Brexit: Appointment of Joint Committee

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on securing this debate. When considering how to contribute, I thought there were two possible approaches to take. One, as a number of noble Lords have done, is to itemise all the aspects of no deal and how that would impact on businesses, farms and consumers, and on the pound and industry generally. The other approach would be to itemise all the reports scrutinising Europe, particularly from the EU Committee and its seven sub-committees. I do not propose to adopt either approach.

The danger of today’s debate, it appears to me, is that this is yet another occasion when we as parliamentarians are speaking to ourselves. The missing link in all this—it was the missing link in the referendum campaign and continues to be so in this debate and externally—is the voice of business. Where is it? Although there are notable exceptions, such as the food and drink industry, with which I am heavily involved, when we ask businesses to tell us what the bottom line would be, so that we can place on record the damage it would do to this country, the industry is reluctant to do so. They pray in aid their AGM, and what the impact on their share price and shareholders would be.

I shall share with noble Lords where I believe we will be in the event of no deal. I was taken by the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who actively set out where he thinks we will be. He should know what he is talking about because he advised many of us as Ministers or, in my case, as an MEP. We then heard from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who took an entirely different view and seemed to take issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, concluded. Both Houses have passed a raft of statutory instruments in preparation for no deal. No doubt, as rehearsed here, no deal would have a huge impact on the level of the pound and on businesses and industry.

I am also mindful of the situation that we found prior to the single market and the customs union coming into effect. Thirty years ago this week I was elected for the first time to the European Parliament. I remember vividly, during those first three years between 1989 and 1992, that on a small number of occasions—they did not perhaps occur every week but they were significant and memorable—I had phone calls from distraught constituents, most often those who ran businesses with perishable goods. They would phone up and say that their consignment was stuck at a frontier or a customs post, and what could I do to move things along? What could I do? We argued that instead of having perhaps 100 pages of customs form, we would have 100 boxes. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will remember this only too well. We reduced the form to one page with about 120 boxes on it; if one box was not filled completely correctly, that consignment was not going anywhere. Whatever you call it, I look on that as a form of protectionism, and that is exactly where we shall be if we fall into a no-deal scenario.

My question to both Front Benches—to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and particularly to the Minister, is: were this Motion to pass today, what impact and legal effect would it have? What is the legal basis for the Motion before us? We all understand that it could be amendable in the other place, but what we really need is to prevent no deal happening and to ensure that we have a successful deal concluded.

I fall into the pro-European camp. I am proud to be pro-European. I am half Danish and have studied in Denmark. I commit the sin of speaking a number of European languages, and long may the next generation coming through be able to do the same. What we need is a legislative text to prevent the UK falling out of the EU.

Another hat that I wear is that I am an honorary president of the UK Warehousing Association. I know many noble Lords will be very envious; it is a fine position to have, and we had a splendid lunch last week. That organisation is worried witless, and it is the very essence of those businesses whose business is just-in-time logistics. What can we tell it will be the case after 31 October?

These are very real situations. A number of examples have been given, and the most shocking to me is that large businesses are probably in a good state of preparedness but small and medium-sized businesses are woefully underprepared and probably do not and will not have the resources in place to prepare.

My question to the outside world is: where is the voice of business? Where are all those other businesses, such as the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and food and drink businesses, that are prepared to stand up and be counted? If we do not hear from the voice of business in the few weeks that remain before we potentially crash out without a deal, the public will not be convinced. Regrettably, while I welcome this debate, and any debate where we can discuss the issues before us, I shall not support the Motion because what we really need is a legislative text on which both parties can vote to prevent the awful event of a no-deal scenario taking place on 31 October.