Trade Bill

Lord Risby Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to Amendment 62 in my name, which is part of a series of amendments in this group concerning mutual recognition— mutual recognition of good manufacturing practice, in this instance. I was prompted to table the amendment not least because many people in the pharmaceutical industry see this issue as an important part of our future economic partnership arrangements with the European Union, whether we continue to be EU members or in the single market or not.

Like Amendment 42 on the mutual recognition of authorised economic operators, Amendment 62 relates to instances of where the European Union has substantial mutual recognition agreements with third-party countries. In the case of authorised economic operators, those countries include Switzerland, Japan, the United States and similar countries—although not China in the instance of good manufacturing practice. It would be deeply perverse for us to start with standards that align entirely with those of the European Union, whether on authorised economic operators or good manufacturing practice, looking at the two amendments. If we lost that relationship with the European Union, it would make obvious good sense to maintain that mutual recognition.

In that context, the amendments commend themselves to my noble friends on the Front Bench because they are about continuity and trying to maintain the existing structure of agreements. Of course we want mutual recognition of good manufacturing practice with not only the European Union but the United States, Japan and Switzerland because, if we leave the European Union, four of the five largest pharmaceutical companies will be outside the European Union, with two in Switzerland and two in the United Kingdom. This issue matters a great deal to this important industry. Unfortunately, given the uncertainty and the way in which the European Commission sent advice to companies on their responsibility to prepare as if there would be no deal, pharmaceutical companies have, of course, already invested a considerable amount in ensuring that their batch authorisations and conformity assessments—and the authorisations associated with those—can be conducted inside the EU 27. That has cost quite a lot of pharmaceutical companies quite a lot of money already.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, was quite right: this group of amendments is about the plumbing, the innards, of this issue. I am afraid that day by day, evidence of the enormity of the cost—in time, energy and money—of trying to stay as close as we can to the position we would have been in if we had stayed in the European Union is mounting. It does not do to dwell on that but there we are.

Finally, I am really surprised that some of our Brexit-supporting colleagues are not here to laud Amendment 38—the lead amendment in the group— on the common transit convention, which will assist significantly with customs simplification and the achievement of some reduction in the friction that might otherwise occur in trade. It is achieved with third-party countries and is not something that the EU absolutely has to offer. However—although I stand to be corrected by my noble friends—as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, has said, it appears to have been agreed not only that we would remain within the common transit convention after exit day but that we would continue to remain in it even if we were to leave without a deal. That is a positive development.

Associated with it is the new computerised transit system which will help us to try to make progress on some of the customs simplifications that, whatever happens, will be important to the reduction of business costs. I commend to my noble friends Amendment 62, which should certainly be an objective of the Government in their current discussions about the future relationship with the European Union.

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 48. I am a director of the Horserace Betting Levy Board as a government appointee, and a former Member of Parliament for Newmarket, which, after all, is historically the world headquarters of racing. Equine matters are very dear to my heart.

The situation we have, which is a tripartite deal, developed before the European Union became involved. There is some level of involvement on the part of the European Union and negotiations have been going on in Brussels between the British Horseracing Authority and the Commission. It is important to highlight this because the system has been in existence for many years and has been absolutely seamless. The relationship between the United Kingdom, France and Ireland has flourished. We can think of Irish horses winning in large numbers at Cheltenham, French successes at Ascot and Newmarket, and our own recent victories in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

The real key is this. The system of horse passports and documentation is managed in the United Kingdom by our highly respected industry bodies: Weatherbys, the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association and the British Horseracing Authority, with the approval of Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency. It works extremely well and is therefore something that should be cherished. It is particularly important to the economy of the Republic of Ireland. People in the equine industry in Ireland are extremely anxious about this situation being damaged in any way.

As a result of the support over the years of our Governments for the equine industry, stretching right across party divides, it has turned into a great success story and is the best-managed and best-organised racing industry in the world. It contributes to the pleasure of millions of people who watch horseracing either at racecourses or on television. All our facilities have been upgraded and the industry should be supported.

I will refer to the comments made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. If it were somehow possible to retrieve this from where it seems to have landed up and see it go back to its original tripartite status, which was actually free of the European Union, that would be excellent. However, the reality is that for whatever reason there has been a process of greater and greater involvement by the European Union; in which case, I will ask my noble friend two simple questions. What will happen during the transition period in this area of activity which is so important to us? What is our negotiating objective for the longer term as far as the work of the British Horseracing Authority with our own Government is concerned?

I conclude by expressing my admiration for many colleagues both in your Lordships’ House and in another place who have done so much work over the years to keep this industry up to the highest possible standards of governance and popularity. Finally, I will praise one particular individual. When the Single European Act came in and there was a change in the way that VAT was dealt with, we nearly lost the racing industry altogether. We had a huge fight, but it was saved by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, my noble friend Lord Lamont. For anyone who is interested in and has a passion for racing, he of all people is someone to whom we owe a great deal.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I start by craving the indulgence of the Committee and offering an apology for the fact that I missed the start of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McNichol. I was racing back from Cardiff, but noble Lords will know that that involves the Great Western Railway. The train was only a few minutes late but that was the time I needed in order to hear the beginning of the noble Lord’s speech.

I have three amendments in this group, all designed to ensure that we try to keep the transport system running as normally and smoothly as possible after Brexit. I will start with Amendment 41, which relates to road haulage. We have heard the story many times about the dangers to our road haulage system. Indeed, last week the leaked Border Force document estimated that there could be a decline of up to 87% for three to six months after a no-deal Brexit if some arrangements were not put in place. We have had the preparation for the ECMT certificates that would have to come into place if we had no deal: roughly 1,200 certificates for a haulage industry that involves 30,000-plus hauliers. Clearly, this is totally inadequate. We have had the fiasco of the ferry-less ferry services to try to smooth the process.

We have talked many times in this House about Dover, but I want to say a word about Holyhead, the second-largest roll-on roll-off ferry port in Britain. Some 500 lorries per night go through Holyhead—that is three miles of queues, and the route to the port is through the town. In other words, any kind of queuing system caused by a no-deal Brexit would make it impossible for the town to function. I have had meetings with representatives of the Road Haulage Association, who have alarmed me with some information about the way in which the modern haulage industry works. They pointed out to me that an Amazon lorry can have 8,000 individual shipments on it, which—if we do not have arrangements in place—could lead to an individual customs declaration in each of those 8,000 cases. Each customs declaration has 36 different fields that have to be completed. They estimated that it would take 170 staff one day’s worth of work to deal with one lorry. We all know that Amazon will adapt, but it cannot adapt in two months.

There are numerous other cases and examples of the disruption that no deal would bring, so in this amendment I seek to ensure, in relation to road haulage, that we do not have no deal and keep the arrangements as close as possible to what we have now. We should bear in mind—I was told this by a representative of the freight industry—that it is in what it describes as a huge hole. They said, “The moment we do not apply the rules, we lose control of the border”. So it is no good for our Government to say that we will not do the checks and will take it on trust. The point the freight industry is making is that the moment we start taking things on trust, without the checks, we will have serious problems.

In Amendment 57 we move on to aviation. Many noble Lords will recall that last week the airlines came in for criticism because they had been selling tickets without drawing attention to the fact that, if there is no deal and we leave on 29 March without any arrangements, they felt that those tickets might not necessarily be honoured. That was the criticism and yet the Government have claimed that the aviation situation is arranged and organised.