European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-03-02
Topic: International Affairs
Julian Charles Roland Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is a special privilege to take part in this most important debate about the future of our country and of our esteemed neighbouring countries. I appreciate that it is an unusual occasion when I and my Labour colleagues speak on the same side as the Conservative Government. My own early views of Europe and the world came from my grandparents. Colin talked about the German culture and medicine that saved his life after being captured in the trenches. Maxwell talked about our uncles who died in the trenches and in testing aircraft. After the First and Second World Wars, Maxwell flew the flag of the League of Nations and then of the United Nations, and I hope that we will be flying the EU flag on 23 June after we win the referendum In my professional life as a scientist and engineer, I was first impressed by the science and culture of Russia. Perhaps we should acknowledge and appreciate the UK spaceman in the satellite who waved to us on St David’s day My generation of scientists was excited by the growing European networks and facilities extending from the Atlantic to the Urals, even during the Cold War, but later we were able to benefit from growing collaboration in Europe as the new political structures were created. The early European networks after World War II in the 1960s and 1970s were not as strong as the great continental organisations in the United States. But as the EU was formed with significant budgets, exceptionally able EC officials and committees, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, underlined this afternoon, were able to use their diplomatic skills to connect the EC and the European Parliament to the intergovernmental European institutions, for example in nuclear and plasma physics and astronomy, weather forecasting, environment and biology. These were great developments. The EC role is sometimes dismissed, but it transformed those institutions and connected them to many useful projects, which set the agendas and standards for international science, technology and business worldwide Many UK SMEs—I declare an interest as a director of one—were funded by the EC to develop and apply science from these major projects. Evidence has been provided by research bodies and by business to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee on the consequences of staying in the EU or leaving. The overwhelming conclusion has been that UK science and engineering has benefited from our involvement in the EU. Rolls-Royce, however, explained that the UK industry has not benefited as much as it might have done as a result of the UK policy to demolish the regional development agencies introduced five or six years ago The UK should do more to benefit from EU philosophy. We all know that in France and Germany the approach has been to—"pick winners" is the old phrase—create great projects such as the Ariane and Airbus projects, whereas the UK has not been part of the leadership of the projects Sadly, the Treasury still does not understand the philosophy. The Brexit criticism of UK membership of the EU is that it detracts from our sovereignty. The Science and Technology Committee has discussed this. The expert evidence emphasised that the EC and the European Parliament have been effective in listening to the concerns of people across Europe about the environment, human rights, working conditions, vacations —and have created these new rights I am surprised that this has not been mentioned today. The strongest argument for the democratic role of the EU came in comments by the Evening Standard business correspondent three days ago. The business correspondent asked Mr Murdoch why he was so keen that the UK should leave Europe. He said that it was quite simple: if the UK is out of Europe he just goes into No. 10 and they do what he tells them. If he goes to Brussels they take no notice. That is quite a strong argument to which we should listen A point made by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, is that one important role of the UK in Europe is based on our tremendously strong and capable universities, which are a great magnet. It is this aspect that brings many thousands of excellent students to Europe, and then many of them return to their countries. It is argued by some university administrators that if the UK was to leave Europe, this important part of our intellectual life would become considerably less attractive, with business consequences It seems curious that in the recent words of a high official of the Conservative Party, the UK is the corner shop of the world. I think he made a mistake and that he meant the workshop of the world, but that is what he said. Therefore, some people still have Napoleon’s view that we are a shop-keeping country. We are not. We are a great centre of intellectual and international learning. This aspect is important for the continued maintenance of our position in Europe Looking to the future, the ultimate goal for the UK is surely for it to use its pivotal position in the world and to join France in leaving the United Nations Security Council, which should of course have the European Union representing our Europe. There would then be a slot for somebody else. This would be the natural future. The idea that we are going to continue fighting for our little position in the world is not the way to look forward to the future.