§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was the basis of his oral statement of 15 February 2000,Official Report, column 760, that 3.5 million jobs depend on UK membership of the European Union. [112388]
§ Mr. VazThe figure reflects the jobs ultimately dependent on British exports to the other 14 members of the European Union. It includes jobs in indigenous British businesses exporting to the rest of the EU, inward investors locating here as a result of our being the gateway to the whole of the Single Market, and enterprises who in turn make supplies to those companies. It excludes jobs dependent on exports to the fast-growing markets of the EU applicant countries.
The figure is in line with independent research carried out for Britain in Europe by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and by Professor Iain Begg at the South Bank University. Both of these reports conclude that over three million jobs are linked with our membership of the European Union.