European Affairs

Debate between Hilary Benn and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The Labour party’s position is to respect the decision that the Scottish people took in the referendum when they rejected independence. We are one United Kingdom, and the decision will be taken by the people of the United Kingdom. Labour Members are clear that we support Britain remaining a member of the European Union. We held that view before the renegotiation, and we hold it today. The European Union has brought us jobs, growth, investment and security, and I argue that it gives us influence in the world. Before exploring each of those benefits in turn, let me briefly address two essential arguments made by those Conservative Members who think that we should leave—namely, sovereignty and taking back control.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The right hon. Gentleman said that the EU has brought much in the way of prosperity and jobs, and that does apply to the United Kingdom. Sadly, however, it does not apply to other countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece, which are also members of the EU. Why are they suffering so much unemployment and low growth, while the United Kingdom is prospering? Is the difference that we, as well as being members of the EU, are led by a Conservative Government?

[Hilary Benn]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman will not tempt me to agree with him on that particular observation at all—[Hon. Members: “Go on!] No, I will not be encouraged to do that. I will, however, make an argument about the precise way that the benefits that I have just described have been brought to us because of opportunities given to us by membership of the European Union.

On sovereignty, the original decision to join the European Union was taken by the sovereign House of Commons, and confirmed by a sovereign British people in the 1975 referendum. All treaty changes that followed, including those that introduced qualified majority voting, were agreed by Conservative and Labour Governments, and approved by the sovereign Parliament. That tells us that we have chosen as a sovereign Parliament to work with others in Europe for a purpose: to achieve things that we think benefit us and our neighbours.

The second argument is about taking back control, and for some I think this is a belief that Britain standing alone would somehow have the voice that it possessed 50 years ago. We must be honest with each other. We live in a different world to the one that gave birth to the European Coal and Steel Community after the end of the second world war. We have witnessed the end of empire, the creation of the United Nations and the European Union, the formation of NATO, the end of the cold war, and the collapse of the Berlin wall. We have lived through an era that has seen the rise of new world powers, alliances, conflicts, threats, and the blistering pace of technological change that is revolutionising our economies and shrinking the way we perceive our world. We cannot turn the clock back, and to argue that we can is to mislead ourselves and others. We can, however, use the qualities that we as a nation are blessed with to make the most of the opportunities that this new world presents to us, and that is exactly what our membership of the European Union helps us to do.

Look at the strength of London as a financial centre. Look at the openness and diversity of our society, and our talent for creativity. The UK computer and games industry—not one I am particularly familiar with—did not even exist 40 years ago, but it now generates £2 billion a year in global sales, and supports nearly 30,000 jobs. Consider the worldwide reach of the English language. All those things help to make us the fifth biggest economy in the world.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Hilary Benn and Gerald Howarth

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am going to bring my remarks to a close, because so many other Members want to speak and I am bearing in mind Mr Speaker’s strictures, which were kindly put.

This Bill is important, because it will give the British people the chance to have their say, but it is in the end just a mechanism for that decision; the really important thing is the decision itself. The notion that Britain’s future prosperity and security lie somehow in turning away from the European Union, in the hope of somehow getting a better deal, makes no sense in a world that is increasingly interdependent. It is not that Britain could not manage outside the European Union—[Interruption.] I have said that before and I say it again, because we have to have an honest debate. The truth is that it would come at an economic cost, because our partnership with Europe helps us to create jobs, secure growth, encourage investment and ensure our security and influence in the world.

It is not that we do not understand that some communities feel more of the consequences of a rapidly changing world than others.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

rose—

[Hilary Benn]

No; I am going to bring my remarks to a close.

All of us have a stake in answering the following questions. Where will the jobs for our children and grandchildren come from? How will we grow our economy so we can continue to support the NHS and an ageing population? How do we combat climate change, terrorism and insecurity? The answers lie in co-operation. We should have confidence: we are a nation full of ideas. We invented the television, the jet engine and the world wide web. The best way to continue to use the talents of this great country of ours to turn ideas into jobs is to work with others and to take advantage of the investment that comes from being in the European Union. We gain from ideas generated in other countries, from lowered trade barriers and from people coming in with their talents. We have always traded with neighbours near and far, and we must remain an outward-facing country.

We also believe that, in this year of all years, we should remember the contribution that European nations coming together has made to the cause of peace on this continent of ours. That achievement is all too easy to take for granted, but it would have seemed extraordinary to our forebears and ancestors sitting here 100 years ago, after centuries of war across Europe, if someone had said, “I’ve seen the future, and this is what Europeans working together can achieve.” We believe in the strength of the argument for remaining part of the European Union. Labour Members are already making it, and we will continue to do so. It will be for the British people to decide.

Britain in the World

Debate between Hilary Benn and Gerald Howarth

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and shall have a word to say about it a little later.

Who would have thought we would be grappling with the potentially catastrophic consequences of loss of biodiversity and climate change—a threat that is the ultimate expression of our interdependence as human beings, because no one country on its own can deal with it? Make no mistake: if drought causes crops to fail or families to go thirsty, if flooding and rises in the sea-level wash people’s homes away or if conflict breaks out, human beings will do what human beings have done throughout the whole course of human history; they will move somewhere else to try to make a life for themselves and their families.

Despite these changes, Britain retains influence and reach in global affairs. We are part of the Commonwealth; we are members of the European Union, NATO, the G7 and the G20; and we have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Our history and our exports, material, political and cultural—democracy, human rights, the rule of law, the BBC, the English language—give us a voice that makes itself heard, and because of that heritage and good will, the Government have a particular responsibility to use Britain’s place in the world for the greater good by showing that we aspire to continue to be an outward-looking, not an inward-facing, nation.

That is why the mess the Government have got themselves into over the Human Rights Act is so damaging to Britain’s reputation internationally. Does the Foreign Secretary really believe it helps his cause when he raises human rights issues with other countries while back home his Cabinet colleagues talk about leaving the European convention on human rights, which we helped to draft after the second world war?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Does the shadow Foreign Secretary accept that the European convention on human rights was set up to prevent a repetition of the holocaust, that it was not set up to allow foreign judges to usurp the authority of this Parliament to decide whether prisoners in this country should have a vote, and that it should not be entitled to impede the lawful authority of this Government or any British Government to decide whom to deport or not?

[Hilary Benn]

Let me gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the convention was part of Churchill’s legacy and that we should be proud of the part Britain played in asserting the primacy of human rights—indeed out of the ashes of that terrible conflict that was the second world war. It is one of the reasons why a number of voices now say that Britain is not pulling its weight.

It cannot have been much fun for the Foreign Secretary to get his press cuttings delivered over the last few months, when General Sir Richard Shirreff, the former NATO commander, told The Times that the Prime Minister was

“a bit player”, a “foreign policy irrelevance” and that

“Nobody is taking any notice of him”,

when The Economist described “Little Britain” as

“a shrinking actor on the global stage”,

and the Washington Post ran a piece headed “Britain resigns as a world power”. In fairness to the Prime Minister, he has been a little distracted by the problems in his own party over the European Union.