EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:16 pm on 15 June 2016.

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Photo of Philip Hammond Philip Hammond Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 1:16, 15 June 2016

I will just make a little progress if my hon. Friend will allow me.

If we left the EU, the practical consequences of lower trade and lower investment would be felt directly by the British people: fewer jobs and higher unemployment. An estimated 3.3 million jobs in the UK—more than one in every 10—are linked to exports to other EU countries, with 250,000 jobs in Scotland, a quarter of a million in the south-west, half a million in the midlands, and 700,000 in the north. How secure will they be if we vote for Brexit next Thursday? How will the spectre of rising unemployment undermine consumer spending and sap business confidence—to blight, once again, those areas of the country that have been in this cycle all too often?