Customs Safety and Security Procedures (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019
Debate between Lord Tunnicliffe and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I echo the comments that have been made welcoming my noble friend to the Front Bench. I support the regulations that we are discussing today but I have some questions; I hope my noble friend can reassure me.
If we have a no deal, the culture at the ports and on the border in Ireland could change. Other member states may be less concerned about what is sent to us in the UK than they have been in the past. I note that there will be a 12-month period when no safety and security declarations will be required. That is probably sensible, to keep the lorries rolling, but, to put it simply, we in this House need to understand what will happen with the enforcement of important laws at the ports and on the border. How will we stop the import of illegal migrants, dangerous knives, machine guns and cocaine—all the things that the Home Office, very sensibly, tries to keep out—let alone illegal cultural works, exotic plants and animals that are prohibited from coming into the UK? What will happen at the ports and on the Irish border? Can the House have some reassurance about how these laws will be enforced in the transitional period and in the longer term?
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his new role. It will be interesting to see if he will be the permanent Treasury representative; it is an onerous task that has worn out many a noble Lord.
I am generally unhappy with Explanatory Memorandums and the Minister has gone out of his way to make my point for me. His speech illustrated how an Explanatory Memorandum should be. It is about imports, exports, empty bits and combined declarations. That I can understand but not much more because I do not understand the export and import business. I hope the Minister forgives my somewhat naive questions. It seems that these regulations are designed to create frictionless trade. Unlike the other instruments, there is no problem with deal or no deal because the powers are discretionary in all cases; if there is a deal HMRC can withdraw its discretion.
Taking imports first, the regulations say that there will be no requirement for declarations on any imports from EU countries for 12 months. That is simple and straightforward. What I do not understand is whether EU countries—I was about to say the French—will require the declarations to be generated, even if we do not want them. I do not understand what WTO rules say on things like that. Is there a worldwide agreement that these declarations should be flying about unless there is an equivalent mechanism, which the EU has internally? I hope the Minister will be able to answer the question of whether the French will feel the need to require declarations to be made. The reverse of that is the key question the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked. We may not want to make declarations for 12 months for our exports, but how will EU countries react to that? Are these declarations pieces of paper? I do not really understand. When you get to Calais do you say, “Here is my declaration; the British have said this is good”? Will lorries without these declarations, having avoided a friction problem on this side of the Channel, end up in a big lorry park while they somehow or another overcome this process?
Finally, I did go through all the paragraphs and paragraph 3.2 talks about public notices being issued when these discretionary factors come into effect. I have trouble with the fact that it is being done by the made affirmative process; clearly, had the Government started earlier it would not be urgent. If there is a need for a public notice for these things to happen, should that public notice not already have been published?