UK Economy

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend has a great deal of expertise in this area and we take seriously his warnings. I would feel less aggrieved by what he says if it were not for the fact that in the run-up to the referendum these very questions were put to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. We were told, “Don’t worry”—which seemed to be the blank cheque; it was said with every promise of the leave campaign—and now we find that we should very much worry.

We should also worry about the reason people voted to leave the EU. Much of it was not about the Lisbon treaty or where decisions are taken. Many people, even with this British Parliament as sovereign as it is today—and as sovereign as it was last week by the way—still do not feel that they have control over their lives and their destiny. I would hazard a guess that when the analysis is done we will be able to map community by community those places that voted leave and those places that have had the hardest time because of the unequal nature of our economy. That should worry us more than anything else. Many people voted leave out of desperation, in the vague hope, in the belief that their circumstances could not be worse than they are today and that our immigration system and the flow of people into this country make them and our economy less well off, rather than better off. That concerns me deeply.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I represent one of the areas that overwhelmingly voted out. Thirty-six per cent. of my constituents earn the living wage and believe that this decision will increase their salaries, yet 7,000 of my constituents are employed in an industry that is already looking to see what happens next, is unstable and is stopping investment. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have to get strong answers from the Government to protect future investment?