No-deal Brexit: Schedule of Tariffs
Debate between Alison McGovern and Conor Burns(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Conor Burns
The schedule has been drawn up to take account of much of the lobbying and of the assessments that the Government have made, and by our drawing on wide expertise on the position that we would face in a number of scenarios. My hon. Friend will have to wait for the publication, but I assure him that he will not have to wait for very long.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
For manufacturers in the north of England, it is hard to know which is worse: the fact that this Government are prepared to countenance no deal, or the fact that the deal that they are proposing significantly disadvantages the north compared with Northern Ireland. Can I ask the Minister, therefore, further to the question from the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy): which representative organisations has he met that represent companies in the complex modern manufacturing supply chain?
Conor Burns
I have met both companies and representatives of companies—and, indeed, representatives of the two devolved Governments. My first visit as Minister of State for Trade was to Scotland, to meet Derek Mackay, and I then went to Wales and met Baroness Morgan; our two counterparts. I have met with various representatives of trade organisations and employers’ organisations. We are listening widely. The idea that the hon. Lady seems to be advancing that we are sitting in Whitehall dreaming up schemes that are completely and totally divorced from reality—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) really thinks that—well, how many years has he been in the House? Come on.
We have our own advisory body, which we set up within the Department, and that has multiple employer groups, business and representatives of the regions and nations of the UK. We seek to inform ourselves as much as possible before these decisions are made.