European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-27
Topic: Foreign Trade
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not sure I follow the power or logic of that particular point. I am afraid that only three of the 20 fastest-growing countries in the last 10 years, in terms of exports, are members of the European Union—and we are not one of them Without delaying your Lordships further, I point out—in the words of the European Commission and their analysts—that "90% of world demand" over the next ten years, "will be generated outside the EU" I suspect at least half or two-thirds of that will be generated from the fantastic, disruptive explosion in the transfer of know-how, information and digital technology of every conceivable kind. This is the world of the very near future: we may have arrived there already. What it means is that there is this apparent cliff edge, as it has been called, disaster, or dividing point between being inside today’s single market and being outside it, but we are dealing with many things that do not have a tariff on them—our services know no national boundaries and can be transmitted regardless of distance whether to a nearby European region or to the other side of the world—and it is becoming a completely new pattern in which we have to operate. To operate effectively, we must think in terms of a vast improvement in skills and a massive acceleration in innovation, and find our way into the gigantic, new growth markets of the future, which I am afraid are going to be largely outside the European Union Europe remains very important to us; the bilateral arrangements we have with European countries remain important to us. We are not all sure at the moment—this outlines the absurdity of trying to tie down the Government—whom we will be negotiating with, how much power Mr Barnier will have or what the 27 capital countries will say. I noticed that the Visegrad group—four at the moment—are coming together and have said they want a separate treaty; they do not agree with the approach of the European Commission in Brussels and they are thinking about separate arrangements because they are not satisfied with the general approach. We all heard the day before yesterday one of Mrs Merkel’s chief spokesmen saying that they disliked the whole aggressive approach of Jean-Claude Juncker and the Brussels Commission. We have no idea what is being brewed up as a position on the other side of the Channel to approach us, or whom we will be dealing with. What we do know is that the trade trends I have described are proceeding at a great pace; they are driven by technology that is growing at an exponential pace, with the development of Moore’s law, Metcalfe’s law and all the other aspects we know about; this is what we should take account of All I plead is that before your Lordships express too much indignation about whether we are inside the single market or outside it, we might reflect that, as we proceed in this entirely new pattern of international trade, we can do pretty well in dealing with all the aspects—they will be complex—of all the industries and services that will ensure our survival and prosperity in an extremely competitive world.