Brexit: Appointment of Joint Committee

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, if I was not worried about a no-deal exit at 3.30 pm, I sure am now. The first duty of a Government is to protect their citizens and ensure their safety and their economic and social well-being, but this House has heard that a no-deal exit risks security at our borders, loss of criminal intelligence, and loss of the European arrest warrant—even as the Prime Minister assures us it can be used to capture the Skripal suspects should they set foot in the EU. It risks an economic downturn, meaning lower tax revenues and therefore cuts to services; reduced environmental protections; and major losses to our farming community, with the NFU warning that it would be “catastrophic”. We would get poorer trade deals, as we have heard, as we negotiate for 66 million rather than as part of a 500-million strong block. There are risks to the peace process in Ireland and pressure on the union from Scotland and elsewhere.

We could see the sudden imposition of WTO tariffs, with no transition or standstill period, and there would be no mythical GATT 24 solution, which anyway would not cover services. This would need EU agreement in order to get WTO approval, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, reminded us, whereas the whole point of no deal is that there is no agreement. There would be no data transfers, on which legal and financial services, as well as trade and travel, depend. Economic uncertainty would cause reduced investment, as with Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port already, and thus fewer jobs. Car manufacturing has already fallen over each of the past 12 months, its trade body warning us that a no-deal Brexit would be a “knockout blow”, while Japan’s Foreign Minister urges Messrs Hunt and Johnson to avoid no deal, as Japanese car operations,

“may not be able to continue”.

Jeremy Hunt says that businesses going bust is “a price worth paying”, but Make UK, representing manufacturers, calls it an “act of economic vandalism”. The pharmaceutical industry says that by the time the Conservatives have chosen their new leader, there will be barely 100 days to plan and stockpile. Road hauliers, as we have just heard, are extraordinarily alarmed and the warehousing industry thinks it does not have enough space. Meanwhile, the BMA foresees,

“potentially catastrophic consequences across the health and social care sector”.

All this if we leave without a deal.

Who pays for all this? It is British citizens, is it not? Because as the WTO tariffs kick in, food prices will go up immediately. It is noticeable that while Jeremy Hunt promises to aid exporting farmers, he has said nothing about shoppers who buy imported and therefore more expensive food. There may be shortages of fresh food within days, with Sainsbury’s forecasting enormous disruption to supplies. Boris Johnson says that imports,

“would rake in €35 billion in tariffs”,

but that just means higher prices in the shops—something that does not seem to concern him.

A no-deal Brexit would further entail a loss of automatic rights to work, live and study across 27 countries; a loss of automatic recognition of driving licences and car insurance; the end of EHIC and access to free medical treatment in the other 27 countries; possible shortages of vital medicines and treatments; reduced consumer protections; higher mobile phone charges for those who still travel abroad; and cuts to vital services as tax revenues fall. For UK citizens living abroad across the 27, there would be real threats to their rights to live, work, own property, drive on a UK licence and get healthcare. So it is not just no deal, but also no impact assessment and no identification of the risks, implications or costs of no deal: it is a blind date going horribly wrong. And this at a time of maximum international insecurity, a narrowly avoided US-China trade war—we hope—with Mr Putin forecasting the death of our liberal democracy in favour of populist nationalism, against which, of course, the EU is a vital bulwark.

To those who say this is all Project Fear, I say let us see. If they are right, then there is nothing to fear from this inquiry: it will ease people’s concerns and reduce uncertainty. However, if others are right and the risks are real, not only do the Government need to know, so does Parliament and so do the public. As the Institute for Government says:

“The UK’s readiness for no deal must feature in decision making”.


The Government’s own work, on their proposed WTO schedules and the range of departure issues, is now massively out of date. Their economic analysis of Brexit and the Bank of England’s paper were eight months ago, and the Government’s Implications for Business and Trade of a No Deal Exit was in February and envisaged a March, not an October, departure. David Lidington’s June Statement on preparedness has never been subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That, I am afraid, is why the summary of the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, is not enough. It must be interrogated by Parliament in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, has said. It cannot just be, “This is it”, from the Government; we need to be able to interrogate and test it. We must also hear from business, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, to know whether these predictions are correct.

That committee could also hear from constitutional experts to see whether the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is right to say that we could stay in the EEA—albeit of course still outside the customs union, and still therefore needing border controls in Ireland or elsewhere—or whether the Government and the EU’s advisers are correct, and that once we are out of the EU we are out of the EEA.

It is true that we cannot be sure of the costs and implications of a no-deal departure. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that “implications” could indeed look at the benefits as well as the costs. But why not do that? Why not have this inquiry? Should we crash out, it is vital that government, local government, business, service providers, farmers, retailers, shoppers, importers, transporters, lawyers and consumers know what to expect. That is why we need this inquiry. It could start with a summary, as the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, has suggested, but that can be only a start. We must interrogate it; Parliament must be on top of it; the results of it must be before this Parliament, Government and the people. Does the Minister have one good reason why we should not have those facts and be able to interrogate them?