here at the FT's future of Europe summit
in London breaks it is the big issue i'm
here with Jurgen Maya the chief
executive of Siemens in the UK and John
Mills chairman and founder of jml and
deputy chairman of the leave campaign
and you've been both been taking part in
a session about the implications to the
UK of a vote to leave the EU in the
referendum in June and can I start with
you John do you think that voters are
getting the information that they need
before that referendum I think they're
getting a cloud of assertion some of
which are well-founded some of which
aren't and I think there is a lot of
confusion around in the end I think most
voters are going to vote on how they
feel I think it's almost an emotional
decision that they'll take I think it's
largely going to be about control and
cost and a lot of these other really big
issues are going to be difficult for a
lot of people to get their heads around
yo can do you think people are guessing
what they need what seems to be missing
from the debate it's just more facts or
at least opinions which are underpinned
with facts so you know let me give you
an example you know I hear a lot of the
people who are on the leave campaign
side saying you know it will be really
easy to get a trade agreement if we
breaks it but the facts are that nobody
in the world has managed to do a
reasonably sized trade agreement in
anywhere near two years so to me that
means there will be a huge amount of
uncertainty which is always bad for
business I mean one of the one of the
arguments that the leave campaign makes
is precisely that but the UK will be in
a better position to negotiate its own
free trade deals both with Europe and
with the rest of the world and why do
you believe that's the case well I think
it cuts both ways i mean i think the EU
does have more clouds than the UK on its
own on the other hand the EU has had a
lot of trouble negotiating deals because
with 28 different members all want
something different it's been hard to
get agreement on exactly what the deal
should be and vu has not got deals with
China or for the United States or India
or Australia and that shows that it is
very tricky to get
these deals together even if you're a
very big organization what some in
Siemens is obviously a very significant
investor particularly manufacturing in
the UK I mean what will you do if we
vote to leave what will Siemens do well
I've always said and in the debate today
that you know to me this is not so much
about the factories and the activities
we have here today you know they will
largely continue and we will serve the
British market exporting from those
factories will no doubt be a little bit
more difficult but the real issue here
is is what I'd like to do is to create
more future investment factories of the
future and that means you do our addy
here in the UK and those sorts of things
are going to be harder when we are
outside of a European Union it's more
likely that the research activities
would be done in collaboration without
great britain and if you're not in at
the beginning then the chances of you
having a factory of the future are
pretty small but the remain campaign
paints a very dim laden scenario for a
post brexit to UK I mean you're not
saying that Siemens will leave the UK
are you no no that's what I'm saying you
know where we won't clean the UK but I
don't see any upside you know and I'm
not in business to carry on running a
status quo you know we have been growing
our workforce our activity here in the
UK consistently over the last 30 or 40
years as a matter of fact longer than
that we've been employing thousands more
people we're recruiting a thousand
people in hole here in the United
Kingdom right now and creating those
sorts of investments are much easier as
part of a European Union I mean John I
know that you don't believe in the
doomsday scenario if we vote to leave I
mean Jurgen says he sees no upsides what
for you are say one or two of the
biggest upsides of us voting to leave
well we pay less into the European Union
we pay in about 12 million pounds of a
year billion pounds nets and what we
after taking all the count of the money
that comes back in so I'm in there are
gates of that's all I think the really
big issue is whether the British economy
is going to be more likely to grow
then if we're in D you rather than
outside and I would have thought that
Siemens investment which depend very
much in an assessment of that sort and I
think that if there are liberal policies
pursued by a post brexit government that
the economy may well grow more rapidly
than it would have done if we'd stayed
in the EU is not doing well economically
and we you know get suckling ourselves
to the EU with slow growth isn't the
best solution thank you both very much
indeed for speaking to the FT today