Brexit: UK Plans

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I would not dream of telling the people of Ireland what to do. On my noble friend’s question about prison numbers, I am afraid I do not have those figures to hand but I am happy to see whether they are available and I will write to him. In relation to the financial settlement, as he will be well aware, a lot of work has been done across the piece looking at the contributions that we have made and the settlement that we may come to. As I said, we have set out that we do not want our partners to fear that they will need to pay more or receive less over the remainder of the current budget plan. Of course, all these issues will be discussed in detail during the negotiations.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

The Government remain in complete denial about the very considerable costs of leaving the single market and, equally, about the quite significant costs of leaving the customs union. There is nothing at all about costs in either of the White Papers. If the Leader looks at pages 24 and 25 of the Customs Bill White Paper, she will see a number of things referred to which represent considerable costs to traders. There is a suggestion that traders will need new intermediaries and forwarding agents, which they did not previously utilise. It is suggested that they will need to introduce new IT systems and spend money on consultants. Have the Government made any estimate of what the cost will be to traders in this country from the restrictions that they are intending to impose when we leave the customs union? It is usually considered a good sign of honest and competent governance or administration, in the private sector or the public sector, not to commit to go into any venture without having some idea of what the cost is. The Government have not told us the cost of this gratuitous attempt to pull us out of the single market and the customs union.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the noble Lord himself said, we have published two White Papers today, setting out our objectives for both the new customs arrangements and our future trade policy. Of course, we have a continuing dialogue with businesses involved in this and we will make sure that their voices are heard and any issues that they have are reflected in the work we do. But that is the reason we have published a White Paper, to make sure that that discussion is had.