European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

104: Clause 7, page 6, line 25, at end insert—
“( ) No regulations affecting or amending the frontier control procedures for freight transport at borders between the United Kingdom and the EU may be made unless a Minister of the Crown has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report demonstrating that the new or amended procedures will not increase delays to freight transport.”

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 231. This group of amendments is completely different from the previous one. It is about frontier controls between the UK and the EU after Brexit. The amendment would require Ministers to report to Parliament on how any new procedures can be implemented without increasing delays and cost. This is a very serious issue. I regret that there is no separate Bill, so far, on this. We have already been discussing the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill, which has been a very useful forum, but we are tonight discussing this issue.

Ministers have stated time and again that there will be no border control between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They might rightly say that but they have also told the Commission that they do not want to remain in the single market and the Commission has taken that into account in its draft withdrawal agreement dated 28 February. To a simple mind like mine, since the Republic will stay in the EU and the UK will not, and since the Government insist we cannot remain in the single market, there has to be some kind of frontier between the Republic and the United Kingdom. Whether it is between the north and the south of Ireland or down the Irish Sea, we have debated many times, but I cannot see how it can be fudged or cherry-picked.

The volume of traffic between the UK and the EU is huge. In 2016, about 67 million tonnes of unitised freight were imported or exported, of which 14 million tonnes were temperature controlled. In 2015, there were 55 million UK customs declarations, and that number is due to multiply by five after Brexit. They have all got to be checked and controlled somewhere. Can that be done electronically at frontiers? The British Ports Association has said that one of the biggest challenges the ports face is accommodating the new environmental health standards inspections at the borders, which will obviously cost a lot of money and time if they go wrong. It is estimated that 3,000 trucks a day carrying temperature-controlled traffic might need checking for environmental health standards.

I have a couple of interesting examples which have come from the Irish Exporters Association, which seems to be more open with its ideas than people on this side of the frontier. A lot of people have talked about the benefits of the EU-Canada free trade agreement. An issue found there was the need to check the compliance of pallets used to carry the product within the container with the ISCN standard. If a load is found to have one non-certified pallet or one non-certified repair to a pallet, the whole lot is sent back to the sender. That will cause chaos. One has to question what proportion of trucks would need checking. The UK will not say. I have not heard any information from the Government, but the Irish News states that 6% to 8% would need their paperwork checked and some visual inspections at the frontier, which looks to me like roughly 1,000 trucks a day in addition to the temperature-controlled traffic, and the Government say there will be no queues. They have to do something about this.

There is a real problem. If the UK is not in the single market, and the Republic is, there have to be some controls somewhere. It is a great shame that we do not have a representative of Sinn Féin in your Lordships’ House to give a wider view of the problems in Northern Ireland. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, regretted the lack of SNP members here to have a good debate about it.

What are the Government doing about this in terms of IT systems? The tax commentator Richard Murphy reports that there are 85 IT systems at UK borders, of which 30 will need to be replaced or changed. I do not think I need to go into the disasters of some previous UK IT systems, but there is little evidence that the Home Office or Customs will be able to have a system up and running for when we need it. It may take many years.

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[Lord Callanan]

I would be delighted to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this interesting debate. It has been really well informed and I am amazed that the Government have nothing better to respond with other than answers that I think I heard six months ago. As my noble friend has said, time is running out. This is a probing amendment and I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for suggesting that we should have gone harder, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, said the same thing. We have time to have discussions before Report, but it is a sad reflection for all of industry, not only the transport sector. The noble Baroness referred to the manufacturing sector and said that we are no further on. The Commission has produced papers but we just get motherhood and apple pie. I do not think I can take this any further tonight, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 104 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

105: Clause 7, page 6, line 25, at end insert—
“( ) No regulations altering the roles and responsibilities of the European Union Agency for Rail relating to rail transport and the application of legislation relating to it may come into force until a Minister of the Crown has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out the benefits and costs of any such alteration for the passenger and freight rail sectors and the impact of the alterations on rail infrastructure managers in the United Kingdom in terms of capital and operation costs.”

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I shall be brief on this amendment because the Minister has almost answered some of the questions. However, it is worth reminding the Committee that the Prime Minister has talked about how she is keen that the various agencies should continue to exist after Brexit. I have not seen anything about the European Union Agency for Railways, as it is now called. It is vital that we have this agency.

We have only one link across the Channel at the moment. Last week DG MOVE at the Commission produced a paper which goes into great detail about what we cannot have after we have left. It is a pity that we do not have a response to it. That includes our UK-registered train drivers who will not able to operate in France or anywhere else unless they pass the test in France. The same applies to approvals for equipment that is manufactured over here if it is not produced to the same standard. This could be a complete disaster, and it will be a great shame if we cannot maintain our involvement with the European railways agency because some of us have spent the past 10 years trying to have one technical agency that covers all the railways in Europe rather than having 25 different ones, which is what we had before.

I hope that when the noble Lord comes to respond, he will be able to give us some warm words about how we can retain our involvement with the European railways agency and sort out all the different issues around standards, drivers’ approvals, rolling stock approvals and everything else. I declare an interest as the chairman of the Rail Freight Group, and we do want to see rail freight and Eurostar continuing their services after March next year. I beg to move.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment to note that rail contributes £85 billion of extra economic benefit to the British economy. About 41,000 of the 240,000 people who work in the rail industry are EU nationals. To make this point, the amendments basically say that we have to adhere to the European Union Agency for Railways, which has EU-wide responsibility for implementing the technical aspects of railway legislation. This cannot be under- estimated because it encompasses safety, specifications of interoperability—TSIs—and a common verification process for infrastructure and rolling stock. Most railway industry manufacturers have standard products designed for supply across the whole of the EU, in line with these requirements.

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[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, I am again grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for bringing this important matter before the Committee. The Government are considering carefully all the potential implications arising from the UK’s exit from the EU, including the implications for the UK’s future relationship with the European Union Agency for Railways. The UK’s continued participation in the agency as a third country and its continued co-operation in the fields of rail safety and standards, as well as the implications for the UK’s technical standards regime, is, of course, a matter for the negotiations.

Our domestic railway and the cross-border services that link us with the EU serve an incredibly important function in the transport of goods and people across the UK and between the UK and the EU. In 2016, there were some 1.7 billion passenger journeys facilitated by rail in the UK, while the rail freight industry transports goods that would otherwise require 7.6 million more lorry journeys each year. Equally, the Channel Tunnel was responsible for 25% by value of all trade in goods between the UK and continental Europe in 2014, facilitating an estimated £91.4 billion of trade in total. Passenger services through the tunnel, including Eurostar and Le Shuttle, and international rail freight services, transported an estimated 20.8 million passengers and 22.5 million tonnes of goods in 2016.

As the Prime Minister made clear in her Mansion House speech last week, we want to maintain the continuity of rail services that link us with the EU, which provide important economic benefits to both the UK and the EU. However, our participation in the European Union Agency for Railways is not something that the Bill can legislate for. For decades, we have worked closely with our European partners to develop a regime in the field of rail safety and standards that reflects UK practice. We strongly believe it is in both our and the EU’s interests to ensure continued productive co-operation on safety and standards in the future, regardless of the outcome of negotiations. As I have said, this will be a matter for negotiations. In considering all relevant factors relating to the future rail safety and standards framework, the Government remain committed to our railways continuing to have the highest standards and remaining steadfastly amongst the safest in the EU.

We will continue to take on board the views of industry. The Government have a number of established mechanisms for engaging regularly with the rail sector. These include, for example, the Rail Delivery Group and the Rail Supply Group, whose members include the supply chain, passenger and freight operators, and Network Rail. As we prepare for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the Government will continue this engagement with a wide range of stakeholders from across the UK’s rail industry to seek views, which the UK has taken, and will continue to take, into consideration.

In the light of that, I hope I have satisfied the noble Lord that we understand the importance of maintaining the continuity of our important EU rail links, as well as maintaining a safe and effective railway. This will continue to be an important factor as we approach the negotiations. I therefore hope he feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. It is not news to me, because, obviously, I am aware of what is going on. Could he possibly write to me quite soon about some information that I have which states that the Department for Transport is looking at which regulations from Europe could be torn up as soon as we leave? It is apparently highly confidential, which probably means that we will end up retaining a mishmash of half European and half British regulations, with a divergence which will be incredibly bad for both our manufacturing industry and operators.

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend Lady Sugg will be happy to discuss that with the noble Lord.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 105 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

106: Clause 7, page 6, line 25, at end insert—
“( ) No regulations may be made under this section altering the roles and responsibilities of the European Aviation Safety Agency until a Minister of the Crown has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out the benefits and costs of any such alteration to the United Kingdom’s aviation sector, including airlines, airports, aircraft manufacturers, aircraft maintenance and air navigation services providers, in terms of capital costs, operational costs and the impact on market access and safety.”

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, this the last of my three amendments and it is to do with aviation. Aviation has so far come out better from the various statements from the Prime Minister and others because of the noise from the aviation industry, be it airlines, which were rightly frightened about being unable to fly one day after Brexit day unless some changes were made, or the manufacturing industry, which is reliant on a massive amount of approvals for all components. Some 2 million components manufactured in this country go into an Airbus. They are all approved centrally by the European agency. If we do not retain membership of this agency, those approvals will be null and void and we will not be able to carry on.

There are many other consumer interests as well. The airline sector benefits dramatically from being part of a European group of airlines. Leaving EADS and having to negotiate directly with goodness knows how many other member states for particular routes does not bear thinking about. The noise from the airlines has been great; I hope it continues and that Ministers take notice of it. Let us not forget the manufacturing industry. It is not just aircraft wings for Airbus, which I think are made in north Wales, but many other components. We need a thriving industry and we need to stay part of it. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort on that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I first raised this issue in the autumn of 2016 and have done so repeatedly since then, even in a Private Member’s Bill on the Single European Sky. It is important because there is no fallback position for aviation; there are no WTO rules that we can rely on. If things do not go right, there is simply a blank in which planes will be grounded. Along with them will be the passengers and very high-value freight which goes by air.

I do not mention these concerns on my own initiative; they have been put to me by people in the aviation industry from across the world, because our whole economy stands on the shoulders of our air transport industry.

All along, the Government have expressed confidence that this will all work out fine on the night, but there has not been any official commitment either to remaining in EASA or the Single European Sky. Despite the commitment made by the Prime Minister last week there has been no official commitment, so these amendments give the opportunity to provide that. With the best of intentions, we could find ourselves at an impasse, and this is not just a little local difficulty between the UK and the EU; it is also very much about the US. We rely on the EU/US open skies agreement as a member of the EU, and we will cease to be a member of it when we cease to be a member of the EU. It cannot just slot into place later because airlines sell tickets a year in advance. Indeed, they are already selling tickets for a period of time when they cannot be absolutely sure that the planes are going to fly. There will be an awful lot of airline tickets on sale from next month for a year hence—some have already been sold, as I say.

There are already stories—for example, in the Financial Times last week—that early talks have not gone well. The Minister denied that and I am very pleased to hear those words, but in the past the United States has not been easy to make aviation agreements with. Opening up US aviation to both EU and UK flights has been a problem in the past. There are potential issues over the continuation of anti-trust exemptions, which allow airline alliances to set fares and share revenue. Any new deal has to allow for the pattern of ownership of our own major airlines, which have very big foreign shareholdings, especially IAG, of course. In the short term it is important that we remain in the open skies agreement during transition, or at least that we are treated as if we are within that agreement. In the longer term it is clearly best if this continues beyond transition.

Briefly on EASA, at any one time half the aircraft in the skies above Britain are not UK registered, so we need to remain the dominant influence over aviation security and safety in the EU and beyond. We have been a major force so the Prime Minister’s words, as I said earlier, were welcome last week. We need full, official government commitment here in legislation: not just to being associate members of the EASA or observers, but to being full members because there is consensus in the sector that it makes no sense to create a national regulator. It is essential that we remain fully integrated with EU rules and systems. The EU has brought huge benefits to passengers—lower fares, more destinations and greater passenger rights and compensation. We must remain part of that scheme. We must also maintain the environmental benefits it has brought.

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[Lord Callanan]

I took on board the noble Lord’s question but I am unable to give him those reassurances at the moment.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and to all noble Lords who have spoken in this excellent debate. The Prime Minister has made more progress here than in the logistics, customs and railway sectors. My final question to the Minister is: has the European Union agreed this? Until it is agreed, it is not a lot of good. We need to revisit this and, we hope, have regular updates. I hope the Government will push very hard for it to be a priority—as my noble friend Lord Whitty said, to have this signed, sealed and delivered at as early a stage as possible. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 106 withdrawn.