade and the economy across the UK, as well as on opportunities for our young people and the rights of individuals.
- I apologise for jumping in on the hon. Gentleman quite so quickly, but he is making lots of really important points. Does he agree that one of the most valuable features of a democracy is that it has the potential for error correction? In other words, does he agree that, if people change their minds—as is increasingly the case with Brexit—the only logical thing to do is to change the decision that caused people to change their minds?
- The hon. Lady makes a very good point. In a democracy, people always have the right to change their minds and we should bear that in mind at all times.Before moving on to some of the evidence of the negative impact of Brexit, I want to mention that the UK Government’s response also said that“the UK-EU institutions are functioning as intended.”If that is the case, considering that the democratic will of the people of Northern Ireland was not met, it prompts the question of why it took so long for the UK-EU institutions to reach agreement on the Windsor framework. That breakthrough was surely not “intended” to take nearly seven years.It is disappointing that a similar deal to Northern Ireland’s has not been afforded to Scotland, but that is not for this debate. I am sure that we can have fun with that issue in months to come. However, given the length of time it took to negotiate such a critical agreement, can the Minister tell us what progress has been made on negotiating re-entry to European projects that all four nations were removed from, such as Horizon Europe, Copernicus, Euratom, the European arrest warrant, Europol and the Schengen information system? It would be helpful if the Minister could also take the opportunity to explain why both the European Scrutiny Committee and the Lords European Affairs Committee are currently holding inquiries on the new UK-EU relationship. Perhaps he could suggest when those findings will be published to evidence the UK Government’s claim that UK-EU institutions are indeed functioning as intended.Moving on to how Brexit is affecting trade and the economy, the Trade Secretary recently announced that the UK had reached agreement to join the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—sometimes referred to under the acronym CPTPP or otherwise known as the Pacific rim trade deal—which will allow zero tariffs for 99% of goods exported to the bloc. Although the agreement has not yet been signed, the Trade Secretary claimed, in her excitement, that it would “open up our economy”. Good news, we might think—but, in the course of the announcement, she also said that we should “not keep talking” about Brexit. Well, this debate might disappoint her, as it shows that Brexit remains a live political issue. I align with the opinion of the petitioners that it will continue to be so at least until the facts are known, and probably for some time to come afterwards.
- On the subject of Brexit being on everyone’s minds, for my constituents in Battersea it remains an issue and, for them, it has been an unmitigated disaster. Our economy is not growing, our rights and protections are being infringed and, more importantly, Britain’s standing in the world is also challenged. I have called on the Government to produce a cumulative impact assessment on the impact of Brexit. Does the hon. Member agree that any public inquiry must look at the cumulative impact of Brexit on our constituents?
- I am happy to agree with that. The more I learn, the more I realise that there is no such thing as a good Brexit. I think we are all seeing that clearly.The Trade Secretary’s reason for saying what she did could be that, according to the UK Government’s own scoping assessment, the shiny new CPTPP trade bloc deal will bring an increase of only 0.08% in GDP over a lengthy 15 years. The House of Commons Library reports that the economic benefits of CPTPP membership “appear to be small.”
- The hon. Gentleman mentions the 0.08% boost to GDP promised by access to the CPTPP. Surely, in all honesty, for the sake of our economy the time has come to stop burying our heads in the sand. We cannot just multiply excuses; we have got to face the reality that Brexit is part of the problem. With that, from Plaid Cymru’s point of view, we should be looking to move towards rejoining the single market, but the first part is to recognise that there are multiple causes and that Brexit is a critical one of them.
- I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. It is fair to say that the economic impact of Brexit falls well short of the benefits that the UK enjoyed with EU membership; the OBR expects our withdrawal from that to reduce the overall trade intensity of the UK economy by 15% in the long term. The OBR’s latest Brexit analysis assumes that the trade and co-operation agreement, which sets the terms of the post-Brexit trading relationship between the UK and the EU, will reduce the potential productivity of the UK economy by 4%, largely due to the increase in non-tariff barriers.In rebutting those figures during the CPTPP announcement, the Trade Secretary pointed out that the OBR’s forecasting was speculative. However, the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook last month highlighted that it had been reviewing and refining its assumptions about the economic impact of Brexit as new evidence arrived and that, two years into the trade and co-operation agreement, the trends on UK trade volumes remained consistent with its assumptions. Additionally, the OBR forecasts stem from out-turn data published by the Office for National Statistics. The latest data from the third quarter of 2022 suggested that UK trade volumes remain 3% below their 2019 level, while there has been an average increase of 5.5% across other G7 countries. Similarly, trade intensity is 2.6% lower than its pre-pandemic level in the UK, yet it is 3.6% higher in the rest of the G7.A recent study estimates that UK goods trade was 7% lower in June 2022 than it would have been were we still in the EU. All in all, in terms of trading, the Pacific rim trade deal, along with the already-signed agreements with Australia and New Zealand, which have yet to come into force, has limited positive economic impact to compensate for what we have lost due to the UK Government pushing through a hard Brexit deal outside the EU single market and customs union.
- Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the particular impact on school trips has been enormous and that that does not just have a knock-on effect on our local economy here in London and across the UK, but tends to narrow the horizons in terms of friendship forming and all those other important and intangible benefits of doing school trips abroad?