Anne Main condemns the use of taxpayers’ money on EU referendum leaflet
9th May 2016
Anne Main condemns the lack of transparency over the cost to taxpayers of the EU referendum leaflet and the lack of information about what the future EU will look like with no reference to the accession of Turkey for example.
Anne spoke in the Westminster Hall debate on the petition, ‘STOP CAMERON spending British taxpayers’ money on Pro-EU Referendum leaflets’ after over 200,000 people signed their name on the petition. Nearly 400 from St Albans alone gave their support to the motion.
I actually asked what the budget was for the entire campaign that the Government are conducting, and I was told that it was absorbed within other costs. That surely cannot be the case, and it certainly was not announced in the Budget.
What worries me most about that answer is that the Treasury is projecting figures to 2030, but it cannot answer questions about Budgets now. That is of concern to me. Some colleagues have encouraged voters to return their leaflets to No. 10, but since that would mean even more cost to the taxpayer if they did it by freepost, I have not followed that line myself.
Following a recent answer to a question I asked on how many people are turned away from this country, it seems that 20 times more applicants from non-EU countries are turned away than those from EU countries. That shows that, unless people are particularly criminal outside the EU, we have only cursory checks and a cursory ability to stop people from EU countries coming in.
My hon. Friend makes a good point. My father was born in Burma. I have seen the good side of immigration, but mass uncontrolled immigration has a major effect on our infrastructure and public services—the NHS, housing and school places. We cannot tackle that effectively with one arm tied behind our back. Even the Treasury report uses the assumption that the Government will fail in their policy commitment to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, not just this year, but every year until 2030.
My right hon. Friend has just made a fantastic point about the lack of transparency. Does he share my concern? An independent report states that 3.5 million people are expected to come in by that time—it will probably be considerably more than that—but there is no indication to the British people where they are going to go, and it is calculated that a quarter of a million acres of extra developed land will be required to provide the housing for those people coming in.
My hon. Friend is right—there is absolutely no proper provision for the very large number of people that the Treasury now admits are likely to come in. That is one of the few Treasury forecasts that I might believe. It is quite obvious that it could not forecast its own public spending, its own interest rates or anything in the recent Office for Budget Responsibility and Treasury documents. It had to make another revision again in the March Budget—it revised the forecast made in November—because it had found it difficult to grasp how the world might change between November and March. So there is this inability to forecast the economic numbers, but for once I think the Treasury may be honest in forecasting a substantial increase in migration. I suspect that the Treasury’s estimate is an underestimate because it has been constantly underestimating these figures in recent years, and it proves that we have no control over our borders and no “special status” whatsoever.
Does my right hon. Friend find it rather odd that we are so weak and pathetic that we cannot stand on our own, but are so strong that we are preventing all the other European countries from turning their arms on each other?
Indeed, and I will come to the question about war and peace a little further along, if I may.
Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am that there is no real image of what staying in looks like? There is absolutely no mention of the accession of Turkey. There is no mention that 70-odd million Turks will soon be able to be part of the European Union or that it is our official position to welcome and support that. We have not resiled from that and it should be in the leaflet.
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the potential mayhem that could be caused by uncontrolled immigration continuing. We have seen the evidence now: people are dying trying to cross seas to get to us. I do not blame them; if I were living in terrible conditions and I looked at my telephone and saw Dorset, I would say, “Darling, children, we’re off!” but we cannot allow uncontrolled immigration to continue. Turkey is a classic case.
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Watch: Anne Main, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Bangladesh, talks about the Rohingya crisis and urges support for @DECappeal pic.twitter.com/FFL0lq8O0A
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