Customs and Borders

Debate between Albert Owen and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Obviously, the customs union is a part of the European Union; that is the arrangement that is in place at the moment. I think we need a customs union because once outside the European Union you cannot have “the customs union”; but we are in danger of getting ourselves tangled up on the definite and indefinite article. We chose the words “an effective customs union” in the motion to avoid disputes about grammar, and to get to the substance. We want an arrangement that includes no tariffs, but has frictionless borders and, crucially, a common external tariff. That is the immensely important point that I want to cover now.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned trade through ports. She is aware that my constituency is on the frontline of Brexit, and is the busiest port with the Republic of Ireland—400,000 lorries a year pass through it. This is not scaremongering: already, Irish companies are making contingency plans to trade directly with mainland Europe, bypassing Britain altogether, on a business case.

[Yvette Cooper]

They are, and it is perhaps unsurprising that they should do so, because businesses will make investments, they will take a precautionary approach, and they will look for the best way to protect their trade at a time of such huge uncertainty about what might happen to trade that we want to pass through the UK. We will see more and more of those consequences, therefore, particularly if we do not get answers and decisions soon.