Exiting the European Union and Global Trade — House of Commons, 2017-07-06
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a particular pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). It was impressive, elegant and informative all at the same time. I particularly enjoyed it as a descendant myself of "Barra men", who found their way further south via Inverness-shire. They unfortunately left out Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, skirting it a bit to the south. I know that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) will be pleased with that reference. All of us in the House look forward to hearing a great deal more from the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross in the future I turn to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is still here. I take the same approach as he did. I believed that it was right for this country to remain in the European Union, but the decision has been taken and our job is to be pragmatic about how we deliver the result. The need for give and take on both sides must be firmly recognised. This must be a Brexit that works for the 48% just as much as for the 52%. I am sure that the Ministers on the Treasury Bench will bear that in mind. In practical terms, it involves our being open-minded about the nature of the deals that we reach as we leave. No one party’s manifesto vision attained a majority in the House, so the House itself has a particular right to seek to shape the nature of our leaving and of our future relationship with the EU. I endorse and agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has said about the customs union. It seems to me illogical that we should put ourselves in a worse position than Turkey by ruling out membership of it. On the position of foreign students, as a London MP I see the great benefit of the talent that comes into our universities and into the financial services provided by the City of London, which is a wellspring of our economy and our public services. I hope that we will see some flexibility there Because my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)—my very good friend—was not able to get this in, I will add that we need to look afresh at Euratom. It seems illogical to exclude ourselves from something that is very much to our technological advantage. Israel is a member of Euratom, so it is perfectly possible to participate in it without being a member of the EU. We should not put artificial obstacles of a rather theoretical and almost theological kind in the way of a good, practical deal, where one can be done That brings me to the meat of what I wanted to say, which concerns the financial services sector. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Some 36% of my constituents work in or around the financial services sector and its supply chain. The sector is critical to them and to the economy: some £45 billion is generated for our economy by the City of London alone, never mind the broader financial services sector across the whole UK, which employs some 2.2 million people. The total tax contribution of the financial services sector for our public services is some £71.4 billion, so I have no truck with Opposition Members who criticise or carp at the work of the City of London and the financial services sector The financial services sector is a strategic national interest, and it must be a primary duty of our Government, as we seek to leave the European Union, to safeguard it. In particular, that will require a proper deal to deliver mutual market access. If some compromise on the form of the adjudication or arbitration arrangements is therefore necessary, so be it. At the end of the day, it is much more important for the welfare of this country that we have full and proper access for our financial services sector than that we argue—as with angels on the head of a needle—about different courts of justice and elements of jurisdiction. Modern countries with a global outlook sometimes recognise the need to collaborate and to share jurisdictions in areas of mutual advantage, and we should not rule that out in this case This process must also involve meaningful and early transitional arrangements, not ones set to an arbitrary timescale of two years, three years or whatever. The transitional arrangements must apply for as long as it takes to do the job for the financial services sector. The deal we made with the British people was to respect the outcome of the referendum; it was not a vote about how long the process would take or about the manner of our leaving. It is well established from the evidence that for some elements of the financial services sector—derivatives, say, as opposed to insurance or euro clearing—different lengths of transitional arrangements may well be necessary, and we should be flexible in that respect Finally, we must continue to have access to global talent. The issue of students has already been mentioned, and one of my hon. Friends referred to the issue of posted workers, which is also very important. The same applies to London’s position as a great international law centre, because the ability of lawyers to move between multinational firms is absolutely critical. Those are the practical things we need to deliver. I say to the Government that they have my support in doing so, but this must all be done in a way that puts the business outcome and the prosperity of this country above any "ologies", "isms" or any other kind of academic consideration.