2
Select Committee on the European Union
Financial Affairs Sub‑Committee
Corrected oral evidence: Brexit: EU Budget
Wednesday 25 January 2017
1.15 pm
Members present: Baroness Falkner of Margravine (The Chairman); Lord Butler of Brockwell; Lord Desai; Lord Haskins; Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke; Lord Shutt of Greetland; Lord Skidelsky; Duke of Wellington.
Evidence Session No. 6 Heard in Public Questions 53 ‑ 60
Witness
I: Richard Ashworth MEP, Member, Budget Committee, European Parliament.
Examination of Witness
Richard Ashworth MEP.
Q53 The Chairman: I would like to welcome Mr Ashworth. We are delighted to have you here. Thank you for agreeing to give evidence to us today, for the inquiry into Brexit and the EU budget. As you know, this session is on the record and we will take a verbatim transcript of the proceedings, which will be published in due course. You will, of course, have the opportunity to correct any minor errors or misunderstandings. Mr Ashworth, I wonder whether I might kick off. You heard some of the previous conversation we had with Mrs Grässle, but I would like to start at the beginning with you, in terms of your impression of the views of other MEPs and, indeed, other member states’ Governments about the likely negotiating aims in respect of the budget. You are, of course, a great expert in this area.
Richard Ashworth: Thank you very much, and welcome to Brussels. I am delighted to be here and very pleased to follow Ingeborg Grässle. She is an incredibly competent and conscientious individual, who is chairman of the budgetary control committee, and as she just implied she and I are co-rapporteurs on a piece of work we are doing at present, which is writing the financial regulations of the European Union. As you can imagine, that is no small piece of work, and so we are very much both involved in that as rapporteurs: she for the budget committee and I, as it happens, representing the budgetary control committee.
You asked a question regarding the views of fellow MEPs generally about the negotiating aims. It is clear from the outset that the preferred option for Members of the European Parliament would be to see the United Kingdom remain in the single market. Of course, in light of recent events, that is clearly not now going to happen, first, because of the preference of the United Kingdom; but, secondly, it needs to be remembered that, while there is a desire to see the United Kingdom firmly committed to, involved in or engaged with the European Union, and to see a win-win outcome, nevertheless there is an absolute solidarity here among the members that, first, the four freedoms are not negotiable. In other words, they are not divisible; you cannot cherry-pick and take parts of them. Secondly, there is an absolute agreement that, whatever agreement is subsequently made, it cannot be better than the arrangement we have now, and it cannot be better than what anybody else has. There cannot be a perceived dividend from leaving the European Union and coming out on the other side with a better deal than those who remain in.
The committees are all now working on developing their own post-Brexit plans; the other hat I wear, for example, is the agriculture committee, so we are already in conversation about what life looks like post-2020, on one hand, but maybe post‑Brexit, whenever that should be. I want to stress, though, that the Parliament is not directly involved in the negotiation process, but that ultimately the Parliament would have a vote to give consent to the agreement, and that would be by simple majority. To that end, both Verhofstadt, who is the Parliament’s rapporteur, and Barnier, who as you well know is the representative of the Commission, are keen to keep the Parliament up to speed with what is going on.
The Chairman: To summarise your opening remarks on the budget, do you see the budget as being fairly high among the contentious issues?
Richard Ashworth: It is absolutely critical. It is key to the whole thing. It is, of course, key to any relationship the United Kingdom might subsequently have. I feel a degree of confusion when the Prime Minister says that we will not be members of the single market, but that we may engage in certain elements. She specified in her speech cars and lorries, for example. Now, I imagine that involves some form of payment. If it does not, then you would be paying tariffs, and that tariff contribution may be a direct substitution. From the British point of view, there will be a budgetary implication, and obviously, from the European point of view, the budgetary implications are quite considerable, not least because when Britain leaves there will be up to a €10 billion black hole in the budget, which will need refilling.
A number of thoughts have been given to ways that can be done. First, of course, people tend to talk about own resources and new own resources. That is unlikely. It is specifically stated that that is not a substitution; it is not a way of topping up the Europe budget; it is simply to replace other forms of own resource or revenue. It would be possible to increase the member state contribution from 1% GNI, but I personally think that is highly unlikely. Therefore, the European Union is very likely to take a long, hard look at where and what it funds and how it funds it. We have already seen a glimpse through EFSI, the European Fund for Strategic Investments, which is an innovative form of finance for the European Union. Co-financing would be another issue. Agriculture will, interestingly, develop along much the same lines as we are expecting back in the United Kingdom.
I should stress that it is not suddenly a black hole of €10 billion, because whatever the case, whether the United Kingdom participates in part of the single market, and therefore makes a part payment for it, or whether it is not in any way related or involved, it would be paying tariffs, which of course we are not paying now. It would not actually be €10 billion; it would be part of €10 billion, although I accept it will still be a substantial hole.
Q54 Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: One of the areas we found greatest difference over concerns the legal status of the multiannual financial framework. We have had conflicting views from lawyers. In your view, is the UK legally committed to paying its full share until 2020, even if Brexit takes place before then? Prior witnesses have said to us that, legally, the UK could walk away from its budgetary obligations in 2019, because Article 50 carries more legal weight than the MFF. What is your view on that?
Richard Ashworth: Having sat through and come to the conclusion of two previous MFFs, the conclusion, I might remind you, is a signing ceremony of a document between Council and Parliament, in Strasbourg once every seven years. That sends a clear message to me that that is signing a legal document. The member states are all signing an agreement of what they will participate in for the next seven years. Looking at the other side of it, the recipients of that funding—and I am declaring an interest as a farmer myself—as farmers, universities or research establishments, enter into agreements that will run for seven years, until the conclusion of the multiannual financial framework—in this case, until 2020. At each end, there is a legal obligation.
In the middle, therefore, your question is: if we walked away from the annual budget what would be the situation? First, we would still be obligated to those universities, farmers and research institutions. The Government have acknowledged that and said, whatever the case, they will continue that funding through to 2020. With regard to the payments into the European Union budget, on the other hand, the net contribution we made—and I spoke earlier about €10 billion—would be a debatable issue. As to whether that would be a breach of contract, I suspect it might, but as to whether it would be a breach of faith, I am sure it would. It would be have to be part of the negotiated agreement of our disengagement.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke: There is a phrase contained within the MFF, largely to deal with accession states, which talks about the accession of a new member or “unforeseen circumstances”. Could this be applied to help renegotiate the existing commitments, and, if so or if not, what is the likely outcome of the negotiations on this? Everybody usually comes back to the point of saying, “Everything comes down to politics, at the end of the day”.
Richard Ashworth: I am conscious of the clause that allows for accession states. I am equally conscious that there is nothing in the rules that allows for member states leaving early, so I have to answer that by saying I do not know. I also want to answer, in part, your question by saying, on this whole issue, timing is something we need to talk about, because I want to introduce a concept I will call B-day: B for Brexit day, by the way. When is B-day? The theory would say that the member state leaves 24 months after triggering Article 50, and the Prime Minister has said she intends to trigger Article 50 by the end of March. That, of course, would mean the March Council meeting. That would tell you, therefore, that B-day, the day of Brexit, is 24 months after 10 March 2017. It is 10 March 2019.
On the other hand, please bear in mind that this parliamentary mandate ends on 30 June 2019. It is slightly untidy for Britain to be leaving on 10 March, when the parliamentary mandate ends on 20 June. That is one concept I want to introduce.
The second concept I want to introduce is that there is another day, which I will call X-day, which is the end of the multiannual financial framework. That ends on 31 December 2020, in other words 18 months later. We are talking about unplugging the United Kingdom from the multiannual financial framework five and a half years into a seven-year process, which will inevitably be hugely complicated. One pragmatic avenue the Government could take is to say, “Look, let us just carry on until the end of the 2020 multiannual financial framework”. It is much cleaner and easier to organise, but this will, of course, be delivered by political decisions, and pragmatism very often does not weigh too heavily on that. I have to caution that, if you unplug six and a half years through a seven-year process, the complication is very much greater than letting it run its natural course. The only downside is that there would be 18 months when we would be making full contributions to the EU budget, but there would be no political oversight or scrutiny of what was going on.
Q55 Duke of Wellington: In a sense, you may have already answered the follow-up question I was going to put, following the discussion of the multiannual financial framework, in which you—and you are not the first to say this—attach great legal significance to the fact that it is a seven‑year programme, to which the United Kingdom is a signatory. We also, as a committee, wanted to understand the legal obligation, or additional or different legal obligations, contained in the annual budgetary process, during which the United Kingdom as a member state through the Council agrees the budgetary process, and you and other British Members of the European Parliament approve the budget. In the budget, there are not only the provisions for the following year, the budget year in question, but also the future commitments contained on each line. We are trying to explore whether you, particularly, with all your experience as a member of the budget committee and the budgetary control committee—if I have understood you correctly—believe that the adoption of the annual budget places any further or different obligation on the United Kingdom to continue to contribute to future commitments contained in that annual budget.
Richard Ashworth: There are two ways I want to answer that. The first concerns the ongoing financial liability or obligation, which we in European jargon term “reste à liquider” or RAL, about which I am sure you are now familiar with hearing. Secondly, there will without doubt be elements the UK would still wish to participate in, and the wish to continue participating inevitably involves some element of cost.
Let me deal first with the RAL aspect: reste à liquider. We operate two budgets: one is a commitments budget; and one is a payments budget. To give you the easiest layman’s terms, the commitments budget is the proposal budget or what is proposed to spend; the payments budget is the cashflow budget or what we actually spend. Historically, there was never much difference between the two, but around the year 2008 the gap grew between the two. As the EU has grown, as that gap has grown, as the commitments have grown, the reste à liquider, the promise to pay in the future, has increased, whether that is commitments already engaged in, projects already ongoing but of necessity, long-term infrastructure developments or developments that involve participating in the future. That sum has been growing considerably, to the point that today it stands at €237.5 billion. That I refer to as a snowball, which we roll up in front of us. However, it is not a consistent number. It varies throughout the year; at different times of year, the size of RAL will be larger or smaller. It could be argued, therefore, that the United Kingdom’s share of that liability would be our net cost of contribution, which would be 8% of €237.5 billion. That, by the way, is the number I have seen quoted in newspapers back in Britain, once they had got hold of the idea of RAL.
However, I am afraid it is not as easy as that, because inasmuch as it is a projection budget, what we intend to spend over those years, that is always dependent on the member states wishing to sign up to the project that has been undertaken, wishing to fulfil it, wishing to make their own financial part-contribution towards it. It is very clear that, along the way, many nation states will decommit from projects. They just will not happen. They were allowed for in the budget; we are obliged to fund them, but they did not happen.
Secondly, it is almost impossible to determine how much of that would have come back to the United Kingdom. I can give you an example. Part of our TEN‑E—the trans-European Union energy investment—is interconnectivity of gas and oil pipelines, to create a single market in energy. Currently, there is construction going on of a gas pipeline between East Anglia and the Netherlands. How much of that money would have come to British contractors, Dutch contractors or even international contractors? How much would have gone to the United Kingdom Government or the Dutch Government? How much would have finished up belonging to the European Union as an asset, in any case, of the single market? It is far too simplistic to divide €237.5 billion by 8% and say that is the figure you owe. It will keep companies like PwC going for generations, I suspect.
Duke of Wellington: That is a very helpful answer. I should declare that I was formerly a Member of the European Parliament and on the budget committee, many years ago.
Richard Ashworth: I did not answer the other part, of course. The UK may well, and almost certainly would wish to, continue to contribute to things such as ITER, nuclear fusion and Galileo. A number of the Horizon 2020 projects were very important to us. It is important, therefore, that the nature of the conversation we develop with our European partners is on an amicable basis. I talked about win-win solutions earlier on, and it is very important that we do not lose sight of these things that we would still participate in. It is very important that we do not, for ideological reasons, say, “We are not going to pay any money at all”. In my mind, it would not help the British cause, for example, to unplug from ITER, from Galileo or from Horizon 2020.
Lord Haskins: How did this gap increase? You said there was a minimal gap until 2008. Why has it increased as substantially as it has done? Is the EU taking on longer-term projects, or does the co-financing not work as well as people thought it might? I have certainly had experience of these deals not being realised, because the co-financing does not get into place. How does this happen?
Richard Ashworth: I mentioned earlier that there was a trigger point in about 2007-2008. That, of course, was the beginning of the recession. Prior to that time, yes, we had entered into a number of agreements. Governments, when push came to shove, were asked to provide the money and found they did not have it, and so therefore projects were decommitted. In fact, back in those days, we used to have amending budgets that returned money to the member states, because it just was not taken up. Then came the recession in 2007-2008, and both the budget committee here and the Council specifically wanted to make sure that that money for projects, particularly infrastructure development projects, got out to the member states, especially the eastern European states, which at that time were suffering very badly.
Therefore, one thing we did was to frontload payments, so that, in other words, instead of waiting on the money some years in advance to go out, we suddenly frontloaded it. That had a massive uptake, because every Government wanted to pick their economy up and get it up and running. Frontloading was one very big element of that, which meant that our commitments increased hugely. Right now, the demands on the budget are so great that, while we traditionally always had a surplus, which we would return to member states, today, even before we start the year, 98% of the budget is accounted for. Therefore, we are using the maximum capacity.
That is why, first, we have an ongoing problem with RAL, but, secondly, up until this last year, we had an ongoing problem with unpaid bills. You will be aware that the EU cannot get into debt; it cannot borrow money, so, if we have a flood of bills coming in, as we did at the back end of 2013-2014, we just cannot pay them. Therefore, €25 billion worth of bills sat on desks waiting to be paid.
Lord Haskins: Presumably the UK Government supported this change in policy.
Richard Ashworth: I could not speak for them. Mrs Georgieva announced a programme of paying down unpaid bills, whereby it was to get down to €6 billion by the end of this year. As we have had a change in commissioner, I am not aware of progress at present, but it seems okay.
Q56 Lord Butler of Brockwell: May I ask you about EU pensions, which are charged to the EU annual budget? Do they differ from any other forms of spending?
Richard Ashworth: I want to encourage you to split off pensions, rather than bracketing them as a global question, and say that there are three distinct categories of people involved here. First, I want to talk about people who work for the European Union institutions. It is clear, as I think you said in your question, that those people are employed by the European Union institutions, paid for by the European budget; therefore their pension rights and acquired rights are a contractual obligation with the European Union, not with the member state. I stress, likewise, that the European Union is colour-blind here; it does not distinguish between a member state employee or somebody from the United States of America, for example. They are employees of the institution; the institution is responsible for meeting their pension. On the other hand, the member states contribute into the pension pot, through the annual contribution, so it could be said that there is a case for saying that the UK might have some form of ongoing obligation, although, I repeat, it is entirely a function of the European Union budget.
I would argue that, going back to the earlier days, the United Kingdom contribution to the European Union general budget was of the order of 15%. It is less now that the European Union has got bigger, but it was of the order of 15%. I am making that point particularly because, at the highest level of employment of UK nationals, we were at 8%. Currently, we are at 4%. There would be very good grounds for the United Kingdom to say, “Hold on a minute. We have overcontributed over the years, and very clearly this is a legal responsibility of the European institutions. It is not our problem. They were your employees”.
I said there were three categories. The second is that of British Members of the European Parliament who have been elected and engaged prior to 2009. In 2009, the rules changed, and we had what was called the Members’ statue. Under the Members’ statute, the European Union undertook all responsibilities of salary, pension and acquired rights, whereas, prior to that, Members of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom were employees of the United Kingdom Government, and that will remain the case. People like me, subsequent to the Members’ statute, are employed by the European Union, and our pensions and acquired rights are from the European Union.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: Can I just get an answer to the question? Of those categories, I think you said that, with employees, it would be an arguable case that the UK has done its bit and does not have to do any more. In the case of the Members before 2009, there is an established liability on the part of the UK Government, presumably going up to 2009. Then, post-2009, there is no obligation. Am I right in that understanding?
Richard Ashworth: No. To be clear, before 2009, we were employees of the UK Government. After 2009, we were not employees of, but were paid by and could call ourselves employees of the European institutions. The grey area is people like me, who cross over both of them, incidentally. Prior to 2009, I was paid by Westminster; I had a Westminster pension. That froze in time in 2009, and we started a new process post-2009, which is out of the general budget of the European Union.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: It seems to me that your answer is clear: that the only liability is for people like you, who were employees of the UK Government up until 2009.
Richard Ashworth: With respect, I do not think the answer is clear, because the European Union institutions have a very strong case for saying, “Come on, these are your people. There are about 1,800 people, going right back to the coal and steel days, who are dependent for their pensions on the European Union. You always contributed through the European Union budget, so you need to continue to meet that or take those people back under your own wing”. They, on the other hand, will say, “No. That is not the case. We are employees; we have contracts with the European institutions. We wish to remain that way”. Incidentally, of the currently employed group of people, which as I said is just 4% of the headcount of the institutions, something like 40% so far—but the indication is up to 60%—will transfer to dual nationality, so that they get that recognition.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: You say that, in respect of those employees, the EU is colour-blind. Why does the fact that some of them are UK nationals matter at all?
The Chairman: Why in particular if they are likely to revert to dual nationality?
Richard Ashworth: Well, indeed. That is a matter for their personal choice. I add that because it is what I have heard from staff. My view is that it is an obligation of the EU institutions. They undertook to do so. They undertook, with the British Government, that people like me would be transferred to that budget, so my understanding is quite clear: it is a matter for the institutions.
When the negotiation starts, this will probably be quite a controversial or inflammatory point in the press. While I do not want to belittle the numbers involved, relative to issues like RAL, relative to issues like the ongoing costs that are involved, in the relative order of things, it is not great. It will have a disproportionate amount of press to the actual size of the liability, and I suspect at the end of the day there are quite a lot of grey areas: property, assets, things like that, which it will be extremely difficult to sit down and quantify exactly. At some stage in this sort of decoupling—in corporate life, it is done often enough—there is a gentleman’s agreement along the way saying that there is a trade-off here and there. So long as we have a fair idea what the sums involved are, I see nothing wrong with that.
The Chairman: We need to move on, and our time is quite constricted, Mr Ashworth, so I would be grateful if you would narrow the scope of your answers to the direct question.
Q57 Lord Shutt of Greetland: Moving to assets, we were told by a witness earlier today that the balance sheet says there is €154 billion in EU assets. In terms of the departure of the UK, what is our stake in that, and how do you think that will be calculated, if there is a stake?
Richard Ashworth: Yes and yes. In terms of the assets, I am looking here at the figures that the National Audit Office has produced, which I imagine you have had as well. One thinks, immediately, perhaps, of property: €9 billion in property and land, in terms of buildings here, in Luxembourg and in Strasbourg, where the policy is to own the buildings as much as possible.
The Chairman: I wonder if you can turn your microphone on.
Richard Ashworth: I beg your pardon. The assets in terms of buildings in Luxembourg, Brussels and Strasbourg are worth €9 billion. The policy is to own those buildings, and they are financed out of the EU general budget. Then, of course, not forgetting that some of the agency premises are owned; some of the European External Action Service properties are owned. On top that, the audit office has a list here: €57 billion of loans; €22 billion of cash and cash equivalents; €40 billion of pre-financing. That is €154 billion worth of assets, but €226 billion worth of liabilities. This will have to be worked out; there is no doubt about that, and I say again that there will be people with greater skills outside the political sphere, in terms of demergers of major companies, and those people should be brought in. We need to get a very clear inventory of what is on the balance sheet, so that we can draw up some sort of agreement when we part.
Q58 Lord Desai: You have already talked about the multiannual programmes, like research and infrastructure. Could it be in the UK’s interest to continuing participating in these, independent of Brexit? If not, could universities sue the EU for termination of a long-term contract halfway through?
Richard Ashworth: There are two answers to that. First, by way of ongoing obligation, we talked about the multiannual financial framework, which runs for seven years. As I am sure you are familiar, we have an N+3 regulation, which means there is an overhang at the end. That implies the same legal obligation going on to 2023 for programmes within the multiannual financial framework. I also said that there are a number of areas where I would have thought it was clearly in the British best interest to continue to be involved, and I gave an example of Galileo or the fusion project. I can foresee that there would be an ongoing element of payment, voluntarily entered into, by which we would get benefit. There would be an ongoing element of payment, if we wished to have a special relationship with certain elements of the single market, and again, in the Prime Minister’s speech, she said quite clearly that she sought a special arrangement specifically for cars and trucks. Perhaps that ties in with her thinking of pledges made to Nissan, which clearly cannot be made to the whole of the rest of British industry. That puts a piece of the jigsaw puzzle together for me, saying what she has in mind: that there are elements of the single market we would participate in.
Going off-piste a bit, how do the mechanics of that work? If you are describing something like a customs union, you have to have an agreement, because you have an integrated market with products coming from non-EU countries. I am puzzled as to how that works. I look forward to getting the detail. It is immensely complicated.
Lord Desai: What happened in the case of Switzerland? Apparently they were suspended for violating the freedom of movement. In my information, it says they were suspended from Horizon 2020.
Richard Ashworth: You could put it that way. I remind you what happened in the case of Switzerland: they had a referendum, and the referendum was specifically about Croatian nationals and Croatians’ access to Switzerland. The people voted no. In so doing, they had contravened the agreement they had made with the European Union, so rather than the European Union saying they were suspended, they suspended themselves. They took themselves out of that agreement, and part of the agreement was participation in Horizon 2020. It was only subsequently, when people realised the consequence of what they had voted for, that they backpedalled to a degree and had to rephrase it. I do not know whether there is a message in that for the United Kingdom.
Q59 Lord Haskins: You answered lots of questions earlier about the impact of the British contribution to the budget reducing. You introduced a very interesting element about the tariff. If we went with hard Brexit—out of the customs union, out of the single market, out of everything, back to the WTO—the British would be paying an extra amount into the EU from without. On the other hand, the British consumer would be paying an equivalent extra money on tariffs into the UK. Those are two extra costs. Both sides would lose, because of the reduction of trade as a result of those tariffs. It would be a very interesting calculation to make for the people who want hard Brexit, as to how that works out. It seems to me it is going to work out badly for everybody.
Richard Ashworth: I agree. I could give you an example of the Norway agreement. I am not suggesting to you for a moment that we are about to recreate what Norway does, because Norway had to agree to free movement of people, and the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that that is not acceptable. Nevertheless, drawing on that example, Norway pays 83% per person of the cost of membership that we pay. It clearly does that for a reason. The reason is that that annual payment is cheaper than bit-part, drip-feed payment through tariffs. I will give you an analogy. It is cheaper to pay an annual subscription to the golf club, rather than every time you go and play.
Therefore, in the case of the United Kingdom, the amount of tariff that will be paid—I have not got my mind around it yet—seems to be a very, very substantial sum of money indeed. It would need to be greater than the contribution into the single market; otherwise it would not be worth doing. I do not think it has dawned on people yet quite how big that sum is going to be.
You are absolutely right: that hits both ways. We may do special deals on cars and lorries, as the Prime Minister has said. What about the areas where we do not? In my particular sphere, in agriculture and the food industry, what happens? 83% of our exports go to the European Union. I fear very greatly, because the cost to some UK industries is going to be bigger than people have realised.
Lord Haskins: So is the amount that British consumers will have to pay in the shops, with the higher tariffs.
Richard Ashworth: Yes, indeed, and with a weaker pound to add to that, there is a little tidal wave of additional cost coming down the line, which will be inflationary, in my view.
Q60 Lord Skidelsky: I have a very short and specific question. Do you perceive any political opposition to the UK buying into certain programmes: in other words, not paying its full budgetary commitments, but buying into certain programmes? Israel does it.
Richard Ashworth: You are exactly right, and I am certain that that is the way forward. It worries me a little, and I quote from the Prime Minister’s speech, because that is all we have to go on at present, where she says we do not intend to cherry-pick bits of the European Union. You are either members or you are not. That seems a bit worrying to me, because you mention some very good examples: the relationship with Israel is a constructive thing on both parts, for more than just economic reasons. To have influence in that part of the world is very important. It is where the budget can be used as a lever.
I can think of industries in the United Kingdom—Airbus, for example—that are clearly going to need free movement of people. Free movement of workers, provided they have jobs, is completely acceptable to them. What is not acceptable is third-country designation of products, for example. To people like that, as to so many industries in the United Kingdom, it is all a just-in-time delivery basis. If you send a lorry off to Milan now, you know it is going to arrive at that time tomorrow. It would be a disaster to hear it has been held up at the French border, because they are looking at the paperwork, the expert is not there and he will be back in tomorrow afternoon. It does not work that way, and that is going to disadvantage British industry hugely.
When you sell high-technology products, you do not just sell the product; you sell the backup and service that go with it. There is hospital high‑technology equipment. If a production line robotic machine breaks down, the guarantee is that we will have engineers there within six hours, and that thing will be fixed overnight and up and running tomorrow morning. It is no good them getting to the Italian border and being told, “Hold on a minute. Yes, three of you can come, but two of you have paperwork that is not up-to-date, so you cannot come and fix this hospital equipment, or this aero engine”. That is the worry I have.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr Ashworth. This has been quite illuminating. Thank you for giving us your time.