EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 26th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend again makes a telling point. I was going to come to it later, but as he has raised it now, let us put on the record, for example, the concern many of our constituents have about TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated between the EU and the United States. A legal opinion has been circulated to a number of us over the last 24 hours saying if TTIP goes ahead as proposed, it would potentially be disastrous for our national health service. I do not know whether that is correct or not, but there is an opinion saying that that could be the impact. Why are we relying on the EU to negotiate a trade deal with the US? Why do not we, as the fifth largest economy in the world—English-speaking, committed to free trade—make our own trade deal with the US? The short answer is that we are not allowed to do so until we leave the EU.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. On TTIP, does he agree that the following is an interesting factor in any cost-benefit analysis? We are always told that if we want a free trade agreement with the EU, we will have to accept free movement of people. Does he think America will accept the free movement of people—of all EU citizens—into the United States when it signs its free trade agreement with the EU?

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

Absolutely. The fall-back position if we did not negotiate such a deal would be that we would have a continuing relationship on WTO rules, which are signed up to by the EU. So any suggestion that there would be a complete curtailment of trade between us and the EU when we leave is absurd. Why would the EU not want to sign up very quickly with the UK? They are selling us more than we are selling them, so it must be in their interests to try to maintain those connections. Tellingly, and disappointingly, in addressing this point in Monday’s statement the Prime Minister did not talk in absolute terms. Instead of facing up to the fact that we sell less to the European Union than it sells to us, he started talking in percentage terms. That is completely misleading because we are but one of 28 countries in the EU, so if we start talking about the percentage of EU exports that come to us compared with the percentage of our exports that go to the EU, we will present a distorted picture. It was very sad that the Prime Minister chose not to use the absolute figures and instead resorted to such misleading percentages.

[Philip Davies]

We are also told that if we had a free trade agreement with the EU, we would still have to have all our laws decided by the European Union. When my hon. Friend had his discussions with his American friends, did he become aware of whether the Americans were going to accept their law being changed for them by the European Union, by qualified majority voting, when they entered into their free trade agreement with it?

[Mr Chope]

We did not get down to that sort of detail, because the feeling was that we are a long way apart on this. There is also a feeling that there is a lot more commonality between the British people and the people of the United States; we share a common language, the common law and a common heritage, and that is very different from the approach of so many other EU countries. On the basis that we have this special relationship with the US, we would be able to prosper and develop our trade together through bilateral open trading arrangements far more effectively than is being done at the moment with the EU. That is an important factor to take into account when assessing the costs and benefits of membership.

I am conscious of the fact that a number of other people wish to participate in this debate, so I will not say much more now. I merely wish to point out that the Bill proposes terms of reference, whereby the independent commission that would be set up to examine the current costs and benefits would be

“taking into account the impact of membership on the UK’s—

(a) economy (including consideration of public expenditure and receipts resulting directly from membership”).

Of course, we know that in round figures we are paying in about £10 billion more than we get back every year. Interestingly, in yesterday’s statement on the EU solidarity fund and flooding the Minister made much of the fact that we would be applying to get some money back from the fund, but he did not think this would amount to anything more, at best, than about the equivalent of one day’s net contributions to the EU. He admitted that even getting back one day’s net contribution would involve an enormous amount of bureaucracy on both sides, which typifies the costs at the moment and how unfair it is that our people should be paying £10 billion net a year to the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) who, as ever, has put his case persuasively. I did not need much persuasion, as it happens, but if I had, he would certainly have persuaded me of the case that he made.

I shall focus on a few aspects of the Bill. One part that needs stressing is the independence that the Bill asks for any cost-benefit analysis. My fear is that over the next few months we will hear the Government say—we may even hear it from the Minister today—that they will do a cost-benefit analysis of our membership of the European Union, and, as we have been calling for that, we should be placated by that assurance. But we are not asking just for the Government’s cost-benefit analysis of our membership of the European Union. We already know the Government’s view of that, and I have no confidence at all in the Government producing an objective cost-benefit analysis. They will resort to all kinds of dodgy figures, spin, presumptions and so on, and we will no doubt end up being told that the benefits of being in the EU are enormous and the costs are negligible, and vice versa were we to leave.

I have no doubt that that is what the Government would do. We have only just started the referendum campaign and already some rather strange arguments have started to develop. I will come on to some of those shortly. The key part of the Bill, which I hope the Minister will take away with him for when the Government pull their cost-benefit analysis out of the hat, relates to the appointment of the commission that carries out the analysis. The Bill calls for a balance between those members of the commission in favour of remaining and those in favour of leaving the EU, with an equal number on either side. The chairman should be broadly neutral, and no member should be or have been a Member of the European Parliament or an employee of the European Commission, whose pension would therefore be dependent on our membership of the European Union.

Those are not unreasonable proposals. Most people would say that that is a reasonable basis for carrying out a cost-benefit analysis. If the Minister thinks that saying that the Government intend to conduct a cost-benefit analysis will satisfy us, it will not. We want some guarantee of the independence of the people involved, and only at that point will I be satisfied.

I was intrigued by what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said about the questions that he has posed to Treasury Ministers, and not getting an answer to the question, but a different answer altogether. Funnily enough, I asked the Chancellor a question in the Chamber a while ago. I thought it was quite a patsy question. As far as I could see, I was giving him a great opportunity to sell the benefits. I asked him in June last year to outline what exactly we get from our £19 billion membership fee to the European Union. Here was a great opportunity for the Chancellor to stand at the Dispatch Box and reel off a huge number of benefits that we get for our £19 billion membership fee. I could not have asked a more helpful question.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that £19 billion is an inaccurate figure? It has recently been reported in the press that our membership of the EU costs up to £120 billion. The point of this debate is to try to find out exactly what our direct membership fees are to the EU and what benefits we get back from it.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. I have taken the figure from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which publishes the figures in the Treasury Red Book. It states that our gross contribution is around £19 billion a year. The EU generously gives us back some of that money—a very small amount—as a rebate. That has been a diminishing amount since the Labour Government gave up much of our rebate for nothing in years gone by, but the gross figure that we hand over each year is £19 billion.

In answer to my question, the Chancellor said:

“I certainly commend my hon. Friend for his consistency. I remember that in his maiden speech he made the case for Britain leaving the European Union, and he will of course have his opportunity in the referendum. I would say that this is precisely the judgment that the British people and this Parliament have to make: what are the economic benefits of our European Union membership, such as the single market, and what would be the alternative? That will be part of the lively debate, and as I say, the Treasury will be fully involved in that debate.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 165.]

As far as I could see—people can make their own interpretation of the Chancellor’s reply—he could not give one single example of what we got back for our £19 billion membership fee. He knows, presumably, as he is a canny kind of fellow, that he could not say that we get free trade for our £19 billion a year, because he presumably knows, just as the rest of us know, for the reasons set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, that given that we have a £62 billion trade deficit with the EU, we would be able to trade freely with the EU if we were to leave.

[David Morris]

Hypothetically, if we did come out of the EU, what would happen to the £62 billion trade deficit? Does my hon. Friend have any idea how we would be able to pay Europe back, or vice versa?

[Philip Davies]

I suspect that, in the short term, not a fat lot would happen to the £62 billion trade deficit with the EU, as we would pretty much carry on in the same way. We would keep trading with it, and it would keep trading with us. I tried to check that out. I asked the Prime Minister, after one of his European Council meetings, whether he had had any discussions with Angela Merkel that would indicate that, if we were to leave the EU, she would want her country to stop selling BMWs, Mercedes, Volkswagens and Audis free of tariff to the UK. The Prime Minister did not say anything at all about that, so I presumed that he had not heard anything. Given his determination that we should stay in the EU, I am sure that, if he had had any inkling at all that the Germans were not going to continue selling us their cars free of tariff, he would have been more than happy to put it on the public record. As people can see from his answer, it appears that he had had no such indication from the German Government that they would stop trading freely with us.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is simple: if we left the EU, we would not have to pay a £10 billion a year subscription just to have a £70 billion a year deficit.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At the end of the day, what this boils down to is people’s confidence in their negotiating abilities. I used to work for Asda, and I fear that, if some of my hon. Friends had been our buyers and had used their negotiating skills, we would have gone bust. In effect, what many of my colleagues are saying—and what Labour Members are saying—is that we have a £62 billion trade deficit, but we do not think that we can negotiate a free trade agreement without handing over a huge membership fee every single year. That is the easiest negotiation known to mankind. If they cannot negotiate that deal, what on earth can these people negotiate? If the Prime Minister were to claim that he could not negotiate a free trade deal with the EU based on that trade deficit every year—I am sure that he will not say that because he claims to be a good negotiator—he would not be fit to lead this country into those negotiations. That is what I would say to anybody who aspires to such a role.

[Mr Hollobone]

Is not my hon. Friend’s point exactly right and enhanced by the fact that we already by definition meet 100% of the EU’s requirements for a free trade deal because we are part of the single market? Once we are outside the European Union, it should be relatively straightforward, given that we are the fifth largest economy in the world, to come up with terms.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The point he makes is self-evident, and I am sure that it will be self-evident to the British public.

When we look at the terms of reference of our cost-benefit analysis, the areas that the Bill asks the Government to consider are the economy, trade, national security, further regulation, and sovereignty.

[David Morris]

What I want to clarify is this: if we are the fifth largest economy in the world, how much is that down to trading with Europe, and how much does that contribute to us being the fifth largest economy in the world?

[Philip Davies]

It is not a question of “if”—we are the fifth largest economy in the world. That is a matter not of hypothesis or aspiration, but of fact. We are the fifth largest economy in the world, and therefore, clearly, we are in a very good position to negotiate trade deals. I am not sure that there is any country in the world that would not want to have a trade deal with the fifth largest economy in the world.

Interestingly, the people who are so anxious for us to stay in make what they think is the killer point that 44% of our exports go to the European Union and that only a very tiny proportion goes to the emerging economies of the BRIC—Brazil, Russia, India and China—nations. We should not boast about that; we should be deeply concerned. The fact is that we have got ourselves shackled to a declining part of the world’s economy. That is the problem for the remain campaigners. According to figures from the House of Commons Library, when we joined the European Union, the countries that make up the EU now account for a third of the world economy. By 2020, that will be 20%, by 2030 17% and by 2050 13%. We should bear in mind, too, that we are 4% of the world economy. If we were to leave the European Union we would take off the 4% that we represent, which would mean that the EU would be 9% of the world’s economy. Some people think that it is great that so much of our trade is dependent on being shackled to such a group, but I think that is something that we should be deeply concerned about. It is a matter of great shame that we have such a low proportion of trade with the growing parts of the world economy, which is why it is so important that we leave the European Union. We need to leave this declining market and start building up our trade with all the growing parts of the world economy. That is what we should be doing.

[Mr Hollobone]

The world’s largest economies in order are: China, America, Japan, Germany and Britain. Were we to leave the European Union, there is every chance that we could overtake Germany and move into fourth place. We could negotiate on our own terms, with our seat back at the World Trade Organisation, friendly free trade agreements with growing economies such as China and India, and all those old Commonwealth countries that we effectively abandoned in 1972.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. We are always told that the EU is the biggest single market in the world. What is not said is that it would not be if we were to leave. It is only the biggest single market in the world largely because we are a member of it. If we were to leave it, it certainly would not be. Nobody ever mentions that particular point.

Interestingly, a briefing from the House of Commons Library said that if we were to leave the European Union, the UK would be the EU’s single biggest export market—bigger than China, America and anywhere else in the world. Why on earth would the EU not want to do a free trade deal with its single biggest export market? Of course it would. Anybody who tries to suggest otherwise is either completely crackers or is deliberately misleading people. It is palpably clear that that would not be the case.

The case in terms of the economy and trade is very clear. Competitiveness is one of the key points. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch touched on that when he said that staying in the EU was a leap into the dark. Of course, it is just that. We pool our sovereignty in many areas because we sign lots of treaties, but when we sign treaties with other countries, that treaty agreement tends to stay the same; the nature of it does not change in any shape or form unless we agree to it. That is how treaties tend to work. But our membership of the European Union is based on a treaty that does not work like that. What happens is that, every so often, the European Commission, which is completely unelected and unaccountable to anybody, proposes new legislation. We think that it is completely ridiculous. In any other normal kind of treaty relationship, we would not be susceptible to it unless we agreed to it. With the EU, we are being asked to sign up to changes on a monthly basis based on qualified majority voting where we get outvoted in the Council of Ministers. If we vote to remain in the EU, we are not signing up to the status quo; the European Union does not do the status quo. The EU is always trying to introduce new regulations, new burdens on business, and new protectionist measures to protect its failing businesses, to protect French farmers and all the rest of it. Effectively, we are signing up to something about which we know little. We have no idea where it ends and what measures will be introduced as a result of it.

[David Morris]

As far as I am aware—I have been out to Brussels and done battle with the bureaucrats there—the problems are to do with not what Europe gives to us, but how ineffectively it is scrutinised when it comes here. A lot of the problems that we have are lost in translation. For example, there was a proposition to stop women wearing high heels in hairdressing salons, and that legislative measure spread to town halls, and perhaps even to shiny floors here in Parliament. When we drilled down into the detail, however, it was a mis-translation that eventually got the whole thing thrown out. Does my hon. Friend agree that more scrutiny should be given to European issues in Parliament and in Committees, and that more Committees should be set up should we vote to stay in the EU at the referendum?

[Philip Davies]

There is not much point in spending hours and hours scrutinising legislation that we have no ability to amend or change in any way. It does not matter how much time we spend scrutinising it; we are still susceptible to it, so I cannot see that there is a great deal of point in doing that. If my hon. Friend is right and a lot of the problems in this country are created by bad translations of European legislation, that is another good reason why we should leave the European Union, so that all our laws can be decided in this place and written in English so that we understand them. I am pleased that he has given us yet another reason—one I had not thought of—for leaving the European Union. His intervention is welcome.

[Mr Hollobone]

An extension of that argument is the imposition of VAT on key products in this country, and a lot of fuss has been made about the fact that we cannot cancel the 5% VAT on domestic fuel, which has a big impact on low-income households. Recently, a very big fuss was made about VAT on women’s sanitary products. The British Parliament and Government are unable to remove VAT on those items without the consent of the European Union. If people want such situations to change, surely the message is clear: vote to leave on 23 June.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right, and we have a ridiculous situation. We are supposed to be a proud nation, and in that debate on sanitary products, everybody in the House agreed that it was inappropriate for VAT be levied on them. If we were a properly sovereign nation outside the EU, that could be mended in a flash in the forthcoming Budget. In mid-March, the Chancellor could announce that VAT on sanitary products will be ended, and that would be the end of the situation. Instead we are left as a proud nation that resorts to a Treasury Minister saying, “I will commit to go and ask the EU if it will give us permission to do something. It will be hard. It might not want us to do this, so I cannot promise anything, but I will do my best and have a word.” What a situation we are in when we in this country are unable to make such decisions for ourselves.

My constituency suffered terribly from the floods over Christmas, and one of the worst affected places was the Bradford rowing club, which has to spend tens of thousands of pounds repairing the damage. It has to pay VAT on those repairs. I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and said that given the extenuating circumstances, it would be a decent gesture for him to waive VAT on the repairs caused by that flooding. What was the answer? That the Chancellor’s hands are tied and he does not have the ability to waive VAT because that matter is decided by the European Union. Therefore, 20% will be added to the bill of my rowing club for the repairs from the flooding, and we cannot make decisions on VAT ourselves because they are decided for us by the European Union. It is funny how we never hear that from the remain campaigners. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) will defend that situation.

[David Morris]

I will defend that because VAT is the sole domain of HMRC and not the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I know because I had a similar problem in my constituency. Perhaps my hon. Friend will consider the point about sanitary products. I agree that we should not be paying VAT on them, but because of our special relationship in Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince)—sadly, he is not in his place today—found a way around that VAT going to Europe, so that it now goes to charities. Does he agree that that was a good move?

[Philip Davies]

That had nothing to do with a special status, and neither does it benefit the consumer who still has to pay VAT on the sanitary products that they buy. Where the money ends up is of no benefit to the consumer whatsoever; it just means that it does not benefit the Treasury directly.

[Mr Hollobone]

As I understand it, VAT is still paid on the sanitary products and it still goes to Brussels, but the Chancellor is paying the equivalent sum of money to charities. We are effectively paying twice as much as we would if we had sovereignty.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes his point well, as always, but we should not be in this situation. Such decisions should be taken in this House for the benefit of our constituents, but they are not.

We are signing up to a treaty, and the EU is saying to us, “You sign the treaty, and if we want to change things against your wishes, we have the freedom to do so through qualified majority voting.” If I said to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, “Let’s sign a deal on something, but by the way, I can change the terms at any time, and there is nothing you can do to stop me”, I do not think you would sign up to it—nobody would sign up to such a deal, but that is in effect what we are being asked to sign up to in the EU referendum if we vote to remain.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend has not mentioned the part of the deal that states that we will now lose the little influence that we had in the past in relation to the deeper integration of the eurozone. For example, we will not be able to argue that Greece would be better off outside the eurozone, or have any influence on the consequences of a sclerotic eurozone being uncompetitive, and the result that that leads to of more people from the eurozone wanting to work in our country.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. I have already covered economic and trade matters and regulations, and I know that other people want to speak so I shall not go on for too long. National security and immigration are crucial issues that are mentioned in clause 5 of the Bill. National security is a key area, and the remain campaign seems to think that it is one of its trump cards, and that we are more secure and safer from terrorist attacks within the European Union. I would love them to go and tell the people of Paris how much safer they were from terrorist attacks as a result of being in the European Union, but I suspect they would not get particularly far.

Last night in a debate at York University we hit a new low in the tactics of the remain campaign. I was making the point that we cannot stop people coming into the UK from the EU if they have a valid EU passport, and that that applied to everybody, whether law-abiding people or criminals. But would you believe what the remain campaign announced last night? Perhaps the Minister can confirm it. I am on the Justice Committee, but I was not aware of it. It emerged last night during the debate that, apparently, when an EU national comes to the UK, our robust border controls mean that we check who people are. Apparently, when passports are scanned—this was a new one on me—it flags up whether or not a person has criminal convictions in their home nation, which enables us to stop them entering the United Kingdom. If only that were the case. The most generous thing I can say about that claim is that it is an absolutely blatant lie, because no system exists across the European Union to scan passports, trigger a huge list of criminal convictions and enable us to stop people coming into the country. That claim is simply untrue—I cannot be any clearer than that. The Minister may want to confirm or deny that when he comments, but let us please have an honest debate about these things. That system does not exist.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will repeat that claim.

[Mark Tami]

I am not going to repeat it. However, the hon. Gentleman should make it clear that a lot of terrorism is actually home-grown. We should not suggest that this is just about people coming from outside—the UK faces a much bigger problem than that.

[Philip Davies]

I invite people to look at the transcript of what I said—I am not sure I did say that terrorism came only from other parts of the European Union and that it could not be home-grown. Of course it can be—it is both. We cannot stop British people from living in Britain, and I do not think that anybody has ever proposed that we should, but the fact that we have home-grown terrorists is surely no reason to let in people from other countries who may want to cause us harm.

If people think that this robust system is in place, perhaps they would like to explain why so many crimes in the UK each year are committed by EU nationals and why the UK prison population of EU nationals has gone through the roof since we had free movement of people. The reason why it has gone through the roof since we had free movement of people is that a lot of those people have taken advantage of that arrangement to come here to commit their crimes. That is the fact of the matter; it may be an inconvenient fact, but nobody can deny that that is what has happened.

Every quarter, the Ministry of Justice publishes the prison population figures broken down by nationality. I invite anybody to look back over a few years at the figures for each nationality, because they will see a huge increase in the number of EU nationals in our prisons. That is because these people are coming to the UK under the free movement of people to commit crimes. As a result, we are creating lots of unnecessary victims of crime in the UK. People who want to remain in the EU should be honest about the fact that that is one of the downsides. They should not pretend that there is some miracle passport control system that stops these people coming into the UK, which, as I say, is a blatant lie.

[David Morris]

I wish there were a passport control system that could vet these people coming into the country, but does my hon. Friend not agree that the Prime Minister, in his renegotiations, has secured easier ways to deport these criminals and, may I add, to stop them coming into the country?

[Philip Davies]

No, I do not accept that at all. The Prime Minister has done absolutely nothing to stop these people coming into the UK—literally nothing. There is nothing in place to stop them; there are a few people on a watch list whom we can stop coming into the UK, but they would be on a watch list whether we were in the EU or outside it. We need to develop a watch list for people from around the world, because this is not an EU issue. We can already stop those people coming to the UK, and we would always be able to stop them coming to the UK, if they are on a terrorist watch list. I am talking about the thousands and thousands of criminals who are unknown to the British authorities, who come through every week on an EU passport to commit their crimes. When I was out with West Yorkshire police a few years ago—this might seem fanciful, and it seemed fanciful to me when I first heard it—they told me they had a problem with people getting a short-haul flight from other EU countries to Leeds Bradford airport, going out into Leeds city centre and committing high-value crimes and robberies, and then being back on the plane out to their country of origin before the police have even finished investigating the crime. I had not even thought that that type of thing could happen, but West Yorkshire police told me that that was a serious concern for them.

Of course, it is easy for people do these things while we are in the EU—there is nothing to prevent them from coming here. They are known to their own national law enforcement agencies, so they are at risk of being apprehended in their own countries. It is much easier for them to commit crimes in the UK, where they are not known to anybody—they can come in and go out in a flash. We have to be aware that these are problems.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

To be absolutely fair—we should be fair, and that is why we need an independent audit—our own crooks can presumably do the same in those other countries?

[Philip Davies]

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem is that there are much richer pickings in the UK than in some of the countries these people come from.

The other aspect of this is that, even if these people run the risk of being caught, they would, I suspect, much prefer to spend their time in a British prison than in a prison in their home nation. So this is a win-win, given their chances of being caught and what happens when they are caught. I am afraid that that does not quite work the same in reverse.

[Mr Chope]

When I visited Denmark with a Select Committee in the last Parliament, we heard directly from the Danish about the problem they have with eastern Europeans coming into Denmark and committing crimes. If those people are convicted of those crimes, they will earn more in prison than they would have been able to earn in their home country, so there is no deterrent.

[Philip Davies]

That is another interesting point I had not factored in. I will bow to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge. I have visited prisons in Denmark, and that is not something I was aware of, so I am grateful to him for putting that point on the record.

Suggesting that our national security is enhanced by being in the EU, when we let thousands of EU criminals in every year, is fanciful in the extreme. Being susceptible to crime from such individuals is doing nothing at all for the security of my constituents.

[Mr Chope]

May I give my hon. Friend an example of where our security is much worse as a result of being in the European Union? People from outside who come into the European Union at the moment often do not give their fingerprints, as they should. I suggested that we take DNA samples from people coming from outside, but I was told that that is unlawful under the Eurodac regulations, so we cannot take that precaution.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I very much agree that people wanting to come and live in the EU should have to give their fingerprints and DNA, so that if they do commit a crime, it is easy to track them down, convict them and deport them. As he says, however, that is not what happens. The best the Government have come up with so far is that if somebody comes into the UK and commits a crime, the police can go through some burdensome procedure of asking other EU countries whether they have a fingerprint match for a crime that has been committed there. If those countries ever manage to get back to us, which they probably do not half the time, Lord knows what may happen on the back of that. However, that is not the same as stopping people who are criminals coming into the UK.

[David Morris]

I am listening intently to my hon. Friend’s eloquent arguments about letting people into the country. Will he clarify whether these are people coming into the EU from nations outside the EU? As I understand it, the security systems between the EU bloc and Great Britain are seamless and can interface with, say, the databases of the French and the German authorities, but where people are coming into the EU, we have to get the co-operation of the country they are coming from. If we came out of the EU, would we have to do the same procedure in reverse?

[Philip Davies]

I am not entirely sure what my hon. Friend is driving at. At the moment, if somebody comes to the UK from outside the EU, we do not have to let them in, whereas if they are an EU citizen, we pretty much do have to let them in. It does not matter how suspicious we are of their motives—that is irrelevant. I want the more robust immigration policy that we are allowed for non-EU nationals to apply to EU nationals too. Nobody is saying that we do not want anybody to come into the UK from the EU, but I would rather we had some choice as to who we allow in. It is a great privilege to come into the UK. We should make sure that it is indeed a great privilege and that we are not just letting any old person into the country, which is the situation at the moment.

On sovereignty, it cannot be right that people making so many of our laws are unelected and completely unaccountable to anybody. The remain campaigners say, “Well, of course we have a European Parliament to scrutinise all these laws.” First, Members of the European Parliament who represent the UK are a tiny proportion of the total, so even if every single UK MEP voted against something, there is no guarantee that it would make any difference whatsoever. Secondly, if, in this country, the Government were permanently in office and the only people elected were the MPs scrutinising the decisions they were making, that would be a bizarre situation and there would be uproar. Yet the justification for having the European Commission, unelected and unaccountable, initiating all the legislation, which is the role of Governments in most national Parliaments, is that MEPs are elected. It is unbelievable that anybody can justify that kind of democratic situation. When we sign treaties with other countries, that is the end of it—the position does not get changed every five minutes by qualified majority voting, with things being imposed on us against our wishes. That is not how treaties work, but it is how our relationship with the European Union works.

We are told that we have a lot of influence in the EU. That argument was completely demolished by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) in his contribution to the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday. He pointed out that a freedom of information request showed that over the past two decades there had been a definitive vote in the European Council 72 times and that we had been outvoted 72 times. So on Monday the idea that we are wielding this huge influence in the European Union was clearly demolished. It was shown to be a complete load of old codswallop. It is an illusion of influence. We do not have any influence; we are having discussions around a table and being outvoted at every single turn, as Ministers who attend these things know to their cost.

We are told that the US wants us to stay in the EU and that that is a reason why we should. I do not doubt that it is in the United States’ best interests that we stay in the European Union, because we add a bit of common sense to it and it does not want the French, who are very anti-American, having even more power. If it is so important for the Americans that we stay in the European Union, perhaps they will pay our £18 billion membership fee each year for us. I look forward to President Obama making that offer when he comes to campaign in the referendum. I am sure that amount would be a drop in the ocean for the United States.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Let me bring to my hon. Friend’s attention the fact that the person representing the United States Government who has called for us to stay is John Kerry, a former senator, who in the 1980s showed himself to be no friend of the United Kingdom but a sympathiser with the IRA when he held up a treaty allowing for the deportation of IRA activists from the United States to the United Kingdom, saying that the justice system in Northern Ireland did not work effectively. He is no friend of Britain and has been in the past a terrorist sympathiser.

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention. With friends like that in the United States, I suspect we do not need many enemies.

I am prepared to accept that it may be in the best interests of the United States that we stay in the European Union. I am not going to question that for one minute, and I am sure that if I was an American I would probably be arguing the same. However, we should be making decisions that are in the best interests of the United Kingdom, not of the United States, which is big enough and bad enough to look after its own interests.

I look forward to a truly independent cost-benefit analysis that takes into account the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has made and some of the points that I have made. Any cost-benefit analysis that ignores those points that have been raised today is not worth the paper it is written on. I say to the Minister that, if anybody in the Government is working on some bogus cost-benefit analysis that they think is going to work in hoodwinking the British public, I hope he will insist that it takes into account the points we have raised today.

Crucially, the membership of any committee that puts together a cost-benefit analysis must correspond to that insisted upon by this Bill, which calls for a balance of people who are in favour of and people who are against the UK’s membership, a neutral chairman, and for none of them to be a current or past Member of the European Parliament or the European Commission. Only if those criteria are met will we have a truly independent and worthwhile cost-benefit analysis. However, given the Government’s reluctance over many years to publish such a cost-benefit analysis, I am afraid that any decision to rush one through now will be treated with a great deal of cynicism and scepticism, not just by me, but by many people across the House and, more importantly, by the British public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That sort of casual statement is quite worrying, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling us about it.

I was about to deal with the cost of EU membership. The following information is taken from various papers that I have been studying. The cost is set to be £3.1 billion higher over the next five years than forecast before the 2015 general election. This is not a static process, therefore. That change is due to a reassessment of the size of Britain’s economy relative to the rest of the EU, thus penalising the UK for its economic success. The bigger and more successful we get, the greater a magnet for migrants we become and the bigger the sub we have to pay, despite the fact that the deficit carries on much the same as it always has done.

[Philip Davies]

On that point, is it not ironic that the Prime Minister trumpets the fact that he has managed to get a cut in the EU budget but did not mention that as a part of that cut the UK’s contribution to the EU budget went up, not down?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am astonished that in this great negotiating triumph no attempt has been made to address the issue of the rebate, and I will give a few details on that in a moment. This was considered to be one of the most important issues—such as when Mrs Thatcher secured the reduction—but no attempt has been made to deal with it.

For 2016 the UK will pay £9.5 billion. It was only expected to pay £8.2 billion. Everybody casually rolls off the figure of £9 billion now as if we always thought it would be £9 billion, but it was not always going to be £9 billion; it was going to be £8.2 billion. It has suddenly gone up and nobody in the Government or elsewhere complains about that to our partners. I remember that when my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and I were Ministers everybody talked about our “European partners”. This Government seem to have dropped that; they have dropped all the visionary case for Europe in terms of partnership and so forth. They all claim they are great Eurosceptics, but they do not tell us the casual little fact that we were expected to pay £8.2 billion and that has now gone up to £.9.5 billion. We are now estimated to pay just under £250 million per week for EU membership.

Civitas has debunked the Government claim that the EU makes each household better off by £3,300 per year. The Government can argue against Civitas and have an analysis of its case, but they do make that claim. It would be nice to have some analysis of where they get those figures from, but we have not been given that.

According to Open Europe, the top five costliest EU regulations enforced in the UK are: the UK renewable energy strategy, with a recurring cost of £4.7 billion a year; the capital requirements directive IV package, with a recurring cost of £4.6 billion a year; the working time directive, with a recurring cost of £4.2 billion a year. I appreciate that one of the cases made by the Labour party is that it rather likes the working time directive. That is a perfectly logical, good case to make, and I have no argument with them making it, but I would like to know—perhaps the Labour party, the Government and the people would like to know—whether this figure of a recurring cost of £4.2 billion a year is right.

The next cost in the list is the EU climate and energy package, with a recurring cost of £3.4 billion a year. I am quoting Open Europe, which may be wrong, but the Minister can debunk these arguments if he wishes. Then there is the temporary agency workers directive, with a recurring cost of £2.1 billion a year. These are not insignificant sums—£4.7 billion, £4.6 billion, £4.2 billion, £3.4 billion, £2.1 billion—but how much detailed analysis are the British people being given about any of this?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Is it not also ironic that the Labour party seems to be so enthusiastic for our membership of the EU, yet it comes to the House every month and asks that the Government do more to help the steel industry and the coal industry when it is the policies of the EU that are doing most to obliterate the steel and coal industries in the UK?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have mentioned Grimsby and fishing, but my constituency also abuts Scunthorpe. What about these poor people there? They are also going to be allowed to vote on 23 June, and are being encouraged to do so. They would rather like to know the detailed costs of what the EU means for their jobs and what the possible alternatives are. This is serious stuff for them—it is not just a debate in the House of Commons; it is about their whole way of life and their town.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

This is the worst case scenario and I am being completely fair in putting it. I think it is unlikely.

[Philip Davies]

Will my hon. Friend give way briefly?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does not my hon. Friend want me to go on with the best case scenario? Then I will give way to him.

According to Open Europe,

“In a best case scenario, where the UK strikes a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU, pursues very ambitious deregulation of its economy and opens up almost fully to trade with the rest of the world, UK GDP would be 1.6% higher than if it had stayed within the EU.

However, these are outliers. The more realistic range is between a 0.8% permanent loss to GDP in 2030 – where the UK strikes a comprehensive trade deal with the EU but does nothing else; and a 0.6% permanent gain in GDP in 2030 – where it pursues free trade with the rest of the world and deregulation, in addition to an EU FTA.”

These arguments about disaster and millions of jobs being lost are, I think, overstated, but I may be wrong. I keep making this point: the Government have vast resources, such as the National Audit Office and the Office for Budget Responsibility. We would like to know before we cast our vote.

[Philip Davies]

The Treasury now acknowledges that 3 million jobs depend on trading with the EU, not on being a member of the EU. If that is the case—I am sure there is a lot of truth in it—given our substantial trade deficit with the European Union, does that not mean, therefore, that about 5 million jobs in the EU are dependent on its trade with the UK?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, that is the point that was made time and again during the debate yesterday. I am not sure the Government have entirely answered it to my satisfaction.

The Government seem to argue that were we to vote to leave the EU, that would be such a catastrophic snub to our EU partners that there would be a degree of vengeance. I think that is a childlike view of how policy is created in Paris and Berlin. Many people in France—I take a bit of an interest in this—have argued for many years that it would not be an absurd state of affairs for Britain to leave the EU, for all sorts of reasons. However, the Government argue that a dramatic vengeance game would be initiated.

By the way, if our European partners acted in that way, would we want to have anything to do with them? It is a ridiculous argument anyway. They would not behave in that way, because of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—because of our trade deficit with them, particularly with our German friends. They are intimately bound up with us in terms of trade and there is every incentive to conclude a reasonable deal.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Perhaps I have banged on a bit too much about the economy, and should briefly touch on defence and security, as it is in my hon. Friend’s Bill and is a matter of acute concern. Apart from “Project Fear”, which is based on this false premise of a loss of millions of jobs—Lord Mandelson appears to have made that up on the back of a fag packet—which no one has ever quantified in any great detail, although we wait to hear what the Government say about that, there are all these arguments about security. David Owen, a former Labour Foreign Secretary, who has now come out in favour of leaving the EU, dealt with that matter and debunked it very well on his interview on the “Today” programme yesterday. He asked how the European Union has improved our security by creating, in an imperialist and expansionist way, a new trade association deal with Ukraine, which led directly to Russian fears of being encircled and to the annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. By the way, I do not countenance, approve or support in any way what Russia has done. The fact is that the EU gave President Putin that opportunity.

In a direct answer to my hon. Friend, is it really conceivable that, if the UK decided to leave the EU, our friends and allies in the Baltic states would want to throw us into some appalling doghouse and have nothing more to do with us when their freedom and security depends so much on us? We do have the strongest armed forces in the European Union. France and Britain are the only two countries that are capable of deploying world power. The Minister who is summing up this debate has considerable expertise in this matter because, as a Back Bencher, he spent years talking about it.

Although I cannot speak for the French Government, I do regularly speak to people in France, and I can assure Members that France has no interest or desire in not continuing to co-operate in an ever closer way, in terms of an ever closer union of sovereign states, in military policy. This whole argument that, somehow, the peace and security of Europe would be endangered if we were to leave the EU does not hold water. I will not repeat all the arguments that have been made many times before about our peace and security depending not on remaining in the EU, but on NATO. That is not a point that can be directly summed up in any cost- benefit analysis, but it needs to be articulated. We Eurosceptics are not nationalists. We love Europe; we love Europeans; we love European culture; and we want to have the closest possible relationship with our friends in France and Germany.

Let us go back to some of the detailed studies of the cost-benefit analysis. I am very grateful to the Library of the House of Commons for this. In fact, we should pay tribute to it because it is one of the few bodies that has actually attempted, with its limited resources, to collate all these studies. The study by the Institute for Economic Affairs—Minford et al, 2005—“Should Britain leave the EU” estimates a range of 3.2% to minus 3.7% of GDP in ongoing costs. I have dealt with Open Europe. The 2014 study by Gianmarco Ottaviano “Brexit or Fixit? The Trade and Welfare Effects of Leaving the European Union”, the Centre for Economic Performance and the London School of Economics estimated the trade-related costs to the UK of leaving the EU as being in the range of 2.2% to 9.5% of GDP. That is their argument, but it would be nice for it to be tested. In the literature review for “Our Global Future”, the CBI—again, I am not citing people who are naturally friendly to my point of view, but we need to test the arguments—found that the net benefit arising from EU membership is somewhere in the region of 4% to 5% of UK GDP.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend have the figures that the CBI gave for the great benefits that we would have received when it recommended that we join the euro?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We should have had more independent analysis of that. Conservative Members often criticise Gordon Brown, but we should never forget that he kept us out of the euro, against the wishes of his Prime Minister, Tony Blair. We were told that disaster would strike by some in the City of London, the CBI and so on, and they used precisely these arguments. Now the Prime Minister goes to the Dispatch Box and says as a great virtue that we are out of the euro, but we were told by all the powers of the establishment that not joining the euro would be a disaster, and many of the arguments used were exactly the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Colvile]

Well, that is the whole business of politics, isn’t it? My hon. Friend is right to raise these issues, but ultimately this is about the future of our country within Europe and whether we are led back into having wars and things like that. I very much want to avoid that. Believe you me, my heart is for coming out, but my head says that it is not a clever thing to do.

Last week, during the recess, I spent a few days with the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy in Norway doing a survival course. We ended up building a shelter and a fire, and then we had to go and kill a chicken and eat it. Needless to say, I did not get too involved in the killing of the chicken, because I think I would have found that incredibly difficult. I heard at first hand the Norwegians’ real concerns, shared by the Baltic states, about the whole business of Russia potentially invading their country and coming through the north and the Arctic in order to do so. That made me very concerned as well. I therefore believe that our national security should not be weakened at a time of global insecurity.

[Philip Davies]

I am intrigued by my hon. Friend’s view that everything in the EU is about peace and harmony. Has he seen the rise of the far-right parties across the EU in recent years, including the largest party in France, and the record amounts of barbed wire going up around the EU? It does not strike many people as being about peace and harmony but quite the reverse in many cases.

[Oliver Colvile]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend that that issue must be looked at and taken into account, and I do, but I am talking about my personal view. This is about trying to make sure that we can maintain peace within Europe. I recognise, though, that other people have significantly different views—some even more extreme than his position might end up being. I have a great deal of time for my hon. Friend.

The EU is far from perfect, but this is not the time to throw away the good progress that the Prime Minister has made in reforming it. I am pleased that we have managed to secure an opt-out from being dragged into an ever closer union with the other 27 member states. In the previous Parliament, he managed to secure a deal that would bring the EU’s budget down for the very first time, and we should most certainly welcome that. I am, however, keen for further reform of the EU, including bringing UK fishing waters back under UK control, for which I will certainly continue to campaign. That would significantly improve the conservation of our fisheries, which I am very happy to support.

I believe that the Prime Minister’s deal will go a long way to restoring British sovereignty and reducing migration to the UK. On future immigration, if we are going to put up the shutters—we do need to control it—I am concerned about what would happen to my local Derriford hospital. If we found ourselves without any nurses from abroad, that would be a significant issue.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend not understand that controlling immigration means that we would be able to allow into the country those we want to allow in and that we could keep out those we want to keep out? If we leave the EU and his hospital needs some nurses from abroad, there would be nothing to prevent us from allowing them to come here. We just would not have to accept everybody from the EU who wants to come here.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend has a point, but it is important that we acknowledge that this country needs people to come here to do those jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

I will do so later.

We had a long debate on European affairs yesterday. I am sure we would all agree that it was an excellent debate, with many outstanding contributions. The debate has felt a little flat today, because we have returned to the usual suspects with the usual very narrow arguments. However, it gives me an opportunity to talk once again about the benefits of being a member of the European Union. I do not think—this is one of our criticisms of the Bill—that the benefits of being a member of the European Union can be narrowed down to simply an economic cost. The question is much bigger than that.

Labour, as hon. Members know, are united on this issue. We believe that Britain is stronger, safer and more prosperous as part of the European Union.

[Philip Davies]

Is that it?

[Pat Glass]

No; just a second. We are a proud nation, with almost half our exports going to European countries. Those exports were worth £227 billion last year to the UK economy. We receive, on average, £26.5 billion of investment every year from the EU. Jobs and businesses, large and small, depend on our trading with the EU. Future EU trade could create 790,000 more jobs by 2030 by opening up markets in digital services, energy and tourism.

I will talk a little about my part of the country. The north-east is the only part of the country that has a trade surplus. Proportionately, we are the biggest exporting region in the country. We make things in my part of the world and we export them, largely to Europe. As I said yesterday, we make more cars in one city in the north-east in a month than that great car-building country, Italy, does in a whole year. I invite Conservative Members to go along to Teesport or the port of Tyne and see the lines of cars that are made in the north-east and exported to the European Union. In my region, 75% of our trade depends on being part of the European Union. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in the north-east are directly or indirectly linked to being part of the European Union. That is just one aspect of the benefits.

I will talk about the peace dividend later, but I want to talk a little about the fact that we live in a global world where we face issues such as international terrorism, international crime, war, migration and Russian expansionism. Listening to the debate today, I have not heard anything from Conservative Members that gives me any answers to the big questions facing us. It is not possible to reduce those huge issues to a cost-benefit analysis or an economic cost.

TTIP has been mentioned. I have to say that my blood runs cold at the thought of negotiating a TTIP arrangement outside the European Union. I am quite clear that our public services and our NHS need to be protected in any negotiations about TTIP. Having listened to the libertarians opposite, I am sure that that would not be the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

If we look at EU immigration, we can see that it is almost the same: 2.3 million people from the European Union are in Britain; and 2 million Brits live in the European Union. Many of them are working in and contributing to European countries and some of them, having worked hard all their lives, have retired and are now living in the European Union. We must be absolutely clear about what “out” would look like for those people. At the end of this debate, I want us to be very clear about that. We know what “in” looks like—we have had 41 years of what “in” looks like—but we absolutely no idea what “out” would look like for jobs and the economy, or for people from the EU working in this country and people from this country working in the EU.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

If the hon. Gentleman is going to tell us what “out” would look like, I will happily give way.

[Philip Davies]

I am rather interested in the Labour party’s views. I urge the hon. Lady to look up the meaning of net migration. Net migration means the number of people coming in after we have taken out the ones who have already left, and that figure is 325,000. Is her party happy with the net migration figures as they are? Is she not prepared to take any measures to reduce them?

[Pat Glass]

Once again, another opportunity to tell us what “out” would look like and we do not get it.

We had an excellent debate in the Chamber yesterday, a lot of which centred on the peace dividend. I have not heard anything about that from Conservative Members today. The first aim of the European Union was peace. It was created not as a project or a political union, but to ensure peace in western Europe after the ruins of 1945. We committed genocide on one another in western Europe every 30 years up until 1945. As I said in the Chamber yesterday, for me this is personal. It is not just about politics. I accept that the European Union is not the only reason why young men and women are not lying in graves outside Thiepval and Ypres today, unlike my great grandfather and his brother, two young men from this country aged 22 and 25 who died within six weeks of each other and are lying in unmarked graves in Belgium and France. Great though the loss was to my family, it pales into insignificance alongside the loss suffered by other families. Mrs Smith from Bishop Auckland, a town just over the hill from where I live, lost her husband and her five sons. How can we put an economic cost on that? At the end of the awful wars in western Europe, when we regularly turned our continent into a killing field, the victors and the vanquished said never again will we allow this to happen. I believe that by voting to remain in the European Union we will ensure that this never happens again to the young people of this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend has made my point for me. What I think our right hon. Friend was trying to articulate was, “Please do not try to second-guess what would be the view of someone who is not alive today and able to understand the issues of today.” He made the point, very powerfully, that it was disingenuous to try to judge in that way. He was frustrated that people had taken the famous Zurich speech—of which we are now in the 70th anniversary year, and in which Churchill talked of a continental Europe—out of context, and had reinterpreted it in order to make their own points. In fact, it has already been used by both sides in the debate leading up to 23 June. Similarly, people have said of Margaret Thatcher, “I am sure that, if she were alive today, she would say this, that and the other.” I think it unhelpful to lean on great statesmen who are not here today, because today’s circumstances are very different.

It is, however, worth reminding ourselves that from the devastation of war-torn Europe has emerged a union of 28 nations, which are living in peace now, and which have also lived through a ragged period of dealing with the growth and subsequent demise of communism. We have become part of the biggest and most powerful single market in the world, and it is important for us to remember that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough also gives me licence to touch on how this is playing out in other European capitals. Things can be quite parochial in the Chamber, and sometimes the things that we say here do not reach much further, but we are being watched, registered and monitored in other capitals across the world as we have this debate. I have to say from my role as Foreign Minister responsible for the middle east, north Africa and south-east Asia that there is some puzzlement about this debate, as Britain has a legacy of being at the forefront of decision making—being a P5 UN Security Council member, a leading member of the Commonwealth and playing such a pivotal role in NATO, and given that in every international organisation from the World Trade Organisation to the International Monetary Fund to the World Bank, Britain is at the forefront.

Other countries hesitate and look at us to see which direction Britain is looking in, knowing that we have a powerful, strong and important relationship with the US, that we have experience, and that we have an interest in, and understanding of, much of the world around us, yet they also look at us and see that we might want to opt out of one of the largest organisations in the world. The Prime Minister also articulated that point on Monday.

We do not make any reference to the fact that the UK could survive outside the EU. We are a great and powerful nation—the fifth biggest trading nation in the world. The question is the degree of that success. That is what we need to debate up until 23 June. Are we better off out and making decisions separately, or are we more powerful as part of this organisation and collectively exerting more influence from inside? That is pivotal in the debate we will have in the next three months.

Much has also been made about the security concerns and whether Britain’s security status and competence would rise or fall were we to leave the EU. When the starting gun was fired, and the debate opened up and people declared their position, some comments were made about the Paris attacks, saying that they would be more likely to take place in the UK if we were outside the EU. I think those comments were disingenuous; I will not go further than that. We need to have a sensible and measured discussion about security. I certainly do not agree with that sentiment at all, and I urge those on both sides of the argument to be very cautious about making flippant comments and scaremongering. We are of course subject to the pressures of the media and the sensationalism they seem to encourage so that they have soundbites for the evening news or the Twittersphere, but our allies are looking at this and it does not bode well for Britain if we scaremonger in this way.

However, we are living in a very dangerous and complex world, one that is far more complex today than it was a couple of decades ago. The consequences of the Arab spring are still with us, we have an emboldened President Putin—far more unpredictable than ever before—and we have the growing concern of extremism. When the Bali bomb went off in 2002 there were just over 20 listed extremist groups—listed groups of terror. Today there are over 50. These are registered, listed groups recognised by us as organisations of terror. That means that at the moment we are not winning the battle to contain them. Daesh is obviously the biggest, and it is a franchise; other organisations, such as Boko Haram, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, are joining forces and gaining a franchise from Daesh. We need to think about how we collectively defeat that, and there is a question about the role of the EU in dealing with that.

Much has been said about the role of NATO—it was mentioned today. It is, of course, the cornerstone of our security endeavours, and we also have our strong relationship with the United States, but along with the growth of the European Union comes soft power. These things complement each other, and one does not replace the other. In certain areas where other countries are wanting to pursue a European-style army, we have made it clear that we would not support that, and neither would many other countries. Everybody has recognised that from a kinetic perspective NATO is the cornerstone of our security, but soft power comes with the ability to provide political leverage in introducing sanctions, and it is the work of the European Union that started the ball rolling in getting sanctions built up against Iran. Those sanctions eventually forced Iran to curtail its nuclear programme, come to the table and agree a long-term solution which denies the Iranians the ability to build a nuclear bomb. EU sanctions and EU discussions led to the P5+1 talks, which involved other countries such as China, Russia and the United States. That gives us an indication of the role the EU can play, and the counter-piracy operations off Somalia are another great example of this work, which can complement what NATO is doing.

We also need to consider the bilateral operations that work underneath the umbrella of the European Union, for example, the Border Force capabilities in Calais. One could argue that if we step out of the European Union, we could negotiate these things one by one, but carrying out bilateral talks with a number of countries is a lot more complex. The question is: would such an approach be as efficient as going to a single organisation—Interpol, Frontex or the European border forces—and at these meetings having a say not just in bilateral arrangements, such as those we have with France, but collectively? Internationally, what is the European Union’s view on the situation in Libya, with the movement of refugees and with the criminal gangs exhorting funds from refugees who wish to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean? My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley posed the question as to the impact of extremist parties in Europe, as it could be argued that that has been a consequence of the movement of refugees. But the only way we are going to sort that is by dealing with the problem at source—by addressing what is happening in Syria. Again, I would argue that the EU can put far greater emphasis and might into providing a challenge and looking for solutions by working collectively, not only on managing the refugee crisis, but on addressing the challenges at source in order to mitigate what is going on.

[Philip Davies]

Everyone would agree that the Minister is making a balanced and good speech, but I am surprised that he seems to be talking down the ability of the mighty Foreign Office, of which he is a part. Is he really saying that if, after we had left the EU, the UK and the EU thought that sanctions should be imposed on Iran, the Foreign Office would have no mechanism for discussing that with the European Union, and coming to that decision and agreement? Is he saying that those discussions can take place only from within the EU? Since when has the Foreign Office been so pathetically powerless around the world?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that his description of the Foreign Office is not one I agree with—

[Philip Davies]

It is your description—

[Mr Ellwood]

It is not my description. Provocatively, my hon. Friend is putting words in my mouth. We can step back from this particular issue to all the other issues, saying that in each case Britain would have the ability—in fact, we would have the obligation—outside the EU to step up and do all that work as well, whether it be on sanctions on Iran or any other relationships. The question is: on our own, can we exert greater leverage on a country such as Iran, which continues to have a proxy influence in Bahrain, Damascus and Syria, Baghdad and Iraq, and Yemen and Sana’a, or would we have more leverage and power by leading from within the EU? That applies right across the board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

Because as I understand, the heart of the argument from the leave campaign recognises that some aspects of the European Union are welcome, such as the single market and some aspects of the security situation, and that there would be a desire for re-entry so that we could have that relationship. [Interruption.] What I heard on the radio this morning is that we would renegotiate aspects of our relationship with the European Union—I have heard that again and again. If my hon. Friends are saying, “No, we will have no truck with the European Union whatsoever”, that is a new direction of travel that I have not heard before, so I am grateful that the debate has clarified what the leave campaign has been after for all this time.

[Philip Davies]

Is the Minister aware that many countries have free trade agreements with the European Union without being members of it, an example being the agreement that America is seeking to make at the moment? The future for the United Kingdom is to have free trade with the European Union from outside it, in the way that many other big countries do. Does the Minister understand that?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will heed the advice and encouragement, because other issues have been raised that we must also touch on. Let me be clear: there is a fair bit of bureaucracy to be gone through, but even securing a free trade agreement with the European Union would require a process to be followed and would not happen overnight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

I am coming to that shortly, when I will go into the details of the timetable, but I just wanted to clarify the position, because it may be raised again in relation to other Ministers who have different views as well.

[Philip Davies]

The Government’s view seems to be that we should stay in the European Union. I presume that even they would concede that being a member of the EU is disadvantageous in some ways, although their view overall is that it is better for us to remain. If their view on fishing, for example, is that it may be to our disadvantage to be in the EU, and the fishing Minister wanted to use the Government machinery to come up with something better, would he be allowed to do so, or are we in the ridiculous situation where every Minister has to pretend—whether it is true or not—that every aspect of EU membership is in our interests?

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

Will the Minister confirm that, contrary to the assertions made in yesterday’s debate, when somebody comes into the UK from the European Union their entire criminal record does not flash up before the Border Force, and we do not then cart them off to kick them out of the country on that basis? Will he confirm that that was a wholly false assertion?

[Mr Ellwood]

I was not privy to the exact point in the debate when that comment was made, but I will ask the relevant Home Office Minister to write to my hon. Friend to clarify exactly what does happen. I am now mildly curious to find out those details myself.