EU-UK Summit

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sam Rushworth]

I was not in the previous Conservative Government, so I cannot answer that, but it is absolutely clear that what people voted for actually got worse.

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

According to the House of Commons Library, in 2018, out of more than 5,000 requests under the Dublin III regulation, just over 200 were granted. That is not the silver bullet—and never was—that the hon. Gentleman imagines it to have been.

[Sam Rushworth]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is disagreeing with the shadow Home Secretary, because I was quoting his words.

Is it not also the case that Brexit ended our co-operation on policing and ended intelligence-sharing? I welcome the fact that, with this deal, the Government have negotiated access to EU facial imaging data to help to catch people smugglers and dangerous criminals, and to increase co-operation to track down rapists, murderers and drug lords. Is that not also something the European Union has put on the table that Britain benefits from?

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[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, Mr Vickers. The more that we learn about the reset, the clearer it becomes that far from being the win-win that the Prime Minister promised, it is little more than a bundle of missed opportunities wrapped in hollow rhetoric and enfeebled by untenable concessions.

The Prime Minister heralds this agreement with the EU as a monumental win, but in reality it shackles us once more to the whims of Brussels and undermines the very principles underpinning the genuinely historic decision of 17.4 million voters in 2016 to take back control. Instead of taking back control, these agreements entwine us within the jurisdiction of a foreign court. They mean we are beholden to decisions made elsewhere about the quality of British food. That is the very antithesis of taking back control. It is no wonder the Government were so reluctant to let Parliament know what the Prime Minister was planning to concede.

We support efforts to reduce unnecessary trade barriers that clearly damage both sides and to reach an agreement based on mutual recognition between partners that respect each other and their sovereignty, and that work together for mutual benefit. Instead, we are presented with a one-sided deal that sees us forgo rights that are enjoyed by virtually every other independent country in order to sign up to EU schemes on EU terms.

Ahead of the summit, we set out five tests against which we would judge whether the Government’s deal actually respected the referendum result, as they promised. There obviously could be no return to free movement, no new payments to the EU, no loss of our fishing rights, no compromise on NATO’s primacy in European defence, and no dynamic alignment with EU rules. From the details published so far, it is hard to see how the agreement can possibly meet all five of those vital tests.

On the first test, there is little detail about the youth mobility scheme. We support limited youth mobility schemes with effective controls—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”]— as we agreed in government with countries such as Australia and Canada, but they have to be done right and they need controls. Without controls they could become the back door to free movement.

I hope the Minister will be able to help in his summing up, because the briefings from the Government and the European Union are worrying. It is clear that the two sides have different ideas as to what is on the table, and the common understanding does absolutely nothing to clear up that ambiguity.

Will the Minister fill in some of those gaps? Will participating EU nationals have to pay the NHS surcharge, or will British taxpayers be left to foot the bill? Will EU students pay the overseas rate or the home student rate for higher education tuition fees? If the latter, will the Government recompense universities for the lost income? Crucially, what does he expect the cap on those numbers to be? Does he expect the number of EU participants to be around the 10,000 mark, as for those who come to the UK under the Australian version of the scheme, or does he expect a higher number?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

There is another question. A truly bilateral youth exchange arrangement would be fine. It would be like the trade and co-operation agreement, with no reference to the European Court of Justice. Or is this going to be an extension of the withdrawal agreement arrangements involving EU citizenship, which is subject to the European Court of Justice and temporary and time-limited? The real question that the Minister has to answer is: what will be the involvement of the European Court of Justice in overseeing this arrangement?

[Mike Wood]

That is an important question for the Minister to answer. This should not come as news. The Leader of the Opposition was quite clear on Tuesday that of course we support the principle of mobility schemes. After all, we negotiated so many of them, which the Minister did not support when he was shadow International Trade Secretary.

The Government’s deal clearly also fails the tests on payments to the EU and on fishing rights. Our fishermen stand betrayed. Instead of the four-year transitional arrangement they had under the previous agreement, they have been lumbered with French, Spanish and Dutch mega-trawlers being handed long-term access to their waters. That will become the new permanent state of being, and it will have to be negotiated away from. From Cornwall to Tobermory, fishermen find themselves devastated by a Government prepared to sell them short. That is not what they were promised, and certainly not what they deserve.

Again, it is difficult to judge from the information published on Monday whether the security and defence partnership could undermine NATO. There is clearly a need for western Europe to take greater responsibility for the security of the region and to improve its collective capability. There is no question but that closer co-operation can bring benefits for Britain—particularly for contractors able to bid for projects funded by safe loans—but of course none of that is ensured in any of the material published so far. It is surely true that our partners will benefit at least as much from the incredible contribution that the British armed forces will make to that security so, given such mutual benefit, there should be no case for additional payments or concessions.

[James McMurdock]

To my mind, the core of the issue is the sense of suspicion. No one disagrees that trade barriers are a bad thing and that clearing them is a good thing for trade, but there is an awful lot of suspicion about the exact details and about how much the benefits are real benefits, not just the removal of punitive hurdles.

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[Mike Wood]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point. There are clearly barriers that it would be in both sides’ mutual interest to remove. That should not be difficult to do, but the fact is that it has been difficult. I speak as someone who spent seven very happy years working in a European institution before deciding, on the basis of that experience, that Britain could do better. Sadly, after Brexit, the European Union’s negotiating position seemed determined to treat the United Kingdom less favourably than most other third countries, with which it did not have such a strong trading relationship.

That brings me to what is clearly the greatest betrayal of all in these documents, which is the effective surrender of this Parliament’s right to decide what laws apply and do not apply in this country. Last July, the Prime Minister promised that he would not accept any deal that meant laws being introduced without the consent of Parliament, but it is clear that he has found a way round that promise by agreeing that the UK will immediately adopt new EU laws in a range of areas, but after the pretence of a vote in which no is not a genuine option.

Worse, judgments about whether Britain complies with those new EU laws will be adjudicated by the EU’s own European Court of Justice, so the key difference between this and the puffin case that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) referred to is that cases involving dynamic alignment would, by definition, be matters relating to whether the UK is complying with an EU law. As the ECJ is specifically set out as the arbiter on questions of EU law, it will be able to rule on those matters, so it will become the arbiter.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend comes to the nub of the issue, which I described as the debate about governance —it might be said to be a debate about jurisdiction. There is a kind of schizophrenia on the Government Benches: some Members want to say that this is a fundamental change, and a step back towards where we once were—that is clearly what the Liberal Democrats want—while others say that it is a matter of detail and simply a different kind of agreement. Essentially, however, the issue of governance and jurisdiction lies at the heart of this debate. I simply invite my hon. Friend to affirm the fact that on the Conservative side of the Chamber, whatever we have said in the past, we are now absolutely clear that the national interest will always be the supreme consideration of this party and a future Conservative Government.

[Mike Wood]

My right hon. Friend is clearly right, and the national interest cannot be served by a dynamic alignment that effectively requires us to automatically take on other people’s rules. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister either could not or would not tell us what measures would be open to the EU in the event that Parliament chose not to adopt a new EU law under paragraph 27 of the common understanding. Can the Minister do better? Would remedial action be restricted to suspending parts of this agreement, or could it result in a broader trade dispute?

Labour fought Brexit at every turn over the last nine years. The Prime Minister backed a second referendum; he stood on platforms calling for us to stay in the EU, and demanded we entered into a customs union that would have made the trade deals reached since Brexit impossible. Now he says that he wants to make Brexit work, but his version of making Brexit work is about dragging Britain backwards.

This deal is not about fixing Brexit; it is about reversing it and undermining it. Let us be absolutely clear: this deal resubmits the UK to foreign courts, foreign laws and foreign control. We will pay into EU budgets, follow EU rules and even have our food standards determined by Brussels. We will be paying into EU schemes with no say on how those funds are spent, and taking EU laws with no say over what they are—the worst of both worlds. No vote. No veto. No voice. Taxation without representation. The Prime Minister complains—[Interruption.] Sorry, is the hon. Member for Walthamstow trying to intervene?

[Ms Creasy]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. We have talked about the puffin case; the previous Government, which fought the puffin case, relied on European law in making their argument, and cited it in their own submissions. It was good enough for the previous Government to look at European law and at questions about proportionality, as they did in their submission. The idea that moving to an independent arbitration system, which is what this summit will do, is somehow surrender is misplaced.

[Mike Wood]

No, I think the hon. Lady misses the point completely. When we are being taken to an international court by an institution such as the European Union, it is a perfectly sensible and effective legal strategy to cite its own rules as evidence that we have not broken either its rule or the international rule that it is citing.

Now, the Prime Minister complains about us doing exactly what we were elected to do—holding this Government to account and calling out where they are getting things wrong. On this, the Government are getting things wrong, and we will not make any apology for doing our duty, which is to oppose these concessions, to honour the will of voters and to retain our sovereignty. It is time to stand firm for the integrity of our democracy and for the ability of our sovereign Parliament to make decisions in the interests of our great nation.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I want to make some progress first.

I did enjoy the shadow Minister’s speech. After hearing his comments in the middle about both the youth experience scheme and working in Europe, if he wants me to go and see his leader and put in a word for him to keep him in his job, I am more than happy to do so. I am not sure that the Back Benchers here got the memo about the line he was going to take, but I am sure they will become a bit more coherent in due course. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow quoted the “Frozen” song “Let It Go”, but I am afraid, looking at the Conservative party, it is more a case of “Let the storm rage on”—that is clearly what they are doing today.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness said what a significant week it was in parliamentary history, and I entirely agree with him. Whenever we have these debates on UK-EU relations, people with a real interest in and passion for it turn up. My sparring partners are here: my good friend, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), whom I frequently spar with on these matters, and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), who I will give way to in a moment once I have made some progress. He often intervenes on me, and he is always here making the case—but, in this significant week, where is the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)? In a supreme irony, he is in the European Union.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness also spoke about youth mobility. For me, what makes the difference are the experiences that I hear about from people whose lives have been transformed by having a year or two overseas. I want hon. Members to listen to the story of a young man and what he went on to do, because he spoke about two exciting and challenging years he had spent in France. He had really engaged while there. He said this:

“Living in Paris and working in Paris, taught me a lot”.

That young man became the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. Given the amount of time that both he and the hon. Member for Clacton spend abroad, I am astonished that they want to deny the same opportunity to everybody else.

I know that the shadow Minister is at heart a sensible, pragmatic man. The Conservatives and Reform have made a decisive choice in the last week. We have secured a deal that will lower household bills—hon. Members need not take my word for it; they can take the word of most major supermarkets and retailers. I do not hear their voices in support of the position of the Conservatives or Reform. Energy bills are coming down—here hon. Members can take the word of Octopus Energy, which is saying just that, and the support of the major energy firms for the Government’s position.

The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is right about the Five Eyes relationship. Nobody could deny the additional tools and information that we will get from this deal to tackle the boats in the channel and to deal with serious and organised crime. That is the deal this Government have secured—good for jobs, borders and bills. Both those parties will go into the next general election promising to reverse it, and they will have to tell each and every one of their constituents why they want to erect trade barriers, put prices up and make our borders less secure.

[Mike Wood]

I very much admire the Minister’s confidence. The Government have already guaranteed that energy prices will be £300 lower by 2029. Given his confidence that this deal will further lower energy bills, how much lower can we expect household electricity and gas bills to be in 2029 than the £300 reduction they have already promised?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I look forward to that debate in 2028 or 2029 with the hon. Gentleman, and indeed with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness.

Let me come to the other speeches. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who also benefited from a year abroad, quite rightly spoke about the importance of the automotive sector.

The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) talked about scrutiny, an issue also raised by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex. On that, the SPS agreement will require primary legislation; I am sure I will have a continuing debate with Opposition Members during its passage.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) spoke about the wide business support for the Government’s position. When the Conservative party used to win general elections, it used to claim to be the party of business; it most definitely is not any more.

Now let me come to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex. I should start by saying that I am getting slightly concerned about him, because not once in his speech did he talk about increasing Conservative votes. He talked about increasing Reform votes. He referred to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) as his hon. Friend rather than the hon. Member. Are we to see this as a new political direction for the hon. Gentleman? I do not know—but his speech certainly leaned in that direction.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about a democratic mandate. The democratic mandate for what has been agreed with the EU comes from the Labour manifesto. It respects the result of the 2016 referendum: no return to the single market, no return to the customs union and no return to freedom of movement. That is the basis on which this Government have negotiated. People said, “You need to have a Norway deal. You need to have a Swiss deal. You can’t negotiate a bespoke deal for the United Kingdom.” But that is precisely what this Government have delivered within 10 months.