European Affairs

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I realise that I am one of a sadly dwindling number of Members of Parliament who not only remember the ’75 referendum, but campaigned in it. Indeed, I feel a certain sympathy with those on the Government Front Bench, because in the years running up to the referendum I was a very beleaguered pro-European member of the Labour party, at a time when both the parliamentary party and the party membership as a whole were adamantly opposed to it.

I supported our entry into the European Community, as it then was, because many of the reasons given for our doing so were visionary, and many of them I heard articulated today most eloquently by the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and, to a lesser extent, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). I in no way resile from the vision I had when I supported Europe in those years. In the meantime, like many people, I have become frustrated with the way in which Europe conducts its business, getting bogged down in the minutiae of regulation, rather than pursuing the grand visions and aspirations we saw back then. However, at no stage have I ever believed that coming out of Europe would do anything to resolve those issues, and I have not changed my position now.

I will use the brief time available to me to state why I am still so firmly committed to our membership of the European Union. I welcome the referendum as an opportunity to get away from the minutiae of some of the debates we have had and to talk about the role that Britain has in Europe, and its potential role out of Europe, and exactly what considerations people will need to exercise when they cast their vote on 23 June. I still have those grand visions of Europe, but I understand, as I think we all do, that people will base their decision on what they perceive to be in their best interests and those of their country.

No area can understand and appreciate the value that Europe has brought better than the west midlands. The Centre for Economics and Business Research showed in 2011 that about 400,000 jobs in the west midlands were linked to trade with Europe, 200,000 of which were in manufacturing. That was before the huge investment that has come from the Tata family, first in Solihull and latterly in the i54 development outside Wolverhampton. They have made it clear that one of the prime considerations in that investment was our membership of the EU and its market. Toyota and Nissan have uttered similar sentiments about investment in other parts of the country.

We must remember that it is not just the major car assembly companies but the network of small manufacturing businesses that supply them that are so dependent on our trade with Europe. We must also remember that 80% of our cars are exported—half of them going to the EU. If anything prejudiced our ability to export them, the impact on areas such as mine in the west midlands would be devastating.

Nobody pretends that the EU is a perfect institution, or that exit from it would be an immediate catastrophe, but in these days of footloose international development, a major manufacturer wanting to invest in the car industry or in other manufacturing, if given the choice of investing in a mainland Europe EU market of 440 million people or a UK market of 60 million people outside the EU, would almost certainly opt for the former. That is a hard, real fact of political life, which we must live with. We must make sure that these things do not happen.

The other main point I want to make is that, if we look to the future, the global economies are going to be China, India and, no doubt, the USA, with possibly south America and even Africa coming up. Crucially, our ability to negotiate with them and to access their markets depends on our being part of the EU. To those who say we are a great nation, I say, yes, we are—we are a great nation because we are in the EU. There is no reason for believing that if we cannot shape the EU, we will be able to shape the approach taken by China, Brazil, India or the USA if we are outside it. The fact is that we gain strength in our international relations by being part and parcel of the EU and by working with like-minded people to realise an international trading framework based on the valued principles that we have in our western societies and democracies.