§ Lord Pearson of Rannochasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord McIntosh of Haringey on 27 February (WA 120) in which the National Statistician and Registrar General states that no information is available linking workforce jobs with activities directly contributing to credits on the United Kingdom balance of payments current account, what is the source of the data in the statement by the Prime Minister in his foreword to IGC: Reform for Enlargement, Cm 4595, that over 3 million British jobs are involved with exports to our partners in the European Union. [HL1328]
§ The Minister for Science, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville)This figure was drawn from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) reportContinent Cut off? The Macroeconomic Impact of British Withdrawal from the EU by Pain Young. This was first published in February 2000. A revised edition was published in September of the same year.
The NIESR report estimated that up to 3.2 million jobs were associated with the UK's membership of the EU—2.7 million in the export of goods and services to the EU and another 0.5 million in multinational companies which might be lost if the UK did not have tariff free access to the EU. These estimates are made using 1997 data.
A study entitled UK Jobs Dependent on the EU by Ardy, Begg and Hodson of the European Institute at South Bank University came to a similar conclusion. This study, published in February 2000, estimated that 3.445 million UK jobs are linked to the export of goods and services to the rest of the EU.