Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill

Debate between David Davis and John Redwood

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. and learned Friend was being uncharacteristically inattentive, because that is exactly what I said: because of the growth in world trade, that is what is going on. He is exactly right that we should take a great interest in the fast growth in world trade because we are best placed, probably of most countries in the world, to take the most advantage of that. Also within his comment was the presumption, which I was about to address, that friction in our trade with the European Union—low friction, but friction—will cause enormous damage.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davis]

I will give way, but I will have to constrain interventions because of the time limit.

[John Redwood]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that many successful manufacturing businesses in Britain today have these just-in-time supply chains bringing in large quantities of raw material and component from outside the EU through a system of authorised economic operators, electronic manifests and the settlement of any bills not at the port? There are not people sitting in boxes in the port taking the money.

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. It is an issue that I will return to in a second, but before I do I want to make a point about friction. The presumption in all this is that we have a magical, frictionless system at the moment. Actually, we will have seen on our television screens that that is not true. This entire House will have watched Operation Stack in progress over various years. Operation Stack is what we do when one of the ports gets locked up for one reason or another—a strike in France or whatever. It has been operated 74 times in 20 years. In 2015, it took up 31 days of friction, and our businesses—the just-in-time businesses and the perishable goods businesses—all coped with it, so let us not frighten ourselves in doing this negotiation. Nobody wants it and nobody likes it, but they cope with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) pointed out that with World Trade Organisation facilitation, we will actually minimise the friction on trade through these ports, as was reinforced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood).

Secondly, while people understandably focus on some of the pressure points—most particularly Dover, which we heard about a second ago—they forget that there is strong competition between the ports on the North sea and the ports on the channel. Zeebrugge, Antwerp and Rotterdam all want to increase their throughput at the cost of the Calais-Dover crossing. They are already preparing for increases in throughput in their own areas when we are outside the EU and preparing for the increase in work—because there will be some increase in work—but again, as my right hon. Friend said, it will not happen at the border. It will happen before they get there or after they pass through it, so our so-called dependency on French ports will turn out to be illusory.

Thirdly, in support of the arguments that any friction at the border is unacceptable we hear lots of talk about supply chains. We had it from my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe who proposed this new clause. The simple truth is that this ignores the fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) pointed out, that lots of international supply chain operations operate across borders where there are customs, tariff and currency arrangements. I happen to know one of them very well, because I operated a business across just such a border myself—between Canada and the USA. [Hon. Members: “Thirty years ago.”] I went back last year.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between David Davis and John Redwood

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if the Government wish to make a change by statutory instrument, that is a parliamentary process? It would be entirely in Parliament’s control. It is a synthetic nonsense to suggest that Ministers are bypassing Parliament.

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right—it is a point I will elaborate on later—and the editor of the Evening Standard should know that from his own experience.

The key point of this Bill is to avoid significant and serious gaps in our statute book. It ensures that consumers can be clear about their protection, employees can be clear about their rights, and businesses can be clear about the rules that regulate their trade. Workers’ rights and consumer and environmental protections will be enforceable through the UK courts, which are renowned the world over. The Bill provides certainty as to how the law will apply after we leave the European Union, and ensures that individuals and businesses will continue to be able to find redress when problems arise. Without this Bill, all those things would be put at risk.

The Bill must be on the statute book in good time ahead of our withdrawal so that the statutory instruments my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) referred to, which will flow from the Bill, can be made in time for exit day—the House will have time to look at them—and so that we are in a position to take control of our laws from day one.

The Bill provides a clear basis for our negotiation with the European Union by ensuring continuity and clarity in our laws without prejudice to the ongoing negotiations. Without this legislation, a smooth and orderly exit would be impossible. The shape of any interim period will need to be determined by the negotiations, but we cannot await the completion of negotiations before ensuring that there is legal certainty and continuity at the point of our exit. To do so would be reckless.

EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between David Davis and John Redwood

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

In my statement I discussed civil judicial co-operation and criminal judicial co-operation, which relate to the right hon. Lady’s question—or criminal judicial co-operation does, at least. The European Union will only negotiate on the ongoing relationship once it has decided there has been sufficient progress. At that point—I have said this in terms, and it was in the article 50 letter, the Lancaster House speech and the White Paper—we intend to negotiate a parallel arrangement, similar to what we have now, based on the structures we currently have, and we intend to maintain exactly what she says: the high level of co-operation on intelligence, counter-terrorism and anti-criminal work that we have had in the past.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on explaining that we have no legal liability to pay money above our contributions up to the date of departure. We want to get on and spend that on our priorities. Does he agree that the EU has a simple choice to make, which I hope it will make sooner but which it will probably make later: it can either trade with us with no new tariffs or barriers, because we have made a very generous offer, or it can trade with us under World Trade Organisation rules, which we know works fine for us because that is what we do with the rest of the world?

[Mr Davis]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right, and one of the things I have picked up going around the European Union countries is that most of those nations also understand that fact very plainly. That is particularly true of those on the North sea littoral—Holland, Belgium and France, which I have mentioned, and Denmark—which all know that the impact of no deal on their economies would be dramatic, and more dramatic than for us.