Windrush: 70th Anniversary

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am deeply honoured to follow the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), whose passionate and fluent speech addressed so many of the questions that affect the way we are building our society today. Of course I will not agree with every one of her remedies, but the fact that she is bringing together a pluralist and multicultural society, and expressing that with such warmth and feeling, is a great credit not just to her and her party, but to the whole House and our whole nation. The voice that she expresses is clearly not just her own, but one of the British people more widely, and I am grateful that I have the opportunity to follow her.

We are talking today not about a foreign generation or distant people but about ourselves. It may seem odd for me, with my background, to say so strongly that the Windrush generation are my generation, but they are. Just as they migrated from other parts of the world, so did my family. My grandfather came from Austria in the 1920s. He was a refugee in so many ways—in that case from a collapsing state: the Austro-Hungarian empire—and he travelled and found sanctuary here. In many ways he could have been called an economic migrant because that is what he was, as were many of the Windrush generation. What he brought with him was the energy, enterprise, imagination and creativity that helped to build the structures that allowed us to win the wars. He was not alone, and he was not dramatic or unique in that in any way—except that he was my grandfather, of course. He was part of a much wider generation.

Today, in focusing on the Windrush generation, we focus predominantly on those who are of Caribbean origin, but that is where I would like to expand this conversation. This debate is not just about one people; it is about the whole of the United Kingdom, and our United Kingdom is just that—united—because it is united from peoples around the world. Whatever we may think of the legacy of empire, the richness that it has given these islands is quite remarkable. We have here, even in this city, hundreds of different nations represented. We have many different languages spoken, and like all the best investment schemes, diversity is the strongest form of success. Today, in this United Kingdom, we have the diversity that ensures the richness and depth of our success.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

While it is true that one of the better legacies of empire is the diversity of our nations and cities, does the hon. Gentleman not accept that a place does not need to have been an imperial power? In certain parts of Canada, for example, the diversity and richness of cultures is at least as much as we find in a place like London, and it has never attempted to be a colonial power over anybody.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right, although one would be hard-pressed to say that Canada was not the legacy of empire. After all, the fact that there are so many Scots in Canada is a legacy of the English and French empires that stretched into Canada 200 or 300 years ago, but I appreciate the point he is making.

To come back to talking about the United Kingdom, when we look around the United Kingdom, if we focus solely on the Afro-Caribbean community, important though it is, we miss the wealth that we get from so many others. I would like to highlight some of the communities that are not normally touched on when we talk about the Windrush community, but are just as much a part of that generation. I want to talk about the Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Indian communities. The subcontinent that for years—for generations—was seen as so remote brought with it, when it came to these islands, the heat, wealth and imagination of its people. It brought with it not only the spice that we now enjoy so much in our food, but the technology and imagination that its people have brought to all parts. If one looks today at Birmingham, one sees the imagination and creativity that is evident across that city. If one looks at some of those businesses that started from nothing and listens to some of the children and grandchildren of those migrants who came with £1 in their pocket, thinking that £1 might take them a little bit further than a week or two—only to realise that it would not even get them the train ticket to go to see their cousin who lived up country—one sees that the people who arrived here came with a drive and a determination that has really transformed not just us, but the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I really do not know how to follow that outstanding contribution from the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). When we remember where he has been earlier today and what he has had to put himself through over the past couple of days, we can see that it was an indescribably superb contribution. I hope Members will not expect me to reach anything like either the depth of knowledge or the eloquence he was able to deliver.

Let me also commend the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing the debate and for her initial contribution, because she put the whole thing into context: possibly the most important thing we need to remember about the Windrush generation is that they came to the UK because the UK begged them to come. There was none of this nonsense we see now about how somehow we are doing people a huge favour and we have been a wee bit too kind in letting them in. The Windrush generation were begged to come. They were pleaded with to come. It was their duty to uproot themselves from everything they knew and travel halfway around the world to a place they had only ever seen on postage stamps and posters to do a job that the UK simply did not have the people to do.

At that point the United Kingdom incurred a permanent and non-removable debt, not only to the Windrush generation but to their children and grandchildren, and to generations to come, because had the Windrush passengers not come here, these islands would have taken decades to recover from the devastation of the war—and that was only their immediate contribution. As was said earlier, all the population centres where the Windrush generation eventually settled are what they are today because of the Windrush legacy. That is particularly true of London, but also of other great cities, such as Manchester and Cardiff. North of the border, there is a significant West Indian tradition in parts of Glasgow, not from the Windrush time but from times before and after it.

It is intensely sad that the racism experienced by so many of the Windrush passengers 60 or 70 years ago, which the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood referred to, has not gone away. It is perhaps a bit less obvious and less frequent—although I know perfectly well that there is a lot of racism that I do not experience, for obvious reasons—but it is still there. Only last week, Louis Smith, as proud an Englishman as many others present—I nearly said as proud an Englishman as me!—who has won world and European gymnastics championships for England and a string of Olympic gymnastics medals for Britain, was a passenger on a train, sitting in first class, which meant that he was entitled to free tea, coffee and biscuits when the trolley came around. The guy with the trolley was entitled to check that everybody in first class had a first-class ticket. He went through the entire carriage and checked the tickets of the two black men, but he did not check the tickets of any of the white men. We can perhaps take a tiny bit of comfort from the fact that it was a white guy sitting beside Louis Smith who first noticed and challenged it. Quite properly, the rail company issued an immediate apology and promised to investigate. Imagine, in this day and age, anybody in any employment at all thinking that it could be remotely acceptable to assume that somebody was more likely to be dodging their fare just because of the colour of their skin.

Today I saw a couple of tweets from ScotRail, the main rail service provider in Scotland. Somebody had tweeted ScotRail to express concerns about the safety of the train on which he was travelling, because he had just discovered that a Pakistani was driving the train. I am proud to say that ScotRail responded by telling him to get off and walk. If that person can be traced and identified, I am sure that it will be a long, long time before they are made welcome on any of ScotRail’s services. The fact that such naked racism can still find a place in our society is something that we should all be deeply ashamed of and deeply worried about, because we know where it can lead.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman is making the extremely important point that, of course, racism is sadly not dead in our society; in fact, it is not dead in any society in the world. It is a blight on the minds of humans who seek to divide rather than to unite, and it is a great tragedy that we as humans have not been able to overcome it. Is there not, though, a moment of pride—the hon. Gentleman speaks of it quite rightly—that ScotRail did not react as its predecessors may have done in the ’30s, but saw what had happened for the sin and the wrong that it was? Is it not also right that although the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) spoke so passionately, truly and rightly about the horrors, immorality and wrongs of slavery, we should also be proud that for all the sins and errors that this country committed in allowing slavery and ever tolerating it, it was this country—this House—that abolished slavery for the first time?

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comment. The first place that made slavery illegal was actually Scotland, not England, but we will not argue about that.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I stand corrected.

[Peter Grant]

None of our countries can be proud of the fact that slavery was there to be abolished in the first place. In fact, I said in a Westminster Hall debate not that long ago that although I was born just inside what is now the boundary of the great city of Glasgow and consider myself to be part Weegie—by birth if not by residence—and although I am intensely proud of a lot of what Glasgow is, I can never forget the fact that Glasgow became the second city of the empire based on slavery. Where do we think the sugar was produced so that ships were needed to bring it across the Atlantic ocean? Why do we think a lot of ships were needed to bring cotton into the mills of Manchester or anywhere else? The people who produced that cotton were not given a living wage or any kind of decent working conditions. They had no choice about where they worked or what hours they worked. They were not treated as human beings; they were treated as possessions. Sometimes the machines that they were working with were treated with greater care than they were.

It was the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those human possessions who then answered the call and came over to Britain to help put us back on our feet after the war. That was a remarkable gesture, because slavery was recent enough for them to remember it. Some of the older generation who they were living with would have been slaves in their younger days. They were enslaved by the white folk. They were enslaved by the mother country—or their near ancestors were—yet they still answered the call for help and came over to help sort things out. That is something that is simply impossible to comprehend.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is easy to say that this country has abolished slavery, but we do live in a country with modern slavery. It is important to keep that in mind.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for correcting me on that point.

Earlier speakers have mentioned some individuals who made an incalculable contribution to making London what it is, to making England what it is and to making the islands of Britain what they are. I want to mention someone who, in some ways, has nothing to do with Windrush, but whose story illustrates something quite important. His name was Andrew Watson. He was born in Guyana of a Glasgow father and a Guyanese mother. His father was almost certainly an administrator on a plantation, but probably not a slave owner, although I cannot be too sure. His mother had certainly been a domestic servant at best, and she may well have been a slave. Andrew came over to the UK with his dad—we think it was after his mother died or when she became too ill to look after them. As his dad was very wealthy and well connected, Andrew had a privileged upbringing. It was the kind of privileged upbringing that very, very few Caribbean people living in the United Kingdom at that time could ever have dreamt of.

Andrew was also an exceptionally talented footballer. In 1881, he won an international cap for Scotland. He was the first black person ever to play for Scotland. I wish that we could have him back now. He played only three games for Scotland, and the results were Scotland 6, England 1; Scotland 5, Wales 1; and Scotland 6, England 1. If only we could have him back now. The reason why he stopped playing was that, for employment purposes, he had to move down to London, and the rule was that if a player did not live in Scotland, they could not play for Scotland and if they had played for one country, they could not play for another.

Andrew was the first black player to win a major trophy in any area of Great Britain. He was in London for part of his career. He was the first black player ever to appear in what we now know as the FA cup. Ninety-three years after Andrew Watson, the second black player turned out to play for Scotland. I remember him—I remember watching Paul Wilson of Celtic on the telly when I was a teenager. I was surprised to hear that Paul Wilson was the second black player to play for Scotland, because I only saw the colour of his jersey; I did not notice what colour he was.

It is a sobering thought that Andrew Watson did not experience any kind of racism. People noticed that he wore a different colour of boots to the rest of the team—in those days players had to buy their own boots, and his dad bought him a different colour from the rest of the team—but he does not appear to have suffered from any kind of racism at all from the press, from supporters or from his colleagues. Paul Wilson experienced racism when he first turned out for Scotland, and experienced it regularly when he played for Celtic, as indeed did the first generation of black players to play anywhere in the United Kingdom.

[Mr Lammy]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I am hugely appreciative of the fact that he has put on the record the link between Scotland and the Caribbean region. I took a DNA test not so long ago and it turns out that I, too, am a Scot. I am very well aware of my connections to the Blair family, and so potentially a former Prime Minister, and also to the Laing family, and so potentially a Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Peter Grant]

I knew there was something special about the right hon. Gentleman that I just could not put my finger on; all is now revealed. He might well find that he has more Scots blood in him than I have, because the more I look back at my ancestry the more I discover that a lot of it is actually from Ireland—Northern Ireland, rather than the Republic.

I am of immigrant descent. We all are. My ancestors may have come to mainland UK a few years before the ancestors of some hon. Members, but we are all immigrants. There is nobody left in the UK who can claim to be 100% indigenous English, Welsh, Scots or Irish. We would do well to remember that, because the question is not about who is an immigrant, it is just about how long we have been an immigrant for.

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The last point that the hon. Gentleman made is, in a sense, the most profound. It is about not where we come from, but the shared identity that we enjoy when we are here. The Windrush generation in particular were deeply patriotic, and remain so. These were people who were actually proud of Britain’s history. Of course, they understood that it was a mixed history, but they were proud of it. As the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) knows very well, I chair the British Caribbean Association and I have formed close friendships with those people—people who called their children Milton, Nelson and so on. How many white British people have ever done that? That was a measure of their patriotism.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that intervention. My name is actually French—Norman—so my ancestors came over at some time along with the Norman conquerors and I have been trying to keep up with the tradition of upsetting the English ever since. That is not completely true, of course.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham makes an interesting point. It is possible to tell a lot about somebody’s background from their name, but sometimes that background has been broken. Sometimes the link has been deliberately broken to try to turn somebody into something that they are really not.

The important point about identifying with and celebrating a culture—being proud of who we are and where we are from—is that it does not all need to be one place and one time. It is perfectly possible to be proudly Jamaican and proudly English at the same time; it is perfectly possible to be proudly Scots and proudly Canadian at the same; and it is perfectly possible to be proudly Scots and proudly English at the same time.

Although it is vital that the contribution of black culture—however we define it—to the life of these islands is remembered, celebrated and taught in all our schools, we also need to understand that how we define black culture is no more static or set in stone than how we define any other kind of culture. When people are celebrating black culture in 50 years’ time, they will be doing it in a way that none of us would recognise. When they look back at celebrations of black culture today, they will not recognise it any more than they would recognise Italian culture, German culture or any other kind of culture.



The identity that people hold is up to each person to define for themselves. If we try to put people into boxes by making them exclusively black, white, brown, yellow, European or American, we are not doing them any favours. In fact, we are not doing anybody any favours, because the great benefit of the diversity that exists in humanity is the fact that each and every one of us is unique. None of us is 100% pure-bred anything. That is just as well because, as any dog breeder or horse breeder will say, pure breeds do not live very long. Pedigree dogs tend to be very unhealthy. Give me a good mongrel that is a mix of so many breeds that they can never be disentangled; that dog will probably outlive its master by quite a few years.

Although not many in the Windrush generation eventually found their way to Scotland, parts of the country do have some significant groups of people who are of West Indian and Afro-Caribbean descent. Scotland has had large waves of immigrants throughout its history. It is interesting to look at the ways in which the experiences of other immigrant movements into Scotland have been similar to the experiences of the Windrush generation, and the ways in which they have been different. Sadly, one way in which these experiences have been all too often similar is in the racism and discrimination that immigrants have faced.

As I mentioned, a lot of my ancestors came over from Ireland, as did a lot of the population in the west of Scotland. It is one of the things that Glasgow very much has in common with Liverpool. The racism that they experienced was turned into sectarianism because they identified as being Irish and therefore Catholic, even though they were not necessarily Catholic. That kind of racism in the guise of sectarianism still poisons too much of our society in central Scotland today. We could do with being rid of that, just as we could do with being rid of other forms of racism.

We have also experienced immigration from the other side. By far the biggest export that Scotland has had in the last 200 years has been our people. I remember going to the railway station on a number of occasions when I was a wee boy to see off another of my mum’s wee sisters with her family, as they took the £10 journey to Australia and became Australian citizens. I am delighted to say that the traffic was not all one-way and that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) made the journey in the opposite direction.

That is the way things are, and it is the way they should always be. When we celebrate the huge benefits that were brought to these lands by one single big—in fact, not particularly big—migration of people, we should perhaps stop to think about the fact that migration benefits the places that people move to. I cannot think of any instance where migration has not benefited the place that people moved to. That is why I have some concerns about not only the view that the Government are taking towards migration but the direction of travel in which they are taking us in relation to the free movement of people.

[Mr John Hayes]

I think the hon. Gentleman needs to be clear that the people I described earlier—those patriots who called their children Milton, Winston, Gladstone and so on—take a very similar view of illegal migration, because they took the trouble to come here on an entirely proper basis. Outrage is felt by people in this House and others on behalf of the Windrush generation because they were legal migrants who should never have been treated in that way. They are Britons in the same way that all the rest of us are. We should not assume for a moment—I know you would not, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will not either—that those people do not take a robust view on illegal migration and understand the need for controls on migration as a whole.

[Peter Grant]

The great shame of the experience of the Windrush generation is that for far too many of them, assumptions were made about their legality or illegality based on nothing better than the colour of their skin or the accent with which they spoke, just as that ticket collector on the train made assumptions about the likelihood that the black guys were more likely to be dodging tickets than the white guys.

I cannot imagine my country without waves of immigration. I am delighted that in any school in my constituency that I go to, there are welcome signs up in 10, 15 or 20 languages, each one of which is the home language of one of its pupils or staff. I am delighted to live in a country whose national colour only exists if we take lots of different colours and mix them together. A tartan scarf made of a single colour is not tartan, and for me, a Scotland, an England and a United Kingdom where everybody was the same simply would not be the great countries that they are.

To those from the Windrush generation who are still alive, I say thank you, and I also say sorry, because the Parliament that I am part of and the Government that I am supposed to hold to account have done you an injustice that would be shameful in any circumstances, but when set against the contribution that you have made to so many cities and regions of these islands, to have treated you and your descendants in that way is a stain on the reputation of these nations that will take a long, long time to clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am proud to stand at this Dispatch Box and bear witness to the Windrush generation. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on her excellent speech, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) on their good speeches.

Nearly everyone in the Chamber this afternoon has seen the evocative newsreel footage of the men and women from the Caribbean who sailed to Britain on the Empire Windrush in 1948. Who were those people? I ask the House for a moment to put themselves in the shoes of those men and women. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham pointed out, they were young. Many of them may have looked a little older than they were, but that was because they were all wearing their Sunday best—the hats, the bonnets, the tailored suits, and the frocks—and they came to Britain so full of hope and enthusiasm. As many Members have said this afternoon, they genuinely thought that they were coming to the mother country.

Nowadays there is a narrative around migrants that claims that they do not understand or appreciate British culture, but I am glad to tell the House that no group of migrants was more enthusiastically British than the Windrush generation. Historically, the people of the Caribbean venerated the British royal family. They saw them as their protection from cruel local colonialists.

[Peter Grant]

When the right hon. Lady refers to a British culture, would it perhaps be more accurate to recognise that there is not such a thing as a British culture? There are lots and lots of British cultures. All of us are deeply attached to some of them. Nobody can be fully conversant with all of them and it is perhaps time to realise that all of our many cultures deserve equal treatment.

[Ms Abbott]

At one and the same time, the Windrush generation were both anti-colonialist but deeply respectful of a range of British institutions, including royalty. It may surprise some Government Members, but if someone meets a West Indian who was educated in the West Indies between the war and asks them to recite some poetry, they will promptly and with enthusiasm recite a piece of Keats or Shelley. That was the nature of the education.

Economic and Fiscal Outlook

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 requires Parliament to debate the content of this report on the UK’s economic and budgetary position. It is pleasing that although the UK has voted to leave the European Union, we are still complying with our obligation to submit the report.

Via the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, we are enshrining in law the rights and obligations that emanate from our EU membership. We are building with the European Union a new relationship, which I very much hope will allow our constituents to trade with, work in, study in and visit the EU. Rather than turning our backs on the EU, we are building a new chapter of our working partnership and friendship, albeit on different terms—on our own terms—which will, I am positive, enable us to maintain our positive relationships in mainland Europe.

We are debating the Government’s assessment of the UK’s economic and budgetary position—a position that we have developed since taking office in 2010. Interestingly, while I was researching our economic position, I came across a page on the BBC website from 2010. Boxes on the right hand side of the page contained our key economic indicators, which in 2010 were as follows: UK economic growth would slow to 0.2%, UK borrowing would hit £163.4 billion, UK unemployment would increase to 2.5 million and UK inflation would rise to 3.4%. Those were the key statistics, as reported by the BBC, as the Labour Government left office.

Fast forward to 2018 and—of course, we still have more to do—growth is projected to rise by 1.5% this year, UK borrowing fell to £42.6 billion during the last financial year, UK unemployment has fallen to 1.4 million and UK inflation fell to 2.5% last month. So if Labour Front Benchers want to talk about how things look now compared with how they looked in 2010, those are the key figures that they need to consider. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) mentions debt. The UK’s total debt is still too high, but we have reduced the amount being borrowed each year from 9.9% of GDP when Labour left office to 2.6% now. We still pay £50 billion a year on our overdraft, and that is far too high. It is larger than the schools budget, and it needs to come down.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is vital that we do not confuse reducing the deficit with reducing the debt. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that according to the OBR’s current forecast, the debt will not start to reduce until 2027 at the earliest? Does he think that that is good enough?

[Huw Merriman]

If we do not reduce the deficit, we will ultimately never reduce the debt. In January, we had a surplus for the first time, so we are getting there. As I say, however, the debt is far too large and needs to be reduced. I applaud the steps that the Government are taking to adopt a balanced approach, whereby we invest in our public services but get the debt down.

The debt causes me a huge amount of concern, because the interest bill will be paid not by my generation or those above me, but by the young. If Labour is serious about adding an extra £100 billion to the debt, the younger generation will be forced to pay back an extra £8 billion a year in interest.

It should not be forgotten that we have focused resources on key public spending commitments, such as health and increasing the amount we spend on the disabled. Opposition Members criticise us for the size of the debt, but when push comes to shove the austerity years, as they are often portrayed, have actually seen spending decreases at about the same rate as those advocated by Alistair Darling in the 2010 Labour party manifesto, so it is either one thing or the other.

My main point on how our economy is working is the fact that an extra 1 million people are now out of unemployment, compared with the last year of the Labour Government. That is crucial. Not only are those people paying into the economy, but they have opportunity, aspiration and hope. That was lost to many people when, yet again, the Labour Government left office with more people unemployed than when they had entered it. We have taken millions out of income tax by lifting the personal allowance from £6,500 to £11,850, reducing bills for 31 million people who still pay income tax. We have introduced the living wage, which will increase pay for 2 million people. One third of my working-age constituents are on the living wage, so it has a huge impact—they are £2,000 better off each year. All those measures make work pay, as seen by the increase in employment to 32 million people—the highest number since records began.

Finally, I would like to make a comparison with our European Union neighbours. Let us consider France. By 2015, we had created more jobs in five years in Yorkshire than have been created by France as a whole. The French are now looking to adopt our welfare reforms. They know that unless they modernise their welfare state, their unemployment rate will never be reduced from a shocking 9.7% to our rate of 4.2%. Some 1.3 million youngsters in France cannot find a job. It is our Government’s policies, in this report, that our EU counterparts are now seeking to replicate. I therefore absolutely recommend the report. I am very proud to stand on the Government Benches on behalf of the party that has delivered it.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate, although I do so with some trepidation and a degree of puzzlement.

I speak with trepidation, because in preparing for the debate I had a look in Hansard for the equivalent debates in the previous two years and discovered that nobody who spoke for the Scottish National party came through unscathed at the general election. Looking at the empty Benches behind me, it seems the curse of Section 5 has driven others away, too. I speak with puzzlement, because for the past six months every time I have been in the Chamber and we have talked in the European context about Government economic analyses, those on the Government Front Bench have been at desperate pains to persuade us that Government economic analyses are not worth the paper they are written on and are not to be trusted.

Members will recall that those analyses indicated that leaving the EU could take about 9% off economic growth compared with staying in the EU. That was one of the “benefits” of leaving the EU that the Government tried to hide and still do not want to talk about. The Government’s own analysis indicated that even the much hyped opportunities for striking new trade deals are likely to restore only about 1% of the 9% of the economic growth we will lose. It must therefore strike our European neighbours as somewhat ironic—it certainly strikes me as ironic—that the Government need a parliamentary vote to give them permission to send some numbers to the EU to prove how badly they are running the economy, at the same time as they are doing everything possible to avoid giving a meaningful parliamentary vote on the hard Brexit that threatens to blow even their own projections to smithereens. Perhaps that is what the Office for Budget Responsibility was talking about when it said:

“The probability of a cyclical shock occurring sometime over our forecast horizon is fairly high”.

Despite the brave words from the Chief Secretary this evening, the fact is that Brexit is already hurting the economy and the Government’s incompetent, ideologically obsessed drive towards a hard Brexit is making the damage even worse. The London School of Economics estimates that the average household is already £404 a week worse off thanks to the EU referendum result. The Financial Times puts the figure at 0.9% of GDP. That sounds like an innocuously low percentage, but it translates into £18 billion a year out of the economy. That is about £350 million a week. I have heard that £350 million a week somewhere before. It seems that the big white number on the side of the big red bus, telling us how much difference Brexit would make to our ability to spend on the NHS, was almost exactly correct—they just forgot to put the minus sign in front of it.

It would be bad enough if the pain of this economic failure was fairly shared. In fact, it would be nice if those who were ultimately responsible had to take any share of the pain, let alone a fair share of it, but of course, all those who are responsible seem to be doing very nicely indeed, thank you very much, because the costs of a failed and discredited austerity programme are being piled on to the shoulders of those who are least able to bear them—the very people any civilised Government would see as a priority to protect and look after.

Last week, it was confirmed that food bank use continues to increase. Why did the Chief Secretary not mention that in her overview of the economy? This week, my local authority, Fife Council—the third biggest in Scotland—reported a big increase in rent arrears owed by council tenants. Oddly enough, I predicted that increase last year, as did every MP in Fife and MPs from a number of other constituencies, including, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry). Why did he predict it? Because his constituency got hit by the roll-out of universal credit a couple of years ago. He saw what that did to his constituents’ ability to pay their council house rent. He warned that the same thing would happen in my constituency and elsewhere, and it still is happening. It is another symptom of a failed Government austerity obsession that counts cutting the welfare bill as being more important than improving the welfare of the population.

Last week, we saw a signal moment in the history of Scotland’s relationship with welfare benefits, when our Parliament voted unanimously to support the Social Security (Scotland) Bill on its final reading. It is all very well for Westminster to give powers and for Holyrood to use them to try to bring in a modern, caring social security system, but when a major part of the Government’s fiscal success is down to slashing welfare benefits for those who most need them, when Scotland’s resource block grant is being cut in real terms by £213 million this year and by £531 million over the next two years, and when UK Government will have cut nearly £4,000 million out of the availability of social security payments in Scotland over a 10-year period, it is clear that the powers that Holyrood should be using to create a fair society are instead having to be used to mitigate the brutal unfairness that this Government are imposing on citizens across the United Kingdom.

Some might argue that this short-term pain can be justified if it leads to longer-term economic stability, but the longer term seems to get longer and longer every year that we have this debate. The OBR’s briefing indicates that even by 2022-23, we will still have a budget deficit of around £20 billion a year. The debt will be growing by £20 billion a year—it will not be coming down—and despite the modest improvement in some aspects of the outlook over the last few months, the Government’s promise to

“return the public finances to balance at the earliest possible date in the next Parliament”

is not going to be delivered. It will be 10 years before the budget deficit goes away—10 years before we even start to pay off the astronomical levels of debt that we are all having to fund.

Despite the shambolic mismanagement of the business of the House over the last few weeks, the Government will get the motion through tonight, with or without a vote. No doubt the carrier pigeon is standing ready and waiting, because they have just over two and a half hours to get the results of the vote to Brussels if they do not want to miss the deadline. However, there is, of course, a much bigger and much more worrying European deadline that is approaching very quickly. That deadline was arbitrarily and completely irrationally set by the House when it voted to trigger article 50, with no idea of what that would do to the economy. I, and I suspect many MPs on both sides of the House, have a sinking feeling that when we find ourselves a few hours from that deadline, the uncertainties that characterise the OBR report that we are debating tonight and the uncertainties that, as the Opposition Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) pointed out are driving investment away instead of attracting it to us—those financial uncertainties—will be even bigger on 29 March next year than they are today.

Question put and agreed to.

Customs and Borders

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I have previously severely criticised Parliament’s inaction as seen in its failure to properly scrutinise the Government’s approach, for example through the European Scrutiny Committee, but today we see Parliament doing what it should be doing. It is just a pity that we knew before we started that the Government will not listen. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) called for everybody to get together behind the Government. How about the Government just once getting themselves together behind the overwhelming will of Parliament and behind what they know as well as we do is the overwhelming will of the people?

Let us stop this nonsense about a referendum vote to leave the customs union and the single market—no, there was no such vote. There was a vote to leave the European Union, and we have been told that that became a vote to leave the single market because that was what the losers said would happen. I am fascinated by the idea that, after an election, the winners are expected not to implement their own manifesto but to bring about what the other side said would happen if the eventual winners got in. Tory Members might want to look at what the Tories said would happen if the SNP ever won an election in Scotland, as we did in 2017, 2016 and 2015, and on many other occasions.

It is dangerous to give the people a binary choice but then to claim a democratic mandate to interpret the infinite number of variations of what that binary choice might mean. I do not have the right to say that the people who voted leave wanted to stay in the single market and the customs union, and nobody has a right to say that those people wanted to leave, but what I do have the right to say is that 62% of people in my country voted to stay in the European Union. Those who insist that we should be working for the best Brexit for the people of Scotland have to accept that the sovereign people of Scotland have said that the only good Brexit is no Brexit. If we must have Brexit, we want Brexit to hold us as close as possible to the European Union.

[Luke Graham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I do not have time to take interventions.

A lot has been said about the Irish border. Let us remember that it is now 15 months since the Prime Minister promised, as a matter of priority and as soon as possible, to bring forward her practical solution for the Irish border that was consistent with leaving the customs union. We have seen nothing. None of us has any idea what that practical solution will be. None of us even has any idea of when the Government will have any idea of what that solution will be. It is deeply offensive to a great many people of good faith on all sides and in all communities in Northern Ireland to accuse them of blackmail when all that they are saying to us is, “For heaven’s sake, please do not destroy the great work that has been done,” which I think was perhaps the greatest act of reconciliation and peace-building that certainly these nations—these islands—have seen, and that perhaps has been seen in the whole of Europe.

We talk about taking back control of our trade, but we cannot take back control of our trade. Every trade deal has to be bilateral. We are not in the empire anymore; we are in the Commonwealth. We are a community of nations and we have to treat other nations with respect. We are in the best trading partnership in the world; why would we want to leave?

Leaving the EU: UK Ports (Customs)

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is correct. We will be in a perfectly good position to ensure that we have near frictionless trade on day one, using the kind of facilitations that we are already using when it comes to the policing of our borders with the rest of the world, and indeed that exist between other countries such as Canada and the United States.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

We waited a long time to get to the end of that, and I not sure that we are any further forward as a result. The Minister finally understands what the rest of the world has been thinking after they have read every statement, listened to every speech and played through every attempt at clarification that we have had from the Government since the day of the referendum. My bingo card is not quite complete, but we got “deep and special”, “unprecedented” and “innovative”. We got “frictionless” twice, and we also got “streamlined”. However, I do not think that I heard “taking back control”, which is where I missed out on the jackpot, possibly because it is difficult to talk about “taking back control of our borders” when the Minister is trying to justify why we are not going to have any customs controls and therefore no border controls of any kind.

I remind the Minister that the port of Dover reckons that 99% of its traffic goes to and from the European Union, and it takes the massive great lorries an average of two minutes to get through. The other 1% goes to the rest of the world, and it takes an average of 20 minutes for those lorries to get through. There is no degree of customs check that can prevent Dover—in fact, most of Kent—from becoming a car park. We have not even started to talk about the impact on the Welsh ports. Where will the border be for traffic going from Wales to Northern Ireland via the Republic of Ireland? All the possible locations for a border have already been ruled out.

Has the Minister read the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report that was published at the end of last week? Has he read the report of the Exiting the European Union Committee that was published on Sunday morning? Has he read the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s report that was published this morning? All of them say that the Government’s obsession with leaving the customs union will simply not work. I draw his attention to a conclusion of the Exiting the European Union Committee’s report of December 2017:

“It is difficult to imagine any possible deal, consistent with WTO and other international treaties, that would be more damaging to the UK’s interests than leaving the EU with no deal whatsoever in place.”

Does the Minister agree with that? Does he understand that we are now barely six months away from when we effectively need a deal in place? When are the Government going to get rid of the clichés and soundbites, and start giving us genuine solutions to the problems that they, and they alone, have caused?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

European Affairs

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We will be seeking a unique deal for our country that recognises the prime importance of financial services both to our country and to the European Union and of the provision of competitive finance to the EU’s businesses and consumers. She mentioned CETA, and the relevant point there is that the negotiations, which were led by Michel Barnier, recognised the importance of attempting to include areas such as financial services, which is exactly what we will seek in the negotiations that will now follow.

We have the reassurance that the UK and the EU both issued a published text on the approach to the implementation period that reflects the significant common ground between us. The text would codify an implementation period that preserves the current status quo for business and consumers, is time-limited but also provides a sufficient window for the EU and UK to put new processes and systems in place, and ensures continuity in the application of international agreements. As a third country, the UK will have the ability to use the period to negotiate and sign new trade deals, while reflecting the fact that we cannot bring these agreements into legal effect until after the end of the period. We will also introduce a new registration scheme for EU citizens arriving post-Brexit but during the implementation period, when EU citizens should be able to continue to visit, live and work in the UK as they do now.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister has referred to the potential opportunities to negotiate new trade deals after we leave the European Union, and one of his colleagues has been keen to big up the prospect of the riches to be had from that. Can the Minister name any country in the world that has indicated it would be more likely to give a beneficial trade deal to the United Kingdom on our own than it would be to negotiate a deal with the world’s biggest single internal market?

[Mel Stride]

What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that a large number of trade missions have been led by the Department for International Trade and its Secretary of State. We have had extremely encouraging discussions with a large number of important potential future trading partners with whom we may be seeking free trade agreements. As I have said, we will be able to negotiate deals within the implementation period, although they will not come into effect until we are beyond that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification, but we are not seeking a customs union comparable with Turkey’s. We are seeking a comprehensive customs union which replicates the current arrangements that we enjoy with the EU.

Let us move on to another area. We need to be honest about the central issue on which many of those who campaigned to leave focused their campaign and which influenced the votes of many—immigration. Taking back control of our borders was a powerful promise, creating expectations that the Government really have no plan or intention to deliver. The Government have had control of non-EEA immigration for the past eight years and in every one of those years it was greater than EEA migration.

The Government know that things will not be changing significantly. Two weeks ago, that ardent Brexiteer, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the National Farmers Union that

“agriculture needs access to foreign workers.”

He promised to maintain that access, for both seasonal and permanent workers. He was echoing the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, who said in Estonia last year that it will take “years and years” for British citizens to fill the employment gaps, and that in the meantime Estonians would be welcome to come to work in the UK. At Mansion House, the Prime Minister talked about a future labour mobility scheme with the EU.

The difficulties of squaring the expectations unleashed by the leave campaign with the interests of the economy are no doubt the reason why the Government have delayed the immigration White Paper, yet again, and do not look set to have a new system in place by the time we depart in March 2019.

[Peter Grant]

When the hon. Gentleman referred to the numbers of non-EEA migrants, I was a bit concerned that he almost sounded as if he was sympathetic towards the Government’s obsession with treating immigration as a number that should be brought down rather than as something that benefits our nations economically and socially. Will he comment on the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition at the Scottish Labour party conference in Dundee last weekend, in which he referred to the EU as something that allowed low-paid workers to be brought into the UK, thereby driving down wages? Does the hon. Gentleman agree with a growing number of Labour Back Benchers that the Leader of the Opposition was wrong to say that and should apologise?

[Paul Blomfield]

We have always been clear—as indeed, have the Government—about the benefits of migration. That was not what the Leader of the Opposition said in Scotland. There is no evidence that migration drives down wages. There is an issue, which Labour would tackle—it has been in our manifesto for the past couple of elections—on the exploitation of European workers, and those from other countries, in the UK. We need tougher labour-market rules and enforcement to tackle those issues.

The Prime Minister was right to say in Munich and at Mansion House that she was ready to cross her red lines on the European Court of Justice in relation to security, because of the importance of security to this country. She is clearly right: security is vital. I think she was influenced by the fact that, as a former Home Secretary, she had an intimate understanding of the issues and recognised the consequences of failing to reach an accommodation. If security is vital to this country, as it is, is not the economy, too?

The Prime Minister was right to talk about hard truths, because the British people, whether they voted leave or remain, will not thank politicians who deliver a damaging Brexit on the basis of a false prospectus. The former Prime Minister John Major was right, too, when he said that it is right not only to speak truth to power, but to speak truth to the people. Let us face up to the hard facts: there will be no Brexit dividend for public services, as the Chancellor confirmed again on Tuesday; there will be no significant change to migration; there are no real red lines on the European Court of Justice; and there will be huge damage to the economy, according to the Government’s own analysis.

It does not have to be like that. If the Prime Minister had said, “This country voted to leave the European Union, but it was a close vote. It was a mandate to go, but not a mandate for a deep rupture”, and if she had said, “We will leave, but stay close: in a customs union, as close as possible to the single market, a member of the agencies and partnerships that we have built together over 44 years”, she would have had the overwhelming support of this House. Instead, she has let a tiny band of extreme Brexiteers in the European Research Group set the agenda. It is not too late: she could reach out to the majority of the House and the majority of the country to adopt a sensible approach—to adopt Labour’s approach—and I hope that she will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We are on exactly the same page, and we can both support the Prime Minister’s negotiating objectives on that basis.

Returning to the UK the power to negotiate and sign trade deals will not only speed up trade negotiation for the UK, but enable the Government to negotiate in the UK national interest. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) asked which countries we were talking about. The Department for International Trade is pursuing opportunities in countries around the world, and Australia and Brazil, to name just two, have already expressed an interest in concluding free trade agreements with the UK.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way on that point. As a matter of accuracy, may I point out to him that I asked not what countries we hoped to do deals with, but for one country that has said that it will give the United Kingdom a better deal than it would give us as part of the European Union? To date, I have not received a single answer to that question. If he can he tell us now of one country that has said that it will give an isolated Britain on its own a better trade deal than a Britain that is part of the European Union, I am quite sure that his colleagues in the Department for International Trade would be delighted to speak to him.

[Mr Jenkin]

I think the hon. Gentleman is somewhat playing with words, because nobody will say what kind of deal they will give us until we are actually in the negotiations and making progress. He is asking a question to which he well knows the answer for his own political reasons.

In relation to our trade with the EU, the Prime Minister in her recent speech called for trade at the UK-EU border to be as frictionless as possible. The EU has agreed, as I mentioned earlier, that tariffs and quotas should be avoided and, in the draft negotiating guidelines published earlier this month, it also agreed to the principle of an EU-UK trade deal. Perhaps that is the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question. There should also be mutual recognition of products and standards, which is no more than the kind of standard agreement that the UK has with many other countries with which it does not have a free trade agreement—incidentally, I think that that is what is meant by a customs arrangement. It means goods need approval in only one country to meet the required regulatory standards in other countries in normal circumstances.

Although we recognise that certain aspects of trade in services are intrinsically linked to the single market, we should note that services trade has nothing whatsoever to do with being in or out of a customs union, because tariffs are not charged on services. The Prime Minister is right to insist that barriers should be introduced only where absolutely necessary. There is no reason for the EU to prevent UK firms from setting up in the EU as we will continue to allow EU firms to set up here. We should agree on an appropriate labour mobility framework and on the recognition of qualifications to provide for the mobility of skilled labour. The Prime Minister also called for the UK and EU economies to remain closely linked in areas including energy, transport, digital, law, and science and innovation. That is perfectly achievable if there is good will on both sides.

The UK is committed to remaining a close friend and neighbour of the EU, and the Prime Minister has made that perfectly clear with a comprehensive economic partnership.

Trade is, of course, of great importance to the economy. In the UK, about 28% of what we produce is sold abroad, and this business activity supports millions of jobs. We also import much of what we consume, and trade allows consumers to access a wider variety of goods, at competitive prices, but the volume of trade is only marginally affected by agreements between countries. Neither the EU nor the UK has a trade agreement with the US, but the US is nevertheless our largest trading partner.

When discussing trade, we must remember that trade agreements are only one factor upon which our economic future depends. How we educate our people, how we regulate our economy, the flexibility of our labour market, and investment in infrastructure, science and technology are far more important to our prosperity than trade agreements. Domestic Government policies have a much bigger impact on economic performance than whether the UK is inside or outside a customs union with the EU. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central himself pointed out, Germany exports to the rest of the world from within the EU, but with many countries, it does not even have a trade agreement, let alone a customs union agreement.

Let us get all this in proportion. It is far more significant that the UK’s departure from the EU will give us greater flexibility, more responsibility, more accountability and more control over how we manage our economy as we regain: the ability to set our own tariff schedules; the ability to set our own regulatory standards and decide how they should be applied; the unencumbered freedom to set VAT rates; the freedom to relax restrictions placed on UK public procurement; and policy flexibility over things like fishing and farming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, although I note with sadness that, having set aside two days to debate European affairs, in reality we are all talking about the same European affair. This place has become consumed with Brexit to the extent that other vital matters in the continent of Europe that we would normally have found the time to debate at length are now hardly even mentioned in this place.

Where is the Chamber debate on the persecution of journalists and dissidents in Turkey? Where is the debate on the crackdown of almost neo-fascist proportions in Catalonia, where academics are now being ordered to hand over anything that they might have written in support of constitutional change and civilians are threatened with arrest for the crime of wearing a yellow scarf? Where is the debate on the worryingly regressive steps being taken in Hungary and Poland, so much so that an Irish court this week refused an extradition request to Poland because Ireland can no longer trust the Polish judicial system to give people a fair trial? Where is the debate on the instability that may engulf the Government of Slovakia—a country that was previously a frontier land for the iron curtain and that is now becoming something of a buffer zone between western Europe and the more worrying developments further east?

Had it not been for the appalling incident in Salisbury, it is unlikely that we would even have found time to debate the growing and brutal expansionism of Russia—whether its illegal actions in Ukraine, its equally illegal and covert actions in parts of Georgia or its increasingly threatening behaviour towards the Baltic states. None of these issues is getting anything like the attention in this place that they are entitled to. None is getting the attention that it would have had, had it not been for Brexit taking up so much of everybody’s time and an increasing proportion of the civil service budget in every Department in Whitehall.

I have only listed the European affairs business that we are not talking about. As a number of Labour Members mentioned during business questions today, a whole host of pressing and urgent social issues in these islands are not being debated or talked about. There is inadequate parliamentary scrutiny, and there is inadequate or non-existent legislation to address these problems because everything has been sacrificed on the altar of Brexit. It might not be so bad if, by sacrificing everything to talk about Brexit, there were some signs that we were getting it right. But all the signs are that, having started off getting it wrong by calling the wrong referendum at the wrong time in the wrong circumstances and on the wrong date, things have gone from bad to worse. The catalogue of disastrous misjudgments from the Prime Minister and her predecessor would be hilarious if the consequences were not so disastrous for us economically and, perhaps more importantly, socially.

The referendum was promised to heal divisions within the Conservative party. That has worked well, hasn’t it? The date of the referendum was set because the then Prime Minister was worried that it would have been engulfed by further controversy if there was another summer of refugee disasters in the Mediterranean. It was also deliberately designed to cut across local and national election campaigns in many parts of the United Kingdom. With indecent haste after the referendum and after the Conservative leadership non-contest, the Prime Minister unilaterally—without consultation, as far as I could see—announced the red lines of leaving the customs union and leaving the single market. Those are two lines with which the Prime Minister has painted herself into a corner, and she now wants to blame the Europeans for being unwilling to knock down the walls to get her out of that corner.

[John Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman made a very good point that there are lots of interesting European issues that are not to do with Brexit. We have a general debate on European affairs, so why does he not talk about them?

[Peter Grant]

I have raised them all. If it were possible for me to speak quickly enough to debunk even half the nonsense on Brexit that we get from Government Members, I might be able to speak about some of the other issues. The record will show that the Scottish National party has made a number of attempts to raise these issues including, for example, the situation in Catalonia, but we have been pushed back by Her Majesty’s Government at every opportunity.

Having made bad worse by inserting red lines on the customs union and on the single market, the Prime Minister decided to waste three months of negotiating time and six months of parliamentary scrutiny time by having an election to guarantee a three-figure Conservative majority, so that everything else could just be steamrollered through without opposition. That worked even better than the referendum that the Government had to bring the Conservative party together.

As I said, this would be funny if the consequences for 60 million people on these islands, and potentially for several hundred million people in other parts of Europe, were not so grave. They are so grave that the Government still do everything in their power to prevent us and the people we represent from knowing just how bad their own analysis shows that the situation will become. Before the most recent Brexit papers had been fully published, one of the reasons we were told not to be too worried about them was that they only talked about the direct impact of different Brexit scenarios and did not take account of the massive benefit of all the new trade deals we were going to get. Supposedly, everybody would be falling over one another to trade with us after Brexit.

As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) pointed out, the Government’s analysis indicates that maybe we can increase GDP by as much as 0.75% because of those deals. We could be looking at a Brexit deficit of between 7% and 9% of GDP, depending on just how hard the hard Brexiteers are able to push Brexit. A 0.75% mitigation of that will not do an awful lot of good in the communities that will be devastated by this downturn in our economy.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman where he got those figures from?

[Peter Grant]

I got them from Her Majesty’s Government. If the hon. Gentleman wants to tell me that we should never believe anything that Her Majesty’s Government’s civil servants tell us, that is a debate in itself. Those were the figures that were released, with significant protest, by Her Majesty’s Government to the Brexit Committee. I highly recommend the document to him.

Having had the analysis done at significant expense, those who instructed it to be carried out now seem to want to downplay it—to discredit it. I am pleased that we are no longer hearing, certainly from Ministers, any suggestion that there was anything incompetent, unprofessional or negligent in the performance of those who produced the figures. Of course, those who think that the Treasury’s figures are wildly too pessimistic have had the opportunity to produce their own. We might even find somebody who produces figures that give the lie not only to the Treasury but to the Scottish Government and to any number of other professional bodies. Those bodies do not always agree on the exact figures, but few, if any, are producing a scenario that looks anything other than deeply, deeply damaging for our economy and for the social cohesion of our four nations.

During the Minister’s speech, he took an intervention from one of his colleagues about an article in The Times. Interestingly, his answer seemed to suggest that it was only when they read it in The Times that the Government knew that there had been some softening of the attitude in Brussels towards our ability to negotiate trade deals. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that when he winds up. Would it not be typical of the shambolic nature of the Government in conducting these negotiations if they were getting their information from the front pages of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers rather than from direct face-to-face contact with our European friends and allies?

When the Government were asked to name a single country that is saying that it would give us a better trade deal out of the EU than within the EU, yet again not a single country was named that is willing to do so. There is a lot of ambitious and grand talk of all the countries that want to trade with us—a wish list, a pie-in-the-sky list. There is, as yet, absolutely no reason to believe that any of these countries will give us a better deal than we could get by staying exactly where we are. We need to remember that what the Government ask for ain’t necessarily what they are going to get, because there are 27 other Governments over there who are just as determined and just as entitled to look after the interests of the people they represent.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) used the tired old argument that we have a trade deficit with the EU and a trade surplus with the rest of the world, and we should therefore concentrate on the rest of the world. I leave aside the fact that some of us do manage to have a trade surplus with the European Union. The logical consequence of that argument is that, if the rest of the world has a huge trade deficit with us, why in the name of goodness would they want to continue trading with us? It is not because Europe is bad at industry and manufacturing that it has a trade surplus with us—it is because it is better at it than we are. The cradle of the industrial revolution has allowed others to overtake us in investment and reinvestment and improving manufacturing efficiency.

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[Peter Grant]

I will give way in a moment.

That is why the Germans can manage to have a trade surplus when we cannot. It is not because they are cheating or because the rules are loaded in their favour; it is because they use more of the profits of their industry to invest in it rather than hiving them off to some kind of offshore tax haven where they are never seen again.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to add his rather more socialist point. The problem with the regulatory regime in the European Union is that the whole system is not geared towards our interests and our economy, not least because Germany enjoys a very artificially depressed currency. The Germans have by far the biggest trade surplus as a consequence, and their currency never appreciates because they are in the euro. That has cemented in a completely unfair disadvantage, institutionalised by the European Union.

[Peter Grant]

So modern industrialised nations that are in the euro do better than those that are not in the euro. That is an interesting argument for the hon. Gentleman to make. I am not saying that I would necessarily agree with its inevitable conclusion, but he does seem to be tying himself in knots very effectively.

I must come back to the comment with which I challenged the Labour spokesperson, because it is very important. When we are talking about the rights of citizens, whether they have lived here their entire lives, come here from other countries, or gone from here to other countries, we should be absolutely uncompromising in celebrating immigration as a good thing. Yes, it sometimes means that bad people come here, but thousands, millions, tens of millions of times more often it means that good people can come here and that our people can go to other places. The exchange of ideas, for example, is something that we cannot put a price on. As well as talking about free movement of people, I want us to be talking about free movement of ideas, because that is what is at stake more than anything else.

To suggest that immigration is responsible for the low-paid, insecure jobs on these islands lets the Government off the hook. Last week, the Leader of the Opposition told an audience—not a very big audience, admittedly—in Dundee:

“We cannot be held back—inside or outside the EU—from …preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour, to undercut existing pay and conditions in the name of free market orthodoxy.”

I am disappointed that Labour Front Benchers have not apologised for that and invited their leader to withdraw, as a lot of their Back Benchers have. It is not the European Union that is responsible for low pay on these islands; it is successive Governments who eventually introduced a minimum wage but left us with one that is still not enough for people to live on. It is not the European Union that allows employers and agencies to exploit vulnerable, desperate workers; it is domestic legislation. Coming out of the protection of EU employment law is not going to make it easier for vulnerable employees to speak up for themselves. The gig economy—the low-pay economy—is not going to improve by our coming out of the European Union. Indeed, I worry that it will get significantly worse. If anybody thinks that the Conservatives want to come out of EU employment legislation to improve workers’ rights, they really need to look back at the past 100 years of employment law history on these islands.

As I said, it is unfortunate that Brexit has become an all-consuming obsession for the Government, and now for this Parliament, but it is inevitable, because if we get it wrong, as the Government seem determined to do, generation after generation will be paying the price socially and economically. We discovered that we have moved on from the previous Government policy—that the EU can “go whistle” for any payment—to talking about payment for part of the deal of about £37 billion, which we will still be paying if and when I am 104 years old. Possibly some right hon. and hon. Members here will not be around to see that. That is how long it will take simply to pay for a bad deal.

I have hardly even mentioned the potential catastrophe in Ireland. I am deeply concerned that Ministers still seem quite taken with the “Smart Border 2.0” proposal that was published a few weeks ago. “Smart Border 2.0” explicitly says that it relies on automatic barriers, infrastructure, surveillance cameras and staffed checkpoints at the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. If the Minister says nothing else in summing up, I hope he will say clearly—and in such a way that none of his Back Benchers can try again—that the “Smart Border 2.0” proposals are so inconsistent with the Government’s commitments and so incompatible with the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday agreement that, although an interesting idea, they will go no further, that the Government will take them no further and certainly that the EU will take them no further when it is listening to the Government of the Republic of Ireland.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the practicalities of the Northern Irish border. Does he agree that the practicalities for the many people whose properties straddle the border are not being addressed at all in this argument?

[Peter Grant]

Absolutely. It was so long ago that neither the Brexit Secretary nor the Foreign Secretary can remember the last time they visited the Irish border. That is a failing that both of them have to put right quite soon. I did not understand just how important a non-border was until I went there with the Brexit Committee and we could not find the border between two sovereign states. That is what borders should be these days. They should not be easy to see on a map or physical barriers; they should be physical routes for the exchange of people and, as I mentioned, ideas.

To date, nobody has put forward a proposal that allows the Government’s red lines of leaving the customs union and single market to be compatible with the other red line of honouring the spirit and the letter of the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement. That irreconcilability cannot be allowed to continue. If the Government cannot come up with their own very clear and detailed proposals within the next few weeks to reconcile those irreconcilable red lines, the red lines of leaving the customs union and single market will have to go, because the red line of continuing the peace process in Ireland cannot be sacrificed in any circumstances. I appeal to the Minister to give assurances that no proposal involving staffed checkpoints on the Irish border will be given any credibility or consideration in these negotiations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Leslie]

We have to recognise that in so many areas of policy—not just economic or trade policy—we benefit from these alliances and relationships. They do need to be worked on, and we need to somehow give and take a little bit. That is the nature of the global neighbourhood in which we live.

It would be remiss if I did not at this point voice my appreciation for the statements from France and Germany, which have shown their solidarity and fraternity with the United Kingdom in respect of the Russian chemical attack in Salisbury. We are talking about European affairs, and it is important that Europe stands together at an important moment such as this.

But Brexit is bound to dominate this sort of debate, and there are a number of aspects that I want to pick up on. The first is the question of frictionless borders and the trade arrangements that we absolutely have to maintain, not just for our own economic continuance but because of the Good Friday agreement and the need to avoid anything that could diminish the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.

The phase 1 agreement that the Government signed up to said that if they cannot come up with alternative arrangements, full alignment will be the way forward. My understanding is that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has this morning admitted that the notion of a technological option—the “smart borders” option—is just not viable. It is not going to work because it requires hard infrastructure at the borders. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are 275 crossing points on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The notion of having hard infrastructure—cameras, inspection posts and who knows what else—is clearly not compatible with the Good Friday agreement, so the Government have ruled that option out.

The only option that therefore exists is some sort of magical deal whereby the UK agrees to administer the external tariff arrangements for the rest of the European Union while simultaneously administering our own separate tariff arrangements for goods that are destined just within the UK. That does not happen anywhere else in the world. As well as being a complete bureaucratic nightmare, it would require reciprocity from our European partners with regard to our arrangements. They would have to administer a dual-tariff system for goods destined for the UK and those destined for Europe. It is just not going to happen. When the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) winds up the debate, he would do well to admit that the phase 1 agreement that he signed up to now means full regulatory alignment and, of course, that a customs union is the best and simplest way to achieve that.

The Government are trying their best and scrabbling around, asking the road haulage industry, trade bodies and other cargo and freight companies, “What are your volumes of traffic and what’s happening in trade?”, and making them sign non-disclosure agreements, to try to gag them if they dare to speak, even to their own trade body members, about their conversations with Ministers. That just shows how desperate the situation is.

[Peter Grant]

Has the hon. Gentleman considered the possibility that the reason the Government want non-disclosure agreements in every discussion is that the next time Labour Front Benchers table a Humble Address motion, they will use the fact that they have signed up to a non-disclosure agreement to prevent Parliament or anybody else from finding out what on earth is going on?

[Mr Leslie]

It is very tempting to table a series of motions to keep extracting documents from the Government. For all the bluster of the Chancellor’s spring statement, I still regard the best documents published by the Treasury for quite some time, albeit reluctantly, to be the 30 PowerPoint slides that show, among other things, a £55 billion black hole in our public finances by 2033 if we opt for the middle scenario—the FTA-style scenario—and cuts to our public services that would result in the imposition of at least another decade or more of austerity. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) made an excellent speech and I say to him and my other Front-Bench colleagues that, having got the Labour party to support a customs union, the logic of all their arguments points to supporting retaining our participation in the single market, to avoid that austerity in years to come.

I want to finish on the arguments relating to the single market. We need to remember that the UK is an 80% service sector economy. While being in the customs union is good for the 20% of the economy that is based on physical or manufactured goods, 80% of our economy is based on services. That is why the single market matters—because it applies particularly to trade in services. Many trades and services will not be tariffed, taxed or diminished—they may be banned altogether, particularly in the field of financial services, which the Financial Secretary mentioned in his opening remarks. Financial services alone represent 11% of our economy and contribute £66 billion in revenue to our Exchequer every single year. That £66 billion pays for the schools and hospitals in the constituencies of all hon. Members, but, again, the Government are scrabbling around and trying to find some sort of mutual agreement on financial services. Just getting it referenced in a flimsy, two-sided A4 document on the future trade relationship will definitely not suffice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

The right hon. Lady is making, as always, an impassioned and well-informed speech. The ballot paper contained a question about membership of the European Union, but there has never been a referendum on membership of the customs union or the single market. Nobody knows for certain what people want regarding those institutions.

[Anna Soubry]

I completely agree; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I take grave exception to the idea that across the length and breadth of this country people were sitting in pubs, cafés, bars or whatever discussing the finer points of the merits or otherwise of the customs union and the single market. The truth is that there are Members of this House who do not know what the customs union is, and there are Members of this House who do not understand what the single market is.

I am not going to name people, but I have had very good conversations with right hon. and hon. Friends about EFTA. I have explained, for example, that members of EFTA can retain their own fisheries and agriculture policies. There are colleagues who have said to me, “Good heavens, I didn’t know that. How very interesting. Can you tell me now about immigration?” So then I explain about articles 112 and 113, and so on and so forth, and about the brakes that could be put on immigration. These conversations have occurred only in the past three or four months, 18 months after the referendum and nearly a year after we triggered article 50. That is why I will say it again: when history records what happened in the run-up to and after the referendum, it will not be in any form of glowing testimony. On the contrary, I think we will all be painted very badly, apart from those right hon. and hon. Members who at least stood up and spoke out. If I dare say it, I think we have been increasingly proved right.

I think people are fed up. They want us to get on with it. They do not quite know what “it” is. Some people actually think we have already left the European Union. But they know that it is getting very difficult and very complicated. I believe that people are becoming increasingly worried and uneasy. It is the dawning of Brexit reality. They know that the deal, which they were told would take a day and a half, or a week and a half, will now take, if not for ever, then a very long time. When I say “for ever”, I mean that, if the Government continue to stick to their timetable, it will not be concluded until way after we have left the European Union. We will get very loose heads of agreement by way of a political statement attached to the withdrawal agreement, which this place will vote on sometime this October or November. People are beginning to realise that they have been sold a bit of a pup.

Only last week, I spoke to a constituent who voted leave who told me, in no uncertain terms—she was quite angry about it—that she had no idea about the implications for the Irish border of not getting this right. People of a particular generation really get it and understand this. Frankly, we are old enough to remember the troubles in all their ghastliness. We also remember the border. Some of us are old enough to remember customs border checks, when we had to go through a particular channel. We remember being terrified that the cigarettes or a bottle of whatever—I certainly would never have done any of these things, of course—might suddenly be uncovered by a customs officer, but that means absolutely nothing to huge swathes of our country. Older people, however, remember the troubles and they know how important it is that the border does not return. They understand how critical not having a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been to the peace process. They are now not just worried about the return of the border, they are quite cross about it. They are getting cross not just because they do not want it, but because they feel that none of this was discussed and explained before the referendum.

As I have said, we are now having the debate that we should have had before the EU referendum. I am looking towards those on the Scottish National party Benches. The debate held in Scotland in the run-up to the independence referendum was a long, long proper debate. If I may say so as an outsider, every single issue pertinent to the debate was properly teased out and discussed. I do not think anybody could have complained that they did not know the consequences.

Draft International Tax Enforcement (Bermuda) Order 2017 Draft Double Taxation Relief and INTERNATIONAL TAX ENFORCEMENT (KYRGYZSTAN) ORDER 2017

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 General Committees

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I will not repeat what the hon. Member for Norwich South said in relation to the inadequacies or incompleteness of the legislation. We all welcome any move that makes it harder for people to hide their gains—ill-gotten or well-gotten—from the rightful tax authorities. I believe that it is a fundamental principle, particularly for people who are making money out of developing countries, that any tax that is due on those profits should be retained within the country where the money has been raised, so that it can be invested to help it to develop its economy.

Although the exchange of information is a big help in that, such information can be used only to demonstrate whether somebody is acting within the existing legislation. If that legislation allows a country to be used as a tax haven, exchanging information so that HMRC knows that somebody is using it as a tax haven does not get us an awful lot further forward. Although I welcome the intention of the legislation, I am puzzled, like the hon. Member for Norwich South, as to why it has taken so long. If it is such a good piece of legislation, why have Bermuda and Kyrgyzstan not had the benefit of it much sooner? Why have we not had the benefit of it much sooner?

As well as enforcing the legislation that we have, I hope the Government will do a lot more to ensure that we use every means at our disposal to tighten up tax loopholes. That is not so that people can be taxed beyond what is reasonable, but so that tax revenues from the labours of developing countries are reinvested in their schools, hospitals, housing and communities. They cannot afford to subsidise the City of London—let us be brutal about it—but their resources, the skills of their people and the efforts of their local populations very often work on behalf of UK-owned companies. I welcome the legislation and I hope we will see much more being done in future.

Roadchef Employees Benefit Trust

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. I believe that the main thrust behind Mr Gee’s setting up of the trust in the first place was to ensure that low-paid staff were able to benefit from the company doing well. That has sadly not happened yet, and many low-paid workers have suffered as a result. Many of my constituents—I will list some shortly—have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the payments not being made, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Linda McLeod and Margaret Main pointed to the time it has taken for their money to be returned, but they also highlighted the number of former colleagues who have sadly passed away and will not get the benefit their hard work merited. Caroline Todd contacted me on behalf of her mother, Mrs Quigley from Harthill. She desperately hopes this gets resolved soon so that her mum, who is getting older, is able to enjoy her own money. Margaret Forsyth just wants HMRC to settle matters so that she can have some security, a sentiment echoed by Jane Paxton and Elizabeth Campbell.

Joyce Simm’s husband has been receiving treatment for small-cell carcinoma for three years, and she has been out of work while she cares for him. They have had to survive on pensions and savings, which are fast disappearing. They have now been hit with the sad news that he has a carcinoid tumour and will be undergoing surgery on 21 December. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing the family well, but clearly any pay-out now would be particularly beneficial.

Another constituent of mine visited my surgery. He is seriously ill and in a difficult financial situation, and the money he is entitled to get back would simply be life changing and would help him immensely. He is desperate to see HMRC settle as soon as possible. I know many other hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House will have constituents who are affected and, sadly, will be able to share similar stories. Indeed, I understand Mr Speaker has constituents who are affected by this issue.

It is worth mentioning someone else who has been affected by this case. The former company secretary at Roadchef, Tim Warwick, blew the whistle on what the then chief executive was doing before there was any kind of whistleblower protection. Exposing this affair effectively ended Mr Warwick’s career, and we should all thank and pay tribute to him for his efforts.

What can the Minister do to help my constituents and their 4,000 colleagues across these isles who are waiting for their money? I understand that HMRC is a non-ministerial department of Government and that the Minister is therefore somewhat restricted in what he can do, but I hope he can join me and colleagues on both sides of the House in calling on HMRC to settle this case with the trustees and to return the £10 million, plus interest, to the rightful owners—the trustees and beneficiaries.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is giving a moving account of how the wrongdoing of one person, compounded by the inaction of HMRC, is causing real misery to a lot of people. Does he see a contrast with HMRC’s generosity when it comes to settling deals with big multinationals that have been caught avoiding tax through barely legal, and sometimes non-legal, methods? Would it be fair to say that his constituents must now think HMRC applies one law to the rich and another very different law to the poor?

[Neil Gray]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, and I draw the House’s attention to his professional background and expertise in this area. He makes a valid point to which I am sure the Minister has listened.

If HMRC does not settle the case, it will stand accused of laundering illegally obtained funds at the expense of those who have been defrauded. I understand from correspondence that HMRC is concerned about setting a precedent in this case. As far as I can tell, this is the only EBT fraud case that involves a tax payment made in error, so I am not sure what exactly the precedent would be. But even if it were not the only such case, returning the money to its rightful owner would be a pretty good precedent to set.

Will the Minister advise the House on whether today was the first time he was made aware of the £10 million that was wrongly paid in tax? I say that because, to date, as far as I can see, the £10 million figure has not been mentioned in all the correspondence between Members of this House, Ministers and HMRC. At best, it would appear that officials are failing to apprise MPs of the full facts, which is a very serious matter indeed.

HMRC might also have briefed the Minister to say that this case is time barred, which of course will not be the case until the two-year anniversary of the High Court ruling comes round early next year. Unfortunately the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, is not in the Chamber, but I hope she takes note of what I have presented to the House today, as I believe there is a role for her to play in getting the lead officials at HMRC to answer for the delay. I will be writing to her, as the Chair of the Select Committee, in the new year to get her to look at ministerial guidance to HMRC on unjust enrichment and to get this issue scrutinised in more detail.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the issues I have raised this evening on behalf of not just my constituents, but constituents from across these isles. Some 4,000 low-paid workers have been denied what is rightfully theirs, first by the breach of trust by their former boss and now by HMRC. I hope the Minister will agree to meet me and the chair of the trust, Mr Winston Smith, so that we can all work together to finally see justice for current and former employees of Roadchef. This is about natural justice, and it is not good enough for HMRC to say that it is too difficult or that it is precedent setting, or to give any of the other excuses offered so far. This is not HMRC’s money. It is my constituents’ money—it is our constituents’ money—and it should be returned to them without delay.

Duties of Customs

Peter Grant Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am not saying that anybody should fear international trade. International trade is a very good thing, particularly for productivity, for example, which the oil and gas industry has been quite good at bringing up. The more international trade a country has, the better its productivity growth, but Brexit is not going to result in more international trade—[Interruption.] Brexit is going to result in the UK having more say over the terms of some trade deals with third countries. It will not result in more international trade, because the EU is international—it is made up of a number of other countries—and there is going to be a reduction in frictionless trade to the EU as a result of the changes. [Interruption.]

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend will have noticed that Conservative Members are expressing a fair degree of anger. Clearly some of them do not believe her when she says that Brexit will not lead to an increase in international trade. The Government have carried out assessments, so is it not the case that if they wanted to demonstrate that Brexit would lead to an increase in international trade, they could quite easily publish those assessments and we could find out for ourselves?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree.

Monique Ebell from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has written a report that compares participation in very comprehensive free trade agreements with membership of an organisation such as the single market, which is pretty much unparalleled in its encouragement of cross-border trade. Being part of a very close free trade arrangement does not give the same access to trade in services or goods as membership of the single market. Even if we had a comprehensive free trade agreement with every country in the world, we would still lose out as a result of Brexit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ross Thomson]

No. I want to make more progress.

Furthermore, striking new trade deals will unlock the potential of many more Scottish businesses, helping them to make their mark around the world and boosting our economy at home, too. If we are to seize these opportunities and make the greatest possible success of them, Britain needs to be ready on day one of our exit from the EU for new trade relationships. On this point, the clock is now ticking.

[Peter Grant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ross Thomson]

No.

That is why this customs Bill is so important. Irrespective of any agreements reached between the UK and the EU as part of the negotiation and exit process, the UK will need primary legislation to create its own stand-alone customs regime, and to amend the VAT and excise regimes so that they can function effectively after the UK has left the EU.

The Bill will create a framework that lasts for a new UK customs regime. It will lay before us the necessary foundations to allow new arrangements on customs to be put in place depending on whatever the outcomes of the Brexit negotiations are, such as the implementation of a negotiated settlement with the EU, or leaving the EU without an agreement on customs.

I am sure that all Members of this House want our withdrawal from the EU to provide as much certainty and continuity as is possible for our businesses, employees and consumers. Currently, as the majority of rules governing customs in the UK are contained in directly applicable EU law, such as the Union customs code, it is important at this stage that new domestic legislation is brought forward and put in place for when we leave the EU in March 2019.

In the longer term, depending on the outcome of the negotiations with the EU, the Government will want to consult on possible changes to this law to help UK businesses, but now is the time to help businesses in all of our constituencies by providing the continuity of the existing rules, wherever possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), who spoke, at considerable length, of his conviction that the customs union is the way forward. He has always spoken with great clarity and certainty, although I suggest that he is more compelling in his usual manner as Tigger than as the Eeyore whom we saw tonight. I would also say that the difficulty of assuming that business is monolithic, and always speaks with one voice, is that it does not. There are businesses in my constituency with which I deal as a trade envoy that are concerned about the future, but there are others that are relaxed. Both those views will depend, ultimately, on what sort of arrangement we reach on trade and customs, and on what terms.

That brings us to this preparatory Bill. As the Minister has explained, it is fundamentally nothing other than necessary preparation for when we leave the European Union. It is a framework, not a position on a preferred type of future customs relationship. It allows for either of the Government’s options: a streamlined system that is, as far as I can see, identical to the current one; and a new customs partnership of which I am sure we shall hear more when the Bill is published. This preparatory work will be even more important in the sad event of future arrangements not being agreed with the EU.

The Minister confirmed that HMRC arrangements at our roll-on/roll-off ports will be in place in January 2019, ready to deal with worst-case scenarios. I believe that there is an important political point behind that, which Members who, like the hon. Member for Edinburgh South, would much prefer to stay in the customs union need to consider very carefully. There are some who believe that leaving the EU without a future deal or any implementation period would be a walk in the park, whereas others believe that it would be impossible to operate our ports, and, perhaps, much of our trade, and that it would therefore be a disaster to leave the customs union at all.

However, many of us who have always thought that both the UK and the EU would benefit hugely from a strong customs partnership for the future, and what Michel Barnier calls a “new partnership” in general, believe that this preparatory Bill is essential to that. It is absolutely vital that the EU does not overplay its strong hand at this delicate stage of negotiations, for if it decides that negotiations on citizens’ rights, Ireland and finance have made insufficient progress to allow us to move on to debating an implementation period, future trade and other partnerships, there is a real danger that the momentum will move behind those who believe not only that no deal is possible, but that it is likely or even desirable, and that we need to prepare for that situation above all else.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Richard Graham]

I am sorry, but I will not give way.

For those of us who want the negotiations to succeed and a new partnership, it is therefore incredibly important that our partners in the EU encourage us to build momentum for that by moving to detailed talks on future trade and customs arrangements as soon as possible. For now, this is simply an enabling Bill of changes, allowing for future UK tariffs, VAT levels, goods classifications and so on. As the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) said, it is both practical and necessary. Today’s amendments close off the options and it would be sensible to avoid them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

If I am indeed following a pragmatist, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will listen to what is being said by many economic sectors, and perhaps read carefully the 58 sectoral reports once they are published, and come to the very pragmatic conclusion that he, as a pragmatist, will want to start to be more outspoken about the Government’s agenda of taking us over the cliff.

Members have suggested that the UK needs to leave the EU to be able to trade, but that is clearly not true. Many European countries are just much more successful than us at trading with other countries, including Germany, France and Italy. They do so within the EU, so there is no reason why we could not do so more effectively than at present. If we are unable to trade while we are part of the EU, I wonder why previous Prime Ministers, particularly David Cameron, spent so much time and effort sending trade delegations to various countries around the world to drum up trade. Was that a completely pointless exercise? Was that just about having 10-course banquets in Beijing, or was it because we can do a lot to boost trade while we are in the European Union? I think it was the latter, rather than a desire to have big dinners courtesy of foreign Governments. Of course the UK is in a position to trade—and, perhaps, to do so more effectively—with other countries while we are members of the EU.

It is nice, as a Liberal Democrat, to be able to make a speech that is longer than three minutes, so I might take full advantage of that in the couple of hours that remain for me to make a contribution, before the Front Benchers make their response. First, I want to focus on the issue of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Frankly, Opposition Members have had enough of listening to Ministers’ platitudes about how they will sort out the problem that is the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. We do not want to hear about “frictionless” any more, or about blue-skies solutions that do not yet exist. What we want to hear from Ministers is the solution to this problem, because if the Irish Prime Minister was asking on Friday for a written guarantee from the UK Government that there would be no border controls, that was because he is worried and because he has heard nothing from our Government to explain how we will be able to leave the customs union, yet have no border and no border controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

[Peter Grant]

Does the right hon. Gentleman also agree that if the Government were to have a change of heart and agreed to ask to remain in the single market, that would take out two of the three stumbling-blocks? The rights of EU and UK citizens would be solved immediately, and the Irish question, although not completely answered, would be made a lot more soluble. We would then be left with the financial settlement as the only stumbling block to getting on to talk about trade deals, which is what we want to do.

[Tom Brake]

I entirely agree. Like other hon. Members, I am perplexed as to why the Government ruled out several obvious solutions to the dilemmas they face from the outset.

I am sure that a number of Members in the Chamber will have visited Northern Ireland. When I did so, which was about five weeks ago, one of the communities I visited was Forkhill in South Armagh, which was very badly affected during the troubles. A garrison of 3,000 soldiers in that town was responsible for the safety of approximately 24,000 people. The people of Forkhill reckon that when the garrison was there, it was the most militarised place in western Europe, and they are worried about returning to the troubles they experienced there in the ’70s, ’80s and so on. People were placing improvised explosive devices in culverts, under roads and on the approach roads to the border, and the residents of Forkhill are worried that there will be no means to control safely the 275 border points between Ireland and Northern Ireland. If the proposal is that part of the solution will be to conduct ad hoc checks at separate border points, or at some distance from the border, those people are worried that the British customs officer, the British police officer, or perhaps the British soldier will become a target.

All we have heard from a succession of Ministers is dismissive comments. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union dismisses any concerns expressed about the difficulties that could arise at the border. We need reassurances from Ministers, not the dismissive comments they are making.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to speak in favour of amendments (c) and (e) in the name of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). I sincerely hope that he will press them to a vote later this evening.

No one here would disagree with the need to have new customs legislation in place. Given that much of the customs legislation that we currently have is derived from EU legislation, nobody would argue with the fact that when the UK leaves the European Union that legislation will have to be replaced. However, as is so often the case in the debate about the European Union, we have moved very quickly from, “We need to have something in place” to being told that, “You will agree to put this in place whether you like it or not.” It is quite clear that there is a fundamental disagreement between—I suspect—a substantial majority of Members of this House and the Government on whether we should also be preparing to leave the customs union and the single market.

As well as paving the way for new customs tariffs, which is what this resolution is about, the resolution also implicitly paves the way for all the additional bureaucracy, all the additional infrastructure and all the additional border delays that leaving the customs union will inevitably create for every single journey of every single person and every single lorry and every single suitcase that travels to and from the European Union in future. It has been estimated that there will be an additional 548,000 customs declarations needed every day—that is six and one third declarations per second.

[Angela Smith]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that this particular problem will apply pretty severely to perishable goods such as food, agricultural produce and fresh fish.

[Peter Grant]

Absolutely. There are significant implications for perishable goods and, as was mentioned earlier, for the manufacturing supply chain where the goods can cross borders several times. There are also implications for medical supplies such as radioisotopes, which are useless if they are held up for a few hours at customs. That, of course, is before we even think about the massive inconvenience to travellers—either for business or leisure. Even if they have nothing to declare, they have no guarantee that they will not be on a plane when, for whatever reason, UK or French customs decide that they are going to search every single passenger coming off that plane.

We are told that in return for that, we will have this brave new world of trade deals with everybody and anybody. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson), who is no longer in his seat, harked back to the glory days of Glasgow’s place as the second city of the empire, blithely forgetting that, to our eternal shame, that empire was built on slavery. We cannot go back to the days when Glasgow was a huge trading port for tobacco, sugar and cotton because—thank God—we no longer have the slave plantations that were such an important part of that economic model.

We are not going back to the days of empire and too many virtual reality Government Members—well, there are not currently many Members on the Government Benches—need to understand, once and for all, that empire has gone. It is now partnership. Partnership means that when we are in a weakened position and the big players such as the Chinese, the Singaporeans and the Malaysians are in a strong position, we are not going to get a favourable deal from them if we negotiate on our own.

I do not want this motion to apply to goods going to and from the European Union or the customs union, because I want us still to be in the customs union. It has been made clear that that offers by far the simplest and least disruptive way of giving effect to the referendum result in June last year. The referendum, as far as the voters of England and Wales were concerned, certainly gave a mandate to leave the European Union, and we have to respect that. But there has never been a referendum mandate to leave the customs union or the single market. There was what looked to be an almost spontaneous, hasty and precipitate decision by the Prime Minister; a red line was drawn that has now painted the Government into a corner.

It is becoming clear that many of the Government’s highly plausible-sounding objectives simply cannot happen if we leave the single market. Those highly plausible-sounding objectives include the “deep and special partnership” that we are going to have with the European Union, the “continued close association” with the customs union, and the

“freest and most frictionless trade possible”

with the single market. Except it will not be as deep and special a partnership as it would if we were in the EU, it will not be as close an association with the customs union as being in the customs union, and it certainly will not be anything like as free or frictionless a trade deal as we can get by staying right where we are now in the single market.

As an indication of how much substance there is to these sound bites that the Government Whips are so fond of encouraging their Back Benchers to use, it is worth remembering that they were doing the same thing just over two years ago. But the sound bites that got cheers on the Tory Benches then, on the days when there was anybody there to cheer, were “long-term economic plan” and “Majority Conservative Government”. “Hear, hear”, they would shout. The Government’s current platitudes about easy trade deals are likely to be consigned to history just as quickly as the things that they thought would be around for a long time back in 2015.

We are now more than halfway through the journey from referendum to leaving day, and there is not one single major policy area where the Government have put forward a clear, concrete proposal for discussion. That means that on every major policy decision, the Government have taken longer to come up with an idea than 27 Parliaments—and 27 Governments will have to agree it. Putting pressure on those Governments and telling them that it is not fair to delay it will not work; they will act and speak in the interests of their people. It is ridiculous to condemn the Irish Prime Minister for speaking in favour of the interests of the people of the Republic of Ireland. That is what Prime Ministers are supposed to do. I wish that some Prime Minister would maybe listen to that.

As it stands, we are in serious danger of crashing out of the EU without a deal, but there is a simple way that the Government can avoid that. There is a simple way that they can move very quickly to clear the logjam—to avoid having interminable discussions about Northern Ireland that do not have a solution and to avoid having interminable discussions about the rights of 4.5 million citizens. Both those major problems can be substantially resolved simply by the Government having the humility to say, “We got it wrong. We have to change tack and stay in the single market.”

There is an urgent need for the Government to follow their own advice, listen to their own rhetoric and listen to the advice that the Brexit Secretary gave to the Germans last week: stop putting politics before prosperity, because it is never a smart thing to do. The Government should take the decision that they know as well as I do will prevent the worst economic and social damage of Brexit. The Government should confirm today that they want to remain in the single market and the customs union, and they should signal that intention by accepting the amendments of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South without forcing the House to a Division.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), who made another powerful case for what is becoming incredibly evident in British society.

Let me start by trying to find some common ground on something that has divided us for more than 18 months now. I do not think that anybody here tonight wants to re-run the referendum; we all recognise the referendum result. I do, however, disagree with the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I think we can get deals with anybody. The question is, what kind of deal and what are the consequences? And that includes no deal. Yes, we could get a free trade deal with other countries but, as we saw when Switzerland tried to negotiate with China, when big goes against little, the results are often not good for little. It is a real Hobson’s choice. China now has immediate access to the Swiss market, while the Swiss will have to wait decades to get similar access to the Chinese market.

All the options have consequences, including the option that this Government have taken over the past 18 months: trying to fudge and bombast their way through. Like many Government Members, I welcome the fact that we are finally having this debate because I want to speak up, above all, for the people whose lives, livelihoods and businesses depend on the certainty of knowing what happens next. That is a certainty that they are not getting from this Government. Some 18 months after the referendum, there are some 759 different treaties that have to be renegotiated, but there has been no progress on any of them, and we are fewer than 18 months away from the date on which we are supposed to leave the European Union.

The Government are spending money, hand over fist, to try to sort out the mess that they are creating every single day. We have had it confirmed that that money is coming from our armed forces, and the Minister has confirmed to me today that it is also coming from our education services. Money is being reprioritised to try to figure out what on earth a deal with Europe would look like. Eighteen months on, we have no answers. And all because the Prime Minister simply cannot admit that she simply got it wrong in the Lancaster House speech when she ruled out of access immediately the customs union and the single market.

I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) because the British public deserve better. If the Government are going to make a mess of it, it is up to us as parliamentarians to try to give the people we represent—who need certainty and to understand what their future holds—the clarity that they desire.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Lady think that it says something about the Prime Minister’s priorities that she took the time to apologise to her own Back Benchers for the disastrous general election that she dragged them into, but she will not apologise to the people of these islands for the disastrous Brexit that she is dragging us into?

[Stella Creasy]

I was struck by the discussion earlier about making decisions so quickly. I, too, did not vote for the article 50 legislation to be triggered, because I was concerned it was too soon in the process. However, some disasters are of our own making, and a snap general election in which the public thoroughly rejected her hard Brexit is certainly something the Prime Minister should learn from.

In her Lancaster House speech, the Prime Minister said that she wanted associate membership of the customs union—a membership that does not exist. The legislation that will come from the motion before us tonight is supposed to answer that question. Yet, I have read the Government’s White Paper, I have asked the Prime Minister repeatedly about the idea of associate membership, and I have asked her whether she has raised it with her European counterparts, and we have no answer.

It is a bit like someone asking to be an associate member of a gym—to use the swimming pool, but not to pay for all the weights or classes. Oddly enough, most business people would turn them down flat or at least give them an answer. I am very struck by the fact that, 18 months on, the Government cannot even tell us whether they have asked whether the wonderful, mythical, innovative, creative, dynamic partnership they believe they can get is even on the table.

This approach literally makes no sense. If we look at the reality of how we trade as a nation, we see that we are not an island factory; we are a nation that works with other countries to produce goods, and we are proud of the goods we produce through our hard endeavour. Let me give a great example. In the food and beverages industry, the EU accounts for almost 70% of our supply chain. In our car industry, 44% of the value of UK car exports comes from imported products. In the UK, we are great at making bumpers, brakes and clutches, but we are not so good at radiators, suspension or gearboxes. That is why we work with other countries to produce the great British cars that we are all so proud of. That is what is at stake when we reject the customs union out of hand: the ability to navigate and manage those relationships effectively and efficiently. For every £1 in car exports from the UK, 44p is spent on importing foreign parts. Some 24% of all imports from the EU are from the car industry. That is at stake when we suddenly rip up the rules under which that relationship happens.

The car industry is not alone. In 14 different sectors, at least 15% of the supply chain is dependent on the European Union—dependent on not having the kind of customs tariffs we are talking about and on having frictionless trade. That is true of some sectors much more than others. In the paper industry, 71% of the supply chain is dependent on the European Union. In the rubber and plastics industry, the figure is 69%; in pharmaceuticals, it is 66%. That is why we know that leaving the customs union will cost us £25 billion. These new tariffs alone will add at least £4.5 billion a year to importers’ costs—money they can ill afford to spend.

Then we get on to the practicalities—this is not just about the money that being part of the customs union and the single market helps us to save. We will see delays at Dover because nobody has yet invented the technology that will allow this frictionless trade. When we talk about pre-lodging customs checks, we know that that means still more paperwork and more complexity in the supply chain. It is no wonder the car industry is desperate for us to continue our membership of the customs union. So too is the National Farmers Union; so too are the leading pharmaceuticals brands. Being part of the EU gives us access not just to markets in the EU but, through our free trade agreements, to a third of all global markets at preferential trading rates.

When we look at the case for the customs union and at what it gives us now, it is clear that this is not about nostalgia for the “Ode to Joy”; cold, hard business sense says that if we have a good way of working, why would we rip it up? But ripping it up is exactly what the Government are doing—for something that, 18 months on, they still cannot tell us will exist. [Interruption.] I am sorry to see that I have made the Ministers entirely leave the Front Bench by pointing that out, because I really hope that at least one Minister will be here to answer one of my concerns about this legislation and particularly about the VAT proposals.

We have all talked about tariffs and customs tonight, but I want to unmask myself as a geek interested in VAT. When I talk to small businesses in my local community, VAT is one of their prime concerns. [Interruption.] I am grateful to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) for being here. I am particularly looking for answers on the 13th directive—I know it is something he knows intimately.

VAT is one of those issues every business will say is a nightmare. I never thought that Labour Members would be arguing for less red tape than Government Members were, but that is exactly what we are talking about tonight. Some 63% of small businesses say that Europe is their priority market. If we add to the paperwork they have to deal with by removing the customs union and the single market, we will of course make trading harder for them. Compared with the bigger companies, they do not have the flexibility that Ministers blithely suggest they have.

Currently, businesses incurring VAT in the EU are able to claim it back through intra-country mechanisms. If they sell printers to Sweden, and they incur VAT as part of that, they can claim it back—it is relatively easy. Specifically—I am sure the Minister will want to look this up—we are talking about articles 170 and 171 of Council directive 2006/112/EC—the prime VAT directive. The detailed rules are in Council directive 2008/9/EC, and they are in our legislation. These Ways and Means resolutions will therefore have to address this point. I am sad that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not here to hear it, because I have been raising it with him for some time. I can see that he is talking to his officials. I very much hope that in his concluding remarks he will finally be able to tell me the answer.

Right now, because we have the single market, businesses trading with Europe can reclaim their VAT and manage VAT relatively simply. If we leave the single market, they will have to move on to the 13th directive, which covers non-EU companies trading in the EU. The details of the 13th directive are clearly written to be advantageous to companies, saying that they can set their own VAT terms. Let us think about that for a moment. A UK car manufacturer trying to trade across Europe in radiators and the pieces and parts that make them will suddenly have to deal with VAT across 27 different countries, and 27 different pieces of paper. I am glad that the Financial Secretary is now here because he and I share a concern to remove red tape for our businesses to make sure that British businesses are not facing additional paperwork and additional complexity.