Exiting the European Union

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Prohibition on Quantitative Restrictions (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, which were laid before this House on 9 November, be approved.

As I am sure hon. Members recognise, it is important that we have full sovereignty over our regulatory regime for goods at the end of the transition period. The statutory instrument will help to ensure that we are not challenged if we choose to diverge from EU regulations. At the end of the transition period, EU treaty rights on the movement of goods stemming from articles 34 to 36 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union will be retained in UK law unless they are removed by this SI.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Obviously, the statutory instrument is about divergence, and the UK Government talk about taking back control. What is the position on consent to the regulations from the devolved nations? More importantly, what discussions have the Government had with the devolved nations to make sure that their wishes are not overridden and that divergences are not forced on the devolved Administrations?

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I will come on to that later in my opening comments.

The EU treaty rights prohibit quantitative restrictions or equivalent measures on imports and exports, meaning that divergence from EU regulatory requirements could result in a challenge from a business or importer if they deem it a barrier to placing their goods on the market in Great Britain. To be clear, the SI is not a pre-condition for divergence: as of 1 January, Parliament will of course have the ability to introduce new regulations. Instead, it is about removing potential grounds for legal challenge based on retained treaty articles that have no place on our statute book once we have fully regained our independence.

The SI will remove the aforementioned EU treaty rights so they no longer apply in England, Scotland or Wales. It will not result in any immediate changes for goods in the UK but will protect our right to diverge from EU goods regulations in future, where we so choose.

The SI will protect our ability to regulate goods as we see fit and ensure that challenges do not require us to keep in line with the EU regulations. I commend it to the House.

[Alan Brown]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I asked the Minister a specific question about consent and the devolved Administration and the Minister said that she would come on to that in her speech. Can you advise me on how I can get that answer from the Minister?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Thank you for that point of order. The Minister may respond at this point or she may wish to respond at the end of the debate. If she wants to do it now, that is—

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[Alan Brown]

The hon. Lady and her colleagues are making important points. She mentioned the levelling-up agenda. Is it ironic that although the UK Government talk about levelling up across the regions and nations of the UK, the areas that will be hit hardest by no deal and by a lack of preparation are the very areas that the Government pretend they are trying to level up? They speak with a forked tongue every time. Should not the Minister be giving us more information from the Dispatch Box?

[Lucy Powell]

Absolutely. This agenda could not come at a more critical time, because these same sectors and industries have been left on their knees as a result of covid-19. They just cannot cope with all these things coming at once.

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[Lucy Powell]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. It is not only the business community, but the farming community—communities that have historically both been the base of the Conservative party. I am not sure whether that was the same interview in which the Environment Secretary also made false claims about Lurpak butter which had to be rectified by the company afterwards.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. It is quite clear that the Tories are no longer the party of business. As she correctly says, they are alienating the farmers with their attitude. Laughably, they call themselves the party of workers. Is it not the case that it is the workers who are going to be shafted most by Brexit? Many workers in the UK, including the 3 million, are currently excluded from any support from the UK Government whatever, so the Government are actually doing a good job of alienating the entire population.

[Lucy Powell]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Company directors who have not had any support during this crisis are particularly aggrieved, and they are part of the 3 million excluded, who he rightly mentions. I know that he has been making these points consistently, so maybe the Minister will respond to that point; you never know.

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[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I have declared my business interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I reassure the Opposition that I wanted to make a few comments in this debate, and I submitted a request to participate on my own initiative? I have not received any message from the Whips, either before or during these debates, that I should not make a few remarks. With the permission of the House, I will exercise that democratic right.

I understand that there is a parliamentary game going on and that the Opposition want to extend this debate because there are some other things that they do not want to discuss, but that is a matter for them. Oppositions are quite entitled to use what time is available for their own purposes.

[Alan Brown]

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the game is not on the Government’s side, given that they have withdrawn all their speakers, except for his good self?

[John Redwood]

On the contrary. As I have just explained, there has been no pressure to withdraw my application. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who thought that they were going to speak in the debate have reread the proposal and realised that, given the incisive eloquence we would hear from the Minister, there was absolutely no need for them to come to the Chamber and duplicate and triplicate that. I have been foolish enough to think that I can add something to the Government’s case, because I support the measure. The fact that my right hon. and hon. Friends seem to have better things to do shows that they are 100% behind the measure, and just want it to be passed as quickly as possible as they attend to their other duties as busy MPs.

So why do I support these regulations, and why are the Government doing this? The first reason is to take back control. That is what millions of people voted for, and many of us are very frustrated that it still has not happened. As the Minister stated clearly, this is about ensuring that, from 1 January, we in this House, on behalf of the British people, can decide for ourselves within international law what the rules shall be on tariffs, quantitative barriers, restrictions and inducements to trade—and how right that is.

I always find it so disappointing that the Opposition, who now say that they understand the spirit of Brexit and have embraced it, do not believe that they can come up with any single improvement on the great body of European law that has been forced on us over many years. I am more optimistic. Working with the talent on the Government Benches, I can see lots of ways of improving on European law. It can be better, not worse, and more rather than less in the right areas. Surely our trade policy should be geared to the interests and concerns of businesses that back this country by investing and creating jobs in it.

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[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I do not often say this, but it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). I am glad that he actually came and contributed here today. At the end of his rousing speech, I admired his optimism. He has retained that optimism all this life. He spoke about what could be done better. Perhaps he should have a word with his Minister about that, because she did not give us very much in the way of what could be better, or of what is happening as a result of this legislation. Perhaps his words will be heard by those on the Front Bench.

As everyone in this Chamber is aware, we on the SNP Benches are trying to work our way out of this place. We do not always hold this place in the utmost respect, and today is another day that illustrates that, to be perfectly honest. The Minister took an intervention from me, said that she would answer my point and then sat down. She did not answer the intervention, did not respond to the point of order and did not give us very much in her speech at all. Then we have seen the Government Whips—my goodness, they have been busy today. We had seven withdrawals in the previous debate and something like 15 withdrawals in this debate. Madam Deputy Speaker, I take it that there is nothing you need to tell the House about why so many Conservative Members have had to withdraw from this debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman is asking me, but I have absolutely no idea. Unfortunately, I have no responsibility whatsoever.

[Alan Brown]

I thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. The way things are just now, I worry about why so many people are withdrawing. Hopefully, everything is all in order. We know that the Whips usually try to force people to speak in debates, especially debates that might be short or dry, so it is certainly unusual that the Whips have been pressuring their colleagues to withdraw from today’s debate.

I hope that you can show some forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, because as I thought there were so many speakers in the previous debate, I did not expect to be called so early in this one, so my notes are a wee bit haphazard; hopefully, you can bear with me on that.

I must commend the shadow Minister for her speech and for the amount of information that she covered. She highlighted the deficiencies that the Minister did not cover. She said that, in actual fact, when we talk about the movement of goods, one of the key issues is what it means for businesses and whether they are ready for this. We can talk about divergence in standards of the EU, but are businesses ready for what will happen on 1 January 2021? Have the Government given enough support to businesses? When we turn on the radio just now, it tells us all, “Get ready for Brexit”. That is all very well, but it does not actually tell us what we need to do. What is the point telling us to get ready, when there is no information that is clearly accessible to businesses about what they need to do? Are IT systems up and running? The companies need to know what they have to do to be able to export, and that is before we even get to divergence.

Just today, ironically, my office got a letter from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is supposed to be aimed at all businesses, but I can assure the Minister that although that letter might be a bit of propaganda, it does not clear up what businesses need to do going forwards.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I hear that from businesses across my constituency as well. A lot of them do not know exactly what they are supposed to do or how they are supposed to prepare. The simple solution to this surely is to extend the transition period, as we called for in our Opposition day debate before the summer. There would be no shame in the Government taking a little bit more time to get the negotiations right and to give people time. If they do not want to call it the transition period any more, they can come up with a different name for it—call it the implementation period or the adaptation period, or something like that. There would be no shame in it; we are in the middle of a global pandemic—no one foresaw this coming. It would do nobody any harm, and then one day they would get the glorious Brexit they are looking for, rather than the cliff edge that we seem to be barrelling towards.

[Alan Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am pretty sure that many businesses across the UK would agree with what he said. It would be a simple, common-sense approach. It could be called the emergency covid implementation period—something that would give businesses a bit more certainty in the short term, while the Government sort out the mess.

The key question I had for the Minister earlier is about where we are on the consent of the devolved nations. Importantly, what discussions have been had with the devolved nations about what will happen if the UK Government wants standards to diverge from those of the EU? What would that mean in terms of how the devolved nations operate? What will it mean going forward? Are they going to ride roughshod over the wishes of the devolved Administrations, as with the UK Internal Market Bill and the shared prosperity fund, which was a mechanism to bypass the wishes of the devolved Administrations? Is that what we are looking at? It is symptomatic of the entire Brexit process and debacle.

I looked at the explanatory memorandum at the weekend—unusually for me, on Saturday night I was sad enough to read an explanatory memorandum. It said that the Welsh Government had granted consent, but the Scottish Government had not. The explanatory memorandum has now been changed and does not reference either the Welsh Government or the Scottish Government. It would be great if the Minister would clear up where things are on that. I would be happy to take an intervention—I am still happy to take an intervention. I see there are none coming.

I refer to a letter from Ivan McKee to Michelle Ballantyne MSP, convenor of the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee. He said:

“The UK Government is seeking to lay the SI as soon as possible in order to secure a debate in the UK Parliament before the end of the year. This timeframe means that the SI would need to be laid before Scottish Parliament consent is confirmed, however Mr Zahawi’s letter states that they will not debate the SI until consent is received, therefore the Scottish Parliament should have the usual 28 day period in which to scrutinise the notification.”

In the preceding paragraph, he also says:

“Scottish Ministers therefore consider that consenting to the regulation remains appropriate.”

The Scottish Government have indicated that they are willing to consent to the SI and are willing to work with the UK Government on it. The UK Government committed not to debate the SI until consent was given. As we are now debating the SI, I ask the Minister again whether consent has been formally given. Perhaps we can assume it has not been; it would be great if the Minister could clear that up later on.

This is about divergence. I understand the UK wants to protect itself from challenges. We can understand that—there is a need to have some legal protections—but the Minister did say it is not a precedent to diverging. Could she confirm that? Why would we want to diverge from the EU, especially at the moment, when we are still negotiating this trade deal that really determines the future of the UK, particularly in the short term, on 1 January? What is the status of the trade deal discussions? Surely the UK thinking about diverging has a massive impact on the trade deal because the trade deal will confirm what divergences are possible or not. It seems to me that the cart is before the horse. We can talk about taking back control, but unless the UK Government are capable of joining up the dots in the big picture, this SI matters not a jot.

[Patrick Grady]

I suppose we should commend the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) for turning up and contributing to this debate. Taking back control was supposed to be what it was all about, and where are they? Where are the Tories—the European Research Group, the Maastricht rebels and all the rest of them?

We had the same last night with the statutory instrument that directly amended primary legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. Fair enough, it was relatively technical in nature, as is this measure, but it goes to the point of respect for the devolution settlement, and it goes to the point of democratic accountability that Brexit was supposed to bring forward.

Was the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson not right when she said that when the Government force through relatively technical stuff such as this statutory instrument what they are doing is driving a coach and horses through the devolution settlement, and they are doing our work for us, because they are undermining the case for the Union?

[Alan Brown]

I wholeheartedly agree. The shadow Minister used the phrase “rocket boosters” under the argument for independence, and I hope we do have these rocket boosters in place and getting fired up right now.

[Alex Cunningham]

Despite the fact that we share nationality, we do not share that particular ambition for separation. Some things about that worry me a lot if Scotland does eventually go independent. One is, do I get a passport? But more important than that, will I still get my supply? Will the divergences be in place for me to get my square sausage, my Scottish black pudding, my sliced sausage and, of course, my supply of Talisker?

[Alan Brown]

I will need to catch up with the hon. Gentleman in better surroundings, and we can share a sausage and Talisker, but of course he makes a serious point. In actual fact, the devolved nations want a common framework for agreeing how goods move about. To be honest, if we get our wish of independence, we are going to operate that way as well. We want to work with the other nations, and that is really important. But the way this UK Government are going about it, they want to impose their will on the different devolved nations, and it is like it or lump it. Hopefully, we can toast a wee dram to independence and we will discover we will still be friends after that as well, even though we do not share the same aims at the moment.

[Patrick Grady]

I am sure the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) will be entitled to a passport as well, but is not the point that Lorne sausage and Scotch whisky—the indicators of these vitally important products—are at risk because of the lack of the UK Government’s ability to conclude a deal with the EU? That is the kind of thing that ought to be being addressed through statutory instruments like this, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that is why it is relevant to this debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

For clarification, I was not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman was in any way out of order in the points he made. I am just really concerned about the square sausage.

[Alan Brown]

Yes, so we all share the same good taste in food then.

I agree with the point my hon. Friend made. Following up his earlier point about the contribution from the other Benches, I actually thought, “Oh my goodness, I’m going to have to listen to another 15 Conservative MPs tell me how great Brexit is going to be, how they are taking back control, how this is just another step in the way of taking back control and there’ll be wonderful trade deals.” So in one way there is a blessing: I do not have to listen to 15 speeches the same. But in another way, it is disappointing that they have not turned up here to actually do their job and actually say what they wanted to say. That is disappointing.

[Alex Cunningham]

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) actually talked about taking back control, but he talked about Parliament taking back control, yet we are seeing statutory instrument after statutory instrument giving more power to the Executive. Is that really Parliament taking back control?

[Alan Brown]

I agree absolutely 100%. Again, if Parliament was taking back control, we would expect parliamentarians in here doing their job debating it. But not only have the Executive taken more power, but we know there is more power invested in unelected bureaucrats who were advising the Prime Minister. I am sure nobody is shedding a tear that Dominic Cummings has actually left, but there is too much power in unelected bureaucrats behind the scene. It is double ironic when Brexiteers come here and talk about taking back control, and the Government were in hock to unelected officials.

We do have to wonder what divergences are planned by the UK Government, but also how these divergences are going to be managed. What is the process going to be? Will there be proper impact assessments undertaken, and will there be complete transparency on divergences that are proposed and what that means for businesses? How will we ensure that there are no unintended consequences by diverging in one area, which might affect more businesses adversely by stopping the export of their goods or preventing vital imports coming in? Those vital imports might prop up the supply chain of the key industries mentioned earlier, such as aerospace and automotive, because we rely on an EU-wide supply chain, with goods in the supply chain going backwards and forwards two or three times sometimes to create a finished product.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is about not only the import of goods, but exports? One of our key exports is shellfish, which is very important to the Scottish economy. Does he agree that any barriers or disruptions of that could have a huge impact on the fishing industry in the UK?

[Alan Brown]

I agree wholeheartedly. That is the problem with the silo approach that the UK Government have taken sometimes. They talk about the fishing industry and fishing quotas and, sure, the fishing quotas are important, but for the Government they have become the symbol of Brexit, so fishing quotas seem to be getting looked at at the expense of everything else and that includes shellfish. We also rely on the free movement of people at the moment coming from the EU to do the processing of the fish and different things, so we might end up with bigger fishing quotas without the ability to process the fish and then export them. It is hugely ironic, and that is why the Government need to always have their eye on the big picture and to join up the dots, rather than making headline announcements, looking for the headline in The Daily Telegraph. They need to understand what this means for ordinary people up and down the UK.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am sure my hon. Friend is just clearing his throat to get started, but on the issue of the free movement of people, is the issue of immigration not a red herring—if Members will pardon the pun—in the context of fishing? The UK Government said that this was all about reducing migration, but in order to do most of these trade deals, they will probably have to do a lot of visa-free travel for countries such as India?

[Alan Brown]

Absolutely. It is about looking at the big picture but, instead, the Government make big headline announcements to get some plaudits. It might help them to win an election in the short term, but what does that mean in the long term for the UK? That is something that the Tory party needs to consider.

I was speaking about divergences. I hope that the Minister will clear up how the divergence process will work and how it will be transparent, because we need to ensure that no divergences are given to some cronies who shout the loudest, because that again might have a wider impact on other businesses. So far, there have been allegations of cronyism in how covid has been dealt with, in terms of supplies of personal protective equipment. I would never accuse the Government of cronyism in giving contracts to people they know and who might favour the Tory party, but other people have done that, so I hope that the Minister will give us assurances that, going forward, any divergences from the EU will be done with the best interests of UK businesses at heart and, again, done with the wishes and agreement of the devolved Administrations.

[David Linden]

I would be so bold as to put on the record that this Government have been guilty of cronyism. But that is not just in the context of Brexit or the pandemic. For example, there is also the cronyism in terms of Richard Desmond and the Westferry scandal. So I would caution my hon. Friend. It is not just in terms of the pandemic that the Government have been guilty of cronyism; it goes much wider than that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. As the hon. Gentleman said, the point he has just made goes very wide, and very much wider than the particular statutory instrument before us. So I am sure that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun will stick very strictly to the terms of the SI, which he has done very well so far in his long speech.

[Alan Brown]

Hopefully, I will not be too much longer—these notes might be deceiving.

A key point, as I said, is divergences and this is all about the movement of goods. Where are we with regards to the movement of goods in terms of a no deal? Are we still reliant on the EU making concessions, just because the UK is not in a position to check in common goods? If we are going to look at diverging, we have to be able to manage what we have got just now, never mind changing things going forward.

This was raised yesterday. The Minister at the Dispatch Box was not able to answer it but, on checking goods and the movement of goods, how many custom agents will be required? How many have been trained? Yesterday, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) highlighted that the Cabinet Secretary estimated that 50,000 customs agents are needed, but that it is also estimated that only 10,000 have been trained to date. The Minister could not clear that up. This Minister has been taking lots of notes, so although she has not intervened, I am expecting a lengthy response. I hope that she can tell us where we are with training and employing customs agents and whether there will be enough in place on 1 January 2021.

[David Linden]

My hon. Friend has been incredibly generous in giving way. On the point about customs agents, Brexit was sold on the premise of us taking back control. Does he share my concern that “taking back control” was just something on the side of a bus and that when we look at the greater detail, we find that the Government have done very little preparation, which is worrying?

[Alan Brown]

Yes, it is very worrying. There has been very little preparation—all last-minute stuff. That is also why the Government are unable to engage with the devolved Administrations and businesses. They have not planned or done enough to get us to where they want to be—not where I or my hon. Friend want to be—in time for 1 January 2021.

The reality of Brexit preparations, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), was illustrated yesterday by the passing of the Kent borders regulations, which allow the police to stop lorry drivers entering Kent because of the fear of the utter chaos at the border in January. That shows how the UK Government have not done enough and that more work needs to be done. Clearly, all those issues matter in the immediate short term and need addressing in the long term before we start looking at divergences of standards.

Is there any planned divergence for agricultural standards? That has been touched on and is important. The UK Government resisted protecting those standards for future trade deals in the Agriculture Act 2020. What does the SI mean regarding the UK’s ability to diverge from the EU? While the UK wants to avoid challenge, what does that mean for the devolved nations in terms of the UK Government protecting themselves? Will they impose their will on the devolved nations? I mentioned the point earlier, but on divergences, will the internal market Bill become the kicker through the back door by allowing divergences to be forced on the devolved nations against their will?

We do not accept that the UK Government have any legitimacy in imposing divergence from the EU acquis on Scotland’s behalf as a member of the UK. On democratic principles, we do not consent to allow any withdrawal of Scotland from the EU. That applies to the withdrawal agreement and any subsequent legislation used to enforce the unwanted and undemocratic divergence from the EU, which Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain a member of.

We do not accept the economic impact of diverging from EU rules, and that also applies to leaving the transition period, particularly because, as we discussed, the economy faces unprecedented challenges as we try to recover from the covid pandemic. We do not support or accept the need for the UK internal market Bill, which potentially allows divergences to be forced on the devolved Administrations against their wishes. We really need better co-operative working from the UK Government.

It would be ironic, when there seemed to be consensus from the Opposition that they would not oppose the SI, if, unless we start to hear decent responses from the Minister, there was a vote on it after all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have been informed that the Member who is No. 5 on the call list has withdrawn from the debate, as have the Members who are Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. We therefore come directly to the Minister.