UK-EU Summit

Debate between Ben Coleman and John Hayes

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ben Coleman]

Oh, it was sarcasm.

As I was saying, I am very pleased, as many are, with the Government for being cool-headed and having a common-sense approach. We are going to reset our relationship with the European Union and put Britain first. Putting Britain first has to also mean putting our young people first, so I am excited by the opportunity for young people in my constituency and every constituency to take advantage of a time-limited, controlled visa-based youth system, which we already have with a dozen countries.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman will know that thousands of young people—perhaps not in Chelsea but in most of the country—are NEETs, meaning they are not in education, employment or training, and that number is growing. Why should those young people, who are desperately seeking access to education or jobs, have to compete with large numbers of people from abroad? Is that what the people in Chelsea and Fulham really want for the people who live in the rest of Britain?

[Ben Coleman]

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman what people in Chelsea and Fulham really want. They do not want a Prime Minister like the last one—a business Prime Minister—who said that we would level up to help people across the country but then did nothing about it. What they want is a Prime Minister who will invest in increasing skills and apprenticeships right across the country, as ours said yesterday that he will. That is what we need, and that is what we are getting now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

It is typical of my hon. Friend’s humility and good humour that he should acknowledge that in the Chamber in such an open and frank way, and I pay tribute to him for it.

The scepticism that I have described and tried to articulate takes the form of real doubts about what realignment will really mean. Let me just deal with three or four specifics. I spoke earlier in an intervention about security and defence. Of course, it is right that we have a continuing relationship with our neighbours in those terms. We do work with the agencies across Europe, but the critical security relationship we enjoy is with the Five Eyes countries—by the way, we also enjoy relations with many other countries in the world outside the Five Eyes and Europe—and it is vital that we reinforce that relationship. That, of course, overlaps with our commitment to NATO and defence.

There may be some virtues in information sharing—indeed, there certainly are virtues in various kinds of co-operation—but anything that undermines the sovereignty of that security and defence alliance seems to be highly questionable and also risky, which is worse.

Let me turn now to free movement. Although the referendum was not all about immigration, immigration was perhaps the most pressing and salient matter during those times. People resented and resisted free movement and they wanted to bring it to an end. For many, the term “take back control” epitomised the need to control our borders—to decide who came here and who did not. Although it may be understandable that people want to wax lyrical about young people being able to travel across the continent, what they say less enthusiastically, or do not say at all, is that young people from the entire continent will want to travel here. Until we know the terms of that, that could easily mean those people competing with Britons for scarce jobs.

We have large numbers of young people not in education, employment or training. No Government have dealt with that satisfactorily. I started speaking about this more than 20 years ago. Previous Labour Governments and, indeed, Conservative Governments did not really grasp that nettle as firmly as they should have done. Disturbingly, the trend is upwards, and so I do not want people in my country to have to compete for education and training places and for other opportunities with possibly tens of thousands of people who have entered the country by those means. There will be suspicions that it is the beginning of a return to free movement.

What did mass immigration do? The Prime Minister was right about this yesterday. He is a very late convert, but the Bible says that we must welcome all converts with enthusiasm. What mass immigration did was to displace investment in recruitment, training and retention of workers and in automation and improving workplaces, making us ever more dependent on low-skilled labour. It had the effect of stultifying the economy. Any suggestion that we may return to that will inhibit—perhaps ruin—the Government’s intention of improving productivity. If we really want to deal with productivity, we have to create a high-tech, high-skilled economy. I am fearful that that broader consideration will not necessarily hold sway when we get into negotiations with the EU on this issue of some relaxation of the bar on free movement, which was brought by the referendum.

Mindful that there are enthusiastic, insightful and bright colleagues on all sides of the House, but mainly on the Conservative side, who want to contribute to the debate, I will draw my remarks to a close. I can hear colleagues saying, “No, go on”, but I am going to resist those overtures and finish with this thought: C.S. Lewis said, “We are what we think we are”. I think we are a proud, independent nation that has made a disproportionate contribution as part of western civilisation to world history. I think that our past is noble and should give us a sense of achievement and pride. I do not buy the self-loathing that seems to have taken hold with too much of the very establishment that I derided earlier.

[Ben Coleman]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will happily give way—let us see whether the hon. Member is a self-loathing individual.

[Ben Coleman]

I trust that I am not. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman appreciated when I said earlier how excited I was for the prospects ahead of us. I want to thank him for identifying me a couple of times and associating me with my constituents, which I am certainly proud of. I also thank the right hon. Gentleman and a number of his colleagues for making me feel like I have been in this place not for 10 months but for 10 years, and for giving me the privilege of seeing the Brexit debate live, writ large again. It is a rare opportunity that I did not know I would get as a Member of this House, and I am most grateful.

[Sir John Hayes]

I invite the hon. Gentleman to look at it through this prism: for all intents and purposes, I am Brexit, I stand for Brexit: I am a patriot, proud of my working-class origins; I am determined to do my best for my constituents and my country; and I am driven by a combination of the national interest and the common good. That was the spirit that inspired Brexit. It inspired those of us who campaigned for it, and those who voted for it, which 75% of my constituents in South Holland and the Deepings did. I am a bit resentful that Boston and Skegness next door had an even higher percentage, but it was only by 1%.

As I said, C.S. Lewis said that we are what we think we are. I think that we are a proud country who can stand in the world, in collaboration with other nations, of course, but free and sovereign. Labour cannot have it both ways. It cannot say that we have done a great deal with India because we did not have to kowtow to the EU and that we have done a great deal with the US because we escaped the clutches of the EU, while at the same time saying that we want to creep back in and for them to have more say in any future deals we might do.

Let me end with the words of one of my political heroes, Joseph Chamberlain, who understood that to protect our economy we need to protect the jobs, industry and enterprise that are part of it and not to give in to the free trade liberals. He said:

“a democratic Government, resting on the confidence and support of the whole nation, and not on the favour of any limited class, would be very strong. It would know how to make itself respected, and how to maintain the obligations and the honour of the country.”

No Member of this House should do less than that.