I have taken every intervention that hon. Members have wished to make and I want to make progress, but I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s point first. As an experienced politician, he, like all hon. Members, knows that, in the din and pressure of a three-week
campaign, with all the focus that that brings, it is very difficult to get all the arguments across. We need a proper assessment so that the British public have the chance to make their minds up, free from the influence of Eurosceptic newspapers, which dominate the debate. They should make their minds up on the facts by consulting the CBI, the TUC, the Institute of Directors and other such organisations. Those organisations will want their say, and the way to achieve that is through proper consultation, for which the Bill does not provide.
The City is a significant institution that will need to be consulted, which could be achieved under paragraph (j) of new schedule 2. According to the evidence we have, such a consultation would reveal that the City takes the same view as the CBI—it believes that British membership is positive for financial institutions. Why is the City not being consulted? Are the Government scared of consulting it? Is the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), the Bill’s promoter, scared of consulting it? Some 84% of Britain’s financial sector executives are strongly in favour of staying at the centre of the EU, according to a survey published in October by TheCityUK. Through a consultation, we could drill down into that and see whether it is a proper assessment.
The financial services sector accounts for 13% of gross domestic product and contributes more than £60 billion in taxes. Nearly 80% of all foreign exchange trades in the EU take place in the City, as do 74% of all interest rate derivative trades. The idea that the City would want to be frogmarched out of Europe is complete nonsense, as a consultation would reveal.
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